If our public schools are so mediocre and our taxes too high in relation to school ranking…wouldn’t there be a large outflow of families to the north brooks and glenview a yiu state give better value?
A review of real estate sales and home values shows park ridge is still desirable.
We have a mix of those in town that use public schools, others that send kids to St. Paul of cross or msw etc. we also have people who have lived in park ridge beyond their children’s school years even moving within park ridge bc they don’t want to leave the community. None of what is actually happening in park ridge is consistent with your fear mongerimg of ever increasing taxes and ever declining schools
You are analogous to Donald trump painting a picture of a scary USA that only he can fix when in reality things are better than the fear filled thoughts he and you espouse.

What’s next you will suggest building a wall around park ridge to keep out the parasites?

Oh pubdog please help us “make park ridge great again”- you and the Donald are cut from the dan cloth -though he has better hair than you. 🙂

EDITOR’S NOTE: Read the property transfer reports and talk to RE brokers: there IS a “large outflow” of families because of high taxes, especially empty nesters who would be major net tax payers rather than tax users. And many who are sticking around are substantially downsizing to reduce their tax exposure while selling their homes to families who will take out hundreds of thousands more in services than they will pay in.

Math is not “fear mongering”: The reason math is the foundation of all science is because it’s the closest we have come to objective truth. So no matter how many anecdotes you throw at it this particular math doesn’t work, no matter how much the freeloaders and those who make money off them don’t want people to believe it.

Oh…a new variety of Godwin’s Law, just substituting “Trump” for “Hitler”? How original.

Aren’t all public services dependent mostly on OPM? We all use public services/resources at varying levels at various times throughout the various stages of our lives. You pay into Medicare and some live longer than other using up less or more than what you may have paid in. Some use our library others don’t. Some use parks/baseball fields more than others some will never use them. But keeping up and maintaining those services make our community worth living and dying in. If we all only paid for what we used the system would have inequities and inefficiencies that would not be sustainable. It’s called a social contract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: No, it’s more like an Amway contract. Or an investment contract…with Bernie Madoff.

And the reason some people are “freeloaders” is because they don’t believe this community is worth “dying in” – or worth paying a dime’s more of taxes beyond whatever they can pull out in services, especially education. Which is why they’ll be gone the minute their last kid graduates, either from D-64 or M.S. And there’s a good chance you’ll be one of them.

Wow. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Thank you for pointing this out. I guess our local reporters are asleep, or this is just too much higher math for them.

These numbers are staggering and can’t be made to work. Eventually we will start losing the people who pay but don’t use, and the schools will decline even further from what they were 30 years ago when I was going through them. That’s when we will go into free fall.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yeah, but by then the current crop – and maybe even the next crop – of freeloaders will have had their fill and moved on.

This is an unusual way of looking at the costs; not saying that it is wrong, but it is different.

I don’t believe D64 is running a huge deficit as the above analysis would imply.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a seperate analysis of how much families that no longer have kids in the district but still live in Park Ridge are subsidizing for the benefit of the families with kids in D64? We are the ones that are really being penalized.

It would help to understand that aspect of the issue.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Who said D-64 “is running a huge deficit” or that our analysis “would imply” that? All we’re talking about is the the effect of rising expenses – primarily salaries – on property taxes; and who is paying far more v. who is using far more.

Didn’t you say glenview gives better value for tax dollars than park ridge bc their schools are ranked higher than Maine south?
See link:

http://patch.com/illinois/parkridge/newsweek-s-top-public-high-schools-2016-how-will-maine-south-east-rank?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=schools&utm_campaign=alert

EDITOR’S NOTE: To quote Matthew McConaughey: “Alright, alright, alright.” Finally some good news about a school that has been sliding in other rankings for years.

But wait! How did it get its No. 73 ranking when only 80.7% of its students are college ready – while No. 77, Whitney Young, has 84.7% college ready; No. 103 Glenbrook South has 83.6%; and No. 156 Barrington has 81.0%?

And wait some more! How can MS be No. 73 when its grad. rate is 95.2% while WH’s is 99.4%, GBS’s is 96.6%, and lowly Barrington’s is 95.9%?

And look! MS’s “College Bound” percentage is 91.0% while WH’s is 92.9%, GBS’s is 98.0%, and lowly Barrington’s is 96%.

