Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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Do Schools Need Libraries?

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2013 //
89

Libraries and librarians are on the chopping block in some districts in Maryland.

This is personal for me.

I love libraries.

I always loved browsing the stacks and finding a new book, a new author, a new topic. For me, the library was a place of reverence, a place of quiet contemplation, a quiet place to read and think.

Yes, I know we have computers. But computers give you what you ask for. They may have all the information in the world, but you can’t browse a computer.

Please support school libraries and your public library.

This arrived in my email from a librarian I met last June at a conference in Annapolis:

Libraries Under Attack? Again?

“Why do the children need books? They will all have tablets…”

Here in one of Maryland’s largest school districts, our libraries may be on the chopping block and with them, more than 100 dedicated and hard-working teacher-librarians who are required to have certification in library media/instructional technology. According to current board policy librarians are considered teachers, and as such partner with classroom teachers to collaboratively teach information literacy and research strategies to students K-12. Our supervisor has been nationally recognized for her initiatives connecting librarians to curriculum and instruction. Parents are supportive of libraries because they see the relationship to increased student achievement. Does our new and quite young superintendent support libraries? Will he continue to support our roles?

First, let’s travel back in time. In the early 1990s a new superintendent, while cutting staffing, declared librarians optional and libraries soon fell into disrepair. Parent volunteers checked out books and the collections suffered without trained media specialists to maintain them. Students did not receive instruction in information literacy or literature. The district supervisor of Library Services lobbied hard to turn the trend around, successfully leading the movement to rebuild the sorely neglected collections and put trained librarians back into schools by influencing the district to set policy that mandated a librarian position in each school. Further, she worked tirelessly to secure 10.4 million dollars in funding to rebuild collections, and helped create an initiative with the local university that resulted in a “Library Media Cohort”, a partnership between the district and the local university that offered masters’ degrees in Library Media and Instructional Technology to teachers in the district. The commitment that the district made resulted in investing heavily in the rebuilding of our libraries. The cohort initiative is currently active and has produced to date more than 150 highly trained certificated library media specialists. In our rapidly urbanizing and large district, our library media specialists are trained to meet the needs of our diverse population of over 100,000 students.

When the funds were disbursed more than a decade ago, the county executive, who at the time saw the value of a quality library program, told the district administration, “Don’t let this happen again. Don’t come back asking for more money. Maintain the libraries.”

How quickly we forget our history. Once again, there is a new superintendent in town and libraries may be under attack. The BOE is about to strike language from the policy that defines the commitment to place libraries and media specialists’ roles as critical to student achievement. When this was presented at the February 19th BOE meeting no one from the Library Office was present because no one from that office was informed or invited. Since all BOE meetings are video recorded and archived on the public website, we were able to discover the proposed change by a BOE member who questioned the intent. The decision was tabled until the March 5th BOE meeting.

At an earlier BOE meeting, a reorganization was discussed which made clear that beginning next year libraries will fall under the auspices of the Technology department and no longer under Curriculum and Instruction. In the reorganization, the supervisor of the Library Office’s position has been eliminated. We will be losing our strongest advocate and most vocal supporter.

Saddest of all, rumor has it that someone very close to the top in the district’s administration made the comment, “Why do the children need books? They will all have tablets…”

Yes, the children need books and tablets too.

Categories Budget Cuts

Lansing Cuts Teachers of Arts, Music, Physical Ed in Elementary Schools

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2013 //

The school board in Lansing, Michigan, reached a deal with its teachers union to slash the budget. The district will eliminate teachers of the arts, music, and physical education in elementary schools. That is a cut of 87 teachers in a staff of 915. The teachers also accepted a pay freeze.

What kind of state and nation can’t afford arts and physical education for its young children?

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Michigan

More Cheering from Wall Street for School Closures

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2013 //
11

Good news for Wall Street! More school closings!

Does Wall Street think it would be a good idea to close down all public schools? Think of the savings to municipalities if we just stopped offering free public education!

A reader writes:

And Bloomberg reports this about Philadelphia school closures:

Closing 12% of Philadelphia Schools Creates Winners: Muni Credit

from Bloomberg


“The nation’s fifth-largest city anticipates saving $24.5 million a year by shutting 29 of its 249 buildings in June. The average building is 64 years old, according to a financial audit. More than 82 percent of students are “economically disadvantaged,” meaning they receive free or reduced-price lunches, school data show.


