The purported purpose of Stephanie Banchero’s Dec. 30, 2001, article was to show why Illinois drastically needs to reform its school funding formulas (“Equity not in school-funding equation,” News). The article compared the affluent Oak Brook schools to those of School District 168 in Sauk Village. The resulting article, however, fell far short of its mark, landing somewhere between a journalistic hatchet job and felonious nincompoopery. The effect the article had on District 168 was, at best, demoralizing.
We know that trying to spin-doctor Banchero’s article is rather like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but some pertinent facts were omitted from the article.
There are more than 14 choices for curricular and extra-curricular activities in District 168, not four, as the story said.
We take personal umbrage at the implication that District 168 students receive less than a quality education. Each year we face 30 to 40 percent student mobility. Fewer than 50 percent of our junior high population comes from our own K-5 buildings yet a majority of our students still meet or exceed state expectations on the state achievement test.
Three years ago we studied our state scores and found 70 percent of our junior high enrollment met or exceeded state expectations. When we pulled the scores of children who attended just 6th, 7th and 8th grades in our junior high, those statistics jumped to 85 percent. Imagine what we could do with less mobility in enrollment and a lot more money. We could restore art, music, drama, adequate physical education, long-distance field trips, honors classes and traveling sports teams.
Interestingly enough, despite all our alleged deficits, we still produce more honor roll students at our local high school than any other feeder district.
Do we need better funding? Obviously. You be the judge.
