107 Comments - @misterjayem - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:44 am: “You can’t have 140 kids in a high school and think that you’re going to have a good result and have the resources to provide for them.” The high school from which I graduated had 48 students. Nevertheless, I learned all of the letters and many of the numbers. – MrJM - Norseman - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:45 am: Rep. Goldilocks has identified too big and too small, where is it just right? Does Ives want to propose state imposed consolidation? Voluntary consolidation is a tough to accomplish. - Siriusly - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:46 am: She’s right. How many bills has she introduced on this issue? I don’t really like her - but she is right on this one. When GOP leaders talk about the state being broken - they have to follow through and include the fragmented over-built school system. It can’t just be about pensions and state government (which is actually too small now IMO). - ImNotTaylorSwift - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:47 am: What’s too big about U46? They did a fine job of teaching me. They also did a fine job of combining higher wealth areas of Bartlett with lower wealth areas of Elgin and Hanover Park to help level that playing field. Besides, why would a Republican candidate for governor care? I thought Republicans were all about local control. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:48 am: In no way do I dismiss or think Ives is wrong… ===“At the same time, you cannot have ‘zombie schools.’ You can’t have 140 kids in a high school and think that you’re going to have a good result and have the resources to provide for them.”=== … but running for Governor where central and downstate Illinois have more of these zombie school districts and they hear it as possibly closing their towns high school or grade school is a tough way to connect to voters seeing that as an assault on their town and town’s identity. It’s gutsy to say, I totally understand and get her points, but… good luck as a campaign plank. Same reason Rauner wants state universities starved towards closure… but won’t say as a campaign point closing universities purposely is a goal … for fiscal reasons. - City Zen - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:48 am: ==The high school from which I graduated had 48 students.== We’re there 107,000 high school students in the school district? - Demoralized - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:49 am: I graduated from a high school with 200 kids and I felt that I was well prepared for college. So, I reject the notion that the size of the school has anything to do with results. - Piece of Work - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:49 am: 48 kids in a high school? How is that possible to operate? Perfect example of why consolidation is needed. - IMissBentohs - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:50 am: Putting aside that 140 number is too large, she has a point. I would also add that having high schools with graduating classes of many thousands is not good for safety, learning, individual opportunity, etc. - City Zen - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:52 am: There is one fatal flaw in school district consolidation: The consolidated district typically inherits the most expensive salary schedule of those consolidated. - Phenomynous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:52 am: That’s a winning message downstate. Jeanne continues to prove that her Wheaton values are a one-sized fits all policy that is good for the state. - In 630 - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:53 am: Wait, wouldn’t the Glenbard district, if it absorbed all its feeders, be nearly as large as U-46? Or if 211 or 214 absorbed their feeders? - Demoralized - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:53 am: ==There is one fatal flaw in school district consolidation== Just one? Locals won’t be too keen on the state telling them what their schools should look like. She’s advocating taking away local control. See how well that goes over - Out Here In The Middle - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:54 am: Graduating class of 33 students. Are there places where school consolidation is needed? Certainly, but anyone looking to mandate a minimum school size in the truly rural areas of Illinois needs to first consider how long a 6 year old should be on a school bus each day. - Cool Papa Bell - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:55 am: Right on, now send a proposal to fix it. Downstate and rural schools are chronically underfunded and work with too small of a tax base to have a way out. I won’t name schools but know of many that use 20 year old text books to teach with. An educator friend of mine who works at a JUCO notes that many of those rural students are so unprepared educationally and socially that even valedictorians would be eaten alive if they went to a major state school like the U of I. - cdog - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:56 am: She is right. It’s common sense. May need to be repackaged with a concept other than “consolidation” and rolled out with a tax swap. Maybe call it “Property Tax Levy Consolidations, Unrelated to School Mascots/Teams Act.” A spoonful of sugar helps that medicine go down. /s - Demoralized - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:58 am: ==She is right. It’s common sense.