“It’s very likely” more schools would be closed over the next five years, said Fernando Gallard, a district spokesman, who said he couldn’t estimate how many.
 “We are wasting money maintaining empty seats and empty space in our buildings,” Gallard said. “There is a better use for that money.”
 Bond buyers view officials as trying to get a handle on their finances, said John Donaldson, director of fixed income at Radnor, Pennsylvania-based Haverford Trust Co., who manages $750 million in munis.


http://tinyurl.com/cgynj3t

Categories Budget Cuts, Closing schools, Philadelphia

Wall Street Cheers Philly School Closures

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2013 //
10

Joy Resmovits reports on Huffington Post that Moody’s rating service is happy about the school closures in Philadelphia. She writes;0:

“School Closures: Good For Wall Street? Philadelphia recently voted to close 23 schools, and a Moody’s analyst thinks that the move, which frees up privately-run charter organizations to set up shop, is a good thing financially. Why? The analyst writes that it shows the district is willing to cut costs even when faced with tremendous opposition. “The SRC has introduced deep expenditure cuts over the past 18 months, reducing a fiscal 2012 deficit of $720 million to $20.5 million through a variety of revenue and expenditure measures that included a 16.7% staff reduction and salary and benefit cuts that generated a combined $466 million in savings,” the analyst writes in a report for bond investors.”

“But as a source notes, the closures and cuts don’t mean that these schools are driving the savings — the district says its plan would save $25 million, just a fraction of the $700 million deficit reduction. So why does the market care about closures?”

Here is a link to the Moody’s story.

What is remarkable is that the discussion is purely about cutting costs and privatization. Not a word about the impact of closings on children, education, families, communities.

Our nation is in deep trouble. All the talk about “reform ” is really about cutting costs while pretending it is “for the kids,” “children first.” At least Moody’s makes no pretense about caring about the kids. Their honesty is refreshing, if cynical.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Philadelphia, Students

Sacramento Will Close Schools Serving Neediest Students

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2013 //
10

I am late posting about the school closings in Sacramento, but better late than never.

In Sacramento, the Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) and the Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education are working together to protest the closing of seven elementary schools. The closing of these schools will have a disparate impact on children of color and English-language learners. The “savings” to the district will be miniscule.

The HIP press release against the closings follows here:

For Immediate Release Contact
March 7, 2013 Jonathan Tran
626.607.1897
Press Release
School Closures Disproportionately Impact Sacramento’s Most
Disadvantaged, Budget Woes to Continue
SACRAMENTO, CA – On Thursday, Superintendent Jonathan Raymond and four members of
the Sacramento City Unified School Board of Education finalized the last of their “wrong-sizing”
plan. While Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) is extremely happy for the students and parents of
Mark Twain and Tahoe Elementary; we also recognize that the District’s poorly devised
proposal, arbitrary saving projections and disregard for community input will have devastating
impacts on the Sacramento’s most vulnerable communities. In total, the Board voted to close
seven neighborhood schools—ALL in low-income and socioeconomically disadvantaged
communities.
With poorly developed transition plans and only a month of public discourse, it is clear that the
Superintendent and Board Member’s irresponsible decision will hurt Sacramento’s most
vulnerable populations. According to the California Department of Education, two of every five
displaced student will be Limited English Proficient (LEP). Moreover, while students of color
account for 80.9-percent of the total SCUSD Elementary school population, they account for
more than 93.4-percent of the displaced student population. Finally, students enduring
‘socioeconomic disadvantages’ make up 97.8-percent of the total displaced student population,
compared to only 72-percent of the total Elementary school population.
Overall, the detrimental impacts of these school closures outweigh any fiscal gains. Originally
anticipated to be a savings of $2.3 million, the District’s projected savings has dwindled to $1
million or less than 0.8% of the total budget. These projections do not reflect the drop in
Average Daily Attendance (ADA) that historically follows school closures nor does it include the
unexpected expenses of transition impacted students. In addition, Thursday evening’s board
meeting highlighted the possibilities of on going budget deficits. HIP has maintained that rather
than closing schools, the District must seek out innovative solutions that attract more students—
not disenfranchise parents. Ultimately, the Superintendent and Board Member’s actions will
exacerbate issues of under-enrollment, undermine student achievement and jeopardize student
safety.

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Closing schools

Infected by GERM, Britain Looks to Bain for Education Ideas

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2013 //
4

We are not alone.

We are not the only great nation doing truly absurd things to our education system to advance the interests of private enterprise, under the guise of “reform.”

Great Britain’s Minister of Education Michael Gove has invited Bain & Company of the U.S. to advise him on how to make cuts to the national education budget and encouraged them to apply for contracts in the newly reconstituted Department for Education.

Bain is the company created by our own Mitt Romney.

Now if Minister Gove brings in Boston Consulting (the company that birthed Bain & Company), Stand for Children, and Andy Smarick of Bellwether Partners, he can get a report recommending full privatization of the British education system and finish the job.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Privatization

A Teacher Questions the Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2013 //
105

A teacher writes about the pluses and minuses of the Common Core:

There are a lot of good reasons to adopt the Common Core Standards. They really do provide an excellent framework for what would would love to see our students doing: thinking, writing, finding evidence in text, justifying arguments, and persevering in problem solving.

