South Orangetown Central School District

Over the past two years, including projections for 2012-13, the school district has been experiencing a sudden and significant decline in enrollment of over 180 students. This is a result of the economic downturn and comes at a time when many districts across New York State and our region are cutting programs and raising class sizes to stay within the newly established tax levy cap. Due to the reduced number of students and a need for less classes, South Orangetown will be able to stay within the tax cap without resorting to major cuts.

 

While that may appear to be good news, unfortunately we will be forced to let go a number of highly valued staff members. Some of these teachers are also coaches or club advisors who have built strong connections to students and families outside of the classroom. Due to the enrollment decline, the staff with the lowest seniority will be the first to be dismissed. This has nothing to do with their competence, dedication, or value but is driven by the fact that the student population in South Orangetown is declining.

 

The district is not in a position of “deciding” who remains or goes when positions are eliminated due to lower enrollment. Seniority is the determining factor. Even if the economic times were better, we would be unable to retain staff for empty classrooms.

 

Some of the cuts to stay under the tax levy cap in developing this year’s budget have been made in ways that do not directly impact the classroom. However, the majority of the dollars needed to close the tax cap gap are from staff reductions due to enrollment loss.

 

While we hope to assist these staff members in finding employment, it is also hoped that via a combination of potential leaves and retirements, several of these staff members may return. All will be placed on a “preferred eligibility list” which allows them to claim positions that may reopen over the next few years.

 

Later in the spring we may have better news when more staffing information becomes available.

During Governor Cuomo’s recent budget address, he stated, “We all agree that there is a crisis in education.”  He cited U.S. Census data from a few years ago that ranks New York 38 of 50 states with a percentage of adults with a high school diploma or more.  Used in this speech to benchmark New York’s education system, this statistic refers to the educational attainment of any adult in the state who may have been educated in another state or country. 

 

It is likely that the Governor used this data point to create more urgency for improving schools. Education should always be a priority for ensuring the overall advancement of a society.  Nonetheless, it is important that New Yorkers consider multiple and various types of data before making a generalization about all schools and school systems around a single data point and one for which relevance is questionable.  Such generalizations have the potential of justifying systemic changes that may be good for some student populations but deleterious to others.

 

The real crisis is child poverty.  Sadly, the United States has one of the highest child poverty rates in the industrialized world at approximately 22%.  New York State’s child poverty rate is consistent with the national average. 

 

Other State-to-State Comparisons

In spite of our high level of poverty, recent data reveal that New York may be actually beating the odds. In its national ranking of school systems by state, Education  Week, in its 2012 “Quality Counts” report, placed New York State in the #3 slot behind Maryland (#1) and Massachusetts (#2).  Each of those states had respective poverty rates of 13% and 14%.  Comparing the “Quality Counts” rankings of education systems across the country with state-by-state child poverty rates indicates that New York is one of the top performing states in spite of its high child poverty status.

 

Other recent reports also reflect how New York may actually be one of the leaders in education.  According to a recent study on “business-friendly” states conducted by CNBC, New York ranks #1 in the nation for what business needs from schools. It is #2 for technology and innovation.  Perhaps there is a correlation. Here are a few other related facts:

 

• New York schools have more Intel semifinalists — 105 — than any other state. The next closest state is California with 41. 1,839 students apply with 300 making semifinal status.  New York has a third of these students.

 

• New York ranks second in the nation for the number of students successfully completing Advanced Placement courses.

 

What about the International Rankings? 

Again, poverty is the real crisis.  American students attending schools with less than 10% poverty would be ranked number one on the PISA, the international assessment that school critics use to condemn public education.  What also makes the school ranking more interesting is that no other countries involved in the international testing have child poverty rates close to 25%. 

 

While these reports may provide a different perspective on public school performance in the State, it is important that we do not fall into the comparison trap.  Americans are competitive and like to see rankings and standings.   However, school systems across the country have different standards for graduation, so a comparison of states by graduation rates is irrelevant unless we have information about how they are assessed – by what standards – and which students are being assessed  – their poverty and language status.  Academic proficiency is often more about where one lives rather than how well one has learned. 

