Parents, Schools, and the Personal is Political Question

For a while now I have been following Leonie Haimson (yes, following on twitter and getting her email messages). Leonie Haimson is the executive director of a New York City group called Class Size Matters. Sure, New York City is nothing like Washtenaw County, and New York City has a mayoral control system--which really sucks if you are a parent trying to have some input into the school system!

Still, I'm interested in New York because I'm interested in New York, and obviously. . . most obviously. . . class size does matter. So today Leonie Haimson sent out an email that she titled "A Personal Note," and I want to share it.

Dear parents:

I haven’t written much about myself or my family on my blog or in these newsletters; however, I am doing so now because GothamSchools [ed. note: link] is intent on writing about me, my organization Class Size Matters [ed. note: link], and about the fact that my son entered a private high school this year. I told their reporter Geoff Decker about this in the fall, in the midst of a longer, off the record conversation about many things, and ever since, whenever I have contacted him about possible stories, he has brought up this issue instead of more important ones.  I myself don’t think it is either particularly interesting or relevant, but since he is intent on writing about the situation, and said he intends to compare me to Michelle Rhee, who also sends one of her children to private school, I decided I should explain why I think our situations are quite different.

I had kids in NYC public schools for a total of 15 years; my daughter attended public schools from K-6^th grade; my son K-8^th grade.  My record of advocacy and my continued work in this area should prove my commitment to public school children.  The private schools they attended have the sort of small classes that I believe all children have the right to receive.  It is a parent’s responsibility to find a school that they believe best fits their children’s needs; and for that reason I have never criticized Bloomberg, Bill Gates,  Rhee or anyone for sending their own children to any school, whether private, charter or public. 

So I thought this was really interesting because it mirrors some of the issues I've been thinking about in regards to Washtenaw County schools, in particular in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.

In Ann Arbor, when the Community High School lists came up, several people I know immediately began discussing on facebook whether they should look at private schools or other schools. Some of them had older kids in the comprehensive high schools, and some of them didn't, but had heard things they didn't like.

In Ypsilanti, I have several friends and acquaintances who are working hard to make the new Ypsilanti Community Schools a success--they are on committees, they are going to meetings. And yet their children are already in private schools, charter schools, or schools of choice in other districts. We saw this also in the school board candidates for the new YCS school board, some of whom had children in charter schools. All of them desperately want the Ypsilanti Community Schools to be a success. But for their own kids? They felt they needed to make a different choice.

One of them said to me, "I feel guilty, but I don't know what YCS will look like next year, and I had to act now."

Ultimately, we as parents are responsible for our children's education. That is our responsibility, and generally, we don't get do-overs when it comes to our kids' educations.

Ultimately, our individual choices--taken collectively--can harm our efforts for public schools.

Should we judge these choices?

I sort of do. I sort of judge them as making the smart parenting choice. Most of these parents don't come to, or take their, decisions lightly.

I sort of judge them as selling out.

Mostly,  I sort of respect that a parent's gotta do what a parent's gotta do as a parent--even if in the long-term it hurts the work they are trying to do in the larger community.

Yes, the personal is political, but let's not forget that the personal is, first and foremost, personal.

And here Leonie Haimson gets to the key point:

What I have criticized is when powerful and wealthy individuals send their children to schools that feature very small classes, lots of art, music, etc., and little or no standardized testing, but then advocate for an entirely different kind of education for other children.     The evidence is crystal clear that all kids benefit from smaller classes, but especially poor and minority kids, and yet these children are LEAST likely to have access to them. The efforts of the corporate reformers mentioned above who have advocated for increasing class size, especially in large urban districts, while ensuring that their own children are provided with small classes is wrong.  I will continue my life’s work to try to improve the opportunity for all kids to be provided with small classes, as well as adequate and fair funding, an end to high stakes testing, and a voice for parents in decision-making, and to call out hypocrisy wherever I see it.

And guess where we see that hypocrisy? Right here in Michigan, where Governor Snyder is doing the exact same thing.

David Arsen, MSU School of Education professor and school finance expert, takes this on in a terrific (and long) "Open Letter to Governor Snyder." (Read the rest of David Arsen's letter here.) In this excerpt, in the section titled Trust Your Judgment, he writes:

My hunch is that you [Gov. Snyder] have a pretty good sense of what makes for a good school. You had the opportunity to send your own child to excellent public schools [Ann Arbor schools], but chose Greenhills School, a wonderful private school in Ann Arbor. It is selective. The school has attractive facilities and grounds, a student-faculty ratio of eight and an average class size of 17. Greenhills strives to provide a wide range of stimulating and challenging classes. Teachers and administrators take pride in the school’s democratic decision-making; it’s not top-down.
Annual tuition for Greenhills is nearly $20,000, and, as you know better than I, that doesn’t cover all operating costs. If the trend line for Michigan public school revenues looks like a frown, then the one for Greenhills looks a bit more like a smile.
I don’t question your choice. But this is what puzzles me. Students at Greenhills do not take standardized tests until they apply to college. The school’s educators sympathize with their public school colleagues whose professional lives now revolve around tests.
Greenhills does not accept credit for online classes, nor offer classes for credit in the summer. It takes a firm position against students taking courses at other institutions, including colleges or universities, unless they have already taken the school’s most advanced course in a subject. Greenhills students don’t graduate early, but rather all together at a spring commencement. The school is designed around remarkable physical spaces devoted to “forums” for students in each grade to meet, deliberate and socialize.
The school has a thoughtful rationale for these decisions: it wants students to interact with one another and faculty to establish a durable and supportive community. I try to imagine how the families and educators at Greenhills would react if they were forced to operate under the rules embodied in the Oxford proposal and HB 5923.

So whatever your personal choices, let's keep working for those same ideals for all children: small class sizes; public programs; parents being able to work with school officials and professionals; no high-stakes testing.

Should High Schools Be "College" or Be for Getting Ready for College?

I met Georgina Hickey at the recent Ypsilanti Community Schools meeting that I went to--yes, the one where they chose the Superintendent Triumvirate. (In fact, while there I took a picture of a sign a woman was holding. You can see the picture here.) Although Georgina was holding the sign, she was not in the photo.

In any case, Georgina has just written this letter, reproduced below, to the Ypsilanti Community Schools board. I asked her if I could reproduce this because she raises an issue I've been thinking about a lot. On the one hand, new state rules about credits mean that it's hard for even motivated students to graduate from high school early, and on the other hand we appear to be very focused on getting kids to "do" college before they are even out of high school. Anyway, I could say more, but I'll just say that Georgina's letter raises some really important issues, not just for the Ypsilanti Community Schools but for all schools, and I'm hoping for some discussion about these issues in the comments. (Please?)

