Friday, February 27, 2009

Graduate Competency Exam Update

I received an email from the Pennsylvania School Board Association that had an update regarding the GCAs. Please see below:
And the counts are climbing! At the latest count, 77 members of the House have officially agreed to cosponsor legislation to be introduced by Rep. Stan Saylor (R-York) that would prohibit the Department of Education from expending resources to make changes to any component of high school graduation requirements, pending approval from the General Assembly.

Please call your House member and ask him or her to cosponsor this legislation and to contact Saylor's office at (717) 783-6426, cwalker@pahousegop.com or jhenning@pahousegop.com. Last session, Saylor sponsored legislation under HB 2452 prohibiting the Department of Education from developing the GCAs without the express authority to do so by the General Assembly. That bill had 113 cosponsors, and we would like to see that number exceeded in this new session. 135 votes are needed to override a veto from the governor.

The 77 cosponsors include:

Rep. Saylor and Representatives Adoph, Argall, Baker, Bear, Briggs, Brooks, Buxton, Caltagirone, Causer, Civera, Clymer, Costa, Cutler, Dally, Denlinger, DiGirolamo, Drucker, Everett, Fleck, Geist, Gibbons, Gingrich, Goodman, Grell, Grove, Grucela, Harhart, Harris, Hess, Hickernell, Hornaman, Kauffman, M. Keller, Killion, Kortz, Kotik, Longietti, Mandarino, Marshall, McIllvaine Smith, Melio, Mensch, Metcalf, Micozzie, Miller, Milne, Moul, Murt, Oberlander, O'Brien, Pallone, Pashinski, Peifer, Petri, Pickett, Quinn, Rapp, Reichley, Roae, Rohrer, Ross, Sainato, Santoni, Schroder, Siptroth, M. Smith, S. Smith, Stern, Stevenson, Swanger, Tallman, J. Taylor, True, Turzai, Vitale, Vulakovich and Watson.


Please note that State Representative Matt Smith has co-sponsored this bill. On the State Senate side, Senator John Pippy has co-sponsored a similar bill along with Senator Jane Orie.

If the Governor is not getting how important this issue is to table, then at least we are seeing our locally elected officials step up. If you have a moment, please thank both Senator Pippy and Representative Smith for helping in this effort. Too often they hear complaints, here is a chance to give them some compliments.

Meanwhile, the State is continuing to hold hearings regarding this matter. This despite the fact that the organization that Governor Rendell cited as the one that recommended a GCA approach to college readiness has backed down on its support of such a solution. Please see this letter from PA State Representative Sam Smith. According to the letter, Achieve Inc. (of which Governor Rendell is a Board member) "has distanced itself from using graduation competency, end of course assessments as a means to determine whether students are proficient and ready for college and employment." You can see the entire Achieve report referenced by Representative Sam Smith here.

Thanks for reading.

James

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Schools and Creativity

I came across a video that is thought provoking. It confirms some of what we value here in Mt Lebanon in how we educate our children. The video is a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED conference in 2007. The title of the video is "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"



TED is a group is very intelligent and creative minds that get together and share their ideas once a year at an event in California. Some of the most inspiring videos I have ever seen have come from talks at TED. Go to www.TED.com to check it out for yourself. A friend of mine recently attended the conference in Long Beach this year. She posted a review here (see the Dream Date with TED post).

But what about the ideas that Sir Robinson is talking about in his presentation. I hear often about how teaching to tests is simply killing the ability of our teachers to teach what matters. I had a conversation with a teacher friend of mine just the other day on this very topic. Teaching kids how to take tests educates a generation of good test takers not a bunch of world leaders. This is one of the reasons I am opposed to the Governor's Graduate Competency Assessments.

How about his other points? Is creativity as important as literacy as he contends? That is a great thought. What is the best way to reach those kids that are in the back of the room muddling through what to them is an uninteresting lesson?

