This man is a broken record – a scratchy, irritating record producing a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

Ed emailed me asking for a link to let people know his site is up an running, which I’m happy to provide. I’m not sure if he’s ever read my blog, though. His first post bemoans the cancellation of Michael Noyes’ editorial column, and the second post on the site is written by Jim Mangan. Michael Noyes and Jim Mangan have been frequent targets of my criticism, primarily because of behavior that I consider unethical – most notably the slanderous, xenophobic witch hunt that drove previous District 108 Superintendent Don White away from Pekin.

So, if you’re interested in a view of Pekin that’s likely to be diametrically opposed to my own, check out Pekin News and Views.

As if kids hurling soda cans and racial epithets at a woman and her child on Derby Street wasn’t bad enough, now we have public gay-bashing by a former member of the District 303 School Board.

Wonderful.  Just fantastic.

I’ve been ignoring Mangan lately, but this letter really struck me with the level of ignorance it displayed regarding the proper functioning of our political system.

Mayor Mackaman argued that elected officials should not make decisions simply based on the “popular will.” Mackaman was disturbed that officials and citizens would design policy and base decisions solely on what they perceived was the will of the people.

Mangan, on the other hand, would rather have our elected officials flop around spinelessly in the wind, blowing where the winds of public opinion tell them to blow. Since Jim Mangan blows the hardest, obviously all politicians should listen to him and do as he says.

Yes, that was pure snark … but someone needs to keep this guy in check.

As most reasonable people realize, the difficulty comes in determining the popular will. Who can really know the popular will??? I have yet to meet any elected official that can read the minds of everyone in their electoral district and weigh all of their opinions on any given matter.

To whom should the elected official listen? The wealthy and well connected? The pollsters and their polls? Carefully manipulated focus groups? Those who call, write or email them? The obnoxious blowhards who write weekly letters to the editor?

I know … more snark.

Of course elected officials should listen to the ideas and concerns of their constituents. However, they should represent ALL of their constituency … even those that don’t vote or can’t vote. It’s their job, as our representatives, to be the best informed and make the decisions that they feel will benefit the greatest number of people.

That’s why we should elect qualified, hard-working and ethical individuals who will use their best judgement and do what’s right for their community. I want leaders and decision makers in public office … not windsocks.

As a parent of District 108 students, I’d like to thank Chad for standing up for our teachers and their students so publicly. I’m sure the teachers of District 108 thank you as well.

Maybe Schmidgall’s breakdown of Mangan’s numbers will illustrate the fallacies in his arguments to a few more people. Of course it won’t sway the diehard Manganites like Dean Bacon, Ed Emmons, Mike Noyes & their ilk. Mangan and his acolytes seem to live to trash the system without offering any constructive solutions of their own.

First off … Mangan’s criticism is blatantly hypocritical. District 303, whose board he sits on, pays their employees nearly the same as 108. Why does 108 deserve criticism, but 303 does not? Why does Jim Mangan hate District 108 so much?

Secondly, Mangan compares the average salary of a District 108 teacher ($50,643) to the average salary of a resident of Pekin ($36,486). What sacrilege that public employees are paid more than those who pay them!

On a visceral level, that statement probably has some appeal to Manganites around Pekin. But then if you actually use your brain and think about it …

All teachers are required to have AT LEAST a four-year college degree. Almost exactly half (49.9%) of District 108 teachers have Master’s level training and above. In addition, District 108 teachers have an average of 15.3 years of teaching experience. These numbers are based on the 2006 Illinois District Report Card. The report card also lists the 2006 average teacher salary for District 108 as $47,730 … not $50,643.

The American Federation of Teachers 2004-2005 teacher salary survey estimates an average salary of $47,602 nationally. District 108’s pay scale is well in line with that average, and they are below the average Illinois teacher salary of $56,494 for the same period (or $56,685 based on the 2006 report card). I think we’re getting quite a bargain for the level of training and experience we have in District 108.

What does Mangan expect District 108 to do … pay their teachers at a level far below the national and state averages? How would the district recruit and retain quality teachers if that was the case?

Again, Jim Mangan proves that he doesn’t care one bit about quality education for our children. He just wants to save a few bucks on his property tax bill.

Jim Mangan, of course, continues to thoroughly wallop the dead consolidation horse. I’ll certainly give him credit for persistence. From the Times article:

A big incentive for the merger, Mangan said, would be improved scholastic performance by students, which he believes would indeed happen. However, even if it did not, he said, “it’s still a winner financially” and therefore the board should move ahead with it.

