Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Flatlined: How Illinois Shortchanges Rural Students

Dance
SFX: Fade in Sweetheart Dance music

Narrator/Diane: It?s a couple days before Valentine?s Day, and we?re at the Sweetheart Dance in the La Harpe high school gym.

Narrator/Todd: Red and gold metallic strips are draped mid-court around the dance floor. Kids quiver under a disco ball like a school of fish in choppy water.

Narrator/Diane: The girls are wearing sparkly strapless dresses. Some drove a half-hour away today to have their hair sculpted into elaborate up-dos. Those who wore heels are now barefoot; others are in flip-flops.

Narrator/Todd: And a few boys sport sunglasses on their heads, slick with gel.

Narrator/Diane: This may be one of the last dances ever at La Harpe High. Enrollment here is down to 127 students.

Narrator/Todd: A proposal to merge the high school with two neighboring towns is soon to be voted on here. If it passes, La Harpe High will close for good.

SFX: DJ Starting to take pictures in Mrs. XX?s room.

SFX: Photoshoot

Narrator/Diane: On the day before the dance, we stopped by Mrs. Logan?s sociology class. We asked the students what they thought about their school?s possible closure.

Ashlin: One of the schools we?re going with, they?re kind of jerks. It?s gotta be all about them kind of. But I don?t mean in a bad way. If we lose our school our town would go even farther down.

Lisa: We?re going to have to do it sometime though is what I think. I don?t think we can last much longer really. [Why do you say that?] We?re gonna run out of money.

Bryant: I heard from people that we can only go on a year or two more, really. Then we?ll be completely out of money and everything. So we need to do something soon before we get into that bad of a state.

Diane: Have you noticed that it?s been bad?

Bryant: Lately we haven?t been able to have certain classes.

Diane: Like what?

Bryant: Well, Spanish got cut. Some teachers have to do more than they would usually have to. Like, we have PE teachers also doing some English and stuff like that.

Lisa: You hear a lot of students that go to college from here say they?re unprepared. There?s other students who?ve gone through calculus in high school. And we don?t even offer precalc, so.

Diane: Who?s going to move back to La Harpe?

Crystal: I?m out of here. [Why?s that?] Because there?s nothing around here. There?s no job opportunities. There?s nothing. I mean, this town?s going down. It?s going to be gone here in like the next 10 years.

Narrator/Diane: La Harpe is located near the Mississippi River in central Illinois. Its population is about 1,300. Main Street is full of boarded-up buildings and empty lots.

Narrator/Todd: The town hospital is now a nursing home. And residents worry that their one restaurant may close.

Narrator/Diane: There?s not much for kids to do around here for fun. They hang out wherever they can.

Madison: There?s like the Standard, people cruise up and down Main Street and just drive back and forth. Meet up with a bunch of people and you either stop at the Standard or at the car wash or at the Y.

Diane: What?s that?

[all laugh] When you go out of town, there?s a Y where there?s a grass lot in the middle, where we all park our cars, but we?ve all been kicked out of there.

Todd: All right. You got to give us a little tour. So where are we now?

Bryant: We?re going to turn left and go to the Y.

Zach: Is there going to be anyone there?

Bryant: No, it?s too cold.

Narrator/Todd: We?re in the car with Bryant Frenetti and Zach Lotz. Both are in the sociology class and both are seniors. There are just 36 students in this year?s graduating class.

Bryant: We?re going by our grade school and high school. Our grade school. Our grade school was built in like 1920 something.

Zach: Oh really, I thought it was 18 something.

Bryant: I think it?s always been there, but they built a new one. That?s all I know. I don?t know for sure.

Narrator/Todd: Actually, the original red-brick school dates back to 1928. There?s also a pole barn for the vo-Tech program, and an old Army shed that serves as the fourth grade classroom.

Bryant: We?re turning right. This is where we?ll get to. And that?s really about all we got. And at the Casey?s, there?s a car wash. And kind of like some cement area where people go and hang out to.

SFX: Ayrco convenience store

Narrator/Diane: We stop at the local gas station to chat with Zach and Bryant. It?s where everyone in town shares news and gossip.

Narrator/Todd: We grab a booth beneath signs for farm auctions. Above us are military portraits of two local boys killed in Iraq.

Narrator/Diane: Students from rural districts like La Harpe have a hard time competing with suburban kids.

Zach: Like, yeah, we?re not going to be prepared.

Narrator/Todd: That?s Zach. He?s going into the Army after graduation.

Zach: I?m one of the top mathematics people in our class. I love math. But on ACTs and stuff, if you saw the scores and stuff, I wasn?t like ranked near the top. If I were to ever go to math competition or whatever I would do really bad compared to bigger schools. I?d look like a fool. But at our school I look really smart.

Zach: Now we don?t even offer pre-calculus unless it?s over the Internet.

Bryant: You?d have to go over the Internet or go somewhere else. And you don?t want to take it over the Internet because you don?t have an instructor and going somewhere else, you don?t know what that?s going to be like either.

Narrator/Todd: Bryant dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. He?s a hefty left-hander who can hit home runs. He plans to enroll at a nearby community college, hoping to get noticed.

Bryant: A lot of things are stacked against kids from a smaller school in every way of trying to get a good future in education or whatever you want to go into.

Campbell/Strange

Narrator/Todd: Jo Campbell is a busy man. He?s the La Harpe superintendent but he also the grade school principal. Every morning after he checks in at the superintendent?s office, he hustles over to the grade school.

Diane: You haven?t exactly redecorated.

Jo Campbell: No. Neither place has that happened. In particular, here.

Narrator/Diane: Jo Campbell?s office here is bare. When he?s not around, he turns off the radiator to save money. Since 2003, Campbell?s had to eliminate programs and lay off nine teachers and a principal to make ends meet.

Jo Campbell: The kids are receiving an excellent education. The ability, however, to continue that continues to deteriorate and is becoming more and more difficult.

Narrator/Todd: Like most rural school districts, La Harpe depends heavily on property tax revenue to fund its operations. However, its businesses, homes and farmland don?t produce much income for the school district. Its property tax income now is about the same as it was in the mid-eighties. And that doesn?t account for inflation.

Narrator/Diane: Property tax wealth is best measured by adding up the value of all the buildings in a district and dividing by the number of students. In 2002, local property in La Harpe was worth only about $60,000 per student. That?s a lot less than in some Chicago suburbs.

Narrator/Todd: In Rosemont, local property was worth more than ten times as much, $680,000 per student, and in Lake Forest it was worth $901,000 per student.

Marty Strange: The resources rural schools have are very meager.

Narrator/Todd: Marty Strange is a policy analyst with The Rural School and Community Trust, a national group based in Arlington, Virginia.

Marty Strange: Rural areas don?t have the industrial base or the commercial base that generates a lot of the property tax. They don?t have $550,000 homes. They have farmland or they have forests and those are valued high relative to their ability to produce income. But they don?t produce revenue for the local school.

Narrator/Todd: In towns like La Harpe, that puts the burden on a dwindling number of families, and seniors on fixed incomes.

Strange: In some states, rural areas are willing to tax themselves almost to death to keep their schools.

Narrator/Todd: Rural districts try to make up for a lack of wealth by taxing more heavily. Property tax rates here are three times higher than on some of the wealthiest districts in suburban Chicago.

Strange: The reality is that the reliance on local property taxes, not only in rural areas but in urban areas as well, introduces a great deal of inequity in school funding. The wealthier areas do very well and the poor areas do very poorly.

Darren Spangler

SFX: Cows mooing

Narrator/Diane: That?s the sound of Darren Spangler calling his cows. Darren is a part-time farmer and a full-time factory worker. He graduated from La Harpe High in 1988.

