For two week I have been battling to keep my computer running for more than 5 minutes at a time. I was fruitlessly following 50 stocks, they all disappeared and when I add a few back, they disappear within a day. I've had help from knowledgeable people who agree it is an MSN problem.
Anyway, I've been able to open my blog site today. I apologize for not being able to post of even read my emails for days. Today, I'm able to read them on my wife's computer but she doesn't have my forward list.
Been Frustrating but my service man is coming back. All deleted emails and the trash bin emptied, have reappeared going back to 2007. Anyone else having a rash of recent problems with MSN?
Monday, July 27, 2009
Jeff Kickiss's LTE, 7/25/09, to the JSEB
Jeff says, "City/County Cooperation Needed More Than Ever". With both entities running deficits now and more than likely later, Jeff couldn't be more right.
Both the County and the City need boards and council members to ask more questions of those elected and appointed than are being asked. The voter has to get off his or her butt, study the real issues, get better suited people to sit as directors of this combined more than a quarter billion dollar spending machine and convince those elected that they should not be in the venture capital business, they should streamline operations regardless of affiliations of any type, union positions that are not in the overall best interests of the citizens and to stop building up more debt for present and future Peoria County residents.
Easy questions. Does the county need all the elected positions? My view as a third term member of the County Board, no.
Should the county board put the property tax payers in debt $75, plus and plus, million dollars for a nursing home that they and administration have mis-managed for more than a decade? I'd be happy to review the records with any who doubt the veracity of this statement. The answer, if all the facts were publicly known should have been no.
Should the election commissions be combined? A no-brainer as one prominent politician said to me at Beachler's Service Station yet later denied he said that. Unfortunately, I am not seeking re-election and am not politically correct. It was and is a no-brainer, yes.
Should the city get in the hotel business more than they are? In my opinion, they ought to be trying to get out of backing the Marriott deal with tax-payer dollars to the tune of maybe $40 million. Should the county get out of the messy museum business, which they are planning to get in?
Should the city send 5 fire trucks and official vehicles to a false alarm Saturday at Glen Oak Zoo? The ladder truck turned around and went back before entering the already clutter Glen Oak Park. A ladder truck to the zoo??? Not unusual, if you pay attention. But better to be safe than sorry. That's why the city is building libraries (indirectly) instead of safety and infrastructure. The public library system has there own bureaucracy.
Administrations tout the things City and County have combined on. Some no-brainers over half a century.
One County board members say I am mis-leading the citizenry when no new taxes are being planned for the new Bel-Wood, $41 million and counting of which we supposedly have all of $3 million on hand. New taxes? The old direct taxes, the referendum taxes that a mis-led public voted for in 2003 will rise from $1.7 million in 2008, double from 2003, to $4.5 million by 2042-3 and indirect property taxes will rise from $1.2 million in 2008 to who can guess but likely to be at least another $4.5 million a year. The first figure is from our financial officer who has yet to give me a guess-estimate on what these indirect taxes will be yearly by 2042.
29 politicians who are not spending much of their own money but know how to wisely spend a quarter billion a year and growing.
Cooperation, I haven't seen much lately. Do not get your expectations up, folks.
Both the County and the City need boards and council members to ask more questions of those elected and appointed than are being asked. The voter has to get off his or her butt, study the real issues, get better suited people to sit as directors of this combined more than a quarter billion dollar spending machine and convince those elected that they should not be in the venture capital business, they should streamline operations regardless of affiliations of any type, union positions that are not in the overall best interests of the citizens and to stop building up more debt for present and future Peoria County residents.
Easy questions. Does the county need all the elected positions? My view as a third term member of the County Board, no.
Should the county board put the property tax payers in debt $75, plus and plus, million dollars for a nursing home that they and administration have mis-managed for more than a decade? I'd be happy to review the records with any who doubt the veracity of this statement. The answer, if all the facts were publicly known should have been no.
Should the election commissions be combined? A no-brainer as one prominent politician said to me at Beachler's Service Station yet later denied he said that. Unfortunately, I am not seeking re-election and am not politically correct. It was and is a no-brainer, yes.
Should the city get in the hotel business more than they are? In my opinion, they ought to be trying to get out of backing the Marriott deal with tax-payer dollars to the tune of maybe $40 million. Should the county get out of the messy museum business, which they are planning to get in?
Should the city send 5 fire trucks and official vehicles to a false alarm Saturday at Glen Oak Zoo? The ladder truck turned around and went back before entering the already clutter Glen Oak Park. A ladder truck to the zoo??? Not unusual, if you pay attention. But better to be safe than sorry. That's why the city is building libraries (indirectly) instead of safety and infrastructure. The public library system has there own bureaucracy.
Administrations tout the things City and County have combined on. Some no-brainers over half a century.
One County board members say I am mis-leading the citizenry when no new taxes are being planned for the new Bel-Wood, $41 million and counting of which we supposedly have all of $3 million on hand. New taxes? The old direct taxes, the referendum taxes that a mis-led public voted for in 2003 will rise from $1.7 million in 2008, double from 2003, to $4.5 million by 2042-3 and indirect property taxes will rise from $1.2 million in 2008 to who can guess but likely to be at least another $4.5 million a year. The first figure is from our financial officer who has yet to give me a guess-estimate on what these indirect taxes will be yearly by 2042.
29 politicians who are not spending much of their own money but know how to wisely spend a quarter billion a year and growing.
Cooperation, I haven't seen much lately. Do not get your expectations up, folks.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Bored in High School Classrooms Even Before They Reach College
Not a short read but worthwhiloe for those with kids in college or even high school.
Merle
When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom
By Jeffrey R. Young
-----------------------
SIDEBAR Video: http://chronicle.com/media/video/v55/i42/bowen/ José A. Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, has challenged his colleagues to teach sans machines.
-----------------------
College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked" - by which he means, sans machines.
More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they're going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.
He's not the only one raising questions about PowerPoint, which on many campuses is the state of the art in classroom teaching. A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.
It's worth pointing out that PowerPoint presentations are generally better than many older classroom technologies, like slate chalkboards or overhead transparencies filled with hand-scrawled notes that students struggled to decipher. So computers have probably led to a slight improvement in teaching. But technology has hardly revolutionized the classroom experience for most college students, despite millions of dollars in investment and early predictions that going digital would force professors to rethink their lectures and would herald a pedagogical renaissance.
Mr. Bowen is part of a group of college leaders who haven't given up on that dream of shaking up college instruction. Even though he is taking computers out of classrooms, he's not anti-technology. He just thinks they should be used differently - upending the traditional lecture model in the process.
Here's the kicker, though: The biggest resistance to Mr. Bowen's ideas has come from students, some of whom have groused about taking a more active role during those 50-minute class periods. The lecture model is pretty comfortable for both students and professors, after all, and so fundamental change may be even harder than it initially seems, whether or not laptops, iPods, or other cool gadgets are thrown into the mix.
No Power in PowerPoint
Mr. Bowen delivers his pitch about "teaching naked" with the energy and confidence of a seasoned performer, which makes sense when you learn he has been on stage as a jazz musician for some 30 years. The administrator sported a suit jacket over a dark T-shirt while giving a recent talk about his approach at a conference on "Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning" put on by the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that encourages technology use in education.
Although he made a philosophical argument about the best way to engage students, he grounded it in his own classroom experiences using podcasts and video games about jazz history that he helped produce. He did not use PowerPoint, but he did use his laptop to show off one of his games, which lets students pick famous jazz musicians to play in a fictional supergroup.
His philosophy is that the information delivery common in today's classroom lectures should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class sessions. To make sure students tune in, he gives them short online multiple-choice tests.
So what's left to do during class once you've delivered your lecture? Introduce issues of debate within the discipline and get the students to weigh in based on the knowledge they have from those lecture podcasts, Mr. Bowen says. "If you say to a student, We have this problem in Mayan archaeology: We don't know if the answer is A or B. We used to all think it was A, now we think it's B. If the lecture is 'Here's the answer, it's B,' that's not very interesting. But if the student believes they can contribute, they're a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline."
In short, don't be boring.
To help encourage his teaching theories, when Mr. Bowen arrived at Southern Methodist three years ago to become dean of its arts school, he decided to make some structural changes in 20 or so main classrooms.
He says most of those classrooms had two computers (a Mac and a PC), a DVD player, a VCR, and a tape deck, along with "one of those complicated control panels where you need a Ph.D. to figure it out."
Last summer Mr. Bowen had most of that gear removed - though he left in projectors so that professors could plug in their laptops and do PowerPoint presentations, if they must. He also took out the old desks and replaced them with tables and chairs that professors could move around to allow students to work in groups more easily.
One reason for the changes was financial. The classroom computers were old and needed an upgrade when Mr. Bowen arrived, so ditching them instead saved money. Plus, the move cut support costs - the school was able to eliminate one staff position for a technician who responded to calls from professors about the classroom systems.
To encourage the kind of technology use Mr. Bowen did want, the school gave every professor a laptop and set up support so they could create their own podcasts and videos.
Some professors have complained about lugging their laptops to class, but others have jumped in with both feet.
One of the fans is Maria A. Dixon, an assistant professor of applied communication. She's made podcasts for her course on "Critical Scholarship in Communication" that feature interviews she recorded with experts in the field. "Before, I was always complaining that I never had time to go in-depth and talk with my students," she says. "Now they come in actually much more informed about a subject than they would have if they had been assigned a reading."
Kevin Heffernan, an associate professor in the school's division of cinema and television, has also created podcast lectures - essentially narrated PowerPoint slide shows - for students to watch before class. During class he shows movie clips from his laptop and has students discuss them based on the background lectures.
"I don't have to explain to them how film censorship in America changed in 1968" during his class session on Midnight Cowboy, says Mr. Heffernan. "They have that information from the online podcast."
Student Resistance
Most students seem more attentive now, he says, though a few have been thrown off by the new system.
"Strangely enough, the people who are most resistant to this model are the students, who are used to being spoon-fed material that is going to be quote unquote on the test," says Mr. Heffernan. "Students have been socialized to view the educational process as essentially passive. The only way we're going to stop that is by radically refiguring the classroom in precisely the way José wants to do it."
Ms. Dixon has seen similar reactions. "If you've spent years not speaking, you're going to be ticked off" when you are asked to participate, she says. "We have to move past that resistance."
The same sequence of events occurred at Miami University, in Ohio, where Mr. Bowen worked before coming to Southern Methodist, and which pioneered some of the same teaching strategies.
"Initial response is generally negative until students start to understand and see how they learn under this new system," says Glenn Platt, a professor of marketing at Miami who has published academic papers about the approach, which he calls the "inverted classroom." "The first response from students is typically, 'I paid for a college education and you're not going to lecture?'"
Whatever griping students do about being asked to participate in class, though, it's better than the boredom induced by a PowerPoint lecture, say fans of the new approach.
Sandi Mann, the British researcher who led the recent study on student attitudes toward teaching, argues that boredom has serious implications in an educational setting. Students who say they are frequently bored are more likely to do poorly on tests, according to some studies.
