I am terribly sorry to tell you, but you are wrong. A D64 school Carpenter did crack the Tribune ranking.

http://schools.chicagotribune.com/lists/best-overall-isat

Carpenter is number 28. That is in the top 50 last time I checked. Washington just missed cracking the top 50.

Also, did you know that some of the schools that cracked the top 50 are much smaller than the schools in Park Ridge (Some of them are over 1/3 smaller than those in Park Ridge)? When you research those schools the teacher to student ratio is much smaller.

EDITOR’S NOTE: No reason for you to be sorry, much less “terribly sorry” (or are you being insincere?) about correcting our mistake, which we have already done. As for Washington having “just missed cracking the top 50,” how do you know?

I don’t get what the big deal is. Paterno is a Republican (or at least aligned with their platform); the RWOPR are, obviously, Republicans. Why is the RWOPR so upset at being called out on their support, whether it was official (via endorsement) or not?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Perhaps it’s because the RWOPR organization neither endorsed nor supported Paterno, much less “slated” him; and that doing so would have been contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of non-partisan local elections and may have subjected the RWOPR to sanctions.

And if you now understand the difference, perhaps you can explain it to D-64 Board president Heyde, who seemed perfectly capable of defending his “private citizen” e-mail endorsement of Zimmerman and Cameron despite its references to his own Board membership and its listing of his Board e-mail address, but couldn’t seem to grasp how officials of RWOPR could similarly act as “private citizens” in endorsing and supporting Paterno.

Sorry for being sarcastic when I pointed out Carpenter.

Washington scored 96.3. The top 50 listing went from 100 down to 97.1.

The website link that is in my original comment, you can put in the zip code and click through all of the schools in Park Ridge and see how they scored. You have to click on the school and scroll down to see the additional scores, number of students, etc.

I know that Washington is still not in the top 50; however, I do know that a few of the schools in the top 50 are not all that they appear. Meaning that some schools are teaching to the standardized tests as opposed to a broader curriculum.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If the ISATS mean anything – and if Heyde, Bender, et al. want to say they’re meaningless, let them do it publicly for the record – then D-64 should be “teaching to the standardized tests” because it appears THAT’s the way school districts are being measured.

When the ISBE, the Tribune, the Sun-Times, etc. start ranking schools on their “broader curriculum,” let us know.

You should be flogged, Dog, for not picking up on Carpenter being No. 28 in the Tribune’s ranking last year! You’re obviously trying to mislead all us readers who trust you to inform us about stuff that we can’t get from these local governmental bodies or the local press.

04.30.13 3:06 pm, after reading your comment, I did some Googling of school report cards and rankings for the past several years and couldn’t find one other mention of a D-64 school in the Top 50. And for one year when the Sun-Times had the Top 100, I couldn’t find one D-64 school.

So, to the Dog’s point, we (parents AND taxpayers) don’t seem to be getting the quality of education from D-64 that we’ve been paying for. And I never, never, never hear the D-64 board or administration even acknowledging these rankings, only how they’re doing better than average and winning Bright Red Apple awards that depend in large part on how much the district spends per pupil and how much it pays its teachers.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As we noted in our “Correction,” we hate making mistakes like that, both because we hold ourselves to a high standard of factual accuracy generally and because – when we are being critical of someone or something – we believe that standard needs to be even higher. So flog away.

Politicians (anyone elected to office, doctorate or dog catcher-ate) of all stripes need to be extremely careful when using their affiliations to bolster their creds with voters. It’s a slippery slope. You’re still wrong about Paterno — anybody who seriously recommends physical violence against children as a means to get them to compy — what’s next, go back to hitting yer wimmenfolk when they get uppity? — should not be allowed around children at all. Was he elected by the half of “good old days-type educated”)residents who think climate change is a hoax? Your defense of the insupportable is itself distracting from the essential case: We ARE paying too much for the academic results we are getting. On that point you are absolutely right and more of us need to ask the hard questions of our school districts.

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Recommends physical violence against children”? “Should not be allowed around children at all”? Seriously?

Does anyone have any data to see how the Park Ridge private schools fair against D-64? St. Paul and Mary Seat of Wisdom even draw children from the scary city and still perform extremely well.

OH, and they do that with per kid costs of about 8k…when D-64 is above 14k.