Dear Board and Superintendents,
I would like to express my concern about the "college credit or career credentials" pillar that somehow became one of the goals of our new district (I participated in all the public meetings this summer and it was never clear to me who decided these were the pillars). 
I won't speak to career credentials as I have no experience in that area and what I have heard others discussing, such as the culinary arts program, seem realistic and well tended. I can speak to college credit, however, as I am a professor and I regularly teach freshmen and transfers from community colleges.
My recollection from YPSD's strategic planning a 2-3 years ago is that a surprising number of Ypsi students say they intend to go to college (good) but most don't make it through to a degree or even more than one year (bad). This is the disconnect where we need more focused attention: kids think college is an option for them, but for some reason it is not workable once they get there. I strongly advocate we work on excellent college preparation: particularly math and writing skills for the academic realm. Based on what I see at UM-Dearbon students also need more help information literacy and mastering independent learning skills.
My thinking is that college should be a viable option for all of our students who want it. Getting students a handful of credits here or there before they graduate HS is a distraction from the larger issue: making sure they are ready for college with the academic, emotional, and social skills they will need to pursue a degree.
I would far rather promise parents that, should they and their kids want it, this district can prepare the kids to succeed in college. That is a higher and harder goal but more meaningful than 6 credits they will never use because they weren't actually prepared to take a wide range of college classes on a college campus.
I have raised this issue repeatedly since the first time I saw this pillar. It came up again at the forum on Saturday but since no one from this advisory group was there, I wanted to be sure the message got through to you. I know that WCC is helping with this initiative, which is wonderful, but you should know that transfers from community colleges often struggle with the rigors of a four year institution. I hope that at the very least we can include Eastern and other 4-year colleges in the discussion. I think they have much to tell us about where and why students struggle. I'm happy to connect you to college staff and faculty at UM-Dearborn who can help with this.
Thank you,Georgina Hickey

Education Achievement Authority Legislation is Back

From Steven Norton, Executive Director of Michigan Parents for Schools:

FLASH: As you can see . . . they have re-introduced the EAA legislation. 

http://www.house.mi.gov/publiccommitteeschedule/MeetingDisplay.aspx?BroadcastKey=3428

And here is the link to the bill:

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/billintroduced/House/pdf/2013-HIB-4369.pdf

Rep. David Knezek

Tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. the House Education Committee will begin to receive testimony on House Bill 4369 - a bill that would codify the controversial Education Achievement Authority (EAA). Committee convenes in room 519 of the House Office Building and is open to the public. I encourage you to attend and be engaged on this important issue.

The bill was just made available today, and they are holding hearings on it tomorrow [Wednesday March 6th] afternoon at 2:30pm. (That meeting is in addition to the regular one at 10:30am on the 3rd floor of the HOB, which will be about early childhood education.) It will be important to show that Michigan parents are still opposed to this measure, which makes takeovers the preferred method of "helping" struggling schools.
This time, a number of members of the House Education Committee are listed as co-sponsors, so they may be better able to line up votes. This bill is essentially identical to the last-ditch compromise offered in December (the H-6 sub of HB 6004, for those keeping track). Key features: limits EAA to running 50 schools, limits chartering authority to a 2-mile radius around EAA takeover schools or in districts with an emergency manager. There are also clearer standards for entry into, and exit from, the EAA's care. They also retained language that would require the chancellor to create a school advisory panel if at least 25 parents requested it.

We're still opposed to this bill, even in its current form. 1) State takeover is not an effective, long-term strategy for improving struggling schools - successful efforts involve working with the local community and existing staff to make lasting change. 2) The bill still smacks of empire-building: why on earth would the EAA need to be able to create brand new charter schools less than 2 miles from a school they are supposedly trying to "help"? 3) All their protestations to the contrary, the technology-driven techniques they are using in the classroom are experimental and have not been shown to work anywhere. We should not be experimenting with the most vulnerable children without giving families a full understanding of what might or might not work. In particular, we should not be turning the EAA into a state-wide "recovery" school district with a one-semester track record.

Please come and make your concerns clear tomorrow!
We're still opposed to this bill, even in its current form. 1) State takeover is not an effective, long-term strategy for improving struggling schools - successful efforts involve working with the local community and existing staff to make lasting change. 2) The bill still smacks of empire-building: why on earth would the EAA need to be able to create brand new charter schools less than 2 miles from a school they are supposedly trying to "help"? 3) All their protestations to the contrary, the technology-driven techniques they are using in the classroom are experimental and have not been shown to work anywhere. We should not be experimenting with the most vulnerable children without giving families a full understanding of what might or might not work. In particular, we should not be turning the EAA into a state-wide "recovery" school district with a one-semester track record.
Please come and make your concerns clear tomorrow!

An Ypsilantian Discusses the Possible Schools Consolidation

I asked, "But Ypsilantians, what do you think? Would you vote for consolidation?" and YpsiAnon answered. Here's a guest post.

Would I vote for consolidation?  My thoughts on this have evolved from “What’s the point?” to “It might be good but it will never happen,” to “I can see the benefits.”  Actually, I am one step beyond that now, thinking, “We really need this, and I hope it’s not too late.” 

Most of us could see the path the school districts’ budgets were taking (and I don’t just mean Ypsi’s or Willow Run’s).  In the last two years, the increase in the rate of speed of hit upon hit, coming from all directions, could not have been foreseen, even to the most cynical. Ypsi has tried to live up to the promises of its deficit elimination plan, which is all about cutting the budget, while at the same time trying to bolster its academics, which is all about adding new costs.  There is a constant conflict between these two demands.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the state would push “pause” on the debt repayment, while the district could establish the new educational programs that could retain and even draw in pupils?

What the state seems to be offering, instead, is the chance to slow down the repayment of the debt, extending it from two years to possibly twenty.  It is offering a three-year moratorium on the establishment of any new charter schools in the area so that the new, combined district has a chance to get established before competition increases.  (Unfortunately, two or three new charters started last year, and one or two more are coming this year.)  It is dangling up to $10 million (likely much less) in consolidation funding (and it will surely be a costly endeavor).  These things could delay or, hopefully, prevent a takeover by an Emergency Financial Manager (EFM).  (By the way, to those who like to say that an EFM is a satisfactory solution, I remind them that EFMs are only about the budgets, not the academics.)

In exchange, our new “unified” district (the term the WISD uses) needs to develop a new educational model, which is going to include students from birth to age 20.  We are already in the process of changing our systems in order to improve student achievement, and need to expand this anyway so as to avoid a takeover by an Educational Achievement Authority (EAA).

Those are the basics.

Obviously, both Ypsilanti and Willow Run districts need make big changes, and they need to make them soon.  Do we want to undertake these efforts separately, with no support from the state, or together, with state support?  We have common needs and common goals.  To me, it makes sense to join forces, combine the resources we do have, and throw ourselves into solving these problems in a unified way.  Long shot?  Maybe.  But I’d prefer to go out with a bang rather than a whimper, if we do, indeed, have to go out.

- YpsiAnon

The Choosing, Looping, and Making of Teachers

My friend's daughter co-writes a blog about Jewish texts. (You can find it here.) In a recent post, Maya writes:

Our learning for this week was focused around the teaching from Pirkei Avot [Ethics of the Fathers, a collection of ethics and advice]: “aseh lecha rav, u’kneh lecha chaver, v’hevey dan et kol ha’adam l’chaf zchut. Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person with the scales tipped in his favor.”

When we learned this text over the summer, one of its aspects that I particularly liked was the use of the verb aseh (make) rather than kneh (acquire) in reference to finding teachers. A teacher, implies the text, is not discovered but cultivated. More so, anyone can be made into a teacher, as it is a process of relationship building rather than a swift act of obtaining. Avot d’Rabbi Natan [A commentary on Pirkei Avot/Ethics of the Fathers] reads this text a bit more literally. “Melamed she’ya’aseh lo rav kavua. This teaches us that a person should have a fixed teacher.” From this teacher, a student should learn [many different Jewish texts] Torah, Mishna, midrash, halachah, and aggadah. In this way, if a teacher forgets a detail when teaching Torah, for example, this detail will still ultimately be imparted to the student when the teacher teaches Mishna.

