Finally, Some Sense Spoken From the Center, Rather Than Both Extremes

In today's NY Times (page A23) there was an Op Ed by NY City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which was titled "Limit Pay, not Unions."

Mr. Bloomberg was first an extraordinarily successful businessman, and he followed that with a career as what is sometimes called "the second toughest job in America." No politician, from the left or the right or the center, makes everybody happy; but these days we are witnessing a lack of any balance -- if not a lack of any integrity -- by some American governors and legislators, so it is refreshing to see someone who is not shy about identifying the real sources of many of our most severe problems, as well as clearly stating important roles of representation.

One problem which we face in New York is a new tendency for not only Democrats (like Governor Andrew Cuomo), but also Republicans (like many State Senators and State Assemblymen), to try to make it seem as if all of our problems are local problems, and not State-imposed problems.

Mayor Bloomberg lays some zingers on the feckless and deceptive Albany powers when he notes (and think Elwood, or the Town of Huntington, or Suffolk County when Bloomberg says "city") these, as well as other insights:

(1) "...in New York, state government — not the city — has the authority to set pension benefits for city workers, but city taxpayers get stuck with the bill. The mayor cannot directly discuss pension benefits as part of contract negotiations with unions, even though pension benefits could be as much as 80 percent of an employee’s overall compensation. In addition, members of the State Legislature pass pension “sweeteners” for municipal unions that help attract support for their re-election campaigns."

(2) "Pensions are not the only area where we would like to expand our collective bargaining authority in order to modernize government. New York is one of only a dozen or so states with a law requiring layoffs of teachers based strictly on seniority — a policy that’s known as “last in, first out.” In New York City, we are preparing to lay off workers across city agencies, including 4,500 teachers. And the only thing worse than laying off teachers would be laying off the wrong teachers — some of our very best."

The Mayor's Op Ed also takes on those whose clear goal is to destroy unions in the guise of making the personnel costs of services more affordable, and he begins with an important preamble:

"Across the country, taxpayers are providing pensions, benefits and job security protections for public workers that almost no one in the private sector enjoys. Taxpayers simply cannot afford to continue paying these costs, which are growing at rates far outpacing inflation. Yes, public sector workers need a secure retirement. And yes, taxpayers need top-quality police officers, teachers and firefighters. It’s the job of government to balance those competing needs. But for a variety of reasons, the scale has been increasingly tipping away from taxpayers.

Correcting this imbalance is not easy, but in a growing number of states, budget deficits are being used to justify efforts to scale back not only labor costs, but labor rights. The impulse is understandable; public sector unions all too often stand in the way of reform. But unions also play a vital role in protecting against abuses in the workplace, and in my experience they are integral to training, deploying and managing a professional work force."

Mayor Bloomberg's entire piece is very much worth reading and considering, and anyone (unlike Newsday's website) may access it at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28mayor.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bloomberg%20op%20ed&st=cse

Could We Be Witnessing the Start of Serious Improvements in Education?

[Elwood Community Network commentary originally distributed 2/25/11]

Perhaps some good may eventually come from this three year old recession, and the fiscal crisis which it has triggered in many states across America, as other productive dialogues seem to have been ignited. In [the February 25th edition of the] New York Times (page A19) there was an illuminating article titled "Leader of Teachers’ Union Urges Dismissal Overhaul." The key paragraphs are the beginning of the article:

"Responding to criticism that tenure gives even poor teachers a job for life, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, announced a plan Thursday to overhaul how teachers are evaluated and dismissed.

It would give tenured teachers who are rated unsatisfactory by their principals a maximum of one school year to improve. If they did not, they could be fired within 100 days.

Teacher evaluations, long an obscure detail in an educator’s career, have moved front and center as school systems try to identify which teachers are best at improving student achievement, and to remove ineffective ones."

One of the historical problems in American education, aside from the issues relating to the structure of benefit packages for public sector employees (which are funded by taxes paid by citizens whose own benefit packages have largely been reduced in recent decades), there has been an inability to expeditiously remove substandard teachers.

That problem is further compounded in times of financial distress because such teachers tend to have tenure, and the teachers who get eliminated are the younger ones, many of whom may be doing a much better job than those substandard but previously-protected teachers. Clearly we are in an era when such cuts in teaching staff will be more and more likely, particularly when states cut back financial aid to school districts.

This should not be confused with the attempt at union-busting in Wisconsin, where public sector unions have agreed to substantial financial give-backs but find themselves in conflict with a new governor whose obvious objective is to eliminate any power, regardless of financial concessions, of unionized public sector workers.

This article, and Ms. Weingarten's own concession, toward greater efficiency and equity and obvious benefits for students all across America, is a non-economic issue and is unrelated to strong-arming tactics that are a disgrace for this country.

Making education better, as well as less costly, is what we should all be seeking to achieve.

You can read the entire article on the NY Times website (anyone can access this) at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/education/25teacher.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=weingarten&st=cse

Newsday Has Major Article on Schools Seeking Difficult Choices

[Elwood Community Network commentary originally distributed 2/21/11]

Although our snow blower managed to shred our buried copy of [the February 21st] Newsday, thanks to a friend's E-mail I was made aware of a rather significant article about (no surprise here, eh?) the effects of proposed cuts in State aid on schools across Long Island.

