The Plight of Suburbia

To hundreds of parents in Glenview, Ill., a growing (pop. 10,000) suburb of Chicago, the letter from the new Citizens School Committee was not exactly a surprise, but it was alarming all the same. "There is a crisis in the Glenview schools," wrote the committee. "It is not something that is going to happen. It is here now." Unless the town took action, the schools would go on double shifts, and many children might not be able to get into a nearby school at all. "And this," said the committee, "is only the beginning."

Glenview was not alone in its crisis last week. Every town around Chicago, like scores of expanding suburbs across the U.S., was suffering from the plague of too many new houses and too few schools. In the Northfield, Ill. township (which includes Glenview), the overcrowding had become so acute that the board of education put up signs as a warning to homebuyers: "School crisis. Our schools are filled. No money to build new schools. School taxes at maximum allowed." The fact is, says one superintendent, "that if something doesn't happen soon, we're going to have to start closing up."

Double or Nothing. In the suburbs of Cook County, the elementary school population has doubled to 132,000 in the last decade, and 6,000 pupils now attend school only half a day. The North Palos Park school must use its gym as a classroom, has had to cut out kindergarten to make room for first-graders, and in spite of the fact that many classes have topped the 40-pupil mark, the school is on double shift. Palatine's pupils have overflowed into St. Paul Evangelical and Reformed Church, those in Park Forest are using private houses, and those in Markham have taken over three half-basements.

In Oak Lawn, one school is so crowded that it has even considered a triple shift, with first-graders coming from. 5 to 9 in the evening. Though Northbrook has managed to build one new ten-room school, it does not have enough money left over to equip or furnish it. Last year Palatine found itself in an even more embarrassing position: without enough money to pay its teachers, it had to resort to a sort of scrip that had not been used since the great Depression of the '30s.

Back to the Builder. One reason for all the poverty is that without industrial plants and offices, most suburbs cannot begin to collect enough property taxes. Officials estimate that behind each pupil there should be taxable property assessed at at least $20,000, but in some of the towns in suburban Cook County, the assessment per student runs as low as $6,000 to $12,000. Furthermore, many houses do not even get on the tax rolls until years after they are built: a recent survey in Palatine revealed that residents owned some $2,500,000 in built-up property that had never been taxed. But even if the assessors were working at maximum efficiency, the school districts would still be in trouble. About 27% of them have reached the legal tax-rate limit, and almost a third of them have issued all the bonds the law allows.

Though some relief may come from the legislature next year, this will only begin to solve the problem. Many towns are therefore going after the man who has benefited most from the boom: the builder. Though they are not sure whether it is legal or not, Park Ridge and Markham have both passed ordinances requiring builders to contribute $250 to $300 for every new home (which will, of course, actually be added to the price of the house). In Palatine, one builder has put up a 30-room schoolhouse to take care of the residents of his new development, and another has agreed to make a $300 contribution for every new home. Elsewhere, however, the builders have balked. Says F. W. Bills of the Chicago Metropolitan Home Builders Association: "If it was up to me, I wouldn't pay a dime."

Last week Glenview found one bright spot in the gloomy picture. Of the 766 replies it received from its crisis letter, 92% of the writers favored a builders' assessment for each new home, and 68% said they approved the Citizens School Committee's plan to set up an "information" program to use sound trucks and signs to warn new home buyers away. All in all, the committee's argument for such drastic action was nothing if not logical: "People take schools for granted. You can't do that these days. The Chamber of Commerce says we are running down Glenview property with our campaign. Well, poor schools will deteriorate property a lot more than temporary signs."

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