I’d say getting similar results while spending a ton more money would be a red flag to some. However, we have a school system that is set-up to pay administrators and unions as their main goal. Unfortunately, taxpayers and students will always suffer until we realize the school is system is for kids and isn’t a jobs program for well-funded special interest groups.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t think that’s a fair comparison, given that the parochial and private schools don’t take ISATs; and we have never heard anybody provide any comparison of ISAT performance with Terra Nova performance.

“So, to the Dog’s point, we (parents AND taxpayers) don’t seem to be getting the quality of education from D-64 that we’ve been paying for.”

So much of education is nebulous. Yes, test scores are part of the picture but they don’t tell the whole story. How do you quantify that? You make it sound like there’s a formula, such as $X dollars in taxes = X ranking. Education is not that simple and kids are not widgets.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We have never suggested that you can make a direct correlation between dollars spent and academic performance. If that were so, no schools with costs-per-pupil would be ranked ahead of D-64 schools, yet they are.

But when the only objective measurement for comparing schools appears to be the ISATs – just like the only objective measurement for comparing students for things like college admissions is the ACTs and the SATs – discounting those comparisons is done at D-64’s peril.

When it comes to the elementary school rankings, also keep in mind that 13 out of the top 15 schools on the list are selective enrollment schools in Chicago, with rigorous test-in requirements. They only take the very top kids.

If you throw those out, which you should since they are not an apples to apples comparison, that bumps Carpenter up considerably. As well as other D64 schools who came close to the top 50.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t disagree with throwing out selective-enrollment schools like the Chicago magnets. The other conclusions you draw, however, have not been documented; and we are unwilling to sign onto your implicit exptrapolation when, in the 2012 rankings, 22 of those “Top 50” schools are listed in just the 98% range (98.0-98.9%).

As recently as October 29, 2010, the Sun-Times ranked the “Top 100” elementary and middle schools; and no D-64 school was in either ranking.

The top ten schools are Chicago magnet schools that selectively enroll for the brightest in the district. If Park Ridge pushed the top students into a few schools and put the lowest performers together, we could hit 100% in a few schools.

EDITOR’S NOTE: So could all those other suburban schools who don’t selectively enroll the brightest in their districts. So your point is…?

@ 8:23 am yesterday: You’re right about one thing; the main point of this discussion is that we are paying too much. Heyde and others are trying to distract us from that point.

@ 9:29 am yesterday: I think you meant to ask how private schools “fare” versus D-64.

9:29:

Beyond the ISAT point made by PD, you seem to be suggesting that the student population at these private schools is somehow “inferior” to D64 and yet they still do better. That suggestion is just plain stupid!!!

As an aside, I am not sure where you get the 8K versus 14K number.

5th ward:

You are exactly right. If I look at this thread and the history of this topic on this blog and all over, it has virtually nothing to do with quality of education. It is all about “what we are paying”. It is all about money….paying too much…..who gets it…..who should get it…..etc. I have heard no clear discussion of what exactly a 97.3 versus a 96.4 means on these tests except that it can mean about 20 places on the list. I have heard no discussions of exactly what D64 is doing wrong and needs to improve. What I have heard is they are union and they get paid too much and they get the summer off. These are not invalid points but let’s not pretend they have anything to do with D64 quality of education.

Look at what is going on in the City. They give 98 mil to UNO when there is no verifiable proof that they are any better. They close neighborhood schools to justify the expense. Now UNO is not even responsible enough to pay it’s bills on time. That entire mess has virtually nothing to do with education kids but simply shifting around money.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The reason you’ve “heard no discussions of exactly what D64 is doing wrong and needs to improve” is because the D-64 Board, its Administration and the PREA – our education “professionals” – won’t even acknowledge these rankings, much less that anything IS “wrong” and meeds to be improved. Heck, when these rankings first started coming out years ago when the kids took IGAPs instead of ISATs, D-64 came up with that crock of bunkum excuse that “we don’t teach to the test, we teach the whole child.”

And yes, this is about money and about paying too much for what is (measured objectively by ISATs against the kinds of communities most Park Ridgians tend to view as “comparable” commmunities – the Glenviews, Northbrooks, Deerfields and Arlington Hts, not the Des Plaines, Elk Grove Villages, Niles and Morton Groves) lackluster academic performance, especially when a number of the districts whose schools beat ours spend notably less per pupil on both instruction and operations – while having higher EAVs per pupil, paying significantly less for their teachers and administrators, and even having higher pupil to teacher ratios.

But when it comes to Park Ridge public education, stupidity and ignorance have proven formidable allies in preserving the status quo.