I know very few people who have a rav kavua, a fixed teacher. In my personal experience, I have not only had different teachers for Tanach, Mishnah, and the rest of my Jewish learning, but I also have a whole other set of teachers from whom I have learned English literature, calculus, physics, and history. . . . In speaking about students like me, Avot d’Rabbi Natan asserts that “nimtza adam ha’hu…b’lo tov u’vracha. A man like this will be found…to have neither goodness nor blessing.” Great…

I thought this was very thought-provoking because, in fact, in our public schools not only do we generally take the approach that it's best to have subject-specific teachers, but also, we don't even generally tell students who will be teaching their classes. I've always imagined this was because schools were afraid to share that information because people would "vote with their feet." One of the very popular aspects of Community High School in Ann Arbor is that students generally do know who will be teaching a class you might choose to take. Yet in college, many students are persuaded to take a class in a subject they didn't think they would be interested in [be it political science, philosophy, or physics] because of the caliber of the professor.

At the elementary school level, if you (and here I am referring, generally, to parents) have any choice at all, you are generally asked to "describe the characteristics you want" rather than the teacher you want. And even if you do have some control over who you get as a teacher, you will probably not have that teacher for year after year.

One exception would be the Rudolph Steiner schools, where the idea is that you "loop" with the teacher, so the teacher moves up the grades with the student. Even in the Steiner schools, though, I don't think you get to "choose" your teachers.

As an aside, when I student taught, I taught in a middle school classroom where the students looped for seventh and eighth grade. At the beginning of the year, I was astonished by how quickly the eighth grade students--who knew the teacher from the year before--settled into a comfortable routine.

Obviously there are some down sides to looping as well--if you have a weak teacher, or a teacher who is weak in one area, that could lead to problems down the road.

There are a few aspects of the text Maya discusses that I found interesting:
1. The idea that you can, and should, choose your teacher.
2. The idea that the teacher can, and should, teach multiple subjects. [Later on in the post, Maya points out that this would allow teachers to make connections between subjects.]
3. And last, but not least, the idea that you can, and should, "make" your teacher, and not just "acquire" your teacher. That, of course, implies that the teacher is also learning from the student.

So--that is food for thought. Have you had experiences where you got to choose your teacher? Where you stuck with a teacher for several years? Where you "made" your teacher? How did it work out for you?

Laws About Teaching, Laws About Schools

Here's the latest information from Michigan Parents for Schools regarding proposed Michigan legislation.

We’ve just released the latest version of our legislative update on the “school choice” package of bills which have been making their way through the Senate.The update document is in PDF format, and we will be updating it regularly as the bills make their way through the Legislature. The download link is at the end of the article. The document is current as of 10/15, reflecting the bills as reported from committee or as passed by the Senate.

Here is the link to the PDF.

Keep checking back at mipfs.org for more information.

Charter #2: Arbor Preparatory High School

My initial idea in writing about the charter schools in the county was that I would provide the same information about each charter school, and that I would go alphabetically. Well, I'm sticking to my plan of going alphabetically, but that basically makes it impossible to provide the same information for each school, because this next school has not even opened yet! It does, however, allow me to provide some very basic information, and make some observations.

View Larger Map

Arbor Preparatory High School is a charter school that is part of the for-profit National Heritage Academies (which has two other established Washtenaw County schools--Fortis and South Arbor--and one other school that is set to open this year on the same site as Arbor Prep--East Arbor). It is set to open in the Fall of 2011 with up to 250 ninth and tenth grade students, at the corner of Merritt and Hitchingham Roads.
One thing that is very interesting about the development of this school is that it is only the second charter high school in the county that is really focused on high school students. The other is Washtenaw Technical Middle College, which is chartered by and run in concert with/on the campus of Washtenaw Community College. Two other schools--Eastern Washtenaw Multicultural Academy and Central Academy--have much smaller numbers of high school students.

The school is part of the National Heritage Academies and is being run by a charter management company, PrepNet. The newly-appointed principal, Matthew Hudson, was formerly an assistant principal at South Arbor. The web site looks very bare at this point. The only parts that are fairly well filled out are the athletics and college planning sections, and I assume those are basically boilerplate from PrepNet. As with all National Heritage Academies schools, there is a "moral focus curriculum," and they offer art, music, library, and physical education.

If you want to see the proposed budget, you can find it here. Operations and Maintenance is over half the budget! Only about 1/3 of the budget is devoted to instructional services. This may be a function of the fact that they are moving into a new building, but I'm not sure if this is the building budget or not.

In the annarbor.com article about the principal, there was a lot of discussion in the comments about why all these schools have "Arbor" in their names, when they are actually located in Ypsilanti. It's a good question, and I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

The school itself is chartered by Bay Mills Community College, which is Michigan's first fully-accredited, tribal (community) college, and if you're wondering how or why a small community college that doesn't certify teachers is in the business of chartering schools, I think the answer is: money. When Michigan first started allowing charter schools, they put caps on the number of schools that could be chartered. Bay Mills is on Indian land, and is therefore not subject to state law--so they didn't have a cap. So would-be schools were interested in Bay Mills because there was no cap, and Bay Mills was interested in the schools because the schools pay an administrative fee to the charterer. Based on the Bay Mills web site, it appears to me that other chartering authorities do a much better job of supervision. The role of Bay Mills as a charter authorizer has been a matter of some controversy, deserving of its own post.

This is also where I tell you that unlike my search of the EMU web site for chartering documents when I wrote about Ann Arbor Learning Community, I could find very little on the Bay Mills Community College web site (no charter documents). Nor could I find information about the charter on the state web site (when I looked a few weeks ago) because at that point it was still showing up as a "proposed" school.

And because I'm still a little bit murky on the corporate behind-the-scenes information (and I'm not sure if it's supposed to be easy to find this information or not), I can't tell you very much about PrepNet or about the proposed school. However--I'd be interested in tips on how to research our local charter schools, so if you know, please do tell--either in the comments or via an email message.

What I can tell you is this: there are two kinds of charters--non-profit and for-profit. Ann Arbor Learning Community, Washtenaw Technical Middle College, Honey Creek. . . they are organized as nonprofits with local boards of directors. In contrast, Arbor Preparatory High School is part of a much larger, privately-held, for-profit venture.

I have to tell you that I am completely and totally murky on why we permit for-profit ventures in education. Fundamentally and philosophically, that seems wrong to me. In charter schools, some of the profit may come at the expense of teacher salaries, which are lower than other public schools--but the same could be said of many non-profit private schools where tuition is significantly higher than the per-pupil allowances of public schools. In other cases, I don't even understand how the profit accrues. In any case, if there is "leftover" money in education (a.k.a. surplus or profit), then we should plow it back into the education of students.

That does not mean that there won't be demand for Arbor Preparatory High School, or that it won't be successful. (I believe that the other local NHA schools have waiting lists.) Feel free to come back to this post in a month or two and write about your experiences with the school.

Top Eleven List: Things to Think About Tonight. Or Tomorrow.

1. The tenure bills passed the House. All of them. One major change, given how many layoffs have happened this past year...the seniority rule of "last in, first out" changes (this was pushed by a group championed by Michelle Rhee, the highly controversial former Washington DC superintendent). Another bill limits topics that can be bargained to wages and benefits.  I think this could be a sea change for many school districts. Read more about it in this Grand Rapids Press article.
As far as evaluation goes, of course it is important. It also strikes me that many principals are lousy at it. Principals are typically trained to be administrators, not managers. If we're going to ask them to be managers, then we'd better make sure we're training them on that!
It also highlights for me how disorganized the teachers, and teachers' unions have been. And by the way, it has always surprised me how many Republican teachers I know. And there are plenty of teachers who live in districts represented by Republicans. So tell me--do those teachers agree with the new laws? Or did they just forget to press their Representatives? 