 

What does all of this have to do with South Orangetown? 

New York State has mandated sweeping changes to its education system that include an expanded student assessment system in which student testing – on-line and in school – will proliferate in an effort to systematize the state’s collection of data on student and school performance. Teachers and principals will also be evaluated on how their students perform on tests, even though there is limited research to support making such connections and even though 80% of staff are not in instructional areas that culminate with a state assessment. New tests will have to be created.

 

There is also an initiative to align New York’s curriculum with the Common Core Standards, a national curriculum that is being adopted by many states.  While much of the nature of this work has great potential for improving schools, some of it comes at a price – of time, money, and misdirection. 

 

This costly and unfunded mandated reform that overhauls the public school system is being driven by the aforementioned misuses of data.  Great organizations and school systems always strive for continuous improvement, but such improvement must be driven by real and local data.

 

In South Orangetown we have consistently graduated over 90% of our students with Regents diplomas and with over two-thirds receiving “advanced” distinction.  Yet, we are being asked to make a radical shift in how we use our resources to conform to a new state assessment system that we and neighboring districts have projected to cost much more than we have been provided by the state.  As a district we received less than $25,000 for work that may cost us between one and two million dollars over a four year period.  The initial costs are projected, but we have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first year.  These costs collide with the current period of fiscal austerity.

 

How will we pay for these new reforms?

The New York State Legislature and the State Education Department can mandate regulations and laws that must be implemented at the local level but funded by local taxpayers.  In New York State, there are over 150 unfunded or underfunded mandates that are paid for by the local taxpayer.  When new mandates are added, the district must find room in their budgets to fund them.  Finding room means eliminating existing programs or staffing to accommodate the mandates, whether or not they are beneficial to the needs of students in the local district.

 

There may be some elements of New York’s reform agenda that will improve many schools.  Every faculty profits from efforts towards continuous improvement and finding better ways to help students learn.  However, this takes money and time, and every school district has different needs that do not necessarily align with every other system in the state.

 

To mandate untested initiatives without funding will prove to be disastrous for many school systems.  It is particularly frustrating for school districts, such as South Orangetown, in which the school-community has already identified instructional priorities, uses student performance data, and constantly engages the professional community in ways to enhance the learning experiences for our students, to be asked to conform to an agenda that will narrow the scope of our plan.  What makes this even more frustrating is that we have to pay for it by defunding local priorities.

 

On Saturday, January 28, 2012, administrators, Boards of Education, and PTA leaders from across the county will be meeting with state legislators to share their concerns about school funding and unfunded or underfunded mandates.  We will keep you posted about any progress in getting legislative relief.

 

“ON DEVELOPING HUMAN CAPITAL”
I recently served on a panel to share how schools are developing human capital. The event’s sponsors had good intentions in trying to link the work of schools with that of business. Yet, the unintended implication that children and adolescents represent chattel in an economic engine that is being fueled by schools was disconcerting. Though, considering the design of the current school reform movement, I was not surprised.

 

There is a renewed utilitarian perspective on the purpose for school. U.S. and New York State policymakers call for College and Career Readiness. Their argument is based on a need for international competitiveness. While pragmatism is typically healthy, the recent approach is both ironic and counterproductive.

 

Many educators are concerned that we are narrowing our curriculum and educational priorities to prepare students for assessments while other countries, such as Finland and China, are making advances via the emulation of those elements of U.S. education that foster creativity and innovation. States, such as New York, are abandoning a model that created a generation of entrepreneurs and inventors who led the world in patents and Nobel prizes.

 

The new reform agenda has produced the following:

• teacher and student-test cheating scandals;

 

• an “award-winning” school in Texas – discovered to have dropped science, history, and the arts to achieve high scores on the state test;

 

• school districts that drop their arts and extracurricular programs due to limited resources or a need for more time to prepare students for tests;

 

• untested professional accountability systems – based on student exam results – that are likely to further narrow the scope of instruction to “make the grade”;

 

• New York math and reading exams for seven and eight year olds will exceed four hours per test. Tests are being planned for other subjects.

