Transportation, Technology, Education -- Long Term Trends

This post has nothing to do with any decisions for this year or next, except possibly for the Superintendent search where some people might want to ask candidates for their thoughts about long term trends. The bottom line is that this week's news on transportation technology may make a cost-saving merger more feasible but less necessary, in interesting ways.

First, remember (for those who have followed my previous arguments) that I came to oppose the merger when I learned that it would shift costs (from teaching to transportation) without appreciable overall net savings. There were other issues, major issues, but it was at that point that I stopped thinking "unfortunate necessity" and started thinking "nonsense." I did, however, note that transportation costs per mile might go down, e.g. if natural-gas bus transport options improved. And this week I do see a possible future lower-cost option.

The University of Delaware (where I started out teaching computer science in 1980, back when the ARPAnet was a few sites, and international email waited until midnight to be picked up and sent via 1200-baud modem) now reports on "V2G" (Vehicle-to-Grid) electric vehicle technology; Science Daily says Diesel bus alternative: Electric school buses that power grid could save school districts millions

Choosing a V2G-capable electric bus over a diesel bus would save a school district $6,070 per bus seat, or $230,000 per bus over the vehicle's 14-year lifespan. Even with taking out the medical and climate change costs associated with diesel pollution, school districts could still save $5,700 per seat.

"They could save a large amount of money while also shifting away from the consumption of diesel and enhancing school children's health," the authors write in the paper.

There is still a way to go before such V2G-capable school buses become a reality, however. Electric school buses are uncommon, with the first Trans Tech all-electric school bus tested in California earlier this year.

While electric school buses can be cost-competitive without providing V2G services, the V2G technology would produce substantially larger savings for school districts.

That's pretty cool, and it might work -- and if it had worked already as part of the merger plan, I suspect that the numbers would have looked quite different and we'd have merged, despite the problems it would have caused in other directions. However, this week also has a much more in-the-news transportation technology announcement, in the "Official Google Blog" at Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

We’re planning to build about a hundred prototype vehicles, and later this summer, our safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls.

And what will the long-term impact of these be? Until this week, I had mainly thought of driverless cars in the context of urban driving. But now I take seriously TreeHugger's Google unveils its designs for a self-driving car, and it will change our cities and suburbs:

The self-driving car will certainly affect our cities, given that you need far fewer cars when they are shared and they don't need parking, but the real revolution is in the suburbs, which suddenly make a lot more sense. Grandma isn't stuck in the house all day; the kids get driven to school and to soccer practice; mom can work while the car drives to the office. Parking lots and garages disappear as the cars are shared and always on the move....

Tim de Chant says...

Self-driving cars are one of the biggest threats to the future of cities... As people’s commutes are freed up for other tasks, including work, they’ll stretch their daily trips, once again allowing them to live where they want. And as we’ve seen, people want to live where they have more space.

So it may well be that improved transportation will reverse the decline in upstate population.... Or not.

It's hard to predict, especially the future.

NY Merger Study in the News

In April, the Syracuse Post-Standard had an article with an HCS picture at the top, reporting that Report says change in New York law might encourage school mergers:

Syracuse, NY - The movement to merge New York's 700 school districts has virtually stopped since 1996 hamstrung by a process of multiple votes and tax disparities,...
A report by the New York State Association of School Business Officials shows that since 2010, some 30 school districts have studied merging but failed to complete the process for a variety of reasons. ...
The report says the obstacles to school mergers are: fear of change, fear of the loss of local identity, the perception that the merging communities are incompatible, higher costs and property taxes, more time needed to transport students and job security for school employees....
Most recently in Central New York voters in the Hamilton Central School District overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to merge with the Morrisville-Eaton Central School District in a December advisory vote.

The NPR summary of the NYSASBO report was slightly simpler: Study finds New Yorkers don't want school mergers, but of course citing the same "obstacles". The report itself is at 1398091412_NYSASBO School Merger Study April 2014 (1).pdf.