602am- In what dictionary does “similar = better”? I think if you go to Maine South you probably see students from private and public schools starting at similar points.

Here you go:
http://schools.chicagotribune.com/district/park-ridge-ccsd-64

As far as these private schools, the church does contribute some to the school, but here is what’s listed:
http://www.spc-school.net/images/stories/pdf/Finance/Tuition2013_2014.pdf

http://www.mswschool.org/admissions/tuition-a-fees.html

The reason I make this point is, the same goal of education can be reached with far less impact to the taxpayers. However, unions and special interest have won over and over by saying, us spending more money for public education equates to superior education. That just isn’t true. For example, unions love calling for smaller class size. Well, if the average d-64 teacher makes more than the average Park Ridge taxpayer, that isn’t possible. When gym teachers make over 100k in compensation, that isn’t possible. So please be honest with yourself. Your interest is in selecting a few people to have plum jobs with unbelievable pensions with no out for the taxpayers. There are plenty of well-qualified teachers that would take those jobs for true market value.

Taxpayers are paying way over market value for their product.

EDITOR’S NOTE: And because PREA gets to negotiate, in secret, its contracts with a spineless and/or fiscally irresponsible D-64 Board/Admin that are based solely on how long you’ve taught and what degree(s) you have – rather than on how well you teach – there’s no economic incentive to actually do a GOOD job; and the GOOD teachers get nothing more than the bad.

PD and 9:08:

Your posts just confirm my point. “It is all about money….paying too much…..who gets it…..who should get it…..etc”.

If they were not unionized and you could pay the gym teacher a max of 50K (or would that be 25K) you would have no beef at all.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The goal of public education is, first and foremost, to educate. So mediocre performance on ISATs suggests a degree of failure that is disappointing. But overpaying for such disappointment is foolish.

Let’s get our taxpayer billions of donations back from the banks who took our charity to party down and are still not giving small biz and mortgage loans to lift the economy….let’s get our taxpayer millions back from the corporations that do biz with us as taxpayers and hide their money overseas to keep from supporting the society that facilitated their wealth…let’s…oh, no. That might be hard. So let’s take it out of the hides of the $75K a year folks.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, let’s cure cancer! What…can’t do it because it’s too hard? Well, then, let’s give raises to more public employees – including teachers who only work 8 months a year – for doing no more, or better quality, work than they did last year.

You’re one more commentator who has good reason for not signing his/her name to this kind of drivel.

And yet I have never seen an example or a suggestion for improvement or an area to improve ever posted or discussed on this blog. “Here is what I think we can do to imporve our performance on the ISAT”. I never even heard ideas during the recent school board election. As a D64 parent (10yrs+) and a person who participates in a variety of organizations where I interact and have conversations with other parents, I have NEVER heard a D64 parent rail on like you and some of the posters here do. Are there issues that come up??….of course. In fact I remember a conversation where we all agreed so and so teacher should retire.

You go on and on about cost but there is never any suggestion for what is worng or what needs to be improved.

What it essentially comes down to is…..”we are paying too much money to these lazy under performing, summer lovin’ teachers!!!”…why??….ISAT says so!!

By the way, there is a website called school digger. They rank schools and districts. They essentially take math and english scores combined and add them up. Highest combined score gets ranked number one and so on down the line. They take the average of all school combined scores within a district to generate the district ranking. Based on this criteria, D64 is ranked #46 in Illinois. If you took out the smaller districts (Albers D63 is ranked #1 but they have 214 students) we would move up at least 20 spots. We are behind New Trier and Lake Forest and Hinsdales of the world.

Is this valid data?? Who the hell knows!! That is my point. It is certainly as valid as the Suntimes of Tribune who stir up their own cocktail to come up with their rankings.

You go on about no schools in the top 50 (which to your credit you corrected) but here is a source that ranks the district as a whole at number 46.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Obviously you are content with high-priced mediocrity. Different strokes….

Hey, maybe the teachers and administrators are actually OVERACHIEVING because maybe most of Park Ridge kids are slackers? As for your “schooldigger” ranking of D-64 “as a whole at number 64,” we find that difficult to fathom given that its highest rated school, Washington, is ranked at 62 while Carpenter is 77, Franklin 152, Field 171 and Roosevelt 237.

PWD re 2:35. Drivel? Right….so who was it again who crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses and paid no taxes?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, we can play the Stupid Irrelevancy Game, too: So who was it again that blew up the World Trade Center, staged the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, and financed Somali rebels…and paid no taxes?

