On 21st Century Education

For a bit of a departure from the numbers and specifications we have collectively been viewing, I took a moment to read some material on 21st Century Education.

The Center for Public Education produced this report that details some of the trends in 21st century learning. What I like about this document is that much of it is based on Core Knowledge which is an idea that I first read about from E.D. Hirsch.

The report details not just education trends but describes how they fit into occupational trends in a increasingly globalized world.

It's rather long but very informative. Happy reading.

James

PSERS Rate Spike Set for 2010-2011

Hopefully the recently announced PSERS rates spike does not catch anyone by surprise. It's been a topic talked about on this blog many times and has been statewide news for the past two years.

Next year we can expect our PSERS contribution to increase by over 70%. However, that is not even the bad news. Please see the excerpt from this article below:

State and local education officials said the worst part is that next year's increase is just a fraction of an anticipated leap to record public contributions by 2012, when the state and local tab is projected to exceed $4 billion.

Tomorrow we are set to hear updated cost figures from our architects for the high school project. When deciding how much we have to spend on this project we must consider what the rate increases in PSERS will do to our overall budget.

I have said a number of times on this blog that we have not yet had to make tough decisions. I believe the tough decisions start now.

Thanks for reading.

James

Mammoth Monday Meeting

We had a bit of a lull there in November with a slow agenda. There will be no such lull in the foreseeable future. Starting on Monday, December 14th, we are jam packed.

Below are some of the agenda items from the upcoming meeting:

1) 2010 Mt Lebanon School Board meeting schedule- For the past two years I have asked about these meetings moving to the 1st and 3rd Monday's of each months so that we would a) not conflict with the commission, and b) have an extra week to get questions answered about information in our packets. I asked last week at the Reorganization meeting that we consider changing the meetings to the 2nd and 4th Mondays. I still like the extra week between discussion/regular meetings and now that the commission will start televising their meetings our residents will have the opportunity to view all local government meetings. Personally, I think the extra week will become extremely important as we begin to review numerous documents regarding the high school and contract negotiations. Any feedback from residents regarding this change in schedule would be appreciated at schoolboard@mtlsd.org.

2) Report from Community Advisory Committee- I posted about the formation of the CAB here. I have very high hopes for the CAB and think/hope that their work will become a huge contributor to the high school project. The Board received in its packet on Thursday some of the material that will be presented on Monday. The Board also received in its packet the latest Design Development cost updates. The CAB report could not have come at a better time. I will post more on their report after Monday's meeting.

3) Act 34 Material- Any time there is a large construction project like we are undertaking with out high school the State requires an Act 34 hearing for public comments. The Board will present to the public the information required by the State and there will be a public meeting to discuss it. I write up more on this after Mondays meeting. There is a certain significance to this meeting that I do not want to understate.

4) Recommendation Regarding Replacement of Stadium Turf- We recently came into some unbudgeted money with the sale of a large property in Mt Lebanon and subsequent receipt of back taxes for that property. The result was over $2 million in revenues. At recent Audit/Finance Committee meetings, Mr. Kubit and I made the recommendation that we take some of those funds and direct them towards the replacement of our high school stadium turf. This turf has seen better days and has reached the end of its useful life. I look forward to the presentation scheduled to be given by our athletic department. This is another item on which I would like to get community feedback. Please view/ask about the presentation on Monday and let the board know your thoughts. Other than having played on artificial turf, I don't know much about it. I will rely heavily on the administration and public input when casting my vote.

I think that's it for Monday. It should be a bit of a long meeting but it is packed full of good information.

Thanks for reading.

James

Proud No More

Last night was the the reorganization meeting for your Mt Lebanon School Board. Typically, this type of meeting does not amount to much more than a procedural meeting with Board members simply casting their votes for who their want their next leadership team to be. Last night was different.