 

These represent a stark departure from an educational experience that should spark joy in learning, not anxiety. Such changes are occurring with no evidence that they will work.

 

Of course there is a need to develop skills and knowledge that will be required for future jobs. We are in the midst of a major information technology revolution; but is the education establishment setting a course to provide students with the right learning experiences to truly enable them to help advance our society during these transformative times? Does our focus on testing and accountability allow for a curriculum that fosters creative and innovative learning? What will we lose by narrowing learning experiences?

 

We must develop creative and critical thinking in our students to spark the next IT idea, healthcare intervention, transportation innovation, or clean energy solution. The U.S. economy needs creative knowledge products to compete in an interdependent global marketplace.

 

Such creators and creations are not developed in test-driven institutions in which the objectives are to sort and select those who are “college and career ready”. School must be much more than the development of human capital.

I recently received inquiries about a comment that I made to a reporter about the relationship between the volume of books in the home and student literacy. There have been several studies that correlate children’s initial reading competence with the home environment, including the number of books owned. According to the American Psychological Association, in a nationwide study of American kindergarten children, 36% of parents in the lowest-income quintile read to their children on a daily basis, compared with 62% of parents from the highest-income quintile.

 

Most recently, the International Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducted a study of families whose students took the 2006 and 2009 PISA exams. These are the tests that are used to rank countries according to their educational performance.

 

The OECD study revealed – to no surprise – that the fifteen-year-olds who performed well on these assessments lived in homes in which parents read to them before they attended school and in their early years of education. The questions also assessed the extent to which parents read to their children and revealed that the greater the frequency, the higher the performance on the assessment.

 

Okay, so what’s the point? My home recycling bin is brimming with flyers and ads for the annual Black Friday shopping event. Radio and TV ads are promoting midnight madness opportunities for shoppers. Thanksgiving and Black Friday unofficially mark both the “season of giving and consuming.” Yet, whatever opinion we have about these events, for many the season serves as a time of reflection that is often accompanied by a burst of philanthropic enthusiasm. So in that spirit, I present an idea.

 

Gift or donate a book – even if it is not on anyone’s “list”. Recycle that dust-collecting library of children’s books that you have in your basement or attic by passing on the books to young children. Spread the word about the impact of home reading. Have older siblings read to younger ones. Pick up a book and read in front of your children or grandchildren. If we want to celebrate the spirit of giving, let’s do so with a gift of literacy. This might just be the gift that will yield benefits long after it has been given.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tax Gaps, Mandates, and School Funding

 

We have recently begun developing the budget for the 2012-13 school year and studying its potential impact on the educational program in our community.  Because of a “perfect storm” of three significant fiscal factors: loss of state and federal funding due to the economic crisis, the new tax cap law, and an abundance of unfunded state mandates, school districts across New York State face an unprecedented budget gap.  Difficult decisions will have to be made.

 

What does this mean for South Orangetown?

Without other revenue, the school-funding formula that was based on local property taxes was unsustainable.  In response the state has imposed a property tax cap that goes into effect for the 2012-13 budget – a Q&A is on the district website.  With a restriction on raising revenue through taxation and a reduction in state aid, the district will need to close a major budget gap of $2.4 million dollars.

 

What has the district already done to reduce expenses?

Over the past few years, the district has found efficiencies in operations, facilities, energy and transportation.  Last year we began to seek reductions in some non-mandated programs, such as pre-school education, freshman sports, and the enforcement of voter-approved mileage limits for school buses.  These initial changes combined with a multi-year fiscal management plan have kept district budget increases and residential tax rate increases at an average of 1.8% over the past three years.

 

Since 2008 SOCSD has cut slightly under $5.5 million dollars from its budget.  (Rockland districts have cut approximately $65 million)  At the same time we have experienced a loss in state and federal aid of over $5 million dollars. 

District teachers stepped up in their last contract by agreeing to 0% increases for a portion of the contract.  In spite of this effort, SOCSD excessed 53 positions over the past three years.

