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27 Responses to “Enrollment drops show where budget cuts can be made”
BCC, I think your projections are too high in the elementary area. With the economy being so bad and the price of Bow houses so high my bet is that we should loose just as much as we gain. There is a good chance that we loose more.
Please consider of revising those numbers to a more conservative projection.
Thanks for the update and the projected student/teacher ratio. It looks like the Bow school wants the taxpayer to fund a student/teacher ratio that is competitive with private Kindergarten. The NH Department of Ed states maximum 25 or less with efforts to make it less than 20. The same thing for first and second grade. Next year the Bow taxpayer is paying (if they fall for the SB Budget) for an extra, Kindergarten, First, and Second grade teacher while people are losing their jobs and struggling paying their taxes. The Bow SB is out of touch what is happening in this economy. Governor Lynch is cutting jubs
The reason more conservative numbers are not used is you don’t want to be wrong and cut a teacher (or 3) that it turns out you need because you were too agressive with your guess.
Remember too, kindergarten is very difficult to project. Its hard to know how many 4 year olds there are in town, then guess which ones will attend your half-day program instead any of the number of quality full-day programs (when you need full-day coverage in the first place), then guess at the net move-ins (which if you’re moving in for the school system, this is the age bracket where you’ll be coming) vs move-outs a year in advance. This makies the 1sr grade number tough to guess 2 years out, 2nd grade 3 years out, etc. How accurate have the projections been in the past? We should be able to find that answer.
Taxed tired – wages and benefits have not been determined. Its in a seperate warrant article that will be voted on seperately from the general fund budget. The number currently in the budget will not reflect any changes, up or down, that will be in the new contract. Enrollment doesn’t impact benefit contribution ratios anyway, just the total expenditure. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet Bow like the rest of the state has seen employees added because of special ed legislation put forth in Bush’s No Child Left Behind.
All this being said, I would think numbera in the mid-teens for class size is something we can all support. That conforms to Bow policy, exceeds state minimum standards (we should want more than the minimum!) and fits with established best practices. Lower sustained numbers should result in cuts.
I would agree that student ratio should be in the 18-21 range this is well below the state maximum. The numbers in this enrollment chart show that to be the case if we eliminate a K, 1st, and 2nd grade teacher. The previous poster needs to check her math and see how many extra kids per would have to come into the district to get us higher than that. That isn’t going to happen it is a red herring to say that we will have an out of control Student/teacher ratio.
The taxpayer has been very generous in the past but with many of us hurting our time has come for a break.
Lastly we absolutely do not need a full day Kindergarten, If I hear rumors of that it will be time to break out the proverbal “pitch forks and torches.”
I am the previous poster. What math do I need to check? I just said if the numbers bear it out, we shodl make cuts and that projections are difficult.
i also never suggested we need full day K. I am not for that.
My main point is that not having full-day K complicates projections because people will go elsewhere, and that projections are not an exact science. Do you disagree with that?
PMI, the numbers bear it out unless you use the same phony projections the school board used a few years back when they said enrollment would climb when it actually fell.
Like I said if, the numbers come in on the high side, they will be around 21 and if they are on the low side they will be 17 or 18. That is reasonable unless you want to go with some spoon fed phony number. Let’s err on the side of caution in favor of the taxpayers, the people who are being hit hardest by the economy and make the cut to K, 1st & 2nd, this year.
EMI, don’t you have any empathy for people who have lost their jobs or working twice as long to make ends meet? Don’t you want your children to be able to afford to live in Bow if they choose to, when they grow up. My grown up children can’t afford to live here and I don’t know how long I will be able to if things don’t change.
I support education and I will stand up and fight anyone who attempts to make draconian cuts to the budget. Committee Member Martin makes a reasonable request of reducing the budget of $400,000 based on a treasure trove of facts of excess, presented on this website. It is going to be very unlikely that we are going to get a multiple choice of budget choices. My guess, EMI is that if you don’t get your way you will choose the highest budget. Perhaps my thought process is the wrong one. Maybe I should only think about myself and choose a 1 to 2 million budget cut.
Oops took a nap after a long day’s work and and wrote EMI in place of PMI So PMI=ProtectMyInvestment. You get tired when you work long hours trying to make ends meet.
PS the enrollment numbers are BCC’s and I believe them much more than anything Pansy Bloomfield could produce.
If you think I am the only one frustrated with the current situation you are wrong. All I want is a reduction in my taxes.
You believe the BCC numbers because you want to. You have no more data to verify those than you would if I just made up numbers. You may not trust the board, and maybe rightly so, but that doesn’t make the other numbers right.
That being said, I never disagreed with you and I never suggested you were the only one frustrated. Why do you think I am not affected by the economy? Why do you keep responding to me as if I am disagreeing?
Protect, I can’t speak for Yeswecan but I kind of see the same thing but I was wrong the first time when I blew up at you and perhaps we all agree but we are hearing different things. We all need to work together if we want to go in the right direction
My question to you is: Would you support a modest $400,000 reduction form the school budget and where would the reductions come from. You have made some suggestions for reductions and I commend that, but those reductions don’t add up to much. Word is out that there is a teachers’ agreement the cost to the taxpayer is in the $300,000-$400,000 range, will you support that and raise my taxes again or are you going to take a close look at the evergreen clause that Rick Hiland has informed us all on?