Looked at the school digger, which at least uses up to date info, and we know you like your metrics. To answer your question, PD, the district can be ranked higher than the individual schools’ rankings because many of the schools that are the highest performing and ranked are either in district 299, CPS, which overall isn’t going to win any contests, even though it has several outstanding magnets, and sometimes because a high performing district (such as those on the north shore, will have several in high in the list that aggregate into a high ranking district, and sometimes, such as in D207, there is one school within the district that takes a high spot, but there are others that bring it down. That is presumably why MS is ranked 29 in high schools, while the district as a whole is ranked 254th in IL, significantly lower than D64’s 46th (not 64 as you implied). And interestingly, if you take the time to look for comparables at the elem level, you will see that there is no elem district with more students and only one (Hinsdale) with more overall schools contributing to the score that is ranked higher than us. The only comparables (over 1500 kids, multiple elem and middle school) ranked higher than us are Winnetka (half the number of kids), Western Springs (1500 vs 4000 kids), Hinsdale (very comparable), Wilmette, Northbrook 28 (1700 vs 4000 kids), Deerfield and Dunlup (near Peoria), Lake Forest (2000 kids) and Kildeer. And it’s based off of combined current year ISAT data, which is probably more useful to talk about rather than what the Sun-Times thought of the district in 2010. You may have also noticed Arlington Heights wasn’t mentioned, and although there was one much smaller Northbrook/Glenview district ahead of us, we scored better than the main districts in Glenview. In addition, at number 46, our overall ranking was .929, which is only a merger.046 less than Hinsdale at number 18, our most comparable district in terms of size and number of schools. Compare that to D207’s .712 overall score at number 254 in the rankings and you see we’re doing quite well, especially as a large district educating a large number of kids at seven different schools, all of which need to perform decently to sustain that 46th ranking.

All of this is not say concerns don’t deserve the merit of discussion, and certainly there is always room for improvement in all areas of the district, but to call a spade a spade, saying the district does a crappy job educating its students and harping on the “it’s all about the kids” bandwagon to rally the troops about what you say is lazy substandard work and poor results doesn’t really pan out when you look at the data. To continually bash the district on this when the data actually supports some rather high achievement on the basis of the very same ISAT test you use as your holy grail seems quite disingenuous.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Congratulations! You seem to have just done more analysis of inter-district achievement than D-64 has done in at least 20 years, at least based on what has been made public.

But we’re not ready to jump on your bandwagon, in part becasue we can’t seem to find exactly who runs Schooldigger and, more importantly, what is its rating/ranking methodology (i.e., what factors are included, how they are weighted, etc.). So, unlike you, we are not willing to anoint Schooldigger as the absolute authority on school rankings. Nor are we willing to give any more weight to your own drill-down into Schooldigger’s rankings to come up with your own micro-analysis.

Finally, we never have said D-64 is doing “a crappy job educating its students.” What we’ve said is that it is doing a “mediocre” compared to schools with similar demographics, especially considering the amount of money it spends. And nothing you have written seems to address that spending aspect.

11:58:

A big thanks to you!! I noticed the samller schools but you dug into the information and presented it well.

Like you, I have never said (in this thread or elsewhere) that there are not concerns or that any school is perfect.

By the way, I have also never said I think that the board should open it’s (or rather our) wallet and simply throw money at problems during contact negotiations.

My point in this thread is that has been that this issue and ISAT are not being used, and I would contend have nothing to do with, improving our kids learning.

All one has to do is look at PD on this thread. Here is a learned person who is very passionate about this issue. He starts with “none made the top 50″…..essentially using these tests as a hammer on compensation. The general focus is not about the education of the kids but ISAT as a tool to talk about how much teachers make. Posters throw about the 6 figure incomes but when you look at the very few who make 6 figures they are admin or have 25+ years on the job and a PHD…..or maybe even coach the football team. The numbers say that our schools are bad and we pay too much!!!

I bring up0 school digger and what does he do??? Questions the numbers. “We find it difficult to fathom……”. So let me get this strait. PD questions the process of taking the total number of schools measured in a district and dividing to get an average, but god forbid a teacher question a test designed by god knows who to measure god knows what that labels them as either good or bad and people want to effect their compensation and career path.

The averaging is the easy part. What you should be questioning is the validity of the ISAT numbers that school digger averages to come up with their district rankings.

