BLITHE SPIRIT A Weekly Commentary, March 20, 1996 — the schools, the schools, can’t live with ’em . . . without ’em . . .

Two Cents and worth it.

Oh happy day . . .

Allow a little chauvinism here: THE HIGH SCHOOL REFERENDUM WON, thanks to a lot of lions lying down with a lot of lambs. New board member Gerry Jacobs, whose River Forest home has also made news, obviously played a key role, brokering togetherness.

Beaucoups de kudos also to three main groups, not in order of importance: those willing to rethink opposition, those willing to repackage advocacy, and those willing to take pay cuts. It takes a whole village (in this case two of them) to pass a referendum (in this case two of them). Let’s hug one another. (Unfortunately having to avoid unfriendly glances of taxpayers with or, more likely, without kids in public schools. This is a 2022 editorial addition/comment.)

Job action, anyone?

General Motors is up for grabs because of outsourcing. The auto workers know an issue when they see one. Not so the teachers at Oak Park’s Irving School, where a commercial tutoring operation is being hired to teach reading.

Scores are down, and authorities apparently can’t or won’t count on teachers to supply what’s missing. This apparently is in line with the teachers’ contract. Is it?

In any event, were I a teacher, I’d be looking over my shoulder, wondering if Downs and Privat, the Izer twins, are coming.

When good thoughts occur to different people . . .

Seneca of old Rome asks, “Why do bad things happen frequently to good people?” But Harold Kushner, author of the 1981 best-seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People, makes no mention of that.

Great minds run in the same tracks, clearly. Seneca wrote: . . . .

For the rest, go here.