The BEP Review Committee meets again on Wednesday in Nashville, where there are several items of interest on the agenda. One is a discussion of the impacts of alternative fiscal capacity scenarios, including a proposal by Jim Guthrie of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Vanderbilt.
The basics of Guthrie’s proposal are in the tax base methodology document, but there are no numbers yet. I’m working on it.
I won’t be able to attend this one, but I’ll get a report from someone by Thursday.
TS writes with a description of school design in Pittsburgh from 20 years ago, where the leading problem was abductions rather than shootings. However, these features would be a significant deterrent to stranger-initiated shootings, like the one yesterday in Pennsylvania, and the one last week in Colorado.
You walk into the building through large doors, one or two entrances. To the left or right is the office. There is no way to gain access to the building except through these two doors. You must then enter the office. Down the hall on both sides are large shatter proof bullet proof doors and the only way to get through them is to be buzzed in by the office staff.
Nobody walks the halls where the classrooms are except the students and teachers. Parents cannot come and go as they please, but the kids are safe. The back doors, which let out to the playground, could only open outward. You could not come in them unless a teacher unlocked it with a key, but fire safety was maintained since you can go out. No one was allowed to go out the doors without permission by the teacher.
The playgrounds were fenced in. The parents said they didn’t like it because they felt they should have access to the classrooms any time they wanted it.
We have to make some choices here and I think the students safety overrides the touchy parents. Also, the office had a panic button — a silent alarm that went straight to the police department. When pushed, the police came immediately.
Although we have made progress toward improved security design in Oak Ridge schools, we’re not at that level by any stretch of the imagination. Last year, we approved renovations to an elementary school that allows the office staff to see who enters the front doors — the only unlocked entrance. All the other elementary schools already have this feature.
The new high school, slated for completion in 2008, also features significant improvements in security via the building design. While these features are an improvement, they primarily address the problem of a potential intruder — not the potential of a student coming to school armed, as seems to be the more frequent scenario.
Under City Council’s strategic plan, Oak Ridge Schools are allowed only $600,000 annually for capital improvements — not even quite enough to cover the bare minimum of maintenance, including roof replacement, HVAC systems, flooring, and such. Last week, the Board approved replacing the gymnasium floor at Linden Elementary, funded through savings incurred in the parking lot work from last Summer, and a $10,000 donation.
Yes, essential maintenance was funded through the generosity of a donation. There’s something wrong with that.
Security is not a luxury item, but like everything else, must be budgeted. As we struggle to maintain existing academic programs that are our core mission, it is just one added factor in the competing priorities for increasingly inadequate dollars.
Last Wednesday, Bailey Colorado: six girls taken hostage, molested, one killed. Motive unknown.
Last Friday, Wisconsin: freshman teen kills high school principal. Motive: anger over being disciplined for tobacco posession.
Today: Paradise, Pennsylvania: six killed and seven critically wounded, at a one-room grade 1-8 Amish schoolhouse. Motive: who the hell knows?
Also today: two Las Vegas schools went into lockdown after a former student brought a .25 caliber handgun to the school. Don’t know what his motive or intentions might have been.
In two of these cases, the perpetrators were adults. In the other two, they were teens.
In the Bailey Colorado incident, the school was designed and built subsequent to the Columbine massacre, less than an hour away, and was designed with security in mind. Officials have stated that the horrifying event was much better contained than it might have otherwise been, but still, one student was killed, and many others traumatized.
Nationwide, schools have stepped up security procedures since the Columbine situation seven years ago that ended with the deaths of fifteen people, including the two teenaged shooters. Some schools have implemented metal detectors (which are costly and inefficient, given the variety of metal objects that are and must be carried into school each day); many have begun using video surveillance; most have implemented stricter visitor sign-in and badging procedures.
More schools are trying to get School Resource Officers — members of the police department assigned to schools — and this is probably the most effective avenue. SRO’s build a rapport with the students, and locally have gained insight into homes where abuse was ongoing, where drug trafficking occurred, and a number of other situations of interest to law enforcement. More importantly, they establish the kind of relationship with students where the kids know they’re there to help and protect them.
Sadly, SRO’s require funding, which is in short supply. And it’s only a step in the right direction, not the answer.
What is the answer? What on earth would make someone do such a thing?
The New York Times has an excellent article on the Bush brothers’ differing approaches to school improvement. W, as President, ushered in a sweeping change in 2001 known as “No Child Left Behind,” which mandates that all students will demonstrate proficiency by 2014. Failure to meet milestones along the way leads to progressively more punitive sanctions, which can lead to the replacement of a school’s entire staff, or even to takeover of the school by the state.
Jeb, as Governor of Florida, also implemented standards-based reform in his state, but with different methods and incentives: rather than tracking a school’s progress from year to year, it tracks the progress of individual students. Rather than punishment, it offers financial rewards to the schools that excel. Improvement is rewarded, even if it misses the target mark in NCLB.