== Only if you ignore the realities of rural downstate schools. - Robert the Bruce - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:58 am: Splitting up CPS is an interesting idea. But the underlying challenges of the kids CPS serves won’t change, and somebody has to pay the pensions. - Midstate Indy - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 11:58 am: 38 kids in my graduating class - only 6 and a half were zombies. Truth to the idea that small schools could be benefited by consolidation, but economies of scale only work for non-classroom labor savings. You’ll increase spending in transportation and possibly marginally in administration, may find better utilization for classroom educators, but 25 kids in a room is still going to be 25 kids in a room. Short takeaway - you can’t court the rural downstate voting bloc by calling their kids zombies. - Seymourkid - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:00 pm: She is right about unit districts. Most downstate schools are in unit districts. Two taxing school districts(elementary and high school) are generally on the suburbs. - @misterjayem - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:03 pm: “48 kids in a high school? How is that possible to operate? Perfect example of why consolidation is needed.” Mere ignorance of how a thing is possible is not evidence that the thing is impossible. – MrJM - Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:03 pm: ==anyone looking to mandate a minimum school size in the truly rural areas of Illinois needs to first consider how long a 6 year old should be on a school bus each day== Transportation is a big barrier to consolidating rural districts. As the rural areas depopulate, you will need to get larger and larger areas to meet whatever the golden minimum might be. On the other hand, an elementary school in a rural district might have less than 15 children in a classroom. The personalized attention helps many of these kids thrive. A good model might be one that keeps small K-5 (or K-8) in the small towns and brings the HS kids to larger, central schools. I would love to know what Ives’ golden size range is and the research basis for that model. I would also love to know how she plans to provided these schools with adequate funding. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:06 pm: ===48 kids in a high school? How is that possible to operate?=== A high school I attended (Hanover) had about that many. It worked for them. But they’ve since consolidated with neighboring towns because it got even smaller. - Sue - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:07 pm: Just think how many school administrators Ives plan would eliminate. Why in God’s name do single or two high school districts need a superintendent assistant superintendents and then multiple principals and their assistants? - thoughts matter - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:10 pm: Generally, it’s a good thought. However, my school district has approximately 600 students total… and covers a 10 mile by 10 mile area of country roads. 3 towns are combined already in a 90 degree angle, with the school complex in the town at the intersection. Consolidation would result in a lot more of country road driving by school bus drivers and also teenage drivers. The surrounding school districts are also small districts covering a lot of country roads. It might be possible to combine administrative functions but leave the schools themselves operating. We already co-op sports. It might be possible to offer some extra classes online with other school districts. - ste_with_a_v_en - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:11 pm: “unlike Governor Rauner, I’m not going to have a social agenda”. Minutes later, “I would immediately sign a repeal of HB 40.” Does she even realize she is contradicting herself? - Been There - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:14 pm: I hate to say it but I pretty much agree with her. Except I’m not so worried about smaller schools. I think they can still thrive. But there is no sense having a separate school district for that school. Consolidating districts doesn’t have to mean consolidating schools. - JB13 - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:14 pm: Good luck with determining the optimal size of a school district. But I think we can have a real conversation over optimal size of administration to oversee a district. For instance: If a high school district and three elementary school districts each have a superintendent earning more than $100K, we have identified an easy way to save some real money, both now and even more, over time, yes? - Baloneymous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:15 pm: Does Ives realize that with her theory some southern counties could be just one school district for the entire county, maybe even two counties. Gonna bus kids 20-30-40 miles each way to school just cause consolidation is your goal? I believe in some consolidation sure, but she needs to define what her idea of small v large really means. - Sigh - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:17 pm: How much does it cost for schools to consolidate? - Responsa - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:18 pm: While there, my high school with an excellent academic reputation and music department had about 250 students. It subsequently consolidated over several years with other nearby-ish school districts that had similar or smaller enrollments. People fought it tooth and nail. Didn’t want to lose their “identity” and didn’t want their kids to spend so much time on buses to get to and from school and events. A couple decades now gone past the “new” school has created a strong new identity and nearly everyone realizes that the high quality of teachers and personal attention has stayed the same –the sports teams have a wider population and fan base from which to be competitive– while the breadth and variety of curriculum that can be offered (particularly in languages and science) has increased. The costs of keeping and maintaining separate physical plants and administrators for very small enrollment schools are no longer viable whether they are in the city, suburbs, or downstate. No matter whether Ives perseveres in this race or drops out, her points are sound and deserve fair consideration. - jwI - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:18 pm: how about 102 school district leave the students where they now go to school move teachers not students in some areas of the state students would live 30 or more miles from the school if consolidated - Jack - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:19 pm: City Zen is right - the reunified school district usually adopts the higher salary schedule. Maybe that’s not a big deal when consolidating two small unit district. But to move elementary districts to a high school district salary schedule would be really expensive. Also, the problem with turning dual districts into units is that there’s not perfect overlap. Some elementaries feed into multiple high school districts. It is more complicated than implied. I used to be pro-consolidation and then after a bunch of research, came around to believing it will be expensive to do it and won’t have the intended impact as a top-down directive. - chi - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:20 pm: Ives is for for local control, just not too local. - Pundent - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:21 pm: I think this is a debate that’s worth having. But I would caution anyone from suggesting that there’s a “common sense” solution to a problem that has some complexity. There is no right or wrong size to a district of school and suggesting so is what dooms the discussion from taking place. - cdog - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:24 pm: Administrative/executive consolidation is a separate exercise from physical plant consolidation. - Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:25 pm: Life would be so much easier if everyone just moved to Wheaton. - anon2 - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:26 pm: No more elementary districts? I’d like to see the reaction from Rosemont about losing its one-school elementary district. - Jocko - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:28 pm: I see her point regarding administrative bloat, but this is just a backdoor attempt to sabotage teacher pay…while simultaneously hitting property values in Lake, Cook, and DuPage. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:28 pm: Okay Jeanne, come downstate and look us in the face and tell us, “Even though your school district’s budget is in great shape, I’m shipping your kids 20 miles away for school.” Do it, we’ll love ya. I swear. - Disgusted Downstate - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:32 pm: The guaranteed way to lose the rural downstate vote: have a candidate from Chicago come tell us we need to consolidate to reach some magic number of students. Yes, I know where Wheaton is, but to most people down here, where even the smallest school districts are hundreds of square miles, it’s simply part of Chicago. - City Zen - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:32 pm: ==Splitting up CPS is an interesting idea.== I wonder how they would handle magnet schools. But it would be interesting in that Lakeview’s schools would be treated like Winnetka and receive virtually zero state funding for education and be entirely reliant on property taxes. Unless they treated CPS sub-districts like the voting districts. The end result would be lots of earmuffs. - A guy - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:33 pm: It absolutely makes a lot of sense in her area. There are way too many school districts and thus a ton of administrative bloat in those areas. Wheaton and Elmhurst do have consolidated school districts, and in each, they’ve got pretty wonderful school experiences. Dealing with a singular district K-12 would be something people in this area would appreciate. As previously mentioned, it’s a lot different in downstate and rural districts where geography is challenging. In DuPage, high schools are within a few miles of one another. I can’t wait to get pounded for this, but in places where there are 48 people in an entire high school?? Wow. Give them a voucher to go to a closer school of whatever qualifying religion or philosophy. She’s not completely off on this at all. - Out Here In The Middle - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:33 pm: Everyone always cites the huge savings in administrative salaries. My experience with rural schools is that when you combine two small districts that each have a superintendent you have created a larger district which “suddenly” requires an assistant superintendent. Administrative positions only seem to disappear if someone was ready to retire. - Norseman - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:34 pm: === That’s a winning message downstate. === Really? Let her run with the idea of forced consolidation and see if it’s a winning message. - hisgirlfriday - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:38 pm: Closing a small town school amounts to shutting dowm a community’s civic pride and economic lifeblood, and depresses that small town’s property values. It should be done on a case-by-case basis with more sensitivity than Ives is showing here. As for rural schools not being possible to prepare anyone for big bad U of I, I went to a sub-200 student h.s. and graduated a James Scholar. My brothers, who were valedictorians of their classes, went to U of I before becoming an engineer and pharmacist. The valedictorian of my class has degrees from Univ. of Chicago and Northwestern. Maybe if that Juco educator went to my high school instead of the one he/she did he/she wouldn’t be teaching at Juco. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:38 pm: ===She’s not completely off on this at all.