When I was younger and played sports in high school and then in college, it was always a given that every member of the team was to be on their best behavior at all times. When we traveled we would wear ties and when we stayed in hotels our coaches would even check our hotel rooms before we checked out to make sure we cleaned them up. We were part of a team and when you are part of your team your actions are a reflection of the entire team. When even a single teammate out of 40 would leave his hotel room a mess he is implying that the entire team is a mess. All the players understood this simple lesson. Unfortunately, last night we had far too many board members leave their hotel room a mess.

Its been kind of a running joke in my house the last two years that the first words out of my mouth when I would meet someone were, "Hi, I'm James Fraasch and I am on your Mt Lebanon School Board". And honestly, in some respects this is true. I do this because I have always been proud to be on the board and more than that, I have been proud of the trust that was given to me by the community when they voted me into office in 2007. Being a board member is not a responsibility I take lightly. Heck, I even changed jobs in 2008 to allow me more time for school board related activities. Every board member spends far too many nights away from kids and family while attending committee meetings, high school meetings, community forums, and regular and discussion meetings to not take this position seriously.

The Board is not a reality TV game show. It should not be a place where board members decide to publicly air their dirty laundry about their gripes and grievances against other board members. It should not be place where board members can publicly make up unfounded accusations and level them against other board members. It should not be a place where parents have to put their hands over their kids eyes and ears because some of the behavior that goes on is so reprehensible and distasteful that the parent just doesn't want their child to see that adults can behave this way.

Over the course of the last few weeks leading up to last night's meeting I have received phone calls and emails from just about every member of the board. These phone calls and emails always were invariably about how each of these individual members wanted to build trust amongst board members, how they wanted to reach across the divide, how they wanted to bring honesty and integrity to the board, and how they wanted to get the community to trust the board. There were literally dozens of emails and phone calls and hours and hours of conversation regarding these topics.

I ask you with all sincerity whether after watching that meeting you felt any of the ideas mentioned in the above paragraph actually were reflected in the meeting. Watch the meeting and see for yourself who and what is causing the divide.

I woke early this morning hoping that I would feel different about the meeting than I did six hours ago. But I don't. I am embarrassed that the meeting last night is a reflection on all of Mt Lebanon and that I was a member of a team that had individuals leave their room a mess.

The behavior displayed last night by your board is not what the voters of Mt Lebanon expect from their elected leaders.

James

December Update

Sorry about the long break between posts. Been a bit preoccupied with some other priorities. Hopefully this post will be an interesting one. In this post I will hit on three things; recent school board activities, economics, and curriculum. Hey, just because I haven't posted in a few weeks doesn't mean I have stopped trying to educate myself.

First, the Board itself has had a three week break between meetings. It's next meeting will be Monday December 7th at 7:30pm. This meeting is the Reorganization meeting where we will swear in the newly elected members of the Board and then elect the 2010 President and Vice-President. There are a few action items for the Board, one of which is to approve the Board meeting calendar for 2010.

As for the November meeting, one of the agenda items voted on was for the Districts graduation requirements. As many of you know, our students are required to do a project on a health topic in order to graduate. I suggested that we investigate what it would take to expand that project beyond just the health class. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that it would allow our students to shine with their creativity. I would not want to get rid of the health topic, but simply see what other possibilities there might be. Peter's Township recently approved a similar graduation requirement to what we have. See this article here from the Post-Gazette.

Now, on to economics. At last Thursday's Audit/Finance Committee meeting we talked a bit about the ARRA (ie, stimulus) and what it means for our district. The committee was unanimous in saying that we did not want any of this funding directed towards activities that might become perpetual in nature. It would be a mistake to take that money, start new programs or hire new staff, only to have that funding not be available to us a year from now. That would only result in a need to raise taxes or cut programs/staff down the road when the stimulus funding ended. What I found most interesting was a conversation regarding how the District was counting the "Jobs Saved/Jobs Created" numbers with regard to the ARRA. My understanding was that if we used the money to pay for staff raises, then that counts as a job saved. It is somewhat more complicated than that, but essentially, it boils down to being comical. Mind you, this is nothing that has to do with how WE do this, it has to do with how the federal government is asking us how to report the numbers. See the Wall Street Journal article on this ridiculousness here. Jobs saved is a number that does not and cannot exist. It reminded me of an essay written by an economist sometime back.

