Who's In For Scholarships? Join Me At Rick's* Run For Kids!

Next Saturday, October 15th, in the morning, you will find me at Rick's Run For Kids, doing a mixture of running and walking around beautiful Gallup Park to raise scholarship money for Ann Arbor Public Schools Rec & Ed. 

Why? 

Rick's Run For Kids is one way that Rec & Ed raises money for scholarships that allow lower-income families in our district to access all the wonderful extra-curricular work that Rec & Ed does. That includes summer camps, after school language and dance programs, youth soccer (baseball, volleyball, field hockey, etc.), exercise and educational classes, and so much more.

I'm on the Recreation Advisory Committee for AAPS, and this really does make a difference.

MORE RUNNERS/WALKERS=MORE SCHOLARSHIPS!

Please join me. Sign up here! 

Online registration goes until noon on October 12th, you can register in person after that.

The 5K starts at 9:00 A.M.
There is a Kids' Dash for kids 10 and under that starts at 10:15 a.m.

*Who was Rick?

No, in this case, Rick does not refer to our state's governor. (You laugh, but I was asked that by a couple of people.)

Rick refers to Rick Dekeon, a beloved Physical Education teacher at (then) Northside Elementary, who also served on the Recreation Advisory Committee for many years and was a Rec & Ed coach and official. He believed that athletics are for everyone, and through RAC and several other PE committees, his influence went far beyond the halls of Northside. He volunteered his time to run a before-school running club for kids, and that's why a Run for Kids seems like a great way to memorialize him.

So won't you join me?  (Bring a couple of friends, too--why not?!)

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Understanding the Impact of the Governor's Budget Proposal on Michigan Schools

Michigan Parents for Schools has a detailed summary of the Governor's budget proposal and its impact on Michigan schools.

I'm including a few excerpts here, and then you should really read the whole thing. With these state proposals, the devil is n the details.

Per-pupil funding underlines the distribution of school funds. 

The governor's executive budget recommendation is headlined by a modest increase in per-pupil funding. Districts at the current minimum level of $7,391 - which includes some 60% of all students - would receive $120 more per pupil for their general operating needs. Districts at or above the state maximum (currently $778 higher or $8,169) would get an increase of $60 per pupil.

Districts at the current minimum level of funding: think Manchester and Whitmore Lake.
Districts at or above the state maximum: think Ann Arbor.

Compare this to the year my daughter was born (which is also the year Proposal A started): 

Put another way, the small number of districts which were at the bare minimum spending level when Proposal A took effect in 1994 are still doing better than when they started, adjusted for inflation, but they have not recovered the levels they saw in 2010-11. Districts which started out at the "basic" level of funding ($5,000 in 1994) have lost some ground and are below where they started in 1994, adjusting for inflation, wiping out the gains from the first decade of this century. Districts at the higher end have done even worse: if they received what was the state maximum in 1994 ($6,500), they have lost ground against inflation nearly every year since then and the draft budget would let them buy about 17% less now than they were able to 22 years ago. (Emphasis added. Yes, that describes Ann Arbor.)

Retirement funding significantly affects school district resources.

Costs of the state-run school employee retirement system (MPSERS) continue to have a major impact on the budget. Unfortunately, unlike some other states, Michigan does not cover these costs from other funding sources, but instead uses money from the school aid budget. The cost of funding the retirement system has risen astronomically in recent years, and not because benefits are getting richer. As districts shed teachers and other staff in downsizing, and as more services are privatized, there are fewer employees paying into the system while the number of retirees is growing. . . As a result, contributions equal to about 36% of payroll have to be made by the state and school district employers (employees also make their own contributions). Ten years ago, this rate stood at a little over 16%.  (Emphasis added.)

Who was RIchard Headlee and why should you care?
Image used under a Creative Commons license
and taken from here.

Read the rest here. There is much more.

A lot of people think this stuff is a bit boring. And complicated.

Even if you are one of those people, you should know that it's essential for us to wrap our heads around 20j, the Headlee Amendment, plans for Detroit and Flint schools (among others), funding for charter schools, and how funding for higher education interacts with the School Aid Fund.

They are our schools--but only if we claim them.



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If Teaching Were A Sport...

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this TeachingCenter spoof by Key and Peele...if you are a fan of ESPN's SportsCenter you will recognize a lot of themes (and if you haven't seen SportsCenter, watch it after you watch this).

This reminds me a bit of the bumper sticker quote (apparently by Robert Fulghum), "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber."




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Things I'm Reading about the State of Our State's Education

The Best Piece of the Week goes to Lindsey Smith at Michigan Radio.

Reporter’s Notebook: State needs to be more transparent about the schools it’s running is breathtaking, and at the same time damning.

Here is just a snippet:

The Emergency Loan Board is a public body. It should act like one 

Here's the thing about the Emergency Loan Board (ELB).

It has incredible power to keep schools and municipalities out of bankruptcy court. It can lend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars – repeatedly – to schools that are going broke. It even has subpoena power.
Yet there’s very little transparency.
Its three members all head state departments. Each handpicked by the governor.

 ELB members (L-R) Department of Technology, Management and Budget Director David Behen; Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Director Mike Zimmer; and state Treasurer Nick Khouri. CREDIT STATE OF MICHIGAN

The board has no webpage. Its meetings in Lansing are open to the public, but there is no schedule. Meetings are sporadic.
Meeting minutes aren’t available online, a common practice for public bodies. So you can’t just go somewhere to see what the board has been up to lately.
Meeting notices are sent via email. But there are no agenda or documents attached. If Michigan’s Department of Treasury doesn’t want you to find out ahead of time what it's going to approve, you won’t know.
Any decision the board makes must be unanimous, according to state law. Is that why it functions mostly as a rubber-stamp board?
The decisions the board makes are “vetted” and reviewed by Treasury staff, according to Treasury Department spokesman Terry Stanton.