But Mr. Bowen and Mr. Platt see the stakes as even higher. Now that so many colleges offer low-cost online alternatives to the traditional campus experience, and some universities give away videos of their best professors' lectures, colleges must make sure their in-person teaching really is superior to those alternatives.
"Schools need to be thinking this way," says Mr. Platt. "It's where they're going to prove they add value to being there in the room, and not being online."
Moving to PowerPoint from transparencies was the easy part of upgrading teaching for the digital age. Now that an entire infrastructure for instant online delivery is widely in place, all that's left is the hard part of changing what happens in the classroom, which might need to stay a low-tech zone to survive.
--------------------------
College 2.0 explores how new technologies are changing colleges. Please send ideas to jeff.young@chronicle.com.
**********************************************
I you have a REAL interest in educdating our kids for today's world, Dr. Jerry Becker is one of the best I've ever read. Too late for me but not for young fathers and mothers.
Merle--
Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
South
When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom
By Jeffrey R. Young
-----------------------
SIDEBAR Video: http://chronicle.com/media/video/v55/i42/bowen/ José A. Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, has challenged his colleagues to teach sans machines.
-----------------------
College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked" - by which he means, sans machines.
More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they're going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.
He's not the only one raising questions about PowerPoint, which on many campuses is the state of the art in classroom teaching. A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.
It's worth pointing out that PowerPoint presentations are generally better than many older classroom technologies, like slate chalkboards or overhead transparencies filled with hand-scrawled notes that students struggled to decipher. So computers have probably led to a slight improvement in teaching. But technology has hardly revolutionized the classroom experience for most college students, despite millions of dollars in investment and early predictions that going digital would force professors to rethink their lectures and would herald a pedagogical renaissance.
Mr. Bowen is part of a group of college leaders who haven't given up on that dream of shaking up college instruction. Even though he is taking computers out of classrooms, he's not anti-technology. He just thinks they should be used differently - upending the traditional lecture model in the process.
Here's the kicker, though: The biggest resistance to Mr. Bowen's ideas has come from students, some of whom have groused about taking a more active role during those 50-minute class periods. The lecture model is pretty comfortable for both students and professors, after all, and so fundamental change may be even harder than it initially seems, whether or not laptops, iPods, or other cool gadgets are thrown into the mix.
No Power in PowerPoint
Mr. Bowen delivers his pitch about "teaching naked" with the energy and confidence of a seasoned performer, which makes sense when you learn he has been on stage as a jazz musician for some 30 years. The administrator sported a suit jacket over a dark T-shirt while giving a recent talk about his approach at a conference on "Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning" put on by the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that encourages technology use in education.
Although he made a philosophical argument about the best way to engage students, he grounded it in his own classroom experiences using podcasts and video games about jazz history that he helped produce. He did not use PowerPoint, but he did use his laptop to show off one of his games, which lets students pick famous jazz musicians to play in a fictional supergroup.
His philosophy is that the information delivery common in today's classroom lectures should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class sessions. To make sure students tune in, he gives them short online multiple-choice tests.
So what's left to do during class once you've delivered your lecture? Introduce issues of debate within the discipline and get the students to weigh in based on the knowledge they have from those lecture podcasts, Mr. Bowen says. "If you say to a student, We have this problem in Mayan archaeology: We don't know if the answer is A or B. We used to all think it was A, now we think it's B. If the lecture is 'Here's the answer, it's B,' that's not very interesting. But if the student believes they can contribute, they're a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline."
In short, don't be boring.
To help encourage his teaching theories, when Mr. Bowen arrived at Southern Methodist three years ago to become dean of its arts school, he decided to make some structural changes in 20 or so main classrooms.
He says most of those classrooms had two computers (a Mac and a PC), a DVD player, a VCR, and a tape deck, along with "one of those complicated control panels where you need a Ph.D. to figure it out."
Last summer Mr. Bowen had most of that gear removed - though he left in projectors so that professors could plug in their laptops and do PowerPoint presentations, if they must. He also took out the old desks and replaced them with tables and chairs that professors could move around to allow students to work in groups more easily.
One reason for the changes was financial. The classroom computers were old and needed an upgrade when Mr. Bowen arrived, so ditching them instead saved money. Plus, the move cut support costs - the school was able to eliminate one staff position for a technician who responded to calls from professors about the classroom systems.
To encourage the kind of technology use Mr. Bowen did want, the school gave every professor a laptop and set up support so they could create their own podcasts and videos.
Some professors have complained about lugging their laptops to class, but others have jumped in with both feet.
One of the fans is Maria A. Dixon, an assistant professor of applied communication. She's made podcasts for her course on "Critical Scholarship in Communication" that feature interviews she recorded with experts in the field. "Before, I was always complaining that I never had time to go in-depth and talk with my students," she says. "Now they come in actually much more informed about a subject than they would have if they had been assigned a reading."
Kevin Heffernan, an associate professor in the school's division of cinema and television, has also created podcast lectures - essentially narrated PowerPoint slide shows - for students to watch before class. During class he shows movie clips from his laptop and has students discuss them based on the background lectures.
"I don't have to explain to them how film censorship in America changed in 1968" during his class session on Midnight Cowboy, says Mr. Heffernan. "They have that information from the online podcast."
Student Resistance
Most students seem more attentive now, he says, though a few have been thrown off by the new system.
"Strangely enough, the people who are most resistant to this model are the students, who are used to being spoon-fed material that is going to be quote unquote on the test," says Mr. Heffernan. "Students have been socialized to view the educational process as essentially passive. The only way we're going to stop that is by radically refiguring the classroom in precisely the way José wants to do it."
Ms. Dixon has seen similar reactions. "If you've spent years not speaking, you're going to be ticked off" when you are asked to participate, she says. "We have to move past that resistance."
The same sequence of events occurred at Miami University, in Ohio, where Mr. Bowen worked before coming to Southern Methodist, and which pioneered some of the same teaching strategies.
"Initial response is generally negative until students start to understand and see how they learn under this new system," says Glenn Platt, a professor of marketing at Miami who has published academic papers about the approach, which he calls the "inverted classroom." "The first response from students is typically, 'I paid for a college education and you're not going to lecture?'"
Whatever griping students do about being asked to participate in class, though, it's better than the boredom induced by a PowerPoint lecture, say fans of the new approach.
Sandi Mann, the British researcher who led the recent study on student attitudes toward teaching, argues that boredom has serious implications in an educational setting. Students who say they are frequently bored are more likely to do poorly on tests, according to some studies.
But Mr. Bowen and Mr. Platt see the stakes as even higher. Now that so many colleges offer low-cost online alternatives to the traditional campus experience, and some universities give away videos of their best professors' lectures, colleges must make sure their in-person teaching really is superior to those alternatives.
"Schools need to be thinking this way," says Mr. Platt. "It's where they're going to prove they add value to being there in the room, and not being online."
Moving to PowerPoint from transparencies was the easy part of upgrading teaching for the digital age. Now that an entire infrastructure for instant online delivery is widely in place, all that's left is the hard part of changing what happens in the classroom, which might need to stay a low-tech zone to survive.
--------------------------
College 2.0 explores how new technologies are changing colleges. Please send ideas to jeff.young@chronicle.com.
**********************************************
--
Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
Southern Illinois University
625 Wham Drive
Mail Code 4610
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: jbecker@siu.eduern Illinois University
625 Wham Drive
Mail Code 4610
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: jbecker@siu.edu
Merle
When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom
By Jeffrey R. Young
-----------------------
SIDEBAR Video: http://chronicle.com/media/video/v55/i42/bowen/ José A. Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, has challenged his colleagues to teach sans machines.
-----------------------
College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked" - by which he means, sans machines.
More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they're going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.
He's not the only one raising questions about PowerPoint, which on many campuses is the state of the art in classroom teaching. A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.
It's worth pointing out that PowerPoint presentations are generally better than many older classroom technologies, like slate chalkboards or overhead transparencies filled with hand-scrawled notes that students struggled to decipher. So computers have probably led to a slight improvement in teaching. But technology has hardly revolutionized the classroom experience for most college students, despite millions of dollars in investment and early predictions that going digital would force professors to rethink their lectures and would herald a pedagogical renaissance.
Mr. Bowen is part of a group of college leaders who haven't given up on that dream of shaking up college instruction. Even though he is taking computers out of classrooms, he's not anti-technology. He just thinks they should be used differently - upending the traditional lecture model in the process.
Here's the kicker, though: The biggest resistance to Mr. Bowen's ideas has come from students, some of whom have groused about taking a more active role during those 50-minute class periods. The lecture model is pretty comfortable for both students and professors, after all, and so fundamental change may be even harder than it initially seems, whether or not laptops, iPods, or other cool gadgets are thrown into the mix.
No Power in PowerPoint
Mr. Bowen delivers his pitch about "teaching naked" with the energy and confidence of a seasoned performer, which makes sense when you learn he has been on stage as a jazz musician for some 30 years. The administrator sported a suit jacket over a dark T-shirt while giving a recent talk about his approach at a conference on "Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning" put on by the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that encourages technology use in education.
Although he made a philosophical argument about the best way to engage students, he grounded it in his own classroom experiences using podcasts and video games about jazz history that he helped produce. He did not use PowerPoint, but he did use his laptop to show off one of his games, which lets students pick famous jazz musicians to play in a fictional supergroup.
His philosophy is that the information delivery common in today's classroom lectures should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class sessions. To make sure students tune in, he gives them short online multiple-choice tests.
So what's left to do during class once you've delivered your lecture? Introduce issues of debate within the discipline and get the students to weigh in based on the knowledge they have from those lecture podcasts, Mr. Bowen says. "If you say to a student, We have this problem in Mayan archaeology: We don't know if the answer is A or B. We used to all think it was A, now we think it's B. If the lecture is 'Here's the answer, it's B,' that's not very interesting. But if the student believes they can contribute, they're a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline."
In short, don't be boring.
To help encourage his teaching theories, when Mr. Bowen arrived at Southern Methodist three years ago to become dean of its arts school, he decided to make some structural changes in 20 or so main classrooms.
He says most of those classrooms had two computers (a Mac and a PC), a DVD player, a VCR, and a tape deck, along with "one of those complicated control panels where you need a Ph.D. to figure it out."
Last summer Mr. Bowen had most of that gear removed - though he left in projectors so that professors could plug in their laptops and do PowerPoint presentations, if they must. He also took out the old desks and replaced them with tables and chairs that professors could move around to allow students to work in groups more easily.
One reason for the changes was financial. The classroom computers were old and needed an upgrade when Mr. Bowen arrived, so ditching them instead saved money. Plus, the move cut support costs - the school was able to eliminate one staff position for a technician who responded to calls from professors about the classroom systems.
To encourage the kind of technology use Mr. Bowen did want, the school gave every professor a laptop and set up support so they could create their own podcasts and videos.
Some professors have complained about lugging their laptops to class, but others have jumped in with both feet.
One of the fans is Maria A. Dixon, an assistant professor of applied communication. She's made podcasts for her course on "Critical Scholarship in Communication" that feature interviews she recorded with experts in the field. "Before, I was always complaining that I never had time to go in-depth and talk with my students," she says. "Now they come in actually much more informed about a subject than they would have if they had been assigned a reading."