Nowhere, so far as I can see, is it mentioned that the proposed merger plan for the merger which Hamilton voted down was not actually going to save money; the economy of scale offered by getting all the kids into one place (reduced staff) was almost precisely balanced by the diseconomy of scale imposed by getting all the kids into one place (increased transportation). That could change, of course; plans which actually close buildings are more likely to save money anyway, and I've mentioned before that it would be possible, with a little more reduction in the school populations, to close and sell the elementary school building that's inside Morrisville, take those students to the MECS building north of town, and bring the 12th, 11th, ... ? grade MECS students to HCS -- which would let some of them sign up for Colgate classes, too. I'm pretty sure that would save money. (It might be possible even now, but the SES merger-study group didn't think so.)

I'm not sure how live an issue this really is; I suspect that most New York parents are thinking instead about the Common Core Standards. But I'm sure it will come back; the state can balance a budget with high enough taxes, but those taxes have been fueling a vote-with-their-feet anti-tax movement: to Florida, to Texas, or just to neighboring states with lower taxes. So the state will need to save money -- state promises of long-run aid should not be relied upon. It would be wonderful to think that they'll only push for mergers that actually save money, but I have no confidence that this will be the case.

2014-15 Budget Process --- Join In!

As the Budget Calendar mentioned, our January 21 BoE meeting (which will supposedly be on Youtube eventually (see below) was largely about the budget, starting with the NYS proposed aid in the 2014-15 EXECUTIVE BUDGET PROPOSAL which had just come out a couple of hours before. It was not happy reading; Aaron commented that he had expected our Gap Elimination Adjustment to come down fairly substantially which would have led to a relatively straightforward budget process. Instead, it came down by 6%, remaining still above $500K, leaving us with a back-of-the-envelope $250K deficit. It's a big problem for many schools... as North Country Public Radio quoted What does Cuomo's budget mean for schools in the North Country?

"...it seems odd that the governor touts increasing aid to education on the one hand and fails to say that he’s taking it out of the pockets of educators with the other hand"

Of course it's not just the GEA; our insurance costs jumped sharply, more than in quite some time; apparently this is a consequence of Obamacare. (It's a surprise to me; I had thought NY to be one of the very few states where our existing mandates would make the ACA look good, except for the "narrow networks" phenomenon which may provide nasty surprises for New Yorkers who spend time in other states and expect to have non-emergency care while they're away.)

And there are mandates for equipment for simultaneous test-taking, and there's an individual property which was reassessed a couple of years ago from $1.3M to $1.7M and the appeal is almost certainly going to result in a settlement back down to $1.2M with our school on the hook for some excess taxes. Ouch.

The applicable tax cap is Whichever Is Less of 2% and the official CPI which is 1.46%, plus a local growth factor of almost exactly 1%, so income is not rising to match outgo unless we vote to override the tax cap.So...

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Please Come To The 5:30PM Jan 29th High School Library Meeting

Bring Ideas

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Ideas? Of course there is always sharing; the actual merger plan did not save money (long-run) because the diseconomy of scale from added transportation cancelled the economy of scale from cutting staff, but sharing doesn't have to involve large-scale transportation costs. Diana discussed doing more (mainly administrative) sharing among the 4 local schools through BOCES, and we can do more athletic sharing (girls' basketball with Madison). This will not save a lot, but every little bit helps.

Shared Admin can go pretty far, there is such a thing as a Shared Superintendent possibility; it's not obvious that this is applicable to our situation. In general, if we consult the New York State Professional Staffing Ratios" (large PDF) (we're on page 244), we might find that some other small schools do it with reduced staff and maybe we can do what they do...or maybe we can do New Things; telepresence robotics is taking off, after all, and getting lots cheaper than being there.

Smart Schools Equipment for telepresence, for distance learning (below), and to satisfy the mandate Diana mentioned for simultaneous test-taking is not just getting cheaper: it may be covered by the "smart schools allocation" at the bottom of the "BUDGET PROPOSAL", which for HCS is $409,770. It's likely that the "allocation" is intended to encourage long-term shift towards options like the Khan Academy, or simply lessons like our own Youtube channel to be used locally or shared. In the long run that's important, but it's possible that some replacement of people cost with machine cost will actually be feasible even in the fairly short term. (It's also possible that the geek writing this is overly optimistic.)

