HCS Budget Calendar

Susan suggests that I might want to post a link to the HCS Budget Calendar; I think I'll also post the current content, with the warning that this will of course become progressively more obsolete as time goes by...

HAMILTON CENTRAL SCHOOL

2014-2015 BUDGET CALENDAR

November	12	BOARD OF EDUCATION – REGULAR MEETING – ADOPT 2013-2014 BUDGET CALENDAR (*Tentative – Some dates/times subject to change*)
December	2	Preliminary review with  Superintendent & SBO – Buildings & Grounds
	3	Preliminary review with Superintendent & SBO – Transportation
	4	Preliminary review with Superintendent & SBO – Cafeteria
	5	Preliminary review with Superintendent & SBO – Athletic Director
	10	Board of Education – Regular Meeting - Preliminary Budget Discussion
January	6	Budget review with Superintendent & SBO – Secondary Principal
	7	Budget review with Superintendent & SBO – Elementary Principal
	8	Budget review with Superintendent & SBO – CSE
	9	Budget review with Superintendent & SBO-Director of Technology
	21	Board of Education – Regular Meeting – Prelim. Budget Discussion ***Budget discussion on Athletics***
February	11	Board of Education – Regular Meeting – Preliminary Budget Review ***Budget discussion on the Arts***
	26	Budget Coffee – Discussion on calculation of Maximum Allowable Tax Levy and budget update.
March	1	Petition forms available for Board of Education Candidates – Legal Notice (first of five)
	1	Deadline for Tax Levy Limit to be submitted to NYS Comptroller’s Office
	5	Budget Coffee – Discussion on calculation of Maximum Allowable Tax Levy and budget update.
	13	Board of Education – Budget Workshop – Educational Rationale *Schedule TBD* (4:30 PM - 9:00 PM)
	18	Board of Education – Regular Meeting – Budget Review
	21	Deadline for submission of petition to be placed on ballot (60 days prior to vote, per board policy).
	15	PRELIMINARY BUDGET HEARING – 6:30 PM Review of Budget Draft and Staffing Implications (Possible adoption of 2014-2015 Budget)
April	21	Petitions for Board of Education candidates are due in the District/Main Office by 4:00 PM.
	22	Regular Board of Education Meeting (Possible adoption of 2014-2015 Budget)
	26	Property Tax Report Card – Submit to NYSED and Local Press
May	1	Budget – Send to printer
	8	Mail budget newsletter to district residents – (Budget and attachments available)
	13	PUBLIC BUDGET HEARING – 7:00 PM
	20	REGULAR BOARD MEETING AT 6:30 PM – FOLLOWED BY THE ANNUAL MEETING – BUDGET VOTE AND SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS 12:00 NOON – 8:00 PM.

NOTE:  Dates for Public Notice of Annual Meeting: March 27, April 10, April 24, May 8

Appealing to International Students

I posted on the possibility that appealing to international students could have financial, academic, and cultural benefits for the school (and quite possibly for schools nearby, as one case where we might share benefits as well as costs). I'd like to say a little more about that.

One interesting question: why would students from China want to come to American schools? School quality is compared between different nations by the "PISA" tests, whose 2012 results came out earlier this month; as you can see at Wikipedia's Programme for International Student Assessment, China (specifically Shanghai) is on top, and we're not. As the Washington Post put it at Key PISA test results for U.S. students

Average scores in mathematics literacy ranged from 613 in Shanghai-China to 368 in Peru. The U.S. average score was 481, which was lower than the OECD average of 494. The U.S. average was lower than 29 education systems, higher than 26 education systems, and not measurably different than 9 education systems.

If we're way down on the test-takers list and they're at the top, why would any students want to come here from there? Community members who went to Yong Zhao's lecture here in August, which I mentioned (with a variety of related material) at HamiltonCentralOptions: Rethinking School Motivations, will not be surprised. Indeed, I'd talked about him (and about psychology prof Peter Gray talking about him) in May at HamiltonCentralOptions: The US is Not Really #1 Yet...Fortunately

You might think the Chinese educational leaders would be happy that their kids are scoring so high on these international competitions. But they’re not. ... At the same time that we are continuing to try to be more like them, they are trying—though without much success so far—to be more like us, or like we were before we began trying so hard to be like them. They see that their system is quashing creativity and initiative, with the result that it produces decent bureaucrats and number crunchers, but very few inventors and entrepreneurs.

So take that as context for the Huffington Post's 2011 article on this topic at Public Schools Recruit Tuition-Paying International Students To Boost Revenue

Lei Huang, 16, from Shanghai, is attending Camden Hills high school this year. The school aims to have 10 foreign students next year, from China and Vietnam.

Schools in China, he said, demand long days in the classroom and long nights doing homework, with an emphasis on memorization and testing. In Camden, he appreciates the emphasis on creativity and tapping into students' interests.

Outside of school, he likes being able to drink water out of the tap, the abundance of trees and time to participate on the high school ski team. But he misses buying live fish at seafood markets in China, authentic Chinese food and public transportation so that he's not dependent on others with cars to get around.

So it shouldn't be surprising that this year, Yong Zhao responded to the PISA score release by saying Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Reading the PISA Tea Leaves

While the East Asian systems may enjoy being at the top of international tests, they are not happy at all with the outcomes of their education. They have recognized the damages of their education for a long time and have taken actions to reform their systems. ... It is no exaggeration to say that that the majority of the parents in China would send their children to an American school instead of keeping them in the “best performing” Chinese system, if they had the choice.

I'm not denying the importance of test scores -- other things being equal. Test scores give good data about how well students do on tests, and that tells you a lot about the quality of a significant part of education. However, test-directed education means giving up some even more significant parts of education...and one of the most attractive aspects of attracting Chinese students (and students from other countries that consistently outscore America by virtue of test-directed education) is that it might help us remember that test-directed education is not necessarily good education. The theatre program is also relevant; so are other things. Yes, we should worry about the PISA results with the worst-case interpretation being something like CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST: U.S. Education: "Unthinking, Unilateral Educational Disarmament". Yes, we should also look at demographic factors as in Super-Economy: The amazing truth about PISA scores: USA beats Western Europe, ties with Asia. And yes, we should also consider other points of view like TheMoneyIllusion » Why Swedish schools are better than Finnish schools

South Korean students are the least happy students in the world. Finland’s students are near the bottom, and are the least happy of any Western European country. In contrast, South Korea usually scores at the top of “education rankings” based on test scores, and Finland is often in second place.

It’s interesting to compare Finland with its neighbor Sweden. Based on test scores Sweden has the worst schools in Western Europe, even worse than America’s K-12. Horrible schools. But their students are above average in happiness, far above Finland. What explains that difference?

One reason might be that Sweden has a 100% voucherized school system, so schools have to cater to parents. Now I don’t mean to suggest that schools in Sweden are perfect—Swedes have told me the legacy of the old socialist system hangs on to some extent, and most students still go to state schools. Still, the vouchers are gradually forcing the schools to conform more to customer preferences.

Some might argue that high test scores are needed to produce the sort of highly-skilled workers needed for the modern economy. That’s false, and Sweden proves it. Its workers are more productive than Finnish workers because test scores tell us little about productivity...

(Recent news suggests that some of the private companies providing Sweden's education weren't well-run, financially. That's a factor too.)

