Flowers, the ROE and the Illinois State Board of Education

Have you been following the drama for Charles Flowers, Regional Superintendent Suburban Cook County Schools?

Flowers was investigated for various allegations of misuse of funds. Since then various entities have acted unsympathetically to the ROE (Regional Office of Education).

Cook County demanded repayment of a loan. The ROE didn't have the money. The ROE's landlord (Westchester elementary schools) demanded payment of back rent. The ROE didn't have the money. The ROE got an office in Broadview, but was shut down for lack of an occupancy permit. Now there is no office and the ROE functions aren't being done. See Daily Southtown (Duaa ElDeib).

If you're one of about 25,000 teachers or administrators in any of the 143 school districts needing the services of the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education, try back later.

Has Flowers made mistakes? Have his actions cast doubt on his competence?

Yes.

Would the Village of Broadview normally keep a government office from operating for 30 days for lack of an occupancy permit?

I doubt it. But Flowers has few friends. And life is harder when no one wants to help you and lots of people are looking to "throw you under the bus".

But I'd like to step back.

If the Illinois State Board of Education and other authorities in the bureaucracy are willing to let Flowers and the ROE twist in the wind, what's the say about the office?

It seems to me a major function of the ROEs across Illinois is to obfuscate accountability when the Illinois State Board of Education either incorrectly processes paperwork or takes a long time. The teacher or district submitting documents can't be sure if the ROE is responsible or the Illinois State Board of Education.

The ROEs are funded by state government (Illinois General Assembly and Governor). So, when something goes wrong at one ROE the recourse goes through Springfield. But the ROEs serve parts of the state.

If the President of the Cook County Board makes a mistake, s/he has to answer to the commissioners. Virtually every executive in the U.S. political system has to answer to a legislative body with the power of the purse and the legislative body serves the same group of voters as the executive.

One of the few (only?) exceptions is a ROE in Illinois. They don't have local legislative bodies to hold them accountable. So, someone who lacks the competence to do the job can get elected and it's not clear how to remove the person or hold her/him accountable.

The Flowers debacle shows the office should be eliminated as an elective office and be appointed by the governor or the state superintendent of education.

Team Flowers would probably argue the office doesn't have the funding to do the job it's expected to do. So, many of the financial problems of the Flowers administration originate with the office being underfunded. This is probably true, but....

Did the Flowers administration use the money it had wisely?

It seems clear that some money was either misspent or spent without the required documentation that it was spent properly.

Has Flowers handled the media well?

No.

Are other public officials, including elected officials, withholding money from the ROE that would probably go to the ROE if Flowers hadn't gotten himself into trouble?

Probably.

Even the most pro-Flowers interpretation of the situation is that he and his appointees made a mess. And Flowers lacks the skills to dig himself and the office out of the hole. And the Illinois State Board of Education seems content to allow the Suburban Cook County ROE to founder.

PS It does seem like Proviso's state legislators could do something to improve the situation. Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) is on the Senate Education Committee and has been the chair in the past. Sen. Dan Cronin (R-Elmhurst) is the senior Republican on that committee. Like Lightford and Cronin State Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) is on her chamber's Education Committee. Yarbrough is the Democratic Committeeman for Proviso Township. And she's the person who persuaded the Cook County Democratic Party to nominate Flowers. Although she and Flowers are not as tight as they were.

Lightford wants students to pray; Governor vetoes plan

Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed Sen. Kimberly Lightford's bill legislating schools have a mandatory moment of silence. See Change of Subject (Eric Zorn).

ED, should state spend more on education?

Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller) pointed me to a Chicago Tribune (Monique Garcia and Ray Long) article explaining that Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) has drawn a line in the sand on school funding.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and fellow Democrats must forge a budget solution that addresses the disparities in school funding that have allowed rich districts to spend thousands of dollars more on each student than poor areas of the state can afford, Lightford said.

Let's compare what local high school districts spend per student. On the school report cards the expenditures are divided into "Instructional Expenditure Per Pupil" and "Operational Expenditure Per Pupil". I've combined them into a single figure.

* Elmwood Park--$14,217
* Leyden--$14,465
* Morton--$16,532
* York--$17,144
* Lyons--$21,456
* Proviso--$21,665
* Riverside-Brookfield--$21,745
* Oak Park & River Forest--$22,967

We know Proviso is 90th of 90 high schools in the Chicago area when ranked by test scores. But spending is almost as high as the highest cost districts in the area. (New Trier spends $25,186 per student.)

The numbers simply do not support the traditional liberal position--the position Lightford is arguing--that schools that don't perform are constrained by money.

ED, Lightford passes moment of silence legislation

Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) sponsored legislation that passed the Senate requiring schools observe a moment of silence. Existing law gives schools the option of observing a moment of silence.

The Capitol Fax Blog had a discussion where everyone panned the legislation.

Who do you think wants the bill passed?

ED, what should a quality education include?

WJBD 1350 AM has has a story that references Sen. Kimberly Lightford's (D-Maywood) ideas about education, jobs and poverty.

People without diplomas have inferior jobs and their children tend to live in poverty. There's a committee working to lower the drop-out rate. Lightford then jumps to schools need more money and Illinois needs a tax swap.

Why don't people who have diplomas get good jobs?

• Is it because they know certain facts? Or can't process the information?
• Do employers not offer jobs to people without diplomas?
• Or is it that people who don't show up to class turn into employees that don't show up to work?

The follow-up questions are important. If people without diplomas basically can do the jobs but employers are discriminating then it would make sense to make it easy to get some piece of paper equivalent of a high school diploma.

If the issue is absenteeism, it doesn't seem like investing in teachers is an appropriate strategy. What's the point of having great teachers if the students aren't coming to class?

Here's a concern: what if the schools, teachers unions, administrators, et al are starting with the premise schools need more money and are fitting their arguments around the assumption that more money is the end and not the means to educating students?

Have we, as a society, defined what a good education is? Is it time to step back from the education issue and ask, what constitutes a quality education in this era?

Once we define a quality education then we can design a system to deliver a quality education to all.