Frederic Bastiat was a French Economist in the 1800's. He wrote an essay called "That Which is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen". He is the one that came up with the "Broken Glass" theory that explores whether breaking glass to create work for the person who repairs the glass is good for the economy. His conclusion is that if the shopkeeper whose glass was broken has to pay money to fix the glass, that is money that he cannot deploy elsewhere. It destroys economic activity that is not seen and cannot be measured. He further goes on to write:

"When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it implies that a taxpayer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But the expense of the official is seen, because the act is performed, while that of the tax-payer is not seen, because, alas! he is prevented from performing it...The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a canal; and so gives work to certain workmen - this is what is seen: but it deprives certain other workmen of work, and this is what is not seen."

This is very much in accordance with the idea I espoused on my blog earlier when I wrote about the Aftermath of Financial Crises. The government wants to appear as if it is helping even when doing so results in the delaying of true economic recovery. Call it Bond Illusion or whatever you like, the fact is, the money we borrow today has to be paid back and it has to be paid back with interest. The hope of the politicians that keep borrowing this money is that by stimulating the economy we will simply grow by more than what we owe-that our revenues will continually expand beyond our expenses. At some point (Japan has been here for 30 years), the debt becomes so burdensome and so much of your budget goes to pay debt that there can be no more stimulating. So yes, while we can see the big highway signs that say "This Project Brought To You By ARRA Funds", we should wonder what economic activity and what other jobs were destroyed because our politicians decided to deploy capital in this manner.

Finally, I wanted to share an article I read on curriculum. This doesn't have to do specifically with Mt Lebanon but it was something that gave me a bit of perspective on how curriculum is done on a national level. Please see this article from the City Journal titled, "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math, Anyway?" I don't know how much I agree with the conclusions of the article (that we have purposely dumbed down our math for PC reasons) but I very much enjoyed the passion of the author and thought the article gave a ton of good information on things outside of just the curriculum process.

Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading.

James

Who Needs Math Anyway?

I ran across what I found to be a interesting article not just on math curriculum, but on the problem of nationalized standards. With the recent passage of the Keystone Exams, this might be a glimpse into our future.

Please see the article titled "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math Anyway" from the City Journal published by the Manhattan Institute.

Here is a quick excerpt that should catch your attention:

As part of his education-reform plan, President Obama wants to “make math and science education a top priority” and ensure that children have access to strong math and science curricula “at all grade levels.” But the president’s worthy aims won’t be reached so long as assessment experts, technology salesmen, and math educators—the professors, usually with education degrees, who teach prospective teachers of math from K–12—dominate the development of the content of school curricula and determine the pedagogy used, into which they’ve brought theories lacking any evidence of success and that emphasize political and social ends, not mastery of mathematics.

Understand that this is not a hit-piece on Obama, the author is simply critical of a process that was started before the current administration was in place. The article takes a general look at some of the current curriculum out there and how it came to pass. She suggests that a study done by the National Council of Teacher's of Mathematics in 1989 was influential in "dumbing down" math curriculum across the country by putting social goals above academic ones.

I am not claiming the article is right, but it is most definitely worth a read. I am still digesting some of the ideas and wondering if what the author suggests is actually happening and whether it did happen in Pennsylvania. For me, the article begs the question of whether or not our educational system has been taken over by bureaucrats and, if so, whether or not that has led to the overall decline of the US student achievement when compared to the rest of the world (another topic the article addresses briefly).

Regardless, the articles at the Manhattan Institute have earned a bookmark from me.

