Peoria Pundit

Today was my day off, and the weather was sorta nice, so I made the trek downhill to have some pushcart fare for lunch.

I managed to catch the tail end of the day’s “Arts in Education”  presentation at the Peoria County Courthouse plaza. I got to hear a gaggle of sixs and seven-year-olds students sing.

The song?  “It Takes a Village at Valeska Hinton.”

I don’t mean to be rude of insulting to the kids at the Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Education Center or their parents. They sang wonderfully, and their parents and family members were so proud.

But seriously, I kept thinking of kids at some Soviet collective being trotted out to sing about the wisdom of the latest Five Year Plan.

I’m not going to comment about the authenticity of this alleged African proverb (there’s NO evidence this originated in Africa) or the fact it’s generally used to promote the sort of cradle to crave social spending programs that make families less responsible for raising kids than taxpayers (i.e. the villagers who pay the bills).

If you’ve ever heard District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton talk about Valeska Hinton, it’s clear he thinks it is the pinnacle of education success. He wanted the school that was to replace Glen Oak School to be a mirror of Valeska Hinton, even down to how it looked.

The parents and neighbors just wanted a neighborhood school. They liked the education their kids were getting because they were involved, in part because they could walk to school to pick up their kids, chat with teachers and volunteer. Neighborhood schools let them be the sort involved parents that virtually ever teacher and administrator has ever told me is the greatest single indicator a child will succeed academically.

But Ken Hinton didn’t get his way. The Peoria Park District wouldn’t let District 150 build  the new school where he wanted. That frustrated Hinton, and he vowed to screw over the villagers in the East Bluff by denying them any school. But in the end, District 150 was forced by public opinion to hold public hearings. They would get two new schools to replace the four that D150 marked for closure. One would be on the East Bluff, the other would be in the valley.

Their neighborhood schools were saved, and the villagers were happy.

Now, Ken Hinton managed to convince his school board — not that I imagine there was a lot of arm twisting needed for this compliant pack of sheep — to cut 45 minutes of instructional time from every district primary school, and two teachers from each school will be, essentially gutting art and music.

The villagers are almost universally opposed. Seriously, I have not spoken to any single person who doesn’t depend on Ken Hinton’s goodwill for a paycheck who thinks this is a good thing.

But Hinton, still frustrated at not getting his way with Glen Oak School, is digging in his heels. He’s the king of this village, and by God, no stupid, ignorant villagers are going to tell him what do it.

The only thing he wants from villagers is their tax money. Other than that, they can pound sand.

“It takes a village” means the king makes the rules, the villagers pay their taxes and show up to hear their children sing about the glory of the village.

And it’s going to stay this way until the villagers make a change.

This entry was posted on May 21, 2008 at 1:22 am and is filed under Local, Op/Ed . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.