Kevin Heffernan, an associate professor in the school's division of cinema and television, has also created podcast lectures - essentially narrated PowerPoint slide shows - for students to watch before class. During class he shows movie clips from his laptop and has students discuss them based on the background lectures.
"I don't have to explain to them how film censorship in America changed in 1968" during his class session on Midnight Cowboy, says Mr. Heffernan. "They have that information from the online podcast."
Student Resistance
Most students seem more attentive now, he says, though a few have been thrown off by the new system.
"Strangely enough, the people who are most resistant to this model are the students, who are used to being spoon-fed material that is going to be quote unquote on the test," says Mr. Heffernan. "Students have been socialized to view the educational process as essentially passive. The only way we're going to stop that is by radically refiguring the classroom in precisely the way José wants to do it."
Ms. Dixon has seen similar reactions. "If you've spent years not speaking, you're going to be ticked off" when you are asked to participate, she says. "We have to move past that resistance."
The same sequence of events occurred at Miami University, in Ohio, where Mr. Bowen worked before coming to Southern Methodist, and which pioneered some of the same teaching strategies.
"Initial response is generally negative until students start to understand and see how they learn under this new system," says Glenn Platt, a professor of marketing at Miami who has published academic papers about the approach, which he calls the "inverted classroom." "The first response from students is typically, 'I paid for a college education and you're not going to lecture?'"
Whatever griping students do about being asked to participate in class, though, it's better than the boredom induced by a PowerPoint lecture, say fans of the new approach.
Sandi Mann, the British researcher who led the recent study on student attitudes toward teaching, argues that boredom has serious implications in an educational setting. Students who say they are frequently bored are more likely to do poorly on tests, according to some studies.
But Mr. Bowen and Mr. Platt see the stakes as even higher. Now that so many colleges offer low-cost online alternatives to the traditional campus experience, and some universities give away videos of their best professors' lectures, colleges must make sure their in-person teaching really is superior to those alternatives.
"Schools need to be thinking this way," says Mr. Platt. "It's where they're going to prove they add value to being there in the room, and not being online."
Moving to PowerPoint from transparencies was the easy part of upgrading teaching for the digital age. Now that an entire infrastructure for instant online delivery is widely in place, all that's left is the hard part of changing what happens in the classroom, which might need to stay a low-tech zone to survive.
--------------------------
College 2.0 explores how new technologies are changing colleges. Please send ideas to jeff.young@chronicle.com.
**********************************************
I you have a REAL interest in educdating our kids for today's world, Dr. Jerry Becker is one of the best I've ever read. Too late for me but not for young fathers and mothers.
Merle--
Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
South
When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom
By Jeffrey R. Young
-----------------------
SIDEBAR Video: http://chronicle.com/media/video/v55/i42/bowen/ José A. Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, has challenged his colleagues to teach sans machines.
-----------------------
College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked" - by which he means, sans machines.
More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they're going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.
He's not the only one raising questions about PowerPoint, which on many campuses is the state of the art in classroom teaching. A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.
It's worth pointing out that PowerPoint presentations are generally better than many older classroom technologies, like slate chalkboards or overhead transparencies filled with hand-scrawled notes that students struggled to decipher. So computers have probably led to a slight improvement in teaching. But technology has hardly revolutionized the classroom experience for most college students, despite millions of dollars in investment and early predictions that going digital would force professors to rethink their lectures and would herald a pedagogical renaissance.
Mr. Bowen is part of a group of college leaders who haven't given up on that dream of shaking up college instruction. Even though he is taking computers out of classrooms, he's not anti-technology. He just thinks they should be used differently - upending the traditional lecture model in the process.
Here's the kicker, though: The biggest resistance to Mr. Bowen's ideas has come from students, some of whom have groused about taking a more active role during those 50-minute class periods. The lecture model is pretty comfortable for both students and professors, after all, and so fundamental change may be even harder than it initially seems, whether or not laptops, iPods, or other cool gadgets are thrown into the mix.
No Power in PowerPoint
Mr. Bowen delivers his pitch about "teaching naked" with the energy and confidence of a seasoned performer, which makes sense when you learn he has been on stage as a jazz musician for some 30 years. The administrator sported a suit jacket over a dark T-shirt while giving a recent talk about his approach at a conference on "Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning" put on by the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that encourages technology use in education.
Although he made a philosophical argument about the best way to engage students, he grounded it in his own classroom experiences using podcasts and video games about jazz history that he helped produce. He did not use PowerPoint, but he did use his laptop to show off one of his games, which lets students pick famous jazz musicians to play in a fictional supergroup.
His philosophy is that the information delivery common in today's classroom lectures should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class sessions. To make sure students tune in, he gives them short online multiple-choice tests.
So what's left to do during class once you've delivered your lecture? Introduce issues of debate within the discipline and get the students to weigh in based on the knowledge they have from those lecture podcasts, Mr. Bowen says. "If you say to a student, We have this problem in Mayan archaeology: We don't know if the answer is A or B. We used to all think it was A, now we think it's B. If the lecture is 'Here's the answer, it's B,' that's not very interesting. But if the student believes they can contribute, they're a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline."
In short, don't be boring.
To help encourage his teaching theories, when Mr. Bowen arrived at Southern Methodist three years ago to become dean of its arts school, he decided to make some structural changes in 20 or so main classrooms.
He says most of those classrooms had two computers (a Mac and a PC), a DVD player, a VCR, and a tape deck, along with "one of those complicated control panels where you need a Ph.D. to figure it out."
Last summer Mr. Bowen had most of that gear removed - though he left in projectors so that professors could plug in their laptops and do PowerPoint presentations, if they must. He also took out the old desks and replaced them with tables and chairs that professors could move around to allow students to work in groups more easily.
One reason for the changes was financial. The classroom computers were old and needed an upgrade when Mr. Bowen arrived, so ditching them instead saved money. Plus, the move cut support costs - the school was able to eliminate one staff position for a technician who responded to calls from professors about the classroom systems.
To encourage the kind of technology use Mr. Bowen did want, the school gave every professor a laptop and set up support so they could create their own podcasts and videos.
Some professors have complained about lugging their laptops to class, but others have jumped in with both feet.
One of the fans is Maria A. Dixon, an assistant professor of applied communication. She's made podcasts for her course on "Critical Scholarship in Communication" that feature interviews she recorded with experts in the field. "Before, I was always complaining that I never had time to go in-depth and talk with my students," she says. "Now they come in actually much more informed about a subject than they would have if they had been assigned a reading."
Kevin Heffernan, an associate professor in the school's division of cinema and television, has also created podcast lectures - essentially narrated PowerPoint slide shows - for students to watch before class. During class he shows movie clips from his laptop and has students discuss them based on the background lectures.
"I don't have to explain to them how film censorship in America changed in 1968" during his class session on Midnight Cowboy, says Mr. Heffernan. "They have that information from the online podcast."
Student Resistance
Most students seem more attentive now, he says, though a few have been thrown off by the new system.
"Strangely enough, the people who are most resistant to this model are the students, who are used to being spoon-fed material that is going to be quote unquote on the test," says Mr. Heffernan. "Students have been socialized to view the educational process as essentially passive. The only way we're going to stop that is by radically refiguring the classroom in precisely the way José wants to do it."
Ms. Dixon has seen similar reactions. "If you've spent years not speaking, you're going to be ticked off" when you are asked to participate, she says. "We have to move past that resistance."
The same sequence of events occurred at Miami University, in Ohio, where Mr. Bowen worked before coming to Southern Methodist, and which pioneered some of the same teaching strategies.
"Initial response is generally negative until students start to understand and see how they learn under this new system," says Glenn Platt, a professor of marketing at Miami who has published academic papers about the approach, which he calls the "inverted classroom." "The first response from students is typically, 'I paid for a college education and you're not going to lecture?'"
Whatever griping students do about being asked to participate in class, though, it's better than the boredom induced by a PowerPoint lecture, say fans of the new approach.
Sandi Mann, the British researcher who led the recent study on student attitudes toward teaching, argues that boredom has serious implications in an educational setting. Students who say they are frequently bored are more likely to do poorly on tests, according to some studies.
But Mr. Bowen and Mr. Platt see the stakes as even higher. Now that so many colleges offer low-cost online alternatives to the traditional campus experience, and some universities give away videos of their best professors' lectures, colleges must make sure their in-person teaching really is superior to those alternatives.
"Schools need to be thinking this way," says Mr. Platt. "It's where they're going to prove they add value to being there in the room, and not being online."
Moving to PowerPoint from transparencies was the easy part of upgrading teaching for the digital age. Now that an entire infrastructure for instant online delivery is widely in place, all that's left is the hard part of changing what happens in the classroom, which might need to stay a low-tech zone to survive.
--------------------------
College 2.0 explores how new technologies are changing colleges. Please send ideas to jeff.young@chronicle.com.
**********************************************
--
Jerry P. Becker
Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction
Southern Illinois University
625 Wham Drive
Mail Code 4610
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: jbecker@siu.eduern Illinois University
625 Wham Drive
Mail Code 4610
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: jbecker@siu.edu
Merle's Musings
Undergoing a blogger's block. Temporarily, I'll fill in with emails friends sent me as they are better than I could write. Maybe already sent to but pass on because the message come from the sender heart.
I couldn't agree more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: You could have heard a pin drop!
When in England, at a fairly large
Conference, Condi Rice was asked by
The Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans
For Iraq were just an example
Of empire building' by George Bush.
She answered by saying, 'Over the years, the
United States has sent many
Of its fine young men and women into great
Peril to fight for freedom beyond
Our borders. The only amount of land we
Have ever asked for in return
Is enough to bury those that did not
Return.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a conference in France where a
Number of international engineers
Were taking part, including French and
American.. During a break, one of the
French engineers came back into the room
Saying 'Have you heard the latest
Dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an
Aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help
The tsunami victims. What does he intended
To do, bomb them?'
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied
Quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals
On board that can treat several hundred
People; they are nuclear powered and
Can supply emergency electrical power to
Shore facilities; they have three cafeterias
With the capacity to feed 3,000 people
Three meals a day, they can produce several
Thousand gallons of fresh water from sea
Water each day, and they carry half a
Dozen helicopters for use in transporting
Victims and injured to and from their flight
Deck. We have eleven such ships; how many
Does France have?'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval
Conference that included Admirals
From the U..S. , English, Canadian,
Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail
Reception, he found himself standing with
A large group of Officers that included
Personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English
As they sipped their drinks but a French
Admiral suddenly complained that,
Whereas Europeans learn many languages,
Americans learn only English.' He then
Asked, 'Why is it that we always have to
Speak English in these conferences rather
Than speaking French?' Without
Hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe
it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies
And Americans arranged it so you
Wouldn't have to speak German.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE
ABOVE...
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83,
Arrived in Paris by plane. At French
Customs, he took a few minutes to locate
His passport in his carry on. 'You have
Been to France before, monsieur?' the
Customs officer asked sarcastically.
Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to
France previously. Then you should
Know enough to have your passport ready.'
The American said, ''The last time I was
Here, I didn't have to show it. 'Impossible.