Oh, and one final thing: Lowly Barrington achieves despite 19.3% of its students being at poverty level, compared to 26.6% at GBS and a whopping 40.5% at WH. MS? 8.4%.

So even though we read the Newsweek article and the embeds about the methodology of the study, it’s kind of difficult to justify that ranking based on the published numbers. And hard to figure out why consistently high-performing school like Stevenson and Glenbrook North aren’t even listed,

But good news is good news, no matter how incongruous or puzzling it might be.

So start popping those Korbel corks, Hawks!

That family sucking up $28,000 in education but paying only $3,000 to d64 leaves $25,000 for its neighbors to pick up. That’s 8 additional households paying that same tax amount to d64 but with no kids in school.

EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s how our math comes out, too.

“That family sucking up $28,000 in education but paying only $3,000 to d64 leaves $25,000 for its neighbors to pick up. That’s 8 additional households paying that same tax amount to d64 but with no kids in school.”

This is the problem with school funding in general. The wealthier suburbs of Chicago have better schools – in part – because of a larger tax base from which to draw; whereas the southern suburbs struggle – in part – because they have a smaller tax base and must levy high taxes as compared to property value just to keep the school district’s lights on.

At least up north we have a larger, wealthier base to spread out the cost. in the southern suburbs, the high taxes are part of a vicious cycle that lower home values, causes people to move, and leads to continued economic depression. long story short, it’s a good thing there are 8 other households to pay for the $25,000 shortfall from one district attending household, as compared to the alternative scenario in the south ‘burbs.

Things will certainly only get worse for Park Ridge if the state ever takes up its plan to fund education through the state rather than through local property tax levies.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A Ponzi Scheme is a Ponzi Scheme is a Ponzi Scheme.

Statements provided imply that PR is the only city that is impacted by your scenario (people without children paying for the education of people who have children). The use of public funds to pay for schools, the park district, library, community college, and fire/police is a a system that is applied in every state in this nation. In the cases described some citizens utilize available services at times, but it is unlikely that all services are used by every citizen.

Your focus is on the schools and teachers because we all have a familiarity with teaching. Each of us has sat in a classroom, and experienced lectures by great to terrible teachers. This familiarity breeds contempt for teachers. Few of us would attempt to diminish the work of police and fire because we really don’t have a great familiarity with the situations they face each day, yet when it comes to teachers many of us think we could easily do that work with little training. People often feel that way because they’ve seen it done and don’t recognize the professional training that is required.

Your blog will not serve to change the funding methods for schools, or the assessments that preport to measure student success. I have not seen a survey of citizens that indicates families wish to live here temporarily, and move on after their kids are educated. It’s interesting that you feel this is the case, as it would seem that the people you must know personally, and are referencing know full well that our schools are excellent and want their children to attend PR schools.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve never said our community is unique or that government funding will change systemically.

We pick on education because it consumes – via D-64 and D-207 – almost 70% of our taxes. We don’t mind that consumption but we do mind the performance compared to our “opponent” communities with whom we are competing for the best residents moving in from elsewhere, or growing up here and staying.

Only an idiot could and would say D-64 or D-207 schools are “excellent” – which would explain your saying it. A large number of people in Park Ridge send their kids to private schools, some for religious reasons but also some because they believe the education is better. And many people send their kids to our public schools because it’s CHEAPER than sending them to private schools.

When will the new teachers’ contract be available for the taxpaying public to see — and how many weeks will we have to digest, evaluate and comment before the D64 board votes on whether to ratify it?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out our post about this goat rodeo from four years ago: https://publicwatchdog.org/archives/2012/09/12/will-d-64-taxpayers-get-sold-out-again/

We’re betting that, once again, the contract will be approved by the D-64 Board before it’s published to the taxpayers. But even if it is published first, don’t expect a couple of weeks’ time to review and comment before it’s approved.

It’s not the amount of the taxes (or the teachers’ raises that raise those taxes) that bothers me as much as the lack of provable results that determine the value of the education we are paying for.

None of my kids have gone to a D64 school, but I don’t mind paying taxes for high-value education that keeps Park Ridge property values solid. But I see us paying more to teachers every year without any evidence the education is better, or even remaining as good, other than for the teachers, administrators and school board members self-servingly telling us it’s wonderful.

I agree with you that this board has failed miserably at both transparency and accountability.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Indeed it has, as it has done in providing VALUE to the taxpayers.

