Unintended Consequences

I know you've all been waiting for this post. 
At the end of the 1985 reorganization, several schools were closed: Bader, Clinton, Freeman, Lakewood, Newport, and Stone schools. In addition, the K-6 elementary schools became K-5 schools; the 7-9 middle schools became 6-8 schools; and the grade 10-12 schools became 9-12 schools. In addition, the Open School got a School Of Its Own, at Bach.
Now, back in the day--pre-proposal A--decision-making did not take into account the number of students in the district the way that it does today. Of course, overall the size of the district population mattered, but ten students here or there did not make any significant difference. In fact, the five-year forecasts the 1985 committee used showed the elementary school population growing slightly, and the middle and high school populations decreasing slightly. The 1984 total head count was 13,772 students, and the Committee on Excellence used a 1990 projected head count of 12,741 students.
After the decision was made to close the schools, the district had to decide what to do with them, and the decision was made to sell some, and keep others.
Bader (which is in Ann Arbor Hills) was bought by a preschool, the Ann Arbor Hills Child Development Center.
The district held onto Freeman (which is in the Dixboro area), and gave a long-term lease to Go Like The Wind Christian Montessori. Side note: Rec & Ed soccer games are still sometimes played there.
Clinton (which is halfway between Stone School and Bryant, and which abuts Clinton Park) was bought by the Jewish Community Center, and both the JCC preschool and the Hebrew Day School are located there.
The district held onto Lakewood School (on the west side of Ann Arbor near Dolph Park), and reopened it in 2001--at which point it got some fairly extensive renovations. After being closed for 15 years, it probably needed them.
Newport School (on Newport Road) was sold and became the Rudolph Steiner School.
Stone School (at the corner of Stone School and Packard) has been used by the district for various things over the years--for Rec & Ed, for the New School (an alternative high school), and now for another alternative high school, Stone School.
When you close a school, who are potential buyers? For whom is a building like a school perfectly suited? Why, for another school. 
One of the unintended consequences is that, in selling schools to other schools, the district set up competition for itself. This doesn't seem to have been anticipated at all, and in fact--pre-proposal A--what mattered most was whether the community would support the schools, and not the exact number of students in the public schools.

So, for instance, the Rudolph Steiner School started in 1980 with a handful of students, and grew slowly until 1986, when it was able to occupy Newport School. By 1999, the Steiner School had 298 students--the vast majority in their K-8 lower school (313 students K-12, 2009).
In 1985, the Hebrew Day School was in very inadequate space, and had under 50 students. By 1999, the Hebrew Day School had over 100 students (87 students K-5, 2009).
Go Like the Wind Christian Montessori school, which only opened in 1987, had over 100 students by 1999 (101 students K-8, 2009). 
And Ann Arbor Hills Child Development Center goes through age 8, with a K-2 primary school program that in 1999 had 35 students (33 students K-2, 2009).

Of course, not all of those 500 or so students live in Ann Arbor, but probably about 75% of them do. (That is an unscientific number, based largely on the people I know who send their children to these schools.) In addition, at least three of these schools have feeder preschools, so children who get started there are likely to stay there.
Certainly, all this was an unintended consequence.

All of this didn't matter so much then, but it matters a lot more now, when per-pupil counts matter so much--and I feel that in some sense, we gave these schools the freedom to expand. Sure, they might have found space anyway (several of the charters have), but we made it easy for them. Obviously, excess capacity can be a drag on the system. However, there were estimated savings at the time--have they come to pass? I don't know, but if you include the per-pupil costs, I think the closings probably haven't saved money.

And in the "this might be too far-fetched to consider" category, I will add one more possible unintended consequence: the building of Skyline High School and the building of the Ann Arbor Preschool and Family Center. Regarding Skyline, I say this because, today, we still have significant excess capacity at the middle school level. (Remember, this was also true in 1985, and one of the proposals that wasn't implemented included closing a middle school.) At the time, putting sixth graders in the middle schools kept the middle schools at essentially the same size, and adding the ninth graders to the high schools put Huron and Pioneer essentially at capacity. I say that the building of Skyline as an unintended consequence "might be too far-fetched to consider" for two reasons: first, the estimates of student enrollment only went out five years, and the estimates were essentially flat. This turned out not to be the case, at least ten years out, when the fall head count had grown by 1500 students. The other reason is that educational trends can be like bulldozers, and the trend to move to having ninth graders in high schools reached its ascendancy many years ago. I don't think there would be much traction for moving ninth graders back to middle school--at least, I never heard it entertained as a serious suggestion during the whole time that building a new high school was discussed.

In a similar vein, it seems to me that the building of the AAPS preschool center admits the importance of having feeder preschools to the K-12 AAPS program--something these private schools figured out years ago. Yet, at the point at which this was identified as a need, there was no obvious building for locating all of the preschool programs.
[As to what I think about the excess middle school capacity--I think that there is a lot of demand for K-8 schooling, and one of the middle schools could become a K-8 school. But that is a subject for a different post.]

Last, but not least--the planners did not (and I would say, probably could not) have anticipated the ascendancy of charter schools. Charter schools have undoubtedly had an impact on some of the schools' enrollment, particularly in the elementary schools. The Committee on Excellence had a goal of ensuring that all elementary schools have enrollments over 300. In 2009, three elementary schools fell short of that (I'll give Abbott a pass at 297), with Pittsfield School having the lowest enrollment--and my understanding is that at least some of the reason that Pittsfield is so small is due to the fact that charters have attracted many "potentially Pittsfield" students.

So--unintended consequences--is this what you thought I would say?

P.S. Because this is the last post I will write on this for a while (at least I think it is), I just want to say that I believe the Committee on Excellence did a really good job with the information at hand, and the reason is that the process was good. The process was used to the advantage of the school district. The process involved a citizens' committee gathering input from the larger community, bringing a proposal to the School Board, with the administration serving as support for the committee. Read about that process in the report itself. That was then, this was now--let's learn from our past. And if you see any of the members of the Committee around town (some have passed on, but some are still here), you can thank them, because I'm posting the list of members:
1. Mary Austin
2. Ronald Bishop
3. Vincent Carillot
4. Patricia Chapman
5. Susan Doud
6. Cheryl Garnett
7. Leonard Gay
8. George Goodman
9. Charles Kieffer
10. Norma McCuiston
11. R. Griffith McDonald
12. Bettye McDonald
13. Melinda Morris
14. Merrill Nemiroff
15. Duane Renken
16. Ingrid Sheldon
17. Joann Sims
18. Estelle Titiev
19. James Wanty
20. Ronald Woods

Privatization History

In the course of looking up information about the 1985 reorganization, I came across some information about the history of privatization, all of which is taken from the earliest User-Friendly Budget on the AAPS website, 2002-2003, to wit:

Out-sourcing has occurred over the years in order to reduce costs, comply with mandated regulations, and to complete projects within short schedules. The effects of using contracted services includes: the reduction of F.T.E.s, benefits, retirement, and other employment costs. While the Board policy does not show preference to local vendors, a substantial number of local contractors do win contracts to provide goods and services to the district.

What follows, then, is a list of contracts that they have tried to, or decided to, outsource over the years. (This is on pp. 37-40 if you are looking for it.) It's actually pretty shocking reading:

Since 1990, district managers have also explored the possibility of privatization in areas such as Custodial, Maintenance, Warehousing, and Transportation. Private companies were given the opportunity to meet with district employees and to review operational practices. Although each of these reviews did not result in proposals that would have reduced costs, we will continue looking at using the best combination of in-house employees and private services. (Emphases added.)