 

 

What does the future hold?

Someone recently told me, “The students are more important than money.”  I wholeheartedly agree; however, the educational services that we provide for students come at a cost.   It is exactly for that reason – the importance of each student’s education – that we need to skillfully manage our limited funding, judiciously determine priorities, and advocate for mandate relief.  Without these, SOCSD and all NY districts are going to see drastic reductions in services.  Nothing comes without a price.

 

Essentially, the district has self-imposed a cap during this difficult economic period. The district has made numerous cuts that equal approximately $5.5 million dollars over the past three years – an average of $1.83 million dollars each year. One can easily infer that we face a daunting challenge of reducing $2.4 million in a single year, especially in light of the cuts that have been made away from student programs and staffing.  There are fewer places to find savings. 

 

What about unfunded mandates?

There are over 150 state and federal public school mandates in New York that are either unfunded or underfunded.  Some were legislated for good reasons, such as health and safety, others are the result of special interest advocacy that have provided entitlements and were enacted when fiscal times were good.  Times have changed. 

 

Legislators and school leaders need to come together to either repeal or modify unfunded mandates, since it is unlikely that they will be able to find new funding.   A 2008-09 study of Westchester school districts illustrated that almost 20% of a district’s total budget is the result of unfunded or underfunded mandates.  In 2010-11 South Orangetown estimated that we were spending close to $22 million dollars towards such mandates.  While this does not mean that we can cut that amount, even a small percentage of mandate relief would allow districts to close the budget gap without having to cut into programs.

 

What is SOCSD’s plan to reduce its budget to close the budget gap of $2.4 million dollars?

We are in the beginning phase of this work.  As always, we will start with an effort to keep cuts away from the classroom; however, as noted this will become more difficult. Over the next few months we will present updates and seek community support on initiatives that may help us to find savings without affecting learning.  We will need parents as partners and other community members to help us to accomplish this goal.  Stay tuned for more information.

 

 

 

Earlier this month, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to a trio of American astronomers who have discovered through the tracking of distant supernovae that the universe is expanding at a faster rate than previously believed.  This is not unlike the amount of curriculum content that New York and other states are expecting our students to learn.  Since the 1950’s there has been a continual expansion of content requirements within each curriculum and across all content areas, yet the amount of time that we spend in school has remained essentially the same. 

 

In spite of this discrepancy, our students have kept pace with teachers helping them to discern what is essential and what might be tested.  This coincides with the fact that more students than ever are attending school and for a longer period of time.  Prior to the 1960’s students of diverse backgrounds, English language learners, and students living in poverty, in spite of what some people might remember, did not populate the halls of the American high school to the extent to which they do today. Even with a homogenous student body, the graduation rate was only around 50%.  A small percentage of these graduates went on to college with less than a quarter of them graduating with a degree.

 

Today, we hear that our students need to be “college and career ready” so that America can be globally competitive.  This readiness must happen in spite of the fact that the organizational architecture of the public school has not changed, the curriculum continues to expand, and the population that attends school presents more challenges than ever before.  Of course, there will be more tests in this era of accountability that will take a different form and be based on national Common Core Standards.

 

In South Orangetown, we have an aligned curriculum and use assessment, not merely as a tool to determine grades, but as a mechanism to determine how well students have learned content or acquired skills.  With that information, we adjust our lessons accordingly, although this often becomes difficult to do when teachers feel pressured to cover the content of a rapidly expanding curriculum.

 

We have accepted the reality that not all curriculum content can be “covered” well.  Yes, it can be disseminated, but there is a good chance that it will be forgotten shortly after the assessment as the brain tends to dump data that it no longer considers useful or for which there has been neither meaningful engagement nor emotional connections.  The brain is efficient, unlike those who mandate additions to the curriculum.

 

To help embed learning by making it more meaningful, district instructors have been encouraged to employ approaches that require students to use information or skills that we teach or to which we provide access to think both critically and creatively to solve problems.  In some cases, we present a problem and ask them to find solutions – a task that will undoubtedly be asked of them as they venture to college or in a career.