Americans always have to show your
Passports on arrival in France !' The American
Senior gave the Frenchman a long hard
Look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well,
When I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day
In 1944 to help liberate this country,
I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show
A passport to.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
If you are proud, pass this on! If not delete it.
I am so GRATEFUL and PROUD to be a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA " AMERICAN " I WAS COMPELLED TO PASS THIS ON, IT'S WHATS NOT BEING TAUGHT OR TALKED ABOUT THESE DAYS.
I couldn't agree more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: You could have heard a pin drop!
When in England, at a fairly large
Conference, Condi Rice was asked by
The Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans
For Iraq were just an example
Of empire building' by George Bush.
She answered by saying, 'Over the years, the
United States has sent many
Of its fine young men and women into great
Peril to fight for freedom beyond
Our borders. The only amount of land we
Have ever asked for in return
Is enough to bury those that did not
Return.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a conference in France where a
Number of international engineers
Were taking part, including French and
American.. During a break, one of the
French engineers came back into the room
Saying 'Have you heard the latest
Dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an
Aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help
The tsunami victims. What does he intended
To do, bomb them?'
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied
Quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals
On board that can treat several hundred
People; they are nuclear powered and
Can supply emergency electrical power to
Shore facilities; they have three cafeterias
With the capacity to feed 3,000 people
Three meals a day, they can produce several
Thousand gallons of fresh water from sea
Water each day, and they carry half a
Dozen helicopters for use in transporting
Victims and injured to and from their flight
Deck. We have eleven such ships; how many
Does France have?'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval
Conference that included Admirals
From the U..S. , English, Canadian,
Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail
Reception, he found himself standing with
A large group of Officers that included
Personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English
As they sipped their drinks but a French
Admiral suddenly complained that,
Whereas Europeans learn many languages,
Americans learn only English.' He then
Asked, 'Why is it that we always have to
Speak English in these conferences rather
Than speaking French?' Without
Hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe
it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies
And Americans arranged it so you
Wouldn't have to speak German.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE
ABOVE...
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83,
Arrived in Paris by plane. At French
Customs, he took a few minutes to locate
His passport in his carry on. 'You have
Been to France before, monsieur?' the
Customs officer asked sarcastically.
Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to
France previously. Then you should
Know enough to have your passport ready.'
The American said, ''The last time I was
Here, I didn't have to show it. 'Impossible.
Americans always have to show your
Passports on arrival in France !' The American
Senior gave the Frenchman a long hard
Look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well,
When I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day
In 1944 to help liberate this country,
I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show
A passport to.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
If you are proud, pass this on! If not delete it.
I am so GRATEFUL and PROUD to be a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA " AMERICAN " I WAS COMPELLED TO PASS THIS ON, IT'S WHATS NOT BEING TAUGHT OR TALKED ABOUT THESE DAYS.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sure,Governments and Some Big Businesses Know More Than Everybody That Isn't Either One
Email from a friend. Thought you might want to read and ponder.
And wonder.
Merle
Absolutely the funniest joke ever......ON US!!!
Let it sink in.
Quietly we go like sheep to slaughter.
Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration?
Anybody?
Anything?
No?
Didn't think so!
Bottom line... we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency...
The reason for which not one person who reads this can remember.
Ready???????
It was very simple...
And at the time everybody thought it very appropriate...
The 'Department of Energy' was instituted on
8- 04-1977
TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.
Hey, pretty efficient, huh?????
AND NOW ITS 2009, 32 YEARS LATER
AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR
IT HAS
16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
AND APPROXIMATELY
100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES
AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!
THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY
'WHAT WAS I THINKING?'
Ah, yes, good ole bureaucracy...
And NOW we are going to turn the Banking System, health care, & the auto industry over to them?
God Help Us!!!
And wonder.
Merle
Absolutely the funniest joke ever......ON US!!!
Let it sink in.
Quietly we go like sheep to slaughter.
Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration?
Anybody?
Anything?
No?
Didn't think so!
Bottom line... we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency...
The reason for which not one person who reads this can remember.
Ready???????
It was very simple...
And at the time everybody thought it very appropriate...
The 'Department of Energy' was instituted on
8- 04-1977
TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.
Hey, pretty efficient, huh?????
AND NOW ITS 2009, 32 YEARS LATER
AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR
IT HAS
16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
AND APPROXIMATELY
100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES
AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!
THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY
'WHAT WAS I THINKING?'
Ah, yes, good ole bureaucracy...
And NOW we are going to turn the Banking System, health care, & the auto industry over to them?
God Help Us!!!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Federal Government Move to Peoria?
Australian Shooter Magazine
Gotta love the closing comment!
Australian Shooter Magazine
An email sent to me which is sad but I pass on with a little "TIC" humor.
Good idea. The Federal Government would be more centrally located. We have a lot of "big" box empty buildings that could be rehabbed. We have a strong National Guard, lot's of activities, even nationally known, Big Al's, a gambling boat across the river, including National Softball tournaments across the river, yes we too, have a river and not least we could use a boost in stimulus money and more jobs. Plus many of us are in favor of "qualified" people having "the right to carry" so most D.C. politicians would eventually be safe here.
Here is the email:
An interesting letter in the Australian Shooter Magazine this week, which I quote: "If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000
troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.
The firearm death rate in Washington, DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 percent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital,
which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: "The US should pull out of Washington."
Gotta love the closing comment!
Australian Shooter Magazine
An email sent to me which is sad but I pass on with a little "TIC" humor.
Good idea. The Federal Government would be more centrally located. We have a lot of "big" box empty buildings that could be rehabbed. We have a strong National Guard, lot's of activities, even nationally known, Big Al's, a gambling boat across the river, including National Softball tournaments across the river, yes we too, have a river and not least we could use a boost in stimulus money and more jobs. Plus many of us are in favor of "qualified" people having "the right to carry" so most D.C. politicians would eventually be safe here.
Here is the email:
An interesting letter in the Australian Shooter Magazine this week, which I quote: "If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000
troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.
The firearm death rate in Washington, DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 percent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital,
which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: "The US should pull out of Washington."
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Shut Bel-Wood Down? Not Hardly
One Peoria County Board member keeps telling other board members that the state will shut Bel-Wood down soon if sprinkler systems are not installed. Most probably not. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent out a Guidance to Surveyors rev.22,12-15-06 that states under section 483.70(a)(8)(i) and (11), A long term care facility must install an approved, supervised automatic sprinkler system in accordance with the 1999 edition of NFPA 13, 'Standard for the installation of Sprinkler Systems', as incorporated by reference, throughout the building by August 13, 2013'. (4 years from now)
According to a friend of mine who spent many years working for the State of Illinois, inspecting Bel-Wood more than 20 times, says as long as the state is notified the County has the plans to do the installation and is moving forward on the project is usually satisfactory. The worst scenario, he says, would be a fine.
His observations on his visitations to B-W were that most problems were not physical but were operational. He feels most of the problems will remain even if a new building is built). He also believes that retrofitting the building would be adequate and that it would not cost even $22 million, up to $27-$29 million now????. (The latest projected cost for a new B-W now up to is $41 million, $38 million would need to be borrowed)
As an almost 9 year veteran of the County Board and having served and serve now on the Health and Environmental Committee, I felt that we hired the wrong manager back in 2002 and said so over the strong recommendations of our administrator. He was gone in 3 1/2 years. Too late. No one was calling attention to our committee that the building was in terrible shape, and, by the way, why do the private pay and Medicare people stay there when their are 400 empty beds in the community (these figures from our B-W Administrator in March, 2009) if B-W is in such "bad condition"?
Seven months after our present administrator was hired, he was quoted in the JS on 12/30/2007, "By 2010, all health care facilities, including nursing homes, must have sprinklers". Not a true statement at all. He was also quoted in the same article as saying that B-W had 25 Life Safety Code violations issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health, yet we were not fined for these violations, but were fined for violations that evidently started in 2008 and in May the County Board was notified we were going to pay a $10,100.00 fine for violations at Bel-wood. He was also quoted that B-W had made a $1 million profit. Public facilities not not make "profits" when they are supported that year by $2,890,000 in property taxes, both direct and indirect.
Hmmmmmm.
Bel-Wood has a long history of "operational problems". There is no guarantee a new building will cause these problems to go away. B-W was recently fined $10,000 despite the fact that we installed a new B-W Administrator within the last two years.
The State of Illinois would close Bel-Wood and boot all the residences out are "scare tactics". Plus put them where? That's also why we have elected representatives in Springfield to act on the counties behalf. Look how quickly we got a new bill passed to allow the new "facility sales tax".
It was a miracle.
Hmmmmmm.
According to a friend of mine who spent many years working for the State of Illinois, inspecting Bel-Wood more than 20 times, says as long as the state is notified the County has the plans to do the installation and is moving forward on the project is usually satisfactory. The worst scenario, he says, would be a fine.
His observations on his visitations to B-W were that most problems were not physical but were operational. He feels most of the problems will remain even if a new building is built). He also believes that retrofitting the building would be adequate and that it would not cost even $22 million, up to $27-$29 million now????. (The latest projected cost for a new B-W now up to is $41 million, $38 million would need to be borrowed)
As an almost 9 year veteran of the County Board and having served and serve now on the Health and Environmental Committee, I felt that we hired the wrong manager back in 2002 and said so over the strong recommendations of our administrator. He was gone in 3 1/2 years. Too late. No one was calling attention to our committee that the building was in terrible shape, and, by the way, why do the private pay and Medicare people stay there when their are 400 empty beds in the community (these figures from our B-W Administrator in March, 2009) if B-W is in such "bad condition"?
Seven months after our present administrator was hired, he was quoted in the JS on 12/30/2007, "By 2010, all health care facilities, including nursing homes, must have sprinklers". Not a true statement at all. He was also quoted in the same article as saying that B-W had 25 Life Safety Code violations issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health, yet we were not fined for these violations, but were fined for violations that evidently started in 2008 and in May the County Board was notified we were going to pay a $10,100.00 fine for violations at Bel-wood. He was also quoted that B-W had made a $1 million profit. Public facilities not not make "profits" when they are supported that year by $2,890,000 in property taxes, both direct and indirect.
Hmmmmmm.
Bel-Wood has a long history of "operational problems". There is no guarantee a new building will cause these problems to go away. B-W was recently fined $10,000 despite the fact that we installed a new B-W Administrator within the last two years.
The State of Illinois would close Bel-Wood and boot all the residences out are "scare tactics". Plus put them where? That's also why we have elected representatives in Springfield to act on the counties behalf. Look how quickly we got a new bill passed to allow the new "facility sales tax".
It was a miracle.
Hmmmmmm.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Representative Aaron Schock Requests Meeting with Peoria Public Park Superintendent and Park Board President
On February 28, 2009, Congressman Schock requested a meeting with Superintendent Noble and President Cassidy, to ask that they compile a list of "shovel ready" projects for the stimulus package.