At last night’s Oak Ridge school board meeting, we reviewed our students’ test scores — and they’re very good. We obviously have a school system to be proud of. However, we also heard from Mark Diemer, who teaches special ed at the elementary level; while he has no problem pushing his students to excel, while he is able to clearly document that they are progressing and learning, knowing that if too many of his students don’t meet the proficiency standard, his whole school could be punished, is extremely stressful.
Mark is a great teacher; year after year he brings his students to their personal best. Who could ask any more?
Remember, we’re talking about children with learning disabilities — some of them very significant. IDEA forced the mainstreaming of students who, due to birth defects or brain damage, have little realistic hope of ever performing at the level of their peers. Holding them to the same standards as everyone else is sort of like telling me (at 5’4″) to go out and compete in the NBA… just because Earl Boykins (5’5″) did it doesn’t mean we all can. i sure can’t.
I support accountability in the public schools based on criterion-referenced testing, and I believe that NCLB has caused us to use testing as a tool for improvement by studying the disaggregated data to identify gaps in learning. It’s working, and improvment is evident. Still, we will never attain 100% perfection when our obligation is to accept all students. In the case of graduation rate standards, the ruling that all students must graduate within four years actually pits the school’s best interest against the student’s best interest in situations where a student would benefit by repeating a grade.
NCLB is up for reauthorization next year; it’s time to make some changes.
At today’s BEP Review Committee meeting in Nashville, James W. Guthrie, Director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Vanderbilt University, gave his presentation on an alternate method of determining fiscal capacity.
Last year, the Legislature charged the BEP Review Committee with the task of developing a “consensus recommendation” for moving to a system-level fiscal capacity formula. Last year proved conclusively that there was not, and would never be, a consensus for the TACIR prototype system-level formula developed by Harry Green, since it caused a majority of Tennessee school systems to lose money while enriching the state’s four largest cities.
Guthrie’s proposal uses only property tax base (value of taxable property) and sales volume to calculate fiscal capacity; each is multiplied by a “computational” tax rate (in theory, something like the state average or mean, I guess) to determine a school district’s ability to pay. There would be no sharing between Counties and municipal or special school districts therein, and the City or SSD residents would pay taxes only for the school district in which they live. It’s clean, it’s understandable, and transparent.
In other words, no black magic box filled with hexes to twist and distort statistical data that at most three people in the state truly understand; there’s room for a lot of mischief in the nine-variable “least squares multiple linear regression model” that TACIR proposed, and last year’s BEP Review Committee set forth as one of its objectives that the formula should be straightforward, understandable, and explainable.
There are no numbers yet, but a draft should be prepared in advance of the next meeting on Oct. 11th. Other factors such as at-risk students and English Language Learners can be incorporated into the BEP formula itself, although there may have to be some tweaking of Guthrie’s proposal to adjust for municipal systems that are only K-6 and such.
This one looks as though it could be fair and equitable. The question is, can the state add enough money that funding for every child in every district is adequate? It must be. The answer to our problem is not to simply rearrange who gets a bigger piece of the pie at someone else’s expense — there must be a minimum standard of adequacy.
We will all be better off to resolve this problem.
I spent the better part of the day commuting to and from Nashville for the BEP Review Committee meeting, where their wireless network was only half working. Although I could gain access to the network, it wasn’t assigning DNS servers, so I couldn’t reach the internet.
There is a school board meeting tonight, but I’ll have a full report on the BEP Review by tomorrow. Actual numbers for the Vanderbilt version of fiscal capacity won’t be available until close to Oct. 11, but what they’ve proposed appears to be a definite improvement over the TACIR prototype. At least now, the committee agrees that there must be a consensus recommendation, which precludes any plan that takes funding from some systems to redistribute to others.
In the ASS&S post (which was about a group that is opposed to public education), AnotherAtomicCitizen comments about homeschooling being a means to protect children from sexual predators.
While Tennessee (and Oak Ridge Schools) go to great lengths to screen teachers, there’s no denying that every once in a while, the worst happens. Of course, the same thing could be said of stepparents, but most would not suggest that the solution is for single parents to never remarry. Likewise, most parents do not believe that sending their child to school will result in exposure to sexual predators.
Folks, sick people do exist. The best protection is to know the people with whom your children associate, to know your children well, and to cultivate open communication with them. As we have seen from explosive media stories over the past few years (magnified by television and the internet), the predator can be a priest, a teacher, the school crossing guard, babysitter, or a relative.
When children are uncomfortable, it’s essential that they can be open and honest with their parent or parents: the discomfort may be a dislike of math, just a normal interpersonal conflict, or it could be something much more serious. Listen to your kids, but follow up.
Children are not always truthful — “I don’t have any homework” often means “I don’t want to do my homework” and “my teacher doesn’t like me” sometimes means “my teacher gave me a bad grade because I didn’t do the homework I told you I didn’t have.”
“I don’t like my teacher” (or coach/babysitter/neighbor/etc.) could mean any number of different things, including some things that a parent never wants to hear. But we must have the kind of dialogue with our children that enables us to get to the truth… because there are those very rare instances where the truth demands immediate action to protect them from harm.
