Educational Leadership in the United States of America

Tenth Anniversary of No Child Left Behind

2012-01-09T08:32:00.000-08:00

At the tenth anniversary of No Child Left Behind it is clear from my perspective that the federal government’s ambitious effort to set a national education agenda for

America

’s Public Schools has met with limited success. The Washington “one size fits all” perspective on meeting the needs of millions of children in our nation’s schools was ill conceived at best by the former George W. Bush administration. The punitive labels that were assigned to school districts nationwide as a result of the lack of compliance for making “Adequate Yearly Progress” under N.C.L.B. did much to discredit the positive strides American educators made in the past decade if not the past century.

Let’s be clear about what we have accomplished as a society that creates educational opportunities for all of its children in a systematized and formal manner. The facts are clear on the complexities that confront public education in America and the challenges we face in our attempts to teach the most diverse population of students in the world. In the past century the United States of America has distinguished herself as a world economic power and social force for justice and human rights. This did not occur by accident! We are the world leader in higher education, human rights activism, and creative thinking as a result of a system of free and appropriate public education in all fifty states.

In the years since the Reagan administration decried the inadequacy of public education in America when A Nation at Risk was published America has transformed the world socially, economically, technologically, in the broadest possible global context. American public education is largely responsible for our success as a nation. It is time to recognize and celebrate that fact. Are there matters that we have to address in order to take our system of free and public education to a higher level? Undeniably yes. But the federal government should not be administering to 100,000 public schools nor should it be determining whether each of those schools and its teachers are successful or failing.

In the words of former U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, “This decade’s experience has reminded us that Washington may be able to create a better environment for school improvement, but Washington cannot make schools better; only teachers, principals, parents, and communities can…it is time to move most decisions about whether teachers and schools are succeeding or failing out of Washington and back to states and communities.” I could not agree with Mr. Alexander more on this important point. Educational issues are determined locally and solved locally by dedicated professionals who are in the best position to know what it takes to nurture and teach children. Just give communities the resources to accomplish this important task and get Washington politicians out of this equation once and for all.

A letter to Hopatcong, NJ, Teachers and Staff

2011-12-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

Hopatcong administrators, teachers, and staff members:

Thank you for another year of dedicated service to the youth and families of our community. As I reflect on my 39th year in the education profession it is apparent that much has changed over the decades. We are at a transition point in the profession that has placed public school employees under a microscope as expectations rise each year. The remarkable thing is that our teachers, staff, and administrators all respond remarkably to the formidable challenges we now face.

It is with all sincerity that I express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for the devotion that you demonstrate every day to the young people we teach and the community we serve. As I visit each school (I try to get into a classroom each day) it is apparent to me that we are blessed in this educational community with exceptional faculty and staff members. I witness great teaching and wise counseling each and every time I visit one of our schools.

Perhaps my reflections are simply nostalgic manifestations of the wonderful relationships I experienced from my own years as a classroom teacher. My personal observations however are validated by the extensive research and work in teacher evaluation that was the subject of my dissertation at the College of William and Mary. It is abundantly clear that we employ some of the very best teachers and staff available. The result: our students are nourished and challenged to reach the highest possible individual outcomes, thanks to each of you.

I have said on more than one occasion that the whole of public education contains many components: academics, arts, activities, and athletics. We are about teaching the “whole child” and creating experiences that prepare our youth for life in an ever-changing democratic society. While social norms appear to be eroding at a rapid pace, the public schools in our community hold onto standards and values that appear to be almost non-existent in the greater society-at-large.

This makes the accomplishments of our teachers even more remarkable. Children come with many needs: developmental, intellectual, emotional, social, physical, medical, etc. We meet the challenges that confront us every day and somehow find a way to meet the demands placed upon us. No child is the same as another (think about how different siblings are) with every child demonstrating the need and capacity for nourishment in different and varied ways. Here is where the remarkable teaching has a profound impact: on the individual student as an individual.

I applaud the accomplishments of our classroom teachers, counselors, aides, staff members, coaches, administrators and everyone else who touches the lives of our youth. The New Year offers an opportunity for a renewed commitment to the profession we choose as our calling, our purpose, our challenge. In spite of the difficult economic times and the formidable challenges that we face, including the often unfair and biased media perceptions concerning public education in America, our schools are vibrant environments where the youth of our community thrive each day thanks to our teachers.

Please take the time this holiday season to reflect on the great work you are doing and to enjoy the blessings of your own families. Peace to each of you as the dawn of 2012 approaches and we bring closure to the year soon to pass. I look forward to working with you again as we continue on our educational journey in Hopatcong Borough.

Random Drug Searches at Hopatcong Schools Reveal No Drugs

2011-12-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

Random and routine drug searches of Hopatcong Middle School and Hopatcong High School were conducted over a two day period December 6 and 7th, 2011. Both were initiated by school officials in collaboration with the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office. The random searches are constitutionally allowed in a public school setting following strict guidelines outlined in the New Jersey School Search Policy Manual. Drug dogs and handlers of the New Jersey State Police Canine Unit were employed for the search of classroom, hallways, lockers, and other common areas of the schools.

“These type of suspicionless searches by police officials are prudent exercises,” said superintendent of schools Dr. Charles Maranzano, Jr. “and are designed to impress upon students and the community our commitment to a safe and secure school environment.”

One or two people in the entire school district were made aware of the search in advance according to Maranzano, in order to maximize the impact of the search. School Board members approved of the idea for the searches months in advance and were appraised of the search only after they were initiated and conducted.

All of the schools in New Jersey are prepared for such searches and are required to conduct emergency drills such as school lockdowns on a monthly basis by law. The students at the middle and high schools were sequestered to their classrooms throughout the search process, except where individual classrooms and student items searched. The inception of the search is constitutionally permissible based on the objective of the search as long as such searches are not excessively intrusive according to state guidelines.

“We stand ready to cooperate with local police or state police when the issue of student safety is at stake,” added Maranzano. “The facts support our effort to free schools from any item that represents a threat to the common health, safety, and welfare of students.” Maranzano said, “Generally speaking our students are well-behaved and conduct themselves with a high regard for the general welfare of other students in Hopatcong. From time-to-time it is necessary to demonstrate the authority and responsibility that school officials have to ensure the school climate is safe and secure which is the reason for such routine searches.”

No drugs were found at either school location.

Emergency Snowfall Presents Unusual Problems for Schools

2011-11-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

Reflections on one of the most unusual weeks in Hopatcong Borough Public Schools by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles Maranzano, Jr.

One of the many challenges for school administrators is how to respond to educational conditions under abnormal circumstances. The week of October 31-November 4, 2011, will certainly go down in the historical archives for Hopatcong Borough Public Schools as a highly abnormal event. The unprecedented snow storm of October 28-29, 2011, caused a significant amount of damage to the electrical infrastructure in the state and region and our school facilities were all severely impacted.

Due to the widespread power outages all of our schools went days without electricity causing us to cancel school. In fact, it was not until late in the week that the majority of our school buildings were brought back on the electrical grid. Due to the length of time without power we lost most of our food inventory in our school cafeterias. Additionally, many of our mechanical systems were compromised when the power “phased” out meaning that we lost motors, electrical contacts, and other critical components. All of our fire suppression systems lost the basic codes and required extensive reprogramming as did our alarm systems. The loss of phones, internet, file servers, and other technologically related equipment also presented challenges for us. Prior to bringing students or staff back into any of our buildings all of the above needed to be addressed.

There are many unintended consequences to an emergency of such magnitude and I only outlined a few. Consider that many of our children and family were forced to leave the Borough to find shelter in other towns (typically with family members residing nearby) or that our staff members were also displaced due to the lack of power in their homes. As of Friday, November 4, 2011, there were hundreds of families in Hopatcong still without power.

The fact that we were able to open four of five schools on Friday was nothing short of a major achievement for us given the multi-layered challenges we were confronted with.

The staff in Hopatcong did a remarkable job during the crisis. Neil Piro and his team had a lot of work to do at each school inspecting and testing all of our mechanical equipment The food supplies in our freezers needed to be disposed of and have been inventoried and replaced thanks to Ronnie Blewitt and her kitchen team. The tech team continues to asses our technology infrastructure and telephone systems as well at the alarm systems to ensure everything continues to operate. Kyle Bisignani stepped up to a strong challenge during this storm. Our Alert Now System served us very well as I received many compliments from citizens for making early decisions and communicating conditions in Hopatcong via the automated phone system.

I received excellent cooperation with the police, Chief Swanson, and Mayor Petillo during the week. There are lots of people to thank for their cooperation and collaboration during the crisis. The office staff was challenged to respond to deadlines, reports, compliance issues, and the usual workload as well as field multiple telephone calls from the pubic this past week. JoAnne Murray did a remarkable job of managing our office functions, and the finance staff distributed paychecks on Monday in the dark to employees who needed them.

The Patch and Star Ledger ran stories on Thursday that explained very clearly what the challenges were for our school district. My administrative team encouraged us to get out in front of the story via the media and this worked very well for us this week. Channel 12 was also a good vehicle for communicating the continued challenges that confronted us in Hopatcong as a result of the crisis.

We will submit a FEMA claim once all of the costs associated with the storm are documented in an attempt to recover most of the costs associated with the damages or food loss. However, the State Education Department of New Jersey will not grant us a waiver for time lost so we need to consider the impact on our school calendar as the year progresses without the support of the state officials. The School Board will consider all of the options available as we assess the impact on our calendar over the next few weeks and months.

I would like to thank the professional staff, administrators, teachers, workers, and citizens of Hopatcong for their perseverance and patience during the crisis. The fact that most people did not react emotionally and kept a steady perspective on the tasks and challenges we face speaks volumes about our educational team. Hopatcong is a resilient community and I am confident we will quickly move forward to promote the education of our children in this community. Each decision made during the past week had the health, safety and welfare of our children and employees as the basis for those decisions. I thank everyone for their support and understanding during these difficult times and am proud to be your leader as superintendent of schools.

League of Women Voters Want to Know about the Federal Role in Public Education

2011-10-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

Responding to a few questions posed by the League of Women Voters in Sussex County, New Jersey, I thought it interesting to share my thoughts on the role of the federal government in public education. Many national candidates have stated their position on this matter so this is a non political response from an individual point of view:

The current role of the federal government in public education appears to be much too imposing (too large)in my opinion. Additionally, the requirements surrounding federal "standards" do not come with sufficient federal funding. In fact, most of the federal regulations are unfunded mandates that need to be dispensed with. The simple fact is that legislative or elected officials have no professional role in formulating educational practices locally and those decisions about school priorities need to be left to the states and their localities. Let me explain. We receive about 2% or less of our total funding from the federal government and yet they demand a disproportionate amount of time, resources, and effort from school personnel that actually harms our ability to deliver efficient and effective educational services to children.

There is no provision in the United States Constitution for public education and thus the federal presence in public education exists by virtue of the defined role in each state constitution. Therefore, there is no actual foundation for the federal government to create policy or impose controls with any system of free public education in any of the states. Public education is exclusively a state issue. If the federal government wants to run schools nationwide, it needs to adequately fund public education nationwide which it is not currently doing nor has it ever done.

Responding to the League of Women voters question about the role of public education in a democratic society: A quality public education does perpetuate a strong democratic and representative government...this was stated by John Dewey over a century ago as the purpose for public education in the progressive movement. The problem here is that the federal government has had little to do with the evolution of public education in America. Again, this has been a result of state priorities and state constitutional mandates, not federal. The federal role in public education has served to complicate and confuse educational priorities in the name of "standardization" or "accountability" and the hunger for national comparisons on test measurements that do not yet exist. Ronald Regan attempted to dismantle the Federal Department of Education during his term and fell just short of that goal...someone should revisit this as a cost savings measure and turn the responsibility for public education back to where it originated...at the state level. The less bureaucratic interference for public education at the federal level will in my opinion solve many problems that are best left to the various states to resolve.

The discussion should revolve around how states can run an efficient and effective system of public education based on their own definition of free and appropriate public education and the complicated funding formulas that each state must strive to improve in order to provide an adequate public education to its citizens. For example, the needs of Texas and New Mexico will vary differently from the need of New Hampshire and Maine in terms of clientele and priorities. What authority does the federal government have in establishing these priorities for the states, much less any legal basis for imposing legislation on each state for public education? None.

The economic times that we are experiencing call for some radical changes in thinking about the federal role in many areas. Education is one of them. Let each state decide how to educate its citizens and reduce the federal imposition into an area it has little expertise in.

That is my opinion, not the opinion of my school board or school district.

Schools Confront Economic Realities

2011-08-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

The reductions in state aid to many school districts nationwide are taking a huge toll. The additional disappearance of Federal Stimulus Funds coupled with the end of the Education Jobs funding have created a “perfect storm” scenario for schools across America. The American Association of School Administrators has been following these trends for the past year and predicts that there is no immediate relief in sight for the educational portion of state budgets.

Reductions continue to put a strain on schools coping with reductions in personnel, activities, and services. The fear is that given the current state of the economy many school districts will continue to experience shortfalls from state contributions. This trend began in 2007 and is likely to continue well into the next few school years.

While many school districts are struggling to do more with less, several are beginning to confront the notion that they will have to do less with less (funding). The idea of cutting personnel, activities, and programs is a painful reality for school boards across the country. Philosophically speaking, most school board members would rather cut off an appendage rather than cut school programs. Not one of the Hopatcong School Board members wanted to cut academic programs, personnel, sports, activities, or other educational opportunities for children this past year during the budget development process.

Last year was particularly painful for a small district like Hopatcong, N.J. (2,200 students). A loss of 2.4 million dollars in state and local funding resulted in twenty-four less personnel to serve the needs of our tiny school district. This school year was less of a problem due to increased federal support mostly in the form of Education Jobs funding and ARRA funding. Both sources of federal dollars will be non-existent in the next budget cycle and further cuts may be in store for us.

Schools like Hopatcong, N.J., and others across the country are feeling the results of cuts at all levels. Typical cuts in personnel have reduced teacher to pupil rations resulting in much larger than desired class sizes across the overall spectrum. Additional cost saving measures include a reduction in activities and athletic programs, after-school programs, gifted programs, field trips, and certain salary freeze measures nationwide. A recent survey led by AASA concluded that 65% of superintendents said they eliminated jobs in 2010-2011, with almost three-quarters reporting that they will do the same during the coming school year.

The difficult times ahead for public education are certain to be correlated with the recession and economic conditions. With little relief in sight school superintendents and school boards will continue to struggle with undesirable and uncomfortable cuts to personnel and programs. It is hard to see the “light at the end of the tunnel” from a funding perspective and this is one of those moments in time no one wants to have to endure for very long.

An Emerging Teacher Quality

2011-07-08T11:57:00.001-07:00

As classrooms in America struggle to accommodate increasing numbers of students and teachers adjust to the expanding variation in student learning styles it occurred to me that an additional quality of effective teaching will quickly emerge in the coming years: The ability to teach and manage large numbers of students.

I have long been associated with some remarkable educational leaders from my days at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. In fact my dissertation chair, Dr. James Stronge, published a book for the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, The Qualities of Effective Teachers,(ASCD, 2002) In this wonderful resource James presents in Part I What It Means To Be An Effective Teacher, and in Part II Teacher Effectiveness: Resources You Can Use. Drawing upon many valid and highly regarded sources, Dr. Stronge presents educational colleagues with a blueprint for effective teaching behaviors and a realistic profile of the characteristics of excellent teaching.

The research on teacher preparation, intellectual ability and aptitude, attainment of certifications and specializations, content knowledge, experience and effectiveness, affective characteristics, caring and communicating, knowledge of students as individuals, enthusiasm and motivation, personalization of learning, organization in managing instruction, response to student behaviors, academic interaction, group instructional strategies, differentiation, and high expectations are all discussed in depth by the author. I have used this book time and time again in my leadership role as an educator and found the qualities described to be informative and invaluable. In performing my duties as a school superintendent I often question potential teaching candidates on these qualities to assess their understanding, experience, and preparedness for the classroom.

Most recently, due to the difficult financial conditions confronting America’s public schools, the educational journals and research reports have reported upon the increase in student-to-teacher ratios and most notably the spike in larger class sizes across the K-12 educational spectrum. These reports lead me to believe that one of the effective teaching qualities those of us responsible for hiring and mentoring new teachers will be the ability to teach and manage large numbers of students.

Effective teachers appear to be in control of multiple variables simultaneously and add to that a new dimension of increased numbers of students and the very dynamic of effective teaching practices are put to the test. Years of research points to a strong correlation between low student-to-teacher ratios as an indicator of student success. Will the emerging variable of higher student-to-teacher ratios mean that students will experience less success? This is a concern all of us in leadership positions now consider as key educational decisions will need to be weighed carefully as budgets shrink and resources disappear.

The teacher who masters the ability to design and deliver effective instructional practices for larger classes may have a marketable skill in the new reality of public education: increased class sizes. Future research of a longitudinal nature may have to be conducted to prove this variable true, but I am guessing that the teacher who proves to be particularly effective with higher numbers of students will be in demand in the not so far future of America’s public schools.

Solar Initiative in Hopatcong Schools Reaches Final Phase

2011-06-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

A meeting of the Hopatcong Borough Zoning Board on June 8, 2011, will set the stage for the installation of a major Public School Solar Initiative scheduled to be operational by the fall of 2011.

The Hopatcong Borough Public Schools will install a solar array in partnership with SP-One, the Spiezle Group, and Sun Edison. The SP-One Group is a leader in the alternative energy arena with over 25 years in energy development and extensive experience with the Federal and local governments. Some of the public sector clients are the United States Department of Defense, United States Department of Agriculture, and the City of Philadelphia. In the private sector clients include IKEA, George Washington University Hospital, UPS, Mobil Oil, Pathmark, and many others. Sun Edison is the largest solar energy service provider in North America and among the fastest growing international solar companies worldwide.

The proposed solar installation on property owned or controlled by the Hopatcong Borough Board of Education will include three Solar Photovoltaic Power Plants interconnected to the Hopatcong School Board, Hopatcong High School, Hopatcong Middle School, Durban Avenue School, Tulsa Trail School, and the Maintenance Complex.

The system will generate over two million Kilowatt Hours of electricity per year. The cost savings will reduce the Board of Education’s cost of electricity from $0.15 to $0.05 per Kilowatt Hour. The annual real savings will be about $175,000 per year or in excess of $3.3 million dollars over the fifteen year period, with no increase in the cost for electricity.

In addition to the savings on the overall cost of electricity, the solar project will provide $585,000 in new or replacement roofing for Durban Avenue School and Hopatcong Middle School. A science curriculum component will be included in future years that includes a job training element. “The overall adaption and conversion to solar power represents a major step forward for the Hopatcong School and Community,” stated Charles Maranzano, Superintendent, “ This project places Hopatcong, New Jersey, in the forefront of progressive School Districts.” Neil Piro is the Hopatcong Schools Facilities Project Manager and Terry Sierchio is the School Business Administrator.

Cuts to Public Education May be Too Deep

2011-04-12T05:38:00.000-07:00

TRENTON: NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER REPORT— State lawyers call last month’s report on school funding cuts a useless and narrow-minded assessment, but advocates for poor students say it’s an incisive condemnation of New Jersey’s failure to support its neediest kids.

The two sides made these arguments in new briefs filed today in the latest installment of the long-running Abbott vs. Burke school funding saga. Both sides are gearing up for the April 20 hearing before the state Supreme Court in a case with far-reaching consequences for the state’s schools and budget.

The Newark-based Education Law Center asks the state’s highest court to force Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers to spend more on schools. It says the state underfunded schools by $1.6 billion last year and violated the state constitution’s mandate to "provide a thorough and efficient system" of public schools.

The state has pleaded poverty, saying its precarious fiscal situation prevents it from fully funding the formula approved by the court in 2009. It also says the formula is overly generous since it was created right before the economic crash.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• N.J. treasurer lists range of cuts if Supreme Court rules against Christie in schools funding case

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The fault line in today’s briefs is the report from Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne, who was asked by the Supreme Court to study the impact of Christie’s budget cuts before justices made a decision in the case. Doyne concluded they disproportionately harmed poor districts, undercutting the state’s argument that funding cuts had been spread fairly.

After the report was released, the state asked Peter Verniero, the former New Jersey attorney general and Supreme Court justice, to lead its legal team. The brief filed by the state today criticizes Doyne’s report as myopic — it did not consider education policies like teacher tenure or the state’s overall fiscal situation — and having "no basis for any real conclusions."

The state also said the review is incomplete because student performance reviews won’t be available until next January, preventing the court from determining whether students were actually hampered by lower funding.

The Education Law Center, by contrast, heaped praise on Doyne’s report, saying it accurately diagnosed spending cuts as a "grave constitutional violation ... The resulting harm to New Jersey school children ... is severe and immediate."

More than one-third of all school districts statewide, which educate nearly three-fourths of all at-risk students, are funded below the formula’s standards, the Law Center said. Schools have cut teaching positions, increased class sizes and reduced student programs.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case could have drastic consequences for the state budget, and Democrats and Republicans alike are bracing for the outcome.

If the court orders more funding, Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said the state may need to gouge funding for things like Medicaid, property-tax relief and municipal aid.

Some Democrats are pushing for a "millionaires tax" on the state’s highest earners to provide more school funding. Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) criticized the idea, saying the tax would fail to cover all the funding the court may require. "Do the math," he said. "Where are you going to get the rest of the money?"

Even some Democrats who say Christie’s school funding cuts are unconstitutional are apprehensive about the Supreme Court’s decision.

"I hope the court interprets it fairly, and if the governor is right, then we move forward," Assembly Budget Chairman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden) said. "If he’s wrong, then we have work to do."

New Jersey Star Ledger, April 11, 2011. Jarrett Renshaw contributed to this report.

High School Musical

2011-04-01T07:30:00.001-07:00

On Thursday night, March 31, 2011, I had the honor of attending the Hopatcong High School production of “Me and My Girl” produced and directed by Mr. Joe Ross. Words cannot express my pleasure as I reflect upon a wonderful and marvelous performance by our high school students. This musical set in England in the 1930’s and is full of raw comedy, singing, and dancing. The cast was totally engaging and pulled off a brilliant rendition of this rather tongue-in-cheek musical. There were some vaudevillian aspects of the play that one would think would be difficult to portray by high school students and they handled it with ease. The group tap dances were well executed and the overall impact was fundamentally sound. This is evidence of a well-disciplined troop of young actors and actresses who were clearly focused on producing a quality performance.