The list composed was as follows:
Pimiteoui Bike Trail (Kellar Branch. This project includes the construction of a six mile section of bike trail on the Kellar Branch railroad through Peoria. Total request - $1.8 million
Grand View Drive Bluff Watershed and Roadway Stabilization - $1.8 million
Glen Oak Parking Lot Improvements. This project includes construction of a lighted pervious concrete parking lot for 125 cars to meet the needs of activities within historic Glen Oak Park and an expanded Peoria Zoo. - $750,000.00
Glen Oak Park Open Space Acquisition. The project would include the acquisition of 12parcels located adjacent to historic Glen Oak Park. The included scope includes the necessary appraisals, platting, demolition and restoration of open space. Plenty of room for lots of pork here. - $1.2 million
New Peoria Park District Administrative Offices and Community Center located at 6017 N. Knoxville Ave. - Renovate an existing facility to provide a new, consolidated, and efficient administration building for the Peoria Park District. Architectural work has been completed, and this project would have been put out for bid for 2009 construction, but has been delayed by the state of the economy. - $2.9 million
Proctor Center, which the park said was underutilized and needed a lot of work has already received $212,500.00 as part of a matching grant. Grant from who? The state?
Pork barrel and earmarks and if you can find any real stimulus in any of these projects, please explain your definition of stimulus.
The list composed was as follows:
Pimiteoui Bike Trail (Kellar Branch. This project includes the construction of a six mile section of bike trail on the Kellar Branch railroad through Peoria. Total request - $1.8 million
Grand View Drive Bluff Watershed and Roadway Stabilization - $1.8 million
Glen Oak Parking Lot Improvements. This project includes construction of a lighted pervious concrete parking lot for 125 cars to meet the needs of activities within historic Glen Oak Park and an expanded Peoria Zoo. - $750,000.00
Glen Oak Park Open Space Acquisition. The project would include the acquisition of 12parcels located adjacent to historic Glen Oak Park. The included scope includes the necessary appraisals, platting, demolition and restoration of open space. Plenty of room for lots of pork here. - $1.2 million
New Peoria Park District Administrative Offices and Community Center located at 6017 N. Knoxville Ave. - Renovate an existing facility to provide a new, consolidated, and efficient administration building for the Peoria Park District. Architectural work has been completed, and this project would have been put out for bid for 2009 construction, but has been delayed by the state of the economy. - $2.9 million
Proctor Center, which the park said was underutilized and needed a lot of work has already received $212,500.00 as part of a matching grant. Grant from who? The state?
Pork barrel and earmarks and if you can find any real stimulus in any of these projects, please explain your definition of stimulus.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
USTA - Peoria Futures - The Clubs at River City - July 11-19
Great tennis. Some of the best men players in the world and some who have or will play in major tournaments soon. This is the 29th year of this OPEN format. Players from 20 or more countries are participating. Free gate with bleacher seating including two sections with shade.
When you consider that some of these players are ranked as high as in the 400's, consider the caliber of play by looking at major league baseball who have 800 players in their systems.
Tournament directors are local well known tennis players, Ron Murphy and Chris Doscotch ably assisted by Martha Burdess and Margo Grimstead and family among a host of others.
See you there..
When you consider that some of these players are ranked as high as in the 400's, consider the caliber of play by looking at major league baseball who have 800 players in their systems.
Tournament directors are local well known tennis players, Ron Murphy and Chris Doscotch ably assisted by Martha Burdess and Margo Grimstead and family among a host of others.
See you there..
Friday, July 10, 2009
My Peoria County Board Election Planks - 2000
Listed are the "issues" on which I based my successful run against Zan Ransburg in the Republican primary for my 2000 election to the Peoria County Board. I defeated Democrat Jim Graves in the General Election. Since then I have reelected twice and twice elected to terms as Vice-Chairman of the County Board.
My priorities, in order, were as follows:
1. Reduce property taxes; we reduce the levy but property values are supposedly rising and so are property taxes. Personnel costs and benefits are rising. We had a budget of $80 million in 2000 and a budget of $122 million for 2009. Success?
2. Bel-Wood Nursing Home still has major problems which need to be addressed: Success, no. Three years into my first term, I helped promote a successful referendum to raise property taxes to MAINTAIN Bel-Wood. 2003 property taxes to support BW were $681.000. In 2004, these taxes rose to $1,461,552. By 2008, these taxes had risen to $1,750,609. From 2002 through 2008, BW has collected $15, 349.538.00 in property taxes and indirect taxes plus $300,000.00 from the Counties General Fund for maintenance but BW's condition continued to deteriorate. In 2004, the first year the direct property taxes from the referendum were collected, B-W was $4,395,868.00 in debt even though retirement (IMRF) and FICA costs of $772,246.00 were deducted from Bel-Wood operating costs for the first time that year. In 2005, Social Security and Medicare costs were also deducted from B-W operating costs. These INDIRECT costs that should have appeared in Bel-Wood's operating costs as indirect taxes amounted to $1,222,000 in year 2008. From 2002-2008, these indirect taxes totaled $6,535,818.00, combined with direct taxes, all collected from property tax payers, make it appear Bel-Wood is operating close to break even. Operated like a business, which it is, it is losing millions of dollars each year.
Board members say, but this was all approved in the referendum.
Not true at all. Board member Mayer is quoted as saying, "we could not use the taxes from the referendum for any other purpose. True, but we could remove the tax from the tax payer rolls. But I'm probably the only "politician" who ever suggested removing a tax from your property tax bill. We could have also used this $15 million plus to MAINTAIN Bel-Wood; we didn't, as the 2003 referendum read.
Bel-Wood in 2008 was subsidized by a total of $2,971,245.00 alone. Yet Democrat Allan Mayer said Bel-Wood was making a profit and Republican Carol Trumpe said Bel-Wood was breaking even. When Bel-Wood is heavily subsidized its easy to say it is breaking even or making a profit.
Part of the referendum funds totaling the aforementioned $14+ million meant for maintenance went to pay off this $4+ million debt. Now the County Board has voted to build a new BW at a cost of approximately $41,000,000.00. With only $3 million in the BW building fund, $38,000,000.00 will need to be borrowed over a 30 year term. Figuring 5% interest will drive the total amount paid out to build B-W to approximately $75,000,000.00 over 30 years. Administration projects that by year 2042, BW property taxes collected will amount to $4,500,000.00 a year. Administration predicts that revenues and property taxes rising at 3% a year will allow BW to operate yearly at break-even or better. The County Board majority, concurs.
We are going to build a $41 million new B-W that will compete against the private sector. B-W mission was to be a "safety net" for the poor.
Where the new B-W will be built is still to be determined. The old B-W will be renovated and used for some other county purpose, one possibility being used by the sheriff for overflow now existing at the county jail.
3. Facilities Maintenance: Success? Yes but only after too long a period of time. My platform read: " If elected I will call for the creation of a Facilities Manager to oversee maintenance of all county owned buildings. The county has invested millions in buildings, but has no centralized PREVENTATIVE maintenance program.
At the first Facility Meeting in 2001 under "Goals and Objectives", reads, 'Investigate in conjunction with the County Administrator the need for a Facility Manager for the oversight of all County property'.
Barbara Mantz Drake, then Editor of the JSEB asked me why I would want to spend money for a new position when the county was short of cash. I explained the necessity of a PREVENTATIVE maintenance system but neither she, the county board or County Administrator Urich were convinced. Approximately a year later a major water pipe break caused well over $500,000 damage to the courthouse, plus untold dollars in lost time. A preventative program would have caught the problem.
Yet it wasn't until September of 2006 that a suggestion was made, "Ms. Van Beek is asking the Health Committee's consideration in providing Bel-Wood with a Maintenance Supervisor saying that the building had a 'number of significant maintenance issues that need to be addressed'." She further stated that "Bel-Wood needs someone who can manage issues on a day to day basis".
Too late. Bel-Wood had deteriorated enough for the consultants to tell us it would be less costly to build. That decision in my eyes is very much debatable.
I'm informed by our lead maintenance supervisor, Scott Bishop, that we have a preventative maintenance system running today.
4. Computer Services: My issue was that "the county should explore developing its own specialized computer staff rather than relying on an outside vendor which has cost taxpayers millions". We did go in-house and the system has been extremely successful.
5. Financial Services: My issue was "The county has an annual budget of nearly $80 million but has no financial officer. No business can operate efficiently without such a position. the county should immediately take steps to hire a financial officer". It took until 2008 to do so. The move appears to have been successful.
I've enjoyed most of my 8 1/2 years on the board. I have 18 month to go and am not running for reelection. I wouldn't run again even if I had the energy. I've enjoyed seeing much progress made by the board but we are now venturing down avenues I do not support. I agree with our financial support of Springdale Cemetery but that should some day come to an end. I thoroughly disagree with our soon-to-be ownership of the Peoria Riverfront Museum. I believe that most if not all county government, should not be in the nursing home business. That is a specialized business that is far more complicated than from the "old days" when it was truly a "safety net" for the poor. Now it will be a $41 million and possible more facility in direct competition with those who pay property taxes to support it.
My priorities, in order, were as follows:
1. Reduce property taxes; we reduce the levy but property values are supposedly rising and so are property taxes. Personnel costs and benefits are rising. We had a budget of $80 million in 2000 and a budget of $122 million for 2009. Success?
2. Bel-Wood Nursing Home still has major problems which need to be addressed: Success, no. Three years into my first term, I helped promote a successful referendum to raise property taxes to MAINTAIN Bel-Wood. 2003 property taxes to support BW were $681.000. In 2004, these taxes rose to $1,461,552. By 2008, these taxes had risen to $1,750,609. From 2002 through 2008, BW has collected $15, 349.538.00 in property taxes and indirect taxes plus $300,000.00 from the Counties General Fund for maintenance but BW's condition continued to deteriorate. In 2004, the first year the direct property taxes from the referendum were collected, B-W was $4,395,868.00 in debt even though retirement (IMRF) and FICA costs of $772,246.00 were deducted from Bel-Wood operating costs for the first time that year. In 2005, Social Security and Medicare costs were also deducted from B-W operating costs. These INDIRECT costs that should have appeared in Bel-Wood's operating costs as indirect taxes amounted to $1,222,000 in year 2008. From 2002-2008, these indirect taxes totaled $6,535,818.00, combined with direct taxes, all collected from property tax payers, make it appear Bel-Wood is operating close to break even. Operated like a business, which it is, it is losing millions of dollars each year.
Board members say, but this was all approved in the referendum.
Not true at all. Board member Mayer is quoted as saying, "we could not use the taxes from the referendum for any other purpose. True, but we could remove the tax from the tax payer rolls. But I'm probably the only "politician" who ever suggested removing a tax from your property tax bill. We could have also used this $15 million plus to MAINTAIN Bel-Wood; we didn't, as the 2003 referendum read.
Bel-Wood in 2008 was subsidized by a total of $2,971,245.00 alone. Yet Democrat Allan Mayer said Bel-Wood was making a profit and Republican Carol Trumpe said Bel-Wood was breaking even. When Bel-Wood is heavily subsidized its easy to say it is breaking even or making a profit.
Part of the referendum funds totaling the aforementioned $14+ million meant for maintenance went to pay off this $4+ million debt. Now the County Board has voted to build a new BW at a cost of approximately $41,000,000.00. With only $3 million in the BW building fund, $38,000,000.00 will need to be borrowed over a 30 year term. Figuring 5% interest will drive the total amount paid out to build B-W to approximately $75,000,000.00 over 30 years. Administration projects that by year 2042, BW property taxes collected will amount to $4,500,000.00 a year. Administration predicts that revenues and property taxes rising at 3% a year will allow BW to operate yearly at break-even or better. The County Board majority, concurs.
