PEORIA -- Researcher and activist Sharon Crews finally received the information she has been seeking for weeks about the costs of new textbooks -- especially those from Houghton Mifflin, whose consultant did a "free" audit of the district's curriculum last spring, just before the textbooks were ordered.
Here are the preliminary figures, which Crews reported during the public comment section of the Dec. 12 Peoria District 150 School Board meeting.
Total costs of all textbooks ordered so far in 2011: $1.17 million.
Total spent with Houghton Mifflin: $911,436.
All of those H.M. textbooks were ordered after the consultant did the "audit." The district claims it has no emails or other documents regarding this audit, by a Dr. Owen Roberts. His name was on a document handed out to the board, and he is listed as a H.M. consultant on documents available on the Web.
I have appealed this reponse, asking the district and the Illinois Attorney General's office to remember that according to a new ruling by the Attorney General, private email and computer accounts of government officials are subject to the Freedom of Information Act when they discuss public business, such as textbook purchases and consultants. The appeal is pending.
There were no teacher committees that selected these textbooks, only an administrator in the district. The board never voted separately to buy them, and only approved the purchases in a long list of bills to be paid. There was no bidding among vendors.
Crews comments are shown below. She always writes what she reads to the board. A recording of the public comments is also posted below.
In other public comments, activist Terry Knapp commented that the district is wasting money having lawyers write letters to complain about Crews filing many FOIA requests.
"How much did they charge you for that letter?" he asked, after quoting a letter stating Crews is overworking the FOIA officers. "How much money is being wasted on this from the education fund?" he added.
"The Attorney General can't believe all this lawyerism is going on," Knapp said, adding that he and Crews are often in contact with that office over unfulfilled FOIA requests. The district attempted to designate Crews as someone who files too many FOIA requests, to justify responding more slowly to her requests. That issue is still pending.
Knapp added "not one has ever thanked her for the information," she has provided to the board and the public.
He also urged the board to read a new article by education expert Diane Ravitch, which can be accessed here. It brilliantly sums up her comments in her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. An academic, she documents her findings.
Knapp also commented that "student discipline is out of control," and "teachers are talking about leaving the district." Certain pupils should be removed from the classrooms, he said.
"Don't let these students cuss a teacher out and ten minutes later come back in class," he said.
Instead, teachers are being intimidated by administrators, he said. "Thirty to 40 year veterans are threatened with removal. Eight people were told this week. Let them retire," he said.
Nancy Long questioned why the district was lowering its tax rate slightly when class sizes are too large and classrooms need aides.
Later, controller Dave Kinney said the district's education rate is maxed out, and the lower rate was in other funds not affecting classrooms.
Debbie Ritchel, now of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, thanked the board for lowering the tax rate. "We support the reduction in the levy," she said.
Lynette Lee, president of the district's transportation union, questioned why the board continues to pay a private bus company when the money could go toward improving the pay and working conditions of the bus drivers it has.
"We need 18 drivers," she said. Many have left "due to lack of wages, benefits and the atmosphere," she said. "We've got drivers leaving daily."
The drivers union is negotiating with the district, even as it approved another 3-month contract with a private company to fill in gaps in the workforce.
In response to Knapp's comment about student discipline, board member Rick Cloyd said he has received documents indicating that during the first quarter, 1,125 students were suspended, with a small number, 57, suspended multiple times. These are the problem students who should be removed and placed in an alternative program, he said.
The figures show that 93.6 percent were not suspended, he added.
-- Elaine Hopkins
Here is the recording of the public comments:
D150 Dec 12
Here are the complete remarks of Sharon Crews:
"The data from my most recent FOIA has brought the total spent on instructional materials to $1,174,964.37 with Houghton Mifflin orders totaling $911,436.69. However, I have not yet picked up over 50 more pages of data, so the grand total will undoubtedly be higher.
The cost of the materials isn’t the only relevant issue. A change in textbooks definitely means a change in curriculum. Much work is required of teachers to meet the demands of such changes. My guess is that all of these textbooks were handed to teachers when they returned from summer vacation. That means that from the first day of school on, many teachers have and will continue to be overburdened because of very poor planning with regard to the late purchase of all these books. To insure that teachers are ready to teach from new texts, they should receive them during the summer. I have been told that some teachers still do not have the teachers’ editions for the new texts.
At least 25 high school courses (mostly in social studies and science) were affected by these new books. However, the number of teachers affected is far more than 25 because multiple sections are offered at each high school in courses with high enrollments such as world history, economics, American government, U. S. history, physical science, physics, chemistry, and biology. I know that a French class at Richwoods didn’t have books until late October or early November. At the primary level almost all teachers have been victims of totally new programs and textbooks—most of which arrived well after school started—including all the Science fusion texts.
This poor planning seems to reveal a lack of understanding for the challenges teachers face in classroom preparation and little respect for teachers and their time. Of course, in the end the students are the losers because teachers have not been allowed the time needed to prepare for new textbooks and, in fact, have been required to teach with inadequate materials for themselves and/or their students.
The data, also, reveals that the needed number of books for some courses was not ordered in the first place. For instance, for American government and for biology, there evidently was a shortage of 45 books for each course, which were not ordered or received until after October 20. That probably means that 90 students did not have books for the entire first quarter, which ended on October 19. The same is true of U.S. History classes for which fifty texts were not ordered until after October 20. Over 1600 texts from Superior Text—probably replacements for old texts—weren’t received until September 28.
This textbook debacle, of course, was reported in the press and on blogs—so it’s no secret that this poor planning definitely adversely affected and continues to affect the educational process in the district this year. Also, the union called for teachers’ meetings for teachers to air the difficulties they have faced due to so many changes for which they were not properly prepared.
I believe that those at the Ricketts’s center were blamed for not distributing books in a timely fashion. Ricketts received about 3800 books from July 8 to July 18 or later and about 1600 from August 2 to 12. I don’t know how many people were involved in the stamping, numbering, and distributing of all these books, but my guess is that these employees were considerably overburdened for that one month period before school started. I’m just guessing, but I would imagine that Wisconsin Avenue has to provide data as to how many books go to each school. The prediction of enrollment for each class was probably exacerbated by so many changes in administrative personnel at each school.
Remember, of course, that the Ricketts center, also, was responsible for moving old textbooks from closed schools to their new homes—a move which, also, required enrollment numbers from Wisconsin Avenue.
I know that Dr. Lathan has suggested it would be better to have new texts shipped directly to the receiving schools. I hope you school board members will consider all the ramifications of such a change in procedure before the next time comes.
I hope you will find ways to protect the district’s investment by finding a way to hold students and parents accountable for lost books. Otherwise, more money will be spent on replacements next year. Thought for the day: Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed."