Springfield District 186 has won awards. But it also has ten schools on the state’s Early Warning List–schools with more than half the students failing to meet state standards two years in a row. It routinely wins grants for reading, technology, science, and math. Yet most of its black students perform below state standards, while […]
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Politics as usual
One way to gauge how very close this mayoral race is would be to look at the daily paper’s latest poll. Another would be to look at all the last-minute political maneuvering among City Council members. Last Tuesday night’s vote on an ordinance offering an early-retirement incentive program for city employees was surrounded by all […]
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War as tradition
My son’s leaving for Iraq this week. I wish him well. For years I’ve told him what his generation needed was a good war. It would be a wonderful character builder. See how it worked for mine? But I meant that more as irony, as paternal joshing, and not as wish. Whatever–Sean is going. And […]
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A rough draft
The investigation that was going to take just three weeks and cost $15,000 is finally ready—almost ready, that is. Last Tuesday night, after spending 20 minutes discussing an early-retirement plan for city employees, the City Council spent 90 minutes in executive session listening to attorney Chris Nichols from the Peoria firm Husch & Eppenberger present […]
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Cop Out
Sergeant Kevin Keen is the public information officer for the Springfield Police Department. Fielding calls from the media is his job. I ring his number and tell him I’m working on a story about Renatta Frazier, the former police officer who left the department under a cloud of controversy. As all of Springfield undoubtedly knows, […]