His point about how the hierarchy of subjects taught in schools is well taken. It makes as much sense as teaching science classes in alphabetical order (biology, chemistry, then physics). Sir Robinson says that the hierarchy of subjects was based on the fact that national education systems did not come into being until the industrial revolution was underway. Education systems were constructed to prepare students for entry into the industrial world. That is why the focus on subjects went (from top to bottom) mathematics, language, humanity, and then the arts. Unfortunately at the time there were no jobs for dancers or artists on the floors of these factories. The story about Gillian Lynne and how she became a dancer was an interesting one- especially when you think that Sir Robinson could be right in that someone today might have simply given her some Ritalin and told her to calm down.

Perhaps my favorite point in his speech was when he said, "If you are not prepared to be wrong then you will never come up with anything original."

Sir Ken Robinson's book which he alludes to in this talk is now available on Amazon.com. It is called "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything".

Thanks for reading.

James

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Mighty Pens Sled Hockey

Last night there was a fundraiser at the Mt Lebanon Rec Center for the benefit of the Mighty Pens Sled Hockey team. The Mighty Pens are a group of kids that have had injuries or disabilities that limit their mobility off the ice. Please check out more information on this team here. On the ice, these guys and girls fly like the wind. Just ask the Mt Lebanon Blue Devils hockey team who went on the ice strapped to sleds to compete with the Mighty Pens!

There have been recent articles on the Mighty Pens sled hockey team, including a story in the Mt Lebanon Magazine. See these links:

http://www.mtlebanon.org/DocumentView.asp?DID=2788
(page 19)

http://penguins.nhl.com/team/app?articleid=405318&page=NewsPage&service=page


http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/sports/14730189/detail.html

Great job last night by all those that organized this event. There was a tremendous turnout in the stands. Major Kudos to the Mt Lebanon Blue Devils hockey team for helping put on a great show.

Thanks for reading.

James

Friday, February 20, 2009

Voting "No"

There were a few items on Monday's agenda that I voted against. This wasn't the first time that I was in the minority on a vote, but it does happen often enough that I started thinking about it. A friend of mine joked that I must take a look at the agenda each month and just pick two items to oppose. That had me laughing for a good five minutes. It's not quite that simple.

Webster's definition of "no" actually helps here:
1b—used as a function word to express the negative of an alternative choice or possibility
Isn't that exactly what our Board meetings are about? We voice our vote on alternative choices or possibilities. Sometimes I do not think the outcome of a "yes" vote on the choice presented is the right thing for this District. Part of the job of every Board member is to convince others that their position is the right one. Of course, the Board itself is in agreement on 90% of the issues that are before it which makes that 10% so time consuming and sometimes contentious.

At Monday's meeting I voted "no" on three motions:

1) Approval of Auditors- The District has had Maher Duessel as its auditing firm for over a decade. We'd have to embark on an archaeological expedition in the hall of records to dig out the last time we had someone other than Maher Duessel as the auditor. My vote against awarding this three-year contract to the same firm came down to something that I believe is a best practice. You may remember in 2003 that Sarbanes-Oxley was passed. Part of the Securities Exchange Commission rules regarding Auditor Independence required publicly traded companies to change lead auditors every five years. You can Google "auditor independence" and you will find numerous articles and links pointing you to information about the importance of changing auditors. It is a best practice as defined by the SEC and many other international auditing organizations. If it's good for them, it ought to be good for us. By no means am I suggesting that Maher Duessel is doing anything wrong or that there is anything I am worried about with regards to our books. It is as simple as wanting to have a different set of eyes check our books from time to time. Maher Duessel is clearly capable of handling the job. A new firm may have had the ability to improve our processes by having a different understanding of the information they wanted to see and how to present it. The Board voted in favor of awarding this contract 7-2.

