Superintendent's Slide-Show on Merger-Related Issues

The Superintendent's blog presents More Information About the Scheduled Merger Meetings, Survey Results, and Tours at the Morrisville-Eaton and Hamilton School Districts. - Dr. Bowers - SuperintendentHamilton CSD

the power point that will be presented at the upcoming Merger Study Information Meetings

(If the slide-show at the bottom seems small, your browser probably has a "View/Zoom" menu option.)

Some of the terms will be unfamiliar to some readers; there are lists of acronyms at NYSED: State Aid Glossary but if you want to know what "High Cost Aid" actually is, look at the New York State Educational Terms Guide (pdf)

High Cost Aid – Aid available for resident students with disabilities served in a DSE approved public school or BOCES, for whom the annual cost exceeds three times the district’s Approved Operating Expense per TAPU for Expense (without limits).

Of course, then you may want to look up several other terms, or you may just say "oh, special needs kids, for whom we have a substantially expanded program over the past several years. Okay." Some terms you may want to Google for, like the GEA or Gap Elimination Adjustment

Those might now be the three dirtiest words in New York's public schools.

We see again that state aid expectations really can't be relied upon. (Some of us aren't even blaming the state for cutting aid; we're just sceptical of plans which depend on future aid not being cut.)

And each slide deserves thought... "Wealth of the Community" rising from $220M to $350M in the 2004-2010 period is of course partly inflation, but less than half, and you can think of that curve as a faded upstate echo of the housing bubble, but it's real enough, and the student decline was real enough too. Will either trend continue? We have more elementary students than at any time since 1997, and elementary students become high school students; Colgate just invested heavily in expanding the nursery school to meet expanded demand, and those are future elementary students. That suggests that the situation is much less urgent than the 2004-2010 trend suggested, but we really don't know what the trends of 2013-2065 will be, or even 2013-2026 for current students.

Note the penultimate "If We Don't Merge" slide, in particular "Increase political pressure to: return of the GEA, modify unfunded mandates." The basic problem is that New York State education, including our own, costs about twice as much as the national average without being obviously better, and many of the costs are imposed by Albany as items to be paid for by local taxes. "Return of the GEA" means paying for those with state taxes; "modify unfunded mandates" could mean funding them, or could mean removing them. Every one of them has defenders, with arguments as to why this cost isn't the one to cut.

No easy answers....

Drahos Presentation, Previous Merger Files

From the Morrisville point of view, an excellent presentation by Superintendent Drahos at Impending Financial Challenges facing M-ECS - Is a merger in our district's best interest?

Fiscal Realities dictate “tough decisions!”

Yes indeed. (He does not discuss the uncertainty of future state aid, although he does document the way that previous planned state aid was cut. Also, his slides seem to assume that the proposed merger plan would be implemented unchanged; we think both of these uncertainties should be factored in to the decision.)
At the same time, Ken Bausch has provided some historical data as a Previous Merger Outcome Articles, Feb 2011 file added to his School Mergers in NY State - Hamilton Central Options page.

Timeline for Votes &c

A new page on the Google site: Centralization Schedule (Hamilton Central Options)

If the merger goes through, here is the schedule for it, downloaded from the Superintendent's blog...

Many people may want to refer to that schedule more than once; it's easier as an HTML file at "https://sites.google.com/site/hamiltoncentraloptions/home/centralization-schedule" than as a doc file to download.
At least for some of us.

Students Against the Merger

Radio Free Hamilton presents news on the proposed Merger: Students Present Petition Opposing It

Two HCS girls -- fifth grader Ava Robertson and sixth grader Molly Stahl -- last week presented the Board of Education with a petition bearing the signatures of 56 of their classmates. The kids added their names to the list of people opposed to the two districts becoming one.
Here's why:

• Class size
• Transportation
• Familiarity of schools.

Note, by the way, that in a merged school (if it did merge according to the plan) this collaboration probably wouldn't happen -- it would certainly be harder. That's because the sixth grader would be physically going each day to a different school, and spending a chunk of her non-school time on the bus between. One advantage HCS has always had is the chance for older and younger kids to interact, and to develop habits of interaction that last through childhood. The proposed merger plan wouldn't destroy all of this, but would certainly hinder it.
Long-term readers may remember that I've suggested a possible later "merger" plan, if enrolment declines far enough: a plan in which Andrews Elementary would be closed and sold, Morrisville & Eaton elementary and middle students would go a few miles north to the current main building, but at least their last few grades would come to Hamilton, possibly the whole high school. That would leave Hamilton's inter-grade interactions intact; Morrisville already gave them up.
Or then again, that might not work either.

HCS Board of Education Flyer

The Hamilton Central School Board of Education had a meeting last night, and distributed a flyer briefly explaining the issues; it's public information, so I've shared a scan of that flyer on Google Docs (thanks, Amy!). It's pretty good. I would like to make a few points:

• they start out by noting that our current troubles come from an (unplanned) 21% decline in state aid, which is of course a fact, and
they list $20.29 million in future state aid as if it were a fact; it's not. It's a plan, dependent on the sustainability of New York's budget.
• Their "pro" point 1 is "Save money through economies of scale"; this only works if the plan's increased transportation costs, especially fuel, don't continue to rise.
• Point 2: "Improve the ... educational choices" might work if the economies of scale work, or the $20.29M is delivered as planned.
• Point 3: "Receive additional state aid" has the same problem.

And so on.

There are also secondary issues not raised; it's reasonably certain that Hamilton real estate values will go downwards. It's absolutely certain that the debt load to which Hamilton property owners are vulnerable will increase, since Morrisville's debt load is much higher; all such debts are subject to the usual form

The Notes will be valid and legally binding general obligations of the School District, all the taxable real property within which will be subject to the levy of ad valorem taxes to pay the Notes and interest thereon, without limitation as to rate or amount.

Of course, if the state budget turns out to be sustainable indefinitely (i.e., continues to support increased state aid rates even long after the 14-year merger period), that may not matter. It's a gamble.

Finland, India, Mexico

Wired Magazine reports on How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses

he had happened on an emerging educational philosophy, one that applies the logic of the digital age to the classroom. That logic is inexorable: Access to a world of infinite information has changed how we communicate, process information, and think. Decentralized systems have proven to be more productive and agile than rigid, top-down ones. Innovation, creativity, and independent thinking are increasingly crucial to the global economy.

And yet the dominant model of public education is still fundamentally rooted in the industrial revolution that spawned it, when workplaces valued punctuality, regularity, attention, and silence above all else. (In 1899, William T. Harris, the US commissioner of education, celebrated the fact that US schools had developed the “appearance of a machine,” one that teaches the student “to behave in an orderly manner, to stay in his own place, and not get in the way of others.”) We don’t openly profess those values nowadays, but our educational system—which routinely tests kids on their ability to recall information and demonstrate mastery of a narrow set of skills—doubles down on the view that students are material to be processed, programmed, and quality-tested. School administrators prepare curriculum standards and “pacing guides” that tell teachers what to teach each day. ... ... ...

“In 1970 the top three skills required by the Fortune 500 were the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 1999 the top three skills in demand were teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. We need schools that are developing these skills.”... ... ...

Some school systems have begun to adapt to this new philosophy—with outsize results. In the 1990s, Finland pared the country’s elementary math curriculum from about 25 pages to four, reduced the school day by an hour, and focused on independence and active learning. By 2003, Finnish students had climbed from the lower rungs of international performance rankings to first place among developed nations.

The moral drawn here is something like this: Even when the technology isn't working, as in the Mexican school most discussed here, and even when the final test is standardized, students excel with self-actuated group work where the teacher starts things going and gets out of the way except to serve as a consultant. And the additional note I'd make is simply that this is not a model wherein class size plays any fundamental role. Group size, probably yes, but that's not the same thing.

Flipped Classrooms and Class Size

The flipped classroom (Amazon link to cited book) doesn't depend on the Khan Academy. I note a New York Times op-ed on Turning Education Upside Down

Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a “flipped school” — one where students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at lunch in the school’s tech lab. In class, they do projects, exercises or lab experiments in small groups while the teacher circulates....
Like everything disruptive, online education is highly controversial. But the flipped classroom is a strategy that nearly everyone agrees on. ... many people are holding it up as a potential model of how to use technology to humanize the classroom.

It is a strategy to maximize human contact by teachers. Interestingly, once we learn to use it effectively, there is really no such thing as "class size". Teachers spend their time interacting with small groups and individuals, no matter whether there are 20 students per grade or 2000.

Comments Please

The home page of the companion web site has been modified as we enter the stage of pre-voting discussions.

  We've also added an open letter on the "other" side, a Wanda Warren Berry Pro-Merger Letter. We have every sympathy for the sentiments and values of her letter -- mergers can have great benefits in many cases, as well as costs. It just doesn't seem to us, for the reasons already listed on the home page, that this particular merger has benefits which exceed its costs.

   Comments from all sides are very welcome, and should be made as comments to this post. Please try to be courteous -- there's no reason to think that anyone is doing other than their best.