 Here are the listed bids:

1990, Facilities, Service Master
Declined bid invitation
1990, Facilities, Unbar
Declined bid invitation
1990, Facilities, Marriott
Received proposal of $7,184,909 for 90/91
Proposal would have resulted in an increase of costs of $1,650,000 over 3 years
1991, Facilities, Marriott
Declined bid invitation
1992, Transportation, Laidlaw
Not able to provide the same level of service and generate savings
1993, Facilities, Witt, Fiala, Flannery & Assoc.
Received proposal of $6,739,151
Proposal would have resulted in an increase in costs of $239,151
1994/95, Warehousing, U.P.S.
Not able to provide the same level of service at our costs
1995, Transportation, Laidlaw
Not able to provide the same level of service and generate savings
1996, Facilities (Snow Removal), Arbor Building Services
Snow removal pilot program at Pioneer
Increased costs: Cost of pilot program was 50% of total district costs


Do you think I was cherry-picking the worst outcomes from this report? That is not the case. That was the whole list. Which kind of makes you wonder. . . under what conditions does privatization actually work?

And you will wonder even more, if you read this Ann Arbor Chronicle article on the last school board meeting, which quotes Mark Zullo, who has studied the privatization of the AAPS food service workers, and says, that "AAPS is spending less on food service because of increased revenue being sent from the federal government via the school lunch program" and that workers were harmed by the privatization. According to him, "new hires were paid at $9 per hour, and that none of the workers could afford to use the health care offered to them – due to an increase in co-pays to $3,000 annually."

Desegregation Outcomes

The primary focus of the 1985 reorganization was integrating the schools--in particular, integrating the black and white populations. The Asian, Latino, and Middle Eastern populations were much smaller than they are today.
I was interested in the immediate impacts of this reoganization, but unfortunately I did not have time to dig through the microfiche and find the 1986 enrollment numbers. As a result, this post takes a much longer view of this reorganization. On the one hand, this is somewhat unfair, since the committee that developed the reorganization was only able to estimate out about five years. In taking the long view, I also need to recognize that there have been some (relatively minor, with the exception of the re-opening of Lakewood and the opening of Skyline) changes to the individual school boundaries over the years.
[By the way, his post gets a little numbers-heavy. I think the numbers tell the story, but if you don't, skip to the end. Also, for the purposes of counting here, I count Ann Arbor Open as an elementary school.]

At the time of the report (1985), the AAPS African-American population was 17% of the total schools population, and the state considered a school out of balance if the African-American population was + or - 15% points compared to the district average, which is how the state recommended a 2-32% guideline for Ann Arbor. The Committee on Excellence chose a more restrictive +/- 5-15% range.

If we look at the racial makeup of the schools today, the African-American population average is still between 12 and 27%, the goal of the committee. In September 2009 it was at 14.5%. Some individual schools are much higher or lower.  Angell School, for instance, has an African-American population of only 3.6%, and in total, the following schools fall below 12%: 9 elementary schools (give Logan a pass at 11.8%), 2 middle schools, and Community High School.

On the other end of the spectrum, Roberto Clemente's African-American population is 82.3%--but I should note that this was true back in 1984, and I guess because Clemente and Community were and are magnet schools, the committee was unable to address the numbers through redistricting--though they did say they hoped to reduce the achievement gap. (In fact, lawsuits against the schools, and Proposal 2, have limited options on this front even more.

So, aside from Clemente, the schools that are over the 27% number today comprise a much smaller number: Mitchell, Scarlett, and Stone.

[In 2002, by comparison, 8 elementary schools and Community High School were below 12% (Not including Forsythe, at 11.7%). No elementary schools were above 27%, but Scarlett, Clemente, and Stone were above 27%.]

If we look at the 2009 African-American AAPS population percentages, however, we only get part of the story. 
For while the African-American school population has shrunk slightly as a percentage of the school population, the Asian, Latino, and Middle Eastern populations have increased greatly. Where the fall 2009 headcount counts African-American students as 14.5% of the population, the Asian population comprises 14.2% of the population.
So, using a broader lens, let's take a look at Angell School again:

3.6% African American

32% Asian, 

4.2% Middle Eastern, 

5.8% Multi-ethnic, 

.3% Native American, 

.6% Other, 

4.9% Latino/Hispanic, and 

48.5% White. 

In other words--even though Angell doesn't meet the criteria of 12-27% African American, it clearly is diverse.
You might be surprised to know that the district, on average, is now 52.8% White. If I were to say that a range of 42-62% White was acceptable as a range for desegregation, these schools would be below 42% White: 7 elementary schools (at 41.9% I will give Thurston a pass), Scarlett Middle School, and Clemente and Stone high schools. These schools would be above 62%: 4 elementary schools, Forsythe Middle School, and Community High School.

And if we were to set up a committee to strive for racial balance today, we would find that the Asian AAPS population is highly concentrated in some schools, and barely present in others. Using that same 12-27% range, there are 10 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 3 high schools that that come in under 12% Asian population, and there are 5 elementary schools that are over the 27% number.

It is worth noting, however, that the 1985 reorganization had at its core, not 1, but 2 significant goals related to racial integration. One goal was "the elimination of racial isolation," which was considered an important value in and of itself. Although I hesitate to call that the "primary goal," it was in fact the driving force behind the reorganization. And although the reorganization was not, and is not, perfect--from the point of view of eliminating racial isolation, I think the work of the committee stands on its own, and 25 years later, it stands pretty well.

At the time, the Committee on Excellence of Education noted that

On a district wide basis, the academic performance of minorities lags far behind that of the majority population. Minorities are significantly overrepresented in lower curricular paths and significantly underrepresented in advanced courses of study. Disproportionately high numbers of minorities are the subject of disciplinary action. . . Measured by the critical index of progress toward educational opportunity, the Ann Arbor School District, in this regard, is in crisis.

The second goal, then, was the goal of reducing the achievement gap. Twenty-five years later. . . countless policy papers later. . . many efforts later (and whether these efforts have been wrong or inadequate--or both--we'll leave for another time). . . this goal remains elusive, and has not been achieved.

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.

But Was It Worth It?

All over the state, school districts are announcing their intention to close schools. In Washtenaw County, Chelsea and Saline have said they are in the "definite" camp, and Ypsilanti and Willow Run are both highly likely to close schools. I doubt that is the end.

But this is not the first time that schools have closed, and--on the theory that those who don't know their history will repeat it (not always for the better)--it seems well past time to look at whether past school closings paid the dividends that past school boards wanted. In other words: was it worth it?

I moved to Ann Arbor in 1985, and at the time, the community was abuzz with the possibility of closing schools. Ultimately, six schools were closed, and there was quite a lot of reorganization as well. I didn't have kids then, and I was new to town, so I paid some--but not tons--of attention. In any case, I have spent some time, on and off, over the past several weeks looking for information about these closings, and now I think I have enough information to put up some posts over the next couple of weeks.

Three thoughts to start us out:
1. The 1985 closings were part of a long (very long) deliberative process that gathered steam over time, and covered the tenure of more than one AAPS superintendent. The timelines today, by comparison, seem like when you put the video on fast forward and get the "Mickey Mouse" voices speeding by. In other words: deliberative process? What is that?
2. Whether you think those school closings were successful depends in large part on your assessment of the defined objectives. In the case of the 1985 school closings, the primary issues were desegregating the schools and reducing the underutilization of some schools (particularly at the elementary and middle school levels). There was more, but those were the BIG ideas.
3. The law of unintended consequences suggests to me that we should also be looking at how these changes caused other, unintended, changes. Were those unintended consequences desirable, or undesirable?

Some Interesting Links

A tweet from DavidNGoodman (Detroit-area AP reporter) led me to this teacher blog from someone who started out in Teach For America: Not Much, Just Chillin' and to this very interesting article from the New York Times, Building A Better Teacher by Elizabeth Green. The article gives a shout-out to both the Michigan State University and University of Michigan schools of education. And I don't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions, but it is interesting to read about. The article also links to the Uncommon Schools web site (which is promotional--just a warning). I wouldn't normally link to it but I did like the teaching clips on the right hand side.

[There is a recent post on the teachers' blog Not Much, Just Chilling that talks about what this teacher gets paid as a teacher in eastern North Carolina. It struck me just how little she is getting paid, after 5 years on the job, and how low pay is in eastern North Carolina as compared to Michigan.]