=== She’s totally off on this one. She is running for Governor of Illinois, not Governor of Wheaton. Until she understands the challenges and benefits of rural school districts, she should pretty much shut the front door. - Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:39 pm: This message is going to appeal to a lot of tax haters who lost local school board elections. - Retired - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:40 pm: There are economies of scale. Rich Miller’s Hanover is a great example. The residents figured it out that they were too small to provide all the programs students need today. I taught in a district that when it consolidated with a neighboring district there were 53 students in the high school. They figured it out, too. There are also district too large. They should be broken up into smaller units. What that number is would cause a war. I also agree with Ives that there should only be unit districts. Local buildings may still be used. And then there is the problem of transportation. When is a district too large geographically? This is a very complex issue and I wish those who try too solve it well, but I’m not very optimistic - Sigh - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:41 pm: Found the answer to my own question and thought I would share. The 2012 Classrooms First Commission final report: “Then came the sticker shock: we found that merging separate elementary and high school districts into “unit” or P-12 districts – reducing 868 districts to a maximum of 300 – would cost the state at least $3 billion under current law. That price tag is more than half the state’s annual education budget and stems primarily from salary equalization incentives set up more than a decade ago. More than 150 districts have taken advantage of those incentives to date, and another 40 are weighing reorganization now.” https://www.illinois.gov/ltg/issues/localgovernments/Documents/Classrooms-First-Commission-FINAL-REPORT-06-29-12.pdf - Chicago Guy - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:49 pm: There are both advantages and disadvantages to small schools. The reality is you cannot consolidate a large number of small districts because the students will end up spending too much time traveling to and from school. Plus there are costs to building the new larger schools. I would rather have the SBE identify the disadvantages of smaller high schools and create solutions to address those issues. - DIrty Red - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:52 pm: = You can’t have 140 kids in a high school and think that you’re going to have a good result and have the resources to provide for them.” = I agree completely. The biggest logistical obstacle to overcome in this kind of consolidation effort is transportation. Some of the better units in this state can’t figure out how to get their students to the building in an effective manner. - Pritzker Plumbers Inc. - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:53 pm: What happened to local control? - A guy - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 12:53 pm: Consolidation should be a focus north of I 80. Few people in the collars would argue with the notion there are too many school districts here. Dividing Chicago by 3 N,S,and W would make some sense too. - Seriously? - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:01 pm: Mark it down. My prediction is we will have a Gov. Ives. 1. Rauner is hated by the right wing and they are notorious for nominating the most conservative candidate. 2. Dems will nominate Pritzker and Ives gets to play the woman card in a year of the woman against the Dem version of Rauner and play all these ads showing JB, Rod, and Mike together. just watch how fast she distances from trump on March 21st. - Fixer - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:03 pm: I have three kids in a rural school district. Our oldest drives 15 minutes to reach the high school, our middle rides a bus 30-40 minutes to reach the junior high, and our youngest luckily attends kindergarten in our town. However, as of reach second grade she’s looking at a 20-30 minute ride on the bus twice a day. Consolidation is a fantastic idea, in theory, but in practical terms as many have pointed out already, it can be tough on the towns, the staff, and most importantly the students. - Michael Westen - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:04 pm: She just lost the votes of every small town in Illinois. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:07 pm: ===She just lost the votes of every small town in Illinois.=== One, this will get absolutely no play in the media. Two, Rauner basically had the same plan and nobody cared. Three, you are operating under the mistaken belief that more than 2% of the Republican primary voters will research any of this. - DuPage Saint - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:08 pm: Certainly making schools a unit district makes sense. Elementary and high schools should be in same district. As to consolidating different high schools into same district probably should be looked at. Actually I thought the state goal was unit districts. Tried that once in DuPage elementary with high schools. Boy the powers that be came out against it in a hurry, including regional board of ed. - Amalia - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:09 pm: she’s making some sense here. Chicago is large, but has one school district. it’s confusing out there with all the districts. - Arsenal - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:14 pm: ==Just think how many school administrators Ives plan would eliminate.