Grace: A superintendent's grading scale and a little chili
We had our chili cook-off at the office today, so we all got a chance to try some fantastic soups and chilis in between working on stories about robocalls in local races and migration statistics in the Tri-Cities.
The following is a summing up of the stories you can find on our Web site today.
Top viewed stories of the day:
1. Survey: Parents grow more satisifed with D303 – The results were a step in the right direction for the St. Charles school district, but I have to question Superintendent Donald Schlomann's grading scale. He equated the board's rating of a 2.92 out of 5 in 2008 as a C+ and a 3.52 out of 5 in 2010 as a solid B, which – according to my math – would make a 58.4 percent a C+ and a 70.4 percent a solid B by Schlomann's grading scale. I don't know about you, but I would have had a much higher grade point average in high school had that been the grading scale. Furthermore, if you gave the school district a letter grade in the seven categories based on the 10-point grading scale, it would end up with a 2.3 grade point average. Good luck getting into a good college with that. (I realize, though, that's it hard to get a 5 out of 5 on a survey and that a 4 would be a B- and a 3 would be a D-, and thus my comments are unfairly harsh. But I wasn't the one who started equating these numbers with grades in the first place.)
2. Hobby Lobby purchases TLN site – A slightly odd story. Hobby Lobby essentially loaned TLN a boatload of money that TLN will slowly pay back through rent now that Hobby Lobby owns the property. I've never seen a business story like this before.
3. Home sales jump in December, help ease 2009 pain – Jonathan Bilyk might be writing a blog later this week in which he will talk more about how these numbers are gathered. Be on the lookout for it.
Story you might have missed, but should check out:
• Undervote law stirs clerks, prompts recall – This is currently No. 7 on our most viewed stories of the day list, but it's a great read of how a state law meant to help catch voting mistakes is causing issues throughout Illinois.
Quote of the day:
• "A lot of them were supportive but a lot of the offensive tackles didn't want to lose to a freshman. They were really determined to make sure I didn't get around them." – St. Francis freshman Kyle Bosch, a 15-year-old football player from St. Charles, who was the only freshman invited to the U.S. Army Football Combine in San Antonio. Sports editor Jay Schwab wrote about him in his prep zone column.