On Centralization

Larry Cuban's teacher blog, which often discusses historical trends in teaching, notes the context of the Common Core at Competing Traditions of Teaching: An Old Story Written Anew | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Since the early 1990s, however, states have embraced standards-based reforms, accountability measures, and mandated testing peaking with No Child Left Behind in 2001. How, then, in the past two accountability-driven decades have most teachers organized instruction, grouped students, and taught lessons?

For those who listen to teachers, the answer is self-evident. Classroom stories and teacher surveys have reported again and again that more lesson time is spent preparing students for high-stakes tests. And what is taught has narrowed to what appears on tests.

Such stories and surveys describe classroom instruction, particularly in largely poor and minority schools, as more teacher-centered, focused on meeting prescribed state standards and raising test scores. Teachers have felt pressured to drop student-centered activities such as small group work, discussions, learning centers, and writing portfolios because such activities take away precious classroom time from standards-based curriculum and test preparation.

I think this is in line with Yong Zhao's discussion; centralization (and the high-stakes testing which holds it together) tends to conflict with letting students develop as self-directed learners/citizens.

Or then again, maybe not.

CAC members to BOE

 A group (a majority, I suppose) of the CAC sent the following letter to the Board of Education last month:

---

September 13, 2013

Dear Hamilton Board of Education,

We, the undersigned members of the Hamilton Community Advisory Committee, after careful consideration of the data that was compiled by SES consultants during the merger study, conclude that merging the two school districts is not a good option for our district. We ask you to act decisively so that our two districts can continue to pursue alternatives in a cooperative, collegial manner. Our reasons for this recommendation are highlighted as follows:

Relationship between the HCS and MECS Districts

We are concerned that if the process continues to a straw vote, this will further polarize the two districts which have been working together, and will need to continue in the future, on shared services and creative solutions.

Transportation

We remain concerned about transportation. By merging, we would be increasing a fixed cost for both districts that could never be reduced. Most likely, the cost of busing students will only increase, and the new school board would have no options for reducing the cost of a transportation system that would be much larger than it currently is for two separate districts. Transportation in a huge geographic district also presents significant issues for students and parents related to increased time on buses; impact on extracurricular participation; changes in school starting times; demands on bus drivers with additional runs; and safety concerns with increased busing, as well as with high school student drivers. The modest proposed increase in curriculum doesn’t sufficiently enhance the student experience enough to offset this added time en route to and from school.

When each community sends its kids off on buses, the least efficient aspect of public education gets amplified. But perhaps the human aspect is more disappointing, for time spent getting from point A to point B is time away from classroom learning and family, and more dollars spent on transportation means that those dollars are not available for educational programs.

Financial Reality

The difference in savings presented between staffing cuts and increased transportation costs is minimal. Even if the actual savings can be considered larger due to shifting the burden to state reimbursements, this is still a taxpayer expense and not a real savings.

In addition, the financial picture presented in the report may be very dissimilar to the actual merged district’s reality. Once a new school board is in place, that board would make decisions on building configurations (including the location of the high school), budget, staffing, class size, etc. Therefore, we feel it is important that the community understands that this report is only one possible scenario for the way a new school district would look.

Research on Student Success

We continue to be concerned that the community should be informed about current research that demonstrates that students have very little, if anything, to gain from being a part of a merged district. Research also shows that students in low-income communities benefit academically from smaller schools.

We, along with others who have provided time and effort in this process, really want to foster what is best for our kids.  At this point, we see a merger as a somewhat outdated fix that may no longer fit, especially not the needs of our two disparate communities.  And there is research that lends credence to this view.  The National Education Policy Center was established in 2010 and works out of the University of Colorado, Boulder.  A study done in 2011under the auspices of the NEPC entitled “Consolidation of Schools and Districts: What the Research Says and What It Means,” presents some well researched findings:

Research on the effects of contemporary consolidation suggests that new consolidation is likely to result in neither greater efficiency nor better instructional outcomes--especially when it results from state policy that implements large-scale forced consolidation.  The window of opportunity for useful state-level efficiencies seems to have closed because the desired systemic benefits were substantially realized in earlier consolidations pushes.  The consolidation strategy seems to have reached the point at which markedly diminished returns should be anticipated.  (nepc.colorado.edu/files/PB-Consol-Howley-Johnson-Petrie.pdf)

It is our hope that the board will decide not to bring this to a straw vote, and instead will engage the Hamilton and Morrisville communities in a continued discussion of how to structure their respective schools so they can continue to provide a high quality education for students within the current financial situation.

Respectfully submitted,

Mason Amann

Sandra Carter

Julie Dudrick

Linda Little

Susan Marafino

Tom Myers

Dominick Pangallo

Steve Tuttle