Principal education reporter John Hildebrand's article is titled "School district asks: What would you cut?" and Newsday subscribers or Optonline cutomers can read it on the Newsday website, at the following web page:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/school-district-asks-what-would-you-cut-1.2701717

Mr. Hildebrand begins his article with these two paragraphs:

"Faced with a potential $2.7 million reduction in its state aid, the Sayville school district has seized on an unusual strategy - asking parents and other residents what programs to cut if given the choice of fewer services or higher taxes.

The district, which serves 3,000 students, drew up a list of 30 programs that could be eliminated, ranging from elementary bands and orchestras to college-level math and science courses. Then the public was invited in to offer its input - an event last week that drew about 300 students, parents and other residents."

Now, what I can't understand is how the following phrase can, in any way, be accurate: "...asking parents and other residents what programs to cut if given the choice of fewer services or higher taxes."

In a year in which various expenses for school districts are rising dramatically (e.g., State mandated pension contributions, health insurance premiums, energy costs, transportation expenses, etc), and in a year in which Governor Cuomo and the apparently complicit and toady-like State legislators are proposing to cut State aid to schools before cutting mandates or releasing State restrictions on their ability to effect meaningful change in staff compensation, it is virtually guaranteed that programs would need to be cut by districts even if there was no increase, whatsoever, in property taxes.

School districts are floundering in the midst of the proverbial "perfect storm" of school finance compounded by State deception about where the principal problem lies.

Unless some school district has been more than a bit disingenuous with its residents for years, building up hidden surpluses by deliberately over-budgeting and thereby pre-taxing its residents substantially, over time, so that it can magically pull those dollars out of a hat when it all hits the fan, there is bound to be an impact upon the district when the State acts so recklessly.

Please note that I am not talking, here, about districts which have created modest unallocated reserves within SED and OSC standards (intended, for the sake of financial safety, for extraordinary operating situations), but those which have "socked it away" outside those standards. Financial transparency and fiscal candor are the right thing to do, and that relationship with constituents must replace the declining number of paternalistic "we know what's best for you" school district administrations and boards.

Responsible school districts are suffering in this economic downturn, just as are their residents.

Now, the problems of school districts can either be helped by various unions of teachers and other employees who begin to offer serious concessions regarding their salary and/or benefits, or they can be driven against the financial wall by unions that dig in their heels and refuse to budge significantly.

In the latter case the combination of even more State cutbacks in aid for 2011/12, following damaging State cutbacks in aid in 20010/11, and the lack of compensation relief regarding teachers and other staff, would compound to give virtual assurance of major reductions of younger teachers (the historical seniority preference problem), increased class sizes, reduction -- if not elimination -- of after-school activities and athletics, and still result in some local tax increase.

Mr. Hildebrand's article goes on to cite recent activity in Farmingville, and he also mentions that Glen Cove, Harborfields, and South Huntington are already considering reducing the number of high school periods from nine to eight.

I suppose the only saving grace mentioned, was Mr. Hildebrand's final sentence, where he reports that (unspecified) aides of Governor Cuomo have conceded that the Governor's earlier contention that school districts had enough in reserves to absorb the cuts he was proposing.

"But aides later backed away from that position, saying it was understood that districts couldn't prudently spend down the bulk of their reserves in a single year."

Oh goody; somebody in the Governor's staff actually passed Corporate Finance 101, Accounting 101, and Economics 101.

Don't you want to ask: "OK, then what are you actually proposing to do to give relief to school districts and their residents?"

Newsday Has Chart With Key Percentages From 2009/10 SED Report Card

[Elwood Community Network commentary originally distributed 2/18/11]

Well, this is certainly a nice thing to see. In [the February 18th edition of] Newsday, on page A34, you will find Newsday's chart based on the NYS SED report card for the high school graduates of 2010.

As you will note, Elwood's results are really good, and not only in relative terms but also in absolute terms. The reported results, for all eight school districts in the Town of Huntington, are the following:


______________% Regents __% Regents with _% Passing____% Passing
District _________Diploma __Advanced Desig. Regents Math_Regents English
Cold Spring Harbor__ 99_________ 77____________ 99______99

Commack_________ 99_________ 81____________ 98______98

Elwood___________ 96_________ 73____________ 99______98

Half Hollow Hills____ 97_________ 72____________ 96______96

Harborfields_______ 95_________ 72____________ 98______97

Huntington________ 87_________ 48____________ 83______81

Northport-E Npt.____ 92_________ 59____________ 93______92

South Huntington___ 93_________ 45_____________ 93_____93

Now, let's focus upon some interesting results. The district whose results are nearly the same as Elwood's is our neighbor to the northwest, Harborfields; we simply flip on a few positions as to whose results are "better," but the reality is that the differences are not material.