Also in the New York Times, as part of a series on the impact of immigration, you can look up every school district in the country (yes, including Washtenaw County), and check out both racial/ethnic makeup and the assigned diversity index (the percent chance that two students selected randomly would belong to different ethnic/racial groups).  The key question--is diversity increasing or decreasing? The data spans 1987 to 2006, so you can really see some trends. In Washtenaw County, for 2006, Fortis Academy is #1 in diversity. Check out #2... (I had fun guessing.) I went back and looked at my hometown in a New York suburb. Racial and ethnic diversity is still every bit as low as I remembered from high school.

In graduate school in education, I often found myself disagreeing with Diane Ravitch, a leading educational thinker. So I was surprised to listen to this NPR interview with her, and find that for the most part I agreed with her. [I think she may have changed more than me. And she essentially says, "I thought this, but now I have changed my mind." Kudos to her for being willing to admit to a change of mind.]

And today, NPR has an article about the Department of Education stepping up civil rights enforcement. It's about time...

On a totally separate topic--not education, but yes, local--The Farmer's Marketer is doing a series on the various community farm/share options in the area. I tried one a few years ago but didn't like driving out to the farm every week, so I'm shopping around, and maybe you are shopping too! There are a lot more choices now.

Retirement, Privatization Details

If you didn't read Jennifer Coffman's excellent article in the Ann Arbor Chronicle about the mid-February AAPS board meeting (it was published during school break, so I just read it), I encourage you to read it. The article is full of interesting, important, detailed information, particularly in these areas.

Retirement Funding Scenarios
Although Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools had explained quite a bit about the retirement issues at the state level (which you can read about in my post here, including the comments section), there is more detail here, from Todd Roberts, AAPS Superintendent. Note, however, that is is a statewide issue and thus is applicable to every district in the state. It's complex, and I'm not going to try to summarize Jennifer's summary, but one important thing to know is that this decision is out of "our" (local school districts') hands, just as the amount that we get from the state per-pupil is also out of "our" hands. Many people point to the retirement funding as the "source" of school funding woes. I would point to our tax system and per-pupil funding, but it is absolutely true that the retirement funding is something that school districts don't have control of, is run by the state, and is not (generally) negotiable in teacher contracts.

And there is this:

Robert Allen reiterated that the AAPS projected budget had allowed for a 1.5% increase in retirement contributions. However, he said that the new state-mandated increase of 2.47% will translate to an extra cost per public employee equal to 19.41% of employee’s salaries.  That means an additional $1 million in payments to MPSERS during the 2010-11 fiscal year.
That’s an additional million-dollar budget shortfall. (Emphasis added.)

Revised Budget Projections
Regarding next year: 

Todd Roberts presented a series of budget scenarios based on three variants of state funding: (i) no additional cuts to the foundation allowance, (ii) an additional $200 per pupil cut, and (iii) an additional $300 per pupil cut.

Regarding this year: 

First, he pointed out two factors that have changed since the community budget forums – an adjustment in the student count number from 16,489 down to 16,440, which currently translates to a $476,427 loss of per-pupil funding. The second factor is the increase in employer retirement contribution rate described earlier in this article.

(I will note, this is still higher than the original per-pupil count, which was originally 68 students higher than expected.)

Privatization of Bussing, Maintenance, and Custodians
This is a very long and very interesting discussion. Among the tidbits (tidbits, to me, because I hadn't thought about these particular ideas):

Bias

During earlier public commentary time, [Kathy] Griswold had argued that privatization is racially-biased and a distraction. She contended that there is no financial reason to outsource, and that it is not in the best interest of students. (Emphasis added.)

Kathy Griswold makes the assertion of racial bias because, as a group, the bus drivers and custodians are more likely to be people of color than other groups (for example, teachers) in the school district. Anything that affects them could be construed as having a disparate impact.

Disparate Impact:  Even where an employer is not motivated by discriminatory intent, Title VII prohibits an the employer from using a facially neutral employment practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class. 

New Hires: No Comparable Wages and Benefits, Leaving Aside Retirement
We already knew that the privatization savings come largely from excluding retirement, but here is some additional information I didn't know.

The most contentious community voice came from a man who took issue with Allen’s assertion that wages and health care benefits would remain the same. Also using the district’s food service as an example, he asserted that food service workers are not in fact paid the same across the board. He contended that new hires are paid $9 per hour, and given health insurance with co-pays that cost $3,000 per year rather than $500 per year.
Allen allowed that while the food service workers were paid exactly the same wage at the time they transferred from AAPS to Chartwells, the district’s contract with an outsourced company does not extend to new hires: “They [Chartwells] are a company … they have a right to do that.” The public commentary speaker concluded with, “You should not be misinformed about what happened to the health care of these employees … Basically, at $9, they cannot afford the health care plan.” Mexicotte’s [Board President] response was, “That’s often what happens with outsourcing … It’s not a perfect world.” (Emphasis added.)

I have to say that I resent that "It's not a perfect world" response. I know it's hard for the school board to balance the budget, but still--I tell my kids that "Everybody is doing it" is no excuse for doing something wrong.


Community Responses to Budget Survey

Margolis [Communications Director] began by cautioning that the surveys were “unscientific” because a single responder could have submitted multiple responses, or completed both surveys. Further, not all respondents commented in every are making the “total” number different for each category. The online Zoomerang surveys garnered 338 responses, and 519 surveys were completed at the budget forums.

I think the surveys from the budget forums are obviously useful, since those were accompanied with discussion and the presentations from the AAPS staff. On the other hand, I've noticed AAPS relies a lot on those online zoomerang surveys, and given the caveats above, I have to ask, are they useful? It's easy to rely on a survey and forget its limitations. So--to what end are they useful?

Simone Lightfoot noted that,

“These online results were clearly different from what I saw at the town hall meetings.”

So the question is--why? Is it because it drew in a different group of people? Or because people did the survey more than once? (I only did the survey once, but I did also go to a budget forum--I don't think the survey asked if people had been to a budget forum so I don't think you could assess the overlap.)

Employees and Students Opting into the District

Final comments on the survey responses came from a community member concerned with what would happen to the children of district employees who currently attend AAPS if those employees are outsourced. He estimated that this situation would affect approximately 70 students. Some students are able to attend AAPS schools based a parent’s employed with the district, not residency in the district. (Emphasis added.)

I had no idea about this! 

Deb Mexicotte answered first, saying that the question was interesting . . . Baskett [school board member] asked for clarification of board policy on the issue, and Roberts answered that currently in that situation, the student would leave with the departing staff member.

In other words--we could LOSE 70 students (over half-a-million dollars) in this privatization deal. Has that been figured in?

There's much more. Read the article yourself.

Money, News, and AAPS

During school break, David Jesse had an article in annarbor.com about the money the Ann Arbor Public Schools are spending on contractors. Leaving aside the 33% increase in spending, there is this:

The largest new expenditure was a $55,000 contract given to former Ann Arbor News reporter Casey Hans to create a district newspaper and write stories for it. Other smaller contracts - some awarded to former district employees - were given for professional development.
Roberts said money for Hans’ contract came from backing down on the district’s advertising buys and transferring some money into the communications budget from another district budget.

[N.B.: That is just the cost of the contract. I imagine that printing and mailing increase the total cost to the $100,000 range.]

On the one hand, I understand the problem. AAPS is not the only group struggling to figure out what to do in the wake of the Ann Arbor News closing. Many nonprofits are struggling to figure out how to get their message out to people. I know a handful of people who read annarbor.com on-line regularly, and another group who read the Ann Arbor Chronicle, but most of the people I know have taken to reading them occasionally, if at all, and relying on WEMU and WUOM for their local news.  I recently read a blog post (sorry, can't remember where) that talked about the loss of the Ann Arbor News as the loss of a common, community document. In other words, although we still have news sources, we are not all relying on the same news sources, and so our understandings of "news" is fragmented. All of which poses a problem for the school district and a whole slew of other nonprofits and businesses. I understand this newsletter as an attempt to provide consistent messaging and information to a larger group of people. Added to that, I've been a paid newsletter editor, and I know it can be time consuming.


