State Actions Followed By Individual Teacher Reactions

[Originally transmitted 6/28 on Elwood Community Network]

In [the June 28th edition of] Newsday, on page A5, there is an article titled "Battle Over Regents," which discusses the reaction, by high school principals across Long Island, to the State's decision to eliminate January Regents exams as one of it's cost-cutting measures.

For those of you who are Newsday subscribers away from home, or who are Optonline customers, you can read the story on Newsday's website at:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/70-hs-principals-slam-regents-over-tests-1.2989598

This article does a good job of pointing out the negative spillover effects of the State's action on the January Regents, as well as some others which are also mentioned.

After this action was announced by the State about a month ago, we had a practical example in Elwood of what can happen when some individual teachers care more about students than they care about inflating their paychecks or their pension or other benefits.

At our June 15th Board of Education meeting, one interesting agenda item dealt with one of the most encouraging local human relations topics, combined with professional responsibility and fiscal responsibility, that I have witnessed in Elwood during the past ten years. It apparently all began with internal discussions pertaining to the State’s elimination of the January Regents examinations.

Now, just to be clear, that State action is not a positive element either in terms of human relations or professional or fiscal responsibility; the State, in recent years, hasn’t seemed to care very much for either of these aspects, and they seem to like laying down a smoke screen (think of movies showing Naval convoys during the Second World War) and trying to cast blame on local officials for failures (and worse) that were actually generated by the Governor, and Legislature, and their SED creation.

No, the positive aspect which demonstrates encouraging steps toward human caring, and combining that with professional and fiscal responsibility, came as a result of that negative action by the State Board of Regents.

Several Math teachers at Glenn recognized that the elimination of the January Math Regents exam would place some students, who failed the June exam (and the quick turnaround August make-up Regents exam), at risk of not being able to graduate on time.

Therefore, it was announced at the BOE meeting that three of the Math teachers in the Elwood School District volunteered to provide tutoring, and other support during the school day, to at-risk Math students; this would be done at no cost to the District (and naturally at no cost to those students or their parents) so that the students have a better chance of passing the Math Regents, which is one of the requirements for graduation.

These three noble teachers, Christina Kerensky-DeSimone, Eileen Kelly-Gorman, and Michael Prykuta, were recognized at the Board Meeting for their actions, and it demonstrates to me that there are indeed some very special -- and deeply caring --teachers in our District.

Whatever differences that we parents and residents might perceive, between the Elwood District Administration/BOE and the teachers union as a group, we have to keep in mind that there are still a number of teachers, and not just these three, who do indeed care enough to put the children first.

I have learned, over the past few days, that all of the students at risk did pass the June math Regents exam, which suggests that the generous and responsible offer by those three teachers will not be necessary; but the positive unselfish action by these teachers should be kept in mind by all of us, and hopefully by other staff members as well.

NY Times Article Offers Greater Insight About SED Measures

[Originally transmitted, on Elwood Community Network, 6/17]

In yesterday's NY Times, on page A23 (and presently available on nytimes.com), there was a very helpful article which provided greater perspective for the data which Newsday published yesterday, and which I highlighted in yesterday's commentary titled "SED Survey Shows Elwood Did Very Well With Class of 2010".

The Times pointed out why one particular category, in which Elwood happened to have the Second Best results among all eight school districts in the Town of Huntington -- just two percentage points behind leader Cold Spring Harbor -- is so important from a college preparedness perspective.

Sharon Otterman of The Times wrote:

"For many years, officials at the City University of New York and at community colleges across the state have raised questions about why so many students from public high schools seem to lack basic skills when they arrive on campuses, requiring extensive remediation. But Tuesday was the first time the state attempted to say how many seniors at each school were prepared to move on.

“This is talking about useful truths,” said Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the Board of Regents. “We are all aware that this is very challenging, and that the tenacity of the achievement gap is undeniable. But the only way to correct the problem is to find something that allows you to state clearly where you are, and that’s what this is.”

The college-ready statistics, which the state formally called “aspirational performance measures,” were released alongside general graduation rates, which have been on the rise for about a decade and continued to inch up last year in the city and state."

Ms. Otterman went on to say:

"The formula for college readiness comes from an analysis of data from city community colleges, which found that scoring a 75 on the English Regents exam and an 80 on the math Regents roughly predicted that students would get at least a C in college-level courses in the same subjects. Scores below that meant students often had to take remedial classes before they could do college-level work."