Thanks for reading.

James

State Budgets Facing Financial Peril

I took this headline right from a CNN article. Many of these states are different than what I posted about just last month here. As I have stated on many occasions, state budgets lag the overall economy by at least year, usually two. This was a lesson learned in California where I worked for a County government and layoffs typically followed recession by 18-24 months. Governments can typically fill one or sometimes even two-year budget gaps using stopgap measures like borrowing money or pushing out expenses to a future date. Spread budget problems out to three years or more and things really start to pile up.

Why is this a big deal? Well, projected cuts to state budgets to make ends meet could lead to a loss of almost 900,000 jobs. These layoffs would begin next fiscal year which starts in July in most states.

It is absolutely amazing to me that there is a recognized economist in this article that is saying that there needs to be MORE federal stimulus to fill budget gaps in state budgets for 2011. Stimulus simply is a way to borrow against future production. It's really that simple. The solution to a spending problem isn't borrowing money to continue spending too much. The solution to a spending problem is to spend less.

I do agree with the economist that "budget cuts and tax increases will be a serious drag on the economy at just the wrong time".

My belief is that creative destruction needs to take place. This will mean a painful adjustment for some, however, it is the right path and it needs to take place in order for us to go through this. One of my favorite investment/economics writes often, "In order to get through this, we need to go through this." We are in for years of high unemployment. It will be the new normal. Central Bank economists are predicting that unemployment will continue to remain high for "years to come".

The last Pennsylvania budget gap was filled by federal fiscal stimulus funds. We are already $3 billion behind heading into the 2010-2011 budget. How that gets filled is anyone's guess. This kind of fiscal problem is going to trickle down to our District budget at some point. While Mt. Lebanon gets a huge majority of its funding from local tax dollars, even a reduction of 5% of state funding would be significant.

There is no easy way out of this for states or, eventually, for local governments. Belt tightening will have to take place at some point. The hope I have is that we make decisions that make the most long-term sense. If we can focus our decisions on future government entities and the impact our decisions today will have on these entities five and even ten (or longer) years down the road, then we can start to lay in stone a path for financial stability.

Thanks for reading.

James

Educational Videos

Every once in awhile I come across some videos that I think are worth sharing.

I was sent an interesting video the other day by another Mt Lebanon resident. Its a video that puts out some information that most people will find fascinating.



Here is another video regarding the education of leaders in our world and why it matters:



Enjoy!

James

High School Community Advisory Board Approved

The School Board held a meeting on Thursday night to finish the discussion involving the formation of the Community Advisory Board. The motion passed 5-3.

There is a great discussion amongst community members regarding the pros and cons of the idea happening over at BlogLebo and I suggest that you get involved in the comments thread over there if you have anything to add (or subtract as the case may be).

The thing I will take issue with on that comment page is the unfair characterization of the meeting on Thursday night. This meeting was a continuation of the meeting from October 19th. Our Board President made a judgment call on the 19th and determined that the Board as a whole was not prepared to vote for the motion that was before it. Before bringing that meeting to a close he was clear to the members of the Board what he expected to happen prior to the reconvening of the meeting on Thursday night. He did a couple of things:

1) In anticipation of the motion passing on the 29th, he directed Dr. Steinhauer to advertise to the community that we would be accepting letter's of interest to be a part of this Community Advisory Board.

2) He asked all Board members to submit any changes they wanted to see to the motion in writing to the Superintendent prior to this Thursday's meeting so that those changes could all be seen and reviewed by Board members prior to the meeting. This was done in order to avoid to kind of confusion that happened at the October 19th meeting when some members of the Board made a number of motions to amend the original motion on the table.

3) He directed the solicitor to review our contract with the architect to determine if the amount that was being charged by Celli-Flynn was reasonable. At the time, Celli-Flynn was going to charge more than $30,000 for the first meeting and upwards of $20,000 for each meeting after that (see story here). This resulted in our architect substantially reducing the charges associated with this process.