And is there a conclusion here? Not really -- except that (1) everything is more complicated, the more you look at it, and (2) there are good reasons why some, perhaps even most, Chinese parents might prefer our school system to theirs, and (3) learning about international students might tell us something about ourselves. Is that surprising?

I was also going to list random attractions, like the walkability of the village and the presence of the hospital, but I think I'll skip that for now.

BoE Note

In case anyone follows this blog who doesn't follow the Superintendent's blog (or the hamilton.nextdoor.com conversations, to which it was also posted), there was a thank-you note from the Board at From the Board of Education

With the merger opportunity off the table, it remains our responsibility, along with the administrators of HCS, to develop the financial plan for the next school year. As always, we'll begin developing that plan with our student's education in the forefront and by aiming high and striving for excellence. The budget process begins after the new year and we welcome participation throughout that process. We hope to see many of you at our budget meetings, and more importantly sharing dialogue.

Dialogue is good.

ther

International Students

No single proposal will solve any district's problems; we're looking for proposals which have helped other districts with low enrollment, both in and out of New York State. One is quite simple: it turns out that students from a variety of nations would like to spend a year or two of high school in the United States. As the New York State School Boards Association (nyssba.org) put it a a couple of years ago, FRN12 Issue Brief: F-1 Visa (pdf)

There exists a serious educational issue for small rural schools in New York State. Currently, many such schools face the prospect of closing due to declining enrollment and insufficient state aid. The resulting impact on their communities would be devastating, given the vital nature of these schools as leading employers, as well as community, cultural and emergency centers. Just as importantly, many of these schools have no viable options for educating their children should their schools close. Geography makes transportation to surrounding districts too burdensome on small children.
One exciting way to keep these essential small schools in operation is to allow international students to spend their secondary education as students at these schools. There is an abundance of international students willing to pay tuition, which avoids any cost to local or state taxpayers. The cultural advantages to New York State students are significant as well...

That was written in support of Schumer's proposed "F-1 Visa" reform bill, which would have made it easier for the students to stay longer, and I believe that bill died in committee; not sure. Even so, the system works well enough to help a great many international students attend quite a few U.S. schools. Let's start in rural South Dakota, Spring 2012: Public schools sell empty classroom seats abroad | Reuters

Superintendent Grant Vander Vorst has an improbable plan to save his little school on the prairie - by turning it into a magnet for wealthy foreign students. This year, 11 students from China, Thailand, Germany and elsewhere account for nearly 20% of high school enrollment, bringing cash and a welcome splash of diversity to an isolated patch of the Great Plains.
Grant-Deuel is not alone. Across the United States, public high schools in struggling small towns are putting their empty classroom seats up for sale.
In Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, and Lake Placid, New York, in Lavaca, Arkansas, and Millinocket, Maine, administrators are aggressively recruiting international students.
They're wooing well-off families in China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia and dozens of other countries, seeking teenagers who speak decent English, have a sense of adventure - and are willing to pay as much as $30,000 for a year in an American public school.
The end goal for foreign students: Admission to a U.S. college.

As the Huffington Post put it in 2011: Public Schools Recruit Tuition-Paying International Students To Boost Revenue

It's a growing trend: Other schools are doing the same in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Virginia and Washington, according to a student recruitment agency in San Francisco.
Next fall, Millinocket Superintendent Ken Smith hopes to have at least 60 Chinese students – each paying $13,000 in tuition and another $11,000 for room and board – at Stearns High School. Stearns at one time had close to 700 high school students, but enrollment has fallen over the years to under 200 this year.
The first-year batch is now being signed up, Smith said, with plans for more international students in the years ahead. Local students will benefit by being exposed to those from abroad, and Chinese students will gain from being immersed in the local culture, he said.
When Smith went on a recruiting trip to the cities of Shanghai, Beijing and Fuzhou last fall, students there had never heard of Maine. But they knew they wanted to come to America to enhance their chances of going to an American college or university.
"They didn't know where Maine was, but they knew where Harvard was," Smith said. "They all want to go to Harvard."

From Education Week last February, we see tiny Newcomb, NY: Education Week: Rural Leader Buoys School With Foreign Students

In its high school grades, the school has about 40 students; 18 are from other countries. That's a significant number, given that the town has only about 200 families.
"We've gotten to the point where we're turning students away," Hults says.
Over the years, Hults has learned the differences between various types of visas, and he says the type of visa the district now requires enables it to receive tuition and accept host-family living expenses.
Newcomb has earned a good reputation among international students, and it sells itself with its location in the heart of a 6-million-acre park and its strong academics, Hults says.
Hults also has established relationships with more than 10 agencies that help find foreign students who want to come to his district.
The district requires students to have a conversational level of English-speaking proficiency to ensure they can succeed. Any lesser ability would negatively affect the classroom experience for local students, Hults says.
"If it weren't benefiting our students, I wouldn't do this program," Hults explains. "It truly does benefit our students. It has opened their eyes. It has given them broad exposure to the world, and for the kids who come here, they remain a part of our community. I think they will forever."

I think it's important to emphasize that kind of thing, rather than just the federal certification requirement and the agencies to "recruit" foreign students and the opportunity for our Superintendent to travel to China or Germany or wherever. International Student Program Adds Zest to School Life | Adirondack Foundation

Each international student pays tuition, which covers the costs of academics, including English-as-a-Second-Language support. Each lives with a local family that has at least one child at Keene Central School. A small stipend from the program fee helps the host family with expenses.
The impact that this program is having on this school of 160 students, K-12, is profound. High school students speak of the value of having a different perspective in the classroom, especially classes like American History and Government. “I wish we had this program sooner,” said one senior.

Actually it might be a very good thing if M-ECS, MCS, and SVCS had such programs too, sharing costs, appealing to different though overlapping groups of international students, and so forth. Mainly, though, it seems to me that Colgate's proximity is likely to make this work out well, not only because of the option of taking a Colgate course or two as a junior or senior, but because some Colgate students studying country X or its language might benefit from interacting with kids from that country, and the benefit might be mutual. I'm imagining a grant application to pay some such students for practical and emotional support...


Or then again, maybe not. But we should be considering it.

Post-Vote Suggestion by Julie Dudrick

On hamilton.nextdoor.com, Julie Dudrick urges:

 "Now that the votes have been counted, it's time for the Hamilton and Morrisville-Eaton communities to come together and work collectively on a solution to solving our districts' budget issues. Almost 1,500 votes were cast yesterday in Hamilton and Morrisville, which demonstrates that a substantial percentage of us care a great deal about education in our community. I hope that every person who cast a vote yesterday will consider contacting Governor Andrew Cuomo today to let him know that we are concerned about the future of education in Hamilton, Morrisville and Eaton. 

Please familiarize yourself with the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA), and if you feel as I do that this is an unjust way for the state to shift its costs to our local school districts, let our elected officials know. This link provides a brief explanation of the GEA, and summarizes how it is hurting school districts like ours: http://www.nyssba.org/clientuploads/nyss...

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Governor Cuomo received 1,500 letters today that let him know that our districts cannot accept additional cuts in education aid, and that they must reduce or eliminate the GEA? If you want your voice to be heard, you may contact the governor through his website: http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/Gover..."