Read the rest here.

Runner Up: Eclectablog's piece on some state legislators' agenda for schools.

An excellent post at Eclectablog calling out the agenda of some Republicans in our state legislature, for example Rep. Tim Kelly of Saginaw Township, who believes in "publicly-funded education," just not "publicly delivered."

Third Place: A New York Times Article, 'Opt Out' Becomes Potent Political Force.

You might not have seen this article because it is a New York Region article (and I found it courtesy of Diane Ravitch).

Key information:

At least 165,000 children, or one of every six eligible students, sat out at least one of the two standardized tests this year, more than double and possibly triple the number who did so in 2014, according to an analysis by The New York Times.As the vanguard of an anti-testing fervor that has spread across the country, New York’s opt-out movement has become a political force. Just two months ago, lawmakers from both parties, at the behest of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, increased the role of test scores in teacher evaluations and tenure decisions. Those legislators are now tripping over one another to introduce bills that guarantee the right to refuse to take tests.

The maps are really interesting to look at, they show the opt-out movement's growth over time.

Honorable Mention: From the Washington Post, Will Schools Lose Federal Funds if Kids Don't Take Mandated Tests? 

Here's how the article starts:

I’ve recently published a number of posts on the growth and impact of the standardized testing opt-out movement. As more parents choose against allowing their children to sit down for new mandated tests, the pushback from administrators is increasing in many places, with some of them threatening consequences to students who refuse to take the assessments.
Here’s a look at what is true and not true about the consequences attached to opting out from standardized testings. It was written by Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as  FairTest, a nonprofit organization that works to end the misuses of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, educators and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally sound.

And I'm re-reading: 

I've gone back to an excellent series of articles by the Detroit Free Press, on how charter schools are not held accountable.



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Labor Update: Unfair Labor Practices and the Michigan Employment Relations Commission Process

But first--one important PSA--the Ann Arbor schools updated their web site this weekend. It was long planned because the web site has been rather hard to navigate and I hope this improves things. But also, I've been made aware that many of my blog links have been lost. This includes recent links I put up about negotiations. Boo. I am sorry, and I hope to recover some of them.

Now, back to negotiations:

1. The Ann Arbor Education Association (teachers' union) filed an unfair labor practices charge against the school district. Per their press release:

The AAEA is filing three charges against the district: 

1. The superintendent interfered and coerced AAEA members by communicating with them directly concerning the contract dispute.
2. The superintendent interfered with the administration of the AAEA by directly communicating with AAEA members concerning her interpretation of the actions taken by AAEA leadership.
3. The District repudiated the AAEA contract by maintaining that some sections are unenforceable or invalid, additionally claiming that the contract will expire June 30, 2015, and refusing to bargain over the International Baccalaureate Programme.

2. The school district responded by filing an unfair labor practice charge against the AAEA. I haven't seen the charges.

3. I asked a friend who is a labor lawyer what happens, generally speaking, with these unfair labor practices that go to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. My friend wrote:

Generally, the case will be assigned to an administrative law judge. The respondent [the district, for the AAEA's charge, and vice versa] could file a motion to dismiss the charge. The ALJ, if he or she doesn't grant the motion would then hold a hearing. The hearing could last several days. The parties would present testimony and exhibits, which would be subject to cross examination. In addition the ALJ may ask questions. In lieu of closing statements, parties typically file a post hearing brief and submit them several weeks after the hearing. It could take months, and sometimes up to a year to get a ruling from the ALJ. That is, briefly, the process.  

So then I asked: So in the meantime does that halt the termination of contract timeline? Assuming that is one of the charges being contested... 

I don't believe the filing of a ULP can halt the proceedings in any way. Either party could file for a preliminary injunction, to maintain the status quo until the ULP is heard and decided. It is a pretty high standard. Whether a preliminary injunction should be issued is determined by a four-factor analysis: 1. harm to the public interest if an injunction issues; 2. whether harm to the applicant in the absence of a stay outweighs the harm to the opposing party if a stay is granted; 3. the strength of the applicant’s demonstration that the applicant is likely to prevail on the merits; and 4. demonstration that the applicant will suffer irreparable injury if a preliminary injunction is not granted.

4. So as things stand now, the district will implement as if the contract has terminated on June 30th. That means wages will stay the same as now (which is part of what the district has been after--they were scheduled to rise July 1). I guess (not sure about this) if the district loses, they would be responsible for paying the teachers back. I guess that's a risk they are willing to take. Since my labor lawyer friend says these things move kind of slowly, that could potentially be months of back pay...

5. See these signs? These are in support of Ann Arbor teachers and the union. They are not just for teachers! You can get one too.

UPDATE 6/1/2015: Get the signs at the Michigan Education Credit Union, 4141 Jackson Rd.


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It's A Zero-Sum Situation ($$$$$)

People seem to appreciate knowing more about the context for the discussions about union-administration relations for the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

You'll find the AAPS budget page here, and it's worth a look.

And the number one context piece is this: when it comes to school funding, it's (at best) a zero-sum situation.