On the other hand, is this the solution? First, newsletters by their very nature are public relations pieces. They are not "news" in any critical sense. Public relations pieces are not necessarily bad, and they can be informational, but if you take a look at this new newsletter online, you will see that it has a lot of "good news" of the sort that can already be found in the This Week bulletin. At least this first issue is more "puff" than "information." [Seriously. The top article? Eberwhite teachers reach out to tutor young students at Parkhurst.]
We already have a communications manager at the school district. Supposedly, we have a budget crisis. It becomes really hard to believe what the district is saying. If we "need" to cut school staff and we "need" to cut what people get paid, and we "need" to protect classroom resources most of all, and we "couldn't" fund a grantwriter unless the funding came from a new/foundation source, then why the hell are we funding a new school newsletter? Really, we should be cutting the communications budget by at least 20%, not holding it neutral or increasing it. How will this newsletter protect and improve student outcomes? And why doesn't it even have any real news in it?

Oh, shoot. Now we're back to that transparency thing.

AAPS, Libraries, and Transparency

It was just happenstance that I wrote about libraries in my last post. Seriously, I was not expecting to get this in my inbox yesterday from a school PTO liaison:

We have recently learned of a slew of proposed cuts to our schools’ library programs, and these cuts have not been widely discussed as part of the larger public budget discussions going on.

It appears that administrators are proposing discontinuing all library classes, having the librarians teach tech ed, and having nobody (parent volunteers?) maintain the libraries.

It is also our understanding that there are alternate proposals that involve cutting FTE’s by reducing media services at over-staffed locations, which would save just as much money (perhaps more?), and not necessitate these drastic changes.  Unfortunately, it looks like momentum is favoring the former proposal, and doing so without any public input, as the public has not been made aware of this.

I encourage any of you concerned with this possible development to contact the School Board, Superintendent Roberts, and the Administrator for Elementary Education, LeeAnn Dickinson-Kelley, to tell them your feelings about this (email addresses below).  

And here are some email addresses that might be useful:

Superintendent Todd Roberts:  robertst@aaps.k12.mi.us

Administrator for Elementary Education, LeeAnn Dickinson-Kelley: dickinso@aaps.k12.mi.us

AAPS School Board:  boe@aaps.k12.mi.us

Please feel free to pass on this information to any other parents within the AAPS who might be interested. (Emphases added.)

Could I find anything about this on the AAPS web site? Nooooo. Will the other options save more, or the same amount of money? I have no idea, but if that is true, I'd like to know why they are thinking about this option.


OK, so--school board and administration--here is a RECAP for you. 

I was at a millage meeting, and someone asked Todd Roberts what people mean when they are talking about transparency. He said, roughly, "I have no idea. Our budget is on our web site."
In a follow-up blog post, I explain what I think people mean by transparency. Read about that here and here.
Todd Roberts, this is another example. This is not transparency. If you have "new ideas" about ways to save money for the school district (which is good), then share them publicly. Keep us updated. Sharing information with the public should not be window dressing. You have a web site. You have a new newsletter. You have a budget page on your web site. That would be transparency.
What are you waiting for?

Libraries

Libraries are some of my favorite places. I've worked in two of them.
Growing up, the library in my town had a youth card. When you were twelve, you could get a card to access the whole collection. But for a long time after I turned twelve, I wondered--why would anybody want to access the adult books? There was nothing to read there--at least, nothing enjoyable. Obviously (to me), all the best stuff was in the children's room.
*******
I felt nostalgic when I read this article in AnnArbor.com today: 
University of Michigan Library to bid farewell to card catalogs

Sure, it's easier to search online. But I'm not sure I always get better results. Searching by author, title, subject--neat, clean, efficient--it worked well for me. 

On the other hand, the article also reminded me of a conversation I had with my oldest about investigating colleges. We were discussing an experience of some friends of ours on a tour of several colleges. 

Mom, you are not expecting me to go visit every library, are you? Because I'm not going to do it.

That's when I realized that he was right. When I went to college, the actual physical plant of the library mattered very much. And now--so much of the library is virtual. For a freshman at MSU, University of Michigan, or Wayne State, will the physical plant of the library make a difference? Not in the way that it did for me. 

*******

But still, there is a limit, and I hit that limit at Skyline High School.  My middle child had an assignment from English class--choose a memoir, and read it. She told me she would stop by the school library and choose one. Later that evening, I asked what she picked. 

Mom, I couldn't find anything. That library has no books!

There is a limit! Aren't school libraries supposed to support the work of the students? Would it be so hard to have books, at least to support the work of the English department? 

Outcome: We found a memoir in our home. (Angela's Ashes, if you want to know.) Actually, we found a few memoirs. 

And Skyline: If you ask for some donations from families, I would be willing to donate those memoirs to get you started. And I will bet that I am not the only parent who would do that. 

Books. We can still use them. In schools.

Retirement

When I was in my early twenties, I got my dream job at a small nonprofit, and I stayed there for 14 years. My dream job, that is, except that the pay was kind of low and there was no retirement fund. We weren't always sure the jobs would be funded year to year--some of the funding came from grants. There were, however, generous vacation, sick time, and health insurance benefits. The job was extremely interesting. And who needs a retirement fund in your twenties? In general, the people I worked with didn't seem to need that. We were (for the most part) young, and when several years later the organization ended up setting up retirement funds where the organization would match up to 2% of our salary, we thought we had hit the jackpot. Most of us contributed 2% of our own money. I looked at that fund the other day. It recently crossed the $10,000 mark, which I thought was funny (in an ironic way--as in, who could live on that?). And then I looked at this fact from Harper's Index (January 2010).
Percentage of all US 401(k) accounts that are worth less than $10,000: 46%.

And now, I work in a big organization. Big enough to offer retirement, vesting, matching funds, etc. And one thing that I have found is that there are a lot of people in this organization who started working there in their twenties and thirties. They are vested now. They chose to work there, because they craved stability. They knew they wanted the retirement fund (even in their twenties).

And look--you can be a nurse, or an accountant, or a computer programmer, in a lot of settings--public sector, private sector; private entrepreneurial start-up, medium-sized office, large public setting. Some people will choose that larger, public setting because of the stability and benefits it offers. In trade, they might give something up... a more interesting job... more money... or frequent changes of organization (because if you stay until you "vest," you are going to want to stay a while longer as well).  Do you know anyone whose parents encouraged them to go work for the post office, the government, the schools?
Would you prefer a $50,000 salary now and no (or very limited) retirement benefits, or a $40,000 annual salary now, with retirement benefits? I look around my organization now, and I see a lot of people who chose the latter.

Most school employees fall into that second category. They're consciously choosing stability over the risks of starting a small business. And when they were looking for a job, or considering careers, they probably skipped over the ad for the small nonprofit. When they chose their jobs, they were, in fact, considering a wage and benefits package that included retirement benefits. They are not separate from the decision. They are a part of the decision.
If and when retirement benefits cease to be part of the package for teachers, custodians, or anyone else (see the interesting comments and discussion in this post) then we might see some changes in the makeup of the employees. And generally, what that means is that the "best and brightest" will leave, because they have more options and/or more go-get-'em. That, in my opinion, will not benefit the schools. Retirement benefits may be dragging schools down financially, but have you considered that they also might be dragging schools up in quality?

Not everyone can live on a 401(k) worth $10,000, and some people know that--even in their twenties.

Tweaks

Well, I had to turn moderation on for older comments. Yes, everyone has been very respectful, except for the spamming sexbots. (At least that's what I call them. It was annoying to have to delete bunches of spam.)

I'm contemplating a change of name, to Ann Arbor School Musings (as opposed to Schools Musings). Everyone always gets it wrong. I think you can argue that both ways are correct--originally I was thinking I was describing musings about Ann Arbor schools. Now I'm thinking that I'm musing about schools, and I'm located in Ann Arbor, so dropping the "s" may more accurately describe the blog's evolution. So I changed the title up top (but nothing in the web address has changed) and I'm trying to decide. Opinions are welcome. Right now the title looks bare, with one fewer "s," but I'm not necessarily a huge fan of change.

