It is a tale of two school districts. In Forest Park, District 91 has wisely and aggressively invested in new teaching technology in the classrooms and in the hands of teachers and students. It has put the district in great shape as new national Common Core standards take hold with their prerequisite testing requirements.
Over at the Proviso Township high schools, District 209 is again behind the times, out of money and sitting on bad tech choices from eras past. The three high schools are also now behind the eight ball as necessary testing for PARCC looms.
A school official recently told the D209 board that it lacked 1,560 “compliant devices” with enough RAM memory and lacked Internet speed necessary for the standardized testing. In short, lacked any foresight in technology planning and now lacks about $2 million in cash that it will need to make the necessary upgrades.
We’ve noted before and we’ll note again and again. District 209 has not historically lacked financial resources owing to generous local taxpayers and state and federal grant funding. It has lacked the vision and will to put students first. And, again, there are consequences to that.
