"No Reason for Same Edison Battle Again"

On 1/27/02, the JSEB wrote that "Every day is ground hog day in the Peoria Public Schools. Just like the Bill Murray movie, we're re-living the same tired arguments that we heard a year ago at this time regarding the Edison Project. Isn't one definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?"

Eight years later we're hearing the same old "whine"; we have outstanding teachers who I think can do the same job without the cost (to) of Edison." (Board member and stock broker, Jim Stowell on the front page of the Journal Star today). See my previous blog.

The JSEB in 2002, continued "Peorians should accept from the outset that the union is feeding much of this anti-Edison frenzy. We are not confidant that D150 can do anything to satisfy the unions or their leadership. Edison could be graduating 100% Einsteins annually and the PFT would say, 'Yes, but they sure look odd'. We have to hear that D150 could do the same thing Edison does without Edison and the extra costs.

Meanwhile, if anyone painted a target on themselves regarding the Edison Project, it was School Board member, Vince Wieland." (Wieland, who resigned and moved his family to the Dunlap School District, is currently running for Peoria County Sheriff against the incumbent Mike McCoy). It will be interesting to see who the JSEB endorses.

Hm.

So now we have Board member Jim Stowell making the same old "whine". And just a couple of days after he "hemmed and hawed" about granting a new "public" charter school and then voted yes. Lot's of pressure from charter presenters. Hmmmm. Maybe some reason for the renewed, "let's close the Edison schools". These presenters had better get it right. Too many in this community already feel they are not getting "the bang for the buck" and the new "public" charter" will take more tax dollars.

I believe that more people will move out of D150 boundaries than will move in, charter schools or not.

We'll see.