Sorry. It seems I brought San Francisco's gloomy weather back with me. Seriously, were it not for the incredible food at every turn, I would have felt my vacation sucked. We got rained out except for the last day, so I didn't get to do much of the San Francisco touristy stuff, which I admit I enjoy. San Francisco is such a pretty city, and not just because of its ocean view. People take a lot of pride in the appearance of their homes, property, and public parks. From what I witnessed, litter is rare, even in the less affluent neighborhoods. Wish we could import some of that pride and attitude to Peoria.
I ended my news blackout yesterday and I wish I hadn't. Iran is training 40,000 suicide bombers to react if the U.S. is successful in halting its nuke progress?! Welcome to the new Cold War, people.
Today's Word on the Street column echoes a familiar theme. What is with secret meetings and local government? The School Board and Park District stole a page or two from the Ran$burg/Nixon book of politics and quietly decided where the new school should be located without public or, worse, City Council input. Third District Councilman Bob Manning is peeved, and glibly shared private e-mails proving as much with the Journal Star. Cute, but remember paybacks are a bitch, Bob. I seriously doubt publishing those e-mails are going to do anything for the much bragged about new and improved City Council and District 150 School Board relations. Methinks Mayor Ardis needs to sit Manning down and sing a round or two of "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore."
If the public doesn't want the new school to be located in Glen Oak Park in won't happen. If home owners don't want to sell to the District, they won't. Emanate domain, you say? Lawsuits, I say. Plenty of them. Really expensive ones too. Polly's prediction: The School will happen in the proposed space or not at all. The idea of a new school is more controversial than the location. I would be willing to wager that most of the homeowners along that strip of Propsect would be happy to sell for a halfway decent price. Based on 30 million dollar toilet seats, and Government's general tendency to overpay, District 150 will pay more than homeowners could ever get on the open market and they know it. Did anyone else hear East Bluff homeowners jumping up and down, joyfully rejoicing after OSF's grand expansion announcement? Commonsense would lead one to believe that people who live in crummy, high crime neighborhoods would likely leave them if they had the funds to do so.
Concerns about traffic on Prospect are bogus. People don't let their kids walk to school anymore. Check the state police website. There are almost a thousand registered sexual perverts in the East Bluff zip code alone. Even if kids did walk, safety could be addressed by building pedestrian bridges or overpasses. Moreover, the state's best middle school, Washington Gifted, is located on War Memorial, which is far busier and dangerous than piddly Prospect any day.
While munching Dim Sum in China Town, I caught a snippet of the Oprah Show. She did a special on American public schools in crisis. Oprah interviewed an expert who, I thought, made a valid point. Habitat matters. Kids who attend crummy, crumbling schools don't feel valued by society. The message Society sends, and what these kids hear is, "We don't value you. We don't expect you to succeed. We aren't going to waste our time or energy making an investment in your future."
Is there anything more dangerous than low expectations? I keep reading on my and other blogs comments like, "Glen Oak School was good enough for me 'back in the day', why isn't it good enough now?" Well, Pops, Glen Oak School and institutions like it were still nice "back in the day." Back in the day, society cared enough to build and maintain institutions that were good enough for and worthy of you. Times have changes. Codes have changed. Standards have changed. Buildings have decayed. Kids need to learn much, much, much more than readin, 'ritin, 'rithmetic to succeed in the modern world. "Back in the day" a high school education was more than adequate. Today, my plumber uses a computer, and my car mechanic requires more technical knowledge than the biggest science geek alive "back in the day."
I am gulping Pepto by the gallon after writing a check in the five digits to Uncle Sam yesterday. No, I'm not rich. This year the NYSE was kind to me, and, thus, I must be kind Uncle Sam. Nonetheless, I still have a budget. I still work to make ends meet. I hate taxes, mostly because I can't shake the feeling that most of my tax money goes towards government waste and not basic services. Regardless, I would be willing to pay significantly more if we could do right by properly educating today's kids.