His nest step is to question the authority of school digger. Yet they take the ISAT numbers just like the Tribune. By the way, it is fairly clear where the Trib is on the teacher and pension issue yet he uses them as a source all the time. Why? Because like school digger they use ISAT numbers. By the way, here is how school digger explains their ratings methods.

http://www.schooldigger.com/aboutranking.aspx

Next you present a deeper analysis of the SD numbers and he falls back to the ole’ money issue…..”especially considering the money we spend….”.

One final point. PD says he has never said they are doing a crappy job. Do a search of the site and some of the things said about teachers are synonymous,

EDITOR’S NOTE: Until there is some OBJECTIVE measure for comparing one D-64 school to another, or D-64 schools to those of other districts, other than the ISATs, either accept them or join the D-64 Board, Admin and PREA in their “we don’t teach to the test, we teach the whole child” naval gazing.

And yes, Virginia, money IS important, especially when objectively measurable performance is mediocre measured against schools from demographically-comparable districts. Per the Sun-Times’ August 7, 2012 table of teacher/administrator salaries for 2011, 56 of D-64’s made over $100,000 and another 60 made over $90,000. That’s 116 public employees EACH making more than the median HOUSEHOLD income for Park Ridge’s taxpayers, and for between 8 and 9 months’ work. Only 35 of those 116 had 25(+) years on the job, and only 4 had PhDs.

Oh, yeah: None of them were named Vince Lombardi, or even Nick Saban; and we didn’t know any of the D-64 schools had a football team.

As for the authoritativeness of Schooldigger, it’s an advertiser-supported website founded in 2006 and operated by Claarware LLC, a one-man corporation owned by Pete Claar from the State of Washington. If we have to choose between Schooldigger and either the Sun-Times or the Tribune for our ISAT data analysis, we’re going with the local folks. And if ANYBODY should be “questioning…the validity of the ISAT numbers,” it should be D-64. But D-64 has been proving for years how it doesn’t care about any kind of hard metrics and statistical analysis that would interfere with its naval-gazing.

As for our concern about the kids’ education, we would welcome the D-64 Board, Administration, and the PREA actually caring enough to even acknowledge, analyze and account to the taxpayers for its schools’ ISAT performance and their rankings. Heck, let them tell those folks with kids at Schooldigger’s No. 152 Franklin, or No. 171 Field, or at No. 237 Roosevelt, that they should pay no attention to the Bender (or Heyde) behind the curtain, because it’s all good for EVERY kid in the D-64 system.

But if you think we’re just trying to beat down teacher compensation, we’d welcome D-64’s canning 20 of its worst-performing $90K+ teachers and replacing them with 20 NEW $90K+ TEACHERS – so long as it could be demonstrated after their first year on the job that the new ones were responsible for significantly increasing the ISAT results of the kids they teach while not otherwise detracting from the curriculum.

Remember: It’s for the kids!

OK…so ISAT data is the best way to mesure school and teacher performance….in fact it is the only OBJECTIVE information currently available, so long as it is printed in the Suntimes or Tribune.

However, if the same ISAT data is added up for each district and averaged to come up with a district ranking (gee I wonder how my entire district is doing compared to other districts??) then that same ISAT data is invalid and not to be trusted…..expecially if it is compiled and averaged by some guy named Pete from the state of Washington…..yuck!!!

Ok….gottcha!!!

EDITOR’S NOTE: And you KNOW it’s “the same ISAT data” because you trust “some guy named Pete from the State of Washington” who claims to be using it to produce results more to your liking than what Chicago’s two major newspapers produce?

If how the “entire district is doing compared to other districts” is the only benchmark for this exercise, please tell that to the parents who are deciding whether to live in Park Ridge, and where, based on (a) the cost of the home; (b) the amount of the taxes; (c) the amount of air traffic overhead; and (d) the quality of the school their kids will be going to – not necessarily in that order.

And make sure you give them your name so they know whom to credit for the insight.

“…we’d welcome D-64’s canning 20 of its worst-performing $90K+ teachers and replacing them with 20 NEW $90K+ TEACHERS – so long as it could be demonstrated after their first year on the job that the new ones were responsible for significantly increasing the ISAT results of the kids they teach while not otherwise detracting from the curriculum.”