Narrator/Todd: Now, he wants people to approve the referendum on the high school merger. With fewer class offerings at La Harpe, that seems like the best option to him.

Narrator/Diane: The three of us pile into the front seat of his 1989 Ford pickup.

Darren Spangler: I have to get friendly for just a second until I get in a forward gear. You know you?re a poor farmer if all you can afford for a pickup has four-speed transmission. You know you?re poor because nobody likes a four-speed in a truck.

Diane: Why?s that?

Darren Spangler: Because they?re geared so terrible bad.

Narrator/Diane: Darren is taking us on a tour of his family?s original homestead. He?s the sixth generation Spangler to live here and farm this land.

Narrator/Todd: The house he shares with his wife, Shelly, and two toddlers sits just up the road from the Spangler cemetery.

Narrator/Diane: Darren wants to show us a one-room schoolhouse where his Grandmother taught in the 1920s. Schoolhouses like this once dotted the countryside. They were supported by local property taxes, just like schools are today.

Darren Spangler: This is Pennsylvania. It?s a little bit past its prime.

Diane: What does Pennsylvania mean?

Darren Spangler: That?s just the name of the school.

Narrator/Diane: Schools were often named for the states the homesteaders came from. Even in their heyday, these schools were pretty humble compared to their urban counterparts. More than a century ago, education experts were arguing that this disparity was unfair to rural students.

Darren Spangler: You guys want to peek inside of it? [Sure!] Oh my uncle, he just passed away last year. He was the last in our family to go here.

SFX: Lock and gate

Darren Spangler: Of course we run cows on all around this now. The schoolyard has been pasture for many decades. It?s definitely not much to look at.

Narrator/Diane: The school sits behind a rusty gate. It?s about the size of a typical garage. Inside, the walls are crumbling and the floor is covered with straw.

Diane: Do you have any idea how many students would have attended this school?

Darren Spangler: Oh, at a time there?d have been 20 or 30 kids in here easy. That would be the whole grade school though because they taught them all in one hitch. It?s the exact same thing we?re going through with the convergence now. The students started drying up even 100 year, 40-50 years ago to where it didn?t warrant having all these one-room schoolhouses. Transportation got better of course. Everything warranted bringing them together.

Narrator/Diane: Schools like this one closed in reaction to changes in society.

Darren Spangler: Oh, the families were bigger. I?ll take you on a little drive back in here, but there?s a lot of the dead-end roads that are still public roads that used to have multiple settlements and multiple families. You could raise a family on 40 acres. Now you know, a full-time farmer?s got hundreds if not thousands of acres.

Narrator/Diane: The population of Hancock County peaked in 1870 at nearly 36,000 people. Today, 19,000 people live here.

SFX: Unpaved road

Narrator/Todd: On our ride around the countryside with Darren, we spend most of the time on unpaved road, which he sees as a symbol of the state?s neglect.

Darren Spangler: You get down here in the sticks and they all think ?All our money goes to Chicago.? That?s a pretty typical mentality around here. I have to admit, I agree with some of that. We?re still driving on gravel for goodness sakes here. The kind of property taxes we pay down here. This is county road right here. This isn?t even township. This is county. There?s miles of country roads that are still gravel. We?re sitting here going, ?Hell, they?re getting their 16th layer of concrete on that road in the last 40 years and we?re still driving on gravel down here.?

Narrator/Todd: Watching your taxes go up without much to show for it is common in rural areas, says Myron Orfield. He?s a national expert on local government who teaches at the University of Minnesota.

Myron Orfield: People there are stressed to the limits. And they have no disposable income. They see a school district that may be declining in quality as their tax rates go up. Most people don?t understand that it is the tax system that is driving down these schools in large part, not the performance of the local administration.

Orfield v. Dunn

SFX: Music bed

Narrator/Diane: Local property taxes have long been the main source of public school funding in the U.S. In 1639, Dorchester, Massachusetts, became the first district in the nation to levy a property tax for schools.