We are going to build a $41 million new B-W that will compete against the private sector. B-W mission was to be a "safety net" for the poor.
Where the new B-W will be built is still to be determined. The old B-W will be renovated and used for some other county purpose, one possibility being used by the sheriff for overflow now existing at the county jail.
3. Facilities Maintenance: Success? Yes but only after too long a period of time. My platform read: " If elected I will call for the creation of a Facilities Manager to oversee maintenance of all county owned buildings. The county has invested millions in buildings, but has no centralized PREVENTATIVE maintenance program.
At the first Facility Meeting in 2001 under "Goals and Objectives", reads, 'Investigate in conjunction with the County Administrator the need for a Facility Manager for the oversight of all County property'.
Barbara Mantz Drake, then Editor of the JSEB asked me why I would want to spend money for a new position when the county was short of cash. I explained the necessity of a PREVENTATIVE maintenance system but neither she, the county board or County Administrator Urich were convinced. Approximately a year later a major water pipe break caused well over $500,000 damage to the courthouse, plus untold dollars in lost time. A preventative program would have caught the problem.
Yet it wasn't until September of 2006 that a suggestion was made, "Ms. Van Beek is asking the Health Committee's consideration in providing Bel-Wood with a Maintenance Supervisor saying that the building had a 'number of significant maintenance issues that need to be addressed'." She further stated that "Bel-Wood needs someone who can manage issues on a day to day basis".
Too late. Bel-Wood had deteriorated enough for the consultants to tell us it would be less costly to build. That decision in my eyes is very much debatable.
I'm informed by our lead maintenance supervisor, Scott Bishop, that we have a preventative maintenance system running today.
4. Computer Services: My issue was that "the county should explore developing its own specialized computer staff rather than relying on an outside vendor which has cost taxpayers millions". We did go in-house and the system has been extremely successful.
5. Financial Services: My issue was "The county has an annual budget of nearly $80 million but has no financial officer. No business can operate efficiently without such a position. the county should immediately take steps to hire a financial officer". It took until 2008 to do so. The move appears to have been successful.
I've enjoyed most of my 8 1/2 years on the board. I have 18 month to go and am not running for reelection. I wouldn't run again even if I had the energy. I've enjoyed seeing much progress made by the board but we are now venturing down avenues I do not support. I agree with our financial support of Springdale Cemetery but that should some day come to an end. I thoroughly disagree with our soon-to-be ownership of the Peoria Riverfront Museum. I believe that most if not all county government, should not be in the nursing home business. That is a specialized business that is far more complicated than from the "old days" when it was truly a "safety net" for the poor. Now it will be a $41 million and possible more facility in direct competition with those who pay property taxes to support it.
Peoria County Comprehensive Land Use Plan
This Plan, approved by the County Planning Commision will be presented to the full board on August, 13. Copies are available for review, 3rd floor, Peoria County Courthouse, Planning Department.
More Government Spending to Stimulate the Jobless
From WEEK-TV - "The state of Illinois is starting the process of notifying some 2600 employees that they may be laid off to help balance the state budget.
In Chicago, Governor Pat Quinn says the layoffs are part of the "shared sacrifice" Illinois Government is undergoing.
Illinois began the new budget year July 1 without a spending plan in place."
Here in Peoria we have a lot pf spending plans in place, all of them may not affect the tax rate but they will increase the amount of money you pay in sales taxes and property taxes. Want a list of them? Reread some of my blogs in 2009 or read the news more closely.
One clue - Tomorrow night, the County Board will hire retiree Mark Johnson at a rate equivalent to $108,000 a year to help the county plan the new museum. If you haven't been paying attention, the county will soon be the museum's new owner for at least the next 25 years.
Another clue - When the Library Board stops digging up the dead, they will start spending the $27,000,000.00 most of you voted to give them to build a library for the Dunlap people who already have there underutilized new library.
Another clue - The Peoria County Board approved a new Bel-Wood when the cost was thought by most of the board and the JS reporter to be $27-29 million. How about $41million of which only south of $3 million is in the Bel-Wood building fund? Some board members accuse me of mis-leading the public because there will be no new taxes, (at this time) just a lot MORE of your property tax dollars rising from $1,750,000.00 in 2008 to $4,500,000.00 by year 2042. Peoria County taxpayers also subsidized B-W, at least $1,222,000.00 last year and $......... by year 2042. I'll fill in that figure tomorrow when I get the estimated amount from our county financial officer.
Administration says, no problem to pay of the loan, $72,000,000.00 total, we expect (EVA) property values will go up 3% a year, every year for 30 years.
I'm not a believer. Oh, well, who seems to care as long as your money is paying for a "safety net for the poor". $72 million estimated so far. Plus and plus. A reminder, over 50% of the registered voters in Peoria, do not own their homes. Another reminder; one county board member pays no property taxes, one pays under a thousand dollars and one recently had his real estate taxes cut in half. My own property taxes, $7,000, (all property taxes are a matter of public record) are considered low by some yet I am the 2nd highest property taxpayer on the county board. That includes one who planted at least 700 acres of corn this year and is the recipient of government subsidies as are a majority of farmers.
All these figures are a matter of record and can be corrected by anyone who can prove my figures wrong.
In Chicago, Governor Pat Quinn says the layoffs are part of the "shared sacrifice" Illinois Government is undergoing.
Illinois began the new budget year July 1 without a spending plan in place."
Here in Peoria we have a lot pf spending plans in place, all of them may not affect the tax rate but they will increase the amount of money you pay in sales taxes and property taxes. Want a list of them? Reread some of my blogs in 2009 or read the news more closely.
One clue - Tomorrow night, the County Board will hire retiree Mark Johnson at a rate equivalent to $108,000 a year to help the county plan the new museum. If you haven't been paying attention, the county will soon be the museum's new owner for at least the next 25 years.
Another clue - When the Library Board stops digging up the dead, they will start spending the $27,000,000.00 most of you voted to give them to build a library for the Dunlap people who already have there underutilized new library.
Another clue - The Peoria County Board approved a new Bel-Wood when the cost was thought by most of the board and the JS reporter to be $27-29 million. How about $41million of which only south of $3 million is in the Bel-Wood building fund? Some board members accuse me of mis-leading the public because there will be no new taxes, (at this time) just a lot MORE of your property tax dollars rising from $1,750,000.00 in 2008 to $4,500,000.00 by year 2042. Peoria County taxpayers also subsidized B-W, at least $1,222,000.00 last year and $......... by year 2042. I'll fill in that figure tomorrow when I get the estimated amount from our county financial officer.
Administration says, no problem to pay of the loan, $72,000,000.00 total, we expect (EVA) property values will go up 3% a year, every year for 30 years.
I'm not a believer. Oh, well, who seems to care as long as your money is paying for a "safety net for the poor". $72 million estimated so far. Plus and plus. A reminder, over 50% of the registered voters in Peoria, do not own their homes. Another reminder; one county board member pays no property taxes, one pays under a thousand dollars and one recently had his real estate taxes cut in half. My own property taxes, $7,000, (all property taxes are a matter of public record) are considered low by some yet I am the 2nd highest property taxpayer on the county board. That includes one who planted at least 700 acres of corn this year and is the recipient of government subsidies as are a majority of farmers.
All these figures are a matter of record and can be corrected by anyone who can prove my figures wrong.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
State of Illinois Sends Layoff Notices
White House Defends Lavish Independence Day Luau
With unemployment at 9.5 percent and a federal budget over a trillion dollars in the hole, many Americans were stunned by the lavishness of the White House July 4th celebration. Not content with traditional burgers and hot dogs, the Obama Administration had several tons of exotic food and flown in from Hawaii. Obama’s favorite chefs accompanied the food on the flight.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the extravagance as “a morale booster and a stimulus to the economy.” “Sure, the President could’ve made a show of economizing,” Gibbs observed. “But that would send the wrong message. More spending is what it will take to revive the economy. The Presi dent is just doing his part.”
“Besides, a spectacular and well-publicized party provides a vicarious sense of enjoyment for every American,” Gibbs continued. “Scrimping would demoralize the country. It is comforting to even the poorest of our citizens to know that the President isn’t being short-changed on America’s birthday.”
In related news, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said despite last year’s campaign promises, the Obama Administration won’t rule out a tax increase on the middle class. “You know, what we call the ‘middle class’ in America is really quite wealthy from a global perspective,” he pointed out. “The average per capita income in the United States is nine times the world average. So, these so-called tea baggers’ claims that Americans can’t afford to pay more just doesn’t jibe with the facts as I see them.”
Sure, just like a local union boss said, "spend our way out of the mess we are in. Thanks, Mr. President, sorry I can't afford to fly in.
With unemployment at 9.5 percent and a federal budget over a trillion dollars in the hole, many Americans were stunned by the lavishness of the White House July 4th celebration. Not content with traditional burgers and hot dogs, the Obama Administration had several tons of exotic food and flown in from Hawaii. Obama’s favorite chefs accompanied the food on the flight.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the extravagance as “a morale booster and a stimulus to the economy.” “Sure, the President could’ve made a show of economizing,” Gibbs observed. “But that would send the wrong message. More spending is what it will take to revive the economy. The Presi dent is just doing his part.”
“Besides, a spectacular and well-publicized party provides a vicarious sense of enjoyment for every American,” Gibbs continued. “Scrimping would demoralize the country. It is comforting to even the poorest of our citizens to know that the President isn’t being short-changed on America’s birthday.”
In related news, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said despite last year’s campaign promises, the Obama Administration won’t rule out a tax increase on the middle class. “You know, what we call the ‘middle class’ in America is really quite wealthy from a global perspective,” he pointed out. “The average per capita income in the United States is nine times the world average. So, these so-called tea baggers’ claims that Americans can’t afford to pay more just doesn’t jibe with the facts as I see them.”
Sure, just like a local union boss said, "spend our way out of the mess we are in. Thanks, Mr. President, sorry I can't afford to fly in.
Charter School in Peoria
Ten states have strong enough unions to ban charter schools. They are Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia. 26 other states cap charter enrollment. (Illinois has a cap on charter schools which leaders like Peoria's Glen Barton are attempting to lift). Yet success stories abound like the Harlem Children's Zone that I first blogged on 11/05/05. I later blogged on this school on 5/24/09. View Park Preparatory High School in L.A., where the public school graduation rate is under 50%, graduated every senior in the last three years and every one of them were accepted to college.
Stanford Economist, Caroline Hosby found out that in New York City students selected by lottery were significantly out pacing of peers who lost the lottery and were forced to return to district schools.
In L.A., the Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF), a charter school network announced plans to expand the number of public charter schools from 13 to 35. The waiting list (10/14/08, WSJ, was over 6000, Like KIPP, (I blogged on Kipp Schools, also on 5/24/09) Teach For America, D.C. having a tough road to hoe through the bureaucracies including the union, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida was quoted on 7/29/08, "charter schools are a great part of our success. Florida now ranks third nationally in the number of charter schools and fourth in the number of charter-school students. I am committed to championing school choice for Florida".