2. I've written previously about how Carolyn King broke the Little League barrier for girls nationally in Ypsilanti.  Well, it turns out that there is a very elite all-girls' baseball team (yes, not softball) called the Dream Team--and they are coming to play in an elite baseball tournament in Ypsilanti this very weekend! Read about it in this Detroit Free Press article. What's even better is that you can go watch them, as well as some other very good teams, this weekend--and it's free! These are very high-level teams. That story reminds me that my older son had a girl on his baseball team for several years, and she was just as good as the boys. . . better than some of them.

Details of the tournament, from the Detroit Free Press:

Check out the Dream Team
WHERE: The Michigan Major Elite will be held at the baseball fields at the Eastern Michigan Recreation Complex on 100 Westview Street in Ypsilanti.
ADMISSION: Free
WHEN: The Dream Team will play at least five games in the tournament, which features 28 teams of 13-year-olds:
Friday: Brighton Black on Field 1 at 2 p.m.
Friday: Great Lakes Cardinals (Canton) on Field 2 at 8 p.m.
Saturday: Boys of Summer (Ohio) on Field 3 at 10 a.m.
Saturday: Strongsville Stallions (Ohio) on Field 3 at 6 p.m.
Sunday: Consolation and championship games, beginning at 8 a.m.

3. Scarlett News--I was sorry to hear about the sudden death of the science teacher James Bryant. I had met him, but I had no idea that he was an Olympian!

4. The special education department (SISS) has at least two vacancies right now--Bill Harris is moving to Eberwhite to be a principal and there is another vacancy. Parents with special education concerns should make sure to keep an eye on the process of filling these positions. The other day I heard a story about a parent whose child has an IEP. The child was not doing well in school. They had a parent meeting a couple of weeks ago and one of the teachers says, "Oh, so s/he's a visual learner?" Umm. Yeah. That's what the IEP says. Teachers, read the IEPs. That's what they are there for--so you can tailor your teaching to the needs of the students you are teaching. Parents, don't be afraid to be your child's advocate...even if you have to keep repeating yourself!

5. I recently heard that the number of graduate students in the University of Michigan's elementary-school-age one-year Masters and Certification program (El-MAC) has dropped substantially. So maybe people are getting the idea that there are very few jobs out there. . . I've written before about how we are training too many teachers. 

6. I'm glad to hear that busing won't be cancelled for kindergarten or high school students in Ann Arbor. Although I understand the rationale for asking high school students to walk further, in my neck of the woods,  for Skyline students that would mean walking down a fairly busy street (Newport) with no lights or sidewalks while it is still dark out in the winter. It would only take one hit-and-run accident to change the whole cost-benefit analysis. I'm glad the school board has recognized this!

7. Speaking about millages. . . did you know that even though we approved the special education millage, it is still not enough money to keep special education funding flowing at the same rate as last year? Read the background here. Since special education funding is mandated, that means that money needs to come from somewhere--and yes, that somewhere is general education. What, you say? How could that happen? Well, I believe it was the WISD board that put this millage on the ballot. Why did they decide to ask for less money than last time? I believe it's because the WISD board operates behind the scenes. Nobody elects them; nobody goes to their meetings; nobody gives them any feedback about their ideas. By "nobody" here I don't actually mean "nobody." I'm referring to the general public that bothers to give the Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Dexter, Milan, Saline, Whitmore Lake, Lincoln, Willow Run, Chelsea and Manchester boards of education a piece of their minds. That public process sometimes keeps school boards (which are, after all, just groups of people) from making bad decisions. [Yes, not always. It was a bad decision to offer the incoming Ann Arbor superintendent such a high salary, and the school board was told that. On the other hand, the school board was also told it was a bad idea to cut high school transportation, and they listened.]  Scott Menzel, I hope you are planning on making the activities of the WISD more public. 

8. The Manchester School Board is conducting a non-traditional search for a Superintendent (they have informally identified a preferred candidate). The first interview will be June 21. Read about it here. In addition, according to the Manchester Enterprise article, the next regular school board meeting is scheduled for at 6:30 p.m. June 20 in the Ackerson Building and will begin with the budget hearing.

9. School of Choice enrollment for Ann Arbor fell short. Surprise, surprise. Remember when I discussed the school board and administration's rationale for not opening up the high schools to school of choice students? I was pretty critical of their reasoning. You know, Ann Arbor school board, there is actually still time to do that. And if not this year, there is always next year.

10. It looks like James Dickson has joined the Ann Arbor Journal/Heritage Newspapers and has been assigned the local schools beat. I believe he was one of the layoffs from annarbor.com a couple of months ago. I personally welcome any additional coverage of local school districts. They deserve much more coverage than they get, despite the best efforts of Kyle Feldscher (annarbor.com); Jennifer Coffman (Ann Arbor Chronicle); Tom Perkins (stringer for several local news sites); and other freelancers. I appreciate all of you!

11. Do you know what the #1 post on this blog has been? It's (very) hard for me to believe, but a lot of people apparently want to know why some female softball players wear bows. Yup, that's right. I invite you to read my post, No Bow Lesbo, to find out the answer. 

Budget Notes: Class Commentary

This is the second of two posts on the AAPS budget proposal, but let's start with this: all of the local school districts are having budget forums. At the Ann Arbor forum on Monday, the majority of parents were parents of elementary school students. Besides me, there was only one other Ann Arbor Open parent. Parents of middle and high school students. . . interested community members. . . PLEASE. SHOW UP! Share your thoughts. The next forum in Ann Arbor is this Thursday (tomorrow!) at 6:30 p.m. at Skyline. You can also write the Board of Education at boe@aaps.k12.mi.us.

For years, Ann Arbor has been reluctant to add students from other districts through what is known as a "schools of choice" program. Originally, the district ostensibly didn't want to add other students because the per-student payment that Ann Arbor would get from out-of-district students was significantly less than the per-pupil payment for in-district students (because Ann Arbor has the highest per-pupil allocation in the county).

Lately, that thinking has shifted a little bit. If you have a partially-full school, then the incremental cost of adding a student is somewhat less, so why not add those school of choice students? And so we come to the point, now, where we have limited schools of choice for elementary and middle school students--only some Ann Arbor elementary and middle schools are open to students from other school districts.

If you have your ear to the ground at all, though, you would know that where parents feel stressed out is in the lack of options for high school students. There are fewer charter schools and fewer private schools for high school students.

It just so happens that at the budget forum, they ask you about your ideas for generating new revenue. And, if you've been paying attention to the budget discussions, then you know that bringing in students of choice from other districts at the high school level could bring in a lot of money. So, I wrote down, "Add some high school "school of choice" slots--perhaps 30 each to Huron, Skyline, and Pioneer." [In case you are wondering, if fully enrolled this would bring in about half-a-million dollars with negligible impact.]

But I didn't stop there. Because as soon as I thought of it, I thought, "This is so obvious that there must be a reason they haven't decided to do it, and I wonder what that reason is!" I knew that before Skyline was full, when Pioneer and Huron were over-full, they didn't want to add school of choice students. But next year, we'll be at equilibrium with all three Ann Arbor comprehensive high schools roughly at their stated capacity. 

So. I asked an administrator and a school board member why we couldn't add school of choice students to the high schools. I won't tell you which administrator or school board member because I didn't tell them I'd be quoting them and these were private conversations, but the essence of the answers were these.

Administrator: Well, we could consider doing that. We had kind of wanted to wait to see how Skyline looks as a full school, and we don't currently offer any options for students to switch between schools [except for the very limited Skyline schools of choice enrollment for freshmen]. (In other words, a student at Huron cannot decide she or he would rather go to Pioneer.)