The musical aspect of this performance was difficult to accomplish given the book was written in the 1930’s, full of rhythmic challenges and replete with constant key changes. Matt Testa did a very nice job as conductor and teacher of the musical ensemble. The difficulty of connecting the pieces seemed easy as the orchestra segued from segment to segment. There were many key adults involved behind the scenes including Michael Batche and Barbara Fersch, members of the faculty and staff, and a strong parent’s organization.

It is worth mentioning that our lead actor, Steven Munoz, did a spectacular job of portraying Bill Snibson in the musical. Steven made his character come to life for the audience by masterfully executing the timing of his lines, the gestures, dancing, singing, and overall comedic interpretation as if he were born to accomplish this task. Such a natural and comfortable role for a high school student does not come easily, yet Steven was brilliant and sold the audience on his every move as an actor. This young man can go places in theatre if he wishes to do so.

I have written extensively about the value and place of the arts in our public schools. Last night’s performance involving perhaps a hundred or more students is a solid affirmation of the philosophy that the arts must remain central in the developing lives of America’s youth. We are a creative and vibrant nation made up of the most diverse population on this earth. The arts allow us to celebrate the differences we possess and integrate them into a meaningful whole. Our young people can only learn the value of appreciating their individual talents and differences through direct experiences and theatre, dance, singing and performing are the perfect avenues for students. Congratulations to the Hopatcong High School Drama Club on a wonderful and fun performance.

Preserve Arts Education in Public Schools

2011-03-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

Difficult budget times for public schools in America are challenging school boards and officials to make significant cuts for educational programs and personnel. There appears to be no single or easy solution available to school administrators when it comes time to sit down and decide what public education can live with or without in future budget years. The challenges we face about funding the specific personnel and specialized programs embedded in our public schools are a subject of much thought and deliberation in board meetings across the country.

During the process for producing a balanced budget at the local school level administrators are typically confronted with identifying increasingly larger expenditures for cost reductions. It becomes very tempting to target one or two specific programs as areas of large cost savings in order to resolve the dilemma of producing a balanced budget. This approach is expeditious and often produces unintended negative consequences. It is much more difficult work to analyze the impact of every singular budget item and then spread these cost savings across many areas contained in local budgets.

Programs that appear to be particularly at risk for targeted budget cuts are those associated with the Fine and Performing Arts: vocal and instrumental music, orchestra, drama, dance, and an array of visual arts courses. These offerings in the Humanities are valuable to the totality of the whole school experience, but in reality are generally perceived to be supplemental to the core curriculum. In fact the fine and performing arts are a critical and necessary component of a comprehensive American education and must remain accessible to the youth of our communities. In order to preserve the arts in our public schools decision makers first must become aware of how the arts impact our human development and second, become convinced that the arts are a worthy investment.

Art and music have been part of mankind from the very beginning of time. Since nomadic peoples first sang and danced in early rituals, since hunters first painted their quarry on the walls of caves, since parents first acted out the stories of heroes for their children, the arts have described, defined, and deepened the human experience. Across the bridge of time, all people have demonstrated an abiding need to construct meaning, in order to connect time and space, body and spirit, intellect and emotion. People have for generations created art to make connections to life, to explain the seemingly unexplainable phenomena, to express joy, wonder, gratitude, or sorrow. The arts are perhaps one of humanity’s deepest rivers of continuity serving as the link that connects each new generation with the one before.

The arts are everywhere in our lives, adding depth and dimension to our personal space and environment. For example music and art have become a powerful economic force in the global economy of the twenty-first century. From the visual creativity of fashion to the designs that comprise every manufactured product, to the richness of traditional and contemporary architecture, to the performance and entertainment industry, the arts have grown into multi-billion dollar enterprises. At an intrinsic level, the arts are each society’s gift to itself, linking hope to memory, inspiring courage, enriching our celebrations, and making our tragedies bearable.

Music and art bring us face to face with ourselves and with what we sense lies beyond ourselves. The arts are an inseparable part of the entire human journey. If civilization is to continue to be both dynamic and nurturing, its success will ultimately depend on how well we develop the intellectual capacities of our children. All students deserve access to the richness and broad understanding that the arts provide, regardless of their background, talents, or even limitations. In an increasingly technological environment the ability to perceive, interpret, understand, reflect, and evaluate artistic and aesthetic forms of expression is critical to the construction of the individual self and one’s overall contribution to life.

Arts education has emerged as an equal partner in the continuing effort to provide our children with a world-class education. The future role of music and arts programs in America’s public schools depends primarily upon school administrators and boards of educations who must jointly understand the totality of the academic value and aesthetic merits of supporting such programs. Finally, one must not forget the interconnectedness that arts education has to the comprehensive curriculum as a whole, and to the integration of the arts into the well-balanced contemporary society we experience and contribute to as American citizens.

To deprive a generation of fine and performing arts experiences for our children and youth due to the expediency and convenience of large budget cuts would not only be counterproductive but immoral. Each generation that enters the world is integrated by the universal language and appeal of art and music. The arts are the most powerful force for creating a world filled with humanity, compassion, understanding, and mutual respect for the talents that each of us intrinsically possesses as human beings. The contribution that arts education brings to the students of our public schools must not be underestimated and should be preserved in order to ensure the quality and richness of life in contemporary society.

The Case Against Merit Pay in America's Classrooms

2011-01-03T12:21:00.000-08:00

There is an imperative underway by political leaders to further quantify and justify teacher compensation via a system known as meritorious pay (merit pay) based primarily upon student test score outcomes and data. While this may sound impressive and logical to the average citizen it actually is a practice borrowed from industry that has very little transferability to education. We need to be very careful about what may become the latest “trend” in education as defined by the objectives of politicians and the federal “Race to the Top” competitive federal funding grants for public education.

The first point that deserves attention is the misguided thought that somehow teachers are holding back on the very best educational practices they deliver due to their desire to earn more money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Having worked with teachers for four decades in public education I can attest firsthand to the dedication and excellence that each teacher brings to work every day. The overwhelming majority of teachers in our country give 200% or more so their children can benefit from excellent instruction.

Next it should be noted that except at the very earliest stages of a child’s education our students are exposed to more than one teacher at a time. In fact, by senior year in high school our children may have been exposed to multiple teachers for multiple years. Last time I counted all of the teachers who had contact with my son or daughter over their school years the number was in the seventies per child.

So which one made the critical difference during let’s say the course of a year? Who deserves the merit pay increase or bonus? Was it the English teacher, science teacher, social studies, math, drama, art, music, technology, gym, computer, foreign language, business or vocational teacher? At what precise time did the magical “aha!” moment take hold? How much merit pay should we associate with this cognitive advancement and when did it occur?

Third we should consider that more than a decade of research indicates merit pay systems are not effective or reliable predictors of student outcomes. Two studies in particular from Vanderbilt University and from Nashville, Tennessee, concluded that there was very little if any correlation between meritorious bonuses and the achievement of students. The Nashville studies concluded that $15,000 bonuses to middle school mathematics teachers made no difference in overall student achievement levels.

Finally, until we have in place valid and reliable methods for the evaluation of teachers that are multidimensional and longitudinal in scope, that rely on the professionalism and long-term contribution of teachers to the profession, and do not depend on classroom observation as sole sources of ratings for teachers we should not leap into the maelstrom of merit pay. Let us explore this further as it deserves our full attention.

The more important goals for the evaluation of teachers are developmental in scope. Valid and reliable teacher evaluation models provide a formative and summative feedback loop, develop excellence in the specialization of each teacher, and account for the individual differences in the areas of expertise for each segment of teaching and learning. Most evaluation systems fail to recognize the value of teaching professionals in the fine or performing arts, movement education, vocational education, or other specialized elective subjects. Professional development should remain the overall priority for teacher evaluation along with the legally defensible mechanisms for hiring, retaining, and perhaps remediating low performing or dismissing ineffective teachers.

To suggest that the current systems are in place for scientifically diagnosing the merits of teaching and assigning bonus pay based upon standardized test scores representing only a snapshot of teacher performance in science, math, social studies or English diminishes the profession as a whole. What’s needed is a motion picture of both teacher performance and student outcomes that encourage excellence in educational attainment across the broad spectrum of subject matter taught in public schools across America. I agree that reform in the area of student outcomes is needed but will argue that merit pay holds little hope for fixing the complexities that need to be undertaken in our schools.

NJASA's Rich Bozza on Superintendent Pay Cuts

2010-12-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

The Daily Record published this report on December 21, 2010, by Rob Jennings worth considering:

Gov. Chris Christie wouldn't last a

month as a school superintendent, a New Jersey

Association of School Administrators official jibed

Monday in charging that Christie's proposed salary

cap is both bad policy and a violation of state law.

In a meeting with the Daily Record editorial board,

NJASA Executive Director Richard Bozza - a former

Montville schools superintendent - said the

proposed cap would lead to massive turnover and

discourage prospective administrators from seeking

the top jobs.

Bozza said the state Legislature, not the Department

of Education, is responsible for setting salaries. He

accused Christie of not adequately considering the

potential ramifications on educational leadership,

arguing that top performers would be recruited by

districts in other states.

Referring to Christie's argument that no

superintendent has a tougher job than the governor

and therefore should not make more than his

$175,000 annual salary, Bozza countered that

Christie couldn't hack it as a local schools chief in

even the smallest of districts.

"If any superintendent acted the way he did, he

wouldn't last a month on the job," Bozza said when

asked about Christie's condemnation Nov. 9 of

Parsippany Superintendent Lee Seitz as a "poster

boy" for greed.

"No superintendent could get up in his or her

community and point fingers at people and degrade

them and still be kept by their school board,

because they expect more professional behavior,"

Bozza said of Christie, who has also criticized

Chatham Superintendent James O'Neill for similarly

seeking a contract extension beyond his proposed

cap.

Bozza's association filed an amicus brief last month

supporting the Parsippany school board's appeal to

the state Appellate Division seeking court-ordered

approval of Seitz' disputed contract extension,

which would bring his annual salary to $234,065

by the 2014/15 school year.

Christie's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, reacted

that Bozza's perspective is jaded by his position.

"His self-interest in on full display in his

comments," Drewniak said. "We are happy to be

defending the public and New Jersey taxpayers in

court, if that's what it takes, on this."

Bozza declined to say Monday whether his group

would eventually file a lawsuit challenging the

proposed caps, which would not take effect until

Feb. 7 and range from $125,000 in small districts to

$175,000 in large districts.

Acting Education Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks,

in the wake of the Seitz controversy, has ordered all

districts not to renegotiate any contracts expiring

after Feb. 7 unless the new terms complied with the

caps.

"It's not just a cap. It's a salary cut for 70 percent of

the people if they continue their employment," Bozza

said.

Bozza took issue with Christie's accusation that

school boards, such as Parsippany, renegotiating

ahead of the effective date are circumventing the

cap.

"There is nothing wrong or illegal about what

school boards are doing," he said.

Reform and Reinvention of Education in America

2010-12-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

I read with interest an article by Federick M. Hess "The Same Thing Over and Over" in November 10, 2010, Education Week. Thought my readers would like to sample an excerpt that lays out an intelligent foundation for the need to change the way we do things in public education. What do you think?

FREDERICK M. HESS is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington, and the author of the new book The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday’s Ideas (Harvard University Press).

"It took more than three centuries after the first statutory education laws were adopted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1647 and 1652, until we actually got 90 percent of American students to show up in school every day. It’s hardly surprising that a system which spent centuries struggling to get students off the street and into schools, where they would be provided with minimal instruction, wasn’t built to educate every student to a high level.

This problem isn’t unique to education. Plenty of once-dominant private ventures—from Pan Am to Bethlehem Steel—have struggled to reinvent themselves when labor markets, technology, and customer demands have changed. Unable to refashion themselves, many have given way to younger, more agile competitors. Because that Darwinian process does not play out by itself in schooling, structural reform is essential to creating the room where problem-solving can happen.

We often seemingly fail to appreciate how much has changed since common-school and Progressive reformers shaped our schools in their battles to Americanize youths and get them out of the factories and in front of literate teachers.

Since the Progressive Era ended 75 years ago, our expectations have skyrocketed, with policymakers today insisting that all students need to master skills once thought the province of the elite. The expectation that our schools would mold students into “republican machines” has given way to an emphasis on diversity and tolerance, reducing the premium on homogeneity. The pool of available careerist teachers has dramatically shrunk as new opportunities have opened to women, even as professional mobility increased and the pool of educated professionals interested in teaching grew. And the ability of new technologies to assess student mastery, facilitate instruction, and enable virtual schooling has undergone a revolutionary expansion.

We’re hardly the first to be uncomfortable with change. While skeptics of technology today fret about the fate of the book, it was once books and the printing press that were feared by educators who worried that students would learn the wrong things, if left to read on their own. It was Sir Roger L’Estrange who wondered in the 17th century “whether more mischief than advantage were not occasion’d to the Christian world by the invention of typography.”

Reformers get swept up in enthusiasms and manias rather than in problem-solving. While some reformers tout mayoral control as a solution, the real challenge is the primacy of serial geographic monopolies that require every district to meet every need of every child—making it enormously difficult to do anything all that well. A century ago, this model was a best practice, as when people bought their tractors and their toothbrushes from Sears, Roebuck and Co. Today, however, coordination of provision is no longer a major challenge, enabling an array of providers to focus on the high-quality, cost-effective provision of particular goods or services.

Reformers wax enthusiastic about merit pay, while leaving intact notions of the teacher’s job description, school staffing, and the organization of instruction. Indeed, today’s “cutting edge” merit-pay strategies depend utterly on teachers’ retaining sole instructional responsibility for a group of students in a tested subject for 180 days. Rather than viewing pay reform as a tool for rethinking teaching, reformers wind up layering merit pay atop industrial-era pay scales.

Reformers celebrate alternative certification and extended learning time, yet seem to take for granted the primacy of colleges of education and the notion that all students necessarily require a standardized school year with a bureaucratically specified number of days and hours. Such assumptions learn nothing from promising ventures like San Diego’s High-Tech High School or New York City’s School of One.

The new decade ought to loom as a dynamic and enormously creative era addressing our educational challenges. We’ve set heroic goals, are constructing remarkable tools, and have an opportunity to rethink the very shape of teaching, learning, and schooling.

Yet we once again find ourselves rehashing tired debates between public school “defenders” and self-described “innovators.” On the one side are those who insist we cling to the rhythms of schoolhouses erected to sanitize Catholic immigrants. On the other are Race to the Top enthusiasts promising that data systems and more impassioned school leaders, along with a dollop of “science,” will set matters straight.

We don’t need “innovation” or to “protect” public schools. The truth is far simpler, and more frustrating, than that. Yesterday’s structures are ill-suited for today’s ambitions. Rethinking them is not an attack or a solution; it is just the inevitable precursor to crafting better answers to today’s challenges."

Rothstein on How to Fix Our Schools

2010-11-10T08:04:00.000-08:00

The essay below from author Rothstein should be read and contemplated by all of us who work in the public school environment. There is a lot to consider in today's political environment but the truth speaks louder than words and Rothstein certainly lays it out in this policy brief. Please take the time to read his analysis below:

From Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief #286, Thursday, October 14, 2010. See http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/ib286 . Our thanks to Michael Goldenberg for bringing this brief to our attention.

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How to fix our schools

By Richard Rothstein

Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public school system, and Michelle Rhee, who resigned October 13 as Washington, D.C. chancellor, published a "manifesto" in the Washington Post claiming that the difficulty of removing incompetent teachers "has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future." The solution, they say, is to end the "glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher" and give superintendents like themselves the authority to pay higher salaries to teachers whose students do well academically. Otherwise, children will remain "stuck in failing schools" across the country.{i}

Klein, Rhee, and the 14 other school superintendents who co-signed their statement base this call on a claim that, "as President Obama has emphasized, the single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents' income - it is the quality of their teacher."

It is true that the president has sometimes said something like this. But in his more careful moments, he properly insists that teacher quality is not the most important factor determining student success; it is the most important in-school factor. Indeed, Mr. Obama has gone further, saying, "I always have to remind people that the biggest ingredient in school performance is the teacher. That's the biggest ingredient within a school. But the single biggest ingredient is the parent."{ii}

There is a world of difference between claiming, as the Klein-Rhee statement does, that the single biggest factor in student success is teacher quality and claiming, as Barack Obama does in his more careful moments, that the single biggest school factor is teacher quality. Decades of social science research have demonstrated that differences in the quality of schools can explain about one-third of the variation in student achievement. But the other two-thirds is attributable to non-school factors.{iii}

When the president says that the single most important factor is parents, he does not mean the parents' zip code or income or skin color, as though zip codes or income or skin color themselves influence a child's achievement. Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee's caricature of the research in this way prevents a careful consideration of policies that could truly raise the achievement of America's children. What President Obama means is that if a child's parents are poorly educated themselves and don't read frequently to their young children, or don't use complex language in speaking to their children, or are under such great economic stress that they can't provide a stable and secure home environment or proper preventive health care to their children, or are in poor health themselves and can't properly nurture their children, or are unable to travel with their children or take them to museums and zoos and expose them to other cultural experiences that stimulate the motivation to learn, or indeed live in a zip code where there are no educated adult role models and where other adults can't share in the supervision of neighborhood youth, then children of such parents will be impeded in their ability to take advantage of teaching, no matter how high quality that teaching may be.

President Obama put it this way: "It's not just making sure your kids are doing their homework, it's also instilling a thirst for knowledge and excellenceŠ.And the community can help the parents. Listen, I love basketball. But the smartest kid in the schoolŠshould be getting as much attention as the basketball star. That's a change that we've got to initiate in our community."

Of course, there are exceptions. Just as not all children flourish with high-quality teachers, not all children fail to flourish just because their parents can't help with homework or because they live in communities where athletes are the most prominent role models. Under any set of circumstances, there will be a distribution of outcomes - that's human nature. And on average, disadvantaged children who have high-quality teachers will do better than similar children whose teachers are less adequate. But good teachers alone, for most children, cannot fully compensate for the disadvantages many children bring to school. As we noted, differences in the quality of in-school experiences can explain about one-third of the differences in achievement.

Even the president's more careful statement - that teacher quality is the most important in-school factor - is actually without solid foundation in research. It is true that some studies have found that variation in teacher quality has more of an influence on test scores than do the size of classes or average district-wide per pupil spending. In other words, you are better off having a good teacher in a larger class than a poor teacher in a smaller class. But that's it. It is on this thin reed that Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee are mounting a campaign to make improving teacher quality, and removing teachers whose students' test scores are lower, the centerpiece of national efforts to improve the life chances of disadvantaged students.

There are plausibly many other in-school factors, not quantified in research, that could have as much if not more of an influence on student test scores than teacher quality. Take the quality of school leadership. Would an inspired school principal get better student achievement from a corps of average-quality teachers than a mediocre principal could get from high-quality teachers? Studies of organizations would suggest the answer is yes, but there have been no such studies of school leadership. Take the quality of the curriculum. Would average teachers given a well-designed curriculum get better achievement from their students than would high-quality teachers with a poor curriculum? A very few research studies in this field suggest the answer might be yes as well.

Or take another in-school factor, teacher collaboration. Even when elementary school students sit in a single classroom for most of the day, several teachers influence their achievement. Teachers can meet to compare lesson plans that worked well and those that didn't. Teachers in lower grades can successfully align their instruction with what will be most helpful for learning in the next grade. Teachers of the arts can reinforce the writing curriculum, and vice-versa. Will average-quality teachers who work well together as a team with the common purpose of raising student achievement get better results than higher-quality teachers working in isolation? Plausibly, the answer is yes. Will promising to pay individual teachers more if their students get higher test scores than the students of another teacher reduce the incentives for teachers to collaborate? Again, a plausible answer is yes.

Of course, schools should try to recruit better-quality teachers and should remove those who are ineffective. After all, the quality of teachers is an important part of the one-third share of the achievement gap that can be traced to the quality of schools. But before making teacher quality the focus of a national campaign, school systems will have to develop better ways of identifying good and bad teachers. Using students' test scores as the chief marker of teacher quality is terribly dangerous, for a variety of reasons: it encourages a narrowing of the curriculum because only test scores in one or two subjects (math and reading) can be used for this purpose, and teachers who will be evaluated mainly by these test scores will have incentives to minimize attention to other subjects; it creates pressure to "teach to the test," that is, emphasizing topics likely to appear on our existing low-quality standardized tests rather than other equally important but untested topics; and it is likely to misidentify teachers - labeling many good teachers as poor and many poor teachers as good - because test scores can be influenced by so many other factors besides good teaching.{iv}

The necessary task of identifying good teachers and removing those who are inadequate requires more than student test score data. It requires a holistic approach, in which qualified experts observe teachers' lessons, evaluate the quality of their instruction, and examine a wide range of their students' work and how teachers respond to it. This requires a bigger investment of qualified supervisory time than most schools are prepared to make. Using student test scores as a shortcut will do great harm to American education.

Making teacher quality the only centerpiece of a reform campaign distracts our attention from other equally and perhaps more important school areas needing improvement, areas such as leadership, curriculum, and practices of collaboration, mentioned above. Blaming teachers is easy. These other areas are more difficult to improve.

But most important, making teacher quality the focus distracts us from the biggest threat to student achievement in the current age: our unprecedented economic catastrophe and its effect on parents and their children's ability to gain from higher-quality schools.