Natural Gas was discussed; my understanding of Diana's remarks is that it will save each year but that this coming year the savings is roughly cancelled by the installation cost. Ken Bausch points out by email that if if that understanding is correct, then it's a normal capital cost which should be funded by a bond issue, just as we do to amortize bus cost; in fact it's far more obvious in the case of the one-time-only natural gas cost. If indeed that's how it goes, and if the link above was correct in projecting $160,000/year savings, then we're more than halfway home right there. If.

Distance Learning is a current topic for Madison; Ferdinand sends a link to MCS bringing new instruction via distance learning through BOCES and in the long run this may be a major winner, but probably not a big issue for the next few budgets. Well, it might be.

Alumni/Community Fundraising was discussed; Amy Hurta as Treasurer reported that she had learned the day before that the Sports Boosters, like the Emerald Foundation, is in fact a tax-exempt 401(c)3 organization listed with the IRS, "and always has been." Send Money! Andrew Coddington says the Emerald Foundation is always looking for alumni donations and tries to keep an alumni list, so Send Names/Addresses! (And Money!) And there's also HCS alumni site which isn't very active--but links to a facebook page.

Sponsorship Stephanie McClintick (via email) brings up the possibility of local company sponsorship of teams and other activities, which is a common development elsewhere; the Albany Times-Union reported a year ago on Schools look to sponsors to help pay for programs - Times Union

Cuts force districts to find alternative funding

which is certainly a familiar story; from this past fall we can add This student planner brought to you by… | The New York World

New York City middle and high school students will be receiving free planners next school year courtesy of corporate sponsors, under a new city Department of Education plan.

There is an organization to support this kind of thing: Sponsorship and Advertising | School Administrators Association of New York State

The Corporate Sponsorship Program helps SAANYS to achieve its mission of continuing to provide programs and services to the school leaders of New York State - leading to greater opportunities for the students within their care. Participating in the program provides companies with many opportunities to interact with school leaders from all over the state.

Of course, there can be problems, and caution is advised; from Utah we hear High school sponsorship contracts raise concerns, but also benefit programs | Deseret News

In this piece, Amy Donaldson examines the regulatory environment surrounding these deals and how local coaches have gotten into legal trouble with respect to such contracts.

It could happen here.

Foreign Students I've written before about the possibility of tuition-paying international students and about some of the reasons why HCS might appeal to some. Astrid brought this up at the meeting and Diana replied that HCS did indeed go through the "accreditation" process with Homeland Security so we are "SEVIS-certified"; indeed we are on page 108 of last June's official list at DHS and we can accept foreign students with "F" visas, although not "M" visas. See SEVP Certification Basics and maybe Everything you need to know about Foreign Students (F-1) studying in Public Schools

• Secondary school attendance is limited to twelve months.
• F-1 secondary school students are required to pay the school the full cost of education by repaying the school system for the full, unsubsidized, per capita cost of providing the education to him or her.
• F-1 students are prohibited from attending public elementary schools or publicly-funded adult education programs.

And Clinton High School went through this in 2004 but may have dropped it, their website doesn't mention it. The idea went nowhere at HCS, beyond conversations with a company which actually offered to provide students and pay $2,000/year to HCS for their education. Not a good offer, in fact much less than is required by the second requirement above. Is the idea hopeless? I don't think so, not at all. Consider the town of Millinocket, Maine, reported in Millinocket using China program money to keep schools going in 2014 — Bangor Daily News...

Seven Chinese students attended Stearns this year, each paying about $24,000 tuition. ...
Millinocket is among several Maine municipalities hoping to offset shrinking school revenues with Chinese students but had recruiting difficulties. An informal poll of state public high schools’ Chinese student enrollments taken in February showed the most students, 12, at Orono High School. Some private schools had close to 100.

What does Millinocket have that we don't? Connections with Chinese high schools, apparently. Hmm... but we do have potential connections through Colgate faculty/students/admin, including the China Study Group. USA Today reported last July on U.S. summer camps increasingly popular overseas

U.S. summer camps are increasingly popular in countries such as China, where rising middle class can send their children to experience American life -- and possibly set the stage for going to college in the USA

The article featured Colgate rather prominently. At the wrong level for our purposes, but still -- it's worth exploring. Do we have such connections? (Carolyn?) Do we have people, preferably parents of current HCS students, who'd be hosts? (Astrid?) Of course this doesn't have to be China, but China is prominent in the F-1 high-school student visa discussions.

