Park Ridge/Niles Elementary School District 64 is the single biggest recipient of our property tax dollars. Nevertheless, it usually succeeds in keeping a low profile and avoiding serious scrutiny, which helps explain how it could spend itself to the brink of financial crisis from 1998 through 2006 without much notice or criticism – until it came time to panic-peddle last year’s tax rate referendum.
The District’s finances were so mismanaged after five straight years of deficit spending that in 2005 the Dist. 64 Board had to sneak $5 million in non-referendum “working cash bonds” past the taxpayers in order to begin restoring its decimated fund balances and avert a possible takeover of its finances by the State Board of Education after several years of appearing on the State Board’s “early warning” or “watch” list.
But from what we’ve seen those folks inhabiting the ESC at 164 South Prospect, now flush with referendum cash that has helped our property taxes soar, haven’t really changed their tax, borrow and spend ways.
That the Dist. 64 School Board and Administration can’t seem to manage its finances (even with the help of its 34-member “Community Finance Committee” formed in 2004, and apparently still headed by the triumvirate of Craig Elderkin, Phil Eichman and Diana Stapleton), however, is even more troubling in light of the District’s rather lackluster educational achievement.
The Chicago Sun-Times, in today’s edition, ranks Illinois elementary and high school districts based on average scores on 2008 state reading and math tests, using “a well-known statistical method called standardizing to analyze the ‘scale scores’ of public school third- through eighth-graders who took the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests and high school juniors who took the Prairie State Achievement Exam this past spring.”
Based on those rankings, it doesn’t look good for the home team.
Not one District 64 school cracked the Top 50 in either the elementary school [pdf] or middle school [pdf] categories, losing out to schools from Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Chicago, Barrington, Evanston, Glenview, Highland Park, Hinsdale, Northbrook, River Forest and Wilmette, to name just a few of those districts to whom we sometimes compare ourselves but who spend more per pupil (from River Forest’s $11,156 to Glenview’s $14,858) than the $10,755 average reported for District 64.
We also lost out, however, to districts who spend less than us, like St. Charles ($10,385), Palatine ($10,108), Downers Grove ($10,611), Wheaton ($10,746) and bargain-basement Western Springs ($8,172).
What gives?
According to the story about test scores published in yesterday’s Herald-Advocate (“District 64 scores high in reading, math,” Oct. 30), we’re fine…just ask us. But of course, there was no mention in that article about exactly how our kids’ performance compares to those other school districts, even though the Herald-Advocate is part of the Sun-Times News Group and presumably had access to its parent paper’s analysis.
We can hear the District’s spin doctors already, pooh pooh-ing standardized testing and explaining how they don’t stoop to “teaching to the tests” but, instead, focus on more meaningful measures of performance and achievement.
Maybe they do. And the fact that Maine South tied with Vernon Hills H.S. for 15th on the Sun-Times’ list of Illinois high schools [pdf] might even support District 64’s explanation, although we’ve also heard the argument that Maine South’s performance benefits from the kids the parochial elementary schools feed into it.
But when Park Ridge property values depend on our ability to compete with these other communities on a variety of bases, of which quality schools is one of the most important, our continually increasing taxes combined with Dist. 64’s modest performance jeopardizes not only our investments in our homes but also, ultimately, the quality of life in our community.
So what say you, Supt. Sally Pryor and Board members John Heyde, Marty Joyce, Ron James, Chris Mollet, Sue Runyon, Ted Smart and Genie Taddeo?