Consider the implications of this catastrophe for our aspirations to close the black-white achievement gap. The national unemployment rate remains close to an unacceptably high 10%. But 15% of all black children now have an unemployed parent compared to 8.5% of white children. If we also include children whose parents have become so discouraged that they have given up looking for work, and children whose parents are working part-time because they can't find full-time work, we find that 37% of black children have an unemployed or underemployed parent compared to 23% of white children. Over half of all black children have a parent who has either been unemployed or underemployed during the past year.{v} Thirty-six percent of black children now live in poverty.{vi}

The consequences of this social disaster for schools are apparent, and include:

Greater geographic disruption: Families become more mobile because they can no longer afford to keep up with rent or mortgage payments. They are in overcrowded housing; they often have to double up with relatives in apartments that were already too small. Children have no quiet place to study or do homework. They switch schools more often, fall behind in the curriculum, and lose the connection with teachers who know them well enough to adapt instruction to their individual strengths and weaknesses. Inner-city schools themselves are thrown into turmoil because classes must frequently be reconstituted as enrollment rises and falls with family mobility. Even the highest-quality teachers cannot fully insulate their students from the effects of this disruption.{vii}

Greater hunger and malnutrition: When more parents lose employment, their income plummets and food insecurity grows. More children come to school hungry and/or inadequately nourished and are less able to focus on schoolwork. Attentive teachers realize that one of the best predictors of how their students will perform is what they had for breakfast, if anything at all.{viii}

Greater stress: Families where parents are unemployed are under greater psychological stress. Such parents, no matter how well-intentioned, often become more arbitrary in their discipline and less supportive of their children. Children from families in such stress are more likely to act out in school and are less able to progress academically. The ability to comfort and support such students may be a more important indicator of a teacher's quality than her students' test scores, which may still be lower than the scores of students coming from stable and secure homes.

Poorer health: Families where parents lose employment are also more likely to lose health insurance.{ix} Their children are less likely to get routine and preventive health care and more likely to miss school days because of illness. They are less likely to get symptomatic treatment for illnesses like asthma, the most common cause of chronic school absenteeism. Children with asthma, even when they attend school, are more likely to come to school irritable, having been up at night with breathing difficulty.{x}

All these consequences of unacceptably high unemployment rates for disadvantaged parents contribute to depressing student achievement for their children. It is obtuse to expect to narrow the achievement gap in such circumstances. It is fanciful for national policy makers to pick this moment to raise their expectations for academic achievement from children of families in such stress and to single out teacher quality as the culprit most deserving of their public attention.

It would inappropriately undermine the credibility of public education if, in such an economic climate, educators were blamed for their failure to raise student achievement of disadvantaged children. Indeed, educators should get great credit if they prevent the achievement of disadvantaged children from falling further during this economic crisis.

Meanwhile, our political system is paralyzed, unable to take meaningful steps to reduce unemployment. Corporate profits are healthy, but an unjustified fear of short-term deficits prevents public spending from putting low-income parents back to work. Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and the other superintendents who signed their manifesto are influential in states whose national and state leaders contribute to this paralysis. These school leaders should raise their voices in protest against economic policies that doom children to failure.

Of course, the superintendents should continue attempts to improve teacher quality. They should work on developing ways to identify better and worse teachers without relying heavily on the corrupting influence of high-stakes test scores.{xi} In addition to teacher quality, they should pay attention to school leadership, curriculum improvement, and school organization. They should consider what initiatives they can take, either themselves or in partnership with other community organizations, to improve children's opportunities to come to school in good health and with enriched experiences in early childhood and out-of-school time.{xii}

But they will have to embed all of this work in an insistence on broader efforts of economic and social reform if they hope their school improvements to make any difference.

Otherwise, their manifesto might appear to be more an example of scapegoating teachers than a reflection of serious commitment to the futures of our children.

----------------------

Richard Rothstein (RRothstein@epi.org) is a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute.

****************************

{i} "How to Fix Our Schools: A Manifesto by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and Other Education Leaders," Washington Post, October 10, B01.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html

{ii} Barack Obama, Remarks by the President in Arnold, Missouri, Town Hall. April 29, 2009. Emphasis added. Pauses and word repetitions omitted. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-arnold-missouri-town-hall.

{iii} The 2/3 - 1/3 breakdown between family background and school influences was the core finding of the 1966 federal study, the "Coleman Report." But this interpretation of the report overstates its finding about the influence of schools, because Coleman and his colleagues considered the influence of a child's schoolmates ("peer effects") to be a school factor, not an out-of-school factor. (Coleman, James S., and Ernest Q. Campbell, Carol J. Hobson, James McPartland, Alexander M. Mood, Frederic D. Weinfeld, and Rober L. York, Equality of Educational Opportunity, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Government Printing Office, 1966.) Yet the only way to affect the composition of peers in the neighborhood schools he studied would be to change the composition of neighborhoods, with housing integration policies, for example. Of the in-school influences, the Coleman Report identified teacher quality (defined by teacher characteristics such as their educational attainment and experience) to be most important.

In a more recent study, Meredith Phillips and colleagues analyzed data from a federal longitudinal study, "Children of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth." They controlled for factors such as whether anyone in the family subscribed to magazines or newspapers or had a library card, grandparents' educational attainment, a mother's own cognitive ability (test score) and educational attainment, how often a mother reads to her child, the size of a family and its income, single parenthood, parenting practices, child birthweight, and others. They concluded that "{e}ven though traditional measures of socioeconomic status account for no more than a third of the {black-white} test score gap, our results show that a broader index of family environment may explain up to two-thirds of it." There are other differences, for example health and housing, not considered by these analysts that might explain even more of the gap. (Meredith Phillips, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Greg J. Duncan, Pamela Klebanov, and Jonathan Crane, "Family Background, Parenting Practices, and the Black-White Test Score Gap," in Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, eds., The Black-White Test Score Gap, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998.)

{iv} Eva L. Baker, Paul E. Barton, Linda Darling-Hammond, Edward Haertel, Helen F. Ladd, Robert L. Linn, Diane Ravitch, Richard Rothstein, Richard J. Shavelson, and Lorrie A. Shepard, Problems With the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, Economic Policy Institute, 2010. http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp278

{v} These data are for 2009, and have been calculated by analysts at the Economic Policy Institute from the Current Population Survey. Current overall unemployment is slightly higher than it was in 2009 (9.7% vs. 9.3%), so it is unlikely that the differences in family unemployment for black and white children are now appreciably different from a year ago. Tables from which these data were drawn are available from the author upon request.

{vi} Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz, A Lost Decade: Poverty and Income Trends Paint a Bleak Picture for Working Families, Economic Policy Institute, September 16, 2010. http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/a_lost_decade_poverty_and_income_trends

{vii} In 2009, 18% of African American children lived in households that had moved at least once in the previous year, compared to 11% of white children (U.S. Census, Current Population Survey, calculated from http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/migration/cps2009/tab01-02.xls and http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/migration/cps2009/tab01-03.xls). A national survey of nearly 2,000 school districts finds substantially growing numbers of homeless students, largely due to parental unemployment and home foreclosure (Barbara Duffield and PhillipLovell, The Economic Crisis Hits Home: The Unfolding Increase in Child & Youth Homelessness, National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) and First Focus, December 2008, http://www.naehcy.org/dl/TheEconomicCrisisHitsHome.pdf). A controlled study of homeless and stable children in New York City found that "homeless children perform at a lower academic level and have a higher rate of grade repetitionŠcompared with housed children {otherwise similar demographically} in New York City, despite our finding no difference in cognitive functioning" (Donald H. Rubin, Candace J. Erickson, Mutya San Agustin, Sean D. Cleary, Janet K. Allen, and Patricia Cohen, "Cognitive and Academic Functioning of Homeless Children Compared With Housed Children," Pediatrics 97(3):289-294, 1996).

{viii} From 2007 to 2008, the percentage of black children who lived in households without adequate food ("food insecure households") jumped from 26% to 34%, while the percentage of white children in such households jumped from 12% to 16%. From 2008 to 2009, the percentage of black children who at least some time were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because the household could not afford enough food nearly doubled, rising from 1.8% to 3.2%, while the percentage of white children in this category grew from 0.5% to 0.6% (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (ChildStats.gov) http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/eco3.asp). By age 15, 85% of all black children have lived in a household that used food stamps at some time during their childhood, compared to 33% of white children (Mark R. Rank and Thomas A. Hirschl, "Estimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood," Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 163(9):994-999, November 2009). The U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed 27 cities and reported an overall increase of 26% from 2008 to 2009 in the number of requests for emergency food assistance, with unemployment by far the most significant causal factor (U.S. Conference of Mayors, Homelessness and Hunger Survey: A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities: A 27-City Survey, December 2009 http://usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/USCMHungercompleteWEB2009.pdf).

{ix} In 2009, 11.5% of black children had no public or private health insurance, up from 10.7% the previous year. For white children, the percentage grew from 6.7% to 7.0% (Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032009/health/h08_000.htm and http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032010/health/h08_000.htm).

{x} Another Conference of Mayors report summarized the situation as follows: "When a child is unable to concentrate because they haven't eaten in days and misses a week of school because they could not fight off a simple cold, they cannot succeed in school. Lacking a solid education, they cannot find high-paying jobs. Ultimately, they are forced to remain in poverty, eventually placing their own children in the same situation" (U.S. Conference of Mayors and Sodexo, Childhood Anti-Hunger Programs in 24 Cities, 2009, http://www.usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/20091116-report-childhoodantihunger.pdf).

{xi} The accountability statement of the "Broader Bolder Approach to Education" campaign (www.boldapproach.org) describes the outlines of appropriate school accountability.

{xii} The initial call for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education" (www.boldapproach.org) elaborates on these points.

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--

Jerry P. Becker

Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction

Southern Illinois University

625 Wham Drive

Mail Code 4610

Carbondale, IL 62901-4610

Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]

(618) 457-8903 [H]

Fax: (618) 453-4244

E-mail: jbecker@siu.edu

Dr. Charles Maranzano, Jr.

Superintendent of Schools for Hopatcong Borough

Hopatcong is a Leader in Concussion Assessment

2010-10-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

High School athletics has always been an integral part of public education in America for young men and women of school age. The benefits of athletic participation extend beyond the playing field as many of our high school athletes also excel academically and represent the core of student leadership in our schools. One of the risks associated with athletic participation are the increasing numbers of sports-related injuries, particularly head injuries.

The number of sports-related concussions appears to be on the rise prompting awareness campaigns from athletic associations and medical advocates to protect our youth. The acute nature of concussion related injuries include symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, confusion, slurred speech, and memory problems. Visits to the emergency room for concussions for children ages 8 to 19 doubled over a ten year period from 1997 to 2007. The sports students are most prone to suffer a concussion in are football, soccer, lacrosse, ice hockey, and cheerleading. While brain injuries across the entire general population range from 1.6 million to 3.8 million annually, the range of football related brain injuries alone range from 43,200 to 67,200, annually placing it in the top risk category.

The National Athletic Trainers’ Association and the National Academy of Neuropsychology Foundation launched a campaign recently to educate athletes, coaches, teachers, and parents about the danger of concussions. Legislation has been introduced from the United States House, Education, and Labor Committee that would require schools to develop a plan for concussion safety and management.

Hopatcong Public Schools, New Jersey, implemented computerized preseason baseline and post-injury neuropsychological required testing for all student athletes in the fall of 2010. Athletic Director Tom Vara and trainer John Canzone obtained a computerized testing program with the support of the high school Parent Teacher Student Organization. The program helps establish a quantitative baseline assessment score for all athletes as one criteria to determine an athlete’s ability to return to sports after receiving a head injury. After an injury to the head, a post-test is administered to the student-athlete to determine if and when the student may return to participate. The athlete must sit out for a week and pass this post-test in order to return to practices.

“The stakes are too high,” said Vara, “We need to make sure we do everything we can to keep the kids on our teams healthy by preventing injuries and by making sure they’re able to return from injury at the proper time.” Hopatcong took the lead in this important area of physical health by conducting a region wide athletic clinic in early September and introduced the computerized baseline assessment program for other school districts to consider implementing. These efforts will go a long way to educating the general public about the dangers associated with athletic head injuries and the steps Hopatcong is taking to ensure student safety on and off of the playing field.

Oprah, Zuckerberg, Christie, and Booker's Education Gamble

2010-09-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

The frenzied media attention concerning how poor American Schools are performing may have reached new heights with Oprah Winfrey’s recent announcement that billionaire Mark Zuckerberg will donate $100 million to fix the public schools of Newark, New Jersey. Somehow, Newark Mayor Cory Booker becomes the Knight in Shining Armor sent by Governor Chris Christie to fix an ailing system of urban public education. I tend to agree with Bob Braun’s take on this one reported in the New Jersey Star-Ledger (Friday, September 24, 2010) as it’s worth reading.

Not that public education in Newark or in any other urban environment is in need of a tune up, it certainly is. In fact, schools in rural areas face similar challenges. The main problem is twofold here in my humble opinion. First, schools in America are chronically underfunded given the challenges we face and required mandates we must meet. Second, schools were designed to be a one-size-fits-all institution and society contains far too much variation for a public institution designed over a century ago to effectively respond to.

Consider that America still is singularly the most significant social experiment in the world: a magnificent melting pot of cultures that places her people in the most non-homogeneous environment ever to populate a geographic area. In other words we are replete with diversity: not one other world country can claim this fame nor rise to this educational challenge.

Its not that American education is failing students on a wholesale scale like the critics, think-tanks, pundits, and (certain) politicians would have us believe. In fact its not that we are failing our students rather we are failing to change to adjust to our students. In fact by design, we are not able to adjust to the rapidly changing global and technological society that evolves around us.

Author Jim Collins of Good to Great, demonstrated this concept with his descriptions of corporate America at the end of the past century. In simplistic terms he suggested that corporations who were lean and adaptable were the most likely to survive the forward march of time and everyone else destined to fail.

Schools as an institution are no exception. Think about the typical school calendar public schools in America follow: A ten-month agrarian design that suited the lifestyle of this country well over a hundred years ago when the family farm dictated the pulse of most communities. How predominant are family farms in 2010? The same can be said about many of the rules and mandates schools must follow in this new century: all designed for a society that no longer exists.

The “failing” label that the federal government now attaches to schools that do not meet 100% of their annual targets reaches an even higher level of improbability as all schools and children in our nation under No Child Left Behind must be 100% proficient in a few short years. A goal worth reaching for but a reality not attainable unless the natural variation in the human population ceases to exist in the near future. Our children live in conditions far too overwhelming for schools to mitigate in the little time students attend school during their youthful lives.

American schools are far too understaffed and under-resourced in order to attain this objective, especially if we consider the overwhelming number of children with learning disabilities, developmental conditions, and physiological unmet needs entering schools each day. Factor in millions of immigrant children (legal and illegal) who are part of America’s peripatetic population attending schools far less than others in their age cohort. Think about the language barriers. How can schools overcome these challenges alone?

Richard Rothstein made a strong case for the problems that manifest themselves in American public schools as societal ones. His book, Class and Schools, identifies the problems America faces and encourages us to take a more complete approach to closing the academic achievement gap. He acknowledges that schools alone cannot fix the problems endemic in American society. Government needs to stop blaming schools for America’s problems and begin the massive effort of creating a lean and more flexible institution capable of responding to the challenges existing in the heterogeneous population living in our society present to educators nationwide.

This is a challenge that money alone will not fix. That is why I remain cynical about Zuckerberg’s latest move for Newark. The Abbott districts already receive the lion’s share of state funding (Newark receives $940 million presently) and after three decades of adequacy and equity funding we still do not see a measurable difference in student performance.

I agree with Governor Christie in this area that New Jersey’s system of public education needs reform in order to survive the future (given protracted poor economic conditions). The unionism that dominates the patterns of New Jersey government may be the biggest impediment to effective overall reform. If only the educational community would embrace the necessary changes and begin the process of needed reform instead of waiting for politicians to do it for them. We must not fail to recognize that we are on the verge of a paradigm shift in public education and our success as a public institution hangs in the balance.

Reflections on Pay to Play and other Educational Issues

2010-09-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

I recently read with interest an article in the New Jersey publication the Daily Record on School Pay to Play policies:

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20100917/COMMUNITIES/100916097/NJ-Assembly-probes-pay-to-participate-student-fees-at-schools

In Hopatcong Borough Public Schools where I am superintendent, we studied the concept this year and choose to call it “Pay to Participate” so there would be no guarantee of actually "playing" at the varsity level, just participating. Having read the article, I am relieved my school board did not adopt a Pay to Play policy this year. Instead, we are studying the impact of such policies on other districts and looking at the wide variety of approaches to this problem. There appears to be several advocacy groups across the country (in California for example) where lawsuits are being initiated over the charging of activity fees. Where this ends up is beyond my imagination.

No one wants to deny any child of an educational opportunity...and in my opinion the “Four A's” of education all are an intricate part of the human development continuum for healthy growth and individual attainment (The “Four A's:” Academics, Arts, Activities, and Athletics). When we limit a student's access to any segment of a comprehensive education we in fact deny them an opportunity. So the very nature of Pay to Play may violate the expectations that a student has a right to an education inside and outside of the classroom. But school districts and divisions nationwide are forced to take such measures as a response to the drastic cuts we are experiencing due to the economic downturn and underfunding of public education.

The sad part of this discussion is the programs that are being lost as a result of the economic crisis and the outright attack on public education by federal and state "politicians gone wild". We are not immune here in Hopatcong as several programs were cut that were a long standing part of our educational system. Notably, the German language program, Field Hockey, Golf, Marching Band, and all freshman sports. The parents have brought back the Golf and Marching Band program with private funding and volunteer supervision, but these are temporary fixes to a long standing problem that will plague New Jersey and schools nationwide for years to come.

Public schools are not optional. They are created by the constitutional authority vested in each state (note: pubic education is absent in the U.S. Constitution). Every state over the past three decades has advocated for a "world class" education and accountability for reaching out to achieve a 100% success rate across the entire strata of student population in this country (well over 50 million), an ambition that thus far has eluded educators in every state. Reaching for the remarkable goal of pushing every child toward a high school diploma regardless of circumstances will require far more resources than available to public schools in America. For example, the effort to ensure and guarantee a high school diploma to every child enrolled in America’s public schools may require education to expand to 220 to perhaps even 260 days per year as opposed to the standard 180 days we currently operate under. So what are needed for public schools to succeed are more resources, not less.

In the meantime, when politicians attack public education and pull back significant portions of state support for education, we are left to ask the question: Who are we not supposed to teach this year? If schools followed an industrial model then a downturn in cash flow would be met with a reduction in output: For example, an automotive industry facing a 15% cut in revenue would respond with a similar reduction in production in order to survive. But public schools in America are being asked to do much more with far less funding...a formula for disaster in the long run. When you factor in the countless federal and state mandates that are underfunded or not even funded this problem becomes even larger.

The quality of a public school system depends upon motivating the student to succeed and creating a synergistic partnership with parents and community alike. The four "A's" are the bedrock of public education and must be fully supported in order for us to sustain a quality system for producing a citizenry that will support our democratic ideals long into the future. Having observed the fabric of society change significantly over the past five decades let me add that the public schools and perhaps the religious institutions in this country are the glue that keeps the fabric of our culture alive. Where else are the lessons of virtue, character, and honesty demonstrated and practiced on a daily basis?

Chip away at the foundation of public education and soon the very core of a civil society will erode. Isn't it time to rethink our priorities? Charging students to participate or selling ads on the sides of school busses will not resolve the financial issues in the long run. Let's do some serious thinking about what we want the future of America to look like...then adequately and generously invest in her public schools for the good of all people.

Period of Uncertainty, Change, and Innovation for Public Education

2010-09-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

Anyone connected to public education is feeling a bit uncomfortable right now due to the dire state of the economy and the political pressure to reduce budgets at all levels. In most communities public schools represent the largest expenditure for state and local government and are experiencing unprecedented cuts to operational and personnel costs. The reduced revenue stream to schools has been met with a response by educators to cut programs and instructors all across the nation in order to produce a balanced budget for 2010-2011.

Think about this: No one is presently talking about reduced expectations for public education in spite of these recent record cuts to personnel and programs. In fact, the opposite is true-during a time of drastic cuts in educational resources the expectations for teaching our youth are actually elevated. Another key point: There are very few correlations to the dramatic budget cuts we are experiencing in terms of outputs. In other words, any other industry experiencing such reductions in cash flow would naturally adjust its production rates. For example, a fifteen percent reduction in the revenue stream of a manufacturer who produces light bulbs might be met by a fifteen percent cut in output or product. Not public schools. We are expected to produce the exact same results with many fewer dollars to accomplish this mission.

If you know of Joel Barker’s work with “paradigms” over the past twenty years set your sites on public schools. According to Joel, when the old rules don’t apply that represent the stable or accepted order of things you can count on one thing for certain: new rules take over. Public education is poised for such a paradigm shift that may dramatically alter the way we deliver educational services to youth. In fact, government officials may be counting on this as the frenzy to “privatize” educational delivery models as Charter Schools, Virtual Schools, School Choice programs, and even Home Schools gain increased credibility.

Leave no doubt about it. Public schools will have to embrace accelerated changes in the way we deliver educational services to youth or someone else will step in and do it for us. Oh, and we will have to do this with far less funding. The challenge is daunting given the multitude of unfunded (if not underfunded) federal and state mandates that account for huge parts of school budgets. Union contracts will have to be revisited in states that allow for collective bargaining practices. The existing regulations in place for the thorough and efficient operations of public schools will not make it easy to meet these challenges ahead.

Here’s where innovation fits into the big picture. Schools are embracing changes that were unimaginable just a few years ago but are now up for serious consideration given the pressures of the budget reductions. Recent news accounts in New Jersey point to new programs or initiatives here in the metropolitan area as the school year begins. For example, Toms River schools are incorporating cell phones into the curriculum for students to conduct research, write reports, or download books. In lieu of foreign language teachers some are schools are counting on DVD’s to deliver basic instruction in Spanish at the elementary school level.

Virtual learning classes are becoming a more widely acceptable way for students to earn advanced credits at schools that have eliminated or reduced advanced placement programs. In Mount Olive Township, parents of school-aged children are suddenly being asked to pay for transportation if they live within a two-mile zone of their schools known as subscription bussing. In Sparta, parents of student athletes are being charged a pay-to-play participation fee.

Professional development for teachers appears to be rapidly changing as more and richer content is made available to them via online internet sites. One example is Hopatcong Borough which uses the School Improvement Network’s professional development software to deliver quality enrichment experiences via the internet. Over twenty percent of all advanced degrees for educators nationwide are now earned through virtual colleges such as The University of Phoenix, AspenUniversity, or Walden University (to name just a few).