 

Post Merger Vote Thoughts; Mergers, Transport, Money

This morning I see Hamilton voters say no to school merger with Morrisville-Eaton | syracuse.com

The merger proposal went down by an almost 3 to 1 margin with 720 no votes recorded to 249 yes.
Meanwhile, voters in Morrisville-Eaton approved the merger by almost the same margin, 339 yes votes to 163 no votes.
... Hamilton has seen its enrollment drop about 26 percent over the last decade. It now has about 600 students. Over the same time period, Morrisville-Eaton saw its enrollment drop 22 percent to about 750 students.
Even though voters rejected the merger, the districts will still continue to share services and sports teams, she said. Hamilton is also exploring sharing services with other southern Madison County districts such as Stockbridge Valley and Madison, Bowers said.

Looking at that this morning, I notice something odd that didn't occur to me last night: in Morrisville-Eaton there were about two-thirds of a vote per student, whereas in Hamilton there were about two-thirds of a student per vote. I have no idea what this means, but it's interesting. Meanwhile, as our superintendent says, we will go on sharing services and sports -- and we may be able to include other districts in that.

I want to emphasize again that not all of the "anti-merger" people are necessarily opposed to merger with Morrisville-Eaton, or other districts: as Stanley Roe said in the Mid-York Weekly, this "is the wrong merger." I'd better quote him at greater length, not because I think his is the right proposal but because it might be:

The state suggested a rational merger of four districts [including MCS and SVCS]....The numbers and the road map point to Pine Woods as the place for a K-12 school. Merge four districts now and immediately save management costs. Run the schools much as they are now while building a primary and secondary school at Pine Woods. During that period, change the mix of bus sizes to ensure that no student will ride more than 45 minutes. ... ... Transportation is the key.

So he'd put the school a few miles north of us, at
This would have many disadvantages; I would not be delighted to have this four-way merger come to pass. Other merger proposals would also be possible, and I suspect that none of them would be delightful--but they should be considered. It's quite possible that some merger would genuinely save money in the moderately long run, and saving money in the moderately long run is a good thing.

Overall, the way that New York State local public schools spend money is not a local problem, it's a state problem, and it can't be fixed at a local level. But we can think about proposals like this, and at the same time think of other ways to help our community schools, some of which were under discussion before the study of the particular non-money-saving merger (yes, the one we just voted down) began. Meanwhile, the technology underlying our educational system is changing; in the very long run, that's a bigger deal than merger proposals.

Future posts will probably be focused on (a) sharing proposals, (b) merger proposals like Roe's, (c) community-school proposals (PDF) which extend the usage base and therefore the financial base of the school, and (d) techno-stuff ranging from what we're already doing to things that probably won't be working until the very long run, but will dominate then. As I type this on the morning after the vote, I don't know whether my co-bloggers will continue....

No Merger

The merger has been voted down in Hamilton, 720 to 249. There will be no merger. Now we have to work on actual solutions for the long-run problems that the merger wasn't a solution for.

Pro-Merger Guest Post: Coby Merkle

Here's a pro-merger letter in response to the ABCs of HCS; he's actually responding, letter by letter, to the newspaper ad which I don't have online, so beside each letter I've inserted a link to the corresponding letter in the slightly older Google-site version; click on the "*". Coby's really quite eloquent, and I feel sad -- but on the other hand, I hope and expect that he'll do very well in the end, even though I think that his schoolmates will be long-run worse off if the proposed merger goes through. I look at "A" and think "(1) Yes, of course we do. (2) No, not really, but smaller than it would be if distance weren't an issue. (3) Please click through and read the research summary we were citing. (There were others, but we had to cut for length.)" I look at "B" and think "Extremely small? We live in different worlds, which happen to both be in upstate NY." And I go through the rest of the alphabet, and think: There's no rebuttal here, and I hope and expect that Coby will do well in the end, but I feel sad. It's all about people, doing their best. Anyway, here are Coby's responses:

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What was written in the Mid-York Weekly on December 5th was absolutely preposterous. Let me tear it apart for you..... (All letters correlate and are rebuttals to the article listed in the newspaper)

* A- Academic Achievement- Do you have any idea how small our merged school would be? Compared to other schools in this state, and even country, it would be microscopic. How would the academics lead to worse outcomes in a school that is still small in size and number, with the same amount of staffing available?

* B- Buses- Of course Morrisville-Eaton's buses log twice the mileage, our district is fairly bigger and not centered in one town! The extra prices of fuel had been counted into the study as miscellaneous expenditures. Plus, a 75 minute bus run is extremely small. Have you ever checked into VVS's bus times now that the three school districts are merged? (And VVS is doing fine monetarily after the merge)

* C- Comparisons- Our communities are actually very similar, with a few exceptions to the numerical figures you listed which are unimportant to our students education. How would merging two schools of two different assessment levels lead to more problems?

* D- Debt- Hamilton will acquire more debt as a school,however the study calls for a decrease in Hamilton’s taxes. Also, our nation was created by the nation assuming state debts, why can't one school assume two?

* E- Environment- I believe the importance of the education of our students is superior to a small environmental impact that could be reduced in the future due to better technology.

* F- Finances- Financially, 40,000 dollars is quite a savings for a school of our caliber, and we would also be acquiring the money for merging from the state over a fifteen year period.

* G- Go Green!- How exactly would a merger damage a environmentally green aspect on a village? The village of Hamilton, its farmers’ market, new utilities, and village committees would still exist and be unaffected by a school merger. The village of Hamilton can still keep it's green color and spirit, but its school would be a different color, big deal.

* H- Hamilton- Although there are uncertainties to the study,a significant change like school locations as opposed to what the study encourages is very doubtful. Also, Colgate has been feeding you for years now. Anything uncertainties can happen at any time. If we don't merge, and Colgate decides to pull funding from HCS, your school might realize the troubles schools have all over.

* I- Incentive Aid- If suddenly the state decides to renege on its promises and take money back from our incentive aid because of financial crisis, don't you think the two separate schools would be in trouble due to this financial crisis anyways?

* J- Jurisdiction and Local Control- Hamilton is far from losing a say in the schooling of their students; half of them are Hamilton students anyways! Have you ever heard of compromise? We can raise tax rate lightly to preserve programs- win win?

* K- K-12- Synergy can be created, unlike energy. Why couldn't there be a program to increase synergy between the high school, middle school, and elementary schools upon a merger situation?

* L- Life, Quality of- There would still be many sporting events, concerts, shows, and art events at the present HCS school in a merger situation because it would be our high school as portrayed in the study. Also, with only a free hour between sports practice and school ending, there isn't much to do. Walking home or eating would already consume nearly all of the hour given.

* M- Merger- Get used to change, there will be a lot in both of our futures regardless of a merger. If something goes wrong you make it right, a procedure we have taught to children for centuries. If we don't get along, or if there is issues in our school, we will find ways to make them better and resolve them.

* N- Neighbors- If we are good neighbors why can't we be good as a merged school? We already have many sports agreements, and shared service agreements that pretty simply aren't cutting the monetary funds that we are in search for.

* O- Organizing Loca Support for HCS- This isn't even a valid reason to vote no against the merger. It's an advertisement for your social networking page, way to be creative.

* P- Population- If we merge, can't we still be seen as a school with a fine reputation so we can also increase in population. Morrisville also has some fine, if not as large as Hamilton’s, businesses and workplaces in our environment and community.

* Q- Questions- Stating where questions about this situation can be answered is another fine reason to say no; you're gaining many gold stars in creativity.