== Oh, cool, so it’s a Lose Jobs plan. - Arsenal - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:16 pm: ==Dems will nominate Pritzker and Ives gets to play the woman card== At which point Stratton comes in and says, “Oh, honey.” ==play all these ads showing JB, Rod, and Mike together== Who pays for those ads, and why isn’t your Fantasy Pritzker responding with ads of his own? - Downstate Illinois - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:21 pm: The woman speaks truth. Jefferson County (Mt. Vernon) with 34, 45 thousand population had 17 school districts up until some consolidations a few years ago. Now they’re down to just 13 or 14. That includes four different high schools with three of them having less than 500 students all combined. Franklin County to the south (Benton, West Frankfort) has 38 to 40 thousand residents but a total of six high schools. Up until a few years ago you could have the thankless job of serving two different school boards at the same time before the Thompsonville grade and high school districts merged. Now if Ives will just go after township governments she’ll prove she understands where some of the biggest wastes in Illinois are located. - Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:25 pm: Look, Rauner’s policy is to starve the beast. Ives prefers to shoot it in the face. - Anon - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:30 pm: I’m not from Illinois and don’t have kids. Y’all have different school districts for elementary schools and high schools in the same geographic area? Yikes. - Lester Holt’s Mustache - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:31 pm: ===She is right. It’s common sense.=== Only a suburbanite would think this is a good idea of downstate school policy. Living in your townships jammed one right next to the other, you probably think this is a great idea. What you don’t realize is that for many districts, every penny saved by consolidation is going to be spent on gas for school busses to transport kids from miles away. I also don’t think parents are going to be real enthusiastic about their kids having to ride the bus for an hour or more each way. For all the screaming suburbanite conservatives do about Chicago liberals dictating to them, I thought maybe it wouldn’t be too much to hope for that suburbanites would see their hypocrisy here. But sure, go ahead and tell downstate how they should run their local school districts. After all, y’all know better than they do - right? - Al Grosboll - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:32 pm: School consolidation is like quick sand. Many newcomers to state government believe they can easily solve the problem, and there is nothing easy about this topic. It is actually two distinct issues: A)Consolidating small schools into bigger districts and B)Forcing elementary and high school districts to become unit districts. It is not really about saving money. Cost savings are seriously overrated. Minimal savings are realized; the real benefit is the ability of larger districts to offer more robust curricula. Most elementary districts and high school districts have a supt. but that person is actually serving in the capacity of a principal. So, it is not quite true that by consolidating into unit districts we save money due to having fewer superintendents. The building stills needs a manager, whether the person is called a supt. or a principal. Don’t get me wrong; there are benefits but cost cutting is overstated. The big challenge is that state mandated consolidation is inherently undemocratic and anti-local control. Schools stay small because local voters and taxpayers make that choice. I disagree with some of those choices but it is democracy at work. One more point about money: In the past, state politicians have argued that consolidation would save money. As already noted that may be somewhat true but (and this is the critical point) IT DOES NOT SAVE A DIME OF STATE MONEY. Any savings would accrue to the local property taxpayers. Years ago, the Quinn Admin. stated that consolidation would save the state $100 million; when challenged, however, no one could show how it would save state government money. The costs of having too many districts is not borne by the state; it is the price local property taxpayers bear when they vote to stay small or to not become part of a unit district. Ultimately, every state effort to consolidate local school districts ends the same way. A fancy report is written highlighting benefits of consolidation and then it concludes by recommending the state offer incentives to locals to consolidate. Incentives do work but unfortunately the state fails never follows through to increase consolidation incentives and then underfunds the existing meager incentives. Consolidation is an important topic and deserves attention; however, I believe the focus should be on improving educational opportunity not saving money and the state should get serious about incentives and back up its proclamations with real money. Otherwise, we will have to listen to overheated and usually erroneous arguments about consolidation and make no progress. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:37 pm: ===Now if Ives will just go after township governments she’ll prove she understands where some of the biggest wastes in Illinois are located.=== I would argue that township governments do the most with the least, are easily held accountable to their constituents, and provide far and away better service than the county. But I’m not in your neck of the woods. What is so bad about your local townships? - Texas Red - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:43 pm: =sigh= I love the rational from the report that Shelia Simon authored. So basically salary equity structures that reward things like masters plus thirty rather than actual skill are the reason we can not look at consolidation. How about we change the salary structures ? - Perrid - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:45 pm: Devil’s in the details. I think the idea of consolidation is not only good but necessary, but that means there will be winners and losers, and how that gets decided is important. I’m not holding my breath that it’ll ever happen large scale, its just going to be more of a death by a thousand cuts. - Seriously? - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:45 pm: @Arsenal Who will pay for her ads? Dan Proft Of course JB will respond. That goes without saying. - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:50 