2) Preliminary Budget for 2009-2010- The District prepared a "fake budget" to give to the Pennsylvania Department of Education that requests an exception for Mt Lebanon School District to go over the Act 1 millage increase limit. This budget means that the District, instead of having to go to referendum to pass a budget that requires a millage increase in excess of Act 1 limits, will seek an exception from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Not a single member of this Board believes we will need to exceed the Act 1 millage increase limits. So why vote for the exception to referendum? I'd rather the Board pass a "real budget" instead of a fake one and show the community that we will be fiscally responsible with their money. Asking for the exception to Act 1 limits while knowing full well we will not use it sends a mixed message to the community and, in my opinion, violates the spirit of the law. Last year in Pennsylvania there were 102 out of 501 school districts that applied for the exception. Only 69 used the full exception as presented to the PDE. You can see the full PDE report on Act 1 exception applications here. The Board voted in favor of submitting the fake budget to PDE by a 6-3 vote with three of the four members of the Board's Audit/Finance Committee casting the minority votes.

3) High School Option 2- This was the option on the high school to partially build new and partially renovate the building. I posted some initial thoughts on this vote on Tuesday. I am pretty certain that there were at least five members of this Board, including myself, that believed strongly that the best way to give our kids the best education possible was to get a new school that allowed for 21st Century instruction of our students. The three board members that changed their votes last week from being in favor of a new school to being in favor of a renovation/new project all said in their statements that they still believed this to be true. The difference in our opinions has always been in how we could afford to build such an option. My opinion was that a referendum would not pass, but that I would allow the voters to decide the fate of such an option. However, I laid out in detail a plan that would have allowed us to get there while costing us less money over the long run. Unfortunately, as I hear people make statements about the plan I put out there, there seems to still be a lot of misunderstanding. That is my fault and I take blame for that. I will learn from it.

I was prepared to read the following statement on Monday night but suspected there was a change in the air and did not read it. I post it here to allow you to see my thinking going into the meeting:
Tonight I am being asked to vote for one of two proposals, each of which has its own problems. As most people know, I have been advocating for some time for this Board to take a more comprehensive approach to this project that includes looking at how all aspects would fit within our budget while considering the long term in a fiscally responsible manner. Having failed to convince a majority of the board on the merits of this idea, I am left with voting on whether to direct the architect to draw up plans for a partly renovated, partly new school, or to draw up plans for a completely new building.

Understand that I do not believe this community can afford either option right now-- not with the economy in shambles, not with our budget set to explode even without a construction project, and not with so many people in Mt Lebanon being affected by the current economic crisis. However, I firmly believe that this community would be divided for a generation if this Board did not send this project to a referendum. For years we would hear "what ifs" and what we "should have done". Therefore, the only way to get this community onto the same page and strive for a unifying objective is to have this go to referendum to allow the community to speak as a whole with their votes. Only then should this Board make its final decision on what direction to take this project.

I will vote to send this project to referendum.
Obviously, a referendum on a new school is not right now in the cards.

I am as interested as everyone else in finding out where the path of Option 2 leads us. I suspect it will take some time to figure it out.

As for voting "no", I am sure it will be happening again in a short time. I do it only when I feel there is a better course of action to the one presented, not to stoke any sort of animosity between board members. I have been told by some that past boards liked to show unity to the community by always voting unanimously on issues before it. I would suggest that doing that defeats the purpose of having a board of nine. After all, we are a Board of Directors, not a Board of Director.

Thanks for reading!

James

Monday, February 16, 2009

High School Vote

Tonight we had the first in a series of votes to determine the fate of the high school project. It was decided in a 7-2 vote to further pursue Option 2. Director Hart and myself voted against this motion. This option is a combination renovation/new construction option. Honestly, without knowing exactly what Option 2 entails, I can't tell you what I think of it. Is it a phased approach? Will it require a referendum? Can a full solution for the high school like the one presented by a Mt Lebanon resident and architect be completed for under $110 million? I am not sure if the answers to these questions are available right now.

Tonight there was a large group of people at the meeting that voiced their support of pursuing option 2. The group Build Our School Now, which was vocally in support of Option 3 last week, changed to be behind Option 2 instead. Additionally, three Board members that were last week in favor of Option 3 changed to back Option 2 tonight. I am not faulting anyone for this. Opinions are formed and can be changed when more information becomes available.