Narrator/Todd: This model made sense because schools were viewed as community services, like fire departments and libraries. The model was duplicated as settlers spread west. And it worked well for a nation that prized local control of common assets.

Narrator/Diane: But as rural districts have grown poorer, and suburban districts richer, this funding model has failed.

Narrator/Todd: Myron Orfield has an analogy to describe what happens to people living in tax-poor districts. He says it?s like they?re living on a melting ice cube.

Myron Orfield: The more poor people you put on the ice cube, the faster it melts. And the more the poor people have to fight amongst themselves for space on the melting ice cube. Every year, the taxes go up and the services go down and every year they drift further and further into the sea.

Narrator/Diane: That shrinking tax base means fewer educational opportunities in rural districts like La Harpe.

Narrator/Todd: On average, Illinois school districts get less than a third of their revenue from the state. This means that Illinois depends more heavily on local property tax revenue than almost any other state in the nation, except Nebraska and South Dakota.

Myron Orfield: Illinois has done less than most other states, less than almost all the other states. If you think about Illinois spending maybe close to 30 percent of the cost of education, it?s dwarfed by places like Minnesota that are spending 75 percent.

Randy Dunn: As long as we work off of a property tax basis in Illinois, you?re going to see that disparity.

Narrator/Todd: Randy Dunn is the Illinois Superintendent of Schools.

Randy Dunn: Disparity in Illinois is wide. The last time by most scholars? standards we were at some good sense of equity in the state was about 1975 or ?76. We?ve been kind of struggling to get back to that level for 30 years.

Narrator/Todd: Dunn concedes that the state?s reliance on local property taxes is especially hard on rural districts. But he also says Illinois has too many school districts. Illinois ranks fourth nationwide.

Randy Dunn: If you want to get to equity over 880-some districts in the state, it takes a tremendous, tremendous amount of money to be able to do that. You have a much easier time getting to equity as districts are larger and encompass more territory.

Narrator/Todd: This is essentially an argument for school consolidation. But rural legislators who favor consolidation tend to get voted out of office. Superintendent Dunn.

Randy Dunn: These have to be local decisions. You can?t force this at the state level. Because it really is political suicide for a legislator or an office holder.

Narrator/Todd: Of course, some politicians believe it?s also political suicide to vote for tax increases.

Narrator/Diane: That may be why a statewide effort to raise income taxes to generate more money for schools has failed. Myron Orfield, the University of Minnesota professor, says there?s another way to raise money for schools.

Orfield: You don?t have to increase taxes. You can also share existing tax base. You can have wealthier communities share part of their ability to finance schools with existing ones.

Narrator/Diane: Across the country, poor school districts have done exactly that. They challenged the constitutionality of their state?s system for funding education ? and won. It happened in Tennessee and Texas in 1995.

Narrator/Todd: But a similar effort in the nineties failed in Illinois. In 1996, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that large variations in per-pupil spending across districts did not violate the equal protection clause in the state constitution.

Narrator/Diane: This left it up to the General Assembly to iron out inequities in school funding. To this day, legislators have not acted.

Orfield: Illinois doesn?t have any leadership. It?s one of the few states in the country that can?t seem to solve these problems. Perhaps it?s corruption, perhaps it?s indifference, but it?s certainly having a devastating effect on the citizens of Illinois. Other states, like Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi and Alabama are dealing with these things. Illinois seems so mired in chaos, it can?t deal with one of the most fundamental issues on the table.

Olympia

SFX: Music bridge to next track

Narrator/Todd: Many rural school districts bracing for consolidation look to Olympia as a model. Located about 110 miles due east of La Harpe, near Bloomington/Normal, Olympia became one of the state?s first consolidated school districts. It merged high schools in 1972.

Narrator/Diane: And for years it was considered a success because it streamlined administration and gave students a richer curriculum. But Olympia?s in trouble again. Declining enrollments and flat property values have hurt the district?s finances.

