Schools

'Brilliant Educators' Like Waterman Won't Hurry Back to D86: Letter

Oak Brook resident Francis Florian Tierney sent a letter to Patch criticizing the District 86 board of education after the latest administrative departure.

The follow letter was sent to Patch by Francis Florian Tierney of Oak Brook:

Brian Waterman’s acceptance of Lyons Township’s open principal job completes the swift, unscrupulous evisceration of the administrative structure of Hinsdale Township High School District 86. 

Since the election of three new members to the board of education (Victor Casini, Ed Corcoran and Claudia Manley), this district has seen the departure its superintendent, business manager, director of human resources, and the principals of both Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South. 

None left for a discernibly better job. Residents should be concerned about the future of their public schools and all that that entails.

In May, board president Manley was quoted by Patch promising her tenure would usher-in a “new brand of collaboration.” Given the mass exodus of people who work most closely with her board, one wonders what peculiar brand of collaboration Ms. Manley had in mind. This sudden rash of administrative departures belies the Board’s platitudes about “collaboration”—a word that is imbued with a hypocritical and tyrannical tone when it passes the lips of they who wield so heavy a hammer.

While some might argue that the previous administration must have needed to go, I challenge anyone to characterize District 86 as a school system in need of radical reform. Quite the contrary. For decades, Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South have stood as paragons of excellence. Their faculty and students have consistently won local and national acclaim. Why would any reasonable person introduce so radical a change to this tradition of excellence? 

Clearly our new board members suffer delusions of a political mandate, in spite of the fact that a paltry 18 percent of eligible voters participated in the last board election. Certainly the Downers Grove Township Republican Organization, who bankrolled their candidacy, wants to get its money’s worth.  Nevertheless, anyone but the reddest ideologue must be alarmed at the board's radical and reckless actions.   

Public education is an inherently conservative enterprise, a bulwark against disruptive change. That is to say, public education preserves the cultural and material heritage of communities; it instantiates, in students, the values and, indeed, the value accumulated across generations. It is like a bank vault in which to store the spoils of success for the future. 

But it is also a bank from which everyone continuously draws. Some, as students, take their share in the form of an education. Others withdraw the existential advantages of secure and stable neighborhoods, and still others, the economic advantages of rising property values.

Mr. Corcoran has stated that his principle motivation for serving on this Board is something he calls fiscal responsibility. Professedly mindful of constituents’ financial well being, “acknowledging the decreasing home values, foreclosures and short sales within our community,” he has led the call (more of a feeble and peevish snarl, really) for a historically low tax levy. Passed by a contentious 4-3 vote, this levy will allow the community’s schools to fall behind the pace of inflation, ultimately forcing two first-year principals to make painful cuts to student programs and services. In return, residents stand to save about eight dollars (eight!) per year on every $100,000 at which their homes are appraised. 

A fatal paradox awaits us. As most Americans’ economic security is vested in their homes, a drop in property value is tantamount to a tax on home sales.  According to the National Association of Realtors, quality of public schools is the second most important issue for prospective homebuyers. 

Despite the charlatanism of Mr. Corcoran, the housing market in this area has been robust. The real estate site Zillow suggests home values in Hinsdale have increased 23 percent in 2013 as compared to the previous year. In Darien, the increase was 25 percent; in Burr Ridge, 19 percent; and in Clarendon Hills, 46 percent. 

How large a decline in the value of your home can you withstand until that savings of 80 bucks a year (on a million dollar home, for example) becomes a really bad deal?

In the final analysis, high performing school districts ought to introduce reforms with caution and prudence. Public schools are part of the foundation on which strong communities are built. The board of education ought not be a playground for politics. Just as we don’t want our teachers politically indoctrinating students, so too must we decry brazen political activism at the board level. It is childish; it is unethical; and it will damage this community beyond repair. Once you lose brilliant educators like Dr. Waterman, they don’t hurry back.

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