In a period of accelerated change either public schools will join with others to create innovative opportunities for educational services or step aside as other institutions take over. These are the challenges we must contemplate as the shrinking economy will not allow for additional funding for our public schools. What was once valued as an ideal: low pupil to teacher ratios, is being replaced with much larger than sought after class sizes preK-12. The teacher of the future may be valued for his/her ability to teach students in much larger numbers than the teacher of today. Is this a change that represents an educational improvement? Possibly not, but a function of the new economic realities we must confront.

The future for pubic education may look entirely different than we imagine today. These are the times and challenges we face and like it or not we must be accepting of them. The educational leader of tomorrow will have to first usher in a period of transition and uncertainty as public schools that were once the bedrock of American society for the past hundred years reshape themselves for the profoundly different future ahead.

The Complex World of Internet Speech and Student Expression

2010-07-20T06:50:00.001-07:00

The world of instant communications via the internet and instant messaging services has created an environment that schools find increasingly difficult to regulate or influence. Complicating the issue is the limited authority of schools and the individual rights of teens and children to express freely their thoughts and comments on social media. This area deserves much judicial attention and in fact will take many years of litigation in order to draw reasonable conclusions about the ability of school officials to intervene when student speech reaches a broad audience via cyberspace.

A review of fundamental issues regarding student free speech rights reveal how little school officials can control the content of student online expression especially if the student speech originates off campus. Students have a constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as granted by the United States Constitution. The first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech and applies this concept to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In my home state of New Jersey, the free speech clause is found in Article I, paragraph 6, and states that “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right. No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech…” The freedom of expression encompasses non-verbal and verbal speech, including expressive conduct which conveys a particularized message that must generally be understood by those viewing it. When expressed views are controversial the government must be tolerant of the rights of individuals to express their views. Students cannot be disciplined or even punished for expressing their personal views on school property unless school officials have reasons to expect that the speech or expressive conduct will substantially interfere with the operation of the school and this becomes more complex when student views are expressed off school property.

A school district can restrict certain speech depending on the forum in which the speech or expression occurs. This becomes clear if the speech originates on school grounds or at a school sponsored function when that speech is lewd, vulgar or profane, or if the speech advocates for the illegal use of drugs. When an observer would view student speech as that of the school’s own speech on the basis of legitimate pedagogical concerns, or if the speech were powerful enough to cause a substantial disruption to the educational process or the rights of other students at school, school officials may act to limit or restrict such speech. Three types of forums exist: open forums, limited public forums, and closed public forums. The open forum is a traditional place with a long-standing tradition of free expression such as sidewalks, streets, parks, shopping malls, and generally any public venue like the Internet. Limited pubic forums and closed public forums allow governmental limits to certain types or forms of public speech as long as government policies are reasonable and do are not based on a desire to suppress a particular viewpoint nor can such policies discriminate on the basis of the viewpoint of the speaker.

School policies are generally designed to control student speech and conduct attributable to actions occurring when students attend school or school sponsored events. It is wise to note that most children and young adults attend school only about one-sixth of their lives from birth to eighteen years of age. The other five-fifths in the lives of youth occur in public settings, communities, or homes and these actions generally are not within reach of school officials. This is an important component for consideration given that the majority of student speech originates in the public or private sector of society and not in school buildings.

School officials are confronted these days with complex questions when asked to deal with the phenomenon of what has become to be known as “Cyberbullying”. This area of student speech is largely unregulated and often results in what researchers have characterized as “willful and repeated harm” inflicted through phones and computers toward other children or students. Remember that cell phones have just recently evolved into tiny computers with internet capabilities including not only texting but photographic and video sharing of content. Often, school disciplinary codes of conduct define very little about the authority of educators to regulate online student speech and expression due to the lack of authority that school officials actually have regarding these matters. Whether the responsibility for regulating student conduct online falls to the family, the police, or the schools remains an open question for modern society to explore.

The issues of student speech and content of online speech will remain problematic for school officials unless such speech materially and substantially interferes with maintaining discipline and the general safe operation of the school. One example would be an off campus threat of violence made by a student such as a bomb threat or “hit list” against specific individuals. The more complex issues revolve around non-violent, non-threatening speech that may simply be vulgar, offensive or harassing. Courts are clearly divided on the ability of school officials to regulate or even react to student online speech that originates off campus. Numerous cases have risen in various circuit courts and the overwhelming majority of cases have been found in favor of the free speech rights of students or children.

It is increasingly more apparent that the Internet has created a revolution in the manner in which society communicates. Students will use the Internet as a vehicle for social interaction, communication, and information. Young people will use the online forum to criticize, attack, humiliate, embarrass and even anger other students or school officials. With respect to the type of speech that occurs on the Internet, the central question of whether such speech substantially interferes with the operation of the school will determine the appropriate reaction of school officials nationwide in future months or years. The facts or circumstances that may lead a reasonable person to conclude that the result of such speech will lead to classroom disruptions, acts of violence such as fights, defiant student behavior, and truancy, will be the determining factor guiding the actions of schools. The “materially and substantially interferes” threshold of law that applies to the appropriate discipline and operation of schools will continue to guide school officials in this confusing and complex area of student speech regulation. Until the courts have provided sufficient guidance to school officials, the Internet remains a wide-open public forum for expression that will evade restrictions or regulations due in part to the freedoms provided by the United States Constitution for all individuals in society including our youngest citizens.

The Connection Between Student Achievement and Teacher Evaluation

2010-06-16T11:22:00.001-07:00

The debate concerning the use of student progress as a measure of teacher performance is beginning to receive considerable attention nationwide. With the recent election of Chris Christie as governor of New Jersey this idea gained further traction in the Garden State. The sought after federal “Race to the Top” U.S. Department of Education grant for hundreds of millions of dollars in funding is contingent on a renewed teacher evaluation process that formally recognizes a correlation between student achievement and teacher performance. Is this a valid idea whose time has come? Ask yourself this question: In an era of increased accountability for public education why would any reliable system for evaluation not include student performance?

Here is the problem: The current system of teacher evaluation in use throughout New Jersey is far too narrow in scope and falls short in many key critical areas. This is primarily due to overreliance on outdated methods for assessing teaching performance linked to limited criteria. For example, a major flaw in the current process for evaluation is the sole reliance upon direct observation of teachers by principals or supervisors. Direct observation limits the evaluator’s view to only a fraction of total annual teaching time. As a result the evaluation process fails to offer a complete picture of employee performance. Therefore by design the common evaluation process for assessing teacher performance in New Jersey limits school administrators to only a snapshot of employee performance. What’s needed is a full motion picture of performance over time.

The dual mandates of teacher accountability and improvement of instruction are among the most important components of our schools and should be the centerpiece for valid and reliable teacher evaluation practices. Consider that the quality of any school district is directly linked to the performance of the individuals who work there. Administrators are in need of accurate and complete measures of employee performance in order to assure the best connection between qualifications and assignment of personnel. By extension, administrative decisions concerning teacher placement typically correlate with the overall achievement of students assigned to specific courses within a school. These important components need to be infused into a reliable and defensible evaluation process.

Classroom observation as a primary data source for evaluation provides only one snapshot of teaching actions and limits the administrator’s overall view of performance. The exclusive use of direct observation presumes that observable, overt teaching behaviors provide a sufficient basis for judging teacher adequacy and competencies. Hidden from view are the elements of teacher planning, modification of instructional materials, context and depth, working relationships with colleagues, and student growth factors. Equally important are the teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, content mastery, and feedback from students and parents.

The reforms that are shaping America’s public schools include a movement toward increased academic rigor, learner-centered schools, distributed leadership responsibilities, professional learning communities, and collaborative problem-solving. A new era of rapid technological change implies that teachers will need sustained professional growth experiences and the ability to communicate with many constituencies. Outdated and subjective teacher evaluation practices exclude most of the elements described above and contribute little to the student learning and growth measures needed today in our public schools.

If teachers and principals together are to be held accountable for student performance then they will need to have genuine and sustainable professional interactions that support teaching and learning. What is also needed is a mechanism for performance evaluation that takes into account multiple measures of student success. If evaluation protocols intend to respect the professionalism and qualities of excellent teaching then a more inclusive system for collecting, collaborating, analyzing and disaggregating data is needed. At the center for all of our efforts must be the growth and progress of the students we serve.

Schools now have access to multiple views and longitudinal data about student progress thanks to a decade of content standard development and standardized testing in America. Why not use this rich data to inform us about the effectiveness of teaching practices and behaviors in our public schools? Outdated evaluative practices merely offer a glimpse into the act of teaching as opposed to the results of teaching. This is an important shift for educators. Why do many professional teacher associations appear fearful of analyzing the results of teaching when considering the overall effectiveness of teaching behaviors?

In fact, teachers should be making their own case for valid and reliable evaluation practices rather than avoiding or deflecting this discussion. The reason schools exist as a public institution is to meet the needs of the children we serve. Teachers who are unwilling to accept responsibility for student progress or demonstrate consistently mediocre professionalism need to be counseled and removed. Unfortunately, only in extreme cases are schools able to facilitate the dismissal of ineffective teachers. In order to prevail in cases of dismissal school boards must rely upon a wealth of data absent from common evaluation practices in New Jersey.

Many other states have embraced the use of student data and multiple criteria for evaluation as part of a complete picture of employee performance. It is time for New Jersey to usher in a new era of accountability and cooperation based upon more modern and reliable assessments. Evaluation of teachers should contain multiple rating categories and procedures that value student growth and achievement. Evaluation must be fair, inclusive of constructive feedback, and connected to a foundation of support and shared professional development in schools.

New Jersey’s new administration has a golden opportunity to depart from the past practices that have limited the overall view of educational performance and innovation by advocating for evaluation reform. These reforms need to be consistent with the federal Department of Education’s Race to the Top funding goals as millions of dollars in federal support could be gained. This alone is reason enough to pursue some much needed reforms in educational evaluation.

If New Jersey is to embrace any form of merit pay for school employees it will first have to address the inconsistencies and shortcomings of current evaluation processes. The Commissioner of Education would be wise to inspect the educational changes that have taken root in other places and be prepared to break from outdated thinking about evaluation and accountability practices. This may finally be the best time for us to place students at the center of our renewed efforts to build excellent public schools in New Jersey. Isn’t that why our schools exist in the first place?

A Superintendent's Perspective on Budget Cuts to Public Education

2010-06-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

The economic realities that confront the nation and particularly the state of New Jersey at this critical time have created a “perfect storm” for public school educational funding. We face the largest budget shortfall for school financing in at least half a century. The federal, state, and local commitment to fully fund public school budgets has been seriously eroded and the nationwide taxpayer frustration over increased taxes and spending have placed schools at serious risk of becoming underfinanced for 2010-2011 and beyond. As a result public schools nationwide are curtailing programs and cutting staff. According to one national survey by the American Association of School Administrators more than 275,000 teachers risk a loss of employment on July 1, 2010.

New Jersey is a good example of the current economic maelstrom. The recently elected New Jersey governor Chris Christie began a public campaign this winter to discredit the New Jersey Education Association and its membership. Governor Christie then cut educational funding statewide by $820 million. When school budgets were presented for elections in April Governor Christie encouraged taxpayers to turn out in record numbers to defeat ballot initiatives. As a result most of the school budgets in New Jersey were defeated. Following the defeat municipal governments were then empowered to further reduce school funding resulting in unprecedented and deep budget cuts.

In the district of Hopatcong, New Jersey, the above scenario had a dramatic effect on our total school budget for 2010-2011. Couple this with almost two decades of defeated budgets in Hopatcong (school budgets passed only four times in sixteen years) and the cumulative affect is proving to be devastating for our schools. The state reduced its share by 13.2% of the total budget resulting in a formula decrease of $1,700,962. The town council imposed an additional cut of $730,000 to this number resulting in a net loss of more than $2.4 million dollars. The impact will be immediate. Over twenty-four teaching positions will disappear from next year’s workforce in tiny Hopatcong.

Expected increases in required expenditures for 2010-2011 exacerbate these cuts by adding an additional burden of another $2 million to Hopatcong’s school budget. The cumulative effect is a net overall loss of about $4 million to accomplish the mission of our schools. The unprecedented cuts and projected costs will cause the Hopatcong school board to make reductions in positions and programs that will have profound implications for future years. In the past two years alone over forty teaching, operational, and administrative positions have been parsed from our workforce.

The overall impact of these projected cuts to next year’s school budget result in the reduction of the number of teachers available to teach courses, the downsizing of certain programs, the elimination of some sports and activities, and the curtailment of some advanced course offerings for students at the secondary level. Class sizes are expected to increase at all levels from Kindergarten through high school, and the ability of our teaching staff to personalize education for students has been seriously reduced. Activities that extend student learning outside the four walls of the classroom are also negatively affected. It is becoming increasingly harder to preserve the arts, student activities, and athletic programs for students.

The impact of the sudden and serious reductions to school funding may not be known for several years. What is recognized is the profound jeopardy that the reduction in resources and funding has placed our public schools in. The risks are very real that students will not receive the benefits of a comprehensive education they have come to expect. Ironically, New Jersey has built a national reputation on the accomplishments of its public schools with the highest math and language arts test scores in the nation, a dramatic reduction in the minority achievement gap, and the highest graduation rate of all the states.

Missing from this conversation are the realities that schools may not be able to deliver the high quality of services and educational experiences necessary for the future. The state demands a “thorough and efficient” education for each child yet it appears content to provide a “less than complete and effective” amount of funding to accomplish this. Let us not forget that quality public schools are not optional but necessary. We cannot fail to educate all of the children who enter our doors each day and prepare them for a profoundly different 21st century than the one we knew.

Superintendents and school boards will try to preserve as many programs as possible and our outstanding teachers will continue to strive for high outcomes in the years ahead. It is clear that all of us will have to embrace change and adjust to the new economic realities that are destined to alter the face of public education for years to come. What is not clear is our ability to predict the total net impact of all these changes on the people we employ and students we serve. Please know that the leadership of the Hopatcong Public Schools and many others across the state and nation will try our very best to analyze, assess, and adjust to the changing and challenging economic climate ahead for the sake of our children and our future.

A Superintendent's Perspective on Budget Cuts to Public Education

2010-06-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Economic Downturn Devastates Public Schools

2010-05-07T10:00:00.001-07:00

In my prior blogs as Superintendent of Hopatcong Public Schools I emphasized the unusual challenges we face this year as a result of the uncertain economic times. These circumstances cause us to do things as a school board that under normal conditions would not be even thought of. The idea that a massive reduction-in-force is taking place nationwide seems unreal given the potential that 275,000 public school employees may out of work this July 1, 2010 (AASA 5/4/2010). This is unprecedented. The Public Schools of Hopatcong are in a similar position with a serious budget shortfall looming, increased mandated expenses, and other necessary contractual obligations pending.

We anticipated the loss of about twenty-four key positions prior to our budget election. Due to the defeat of the school budget it appears that the governing bodies may reduce the proposed budget even further. Historically and unfortunately, this has been the pattern in Hopatcong. During these difficult budgetary times of increased expenses and state reductions any further cuts will no doubt result in the additional loss of staff members. By extension, the loss of additional teachers will be certain to affect instruction at the classroom level as class sizes rise across grade levels.

According to the American Association of School Administrators (5/4/2010), Projection of National Education Job Cuts for the 2010-2011 School Year, a survey documenting personnel cuts in education found that school systems across the nation are facing serious challenges as a result of the economic downturn. AASA asserts that 82% of school districts reporting will cut or eliminate education jobs by July 1, 2010. The 300,000 jobs saved last year by virtue of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act will likely be reduced by 92%.

According to the Economic Policy Institute every 100,000 education jobs lost translates into roughly 30,000 jobs lost in other sectors due to reduced spending by school districts. Schools have been insulated from the impact of the economic conditions to this date due to the lag in contracts and the variation in their fiscal year - typically from July 1 through June 30. However, when July 1, 2010, rolls around the educational community could find itself short over 300,000 jobs. This will not be a good thing for the American economy nor her schools. Regardless of this fact, over 48 million students will show up for the 2010-2011 school year in all fifty states and we will have to be prepared to teach them.

American schools may be unwillingly entering a new chapter in the long history of public education. The progress that we have made over the past decades may take a back seat as valuable resources shrink or disappear from view. The future remains very uncertain as we attempt to find the means to individualize and customize educational experiences for a wide variety of young people. We must prevail in these uncertain times-our very future depends on it.

Open Letter to NJ Governor Christie

2010-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

The following letter was penned by a colleague and fellow superintendent Dr. David C. Verducci, of Glen Rock, NJ public schools. I find the content to be exactly on target regarding the persistent attack on public school teachers and administrators by the recently elected Governor Christie of New Jersey. Please take the time to read through the excerpts below:

“Governor Christie, most people in New Jersey, myself included, agree that the State's financial situation is dire, that the funding process for public schools is broken and needs to be fixed, that pension reform is critical, and that the time to begin addressing these issues is not tomorrow, but now. But where we disagree comes to the fore with regard to how this all came about and how we/should go about fixing it.

What follows, then, are concrete suggestions for remedying this crisis situation without decimating our public schools. These ideas are designed to form the basis of a larger plan to place the state on firmer fiscal ground. Simultaneously, the implementation of the roadmap outlined below is also intended to build up our weakest schools with out driving our very best public school districts -institutions which could serve as models of "how to do it right'-into an inevitable downward spiral.

Make us -ALL of the stakeholders here-a partner in the process. This first item is the most important of all. Please stop talking ill us! Talk to us! We are not the enemy! Make us a partner in the endeavor to fix New Jersey. From the superintendent of schools to the part-time cafeteria worker, the overwhelming majority of us who spend our professional lives in the public schools are hard-working people who want to see children succeed. Building a coalition with the educational community for the betterment of the common good will not happen if you simply continue to dictate the terms of change. We have a lot of good ideas. We can help you accomplish your goals. We also want things to be different, but true systemic change will not take root if the only tools you use are blunt instruments that punish instead of encourage. We are people of intellect who want to be treated as such, not like the victims of a school-yard bully. Governor, I think you will find a very receptive audience among educational professionals and the citizens-at-Iarge if you simply approach the whole situation differently. Leaders don't just demand or dictate. They build consensus through persuasion and reason. Change this dynamic and you have a chance to change things even beyond your own greatest aspirations.

New Jersey's fiscal problems did not occur overnight and should be fixed over a period of time. Consider the case of an individual who doesn't use credit responsibly and gets into financial trouble. Should the person be required to pay back his or her debt at such a rate (i.e., in time and amount) that he or she could no longer afford food &shelter? Doesn't it make much more economic good sense to phase in controls that will get the system onto the right track -and then keep it there-over a period of time? Sustained change needs time. It is not accomplished overnight, or in our case, one or two budget years. As it stands now, all that is happening is that districts, in an effort to avoid the dismemberment of their school districts, are in many cases just shifting the burden. In Glen Rock, we are very sensitive to the financial condition of our residents. Since we won't burden them with a school tax rate any higher than it absolutely must be, my only choice is to make drastic cuts in staff programs. No matter how you slice it, no matter how it is portrayed politically, kids WILL be hurt by what you are doing and how you are doing it. Students know this, and Governor, please give kids a bit more credit. Our students, like those who staged a walk-out recently in Cliffside Park, are not "pawns" of teachers or administrators, no matter how much more palatable it might be to believe. Our kids are Vibrant, intelligent people who think for themselves, see what is really happening, interpret their own experiences, see things clearly, and, il1 short, are seething with anger over the cuts that THEY will be forced to endure.

Stop demonizing public school teachers and administrators! I have been a professional educator for almost thirty years and along the way teachers somehow stopped being thought of as a noble breed. What is fascinating to me is that this transformation over time roughly corresponds to the timeframe of professional educators actually beginning to earn a livable wage. In the early 1970s, my first teaching job paid $5,000 with no benefits! For years teaching salaries were so bad that in 1985 Governor Kean had to sign the Teacher Quality Employment Act into law, guaranteeing teachers a minimum salary of $18,500! At the time, more than 80% of New Jersey's teachers made less than that amoul1t. Benefits and a decent pension were the only inducements available to encourage good teachers to stay in the profession over the long term. Look at tenure for superintendents, abolished in 1992. Despite the warnings of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, this created a system of "free agency," forcing up salaries for a position that requires decades of training and experience in a wide range of fields. The long and short of it is when salaries began to rise to a level approaching something like a "livable wage," and the true cost of a quality educational product became more widely known and understood, things changed. These days, many of those who are now demanding teacher salary cuts conveniently forget that in boon times we were not the ones who received huge cash end-of-the-year bonuses. Further, our teachers and administrators are "giving back." Glen Rock's union contracts already have an employee pay component for health benefits. Tuition reimbursement programs and the like are already tightly regulated. We do not get paid overtime. We do not fly to work in helicopters or chauffeur-driven cars. Teachers and administrators are not in the top one percent of wage earners (and this even includes well-paid superintendents!) who make over $400,0001 While deserving the merit of full and fair consideration, pay freezes are not a panacea. Ultimately, what it will serve to do is to drive the "best and brightest' out of the education field completely. Where will our schools be then? Incidentally, Governor, do you pay for your own health benefits or do benefits for you and your family come as a perk of being a state employee, albeit an elected one? If this is the case, why has no one heard you speak of your own voluntary pay-back? I think everyone would certainly love to see some of your leadership by example.

Amend the proposals to repair the State's Pension System so that the "fixes" are more equitable to everyone concerned. Governor Christie, as teachers and as administrators, we have paid our share of pension costs for all of these years; we simply did not have a choice as it was deducted automatically from our paychecks. It was the State which did not. Not only didn't Trenton pay its share but it raided the pension system for cash and then promptly "took a bath" as the markets tanked and the huge fund of cash -OUR MONEY, PAID FOR BY OUR HARD WORK!-was lost in the markets through highly dubious investments such as the financial instruments known commonly as derivatives. Teachers and administrators were not responsible for this investment fiasco. Neither did we have any say when Trenton unilaterally raised our contributions from 5°1o to S1J2°/0 to make up, in part, for its own shortfall and poor decisions. We don't "double-dip" into the pension system. We never asked for the formula change a few years back which increased pension costs. Most importantly, why are legislators who take advantage of double-dipping (as well as lawmakers who serve on a part-time basis) and in the pension systems grandfathered when public school employees with 25+ years of service are not? What ever happened to what is "good for the goose is good for the gander?" To paraphrase George Orwell (a writer whose work I first explored in a public high school English class, by the way), it seems that when it comes to New Jersey lawmakers, some animals are, in fact "more equal than others." This is fair, how?

