smoke

The real horror, however, was on a one-page sheet – this was not on the agenda and was meant to be buried — titled, “Summary of January 2011 Regents.” The sheet had a very simple chart showing results of the Regents Exams — the tests taken by all New York State high schoolers, many of which have to be passed for graduation. Easy to read: Exam subject, number of students who took the exam, number of students who passed: 41 kids took Integrated Algebra and only 10 passed; 27 took Global History, 5 passed. Of the ten exams given that fateful January day, only 34 of the 129 students who took them (26%) passed. And this was before any budget crisis. “We’ll look into it,” said the Super.

Field Notes: Wake Up and Smell the Smoke - or Not
by Peter Meyer

shouts and murmurs

As I would learn in my five years on the board, there are no absolute victories and no deafening defeats in the land of education governance; just the constant hum of the bureaucracy trying to control the flow of information and—if you’re lucky—the shouts and murmurs of the “the people” complaining.

Five Lessons from Five Years on the School Board
by Peter Meyer

being there

At some low point in my tenure on the board of education in my small school district, a friend advised, “Don’t worry. You are like gravity. They always know that you are there.”

Five Lessons from Five Years on the School Board
Peter Meyer

Peter Meyer on MLK and education

beautiful

Peter Meyer on the Forum

I am not alone

Be sure to read his March 30th post, too.

Peter Meyer explains New York's contingent budget law

at the Irvington Parents Forum:

[S]tate law says that school districts are allowed to increase their budgets by up to 120% of the rate of inflation. I forgot the exact formula, but we've been informed (again, I'm on the BOE of a small (2000 kids) upstate district) that the CPI is 1.6%.

This might not mean much to Irvington, but to a poor (median family income up here is right around $30k and over half our kids are free and reduced lunch) district where more than 50% of revenues come from State aid, it means something close to a fiscal disaster.

Cutting to the chase, if we, the BOE, wanted to (the law says a board may vote to go directly to contingency if it wants, no vote needed!), we could increase our budget (it's about $40 million) by the 1.6% and make the local taxpayers make up the loss of state aid (projected to be over a million bucks) and loss of federal Edujobs money (another million and change) by having us property owners (all ten of us!) shoulder a 14.9 percent property tax increase. In that scenario we only layoff about 15 staff (including 7 teachers). There are other scenarios, none of them too pretty (and I'm one who believes pretty firmly in the proposition that more money does not buy a better education).

here's a followup:

The interesting thing, of course, is that the contingency law never anticipated the current economic crisis. The board COULD raise taxes 15% if it wanted to -- it has the legal right to do it. Would it? Probably not. So, no there are lots negotiations -- and lots screaming and yelling in executive session and elsewhere -- about whose axe gets gored. I think 4% tax increase scenario resulted in something like 70 layoffs. And yes, a salary freeze saves about 20 jobs (depending, of course, whose job).... It ain't pretty and it ain't too much fun....

It could always be worse, I suppose.

At least New York doesn't have a minimum budget requirement.

Lord of the Flies

from Peter Meyer's Education Next article on middle schools:

Parents and educators have begun abandoning the middle school for K–8 configurations, and new research suggests that grade configuration does matter: when this age group is gathered by the hundreds and educated separately, both behavior and learning suffer.

The Middle School Mess

by Peter Meyer
Education Next Winter 2011

merit pay fails in NYC

at Gotham Schools

Middle school kids did significantly worse.

I blame the middle school model, possibly.

And here is Peter Meyer on the middle school mess in Education Next.

Trench Warfare on the Board of Ed

Peter Meyer at Education Next:

I couldn’t believe it.

John, the new board of education president, had just proposed that we move “Old Business” to the beginning of our meetings.

I had spent roughly a year-and-a-half arguing that it made no sense to put Old Business at the end of each school board meeting, which usually arrived about 10pm, the third hour of these star chambers of modern public education. By then, most people, including the lone reporter, had gone home.  That, of course, was the point: Old Business was dirty laundry, things not done. Why flaunt it?

I had gotten nowhere with my arguments because my colleagues on the school board thought I was the devil.  I was the infamous “rogue” board member, the person that school board associations give seminars about. Not a team player. The local paper wrote an editorial about me that prompted a friend, after church, to remark, “I’ve seen kinder things said about murderers.”

[snip]

Needless to say, my new colleagues were not looking forward to the prospect of sharing executive sessions with me. And, after being sworn in, they went out of their way to keep me in the dark. If the superintendent recommended hiring a new teacher and I asked to see the candidate’s resume, a motion was quickly made that school board did not want to see said resume. It passed, 6 to 1. When a special board meeting was called to approve $25 million in construction contracts, I asked to see the contracts. “I make a motion that the board does not look at the contracts,” said one of my colleagues. “I second that, said another.” Another defeat, 6 to 1.

One of my favorites was Board Policy #2510. It was titled NEW BOARD MEMBER-ELECT ORIENTATION and it said, in part, that “Each Board member-elect shall, as soon as possible, … be given selected materials of the previous year covering the function of the Board and the school district, including (a) policy manual, (b) copies of key reports prepared during the previous year by school Board committees and/or the administration, (c) the School Law handbook prepared by the New York State School Boards Association, (d) access to minutes of Board meetings of the previous year, (e) latest financial report of the district, and (f) copies of pertinent materials developed by the New York State School Boards Association….”

My orientation consisted of the board president and superintendent sitting me down and saying, “You’re not getting anything.” And so it went.

I once read the board’s orientation policy, out loud, at a public meeting, to the regional superintendent, a lawyer. “Aren’t school boards supposed to follow their own policies?” I asked. “The board can do whatever it wants,” he said. I was shocked, because board policies are, in fact, laws and have to be followed–or changed.

He might have said, “whatever it can get away with.” But his comment reminded me of a fundamental truth about public school systems: the buck stops with the people.

administration spends $50K without board vote
"it's just about statistically impossible that a bid would come in at exactly $50K"
fields exchange at BOE meeting
school boards behaving badly
board member FOILs district docs
trench warfare on the board of ed

more fun with public schools

Peter Meyer weighs in

Peter Meyer's palm card for educational excellence

... I’m not so sure we don’t know what works and doesn’t work in education — or, for that matter,  in education reform. Perhaps I am a rube about this, but when I walk into a school — I took the same tour as Brill and it is as startling as he describes it — I know within a few minutes whether the place is working for the kids or not. (It’s a little like the Supreme Court rule on pornography: you know when you see it.) I will soon be trademarking Pete’s Palm Card for Education Excellence: Order. Consistency. Content.

Proof Positive in Harlem

Here is Peter again on the subject of school quality and P.E. ----

Peter Meyer at Flypaper

Good News!


inside the other black box