Narrator/Todd: In recent years, voters have rejected referenda that would have raised taxes for the school. As a result, Olympia has had to slash budgets.

SFX: Bauersfelds home in rural McLean, Illinois

Jennifer Bauersfeld: Oh my childrens. Oh my girls. Oh my childrens. Oh my childrens. Oh my girls.

Narrator/Diane: It?s 6:15 and we?re at Jennifer and Rick Bauersfeld?s house as they go about their morning routine.

Jennifer Bauersfeld: Time to get up, biddyboy.

Narrator/Diane: The Bauersfelds have three girls and a boy in the Olympia School District. They range in age from 17 to 6. The cuts in Olympia have hit home here.

Narrator/Todd: Leah, a high school senior, was enrolled in Alpha Tau.

Narrator/Diane: That program for gifted students has been eliminated.

Narrator/Todd: Hannah, who plays the oboe, was looking forward to fifth-grade band.

Narrator/Diane: That?s also been cut.

Jennifer Bauersfeld: How ?bout you move down one cause I?ve got to do Seth?s social studies with him.

Narrator/Diane: At breakfast, Jennifer is helping Seth with his homework. Seth has Down Syndrome.

Jennifer Bauersfeld: O.K. Where did most immigrants have to pass through for inspection before they could enter the United States?

Seth: Ellis Island.

Jennifer: Um hmm, Ellis Island.

Narrator/Diane: Federal law prohibits schools from cutting services to children with disabilities. That?s why Jennifer says her son?s education has been least affected by budget cuts.

Jennifer: O.K. guys, time to go.

Narrator/Diane: Two years ago, budget shortfalls forced Olympia to close three of its six elementary schools. Consolidation, despite the efficiency it promises rural districts, is no lasting guarantee.

Narrator/Todd: Don Hahn is the district?s superintendent. He says local property taxes simply aren?t keeping up with what it costs to run a competitive school district.

Don Hahn: Local property, the assessed valuation, has been flat for the last four years. Meaning there?s been no increase in local dollars for four years.

Todd: If it?s flat, it doesn?t sound so bad.

Don Hahn: [laughs] Doesn?t sound bad except that every year there?s increasing costs. If we have a $10 million teacher payroll, and they get a 3 percent pay increase, that?s $300,000 more I need next year just to start the year.

Narrator/Todd: Superintendent Hahn blames state legislators for refusing to make school districts less reliant on local property taxes.

Hahn: There?s no political courage among our legislators to stand up and say, ?We?re operating on a 300-year-old tax system. It?s time to step up and fix it.?

SFX: Oboe playing

Hannah: Yeah. What? Slower? Oh, sorry, I forgot to count.

Jennifer Bauersfeld: We are at the middle school play practice. They?re rehearsing for the musical of Aladdin.

SFX: Oboe playing

Diane: And how many of your kids are in the performance?

Jennifer: Actually, three of our children are in the performance, and one of our children is an assistant student director.

Diane: Is there any cost to participate in the play?

Jennifer: Yes. Every student in the school pays $150 at registration simply for the opportunity for Olympia School District to be a competitive school. And then for each student that participates in any extracurricular activity, there?s a $250 fee.

Diane: And that includes school plays?

Jennifer: Yes, it includes plays, band, chess club, scholastic bowl, basketball, football ? all the athletics as well as all the fine art programs.

Diane: So how many nights are you going to come to see the show?

Jennifer: Oh, we?ll be here every time it performs.

SFX/WCAZ
Jingle: ?That?s what they?re serving today, at the school cafeteria?

Narrator/Diane: We?re back in La Harpe, tuned in to the local radio station.

WCAZ: This is Darren Spangler. Voting yes this Tuesday means maintaining local control of each community?s current elementary school and sharing the benefits and opportunities that only a unified high school can offer our students. This ad paid for by the Committee of Ten.

SFX/Doorknocking

Narrator/Diane: On the day before the election, Darren Spangler is out trying to convince his neighbors to support the high school merger.