I've also decided it was time for a new picture. This one brings to mind the Peter, Paul and Mary song, Where have all the old schools gone" Oh wait, that's Where have all the flowers gone? No, that can't be right--the flowers are coming back. I saw in the Ann Arbor Chronicle that snow drops have been spotted. So--you will find a beautiful picture of a snowdrop below, which can be found in the original at cardsunlimited.com. Spring is almost here.

The picture above, by the way, is of the Geer School in Superior Township, and was taken off of the county web site, where there is information on local historic districts, including the Popkin School. Here is what the page has to say about the Geer School:

From 1880 to 1982, this one-room, red brick school represented an important era in Michigan education and was a center for community life. Named for William Geer, the first school director, and built by Joseph Warner of Ypsilanti, the school featured side-by-side entrances for boys and girls, a slate blackboard, a woodshed, and two outdoor privies. Water was carried in a bucket from across the road.

 

Special Education Resources

The New York Times has had a series of articles related to how parents can access necessary special education resources for children who need them.

What to Do if You Suspect Learning Disability
Excerpt: If your child is having difficulty in school, don’t delay in arranging a meeting with your child’s teacher and the school principal. At this meeting, explain your concerns about your child’s uneven academic performance. ...If the school seems to be dragging its feet, make a written request to the school’s director of special education saying that you would like a comprehensive assessment. And provide reasonable evidence to support your request.

Resources for Parents of Students with Learning Disabilities
Excerpt: A directory of the [state parent information] centers is on the Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers’ Web site. The staff at these federally financed programs can help parents navigate the entire special ed process. More specifics of the law are at wrightslaw.com.

Nudging Schools to Help Students with Learning Disabilities
Excerpt: More than 6 percent of school-age children — almost three million students — are receiving special education services because of learning disabilities, according to the Learning Disabilities Association of America. The cost of such special services can easily total thousands of dollars a year per child. But the Learning Disabilities Association suggests that when learning disabilities are left untreated, the overall cost to society may be far higher.

Privatization, Take II: The Bids Are In

Well, AAPS has received the transportation and custodial privatization bids. You can read a summary of the board discussion on annarbor.com here. Surprise, surprise--rather than having the board talk about what they think of the bids (or about privatization in general) in public, which is what Susan Baskett wanted to do (thank you, Susan!) the board president wants to do that in closed session.

Also no surprise--the savings basically come from the fact that, although wages and benefits were supposed to be comparable, there would be no retirement funds for those staff.

Steve Norton from Michigan Parents for Schools (MIPFS) writes very cogently in the comments of the annarbor.com article:

Not quite spelled out in the story is the fact that, while the base bids were required to offer current employees the same pay and "comparable" medical benefits, the district has not completed a review to see if the health benefits are truly "comparable." The presentation on custodial and maintenance privatization made it clear that bidders were including benefits packages that had a huge range of costs - these can't all be comparable. The bidders' costs minus benefits were quite similar. Unfortunately, the current AAPS costs were not broken out into benefits vs. other costs, so it was hard to compare the bids to our current costs.

I, too, hear a lot of anger at unions - and also some unfortunate disdain for custodians and bus drivers, the blue collar workers in our district. Remember that our kids are not encapsulated in classrooms, and that the educational experience has to be put together by a large team, which is not limited to teachers.

Moreover, unions are not the main problem here. Nearly all the savings in the base bids comes from moving these employees out of the state retirement system (MPSERS). Mandatory contributions to that system currently stand at 17%, and are set to climb. These are the district's costs; employees must also contribute.

MPSERS is administered by the state under rules set by the state legislature....
Employees who are not close enough to "buy" enough years to vest in the system will lose everything if privatized. MPSERS benefits are not portable if you leave public school employment. (Emphases added.)

So, there you have it. I don't think I could have said it better myself.
Except for the why: WHY does anyone think it is ok to take away retirement benefits from some of the lowest-paid staff in the district? I don't think that is okay.
Michigan Parents for Schools can be found at mipfs.org, and is an organization for parents concerned about the future of our public schools and working for a better way to fund education.
 
One more thing: did you know that you can write to the entire Board of Education, in one fell swoop, by sending an email to boe@aaps.k12.mi.us? (When I did this, I only heard back from one board member--the secretary--who assured me that everyone else is reading my email--I have no confirmation of that, but I sure hope he is correct!)

Looking for Best Practice Models: Michigan Parks Planning

It shouldn't surprise anyone that our state parks are facing many of the same challenges as our state schools--limited funding, concerns about infrastructure--at the same time that they are, in fact, some of our greatest assets (as are our kids). After all, If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.

Ron Olson, the person currently in charge of Michigan state parks (whom I mention by name because he was formerly in charge of Ann Arbor's parks), Michigan state parks staff, and the Citizen's Committee for State Parks, together decided to examine funding models from other states and identify the best models. They did. They actually found a model that a) appears to be more stable, b) would keep funding separate from the general fund, c) was voluntary, and d) had bipartisan support. 

You would think that would make it a slam dunk, but no. It got tangled up in the idea that the state needs a comprehensive budget solution. Instead, the state parks, and all of us who live in the state, are left Waiting for Godot.

In any case: kudos to the state parks staff and volunteers who did the legwork. When people ask me, what should we tell the state government we want done around funding schools, my partial answer is: let's do exactly what the state parks people did. Let's start by looking at funding models and education outcomes in other states. Let's find the best practices. I think, but I'm not sure, that they will be found in the mid-Atlantic or northeast states (that is where the best outcomes can be found). And I could be surprised. Guess where the parks model came from?

Montana.

Trimesters: Can We End the Experiment Now?

With a child at Skyline, I've now had nearly two years "trying out" the trimester system. I also have experience with block scheduling (the way Community High does it, which is essentially a semester system with every class three times a week) and with a traditional schedule (7 classes a day, every day). In Ann Arbor, currently, Skyline has a trimester system; Pioneer and Huron have a traditional semester schedule; and Community High has a semester-long block schedule.

It seems to me that we sometimes have a herd mentality in education. And so it goes in Washtenaw County, where a majority of high schools have switched over to the trimester--pushed, primarily, by the algebra problem and new state standards I describe here. (The state standards, by the way, are also proof of that herd mentality, as is high-stakes testing.)

So, I've tried the trimester, and here are its good points:
*There are only five classes in any day, so there is less homework due each day. [This is even better in an alternate-day block scheduling program, however, with homework only due every other day.]
*The length of the class is slightly longer, making it slightly more likely that teachers will use interactive teaching methods. [Some do, some don't.]
*If you don't like a class, it will be over in just a few short weeks.
*The schedule could be organized (at Skyline it is for science, but no other subjects) so that you essentially cover three years of a subject in two years.

Down sides:
*For languages, and for math if you are in a two-trimester level, you could go 8 months between levels. Yes, that's right--you could finish two trimesters of Spanish 1 in the middle of March, and not start Spanish 2 until the end of November the next year.
*The classes are slightly longer, but not all that much longer for project-based learning.
*Some subjects may move too quickly--for instance, AP classes are often set up with two trimesters of the class, and then a third trimester for review--which therefore takes up additional electives. So in fact, the same AP class that at Pioneer would take up 2 classes, ends up taking 3 at Skyline.
*It seems relatively likely that a student can end up with 5 academic classes in any given trimester, and no non-academic electives (i.e. art, personal fitness).
*Fitting in classes that really should go year-round--like orchestra--take up extra elective space. This is actually a disincentive to these classes. My child is not the only one who declined to sign up for band because it would take up three elective periods.
*It seems to me that it makes scheduling slightly more difficult, and it makes it slightly less likely that you won't have the same teacher for the next class in the sequence. (Of course, if you didn't like the teacher, that could be a good thing.)
*In the AAPS system, it makes it really difficult for students to dual enroll at Community High School because the hours do not match, and the terms do not match.

At the budget forum, I asked if the trimester system cost more (it seems like, with 15 classes available vs. 14 at the other schools, it should)--and the staff person at my table didn't know the answer. I still don't know the answer.