If you can’t come up with enough reductions would you generate the courage to submit an amendment at the School District Meeting for something less? Don’t expect someone else to do it. Perhaps the answers to these questions will make things more clear.
Your debate is very engaging but it does come off as dismissive at times.
PS I believe BCC numbers to be very accurate. Paul @ BCC said they were “generated with statistical software using a number of factors.”
That’s a fair comment txed2death. I appreciate that. Let me see if I can address your questions on at a time because I agree, we all need to work together.
Yes, I would support a reduction of the budget by $400k. Here’s how I could get there. Demand that the $360k of leftover money be returned to the taxpayers. Cut one 2nd grade teacher . I am guessing that is about $60k with bennies. Cut 1 BES secretary $50k. Freeze admin salaries. If I remember correctly that was $80k+ Put back in the cut for the bussing proposal. $40k. Institute user fees for sports & cut the co-curricular stipends. I don’t know the total for this, but I will guess $10k. I may be off. Add those together and you’ve got $600+ in budget reductions. I know its in a separate warrant, but I am also for asking the teachers to pay a higher percentage of their benefits and accept a lower salary increase.
I recognize I can be dismissive at times. You’re right. I apologize for that. What frustrates me is that I feel like I am understanding of both sides. I recognize the need for tax relief and I support many difficult cuts and am open to other ideas such as combining with another district (I have suggested Hooksett since those kids are likely changing schools in the near future anyway as Manchester faces redistricting due to the opening of Bedford).
I am also supportive of education and feel it is one of the greatest assets of the town. I have made several posts detailing the data. It can be better, we should demand better, but its also fair to say its pretty darn god as it sits. All measurable statistics put Bow at the top of the state. Despite that, and despite claims that others are also supportive of education, I have not seen one comment, even the tiniest remark, noting even one positive thing that occurs in the district. And I have been asking for it. That is unfortunate.
The BCC numbers may be more accurate, and they may well be using better modeling techniques, but it’s an inexact science that is based on the numbers coming from the school. I am assuming no one went in and actually independently counted the kids. Add to that the complexity of counting kids under 5 that live in town and estimating which ones will attend your school vs another (who could have KNOWN how successful the Bow Youth Center would be in year 1?), plus the net move-ins vs move-outs and birth rates 5 years out and you’re left with wild guesses. No methodology is going to be totally reliable if the baseline counts are not. That being said, I am fine with using the BCC numbers, or the board numbers, or something in between. The idea that any of us know which one is right and which is not is crazy. The average Bow citizen has no access to the raw info. How could we possibly know what’s right?
I forgot one. Evergreen. I am against that and have posted other comments directly stating my feelings about it. Its not really a Bow issue though. The teachers union has no choice about the inclusion of the clause in the agreement. Its state law. Therefore, to oppose a contract because of evergreen is to willingly give up your voice on the fairness of the contract because there will be no agreement coming forward that openly defies state law. It is also to increase the chances of the school year opening without a teacher’s contract. I will not do that. I would like to see an agreement. I will support or oppose the contract on its own merit and will not hold evergreen against those, who in this specific case, are innocent bystanders. I don’t believe we can use evergreen as a bargaining tool when its not optional.
My issue with evergreen is with our reps and with Concord. I am happy to join the fight there.
In my mind, the best way to mitigate the impact of evergreen is to negotiate a longer, not shorter contract. Not only does that reduce the thousands of legal fees spent on obtaining an agreement, but it extends the time under which all parties are bound by the negotiated agreement, not by the rules of evergreen. To me, a 1 year agreement is not only throwing away attorney fees, but increasing the likelihood that evergreen will go into effect here in Bow.
Nice Job Protect!! I think you paved a foundation for us to build on. The areas you are looking at for reductions are reasonable and well thought through I just hope that the School Board is looking at this because we don’t see this debate anywhere.
You are also right with regard to the separate warrant article the problem with the warrant article is that we can’t change that article in any way. This means that we can’t change it to ask teachers to pay a higher percentage of their benefits and lastly if we accept it we get stuck with evergreen. Right now evergreen does not apply because the law did not exist when the contract was agreed and passed by the district.
We can not reward the union with this unjust law. If more towns reject contracts because of evergreen the unions will soon beg to have evergreen law repealed ASAP.
A letter from a BCC supporter. Her voice must be heard
Dear Bow Citizens Coalition,
Thanks for what you are doing. I will certainly support you as best I can. Having lost my beloved husband of forty-eight years in July , I am now in a real struggle to get his life insurance to pay off. His hospital bills have to be paid, etc.
Then, on top of that, after the new tax bill arrived and I am overwhelmed all over again! It is terrible that the older people in this town, that made it so attractive to the newcomers, are being driven out. SB2 should certainly be passed and something has to be done to stop giving monstrous amounts of money to a school system that doesn’t teach the young generation that they have to work for some of the things they want.
Please keep me in mind if I can help. Will surely try.
