Had a batch of Cub Scouts in for the Journal’s nickel tour a couple of weeks ago. Since we don’t have a rumbling printing press to show the kids, we actually try to talk about what exactly is news. The most basic definition we come to in these little chats is that “news is what is different.”
If they get up and eat Frosted Flakes for breakfast, get dropped off at school by their dad, and pass a spelling test, they are not making the newspaper. They get clocked by a bus crossing Ridgeland and we’re talking Breaking News E-blast.
So it is in election season in small-town Oak Park. You put up a batch of lawn signs, spend your evenings at “coffees,” gather up signatures for an ad in the Journal. Not news. But you accept a pile of money from an outside group, or a notable local family antes up north of $10,000 to elect a sort-of-slate to the high school board and you are making news.
That’s why the $18,000 donation to Jim O’Connor’s campaign, from a D.C. PAC associated with Teach for America, is news. It is way out-sized compared to any local school board election campaign in our collective memory. The Schulers’ donations to Fred Arkin, Jennifer Cassel and Sara Dixon Spivy in the Oak Park and River Forest High School race dwarf other donations.
We live in a moment of rightly heightened concerns about money flooding our politics. And whether it cascades from the Kochs and the Soroses at the national level or to our local school board races, it is worth paying attention.
But writing this on Monday morning ahead of Tuesday’s voting, let’s put a little commentary behind the headlines.
I’ve known Jim O’Connor for 10 years. First met him when he invited me, as publisher of our Austin Weekly News, to an event at the KIPP Ascend charter school he had helped found on the West Side. He was the school principal at that time. It was an eye-opener for me. Middle-school kids introduced themselves to me as the class of ’14. I asked, “Why the class of 2014?” and they explained that would be the year they graduated from college. I sat in on classes characterized by a calm but determined rigor. And I read up on the KIPP school movement, which was launched by two fellows, one actually from River Forest.
So, yes, Jim O’Connor has a background in charters. Has he ever mentioned that Oak Park should have a charter school? No. He knows Oak Park will never have a charter school. Doesn’t need one. But are there some tools and approaches — longer school days for some students, more focus on the basics of reading and math for some students — pioneered in public school-based charters that I think might translate to a determined battle to close the gap in Oak Park elementary and high schools? I’d say absolutely.
If he is re-elected and takes part in the selection of the next superintendent, is he going to seek a progressive educator ready to champion Oak Park’s determination to educate every kid to the highest level possible, to innovate and motivate? Sure as hell hope so.
The Schulers garner attention because they are Oak Park’s most visible philanthropists and much of their giving is focused on our schools. We have just reported they helped fund installation of new synthetic turf fields at the middle school. Their backing of candidates at OPRF High School reflects the shared views of that trio in moving that school sharply forward on issues related to educational equity, which translates to the gap and discipline issues.
So in both cases, the money is somewhat startling. But the people being backed by that money are true-blue Oak Park progressives, determined not to dramatically shift our schools but to keep them on the determined paths of change we’ve seen in recent years.
