Macon County Shared Vision

Can Incentive Pay Close the Acheivement Gap - ABC News

MCSV has advocated policy discussions that might have broad sweeping favorable effects on the challenges and opportunities in Decatur & Macon County. Adoption of effective education policies can lead to substantial better education success for kids in Decatur Schools. Superintendent Gloria Davis has effectively pursued many effective and broad sweeping policies. This is also an area of opportunity for the City of Decatur to play a strong partner role in assisting public education in Decatur. (So far the city has not figued out any way to help.)

Tonight (9/30/2007) on ABC news, financial incentives were showcased as a tool to reward teachers for educational achievements (ABC's written summary is below). To watch the video news cast click here. We have previously written about cities experimenting with incentives. We believe that this concept should be tried in Decatur. We achnowledge that many teachers are not primarily motivated by pay, but we believe that incentives would have a favorable effect on focus and retaining good teachers. Also see our previous posts:

• Do Teacher Incentives Work - Redux?
• Will Teacher Incentives Make a Difference?
• Teacher Pay for Performance
• Teacher Incentives Can Work

Here is an excerpt from the ABC article:

In Chicago, once described as having the worst public schools in the nation, they are trying something new. Veronica Griffin, who colleagues consider to be an exceptional teacher, was going to leave her job in a struggling inner city school for a higher-paying one. To keep her, the city of Chicago did something a business might do: They offered her a $15,000 bonus. It may be common sense in other businesses: If someone's performing well, pay them a little extra. But it's a radical shift in America's public schools. For decades, teachers have been paid solely by seniority and by how much higher education they've accumulated.

Chicago Tribune Editorial - NCLB

In yesterday's Chicago Tribune, Gerald J. Roper, President and CEO | Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, wrote an editorial in favor of NCLB ("No Child Left Behind"). We thought it was an important opinion that deserves to be heard. We encourage everyone to get involved in supporting the success of Decatur Public Schools as (a reason we need more algebra):

DPS 61 Success = Decatur's Success

Decatur's Sucess = DPS 61 Success

All hands need to be on deck as the Chicago Chamber of Commerce understands.

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By: Gerald J. Roper, President and CEO | Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce 9/20/2007

As children head back to classrooms this fall, the business community stands to gain by helping to nurture education reform. Establishing and maintaining quality education programs for all of our youth is critical to ensuring that Illinois has a trained, qualified workforce that can help our companies and our economy grow.

The No Child Left Behind Act is working to raise academic expectations for all students. The law has spurred schools across the country to focus on the qualifications and training of teachers, to use data to drive instruction and to emphasize results. Testing students to prove their proficiency and making those results public brings needed accountability to America's classrooms.

Hotel Purchase - Time to Revisit the Decision & Process

In mid-August, the city manager proposed, and the Mayor and three Council members agreed (Laegeler, McElroy & Stockard), to have the Decatur buy the former Holiday Inn Hotel for $6.5 million. The transaction was negotiated by the city manager and agreed to by the "four-block" (affectionately referred to) prior to the long-planned auction that had been advertised nationally. The city believed that there would be no "appropriate" buyers at the auction. According to the Herald & Review:

Mayor Paul Osborne conceded the plan "sounds crazy at first." But he quickly added that the hotel and conference center is "critical" to the success of the community.

What We Think - We Agree it is "Crazy"

1. While many of us feel that the hotel is an important amenity for our community, the city should not be in the hotel ownership business.
2. Council members should not make decisions that are "gambles" or not using better judgment.
3. It is not the role of government, nor is the city competent to operate a struggling business in a very difficult and complex industry.
4. The purchase and decision was unnecessarily rushed and unknown throughout the community.
5. Adequate due diligence was not done. Serious economic issues were not addressed.
6. There were a number of viable alternatives for the city to support the continued operation of the hotel that were either ignored or pre-empted by the rush to enter into this transaction. These unknowns include whether or not other buyers would have presented themselves at the auction to make a legitimate offer to buy.
7. The City would better meet the needs of the community by promptly placing this property in private hands either by selling it out-right or organizing a public-private partnership to operate the hotel with private capital and limited taxpayer risk and resources.

The purchase has been highly controversial in the community and within the Council.

The Council was split 3 to 3 with the Mayor voting in favor of buying the hotel. The three opposing votes were strongly opposed. One Council member voting in favor said he "felt it was a gamble" and another voted in favor "against his better judgment" all said publicly during the meeting that votes were cast. The possible purchase was announced to the community two days before the vote and only a portion of the community knew about it when the Council voted. The Chamber of Commerce president supported the decision even though we have heard from numerous members of the the Chamber that they opposed the decision.

See Our Talking Points at right >> or click here.

Hotels - Another Point of View

The following letter to the editor was on the Herald & Review's Blog and deserves attention. It was written by Terry Howley and asks our community to confront our priorities. For the post on the Herald & Review website - click here.