He continues to insist that consolidation will bring academic improvement, even though he has never offered any evidence to that point. He also remains under the delusion that this would be a financial boon despite evidence presented previously. Mangan’s sure that the administrators are cooking the numbers.

District 303 Superintendent Paula Davis took a bit of an exception to that …

Davis said Mangan’s statements were accusatory and “patently unfair,â€? and pointed out that District 303 has gotten “the highest ratings possible over the course of the years” by the state, because of its financial responsibility.

Thank you, Paula Davis. It takes a lot of nerve for an administrator to dress down a board member, but in this case I believe it was well deserved. The fact that Mangan is leaving the board makes it easier to stand up to him, but I still admire the pluck.

If Ken Hinton were presenting the evidence on the projected financial viability of school consolidation, I might agree with Jim Mangan. However, both school districts do well in financial reviews by the Illiinois State Board of Education (while District 150 in Peoria is on the “watch” list), and District 108 has won awards for budgetary excellence. In that light, Mangan’s suspicions are baseless paranoia.

Since moving to Pekin, my impression has been that the public schools, in general, are fighting hard to do the best they can for our students. Of course there is always room for improvement, but school district consolidation is clearly not the answer. Jim Mangan needs to climb off his dead horse, but somehow I doubt that will happen.

“I disapprove of what you say,” the French philosopher Voltaire is reputed to have said, “but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Had Voltaire uttered the first line of that famous quote at a District 303 Board meeting, that radical might never have been allowed to complete his sentence.

Jim Mangan is no Voltaire. There is no comparison. The grandiose exaggerations that routinely spout from Mike Noyes’s mouth are frankly ridiculous.

However, I will be honest and say that Noyes actually makes a few good points in today’s column, although his tone “shines” with its usual condescension. No matter how gleeful I was at the richly deserved smackdown Jim Mangan received at the last 303 board meeting, I think the other board members did more harm than good to their cause by not allowing Mangan to speak. The same goes for the 108 board in their tabling of discussion regarding a district consolidation study. Noyes voices the party line of the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation and takes both boards to task for these events in his column.

I think I know what they were doing. Both boards were distancing themselves from the slanderous and deceitful tactics of Jim Mangan and his ugly, nasty campaign to discredit the good people working in District 108. However, silencing him with a parliamentary tactic and tabling a consolidation study clearly desired by the people of Pekin just plays right into the anti-establishment hyperbole of the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation. They portray themselves as the persecuted hero fighting “the Man” to let the will of the people be heard. It’s a total load of nonsense, but the 108 & 303 boards played right into it by shutting Mangan down and tabling a consolidation study.

Let the man speak. His numbers are worthless, since only a referendum will determine the tax rate for any combined school district. Let him dig his political grave with his own nasty mouth.

Pursue the consolidation study. Let Don White and Paula Davis show the taxpayers of Pekin how many thousands of dollars it’s going to cost just to figure this thing out. Let them find out how much money we’re going to waste on something that will do NOTHING to improve the quality of education in Pekin and may not save any money. Let them accumulate the figures that will shoot Jim Mangan’s numbers to pieces.

I still think that consolidation is a waste of time. We should be focused on helping the students of Pekin, and consolidation does nothing to address their needs. However, if consolidation does eventually go through, I think the greatest poetic justice Jim Mangan could receive would be to deny him any place in the governance of the new district because he has so alienated Pekin voters with his nasty, slanderous rhetoric. That would be truly just desserts.

Mr. Frazier claims that the criticism in Sattazahn’s letter was pointed at federal standards imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act, NOT at District 108. I’m not sure where Frazier is getting his information – unless he’s related to Karen Frazier, who saw the letter as a member of the 108 board. I wish Mr. Sattazahn would provide some clarity.

Frazier also has this to say to Jim Mangan:

Mr. Mangan would like to blame District 108 for the drop-out rate in District 303, yet take the credit for the good students in 303. It doesn’t work that way. Parents are the ones responsible for instilling in the children the need for a good education. As parents we need to do a better job at home and stop blaming educators for our own inabilities.

Heh. I’m not sure if blaming parents so directly is wise, because Mangan will likely jump all over it – “108 blames the parents for their failures!” or some nonsense like that. However, I certainly agree with the premise. A poor educational environment at home is challenging and sometimes impossible for even the best educator to overcome. I also agree that Mangan’s claim that all of 303’s problems derive from 108 is nonsense.

The Times editors use the piece to dress down both the 108 board for ignoring the results of the consolidation referendum AND Jim Mangan for his negative smear campaign. The charges are fair, in my opinion.