* R-Real Estate Values- Where are you seeing such disparities between our two districts to the point where real estate values would decrease because our district would be less desirable? Mind me, but I believe the fine kids of Hamilton combined with the fine kids of Morrisville would be more desirable than one or the other.

* S- SES Study Team- These aspects have already been commented on which are other 'letters' in your write up.

* T- Taxes- Like I've already interpreted, it would be fairly rough and very unlikely to not follow the study which took 7 long, hard working meetings to piece together. In this case, Hamilton's tax rate would probably decrease to Morrisville's. What would be the point of raising one to match the other if we are gaining money and saving money anyways?

* U- Uncertainties- Of course there is uncertainty, there is uncertainty in anything. Also, as a member of the study, I was pro high school in Hamilton contradicting the conflict in the study meetings. I also wasn’t the only Morrisvillian contradicting this act. The school board (with combined members) would probably not make dramatic changes due to people like you being on the board as well.

* V- Vote- Another great reason to vote no! The date of the vote!

* W- Walking and Biking to School- Only the middle school, as portrayed in the study, would move to Morrisville, and then the students that continued to high school in Hamilton could again walk to combat your childhood obesity issue. It seems you’re getting very picky and delving very deep to find issues to support your opinion.

* XYZ- ‘X’ Merger, It’s up to You, Zero Gain from Merger- X and Y are another example of your creativity to include valid reasons. And with ‘Z’, as a student I believe that a lot would be gained by a merger between the two districts financially (see F), educationally (see A), and finally socially/culturally (see C,G,H,K,L,N,P) It saddens me that one group can be so close-minded and centered on their action that they would jeopardize the education, sporting opportunities, extracurricular activities, and the interactions between students of two districts. Hamilton and Morrisville already have shared services, sports teams, and link other activities together. Separately, neither have the population to support all of these programs and activities. If the proposed merger is declined, Morrisville-Eaton will be in search of another school for possible consolidation. Therefore, if M-E decides to merge with another school, Hamilton will lose it’s ME/H combined football teams, field hockey teams, wrestling teams, and soccer teams, as well as all other joint services. Would Hamilton benefit in the end by voting ‘NO’ on December 10th? I guess it’s for each individual to decide, but with all of these aspects in mind, I’d assume not.

To whom it may concern, Coby Merkle, Class of 2015 of Morrisville Eaton Central School District, and student member of the ME/Hamilton merger study. Thank you.

Enrollment Projections and Merger Alternatives

Downloaded today, December 8th, from the Cornell Program on Applied Demographics, is our problem (click for enlarged view):

As you can see, our school has been shrinking...but Cornell thinks that our shrinkage has pretty much reached an end, for the next several years. I don't know that they're including our currently most-since-1997 elementary enrollment or the Colgate-funded expansion of the nursery school, but I look at that graph and I think: that's a problem, yes. (At least it's a problem for the kind of school we now have, which I expect to be drastically modified in the next decade or two but not right now.) It's a problem. Are we desperate? No. Will we become desperate? We don't know...the graph doesn't go that far into the future, but we're sort-of-okay for a while. Do we have time to work on alternatives which (unlike the currently proposed merger) would actually save money? Yes.
And of course some of those alternatives would be mergers, possibly with Morrisville-Eaton under different circumstances (as I've proposed before) or possibly not -- or possibly with a couple of other schools at once, as Stanley Roe was reminding us in his letter to the Mid-York Weekly this week. None of those merger proposals would make me bubble over with happiness, but if they saved money, if they saved money in the long run, then I would almost certainly stop fussing with this blog.

same-day update: Carolyn looks more carefully and is confident that the recent expansion data is not included, so the graph should probably be given an uptick. Separately, Ken points out that if you go to the Cornell source and check the Madison and Morrisville-Eaton districts, you find that Madison's predicted to have more stable enrollment than M-E. Indeed, we should keep the whole region in mind for all the plans we consider, and I wasn't. Thanks!

Gap Elimination Adjustment

In yesterday's post I noted parts of Wanda Berry's note on NextDoor; I should also have mentioned a very important point she brings up in that note:

Whether or not the merger goes through, it is time for us to believe in democracy enough to mobilize a citizens’ effort to get the state legislature to get rid of the Gap Elimination Adjustment, which is the real threat, along with our declining school age population.

Indeed, while the proposed merger is all about promised state aid; one irony is that it is also all about previous promises of state aid being broken. More concretely:

• as often discussed, we wouldn't be discussing a merger that doesn't actually save money, if there weren't state incentives offering an average 5.3%-of-budget aid for fourteen years, plus permanent (?) reclassification of Hamilton as part of a "high needs district". But also,
• we wouldn't be discussing a merger at all if it weren't for a fiscal squeeze resulting from the "Gap Elimination Adjustment", a formula by which the state has refrained from paying millions that had been promised.

So what, and why, is this terrible "Gap Elimination Adjustment"? Basically, it's a formula by which the state says "we have a fiscal gap this year, with more outgo than income, and sure, we promised you a certain amount of aid, but here's your school district's share of the pain." And we respond with "OUCH". Here's a Vimeo video explanation:
Gap Elimination Adjustment: An Explanation from Cap Region BOCES on Vimeo.

Wanda and many others are hoping that if we all get together and say "No!" then the state legislators will say "Okay" and the schools won't be short of money any more. I sympathize very strongly, but I think we need to consider the context. What are we actually asking the state legislators to do? They want to please their voters; they already want to restore school funding. If they restore school funding, they must either reduce funding for something else, or else they can raise taxes. (Of course they can probably borrow money now, but that means that at some future time they'll be either reducing funding for something else, or raising taxes. Borrowing money now to fix it later is part of how we got in this mess.) This, of course, brings us to the Report of the State Budget Crisis Task Force (PDF,page 7)

The conclusion of the Task Force is unambiguous. The existing trajectory of state spending, taxation, and administrative practices cannot be sustained. The basic problem is not cyclical. It is structural. The time to act is now.

From their point of view, the elimination of the Gap Elimination Adjustment would be a big step -- in the wrong direction. If they remove the GEA, then the painful decisions to be made get worse -- do we cut our already-underfunded pension plans, do we cut our massive health care payments, do we just let the infrastructure rust? Or -- the most obvious answer -- do we raise taxes? Hmmm... raising taxes sounds very good, doesn't it? Or does it?

Exactly how high are our taxes, comparatively speaking? That's complicated, because it involves income taxes and sales taxes and property taxes; for Alaska it also involves some weird taxes which don't actually get collected from the individual, they're based on oil movement, but apart from that we can sort of say that NY has the highest tax burden outside Washington DC in the state tax-burden chart. That's a statement that needs lots of qualifiers about what you're including and excluding; some are noted at the bottom of the chart. Some charts will put NY as low as #5 in state tax burden, but we can definitely say that a lot of New York residents and New York businesses notice, now and then, that they could be paying a lot less by moving to another state. And what happens then? Sometimes nothing. Some of us pay, and stay to pay again. For others... Income Migration: What Does It Really Mean For States? - Forbes

New Yorkers are subject to some of the highest state tax rates in the country, so it is not surprising that commentators have suggested residents will leave the state in droves. And it appears to be true. As reported by the Tax Foundation, between 2000 and 2010, New York lost $45.6 billion in income to other states. That’s far more than any other state. The next closest is California, which lost $29.4 billion over the same period.
This is a significant amount of income migration. But where did it all go? The answer, not surprisingly, is that much of the income went down south. Florida reportedly had a net gain of $67.3 billion. ...