Enhance the size of the State's fiscal pie through increased revenues and eliminate the many absurdly wasteful and expensive subsidies that Trenton doles out. For starters, reinstate the "Millionaires Tax" on the top one percent of wage earners. I thought we were in a crisis. Most of us would probably agree that if an individual is in this top 1%, you are probably not in a bad way financially despite how it might personally feel to you. This would solve the 2010-2011 state aid problem in one fell swoop. Second, get rid of subsidies and "tax-incentives'! (read giveaways) to rich business owners who are making or stand to make multi-millions of dollars off the backs of school children. Xanadu. The Prudential Center. Atlantic City Casinos. These three areas alone have cost New Jersey, literally, hundreds upon hundreds of millions.

Dramatically scale back the N.J.A.S.K. I H.S.P.A. standardized testing program and do so immediately. Want to give me, as a superintendent of schools, tools that I could use (and would be happy to do so!) to Significantly reduce the local tax burden? Here is an important example. Specifically, immediately drop four of the seven years of state testing that are now required of all public schools, but particularly for those districts designated as "high achieving" by your own Department of Education. Students who can score an 85% passing rate year-over-year do not need to have instructional time wasted with over-testing. The solution is elegantly simple: return to the former system of testing in grades four, eight, and eleven. It is educationally valid, statistically reliable as a measure of student progress (assuming a sound standardized instrument), and millions upon millions upon millions of dollars cheaper! I assure you, sir, that Pearson Corporation, the State's test publisher, doesn’t need the money anywhere near half as much as we do!

Cut over burdensome unfunded mandates NOW! While the goals of these mandates are, in many cases, laudable, they are expensive to administer and require very substantial amounts of tax-payer dollars, running into the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars when taken en toto. Just a few examples include bilingual education, "Right to Know" laws, bio-hazard training, radon testing, overboard anti-bullying and anti-violence & vandalism program and reporting requirements, "Pest Management" (i.e., bugs), school security overregulation, standardized testing, and many, many, many more. The elimination of the regulatory requirements of just the programs mentioned have the potential to plug a very large part of our budget deficit.

Reduce the rate of health care increases in the State Health Benefits programs. Reign in Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield's 20%-35% annual increases and your financial worries for New Jersey will be well on their way to being solved forever. How can we possibly be expected to stay within a spending cap of 2.5% in 2011-2012 and not destroy our school systems unless there are cost-containment efforts that are external to the individual school districts.

Place schools in New Jersey on a level playing field. For one, stop subsidizing the per-pupil costs of the students attending the Bergen Academies. The audited per-pupil expenditure is well over $20,000 per student per annum. Who even knows what the true costs are? Most public schools are somewhere in the neighborhood of half that amount. Secondly, stop the approval of charter schools in communities with high-achieving schools; save these approvals for failing school districts that need it. There is absolutely no reason to believe, for example, that a recent Charter School application filed from Bergen County will provide greater educational opportunities than its public counterparts, when the proposed school would almost exclusively from Fair Lawn, Paramus, Glen Rock, and Ridgewood. Schools in communities such as these do nothing, in the end, but siphon off public funds from these local school districts (which we should not forget is paid by the local taxpayer) and simply subsidizes private, and often religiously-based, schools. As I read recently, "Charter schools are, in most cases, for-profit operations that do not always make the right decisions for children based on education standards. They make decisions that affect their bottom line and in so doing the quality of education suffers." Governor, give public schools a fair chance. Either take away the unfunded mandates outlined above and/or require charter schools to operate in the same regulatory environment that we do. Now that would be fair.

Use positive incentives not negative inducements to promote change. This costs so very little -in some cases nothing-and has the potential to profoundly change the system. Go back to our example of the individual who over-used his or her credit cards. Doesn't it make more sense to set up tighter controls (on both future credit and repayments) on the individual instead of everyone? Is it fair for the credit-card issuer to place punitive credit controls on individuals who are responsible and meet their financial obligations? Do the same for public school districts. Provide some regulatory relief to those of us who consistently demonstrate that we play by the rules and get the job done well. For once try rewards instead of punishments. From the standpoint of school districts that are doing well, all we ask is that Trenton and the Department of Education leave us be in order that we can continue to do well. Let us just do our jobs. Concentrate your scarce resources on those places that need it. That would certainly save everyone time, energy, and most of all, money!”

What do you think? Thanks for reading this.

The New Jersey Budget Dilemma in Public Education

2010-03-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Overview

On March 16, 2010, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie delivered a historic speech demanding serious if not unprecedented budget cuts in response to the lagging economic conditions. There are serious implications for New Jersey public schools as we expect an $820 million reduction in state support for education. In order to help offset budget reductions, the Governor proposed additional legislative changes as follows:

1) A proposal that would require all employees to contribute a percentage of salary to their health benefits;

2) A proposal that would assist districts in contract negotiations by helping to sustain the last best offer;

3) A proposal that would affect pensions for anyone retiring after August 1, by proposing changes to the way pension benefits are calculated, and also by requiring contribution to health benefits for retirees.

Please note that these proposals would require legislative approval and therefore are not certain to be passed (but are likely to be passed in some form or another).

The Governor has also proposed a Constitutional Amendment that would require voter approval that would reduce the current 4% tax levy cap to 2.5%. This reduction would not only affect school districts, but also municipalities and the state budget as well.

Implications for Suburban School Districts

The Governor made no apologies for his stance and was clear about the need to halt the spending in New Jersey. We applaud him for demonstrating fiscal restraint at a difficult period of time, but are very concerned for the disproportionate means utilized to calculate funding cuts to localities that depend upon a significant portion of state aid for operational purposes. Hopatcong ranks 2nd of forty-nine area school districts in the percent of state aid to the district (38% of total budget). Eighty per cent of our school budgets account for salaries and benefits with the balance toward supplies, transportation, energy costs, maintenance, etc. Any reduction in state aid will have a devastating impact on our overall bottom line for 2010-2011.

The problem with the approach that the New Jersey Governor has outlined is that suburban districts like Hopatcong will suffer the lion’s share of budget cuts. Over the past several years the Hopatcong School District exercised serious restraint and cut its administrative team by 1/3 and implemented several other significant cost saving measures.

In the past two years Hopatcong’s budget has only grown by a little more than 1% in 2008 and less than ¼ of 1% in 2009 while expenses have increased by 22%. The gap promises to be much wider this year as our funding tanks into the negative digits (thanks to the state funding cuts). On the other hand, expenses in fuel, electric, textbooks, supplies, maintenance, health insurance, buildings and grounds insurance, liability insurance, paper, ink, pencils, crayons, markers, out of district tuitions, services for special needs children, charter school expenses, and yes, salaries & benefits continue to rise.

The only way to produce a balanced budget when you are operating as lean and mean as possible (as Hopatcong is) is to reduce expenses. The only expenses that can be controlled will result from the dismissal of employees. We have no ability to increase the revenue stream. So if Governor Christie and the New Jersey State Legislature impose a 2.5% tax cap on localities, every school district in the state that depends on state aid will begin a process of lay off employees to balance budgets. (Remember the effect of Proposition 13 on California’s public schools?) We are not empowered to reduce the number of days we operate, we cannot suspend the thousands of state mandates imposed on us, we cannot decide not to teach anyone, we cannot reduce services to our student population of special needs for example.

The Governor and Legislature assumes that there is excess in school budgets and thus we can afford to cut 5%, 10%, 15% or even 20% of our budgets. But this is where they are absolutely wrong. Every penny Governor Christy is determined to extract from our state aid budget will find its way to the classroom. This means that our teachers will have classes much larger in future years, they will have less resources with which to practice their craft, they will be accountable for more results, and will have to work with less technology. But the same number of students will enter our classrooms with the same needs as they always have. So, how can we produce the same results with less funding, less resources, or with less teachers?

If we cut our budget input and in balance were able to cut our product output this would make sense. But the Governor wants to cut input (revenue) and expects the same output (results: number of students taught, number of days worked, exceptional state test scores, etc.) without regard to consequence. Let’s use a business model: If one cannot produce a balanced equation (input vs. output) and revenues do not match expenditures the only logical choice is bankruptcy. That is the cumulative effect of the current state reductions and may be where public education is heading.

I agree that the State of New Jersey must restrain spending but object to the “quick fix” that will certainly take its toll on the children of public education. A much more mature approach will be to reduce expenses incrementally over time and not place our most valuable resource at risk: our children.

The Hopatcong School Board will continue its analytical and thoughtful options as more budget information is revealed. Our business team is doing an excellent job of complying with all state regulations and mandates and produces accurate and accountable public records that are recognized by our auditors as exceptional. We will produce a balanced ledger as we finish out the 2009-2010 school year, as we have done every year for the past several decades. Unfortunately, the state has not been as fiscally responsible as school districts have over the years. The State of New Jersey is about to change the face of public education in forever.

One last thought for Governor Christy and the State Legislature: The teachers are not the enemy- you are. Our teachers are hard working individuals who have pursued multiple college degrees and thousands of hours of professional development in order to work in an honorable profession of service to our community and to America. They deserve to be compensated adequately, to have health benefits, to look forward to retirement, and to raise families. For years the teachers of this country were underpaid and expected to produce exceptional results when the whole of society was failing American children.

The American teaching force endured and persevered many decades as undervalued and underappreciated professionals in our society. They negotiated their status into a highly respectful professional and competitive one over the years. I respect all of them for their achievements in American education.

No other society on earth can educate the diverse population that exists in these United States in public schools. We are a heterogeneous mix of the world’s population and the diversity of individualism is the greatest challenge in America’s classrooms. When critics of American education make international comparisons they would be wise to remember this.

American education has been the envy of the world and over the course of the last hundred years our country has led the world into the 21st century. When foreign dignitaries visit American schools they wonder and marvel at the level of differentiation that exists and variations in our learners. We have excelled at leveling the playing field for children from all walks of life in our public schools.

When state or local officials publically discredit our teachers for the excellent work that they do and then decide to summarily dismantle public education they need to be aware of the damage that they will do-now and in the future.

Reflections on Arne Duncan and Malcolm Gladstone at AASA

2010-02-12T11:07:00.001-08:00

From a blogger’s perspective the overall scope and depth of this year’s AASA conference is incredibly professional and enlightening. There are so many sessions that appeal to all of us who are engaged as educational leaders it is hard to choose which to attend! The Thought Leader sessions are very popular and well attended as are the concurrent sessions offering insight into many different and specialized areas of educational leadership. I attended the two keynote addresses (yesterday and today) and will comment on both.

To say that Malcolm Gladwell was very well received is an understatement. Malcolm ignited the superintendents yesterday with his insight about Capitalization in a presentation he labeled “Outliers”. Gladwell defines the Capitalization Rate as the “Ratio of which people in a group achieve what they are capable of doing” and encouraged us to maximize the potential and power of education to reach children. Most importantly, Malcolm pointed out that “What happens outside the four walls of the classroom really matters” and with that as a springboard moved the discussion to a broader arena.

Malcolm suggests that we begin to “change the conversation” about education and described the obvious constraints standing in our way as: 1) Poverty; 2) Stupidity; and 3) Attitudes. Malcolm emphasized the role of teacher quality, perseverance, time, bias, and societal expectations throughout his presentation. Finally, he advocates that we “speak out” and begin to articulate the obvious self-imposed limits that we appear to accept as the norm in favor of innovation and change. (I am certain you will read elsewhere on the conference website a more detailed account of Malcolm’s remarks.)

Today we heard from US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who gave an overview of what the present administration in Washington needs to do to move the nation’s educational agenda forward. He emphasized that the upcoming year will be a “brutal year” for superintendents as difficult if not impossible personnel and programmatic decisions will need to be made. The shrinking state budgets will challenge superintendents to rethink their priorities and perhaps will shape a new future for education. Arne suggested that we “Never let a serious crisis go to waste…” and that the time may be right for a serious introspective view of how we do business. He pointed out that distance learning, data solutions, better teacher training and recruitment, a better return on investment, and enhanced college and career readiness be in the forefront of our thinking. Duncan outlined the Four C’s: Courage, Collaboration, Capacity, and Commitment, as the foundation of forward thinking about the jobs we are charged to do in public education.

According to Duncan, ARRA funded over 300,000 educational jobs that would have been lost to the economy last year. However, he cautioned that the “funding cliff” created by AARA will be imminent in the upcoming year and with that outlined the Obama administration’s new priorities for the reauthorization of ESEA. What was refreshing to this blogger was Duncan’s proclamation that the USDOE would cease to be a “Compliance Machine” and should become “An Engine of Innovation”. This would be a very welcome change and could be an overall game changer! But as my dad always proclaimed, “Action speaks louder than words,” so we shall see…

Six core areas were mentioned by Secretary Arne Duncan: College and Career Readiness, Well Rounded Students, Student Supports, Diverse Learners, Teachers and Learners Programs, and Innovative Programs. He willingly acknowledged the obvious shortcomings of ESEA in the present form and pledged to bring growth models into the picture along with higher expectations. Duncan advocated for “Local flexibility,” something that is missing in NCLB and vowed to strike a balance between punitive measures and support for what works in public schools. Absent from the conversation today was any mention of the Charter Schools push by this administration and rather focused on the support mechanisms that the federal government needs to put into action rather than political prescriptions for America’s public schools.

Footnote: With an impending Tsunami of massive budget cuts rushing to the shores of American Public Schools it is difficult for this blogger to envision the implementation of the necessary changes outlined in both Secretary Duncan’s speech and Malcolm Gladwell’s vision of the future. If a crisis does represent an opportunity, we will have to endure the shock waves and deconstruction of public education in its present form prior to the rebuilding and reconceptualization that will be necessary for us. Many of us (superintendents) are hoping for our schools merely to survive in the next few years as the multi-layered variables that shape education are challenged and altered by forces far beyond our control. The good news is that superintendents are strong and resilient people, and the support of AASA and our new place at the table in the reshaping of federal priorities for education might just help us all turn the corner.

The Promise of Emerging Technologies

2010-01-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

I am trying something new today. The hyperlink below should get us to YouTube and an item called the ISchool Initiative. Try to cut and paste the link below to your browser and access the site. Then watch the short video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KgAcx_9jU

Now that you viewed the clip, what do you think?

The reason for sharing this with all of you is obvious(as per the video). As an educational institution, public schools in America are changing ever so slowly in order to adopt to the emerging new technologies driving today's society. Too slowly, perhaps. With state budgets shrinking dramatically public schools are pressed to extract additional savings from existing budgets. With technology accelerating the rate of information that our youth will need to absorb and learn schools face a huge dilemma. How can we meet the new demands of a global learning community with ever-shrinking resources?

The solution: There appears to be untapped potential when we explore the proliferation of cell phones and handheld devices regarding access to the internet and computing capacity of such devices for educational purposes.

The video was very clear on the power of eductional applications embedded in these handheld "computing devices". Let's face it, cell phones have evolved into very powerful devices that rival laptops and netbooks in their ability to run multiple platforms and operating systems such as Windows. The audio and video, texting, interactive applications and internet capacity of today's cell phones make them attractive alternatives to traditional school pc's and laptops. Cell phones are far more powerful than the last generation of cell phones and light years away from the original ones released in the mid 1990's.

Cell phones may just be viable alternatives and true computer options for schools. The facts bear out the notion that mobile technologies demonstrate enormous untapped educational potential for schools and for teaching today's generation of youth brought up on these technologies. The development of modern applications have allowed more hands on engagement replacing what was traditionally accomplished with pen and pencil with animation and color, audio and video, in more depth and complexity than ever before. If school teachers and educational professionals are able to capitalize on the quantity and quality of applications that have made it into the learning environment then the students of today's schools may experience interactive education that is much more relevant to their learning styles.

There perhaps is no device more prevalent that plays a more active role in the lives of youth than cell phones. When we develop the capability and capacity to utilize mobile solutions, students will be able to download assignments, research related documents, explore teacher-created podcasts and galleries, contribute to an expansive knowledge base, retreive feedback and evaluative (formative) data from teachers, and collaborate in a real-time learning environment 24/7. Now we just need to get America's teachers to do the same.

This is in my opinion the new curve and cutting edge of teaching and learning for the 21st century and our schools must explore the revolution that emerging technologies are creating for young learners. If we fail to embrace cost effective and efficient ways to deliver enhanced curriculum and participative educational engagement to our youth then we may just fail ourselves in this new technological century of global possibilities.

Reflections on the Challenges Ahead for Our Public Schools

2010-01-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

The state of New Jersey and all of the associated municipalities are experiencing unprecedented budget reductions due to declining revenue streams. There is a relatively uncertain picture of how these budget shortfalls will affect school districts in the second half of the 2009-2010 school year. In fact, rumors are circulating that the state may not fully fund the financial obligations it committed to the current school budget-this is not good news. This uncertainty causes us to take action at this time to curtail spending at each of our schools, in the district, and at the operational level as well. As superintendent, I accept the responsibility to lead our small district through a period of uncertainty and instability due primarily to the financial squeeze all of us are facing these days.

Due to severe budgetary constraints and depleting funding sources we are curtailing spending wherever possible. All of our cost centers at each of our schools have been instructed to hold back on purchases and to exercise extreme restraint at this time. Most travel and staff development activities outside of the district have been reduced. Certain travel relating to grants or awards will be carefully reviewed and considered at the discretion of the administration in future months. We are doing everything possible to do as much as possible with less spending.

One area we cannot cut back on is to supply heat, electricity, water, and the necessary services to maintain clean and safe school buildings. We have an aggressive energy management plan that allows us to maximize energy efficiency at each of our aging buildings and permits us to set back the heat after school hours and at night. We also purchase our fuel oil on bid and lock in preferred pricing for several months. These measures have allowed us to stretch our dollars considerably this winter. Of course, we are in a reactive position when it comes to snow plowing and ice removal and will continue to do whatever it takes to keep ahead of the harsh weather that has come our way.

These difficult economic times will test our ability to continuously deliver a high level of educational services to our children and community. We ask that all of our parents and school personnel consider and understand the scope and magnitude of the challenges we face as we move into the next school year. It is our desire to work with all stakeholders in the community to preserve quality educational programs including student activities, arts and athletics for all of our district students.

Our staff continues to do an outstanding job of instruction in order to meet the needs of the children we serve and I am extremely proud of them. Your children are receiving the attention they deserve from our teachers during these challenging economic times and our public schools are one place that children can depend upon for stability and consistency in their young lives.

As we learn more from the state and federal government about the status of public school funding we will attempt to keep the lines of communication open in order for you to be informed. Thank you for your understanding to the above.

High Quality of Public Education in New Jersey

2009-12-14T08:09:00.001-08:00

The residents of the great state of New Jersey have invested in a high quality public school structure for the youth of this state. Each locality maintains local control over the system of local public schools under a larger umbrella of state oversight. The collaboration of both state and local educational officials in defining learning expectations for all students has resulted in some very good news for pubic schools in New Jersey. By extension, all children enrolled in Hopatcong Public Schools benefit from the very high expectations and teacher preparation that serve as the foundation of our public schools. In turn, the schools in Hopatcong Borough are very proud of the contribution we make to the overall success for students in our state.

Here are some of the things that residents have an investment in and have reason to be proud:

• Writing scores are the best in the nation (National Center for Education Statistics)
• Math scores are among the nation’s best (NCES)
• Reading scores are in the top of the nation (NCES)
• Public school students outperform private schools in AP testing (College Board)
• High school graduation rate ranks number one nationally (Education Week)
• Students are near the top for college preparation (National Center for Public Policy)
• New Jersey is among the “Smartest States” based on the quality of public schools (Education State Rankings 2007-2008)
• Leading the nation in the number of children attending preschool (Education Week)
• Leads the nation in reducing the achievement gap (NCES)

With over 2,500 schools in the state and close to 600 school districts the efforts of our teachers and administrative leaders clearly has a high payback. Over 1.3 million children attend our schools each day for 180 days. The investment that New Jersey makes each year to support public education is indicative of the effort needed to sustain and continue providing a strong foundation for the children and youth who live here.

As superintendent of Hopatcong Public School and member of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), I oversee the education of about 2,200 of New Jersey’s young people from pre-K through high school. The success of our schools is due largely to the commitment of local citizens and authorities. We have dedicated and committed teachers and educators who are highly motivated to provide quality instruction for all children. Hopatcong continues to set high goals and expectations for our schools and we are constantly receiving positive feedback on our efforts.

I received a call from the NJEA Classroom Close-Up project informing us that a television crew would be visiting Tulsa Trail Elementary School on January 27, 2010 to film a segment in one of our award-winning classrooms. Danielle Kovach, our $10,000 classroom makeover winner and her class will be the focus of this effort. Principal Jeff Nesnay expressed pride and commented on how well deserved this recognition is for the school and community.

Not all recognition is this highly visible. Principal Tracey Hensz of the Hudson-Maxim Elementary School forwarded a letter she received from a happy parent. She attended a musical event at the school and said the following: “I would like to take a moment to express how wonderful this event was. I thought all of the children did such a lovely job with learning all of the songs and delivering them to us the audience loud and proud. I would also like to say how impressive it was to see how well all of the faculty interact with the children.”

There are countless examples of the positive connections our schools make with the community of Hopatcong. Two weeks ago my wife and I attended the high school drama club production of “The Three Muskateers” and were thrilled with the quality of the overall performances. The students of our schools are under the mentorship of excellent adult role-models and master teachers in all disciplines.

Our students are fortunate to attend school in a place where education is highly regarded and the achievement bar is set so high. The four “A’s” of education are each valued and attended to in Hopatcong: Academics, Arts, Activities, and Athletics, and our young clients-the future citizens of an expanding global society-are the beneficiaries of this enormous effort to bring world-class educational experiences to our children. The AASA and NJASA support our efforts to teach the “Whole Child” not only the cognitive skills needed but the rich experiences all youth need to thrive in a democratic society. These accomplishments in New Jersey and nationwide serve as a source of pride and prove that a continued investment of funding and energy for public education has a real and measurable payoff.