When Board members received their weekly packet, it contained in it all the changes that were requested by each individual Board member. In the end, the President and Superintendent included in the final motion those changes that they thought the majority of the Board would support. For example, the two changes I requested were that, 1) the CAB have access to all previous project documentation (this was not made clear in the original motion) and, 2) that the CAB be able to continue their work if their suggestions were taken under consideration by the Board (the original motion simply said the CAB was disbanded after their December presentation). These changes along with the changes requested by a few other Board members were added to the resolution seen on Thursday night.

Some change requests were not added to the resolution. however, Board members were given the opportunity on Thursday night to get those changes in if they so desired. If you watch the meeting you will see that one of board member Sue Rose's recommendations did not make the resolution that was shown to the public. She requested at the meeting that her change be added to the motion. It did not get the votes required to become a part of the final motion. That process is good board leadership (setting expectations as was done at the Oct 19th meeting so that all Board members may be aware of changes that might be requested) and good board membership (following board procedure to get your requests heard and considered by the board). You can read the final motion at the District website here.

There are some things that I have disagreed with the Board president about in the past, however, in the case, he got it absolutely right.

My hope for the CAB is that the group will do what its purpose in the resolution says it should do:

1) Review the design according to the design criteria established by the Dejong group
2) Make recommendations to the Board that will save money (I am not talking about changing paint schemes here)
3) Determine if there was anything overlooked by the process that has been followed by the Board thus far that could potentially be costing us money

Contrary to what was said by some members of the public at the meeting, there is not a single board member who wants to start this group in order to delay the progress of the high school project. Accusations like that are just absurd. There is community buy-in on a high school project. This is something I have learned since I first got on the Board. We simply need to make sure we are collectively buying-in to the right project.

Thanks for reading.

James

Keystone Exams a done deal

UPDATE---

In my review of some of the posts on my blog, I realized that I have very little on what the actual Keystone Exams do to our graduation requirements. For that review I have found a great Pennsylvania School Board Association Document that can be found here.

Some highlights
-Keystone Exams will replace the 11th grade PSSA's. This was a development in July. Many people raised the concern of simply adding an additional standardized tests for our students. This was addressed by eliminating the 11th grade PSSA tests.

-Keystone Exams will be developed in literature, English composition, algebra I, geometry, algebra II, biology, American history, civics and government, chemistry, and world history

-Students will be offered remediation courses and alternative means of proving graduation readiness if they fail

- School districts will be given an opt-out provision that needs to be reviewed and approved by a 12 member board composed of people from the PDE, State Board of Education, PSBA, and other appointed board members as chosen by the PDE, State Board of Education, and PSBA

-Costs for validation will be split between the state and local government. If the state government is unwilling or unable to pay for their share, the local school district requirements will be deemed valid by default.

-Successful completion of an Advanced Placement course and test may be used in lieu of one of the courses required for graduation without the student having to take the Keystone Exam. International Baccalaureate classes will be treated the same way.

-Alternate measures of graduation readiness will be available for those students with Individualized Education Plans (IEP)

-In sum, the new graduation requirements for the class of 2014-2015 and beyond will include a combination of course completion and grades, graduation project, demonstration of proficiency as determined by the District, assessment requirements chosen by the school board in the form of Keystone Exams, validated local assessments, or AP/IB exams.

END UPDATE------

There was a big vote yesterday from the State Review Board regarding the Keystone Exams. In a 4-1 vote they approved the use of the exams in school districts across the states. Please see this article from the Philadelphia Enquirer.

I have talked about these exams from time to time on my blog. My issue, along with countless others, has always been that Pennsylvania has typically allowed local control of curriculum and graduation requirements. This exam, even while having an "opt-out" option will turn that control over to the State. The exams will be based on the graduation requirements by the State. Again, there is an opt-out provision but any school district that opts out has to have its requirements reviewed and approved by the state.