 

Gone are the days when American workers are paid well to perform routine tasks that require little independent thinking.  Machines, robots, computers, and cheap offshore labor have provided leaders of the free market with greater opportunities for profit without paying high wages and benefits to American workers.  This reality has changed our world and economy.

 

Recently, parents contacted me indicating that their child would learn better in an instructional environment in which there were direct transactions between the teacher and his students – a straightforward dissemination of information – and the students and the teacher – demonstration of content retention on a test.   In the experiences and mental models of these parents and many adults of previous generations, this is how school is supposed to work.  In such a model, there is control, predictability, certainty, and a clear cause and effect. 

 

This instructional model no longer works in a world in which there has been an explosion of information with immediate access to it.  This instructional model no longer works in an information age in which knowledge workers are required to solve problems, create alternatives, understand the complexity of systems, and perform a host of critical thinking processes while technology transforms our society and workplace at an unprecedented rate. 

 

If we want our children to be prepared for a complex future that will likely be packed with more information than ever in our rapidly expanding universe, then we need to require them to become independent thinkers who will have the skills and capacity to manage vast volumes of information with critical and creative thinking.  This will require an acceptance and understanding that there is too much information for anyone to absorb and retain, and even if one had the capacity to do so, what good would it be if there was no independent ability to use it in a productive way? 

2011-12 Transportation Changes

In 2010-11, our school district analyzed transportation to find efficiencies while ensuring student safety.  During this process we learned the following:

 

• Buses were underutilized, in some cases operating with less than 50% capacity;
• Buses were making multiple stops on streets where fewer stops would safely serve students while saving fuel, money, and time;
• The district could save $480,000 via consolidation of routes and the use of safe centralized stops.
   

During the winter and spring, community presentations about the proposed cost-saving changes were made at Board of Education and budget meetings.  Transportation policy and regulations were revised or enforced in accordance with state law related to child safety and mileage distances. 

 

There have been questions or concerns from some parents regarding the changes, especially given the fact that families may have different expectations on the matter of transporting students to school.  However, all district transportation decisions must be guided by New York State education law; in addition, such decisions have and always will adhere to the State’s safety standards.

 

Over the past few years, communities across the state and country have been challenged by difficult economic times.  School funding has been affected.  In SOCSD, we have made every effort to keep costs down while delaying any impact to the classroom. With the legislation of a highly restrictive tax cap, funding our schools will be more challenging than ever.  The district currently spends almost $4 million dollars on busing.  These and many other costs continue to rise while our funding sources have been and will continue to be limited or even reduced.

 

We need the partnership of parents to help us to make this work.  This begins by understanding why we made these changes and how they benefit the overall education program.  During one of the community presentations in the spring, one parent said, “I would rather have my son walk longer to get the bus than be in an overcrowded classroom.”  With limited funding and many regulated and mandated services, the first to be affected by a loss of funds are those that are not mandated. 

 

 While we are doing everything possible to find efficiencies throughout the budget, we must separate needs versus wants.  In some instances this relates to convenience versus inconvenience. Changes in the district’s transportation policy that increases safe centralized stops may not be as convenient as they had been during better economic times.  This may result in families having to make alternative arrangements.

 

No one in the district wants to decrease services or place additional pressures on families.  Unfortunately, with less aid and reduced revenue, we have fewer options and must find more ways to conserve.  Reducing what is not mandated is one of the first places where we will find such savings.   This will not be easy for anyone and will require the cooperation of everyone.

 

(Please click here to view Questions and Answers about transportation changes in South Orangetown.  You will also find the report on school district transportation that was conducted in September by Dr. Richard Ahola of the Pupil Transportation Safety Institute, the retired Director of Pupil Transportation for New York State and the author of the state’s bus safety regulations.  Dr. Ahola is a national expert on bus safety.)
 

What is the importance of public education?
Many have and will continue to grapple over this question. It is one that is unlikely to be fully resolved due to the various political and philosophical agendas that drive the public conversation across many arenas. However, there are a few fundamental elements with which most would agree.