That being said, it is clear that there are some crazy problems that will require a lot more thoughtful implementation. There is no technology to prepare for the tests. There are no curricular materials to support teachers.

There are serious problems with expectations for students in middle and high school (less so at the elementary level). There is incredible confusion over the extent to which informational text is to be integrated (do science teachers incorporate more text or do English teacher incorporate more content? Again, not as big of an issue at the elementary level.)

The biggest problem is that we are doing this in an environment of hostility between states and teachers, totally ignoring the effects of poverty on background knowledge and performance, and it is all WAY TOO FAST!

I truly view the Common Core as an overall positive development in a sea of horrific rhee-forms. It is correct to say that it is an experiment. We are still not sure if students will be able to rise to the challenge. If they do not, we fear that teachers will take the blame yet again.

Standards by themselves are great but introducing them in a toxic environment with no money to back them up is not going to work.

Categories Budget Cuts, Common Core, Teacher Evaluations

Why the Teachers in Strongsville, Ohio, Are Striking

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2013 //
120

When I heard about Strongsville, I thought I was reading a children’s storybook about a wonderful, all-American city, a city where all the families are happy and have nice houses, and the children play in well-equipped playgrounds, and go to wonderful schools.

Think of it: Strongsville. It evokes Wheaties and Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy, the town where everything is just fine.

But then I got this letter from a teacher:

My name is Christina Potter and I have taught in the Strongsville City Schools in Strongsville, Ohio for the last eight years.

When I was hired in Strongsville, a great community with excellent schools, many other teachers said I was lucky, and they were jealous of my new job, and during the first two years, they were right; things were great with all sides working together,and we earned Ohio’s highest ranking, Excellent with Distinction.

As time went on a division started to occur between the administration and the teachers. During our 2010 contract negotiations the school stated that times were difficult and they needed the teachers to make concessions. In good faith, and promise of a levy, we agreed to an additional two year pay freeze on top of the three years we had already taken. We also increased our medical expenses, took on an additional duty period, and agreed to work two days unpaid. Times were tough, but everyone was striving to make Strongsville great.

Then, everything went haywire. With the ink still drying on our contract, the Board tried to take the levy off the ballot but failed, so instead, they informed the community to vote the levy down. Then we learned that while the district cried broke in 2010, it spent $500,000 to hire an attorney who publicizes himself as a union breaker. Every school district in this area that has hired him has either gone on strike or threatened to. Needless to say, the teachers, who negotiated in good faith, were outraged.

When our contract ended in June 2012, the district asked for extra time before negotiating to get its finances in order, so on July 19th, the first negotiation session took place. Upon walking in, their attorney put a contract down on the table and told us it was a take it or leave it offer and refused to negotiate one item at a time. After months of failing to negotiate a contract, our Education Association declared an impasse, and a Federal Mediator came in to oversee negotiations. Here is the timeline of recent events:

1. On February 15th, 2013 the teachers of the Strongsville Education Association (SEA) overwhelmingly passed a strike authorization.

2. On February 22nd, SEA submitted a 10-day notice of our intent to strike.

3. On March 1st, I had to hand in my I.D. badge and keys and have all of my personal belongings out of the building by 3:15 p.m. After 3:15, the doors would be locked, and anyone still on school property would be arrested even though we had not taken a final strike vote; we also had another negotiation session scheduled for Saturday morning. For all intense purposes we were not on strike yet but we were being locked out of the buildings, our email accounts and our grade books.

4. On March 2nd, both negotiating teams and the School Board members met with the federal negotiator. At that time the school gave its final offer which was only slightly different than their original.

And that takes us to where we are today, on strike. Many of my fellow teachers are also Strongsville residents, who have children in the system. They fear we are destroying our great public schools by trashing the teaching profession within them, instead of working toward a settlement. They feel the Board has chosen to waste tax payer money and painted teachers as greedy; meanwhile, it has forked over another $500,000, for a total of $1 million, to an attorney instead of using the money for books and technology.

Why are we striking in the cold, wind, and snow from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. We, the Strongsville teachers, feel we are not just standing for the SEA, but for all of our fellow public school teachers in the Ohio and across the nation during this statewide/national epidemic of privatizing our public schools. If this contract goes through other school districts may soon go after their teachers, and we cannot in good conscience allow that to happen. As a teacher and a parent of two, I believe in public education and its hard working teachers, who too often are the brunt of undeserved bashing.

The teachers of Strongsville will hold a rally this afternoon at 4 pm in the center of Strongsville, at the gazebo, at the corners of Pearl Rd. and Rt 82.