pm: It is reasonable to agree with her in large population areas, like suburbia. High school districts will fight this though, because typically elementary/middle schools pay their teachers less than high schools (as was my case–the lower) and unit districts would take away from the high schools. However, as so many have pointed out above, the rural areas can create so many problems. Educators really do prioritize student safety. Getting to and from a school that is many miles away on country roads in treacherous weather or the dark is a serious consideration. If money is the one and only consideration, then by all means, don’t worry about any of this. But they are children and families. Schools are responsible for their students and prefer that they get to and from school safely. - City Zen - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 1:52 pm: ==She is running for Governor of Illinois, not Governor of Wheaton.== Sometimes I think JB is running for Governor of USA. - Phil - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:03 pm: She’s right about Unit districts. I grew up in Evergreen Park where there are separate elementary and high school districts covering the exact same boundaries exclusively within the village limits. No need for two administrative bureaucracies. - Baloneymous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:03 pm: ===Governor of USA=== At least he wants to be in charge :/ - Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:03 pm: For all dinosaurs reminiscing about how it was back in the day, that day is past and teaching kids to live their future lives with to tools of yesterday is a nonstarter. 40 years ago superintendents did not make 250k. A high school class of 150 will not afford proper soccer, basketball or football teams, chemistry labs, physics labs, computer labs or a myriad of other tools and skills essential to a person of the 21st century. Boohooing about transportation times solves nothing. Urban and suburban kids also spend many hours commuting to their schools as well. The whole education complex needs to be revised, but none of the entrenched interests will give an inch in fear they may lose out. Checkmate - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:06 pm: –Small school districts with big budgets are sucking up taxes across Illinois and should be consolidated, Republican candidate for governor and state Rep. Jeanne Ives said Wednesday.– So sell it in those districts. It’s easy to get harrumph-harrumphs from editorial boards. That’s been going on for 40 years. But get ready for an earful about those worried about their home values or towns dying. There are good reasons why there has been fierce opposition to consolidation in some areas for decades. Until you have the guts to make the case to those who would be impacted, it’s just talk. - Amalia - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:07 pm: Township governments? get to the Edgar County guys and read about downstate townships and Maine Township upstate to find that those are some weird fiscal places. - Soothsayer - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:09 pm: Is it possible to consolidate townships with counties in Illinois? Suburban parents will not support the forced consolidation of the fiscally conservative school districts they carefully researched prior to moving into. It does not sound like this will appeal to rural parents either. Consolidation is essential but why not let the locals decide how that best takes shape in their area? - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:10 pm: –..but none of the entrenched interests will give an inch in fear they may lose out. – Like home owners worried about their property values? Residents concerned about their towns dying? Make the case to them. They’re the ones you have to sell, not cluck-cluckers in your echo chamber. - Arsenal - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:10 pm: ==Who will pay for her ads? Dan Proft== Oh, cool, that guy does great in statewide campaigns. ==Of course JB will respond. That goes without saying.== I think you’re gonna have to say a little bit about why her ads will work, but JB’s won’t. Ives is…a target rich environment for oppo research. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:11 pm: ===consolidate townships with counties=== There’s a process for that. Cumbersome. We could also consolidate some of these tiny counties we have. - Nacho - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:15 pm: ==Mark it down. My prediction is we will have a Gov. Ives.== 2018 is not going to be the year Illinois goes for someone as conservative as her. And she can try and distance herself from Trump all she wants. Ask all the Democrats who tried distancing themselves from Obama in 2014 how successful they were at pulling it off. - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:20 pm: –What happened to local control?– I don’t see that she’s suggesting forced consolidation. That’s the third-rail in Downstate politics. It’s all dorm-room talk at this point. - logic not emotion - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:22 pm: I served on a school board for a while. Think Ives is right. We built a new building with declining attendance. Old building would have required big local bucks for life safety code improvements. District qualified for state assistance to build new. Better choice would likely have been consolidation; but discussions of consolidation made clear would never pass local referendum. Don’t think this will be a popular plank for campaigning. No one wants their school mascot killed off. Research back then on district size showed downsides with both really big and really small districts. A big logistical problem with consolidation is transportation. How long do you want your first grader to spend riding the bus each way? The length of time a young child spends on