Or as the NYT put it two years back, At 102%, His Tax Rate Takes the Cake - Common Sense - NYTimes.com

Mr. Ross said he asked his accountant what he could do. “He said, ‘Fire everyone here and move to Florida,’ ” according to Mr. Ross. He employs 10 people in his New York office.

Of course some of the migration goes to neighboring states, which do have lower state taxes; Florida has no income tax at all. But as our taxes rise, it becomes increasingly attractive for high-income Manhattan residents to start thinking: how much of this could I do on the Web, or by teleconference? As the New York Times put it a year ago Midlevel Finance Jobs Leave Wall Street as Firms Cut Costs

New York’s biggest investment houses are shifting jobs out of the area and expanding in cheaper locales in the United States, threatening the vast middle tier of positions that form the backbone of employment on Wall Street.
The shift comes even as banks consider deeper staff cuts here, which could undermine the state and city tax base long term.
“Places like New York or London will remain financial centers, but most of the players are taking a much harder look and asking whether they can move large numbers of jobs...”

When you ask the legislator to raise taxes again, you're not just being generous with your own money. You're asking that legislator to bet the state's fiscal stability on your hope that these people, people whose lives revolve around the way they care about money, will decide that they don't really care about money all that much: they'll stay, and pay again.

They might, or they might not. State aid cuts may go away, but they might expand. They might expand a lot. Ask for state aid, hope for state aid, but don't count on it.

(My inclination is to agitate for mandate relief more than increases in aid. NYS education costs twice as much per pupil per year as the national average. We should work on that.)

Notes on Mid-York and NextDoor

  Yesterday (Thursday December 4) the Mid-York Weekly came out, with an advertisement version of the ABCs of HCS. There were also letters to the editor: our continuing commenter Wanda Berry; Alice & Peter Klepeis; Charlie Naef; Susanne Farrington; Stanley Roe.  In no particular order:

  Charlie, as former mayor, notes (as I have various times on this blog and elsewhere) that it would be possible to vote "yes" now and still vote against the merger later, concluding that "I haven't made up my mind how I would vote next February, but I don't want a determined minority to deny me and others that choice before we see a final proposal." I don't know who is in the minority here, I really just don't know -- but in fact we have seen the final proposal. The final proposal is to merge and have a single Board of Education which will then decide where all the students will go, how much in local taxes they'll ask for from all members of the combined community, and so forth. (We've also seen a "merger plan" which will very likely be followed for the first year or so, which doesn't save money because there doesn't seem to be any way to do that while complying with state mandates.) If there's some detail that Charlie wants to wait for, something which the DoE would provide but only after our December 10th vote, then now is the time to say so. His letter is the first time I've seen anyone suggesting that some such detail might exist, and I have no idea what that detail might be. (I would be happy to put up guest posts from him or from other merger supporters explaining this.)

  Alicia & Peter, like Stanley and like Susanne, are concerned with transportation both in terms of cost and in terms of quality of life. Well, yes -- if Morrisville and Hamilton were in walking distance, we'd have merged. :-) And if transportation were cheaper, so that the merger proposal represented an actual opportunity to save on costs and therefore improve district financial stability and long-run student opportunities, then I personally would still be regretfully supporting the merger, despite the quality-of-life and community damage and loss of real estate value and blah blah blah. But transportation is a big cost, in financial and in human terms, much bigger than I thought at the beginning -- so I'm with them on this.

  And back we go to Wanda, who says that HCS was "too small a social pool" for her daughters, and I sympathize...but I don't think this would help much. My three adult sons seem to have formed life-long friendships at HCS, friendships based on year after year of shared experiences of classes and athletics and music and theatre, experiences linked by walking (e.g., to after-school music lessons), by bikes, by (short) car rides to bring groups together. A week ago, walking back from PriceChopper, I was offered "a ride and an update" which included the information that my daughter-in-law, graduate of a high school in Athens, will soon be visiting his daughter on the west coast; HCS friendships don't just last, they spread. (They did attend one another's weddings, in Greece and in Hamilton.) Would my kids be better off if we'd been merged with Morrisville? Maybe, but I don't think so. As Carolyn Hsu (I think) was noting at ABCs of HCS (A), research indicates that the merged district "would be more likely to segregate internally into cliques." We get enough of that already.

  Wanda also objects to the thought that Hamilton and Morrisville-Eaton voters have made different choices, calling it "exceptionalism". She wants centralization, so that everybody has to make the same choices. Well, sure: people who want to make everybody makes the same choices should generally vote for centralization. I am not that confident that my choices are right for everybody else -- and I'm not that confident that my views will prevail in a more centralized district, where (from the CAC experience) about half the voters would apparently want the high school inside Hamilton and the other half would want it 3.5 miles north of Morrisville and one side has to win and the other side has to lose and in the end it depends on turnout. I don't like win/lose, even when it's me winning and the other guys losing. And I really, really, really don't care that the merged district would include the geographical center of the state. I'm sorry, I just don't care. People who care a lot about that should certainly consider voting for the merger.

  On nextdoor.com, Wanda comments on the Ellen Larson letter that also appeared here, saying "Perhaps our main difference is that I am less frightened of democracy." I was a bit distressed; the two-district system that Ellen supports is exactly as democratic as the one-district system she opposes, so this comes off as a piece of gratuitous nastiness. Ellen is probably opposed to motherhood and apple pie, as well. Well, perhaps it's a typo: perhaps Wanda meant to say "Perhaps our main difference is that I am less frightened of centralization." That would be true. Centralization is good and bad, and it's an issue that pervades almost everything we do. It was the center, so to speak, of one of my first blog posts, years ago. My ideal school system might have no administrators on-site because all those functions can be centralized right out of the building...even some teaching functions can be centralized. But most can't, or at least shouldn't be. If we centralize in the sense of this merger, then the new school board will do its democratic best, but it will no longer be possible for different communities to make different choices...and we won't be saving money, either. So I'm agin it, personally....and Wanda's not. (Would it be better to say Professor Wanda Berry and of course Professor Charles Naef, and similarly refer to my co-bloggers Professor Carolyn Hsu and Professor Heather Roller along with Dr. Ellen Larson on the other side? I don't think so, indeed Carolyn is the only one with relevant qualifications, but then my own PhuD is surely more irrelevant than any of theirs; I've never understood people very well. Let it be noted that many of us, with and without academic credentials, are thinking hard, and each of us has a vote. Hooray for democracy! (No, I'm not being sarcastic. May we collectively do the right thing.))

A Note on "Forced Mergers" and Incentive Aid

Apparently some people in Hamilton have been saying that they think we should go ahead with a merger because, if we don't, the state government will eventually force a merger anyway and the terms might be worse. I believe that this prediction of "forced merger" comes from a confusion, one which I shared back when I started thinking about this almost three years ago. I wrote here that

My Upstate New York village has had a school for quite a while; it may not have a school for much longer. New York has long had a consolidation "incentives" policy, pushing "central schools" like ours (which serves neighboring villages and the rural area around) into mergers into larger, more central, more remote schools. There is an argument that consolidation saves on overall costs...