The Ann Arbor Public Schools per-pupil funding for the 2014-2015 budget was $9,133 per pupil. In 2002-2003, it was $9,181. That's right, the current funding is less than the funding from twelve years ago. [In my parents' district in New  York, per pupil funding is more than double this number, and they are not at the top of the districts in their county!]

Per-pupil funding for AAPS, taken from the 2014-2015 budget.

Looking at the coming year(s), 
this financial situation does not seem to improve. 

And obviously--expenses continue to rise. Most particularly, retirement expenses (which are centralized through the state and charged to districts, and the districts do not control) continue to take a bigger and bigger bite out of the district's budget.

Even though the reason AAPS has higher per-pupil funding is because we have always supported our schools financially; even though we are a "donor district" and give much of the money that we collect to the rest of the state...
the state legislature continues to give token, if any, increases to districts like Ann Arbor (because we already get "so much" and it's "inequitable"), and disproportionate increases to charter and online schools.

Projections for next year are that any increases we see will not keep up with the cost of inflation, even without restoring teacher pay.

From the point of view of the administration and the school board, it's not a fiscally sound decision to raise teachers' salaries (even if they are not paid enough now), and several districts that are currently in deficit have gone down the road of spending that doesn't match income. The AAPS school board and administration are trying to avoid that.

And some people (me, among others, though I link here to Chris Savage's blog), fear that the defeat of Proposal 1 will be seen as by the legislature as an opportunity to grab more money from the school aid fund.

SO...

When we talk about the school budget, and the value of teachers and other school staff (teacher's aides, secretaries, principals...)...yes, and yes.

They are both important.

But financially, we're in a zero-sum game. If individual teachers get paid more, it is likely that we will have larger class sizes. But reducing class sizes is a proven way to improve achievement, and I think our class sizes now are plenty large enough.

That is the reality. Money, money, money.

Feel a bit stuck? I do.

And by the way--a good way to keep on top of what is happening at the state level is to visit, and subscribe to, the updates from Michigan Parents for Schools, mipfs.org. And a good thing to do is to work with Michigan Parents for Schools to advocate at the state level.




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Guess Who's Evaluating Those Standardized Tests? (I Wish This Were a Joke!)

From an ad on Craigslist:

"The starting pay is $10.70 per hour." For that sum, I'm sure they are getting
some highly skilled staff. Screenshot from Craigslist.

Who? Measurement Incorporated

We are a diverse company engaged in educational research, test development, and the scoring of tests administered throughout the world. 

What? Reader/Evaluator Position

If you qualify as a reader/evaluator, you will be eligible to work on a number of our projects. Many projects require readers to score essays for content, organization, grammatical convention, and/or the student's ability to communicate and to respond to a specific directive. Other projects involve scoring test items in reading, math, science, social studies, or other subject areas. The tests you will score come from many different states and from students at all grade levels, elementary through college, depending on the project.

Where and when? 

Starting in March of 2015 , day and evening shift, in Ypsilanti!

REQUIREMENTS

Bachelor's degree in any field
Ability to perform adequately on a placement assessment

HOURS: Temporary, but 5 days/week.

PAY: The starting pay is $10.70 per hour. 

Yet we are going to use these temporary employees to evaluate our students' work, and our teachers. Yippee.



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Ann Arbor Schools: Budget Meetings for This Year and Next

2013-2014 Budget Needs Mid-Year Revisions

For details, you can see Amy Biolchini's article.

But here is the key point: as a result of students choosing charters, private schools, or the WISD consortium, the Ann Arbor schools were short 200 students compared to what was budgeted.

The important meeting is Wednesday, March 19th. From the article:

The budget adjustment will be a part of budget planning discussions the school board is set to begin Wednesday in a 5 p.m. study session at Skyline High School.
Immediately following the study session will be the board’s regular business meeting, which is set to start at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
The meeting is a make-up session for the March 12 regular meeting that was canceled due to inclement weather.

2014-2015 Budget Planning

AAPS will be hosting a round of budget forums to discuss the 2014-15 AAPS budget. 

All forums are scheduled from 6:30 – 8pm

Tuesday, March 25, 6:30 p.m. at Slauson Middle School 

Thursday, March 27, 6:30 p.m. at Scarlett Middle School 

Monday, March 31, 6:30 p.m. at Clague Middle School

Tuesday, April 1, 6:30 p.m. at Forsythe Middle School 

Thursday, April 3, 6:30 p.m. at Tappan Middle School

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Contemplating Donating to Schools, and My Other 2013 Ann Arbor Chronicle Posts

I started writing for the Ann Arbor Chronicle, an important local online news source, earlier this year, in a column that appears approximately every other month.

Today I have another column in the Ann Arbor Chronicle. This one is about donating to public schools, and advocating for the public schools, as we close this year out and start another year.

Here's how I start out:

If you’re like me, then every January you think to yourself, “This year, I’m going to spread out my charitable giving over the course of twelve months. It would be so much better for my cash flow, and probably it would be better for the nonprofits as well.”
And then, come November and December, I realize that once again, I failed to spread out my giving – and I had better pull out my checkbook. Writing the bulk of these checks at the end of the year has a benefit, in that it allows me to look at all of my donations at once. But it also means that I’m in a rush and I don’t always take the time to reflect. So this is my opportunity.
Like many of you, we make donations to local, national, and international groups that focus on a wide range of issues. For us, those organizations do work related to health, the environment, politics, women’s issues, Jewish groups, social action, human services, and more.
Although I do give to some groups that, loosely speaking, fit the category of “education,” those entities do not make up a significant proportion of our donations. I confess to a certain ambivalence to giving to such groups – because, in many ways, I’m already a big contributor to public education. And it’s likely that you are, too.