We would want to remind our readers that ill-conceived city decisions contribute to the high tax burden in the Decatur community.

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A recent guest editorial described the City of Decatur's hotel purchase as "a centerpiece for future economic development and provides a large amount of revenue for local taxing bodies".  While this hotel is “nice to have” for Decatur, a fair minded person comes to a different answer. There are several key facts:

·         Tax revenues from this property are only 20 percent more than the interest only cost to the city.

·         Needed hotel renovations, will likely cost taxpayers several million over the next few years.

·         Thirty percent occupancy rates show the limited demand for this hotel (successful hotels operate at 60% or higher).

·         Total “room-nights” from both Farm Progress Show and State Republican Convention only represent 2% of annual possible room-night sales for this hotel.

·         There is, and has been, little development interest in adjacent land.

·         The City does not emphasize job preservation in city supported commercial ventures.

The City did not try to purchase K's, Intermet and other Decatur businesses. Would the Council buy other struggling businesses with employee residents? In fact, recent City financed developments did not require job increases or retention.

On the day after this purchase, newspaper headlines announced two new hotels in Forsyth. To investors, are these new hotels more viable due to traffic, shopping, restaurants and entertainment? The lack of interest from savvy investors is a red flag.

A city official stated that the storm sewers need rebuilding, while others call for a new lake, dredging and police space needs. Our community needs to set better priorities. The city manager also said: “… this isn't just about the money…”  When using taxpayers funds to compete with Decatur businesses, it is only about the money. Taxpayers buying this hotel, simply doesn’t make sense.

Uh OH They are BAAACCKKK! ChangeDecatur

Today our friends at ChangeDecatur announced that they are initiating a  petition drive to give voters a chance to vote on changing the form of City of Decatur government. While many of us work on both projects, these are seperate groups with seperate people. We do wish them success and hope that those with a Shared Vision of a better Decatur, seriously consider the benefits of a more representative city council and a strong mayor.

There are many important issues to consider, but simply put, is our current system working to meet the goals, hopes and needs of our community? If not, perhaps we should change the form of government. Go check out their website and ideas. Lets us know what you think. The idea of "Better City Government - Of the People, By the People and For the People" has a catchy ring.

Also, their press release can be found here << click on link.

Well Said; Bricks & Mortar? or Feet on the Street

We want to tip the hat to the Herald & Review for another well said editorial that should be fully weighted in our community. The key elements called for a more reasoned process to address police space needs, after, first developing a vision and consensus around the crime issues in our community, the force needs of the police department and only then the space needs.

Some key comments from the article (<< click here for link to entire article):

"The Decatur City Council is struggling to come up with a solution for the space what it wants the police department to look like in the future.....

......It's a fact that the situation in the police department isn't desirable. The department needs more room and a more convenient evidence storage area........

.........While the desires of the police department need to be taken into consideration, the council's job is to balance those desires with what's best for the taxpayers. It's also hard to logically understand why the department would favor a remodeled 95-year-old building over a new structure that could be built to the city's specifications and include new communications wiring and new heating and cooling equipment.......

.....The council is struggling with this decision for several reasons, but primarily because no clear vision for the future of public safety in Decatur has been articulated.......

.....Many residents of Decatur feel there is a public safety issue in Decatur. Outside of the city, the city has a reputation as a high-crime area. That makes it difficult to get new residents inside the city. The perception isn't totally accurate, but it's an issue......"

We beleive that it is time to set aside the Regions building due to obvious problems and go back to the drawing board. This great building deserves the city's affection but not the police department. We instead should look for creative ways to assist in the redevelopment and increased occupancy of the building (no Mr. G that doesn't mean the city should buy another building over the weekend.)

The police should carefully reconsider their space needs and approach this like many businesses have approached space needs for the last several decades. Determine the genuine needs and then evaluate the alternatives that best and most efficiently meet the needs. See our prior posts on this topic.

We are disappointed that a professional city manager would have so little ability to guide this process effectively. Well established best practices could have identified and quantified the challenges in the current space. Then alternatives could be presented and evaluated. The deficient approach used repeatedly by the Council leads directly to disdain and bad/expensive decisions.

This city government insists in putting square pegs in round holes. We wonder why. Tell us if your know. In the meantime, we think more would be gained from more feet on the street and not bricks and mortar.

Really Leaving No Child Behind

Most everyone in Decatur believes that our public schools are a vital element in the community and essential to economic development on several levels. The "No Child Left Behind Law" has been the source of controversy and confusion nationally and locally for its attempts to introduce educational accountability.

