Interesting news out of District 89. Seems that the district conducted a phone survey to see if the community would support a referendum for an ed fund increase. The survey also asked about a bond ref for building improvements.

The survey indicated that the community would not support the ed fund increase. So the board took it off of the table. What an amazing concept -- asking the community for their opinion and then actually listening to it. I wonder if District 41's superintendent (who lives in 89) was polled.

The bond ref would be for building improvements, like air conditioning. Amazingly, the district north of Roosevelt accomplished those improvements without a bond ref. Oh that's right, we had the 2001 ref -- the one that kept us giving and giving and...

The story on District 89 can be found here.

I wish that the district would do a little better PR on the all day kindergarten though. In all of their notices and info printed by newspapers, I have only once seen the info on the cost of creating and maintaining this situation, which was in the $300K ballpark. Secondly, they should be making it perfectly clear, which IMO they are not, half day kindergarten will still exist, they a required to continue to offer half day kindergarten.

If these two bits of information were put out there, I think that there would be a lot more people voting for it.

Keep us posted on what becomes of the all day kindergarten discussions. I have a feeling that will likely impact D41. Afterall, can you imagine District 89 offering a program and District 41 not?

I remember sitting at a ref forum in D41. When it appeared that some of the reasons to vote for the ref were falling on deaf ears, the super all of a sudden pulls all day kindergarten out of her hat. Even some of the supporters seemed to react negatively to that. Here we are being told we have a space crunch, and she turns around and tells us we may be adding a non-mandated program that will demand more space. Kind of surreal.

Anyway, at least your board is listening to you SoT and appears to being doing the job you elected them to do -- be a voice for the people.

quote:

Originally posted by ohma:
I remember sitting at a ref forum in D41. When it appeared that some of the reasons to vote for the ref were falling on deaf ears, the super all of a sudden pulls all day kindergarten out of her hat. Even some of the supporters seemed to react negatively to that. Here we are being told we have a space crunch, and she turns around and tells us we may be adding a non-mandated program that will demand more space. Kind of surreal.

That was a comic moment that will live in infamy.

quote:

Originally posted by Gus:
All Day Kindergarten

Translation: Taxpayer Subsidized Day Care

Ya think? And just how do you support that statement? Of course someone who says that would not be someone of the same ilk that decries the state of our public education as compared to other countries, especially considering many of the countries that outperform us do in fact have subsidized daycare AND full day early elementary programs.

What ever happened to keeping children as children. I would not want a five year old in all day kindergarten. They can learn so much more at home than they can learn at school. A five year old should not be concerned about reading and writing. Their concern should be socialization and playing. I have two children who did not go to public schools until 2nd & 3rd grade. At the other school they attended, reading was not stressed until 3rd grade. They are both currently in the "advanced" program in d41. Would they have benifited from all day kindergarten? No chance.
They would have missed out on afternoons sitting around doing nothing but watching the grass grow with their mom, playing with friends, coloring, painting and creating chalk drawings on sidewalks. That to me is far more valuable than having them sit in a class for 7-8 hours a day. Who does that help? Maybe some working parents and a few special needs children. Certainly not the average child.

quote:

Originally posted by Gus:
Funny, I've traveled the world and canvassed several contacts that I have in South America, Asia, and Europe, and they are unaware of the programs that you have mentioned. Sure, Sweden and socialist leaning countries do have programs such as you stated but they do not have the complexities that face the average US citizen and this country as a whole with the sheer numbers of people on welfare, Social Security, etc, not to mention the defense budget that protects the rest of the world.

I don't really know what the populace is willing to pay for because I don't believe that the idea of all day kindergarten has been presented in factual, non-biased terms to the populace. Even in your own post you talk about the costs to other budgets and strain on the system and the post below you talks about the rose colored world of childhood with a perfect stay at home mom. Both arguments blur any data that may have been collected on what is best for educating our children as a whole so that they have the advantages that the countries that are "beating" us academically do. We want the best we just don't want to have to pay for it, either with our tax-money or by having to re justify our own existence in the family dynamic by sending the children to school earlier.

Countries in Europe are unaware of subsidized daycare programs? Funny I always thought that Spain, France, and the UK were part of Europe, as well as the northern regions that you have mentioned. Perhaps this reason doesn't region doesn't have the "sheer complexities" is because it provides the basic needs for it's citizenry that decrease the need for welfare, Social Security, a bloated penal system, etc..

And to whip out the "what about the children" hysteria who really cares if we are protecting the rest of the world, in a broader sense, if we are not protecting and educating our youth in order to be able to keep the job going when we are gone.

As to the YMCA, good for them for trying. At one point, when the government said women had to work to do their patriotic duty, the country offered federal subsidized daycare. Overall the quality was so high, the children and mothers were so happy with it that it had to be closed down in order to get women back out of the workforce. It can and has been done and done well. I’m not saying it’s the only answer, just saying it’s a farce to pretend that it would fail and break us economically right out of the box because it has been tested successfully in the past.

And I never said that. I said that full day kindergarten is not subsidized daycare. I said that other places in the world that do more than just nod at it's academic policies do offer both quality subsidized daycare programs and full day kindergarten programs and these countries tend to outperform us academically. To me, it seems that that calls for some unbiased looks at what that means academically to the future of education in this country, including the question of whether it is financially worth it.

I have personally experienced both - full day and half day kindergarten with my children. It wasn't daycare. It was kindergarten at a public school with an education curriculum. She benefitted from it. Honestly, she loved it. She would have benefited from 1/2 day as well. My other children benefitted from 1/2 day. Did she need to learn to read and write at 5? I don't know she was doing that well before she entered KG. But I think then we get into arbitrary numbers. My 6 year old son was a very young 6 year old boy and by the post on letting children stay children, why not have half day 1, 2, 3 grades. Surely they can't be ready until later elementary to be separated from their mothers all day, if they aren't ready at five? What difference does 6 months make?

The argument is not about full day making the child gifted. It's about the people who rail against the fact that our educational standings are so low compared to the rest of the industrial world and then when alternatives that are similar to those programs are proposed they are automatically shot down as being impossible, impractical, a way for mom's to foist off their children, and expensive.

Thanks for the welcome.

Interesting info about the polling company chosen by District 89.

"Fako has become one of the most often-used and most trusted Democratic pollsters based in Illinois." – Daily Southtown, January 23, 2006

It looks like Fako was also responsible for helping elect the board candidates in Naperville District 203 that were endorsed by the Naperville teachers union.

http://district203.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html