Read the rest here.

If you are interested in the other articles I wrote for the Chronicle in 2013, here they are.

Taking a Long Look at Redistricting (November 9, 2013)

The Case for Free Public Schools (August 9, 2013)

Disparate Impact of AAPS Cuts? (June 7, 2013)



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School Finance: Can We Change Proposal A?

This discussion took place in the comments section of this blog post. I thought it was worth sharing more widely. Many thanks to Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools for providing such great detail!

CG said...

Is anyone talking about making a campaign to amend the Proposal A section of the constitution? It seems like that's what it would take to fix this situation.

October 22, 2013 at 10:29 AM 

Steve Norton, MIPFS said...

There is always some talk about changing Proposal A, especially now that nearly 20 years has passed since its adoption. But it's a complex issue, and changing the constitution might not be the best way to fix school funding.

What I'm hearing most about right now are some proposed constitutional amendments (in the Legislature) that would restrict use of the state School Aid Fund to K-12 education only. (Currently, some of it is being used to pay for higher education - a use that is allowed under the Constitution but was clearly not anticipated by the authors of Proposal A.) As we saw last year, constitutional amendments are hard to sell to the public, but this one might have momentum. However, it would not truly solve the problems.

The funding system created by Proposal A has a lot of pieces, not all of which are in the Constitution. Different people dislike different parts of it: some upstate residents are angry that per-pupil funding has not yet been fully equalized across the state; some districts are frustrated that they cannot vote to increase their own taxes to support school operations; most people like the limits on the growth of taxable value of property but many - especially those in real estate - do not like the fact that taxable value resets to SEV when a property is sold (the "pop-up tax").

There are really two approaches to changing the funding system: giving local districts more control, and changing the funding stream. A lot of districts, typically those with high property values, would love to be able to increase their own local taxes to fund school operations. However, across the state, most districts have a pretty modest tax base and would not benefit much from that (and they worry it would increase inequality and reduce pressure to increase funding for all schools). It would be very hard to move any but the most limited proposal along these lines through the Legislature, though it can be changed in statute and does not need a constitutional amendment.

The other approach is to change the funding stream - and this can also be done in statute. Increases in the 6 mill State Education Property Tax are difficult - the constitution requires a 3/4 super-majority in both houses of the Legislature to do this. However, most of the state School Aid Fund comes from the sales tax and the income tax. Changing the rate of the sales tax might take a constitutional amendment (and would be undesirable for other reasons), but extending the tax to services can be done by the Legislature with a normal change in the law. Since services have been the growing part of the economy, and retail sales have not grown as fast as the economy, this would fix one of the built-in limitations of the current funding system. Similarly, the formula for earmarking income tax receipts to School Aid can be changed with normal Legislative action.

But recently, we've been going in just the opposite direction. As part of Gov. Snyder's proposal to end the Michigan Business Tax and replace it with a much smaller Corporate Income Tax (passed into law in 2011), the state School Aid Fund permanently lost $750 million per year that had been earmarked from the MBT but was not replaced. This helped turn the dip in school aid caused by the recession into a permanent state of affairs.

The true battleground is tax policy. If we want to fund education adequately state-wide, we need to change the funding stream to education. There is no mystery about how to do this. What is lacking is the political will - in the Governor's office and in the Legislature - to even discuss raising revenue for the benefit of education.

Steve Norton
Executive Director, Michigan Parents for Schools

October 23, 2013 at 11:29 AM 

CG said...

Thank you, Steve, for this--very informative. How can interested people (like me) help?

October 23, 2013 at 12:11 PM 

Steven Norton said...

That's a good question: how can interested people help?

There are several layers to this. One is local, and it has to do with getting the community re-engaged with our local public schools and reminding people that we have a responsibility to our community and our future when we consider options for our schools. We're not customers, we're owners - and that implies both authority and responsibility.

But on the state level, residents of the Ann Arbor Schools region need to be a little creative. Unlike parents in much of the western and northern parts of the state, our state legislators are almost universally supportive of more funding for education and community control of our schools. Voting for state-wide offices is important. But perhaps most important is to take the lead in shifting the debate on education policy.

Ann Arbor is in a special position to lead on this issue, because we are an affluent community that cares about quality education but wants it for all children, no matter where they live. We don't have a problem sharing resources; we just want to be able to keep what is best about our schools at the same time. This gives us the opportunity to take the moral high ground: what we want for our children is what we want for all children. My organization has taken precisely this position on hot-button issues like the Education Achievement Authority, and as a result we were able to bring together groups that don't usually work with each other, from both upstate and western Michigan and Detroit. We need to break down the regional barriers that have fractured the parent community and prevented us from uniting behind a common purpose.

How to do this? Well, all Ann Arbor citizens can help back up our state lawmakers when they argue for sound education policy in Lansing; we can also reach out directly to lawmakers from other regions. Parents and citizens can participate in state-wide efforts to unite those who care about authentically public education, giving strength to the efforts of organizations like Michigan Parents for Schools. We can and should form alliances with people of goodwill in all parts of the state. And we can use the intelligence and energy of our community to change the public discourse about education all across our state. The current trend to denigrate community-governed public education is based on some core (flawed) ideas; we need to spread other ideas that remind people why our nation has always put a top priority on democratically-governed public education.

It won't be easy or quick. The current situation, where education is seen as just another consumer good and market competition its salvation, has been decades in the making. If we are to turn it around, we must all look beyond the walls of our own schools and the borders of our neighborhoods, and ask others to do likewise.

