From Chicago Now Staff Blog: Niche’s 2018 Best Public High Schools rankings are “based on rigorous analysis of key statistics and millions of reviews from students and parents using data from the U.S. Department of Education.” … Continue reading
Category Archives: School
In the “Here we go again” category is consolidation of schools. These comments by Lakewood’s Steve Willson stimulates me to re-post the analysis I did seven years ago under his reflections: I’m so tired of this “consolidate the schools” argument. … Continue reading
Continuing coverage of the League of Women Voters Candidates’ Night for those seeking State Senate seats looking at answers to the question of how to protect students from gun violence. And the candidates had a minute to answer the question My … Continue reading
Continuing coverage of the League of Women Voters Candidates’ Night for those seeking State Senate seat looking at answers to the question of whether property taxes should be capped or reduced and “how do you propose to help schools and libraries–two … Continue reading
Here’s the veto message from Governor Bruce Rauner on House Bill 1262 sponsored by Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie and Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant: Today I veto House Bill 1262 from the 100th General Assembly, which walks back the progress that was … Continue reading
An article by Austin Berg of the Illinois Policy Institute: WHY YOUR PROPERTY TAX BILL IS SO HIGH, AND HOW TO FIX IT Less than 50 cents of every additional property tax dollar over the last 20 years went to … Continue reading
An article by Austin Berg of the Illinois Policy Institute: WHY YOUR PROPERTY TAX BILL IS SO HIGH, AND HOW TO FIX IT Less than 50 cents of every additional property tax dollar over the last 20 years went to … Continue reading
McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks, having met with some school district officials privately June 6th, has sent our Freedom of Information requests seeking the following information from each school district for 2010 through 2017: The total number of district … Continue reading
Here’s a table that shows school superintend and teacher salaries for McHenry County school districts, as well as class sizes. A Friend of McHenry County Blog did the heavy lifting in manipulating this data. You will note that Marengo-Union and … Continue reading
Right after this year’s real estate tax bills arrived in mailboxes, McHenry County Blog showed how school districts’ tax levies compared with the previous two years’ levies. A Friend of McHenry County Blog did the heavy lifting in manipulating this … Continue reading
A while ago, a commenter asked for more information about schools than whether and how much they increased or decreased taxes since last year. While data for 2017 is not available, that for 2016 is. A Friend of McHenry County … Continue reading
Here is a summary of what McHenry County school districts did to McHenry County taxpayers in this year’s tax bills: Tax District 2015 Extension 2016 Extension % Change 2017 Extension % Change Grade School Disticts … Continue reading
Yesterday, McHenry County Blog published the press release McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks released about his invitation to nine school superintendents and board presidents to meet with him on Thursday. The superintendents said a number had scheduling conflicts, but … Continue reading
McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks posted the following press release after it was published in the Northwest Herald. Franks asked for a meeting right after property tax bills would be received. Problem with that is Franks would have had … Continue reading
Here’s a bill that has passed the Illinois Senate last week. Now it is sent to the House for consideration. Read what your State Senators saw, if they only read a summary of the bill: Amends the School Code. With … Continue reading
It has entitled its series of suggestions “31 Bullets” for the number of bullets sold per person in the country each year. (I do wonder if that includes the number bought by agencies having no need whatsoever to stockpile bullets. … Continue reading
I can’t give you the exact quotes, but President Donald Trump just trashed the nationwide concept of “gun free” school zones. He argued that schools should be come “hardened sites” which give prospective shooters the knowledge that there might be … Continue reading
I am so tired of people who don’t do a cost-benefit study before advancing government reorganization proposals. There was Jack Franks, who bragged at the savings of allowing townships to take over township cemetery districts. Yes, there would be some … Continue reading
During the 2016 election Jack Franks was promising to cut taxes by 10T%. Just look at the symbol he used: Of course enlightened voters knew that was a fraudulent claim. McHenry County’s tax levy is only about 10% of the … Continue reading
Our family went to Galena’s Eagle Ridge before the spring election. Election signs were all over the place. There was a local school bond referendum on the ballot. I spotted two types of “Vote No” signs and one for the … Continue reading