As you can probably guess, the will of the community continued to be fluid throughout this process. This is why I was in support of sending Option 3 to referendum to see what the community thought about it. If the community was fully informed about the pros and cons of such an approach then it could make an educated vote in a referendum. If it was to pass then this Board would build the best facility it could for the money. If it failed then this Board would have to go back and figure out what it could do under the debt limit.

As it stands now, I look forward to working with other Board members in figuring out what form Option 2 will take.

Thanks for reading.

James

Friday, February 13, 2009

Pushing on a string

Banks around the country are trying to figure out whether to loan out the money they received from the TARP funds as Congress has repeatedly asked them to do or whether to save that money to prop up their crumbling balance sheets as bank regulators are asking them to do. They are finding that even if they wanted to lend money, they are having a hard time finding people who want to take it.

Please see this article from Andrew Jeffery "Americans to More Debt: Talk to the Hand- Our new allergy to credit is just heating up".
Washington just doesn’t get it: We don’t want more debt.

While congressmen berating bank CEOs for their unwillingness to lend out their bailout money makes for a nice media clip, it reflects the growing disconnect between our elected officials and any semblance of reality. Not that the relationship was ever particularly close - but lawmakers are floundering for good press while the nation’s economic future slips further and further from their tenuous grasp.

Bloomberg reports American consumers are wary of taking on more debt, as expectations about eroding economic conditions are forcing people, to *gasp* make responsible decisions about their personal finances.

Bloomberg cites Midsouth Bancorp (MSL) president C.R “Rusty” Cloutier, who says that, despite aggressive marketing, town hall meetings, and $20 million in TARP money, Midsouth's customers just aren’t taking out new loans (see full story here)

This is the rejection of debt Professor Depew speaks of when discussing the structural deflation we’re currently experiencing.

Credit is based on trust. And while conventionally we view this relationship as one in which the lender must trust the borrower to repay his debt -- at least to an extent that’s commensurate with the interest rate -- it does go both ways.

As lenders like Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are increasingly being painted as corporate marauders out to rape and pillage the American public, would-be borrowers are wary of putting their financial future in the hands of these men of questionable repute. And with credit-card companies rushing to alter terms, it’s no surprise consumers are reluctant to extend themselves further.

Still, lawmakers are pushing through an economic stimulus package that depends, in part, on a willingness on the part of consumers to keep spending. Their delusion is only outmatched by their hubris - the belief that a bunch of self-interested politicos can coerce the average American into making ruinous financial decisions for the betterment of the country.

Floundering industries -- notably automakers and homebuilders -- are counting on government subsidies to encourage Americans to keep borrowing to buy their products. But what General Motors (GM), Ford (F), Centex (CTX) and KB Homes (KBH) don't understand is this: We just don't want what they're peddling. And we certainly don't want to borrow against it.

The transition from a debt-dependent, credit-drunk consumerist society won't be immediate: It's taken 18 months of financial panic for evidence of the shifting social mood to make its way into the mainstream.

But as the economic outlook continues to darken, the country becomes more disenfranchised, and the government grows ever-more addicted to sound bites and empty promises, reality will set in.

For the past 20 years, we've been blithely driving along an economic road that ends in a cliff. And that cliff is now in our rear-view mirror. We're tumbling, groping for any branch that can save us from the fall. But each one of these new government programs, bailouts and rescues simply tries to set us gently back on the road from which we only just plummeted.

We already know where that path ends, and it ain't pretty. What say we try another road?
How about it? How about WE try another road?

Thanks for reading.

James

Monday, February 9, 2009

Just Another Recession

I have written many times on this blog in regards to the current economic climate. Sometimes I come across a good bit of information that I feel is worthy of passing along.

Today's nugget comes from Speaker of the House Pelosi's blog. She is arguing that this is not just another recession. Of course, she has a stimulus bill to get passed so who knows. But, sometimes numbers don't lie. Please see the blog and interpret the chart below:

This chart compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession – showing how dramatic and unprecedented the job loss over the last 13 months has been. Over the last 13 months, our economy has lost a total of 3.6 million jobs – and continuing job losses in the next few months are predicted.

By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the 1990-1991 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing; and we lost a total of 2.7 million jobs in the 2001 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing.