With all due respect, its the school system that makes the town so attractive to newcomers. It’s the only thing that distinguishes Bow from any of the other southern NH towns.
As a newcomer myself, an immigrant from a community that did not have a high-achieving school but rather one that had minimal community involvement, I am truly grateful to the community for the support the district has been given over the years. That commitment has produced one of the best systems in the state by all measurables. We should all be both proud and grateful.
In return for the years of support, I hope we are able to adopt a budget that is responsible to both the taxpayers and the students of Bow.
I am also hopeful for SB2! We need to bring some sanity to the budget process!
Yes a good school system does attract newcomers, however, don’t let how much money is spent on each student be a measure of a school’s success.
During the last 20 years insidious federal legislation has taken public school curricula decisions away from the local control of our school boards, parents, and taxpayers.
Now the goal is to consolidate and nationalize our school systems and do away with local school boards as outlined by our outgoing Education Commissioner.
I have watched this happen over the course of my career as a teacher. These federal programs have done nothing to help education except to water it down and make it more expensive.
I another disturbing trend, many questionable ‘for-profit’ entities posing as experts, consultants, and reformers, make millions of dollars selling ‘fad programs’ to schools whose boards are eager to comply with ‘improvement’ mandates. Like WIA, education has become an ‘industry’ that sucks off the hapless taxpayers.
Here is a simple example: We as teachers may have been presented with 3 choices for a math curriculum. After looking them over we decided that each was unacceptable as an ‘adequate’ math program for our grade level. However we were told that there was no other choice and that we must choose one of the 3.
Employing solid teaching methods are what “adequacy” should be about, NOT money.
Money does not always ensure adequacy and adequacy should be addressed from another standpoint.
Adequacy should mean, is the teacher qualified in his or her subject area and is he or she teaching the kids what they need to know? Adequacy does NOT mean taj mahal buildings, over emphasis on sports, a million paid consultants, fad programs, or paying for ‘theories and philosophies’ like Follow the Child.
Did you know that NH paid $250K to one quack to give SURVEYS? What kind of survey could not have been given using their own computers and paper to print them on? INSANE.
Meanwhile many elderly are being put out of their homes for this nonsense.
OUR school system attracts newcomers. Why is no one able to acknowledge at least one positive about Bow?
For the record, I did not and have not confused money with success. I have consistently qualified success with DATA, test scores, graduation rates, college placements and dropout rates.
I understand what you mean about localities losing control over their curriculum. A great deal of that came from Bush’s No Child Left Behind. What I am struggling with is how does that philosophy translate to your approach to the budget? Is there a specific cut or service you recommend cutting based on your beliefs?
Likewise, what does what the state paid to a consultant have to do with the budget? Are any of your examples from Bow?
Check how much time and money is spent on teacher training. Also, if NH standards get a D or an F (Fordham) then what are they being measured by?
Betrayed – Why Public Education Is Failing: Teacher education programs part of the problem
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Teacher education programs part of the problem
Excerpts:
“The sad state of K-12 math instruction appears to be intentional. In 1997, public policy organization Public Agenda found that, of 900 professors of education, 86% believed it was more important for aspiring teachers to struggle with the process of finding the right answers than knowing the right answer” – (Professors, 1997). Fifty-seven percent thought that children who used calculators from the beginning would have better problem-solving skills. Just 55% would require high-school graduates to demonstrate proficiency in “spelling, grammar, and punctuation”. Sixty percent wanted “less emphasis on memorization” in the classroom.
“Education schools do not train prospective teachers how to teach.”
“Instead, they arm new teachers with a host of pseudo-teaching strategies like small group work and with the philosophy that students should “construct their own knowledge” and are more capable of shaping their own intellectual growth than teachers if they are sufficiently motivated by “inquiry.” Education schools have been especially remiss in preparing new instructors with research-based knowledge for teaching beginning reading and arithmetic – “The funds now invested in professional development to train our current teaching force how to teach beginning reading and arithmetic are staggering.”
Many teachers earn extra pay for master’s degrees, but Dr. Stotsky is critical of the typical master’s of education degree, calling it “an academically impoverished set of courses touting a body of “professional knowledge that has little, if any, support from credible research.”
She says schools of education often disparage scientifically based evidence as “positivistic and irrelevant,” while rejecting scientific research that supports systematic and explicit instruction in reading, practicing skills, and providing “highly structured teaching” for at-risk children:
“Many if not most of the faculty in our education schools who prepare new teachers and retrain experienced ones do not accept the results of scientific research on the nature, development, and teaching of reading or writing or arithmetic. … They thus mistrain those who are preparing to teach in costly licensure program – and continue to mistrain them in even more costly professional development programs.”
Speaking of development programs, it’s strange to me that people go to college, learn how to teach and then come out supposedly needing retraining in order to teach. Why would universities and colleges allow such a situation to continue? If teachers don’t know how to teach when they graduate from education programs, then either they need to stay there longer, or maybe there’s something wrong with the programs.
