Thursday, June 25, 2009

Are We Short-Changing Our High School Students?

In today’s issue of Newsday, on page A37, there is a very useful opinion piece by Philip Cicero, the retired former Superintendent of the Lynbrook School District.

Mr. Cicero points out several examples demonstrating that school districts on Long Island, in general, are failing to properly prepare high school students for their post-secondary academic careers, or for their direct entry into the modern workplace.

I have heard anecdotal evidence, gathered from past graduates of John Glenn High School, of deficiencies in preparation with particular focus upon skills in English composition and research.

Additionally, I have witnessed in my own daughter, who has just completed, very successfully, her four year course of study at a fine college at which, we discovered, she was not properly prepared for the rigors of college and struggled in her first year, and then got better and better with each passing year.

Inspiration should come much earlier than that.

Writing skills should be developed in high school (if not earlier), and merely enhanced during the college experience.

And, beyond the comprehension and composition deficiencies already noted, as a former global finance specialist and a retired military intelligence specialist, I have noted among today’s youth – and this is well beyond a Long Island phenomenon – a deplorable lack of even awareness, much less understanding, of geopolitical issues and cross-cultural factors which impact world commerce, as well as global security strategies.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much willingness among many in the local academic community to attempt, seriously, to improve on these areas of weakness. For my own part, I have tried – twice – to foster understanding and inspire corrective actions. Platitudes about contentions along the lines of “we’re effectively doing that now” just don’t ring true, either on the basis of close observation or analysis of what lay behind such contentions.

It seems more like the old, tired, and dangerous phenomenon of the “good enough” philosophy that seems to encumber much of the K through 12 academic community, these days.

Mr. Cicero provides a helpful basis for deeper, and hopefully more candid, discussion of shortcomings in high schools on Long Island, and some ideas of his own regarding possible ways to improve that.

His page A37 piece is titled “Basic competency just isn’t enough,” and you can also access this piece on the Newsday website, where it has been retitled “High school diplomas don't predict the success they should.”

Monday, June 15, 2009

Newsday Has Useful Opinion Piece on Teacher Compensation

Not long ago, I suggested that residents read a certain newspaper article in which the dynamics of the article was based upon a study done by a conservative think tank. I took note of the fact that I did not agree with the entire article, but that it did contain some helpful analyses, and, more importantly, it contained some statements of fact that were beyond question.

In similar fashion, I would suggest reading an opinion piece published in the June 14th edition of Sunday Newsday, on page A42, done by Stephen Bongiovi, a retired English teacher. The opinion piece is titled “Teachers do matter,” to which title every rational person would undoubtedly say “Wow! What a revelation.”

But, let's assume that the title was selected by Newsday, and not by Mr. Bongiovi, and focus upon what he has said.

Like many who focus only upon costs to the exclusion of benefits, Mr. Bongiovi takes his positions to the other extreme and uses examples of wonderful teaching moments that he encountered as a student, and later as a teacher, to suggest that people should be prepared to spend whatever they are now spending, if not relatively more, to achieve the best teaching results for their children.

It seems an equivalent extremist view to that of the conservative think tank which is designed to eliminate consequential dialogue, rather than encourage a full and candid discussion and analysis of what could be done better in order to fairly compensate teachers, while preserving the fiscal health and integrity of school districts across New York State.

Think carefully about this paragraph written by Mr. Bongiovi:

“This must be what Long Islanders want. Whatever raises, benefits and pension plans teachers receive have been negotiated and agreed upon with boards of education comprised entirely of elected representatives of the citizens of the community in which they teach.”

Are the words factually correct?

Yes.

Are they misleading?

Oh, yes indeed.

You see, there are several flaws in logic, as well as unstated truths, in Mr. Bongiovi's remarks.

From the logic standpoint, to imply that any board of education in 2009, or 2010, can materially change the financial impact of an expiring existing labor contract, between their district and their local teachers union, is absurd. The structure of the local contract, at best, can be tweaked, from one contract negotiation to the next.

