EMSD#63’s Board recently voted on some sort of budget reduction plan. Based on what has been published so far, it is unclear to this reader, the actual cutting-depth voted upon.
I hope Superintendent Clay will treat that email as a request and not a FOIA, else we might have to wait five working days just to find out that he has has nothing to say.
My original plan was to display the stats for Butterly on Education after reaching the 10,000 hit mark; something that should happen sometime this month. I changed my mind on the timing of the post based on one recent comment.
“Having said that, considering the traffic on this blog (I am guessing that 75% of the posts on the site are by either you or me)…”.
This is not the first comment challenging the growing readership of this blog. And I’m sure it won’t be the last.
So, I thought now was as good a time as any to share the most recent stats and to thank you for coming to this blog site and sharing your thoughts and opinions with all of us.
I ran into a less colorful version of this list at the Bureau of Labor Statistics the other day. Thought it might prove to be a valuable decision making tool for high school or college students and parents.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has this to say about the report.
Selected Occupational Projections Data
“Information that enables individuals to compare occupations in terms of employment size, projected employment growth, earnings, the most significant source of postsecondary-education or training, educational attainment, opportunities for self-employment and part-time work, and unemployment rate can be very valuable in career decision making. This site provides such information. It presents data on 2008 and projected 2018 employment for over 700 occupations classified by the most significant source of postsecondary-education or training. For each occupation, information is also provided on its quartile ranking among occupations in terms of earnings, unemployment rate, and proportion of part-time workers.
The data can be searched by occupation or by postsecondary-education or training category. Searching by occupation allows you to see how a specific occupation or several occupations in which you have an interest compare with all occupations. Searching by postsecondary-education or training category allows you to compare occupations within that category.”
I took the time to color-code the “training” column for easier use.
Haven’t you ever wondered what the US Department of Education (USDoE) is all about? I know I have.
So I thought, should you be interested, maybe I can help us both learn a little more about this “important” Department. That’s why I’m starting this series of posts on the USDoE.
The first thing I did was go to the USDoE website to get their perspective on things. It’s a pretty substantial site, so be prepared to spend an hour or more.
Based on that search, it became obvious to me, that these guys are tasked into a lot of responsibility – some of which we will discuss in later posts and most of which, you will quickly learn, have little direct impact on EMSD#63 students education.
The first place to look when trying to understand any organization is their Mission Statement. It’s their reason for being, yes?
US Department of Education
Mission Statement - USDoE Website
“Congress established the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on May 4, 1980, in the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88 of October 1979). Under this law, ED's mission is to:
Strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual;
Supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community-based organizations, parents, and students to improve the quality of education;
Encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs;
Promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through Federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of information;
Improve the coordination of Federal education programs;
Improve the management of Federal education activities; and
Increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public.”
I suspect we’ll be looking at this statement again as part of future posts.
Look at those total dollar and dollar per employee increases, and in just 11 years too. Many of those years were George Bush’s No Child Left Behind/Compassionate Conservative years.
I’m not against a USDoE per sue, some one has to collect and annualize educational related data at the national level.
That said, how did the country survive? How did my grandparents, my mother and father, my wife and I, most of you or most of them for that matter, ever receive a good education without the help of the US Department of Education, its dedicated civil servants and all that money?
And to think, every state has their own version of this critter.
I’ve been following the progress of East Maine School District #63’s (EMSD#63) Financial Task Force (FTF) from day one.
Purpose of FTF
On his blog, EMSD#63’s Superintendent, Dr. Scott Clay states the purpose as follows:
“The East Maine School District 63 Financial Taskforce has been formed to bring the Board of Education recommendations by early Spring 2011 that can provide financial stability to the District for at least the next six to ten years.”
Six Meetings Held To Date
Based on their published schedule, East Maine School District #63 Financial Task Force meetings were held on: 09/13/2011 – 09/13/2011, 10/04/2010, 10/18/2010,11/01/2010, 11/08/2010, 12/06/2010 and 01/10/2011. Future meetings are scheduled for: 01/31/2011,02/23/2011 and 03/02/2011.
Note: Click on blue highlighted date to review the FTF presentation. Also, some of these EMSD#63 attachments take some time to open.
Financial Task Force Members
Initially, there were21 members of the Financial Task Force. Take a look at the list to see how it’s grown.
Thinking the discrepancy between these two normally reliable sources as being somewhat large decided to FOIA EMSD#63 to get a copy the “official” sign-in sheet.
Curiously, no one can verify who actually attended that meeting as apparently,no sign-in sheet exists.
Why would there be no sign-in sheet for the largest, most important and most attended Financial Task Force meeting held in this series.
Maybe someone who was there can make some sense of this conundrum.
So who are these people anyway? Why would they attend? What’s in it for them? What kind of dog do they have in the hunt?
