One thing that worries me about consolidation is that if we ended up with a rotten school board like the current and recently past one, we would ruin not only K-8 but the high school as well. So I’m thankful that our current (D65) board, who is spending close to $70 million (including interest and architect fees) on building a K-5 school while they let all of their other schools rot, does not also have jurisdiction over the high school. When I’ve been in ETHS to take my kids to swimming lessons, I’m always impressed with the well kept landscaping, the interior condition of the building, as well as the decor and displays of athletic teams in that hallway. D65 has no clue on what impact the condition of schools and how their aesthetics affect students (and teachers).
Oh 100% putting the D65 board in charge of ETHS is a recipe for disaster. This should not happen.
However, I will argue that this is an opportunity to terminate *both* boards (the ETHS board isn't much better) and hit the reset button on education in Evanston before it gets much worse (and it is getting worse in both). If done right, you could restructure the incentives for boards:
- Codify stronger fiduciary duties for board members with consequences including adding the ability to recall board members.
- Codify maximum limits on annual administrative expenses
- Compensate them (or at least provide insurance, like the city does) to incentivize people who want to be on the board for reasons other than marketing themselves.
- Codify requirements for new construction and referendums and duties that go along with that.
- End this ability for the board to "suspend" policies by a majority vote and require referendums for things like changing residency requirements.
No board would approve these things in their own right but if there's a way to get it in front of the voters...
Thank you for this correction and clarity. I am very interested to learn what has been attempted in the past, and why it did not succeed. Also interested to know if one district can have a multi-tiered system- I suspect the unions would have something to say about this, but then again, they haven’t pushed the gender pay gap issue very successfully. At the end of the day, two things are clear: we have an elementary school district with a huge budget, yet they can’t seem to educate all them and they have completely mismanaged the finances to terrible effect. The second thing we know is that we can’t spend money to save money- even for good intentions. We can’t spend money to equal the pay field between the two districts in order to save money from a district that can’t seem to operate in a fiscally sound manner. Just look what attempting to save a measly $3M in bussing costs have done to us.
By the way, Karl. I'm coming around to your position on the fifth ward school that the smaller school might be worse than no school. They should've found a way to return the money (retendering?), held a referendum, and built a really nice K-8 complex. The problem is that I just don't know if the District could pull off that kind of financial operation (and I still don't).
Yup. I agree completely. Some other facts to consider (stay tuned for the more formal story). I've reached out to the IEA, the unions, and everyone who has an opinion on this subject.
- In terms of raw tax revenue, we fund ETHS at much higher levels than D65. In 2022, ETHS per pupil local revenues were $22,947.36 versus $19,899.33 for D65.
- D65 has many structural cost disadvantages: many campuses versus a single one (15 principals, etc), vastly higher transportation costs, etc.
- D65 Boards have made a lot of stupid decisions regarding debt (D65=107.5m, ETHS = 30.8m) further draining resources. I would put the 5th ward school in this bucket too, which could've (and should've) been done debt-free with a referendum.
So you can say the Board has been stupid and sets money on fire (they do) but at the same time, they're at a pretty bad structural disadvantage. Lots of people will say ETHS is the "good" one but like, taxpayers give them $3,000+ more per student, so no shit they're in better shape. In terms of raw incoming tax money, D65 is barely better funded than CPS (around $18k per pupil) whereas ETHS is funded at a level closer to New Trier.
Another thing to keep in mind: school district tax raises are capped at 5% per year. Both ETHS and D65 ask for that pretty much every year. So even if they merged, it couldn't create a 20% tax bomb even if they wanted to.
One thing that worries me about consolidation is that if we ended up with a rotten school board like the current and recently past one, we would ruin not only K-8 but the high school as well. So I’m thankful that our current (D65) board, who is spending close to $70 million (including interest and architect fees) on building a K-5 school while they let all of their other schools rot, does not also have jurisdiction over the high school. When I’ve been in ETHS to take my kids to swimming lessons, I’m always impressed with the well kept landscaping, the interior condition of the building, as well as the decor and displays of athletic teams in that hallway. D65 has no clue on what impact the condition of schools and how their aesthetics affect students (and teachers).
Oh 100% putting the D65 board in charge of ETHS is a recipe for disaster. This should not happen.
However, I will argue that this is an opportunity to terminate *both* boards (the ETHS board isn't much better) and hit the reset button on education in Evanston before it gets much worse (and it is getting worse in both). If done right, you could restructure the incentives for boards:
- Codify stronger fiduciary duties for board members with consequences including adding the ability to recall board members.
- Codify maximum limits on annual administrative expenses
- Compensate them (or at least provide insurance, like the city does) to incentivize people who want to be on the board for reasons other than marketing themselves.
- Codify requirements for new construction and referendums and duties that go along with that.
- End this ability for the board to "suspend" policies by a majority vote and require referendums for things like changing residency requirements.
No board would approve these things in their own right but if there's a way to get it in front of the voters...
Thank you for this correction and clarity. I am very interested to learn what has been attempted in the past, and why it did not succeed. Also interested to know if one district can have a multi-tiered system- I suspect the unions would have something to say about this, but then again, they haven’t pushed the gender pay gap issue very successfully. At the end of the day, two things are clear: we have an elementary school district with a huge budget, yet they can’t seem to educate all them and they have completely mismanaged the finances to terrible effect. The second thing we know is that we can’t spend money to save money- even for good intentions. We can’t spend money to equal the pay field between the two districts in order to save money from a district that can’t seem to operate in a fiscally sound manner. Just look what attempting to save a measly $3M in bussing costs have done to us.
By the way, Karl. I'm coming around to your position on the fifth ward school that the smaller school might be worse than no school. They should've found a way to return the money (retendering?), held a referendum, and built a really nice K-8 complex. The problem is that I just don't know if the District could pull off that kind of financial operation (and I still don't).
Yup. I agree completely. Some other facts to consider (stay tuned for the more formal story). I've reached out to the IEA, the unions, and everyone who has an opinion on this subject.
- In terms of raw tax revenue, we fund ETHS at much higher levels than D65. In 2022, ETHS per pupil local revenues were $22,947.36 versus $19,899.33 for D65.
- D65 has many structural cost disadvantages: many campuses versus a single one (15 principals, etc), vastly higher transportation costs, etc.
- D65 Boards have made a lot of stupid decisions regarding debt (D65=107.5m, ETHS = 30.8m) further draining resources. I would put the 5th ward school in this bucket too, which could've (and should've) been done debt-free with a referendum.
So you can say the Board has been stupid and sets money on fire (they do) but at the same time, they're at a pretty bad structural disadvantage. Lots of people will say ETHS is the "good" one but like, taxpayers give them $3,000+ more per student, so no shit they're in better shape. In terms of raw incoming tax money, D65 is barely better funded than CPS (around $18k per pupil) whereas ETHS is funded at a level closer to New Trier.
Another thing to keep in mind: school district tax raises are capped at 5% per year. Both ETHS and D65 ask for that pretty much every year. So even if they merged, it couldn't create a 20% tax bomb even if they wanted to.