Yes, will do. Off the top of my head: one of the reason for the cabs is the shortage thing but the District also started centralizing more services and shuttles way more kids around intra-day than they used to.
My understanding is the only savings will come from the bussing they do specifically for the fifth ward kids. Special Ed and McKi…
Yes, will do. Off the top of my head: one of the reason for the cabs is the shortage thing but the District also started centralizing more services and shuttles way more kids around intra-day than they used to.
My understanding is the only savings will come from the bussing they do specifically for the fifth ward kids. Special Ed and McKinney-Vento kids live all over town, I can't imagine the new school would save us that much $ on those costs.
That’s what I don’t get. The $3 million was portrayed as savings from re-districting kids to their local school within walking distance making bus transportation unnecessary. Now we see that the district uses cabs and alternative transportation at a cost of at least half that. Does that mean the “savings” is only $1.5 million? And on another note, because the 5th ward school $$$ is coming from the general budget (via redirected transportation funds) that puts services and teachers in the breach if (when) unforeseen transportation overruns occur. Seriously, this whole thing smells all the way down from Horton’s hire to todays budget report.
Yes. Even $2.0m for bussing fifth ward kids is a generous estimate. I believe that the $3.25m number they just made up to get the funds. This is absolutely going to be coming out of money allocated to education without the law-mandated required referendum.
The other thing to point out is that there are lots of empirical studies by academics to suggest that the availability of school-provided bus options reduces absenteeism. There are also studies that suggest there is no statistically significant relationship between transportation modes and educational outcomes.
In Evanston, we have a natural experiment where we currently have students of different demographic backgrounds who both walk to school and take the bus. The first thing the district should have done before even contemplating building a new school was to analyze student performance based on whether the student takes the bus or not, controlling for race and student lunch eligibility status.
If you saw a statistically significant difference in grades or test scores between those taking the bus and those not (with the demographic controls) you could then justify opening up the discussion.
I personally asked Sharita Smith (the staffer in charge of the reassignment process) whether this analysis had been done and she told me she didn't know. That is a major red flag.
The lack of analysis--and the lack of the Board exercising fiscal oversight by asking basic questions--is resulting in a $30 million + expenditure and a raiding of operating funds to finance a school that will not likely have any measurable impact on student performance.
I've gone through a lot of documents from that time in 2021-22 when the school was being proposed and financed and I think student outcomes were largely not a consideration. This was (and is) a political project, not an educational one.
Yes totally agree. Unfortunately, the fact that the board has lost focus on education has not hurt them at the ballot box.
One of Sergio Hernandez' big campaign issues was to address affordable housing. I'm not sure what school board can do legally to address that, but it shows that they have really lost focus on the core job: educating kids.
Yes, will do. Off the top of my head: one of the reason for the cabs is the shortage thing but the District also started centralizing more services and shuttles way more kids around intra-day than they used to.
My understanding is the only savings will come from the bussing they do specifically for the fifth ward kids. Special Ed and McKinney-Vento kids live all over town, I can't imagine the new school would save us that much $ on those costs.
That’s what I don’t get. The $3 million was portrayed as savings from re-districting kids to their local school within walking distance making bus transportation unnecessary. Now we see that the district uses cabs and alternative transportation at a cost of at least half that. Does that mean the “savings” is only $1.5 million? And on another note, because the 5th ward school $$$ is coming from the general budget (via redirected transportation funds) that puts services and teachers in the breach if (when) unforeseen transportation overruns occur. Seriously, this whole thing smells all the way down from Horton’s hire to todays budget report.
Yes. Even $2.0m for bussing fifth ward kids is a generous estimate. I believe that the $3.25m number they just made up to get the funds. This is absolutely going to be coming out of money allocated to education without the law-mandated required referendum.
The other thing to point out is that there are lots of empirical studies by academics to suggest that the availability of school-provided bus options reduces absenteeism. There are also studies that suggest there is no statistically significant relationship between transportation modes and educational outcomes.
This study published last year from a Brown University economist is a good example: https://www.daniellesandersonedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Another-One-Rides-the-Bus-AEFP-2021.pdf
In Evanston, we have a natural experiment where we currently have students of different demographic backgrounds who both walk to school and take the bus. The first thing the district should have done before even contemplating building a new school was to analyze student performance based on whether the student takes the bus or not, controlling for race and student lunch eligibility status.
If you saw a statistically significant difference in grades or test scores between those taking the bus and those not (with the demographic controls) you could then justify opening up the discussion.
I personally asked Sharita Smith (the staffer in charge of the reassignment process) whether this analysis had been done and she told me she didn't know. That is a major red flag.
The lack of analysis--and the lack of the Board exercising fiscal oversight by asking basic questions--is resulting in a $30 million + expenditure and a raiding of operating funds to finance a school that will not likely have any measurable impact on student performance.
Good work!
I've gone through a lot of documents from that time in 2021-22 when the school was being proposed and financed and I think student outcomes were largely not a consideration. This was (and is) a political project, not an educational one.
Yes totally agree. Unfortunately, the fact that the board has lost focus on education has not hurt them at the ballot box.
One of Sergio Hernandez' big campaign issues was to address affordable housing. I'm not sure what school board can do legally to address that, but it shows that they have really lost focus on the core job: educating kids.