My feeling about this: I believe that the administrator was saying that if we offer opportunities to out-of-district students that we don't offer to in-district students, we could get in trouble (politically, from parents and others). I admit, that's a good point about allowing movement between the high schools, and maybe in-district schools of choice should be open to a limited number of students too. We already do that at the elementary and middle schools.  But I don't think we have the luxury of waiting another year, and I think if we were (say) to open 15 freshmen and 15 sophomore slots at each of the main high schools, that would raise money with little stress on the district. [My only qualm is that I don't like the feeling of "poaching" on other schools.]

School Board Member: Well, we could revisit this, but at least in the past we have felt that we needed to bring kids up through our program. So they start in elementary or middle school, and move up through our system. We do look at test scores a lot. 

My feeling about this: There was no break between the school board member's second and third sentences, and therefore the implication that I took from this statement was that a) students in other districts do worse than our students and b) the students who would come into our district from other districts are likely be poorer performers on tests. So I was extremely shocked, and I told said board member that I thought this was a very snobby way to look at things. Put another way, I believe this was a classist statement.

The statement implies that only Ann Arbor teachers and only the Ann Arbor school district know how to educate students. It implies that students in other districts do worse on tests like the MEAP.  This is simply not true. Dexter and Saline schools have similar or better scores, and other districts come close. 
The statement implies that typically the students who come into the district through a schools of choice program would be lower-performing on the almighty tests. However, typically the families that search out schools of choice are the highest-performing, most involved families--in fact one argument about charter schools is that they "cherry pick" high performing students seeking the best opportunities.
The statement takes as a given that the students who come in would not have previously been in our district--even though we know there is plenty of movement in and around Washtenaw County, with students moving between school districts.  
In fact, there is no proof that these ideas are true, yet they appear to be influencing our school board's decision-making.

I was extremely disappointed by this answer. It made me wonder if the whole school board is similarly classist. I read it as assuming that students who would come in are poorer than students who are here already. Poverty does drive test scores, to a great extent, but it's not a given that poor students will do poorly on tests, and even if it were, it seems the height of arrogance to me to say that we can't take in school of choice students in ninth or tenth grade because they might not do well on tests.

I also started thinking about this: since poor people are disproportionately people of color, the issues of the "racial" achievement gap and the "class" achievement gap are closely entwined.

It occurs to me that Ann Arbor is not the only school board that perhaps feels this way, because I know Saline only takes school of choice students into their "alternative" high school, where--on average--the school of choice students have been doing better than the Saline students. 

I hope the school board reconsiders, and opens the comprehensive high schools to a limited schools of choice program.

Dog Days of August

Why are they called dog days? I have no idea--I thought maybe because of the idea that dogs lie around and don't do anything?

In any case, if August has the reputation that not much happens, that hasn't been true this past week.

Here are a few things you can read about (with my comments after each link):

Todd Roberts is leaving as Ann Arbor superintendent. He is going to be the chancellor for the North Carolina School for Science and Math.
What do I think? I think Todd Roberts did a fairly good job here--not perfect, but being a superintendent in Ann Arbor is a lot like herding cats--and I'm glad he's able to make a job choice that will allow him to spend time with his (and his wife's) parents. I think I'd prefer naming an interim superintendent in order to not rush the job search.

Race and ethnicity sagas continue.
So the "Skyline bus fight" was not deemed a hate crime after all. (You can go back to this earlier post or this one if you need to refresh your memory.) Of course the big bugaboo in the room: how can we de-escalate tensions before they start?

And although Mike Madison made a mistake, he won't be disciplined. I'm glad about that. Let us learn from our mistakes, and move on. That's what we tell students to do, and honestly? We are all still learners. We still have an achievement gap...

And a Willow Run building supervisor is suing Doris Hope-Jackson and the Willow Run school district for race discrimination and for discrimination based on the Family Medical Leave Act. (Todd LaPrairie is white, Hope-Jackson is black.) Is it true? I don't know, but at this point, let's remember that the school board is trying to dismiss Hope-Jackson, and it's tempting to believe almost anything...but, that's why we have courts and due-process hearings.

In other news...

Annarbor.com has an extensive special report on the idea of consolidating school districts. The full study (done by Michigan State University) can be found here. The net result: if all of the districts in the state were to undergo some consolidation, we could save 4% of our expenses. My feeling is, it might make sense to consolidate some districts, but not others--size matters, local control matters. Having to drive hours to a school board meeting matters. Closing down charters would probably save more, but nobody is suggesting that.
I wrote about some of the roadblocks to consolidation in this post. Here are the roadblocks:

First, the districts considering consolidation (or annexation) need to have their school boards decide it is worth pursuing.
Second, the voters in each district need to agree. Jack Lessenberry had a good essay about why the Montague and Whitehall districts (near Muskegon) voted no many years ago. And the moral is that both small and large things can deter people from voting yes. On the other hand, this seems pretty reasonable to me if a district is either merging or dissolving. The people should have a say. (Want to see what the county school district map looks like? You can find it here.)
Third, the way state law is currently written, the merged district gets the average of the per pupil allocations. And the districts don't have the same per pupil allocations.

In the article, former state superintendent Tom Watkins says that the consolidation push has to come from Lansing because local schools are "too close" to the issue. NO. That is rubbish. The consolidation push has to come from Lansing because the laws which set up the roadblocks are made in Lansing. The fact that the merged district gets the average per-pupil funding of the two districts (and not the higher per-pupil funding) is a disincentive even if the difference is $100/per pupil.

Last, but not least...

I keep seeing signs up for WISD hiring bus drivers, and I am pretty nervous that my kids' routes are going to be screwed up this fall. When I was in kindergarten, I took the bus for three days. The bus driver got lost on the way to my house all three days. After that, I walked or got a ride. I WANT kids to be comfortable using the bus.

Yeah, lazy, hazy summer...

Assorted Notes

Schools of Choice
Ann Arbor has a limited schools of choice open enrollment period again. That's because they didn't have enough kids apply in round one. It is only for students entering grades K, 1, and 6. It is for select elementary schools and all of the middle schools. Find out more here. Open enrollment period closes August 12th. Other school districts have broader schools of choice options available--check with the district for details.

Saline Schools Bond Vote
The Saline Schools bond lost by 153 votes--2782 to 2629, or 51.4% to 48.6%. This proposal essentially extended a millage that would have expired (and will expire, unless something changes) in 2025, in order to qualify for federal recovery funds (ARRA). I think it was probably hard to understand that it wouldn't cost anything immediately.

In any case, a friend of mine who lives in Belleville pointed out to me that all of the local school districts are coming around and asking for funding for infrastructure and technology costs. I believe that in Belleville (Van Buren schools, which draw a small number of kids from Washtenaw County) they are building, or have built, a new high school. "Now is not the time," she said.

It's worth looking at why these proposals seem to be becoming more frequent. I'll give two reasons, and there are probably more. 1) There are some projects (technology comes to mind), where funding could come from a bond issue, or from per-pupil operating monies. Since the per-pupil operating monies keep getting cut, it's not really an option to take money for these projects from those monies, and we cannot go to local voters and ask for an increase in per-pupil funding, thanks to Proposal A. In other words, it is a function of the state school funding climate. 2) In a competitive world of school choice, and a world where we like shiny new things, school boards and administrators believe that we gain a competitive edge with new and updated schools. In other words, parents will choose to enroll their kids in a school based in part on facilities and technology.
Do you agree? 
On the one hand, I think I learned perfectly well without computers or whiteboards in my classrooms--and I expect that I am not the only voter who wonders "do we really need" this technology? Couldn't we teach without it? (The answer is clearly yes.)
On the other hand, if you expect teachers to orient their teaching around technological innovations (which, increasingly, we do)--well, I can say that there is very little that is more frustrating for a teacher than having technology not work. If we want all kids to learn computers, we need to give them computers to use. And what about having a roof that doesn't leak? Heating and cooling systems that heat and cool?