That's all I can think of right now. Diana wanted to emphasize that ideas need to be considered in the context of our layers of regulations, mandates, subsidies... When Ferdinand talked about transportation costs, working with local transport to save some of the $90,000/year we give to BOCES, she replied that transportation is among our highest aid-ratio costs so that much of the money we give BOCES comes back to us, and even if we found a cheaper transportation solution it's likely that the budget cost would be higher. We can't count on specific aid ratios for long-term planning, but for right now, let's talk about the next few years' budgets, with focus on next year.

Update: I didn't mention Activism, or at least Letter-Writing; note that the state's disappointing Budget Proposal is not a Final Budget. There will be a post about this, Reasonably Soon Now.

Update2:The BoE meeting is now a (long) video at ▶ Hamilton CSD BOE Meeting 1.21.14

...apologies, the next one will have better sound.

Below is the order [of] events and the times in which each Agenda Item appears:
0-10min: Items 1.0-3.6, Call to order, Preliminary Action, Consent Agenda (Business Operations)
10-11 min: Item 4, Consent Agenda (Old Business)
11-17 min: Item 5, Community Participation Part 1
17-21 min: Items 6-6.4, New Business
21-35 min: Item 6.5, Budget Sports
35-55 min: Item 7, Information and Correspondence
55-1:41 min: Item 8, Community Participation Part 2.

Hooray for open government!

Update 3 Yes, the sound is terrible. If you have LOTS of energy then

• (a) download the video from youtube, lots of e.g. Firefox extensions for that;
• (b) split off the sound track, probably in iMovie or whatever basic video handler you have;
• (c) download Audacity (free) from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
• (d) follow, e.g. http://www.podtopia.net/gettingstarted/removenoise.shtml

No problem. Well, umm, assuming you have several hours...make it a day, this is a long video and there will probably be synchronization issues when you put it back together so you may have to do it one clip at a time. And the result will not be perfect. No, I'm not gonna try, but I'll post the result if somebody else does.

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.

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.))

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.

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.

Field Trips With Augmented Reality

This post is sort of a placeholder, for a train of thought prompted by reading Roadtrippers Redesigns the Travel Guide for Esoteric Exploration | Wired Design | Wired.com

Discover interesting places and paths through the country on the Roadtrippers app.

Field trips, or travel more generally, have always been an essential part of education, but it has recently gotten easier to see what you're looking at whether it's a rock, a bird, a building... you can look it up online while you're right in front of it. Like many people, I'm willing to sign up for a tour...but I'd be happier to sign up for a virtual tour at my own pace, taking the detours I wanted to take and learning what I wanted to learn, or just going along while one of my kids did so....I'd download a zillion video segments in advance so I could actually hear what the tour guide wanted to say. Wouldn't you? And I'd also like to take more tours by telepresence...
Well, maybe not. I dunno

CAC Done; Do You Feel Lucky?

The "Community Advisory Council" (or are we a Committee? I forget) had its final meeting last night, to look at the documents mentioned in the last couple of posts. My initial summary, as I said in the meeting, is that the "What If" program document suggests a economy-of-scale savings of $717,000 per year, while the "What If" transportation document suggests that in order to get the kids together for their economy of scale, we need to spend $642,000 extra per year on buses. That's a yearly savings of $75,000 out of $27,000,000 for the combined districts. Everything else we're talking about (millions of dollars in benefits) seems to be coming from the state incentives for merger -- incentives which mostly run out after fifteen years, even assuming that they don't stop earlier than promised.

Hmmm... Well, I would like to go a little further than that initial summary.

• The $717K savings looks pretty solid.
• The $642K extra cost is a pretty big gamble.
• I don't entirely trust the state benefits.
• There are also some genuine non-financial benefits to consolidation.
• I don't think they're as important as many think.
• I have another proposal. :-)

The -$717K program proposal strikes me as well-done; this is where our SES Study Group shows off the fact that they really do know what they're doing, putting together something credible and credibly saving a bunch of money at the same time. No criticism from me -- but I understand where some critics were coming from, having hoped that the program could have more in it.