Steve Norton
Executive Director, Michigan Parents for Schools

iPad Technology in Schools: What's the Highest, Best Use?

The other day, Amy Biolchini's story about the Chelsea Schools and their iPad problems caught my eye. In "Students evading security software, gaming on iPads post challenge at Chelsea High School," Biolchini writes that,

Officials at Chelsea High School are learning there’s an iPad application for just about everything—except for keeping students from gaming during class.
After the school shifted to one-for-one computing this fall with iPads in the hands of each of the 839 students, administrators are working through challenges inside and outside of school.
A program loaded on to the student’s iPads that filters Internet access has made it difficult for students to work on the devices outside of the school building.
“The biggest challenge has been the whole filter piece,” said Superintendent Andy Ingall. “We certainly want kids to be protected, but it’s a challenge. Access at home has been a big challenge for a pretty good-sized group of kids.”
Nine weeks into the implementation, students are now able to access the Internet at home on their iPads. But now administrators are turning to another issue that’s arisen: students are finding it easy to get away with playing games on the iPads in class.

The reason this caught my eye is that a couple of weeks ago I had read an article in Slate magazine about the roll-out of iPads in the Los Angeles United School District. And that process--which is a $1 BILLION program, by the way--has also not gone so well. Essentially, it has taken almost no time for students to be able to hack the iPads, which were set to essentially be Pearson curriculum delivery devices. Pearson (a for-profit textbook manufacturer, among other things) has contracted with Apple to put its copyrighted material on the iPads. Conveniently enough, they also provide standardized tests to go with them! AND because the Pearson contract is directly with Apple, and not with the school district, it seems to be almost impossible to find out how much money Pearson is making off of this. But I digress, because my main point is this:

From the Huffington Post:

It took just a week for nearly 300 students who got iPads from their Los Angeles high school to figure out how to alter the security settings so they could surf the Web and access social media sites.

But the Slate article, entitled Kids Should Hack Their School Provided iPads, had a slightly different perspective. The subtitle? "That's how they learn." Writes Katherine Mangu-Ward, 

Last year, 40 tablet computers were delivered to the children of two remote Ethiopian villages. The villagers were 100 percent illiterate—the kids had never seen road signs, product labels, or printed material of any kind.
Technicians from the One Laptop Per Child program dropped off a stack of boxes, showed a couple of adults how to use the solar chargers, and then walked away. Within minutes, the kids had cracked the packaging open and figured out how to turn the tablets on. Within weeks, they were singing their ABCs, picked up from the English-language learning software installed on the tablets. Within five months, some kid figured out that the tablets had built-in cameras—they had been disabled for ethical reasons—and hacked the Android operating system to activate them.
So, frankly, it shouldn’t have come as much of a shock when a few hundred of the tech-drenched children of Los Angeles figured out how to “hack” the $678 iPads they were given by their school district, just one month into the new school year.

The article goes on to say:

But why would students gaining mastery over their digital devices be considered a “runaway train” at all? The iPads were loaded with software from the textbook giant Pearson, so perhaps the fantasy was that high school students would be content paging through glowing versions of their textbooks.
But the whole point of introducing current technology into the classroom is to help education catch up with the rest of the world, which has been utterly transformed by fast computers with fast Internet access.
Unfortunately, when it comes to technology in education, traditional schools tend to use fuzzy math. Give ’em iPads, the thinking goes, and the test scores will soar. The intended mechanism isn’t always clear, and the vision becomes even more muddled when the inevitable committees, unions, and concerned parents get involved. The result too often is restricted access to semi-useless tech crippled by proprietary software deals and censored Internet.
Implementing bold ideas like “flipping the classroom”—having students watch lectures at home and spending their classroom hours doing problem sets, engaging in group discussions, or getting one-on-one tutorials—means letting kids use the relevant tech on their own time and in their own way. It means trusting them with access to devices like the ones they might someday use at work. 

 In the Chelsea schools, the cost was around $575,000 and was taken from technology funds, from the 2012 bond.

Technology director Scott Wooster said falling technology prices coupled with leftover money that had been budgeted for computer replacement cycles put the district in a position that administrators felt they could make the iPad purchase.

So what are the plans for replacement cycles?

While the teachers are rightfully concerned with gaming going on in classrooms (a concern I share somewhat, but really--what did they expect?), I found a couple of other things concerning in Biolchini's article on the Chelsea schools. (And I have no idea about most of what is on the iPads. Is it Pearson--or other--textbooks?)

1. There is an app called iBoss on the iPads. It not only filters the internet, it is a tracking device.

If it gets to the point where we need to regulate what students are looking at or downloading, iBoss keeps an account of that. The only time that we will check that is if a parent calls us, or is a teacher in class notices a student off-task and is looking at sites that maybe they shouldn’t be then we can pull up their history,” Kapolka [Chelsea High School principal] said.

You might feel that students need tracking. I myself am more concerned with "Big Brother" than I am with students doing some gaming. However, in the article, one of the students asserts that lots of students have been deleting the iBoss app.

2. Sophomore Alayna Schweda said,

On one hand, your studying materials: you don’t have the your second time of writing them down in notes, so it’s a little harder to remember, and it’s kind of a big transition.

So now we encourage students to study things but they don't take notes on them?

3. What's the penalty for gaming?

Taking the device away if a student is found gaming is the school’s solution now. Students will receive two warnings for misuse before the device is completely taken away from them.

