Although he has not yet even been sworn in as a D-64 School Board member, Dathan Paterno has become a subject of intense controversy in some quarters.

He’s been called, referred to, or compared with a “Creationist,” a “Bircher,” “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” “zenophobic” [sic], “reflexively violent” and – perhaps worst of all – “not collegial in work style.”  All anonymously, of course, because folks lobbing those kinds of accusations tend to be reluctant to give their names.

Can you imagine the nerve of that guy, Paterno, running for public office while lacking “collegiality”!

Paterno, an unabashed conservative, and his ticket-mate, Ben Seib, reportedly a Libertarian, apparently inspired such fear and loathing in D-64 Board president John Heyde that, in the last 10 days before the recent election, he launched two e-mails to an unidentified group of recipients in which he not only endorsed his incumbent puppet Scott Zimmerman and challenger Terry Cameron, but also branded Paterno and Seib as having been “slated by the Park Ridge Republican Women’s Club, which circulated their petitions and is helping them raise money to campaign.”

Heyde makes it sound like that slating might be even worse than a lack of “collegiality.”

Not surprisingly, Heyde himself was lacking something a little more important than collegiality – specifically, any factual basis for his claim about Paterno’s and Seib’s backing by the Republican Women of Park Ridge (the “RWOPR”).  That became clear at the D-64 Board meeting on April 22, when RWOPR president Charlene Foss-Eggemann called him out for his false characterization of RWOPR’S activities.

Although Heyde admitted he didn’t really know whether the RWOPR board of directors took any action to authorize, as an official “club” activity, the conduct by a couple of its individual officers which Heyde attributed to the organization, he nevertheless brazenly asserted that he would “stand by the facts” of his e-mails.

“Facts”? 

As a prominent Loop lawyer with a degree from the uber-prestigious University of Chicago Law School, he should know better than to claim what he wrote was factual.  Or maybe he was doing some Clinton-esque parsing; i.e., he was standing by whatever “facts” were in his e-mails, but he wasn’t claiming that every bit of information in those e-mails was a “fact.” 

Whatever he was saying, it has led to the RWOPR issuing a press release identifying all of the ways in which Heyde’s e-mails were flat-out wrong.

While these little tete-a-tetes may be perversely entertaining, they should not be mistaken for anything but the meaningless sideshows they are, promulgated by Heyde and the D-64 usual suspects – i.e., Supt. Phil “Call me ‘Doctor!’” Bender, the PREA, Heyde’s fellow Board members (except Tony Borrelli), etc. – presumably to focus public attention on Paterno and away from D-64’s high-taxing, high-spending, mediocre-performing educational record.

Frankly, any D-64 taxpayer or D-64 parent who falls for that kind of misdirection is as stupid and superficial as Heyde et al. apparently believe him/her to be.

Despite all these years of D-64’s not teaching creationism or encouraging racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, reflexive violence or un-collegiality – and, instead, proudly “teaching the whole child” (Do all the other school districts that consistently out-perform D-64 teach only 11/16ths, or 23/27ths, or some other fractional portion of each of their children?) and being one of the higher-paying elementary/middle school districts in the Chicagoland area – it’s both amazing and disturbing that not even one D-64 school can crack the Chicago Sun-Times’ or Chicago Tribune’s annual ISAT-based “Top 50” rankings of Chicagoland elementary and middle schools.

Meanwhile, schools from Arlington Heights, Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Burr Ridge, Clarendon Hills, Elmhurst, Evanston, Glenview, Highland Park, Hinsdale, La Grange, Lake Forest, Lincolnshire, Long Grove, Naperville, Northbrook, Oak Brook, Palatine, River Forest, Schaumburg, Western Springs, Wheaton and Wilmette regularly place one or more schools in those rankings.  And several of those districts spend less than D-64, pay less than D-64, and have higher pupil-to-teacher ratios.  And they feed their kids into high schools that are increasingly ranked ahead of a declining Maine South.

So what gives, “Dr.” Phil?  What gives, Mr. Heyde?  What gives, PREA?

If you’re a D-64 parent, maybe you should start wondering exactly what kind of education your child is getting for what amounts to a full one-third of your property tax bill.  And if you’re a plain old taxpayer, maybe you should start wondering whether your property value is being eroded by the double whammy of high taxes and mediocre performance – at least as objectively measured by ISAT scores and rankings based on those scores.

Or you can ignore all that troubling stuff and worry instead about whether newly-elected Board member Dathan Paterno believes in God, fluoridated water and collegiality.

Or, for that matter, whether Elvis is still alive and hanging out at Waffle House No. 1277 in Bartlett, Tennessee.

CORRECTION (04.30.13): We hate mistakes, especially our own.  But a reader has pointed out that we completely missed Carpenter School’s No. 28 ranking on the Chicago Tribune’s “Top 50” elementary and middle school list for 2012.   We apologize for that oversight and are delighted to make that correction.

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