To imply otherwise is to ignore the forces of momentum and inertia; these contracts are like stalactites or stalagmites, which have been accumulating their shape over long periods of time. Once these financial benefits are established, and once a broad spectrum of benefits becomes part of the package, it is very difficult to dislodge them or materially alter their shape.

From the unstated truth standpoint, the structure of the Teachers Retirement System, which is the pension plan for teachers in New York State, is a State creation and not anything that has been created by one or more boards of education in New York State. No board of education can even modify that State pension plan.

In fact, as a statement of the obvious of how the State can make life worse for school districts, former State Comptroller Carl McCall eliminated pension contributions for one class of employees after ten years of payment into the system, thereby making the pension fund less self-funding and less stable in future years, particularly since it indexes these benefits to inflation (unlike most corporate plans today).

So, Mr. Bongiovi's statement is misleading.

In order to truly understand the compensation package for teachers, you would also need to compare, in one comprehensive analysis, every financial benefit which they receive now or will receive in the future. As part of that, you would need to factor in their own contributions toward each of these present and future benefits. Then, for comparability, you would compare similar compensation packages for people in other fields, including their own contributions, so that you could develop an objective analysis of what might be reasonable and fair. Mr. Bongiovi, perhaps understandably for his purposes of advocacy, does not do that.

Now, I want to cite one set of statements by Mr. Bongiovi in which I find myself in partial agreement, yet also find myself in disbelief of some of his suggestions as a consequence of the initial reasonable statements:

“There are good teachers and poor teachers. There are good (pick an occupation) and bad (pick an occupation). Teachers are and should be held accountable.”

Later he states:

“Even with tenure, districts are not handcuffed into retaining bad teachers with no recourse. Programs in professional development, mandated mentoring and even legal processes for removal, though time-consuming and potentially costly, are available options.”

Other than some newly hired teachers who might not return for their second or third years, before tenure was granted, when was the last time that you witnessed a teacher being removed from a school district?

And, did it ever amaze you, or have you never focused upon this, that a superior teacher would be paid no more than an inferior teacher of the same experience and numbers of postgraduate credits achieved?

My children have had some amazing teachers, such as the following: (1) one dynamic teacher who is retiring, who consistently went above and beyond what his contract called for, and who even created E-mail dialogue with parents long before the district provided E-mail addresses for teachers to use; and (2) another, a superior teacher who made a big difference for my disabled son, and who left the district (for a better opportunity, but who also had some frustration with the reluctance of some existing staff to be open to new ideas), and who would call me or my wife, in the evening, even from his home.

I'll bet that many of you could provide examples, of your own, of teachers whom you believe should have received pay differentiation, but were treated no better than those who might have been either resting upon their laurels of past performance, or gliding along simply because they could, with either no benefit for doing better, or with no penalty for failing to be all that they could and should be.

And, you should also think of those situations where the board or district were trying to use the tenure system to make improvements, as it is supposed to allow, only to have either the union or some parents, or both, round up the usual cast of characters to protest the “failure” to provide tenure to a favored colleague or friend. Some might call this an exercise in bullying of the board or district, and others might call this pressure politics, or some such description, but that reality is not addressed in Mr. Bongiovi's opinion article.

In summary, even his sound statements are marred by his ignoring of the reality of these processes, and my belief is that he has chosen his words very carefully to intentionally provide a limited perspective for the average reader.

Nevertheless, you should read his piece in Newsday because it does form part of the balance of what needs to be better dialogue on the issue of costs versus benefits, and form versus function, of education in New York State.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Pediatrician Provides Some Excellent Advice

In today's NY Times Dr. Perri Klass, a pediatrician, authored an article with some excellent advice on the subject of bullying, and how pediatricians can help parents and schools to recognize problems, and to more effectively combat this problem.

Dr. Klass notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics will publish an updated policy on the pediatrician's role in preventing bullying, and she wrote that the policy will now have a section on bullying including a recommendation that schools adopt a prevention model developed by a research professor of psychology at Norway's University of Bergen.

One of the lead authors of the new policy states, in this article, that the prevention model cited focuses upon the largest group of children in bullying situations, the bystanders, and the second lead author added that one-fourth of all children report that they have been involved in bullying, either as victims or as bullies.