In any case, even if it doesn't cost more, it seems that if the schools had matching schedules, it would be possible to do more integrated/dual enrollment (once the schools are at their planned sizes). For instance, if a student wanted to take Chinese, and it is only offered at Skyline, maybe a Pioneer student could "dual enroll" and take afternoon classes at Skyline. Perhaps the only time for dual enrollment "switches" would be at lunchtime.

My first choice would be for all of the schools to be on the same block schedule that Community has. My second choice would be for all of the schools to be on a traditional semester system.
Can we end the experiment?

Trimesters and Algebra

New state standards have pushed many districts into a trimester system. (The majority of Washtenaw County districts have switched over. In Ann Arbor, only Skyline has switched.) A key section of the new standards focuses on ensuring that all kids have more math.
According to the new curriculum law:

Students must complete at least Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, or an integrated sequence of this course content that consists of 3 credits, and an additional mathematics credit, such as Trigonometry, Statistics, Pre-calculus, Calculus, Applied Math, Accounting, Business Math, or a retake of Algebra II. Each pupil must successfully complete at least 1 mathematics course during his or her final year of high school enrollment. (Emphasis added.)

Math, you might say, is frequently privileged in schools. It is the driving force in Ann Arbor in middle school scheduling (your math class often determines most of your other classes). Want to see the achievement gap in action? See who is placed in which math classes in eighth grade.

And now it is the driving force in high school as well. Since math is often the subject that students have trouble with, one idea was that you could teach a standard year of math in two trimesters, and if a student was having trouble, they could repeat a class in a third trimester. And--since with trimesters there are 15 classes in the year (3 trimesters x 5 classes) instead of 14 with the semester system (2x7), this wouldn't disadvantage kids who were having trouble with math. At the same time, kids who didn't have trouble with math would get an extra elective. Prior to these standards, many (many!) kids did not take Algebra II.

At least at Skyline, that experiment has been less than successful. So many kids were having difficulty learning the math in two trimesters, in the school's second year they changed the "standard" math option to a three trimester option.

Today in my inbox, I got a link from Education Week that says that the Algebra-For-All Push Is Yielding Poor Results.

This is really a very interesting article, with a summary of a lot of different research studies, and I encourage you to read it (you might need to register at the site).  Some of the salient points:
*Misclassification of kids matters (who goes in which class)
*When you eliminate tracking, the top students don't learn as much
*However, the bottom students seem to learn more
*Simply taking algebra doesn't seem to affect the likelihood of attending college (and that is a very complicated issue--I'm sure there are lots of confounding factors there).

Side note: Is college the desired outcome here? Or learning math?

Obviously, learning math is important, but it's often not clear why, as I discuss here.
It's not just about math, though. I think we also need to ask whether the trimester system works.

It Makes Me Appreciate James Hawkins

The times they are a'changing. Last year, Ypsilanti Public Schools Superintendent James Hawkins retired (for the second time), and now there are thunderstorms brewing.

Superintendent Hawkins had a lot of experience with the district, and while I'm sure nobody would say he was perfect, he did manage to facilitate the closing of two schools without a whole lot of fuss, and he did get a great deal of cooperation from the staff.

This year, YPSD has a new superintendent, Dedrick Martin, who got a big increase in salary compared to the last superintendent. This, I should point out, is not his fault. The school board negotiated his salary. Nonetheless, it doesn't sit well with teachers who have been asked to take pay cuts, and while the district is considering closing two more schools--along with a major reorganization of the schools.

It's not like I get a vote or anything, but if they do reorganize grades, I think they are likely to lose more families than they would if they can manage not to reorganize grades. The reorganization, though, I think is largely a way to reduce teachers.

YPSD-related people (students, staff, parents, district residents), you can take the district survey here. [I didn't take the survey, but I did look at it, and the choices are depressing--would you rather increase class size by x, or cut all non-mandated transporation? Etcetera.]

Read also these updates:

AnnArbor.com reports this description of school closing options.
Opposition to the school closings is increasing. Read about Save Ypsi Schools here.
And WEMU reports on the trouble brewing between the district and the teachers union.
Did I mention that Dedrick Martin is completely new to the district? And that the assistant superintendent, who was a finalist for the superintendent job, is interviewing for other positions?

Oy.

Count Day, Round Two

As soon as I heard that today was supposed to be Count Day, I knew that all of the county schools would close. How could they risk kids not making it into school because of snow when the stakes are so high?

So: Thinking out loud here...There are a lot of problems with being so reliant on per-pupil funding, but it seems that a few modifications in the weighting of count day could make a difference for schools, particularly as far as planning goes. For instance, what if the per-pupil funding was an average of the last three years' counts.

So, if a district had 1000 students in year 1, 950 students in year 2, they would be able to do the math and whether their per-pupil count in year 3 was 900 students or 1000 students, it wouldn't make that much difference. Even though some districts might lose slightly if their numbers went up, the majority of districts in the state are losing kids every year. And stability leads to better planning. I certainly see a lot of panic and poor planning on the part of school districts in the county, but I'm not primarily blaming them--school starts in September, and in January (the January after the September, not before the September) they get a final per-pupil funding number. How can districts plan that way?

Bo

Based on the title, you might think this post is about Bo Schembechler, former University of Michigan football coach.
Sorry, no. This post is about Bo, an ancient language from India's Andaman Islands. Unfortunately, the last native speaker of Bo just died recently. (If you click on the link and scroll down, you can listen to a recording of Boa Sr speaking the language Bo.) You can read more about endangered languages here and here.
My grandparents, who grew up in Europe and immigrated to the United States, spoke at least four or five languages. Living where they did, where the land changed hands between countries fairly frequently, and where different ethnic groups lived close to each other, that was a necessity. Here in the U.S., there is a tendency to see people as geniuses if they even speak one language other than English fairly well.
The main Ann Arbor high schools teach three Romance languages: Spanish, French, and Latin; and one Germanic language, German (plus English, which is also a Germanic language). And at Skyline now they are teaching Chinese. I have felt it is too little. Why isn't the rest of the world represented?
I just got a glimpse of the Skyline class scheduling options for next year. All of the AAPS high schools are now offering the possibility of taking online classes in Math (algebra, geometry) and English (ninth grade and tenth grade English).
So here is what I don't understand. If we are offering online classes for subjects where we already have perfectly good local teachers, why on earth can't we offer online classes for languages where we don't already have local teachers? Why can't we offer Arabic, Japanese, Hindu, and even Ojibway on line? Isn't that the point of this kind of technology?

The Long Winter

I read on a different blog (one complaining about the winter in Baltimore, ha ha--they think they are having a long winter?) that Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday was February 7th. Laura Ingalls Wilder has a special place in my heart. Little House in the Big Woods was the first "really long" book that I read growing up. I was seven. I read it for three days straight, and when I finished I was very proud of myself.

I really wanted to meet Laura (the author), and I used think, well she died in 1957, and I was born in the 1960s, so if she had lived just a little bit longer, or I had been born a little bit earlier, we might have overlapped! Close--but no cigar. (Laura Ingalls Wilder actually lived just past her 90th birthday.)

We think of these books as memoir/autobiography, but in reality they are fiction. Which is to say that, although the bones of the story are likely true, they were likely embellished. Which is perhaps a good thing, when it comes to the book The Long Winter.  I've lived in South Dakota in the winter, and I am quite sure that the winter she writes about was long! (And they didn't have central heat, either.) But my friend pointed out to me a couple of years ago that (despite the fun depicted in the cover illustration) The Long Winter is essentially a tale of near-starvation. I went back to the story and re-read it, and when read that way, it is breathtakingly scary.

Update: I just took a look at the Wikipedia entry for The Long Winter (should have done that first!) and it says:

The Long Winter runs from the fall of 1880 to the spring of 1881; a season of such frequent blizzards that it went down in history as "The Snow Winter"^[1]. Accurate details in Wilder's novel include the names of the townspeople (with only minor exceptions), the length of the winter, the Chicago and North Western Railway closing down business until the Spring thaw, the near-starvation of the townspeople, the severe cold, the terrible danger of getting caught in a blizzard, and the courage of Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland, who ventured out on the open prairie in search of a cache of wheat that no one was even sure existed.