Another Reason to Celebrate Youth in Hopatcong, New Jersey

2009-11-23T04:56:00.001-08:00

As a school superintendent I am asked to do many things during the week and occasionally on weekends. Recently my wife and I were invited to the annual Hopatcong Warriors annual awards dinner along with our mayor and her husband. The Hopatcong Warriors is a town sponsored football and cheerleading football program for elementary and middle school youngsters in our community. It is an organization that has been serving the needs of our youth for many decades and is indicative of the deep support that the families in this town place upon the young people who live here.

Being a new superintendent here in Hopatcong, New Jersey, means that I have a lot of learning to do and first impressions speak volumes. To say I was favorably impressed with the event is clearly an understatement. I was overwhelmed by the awards banquet and the number of children and young people honored at this event. The outpouring of parent and community support for this program was nothing short of amazing. For approximately four hours the guests and parents in attendance were treated to testimonials from coaches and assistant coaches, executive board members, volunteers, and others regarding the accomplishments of individual children throughout the current season.

President Dan Titus and his wife Debbie were gracious hosts and thirty-year contributor John Young (also a member of the Borough Town Council) was honored for his three decades of dedication as a Warriors volunteer. Clearly, the reward for all of the hard work that drives such a successful organization is total selflessness-everyone connected to the program stated a common philosophy and motivation for contributing: building value in our youth. This is exactly what we are attempting to accomplish in Hopatcong’s public schools and to witness the efforts of the community to parallel our efforts was thrilling for this superintendent.

Athletics has a prominent place in and out of our schools in the critical development of values and character in our youth. It is part of a balanced equation that includes the Arts, Activities and Academics: what we refer to as the Four A’s of Education. Many of the speakers at the Warrior’s banquet eluded to the growth and successes of the participants this season-not in terms of wins or losses but in terms of developmental maturation. Simply stated, the youth gained in many ways from their participation: persistence, trust, hard-work, character growth, dependability, respect for others, fortitude, decision-making, teamwork, etc., and the list goes on and on.

The collective efforts of parents involved in the Warriors program is clearly indicative of an investment this community makes in its young people. The payback is enormous: Human Capital. The community, by supporting such vigorous programs for the young people, is investing in the very future of Hopatcong and by extension the future of American society itself.

As superintendent of schools I am compelled to articulate a theme that we appropriately began to use this year: “CELEBRATE WHAT’S RIGHT WITH HOPATCONG.” I can think of no greater example of what connects the schools to the community than the programs Hopatcong has in place for the young people in our town. The people here in Hopatcong are the driving force in this effort to invest all their energy into the success of the children. I can assure them that the same level of energy and commitment is present in our schools throughout the school year. Together we form a bond of support when it comes to what Hopatcong Borough values most: our children.

Storm Clouds Gather for Public Education Funding

2009-11-05T04:35:00.001-08:00

On the heels of recent state elections in New Jersey and across the country looms a dark shadow of things to come and the news is far from good for public education. The federal effort to stem the tide of declining state revenues by inserting $787 billion into the economy of which $100 billion was targeted for education nationwide appears to be unwinding. As public schools turn their attention to the next annual budgeting process it becomes apparent that state governments are unable or incapable of replacing the funding gaps they created when accepting federal stimulus dollars and subsequently removing state contributions.

What was intended as a gesture of good will on behalf of the federal government by committing the unprecedented $100 billion toward education for the creation of new jobs and programs ended up merely plugging the holes created when state governments withdrew funding for education budgets as fast as federal dollars flowed. According to the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), based in Arlington, Virginia, the stimulus aid fell short in preventing educational staffing cuts and operational declines nationwide. In an attempt to avoid teacher layoffs many school districts cut administrative and support staff. The problem for the next budget cycle may manifest itself in the form of increased teacher layoffs and swelling class sizes for many districts across the country.

According to a recent study conducted by AASA one-third of the responding school districts reported they were unable to avert cuts to core teaching jobs. The percentage of districts surveyed report a six fold increase from 6 percent to 34 percent in increased class size. This is a good indicator of things to come as an almost perfect storm is created when the stimulus funds disappear and the revenue streams of state budgets continue to decline nationwide. Over forty percent of states report mid-year budget gaps presently and it is expected that most if not all will continue to experience declining revenue sources in 2010-2011.

If most state governments had not backed off on their own commitment to public educational funding when stimulus funding became available schools might be able to weather this storm. But many school business administrators across the nation are bracing for deep cuts from state sources as reports of declining commitments to public education are becoming apparent. At the same time additional federal dollars dedicated to disadvantaged students from Title I and the Individual with Disabilities Education Act will also shrink this coming year.

Schools will not feel the effects of this perfect storm until they enter the 2010-2011 budget planning cycle. Chief School Administrators will be confronted with serious and difficult decisions about what staff to cut and programs to end. The resulting erosion to a system of pubic education already under widespread attack from federal and state politicians may not easily recover from the ensuing damage that will be inflicted upon them.

As a practicing school superintendent in Hopatcong, New Jersey, it is apparent that we must protect every program that benefits our children. This includes the rich experiences that children and adolescents receive from core academics, school activities, fine and performing arts, and athletic participation. We cannot fail to educate all of our children and respond to all of their specific talents, interests and needs. Further, we must not fail to maintain and keep safe our buildings, grounds, and critical infrastructure. The choices we will be forced to make next year may be the most overwhelming in decades.

The system for funding public education is broken not the system of public education itself, as political forces would have us believe. At a time when schools across this fine country are responding to the increased call for educating a 21st century globally articulate workforce, the political winds are pushing us far from the anticipated direction educators know we need to take. America’s competitive and collaborative edge in this new world order is at risk, severe risk.

The local taxpayer continues to shoulder the costs for providing communities with a quality system of schools, but cannot tolerate much more of a burden as state and federal officials pull funding commitments back to inadequate levels. This raises the same questions that New Jersey lawmakers attempted to resolve almost thirty years ago concerning the adequacy and equity of educational funding in a far-reaching legal case of Abbott v. Burke (New Jersey, 1981 filing).

The quality of public education continues to rely on the local community’s ability and willingness to pay putting economically and resource starved areas in New Jersey (and other states) at risk. Until the economy strengthens and taxpayers begin to climb out of a deep recession many schools will be asked to continue to deliver services to children with less of a financial commitment.

I have deep concerns over the expectations for future school budgets given the tension that these difficult economic times have created. The acronym NCBL (No Child Left Behind) may just become No Country Left Behind, as the federal and state budget shortfalls further erode the quality of public education in America. We are near a tipping point and next year may be the most challenging ever for our schools and the nation’s educators.

Should Schools Deliver H1N1 Vaccinations?

2009-10-15T04:49:00.001-07:00

As state departments of health begin to unroll plans for the mass vaccination of children schools are now requested to assist with these large scale efforts. With very little information or knowledge regarding the implications of administering vaccines school superintendents are placed in a difficult leadership position. Do we agree to use public schools as conduits for widespread delivery of the N1H1 vaccination or do we proceed with caution and possibly remove our schools from this process given certain unknown risk factors for children?
As a school superintendent I accept the responsibility for the critical role that we play in providing for the health, safety, and welfare of children. On the surface, vaccinating children appears to be a move in the right direction regarding the health and safety of school-age children. But on balance the wholesale endorsement of providing schools as the vehicle for the delivery of vaccinations is filled with unanswered questions and perhaps even difficult ethical choices.
Schools are being directed to complete interest surveys at present with the assumption that we are the logical institutions for the efficient delivery of mass vaccinations for children. Prior to signing on to this effort it may be prudent for us to consider the unintended consequences of placing the imprimatur of the schools on this unprecedented effort. The risks appear to be minimal but many consequences may need to be considered prior to participating in the delivery of vaccinations.
Even if a school only provides a place and time for vaccination of children the perception is that the school approves and by extension endorses the vaccination. Having the imprint of the school is powerful psychologically as parents or guardians may feel a subtle pressure to have their child included. The fact that it is endorsed by school officials is a powerful psychological one and may persuade many uninformed guardians of children to sign on to the process.
The vaccine is designed for “healthy children ages 2 – 18” according to the Center for Disease Control. What parameters define a seemingly “healthy” child? Public schools experience tremendous variation in physical disabilities in their school populations. It is assumed that children with identified or pre-existing health conditions would likely be excluded. But what of young children with yet-to-be-identified developmental health conditions? The under-identified population of children with bronchial or other health related conditions are a large concern for us in public education. We currently struggle to provide health-related services to an increasing number of children with specific acute needs and the implications of administering relatively untested vaccinations across a wide spectrum of young children is a chilling prospect.
Parental notification and ensuing permission has not been addressed. How and what do we communicate regarding a mass inoculation in public schools? Does this form of communication originate with school officials (who are not experts in disease control and mitigation) and what advice to we provide to parents? Do permission forms that a school may distribute to parents pass legal muster? Who assumes the responsibility for any vaccination that may prove faulty or even lethal to a young child?
From a logistical perspective it may not be ideal for vaccinations to be administered during the school day or even in a school setting for very young children. The negative psychological results can place fear in a child regarding the vaccination and children receiving such vaccinations may present illness or sickness associated with a vaccination. A degree of Mass Sociogenic Illness (MSI) can be attributed by extension to the receipt of the vaccination. This is a social phenomenon patients experience when they believe they have been exposed to a virus and may experience symptoms triggered by a psychological response.
Of the entire spectrum of children present in public schools do we administer these vaccinations to our pre-school populations? The vaccine is supposed to be made available to children as young as two. Who makes this judgment call on behalf of the state government? What assurances are in place that guarantee the supply of vaccinations are entirely safe for very young children?
The argument for public schools in the mass vaccination of children presents many challenges for administrators who want to be good sheppards of the public trust. Yet the ethical decision to allow schools to participate is filled with emotional and behavioral challenges. I suggest a cautious approach to the endorsement of schools in the process for mass vaccination of children and recognize that public schools have much at stake in sharing the risks associated with this public safety effort. These type of decisions are not easy for school leaders and more support is needed from health experts before we proceed. What do you think?

Negative Consequences of National Educational Standardization

2009-10-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

The push is on by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governor's Assoication Center for Best Practices to develop a set of common academic standards for America's public schools. The new version details expectations of what students should know and be able to do by the end of high school in math and language arts. All this in an effort to define guidelines for determining college and career readiness. A total of forty-eight states are attached to the effort to develop common core standards in response to the fragmented patchwork of separate state standards in use today. All this effort to quantify what students need to know by the time they graduate high school has been in the making for over fifty years now. We need to be cautious about the unintended consequences of the efforts of government officials to decide what it is that represents the best educational practices in our schools and which standardized tests measure adequate student achievement.

A standardized test is any test that is administered, scored, and interpreted in a standard, predetermined manner(W. James Popham). Such tests are designed to make predictions about how a test taker will perform in a subsequent setting (post-secondary, community college, university, etc.). The ACT and SAT tests are typically used to predict the grades that high school students may earn at the post-secondary level. These tests were never meant to compare results across cohort groups of students nor measure intelligence across various demographic groups.

According to Popham, in an effort to boost student's state standardized test scores many teachers are forced to jettison curricular content not apt to be covered on an upcoming test. As a result, students may end up educationally shortchanged. I ask what about the value of arts education: drama, vocal music, band, jazz ensemble, strings, visual arts, physical education, dance, movement education? Are not these subjects a vital part of the curriculum as well as the core content standards? How about the activities such as student government and extracurricular clubs that serve to engage students in America's schools? Popham refers to the narrowing of curriculum as "Curricular Reductionism", it is becoming more and more like "Curriculum Destructionism".

Popham goes on to state that because it is essentially impossible to raise students' test scores on instructionally insensitive tests, many schools and teachers require seemingly endless practice with items similar to those on an approaching accountability test. This dreary drilling often stamps out any genuine joy students might experience while they learn. Is this the purpose for education? These negative consequences of standardization and standardized tests as measuring tools make it apparent that we are on a path driven by invalid evaluations and misleading consequences about the worth and value of American education. Beyond that, such reliance on standardized tests can dramatically lower the quality of education overall.

To be ready for college and post-secondary career readiness today's students need a more flexible mastery of the fundamentals in each academic discipline. To be ready for the next phase of life, students will also need to be able to apply their content knowledge to new and even unexpected situations throughout their years as graduates in the workforce. For years American industry has been demanding that schools produce thinkers: young workers capable of problem-solving and decision-making, literate, cooperative and collaborative, and loyal to the company ethics and task at hand. Yet public education has been subjected to an unprecedented mountain of state and federal regulations and testing designed to satisfy the political hungar for quantitative data associated with comparitive reductionist interests.

So how does all this benefit our children? Short answer-it does not benefit children. However, since delicate and fragile funding sources are at risk in this era of standardization and standardized tests, schools are forced to embrace standardized testing and the now apparent proposed common academic standards in the name of school reform. We need to weigh carefully the balance any school district must strike between towing the line and producing higher test results with the interests of what the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development calls the "Whole Child" so we do not loose sight of the reason schools exist in the fist place: for children. What do you think?
Posted by Charles Maranzano, Jr. at 4:00 PM

Teaching for Content and Skills: A 21st Century Perspective

2009-07-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

Please allow me to share an important perspective that presents the issue of teaching for content and skills in a clear educational context.

A relevant article appeared in Education Week on April 22, 2009, authored by Richard H. Hersh, on the topic of teaching for content and skills. I would like all of us to reflect on his views and consider several conclusions based upon the thoughtful insight Hersh proposes:

Recent work in developmental, cognitive, and brain-based learning research makes it clear that this is not about content or skills, but content and skills. Learning involves constructing meaning, not just knowing about things; it is about being able to apply what one knows to novel situations. In a knowledge-rich world, being able to access, structure, and use content is crucial. What the New York Times writer Thomas L. Friedman calls a "Flat World"-the global leveling of opportunities resulting from the ways people, in his words, "plug, play, compete, connect, and collaborate with more equal power than ever before"-requires all of the knowledge, intellectual horsepower, rigor, and deep thinking we have traditionally associated with the best of education.

Instant access to 21st-century information technology does not absolve us of the need to master appropriate content. But equally necessary is the ability to connect disparate dots across virtually infinite information-to think critically, apply knowledge, solve problems, and write and speak well (thinking made public). And thus those arguing for teaching "21st-century skills" are also on very solid ground. The debate is not just about the ends of education but, equally important, its means - curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment-and where the emphasis on content and skill acquisition and its measurement ought to be placed, given limited time and resources.

Focusing solely on content learning is not sufficient, because there is ample evidence that content acquisition does not automatically translate into application of knowledge, problem-solving, or critical thinking. And focusing solely on teaching thinking skills devoid of content, as some critics worry, is a vacuous exercise.

Hersh continues: We must move beyond the flawed content-vs.-skills argument and the equally harmful effects of the reductionist learning objectives and assessment measures states have developed in response to the No Child Left Behind Act. We need to focus instead on tightly coupling the high expectations and standards, rich curricula, and pedagogy, and equally rich and appropriate learning assessment. These cannot be treated separately, for the research on effective schools clearly demonstrates that it is the cumulative effects of such coupling that promote significantly greater and better learning.

If teaching for 21st-century content and skills is our objective, what are the consequences of our not getting these linkages right?

I emphatically agree with Hersh. What do you think about this important matter? How does it shape the way you think, teach, or lead? Are there real consequences for not making these connections? Absolutely! I believe that we cannot dispense with either argument but must assimilate the two traditional positions on content vs. skills into one, not treat them separately.

For me, the debate about (content vs. skills) or (content and skills) brings to my mind a profound and beautifully conclusion written in a poem by Robert Frost ("Two Tramps in Mud Time") that with a little stretch of the imagination puts this into perspective for me:

"But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done."
For Heaven and the future's sakes"

It's all about the future as far as our children are concerned. Educators need to get this right and be thoroughly prepared for teaching both content and skills.

I have enjoyed sharing some of my educational insights with all of you. As I leave my position as Superintendent of Schools for Dinwiddie County in August, I will be posting my thoughts on other websights. In September I will begin a new position as Superintendent of Schools for Hopatcong Borough, New Jersey.

Thank you all for following and reflecting on these pages and for your feedback over the years.

Dr. Maranzano

Federal School Food and Nutrition Costs Rise

2009-06-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

The 2009 data from the United States Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) indicate that demand for school lunches nationwide have reached an all time high. The federal government has been involved in the National School Lunch Program since the 1946-47 school year. Since the humble beginning of this program to present day, over 30.5 million children now are fed in America’s schools with over 101,000 of our nation’s schools participating in the subsidized federal program. Since the modern program began, more than 214 billion lunches have been served. Dinwiddie County Public Schools, Virginia, all participate in the federal program and we serve about 750,000 meals per year.

Public or nonprofit private schools of high school grade or under and public or nonprofit private residential child care institutions may participate in the school lunch program. School districts and independent schools that choose to take part in the lunch program get cash subsidies and donated commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for each meal they serve. In return, they must serve lunches that meet Federal requirements, and they must offer free or reduced price lunches to eligible children. School food authorities can also be reimbursed for snacks served to children through age 18 in afterschool educational or enrichment programs.

Any child at a participating school may purchase a meal through the National School Lunch Program. Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level are eligible for reduced-price meals, for which students can be charged no more than 40 cents. (For the period July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009, 130 percent of the poverty level is $27,560 for a family of four; 185 percent is $39,220.) Children from families with incomes over 185 percent of poverty pay a full price, though their meals are still subsidized to some extent. Local school food authorities set their own prices for full-price (paid) meals, but must operate their meal services as non-profit programs

Most of the support USDA provides to schools in the National School Lunch Program comes in the form of a cash reimbursement for each meal served. The current (July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009) basic cash reimbursement rates if school food authorities served less than 60% free and reduced price lunches during the second preceding school year are:

Free lunches: $2.57
Reduced-price lunches: $2.17
Paid lunches: $0.24

In addition to cash reimbursements, schools are entitled by law to receive commodity foods, called "entitlement" foods, at a value of 20.75 cents for each meal served in Fiscal Year 2008-2009. Schools can also get "bonus" commodities as they are available from surplus agricultural stocks. Through Team Nutrition USDA provides schools with technical training and assistance to help school food service staffs prepare healthful meals, and with nutrition education to help children understand the link between diet and health.

The average cost to produce a typical school lunch is $ 2.92 per meal. With the maximum federal reimbursement at $ 2.57 per meal, the average difference is $ -0.35per meal. This is a real problem for school lunch program participants as the cost difference must be made up at the local school district level. Additional variables drive the production cost of meals higher including the increasing costs of goods, labor, health insurance and benefits for employees, and ever-rising energy expenses. These factors typically drive the percentage of doing business higher than the potential revenue stream.

Many school divisions have been forced to raise the cost of a breakfast or lunch item over the past few years in an attempt to operate at the required not-for-profit level. In Dinwiddie County we have increased the cost of a breakfast meal from $ 1.10 to $ 1.25 and a lunch from $ 1.85 to $ 2.00 for the 2009-10 school year. The costs for eligible students under the federal guidelines will be underwritten as in the past. Students who meet the criteria will continue to receive free or reduced priced meals accordingly. Please do not forget that in Virginia, as in many states, the school cafeteria accounts are separate from the regular school budget. This means that the cafeteria services need to operate at or near a profit and must not operate at a loss. The cafeteria is a self-sustaining business operation by law and can be viewed as separate and apart from the regular school budget.

The challenges for public schools are increasing as more demands are placed upon us to provide basic services for children. We embrace the dual role of providers and educators for the youth of America. The state and federal government must recognize the ever-increasing costs of educating children in modern-day society and begin to play a more significant role in the development of resources and increased funding for public education. Absent the adequate support of all three partners (federal, state, and local) we will be hard-pressed to continue delivering essential services and providing for the basic needs of the children who enter our public schools.

Reflections on Home-Schooling in America

2009-05-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

According to the U. S. Department of Education an estimated 2.9% or 1.5 million children in the United States are home-schooled. This number is up from 1.7% about a decade ago in 1999. The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has changed from 49% boys and 51% girls in 1999 to 42% boys and 58% girls. Home-schooling is predominantly selected by higher-income families with 60% earning more than $50,000 per year. In Virginia, the number of home-schooled children jumped 9% statewide in one year. Notably the number of white families choosing to home school nationwide has doubled in the past decade and the number of college-educated parents home-schooling is up from 4.9% to 6.8%.

The reasons parents choose this course of action are varied: 36% say their decision was to provide “religious or moral” instruction; 21% cited school environment and culture; and only 17% cited “dissatisfaction with academic instruction.” Let’s explore these in more detail.

First, the religious basis for home-schooled choice: The religious foundation of our country that served as a basis for public instruction a century ago is well documented. The religious limits concerning contemporary public school education are also well documented. This basis has been clearly redefined by the judicial branch of the federal government. The Supreme Court of the United States established a “wall” of separation concerning church vs. state teachings in public schools dating back to the 1950’s and this guidance has served as the basis for the past sixty years of litigation and hence public school curricular development. Therefore, Parents who want their children to benefit from an education that favors a particular religious perspective have two choices: send their children to parochial/private schools or teach them at home. We cannot fulfill a religious function in the public arena to the extent that many parents would like for their children. Our ever-increasing diverse and forward-thinking society is required to tolerate extremes in lifestyles, freedom of expression and personal choices never thought imaginable just a few decades ago. These values often run contrary to specific religious beliefs.

Second: School environment and the culture of our schools is a direct reflection of societal attitudes in the community and strongly correlated to the norms of that community. The total investment in school facilities and the resources utilized in public schools is directly related to the the conditions in the locality supporting the schools. Two decades of litigation in a dozen states concerning school funding formulas involving “adequacy and equity” formulas have failed to change this over time. Therefore, the ability and willingness of a community to invest in its public schools connects to how the community values its core mission to provide a free and appropriate education for all. According to Fuller’s “Savage Inequalities” the disparities in capital investments in public education are extreme and much in need of attention nationwide. In resource-starved communities where schools are less than desirable places for children to be all day long, the home-schooled option seems obvious. This also may explain why so many charter schools have blossomed across the country. Finally, the heterogeneous clientele present in American schools is problematic for some families who prefer a much more homogeneous environment for their children, so the 21% who said environment was a factor in their decision is understandable.