I do question whether those voting for the referendum were adequately informed, especially when the DISinformation campaign of the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation was the most prominent view out there. More people need to read my blog, obviously. (Laughing). However, democracy – although imperfect – is unquestionably the best form of government. The referendum passed by a substantial margin, so the board should certainly respect that result and diligently investigate the possibility of consolidation.

The editorial agrees with my view (scroll down toward the end and look for PAST) that the information we have to this point – the “clear evidence” of consolidation’s value to the taxpayers that Mangan claims to have – is of little value:

The only way for the districts to settle this question is to gather new information, and not use what has been already gathered in past studies or put forth by consolidation supporters.

Pekin is moving into uncharted territory in regard to our options under the state’s recently passed new school consolidation law.

Nobody knows for sure what would happen – for the taxpayers, for the students, teachers or administrators – if the two districts were to consolidate.

The Daily Times offers Midwest Central Community Unit District 191 centered in Manito as a local example of consolidation. However, 191 is the kind of rural district that has utilized consolidation to continue service in the face of shrinking student populations. The situation with 108 & 303 is unique. If only 108 & 303 consolidate, then the residents of other feeder districts would essentially be paying taxes to support Pekin students in 108 at the same time they are paying to support local grade schools in their own districts. Unless ALL of the feeder districts consolidate with 303 – something none of the other districts have shown any interest in – then it sets up an unfair double taxation policy. It’s a complicated issue, and I’m not sure how much looking at District 191 will help.

The Times offers a solution to the dilemma that would take some of the heat off the school boards and administrators:

What about creating a blue-ribbon panel of local business and industry leaders, professionals and entrepreneurs and non-school board elected and appointed officials, with a specific mandate and deadline?

Not a bad idea. Can I be on it? Hehehehe.

Such a group would need to be of necessity independent and neutral, in order to quell the suspicions of consolidation supporters or those who oppose it.

Hmmmm … I guess that counts me out. Thankfully it also counts out Mangan, Bacon & Noyes. I can’t be neutral on this issue. I want what’s best for the students of Pekin, and I think Mangan’s plan is a needless distraction wasting time, money & effort while ignoring the real problems facing the district.

My favorite part of the editorial is this:

To achieve anything other than a stalemate or, even worse, a debacle, all the energy being wasted in negativity and name-calling must be harnessed so education reform in Pekin can move forward.

If we don’t, the future for our community won’t be as bright as it could be.

Did you hear that, Mr. Mangan?

The first article, on the front page, is entitled “Teachers served by District 108 officials.” As a way of thanking the staff of Broadmoor Junior High School for their generosity in more than doubling their contribution to the United Way this year, District 108 administrators including Don White, Chuck Bowen and Matt Wilkinson served the staff a lunch donated by Aramark. Overall, the district raised $14,170, up 2% over last year. Broadmoor staff raised $1096, up from $508 last year.

What qualities of District 108 staff, teachers and administrators does this article show us? Dedication to service, dedication to community, humility and generosity.

The second piece I’d like to discuss offers a distinctly different tone, and unfortunately I can’t provide a link. For some reason the special opinion piece in question is not available on the Daily Times website.

Just as I predicted after the 108 school board voted to table further discussion of a consolidation study on Monday, a typical Jim Mangan rant appeared on the Opinions page of the Nov. 24 Daily Times (he apparently survived his cranial detonation). Here are some lowlights, starting with the very first line:

Ultra egos, lust for power and character flaws found in those using counterfeit reasoning to keep from doing the right thing – such is the case with officials at District 108 on the issue of consolidation.

As usual, Mr. Mangan picks Don White, District 108 superintendent, for special slander:

But now, fearing the truth of an independent study, he [Don White] claims he has read hundreds of reports proving consolidation is a bad idea. [...] I have no doubt one can find hundreds of reports claiming to know of life on other planets, but no proof, just hot air.

Well, according to the Nov. 21 article by Nick Vogel, what Don White actually said is that he hasn’t found any evidence that consolidation will be helpful, not that he’s found hundreds of reports saying it’s a bad idea:

[Don White] has not yet found any positive information concerning the hybrid consolidation of 303 with its feeder schools.

White presented the information he had collected to the board. He also advised the board regarding his difficulty in finding a consultant since no districts in Illinois have ever done what Mangan & Company are proposing. He also warned that as many as five different studies might be necessary to explore all the facets of district taxation and logistics affected by consolidation. The board then voted to table the issue.

Now, I wasn’t at the meeting, so I can’t vouch for what else might have been said there … but somehow I think that Mr. Mangan’s version is his usual hyperbole.