After all, do you want an educated accountant or a disgruntled thug picking out your nursing home?
If your mind is too open, your brain will fall out. Warning: Names, identities, descriptions, and pictures have been changed and/or used to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. PollyPeoria should not be used or quoted as a source for your senior college thesis.
Monday, April 17
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17 comments:
The OSF expansion is not going to require more land than is already used by the hospital. They are building a new parking deck where there once were parking lots, and are tearing down the old deck for the building. No displacement of housing.
Not worries. Uncle Sam has already trained the 2 guys needed to fly the B2.
CJ,
I would agree with you about restoring these buildings if it were cost effective. It isn't. They cost too much to heat and the abestos removal to air condition them is prohibitive. The very wealthy Harvard University has torn down beautiful old buildings for the same reasons. Moreover, due to lacking enrollment, we need to combine schools.
I call bullsh*t on "impotent teachers/administrators who can't or won't maintain discipline in the classroom." That is a big honking load of crap. Most teachers want to teach, most administrators want kids to learn, both struggle to make that happen. The problem is that many kids now come to school with huge egos and an entitlement to "rights" fueled by parents who are too busy with careers or crack to show their offspring the love and discipline they so desperately need.
You wouldn't blame your doctor if you were diagnosed with lung cancer if she had been nagging at you for years to quit. Don't blame teachers for not being able to control young monsters when they have been telling us for years that they do not get the support they need from parents and community.
Time to shoulder some responsibilty instead of doling out blame.
There are a few professions everyone thinks they could do better but few actually can survive. Ironically the teachers in the worst of the schools end up filling a role similar to another profession folks are quick to criticize but few could stomach the work. The teachers in those schools are more often cops than teachers.
It's about time we stopped thinking 4 walls, old or new, will educate kids and it's time we start demanding society, parents, neighborhoods, churches and businesses step up and help take responsibility for the education of the kids in 150. It takes a village to raise a child and all too often these kids are left with far less than a village and very little leadership or direction in their own homes and neighborhoods. Not a lot teachers, administrators or a school building can do without those elements.
Once we elect school board members who will work towards facilitating and including the village we'll be on the right track. So long was we have jokers on the school board who blow with the wind, aren't able to make decisions or take the heat and won't step far enough outside the box we'll stay mired in failure.
Glen Oak School is old, but it is safe and well-maintained.
You can replace every single school in Peoria with a palace and it won't help jack squat unless the district addresses the discipline problem.
Two points I'd like to make:
1. "Back in the day"... I seriously doubt that because my grade school didn't have air conditioning and a baseball field, that this caused me not to get my masters degree or my sis (who also went there) from obtaining her PhD. Homework was the name of the game after my paper route..not X-box,IMing on the internet and sucking down cappucinos at One World. Put a grade driven student in old Glen Oak and a Gen Y slacker in an air conditioned palace and we all know what the results will be. 2. I live very close to Prospect\Frye. Nobody can tell me the traffic doesn't suck there. The illegal turns\manuevers in and out of the convenient store parking lot happen by the minute. I've seen cars not wanting to wait for the bus stopping at that intersecton cut through the parking lot on the NE corner. And when the weather is decent, there are a lot of kids jaywalking Prospect down to Woodruff & Lincoln.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...Polly is naive and has a lot of racial bias she tries to hide but can't.
Love,
A. E. Mouse
Rodent Head, I'm not sure what race has to do with this issue. I'm advocating for a new school in a heavily minority populated area of town. Please elaborate on your opinion about my racial state of mind.
C.J., Yes, I did see Bibo's article. in fact, I commented several times on Bill Dennis' blog regarding it.
I won't argue that discipline isn't a problem in 150. It most certainly is. No, the newest/swankiest building alone won't cure the discipline problem. It can't. However, it very well may help. Kids who feel valued are less likely to act up or out in school. Would a new community school cure every demon child? Nope. However, it may make many kids feel that someone gives a damn and cares enough about them and their future to invest their money.
