I don¹t know about Paul¹s school, but I can answer with regards to Fort
Wayne. Fort Wayne Community Schools, the district that owns Elmhurst and
that I work for now as a teacher, is Indiana¹s largest public school
district. We have about 45,000 kids and 51 schools. Five of the schools
are regular high schools and one is a vocational high school. When
Elmhurst was open it was the smallest high school, with only about 800
kids. Each of the five academic high schools now has about 2000 students.
The budget cutting here was caused by the state government under Mitch
Daniels (the current governor¹s predecessor) enacting a law arbitrarily
cutting all property taxes, even though the state government does not
collect any property taxes; they¹re all levied by local governments.
Public schools here are funded primarily with property taxes. It should be
noted that public schools here are NOT controlled by city or county
governments. Each school district is completely independent of local
government. They have elected school boards, which makes the directly
responsible to citizens rather than to higher levels of government. The
school districts levy their own property taxes that are separate from
property taxes that support city and county government here.
By arbitrarily capping property taxes without giving the schools another
funding source, the state has severely damaged public education. Most
school districts here had to close schools, some had to discontinue school
bus service (state law forbids schools to charge for bus transport. If
they offer it, it has to be free). Others have fired experienced teachers
who were paid high salaries. FWCS fared better than most. For all of the
economic problems here, Fort Wayne is still one of the wealthiest
communities in the state, and as the second largest city we have a large
enough tax base that we didn¹t have to fire teachers or cut art and music
programs. We closed one school out of the 52 we had previously.
--
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-437-8990
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
Become a fan on Facebook
On 4/6/15, 3:54 PM, "Moose" <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On 4/6/2015 10:05 AM, Paul Braun wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Chris Crawford <
>> chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I graduated from elmhurst in 1994. My parents both went to Elmhurst in
>>the
>> late 1960s. The school was closed in 2010 as a cost-cutting measure by
>>the
>> local school district.
>>
>> There are too many schools being shuttered for cost-cutting. It's a sad
>> commentary on modern-day politics. My HS is still open, but it's the
>>only
>> one in a small town.
>
>How many school age children going to public schools were there when you
>were a student? How many are there now? Without
>at least a rough knowledge of the number of students being served, your
>statement is meaningless.
>
>When I was a kid, Berkeley's population was over 120,000. Now, with more
>housing units, it's under 100,000. The
>difference is essentially all attributable to fewer school age children.
>Household sizes, i.e. number of children,
>plummeted in the last half of last century.
>
>Keeping schools open just to keep them open, or for the nostalgia of
>alumni, not because they are actually needed to
>serve the current number of students, would indeed be a waste of taxpayer
>$. Consolidation of underutilized facilities
>is almost always less expensive than keeping all open, both in operating
>costs and in capital freed up.
>
>Yes, it's complicated in detail, class sizes, arts programs, quality, and
>so on. But without a measure of the student
>population to be served, then and now, it's not commentary, sad or not,
>it's just noise.
>
>Moose D'Opinion
>
>>
>
>
>--
>What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
>--
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