 

Public education is perhaps the single common and binding experience for Americans, albeit via different forms and experiences, with quality often dependent on a community’s commitment to its local schools. Much can be learned about a town’s values and priorities through the lens of its local school district.

 

Public education provides a foundation of common literacy in such areas as language, mathematics, the arts, and the natural and social sciences. In its current form, it also provides for opportunities that foster creativity, innovation, team work, and personal leadership – experiences that cannot be easily, if at all, measured. Unlike systems where rote memorization and knowledge-focused curricula drive hordes of students to a mythical finish line in order to excel on international assessments, American public schools have emphasized the importance of providing unique and individualized opportunities.

 

The American philosopher, John Dewey, argued that “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” If we believe that public education is for the common good and for ensuring that all Americans have equal opportunities to maximize their individual potential that will positively impact our society and culture, then we will also agree that supporting one’s public schools is to the mutual benefit of all, even those whose children have passed through the schools or those who have never had children attending.
 

An educated society – and again there are debates about exactly what should be included in a public education – is for the good of all who dwell in it. Individuals may personally benefit from a quality school experience, but it is the society that profits from a better informed citizenry and a highly skilled workforce. It is the society that prospers from its scientists, researchers, and engineers who have the preparation to innovate or problem solve, and leaders who are prepared to manage the complex problems of our time.

 

As the national debates over taxes, debt, school reform, the environment, and the responsibility of the individual versus society continue, there must be a consideration of the necessity for the shared experience of public education and the value that it brings to the common good and to the wealth of the nation – in economic, social, and spiritual currencies.

The Governor Weighs in on Teacher Assessment
Over the last week, there have been media reports related to teacher evaluation and student assessments. Following the work of experienced educators who were asked for their input on the development of a model to evaluate teachers and principals, on the weekend just before the Board of Regents were to meet to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal, Governor Cuomo recommended that New York State test scores be allowed to count for double the amount that had been originally proposed by the State Education Department and the Regents Task Force that was working to refine the plan.

 

The revised model for teacher evaluation requires that teachers be rated on a 100% scoring system that uses New York State assessments for as much as 40% of the score. The remaining 60% will be determined by a teacher evaluation rubric with leveled criteria that is based on a newly developed set of teaching standards. The original plan assigned 20% of the teacher’s evaluation score to be based on the State assessment. Local districts would have had the option of choosing from a State-approved menu of assessments that may have been more in line with the kinds of learning experiences that were occurring in the local district. Because of the Governor’s recommendation, the weight of one state assessment has now been doubled.

 

If the New York State assessments accurately capture rigorous student learning over the course of a year and we have a sufficient number of assessments for all of the content and skills that are taught throughout the K-12 system, then the doubling might make sense. However, if there are questions about both the accuracy of the assessments and the limited scope of grading tools for other disciplines, then this new system to evaluate teachers is troublesome.

 

Depth of Knowledge and Assessment Design
It is often stated that we need more rigorous learning in schools. Rigor goes beyond quantity. While practice is important in the development of skills, in some instances repetition, especially when errors are being “practiced”, can be deleterious to learning.

 

If rigor and depth of knowledge go beyond how much is taught and extend to quality, how do we know it when we see it? How do we assess for it? How do we ensure that our learning experiences provide for it in a developmentally appropriate way?

 

In designing appropriate assessments, the evaluator must first decide the knowledge levels that we expect students to demonstrate. On the recall level, it may be easy to assess by asking students to define, calculate, repeat, recognize, label, list, draw, or recite. While such basic “recall” learning is fundamental to higher levels of learning, too often, these areas may be over-assessed, even by the State.

 

A second and deeper level of knowledge addresses the acquisition of skills and understanding of concepts that build upon recall. The learners are asked to demonstrate knowledge by classifying, estimating, relating, comparing, organizing, summarizing, inferring, identifying patterns, and other similar tasks. Comprehension and application can be also assessed and perhaps through the kinds of assessments that the state will administer.