Darren Spangler: I just want to make sure you got the information and answer any questions you have. [O.K.] I talked to Alma. I been to your grandma?s. I had the best visit with her today.

Narrator/Diane: A ?yes? vote means La Harpe will merge its high school with two neighboring towns and increase its property tax. A ?no? vote means students will have to continue to make due with far less.

Darren: If there?s any questions about any of it, I mean [I don?t think so], hit me, hit me hard.

SFX: Ayrco laughter

Narrator/Todd: La Harpe men have gathered at the local gas station. Farmers are shooting the bull over pork sandwiches.

Dan Gillett: I try to get in here every day and have a cup of coffee and talk with people in here and get the pulse of La Harpe, I call it.

Narrator/Todd: Dan Gillett is a charter member of the town?s Historical Society. He?s also a 1967 graduate of La Harpe High.

Narrator/Diane: In its day, La Harpe had two opera houses and a vibrant economy of hatmakers, whiskey distilleries, coppershops and tanneries. Those are long gone. Still, Dan?s optimistic.

Dan Gillett: We have some empty storefronts on Main Street, that?s true. But we?ve gained some, too. We have two nice convenience stores and a Dollar General out at the edge of town. So we?re doing good.

Narrator/Todd: Dan?s farmer who also sells used cars in town. He?s against the proposed high school merger, on the ballot for the second time in two years.

Dan Gillett: Well, I certainly dread seeing our high school leave La Harpe. It?s been an important part of our community for a long time. And if it leaves, I?m sure some of the businesses and people will leave with it. If all those high school teachers leave, that?s certainly going to be a sizable bit of our economy that leaves.

Todd: So I take it you?re going to vote no.

Dan Gillett: I think you?ve got that right. Yeah, I?ll probably vote no.

Diane: Did you vote no last time?

Dan Gillett: Yes, I certainly did. I don?t want to lose our high school. I realize we?re having some trouble in high school, there?s so financial problems there. But I think we?ve worked out tougher things before and I think we can do it again.

The End

SFX/WCAZ: I got word this morning from Henry Nolden here in Carthage that he and his brother are available to shovel snow today. If you need dug out, you can give the Nolden boys a call.

Narrator/Diane: On the night before the Illinois primary, a spring storm dumped five inches of snow. In an ironic twist, the schools were all closed on Election Day.

Narrator/Todd: A year ago, a similar effort to merge La Harpe?s high school failed. So supporters are nervous on Election Night.

Tracey: Like I said right now, the thing we?re watching is Carthage, so.

Narrator/Todd: La Harpe resident Tracey Anders paces the floor at the Hancock County Courthouse in Carthage. With him is Darren Spangler. He?s also anxious.

Darren: It might be less painful if this fails. If you just waited and we did them all at the very last, so you wouldn?t just sit here getting your hopes up. My hopes are starting to come up, it?d be a real good time to shove the knife in.

Tracey: This time last year, it was over. A-ha!

Narrator/Todd: After a computer glitch and hours of waiting for votes to be counted, merger proponents crowded around a man announcing vote totals.

Man: Carthage 1,163 for, 100 against.

Darren: Whoo-whoo!

Narrator/Todd: The merger passes.

Supporter: Sweet. That is exciting news. That is exciting news. I?m thrilled.

Narrator/Todd: In Fall 2007, La Harpe students will attend the new high school district in Carthage.

Narrator/Diane: They?ll have a broader range of classes, including Spanish and calculus.

SFX: Sweetheart Dance music, layer under above

Narrator/Todd: As it turned out, that Valentine?s Day dance was the next-to-last ever at La Harpe High.

Narrator/Diane: But the Sweetheart Dance will stay in students? memories and photo albums long after the smell of aftershave and hairspray has faded.

SFX DJ: Satellite productions. Rock ?n? roll La Harpe High School. We?d like to thank the FFA chapter, and thank you all, people. God bless you ladies and gentlemen. And good night!

Back