Therefore, with Elwood's 2010 graduating students at Glenn scoring 80 percent on that indicator, they were better prepared than ONLY Cold Spring Harbor (82), among all districts in Suffolk County, and when you add in the Nassau County districts, Elwood was exceeded only by Jericho (87), Garden City (83), Cold Spring Harbor (82), Plainview-Old Bethpage (82), and they were equaled only by Manhasset (80).

Now, take a look at those very few districts, in all of Nassau and Suffolk, carefully.

Every one of them has a long-standing reputation of excellence.

Several of them represent districts of great average family wealth and little in the way of individual family need.

But, there we are; little Elwood, getting the most bang for our economic bucks, and trying to do better and better.

What greater case could be made for demonstrating our focus upon the goals of Kaizen, or Continuous Improvement?

Does that mean that we have achieved educational Nirvana? Hardly; we have other improvements to make, and you can never, never, rest on your laurels, because we have entered a global marketplace, and the students of so many countries continue to do better than the students of the USA.

But, this is part of a process, and we have to rejoice in such great improvements, even while acknowledging that we have further to go. And, as a measure of comparison with our peers in New York, we are certainly improving, and we are certainly doing extremely well among all ninety-eight districts, with high schools, in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Once again, Wow!

SED Survey Shows Elwood Did Very Well With Class of 2010

Wow!

Every now and then, you see something that really makes you smile.

In today's edition of Newsday, on page A25, you will find the Nassau and Suffolk County results of the State Education Department's survey of high school seniors in the Class of 2010. I am only going to reproduce the results for the eight school districts in the Town of Huntington, but you will find that Elwood's results in comparison to all districts in both counties are just as impressive.

Anticipating that my AOL formatting may not transfer well for those of you using Optonline or some other ISP's, I will describe the five columns of data, after the name of each district, as follows:

A % of seniors graduating from high school

B % earning Regents diploma with Advanced Designation

C % achieving 80 or better on Regents Math exam, and 75 or better on Regents English exam

D % going on to two year colleges

E % going on to four-year colleges

Now for the Town of Huntington school district results. In an effort to make the over-all results even easier to appreciate, I have color-coded the positions (highest is best for A, B, C, and E, and lowest is best for D) as follows:
First Place, in Red; Second Place in Blue; Third Place in Green.

District___________A____B___C___ D___E

Cold Spring Harbor___98___77__ 82___2___95

Commack _________97___79___72___21__77

Elwood___________98___74___80___14__82

Half Hollow Hills____95___70___71____15__81

Harborfields _______98___72___77____19__77

Huntington________77____41___46___29__57

Northport/E Npt____93____56___65___24__68

South Huntington___ 90____43___51___31__59

With regard to these results, I would make the following observations:

1. Cold Spring Harbor is, by far, the most wealthy district in terms of household income, and also has one of the lowest property tax rates due to the very high value of individual home properties. They regularly have one of the highest average costs, per student, of educating the children in their district. Parents in that district, in general, can afford the finest tutors for their children -- if they should desire them -- and they can also afford private college tuition, at more prestigious, as well as average, as well as any other category of four year colleges. I would expect them to do as well as they obviously have done.

2. Elwood is now, and has always been, a district of average wealth -- pockets of affluence and pockets of great need and most in the middle -- in which most of the children do not benefit from the kind of family financial ability as do most of those in Cold Spring Harbor. Elwood does not have the same kind of average property values, nor do we have much in the way of commercial property values (as does Half Hollow Hills, or Northport, or even Huntington or South Huntington, which all have either large retail sectors or commercial or industrial sectors); accordingly, Elwood has had to make do, to the best of our creative abilities, with less.

But look at those results!

For many years, Elwood was a good district, a fine district, but it became myopically complacent and, as other districts advanced, we began to coast along. The vision, such as it was, became what I have called a "good enough" approach, with a resistance to change by some teaching staff, and even some Elwood-centric administrators.

Yet a regeneration was begun in this district in 2005, under a new Superintendent, Bill Swart, who had significant experience in many other districts on and off Long Island, and this regeneration reached its peak, two years ago, when Peter Scordo was brought in, by our prudent and prescient Board of Education, as our current Superintendent. Peter Scordo has been willing, and able, to go several steps further than Bill Swart, who seemed to occasionally cave in to staff resistance.

This SED summary is not the be-all and end-all justification for everything that we do, but it is a very powerful positive indicator, and we should express our gratitude to Peter Scordo, and Assistant Superintendent Maryann Llewellyn, and Glenn Principal Vincent Mulieri, and his teachers and other staff, and to the young men and women of Glenn who have accepted the challenge to do better, and indeed did.

Congratulations!