Educational Black-Ops?

Every once in a while the math doesn't add up or something is so subtly out of place to be unnoticeable but like a paper cut refuses to stop throbbing.

I was reading a Rick Green's Courant blog about the Avon school budget called, Avon Parents Support Public Schools -- and Higher Taxes.

Intriguing.   And there in the comments section I found a cliche that is like that paper cut.

In any event, the median property tax burden for those in single family houses in Avon is 5.56%. That is 70th highest of CT's 169 towns for FY 2008-09 tax payments. Their median state income tax burden rank is 11th highest of CT's towns.

This is the fuzzy math of the education entitlement funding myth. In other words, someone out there is gaming the economic statistics to imply that any of our communities are obligated to tax a certain percentage of income for public education whether it needs it or not.

And worse still, tax whether the town can afford it or not.

In Region 19, we have such a pattern of tax abuse. Because towns pay per student ratios of the regional school budgets, there are always towns paying more or less than the other. And the game is that no town should ever pay less than the year before. For example, this year, an EO Smith budget that desperately needs pruning isn't getting it. The magic reason? Mansfield already has reached a zero increase in EO Smith funding.

Heaven forbid that the finance committee actually consider what is best for all three towns regardless of such nonsense.

But all across Connecticut, taxpayers are being bludgeoned by a tax engine that works just this one way - always spend more and more and more.

You've been conditioned to believe that's better for kids.

That's not always the case.

More on the Black Ops soon (still fact finding).

The Cutting the Education Budget Anti-pattern

At a budget meeting last week, I suggested that when town officials come to Board of Education meetings, they should look upstream at the fixed costs in every budget and address the Teacher's Union with the same resolve to control the cost of education.

And the context for this is that over 70% of all education budget money goes to salaries, benefits, and the like. Of the remaining 30%, there's busing, maintenance, heat, electricity, supplies, and so on. The table scraps that remain fund actual student-centric programs. Extracurricular activities, field trips, and all of the stuff that might distinguish and vital high school from a teenager holding pen.

It should go without saying that I am NOT attacking teachers nor questioning their effectiveness or whatnot. I'm simply pointing out that the really big budget numbers are generated by the annual, automatic 4.5% pay and benefit increases. I wrote about this last year as The Accountability-of-Education Anti-Pattern.

No sooner had I made the recommendation than an official from one of the towns declared, as if to give the Pledge of Allegiance, "teachers work hard for their money!", 'somebody in the family is a teacher', blah, blah, blah. I could feel a Greek chorus of teachers yell, "Hurrah!" as if this were a Monty Python segment.

The truth of the matter is that teachers do work hard. But under NCLB they aren't working smarter. Nor are curriculums keeping pace with the changing world. When discussing the incorporation of technology into the classroom with a teacher, one gets the impression you are asking them to fly without a plane.

And under NCLB the teachers and their unions have abdicated all professional responsibility for their profession to a federal bureaucracy hell-bent on destroying the quality of public education. And this leaves children at risk and defenseless and unwitting pawns in the Department of Education's evil mandate

In Connecticut teacher's pay is significant, the benefits package outstanding, and their contracts far exceed the fiscal reality of the community. If altruism ever existed in teaching or government service, one would be hard-pressed to prove it based on the windfall contract details.

As long as we don't constrain the sky-rocketing cost of salaries and benefits, school budgets will continue hurt children the most while teachers sit with Cheshire Cat smiles in the back of the room content that there is nothing any tax-payer can cut that will slow the gravy train down.

Feed Me

Last night's budget meeting convinced me to vote for this piece in the Saatchi Art Gallery showdown. It is called "Business as Usual" by Albo Jeavons, 2001. In addition to voting on this year's school budget, you can vote on art as well.

And business as usual it is as I'm sure it is every year.

The longer I am exposed to the public school budget process the more I am convinced that public schools are writing their own one way ticket to being dismantled. I can support school budgets that hold the promise of reforming curriculum, upgrading process and content, and reinvigorating the vitality of the school.

You can rest easy there will be none of that this year or in the foreseeable future. You can stop staring as though you're fitting me for a straitjacket for suggesting such a thing.

The delicate flower of education is once more awaiting its ritualistic meal.

Budget Considerations

This income analysis explains what has happened in Connecticut on the Republican watch. The economic reality is nightmarish.

America suffered a 2.8% drop in median household incomes in nearly every state between 1999 and 2005.

Connecticut's drop? A whopping 4.1%.

The Washington Monthly's quip about Texas' 8.9% drop;

I'll say one thing, though: those boys down in Texas sure did a whole lot better under Clinton than they have under Bush. If they were smart, they would have voted for Gore and kept the Shrub under wraps in Austin, where he couldn't have done so much damage to their economy.

Be sure to thank Rob Simmons and Joe Lieberman for helping you learn downward mobility. We couldn't have done it without their negligence.

Needless to say, I didn't win...

I spent hours trying to get my cartoon to show up here with no luck. Try the link, it's a site that allows anyone to create a cartoon script using some prefab characters. Pretty neat stuff.

My alternative budget went down in flames this evening but I have no melodrama to offer. As I've said before and will say countless more times, every budget cycle must be about constructing next year's educational offerings, the budget part of the equation is just a matter of talking about how the budget should be appropriated.

Years ago when I was studying sculpture at Doane College, I learned some artistic algebra. The creation of anything new can be performed by applying additive substance, by subtracting substance, or by metamorphosizing substance, or some combination of these exercises.

When working with a fixed budget to create a vital educational offering in the coming year, anything added needs to subtract some corresponding expense. It isn't personal, it's applying math to the priorities we are obligated to establish for the health of the educational environment.