And if consolidation saves on overall costs, and some of these costs are carried by your state taxes, and New York State is increasingly stretched for money, then surely it makes sense that eventually the state will say "merge, or we stop supporting you at all." Right? That's what economies of scale push you into: it's not that you want to lose your local district's independence, it's just that the economics makes this into the least bad of the available options.
The state has had thousands of school district mergers over the past century, and probably they all had bad effects but they also had economies of scale: it costs less to educate a thousand kids if you put them into one building rather than keep them in fifty one-room schoolhouses. I believed that. Hey, I still believe that. I would bet that nearly (but not quite) all of our thousands of mergers have been net positives.

So it's understandable that the June 3, 2008 Suozzi Commission Report wanted to

11. Give the Commissioner of Education discretionary authority to order consolidation of school districts based on reviews triggered by objective standards, including but not limited to the size of the student population and geography, declining enrollment, limited educational programs, ability to achieve fiscal savings, and high tax burden.... the LGEC report estimated that consolidating school districts in New York State with fewer than 900 students would result in annual savings of $158.5 to $189.2 million.

At the time, that went nowhere; six months later the New York Times reported on tiny downstate school districts in Making Sense of School Consolidation on Long Island

Members of the State Legislature long ago made this calculus for many of the state’s districts, and every year they refuse to touch bills calling for consolidation. So there is a feeling in these parts that the Suozzi commission’s recommendations will gather dust on a shelf.

And it has gathered dust; the currently applicable governor's "Recommendation 6" of the Education Reform Commission Report.pdf does say

Recommendation 6. Promote increased access to educational opportunities by encouraging school district restructuring through consolidation and regional high schools.

but it's a lot more cautious, and more open to other ways of saving money. No forced merger is on the table. Still, it seemed that some way, some how, the dragon of Economy Of Scale would end up eating up the fair maiden and any (Emerald or other) Knights trying to stop it would just have to go spin their windmills. Less money, fewer schools. Right? That's what I sadly thought in 2011.

But then we had the merger study and I spent my time on the CAC and it turned out that in our particular case, the economy of scale (fewer teachers) is neatly balanced by the diseconomy of scale (more bus runs); the difference between them is less than 1% of the combined-district yearly budget. And if fuel cost trends continue, the diseconomy of scale will come to dominate the economy of scale. From an economy of scale perspective, from a total costs perspective, this particular proposed merger is a loser and (so far as I can tell) none of its supporters dispute that. The "ability to achieve fiscal savings" mentioned in the Suozzi recommendation just plain isn't there. Maybe that's true of most of the remaining un-merged small districts: maybe that's why they haven't merged for all these years. Or maybe not, but it's certainly true of us.

Therefore, increasing fiscal pressure on the state means decreasing pressure to merge. Except of course for any remaining districts which really can save money by merging; it's possible that those tiny Long Island districts that the NYT talked about will someday fall into that category. Not us, unless transportation costs go down. For us, the relevant parts would be the other ways of saving money in Recommendation 6 and elsewhere.


Why, then, are we still considering merger at all? Well, because of the state incentive aid involved. Spread over fourteen years we would get $20 million; that's big, isn't it? If the state pays it, it's almost 3/4 of one year's expected budget. So you can think of it as a 5% budget savings for fourteen years, and then it's gone. (Or gone earlier, if the state hits a sufficient crisis before then, as now seems quite plausible.) And there's also the fact that by merging with Morrisville we would become a "high needs district" and get more aid, until we don't because the state's financial troubles force aid cuts, as they have before.

The state's financial troubles, which are very real and might get much worse without much warning, are not a reason to merge or to expect forced merger. Those troubles are a reason not to put ourselves into a position of depending more and more on state finances to fix the problem of New York's super-expensive education...twice as much as the average state, with no obvious educational benefit coming from the rules that generate that extra cost.

Or so it seems to me.



update: Forgot to mention that Ken Bausch did most of the work for this post. All the mistakes are mine, as always. -- tjm

Guest Post on the Merger: Ellen Larson

At the PTO meeting, I offered to put statements about the merger on this blog (pro or con). Here's a statement by Ellen Larson. update: Also published at Radio Free Hamilton.

Get out and Vote
re: Hamilton Central and Morrisville Eaton School District Merger
Tuesday December 10, 2013, 10AM - 8 PM
Hamilton Central Bus Garage (for the Hamilton Community)
ER Andrews Elementary School (for the Morrisville Eaton Coummunity)

To keep it simple, my vote is NO to the merger but the important thing is that both communities get out and make EDUCATED decisions and vote for what is right for you and your community.

Understand what you ARE voting for:
You are voting on whether or not to merge the Morrisville Eaton and Hamilton school districts into one unified district.
That is all you are voting for.
All of the other discussions, benefits, risks, and "road maps" are all just theories.

If both communities vote yes to the merger, there will be another binding vote before this moves on. If both communities vote yes in the binding vote then the next step is to elect a new school board. Part of the binding election would be for the communities to vote on how many members the new school board would include (I believe the options are 5,7, or 9). Election of the new school board would be based simply on what participants get the most votes. There is no way to allocate 1/2 from each community. The estimate is that the new school board would be elected around Feb. 28, 2014 and the students would start in the new merged district September of 2014.

Understand what you are NOT voting for:
You are NOT voting for the plan that was proposed by the SES consultants. That is simply a suggestion. The new school board can do anything.
You are NOT voting to keep elementary schools in their respective communities. That is also a suggestion (and everyone agrees it's a priority right now). Many previously merged districts start with that as a priority but in less than 5 years eventually one or both districts lose their home elementary schools.
You are NOT voting for decreased taxes. The SES consultants did suggest that some of the incentive aid money be put towards decreasing taxes. Again, the new school board gets to decide how to spend that money and there is no guarantee that it will be put towards decreasing taxes. From most of the data I have seen from other districts who have merged in the past, even if there were tax reductions initially, after just a few years taxes were back up and higher than where they started.

So from here on out this is simply my opinion. I ask that you respect that. I am a parent. If I don't fight for what I feel is right or best for my children no one else is going to. I respect that there are many others out there with other opinions. Please respond, comment, discuss, whatever... but I request that we all respect that we have different opinions- not right or wrong just different.
Also, note that money is not mentioned in any of the discussion below. My sincere opinion is that considering this merger a panacea to solve our financial woes is a mistake. I honestly feel that even if we go ahead with this merger, and take this incentive aid money, that in 5-10 years we are going to be right back where we are- trying to creatively solve our financial problems. As a result I am choosing to make my decision and vote about this merger based on what's best for kids, not on the finances. By the way, finances is the only thing the SES merger study looked at... there was nothing in this merger study about outcomes for kids.

What do I see that my kids/district/community have to gain from this merger:
A theoretical increase in opportunities. It appears that the general assumption in education is that more kids means more opportunities. Right now we can't offer class Z because there aren't enough kids who want to take it. If we double the number of students we will now have enough to offer class Z. The same analogy applies to sports. Again, this is theoretical. There is nothing even in the SES proposal that shows any increase in opportunities for the Hamilton school district either academically or extracurricularly. This also assumes that just because there are more kids that more of them are going to want to access class Z.

A theoretical increase in diversity and social opportunities.

What do I see that my kids/district/community have to lose from this merger:
The little school that I love.

