By: Diane Benjamin
WGLT story on Unit 5 property taxes: https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2023-11-16/unit-5-proposes-151m-tax-levy-but-plans-to-lower-tax-rate
Your property taxes are going up because Unit 5 needs the money. Below is a quote showing the mentality of the people you elected:
People buy homes to live in. It doesn’t matter how much more your house is worth if you aren’t planning to sell it. High interest rates mean you probably aren’t selling just to move to another house here. Your elected officials think you should celebrate paying more because your house is worth more. When you hear the tax rate is going down it doesn’t mean your taxes are going down. Read the story, you will be paying more.
I don’t know whether to believe anything in this story because of this:
Did Unit 5 provide that information or did WGLT use 13,200 on their own? In 2018 the enrollment was 13,346. That number is directly from the State of Illinois website: https://blnnews.com/2022/03/04/unit-5-enrollment-is-decreasing/
I know math is a challenge at Unit 5, but who is pretending enrollment isn’t going down while Unit 5 continually needs more money? Everybody realize 13,346 is more than 13,200? Just checking.
What else isn’t correct in the WGLT story?
Can I do an I told you so? And I apologize for the length.
As we started to see what a failure lockdowns and remote learning were for our kids, I predicted that as soon as there was a slight turn around, the DEI departments would stand up and cheer – equity works! That has started now.
DEI Director Kristal Shelvin is taking credit – “the greatest amounts of growth was from the groups that started lower.”
Is she responsible for that or could it be that when kids have to show up for class, they all get better grades? And groups that start lower have greater opportunity to step up.
She said – “by disaggregating subgroups the district notices trends…”
Equity is all about dividing students into groups. Somehow that magically makes things better.
Don’t ask for specifics though, she doesn’t have any that are outside of what is normally done in education. She is after all needing justification for her position. Sadly, everyone else wants her to succeed because they’re up their necks investing in equity too.
What has this disaggregated data has done? Lamboley gave a list of 6 items which somehow relate to a collectivist approach to education. One of them of course is more magical equity training. All six require additional investments of money and time.
The board members are on board. Kelly Pyle says – “This really helps give us a roadmap.”
Yes, the roadmap is NEVER LOCK DOWN SCHOOLS AGAIN!
Gozur – “The growth we’re seeing just didn’t happen.”
I would say it DID just happen. It just happens naturally when kids go to school instead of staying at home.
Don’t use this to spend money on and further promote an unproven hoax called Equity.
From Here…your analysis of the Unit 5 system is right on. But that is what the libs are so good at, take the issue and spin it to fit their agenda.
Country, Yes! and parents just need to start asking questions. It’s not hard and it’s not complicated.
1. Read a little bit about what equity is first. Don’t take their word for it because you will get a spun definition. They make it sound just like Inclusion. It’s not. It’s Exclusion.
2. Start asking questions. When parents do, they will find out really quickly that this ideology is really messed up.
3. Don’t wait till it’s too late. As we so often do.
Equity is an expensive, destructive ideology. It will not improve education when it is implemented. Unit 5 has only skimmed the surface of it.
Don’t worry the house values will drop to reflect the added taxes. Prospective buyers figure that into their offers. Illinois usually averages -2percent appreciation which I am convinced is directly related to the ever increasing tax burdens. Might take a year or so, but when the values drop we all need to file appeals.