The +$642K transportation proposal is understandable, and as they said they asked the local experts how to manage it and it probably can't be done much better though experience will improve it some. BUT -- As Susan Marafino said in the meeting, that $642K will rise if fuel costs rise: consolidation is a bet that they won't. As I said in response, fuel costs might not rise: natural gas prices have been falling and we are seeing increasing use of natural gas vehicles; on the map you'll see one station in Utica, three around Syracuse, three around Albany, one in Poughkeepsie...prices may fall. Or not. On the other hand, the past fifteen years have seen gas prices quadruple. On transportation cost, it comes down to this: Do you feel lucky?

Increasing transportation is a small gamble in another sense. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says

An average of 24 school-age children die in school transportation-related traffic crashes each year (11 occupants of school transportation vehicles and 13 pedestrians).

That's not many; it's not one of the major risks of childhood, it's not even a major part of the risk of vehicular death in childhood. But it's a bigger risk than random shootings at school unless Sandy Hook is the new normal; if you're worried about school shooters, if you're worried about causes of death in general, you should worry about this a little more.

The transportation plan also involves another cost, which some will think small: as I said in the meeting, we'll have some hundreds of kids spending about an hour each day (two twenty-minute rides and maybe ten minutes waiting for each, morning and afternoon) which they do not now require. Kids from Hamilton will do this for three years, kids from Morrisville will do it for four. That's not a gamble, it's just a little sad. And boring. (But it's better than exciting...gee, I remember hanging on to the bus' door handle going home from my own elementary school, with one foot on the step and a couple more kids on the steps ahead of me...boring has a lot to be said for it.)

The state benefits are the big deal here; they don't just handle impacts like the first year of extra bus usage, they pay off millions of existing debt and provide other benefits. Do they? Well, maybe they do, before they come to an end and leave us, lucky or not. But there is a New York State Budget Crisis Task Force, and they seem to me to be saying that

the money available to the state may suddenly decrease, whether from renewed recession or from financial companies moving their operations to lower-tax regions; their incentives for doing so have risen.
... Aid to K-12 education is by far the biggest portion of state aid ($23 billion) and is the largest item in the state budget.

When you make big plans based on promises of future state aid, you are assuming that the state will be able to keep its promises. The state is in trouble, unprecedented trouble in some ways; that trouble is almost certain to get worse; that trouble might suddenly get much, much worse; K-12 aid is the biggest chunk; New York State K-12 education is more expensive than anybody else's (except Washington, D.C.?). If something's gotta give, it's likely to be us. Do you feel lucky?

Now, there are genuine non-financial advantages to consolidation. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you'll see a little Javascript widget about grade sizes that says

Here's a test of the importance of grade size, which is roughly doubled by a merger of equal schools. Suppose we have a grade of size gradeSize (say, 45) from which we want to select a Latin 4 class of at least 10; it won't be offered without 10....

I suggest that you put in your own guesses about grade sizes for HCS and M-ECS, now and fifteen years from now. Put in your own guesses about the percentages who'd like Latin 4, advanced chemistry, or jazz band. I believe you'll see that consolidation makes it easier to offer advanced courses, when schools require minimum enrollment the way ours do.

I also believe that minimum-enrollment policies will become less common in a world of the Khan Academy and Salman Khan's One World Schoolhouse, so I don't think grade size is as important as I would if I thought minimum-enrollment policy was a necessary part of school. (see footnote.) Still, the benefits of consolidation are, or might be, quite real -- but so are the costs, and consolidation is a gamble that the costs will not be too much higher than the benefits. Do you feel lucky?

I have another proposal. Last night, for the first time, I heard someone say that the M-ECS school could handle many more students; that it had handled many more students. The SES response was that it couldn't do so with the current usage pattern as defined by the Board, which is certainly fair enough. But suppose that this is true. If so, I would propose a different kind of merger, one which is probably politically impossible for excellent reasons, but still worth a thought. Leave every HCS student at HCS; close Andrews Elementary completely (this will save a whole lot of money, really), moving all those students a little ways north; now go to Hamilton with Morrisville's 12th grade, 11th grade, 10th grade...9th? Does it fit? It might...and the advanced classes can go on, even with minimum enrollment policies, and Morrisville students will be able to sign up for Colgate courses, and so on. Nobody loses, everybody wins...or not, depending on what they care about. And "what they care about" is important. Indeed, that's what it's all about...I don't think this will happen. But it's worth a thought.