Categories Budget Cuts, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Needed Now! Courage, Not Compliance!

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2013 //
23

Just minutes ago, I posted a strong letter from Superintendent Jeff Ramey, calling on parents and educators to support their schools and protest the budget cuts and tax caps that undermine them.

Carol Burris, an outstanding high school principal in Long Island, New York, responds here:

Superintendent Rabey,

I assure you, there are outraged New Yorkers all over our state.

Over 12,000 New Yorkers have signed the petition against high stakes testing http://roundtheinkwell.com/2012/12/29/petition-to-the-nys-board-of-regents-against-high-stakes-testing/ in two months. The Alliance for Quality Education has an Albany rally this month regarding funding. Over one third of all New York Principals signed a letter in opposition to APPR for the reasons that you mention. http://www.newyorkprincipals.org . The Niagara Regional PTA is proposing a resolution at the State PTA conference against high stakes testing. Schools Boards in Bedford and in New Paltz have passed their own resolutions.

The problem is that there is no state-wide coordinated effort and frankly a lack of courage to go beyond grumbling and resolutions into passive resistance and even active resistance. If you take your three key points–lack of funding, over testing, and state controlled teacher evaluations with test scores–and link them together, you have a powerful combination that many would support. Think about how much more funding there would be if all of the dollars going to testing and test prep and APPR went into classrooms in the schools that can no longer adequately serve their students?

I will hop on that bus anytime and I will bring others with me. In fact, you will have overwhelming support from principals and from rank and file teachers, though not necessarily from NYSUT, at least not on APPR.

Will you, however, get your colleagues to stop whispering their disgust at the Albany agenda and be willing to stand up against it?

Several years ago, death by lethal injection was brought to a halt in California, because anesthesiologists refused to participate. Courage, not compliance, is what is needed now.

Carol Burris

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, New York, Principals, Support for public schools, Teacher Evaluations

NY Superintendent: Where Is the Outrage?

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2013 //
46

Here is a superintendent who is willing to raise his voice to demand that the Governor and Legislature fund New York state’s public schools. These days, there is so much fear in education, so many educators intimidated by get-tough, know-nothing politicians, that it is refreshing to encounter a superintendent who is willing to speak truth to power.

Superintendent Jeff Rabey wonders why citizens are willing to demonstrate for gun rights but not for their children’s schools. He writes:

Is it just me or do we have our priorities mixed up?

In response to the NY SAFE Act, “Angry demonstrators, at least 1,000 of them traveling from Erie County on 14 packed buses, showed their frustrations in colorful signs such as ‘Cuomo has to go’..” (Buffalo News 03/01/13)

Gun advocates rage against the trampling of their Second Amendment rights. Why don’t we rage at the profound trampling of our children’s Constitutional rights?

NYS’s Constitution guarantees children a fair and equitable education. Yet, for five years NYS has underfunded schools by $765 million. In 2009, when the courts ordered more equitable school funding, Foundation Aid was created to provide at least a 3% aid increase each year. Just one year later, Foundation Aid was frozen and the five-year “take back” of aid began. That “take back,” known as the “Gap Elimination” is decimating our public schools. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?

Pounding another nail in the coffin, Albany passed the Tax Levy Cap, which further defunded schools and swept away school board control over local revenue. Heralded as a help to taxpayers facing soaring local property taxes, Albany looked heroic. Albany neglected to mention that local property taxes were soaring because local taxpayers picked up the tab for funding Albany took away … and for mandated expenses Albany won’t address.

The “Gap Elimination” take-back and tax levy cap have fast tracked schools to financial and educational ruin. Schools are cutting programs left and right to save costs. Our children’s transcripts will be too thin for entrance to our own NYS four-year schools. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?

Finally, in an effort to grab $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds, Albany committed to transforming our educational system into one that promotes high stakes testing and linked those high stakes, unreliable assessments to teacher performance.

Albany swept away school board control over evaluation of their own teachers. Instead, that authority was given to a time-consuming, unproven system that dramatically escalates expenses for schools, pushing costs far beyond the initial Race to the Top funding. This at a time when Albany took away funding that was Constitutionally-guaranteed. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?

Where is the outrage? The colorful signs? The microphones and cameras?

We need to take a lesson from the gun advocates and raise our voices in united outrage. Recently, in a letter sent to the Governor, which was initiated by Senator Gallivan and signed by 17 of his Upstate fellow Senators; the inequitable funding of schools was addressed. The letter urges the Governor to restore funding to low-wealth school districts that have been disproportionately impacted.

This is a start, but where are these 14 packed buses from Western New York on their way to Albany?

Jeffrey R. Rabey
Superintendent of Schools
Depew Union Free School District

Categories Budget Cuts, Cuomo, Andrew, New York
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