First, let’s take a look who’s on the list – and who is not.
There are three parts to the report displayed below.
The 1st part shows the reader who is on the list, their title (Board, Administrator, Teacher, Union Activist, etc.), whether they were an initial member of the Financial Task Force. There is a matrix displaying each members attendance, the number times attended and their attendance rate.
The 2nd part is another matrix, one displaying the names of EMSD#63 Board Members who have not taken part in the proceedings.
Why they would choose to sit out this important process is beyond me.
The 3rd part displays attendance totals by title. For the most par, the attendance percentages speak for themselves. However, notice the small percentage of citizen participation.
Board Members are there because it’s their duty and the Board can not afford to have the public perceive Board incompetence or willful neglect.
The real question is: why was the entire Board not fully involved?
Administrators, Teachers and Union Leaders
Administrators, Teachers and Union leaders are there because they have a dog in the hunt. No one wants to see their school activities or department budget slashed or diminished in any way without at least an opportunity to deflect the ax or protect their turf.
Concerned Citizens
Concerned Citizens are there because they actually believe that their participation will “make a difference”. I know, I was one of them in 2003.
Pre-Referendum Kabuki Dance
The Financial Task Force (FTF), as the Budget Reduction Committee (BRC) before it, is highly structured kabuki designed to give the impression that your will, will be done. It’s purpose is to place a stamp of civis veritate (citizen authenticity) on EMSD#63’s future and unpopular budgetary related Board decisions.
That’s why citizens are invited to participate.
EMSD#63 does not dance alone.
Other School Districts, like Former EMSD#63 Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Williams prior employer: Lawrence Kansas School District also has a Task Force.
Here for your consideration are a few other FTF references as found through Google; in no particular order.
Each FTF member is there, in my opinion, because the East Maine School District #63, led by President Jane Wojtkiewicz and former Superintendent Williams and Superintendent Clay, failed to adequately address the fundamental financial problems of the District following the last tax increase referendum of 2004.
The creation of a Financial Task Force or a Budget Reduction Committee as we called it in 2003, is the first step of a multi-step process designed to lead district citizens toward another tax increase referendum. This purely political process is specifically designed to insert citizen input into the budget reduction process, thus allowing the Board and Administration the luxury of blaming future changes or painfulreductions in services, on someone else.
This kabuki dance will not solve the district’s underlying problems as last nights FTF recommendations will illustrate. The process will however, give the Administration and Board cover for what is to come.
The farmer is almost broke, he has had to take on a second job. His wife now works in town at Wal-Mart, his kids are almost shoeless, the bank is about to foreclose and the pigs are complaining that they might loose their say in the quantity and quality of the slop.
On Wisconsin!
Yesterday in Wisconsin, we saw the near-future; Wisconsin citizens protesting at their capital, demanding a halt to uncontrolled public employee spending.
Like so many in the country, taxpayers in Wisconsin are hurting. Good private-sector jobs have been in decline. Good hard working men and women are loosing their homes. Wisconsin’s tax base is shrinking.
Recently retired Superintendent Williams, as you will recall, led EMSD#63 through a 22% tax increase referendum in 2004. It took two tries but the Superintendent/Board won by 1% of the vote.
Unfortunately, for us, it’s 2004 again. Last time the unemployment was low. The Real-estate market was booming. Inflation was under control. That’s not the case today.
Education is a shared responsibility.
For years US Citizens have been told by the teachers, their unions and school leadership and other “experts” that education is a shared responsibility. The “It Takes a Village” approach to allocating responsibility is conveniently used when discussing the industry's poor job performance, but this approach is quickly forgotten when discussing ever-increasing job costs.
Wisconsin is not alone.
Those Wisconsin teachers who went to Madison to protest, have yet to come to grips with reality. They still have jobs – many of them, really good paying jobs.
But what about their neighbors?
We have uncontrolled pension problems too.
We are in this together or we are not!
Should we be upset with good public servants wanting to make as much money as they can? Of course not, that’s what we’re doing. It’s human nature.
What we (Wisconsin & Illinois) taxpayers should be upset about, is public union leadership’s continued lack of empathy, their lack of Village Spirit and their unwillingness to share the burden with us.
Teachers and other public employees tell me that “they are taxpayers too”. Indeed they are. However, they don’t seem to understand that their jobs do not create or expand the pool of money that sustains them! It’s the private sector that does.
Of course, teachers and other public employees are not pigs. But they’re not farmers either. The symbiotic relationship is out of balance.
I suspect, in the end, the ultimate question will be; who will run the farm?
I hope the people in Wisconsin fare better then their neighbors in Illinois.
The English school system, once the envy of the world, is finding it more and more difficult to educate their diverse and growing student population. Like us and like the rest of western society, teaching establishments have come to believe that smaller classes = better educated students.