So if the textbooks and the classwork and the homework are all on the iPad, and you take the iPad away, how exactly is that student going to be able to keep up with the classes? This reminds me of some of the research on student suspensions, which indicates that when you take kids out of the classroom, they fall further behind.

My takeaways from this:

1. Administrators and teachers are often blinded by shiny new technology. I'm not saying that technology can't be used for good in classrooms. Of course it can be, and some teachers do. But most, don't.

2. Technology can often be a distraction. There is a reason the Socratic method has lasted as long as it has. Questioning, and discussions, are fundamental to teaching. To the extent that technology can support discussion and understanding, that's great--but often, it serves to distract from that.

3. If one is going to use technology in the classroom, then one can't be afraid of the technology. Fundamentally, I think the idea of "controlling" the students using the technology is at odds with students using the technology.

4. Beware Big Brother. Who controls all the information that gets input into the iPad or computer, when students answer math questions or write an essay? Does that information go back to the textbook manufacturers or is it only used locally? I think it's fair to ask what is on the iPads (or other technology), and how that fits into for-profit educational models. Certainly, Apple and Pearson stand to make a boatload of money (or two boatloads! $1 billion dollars, if the deal--currently paused--eventually goes through). I think there are some civil liberties issues here.

5. Clarity of purpose, use, and replacement planning is essential. It doesn't seem to me that either Chelsea schools or the Los Angeles schools have that. Who is paying for these and what is the replacement cycle? What is their purpose? How will they be used differently from textbooks? (Because iPads are very expensive textbooks.) What happens if a student breaks or loses an iPad?

When we can answer these questions, then we might be ready to include the technology in the schools.

Ann Arbor & Saline: Vote on Tuesday!

If you're like me, the first reminder that there is an election on Tuesday came in a school email that reminded me that there is no school (at least in Ann Arbor) on Tuesday. Many
of the schools are also voting sites.

I think I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that there are some school-related items to vote on (plus some other items, including, in Ann Arbor, city council...)

Taken from wikipedia.org

Saline: Non-homestead Millage Renewal. Find out more here (Saline Schools), and here (Saline Post). If this is not renewed there will be a nearly 16% cut in school funds.

Ann Arbor: Sinking Fund. Find out more here (Ann Arbor schools), and here (Ann Arbor News).

Sinking Fund Discussion

Sinking fund monies pay for infrastructure. I asked Liz Margolis for a complete list of what the sinking fund monies were spent on in the past few years, and was told it would be posted on the schools web site last week, but I don't see it.

The arguments that I have heard for the sinking fund:

• Schools need every penny they can get. Money keeps getting cut from schools.
• Sinking fund monies get spent on things that need to happen anyway (for example, replacing a roof or a furnace) and if the sinking fund isn't supported by the voters then that money will have to come out of operating funds--which is the area that has been hit hardest by state cuts. So by supporting the sinking fund you effectively allow more money for expenses like teachers and you protect the classroom.

The arguments that I have heard against renewing the sinking fund: 

• People are tired of funding "things" around the school (e.g., technology, furnaces). One would prefer to fund personnel, photocopies, etc.
• The school board is going to use the money for things people don't agree with--an example being spending current sinking fund monies on video monitors at school doors.

On the "con" side, as far as the first point goes, let's just be clear--the school board is not allowed to put forward a millage for us to vote on that would support general operating costs, such as personnel. If they could, they would. (Why? Proposal A. Look for a post about that sometime soon. Maybe even this week.)

As far as the second point goes, I personally feel this is a valid point. It is the same issue, by the way, that came up last year with the technology bond. In thinking about the technology bond, here was the issue: Yes, teachers and kids needed new computers; the schools needed updated technology infrastructure; and in an ideal world it would be paid for from operating costs (as ongoing expenses) but as far as school finance goes, we are living in a much less than ideal world. 

On the other hand, by providing those new computers we were making it easier for the district to administer standardized tests which I personally don't support. So even though I did end up voting for the tech bond, I am sometimes sorry that I did.

I wish I had the list of things that the sinking fund has been used for in the past, but I think it's safe to say that for the sinking fund, the majority of expenditures will be a) legitimate; b) necessary; and c) things that most of us would approve of doing. 

Some expenditures, however, will likely be on items about which we disagree. The proposed security measures are one example of this. 

And in a related blog post, you can both read about the added Haisley playground accessibility features (funded by the sinking fund) and--in the comments--some discussion of one person's negative perspective on the sinking fund. I think that essentially shows both sides of the story. 

If you own a house--which I do--and actually, you probably know this even if you live in a leased dwelling--you know that houses and buildings need "refreshing" periodically to run well. But whether a family "refreshes" by making do with some patched-up fix-it job, or getting the low-budget minimum-necessary item, or choosing the high-end marble finish, depends on a mixture of budget and perspective. In the schools, that perspective includes how much heavy use something will get (will kids be jumping on it every day?) and how long you want that something to last. (As an example, we have some very old boilers in the school district, and some of them are still working, and working well. But every time they break, then there are some decisions that need to be made.)

So in the end, I think, it comes down to whether you trust the school board and the administration. Because ultimately they are going to be the ones deciding on the expenditures that will be paid for out of the sinking fund. If you trust them, you will probably want to support the sinking fund. And if you don't, then you might not. But if you don't, then maybe we've got bigger problems.