You are so, so, SO wrong about air conditioning. I can't even begin to tell you.... but I will try. Even though it is only 70 degrees outside today, I can gaurantee that my neices' classrooms are in the mid eighties. When it is eighty outside their classrooms are in the nineties and no one is learning anything. Teachers are simply there to provide daycare and keep the kids from killing each other and/or passing out. They can't install ceiling fans and the regular electric fans must be kept on low or medium because 1) Kids can't hear the teacher talking, and 2) THEY DON'T WANT TO DISTURB THE ABESTOS. My nieces classrooms are miserable September, October, and Mid April thru May. Almost four months "isn't enough of the school year" to make taxpayer investment worthwhile? That's almost half of the school year! Our kids are ripped off and denied valuable learning time due to a lack of air conditioning. 150 has a shortened day"heat schedule" for Sept -more if necessary- because of the unbearable heat. The rest of the year the classrooms are merely very uncomfortable. Because the school uses an old boiler, there are two choices during winter... no heat whatsoever or very overheated. Visit Kellar in January. Even on days when the temperature is below zero, you will see classrooms with the windows wide open. Kellar, by far, is not the oldest or poorest school in town. I hate to think what other students (who don't have well funded PTOs that buy fans, water bottles, etc) are suffering through.
I don't have estimates on the cost of lead paint or abestos removal. However, we do know from Peoria Height's Kelly School experience that building an entirely new structure was much, much, much less than restoring the old school.
Chef,
You may have walked three miles, up hill, barefoot, both ways "back in the day." That doesn't mean that we shouldn't do better by our kids TODAY.
Kids today will have to do more, learn more, achieve more in order to earn masters and ph d degrees you and your sister have. Moreover, in order to qualify for what used to be menial, "no higher education required" occupations (mechanic, plumber, secretary, etc.) today's kids will be required to know a lot more math, science, and language skills than were required for you and your sister.
Things change Chef, the standards have been increased. The quality of education should increase as well, part of that BUT BY ALL MEANS NOT ALL OF IT requires a modern, safe, comfortable environment (although certainly NOT a palace).
As always, thanks for your comments one and all, even if you are all wrong :-)
Love and Kisses,
Polly
Oh! And another thing....
I attended old, unconditioned schools when I was a kid too. I just don't have a problem admitting that it sucked. In fact, it SUCKED ROTTEN EGGS. (Nonetheless, I attended college and grad school, and have yet to rob a liquor store.)
Remember, many of the buildings where many of us attended school were old and dingy twenty or thirty years ago. After decades of budget cuts and maintenance band aids but no real renovations, those same buildings are down right nasty today.
Polly,
You say that kids have to do more, learn more, achieve more in order to earn masters and ph d degrees. It seems to me that the standards are being lowered in just about every facet of the educational system.
Re: A/C schools -
When I was young, my grade school outside Chicago wasn't air-conditioned. It wasn't unbearable except for the very hottest days; the teachers would open the windows wide and all the doors to the entire school would be propped open to take advantage of cross-breezes.
Then Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in Winnetka. I actually remember the day it happened was a warm day, and suddenly the janitors were racing to close all the doors to the school, and the teachers were lowering the windows to just a crack, and I remember there was a jumpy sense of fear (they didn't tell us what was going on; Dann hadn't been caught yet and all local schools had been ordered to "lock down" as best they were able) and I remember it was SO STICKY STINKIN' HOT with all the doors and windows shut.
After Dann's rampage, all schools doors but one were locked all day and access was tightly controlled. Without crossbreezes from the doors, the school had to retrofit air conditioners to make the building bearable on hotter days.
This isn't really evidence-based, just anecdotal, of course, but it occurred to me as I read the debate about A/C in the schools. I love those beautiful old buildings and I hate the idea of replacing them with something new and probably ugly (more cinderblock palaces of love!), but I do remember distinctly that when I was quite young, school doors were open to the world, and by the time I was 10, they were closed and locked all day and it was a LOT. HOTTER. without cross ventilation.