the bus can really be an issue - don’t remember the bus ever taking potty breaks on its route. - Cool Papa Bell - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:35 pm: @hisgirlfriday – Certainly glad for your success and that of your family. The professor I talk about is highly qualified and also a one-time school board member for a terribly small high school, an enrollment of less than 100 students. He saw it first hand – those kids were not ready to go straight to a big time high caliber university. But he did put in the time and with those kids at JUCO and landed the majority of them, that had the desire, to land grant colleges. We all know examples of the small town kid made good. I see them in my line of work and the business I work around. But I’m also in those small towns and see most of the kids unprepared. If you only have 20 students in a graduating class it’s a whole lot harder to have two or three choices for say math or science classes. And I agree about the impacts of closing a school. But what do we really want to save? Another little town or the kids that live there that have to have the tools to compete for a job so they might some day choose to move back to that small town? - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:38 pm: ===The whole education complex needs to be revised, but none of the entrenched interests will give an inch in fear they may lose out.=== Thanks for multiple buzzwords and general unhelpfulness. You would make a great ‘yes man’ for a politician that has zero abstract thought and no desire to actually make positive changes. - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:41 pm: If some think transportation is no big deal then there needs to be an exemption from liability for the district should there be an accident involving the bus transporting students. If safety is no biggie, then don’t sue w - 47th Ward - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:42 pm: ===48 kids in a high school? How is that possible to operate?=== Well, kids have to double up on a lot of the roles. For example, you might have to be both a nerd and a jock. Or a brainiac and a stoner. Prom Queen and loner, that sort of thing. Small town kids have to overcome a lot of challenges, like being picked up for school at 6:45am and riding the bus for over an hour to get there. Maybe Ives could propose a system whereby every ten years, following the census, the General Assembly could draw maps of school districts, making them compact and contiguous. If the Governor signs it, that map lasts until the next census. If the parties can’t agree, we could pick a name out of a hat to cast the tie-breaking vote between competing school district maps. I bet that will force legislators to compromise. - Enemy of the State - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:45 pm: When I was taking notes on clay tablets back in grad school, they kept telling us the idea population for a high school was 750-800. Any more and it gets impersonal fast. Any less, curriculum choices get iffy. Go to the IHSA web page and check out the schools listed by enrollment from bottom to top. IIRC, about ten or so counties have one school district. One thing they have in common is that the largest cover right around four hundred square miles. - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:53 pm: She’s absolutely correct. With all due respect to small schools, they don’t have the resources to offer the large diverse curricula. They may not be able to offer calculus or band or shop class. Its crazy that there are districts with 4-5 elementary feeder districts into 1 high school districts. Illinois should set a 2 stage process. 1. Similar to regional superintendents, set parameters (ie. size 5,000 to 50,000 students) and allow districts to merge or consolidate by a certain time. They must all be unit districts. 2. At that time, if the schools have not voluntarily met this standard, created a BRAC style commission (sets policy for base closure) and they make binding recommendations to the Assembly that cannot be amended. Voted up or down. - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:56 pm: –At that time, if the schools have not voluntarily met this standard, created a BRAC style commission (sets policy for base closure) and they make binding recommendations to the Assembly that cannot be amended. Voted up or down.– Put your ideas into legislation, and you are the front-runner for the first 2018 Century Club winner. If you could find a sponsor for such legislation. - Rod - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 2:59 pm: School district consolidation has long been discussed in Illinois and not implemented. One reason why is the consolidation of debt. Should the taxpayers for an elementary school district have to inherit the debt of a high school district that built a building based on growth assumptions that haven’t materialized especially if the taxpayers are currently outside of that high school district? Breaking up CPS has also been discussed for years. Clearly some type of shared property tax pool would have to be created, because the difference in the tax base between the north side, south side, Loop and near Loop areas is significant. Depending on the districts created out of CPS it would be easy to end up with separate districts with different races and socio-economics. That would very likely lead to litigation. - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 3:21 pm: Well, we have consolidated our small town schools into county systems. I guess the next step will be forcing small population counties to consolidate with other small counties. This creates a terrible transportation issue and causes some children to ride the bus over an hour and a half. Kids in our county are riding over 20 miles as it is. - titan - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 3:30 pm: Of course, elementary districts generally have