If I ran a university, and my school of education didn’t turn out teachers who were qualified to teach “without the constant need for coaching and retraining” I’d be embarrassed. If I ran a school district and had to keep retraining the people I hired – I’d be embarrassed. If I were a teacher, I’d be angry that I paid for a college education that didn’t adequately prepare me to go out and work. This is not an argument to fire a bunch of teachers; I’m following this thought through to its logical conclusion. If teachers who graduate from college need retraining, then something is awry.
Besides the fact that professional development is a lucrative business, it’s another sneaky way of blaming the teachers. It’s easier and more comfortable to say: “The math programs will work just fine once the teachers know how to teach it” than it is to acknowledge that the curriculum itself is inadequate and incomprehensible. Illogically, while teachers are away from class getting all of this retraining, their students are taught by substitute teachers who are not getting the retraining.
I’m truly surprised teachers haven’t yet filed a class-action lawsuit.
Teacher, I have the same question – how is this relevant to the Bow budget? You continue to talk about national trends in education that disturb you, but fail to offer an example specific to Bow and to offer any suggestions about how to deal with national issues at the local level. Is there some cut you are proposing as a direct result? What am I supposed to do with this information at the deliberative session? Is your thesis that education is failing and therefore I should cut the budget? If so what number do you propose? Help me understand how you are connecting the dots.
It is something to keep in mind when thinking spending.
1) How much are teachers sent out of the classroom for ‘retraining’?
2) What is being taught at these sessions?
3) How much is it costing and cui bono?
4) How effective are these methods that are being taught?
5) What are NH’s standards and how are they viewed by independent opinions? If these standards are getting a D grade, what does that mean for the children who are measured against them?
Just all questions to keep in mind in the background when you are examining what you are getting for your money. Knowledge is power.
I totally agree that these are things to keep in mind, I just think some answers would be helpful as well. Otherwise the insinuation hangs out there that all of these questions have negative answers here in Bow. I am sure you are not suggesting that as you have said you don’t know what the curriculum is in the district.
Here are some other questions I would add to your list of things to consider when reviewing district spending
How can we best prepare our students for the reality of global competition (many, myself included, do not subscribe to globalization, but the horse left the barn years ago)?
How can we recruit and retain quality educators so that our tax dollars are maximized?
How can we effectively use technology to reach different learning modalities?
How can we challenge all of our students to reach their potential with differentiated instruction?
How can we collaborate to produce a consistent curriculum across the district (so there is no tracking at BHS while there is at BMS)?
What has research taught us that can improve instructional design?
How can we effectively use technology to reach different learning modalities?
How can we challenge all of our students to reach their potential with differentiated instruction?
I believe you Teacher have correctly pointed out in several posts that the best, most motivated students will be fine regardless of other factors, but the others are the ones that are the ones we need to worry about. These last two points are aimed squarely at that population.
Yes I am saying I don’t know the facts on these things such as the curriculum and its origins (for example, do your high school kids use the ‘We the People’ book? If so, that’s not good) but a simple request can let you find out… can’t it? We still do have 91-A last I heard…
Global competition means our kids would have to compete with others who are better prepared and who will do the job for less money. That’s a flaw of our governmental system in conjunction with the fact they are not teaching our kids SKILLS and prefer to employ sketchy methods.
Let teachers TEACH! It is outrageous to require a teacher to be stuck with one book, or method or to forbid them to correct spelling and grammar or handwriting at the elementary levels, yet that is what is being done. HS kids don’t need TOK and other nonsense that comes with IB. They don’t need to know how to attend a Peace rally..
We had a system for that in the past, it was called LEVELS. It was a good idea because it let students get extra help or not be held back by others who needed it.
Some kids will need more math than others..and once this is determined why waste time on the one size fits all approach?
Research has taught us that constructivsm, collectivism, and child-centered discovery methods do NOT work. Period. Direct instruction, practice and employment of skills is the best way to reach everyone…
I personally saw the less able children be the ones to suffer the most from these misguided methods.. and that pained me. The few very able were bored with this stuff.
If you want to bone up on the methods and theories being touted by the snake-oil salesmen, check out this website. It has a great listing and description of most of them. Teaching under these mandates is HE** I can assure you.
These are important questions and I appreciate that you focus a lot of discussion on curriculum. That’s what education is supposed to be about. My issue is that you bring up these questions, without knowing the answers, in the context of a conversation examining potential budget cuts. Doing so implies the answers are negative in Bow and that changes need to be made, when you don’t know by your own argument if that is really the case. If your objective is a close examination of curriculum before funds are spent, kudos on that idea, then I would expect the questions to come from a broader perspective, i.e. they aren’t all focused on negative national trends.
To be honest with you? It’s bad all over so I assume Bow is no different in what it offers the students and how it offers it to them. I’ve been in the biz too long to be fooled into thinking that what one school does is somehow an ‘innovation’ they alone thought of. They were likely ‘Delphi’d’ into choosing it if you know what I mean!
In other words, things are bad all over and they pretty much have been since Goals 2000 and this is costing us big money. If teaching were done right, the budget could be cut in half.
BCC, I think your projections are too high in the elementary area. With the economy being so bad and the price of Bow houses so high my bet is that we should loose just as much as we gain. There is a good chance that we loose more.
Please consider of revising those numbers to a more conservative projection.