The WISD Transportation Mess:
In the end, only three districts decided to join the WISD Transportation Consolidation Plan. Yes, that is the number 3 (Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Willow Run). Yes, they originally said they needed 5, minimally. I still don't have an answer on how the math works out for that. The WISD is now advertising for school bus driver applicants. Are we going to have a major snafu come September? It does seem likely. Other districts are trying some other ideas. Dexter is going to a one-tier bus system. In that system, school times are coordinated so that you only need to drive through a neighborhood once, rather than different times for elementary/middle/high school. The tentative schedule will be to have the school day running from 8 a.m. to 2:51 p.m. Lincoln bus drivers agreed to significant concessions.


Ypsilanti Superintendent:
Ypsilanti is evaluating new superintendent Dedrick Martin. Share your opinions with the Ypsilanti school board now.

Principals:
Did anyone notice that the new Ypsilanti high school principal resigned before he started? And there are four new elementary school principals coming in to Ann Arbor. Three of them are from out of district. Do we really not have the skills and expertise in the district to hire from within?

Adequate Yearly Progress:
The state Department of Education has determined that most public schools in the county have made Adequate Yearly Progress. According to David Jesse at annarbor.com,

The schools that didn’t make AYP were Ann Arbor's Stone High School, Lincoln High School, Ypsilanti High School, Willow Run High School and Willow Run Middle School. Coming off the AYP problem school list was Ypsilanti's Adams Elementary School.

If you want to see the school-by-school details, you can find them on the state web site here.
I'm curious: those of you with fairly recent experiences at the schools that did not make AYP, have you been satisfied with your children's education? I have heard that some of these schools are "great for kids who need second and third chances" but are not doing so well with kids who don't need them. Do you agree?

If you want to look at a school district that is doing well in state rankings with limited resources (they are on the low end as far as per-pupil funding amounts), I suggest you check out the Manchester school district.

Budget and Salary Transparency Reporting:

I just noticed that the Saline and Manchester and Ypsilanti schools have Budget and Transparency Reporting up on their web sites. Look for it on their home pages, in a link. It turns out that it is a state requirement, to have this information posted on the home page of the district's web site within 30 days. When I first looked, I didn't see it on the Ann Arbor web site. When I read the state's documentation, that says it needs to be up and on the home page, I went back again. It is in the weirdest place on the AAPS web site, almost "off the page" on the far, far top right.

School Board:
If you haven't read my last post about school board elections, please do!

The Great Experiment

A few years ago, one of my friends was bemoaning to another that there is no real socialism, or even socialist leanings, in the U.S. anymore.
"Yes there is," the second friend said. "The public schools are our great socialist experiment."

I thought about this over the weekend.
David Jesse wrote an extended piece in annarbor.com about schools of choice, and about how more people are choosing different schools than their district-bounded schools. (The headlines there, by the way, are ridiculous. For instance: "Schools of choice takes financial toll on Washtenaw County school districts." Simply untrue--it's taken a toll on some, and been the saving grace of others.)

And in the Ann Arbor Chronicle, they referenced the socialist blog The World Socialist Web Site, which discusses the proposed transportation consolidation (about which I have written plenty!) and says,

WISD officials have said that those not hired back will lose their pensions. This component of the proposal is aimed at forcing older, better-compensated workers to retire rather than re-apply. Many older bus workers have signaled that they will take early retirement if the plan is enacted.

But I digress (at least from the starting point of this post--the point about the transportation consolidation is very valid). The WSWS post also says, "In reality, there is ample money for education, but it is a question of what class controls it."

I don't actually know if we should call public education the great socialist experiment. If it was or is, I think we could do a lot better.
I don't know if we should call public education the great democratic experiment. If it was or is, I think we could do a lot better.

But in order for a publicly-financed system to be a success, you have to have buy-in. You get buy in when our values and financial system align with local control, because then we see the results, and we live with the results. You get buy in when the majority of the local kids go to the local schools.

Schools have to have investment. There's a part of me that thinks the class analysis is correct. You can't have an anti-millage campaign winning, at least in part, because of financing from a wealthy local corporation.

When we set the control of funding at the state, not local, level...
When we make it advantageous for people to choose to leave their local public schools...

We take away the rationale for taxpayers--most of whom don't have kids--and most of whom are not wealthy--to support the local schools.

And there goes the Great Socialist Experiment.
And there goes the Great Democratic Experiment.
There goes the Great ---- Experiment.
There goes the ------ -------- Experiment.
There goes the ------- -------- --------.
There goes ----- ------ -------- -------.
There ---- ------ ------ -------- -------.
------- ---- ------ ------ -------- -------.

With apologies to B*I*N*G*O.

Ypsilanti Meetings: New Tech High School, Transportation

New Tech High School in Ypsilanti
Tonight, 6/1/2010, and tomorrow, 6/2/2010, are the final parent meetings for the New Tech High School at Ardis. The meetings are at the Ypsilanti High School Media Center (2095 Packard Rd.) at 6 p.m. Enrollment is only open to freshmen. If you are looking for a school of choice (and you are not in the Ypsilanti School District), there are 25 slots available for non-Ypsilanti students.
There are 40+ New Tech High Schools around the country, and 5 are opening in Michigan this coming year. Here is some information about the New Tech programs.

Side note:
Don't you think it is interesting that the high schools have essentially incorporated slang into their names? Technically, shouldn't it be New Technology High School? Is Tech even a word?

Transportation Meeting (Consolidation Discussion & Decision)
The Ypsilanti School Board will have a special meeting on June 7 to discuss the proposed county-wide bus consolidation plan that is being championed by the WISD. [Note: this is not even posted on the YPSD web site calendar, so I don't know the time and place. I will update with that.] I have written about the transportation consolidation issue before (here is my last post on the subject), and this is one area where the devil truly is in the details. At this point, I wouldn't support it. How do you spell M*E*S*S? Ifenough districts do sign on (they need 5, and I think they need Ann Arbor), there is sure to be a mess this summer. Part of the plan involves laying off all of the drivers, and rehiring a portion of them. In the process, all of the unions get dissolved, and the drivers end up with huge pay cuts. At this point, Willow Run is the only district to have voted for the plan to date, and now the Willow Run bus drivers' union has asked (as is their right) to bargain with the school district to see if they can come to an agreement. So the summer is likely to be taken up with school districts bargaining with transportation units, while simultaneously planning for two scenarios. There is, by the way, a SOLUTION. It's called: MORE TIME. Take a year to plan this out properly, with parents and workers (not just administrators) at the table too.

Charter School Evaluations

Western Michigan University has spent a lot of time on charter school evaluation. I went back to the very first report, and a lot of what they had to say is still true today. In any case, if you are interested in charter schools, here are some links:

Western Michigan University Evaluation Center
First Evaluation of Michigan Charter Schools (1999)
Second Evaluation of Michigan Charter Schools (2000)
Great Lakes Center for Education and Research (Charter Schools). Scroll down for the section on  Evaluating the Impact of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: A Longitudinal Look at the Great Lakes States (2007)
In particular, Appendix D focuses on Michigan, and says this:

Aside from the cap on university-sponsored charter schools, the Michigan charter school law is generally seen to be among the least restrictive. The Center for Education Reform consistently rates Michigan’s charter school law among the most permissive.2 Chi and Welner (in press)3 rated Michigan as one of the weakest charter school laws, because of issues related to equity of access, accountability, and proliferation of private interests. Michigan’s charter school reform is unique in that three-quarters of its charter schools are operated by for-profit education management organizations. Michigan is also somewhat unique in that the average size of charter schools in approaching the average size of traditional public schools.