 

It becomes more difficult to assess students when we move to a third level that asks students to demonstrate their thinking. Can they develop a logical argument? Can they develop a scientific model regarding a complex situation? Can they apply concepts to new contexts or to solve non-routine problems? These kinds of thinking tasks require more sophisticated assessments that take more time and more complex instruments or processes.

 

Higher Standards
If that is all that our State or even our local schools and teachers expect from students then perhaps the new model is sufficient. However, if we want our students to go even deeper to a level of understanding where they will extend their thinking by analyzing, creating, designing, and synthesizing from multiple sources – the kinds of innovation that are essential for preparing them for a complex future – then the efficient and standardized assessment system that the State believes will effectively assess its teachers may be insufficient for also ensuring that our students are brought to this deepest level.

 

When assessment is complex, time-consuming, and in need of contexts other than testing rooms, one can assume that the cost factor increases, making it more difficult to standardize and administer across a state. However, if the assessment is reduced to assess recall, skills, and basic conceptual knowledge – superficial levels of understanding – then it may accomplish the task of gathering information on teachers teaching to these lower levels and students being prepared for such assessments.

 

Assessment Priorities
If the State truly wants a rigorous learning experience that challenges students to think both strategically and in extended ways, assessment will have to take forms other than a simple paper and pencil test in May. We may actually have to trust that teachers will provide our students with such rigorous learning experiences that they will assess in context. We may also have to accept that not all of these experiences are easily measured in such a way that the State will be able to grade teachers.

 

It is hoped that the Board of Regents and Governor Cuomo have enough knowledge and expertise about the kinds of assessment experiences upon which 40% of a teacher’s evaluation will be based to assure us that there will be no dilution of learning across New York State. It is also hoped that the State does not want to grade our teachers more than it wants to ensure that our students are challenged to think more deeply.

Appreciating the Positive

At approximately 3:30 p.m. last Friday, I was heading to a meeting in Tappan Zee High School when I walked by a classroom that was occupied with students.  I checked my watch.  Yes, it was Friday afternoon at 3:30, and the regular school day had ended. Yet, there was clearly instruction going on. 

This did not appear to be an extracurricular club, a fact that was confirmed by Principal Amos who was accompanying me to the meeting.  As we walked down the hall, another group of students was in a classroom with a teacher reviewing a literary passage in preparation for an upcoming exam.  As I continued on my way, I noted other “classes” were in session – over an hour after the school day had ended on a Friday afternoon. 

Teachers working with students after school to provide extra help is not nor should be an uncommon occurrence, but to see  these sessions held late on a Friday afternoon, when most students and staff would like to be on their way to the weekend was unusual.  What was most remarkable about these sessions was not that they were simply meeting, but that the participants – students and teachers – seemed to be engaged in and enjoying the act of learning – the discovery, the exchange of ideas, and the ultimate understanding that follows.

Over the past few years there have been generalized criticisms about the American school system and its students.  As with any American institution – including business – there is always room for improvement, but if this late Friday afternoon encounter at Tappan Zee High School is any indication, there is not only a willingness on the part of students to spend more than the required amount of time allotted for learning but of the teachers who understand that as professionals they are not clock-punchers and that one of the great rewards that comes from their work is the participation in the act of learning.

On Saturday afternoon, I received a call from a community member who wanted me to know that nineteen members of our girls’ lacrosse team were at Rockland Lake at 6:30 in the morning, along with their coach, to take part in an MS Walk. The individual stated, “You know, we have some good kids.”  I concurred and responded that this was not unusual.  I have seen such outstanding and selfless service by students and staff since arriving in South Orangetown.

On occasion I get complaint calls or e-mails about what we – teachers and administrators – are not doing or should be doing.  Periodically, the complainant has a point; but too often, there is either a lack of information or a misinterpretation of events that has led to a faulty assumption.  I may also hear about a problem that a student or group of students has caused.  Sadly, in spite of the fact that there is a lot more positive that is happening with our students and our teachers than the general public might realize, human nature tends to have us focus on the negative.

Last Friday and Saturday provided me with another reminder that we have great kids and dedicated teaching professionals here in South Orangetown.  The exceptions are in the minority.