From yesterday’s Chicago Tribune article and can be just as true for the PREA and D64 delaying getting a contract into August, just days before school is scheduled to start:

“But once classrooms fill with children, once parents adjust family schedules, once a city’s routines are set, CTU gains leverage. Pressure cranks up on Emanuel and CPS leaders. Every day without a contract deal heightens the threat that teachers will go nuclear on Chicago’s schoolchildren. Every child is hostage to an ugly game of will-they-or-won’t-they.”

Thanks for giving the PREA all the leverage, School Board!

EDITOR’S NOTE: We saw that article and drew the same conclusion.

As the spouse of a D64 teacher, and a school administrator myself, I think I have a bit of an interesting perspective on things, allow me to share a few thoughts.

There are a number of problems with this district, some having to do with the teachers, some having to do with the administrators, and some having to do with the parents.

1. Union protectionism. Every teacher at every school knows who the bad teachers are, and most hate that they can’t get rid of them. Unfortunately, teacher unions have ceased to be what a good union should be – an advocate for excellence in their professional field. Instead, teacher unions have become protectionist organizations designed to shield the worst performing teachers rather than doing what they should do, holding (and training) their members to an even higher standard than the state or district requires. A lousy plumber gets kicked out of the plumbers union because union plumbers want to maintain their reputation, it’s good for business. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with the teachers union. Until educators rise up against their union and demand an end to protectionist practices for the weakest among them, nothing will change. Once the union learns to let go of the bottom 10% of performers, we’ll see our school’s performance rise significantly.

2. Outdated administrative culture. In D64, and indeed in most school districts around the country, a stale, old-fashioned culture of top-down management exists where the belief that the principal is the boss and the teachers are the subordinates still exists. This absolutely destroys teacher initiative, creativity, and ownership. Empowering teachers by making them the primary decision-makers, and placing the administrators back in their proper role as support personnel, will go a long way towards returning schools to a more student-centric environment. Principals and district level administrators need to be viewed as serving the teachers, not the other way around. Everything that happens in the district, everything that is done at an administrative level, should be viewed through the lens of student success – and student success is only achieved when you have excellent teachers receiving excellent support from their district team. And the success of that team begins and ends with a healthy, modern work culture.

3. Unrealistic parent expectations. The sensitive issue of special needs students being mainstreamed into regular classes must be addressed. This has become a huge problem in the district. Students with profound mental, physical, and behavioral disabilities being shoehorned into classes they really have no business attending benefits no one. Class sizes are already too large, then when you add several students in every class that are so disabled that they require a full time assistant (that the district must pay for) to deal with them, it becomes a huge drain on the valuable time and energy of our teachers and a massive distraction to rest of the students. Parents of special needs students need to respect the unique abilities of their children and place them in appropriate education environments, not pretend to be blind to their child’s limitations and insist that they attend regular classes with all the other kids. It becomes a distraction to the other children, it wastes teacher time and energy, and lowers the overall level of instruction in the classroom.

There are of course other issues, but if these three problems are dealt with, I think the district would be well on its way to healing itself. I don’t think taxpayers have a problem with paying taxes for great schools and great teachers, they only have a problem with not getting what they paid for. Fix these problems, and you’ll start getting the level of service you paid for.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While we may have some minor disagreements with your analysis, it sounds basically solid.

Too bad the D-64 Board (and its cluesless counterpart at D-207) would need both Cliff’s Notes and flash cards to understand any of this – and an actual spine to do anything about it.

GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

EDITOR’S NOTE: To paraphrase Rod Steward: “Forever dumb.”

10:23 AM.

1. If good, responsible teachers wanted what you say they want, they would elect better union representatives. But they like the money and benefits those reps keep getting them, so they don’t. But then privately they say the stuff you’re saying so they can have it both ways. So “good” teachers are responsible for keeping the “bad” teachers.

2. If teachers were so concerned with having more control over their classrooms, they could negotiate for THAT rather than for more raises and benefits. Once again, the priority is cash and bennies.

3. Special ed is the mosquito on the elephant’s butt. Yes it’s a big per-pupil expense but there aren’t that many special ed students. And too many special ed teachers act more like babysitters than teachers so special ed kids end up being warehoused rather than educated. But since they bring in extra money from the state and the feds, they are a revenue stream.

Why is the principal being the boss outdated?