My alternative budget proposal upset some secondary faculty members who personalized the recommendations I made to cut staff. But the real losers are the kindergarten program in Ashford and maybe elsewhere that are paying the consequences of the Region 19 budget numbers. And the teachers in the small towns are also receiving the short end of the fiscal result.

The Board was unwilling to make a short term sacrifice to revive the body (sometimes referred to as fasting). By short-changing the younger children we exacerbate learning issues that so perplex us at EO today.

I have to work harder.

I'd better get to work...

I've got to formalize my alternative budget by Tuesday.

A Region 19 Budget that makes sense

I want to propose an alternative Region 19 budget The reason is that the budget being proposed is wholly inadequate to meet the vision and return on investment that constituents I talk to think are important.

I've been reading two books on the future. The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil is a heads up that times and technology are changing everything. Information by Hans Chr Von Baeyer suggests that everything we know about math and quantum physics is deductable to new theories about information. These books represent transcedent changes in the way we need to operate politically, think, and educate our kids.

IMO, Region 19 needs to change the way we educate our youth on a number of counts. Technologically, EO Smith (and I'm being kind) has become a backwater institution of education. Neither the administration nor the majority of faculty seem to educated in information technology skills and, more upsetting, few seem to care. In brief that needs to change.

And although I have wonderful conversations with some truly gifted teachers at EO Smith and elsewhere, far too many faculty at EO seem to be floating downstream. The community is paying top-dollar for education that too often serves too few. And the many are being short-changed mightily. That too needs to change.

There is also a pallid squaller of protest from those who are invested in a mediocre but lucrative status quo. The EO Smith budget process is conducted like a city park shell game where the object needing reform and cutting is always shifted from one place to another. The budget cuts I propose here will be specific , real, and worth your attention.

First, the EOSmith budget must exceed the expections of the taxpayer, the parent, and the student. It must make the administration, faculty, and special interests uncomfortable. In a society where people are afraid for their jobs, making do with less, and uncertain about the future, the schools must recognise the need to cut back, work more efficiently, and shed the crusty hubris they currently hide behind.

EOSmith is on the threshold of two school changing realities. One is that $100K deficit will be carried over to NEXT year's budget. The second is that student enrollment begins dropping in 2008. The budget we vote on for next year has got to have the future in mind.

My budget proposal is different from a sheer budget numbers shell game. I am treating the exercise as a school construction activity. Starting from scratch and reusing as many obligatory pieces as I can, what can we create as a institution next year.

Okay, let's start building next year's school.

Next year's school should cut back one faculty position in World languages (9.4->8.4 teachers). The department head can be asked FOR NEXT YEAR ONLY to teach a fourth subject as an indepent study for advanced world language students. The savings purely in salary will be approximately $60K plus the savings in benefits.

Of those savings I would like he school to invest in at least three smart-boards to be distributed to the most creative teachers EO Smith currently employs in science, english, and mathematics. These boards increase the productivity of teachers and the attention of students. The cost is $40K or so (these teachers will forego the purchase of a classroom projector (-$9K or so).

We will also trim the English faculty by one position (15->14 teachers), the Department head will need to teach a fourth course if necessary. EO Smith has an over-emphasis on fast-track English and not enough on reading. This will save the district $60K. However, I would like the district to hire a reading specialist who can teach English in innovative ways to be hired to work with students who need a more specialized course in reading. I still think we can save some money here.

Any mathematics department hires need to be technically saavy in Java, HTML, and other web based technologies. The days of cyberphobia need to end. Now's the time.

The budget needs to include a Deep Space Imaging camera and a Solar Telescope. Our kids need to become technologically adept. Period. The science department needs to begin developing a more far-reaching use of internet available materials.

The Social Studies department needs to work with the reading specialists to begin to identify materials that serve dual purposes, social studies curriculum and supplemental english/reading socail studies, student special interests materials.

The Music and Art department budgets seem reasonable.

The Information Technology department is spending far too much money on Web site services. This must be reduced from $11K to approximately $2K. The school also needs to convert from expensive commercial Office software to the free OpenOffice suite. There is little if any difference educationally and the savings are substantial to the school, students who use it on home computers, and parents. There is significant savings here as well. So far ignored.

I have also suggested a reduction of cost for new laptops by purchasing refurbished IBM equipment ($16K/unit -> $4k/unit). Ther exists tens of thousands in savings that has been ignored.

Guidance services has $8K allocated to line items for 'temporary students', 'reference books and periodicals', 'Office supplies', and 'software'. I'd like these items to come in at about $2k, saving $6K. Open Source software, internet resources, and a tightening of the belt can help here. Recent NYTimes articles complain about the amount of materials being sent freely by colleges and so on - let's find cheaper ways to do business.

There is $16K in the budget for Professional Developmeent monies. The current salary structure of teachers is a windfall (see my earlier comparisons of income). Teachers need to pay their own way just like the rest of the working world. Times and economics have changed. Membership and Professional dues must be the responsibility of the professional not the tax payer. Thousands can be eliminated there.

The savings here amounts to $47,830.

In educational media, I think a .5 secretary reduction can save at least $6K.
I'd like to see the new library books line item reduced by $2K ($8.6K -> 6.6K). There's way too much material online these days to invest too heavily in hard print.

The principal's office needs to be reduced by one secretary. A savings of approz $30K plus benefits.

Also I would like to see a vice-principal's position reduced by .5%, a %50K+ reduction.

Instructional supplies should be reduced by 10% across the board. $7,847 savings there.

Already part of the EO reductions are .6FTE math teacher (-41,190) and 1FTE Computer Maintenance Tech (-42,190)

By my loose calculations, the budget gets reduced by at least $240K. The school adds a .2FTE music teacher, lots of worthwhile programs are preserved and expanded, technologically the school bulks up, and the quality of education improvers with a renewed emphasis on Math, reading, and so on.