Third: Academic instruction is the area that 17% of parents cited as reasons for home-schooling. While I can accept this rationale on the surface due to the fact that many parents want their child to be challenged and pushed to higher limits, many feel they can do it better and more effectively at home rather than the institutional model for schools and current standards established state-to-state. However, research does not support the fact that home-schooling produces any better results than public schools. While home-schooled children hold their own on standardized tests for intelligence, they are not socialized to the extent that children exposed to diverse learning styles are in public schools. The need for American children to compete internationally in many different arenas over the next century speaks volumes for the need to teach our young tolerance and respect for individual and cultural differences. The shelter of a home-schooled environment protects certain children from exposure to other children who may contribute varied perspectives in the learning environment and this may be detrimental in the long run to the home-schooled child.

Perhaps most compelling reason why public schools contribute to the well-rounded development of young people is the learning that is offered by specialists in public schools. By the time a child graduates from a public high school he/she will have had as many as sixty to seventy different teachers. These professionals will present children with positive models of effective teaching and learning that can only benefit children and young adults as they formulate opinions about their own education. How many parents are prepared to teach advanced subject matter such as Chemistry, Biology, AP Calculus or have the advanced equipment at their disposal to conduct scientific or mathematical research? Let us not also discount the variety of subjects and experiences that occur outside of the four walls of the classroom such as activities, athletics, and the arts, and the rich experiences children learn through collaborating with others in public schools.

We who serve in public education respect the choice that parents make regarding their preferences for home-schooling here in Virginia and nationwide. Parents who choose this path feel that they can provide a targeted and specific education for their children and have total control over the content and form of teaching and learning. If the resources are in place to deliver rigorous educational exposure and the parent is prepared to accept the full responsibility for a comprehensive curricular experience then we are compelled to approve of this approach.

In conclusion, I said this to Jay Scarborough of the Petersburg Progress-Index in May of 2009, “We are preparing children today for a global experience tomorrow. Children have to be flexible and adaptable and they’ve got to be ready to modulate and function in a world without borders. What public education does well is bring disparate, socio-economically deprived children into the same classroom as privileged children and educate them and prepare them for a role in the world.” Let us not forget the role America’s public schools played in creating the great democracy we live in today. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. The challenge will be to adjust and change to meet the technological challenges that the new century presents for us in order to produce the creative, intelligent, and thoughtful future citizens America deserves.

The Role of Educational Influence and AASA in American Policy

2009-05-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

As chair of the Region I Superintendents in Richmond, Virginia, I am privileged to serve with several of my colleagues on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents(VASS). As a member of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) my fellow superintendents and I have become increasingly more active in political advocacy for education and for all of the American children we serve in our great country. AASA has clearly led the effort to step up this level of advocacy at the national level of government.

The Executive Director of AASA, Dan Domenech, met with the VASS executive board and membership in Roanoke, Virginia this morning May 6, 2009. Dan is a well-rounded educator (formerly superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia) who clearly sees the “big picture” and is an outspoken leader committed to promoting the influence of AASA in educational decision making at the highest federal levels of government. I applaud Dan’s efforts to collaborate with the United States Department of Education and with the Obama administration in Washington, D.C., for embracing AASA.

For far too many years educators have been excluded in policy decisions at the highest levels of our government. The period of the past eight years have been very difficult for public education as critics of American schools appeared to have the upper hand in Washington, D.C., and the voices of the professional organizations representing education purposefully excluded from any substantive discussion (AASA, ASCD, NASSP, NAESP, NSBA, NEA, to name just a few). That day has past.

Dan Domenech reaffirmed this concept today in his remarks to the leadership of the Virginia Superintendents. Dan announced that AASA has a prominent place “at the table” since President Obama took office, and shared with us how this began to take shape during Obama’s transition to the presidency. Dan suggested that the shift in political power in Washington has opened a new era for educational policy in this nation. Most encouragingly, Dan confirmed that the Obama administration was actively listening and engaged with AASA as future educational policy decisions are being formulated in our capitol.

This is very god news for professional educators across America and a huge shift from the former administration. The federal government is increasingly moving forward to be a key player in educational decision making, an area that is relatively new in the history of this country. Absent any federal role as defined by our federal constitution, the power to establish and regulate educational policy has been left to the states. With a renewed interest in globalization and international standards, we can expect the federal government to step up its role in the formulation of standards for American education.

It is imperative that AASA and parallel organizations representing the educational community be present for these important policy discussions. Dan Domenech affirmed that President Obama’s administration is committed to pursuing the broad educational objectives defined during the political campaign in 2008 and is now in the process of engaging our professional organizations in conceptualizing a new direction for American education.

The challenges are formidable for all of us in education. While critics at the national level like to place blame on the educational system for a perceived failure to perform, what they lack is a thorough understanding of the dynamics of American education and all we are attempting to accomplish. International comparisons are valuable, as they continue to remind us that expectations must be raised and the stakes are extremely high in a global age of collaboration and cooperation. But international comparisons are not quite what they appear to be as many countries are clearly not as diverse as America nor committed to educating 100% of their children. This is particularly true in India and China, two countries we are constantly compared to.

In fact, many countries have homogeneous populations or implement tiered and exclusionary approach to moving students along an educational continuum, rendering statistical comparisons less than valid or reliable. So what does this mean? What is important for us to do in America is to strive for the best system of public education and promote what is in the best interest of all our children. Dan Domenech said it best today when he reminded us that we did not become the world power America is today with less than adequate public education. The real challenge for us is to articulate what works in American education and what we still need to do to improve the system for the enormous diversity that exists in the American school population.

Finally, the measures of success for educating a populace must not be limited to a snapshot or single standardized test (my own thoughts) but a true “motion picture” of how we are teaching young people to think, assess, analyze and act about the world they will occupy in future years. The correlation between poverty and academic achievement is so powerful that this is the single most important challenge for us in American culture at this moment. It will take strong educational leaders to mitigate the effects of socio-economic depravation on the children we serve, but we are up to this task. This is why educational “influence” is so important at the highest levels of American government now and in future years.

We as educators are capable of solving any of the challenges we embrace now and in the future, and these solutions will require an unprecedented amount of stakeholder input and discussion at every level of government. Reforms begin at home in local communities and are realized at the state and federal levels once we all speak from the same page and establish common understandings about what America’s schools are accomplishing and want to accomplish in future years. This is exactly what professional educators are trying to do at this moment to effect the necessary changes in policy and influence at all levels of government. I am proud of the unified voice AASA brings to state superintendents and proud of the work the Virginia superintendents have accomplished to articulate the need for progress and reforms in a new era of internationalization. Let’s be glad that President Obama is listening and committed to our efforts for the good of all our children.

Pay-for-Performance in Public Schools

2009-04-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

A valued friend, Bob Holdsworth, publishes a blog called Virginia Tomorrow. Recently, I responded to one of Bob’s posts concerning pay-for-performance for public school teachers. My reaction to Bob’s post was clear and direct. I do not subscribe to nor agree to the concept that pay-for -performance is an effective strategy for public school educators. Bob published my remarks (with permission) and I would like to take the opportunity to address my comments in more detail.
A recent publication (Education Week, March 11, 2009) by Donald B. Gratz summarized the issue this way. “To believe that teachers will try harder if offered a financial incentive is to assume that they aren’t trying hard now, that they know what to do but simply aren’t doing it, and that they are motivated more by money than by their students’ needs. These are unlikely and unsupported conclusions, which teachers find insulting rather than motivating” (p.40). I couldn’t agree with Donald Gratz more. As I interact with and collaborate with the fine teachers we employ in the Dinwiddie County, VA, School Division, it is apparent that they are not here for the money. Rather, a profound dedication to children and young adults motivates each and every one of our teachers to do the best they possibly can, even in an era of increased accountability and shrinking resources.
The fact that a child in any school in America is required to take standardized tests does not give rise to the validity or reliability that such tests are predictors of student needs later in life. Nor are such tests indicative of the multi-faceted and profound influence of teaching on the social, emotional, physical and intellectual development of our youth. The purpose for schooling as it relates to our nation’s history according to Jefferson, Emerson, Dewey and other leaders is not limited to measurable cognitive knowledge. In fact, the broader purpose for school is to provide children with the skills, knowledge, and disposition to succeed as citizens, workers, and members of our democratic society. In 21st century terms we may need to reconsider what outcomes are valued. The four areas of skill most sought according to Grantz are: professionalism and work ethic; oral and written communications; teamwork and collaborating; and critical-thinking and problem solving. Do standardized test account for these qualities?
Return now to the concept of pay-for-performance for teachers. Since children at any point in their educational continuum have multiple teachers, to which specific teacher do we attribute any measurable gain the cognitive, social, developmental, emotional, artistic, or intellectual development of a child? What measurement will best determine when the child gained the skills or knowledge? Will this decision be based upon a single source test? What skill sets or specific knowledge do we value most? How about student growth? What about the role of good parenting in the development of the child?
I had a neighbor who was the CFO of a respected corporation and earned a very comfortable income. He could not wait to retire so he could fulfill his lifelong desire to teach math. When he did retire, he accepted a job at a middle school in Virginia. After two years he reported back to me that he never worked so hard, under such pressure, and with such limited support as he did in the teaching profession. Undoubtedly, he finally did retire with a profound respect for those who choose a career in teaching. Do teachers deserve higher pay? Absolutely! If we value teachers and the contribution they make to American society then we need to provide more value in their paychecks. But so many variables exist in the development of a child’s intellect, social and emotional growth that it will be impossible to attribute these to any one moment in time or to any one specific person. Let’s decide to invest in public schools as a whole, and not attempt to demoralize the teaching profession any further by instituting pay-for-performance until we understand what it is we are trying to measure and value in the first place.

AASA Study Confirms Impact of the Economic Downturn on Public Schools

2009-04-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

When it became apparent in 2008 that an economic downturn was upon us the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) took the lead in studying and analyzing the impact that changes in economic conditions would have upon school divisions nationwide. A study was conducted on the economic downturn that revealed measures were underway in most school divisions in response to shrinking budgets. The study also suggested that the economic downturn could threaten gains in student achievement and progress in narrowing the achievement gap and the capacity of schools to deliver essential services.
Two additional studies were conducted by AASA in December and in January 2009. These new surveys analyzed the potential impact of the continued economic downturn on schools nationwide. One of the revealing areas of interest was the fact that almost three-quarters of school leaders planned to eliminate jobs in the 2009-2010 school year. The reality that many schools would have to operate with fewer academic instructors, support staff and student services staff was a major concern.
The latest surveys indicate that the adjustments administrators made prior to the 2008-2009 school year were moderate when compared to the cuts schools are being forced to consider for the 2009-2010 school year. Some summary results are listed below:
• In the recent studies, 75 per cent of respondents described their districts as “inadequately funded”.
• A quarter indicated they were facing short-term borrowing to meet payroll and accounts payable, with two percent facing non-performance on bond repayment schedules and one percent facing insolvency.
• The top five “high priority” items were: classroom technology, school modernization, safety and security measures, connectivity, and professional development.
• The top five “priority” uses were: classroom equipment/supplies, software, supportive technology for students with needs, professional development, and textbooks.
• The top five “low priority” items were: health equipment, new career/technical programs, art education equipment, physical education equipment, and music education equipment.
Education represents a large share of the states’ general fund budgets. With state deficits expected to total more than $350 billion over the next two years, it will be very difficult for states to avoid damaging cuts to education as the recession continues. While the $100 billion included for education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act should help backfill some of the identified budget cuts, it is unlikely that the federal money will be enough to allow states and schools to completely reverse the proposed cuts in educational spending. The temptation for state governments and even local funding agencies to further reduce educational funding by using ARRA funds to bolster funding categories for other services (roads, building projects, social services, tax relief, etc.) presents a daunting challenge for school districts depending upon additional funding to survive the economic downturn.
All local school divisions must continue to articulate their needs to the local and state funding authorities in order to survive the immediate impact of reduced funding for the next fiscal year or two. The real challenge may be to plan for the 2010-2011 budget cycle that may be absent any additional federal stimulus funding and necessitate even deeper cuts to local school budgets. The immediate future for public educational funding will be at best difficult times for public education. Let’s hope we can avoid a catastrophic event for the sake of the children we serve.

Arts Position Statement

2009-03-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from a speech to regional school board members in Virginia, March 25, 2009

I would like to address the fine and performing arts in public schools from two perspectives: one is the threat of tough budget times that the arts must endure, and the other is the hope that the arts will soon realize an elevated sense of purpose in future years. This is a topic very dear to me and I am glad to share it with you.

As expected in these difficult budget times, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that a significant portion of the economic stimulus package is heading to public schools. The bad news for many school districts is that any funds they receive are likely to provide only a portion of what is needed to avoid budget cuts. These are challenging times when difficult decisions must be made about how to best allocate resources.

As educators, parents, community leaders, and policymakers, we must look through the eyes of our children as we weigh each decision before us. The temptation to cut entire programs as an expedient way to realize savings within our budgets and must be avoided at all costs. This is no easy task as many valuable programs like the arts considered extensions of the core academic focus are at risk, especially programs like the visual arts, instrumental and choral music, drama, and even physical education.

The wonderful art display all of us had the opportunity to view is representative of thousands of pieces of student work created and submitted by your school districts. During the month of March hundreds of individual pieces of art are on display throughout Virginia including Dinwiddie County in banks, business, schools, and our government center in honor of Arts Education. The quality of student work is indicative of the creative streak that each of us as human beings inherently possesses. All that was required for this creativity to flow is the opportunity and encouragement from our teachers and mentors. Public schools nationwide play a vital role in the promotion of arts and aesthetic education and the arts are an important part of the human growth and development of our youth.

In Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind, the author describes a seismic shift under way in much of the advanced world we live in. Pink suggests that we are moving from an economy built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and society built on the inventive, empathetic, big-picture capabilities of what is rising in its place, what Pink calls the Conceptual Age.

He describes the six new senses of the Conceptual Age in this way: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. Pink says survival in the Conceptual Age will be contingent on our ability to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a meaningful narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new. The “Right-Brain” qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning, increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. The book offers hope to the power of the human mind in an age of conceptualization. But remember, this is nothing new.
The fine and performing arts have always played an integral part in the growth and development of the human intellect: across cultures, across continents, and across time itself. Art and music have been part of mankind from the very beginning. Since nomadic peoples first sang and danced in early rituals, since hunters first painted their quarry on the walls of caves, since parents first acted out the stories of heroes for their children, the arts have described, defined, and deepened human experience.

Across the bridge of time, all people of the world have demonstrated an abiding need for meaning in order to connect time, space, body and spirit, intellect and emotion. People have created art to make connections and construct personal meaning from life experiences, to explain the seemingly unexplainable phenomena in life, to express joy, wonder, gratitude, or sorrow. The arts are one of humanity's deepest rivers of continuity, serving as a link that connects each new generation with those that have gone before.

The arts are everywhere in our present day lives, adding depth and dimension to our environment. Music and art are a powerful economic force in the global economy of the 21st century, from the visual creativity of fashion, to the designs that comprise every manufactured product, to the richness of traditional and contemporary architecture, to the performance and entertainment art form that has grown into multi-billion dollar industries.

At another level, the arts are society's gift to itself, linking hope to memory, inspiring courage, enriching our celebrations, and making our tragedies bearable. The arts have touched every generation that ever lived upon this planet because they bring us face to face with ourselves, and with what we sense lies beyond ourselves.

Music and art are deeply embedded in our daily lives and are an inseparable part of the human journey. If civilization is to continue to be both dynamic and nurturing, its success will ultimately depend on how well we develop the intellectual capacities of our children and our children's children. All of our students deserve access to the rich education and understanding that only the arts can provide, regardless of their background, talents, or limitations.

In an increasingly technological environment, the ability to perceive, interpret, understand, reflect, and evaluate artistic and aesthetic forms of expression is critical. Perhaps most important, the arts have deep intrinsic value. They are worth learning for their own sake, providing benefits not available through any other means. Because the arts transcend the multi-dimensional aspects of reality, there can be no substitute for an education in the arts, which provides bridges to things we can scarcely describe but respond to on the deepest levels. In elemental terms, no educational experience is complete without them.

Please continue to value the arts by demonstrating the leadership to maintain and support arts education in each of your schools. This is a decision that has long-lasting implications for the quality of life in future generations, and a decision you will not regret now or in the coming years.

The Need for Fine and Performing Arts in Schools

2009-03-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

The fine and performing arts have always played an integral part in the growth and development of the human intellect: across cultures, across continents, and across time itself. Art and music have been part of mankind from the very beginning. Since nomadic peoples first sang and danced in early rituals, since hunters first painted their quarry on the walls of caves, since parents first acted out the stories of heroes for their children, the arts have described, defined, and deepened human experience.

Across the bridge of time, all people of the world have demonstrated an abiding need for meaning in order to connect time, space, body and spirit, intellect and emotion. People have created art to make connections and construct personal meaning from life experiences, to explain the seemingly unexplainable phenomena in life, to express joy, wonder, gratitude, or sorrow. The arts are one of humanity's deepest rivers of coninuity, serving as a link that connects each new generation with those that have gone before (National Standards for Arts Education, 1994).

The arts are everywhere in our present day lives, adding depth and dimension to our environment. Music and art are a powerful economic force in the global economy of the 21st century, from the visual creativity of fashion, to the designs that comprise every manufactured product, to the richness of traditional and contemporary architecture, to the performance and entertainment art form that has grown into multi-billion dollar industries.

At another level, the arts are society's gift to itself, linking hope to memory, inspiring courage, enriching our celebrations, and making our tragedies bearable. The arts have touched every generation that ever lived upon this planet because they bring us face to face with ourselves, and with what we sense lies beyond ourselves.

Music and art are deeply embedded in our daily lives and are an inseparable part of the human journey. If civilization is to continue to be both dynamic and nuturing, its success will ultimately depend on how well we develop the intellectual capacities of our children and our children's children. All of our students deserve access to the rich education and understanding that only the arts can provide, regardless of their background, talents, or limitations.

In an increasingly technological environment, the abililty to perceive, interpret, understand, reflect, and evaluate artistic and aesthetic forms of expression is critical. Perhaps most important, the arts have deep intrinsic value. They are worth learning for their own sake, providing benefits not available through any other means. Because the arts transcend the multi-dimensional aspects of reality, there can be no substitue for an education in the arts, which provides bridges to things we can scarcely describe but respond to on the deepest levels. In elemental terms, no educational experience is complete without them.

Please join me in every effort to support the fine and performing arts in America's public schools. Let's celbrate and acknowledge the talents and gifts that every child brings to our schools and give them a means to grow and develop intellectually. They will be better for it, and our society will be as well.

Technology Enhances Education in Dinwiddie County

2009-02-26T05:59:00.000-08:00

Dinwiddie County Public Schools has been recognized by the Southside Virginia Regional Technology Consortium as a state model for educational technology. In the fall of 2008 our School Division won the state SVRTC Technology Award. This credit belongs to the leadership of our technology team, led by Timothy Ampy and our educational technology staff for supporting technology on many different levels and for utilizing E-Rate funding to place Dinwiddie County Public Schools in an elite group of school divisions (Top 4% in Virginia). The most recent effort approved by the Board of Education is to advance Dinwiddie County's technology capability light years ahead by upgrading Dinwiddie Schools to fiber-optic cable to deliver our telecommunications needs (underwritten by state and federal financial resources). The shift to fiber-optic will enable us to run our internet and telecommunication systems with a Gigabit WAN system, or to put this in more simplistic terms our internet will not only increase capacity but will run over 600 times faster than the present T-1 lines that serve us can.

This is great news for our schools with over 2,200 computers and an aggressive on-line testing and instructional program. Computer speed has increased dramatically since the advent of the networks most school divisions have employed, and with web-based software accounting for most of the major functions of schools nationwide, the upgrade to fiber optic will enable schools to meet the demands of the new digital age. Our student information system is currently being upgraded to Infinite Campus, a product that is anticipated to be heavily used by both staff and parents on a daily basis. Faster internet connections will not only unclog some of the typical traffic jams encountered by all faculty and staff at peak usage times, but also provide teachers with more web-based teaching opportunities for students overall.

"This upgrade will allow for new and expanded curriculum technologies to be introduced and will enhance all of our programs K-12," said Christie Clarke, Coordinator of Instructional Technology. Every teacher in Dinwiddie County operates a laptop computer and a multitude of instructional needs are addressed through advanced technologies in our school division. There are a variety of new initiatives underway at Dinwiddie County Public Schools: Digital Conversion of paper student records; Upgrade of the current student information system to Infinite Campus; Upgrade of the Library system to Desitiny; Addition of Trip Tracker to the online transportation system; Upgrade of KeyStone for Human Resources and Finance Departments; Software upgrade Division-Wide to Office 2007; addition of new Digital Reader to help imporve student reading skills; E-Office Point-of-Sale food service system; Replacement of all school-based file servers; Replacement of all elementary school computer labs; Addition of at least two wireless carts to each school; Replacement of all routers and PIX Firewall; Addition of IEP Online development for the Special Education staff; Addition of web filter proxies at each school; and Network Digital copiers added division-wide.

As Superintendent of Schools I could not be more pleased with the advancement of technology to enhance and enable student learning. We are entering a period of time when schools nationwide must rethink the delivery system of educational services to students and community members, and the new technologies available to us at this time will require a solid infrastructure and technology backbone to advance our capabilities. We envision schools that soon will look considerably different than our 20th century counterparts and technology is the promise of a vastly different future for citizens of the 21st century. Those citizens are occupying seats in today's classrooms across America, and will be the driving force for the changes that will propel us into the 22nd century. It should be a fun ride.

Base Realignment Impacts Schools in Growth Communities

2009-01-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

The Unintended Consequences of BRAC on Growth Communities

Selected regions of the country will soon experience a surge in growth resulting from the federal legislation of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC). The rationale supporting this multi-billion dollar legislation quantifies several well-intended national military objectives. However, a closer inspection of BRAC reveals both risks and opportunities for many growth communities surrounding military bases across America.