Just one more thing - outside parent, teacher, or district control - that's changed since 1980.
Ah, imagine if your classroom were a few stories up, and you are cooped up with 30 other overheated miserable bodies, with no ventilation or cross breezes. In addition to this era's safety concerns, schools like Glen Oak, Kellar East, etc., are more than one hundred years old and were not designed for current demands.
Yup, we need to make sure that schools are the perfect temperature and humidity for our kids, if there are stairs they need to be wide with rubber edges and the kids will need helmets. These and other safeguards will be the only way they could possibly hope to progress into stable well adjusted adults ready to take on the rigors of the working world where all problems are solved under optimal conditions.
The problems for 150 will continue, new buildings or not, so long as the majority of the children are products of: 1) Single parent or no-parent homes 2) a mother and a sperm donor who both have the IQs of a just-picked radish, and 3) hip-hop culture (black, white, brown, doesn't matter what color).
The problem goes WAAAAAAAAAAAAY beyound buildings. Nip the problem in the bud, or it's just like dumping money into Kickapoo Creek. And, that ain't pretty.
I agree 150's problems go WAAAAY beyond buildings. But I do think crappy, outdated, poorly maintained buildings contribute to the problem.
C.J., I think you are really off base equating a new school to over indulgent parents trying to buy their children's love with material goods.
If you are a kid on the East Bluff chances are good that your home life isn't stellar. Then you walk to school through a crime ridden neighborhood on sidewalks not worthy of a banana republic, surrounded by litter. You arrive at a school that hasn't been renovated in 100 years. The subliminal message is, "Your folks might not care about you. Society doesn't care about you. You are expected to fail."
C.J., Hon, will you listen, er, I mean READ?! My fingers are getting tired of repeating/typing the same thing AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.
Okay, one more time....
BUILDING A BEAUTIFUL, BRAND SPANKING NEW INNOVATIVE FORWARD THINKING COMMUNITY SCHOOL WILL NOT - I REPEAT - WILL ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, TOTALLY, AND COMPLETELY NOT, NOT, NOT, NO HOW, NO FRIGGIN' WAY, NOT EVER RECTIFY EVERY LAST PROBLEM DISTRICT 150 HAS.
NOR WILL A NEW SCHOOL BRING ABOUT WORLD PEACE OR CURE STARVATION IN AFRICA. IT WON'T MAKE THIRD WORLD NATIONS FIRST WORLD NATIONS. IT WILL NOT PREVENT EARTHQUAKES, HURRICANES OR TSUNAMIS.
That said, it is a START. A good start at that.
Yes, C.J., I'm familiar with Maslow. Dealing with the District's bigger problems requires resource, i.e., money. Without new students and residents attracted to 150, the School Board isn't going to be able to do much to address the bottom of the pyramid. Washington Gifted School is the only school that gives parents/taxpayers who have means pause before departing for the greener pastures that is Dunlap.
Moreover, by taking kids out of an outdated asbestos and lead paint infested, poorly ventilated building we would be addressing the lower needs of the pyramid. Also, by having a Community School in the area which will serve people from Birth to adult, the District would also be addressing base needs for the neighborhood as well.
I hate the thought of trying to solve problems by having the school district incur even more debt. I also worry about the tendency to gloss over root problems by building something new.
However, we have A LOT of parents asleep at the wheel. Discipline, and the lack of it, is fault of parents. Some parents are simply too consumed with crack or careers to raise respectful kids. Instead, these "parents" leave it to society and the schools to pick up the slack. This being the case, what choice does the District have but to insert itself into the lives of kids sooner, rather than later, and assume the roll? Hopefully a Community School would educate some parents as to what being a parent actually entails. Such instruction also falls on the lower rungs of the pyramid.
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