The fictionalized material includes the "Indian warning" in an early chapter and the nonstop procession of blizzards lasting on average three days each, with only two to two-and-a-half days between them from late October until early April. 

Commentary by District--Including the WISD!

Listed in order of school district

Ann Arbor
Adam Hollier, AAPS school board member (the one who tried to withdraw, got elected anyway, so therefore decided to serve) has now decided to step down. I guess his first instincts were the best ones.  You can apply to be on the AAPS school board. There were a lot of good candidates when Simone Lightfoot was chosen just a couple of months ago. Perhaps some of them will apply? It's an interesting question to me--why do we get more candidates for a nominations process where you (as candidate) can't control the outcome, than we did for the school board elections, where presumably you can influence some votes? Do you think it's the process, or just the timing of this set of nominations? The deadline for applications is February 19th at 4 p.m.
The first round of Space Available In-District Transfer Applications (could we possibly pick a more understandable name????) runs February 1-26. Basically, say that you live in one part of the AAPS district and you decide you would prefer to be at another school, if it is on the list, you can apply and if space is available, you can switch schools. There are lots of reasons people choose to switch, including the fact that some of the child care programs have better space than others, and some of the schools have different atmospheres. The good news: ten elementary schools have space at all levels, and three more have space at one grade; and four out of five of the regular middle schools are on the list. The bad news: no high schools are on the list, there is a different application process for Ann Arbor Open, and yes, you need to live in the Ann Arbor School District. (Oh, yes--and the Ann Arbor Open, Community High School, and Skyline High School application processes are all going on now. Community and Skyline deadlines are this Friday, February 12th. The Ann Arbor Open deadline is sometime in March.)
Updated 2/8/10 at 10:00 a.m.: There is an excellent summary of the AAPS board meeting, including Adam Hollier's resignation and extensive public commentary, in the Ann Arbor Chronicle today.

Chelsea
A school board filing deadline is February 9th. And there was good news at the last board meeting for non-union employees. From the Chelsea Standard:

Board member Steve Olsen motioned to rescind the wage and insurance reduction imposed on non-union employees for now, given that the original decision was made based upon the expectation of a second and third cut in state funding for this school year. Killips said that as a matter of integrity, he would contact the district’s Transportation Department as well, since it had voluntarily taken a reduction in pay.

Dexter
Et tu, Brute? Dexter High School and Creekside Middle School are getting security cameras. Really? I didn't think they were necessary for Pioneer, and I certainly don't think they are necessary in Dexter. It's the kind of expense (all the security upgrades together are nearly half-a-million dollars) that makes me less willing to support school millages. It also highlights the stupidity of a system where we have money for construction and things, but no money for people. Education should be all about people.

Dexter is also having a budget meeting Monday February 8th, and studying its transportation setup and having a series of meetings this coming week about it. Read all about it here.

Lincoln
Aaaahhh, Lincoln. Lincoln Schools have taken a lot of flak for paying to be called one of the top schools in Michigan.  I understand why. They're not one of the top schools in Michigan by any measure (nor are they one of the bottom), so why make that up? On the other hand--they paid $25,000 for an ad, and if they pull in an additional 5-10 students because they get noticed, they will have made up their money. What you see in action here is the law of unintended consequences. Base school revenues solely on per-pupil counts, and you get some unfortunate decisions. This decision was not stupid if your primary goal is increasing per-pupil counts; but it looks kind of desperate. Well, that's because they are desperate.

Manchester
Manchester schools did very well in the Spring 2009 Michigan Merit Exams. Is small beautiful?

Milan
I've got nothing--is no news good news?
 

Saline
It's nice to see the front page article on the Saline web site be devoted to early intervention services in Saline. In the Superintendent's blog, Scot Graden recently wrote a post, If communication is key, who are the key communicators? Given the changing way that news gets shared, and the fact that people don't necessarily live and work in the same town anymore, it's an interesting post. BURIED in the comments is this nugget, though. (Scot Graden writing in response to a question.)

The next steps in dealing with the budget deficit for this year involve wage and benefit concessions from our administrative staff. Unfortunately, we will be recommending mid-year staff reductions as well. Both will occur at the next Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, February 9th. (Emphasis added.)

Well, as far as I'm concerned, that should have been front and center. That's what we mean when we ask for transparency.

Washtenaw ISD
Oh, and while Dexter is having transportation meetings, and Ann Arbor is busy considering privatization, the WISD is planning on consolidating transportation--lock, stock, and barrel--by the fall. Hmmm. What does that mean for all the various unions and districts? I could see it saving money in a few areas--primarily in bus maintenance. Or is it just another union-busting move? The WISD has done well with consolidating some services, but those have not involved nearly as many permanent employees. And will individual districts want to give up their buses? A lot of the sketchiness of this is due to the fact that WISD, while technically public, doesn't seem to want to be too public about anything. You won't find this on their web site. And you also won't find the different school district superintendents talking much about this publicly, even though they should be. So many thanks to David Jesse from annarbor.com for breaking this story.


Whitmore Lake
Whitmore Lake School Board is also meeting on Monday, February 8th. Kudos to Whitmore Lake for posting, on the front page of their web site, their Regular Meeting Board Book. Scroll down to find it just after the agenda for the board meeting. It looks to me like it contains the background materials that the board gets. (Correct me if I am wrong.)


Willow Run
Willow Run still has a long way to go, but they have started updating their web site. And there is a College Goal Sunday event  on Sunday, February 14, where families can get help with college financial aid forms. 

Ypsilanti
Ypsilanti is considering closing two schools (again--they closed a couple a few years ago).  And Ypsilanti parents are organizing against that idea. In the comments on Annarbor.com a while ago, Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools pointed out that the savings from closing a school can by wiped out by the kids that leave the district for other schools. In Ypsilanti, kids could go to Lincoln, Willow Run, South Lyon, Whitmore Lake, or Van Buren schools (not to mention many charters). So if closing a school saves a district $250,000, that savings could be eroded if just 35 or 40 students leave the district (which seems totally plausible). In tic tac toe, we call that a cat's game.

DESPAIR

A social worker friend of mine who works with low-income families wrote recently on Facebook,
Today was a bad day. There is so much despair out there. I think I need a new career.

Another social worker commented to her,
I know what you mean. This is the worst I've seen it in 30 years. 

And a friend who is a principal of a school in southeastern Michigan, a school with a high number of children living in poverty, told me,
The economic stresses on these families are unbelievable. Their instability in housing and jobs keeps them moving all the time. We enroll new kids in the school, and have kids leave the school, every week because of the instability.
And if a school has 30% turnover from the beginning to the end of the year, is it fair to measure kids' progress the way that we do in a school with 5% turnover?

When I was teaching, I remember kids coming up to me and saying, "There is too much chaos in my house (housing issues, immigration fears, lack of employment, etc.) and I just can't do my homework." For some kids, just making it to school is the miracle.

I know a lot of people are worried about those families. We think less often about the front-line workers--by which I mean, in this case, social workers and school staff--who confront increasing need and decreasing resources. I worry about the front-line staff. It is really hard to hear the public discussions around education and social services, to hear that teachers or social workers "get paid too much," to have pay and benefits rolled back, and not to acknowledge that it is hard to be the social worker or teacher working with the kids or families who need so much more, who deserve so much more, and who don't get what they need.

Sure, in our area there is a surfeit of teachers and social workers--so maybe they are replaceable, but is it a good thing to set up a system where teachers and social workers get burned out because there is so much need for their services and so little value placed upon them?

My friend was writing about the despair among her clients, but what I hear from her is the despair that things will get better. We alone cannot control the economy (of course, we can each do our small part), but when we value the work of front-line staff, we can improve their feelings about their work.

Googlewashing?

Over at Electric Educator (linked to on the right), blogger and teacher John Sowash had a post recently about the advantages of using iGoogle to replace school planners.

It makes me feel queasy.