Ann Arbor & Saline: Learn About Upcoming School Millage/Sinking Fund Requests

Ann Arbor schools are hosting a brown bag lunch to discuss the proposed Sinking Fund vote:

• Noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25: Brown bag lunch in the fourth floor conference room of the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown branch

Saline Schools are hosting three community forums to share information and answer questions about the November 5th Non-Homestead Operational Millage Renewal.  The forum schedule:

Monday, October 28th – Saline District Library, Brecon Room at 7:00 pm

Tuesday, October 29th – Brewed Awakenings Cafe at 9:15 am

Wednesday, October 30th – My Favorite Cafe at 12 noon

(h/t: scotgraden.wordpress.com)

Financing Michigan's Schools--Or Not

I am taking this directly from an email alert from Tri-County Alliance for Public Education, which is an advocacy group in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.

Friends, For the second time in a month, a report was released highlighting the major issues facing K-12 funding. This report, which was commissioned by the State Board of Education, is entitled, “Michigan Education Organization and Finance Research Brief” and was authored by Meg Jalilevand of Michigan State University (MSU). The report considered a range of issues facing our schools today and conducted an extensive review of several, well-known analyses concerning K-12 education. What the report found will not shock anyone connected to their local, community schools, but its conclusion is that schools are in the midst of a perfect storm of significant negative pressures equating to a substantial loss in school revenues. Those burdens squeezing the School Aid Fund, include: ·         Declining enrollment: The per-pupil allotment, as created by Proposal A of 1994, does not account for declining enrollment, which has only been further exacerbated by the implosion of “new” schools. According to Jalilevand, school populations have declined around 10% since 2003, and traditional schools have been the hardest hit with 70% of them suffering from declining enrollment. ·         Increased Choice: Jalilevand has been quoted as saying, “We have created hundreds of new schools without a strategy and without quality control.” Holding charter school operators accountable has been a priority of The Education Trust-Midwest, and a worthwhile reform that would help alleviate additional strain on the School Aid Fund. Without quality controls for “new” schools, we are cutting the School Aid Funding pie into smaller pieces on account of bad actors who are multiplying with very little oversight. ·         Legacy costs: Although last year, Lansing passed legislation providing for a new retirement option for new teachers and capping school district’s portion of retirement costs, they did very little to contain the long-term unfunded liability costs for our local schools. This means that fewer school aid dollars are actually making it to the classroom as more dollars are needed to pay for unfunded retirement liabilities. ·         Decreased funding: The report notes a 14 to 16% decline in state foundation allowances from 2004 to 2013, as measured in 2004 dollars. This is exactly what we saw in the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Report, which we shared with you a few weeks ago. The Report concludes by stating, “Many believe the Michigan education system is reaching a crisis point.” We are sad to say that we could not agree more. The purpose of this email is to encourage you to use the findings of this Report and The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Report to engage your elected officials and ask them why we aren’t investing in our children’s future? Tri-County Alliance for Public Education has a Facebook page, if you are interested.

At Haisley School: A Playground for All

Over on the west side of Ann Arbor, Haisley School has some new additions to the playground. Haisley has several children who use wheelchairs at the school, as well as some kids with autism. In fact, the district has placed three self-contained classes at Haisley, and in addition there are several kids with disabilities who are in the general education classrooms.

I used to love to climb on these. Here's one at Haisley.

And for the kids with disabilities--especially the kids who use wheelchairs--it was difficult, if not impossible, to play on the playground. 

These are not accessible

These provide a similar ride,
but they are accessible

Compare these two play structures. Notice the ramp on the blue structure?
The red structure offers lots of opportunities for kids who can climb--
but not everyone can. It's nice to have both!

In the accessible play structure, there is room for a wheelchair to turn around.

Kids can climb in and out, but a kid in
a wheelchair will not fall out.

A view of the ramp.

An accessible swing--but I saw a lot of able-bodied kids enjoying it too.

The sinking fund paid for the costs of adding the accessible equipment ($60,000). Over the years, the teachers of Haisley's self-contained classrooms were concerned that their students have good playground choices. The playground was designed with both physical accessibility and the interests of children on the autism spectrum. A big thank you to teachers Lisa Piegdon, Erika Cech, Kim Krug and teachers assistant, Sue Monkiewicz, who advocated for--and helped plan--the playground.

I think recess is super important.

*All photos by Ruth Kraut, at the Haisley playground.



UPDATE 11/23/2013: Also, Sarah Kerson did a Michigan Radio Environment Report on this playground (read or listen to it here) and in that report, they mention that NPR has a map of accessible playgrounds around the country posted on its web site! [Here is the link.] If you find yourself traveling and looking for one, there is even a smartphone link at npr.org/playgrounds. I added information about the Haisley Playground to the accessible playground web site. The other playground on there in the area is the High Point playground at the WISD. Slightly further away, there is also the Imagination Station in Brighton.

School Security, Sinking Funds, & Sinking Hearts

Amy Biolchini reported on two important articles about school security in the past couple of weeks.

Yes, Alice Street is a small street on Ann Arbor's west side. 
No, it doesn't have anything to do with the ALICE program--
except that they share a name.
Photo by Ruth Kraut

In Article #1, Amy writes that Washtenaw County schools are giving teachers and other staff more flexibility in how to respond to outside threats from shooters or other assailants. This is called the ALICE program, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evaluate. This sounds like a great program and I'm glad that the schools are all on board for training on this program.

In Article #2 (which was actually published first), the school board discusses restricting access to schools in a major, major way--so that all doors will be locked to all schools during the school day. The cost--at this point--is estimated to be nearly $200,000 and to come out of the sinking fund.

According to the article:

This year, the district is planning to implement a new policy: Locking all exterior doors on school buildings during daytime hours. The implementation date has yet to be determined.