For the other side of the story, please see this op-ed from Joe Torsella, Chairman of the State Board of Education:

Strong Pennsylvania high school graduation requirements would pay off in long run
By Patriot-News Op-Ed
October 22, 2009, 1:59PM

by Joe Torsella

For almost two years, Pennsylvania has been engaged in spirited debate about the academic expectations we hold for our young people. In public hearings, the halls of the Capitol and newspaper editorial pages, there has been sharp disagreement about whether Pennsylvania should strengthen its high school graduation requirements.
grad hat.JPG
On the surface, this shouldn’t be a controversial question: Today’s high school graduates are entering the worst economy of our lifetimes, and our increasingly mobile society adds complexity and competition to their postsecondary plans. Nor is the state board’s proposal to strengthen graduation requirements a radical one.

Under the plan, students will have several options to meet graduation standards. The state will couple the reform with new resources, and no student will be denied a diploma based on test scores alone. The proposal will eliminate the 11th-grade state tests currently used to comply with No Child Left Behind and replace them with a series of standard course finals — a step that will make the state assessment more relevant to students and reduce testing time.

The proposal isn’t perfect — some business and postsecondary leaders advocated for higher standards. Others claim the regulation is too complicated and will present implementation challenges. But these qualms don’t explain away the fervor of the opposition — and that got me thinking.

In significant ways, I believe the debate around graduation requirements has become a proxy fight for broader policy questions buffeting public schools — and Pennsylvania.

For example, the emerging conversation about a voluntary national “common core” of academic standards might be seen by some as a threat to Pennsylvania’s tradition of local control of education decision-making and the power of school boards. Meanwhile, the weak economy might exacerbate worries among parents and educators that higher expectations will increase dropout rates, making the search for good jobs even more challenging for disadvantaged students.

On the issue of local control, let me be clear: School districts will decide how their students meet graduation requirements, and districts that want to set higher standards may do so. In addition, education stakeholders, and especially teachers, will have a significant role and voice in implementing the new policy.

Regarding dropout rates, there is no correlation between higher academic expectations and students leaving school. In fact, an absence of challenging curriculum is the more likely culprit along with systemic issues such as school safety.

While it’s worth remembering that assessments will be just one part of one pathway to meeting graduation requirements, results released last month by the Maryland Department of Education should help ease these concerns: only 11 of about 60,000 Maryland high school seniors did not graduate in 2009 solely because they failed the state’s exams.

Indeed, evidence from other high-performing states suggests that stronger graduation requirements are a powerful reform lever. Since instituting new graduation requirements, Virginia has seen significant achievement gains in every subject. Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt, a former Massachusetts legislator and co-author of that state’s Education Reform Act, calls strong graduation requirements the “single most significant act in catalyzing Massachusetts’s phenomenal growth in student achievement.”

For Pennsylvania, the question now is whether to go forward or stand still. State-level education reforms — sustained across multiple administrations — have produced significant achievements, including some of the nation’s most rigorous academic standards. And during the last seven years, Harrisburg has made a commitment to dramatic increases in state funding for public education. Even this year’s budget, with billions in cuts to worthy programs, provides a $300 million increase for K-12 education.
torsella
These efforts have led to achievement gains across Pennsylvania and among all groups of students. But we have more work to do — especially for our high schools when more than 40 percent of graduates cannot demonstrate grade-level mastery of reading and math.

We have today a proposal that reflects input from thousands of Pennsylvanians and diverse stakeholders.

The proposal has been strengthened thanks to study by legislative leaders — especially Sens. Jeffrey Piccola and Andrew Dinniman and Rep. James Roebuck.

The regulation borrows from strategies in the nation’s best-performing public education systems. And it finds balance between rigorous expectations for every student and flexibility that respects individual learning needs.

For all of these reasons, it’s time to move ahead.

Thanks for reading.

James