Mr. White also said this at the school board meeting on Monday:

If it came back that it [consolidation] was a good deal, I’d share the information with the board. [...] If anyone has any information other than what I was able to find, please bring it forward.

That sounds like an open invitation to me, Mr. Mangan. Please … bring forward your evidence that consolidation will improve the finances and academic performance of District 108 schools.

[Forlorn sound of crickets chirping]

Mr. Mangan also has extra venom reserved for 108 school board president Richard Root:

Mr. Root claims not to have any answers to consolidation positives. This seems to be proof that he doesn’t understand state report cards, and also ignores 108 and county financial records that are full of official documentation for open minds. Mr. Root’s denial of facts would indicate he is in that group who still believes the Earth is flat.

Later in the letter, Mangan states as a given that taxpayers will save “big dollars” and students will have a better education with consolidation.

Mr. Mangan, how do PAST financial records tell us anything about what would happen if school districts were consolidated? They tell us nothing, because if consolidation went through, then new tax rates would be established. Tax rates might go up, down or stay the same – and that could vary across the new district. Maybe tax rates would go down in the 108 feeder area, but other feeder districts would see their tax rates rise. NOBODY KNOWS until careful studies are performed.

Examination of past state report cards reveals the exact opposite of Mangan’s contentions. Pekin schools perform well above the state average and compare well to schools with similar demographics. They continue to make adequate yearly progress, and test scores continue to improve. Several district 108 schools have won awards from the state.

Thus Jim Mangan continues to slam District 108 by exaggerating claims of low test scores and failing schools, without providing any positive evidence for his position.

Mangan goes on to claim that consolidation would provide bonuses for all employees of 108. I presume he’s referring to the alignment of pay scales as required by the statute governing district consolidations. Since District 303 has a higher average salary, District 108 staff would see an increase in pay to match 303’s. Now he’s a friend to the teachers, apparently. I think it’s a little late for that, Mr. Mangan. The stunt with Mark Sattazahn’s letter of resignation (see here and here) ensured that your group will never have sympathy among the 108 staff.

[SIGH]

So which version of District 108 do you find to be the more accurate one? I think actions speak louder than words, so the answer is clear to me. District 108 is full of humble, hard-working, dedicated and generous people who are doing the best job that they can to educate the children of Pekin. Let’s find ways to help them make the district even better, not insult them and offer “magic wand” solutions that only serve to distract us from the real issues at hand.

I echo James Drainer and the commenter “Rick” – let’s stop the negativity.

District 108 employees have always been able to trust that letters of resignation were viewed only by school board members and central office administration. We are disappointed to find out that this is not the case.

Drainer also denounces the attacks on 108’s performance by the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation, defends their record and asks that CfPSC stop their slanderous campaigning.

District 108’s Education Association would like to see the emphasis turn from negative, political sniping to thoughtful and non-biased reflection of Pekin’s educational systems.

The 108 school board really needs to do more than just poll its members regarding the leak of Mark Sattazahn’s letter of resignation.  I was reading through the School Board Candidate Information form for Dean Bacon today, and I noticed that he is retired from the Pekin Police Department. Maybe we should ask Bacon his opinion on who would be a prime suspect in this matter. The field is rather narrow … only 12 people had access to the letter. It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out.

Heh.

Well, his letter to the editor in yesterday’s Pekin Daily Times cured me of any thought that he might have gone “bleeding heart” since the referendum. He was back to his antagonistic, condescending, nasty old self. The letter was written as a thank you to Pekin voters for their support of the consolidation referendum.

Over the past five months, voters received unvarnished facts of the many shortcomings of our two-district system. Voters also heard different reports from local education experts and their followers, trying to put a happy face on years of insufficient student quality and wasteful taxing.

No, Mr. Mangan. For the past five months we’ve heard your nasty personal slander of District 108 administrators and teachers and exaggerated negative spin of the district’s test scores.

Now it is up to the school board members of districts 108 and 303 to get the job done. Will these representatives of the voters and their public paid administrators honestly follow the clear will of the people, or continue to conspire to find technical excuses and loop holes to protect the status-quo?

Conspire? The only organized conspiracy I see is your organization – the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation, a group dedicated to shoving the consolidation issue down the throats of the people of Pekin. They pursue this goal by disparaging the hard-working and dedicated educators of District 108 and deceiving the public with vague, unproven promises of reduced taxation & educational benefit.

Will school officials and their fan club insult voters by pretending they didn’t understand what they were voting for?