I don't believe the full board has voted on this. I got the impression from the article that they took a sense of the board but that voting on this will be on a future agenda.

But in order to lock all of the doors, they need to find a way to let people in. And therein lies the cost.

According to the article,

The district is considering several methods that would give certain individuals access to the building during school hours:

• Using a keypad system in which parents and other qualified individuals get a code that will allow them access to a main door

• Using a video surveillance and intercom buzzer system that only allows a staff member inside the building to admit someone in from the outside

What will this cost?

The estimated cost* to implement the new security measures is $190,000, which the district has allocated in its 2013-14 property upkeep budget funded by its sinking fund millage. The district also wants to replace all of its schools' exterior doors in the next five years should the sinking fund millage be renewed.

[*Slight digression: I'm not sure how we estimate the cost if we don't know what system we would use. My guess is that this estimate is quite low given the number of schools the district has.]

Do we need this system? Will it make our schools safer? 

I don't believe so.

As a parent, I think this is a terrible idea. It will overburden school office staff (who have already had additional duties added/cuts made over the past several years). It creates an impediment for parents coming into the building to volunteer or to pick up their children for doctor's appointments, for special presenters, for staff meetings.

And most importantly, those locked door policies give an illusion and false sense of security. In fact, in the Newtown, Connecticut shootings (referenced by Andy Thomas in the article), the schools had those locked door security measures. It didn't make a difference. 

[In the Columbine school shooting, there was an armed guard in the building. It also didn't make a difference.]

From CNN: Earlier this year, the [ed. note: Newtown Sandy Hook elementary] school principal, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, ordered a new security system installed that required visitors to be visibly identified and buzzed in. As part of the security system, the school locked its doors each day at 9:30 a.m. The door was locked when the gunman arrived.

On December 19, 2012, after the Newtown Connecticut shooting, the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence, an impressive array of violence prevention researchers, including some who specialize in school security, put out a School Shooting Position Statement. They wrote:

"Inclinations to intensify security in schools should be reconsidered. We cannot and should not turn our schools into fortresses."

Right. I want our schools to be community centers.

Part of their statement reads:

Inclinations to intensify security in schools should be reconsidered. We cannot and should not turn our schools into fortresses. Effective prevention cannot wait until there is a gunman in a school parking lot. We need resources such as mental health supports and threat assessment teams in every school and community so that people can seek assistance when they recognize that someone is troubled and requires help. For communities, this speaks to a need for increased access to well integrated service structures across mental health, law enforcement, and related agencies. We must encourage people to seek help when they see that someone is embroiled in an intense, persistent conflict or is deeply
troubled. If we can recognize and ameliorate these kinds of situations, then we will be more able to prevent violence. These issues require attention at the school and community levels. We believe that research supports a thoughtful approach to safer schools, guided by four key elements: Balance, Communication, Connectedness, and Support, along with strengthened attention to mental health needs in the community, structured threat assessment approaches, revised policies on youth exposure to violent media, and increased efforts to limit inappropriate access to guns and especially, assault type weapons. 

The National Association of School Psychologists, in a 2013 position paper titled Research on School Security: The Impact of Security Measures on Students, writes:

The widespread public impression that schools are unsafe—fueled by rare, but highly visible school shootings—is contradicted by empirical evidence. (endnotes 22, 23) In fact, schools are not only safe, but are arguably safer today than they were a decade ago. (endnote 24)

Well, then, what would I suggest?

I am in favor of keeping most of the school's doors locked and directing access through the main door of each school. That makes sense to me. There will probably be some small cost in creating signs directing people to the main doors. And in some schools, you cannot see the door that is currently used as the main door from the main office. There probably should be some way to monitor those doors. At Ann Arbor Open, that involved adding another interior window to the Ann Arbor Open office.

And while we're discussing this, did you know. . . 

that although it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon into a school in Michigan, it is apparently legal to openly carry a weapon into a Michigan school? No, I'm not making that up. The father of a Clio-area child apparently did just that recently. Read more about the law and the "incident" here.

Other Good Ideas

The Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence also wrote that:

Concerned students, parents, educators, and stakeholders in the community should attend to troubling behaviors that signal something is amiss. For example, if a person utters threats to engage in a violent act or displays a pronounced change of mood and related social behavior, or is engaged in a severe conflict with family members or coworkers, it makes sense to communicate concerns to others who might provide assistance. Early identification is important not only to prevent violence, but to provide troubled individuals the support, treatment, and help they need.

As far as I know, the only person who has been killed in a school in the last 30 (or more? maybe many more?) years in Washtenaw County was the Superintendent of the Chelsea Schools. A Chemistry teacher, Stephen Leith, who was being disciplined, left the school after a grievance hearing, and returned with a gun, killing Joseph Piasecki and injuring CHS principal Ronald Meade and English teacher Phil Jones (Managing Violence in the Workplace, Capozzoli and McVey, pp. 9-13). In hindsight--and I know, hindsight is perfect--the strategy suggested immediately above by the Interdisciplinary Group (a communications strategy) might have helped. Locked doors with key cards would have done nothing.

So, About That Sinking Fund Money...

Please don't spend our hard-earned sinking fund monies on this, because then it makes me feel like I shouldn't support the next round of the sinking fund millage. There is plenty of other important stuff to spend those funds on, and I want to vote for the next sinking fund millage, but if the school board votes to use this money on such a poorly-thought out idea, I am not sure I can do it.

And I will reiterate what I wrote above: locked door policies as proposed above have not been shown to be protective, and they are a waste of our money.