You can call this an emotional argument but I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that, especially if it's balanced with the other information. I am very proud of the school that my children attend. I am very invested in the school that my children attend. I spend a lot of time in the school that my children attend. This is a nurturing, personalized, caring environment. When I enter the school the school faculty and staff know who I am, they know which kids belong to me, and I know who they are and if appropriate which kids belong to them. When my child was struggling academically the teacher stopped us in the hall and started the conversation- no email, no phone tag. This is all part of a small school. I will not be able to be a presence in the school in a merged district the way I can be now simply because of geography. That is a loss for my children, for myself, and for the extracurricular programs that I help to support by volunteering my time (boy does that sound conceited but it's true- and not just because of me- if there aren't parent volunteers, a lot of things our school community values cannot happen).

My kids walking to school.
I value my children's ability to walk or bike to school. Because they have been raised in this community, my children walk/bike everywhere. They walk/bike to school- often with a cello or french horn (or both) in tow. If they go to a friends house in the village, they walk/bike (there's no argument, there's no discussion, they just do it). If they go to the public library or a piano lesson or a dance lesson they walk/bike. Often they are walking or biking with a friend. In a world of screens, electronics, and instant gratification I really value this about this community. This also gives them a level of independence and responsibility in a safe setting and provides an age appropriate opportunity for socialization (watching a group of children walk or bike together is a totally different experience than watching a group of children on a bus- often with heads down playing with iPods, phones, or some other form electronic entertainment).

Knowing my kids teachers and them knowing me.
See the above discussion about the little school that I love.

Being able to be a presence in the school.
See the above discussion about the little school that I love.

Opportunities
It is proposed that this merger will increase opportunities including extracurricular activities. I am actually concerned that the kids of Hamilton may lose some extracurricular opportunities. One of the unique things about the Hamilton Central School district is that a large percentage of kids need to participate in many activities otherwise those activities don't happen. This also means that kids that might never have tried out for a play or a team or have thought to join FFA- not only try out but participate. Right now, there are no cuts (plays or music or sports). If the number of kids doubles, the numbers of slots are not going to. I'm all for competition and encouraging kids to work to be their best, but I do think there are settings where this is actually going to limit opportunities in Hamilton, not increase them.

Our sense of community
There are people who have tried to mock this statement, but I feel strongly that there is a lot of truth in this. The school is literally and figuratively in many ways a center of the community. Obviously it's where our children spend a large portion of their time. The sports activities draw in not just the families of the players but the community at large. The school plays and musicals draw in not just the families of the children on stage but the community at large. Several residents of the local nursing home attended the last school musical. It is and has been the meeting place for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts through the years. Joys Dance Studio brought grandparents from around the country to Hamilton Central School to see their children to shine on the stage. I am sure there are many other groups and organizations that consider the school their meeting place and home (I just haven't had a chance to experience them all yet.) It is a meeting place. It is a place to celebrate. It is a place to have a Halloween parade. It is a place to be proud of. It is a place for a community to rally around. I am proud of our school and think we should fight to keep the unique experience and community that we have. I think Hamilton Central School is worth fighting for!


Ellen Larson
Village of Hamilton Resident
Parent of an HCS 4th grader and an HCS 7th grader

Rathskeller PTO Meeting

Well, the PTO meeting in the Colgate Inn Rathskeller took place this evening; several people presented parts of the ABCs of HCS, and then "student presenters" Maddie Lamel-Brown and Zach Coddington presented their Student Merger Survey Results. Note that a clickable (slightly longer) version of the ABCs is available here. The room seemed pretty full; I don't know if any minds were changed.

Presentation by Diana Bowers, Superintendent of HCS, at Colgate University

Diana Bowers, Superintendent of HCS, gave a talk entitled "On the Potential Merger Between HCS and Morrisville-Eaton," held at Colgate University on 11/13.  This summary of the talk and Q&A was written by Heather Roller and edited by Astrid Helfant. If you attended this meeting as well, please post comments or additions.

Dr. Bowers used her same power point slides as in last week's PTO meeting. Of note was that Dr. Bowers brought up several points of contention from that community meeting, without any prodding from yesterday's Colgate University audience. 

For example: Dr. Bowers volunteered that sometimes state incentive money (used to promote mergers) came with increased GEA (Gap Elimination Adjustment - whereby the state takes back school aid in order to balance the state budget). What this means is that the state might give money with one hand while taking it away with the other.  She provided the example of a recent merger between the Canisteo and Greenwood Central School Districts in Steuben County, New York, in which the state gave incentive money but then required a higher GEA.

Also, Dr. Bowers acknowledged that the location of the high school was the major bone of contention during the Community Advisory Committee meetings between Hamilton and Morrisville. And although she continued to stress that the short timeline for the newly merged board would mean that they would surely stick to the recommended school configurations (the "high school will be here"), Dr. Bowers did say that it might only be kept that way for the first year or so.  Several members of the audience hammered this point home -- that it would be up to the new board, yet to be elected, with a possible Morrisville majority.  One person said he was doubtful that future boards (a few years down the line) would preserve the vision of the original districts; they might only look for short-term gains, and someone would have to lose out:  "If we were the bigger district, this would be a much more optimistic moment."  Dr. Bowers then acknowledged that elementary schools in Earlville and Oriskany Falls have closed, despite original plans to keep them open.  (For a review of recent merger outcomes in the state, see https://sites.google.com/site/hamiltoncentraloptions/home/school-mergers-in-ny-state)

The issue of transportation came up mostly in the Q&A.  One person put it this way: we would be transferring our money from one pot (teachers/staff) to another pot (transportation), and that is something she does not support -- longer times on buses, more pollution, etc.

The issue of teacher layoffs also came up.  Dr. Bowers indicated that the SES Study Team's suggestions for reducing staff would not be the ones she would follow, if she were superintendent. There was a lot of talk about what she would do if she became the superintendent of the new district. It was pointed out that this was uncertain. Dr. Bowers tried to be reassuring by stating that the current superintendent at MECS shares a similar philosophy when it comes to which teacher positions should be cut and which programs should be expanded once districts are merged.  She noted that the three men who conducted the SES study would not be applying for the new superintendent position of the merged school district! As evident from their report, these retired superintendents acted like businessmen, not like educators with the best in mind for our students.

Another issue had to do with the data on the slides, which mainly covered the bleak years of 2006-2010.  A good question was raised as to whether we are "riding out a cycle here," and whether things are going to improve (or already have improved, but we just don't have the data yet).

Dr. Bowers mentioned past conversations with Colgate administrators (Joanne Borfitz, David Hale, Jeff Herbst) about how Colgate could help support the school district. One way in which Colgate has been able to support is through the additional $300,000 (on top of its yearly contribution of $200,000), which is being used to pay off debt. This amount was strategic in the sense that once Colgate completes its 3-year commitment to this extra amount, this debt will have been paid off and HCS won't necessarily notice the subsequent reduction in Colgate's support back down to $200,000 per year. 

In general, however, Dr. Bowers seemed pessimistic about audience proposals for more local partnerships in lieu of the merger as "we've been doing out-of-the-box thinking for the past 5 years."  One such proposal was for HCS to offer fewer than its current 9 AP classes as students could simply take these at Colgate. Dr. Bowers countered this with the fact that the school had changed its schedule a few years back so as to enable high school students to take more Colgate classes. However, she had received feedback from HCS students who said that they prefer to take such advanced classes in house. Astrid Helfant argued in favor of maintaining AP classes at the high school, as the students get an incredible amount of guidance from their teacher due to the daily classes and lab sessions every other day (in the case of AP science classes) as opposed to the 14-week semester at Colgate during which classes meet 2-3 times per week with a once per week lab session for science.