How about taking it one step further? Why do we even need highly qualified/paid teachers to “teach to the test?” Here’s a thought, replace them with volunteers who can drill them with test prep. Voila, instant savings and higher test scores. Forget all the other nonsense like critical thinking, problem solving, creative expression. As long as you’re getting the maximum bang for your buck.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If these teachers were as “highly qualified” as they are highly paid, presumably we’d have higher ISAT scores and not be having this discussion. Or are you saying that we do indeed have “highly qualified” teachers but that the kids are just a bunch of unteachable blockheads? Or is it that we have “highly qualified” teachers, Lake Woebegone-style above average kids, but that the ISATs are ridiculous and shouldn’t even be given?

OK PD you caught us. This guy Pete, knowing that on this day a blogger in PR would be having a discussion with a resident who thinks D64 is not as bad as the blogger says, cleverly decided to tweek the numbers in the favor of D64. The resident happened to come upon schooldigger while doing a google search and the rest is history…..but you caught us…you ole’ decetive you.

But the but the Trib and Suntimes are not to be questions.

Has it ever dawned on you that they both probably recivied it as a data file in the same format and from the same source, the ISBE.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We would expect that to be the case. So what?

If you’ve got much lower achievement standards than we have, say so. At least that would explain your grasping for whatever might make D-64’s results look better than how they look in the Sun-Times and the Trib analyses. So what if those results come from some guy in Washington State running his own advertising-based website, or from some Nigerian businessman who wants to transfer multi-millions of dollars out of Nigeria by depositing it in YOUR checking account as soon as you send him your account information!

This is 11:58, and I want to chime in with a little more info on school digger, since some comments came up. First, school digger’s rankings are solely score driven, and it’s methodology is simple and quite clear.. There is no other soft data in there. It’s really your dream PD. However, I was curious how Wash ranked above Carp in this when the Trib had it otherwise, although I’m not entirely sure of the Trib’s methodology, I assume it to be data driven as well. I compared the numbers in school digger to the numbers available from the state, and they didn’t match up, which was odd. After some playing with the numbers, I finally realized that school digger, at least for all our k-5 schools (and Hinsdale’s too for comparison) only is using the grade 3&4 ISAT numbers in it’s calculations and omitting G5 from its averages. That is why Washington with stronger grade 3&4 , but weaker grade 5 data last year outscored Carpenter on this site. So, PD is right that you have to question and verify data that is out there. (Fyi-There also appears to be an omission of G6 data at the Middle school level.) This is not to say that the information isn’t a decent snapshot of the quality of our schools, especially if the omissions are consistent as they seem to be, but the data on this site is not as comprehensive as we’d all like, obviously. PD, I have to say I’m with the others that you do quite often disparage the quality of the education and the educators in our district while omitting your (implied to you I guess) rider that its only in relation to the egregious amount of taxing and (mis)spending you personally see going within d64.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We are unaware of any of our critiques of the quality of D-64’s education that doesn’t involve its cost – because, frankly, separate and apart from its cost and its comparison to better-scoring schools in other districts, the education quality is reasonably good.

The above exchange is very typical:
In one corner, a taxpayer who wants accountability.

In the other corner, someone from the well-oiled interest group that wants more and more of our money without any accountability.

7:54, I think you’re oversimplifying. I’m a taxpayer who is supportive of accountability but I’m also generally happy with the quality of education my kids have been getting.

I’m also very supportive of our teachers. PWD has likened them to public works employees more than once and I’m sorry but that’s an insult to the hard work — more often than not well beyond the 8-3, “summers off” schedule that he likes to scorn — the teachers put in for our kids.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Public Works employees don’t make nearly as much money, work 11 months of the year, and can get called out all hours of day and night to deal with emergencies like blizzards and floods. So if anybody should be insulted….

I don’t dispute that public works employees put in a lot of time. However it takes a greater level of training, expertise, knowledge and finesse to teach kids than it does to dump trash, plow snow or cut (or, in the case of the recent parkway trimming, butcher) branches.

One of the drivelmeisters here — it’s sad as hell that you equate passing legislation to keep the ill-gotten gazillionaire dollars here with curing cancer. Newsflash: People make laws and allocate taxpayer funds, and they can un-make them and un-allocate them. The fact that you consider looking at where our shortfalls really came from and continue to come from “drivel” says it all.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Newsflash: The same people who made the laws that the gazillionaires exploited in obtaining their ill-gotten gains will be the people un-making them, not the folks on the D-64 Board. So take your beefs about crony capitalism, TARP, etc. to Jan Schakowsky, who at least is one of those people – and might at least feign interest in your drivel.