Tonight we have another discussion meeting regarding the high school project. One important note to make is that the architect update begins at 7pm instead of 6:30pm.

Thanks for reading.

James

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Upper Lebanon Park School District?

Even though there is a long ways to go to get anything like a consolidated school district that would be renamed something like the title of this post suggests, its important to put this on your radar.

Governor Rendell's budget message released yesterday is very interesting. He addresses many things with regards to his education plans and his efforts to reduce costs in education and the resulting tax impacts on residents. One of his suggestions is to reduce the number of school districts in the state:

Almost everyone agrees that Pennsylvania has far too many school districts. This means there is an ever-increasing pressure to raise local property taxes. I propose to address this pressing issue in three ways: First, there is no question that the best way to relieve the pressure of local property taxes is to continue to demand accountability and grow state funding for public education. In the last six years, working together, we have made tremendous strides in this regard, committing more than $2.7 billion in additional state funding to our public schools. Prior to the market collapse, I had anticipated proposing an additional $418 million for our public schools in FY2009-2010, so that we could continue to achieve the goal of closing the "adequacy gap" in education funding set forth in the Costing-Out Study that was prepared for the General Assembly last year.

Governor Rendell then moves onto his plan to reduce health insurance costs to school districts across the state by consolidating health insurance for all school employees:

Secondly, last session, the House Education Committee passed terrific legislation which would consolidate health care benefits for all school employees in the state. I am a strong proponent of moving in this direction because this bill will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and dramatically slow the rise in annual health care costs. I urge the chambers to act quickly to pass a bill that accomplishes this goal.

In the final part of his proposal, Governor Rendell more fully addresses the possibility of school district consolidation:

Third, full-scale school consolidation provides a very effective way to relieve the local property tax burden all across Pennsylvania. There is nothing sacrosanct about the need to maintain 500 separate schools districts across the state -- each with its own staggering, and growing, administrative costs. In Maryland, for example, they have just 24 districts, all at the county level, and Maryland enjoys student achievement levels that are among the highest in the nation. And for the record, consolidation is not a new idea in Pennsylvania. Consider that in 1955, there were 2,700 separate school districts. At that point, the Legislature authorized consolidations statewide, and within two years the number of separate districts fell to 1,900. Five years later, in 1962, the number of separate school districts fell to 600, and as of July there will be 500 school districts statewide.

We just don't need that many school districts, and more importantly, in today's economy we cannot afford them. Let's be clear: We all agree that small schools are important, but reducing the number of districts doesn't automatically mean bigger schools. Fewer districts does mean that we can spread the local share of public education costs across a wider population, and that means reducing the pressure on local property taxes. For this reason, I am proposing in the FY2009-2010 budget that we establish funds for the creation of a legislative commission to study how best to right-size our local school districts. I ask that you charge this commission with the responsibility of reporting back, within one year, a set of recommendations for the Legislature's approval that sets forth an optimal number of local districts and a plan with specific timelines for adjusting our boundaries to meet the optimal size.

The meat of this plan really is in his conclusion statement where he says he wants to consolidate to no more than 100 school districts so that administrative costs are shared over a larger student population:

I challenge this commission to develop a plan that includes no more than 100 local districts statewide. We need to stop spending our taxpayers' funds on redundant administrative costs and put those funds in the classrooms where they truly belong. If we can succeed in right-sizing our school districts, we can generate a major new source of funding that will benefit our students and Pennsylvania taxpayers all across the Commonwealth.

This theme of consolidation is nothing new. He proposes consolidating health insurance and school districts today. However, it was only a few years ago when tax collectors were consolidated as well.

While this school consolidation is all very interesting, it is a long ways from being definite. I suspect there will be a number of individuals and groups that come out against the consolidation of school districts and that these groups will pressure local representatives in the state house and senate. If I hear any additional chatter I will update everyone.

What I find very interesting is that I see no talk of the Graduate Competency Assessments. If the Governor is so concerned about funding schools then I would suggest the GCA plan be taken off the table immediately.

Thanks for reading.

James