Don White, District 108 Superintendent, has questioned whether voters really understood the referendum. I have my own doubts in that regard, but fine – yes, the referendum passed. However, the referendum was NON-BINDING – a fact that was clearly indicated on the ballot. Perhaps, Mr. Mangan, YOU should trust the voters to recognize that this was a non-binding resolution and NOT a carte blanche to move forward with consolidation.

The only way to assure that [there is an honest study of the consolidation issue] is by having two members of the Citizens for Consolidation group – myself and Dean Bacon – on the study team that the voters know and trust, and who have a working understanding of the material to be studied.

That’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house! Trustworthy? That’s a laugh! Your letters to the Daily Times and your pro-consolidation fliers ignored the fact that test scores for District 108 schools hold up well against schools with similar demographics and against the state average. District 108 schools continue to meet adequate yearly progress as required by the No Child Left Behind Act. In fact, several 108 schools have won awards for excellence from the state. Did you mention any of those facts in your propaganda, Mr. Mangan?

We’ve also seen someone from your camp leak a confidential resignation letter to Mike Noyes so that he could use it to advance your petty political ends. Evasions, spin, outright lies and dirty tricks – that’s what we’ve seen from the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation.

The policies promoted by Mangan, Bacon & Noyes (Pekin’s Unholy Trinity) endanger the already thinly stretched funding for the education of our children. Their slander of educators devastates morale and diminishes our ability to recruit and retain good teachers and administrators. If you were a teacher or school administrator, would you want to work in the hostile environment provided by the Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation?

Let’s carefully study the issue of consolidation and be sure that this is a good thing for our public school students before we move ahead. If such a study shows that consolidation will save taxpayer dollars while not jeopardizing education funding, then fine – go for it. If it saves money but reduces funding, then it’s not worth it. Our kids are already forced to do fundraisers on a nearly weekly basis. Our teachers already give too much out of their own pockets to educate our children.

We can’t just focus on the almighty dollar. We have to remember that the education of our children is the most important issue at stake here. Let’s not delude ourselves that consolidation will improve test scores. Tazewell County in general and the Pekin school districts in particular are undergoing demographic challenges that will not be solved by “organizing the curriculum” and ending social promotion (if that even occurs). We have more students with fewer resources at home. We have more students with special education needs that the tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act fail to separate from the rest of the pack. Consolidation does NOTHING to address these issues.

Social promotion is a failed educational policy, but the simple retention policies advocated by Mangan and his cohorts are an even larger failure. As Michelle Teheux suggested in her recent column, the real solution lies in providing supplemental instruction to students that are struggling. We need expanded early childhood education, expanded after-school programs and expanded tutoring services. This solution is neither simple nor cheap, but it offers more realistic chances of improving student performance than Mangan’s “magic wand.”

There is just one problem: The entire county got a chance to vote on the Pekin proposition, not just voters in districts 303 and 108.

That is a problem. Why should someone in East Peoria, Washington, Morton or Tremont get to decide whether we consolidate or not?

I’ll actually give Jim Mangan some credit. He’s quoted as saying that after the data is tabulated by precint -

[If Pekin precints give a] fairly significant yes vote, the logical next step would be for the two school boards to commission or authorize a study of some type to determine the various information that everyone thinks is pertinent to move forward on.

Mangan has previously resisted a study, calling it a waste of time and money. Since multiple taxing bodies are involved along with complex regulations and formulas determining outside funding, I think it would be prudent to look before we leap into consolidation.

The article also explains the $20 million surplus – it’s District 303’s surplus, not 108’s. His Citizens for Pekin School Consolidation propaganda didn’t make that at all clear. Mangan says it could be used for the planned infrastructure improvements for 108 if the districts consolidate. NOW he starts using carrots instead of sticks???

Is this the same guy that’s been writing all the vile letters to the Times bashing 108’s administration? Maybe he just woke up on the right side of the bed this morning.

Sorry Mr. Mangan. In my opinion, today’s good mood and generosity doesn’t make up for all the ugly things he said about some very hard-working and dedicated people in District 108. How can he honestly expect to lead 108 as part of a combined district after he’s done nothing but ridicule them for months? Why would anyone want to work for someone that called them greedy liars (108 administration) and failures (108 administration & teachers)?

If Bacon & Mangan make it on the board of the combined district (not if I can help it), I predict we’re going to have major problems with retaining and hiring qualified teachers. Morale must already be low among 108 staff knowing that someone on the board gave Mike Noyes a confidential resignation letter, the contents of which were used to criticize 108 for political advantage. Whoever leaked that letter needs to be disciplined, or we’re going to start losing teachers. District 108 certainly can’t afford that!