Another audience member noted the "nightmare scenario" of not getting the promised incentive money and having lost control over school:  "It's so surprising that you would be doing this on the grounds of state promises," he said, that you acknowledge have been broken in the past.  Dr. Bowers' response, in a nutshell, was that she does not want us to blame her later for not at least considering the merger option, despite these reasonable concerns.  And if we vote the merger down on Dec. 10th, we should still engage in a conversation about how to deal with HCS's very real financial constraints.

Related to this was the issue of dependence on state aid.  Dr. Bowers acknowledged that we would be far more dependent on state aid as a merged district.  She thought that HCS debt was "about the same" as Morrisville's; several audience members tried to set the record straight on this, but we didn't come up with the actual numbers (that Morrisville has about 70% more school debt than we do) until she had moved on to other topics.

More (Most) Students Against the Merger

In a more representative sample than that reported in October's Students Against the Merger, we have an actual poll of HCS Students Weigh in on Merger and Say 'No'

A poll of 234 students in sixth through 12th grades taken by the Student Council last week found that:

• 76.1 percent of all students oppose the proposed merger
• 14.5 percent are in favor of it
• 9.4 percent are undecided.

Comparing HCS and M-E Academic Performance

November 2, 2013

According to research, mergers work best when the two school districts are very similar (and geographically very close together). Mergers between dissimilar districts lead to tensions and conflict. Although Hamilton and Morrisville-Eaton are good neighbors and similar in some ways, we are also quite different in others. For example property values and voting records. Hamilton's property values are over 40% higher than Morrisville-Eaton's.  Our response to cuts in state spending has also been different: Hamilton has voted to raise our tax rate to retain programs, while Morrisville has not.

In terms of academics, Hamilton consistently outscores Morrisville-Eaton. First, the data, and then a discussion of what we should do about it:

NY State Assessment Test Results, ELA/Math 2013

Tables:

ELA = English Language Arts		Level 1: Students performing at this level are well below proficient in standards for their grade.	Level 2: Students performing at this level are below proficient in standards for their grade.	Level 3: Students performing at this level are proficient in standards for their grade.	Level 4: Students performing at this level excel above the standards for their grade.		Level 3+4: Students who are performing at or above the standards for their grade
Morrisville-Eaton
Group	#Tested	%Level 1	%Level 2	%Level 3	%Level 4	Mean Scale Score	% Passed=L3+L4
Grade 3 ELA	50	52	40	8	0	276	8
Grade 3 Math	51	56.9	25.5	15.7	2	274	17.7
Grade 4 ELA	60	36.7	45	16.7	1.7	290	18.4
Grade 4 Math	60	40	40	16.7	3.3	287	20
Grade 5 ELA	51	45.1	33.3	13.7	7.8	290	21.5
Grade 5 Math	51	54.9	27.5	17.6	0	287	17.6
Grade 6 ELA	54	29.6	48.1	11.1	11.1	296	22.2
Grade 6 Math	56	51.8	33.9	8.9	5.4	277	14.3
Grade 7 ELA	54	29.6	46.3	16.7	7.4	299	24.1
Grade 7 Math	54	44.4	38.9	16.7	0	289	16.7
Grade 8 ELA	53	34	30.2	28.3	7.5	298	35.8
Grade 8 Math	52	32.7	46.2	21.2	0	296	21.2

Hamilton Central School
Group	#Tested	%Level 1	%Level 2	%Level 3	%Level 4	Mean Scale Score	% Passed=L3+L4
Grade 3 ELA	51	27.5	39.2	27.5	5.9	309	33.4
Grade 3 Math	51	25.5	29.4	35.3	9.8	308	45.1
Grade 4 ELA	46	23.9	41.3	28.3	6.5	302	34.8
Grade 4 Math	46	32.6	41.3	17.4	8.7	293	26.1
Grade 5 ELA	37	35.1	40.5	13.5	10.8	300	24.3
Grade 5 Math	37	29.7	37.8	21.6	10.8	303	32.4
Grade 6 ELA	40	15	47.5	12.5	25	311	37.5
Grade 6 Math	40	25	27.5	15	32.5	315	47.5
Grade 7 ELA	31	9.7	19.4	35.5	35.5	329	71
Grade 7 Math	31	16.1	29	38.7	16.1	320	54.8
Grade 8 ELA	41	26.8	26.8	24.4	22	311	46.4
Grade 8 Math	41	29.3	41.5	24.4	4.9	297	29.3

Data source: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math/2013/2013ELAandMathemaitcsDistrictandBuildingAggregatesMedia.pdf

NOTE: in 2013, the NYS Assessment test was revised to fit the Common Core standards. As a result, statewide scores dropped significantly compared to previous years. The statewide average for passing (Level 3=Level 4) was 31%.

HCS has also outscored on the SAT:

School	Class of:	# of Test Takers	Reading	Math	Writing
HCS	2009	34	519	518	520
M-E	2009	27	468	486	457
HCS	2010	31	512	526	520
M-E	2010	35	501	487	462
HCS	2011	44	522	510	502
M-E	2011	35	499	505	497
HCS	2012	41	549	538	530
M-E	2012	40	469	470	442
HCS	2013	31	533	550	541
M-E	2013	35	470	430	450

Data: HSC School Board report average SAT scores in 2013.)  

One reaction to this information is to conclude that HCS should merge with M-E because this will help M-E students perform as well as HCS students. I have thought a lot about this, and I have concluded that there are some problems with this view.  

First, it is condescending and snooty, assuming that wonderful Hamiltonians would be the savior for those "poor" M-E kids.  

Second, what evidence do we have that a merger would improve academic outcomes for M-E? In order to fix a problem, you need to know that source of that problem and have good reasons to believe that the solution you choose addresses that source. 

According to Diana Bowers, the gap in academic outcomes is due to assessments and reforms conducted at HCS. She says that if you look at the test scores from 10 years ago, HCS was not doing this well. But they ran an assessment to figure out what the problems were, and changed their teaching practices accordingly. M-E hasn't done that, but they plan to do so soon. My impression of Diana's comments is that she expects them to improve just like HCS did, without a merger.
 
We also know the following:

• Research shows that disadvantaged and/or disadvantaged students populations perform better in smaller schools than in larger ones (see Leithwood & Jantzi’s 2007 article, Review of Empirical Evidence About School Size Effects.) High performing students do well in either kind of school.  
• In a merged school district, students from both M-E and Hamilton would be spending more time on the bus. That will not help their academics.
• Mergers are disruptive, and the transition period would be unsettling. That would also be distracting from academics. (If the merger does pass, I would hope that members of both communities would put in our best effort to make it as smooth as possible regardless of how they voted. But some disruption and distraction is just unavoidable.)
• The merger is not likely to yield more resources for academics. A merged district will have just as many buildings to heat and run, plus more bus runs to fuel. A merged district will have to have single tax rate. I can't imagine that Morrisville can easily raise their rate to match Hamilton's, but if we lower our tax rate to match theirs, that's less money for the school. (If the merger fails, both communities will still need to figure out how to address financial shortfalls for their schools. I hope that everyone would pitch in energetically to help with this, regardless of how they voted.)