This a real eye opener for sure.
School Board and SAU – WHY AREN’T WAGES AND BENEFITS BEING REDUCED AS A RESULT???????????????????????
There has been a steady decline but you have increased empoyees significantly over the last several years???
Thanks for the update and the projected student/teacher ratio. It looks like the Bow school wants the taxpayer to fund a student/teacher ratio that is competitive with private Kindergarten. The NH Department of Ed states maximum 25 or less with efforts to make it less than 20. The same thing for first and second grade. Next year the Bow taxpayer is paying (if they fall for the SB Budget) for an extra, Kindergarten, First, and Second grade teacher while people are losing their jobs and struggling paying their taxes. The Bow SB is out of touch what is happening in this economy. Governor Lynch is cutting jubs
This is a real eye opener!
The reason more conservative numbers are not used is you don’t want to be wrong and cut a teacher (or 3) that it turns out you need because you were too agressive with your guess.
Remember too, kindergarten is very difficult to project. Its hard to know how many 4 year olds there are in town, then guess which ones will attend your half-day program instead any of the number of quality full-day programs (when you need full-day coverage in the first place), then guess at the net move-ins (which if you’re moving in for the school system, this is the age bracket where you’ll be coming) vs move-outs a year in advance. This makies the 1sr grade number tough to guess 2 years out, 2nd grade 3 years out, etc. How accurate have the projections been in the past? We should be able to find that answer.
Taxed tired – wages and benefits have not been determined. Its in a seperate warrant article that will be voted on seperately from the general fund budget. The number currently in the budget will not reflect any changes, up or down, that will be in the new contract. Enrollment doesn’t impact benefit contribution ratios anyway, just the total expenditure. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet Bow like the rest of the state has seen employees added because of special ed legislation put forth in Bush’s No Child Left Behind.
All this being said, I would think numbera in the mid-teens for class size is something we can all support. That conforms to Bow policy, exceeds state minimum standards (we should want more than the minimum!) and fits with established best practices. Lower sustained numbers should result in cuts.
I would agree that student ratio should be in the 18-21 range this is well below the state maximum. The numbers in this enrollment chart show that to be the case if we eliminate a K, 1st, and 2nd grade teacher. The previous poster needs to check her math and see how many extra kids per would have to come into the district to get us higher than that. That isn’t going to happen it is a red herring to say that we will have an out of control Student/teacher ratio.
The taxpayer has been very generous in the past but with many of us hurting our time has come for a break.
Lastly we absolutely do not need a full day Kindergarten, If I hear rumors of that it will be time to break out the proverbal “pitch forks and torches.”
I am the previous poster. What math do I need to check? I just said if the numbers bear it out, we shodl make cuts and that projections are difficult.
i also never suggested we need full day K. I am not for that.
My main point is that not having full-day K complicates projections because people will go elsewhere, and that projections are not an exact science. Do you disagree with that?
PMI, the numbers bear it out unless you use the same phony projections the school board used a few years back when they said enrollment would climb when it actually fell.
Like I said if, the numbers come in on the high side, they will be around 21 and if they are on the low side they will be 17 or 18. That is reasonable unless you want to go with some spoon fed phony number. Let’s err on the side of caution in favor of the taxpayers, the people who are being hit hardest by the economy and make the cut to K, 1st & 2nd, this year.
EMI, don’t you have any empathy for people who have lost their jobs or working twice as long to make ends meet? Don’t you want your children to be able to afford to live in Bow if they choose to, when they grow up. My grown up children can’t afford to live here and I don’t know how long I will be able to if things don’t change.
I support education and I will stand up and fight anyone who attempts to make draconian cuts to the budget. Committee Member Martin makes a reasonable request of reducing the budget of $400,000 based on a treasure trove of facts of excess, presented on this website. It is going to be very unlikely that we are going to get a multiple choice of budget choices. My guess, EMI is that if you don’t get your way you will choose the highest budget. Perhaps my thought process is the wrong one. Maybe I should only think about myself and choose a 1 to 2 million budget cut.
yeswecan, I have not once disagreed with your enrollment numbers.
Who is EMI? I don’t see a post from them?
Oops took a nap after a long day’s work and and wrote EMI in place of PMI So PMI=ProtectMyInvestment. You get tired when you work long hours trying to make ends meet.
PS the enrollment numbers are BCC’s and I believe them much more than anything Pansy Bloomfield could produce.
If you think I am the only one frustrated with the current situation you are wrong. All I want is a reduction in my taxes.
You believe the BCC numbers because you want to. You have no more data to verify those than you would if I just made up numbers. You may not trust the board, and maybe rightly so, but that doesn’t make the other numbers right.
That being said, I never disagreed with you and I never suggested you were the only one frustrated. Why do you think I am not affected by the economy? Why do you keep responding to me as if I am disagreeing?
Protect, I can’t speak for Yeswecan but I kind of see the same thing but I was wrong the first time when I blew up at you and perhaps we all agree but we are hearing different things. We all need to work together if we want to go in the right direction
My question to you is: Would you support a modest $400,000 reduction form the school budget and where would the reductions come from. You have made some suggestions for reductions and I commend that, but those reductions don’t add up to much. Word is out that there is a teachers’ agreement the cost to the taxpayer is in the $300,000-$400,000 range, will you support that and raise my taxes again or are you going to take a close look at the evergreen clause that Rick Hiland has informed us all on?