One of the reasons for publishing this blog is my belief that some school systems, and EMSD#63 specifically, fail to provide their community adequate information and transparency.
Last Spring I was astounded to have Superintendent Clay responding directly to some of my posts. The dialogue lasted only a couple of months and ended when Dr. Clay created his own blog site where he could control his message. Too bad for us he couldn’t take the heat.
So, I guess this is as good a time as any to ask a couple other questions.
The report presented below displays three important trends:
Attendance/Non-attendance rates
District Superintendent salary rates
and Total Expense rates
between 2006 and 2010. Source for these facts are The Illinois State Board of Education (Annual Statement of Affairs Report) and FOIA requested EMSD#63’s Detail Budget Reports.
So, how does Dr. Clay justify the outrageously high absentee rate in light of the extraordinary Superintendent pay increases and District expense history.
Money is the mothers-milk of Public Education. In the near future District #63 parents and residents will be faced with the prospect of forcibly lowering the cost and quality of educating or increasing revenue through a tax increase referendum.
I bet East Maine School District #63’s current Financial Task Force has never seen numbers like these at their meetings!
That said, Dr. Clay’s retort, in my opinion, is no more than an excuse for EMSD#63’s continued lack of academic achievement at each of the other schools.
So let me ask this question?
What about Apollo, Gemini, Mark Twain, Nelson, Stevenson and Washington?
There is one failing school that concerns me the most, Gemini Junior High School; the only Junior High School in the District and the direct feeder school to District 207’s Maine East High School (MEHS). Based on recent discussions with MEHS teachers, too many EMSD#63 graduates still appear to need remedial work upon entry into the 9th grade.
As you can see, long time Gemini School Principal Scott Herrmann has failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) 6 out of of his last 8 years.
Mr. Herrmann is a likeable fellow. That said, he is the same Principal who, based on District#63 FOIA documents, permitted extraordinary grade inflation at Gemini Junior High School in 2006. I wrote about this subject in 2006-2007. See Counterfeit Excellence and Counterfeit Excellence – Update.
My father owned a horseradish factory. From the time I was 10 until I was 18 I spent my summers working in the factory. One summer, when I was a teenager, I asked my dad why we didn’t add turnips to the horseradish so we could turn a bigger profit like some of our competitors. My father provided me a “teaching moment” when he said: “Ken, my customers are buying horseradish and they will get horseradish, nothing less”.
EMSD#63 taxpayers believe they are buying an educated student and they deserve nothing less!
Maybe it’s time Mr. Hermann consider retiring. I’m sure, if he needs extra money, he can always follow Dr. Williams to Wisconsin. Just an idea!
Finally, let me say this one more time!
Based on my experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone does the best they can, all the time, no matter what the endeavor. I believe no one enters into any enterprise with the intention of failure.
If my belief is true, then it will be impossible, with EMSD#63’s current personnel and leadership to succeed.
One can not do better than their best, no matter how much additional tax money they get.
Today’s article clearly shows how clever our former Illinois Superintendents are. Unfortunately, is also shows the opposite for Illinois legislators and school boards.
I was amazed when I read this part of the article:
“Kathleen Williams, 61, said she missed education and wanted to return to work after retiring from East Maine in 2009. After doing some part-time consulting in her old district, she took the fill-time superintendent’s job in Wausau, in north-central Wisconsin. She started there, Nov.1.”
“The big difference for me is that when you’re doing it post-retirement, the stress level is not there, Williams said. You are doing it because you truly want to be there, and you are choosing to give up not working to be able to do what you love.”
I for one believe her. She “truly” wanted the consulting gig, and she “truly” wanted to be there (Wausau). She also wanted to be in Oshkosh as early as February 17, 2010 and in Kohler, Wisconsin on April 21, 2010. She finally succeeded in fulfilling her desire to be there last November in Wausau, Wisconsin.
Now, should I be upset with Dr. Williams for searching for fulfillment to her desires or for making her pitch to those Districts or for getting the job?
Not me!
If a district (other than EMSD#63) wishes to employ her for her services, for whatever reason, for whatever the market will bear, so be it. I’m just glad she’s no longer working here.
A perusal around Dr. Clay’s EMSD#63 Blog-site tells a great deal about the disconnect between some educators and education. Let me show you what I mean.
On January 24th, 2011 Dr. Clay wrote…
“Congratulations Gemini Students
Congratulations goes out to the Gemini Jazz Band and the Jazz Combo for two excellent performance at the North Shore Jazz Festival. All of the judges and clinicians were amazed with how well they performed for a junior high band. Not only did the jazz band earn a first division superior rating from all three judges, but with a nearly perfect score, they also won second place overall out of the nearly 20 junior high school performing groups. An additional congratulations goes out to Kevin Alba who was one of only 5 junior high students to earn recognition as an outstanding soloist.”