Here is a Free Press article about Charter Schools and Segregation, and another one that suggests that charter schools (overall) do not live up to their promise.  What have your experiences been? I am hoping to look at each of the county's charter schools over the next few months.

A Little History

The 1985 reorganization might have been the biggest reorganization in Ann Arbor school history, but it did not involve the first school closings. Other schools had been closed earlier, as one-room schoolhouses were phased out. Between 1960 and 1985, the Ann Arbor school board opened (I believe) nine elementary schools, and closed some others. For instance--when Lakewood opened in 1961, both Wagner and Sullivan schools closed. (One was on Wagner. The other, I believe, was on Jackson Rd.) 

In the 1960s both racial and economic imbalances were becoming more prominent in the Ann Arbor schools, and the flash point for the school district was Jones Elementary School, which was 75% black. Given the lack of fair housing laws and enforcement, and the fact that the schools were primarily neighborhood-based, the segregation is not surprising. (Now, Jones School is Community High School.) Jones School was closed in 1965, and at the time, an advisory committee recommended that no school have a population that was more than 25% black.

The discussions around desegregation continued, and continued, and continued, for the next twenty years. A 1979 committee developed a desegregation plan, and that desegregation plan was passed by the school board in 1980 but was overturned after a hotly-contested school board election. In the early 1980s, Ann Arbor had several schools that were considered by state guidelines to be "racially imbalanced" but the school board was unable to deal with the issue. For instance, Newport and Freeman schools were largely white, while Dicken and Northside were largely black. Bryant and Clinton schools were just a few blocks from each other, but Bryant was largely black and Clinton was largely white. A "Committee on Excellence" was formed, and they issued their report on August 23, 1985. At that point, 19/26 elementary schools (or 73%) did not meet the recommended range for racial composition. The report is available online through the University of Michigan library.

Although the report was "tweaked" by the school board, its major recommendations were approved:
Regarding integration:

Each building in the district shall have a student population which reflects the racial composition of the community. There shall be a black population in each building that ranges between 12% and 27% of the building enrollment. (p. 4, emphases added)

The committee noted that this range met state guidelines, but was actually more restrictive, because the state was recommending a range of 2-32% black, and the committee felt that was too wide of a range.

Supporting recommendations included closing schools to both achieve racial balance and maximize efficiencies and changing from a K-6, 7-9, 10-12 school setup to a K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 setup. In addition, they recommended that the Open School program--which had been split between two schools--be given its own home in a school that was destined to be closed.

The idea was that, in 1985, there were 26 elementary school principals overseeing schools with an average of 260 children, and that by 1986 there would be 20 principal overseeing schools with an average of 380 children, despite the fact that the schools only included grades K-5 rather than grades K-6.

It is worth noting that at the time of these discussions, the "racial balance" discussion was almost exclusively a discussion about the black and white populations. The Asian and Hispanic/Latino populations in Ann Arbor have expanded tremendously since then, but in 1984, the Asian population was highly centered on North Campus and concern was expressed that if all of the students from North Campus were sent to one school, it would create a "third world ghetto."

The report (which I found interesting) discusses a lot of the same issues we discuss today: labor relations, the racial achievement gap, ways to support low-achieving schools, student assessment, alternatives to tracking, magnet schools, the savings that would come from school closings, professional development for teachers, and more.

Given the great demand for Ann Arbor Open today, I had to laugh when I read this:

The elementary Open School Program should be housed in a single site adequate in size to accommodate all the students who wish to enroll in the program. The process of selecting students by lottery should be eliminated. (p. 29, emphases added)

Not all of the recommendations were accepted, but most of them were. One that was not was the closing of Forsythe Junior High School.

I will talk more about what happened to the schools that closed later, but the schools that closed as general program schools included: Newport, Bach, Stone, Bader, Freeman, Clinton, and Lakewood. In the late 1990s, there were some more changes, but if you've ever wondered:

• why Bryant is a K-2 school paired with Pattengill, a 3-5 school;
• why kids from Glencoe Hills get bussed to Burns Park, even though several schools are geographically closer; 
• why the Open School has its own building; 
• or why we have middle schools that are grades 6-8...

we owe that to the 1985 reorganization. 

Read more about the goals of desegregation and reducing the achievement gap and whether they worked here.

Information in this post came from the Report of the Committee on Excellence of Education (1985), as well as Ann Arbor Observer articles from March 1985, December 1985, and June 1986, and Ann Arbor District Library records.

Revenue Side

It is, in fact, more pleasant to talk about how AAPS can increase its revenue stream than to talk about how it can cut. So here are a few places that I would look.

1. Pay to Play for athletics: This has already been proposed by the district, and I don't have a problem with it, IF there is a way for students who are income-eligible to get the fees waived. Annarbor.com had a little chart of what other districts do. I liked the way that Plymouth-Canton has fees set up, with a larger fee for the first sport, and a smaller fee for additional sports.
What I would add: I would add a smaller fee for middle school sports. The seasons are much shorter, but perhaps a fee along the lines of $30/first season and $20/additional seasons would be reasonable.
I would also add fees for other extra-curricular activities, in particular theater and music activities.

2. Grant Opportunities: Currently the district does not have a grant-writer. In a district the size of Ann Arbor's, I think this is a mistake. Although one district official told me that AAPS "couldn't" hire a grant writer without funding from an outside source, I have two reactions to that. First, that yes AAPS could--if the administration wanted to, they could reassign staff to 100% grant writing. Alternatively, they could ask the Educational Foundation, or the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, for two years worth of funding to get that going. This will not affect this year's budget--even successful grants take a while to come to fruition. Investing in a grant writer is an investment in the future.

3. Facility Rental: I'm not convinced that the district has fully exploited the opportunities for facility rental to outside groups. I would like to encourage the district to get a group together to tweak both the pricing and the way that facility rental is promoted. That group needs to include potential end users and people with marketing/business acumen, as well as school facilities people.

4. Medicaid Reimbursement: Some of the district's special education expenses are Medicaid billable. Currently, that billing brings in about $1 million each year, and is largely handled by social workers. I believe that this is an area where the school district needs to be absolutely sure it is maximizing its billing, and if the billing is spread out, it is likely that it has not been maximized. I don't have local statistics, but a study in New York State of 8 districts found that they were only being reimbursed for about 1/3 of the Medicaid monies that they should be reimbursed for. In the study, some of the reasons that the districts did not get reimbursed included: a) not checking students' Medicaid status regularly (so they would be kicked off Medicaid, and not get back on even though they were still eligible, and the districts would not know); b) waiting too long to send in the claims; and c) not appealing claims that were denied, even if they believed that denial was in error. In those districts, the estimate was that they could triple their reimbursement level! The Medicaid claims submission process should be reviewed from the point of service onward, even if the increase would add $100,000 and not $2 million to the AAPS budget. (And this is true for every district in the county.)

5a. I feel ambivalent about one area: Schools of Choice. 
On the one hand, I have felt for a long time that AAPS should have schools of choice. On the other hand, coming into this now, feels a little like we are robbing Peter (the other school districts) to pay Paul (our school district) and I don't feel very good about that. I also wonder whether opening schools of choice to Stone (which I don't think works as a school) and Clemente (which does work, but is our most expensive school) makes any sense at all. Will that entice high school students? Stone was a school of choice before, and I don't think it really got that many people choosing to go there. We would definitely have school of choice applications for Pioneer, Huron, and Skyline.
On the elementary school level, I have found that generally, people who are unhappy with schools are often unhappy after a couple of years, so opening to schools of choice only in grades K/1 does not make sense to me. If we are going to have schools of choice, let's open up a certain number of spots in every grade, K-12.
If we are going to open to schools of choice.