If you can’t come up with enough reductions would you generate the courage to submit an amendment at the School District Meeting for something less? Don’t expect someone else to do it. Perhaps the answers to these questions will make things more clear.
Your debate is very engaging but it does come off as dismissive at times.
PS I believe BCC numbers to be very accurate. Paul @ BCC said they were “generated with statistical software using a number of factors.”
That’s a fair comment txed2death. I appreciate that. Let me see if I can address your questions on at a time because I agree, we all need to work together.
Yes, I would support a reduction of the budget by $400k. Here’s how I could get there. Demand that the $360k of leftover money be returned to the taxpayers. Cut one 2nd grade teacher . I am guessing that is about $60k with bennies. Cut 1 BES secretary $50k. Freeze admin salaries. If I remember correctly that was $80k+ Put back in the cut for the bussing proposal. $40k. Institute user fees for sports & cut the co-curricular stipends. I don’t know the total for this, but I will guess $10k. I may be off. Add those together and you’ve got $600+ in budget reductions. I know its in a separate warrant, but I am also for asking the teachers to pay a higher percentage of their benefits and accept a lower salary increase.
I recognize I can be dismissive at times. You’re right. I apologize for that. What frustrates me is that I feel like I am understanding of both sides. I recognize the need for tax relief and I support many difficult cuts and am open to other ideas such as combining with another district (I have suggested Hooksett since those kids are likely changing schools in the near future anyway as Manchester faces redistricting due to the opening of Bedford).
I am also supportive of education and feel it is one of the greatest assets of the town. I have made several posts detailing the data. It can be better, we should demand better, but its also fair to say its pretty darn god as it sits. All measurable statistics put Bow at the top of the state. Despite that, and despite claims that others are also supportive of education, I have not seen one comment, even the tiniest remark, noting even one positive thing that occurs in the district. And I have been asking for it. That is unfortunate.
The BCC numbers may be more accurate, and they may well be using better modeling techniques, but it’s an inexact science that is based on the numbers coming from the school. I am assuming no one went in and actually independently counted the kids. Add to that the complexity of counting kids under 5 that live in town and estimating which ones will attend your school vs another (who could have KNOWN how successful the Bow Youth Center would be in year 1?), plus the net move-ins vs move-outs and birth rates 5 years out and you’re left with wild guesses. No methodology is going to be totally reliable if the baseline counts are not. That being said, I am fine with using the BCC numbers, or the board numbers, or something in between. The idea that any of us know which one is right and which is not is crazy. The average Bow citizen has no access to the raw info. How could we possibly know what’s right?
I forgot one. Evergreen. I am against that and have posted other comments directly stating my feelings about it. Its not really a Bow issue though. The teachers union has no choice about the inclusion of the clause in the agreement. Its state law. Therefore, to oppose a contract because of evergreen is to willingly give up your voice on the fairness of the contract because there will be no agreement coming forward that openly defies state law. It is also to increase the chances of the school year opening without a teacher’s contract. I will not do that. I would like to see an agreement. I will support or oppose the contract on its own merit and will not hold evergreen against those, who in this specific case, are innocent bystanders. I don’t believe we can use evergreen as a bargaining tool when its not optional.
My issue with evergreen is with our reps and with Concord. I am happy to join the fight there.
In my mind, the best way to mitigate the impact of evergreen is to negotiate a longer, not shorter contract. Not only does that reduce the thousands of legal fees spent on obtaining an agreement, but it extends the time under which all parties are bound by the negotiated agreement, not by the rules of evergreen. To me, a 1 year agreement is not only throwing away attorney fees, but increasing the likelihood that evergreen will go into effect here in Bow.
Nice Job Protect!! I think you paved a foundation for us to build on. The areas you are looking at for reductions are reasonable and well thought through I just hope that the School Board is looking at this because we don’t see this debate anywhere.
You are also right with regard to the separate warrant article the problem with the warrant article is that we can’t change that article in any way. This means that we can’t change it to ask teachers to pay a higher percentage of their benefits and lastly if we accept it we get stuck with evergreen. Right now evergreen does not apply because the law did not exist when the contract was agreed and passed by the district.
We can not reward the union with this unjust law. If more towns reject contracts because of evergreen the unions will soon beg to have evergreen law repealed ASAP.
A letter from a BCC supporter. Her voice must be heard
Dear Bow Citizens Coalition,
Thanks for what you are doing. I will certainly support you as best I can. Having lost my beloved husband of forty-eight years in July , I am now in a real struggle to get his life insurance to pay off. His hospital bills have to be paid, etc.
Then, on top of that, after the new tax bill arrived and I am overwhelmed all over again! It is terrible that the older people in this town, that made it so attractive to the newcomers, are being driven out. SB2 should certainly be passed and something has to be done to stop giving monstrous amounts of money to a school system that doesn’t teach the young generation that they have to work for some of the things they want.