If it worked in the past it shouldn’t be a problem now.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Because the past is the past and new is always better. Or so we’re told by the teaching “industry” every time it comes up with a new “magic bullet” to improve educational quality.

But a December 2013 report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report) called teacher preparation programs in this country “an industry of mediocrity,” rating only 10 percent of more than 1,200 of them as high quality. Most of them tend to have low admissions standards and relatively easy grading.

Teacher wage and benefit freeze until rankings go up.

I agree with PW and the commentators who say that they have no objection to paying taxes if they receive services commensurate in value.

Sotos and those other board members who think you can’t base compensation on hours/days worked, or on provable results, are living in a fantasy world that none of the rest of us enjoy because who are paid both on hours worked and on measurable results.

And if the school board members didn’t have their heads up their butts they would realize that the argument the teachers are making is the best argument against them getting any additional comp and benefits.

10:23 I wanted to hear you out but you lost me at #3. This is patently untrue. Special Ed students are not tying up an inordinate amount of classroom space or teacher time. And your solution borders on illegal. All students regardless of ability are entitled to a public school education. You seem to suggest they should be warehoused elsewhere. You of all people should know better, and if you did you’d know our school districts are doing a fine job of supporting and educating students with special needs or referring them to schools where they might be better served if all other options have been exhausted.

I think blaming special ed is misdirection. Special ed, as another commentator pointed out, is pretty insignificant as to budget and operations. And those special ed kids don’t take the standardized tests that comprise the rankings.

BTW, I read that study Newsweek used to rate Maine South higher than it has been ranked in years by anyone else and Watchdog is correct: the numbers don’t compute, but the explanation in the study does not provide any basis for figuring it out.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Glad to see that somebody else tried to figure out Newsweek’s “legitimate and objective measurements to put together its annual ranking” and couldn’t.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Glad to see that somebody else tried to figure out Newsweek’s “legitimate and objective measurements to put together its annual ranking” and couldn’t.

Typical pubdog …when rankings don’t suit his purpose he criticizes them.
Hate to break it to you but us news or other rankings ain’t perfect either Frances yet you keep relying on them as if they are gospel. At least be consistent- and I mean more than just consistently wrong.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Oh Silly, we would love nothing more for Maine South and the D-64 schools to be consistently ranked among the best in Illinois, but they aren’t.

As we pointed out, the data and methodology identified by Newsweek don’t justify the Maine South ranking vis-a-vis the other schools we identified, for the reasons we articulated.

Excellent post, with you know MATH and facts and figures, but the hateful long, name-calling posts follow as per usual.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Better a debate with a little name calling than no debate at all.

Seems US news ranking supine which public watchdog relies upon so heavily for his “math and facts” (giggle giggle) have problems/criticisms of its methodology

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/10/a-critical-look-at-the-annual-high-school-rankings-by-u-s-news/

So we should rely on us news more than Newsweek because it suits mr Trizna’s agenda of “my kids are grown and I preferred parochial school so reduce my taxes the hell with rest of the citizens” ??

Yeah…that s credible. Lmfao.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve never argued for reducing school taxes, even when this editor was paying school taxes and four parochial school tuitions: we’ve argued against employee raises and increased expenses without any measurable gains in performance, or with declines in performance.

Our criticism of the Newsweek rankings is based on Maine South ranking higher than Whitney Young, Glenbrook South and Barrington despite MS having a lower “college ready” percentage, a lower graduation rate, a lower “College Bound” percentage, and a lower level of “poverty” students.

And if you think it is just one person that has criticized the US News rankings, see below:

Almost from their inaugural appearance in 1983, the U.S. News rankings have been a popular and easy target for critics. If you want to delve more deeply into the ranking’s weaknesses, here is a small sample of the best criticisms over the past 15 years:

An essay by Nicholas Thompson in The Washington Monthly, September, 2000.
A report from the University of Florida’s Center for Measuring University Performance, 2002.
An essay by Colin Diver, then president of Reed College, about the U.S. News rankings, his decision to withhold Reed’s participation in them, and the liberating consequences of that decision, in The Atlantic, November 2005.
A report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, March 2009.
An essay by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, February 2011.

Again maybe Newsweek that has Maine south ranked above Glenview schools is correct and if so all of publicwatchdog post of not getting value at D207 when compared to similar suburbs like glenview is false (either intentionally or by design).

EDITOR’S NOTE: See out response to your 3:19 p.m. post.