Full disclosure: Blogspot (the platform for this blog) is Google-owned and yes, I have a gmail account. Sharing documents on googledocs can make life easy. I "google" questions several times a day. Google creates a lot of wonderful products.

But. Google is also a huge corporation, trading today at $531 per share.

I have no problem with individuals using Google, but that seems different to me from having teachers require students to put their work into systems that are owned by a huge, for-profit corporation. Are we in danger of Googlewashing?

What do you think? What are the benefits? What are the issues? If we had to pay for it, what would it be worth?

Let's Talk About Food And Health

David Jesse's recent article at annarbor.com about a Mitchell Elementary School program to provide weekend "food backpacks," made me think it is time to say something more about food, and health.
Different schools and school districts have different feelings about how much they should help provide a safety net for students. Some schools have stepped up to the plate--for instance, Bryant/Pattengill in Ann Arbor runs a clothes closet, and the Ypsilanti Public Schools run one for the whole district. Other schools have been reluctant to jump into providing services, because the need is so great, and they don't want to be seen as a giant social service agency.

On the other hand--kids who are hungry, cold, or sick don't do very well in school. I think that those schools that try to support students' other needs are doing the right things. But remember, knowledge is power, and a lot of people who are eligible for programs don't know they are eligible. So here are a few resources. Please share them!

1. Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program (which includes breakfast): you can register for this at any time during the school year. If, for instance, you had work at the beginning of the year and wouldn't qualify, you might find that you qualify now. Ask for an application at the front office of the school your child attends. Some schools use this as a way to identify kids who qualify for other benefits/scholarships. (I've written about school lunch here.)

2. The Food Stamp application is now online. This is new, and it is great news. Spread the word. A lot of people are surprised to find out that they qualify. If you want an estimate as to whether your family will qualify, here is the link to a food stamp calculator. And here is the link to the application.

3. Similarly, you can now enroll your kids in the MIChild/Healthy Kids program with an online application. (Women 19-44 can be enrolled in the Plan First family planning program through the same application.)

4. The Regional Alliance for Healthy Schools has clinics in several local schools, including schools in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Willow Run. Check them out here.

5. Pregnant women and kids up to age 5 can be served by WIC (Women, Infants, and Children)--and that can help stretch the overall food budget. WIC also has some satellite clinics, which is helpful for people living on the edges of the county.

The Rest of the Story: AAPS Budget, Part II

I think I addressed the largest chunk of the budget with my recent post on personnel costs and my post on revenue enhancements, including a look at whether we can increase Medicaid reimbursement. Here are a few other thoughts.

1. Efficiencies--Some of the reductions--for instance, finding efficiencies in ESL teaching and other "split" positions--seem like they should have been done long ago, if they are feasible. (Which makes me a little suspicious. Are they?)

2. Transportation--I've written about my opposition to privatization. There is no reason at all to balance the budget on the backs of the lowest-paid staff in the district. But there were three other transportation issues raised in the budget forums:

• We should not eliminate Kindergarten midday bussing. That sure would make it hard for working parents to send their kids to district schools, unless they replaced it with full-day kindergarten (which I think probably costs more than the savings). When my oldest started kindergarten, I was considering a private school with a full-day kindergarten, and if I had started him there, and if I was satisfied. . . I doubt the public schools would have seen me for several years.  [At the forum, I was asked by my group's facilitator, "Well where did your kids go then, at midday, if you were working?" Answer: to their preschool, where my second child was enrolled all day.]
• We should be working with AATA. For my high school-aged kids, the walk to the AATA bus route is not any further for us than the walk to the AAPS bus stop, and it doesn't take any longer to get to school. I think many routes could be eliminated for high school students, if we can make it easy. UM students just show their student IDs. Can't high school students do the same thing? Then we would only need to bus those kids who are not reached by AATA.
• I question expanding the walk zone to two miles. It may come to this, but I'm not a big fan of my daughter walking two miles in the dark in a Michigan winter. I don't want my kids to have to drive to school. I don't want to encourage the culture of driving everywhere, and in any case, cars are expensive.

3. Reducing high school noon hour staff. This seems impractical, if Pioneer and Huron are closing their campuses at lunch time, even to upper class students. 

4. Reducing substitute expenses--can we do more? I understand this refers to changing the scheduling of professional meetings that take teachers out of classes, and that might be fine. In addition, though, I recently read a study that assessed teacher absenteeism. I have no idea if it is high or low in Ann Arbor, but probably that should be assessed--and if it is high, maybe there is a way to make it lower. I have also wondered if it would be less expensive to assign a building substitute in each elementary school building (and more in the middle/high schools).

5. Reducing administrators--can we do more? It is convenient for the district that Maggie Jewett and Michael White are both leaving high school principal positions, and it makes it easy to propose reducing one class principal at Huron and Pioneer. For mid-year reductions, it makes sense to stop there. But for next year, I believe that we could get by with 1 principal and 2 assistant principals at each high school. Before Skyline was established, there were 5 at each high school (or 10 total). Rather than saying that we now need 4 at each high school (for a total of 12), why not say that we can get by with 9? I'll bet that it can even be done by attrition. And is it possible that some of the higher-level departments can be consolidated, thus allowing us to eliminate some management positions?

6. The high school cops. Susan Baskett raised this issue as a question at the budget forum I attended. Do we need them? I will add my confusion about them: What are they there for? What do they do? Can we do it for less? I don't know the entire costs, but I do often see an empty police car, just sitting there, even late at night, at Skyline, and it seems like a waste to me.

Education and Prosperity

Very interesting charts from the Free Press editorial page, regarding how the links between education and prosperity are much stronger than the links between prosperity and taxes. Found here.

Bits and More Bits

A new private high school, for high-functioning autistic students, is opening up. It's "faith-based." Based on the name, Veritas Christi, I would say it's Christian.

The East-Cross blog is reporting some truly alarming potential state budget cuts for the coming fiscal year. And we thought this year was bad.

The Saline High School principal reports, on Twitter, that the school honored 251 students with straight As at a recent event. Apparently, that is 13.6% of the student body. I know that I was in the top 10% of my high school graduating class, and I didn't have all As. Proof of grade inflation. Yet I'm not necessarily opposed.

I've written about early childhood education, and now--this just in: Washtenaw County Head Start is beginning the enrollment process for the 2010-2011 school year with Early Bird Registration, Wednesday, February 17 from 9 am-4 pm at the Head Start Grantee office located at 1661 Leforge Road in Ypsilanti. This is for families living in the Ypsilanti or Lincoln school districts, and for families living in Washtenaw County that are working full time or who are full time students.  Families must bring a copy of the child’s Birth Certificate, Proof of Income, and Proof of Residence.  If the child has a current physical and dental exam, families should bring those as well. Families will be served on a first come first serve basis.  For more information call 484-7119.  

David Jesse (along with some others) has been doing some extensive reporting on the Ann Arbor schools budget, and a limited amount of reporting on some of the other schools. The reporting is good; it is annoying that it is not easy to find all of the articles. Some--but not all--of them are under School Spending Report.

Noting the passing of: 

J.D. Salinger--Yes, I had to read Catcher in the Rye in middle school. I didn't like it. I tried again when one of my kids had to read it, and I still didn't like it. It seemed very male, and I really didn't like that he spelled crummy, crumby. Many years later, that still bugs me. 

Mary Daly--I was introduced to her writing in college, and it was hard! Beyond God the Father and Gyn/Ecology have hugely influenced feminist and environm

ental thought, and they were eye-opening for me. Talk about being a boundary-pusher! She was one. Howard Zinn--OK, I confess that I never made it all the way through A People's History of the United States, but I was happy to meet a teacher who used it in her social studies class. He had a lot of good ideas, and shared them in an accessible way. And until I read his obituary I didn't know he was a playwright, too. (That is the nice thing about obituaries. You find out interesting things about people.)

I have added the blog Foster Parenting Adventures to the blogroll on the right. The author is a school psychologist in an urban school district, and she recently became a foster parent, which is something I've thought about doing. I'd start reading with the first post.