Would mass homeschooling or private schooling result in fewer instances of abuse? I doubt it. To the contrary, it’s often at school that abuse in the home is revealed. Sometimes, those allegations are unfounded, but at other times, intervention may save the child from death or ruin.
As AAC noted, there have been prior instances of middle school teachers found guilty. William Marcus Kendall was fired, arrested, and convicted of sexual battery, statutory rape, and attempted rape, and sentenced to prison. Since that time, Tennessee law has changed so that a teacher who is suspended or fired due to crimes of this nature are no longer able to simply move to another school district, as Kendall did — the state is notified, so that the teaching license is not transferrable to another district.
At the same time, it’s essential that we allow the investigation to be completed. If the allegations end up being false, tremendous damage has already been done to the accused.
In the world of public schools, there are numerous safeguards to protect children, but parents should also be aware that similar precautions do not exist in all circumstances. Summer jobs, camp, and other activities that students engage in may hold dangers unknown… so know your kids. Talk to them, and hear what they’re telling you.
Their lives depend on it.
There is actually an organization with that name (though I don’t think they use the acronym): the Alliance for Separation of School & State. The homepage of their website solicits support for their public proclamation:
“I proclaim publicly that I favor ending
government involvement in education.”
That sounds very much like “abolish all public schools.”
If you click on State Rankings at the top, it shows how many people from each state have signed on to their petition. Then, if you click Tennessee, it shows you exactly who these 595 people are (with location and some with comments, ranging from their religious affiliation, profession, or number of children).
In yesterday’s Oak Ridge Observer (I’ll link it when goes online, but until then, get your own) Stan Mitchell did a straightforward interview with both candidates for State Representative in our district. Both listed education as a priority — Jim Hackworth ranking it as his top priority. David Massengill said he supports more local control, which sounds good.
Question is, just how local? Local as in local school system? It doesn’t appear to be so. Go on down the Tennessee ASS&S list — it’s in alphabetical order — and guess whose name is on there? David Massengill. Of Clinton. Candidate for State Rep.
Massengill has signed a statement that “I proclaim publicly that I favor ending
government involvement in education.”Â
I fully support the right of parents to select the best and most appropriate education for their child or children — not just public schools, but also including home schooling (meeting the State’s modest qualifications and criteria), private, or parochial schools.
Despite that view, I steadfastly maintain that quality public schools are necessary to ensure our future. Every child must have an opportunity to learn — if they do not, then our immediate future as a nation is in grave peril.
ASS&S indeed.
Yet another study establishes a definite link between early music instruction and academic success.
This afternoon’s education forum in Clinton brought a preview of the State’s likely course in the coming year: funding will be a key issue, but recently, the discussion has moved from “equity” to “adequacy.” That’s a giant step forward, because as long as they’re just rearranging who gets more and who gets less, we’re doomed to be “equally inadequate.”
Jerry Winters, Director of Government Relations for TEA (the state teachers’ union) predictably expressed concern about “virtual schools” (also called e-learning, where students could complete coursework online rather than in a traditional classroom) run by private, for-profit companies siphoning off per-pupil funding from the public schools. He’s also concerned about health issues, and stressed that we shouldn’t expect our teachers to also function as nurses.
He closed his opening remarks with a statement of opposition to “differentiated compensation” (higher rates of pay for harder to fill posiitons, such as advanced science and math teachers. Of course, since the TEA includes a large number of elementary teachers and those who teach something other than advanced science, math, or foreign languages, it’s not surprising that a majority would be opposed.
Bruce Opie, the Legislative Liason for the Department of Education, reiterated that funding would again be at the top of the priority list. He indicated that after reviewing performance data for pre-K programs in Tennessee and elsewhere, the Governor is now “a believer” in the effectiveness of that program, and that his goal is to have voluntary preschool universally available — beginning with at-risk and economically disadvantaged children.
The Governor has also been studying best practices at some of the State’s top performing high schools, and is looking toward improving the senior year experience by fostering partnerships between community colleges and the high schools in their service area. One example of a program that’s already underway is between Northeast State Technical Community College and high schools in the Tri-Cities area. There, students can pursue dual enrollment, earning both high school and college credit simultaneously.
All three school systems in Anderson County were represented either by board members, administrators, or both. Audience questions seemed, for a change, to be largely in sync — a need for some state funding for School Resource Officers and relief from unfunded mandates (such as the state’s allowable pupil-teacher ratio being imposed at the classroom level, while funding is only provided at the system level, resulting in a number of required teaching positions for which there is no state funding at all).
A shared concern among audience members was actually federal mandates, both No Child Left Behind, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. An interesting discussion ensued about the theory of declining all federal funding and eschewing all federal mandates, and whether the dollars would balance. No conclusion was reached, but the $1 billion in federal funds that flows to the state for education seemed to be a sticking point that no one could move beyond.
Jim Hackworth closed by reminding the audience that Anderson County has seen over 5,000 new jobs created in the past five years, with a $600 million increase in the tax base. Education is critical to economic growth, and is one area with an almost certain return on the investment.