On January 14th, 2011 Dr. Clay wrote…
“Congratulations District 63 Schools!
Six of our schools have been recognized by the Illinois Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Network for reaching one of five levels of implementation during the 2009-2010 school year (start-up, emerging, implementing, fully implemented, exemplar).
Emerging
Nelson
Melzer
Washington
Implementing
Stevenson
Apollo
Twain
A big thank you to all staff members for making PBIS work in our district. Special thanks to Lori Naumowicz (our external coach), all of the internal coaches, and the principals for leading the way in this endeavor.”
On November 15th, 2010 Dr. Clay wrote…
“School Board Member Day: November 15, 2010
School board members are ordinary people who wear many different hats in their everyday lives. They might be farmers or bankers, homemakers or doctors, truck drivers or professors, business owners or retirees. But they all put on the same hat when they get to the board room. It’s a hat that represents an extraordinary dedication to our public schools and it’s time we thanked them for their untiring efforts.
The time school board members spend in board meetings represents just a fraction of the actual hours that they devote to leading the district. They attend meetings and seminars to learn how to be better board members. They attend extracurricular events to support our schools. And often they are involved in other community activities, representing themselves, our community, and our district.
School board members are charged with a unique job. They must listen to the voices of their community and then craft a vision, mission, and goals for the district that accurately reflect those voices in the design. They must guard two of the community’s most precious resources – our children and our tax dollars – while they create the best educational environment possible with the money available.
Too often school board members are criticized without people having a full understanding of all the details that went into their decisions. As result, the efforts of school board members often go unrecognized and unrewarded.
November 15, 2010, has been designated as School Board Member Day in Illinois. This is a time to show appreciation and to begin to better understand how school board members work together to provide leadership for schools. Join with others from throughout Illinois in a “tip of the hat” to the men and women who provide the grassroots governance of public schools.
Thank you Jane, John, Steve, Janet, Walter, Tom and Sheila for all you do for the children of East Maine School District 63!”
On November 9th, 2010 Dr. Clay wrote…
“American Education Week
At the November 3rd meeting of the Board of Education, the following resolution was passed in honor of American Education Week, November 14-20, 2010.
BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Education of East Maine School District 63,
WHEREAS, public schools are the backbone of our democracy, providing young people with the tools they need to maintain our nation’s precious values of freedom, civility, and equality; and
WHEREAS, by equipping young Americans with both practical skills and broader intellectual abilities, schools give them hope for, and access to, a productive future; and
WHEREAS, education employees – be they custodians or teachers, bus drivers or librarians – work tirelessly to serve our children and communities with care and professionalism; and
WHEREAS, in recognition of their contributions to education, November 17 has been identified as National Education Support Professionals Day and November 19 as Substitute Educators Day; and
WHEREAS, schools are community linchpins, bringing together adults and children, educators and volunteers, business leaders and elected officials in a common enterprise, and
WHEREAS, the Board of Education supports this year’s American Education Week theme of “Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility”
NOW, THEREFORE, the Board of Education serving the East Maine School Community does hereby proclaim observation of American Education Week, November 14-20, 2010, and urges all educators and citizens to observe this week with appropriate activities to further renew their commitment to the education of every child.”
On October 21st, 2010 Dr. Clay wrote…
“Principal Appreciation Day!
October 22nd is Principal Appreciation Day! Below is a resolution adopted by the school board in honor of these hard working people in our district. There are only 10 principals and assistant principals in District 63, but the effect they have on our students, staff, and families is immeasurable.
Principal Appreciation Day
Resolution
WHEREAS, principals make public schools great; and
WHEREAS, principals work to open students’ minds to ideas, knowledge and dreams, and
WHEREAS, principals keep American democracy alive by laying the foundation for good citizenship; and
WHEREAS, principals fill many roles, as listeners, explorers, role models, motivators and mentors; and
WHEREAS, principals continue to influence us long after our school days are only memories;
NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved that October 22, 2010 is hereby recognized as Principal Appreciation Day, and that this state-endorsed occasion honors the work and commitment of principals and assistant principals in school throughout Illinois and acknowledges the leadership provided by these administrators.”
Should taxpayers and parents also join in the fun?
Dr. Clay’s posts serve no purpose other than inflate success-starved egos. So now the Board can feel better about itself. Same with the principals, teachers and support personnel. Too bad, at least when it comes to academic achievement, Dr. Clay isn’t able to do the same “for the children”.
Finally
Based on my experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone does the best they can, all the time, no matter what the endeavor. I believe no one enters into any enterprise with the intention of failure.
If my belief is true, then it will be impossible, with EMSD#63’s current personnel and leadership to succeed.
One can not do better than their best, no matter how much additional tax money they get.
