Remember when the District 150 school board voted to close Woodruff High School to save money? As I recall they said it would save the district a little over $1 million. Shortly after the vote “the Peoria establishment” started pushing for a charter school. One of the members told me, “We have to do something to raise educational scores.” In other words, we’ll sacrifice Woodruff students to try this experiment. And so they did.
Students from Peoria’s north end were farmed to Central, Manual and Richwoods. Some were bullied, I’m told, and some struggled emotionally with the change. But “the establishment” didn’t and doesn’t care. This information comes from a long-time educator who knows what he’s talking about. Children’s emotional stability is one issue and the most important followed by costs to taxpayers.
The Woodruff building is still there. The costs of maintenance are still there from insurance to utilities to cleaning. But, wait. The school district just spent more money on Woodruff to develop facilities for the Woodruff Career and Technical Center. The basement, ugh, has been renovated. There’s an alternative school. They even established a small school for kindergarten students. And there’s a grade school and a middle school. The modern swimming pool is used, not for Woodruff students, but teams from Notre Dame. Today’s Woodruff student body ranges in age from 5 to 19. Now that’s super educational planning! A model for the entire nation. It could be called “Peoria’s Educational Smorgasbord.”
To help sell this educational abortion the school is open for community events and programs. I wonder if the pencil pushers at the district would get together with board members and review whether the closure and now reopening saved any taxpayer money let alone $1 million.
Is there any board member, Laura Petelle or Debbie Wolfmeyer, who could provide such up-to-date information for taxpayers? Or do they even care now? Or then?
Meanwhile, the “establishment” convinced Caterpillar to kick in $500,000 and the Peoria County Board another $500,000 of taxpayer money as a “loan” to support the small charter school that offers programs not available to other students. If that proposal had been put on a referendum ballot versus keeping Woodruff open it would’ve lost by a 2-1 margin.
If that isn’t enough, the Quest School Board wants district taxpayers to sell them at least two closed schools and use those buildings as collateral for the $500,000 loan from the county. Is this a con game or what? As one critic of the Quest board said, “They have millionaires on the board and yet they want taxpayers to fund their programs.”
EMBARRASSING
Peoria made national news again. It was embarrassing to watch Tavis Smiley on Fox News, the #1 cable news network, express bewilderment about Peoria’s decision to cancel his speaking engagement for the Martin Luther King annual luncheon at the Civic Center. Actually, Peoria didn’t cancel. It was achieved by a small group of women, a so-called book club, who persuaded organizers to withdraw the Smiley invitation. One wonders what kind of books the group reads. Anyway, reportedly the six women didn’t like Smiley because he had been critical of President Obama. Who hasn’t? Record unemployment, especially among minorities. Record deficit. The worst economy since the depression. A sharply divided country. A confusing foreign policy, especially toward Israel. The list of leftist and/or incompetent appointments is endless.
Smiley told Fox News he was ousted because he was trying to hold the president accountable. “I don’t see my role as one of criticizing the president. I see my role as one of holding the president—this and every other president—accountable.” Smiley added, “Something is wrong with this country…that so often the political right, and I am no defender of the political right, gets accused of playing the game of political correctness. What this underscores is that those on the left, the Democrats can play that game as well.” Last summer Smiley teamed with Cornel West, a social activist, on a 16 city poverty bus tour. The PBS talk show host said, “It would be nice to hear the president say the word poor—to say the word poverty. But, we can’t get this president or any leaders to say the words poor or poverty much less do anything about it.” For that Smiley was canceled? So much for freedom of expression, at least when Obama is president.
Smiley has known Obama for years and pointed out, “Prior to his being elected, he came on my radio and TV programs with regularity. Once he got elected and my critique of him—about holding him accountable to various things didn’t sit so well with him or the people around him—he has not come on my TV or radio programs one time since he’s been in the White House.” He said Obama is the first president in his professional career that has failed to invite him to the White House.
Back to Peoria. Smiley and the people who inked him to the contract to speak, agreed to a remarkable $37,500 fee according to sources. The Peoria paper claimed the Peoria folks were trying to negotiate the contractual fee. A professional performer told me such a contract is not negotiable. “It’s in black and white. If the sponsor cancels they still have to pay $37,500.” Smiley could be laughing all the way to the bank for the snub. I wonder if the book club could hold a bake sale for the next 50 years to pay off Smiley’s contract. By the way, local sponsors have already paid Smiley a deposit. My source indicates the deposit is commonly 50% of the total fee. Questions remain. Who pays the speaker’s fee? Who will pay for both speakers this year? Where does the money come from? One final question: Where’s the follow-up in the local media on this subject?
MORE FROM THE LEFT
A new book about the president and his wife has hit the stands written by Jodi Kantor.
Titled “The Obamas,” it’s not a very flattering view of the couple. Kantor appeared on the liberal CNN network with the liberal Soledad O’Brien. That was a mistake. O’Brien, in the usual CNN way, attacked Kantor by misquoting a number of items in her book. Credit the author. She completely refuted O’Brien false charge after false charge. It was a real cat fight that Kantor clearly won by TKO.
Meanwhile, the liberal media has attacked Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for putting her finger in the President’s face. The criticism is unfair. At least she didn’t use her middle finger.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that Peoria County state’s attorney Jerry Brady is a life-saver? In 1967 Brady received the American National Red Cross Award of Merit for saving the life of a 9 year old boy at the Proctor Center pool.
BE CAREFUL
It’s interesting to see the liberal media’s reaction to the video allegedly showing four U.S. Marines urinating on three dead terrorists. Some in the media even affectionately referred to the terrorists as “Taliban fighters.” However, some who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq would probably say the sin of the Marines was allowing their actions to be photographed. If these pinheads in the media think such things in war don’t take place they’re more stupid than I think they are. Trouble is, today’s editorial writers have never served in the military or been in combat. The nearest to combat for some at the Journal Star would be a fight in a bar. None of us know how we would react in combat faced with death every hour of every day and night. What would our mental and emotional state be if we saw our buddies blown up in body pieces by a road bomb? What would we be thinking if we were able to kill someone who was trying to kill us and then had their dead bodies in front of us? Would we say a prayer? Would we shoot them again? These Marines decided, apparently, to pee on them. Yes, it’s disgusting to those who sit safely behind a computer eating a burger from Burger King and drinking a mocha coffee from Starbucks in a building with a security officer downstairs along with a locked door and bullet proof glass. These journalistic clowns have never served in the military let alone been in combat, but they feel safe condemning our brave soldiers many of whom struggle with post-war traumatic syndrome when they return from combat. Reading such self-righteous trash made me want to pee on the newspaper. My dog stopped me. He did it first.