For all that is being done in Peoria, "School choice can only succeed where schools are free to run and staff themselves, attended by choice expected to meet high standards and accountable for their results." (Chester E. Finn, Jr., a senior fellow at Stanford University and author of "Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik".
Twenty-five years ago a blue-ribbon panel alerted America in a report titled "A Nation at Risk", to a rising tide of mediocracy that threatened our very future as a nation. Yet we are still not made achievements we need to turn back this tide of mediocracy in the United States of America.
I could list dozens of success stories from Philadelphia to San Francisco. The question is whether Obama and his education czar will continue to buckle to the powerful education unions. Unions who helped elect Obama Yet through their actions often contradictory to their public posture, show that they often times do not have the kids best interests at heart. As long as administrations are bureaucracies and unions are militant toward change, this nation will be hampered to see a rise from mediocrity in most of our public schools systems.
At a rising cost to property tax payers, most who feel they are not getting what they are paying for.
How did the union gain their tremendous power over education? Unfortunately, due to apathy, bureaucratic administrations and weak school boards. After all, who wants a five year, non-paying school board job subject to constant criticism? Why serve on a 7 person board trying to work with an administration who has difficult time in making decisions.
The entire system has made little change from the 1940's and much of that change has been to the worse.
We'll see whether the local planned charter school can break away from our existing local bureaucracies.
Stanford Economist, Caroline Hosby found out that in New York City students selected by lottery were significantly out pacing of peers who lost the lottery and were forced to return to district schools.
In L.A., the Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF), a charter school network announced plans to expand the number of public charter schools from 13 to 35. The waiting list (10/14/08, WSJ, was over 6000, Like KIPP, (I blogged on Kipp Schools, also on 5/24/09) Teach For America, D.C. having a tough road to hoe through the bureaucracies including the union, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida was quoted on 7/29/08, "charter schools are a great part of our success. Florida now ranks third nationally in the number of charter schools and fourth in the number of charter-school students. I am committed to championing school choice for Florida".
For all that is being done in Peoria, "School choice can only succeed where schools are free to run and staff themselves, attended by choice expected to meet high standards and accountable for their results." (Chester E. Finn, Jr., a senior fellow at Stanford University and author of "Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik".
Twenty-five years ago a blue-ribbon panel alerted America in a report titled "A Nation at Risk", to a rising tide of mediocracy that threatened our very future as a nation. Yet we are still not made achievements we need to turn back this tide of mediocracy in the United States of America.
I could list dozens of success stories from Philadelphia to San Francisco. The question is whether Obama and his education czar will continue to buckle to the powerful education unions. Unions who helped elect Obama Yet through their actions often contradictory to their public posture, show that they often times do not have the kids best interests at heart. As long as administrations are bureaucracies and unions are militant toward change, this nation will be hampered to see a rise from mediocrity in most of our public schools systems.
At a rising cost to property tax payers, most who feel they are not getting what they are paying for.
How did the union gain their tremendous power over education? Unfortunately, due to apathy, bureaucratic administrations and weak school boards. After all, who wants a five year, non-paying school board job subject to constant criticism? Why serve on a 7 person board trying to work with an administration who has difficult time in making decisions.
The entire system has made little change from the 1940's and much of that change has been to the worse.
We'll see whether the local planned charter school can break away from our existing local bureaucracies.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Keep Spending
Some letters to the editors say one way to get out of a recession is to keep spending. Don't lay off any employees, in, fact, even add some. Sorry, the best way to get out of a recession is to stop government spending on non-priority entitlements and go back to the core missions of our governmental bodies. Layoff or fire non-essential workers. There should be no entitlement to hire someone for a job unless there is a real and proven need. Back in about 2003, Peoria County laid off about 40 employees. Somehow, we survived.
As one union boss suggested that "if you have a steady job, make a conscious effort to help someone less fortunate....."
How true. And if you have "real disposable" income, spend it on something worthwhile to our economy.
Many in our area don't have excess monies but still keep spending. And not just in the private sector.
As one union boss suggested that "if you have a steady job, make a conscious effort to help someone less fortunate....."
How true. And if you have "real disposable" income, spend it on something worthwhile to our economy.
Many in our area don't have excess monies but still keep spending. And not just in the private sector.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Merle's Random Thoughts
Most of them you don't want to read. Three times today I asked my wife Claire to go get a hammer while I counted to 10. But finally I switched over to her computer and we will see what happens.
Roger Federer in the best tennis player of the modern era I have ever seen. The longest 5th game in Wimbledon history played over 4 hours and 14 minutes decided by two points. Andy Roddick is the most improved player I have seen this year. The finals was a tremendous physical and mental battle between two real people, not a game on a machine that most any young kid or f--- can play while seated.
The women's side of the Wimbledon draw was a let-down. The Williams ladies are the best in the world by far. What I don't like about women's tennis is that they only play 3 sets to win or lose. Yet they demand and get about if not totally equal pay.
I've played most major sports and tennis is by far the toughest physical game (in which points are scored) from both a physical and mental standpoint, that I've ever witnessed or played.
I've been diagnosed with a small cartilage tear and I'm off much physical activity for two three weeks from any tennis. You can see why this is such an irritable blog. Usually, I'm rather mild in my analysis as to the real world and it's inhabitants. Hmmmmm.
Larry Hughes from Peoria but formerly from Gridley passed on this week. Larry was a star athlete and great person. When I coached Heyworth High basketball back in the fifties, we had the misfortune of meeting Gridley twice in the McLean County tournament, losing both times with Larry, Wilbur Hany, Perry Klopfenstein (Perry bought my business in Pontiac and has flourished in all ways. He also has a column on today's editorial page that I agree with), a BIG man named Grusy, all being outstanding or dominant players.
When I read about guys like Larry who I coached or coached against, I get a sadness to think they are all younger than I, but by some luck, I'm still here.
One of the capital spending programs I believe the county put on hold, was the purchase of a record storage building. We, nor most of the elected officials, I'm told, do not have a RECORD RETENTION PLAN. I suspect governments all over are buying record storage space even though most documents are microfilmed and stored in different locations. Billions of paper documents are being stored that are of no value unless they are signed by a prominent person and are a collectors item. Another use of the building was or is to be for some of our local governments to hire people at taxpayers expense to train people how to run a business. In competion with those who help fund the training, of course. There are several hundred retired business owners could do that for free. If asked. At a recent minority meeting, I heard a middle-aged woman say that she couldn't find anyone to offer her advise. I was kind in my reply.
Some state governments are passing laws demanding that ALL businesses pay workers sick time whether they use it or not. We do at Peoria County I believe, as I'm still getting how the system works explained to me. More socialism which is rampant in this D.C. administration rubbing off on most other governments along the way. No one wants sick people to come to work but too many people who want a day off, just call in sick. I know. I owned many businesses over a 28 year period of my life. The good employees seldom seemed to get sick. Hmmmmm.
While the Dilbert comic strip usually is an attack on big business in the private sector, today's strip I thought most appropriate describing what might be going on in some of the public sectors locally. Hope we have some of the same results locally as illustrated in the Dilbert strip. Probably wishful thinking on my part.
Neither my wife and I have done well with our investments over the past 18 or so months. I advised her to sell her Caterpillar stock and she did. Wise move so far. I advised her to get out of another investment. She did reluctantly. Saving of several thousand dollars so far. Today, we argued about pulling out of well-known brokerage that has a allowed a 22% drop in her investments with them over the past year. The broker is trying to convince her to keep her money with him "because the market always comes back over the 'long' run". How long the "run" is they won't say, of course, because they DON't know. Anybody believes that today, I have some stock in a local ball club to sell. I'm sure it will come back in the "long run". But hey, brokers and con men have to make at least a couple hundred thousand a year, right?
After donating to dozens of good causes over much of my adult life, I'm letting all the people who voted for the $27 million library fiasco, the "one day", money available or not; Museum boondoggle, those people like JS reporter Catherine S. who believes the PPD is operating in the black, the ones who are backing the new downtown hotel with your money, just one hotel so far, all the working people with fat pensions, (think City of Peoria) all the people with excess cash visiting the casinos, all who can afford the high priced tickets at major sport and other "circus" events; I'm letting them pick up the deficits as I do not plan to donate much this year for any cause. Why not, just like the government can't stop funding every grant and entitlement like the PPD whose stimulus requests are in excess of $5 million like $1.8 for the Kellar Branch Trail, $1.4 for a new PPD headquarters, consultants who make bundles for telling people how to spend OPM because they couldn't hold a job in real life, and all politicians especially in D.C. with gold plated health plans and unlimited time to visit any or all countries with their wives or others; (at largely taxpayer's expense) well that's enough, I'm retired for 17 years and these are not good times for retirees in Peoria.
That's why and I'm glad I got through that paragraph.
I was pleased to see Madoff get life in a prison that at least, doesn't have a dock for yachts. Richard Scruggs, a big time white collar crook (whose thievery I blogged on a couple of years ago) who unfortunately will be released by 2015, this ALLEGED crook Mozilla, buddy of some of our most powerful in D.C. and formerly CEO and everything else at CountryWide Financial and a whole bunch of white collar crooks doing time or will be doing time. Makes me believe that government has other attributes then "hogs at the trough" as so often epitomized. The private sector is not immune to thief's even those dressed in "suits". Unfortunately 95% of all people in business, are really basically honest. I don't believe the percentage is so high in government. Those who are really good at spending OPM really believe they are compassionate people. Problem is, they seldom see a cause that they can't with a little pressure, become extremely passionate about, sometimes with their own or OPM.
Oh, and did my friend Karen from the JS note that the new Bel-Wood projected cost is now $41 million and not $27 to 29 million as last reported by the JS? A lot of compassion for a $41 million "safety net" especially since the county will need to borrow $38 million over 30 years.
Go figure and goodnight.
Roger Federer in the best tennis player of the modern era I have ever seen. The longest 5th game in Wimbledon history played over 4 hours and 14 minutes decided by two points. Andy Roddick is the most improved player I have seen this year. The finals was a tremendous physical and mental battle between two real people, not a game on a machine that most any young kid or f--- can play while seated.
The women's side of the Wimbledon draw was a let-down. The Williams ladies are the best in the world by far. What I don't like about women's tennis is that they only play 3 sets to win or lose. Yet they demand and get about if not totally equal pay.
I've played most major sports and tennis is by far the toughest physical game (in which points are scored) from both a physical and mental standpoint, that I've ever witnessed or played.
I've been diagnosed with a small cartilage tear and I'm off much physical activity for two three weeks from any tennis. You can see why this is such an irritable blog. Usually, I'm rather mild in my analysis as to the real world and it's inhabitants. Hmmmmm.
Larry Hughes from Peoria but formerly from Gridley passed on this week. Larry was a star athlete and great person. When I coached Heyworth High basketball back in the fifties, we had the misfortune of meeting Gridley twice in the McLean County tournament, losing both times with Larry, Wilbur Hany, Perry Klopfenstein (Perry bought my business in Pontiac and has flourished in all ways. He also has a column on today's editorial page that I agree with), a BIG man named Grusy, all being outstanding or dominant players.