Please keep me in mind if I can help. Will surely try.
Name given but excluded for privacy purposes
With all due respect, its the school system that makes the town so attractive to newcomers. It’s the only thing that distinguishes Bow from any of the other southern NH towns.
As a newcomer myself, an immigrant from a community that did not have a high-achieving school but rather one that had minimal community involvement, I am truly grateful to the community for the support the district has been given over the years. That commitment has produced one of the best systems in the state by all measurables. We should all be both proud and grateful.
In return for the years of support, I hope we are able to adopt a budget that is responsible to both the taxpayers and the students of Bow.
I am also hopeful for SB2! We need to bring some sanity to the budget process!
Yes a good school system does attract newcomers, however, don’t let how much money is spent on each student be a measure of a school’s success.
During the last 20 years insidious federal legislation has taken public school curricula decisions away from the local control of our school boards, parents, and taxpayers.
Now the goal is to consolidate and nationalize our school systems and do away with local school boards as outlined by our outgoing Education Commissioner.
I have watched this happen over the course of my career as a teacher. These federal programs have done nothing to help education except to water it down and make it more expensive.
I another disturbing trend, many questionable ‘for-profit’ entities posing as experts, consultants, and reformers, make millions of dollars selling ‘fad programs’ to schools whose boards are eager to comply with ‘improvement’ mandates. Like WIA, education has become an ‘industry’ that sucks off the hapless taxpayers.
Here is a simple example: We as teachers may have been presented with 3 choices for a math curriculum. After looking them over we decided that each was unacceptable as an ‘adequate’ math program for our grade level. However we were told that there was no other choice and that we must choose one of the 3.
Employing solid teaching methods are what “adequacy” should be about, NOT money.
Money does not always ensure adequacy and adequacy should be addressed from another standpoint.
Adequacy should mean, is the teacher qualified in his or her subject area and is he or she teaching the kids what they need to know? Adequacy does NOT mean taj mahal buildings, over emphasis on sports, a million paid consultants, fad programs, or paying for ‘theories and philosophies’ like Follow the Child.
Did you know that NH paid $250K to one quack to give SURVEYS? What kind of survey could not have been given using their own computers and paper to print them on? INSANE.
Meanwhile many elderly are being put out of their homes for this nonsense.
OUR school system attracts newcomers. Why is no one able to acknowledge at least one positive about Bow?
For the record, I did not and have not confused money with success. I have consistently qualified success with DATA, test scores, graduation rates, college placements and dropout rates.
I understand what you mean about localities losing control over their curriculum. A great deal of that came from Bush’s No Child Left Behind. What I am struggling with is how does that philosophy translate to your approach to the budget? Is there a specific cut or service you recommend cutting based on your beliefs?
Likewise, what does what the state paid to a consultant have to do with the budget? Are any of your examples from Bow?
Check how much time and money is spent on teacher training. Also, if NH standards get a D or an F (Fordham) then what are they being measured by?
Betrayed – Why Public Education Is Failing: Teacher education programs part of the problem
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Teacher education programs part of the problem
Excerpts:
“The sad state of K-12 math instruction appears to be intentional. In 1997, public policy organization Public Agenda found that, of 900 professors of education, 86% believed it was more important for aspiring teachers to struggle with the process of finding the right answers than knowing the right answer” – (Professors, 1997). Fifty-seven percent thought that children who used calculators from the beginning would have better problem-solving skills. Just 55% would require high-school graduates to demonstrate proficiency in “spelling, grammar, and punctuation”. Sixty percent wanted “less emphasis on memorization” in the classroom.
“Education schools do not train prospective teachers how to teach.”
“Instead, they arm new teachers with a host of pseudo-teaching strategies like small group work and with the philosophy that students should “construct their own knowledge” and are more capable of shaping their own intellectual growth than teachers if they are sufficiently motivated by “inquiry.” Education schools have been especially remiss in preparing new instructors with research-based knowledge for teaching beginning reading and arithmetic – “The funds now invested in professional development to train our current teaching force how to teach beginning reading and arithmetic are staggering.”
Many teachers earn extra pay for master’s degrees, but Dr. Stotsky is critical of the typical master’s of education degree, calling it “an academically impoverished set of courses touting a body of “professional knowledge that has little, if any, support from credible research.”
She says schools of education often disparage scientifically based evidence as “positivistic and irrelevant,” while rejecting scientific research that supports systematic and explicit instruction in reading, practicing skills, and providing “highly structured teaching” for at-risk children:
“Many if not most of the faculty in our education schools who prepare new teachers and retrain experienced ones do not accept the results of scientific research on the nature, development, and teaching of reading or writing or arithmetic. … They thus mistrain those who are preparing to teach in costly licensure program – and continue to mistrain them in even more costly professional development programs.”
Speaking of development programs, it’s strange to me that people go to college, learn how to teach and then come out supposedly needing retraining in order to teach. Why would universities and colleges allow such a situation to continue? If teachers don’t know how to teach when they graduate from education programs, then either they need to stay there longer, or maybe there’s something wrong with the programs.