---

footnote on minimum enrollment policies: My own AP classes were mostly independents; I think I had two classmates in AP English, but my own high school (it was smaller then) wasn't a good candidate for consolidation. In any case, I don't think 10 is a good minimum class size; I think it's bigger than most study groups ought to be, even considering that I think most study groups should probably be virtual -- maybe two students physically present, with webcams and big screens to connect up a virtual table, and a responsible adult who is not a "teacher" present somewhere nearby, while tutors connect mainly online... but that's just one image among many possibilities. School is changing. Prediction is hard, especially of the future. My vision is almost certainly wrong. Consolidation commits you to a single vision. I'm skeptical.

footnote on district comparison: I've tried to collect some district comparison data at this blog's disorganized companion website as well as around here. It seems to me that consolidation commits you to having a single vision; you have to agree with people about what kind of lives your kids are likely to live (and then, of course, you have to support your kids with whatever they decide for themselves, which won't resemble your visions very closely.) That's hard. Of course you might find that you really do agree on priorities. Or not. Do you feel lucky?

March 12 Update on What's Next: As I understand it, the SES Study Team will now finish their write-up as a submission to New York State, which paid for the study and expects a document. Meanwhile, the Hamilton and Morrisville Boards of Education will be talking about it. Then it goes public, as they say here:

Adopting the merger is a three-step process.

• Boards vote to move the process to an advisory referendum or "straw vote."
• The communities hold a straw vote. If this passes, the results are sent to the education commissioner who authorizes a statutory or final referendum.
• The communities hold a final referendum.

(Or then again, maybe not.)

Saving Money

The "Conversable Economist" keeps looking for research supporting low-cost school reform proposals. Lately he's seen Classroom Evaluation of K-12 Teachers

"During the TES [Teacher Evaluation System] evaluation year, teachers are typically observed in the classroom and scored four times: three times by an assigned peer evaluator—high-performing, experienced teachers who are external to the school—and once by the principal or another school administrator. ... dozens of specific skills and practices covering classroom management, instruction, content knowledge, and planning, among other topics.... the evaluators are often pretty tough in grading and commenting on lots of specific skills and practices, but then they still tend to give a high overall grade.... almost everyone was ending up with fairly high overall scores, so the practical effects of this evaluation in terms of pay and jobs was pretty minimal.
Nevertheless, student performance not only went up during the year that the evaluation happened, but student performance stayed higher for teachers who had been evaluated in previous years. "... Imagine two students taught by the same teacher in different years who both begin the year at the fiftieth percentile of math achievement. The student taught after the teacher went through comprehensive TES evaluation would score about 4.5 percentile points higher at the end of the year than the student taught before the teacher went through the evaluation. ..."

It's a substantial change, presumably higher for some teachers (and students) and lower for others. It would be interesting to see how much the effect depended on the administrator evaluation vs. the external evaluator evaluation; what could be done by variations in the rubric, or self-evaluation, or even student evaluation using different rubrics. But mostly I'd be interested in how this would work with classes structured in non-traditional ways, especially flipped classrooms.

Taylor (the Conv. Econ.) links to his earlier low-cost reform research post at Low-Cost Education Reforms: Later Starts, K-8, and Focusing Teachers

three organizational reforms that recent evidence suggests have the potential to increase K–12 student performance at modest costs: (1) Starting school later in the day for middle and high school students; (2) Shifting from a system with separate elementary and middle schools to one with schools that serve students in kindergarten through grade eight; (3) Managing teacher assignments.... We conservatively estimate that the ratio of benefits to costs is 9 to 1 for later school start times and 40 to 1 for middle school reform.

Again, my main concerns would be how this interacts with modified classroom structure -- and with consolidation, which tends to separate the age groups from one another, and by increasing mileage among low-density populations tends to increase the cost of separating transportation.
Or then again, maybe not.