We’re always looking to see how our two local school districts are doing in comparison to the schools in other comparable upper-level communities. 

That’s because we believe that top-shelf schools at a reasonable price can be a difference-maker for folks considering moving to not-inexpensive suburbs like Park Ridge. And even at a high price, top-shelf schools can still add enough value to be a difference-maker. 

Which should mean better education for the kids and higher property values for the taxpayers. 

But as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, although Park Ridge public schools are better than most they no longer appear to rank among the very best – judging by the annual ISAT-based rankings that both Chicago newspapers (and sometimes Chicago magazine) put out – despite Park Ridge taxpayers continuing to pay top-shelf prices for those schools.

Over-payment for under-performance is never a good strategy.

So a recent Park Ridge Journal article with the title “District 64 Prepares For Strategic Planning” (09.11.14) caught our eye. It talked about how Park Ridge-Niles School Dist. 64, with one year still left on former Supt. Sally Pryor’s five year strategic plan, is looking to hire a consultant to assess where the District’s current situation. And new D-64 superintendent Laurie Heinz wants that assessment to be “a nice, objective look from highly trained professionals.”

Heinz’s consultant of choice? The Consortium for Educational Change (“CEC”).

Note the key words in the name: “educational change.” Not “educational excellence.” Not “educational achievement.” Not “educational improvement.” Not even “educational hope and change.”

Just “educational change.”

That’s because “change” is no longer merely inevitable: it’s now actually considered good. “New” – as in “different” – has replaced “new and improved,” presumably because novelty is all we need. The tiny-brained folks, encouraged by marketers, advertisers and politicians, now embrace anything new or different so long as it doesn’t require them to do the heavy lifting of determining whether that new or different is actually better.

And if better, whether the benefits meet or exceed the costs.

Then again, cost-benefit analyses are not the forte of most public school teachers and administrators. That holds true at D-64, including its School Board members who should be focused on the bottom line both educationally and financially. It comes as no shock, then, that the D-64 Board apparently has endorsed Heinz’s choice of CEC.

What is CEC?

According to the “About” page of its website, CEC claims to be:

“[A] nonprofit organization affiliated with the Illinois Education Association that works with teachers, school and district administrators, school boards and unions to improve student learning and achievement.”

In other words, it’s a teachers union-dominated private corporation with the audacity to claim that its goal is…wait for it…educational achievement.  Even if, by all outward appearances, “change” seems to be its greater concern.

And since it’s a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, there are no pesky shareholders looking over CEC management’s shoulders making sure the services it provides are competent and valuable enough to generate profits that can be paid to those shareholders as dividends. That leaves CEC free to be a one-trick pony: a shameless cheerleader for unaccountable educators and administrators who hire it – presumably using taxpayer funds – to tell them what they want to hear.

What the D-64 Board, teachers and administrators DON’T want to hear is anything about ISAT-based performance rankings. Which is why a more-than-cursory Google search failed to disclose any public acknowledgement of those kinds of rankings by the D-64 Board or administration since Sally Pryor pushed the adoption of her “Journey of Excellence” plan four years earlier, before retiring with her guaranteed $183,400/year pension, avec COLAs.

Which is curious, given that one of the “Parameters” on page 2 of the “Strategic Plan Components” from the D-64 website states: “Student performance on the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests (ISATs) will always compare favorably with other high-achieving districts.”

Although edu-speak often is a totally foreign language, in common English the term “compare favorably with” customarily means “is better than.”

Does D-64 really need to hire a consultant like CEC to tell it how close it hasn’t come to meeting that particular performance “parameter”?

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