If I ran a university, and my school of education didn’t turn out teachers who were qualified to teach “without the constant need for coaching and retraining” I’d be embarrassed. If I ran a school district and had to keep retraining the people I hired – I’d be embarrassed. If I were a teacher, I’d be angry that I paid for a college education that didn’t adequately prepare me to go out and work. This is not an argument to fire a bunch of teachers; I’m following this thought through to its logical conclusion. If teachers who graduate from college need retraining, then something is awry.
Besides the fact that professional development is a lucrative business, it’s another sneaky way of blaming the teachers. It’s easier and more comfortable to say: “The math programs will work just fine once the teachers know how to teach it” than it is to acknowledge that the curriculum itself is inadequate and incomprehensible. Illogically, while teachers are away from class getting all of this retraining, their students are taught by substitute teachers who are not getting the retraining.
I’m truly surprised teachers haven’t yet filed a class-action lawsuit.
Rogers, L. (February, 2009). “Teacher education programs big part of the problem.” Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/
Teacher, I have the same question – how is this relevant to the Bow budget? You continue to talk about national trends in education that disturb you, but fail to offer an example specific to Bow and to offer any suggestions about how to deal with national issues at the local level. Is there some cut you are proposing as a direct result? What am I supposed to do with this information at the deliberative session? Is your thesis that education is failing and therefore I should cut the budget? If so what number do you propose? Help me understand how you are connecting the dots.
It is something to keep in mind when thinking spending.
1) How much are teachers sent out of the classroom for ‘retraining’?
2) What is being taught at these sessions?
3) How much is it costing and cui bono?
4) How effective are these methods that are being taught?
5) What are NH’s standards and how are they viewed by independent opinions? If these standards are getting a D grade, what does that mean for the children who are measured against them?
Just all questions to keep in mind in the background when you are examining what you are getting for your money. Knowledge is power.
I totally agree that these are things to keep in mind, I just think some answers would be helpful as well. Otherwise the insinuation hangs out there that all of these questions have negative answers here in Bow. I am sure you are not suggesting that as you have said you don’t know what the curriculum is in the district.
Here are some other questions I would add to your list of things to consider when reviewing district spending
How can we best prepare our students for the reality of global competition (many, myself included, do not subscribe to globalization, but the horse left the barn years ago)?
How can we recruit and retain quality educators so that our tax dollars are maximized?
How can we effectively use technology to reach different learning modalities?
How can we challenge all of our students to reach their potential with differentiated instruction?
How can we collaborate to produce a consistent curriculum across the district (so there is no tracking at BHS while there is at BMS)?
What has research taught us that can improve instructional design?
How can we effectively use technology to reach different learning modalities?
How can we challenge all of our students to reach their potential with differentiated instruction?
I believe you Teacher have correctly pointed out in several posts that the best, most motivated students will be fine regardless of other factors, but the others are the ones that are the ones we need to worry about. These last two points are aimed squarely at that population.
Yes I am saying I don’t know the facts on these things such as the curriculum and its origins (for example, do your high school kids use the ‘We the People’ book? If so, that’s not good) but a simple request can let you find out… can’t it? We still do have 91-A last I heard…
Global competition means our kids would have to compete with others who are better prepared and who will do the job for less money. That’s a flaw of our governmental system in conjunction with the fact they are not teaching our kids SKILLS and prefer to employ sketchy methods.
Let teachers TEACH! It is outrageous to require a teacher to be stuck with one book, or method or to forbid them to correct spelling and grammar or handwriting at the elementary levels, yet that is what is being done. HS kids don’t need TOK and other nonsense that comes with IB. They don’t need to know how to attend a Peace rally..
We had a system for that in the past, it was called LEVELS. It was a good idea because it let students get extra help or not be held back by others who needed it.
Some kids will need more math than others..and once this is determined why waste time on the one size fits all approach?
Research has taught us that constructivsm, collectivism, and child-centered discovery methods do NOT work. Period. Direct instruction, practice and employment of skills is the best way to reach everyone…
I personally saw the less able children be the ones to suffer the most from these misguided methods.. and that pained me. The few very able were bored with this stuff.
If you want to bone up on the methods and theories being touted by the snake-oil salesmen, check out this website. It has a great listing and description of most of them. Teaching under these mandates is HE** I can assure you.
http://www.illinoisloop.org/lingo.html
These are important questions and I appreciate that you focus a lot of discussion on curriculum. That’s what education is supposed to be about. My issue is that you bring up these questions, without knowing the answers, in the context of a conversation examining potential budget cuts. Doing so implies the answers are negative in Bow and that changes need to be made, when you don’t know by your own argument if that is really the case. If your objective is a close examination of curriculum before funds are spent, kudos on that idea, then I would expect the questions to come from a broader perspective, i.e. they aren’t all focused on negative national trends.
To be honest with you? It’s bad all over so I assume Bow is no different in what it offers the students and how it offers it to them. I’ve been in the biz too long to be fooled into thinking that what one school does is somehow an ‘innovation’ they alone thought of. They were likely ‘Delphi’d’ into choosing it if you know what I mean!
In other words, things are bad all over and they pretty much have been since Goals 2000 and this is costing us big money. If teaching were done right, the budget could be cut in half.