Today's, New York Times (9/7/2007) contributed to the ongoing debate with an editorial titled Really Leaving No Child Behind:

"If all of the nation’s children are to get the education they deserve, Congress needs to strengthen the No Child Left Behind law. Mr. Miller’s draft contains some important reforms that deserve to become law, but much of that good will be undermined if states, schools and teachers are not held accountable for the quality of education they provide."

The NY Times offered moral support to specific revisions to the law that are being considered in Congress.

We believe that the NCLB act embodies important principles for people in the Decatur Community. Should we not have an education system that leaves no child behind? Does the future of our community depend (or not) on every child receiving a rich education? We think it does.

We need greater community commitment to this goal. One business-person once said "your calendar shows your priorities". So does your checkbook. We need the entire community to be fully engaged every day with public education success. Are we? We suggest that we should all ask our elected leaders if they are fully engaged...every day...every meeting.....every agenda. Are they?

Building Support & Consensus; Or Not?

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed."
-- August 21, 1858 - A. Lincoln; Lincoln-Douglas debate at Ottawa

Citizens and taxpayers best understand their government and support it with good and complete information. Public knowledge builds consensus. Public knowledge encourages constructive and informed debate. Complete public knowledge decreases apathy of voters.

Citizens can not support, agree, question, challenge or oppose without complete information. Closed government meetings are occasionally necessary, but the benefits of keeping information withheld from the public declines rapidly with time. We think that several local governments could do a much better job in being transparent. Here is an example from today's -9/6/2007 - Herald & Review (<< click on link for complete article.)

DECATUR - The Decatur City Council voted Tuesday not to release the minutes of dozens of closed-door meetings, some dating as far back as 1999. Of the almost 50 closed session meetings, the council approved releasing portions of the minutes of only one meeting from August 2004. "One?" Councilman Dan Caulkins said in disbelief. "One thing out of this whole stack we're agreeing to release?" "Correct," said city attorney Amy Waks. "I just find if very difficult to believe that there are things going back to 1999 that we are still holding in confidence," Caulkins said.

Most of us believe that the Council wants to do the right thing. However, they would hit that mark more often with more transparency to the community. Frankly, we wish "some" (affectionately known as the "four-block") would more lean towards citizens/taxpayers interests and challenge city staff to better disclose government information to the public.

Standards of good disclosure and transparency are well established in the corporate world. Certain other Illinois local government units are much more transparent than some in our community. We propose three specific actions/policies that would enhance openness and transparency:

1. Discontinue short-notice meetings - when major and controversial decisions are made (1) . There have been a number of these since this Mayor and Council took office.
2. Greatly increase the informational materials available publicly on the City's website. At a minimum, any document made available to the press and/or the Council for a public decision should be available on the website. (3)
3. Release all closed session meeting minutes after 90 days. Only few exceptions should be made (2) .

Macon County Soil & Water Conservation District

Here is a topic that not many will even want to think about. The name does not inspire excitement or interest. But stay with us as we try to connect some dots. Some simple facts:

• MCSWCD was established under a federal program in 1943 to better manage soil erosion from valuable agricultural lands into rivers and streams in Macon County and adjacent areas.
• Water management experts say that managing soil erosion is one of the most efficient (i.e. cost effective) ways to limit silt accumulation in waterways like Lake Decatur.
• Lake Decatur has lost 1/3 of its water storage capacity due to soil erosion (1) .
• There would be no need to build a new lake if it were possible to reclaim this lost water storage capacity. Experts say it is difficult and not cost effective to even try to reclaim all of the lost capacity.
• The City has been operating dredge program to reduce silt build-up with little measurable effect over the last 4 years. Original estimates called for increasing the lakes storage by 12-20% from dredging. Little if any of this goal has been realized.
• The City is a significant provider of financial support to MCSWCD. The City has no established standards or procedures to monitor the results or effectiveness of grants to agencies like MCSWCD (2) .
• There has been recent controversy regarding the operation of MCSWCD due to termination of long time and respected key employees of MCSWCD. Allegations of financial irregularities have not been explained publicly or resolved.

What is important?

1. This agency and its programs are important and relevant to managing our water supply needs in Decatur.
2. There needs to be much greater transparency regarding the internal operations and fiscal affairs of agencies like MCSWCD in Macon County.
3. Citizens should ask for better and specific answers to whether taxpayer resources are being effectively utilized by MCSWCD and the City of Decatur to manage and enhance our water supplies.

Tell us what you think.

Do Uniforms Make Schools Better?

From the GreatSchools Web site:

Yes and no, say the experts. The heated debate over school uniforms shows no signs of cooling off.

By Marian Wilde, GreatSchools.net Senior Writer

......... researchers are divided over how much of an impact — if any — dress policies have upon student learning. A 2004 book makes the case that uniforms do not improve school safety or academic discipline. A 2005 study, on the other hand, indicates that in some Ohio high schools uniforms may have improved graduation and attendance rates, although no improvements were observed in academic performance.