5b. I have another idea for Schools of Choice/Recruitment
There is a whole other part of me that says, we should not be recruiting from other school districts. We should be recruiting from the people who live in our district and are choosing to send their kids to other schools. That also maximizes the amount of money we get (since our per-pupil rates are higher than the surrounding districts, kids from within the district bring in more money than kids from without the district.) My friend told me that in some of our elementary school districts, 1/4 of the students go to other schools.
What will reverse that trend? I think that magnets can do that. Anyone who goes to the Community, Skyline, or Ann Arbor Open orientations can see that magnets get people interested. And they don't have to be more expensive. As a school district, we need to get those families to see AAPS as a viable choice because they offer what the families want (for instance--K-8 school, intensive language, Montessori practice). Here are some of my ideas (just a taste) that directly target individuals who are choosing other schools. [This is not a budget proposal for this year, but some of these things could be implemented fairly quickly, certainly within two years.]

Elementary/Middle:
Another K-8 school, on the east side.
A Montessori school (could be combined with a K-8 school).
A language immersion program. (Start with a K-1 Spanish or Arabic or Chinese or Japanese program, and increase from there. Could be combined with a K-8 school.)

High School:
Magnets at all three large high schools. We already have 4 of them at Skyline.
For Huron: Orchestral Music magnet and Foreign Language magnet and/or Science magnet.
For Pioneer: Theater magnet and Voice magnet and/or Sports Management magnet.

Roundup of News, Including Schools of Choice

Lincoln Schools have an opening for a school board member. Applications are due January 20th. Download the application here.


Many school districts are opening up for second semester school of choice transfers. So if you are very unhappy where you are, you might want to consider this as an option. These districts include Lincoln, Manchester,

Whitmore Lake has posted Tier 1 budget reductions.

In Ann Arbor:
Skyline, Community (both high schools), and Ann Arbor Open (grades K-8) have all posted application information and schedules. Yes, it is that time of year again! The district has not yet posted the in-district process if you want to apply to go to a different (non-magnet) school--that should happen in February. The district is also looking at offering some type of limited school-of-choice options, but that is part of a larger budget discussion, and it's not likely to include schools of choice for Huron, Pioneer, Skyline, or Community High Schools.

Are you interested in some other school of choice options, including charters and private schools? I have written about how to find out about them before:
How To Find A School Of Choice
More Notes On Schools Of Choice
Want To Go To A School Of Choice?

I have also written about the Ann Arbor Open and Community processes, you can use the search link on the right to search the blog.

If you have specific questions about how to find the school of your dreams, you could post your questions in the comments section.

Transparency, Part II: An Example

[First Read: Transparency, Part 1: What Do We Mean]

Just yesterday, I found the perfect example of what I mean when I say that there is a lack of transparency in the district. I get an email from my kid’s high school, asking me to take a survey about the possibility of a county-wide International Baccalaureate program. (I linked to the survey here.) The email assured me that “NO FINAL DECISION HAS BEEN MADE, but the county-wide IB Committee would like to determine if there is interest.”

OK, so—on the topic of the International Baccalaureate program—I don’t know all that much. I know a few kids who go to schools that use that model (one in Oakland County, one in South Bend). It isn’t an option I’m interested in, but there might be some people who are interested in it. So this is neither an endorsement or rejection of the idea.

Here are some of my questions about it:
Why is it being considered? There are a zillion and one things in the AAPS strategic plan. Specifically, what problem are we trying to solve by creating a new program at this time?
Is this the best solution to that problem?
If it is an important program, why not create it as a small magnet program at Huron or Pioneer?Why is it important to have it as a county-wide consortium, and what will that mean for Ann Arbor? Would it affect any of our other high schools?

How much will it cost?

But that is a little bit of a digression. Let’s return to the process question. I tried searching the AAPS web site to find out more about the International Baccalaureate program, and the only things that turned up were references to the strategic plan, or (in board meeting minutes), to pursuing the IB possibility because of the strategic plan.There is nothing that gives me any information at all about what an IB program includes.

The email refers to the county-wide IB Committee, but I could find no references to the committee on the AAPS web site. So, who exactly is on this committee?

A general Google search referred me to an article by David Jesse in annarbor.com, from September 2^nd, 2009 (yes, that is 3 months ago) which says:

A countywide program for advanced students will “very likely” be started by the fall of 2011, Ann Arbor school Superintendent Todd Roberts said Wednesday.

So—a decision has been made? Or, according to the email I got, it hasn’t been made? It sounds to me as if the only thing missing is a final stamp of approval. Saying that “no decision has been made,” and asking for a survey to assess interest, when officials have publicly said it is very likely to happen is—at best—disingenuous. At least, when I ask for transparency, what I’m asking for is that the district:  a) share the process, not just the end results and b) tell the (whole) truth.

[Read on: Transparency, Part 3: How to Thank A Teacher]

Transparency, Part I: What Do We Mean?

I was sitting in a parlor meeting to hear a presentation by Todd Roberts (AAPS Superintendent). The purpose of the meeting was to promote the need for the schools millage (yes, that schools millage), and the audience was fairly friendly to the cause. One of the people present asked, “I keep hearing people talk about the need for more transparency. What do they mean by that?”

Todd Roberts answered (and despite the quote marks I am paraphrasing here), “I have no idea. We have a lot of information, including our budget, on our web site.”

“Holy clear plate of glass, Batman!” Seriously, Todd, you have no idea what people mean by transparency? 

Well, I have a few ideas (and I shared one of them at that meeting), and here’s a little detail.

When my friends talk about transparency, they (we) mean multiple things.

INFORMATION
First, we mean being able to find information that they need/want, when they need it. Hopefully by the end of the year I will be able to put up some ideas for how to improve the web site (which is an impossible mess, for the most part). But having a year-old budget on your web site, in pdf format, when the landscape has changed so dramatically, does not constitute transparency. Where do I find the ideas about what changes might happen? Without the information, what is left is FEAR. Fear that—for example—schools will be closed, and we will be the last to know.

Second, we mean being able to figure out who to contact to find something out. I just had someone email me who said, “Nobody ever answers my calls and I can’t figure out who to ask.” (That itself is quite an indictment, but in case you are interested, I sent her to my catch-all person—Todd Roberts’ administrative assistant. She should know, but if she doesn't know, she can probably find out for you.)

PROCESS

Second, we mean process. I have written about this before (here), but if I want to get involved in city or county government, there is a clear way for me to get involved in city/county commissions. There are plenty of public meetings. I can try to get appointed to a committee.
That is not so in the school district. Above the building level, there are virtually no public commissions or committees to sit on or even attend as a visitor. Making presentations about the budget to people (and answering questions at a meeting) is no substitute for having a committee where people can discuss, and come up with ideas. And no wonder those meetings are sparsely attended. They are poorly advertised, and they are seemingly meaningless. It’s not just about the budget, though. Are there any ongoing district-wide committees—open to community members—that look at high school policies and configuration, elementary school libraries, buildings and infrastructure, web design, extra-curricular activities? If there are, I can’t find them.  If there is one thing that Ann Arbor has, it is a wealth of experience and knowledge. Why, oh why, doesn’t AAPS tap into it?

The lack of transparency, the lack of information, the lack of process, the lack of approachability—all of these create an atmosphere of frustration and distrust. Sure, I know what to do at the building site level, but—try to move beyond that, and it’s like knocking your head against a brick wall.

[Up Next: Transparency, Part 2: An Example]