In one of the more revealing statements by Dr. Klass, or perhaps affirming statements (for those parents whose children or whose nieces or nephews or grandchildren have themselves been victims), she notes:

“By definition, bullying involves repetition; a child is repeatedly the target of taunts or physical attacks - or, in the case of so-called indirect bullying (more common among girls), rumors and social exclusion. For a successful anti-bullying program, the school needs to survey the children and find out the details - where it happens, when it happens.”

To take advantage of the insight of Dr. Klass, and the American Academy of Pediatrics' new policy guidelines, and the model developed by the University of Bergen, it will require each school district to be open to new ideas, and to recognize that it can always improve if it does not act as if it is already the source of all wisdom.

This seems another example of the need to be open to a Best Practices philosophy.

Dr. Klass' article, on page D5 of Tuesday's Times, or available on the NY Times website [“At Last, Facing Down Bullies (and their Enablers)], is worth your consideration.

Sit Down Before You Read This Newsday Article

Sunday's Newsday, on pages A6 and A7 had an interesting -- if fiscally disturbing -- article, titled "Pension costs rise, taxes next?", on the growing costs of the NY State Teachers Retirement System.

For those who no longer have the paper, it can be accessed on Newsday's website, where it was retitled "Jumbo pensions' spark state funding debate."

I have some concern about the representational fairness of some statements; for example, when comparing one single school year with another, there is the possibility for overstatement of the trend line of the pension fund increase (as there were a few years when school districts, and their taxpayers, were contributing close to zero, since the dramatic rise in the stock market temporarily masked the real costs).

There also may be too much of a focus upon the "Royalty" among the retirees," the superintendents earning absurd amounts in retirement, as most people do not earn anything close to those amounts.

But, you can also use Newsday's website to use their search function to research the retirement pay of any one of the over 131,000 retirees under the Teachers Retirement System. And, yes, some of those amounts, being paid in retirement, and being annually increased by an index to inflation, is far beyond what many residents may have earned during their working career.

Nevertheless, the overall impact of the article, with some facts that are well beyond refutation by any honest person, is powerful, and troubling.

Lest you imagine that the cause is any particular union, or any particular school district, or even any particualr county, there is a damning statement in the article:

"Unlike most private retirees, New York public workers contribute to their pensions for only their first 10 years of employment. In addition, they receive cost-of-living increases and lifetime health insurance, pay no state or local taxes on their pensions and do not have to deduct an offset for for Social Security.

Several of those pension sweeteners were approved by the 2000 state Legislature, and they have dramatically driven up costs, according to local budget officials."

It is that last sentence that makes it clear that our problems can only be solved by the State Assembly and the State Senate and the Governor of New York.

But, although the power rests with the legislators and the governor, the pressure potential to change, for good, or the pressure potential to resist change and plummet this State and its taxpayers into fiscal perdition, rests with the New York State United Teachers and local teachers unions such as our own.

If they do not become part of the solution, then they will indeed become the anchor which drags us all beneath the water, and ultimately destroys education in New York State.

This article in Newsday is well worth your time and consideration.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Understanding, and Helping, Your Young Teens

As many of you may have read on Friday, the St. Petersburg Times did an excellent article on the general subject of bullying during the early teenage years.  Titled Walker Middle rape case represents every parent's nightmare, the story was triggered by a particularly shocking incident at a middle school near Tampa, but they covered a variety of issues and focused upon the tendency of students at that age to withhold information, even at their peril.

In today’s St. Petersburg Times, there is a powerful follow-up article, titled Middle school locker room: a lawless frontier, which narrows the focus to boys in their early teenage years.  For any parent of boys in or approaching their teenage years, this is a worthwhile read.

Our own district has taken a number of steps to sensitize students to the problem of bullying, but it is obvious from these two articles that some things may be kept secret by some teens, and that others may not be sensitive to the fact that what some call “high jinks” may only be a short step from engaging in bullying.

On the theory that not every student embraces important messages from any school district, and that every parent wants to protect their child from possible harm rather than punish a future potential bully who might harm their child, you may want to understand all of these issues, and be a proactive parent in communicating with your own children.