When I read about guys like Larry who I coached or coached against, I get a sadness to think they are all younger than I, but by some luck, I'm still here.
One of the capital spending programs I believe the county put on hold, was the purchase of a record storage building. We, nor most of the elected officials, I'm told, do not have a RECORD RETENTION PLAN. I suspect governments all over are buying record storage space even though most documents are microfilmed and stored in different locations. Billions of paper documents are being stored that are of no value unless they are signed by a prominent person and are a collectors item. Another use of the building was or is to be for some of our local governments to hire people at taxpayers expense to train people how to run a business. In competion with those who help fund the training, of course. There are several hundred retired business owners could do that for free. If asked. At a recent minority meeting, I heard a middle-aged woman say that she couldn't find anyone to offer her advise. I was kind in my reply.
Some state governments are passing laws demanding that ALL businesses pay workers sick time whether they use it or not. We do at Peoria County I believe, as I'm still getting how the system works explained to me. More socialism which is rampant in this D.C. administration rubbing off on most other governments along the way. No one wants sick people to come to work but too many people who want a day off, just call in sick. I know. I owned many businesses over a 28 year period of my life. The good employees seldom seemed to get sick. Hmmmmm.
While the Dilbert comic strip usually is an attack on big business in the private sector, today's strip I thought most appropriate describing what might be going on in some of the public sectors locally. Hope we have some of the same results locally as illustrated in the Dilbert strip. Probably wishful thinking on my part.
Neither my wife and I have done well with our investments over the past 18 or so months. I advised her to sell her Caterpillar stock and she did. Wise move so far. I advised her to get out of another investment. She did reluctantly. Saving of several thousand dollars so far. Today, we argued about pulling out of well-known brokerage that has a allowed a 22% drop in her investments with them over the past year. The broker is trying to convince her to keep her money with him "because the market always comes back over the 'long' run". How long the "run" is they won't say, of course, because they DON't know. Anybody believes that today, I have some stock in a local ball club to sell. I'm sure it will come back in the "long run". But hey, brokers and con men have to make at least a couple hundred thousand a year, right?
After donating to dozens of good causes over much of my adult life, I'm letting all the people who voted for the $27 million library fiasco, the "one day", money available or not; Museum boondoggle, those people like JS reporter Catherine S. who believes the PPD is operating in the black, the ones who are backing the new downtown hotel with your money, just one hotel so far, all the working people with fat pensions, (think City of Peoria) all the people with excess cash visiting the casinos, all who can afford the high priced tickets at major sport and other "circus" events; I'm letting them pick up the deficits as I do not plan to donate much this year for any cause. Why not, just like the government can't stop funding every grant and entitlement like the PPD whose stimulus requests are in excess of $5 million like $1.8 for the Kellar Branch Trail, $1.4 for a new PPD headquarters, consultants who make bundles for telling people how to spend OPM because they couldn't hold a job in real life, and all politicians especially in D.C. with gold plated health plans and unlimited time to visit any or all countries with their wives or others; (at largely taxpayer's expense) well that's enough, I'm retired for 17 years and these are not good times for retirees in Peoria.
That's why and I'm glad I got through that paragraph.
I was pleased to see Madoff get life in a prison that at least, doesn't have a dock for yachts. Richard Scruggs, a big time white collar crook (whose thievery I blogged on a couple of years ago) who unfortunately will be released by 2015, this ALLEGED crook Mozilla, buddy of some of our most powerful in D.C. and formerly CEO and everything else at CountryWide Financial and a whole bunch of white collar crooks doing time or will be doing time. Makes me believe that government has other attributes then "hogs at the trough" as so often epitomized. The private sector is not immune to thief's even those dressed in "suits". Unfortunately 95% of all people in business, are really basically honest. I don't believe the percentage is so high in government. Those who are really good at spending OPM really believe they are compassionate people. Problem is, they seldom see a cause that they can't with a little pressure, become extremely passionate about, sometimes with their own or OPM.
Oh, and did my friend Karen from the JS note that the new Bel-Wood projected cost is now $41 million and not $27 to 29 million as last reported by the JS? A lot of compassion for a $41 million "safety net" especially since the county will need to borrow $38 million over 30 years.
Go figure and goodnight.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Prime Times - Jennifer Davis, Journal Star
Today's Journal Star "Prime Times" section carries an article by Jennifer Davis, who is also the Editor, I believe, titled, "County Board Member an old hat at blogging". Thanks, Jenny, She quotes me from blogs I wrote on 6/10/09 and 6/11/09 on recent decisions to build a new Bel-Wood at an approximate cost of $41 million. Bel-Wood has approximately $3 million in it's "building fund" collected from property taxes, so the county will need to borrow $38 million, more or less, and count on rising EVA taxes of 3% each year for the next 30 years to help pay off the principal and interest on the loan.
One typo in Jenny's story, (I make many) should read "our Project Manager & coordinator who is charging..." The name of the consulting firm is MPA, out of Chesterfield, Missouri. I do not doubt their competence. I do doubt a number of the figures or projections they have given us and I question the board making a decision of this magnitude considering the economic uncertainty in the community and world. I also note that of the 3 benchmark jobs MPA submitted for references is Livingston Manor. Livingston County Manor in Illinois, is in the process of being bought out by a private nursing home in Woodford County. Also, that the new Bel-Wood will be taking at least $4,500,000.00 in property taxes in year 2034 and, in effect, be considerable competition to the private tax-paying health care sector.
Another benchmark used by MPA was DeKalb County. Responsibility was delegated to a body know as the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center Operating Board. This Board consists of 7 members, two from the county board and the rest at large. By design, members serve one year with a maximum of 6 consecutive terms. Established in 2006, I have not heard how this plan, which looks interesting, is working out. It would appear to take some of the politics and work load off our County Administrator. Monroe, County, where my daughter and family lives was also submitted as a benchmark. It is governed by three County Board members. Management reports directly to the commissioners.
Note my "Letter to the Editor" in this month's issue of the Community Word.
Thanks you and please call attention to the mistakes I make. I regret adding the same figure twice to BW property taxes collected to operate the facility. However, When it comes to "projection figures" in this community, somehow they always seem to come up "short". Financial and accounting people can only work with "figures" given them by others.
Most counties no longer have County owned nursing homes, two close by are Tazewell and Sangamon County. Fulton Count, citing many problems made an effort to sell their nursing home a couple of years ago. I do not know where the Fulton County Board stands on this issue.
All nursing homes have endless problems, from lawsuits to rigid state inspections and fines to noncollectable accounts receivables. Doubtful Accounts, some of which may be collected have risen as high as $850,000.00 in 2009. Our new Financial Officer has installed a badly needed policy on collections that is having some success. As noted, Bel-Wood was fined $10,000.00 last month. Now that the Peoria County will soon own the under-funded (at this time) new Peoria Riverfront Museum, and are involved in helping District #150, Springdale Cemetery and fulfilling our core missions, property taxes collected the county, over $25 million last year, have only one way to go.
UP.
One way to reduce property taxes would be to sell Bel-Wood to a competent private sector, putting restrictions in the contract to prevent hardships to current residents, but this board and administration have no interest in doing this.
It is pointed out that we must have a sprinkler system installed of course, in a new building by 2012. Or we could do what we should have done a long time ago and that is install one in the existing structure along with a new roof, some plumbing and some electrical and new doors where needed. After all, it is supposedly a "safety net" for the poor" and not a place for some offspring to store their parents after selling off all their parents assets. Think it's not being done by some (put them in private nursing homes) all over the state, think again. Over 400 empty beds in our area just 3 months ago, according to our BW Administrator; Matt Neukirk.
I hear, "but they won't take Medicaid". Yes they will. Where do the poor in 80 some counties go that don't have public nursing homes, like Tazewell and Sangamon? No Sangamon at BW and few from Tazewell, if any.
All my protestations were never considered. This new structure will be built and hang like a "milestone" around Peoria County property tax payers for 30+ years.
One typo in Jenny's story, (I make many) should read "our Project Manager & coordinator who is charging..." The name of the consulting firm is MPA, out of Chesterfield, Missouri. I do not doubt their competence. I do doubt a number of the figures or projections they have given us and I question the board making a decision of this magnitude considering the economic uncertainty in the community and world. I also note that of the 3 benchmark jobs MPA submitted for references is Livingston Manor. Livingston County Manor in Illinois, is in the process of being bought out by a private nursing home in Woodford County. Also, that the new Bel-Wood will be taking at least $4,500,000.00 in property taxes in year 2034 and, in effect, be considerable competition to the private tax-paying health care sector.
Another benchmark used by MPA was DeKalb County. Responsibility was delegated to a body know as the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center Operating Board. This Board consists of 7 members, two from the county board and the rest at large. By design, members serve one year with a maximum of 6 consecutive terms. Established in 2006, I have not heard how this plan, which looks interesting, is working out. It would appear to take some of the politics and work load off our County Administrator. Monroe, County, where my daughter and family lives was also submitted as a benchmark. It is governed by three County Board members. Management reports directly to the commissioners.
Note my "Letter to the Editor" in this month's issue of the Community Word.
Thanks you and please call attention to the mistakes I make. I regret adding the same figure twice to BW property taxes collected to operate the facility. However, When it comes to "projection figures" in this community, somehow they always seem to come up "short". Financial and accounting people can only work with "figures" given them by others.
Most counties no longer have County owned nursing homes, two close by are Tazewell and Sangamon County. Fulton Count, citing many problems made an effort to sell their nursing home a couple of years ago. I do not know where the Fulton County Board stands on this issue.
All nursing homes have endless problems, from lawsuits to rigid state inspections and fines to noncollectable accounts receivables. Doubtful Accounts, some of which may be collected have risen as high as $850,000.00 in 2009. Our new Financial Officer has installed a badly needed policy on collections that is having some success. As noted, Bel-Wood was fined $10,000.00 last month. Now that the Peoria County will soon own the under-funded (at this time) new Peoria Riverfront Museum, and are involved in helping District #150, Springdale Cemetery and fulfilling our core missions, property taxes collected the county, over $25 million last year, have only one way to go.
UP.
One way to reduce property taxes would be to sell Bel-Wood to a competent private sector, putting restrictions in the contract to prevent hardships to current residents, but this board and administration have no interest in doing this.
It is pointed out that we must have a sprinkler system installed of course, in a new building by 2012. Or we could do what we should have done a long time ago and that is install one in the existing structure along with a new roof, some plumbing and some electrical and new doors where needed. After all, it is supposedly a "safety net" for the poor" and not a place for some offspring to store their parents after selling off all their parents assets. Think it's not being done by some (put them in private nursing homes) all over the state, think again. Over 400 empty beds in our area just 3 months ago, according to our BW Administrator; Matt Neukirk.
I hear, "but they won't take Medicaid". Yes they will. Where do the poor in 80 some counties go that don't have public nursing homes, like Tazewell and Sangamon? No Sangamon at BW and few from Tazewell, if any.
All my protestations were never considered. This new structure will be built and hang like a "milestone" around Peoria County property tax payers for 30+ years.
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