Parents and residents in the French Village section of Fairview Heights, Illinois are organizing to detach themselves from East St. Louis School District 189, and I can’t blame them. Their goal is to defect from East Boogie schools so that their children may attend Fairview Heights public schools.
Any responsible parent wants the best possible education for their children, especially when their tax dollars are used to pay for that so-called education, and ESL public schools are an abysmal failure, from poor educational performance to almost “pimp-like” fiscal irresponsibility at the highest levels.
In fact, recent statewide test scores reveal that ESL students tested nearly 10 times worse than other Illinois students, with only three percent meeting state performance standards as compared to the statewide average of 29 percent.
Yet the District 189 website has the audacity to claim that they are “Creating World Class Leaders.” How so? Certainly not with their academic performance.
To make matters worse, ESL School Superintendent Arthur Culver has presided over this educational train wreck for five years now and is being overpaid a comfortable salary of $225,000 a year for sub-par performance.
Plus, Culver shares the wealth (and ineptitude) with a cast of approximately 20 administrators who earn between $90,000 to $156,000 per year, including three assistant superintendents and 12 directors.
Really? All that help and the district is STILL failing? I would think that the school district could fail just as miserably without having so many overpaid administrators eating from the public trough.
Just think about it. Joe Biden makes $230,700 per year, and he’s the vice president of the United States. With benefits, Culver is paid at Biden’s level and is a monumental failure. If he were a politician he would have been voted out after one term. So he and his crew needs to go … yesterday.
However, the situation is not hopeless. ESL schools can be transformed. Just look across the river where Tiffany Anderson took the helm of the Jennings School District in 2012, transformed it in a major way and is now off to greener pastures in Kansas due to her success.
Arthur Culver and his cronies are pimping the students and parents of E. St. Louis, pimping their tax dollars, pimping the students out of a quality education and pimping them out of a future. District 189 has become an educational laughing stock to the admissions officers at colleges and universities throughout America.
Parents who care about their children’s future should pack the school board meetings and demand Culver’s resignation for the atrocious lack of performance on his watch. No more excuses. Step up, parents. If you don’t, you’re as poor a parent as Culver is a superintendent.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com; Twitter@JamesTIngram.