There are two distinct effects emerging from the BRAC implementation. On one side of this equation are military bases in several states designated to close and the anticipated loss of military-related populations. On the other side are military bases and regions gaining significant populations.

Congress purposefully provided necessary financial relief and benefits for regions loosing a military presence as a result of BRAC. Without federal financial assistance, long-established military communities slated to downsize may not be able to transition into viable economies. This makes good sense.

Unfortunately, Congress and the Department of Defense (DOD) expended little thought or planning for the regions across America that would be gaining military and civilian growth. Thus, little federal discussion has been generated regarding the potential negative implications on communities anticipating growth. The “tsunami effect” of sudden unpredictable population increases could have devastating implications for existing community infrastructures and services.

One example will be the significant impact on America’s public schools across growing military regions of the country. At least fifty school divisions in the proximity of twelve expanding military bases are adversely affected. Military families bring with them school-aged children, and no less than 100,000 military children will be enrolling in public schools nationally between 2008-2014. Without the capacity to absorb such large numbers of school-age children, public schools are certain to be overwhelmed.

The Fort Lee communities of Dinwiddie, Petersburg, Prince George, Colonial Heights, Chesterfield and Hopewell will experience the direct impact of increased military, contractors, and civilian defense personnel. All community services will be affected, but none as severely as public schools. According to the 2006 Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Impact Study (EIS) possibly as many as 4,700 new school age children will enter Southside Virginia schools in the next few years around Fort Lee.

The problem isn’t necessarily one of quantity alone. The distribution of students poses some interesting challenges. For example, if twenty-four children enter an elementary school operating at capacity and by chance all are fifth graders, then an investment of $100,000 (cost of a classroom) and $50,000 (cost of a teacher) will be needed. If these children are distributed four at each grade level (K,1,2,3,4,5), then $600,000 (six additional classrooms) and $300,000 (six additional teachers) may be needed. Thus twenty-four children alone could generate an initial investment range of $150,000 to $900,000.

According to recent EIS projections, sixteen new schools may be needed in Southside Virginia. Regional school construction and renovation costs could exceed 750 million dollars. Nationally, this figure rises to about $ 3 billion. Few area schools have the luxury of empty classroom space, and few local budgets have the capacity to hire additional qualified teachers and support staff to address this problem.

In an age of an all-volunteer military designed to defend and protect the interests of the United States against threats of terror, the fabric of the military family itself is at stake in the high-stakes BRAC gamble to uproot families. Compounding this issue are three additional factors: The transition of military forces, global debasing, and the continuing war in Iran and Afghanistan.

Presently, military families are at a high risk of unraveling due in part to the pressures and assignments imposed on them to fight the global war on terror. Military families already post unusually high divorce and separation rates, and recent studies indicated that spousal and child abuse rates soar above national norms. Thus, the “no room at the inn” theme will not play well among uprooted military families attempting to enroll children in the region’s public schools. Would it not be ironic for those serving in the United States military services who fought and sacrificed in the Middle East post-September 11, 2001 era to have another battle on hand when they return home? The battle to enroll their children in overcrowded public schools!

It is imperative that we do everything possible to provide for the quality of military life in communities gaining military families. I have been to Washington dozens of times requesting assistance as a leader of the Seven Rivers Coalition for Military Growth. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense, Department of Education, and even Congress itself appears content to “push the problem downstream”. This is federal speak for “the local taxpayer”. Not one person I met in Washington denies the validity of the problem, nor has one offered any real financial assistance. Perhaps the new administrative team taking office after January 20, 2009 under President Obama will take a pro-active approach to solving this dilemma.

So who really gains from sudden economic development and growth? Should localities be forced to bear all of the expense for new schools? How does this affect the local taxpayer? These questions deserve answers.

The positive impact of an increase in regional economic activity may not be realized for decades or more, and even then money will be needed for additional services such as police, fire, emergency response, human services, hospitals, recreation, and new roads, to name a few. BRAC may have good intentions, but the dark side of this equation could have devastating and lasting negative effects on our schools and communities in the growing years ahead, and especially for children of military dependants.

Tax Cuts for Teachers: New York Times

2009-01-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

From the New York Times, author Thomas L. Friedman wrote this insightful opinion that I wanted to share with all of our friends in education:
Tax Cuts for Teachers
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They’re each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.
So here’s hoping that our new administration and Congress will be guided in shaping the stimulus by reading John Maynard Keynes in one hand — to get as much money injected as quickly as possible — and by reading “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future” with the other.
“Gathering Storm” was the outstanding 2005 report produced by our National Academies on how to keep America competitive by vastly improving math and science education, investing in long-term research, recruiting top students from abroad and making U.S. laws the most conducive in the world for innovation.
You see, even before the current financial crisis, we were already in a deep competitive hole — a long period in which too many people were making money from money, or money from flipping houses or hamburgers, and too few people were making money by making new stuff, with hard-earned science, math, biology and engineering skills.
The financial crisis just made the hole deeper, which is why our stimulus needs to be both big and smart, both financially and educationally stimulating. It needs to be able to produce not only more shovel-ready jobs and shovel-ready workers, but more Google-ready jobs and Windows-ready and knowledge-ready workers.
If we spend $1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges — and not a new Google, Apple, Intel or Microsoft — your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or mediocre jobs.
Barack Obama gets it, but I’m not sure Congress does. “Yes,” Mr. Obama said on Thursday, “we’ll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools by eliminating the backlog of well-planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects. But we’ll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy.” Sure that means more smart grids and broadband highways, he added, but it also “means investing in the science, research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries and entire new industries.”
But clean-tech projects like intelligent grids and broadband take a long time to implement. Can we stimulate both our economy and our people in time? Maybe rather than just giving everyone a quick $1,500 to hit the mall to buy flat-screen TVs imported from China, or creating those all-important green-collar jobs for low-skilled workers — to put people to work installing solar panels and insulating homes — we should also give everyone who is academically eligible and willing a quick $5,000 to go back to school. Universities today are the biggest employers in many Congressional districts, and they’re all having to downsize.
My wife teaches public school in Montgomery County, Md., where more and more teachers can’t afford to buy homes near the schools where they teach, and now have long, dirty commutes from distant suburbs. One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers. I’d also double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers, staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science — instead of subsidizing their educations and then sending them home — and offer full scholarships to needy students who want to go to a public university or community college for the next four years.
J.F.K. took us to the moon. Let B.H.O. take America back to school.
But that will take time. There’s simply no shortcut for a stimulus that stimulates minds not just salaries. “You can bail out a bank; you can’t bail out a generation,” says the great American inventor, Dean Kamen, who has designed everything from the Segway to artificial limbs. “You can print money, but you can’t print knowledge. It takes 12 years.”
Sure, we’ll waste some money doing that. That will happen with bridges, too. But a bridge is just a bridge. Once it’s up, it stops stimulating. A student who normally would not be interested in science but gets stimulated by a better teacher or more exposure to a lab, or a scientist who gets the funding for new research, is potentially the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They create good jobs for years. Perhaps more bridges can bail us out of a depression, but only more Bills and Steves can bail us into prosperity.

Funding Cuts Threaten Public Schools in Virginia

2009-01-09T18:28:00.000-08:00

State governments across America are reporting record losses in their budgets as the continued economic downturn continues to impact (tax) revenue collections. With less available funding streams many state governments are cutting back essential services and public schools are not immune to these negative economic implications. In Virginia this situation is compounded by the fact that local school boards do not have taxing authority (they do in most other states) and therefore depend upon local appropriating bodies to fund schools. What this means in tough economic times is that Virginia schools typically will take a double hit: a reduction in funding first from the state share of public educational costs, and a second reduction when the local appropriating body (municipal governments) find themselves short of income to fund police, fire, emergency services, mental health services, recreation, roads, parks, etc., and as a consequence reduce school funding accordingly. Thus, school funding in Virginia becomes a dilemma for local school boards as they may expect to experience a dramatic downturn of expected funding from both the state and local governments.
Quality educational programs are not inexpensive and thus every community bears a responsibility to fund a high quality local educational in order to meet state and federal guidelines. Unfortunately, the rising costs of such programs are often "pushed downstream" to the local taxpayer and this very concept of local school funding has been the source of a dozen adequacy and equity lawsuits for more than two decades. Local taxpayers are being asked to more than they are able to in tough economic times and the whole system of educational funding appears to be at serious risk of collapse.
Virginia finds itself in the eye of the storm as current economic conditions not only present compelling challenges but threaten the sustainability of a high quality system of public education for the commonwealth. Why? Let's try to put the current scenario in plain language so our readers will understand the maelstrom that is about to overwhelm public education.
Proposed reductions by Virginia's governor in the Basic Aid school funding formula will have devastating effects in every school division in Virginia, unlike anything any of us have experienced in the past forty years. The finance office of the governor reports these changes as "technical adjustments" and insist they will not have a measurable impact on classroom instruction-but public school superintendents know differently. Every significant reduction in educational funding quickly finds its way to the classroom level. To make matters worse, the Virginia General Assembly appears reluctant to utilize the Revenue Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund) to bolster educational funding...we are not talking about a rainy day here, but a full blown hurricane.
Here's why: Serious reductions to localities (10% - 15% of state support) will result in immediate reductions in teaching positions and teaching related support positions. This in turn will created much larger class sizes and increased teacher-to-pupil ratios. The larger class sizes will disproportionally affect services to our most at-risk children and older disadvantaged students as resources are diminished at all levels. Finally, as school divisions contemplate a reduction in overall instructional time (for example, a movement is underway to consider a four day school week in some states) and the elimination of after-school and summer school programs for underachieving youth who need our help the most.
The core of many school budgets are employee expenses. In fact, our own school budget represents about 78% - 80% for teacher and employee salaries, health insurance, and benefits. If you combine the cost of instruction with operations, maintenance, and student transportation, the portion of the budget for these services is 92% of our budget. The rest is technology (4%), student health services (2%), and administration (2%).
There is little if any to cut from school budgets without seriously affecting what happens in the classroom. In fact, our school division participated in a voluntary state efficiency study just two years ago resulting in a savings of over 1.5 million dollars as the recommended cuts and adjustments were implemented. Now we are asked to cut an additional $3 million from the state share of our budget...our state basic aid contribution is only $26 million overall so the net impact will be an additional 12% loss of revenue. This type of deep cut will regrettably cause a reduction in the teaching force and other dramatic measures.
In difficult economic times the families we serve that live at or below the poverty line are most vulnerable. Many of them operate on the survival mode and the children of at-risk families often depend on public schools as the only source of stability in their lives. Schools provide many additional support services to identified special needs children that may have to be reduced to some extent due to budget restraints. Just a few additional children per classroom across our schools could have a negative impact on the delivery of basic services as children in large classes often loose their individual identity and must compete for the attention of an often overwhelmed teacher. In fact, research indicates that there is a strong correlation between low class size and increased student achievement, something we have been able to provide in Virginia over the years that contributes to the overall success of all our schools in this era of standardized tests and federal regulations.
We ask that our state government leaders consider the implications of severe and sudden reductions to school funding. State leaders could preserve school funding by:
1. not applying any permanent cuts to the state basic aid funding formula
2. restore the $85 million lottery construction fund and school construction grant program
3. use the Revenue Stabilization Fund in both 2009 and 2010 to reduce cuts to education
4. reduce or eliminate unnecessary testing mandates (both state and local).
(Note: The state could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars by suspending mandatory testing requirements at all current grade levels until economic times turn better.)
In conclusion, public education is an essential service, not an optional one. An educated, adaptive, vibrant and competitive workforce is directly connected to producing a strong economy. Diminishing support for a high-quality system of public education therefore has a diminishing return on the future workforce in Virginia, further depressing future economic conditions. This is the absolute wrong time to reduce support for educational funding. Every citizen needs to implore state lawmakers to preserve educational funding at current levels and not place in jeopardy Virginia's most precious resource: her children.

Educating beyond the Classroom

2008-12-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

The week of December 1st is an extraordinary one for Dinwiddie County Public Schools.
Our High School Football team advances to the state AAA finals for the first time in the recent history of our school division. The game is scheduled for Saturday, December 6th, 12:07 pm at Virginia Tech., in Blacksburg, VA. Our secondary schools have strived to establish a well-rounded and balanced extra-curricular and sports program over the past six years. I have proudly overseen the growth and development of the youth sports programs at the middle and high school levels and our school board has given broad support to such efforts by providing good stipends for coaches, excellent athletic fields and facilities, and made an investment in the activities programs across schools in our division. The fact that our "home town" football team has worked its way to a virtually perfect season is no minor feat. Just five years ago the team was fortunate to win just one game. Now the tables of fortune have turned thanks to the leadership of Coach Billy Mills, the support of our athletic director Chad Knowles, and the principalship of Barbara Pittman. We lost just one game this season in our journey to the state championship in Blacksburg and our outstanding team lead by quarterback Adam Morgan has put Dinwiddie County rightfully on the map of the commonwealth of Virginia.

Our entire community has rallied in support of this wonderful season. The stands have been full of alumni, parents, and citizens thanks to the winning tradition established over a year ago by the Dinwiddie Generals...and not just in football but wrestling, track, tennis, basketball, softball, baseball to name just a few. Female sports have taken center stage as well throughout this unprecedented period of growth and development for our young students. Students, faculty, staff, parents, citizens all walk a little bit taller these days around the county...could it be we all have a bit of "Generals Fever"? This is a good thing. Why? Let me tell you what I think as superintendent of schools.

Academics maintains center stage in our school division as it should. But academics alone do not make for a well-rounded student. Much of the learning that must take place in the formative years of human development does not necessarily originate in the theoretical world of textbooks and/or the internet, rather, the basic lessons of courtesy, respect, dignity, humility, and collaboration often take place outside of the classroom. The mentoring experiences our teachers and staff offer young people very often occur after school hours in the clubs, activities, student government, community service, performing arts, and athletic teams that students participate in. Without these experiences students would be at a loss for the richness and fullness of the human experience. Public schools play an important role in the psychological, sociological, and physiological development of young people and the vehicle for these important formative experiences finds it's genesis in clubs, sports, and activities. Let's acknowledge that America has evolved as a great society because of the strength of our civic organizations and this tradition is passed to our young in our public schools by way of the variety of opportunities for social engagement beginning at school age.

We treasure our strong traditions in academics and social activities and welcome the rich experiences our children have at each of our schools. When one organization reaches the peak of success like our football team has done this season, it gives us all reason to celebrate and be proud. The human aspect of our work in education gives rise to stronger communities...the more our students succeed, the more validation and recognition they rightfully deserve. Every person's talents and abilities need to be celebrated...this is what public schools do so well. Dinwiddie is a very proud community with rich traditions and a sense of purpose for it's future...let's all embrace the changes that have emerged inside and outside of our classrooms...let's celebrate our successes and thank God for blessing our youth with great schools, teachers, mentors, parents, and coaches...and along the way let's not forget to say our prayers (and or thoughts), and let's all add one more thing to our daily reflections: "Go Generals"!

Implications of Cuts to Educational Funding

2008-11-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

State funding formulas across America have been under close watch for more than two decades due to the ongoing legal debate over adequacy and equity issues. Virginia is no exception due to the complex nature of the funding formula that relies in part on sales tax revenue, a state contribution accounting for regulations and mandates imposed by the general assembly, and a local contribution formulated via a "Composite Index" ranging from a low of 2.0 to a high of 8.0 (the lower the score the higher a locality qualifies for state funding), and finally an accurate accounting of school age children in the community and the "Average Daily Membership" in the local schools (ADM). The bottom line on this scenario relies upon the local municipality's ability to pay and the fact that School Boards in Virginia have no taxing authority. The result is that many communities in Virginia must rely upon the tax base within their boundaries to provide the basis for support in public schools. Add to this the tension that the Virginia Constitution created by allowing local governments to appropriate money for school purposes and schools often find that they must stand in line behind other agencies in order to balance the community "checkbook".

In good times, the state will step up to the plate and fund a generous portion of the overall school budget. In difficult times, the state will often pull back and leave the lion's share of the funding decisions to localities. Since localities often feel the budget squeeze (even in good times) they will sometimes hold pat on traditional funding resulting in less funding for local school budgets. One more dimension to this multi-layered funding issue is the fact that operational costs (year to year funding for personnel, energy, transportation, health services, etc.) must remain separate and distinct from capital costs (long term building costs and debt service).

Note the almost complete absence of the federal government in funding public education. Typically only 3% to 6% of the local school budget originates with the federal government, yet the feds demand far more from public schools than they are willing or able to fund: for example, the No Child Left Behind Act is the largest unfunded mandate in the history of public education. Ironically, the United States Constitution provides no language for the inclusion of public education in America. This is left entirely up to the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

During a significant downturn in the economy on the national and state level, public officials will turn to the various state agencies for reductions in funding. Public Education is no exception and thanks to extreme factions embedded in state governments public education funding is ripe for targeted reductions. The only problem is there is little (if any) room to cut educational funding without affecting the delivery of educational services to children. Almost 75% of local school budgets are tied directly to personnel salaries and benefits with the remaining 25% allocated to fuel, energy, transportation, health, technology, and administrative services. It is foolish to think that a significant amount of money can be extracted from local school budgets without damage to the way schools educate children and provide necessary special services to the most challenged children in our communities. Many school officials have indicated that the only way to reduce their budgets is to cut essential and non-essential teaching positions resulting in larger class sizes and diminished attention to students with critical needs.

The road ahead will be at best difficult if not extremely challenging for public schools. Schools cannot afford to reduce or fail to provide any level of educational services and have an ethical mandate to do everything in their power to continue with their mission to level the playing field for all children who enter the schoolhouse door. Without sufficient funding this will be impossible to accomplish: the public should not expect the same (if not higher) level of delivery of educational services with less funding or reduced resources in future years. So it is up to the state and local government to decide the worth and value of a quality public educational system for the community...and then decide to fund it.

Enforcing Discipline and Safety in Public Schools

2008-10-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

In the interest of maintaining optimal learning conditions at all grade levels in public schools officials are compelled to remove students who display a lack of regard for public welfare. We increasingly find to our surprise that younger and younger students demonstrate severe behaviors and dispositions that defy logic. When students threaten the peace and sanctity of the public school environment school officials must act and consider the greater good. After many interventions school officials often find these disruptive students standing before a panel for long term suspension or expulsion.

It is the result of these hearings that will occasionally bring criticism from outside sources complaining that all children belong in the school setting and not out on the street. They often cite the societal cost of incarceration as opposed to the lesser per person cost of educating our youth. While this argument has it's merits, the overarching need to provide a civil environment free from the threats of the safety and welfare of children and young adults far outweighs the concern for the few disaffected students removed from the public school environment.

The overwhelming majority of children who attend public schools everyday (perhaps in excess of 90%) never act out of order. Every school division offers a sanctioned and published "Code of Conduct" that aligns with the regulatory and statuatory dictates of the state constituion. In Virginia, this relationship is very explicit and clean. The state associations such as the Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals hosts spring forums where distinguished presentors such as Roger E. Jones from Lynchburg University define the legislative changes and additions for the current school year's laws and regulations. School divisions, in turn, note these legal changes and incorporate such into their Code of Conduct for the following school year. The published Code of Conduct is then distributed and explained to all students entering schools in the fall and in Virginia parents are required to sign for receipt of them.

When student misbehavior rises to an unacceptable level of tolerance school officials must and do act in accordance with their statuatory responsibilities. Citizens pay a high price for providing public education in their communities, students are asked to pay a resonable price for attending these institutions: ie., respectful and civil behavior. Sadly, as a result of an increased push for free expression in our wonderful democratic society, the standards and expectations for behavior in public schools often exceed what is accepted in other public places such as shopping malls, theatres, or concert venues. In fact, many school bus drivers may not play the radio on school routes for fear that children will hear words and phrases in music that uttered in public schools would be grounds for disciplinary action.

The Supreme Court of the United States in reviewing key cases relating to freedom of expression and student rights has consistently defined the public school setting as a special circumstance. On one hand, "...students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gate," (Tinker, 393 US 503, 1969) and on the other hand of the behavior equation" ...failure to react...would be inconsistent with the district's responsibility to teach students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior." (Morse, 127 S.Ct. 722, 2006).

The challenges facing public schools in this era of history are perhaps greater than at any other time in the history of education. Accountability in academic achievement must parallel the responsibility to hold students accountable for socially appropriate behavior in public schools. After exhausting all possibe remedies, the public expects school officials to hold children accountable for dangerous behaviors that impact the health, safety, and wealfare of others in our public schools. If such consequences lead to expulsion from school, school boards must do so without remorse and should withstand the limited criticism they face for eliminating threats to the school environment: after all public school officials are upholding the laws intended to create safe schools to begin with, and should not the children and parents invested in our public schools expect standards to be upheld? I say a resounding YES.

Educating for a Changing World

2008-10-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development recognizes that public schools must go far beyond minimum standards and achievement tests if we are to prepare students to be successful in a complex global society. This responsibility requires schools to prepare students for technological, cultural, economic, informational, and demographic changes. ASCD supports changes in teaching, learning and leadership that prepares students for a new world order. We acknowledge the role that multiple languages, cultures, and interpersonal relationships must play in a world that is becoming increasingly more interdependant and complex. To this extent ASCD and it's leaders in states like Virginia support the concept that students must:

Acquire and apply core knowledge and critical thinking skill sets
Demonstrate creativity, innovation, and flexibility
Make decisions and solve problems ethically and collaboratively
Utilize knowledge and technology to gather, analyze, and synthesize information
Display leadership skills that inspire others to achieve, serve and work together

Students must be equipped with the skills that allow them to serve as active participants and leaders of change. High-quality instructional programs must have the tools and resources that are fundamental in the age of information. Support for public education and reforms that meet 21st century expectations must be embraced by public officials and policy makers across the Commonwealth of Virginia and America. Resouces for educating children of all backgrounds are thin at best and public schools are doing everything in their power to not only meed the mandates imposed by state and federal politicians, but to provide a level playing field for students regardless of background or economic status. American became the greatest counrty in the world due to the strength of our teachers and educational leaders. If we are to maintain a leadership position in a global society, then we must invest in the futue of public education for the sake of our democratic way of life and place in a world with diminishing borders.