lower pay scales than HS districts - and consolidated districts generally have about the same scales as the HSs - ArchPundit - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 3:35 pm: —2018 is not going to be the year Illinois goes for someone as conservative as her. An There has never been a year where Illinois has gone for someone as conservative as her in the postwar period. She should run in the South. Not Southern Illinois, the South. - Anon III - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:01 pm: It seems that some of the above commenters are so wedded to the idea of single-school districts that they fail to distinguish between consolidation of schools and the consolidation of districts. It is possible to consolidate districts first, and then have local decisions on what to do with separate schools with failing enrollments. Consolidation has not happened because the status quo favors many separate interest groups in different ways. School superintendents making multiple six figure salaries find lots of reasons why consolidation is a bad idea. Tax-payers in small, high property-value districts don’t want to tax their properties to pay for the education of children who live in less prosperous neighborhoods. Teachers’ unions have a size advantage when bargaining with school districts having only a few hundred students and compliant administrators. 6,000 Illinois School Board Members like being important persons in their communities. Government consolidation does not happen as long as the status quo at least minimally defensible. It only happens when the cost of fragmentation becomes unsustainable. So if there is going to be consolidation of school districts in Illinois, we have to cut the State money to districts that don’t make sense. - Sigh - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:03 pm: =Texas Red= Sheila Simon was only the chair of the Commission and republicans had a set at the table, along with many organizations. The point of sharing the report is people have these great ideas as if they have never been thought of before. That report says it will cost $3 billion. Given the fact that Ives wants to consolidate schools and is basically against new revenue sources (or a tax) where do we get the money to consolidate schools? Sometimes institutional knowledge is key to developing public policy. What are we going to do…create another task force/Commission to look at school consolidation? - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:04 pm: –So if there is going to be consolidation of school districts in Illinois, we have to cut the State money to districts that don’t make sense.– If Rep. Ives and her allies introduce such legislation I’d imagine they’d get a full hearing and vote. Chatter in the abstract is so much easier. - Diogenes in DuPage - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:10 pm: So what did she have to say about the other 5,700 units of local government in Illinois? (townships, library districts, park districts, forest preserves, mosquito abatement districts, etc.) Think of all the manager salaries and pensions in those. - Scamp640 - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:16 pm: One of the most effective ways to depopulate a small rural community is to consolidate its elementary or high school out of existence. And I wonder where the money will come from to pay for the added transportation expenses, as kids are bused 30 miles every day to the shiny, new, regional school? People would be surprised by how little money is saved through school consolidation. And people are seldom willing to talk about the costs. - Smitty Irving - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:24 pm: As an immigrant to Illinois, she’s on to something. While Greater Chicagoland (and perhaps Metro East) probably would be excluded, in the rest of Illinois we should follow the Florida / Nevada model - 1 school district per county (separate units of government). Less superintendents, less election races. - Suburbanon - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:24 pm: Careful with all this Wheaton bashing. Some of us would love to find her a new job just to get her out of town. But not Governor. Hopefully Trump will call after she loses primary. - Ives navel lint - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:34 pm: We can can bus the kids from downstate to Chicago problem solved,, - Steve - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 4:48 pm: ==When I was taking notes on clay tablets back in grad school, they kept telling us the ideal population for a high school was 750-800. Any more and it gets impersonal fast. Any less, curriculum choices get iffy.== I would trade my curriculum-limited small town high school experience at a school of 800 for the more impersonal experience my daughters will have at our suburban school of 3,000 in a heartbeat. The curricular offerings are unreal; of course so are my property taxes - cannon649 - Thursday, Dec 14, 17 @ 8:14 pm: In many area consolidation makes sense particularly from an administrative and facility perspective Wait till they miss the first payment Small rural districts are more difficult - I believe they are bettered funded at this time - Lynn S. - Friday, Dec 15, 17 @ 3:13 am: Those who defend Illinois’ status quo–roughly 850 different school districts in the state–are signalling that they are happy to sacrifice the needs of our students for the interests of the (so-called) adults who don’t want to lose their high school mascot, or seek to protect the admistrative jobs that exist for championship-winning football coaches who seek to become athletic directors or superintendents. We would be better off with countywide school districts in at least 75-80 of the counties in this state. Jeanne Ives and I don’t agree on much, but she’s correct in the statements she made on this topic. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.