In my view, the category in which Elwood has long needed to improve has been for those graduates achieving a Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation, and here we have taken a very material step up. A chart of Elwood's results during the past seven years, for the two categories related to the Regents Diplomas, is as follows:


____________% Regents ___% Regents with
School Year____ Diploma____ Advanced Desig.

2009/10________ 96___________ 73

2008/09________ 97___________ 60

2007/08________ 94___________ 60

2006/07________ 93___________ 62

2005/06________ 93___________ 58

2004/05________ 86___________ 56

2003/04________ 84___________ n/a

What seems obvious is that Elwood has made a dramatic improvement in the important category of graduates receiving a Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation, and the past school year has seen the greatest year-to-year improvement during all of the years in which this category was reported. Furthermore, when you compare our district's performance in this category with the seven others in the Town of Huntington, we now have the third best ranking among all eight districts, with Commack best by eight percentage points, and runner-up Cold Spring Harbor better by four percentage points.

I have no doubt that this synopsis would be too narrow a valuation of overall improvement for our district, or for any other district, but I do believe in giving credit for significant improvements whenever credit is due, and Mr. Scordo, and Mrs. Llewellyn, and Dr. Mulieri, and our very supportive Board of Education, are to be congratulated for this achievement.

Kaizen rocks.

Excellent Column Has Suggestions on Cuomo's Approach With Schools

[Elwood Community Network commentary originally distributed 2/10/11]

On page A15 of [the February 10th] edition of Newsday, there is a column by Joye Brown that my wife made sure I read this morning. Ms. Brown writes an opinion column which is usually very interesting, and sometimes quite challenging, even though I seldom find myself in complete agreement with her.

But, given Governor Cuomo's current equivalent for school districts of General Sherman's scorched earth March to the Sea, across Georgia in 1864, her comments certainly merit everyone's consideration.

Today's column is titled "Further steps guv can take," and in the middle of her piece she quotes Lawrence Levy's take on Cuomo's March: "It's like the governor has put the tax cap horse before the mandate relief cart," said Lawrence Levy, dean of Hofstra University's Center for Suburban Studies.

Ms. Brown, herself, remarks rather wisely:

"As always under the current system, children will end up paying the highest price - with fewer teachers and fewer programs such as sports and the arts, which are essential to rounding out students' school years.
One way to change that equation is for Cuomo to go even farther: Offer incentives for districts to consolidate. Relieve even more state-driven mandates on school districts. And make it easier for schools to negotiate harder with teachers unions by removing obstacles that increase spending even as districts try to negotiate to pull it back."

And she is obviously not afraid to confront the big issue:

"...school districts need to rise to the challenge as well. As it is, more of them are negotiating contracts with teachers contributing co-payments to their health care costs. And some districts - and they are rare - are negotiating freezes in teacher salaries, while administrators voluntarily - again rare - are temporarily freezing their own salaries, too.
The goal should be to save money in ways that won't hurt children. And the best way to do that is by negotiating changes in existing teacher and administrator contracts."

And on the point of potential consolidation (which is opposed by many, in different districts including our own, and for numerous and sometimes contradictory reasons), she later mentions our own district in her column:

"More school districts could voluntarily combine backroom functions, or, as the Elwood School District suggested, at minimum begin talks to determine what other variations of combined school district functions would look like."

What I particularly appreciate in her above paragraph is that, unlike some reporters and some ill-informed bloggers, Ms. Brown apparently gets the logic of exploring these kinds of options (even if they should ultimately prove to be non-viable) as a sign of fiscal creativity and prudence, rather than as a sign of weakness.

In any event, the column is well worth reading, and if you no longer have the [February 10th] edition but are a Newsday subscriber, or even an Optonline customer, you can read Joye Brown's column at the following web page:
http://www.newsday.com/columnists/joye-brown/further-steps-guv-can-take-1.2676082

Gov. Cuomo's Either Bad at Logic or Bad at Economics

In the Feb 9th edition of Newsday, starting with a front page headline that says "Cuomo to LI Schools: You've Got the Money," and going on to an article on page A3 titled "Governor: Dip into reserves," Newsday covers the message from the Governor and his staff, which basically dismisses the concerns of school districts across Long Island at the likely impact of the level of cuts to State aid proposed by Gov. Cuomo.

The central message is found in the second paragraph of the Newsday article, and continued in the fourth paragraph:

"According to data compiled by the administration and obtained by Newsday, 74 percent of school districts statewide - and about 85 percent on Long Island - could use reserve funds or unused federal stimulus money to deal with the cuts."

"Besides proposing the first overall state spending cut in 15 years, Cuomo also wants to reduce school aid $1.5 billion - an average 9 percent statewide and 11 percent on Long Island. He has suggested that, in most cases, districts have enough available money to offset his cuts without laying off teachers or eliminating programs."

Now, think about this concept as you would about the economic security of your own family.

Most families have put away some money "for a rainy day." The possible uses, in your mind, might be an emergency repair to your roof after a massive snow storm, or the collapse of your septic system, or unanticipated major repairs to your eight year old car, or massive co-pays for medical needs for a member of your family who suffers a serious accident, or the possible loss of income from your job due to problems your employer might be having from this three year old recession, and on and on and on. You know that the only certainty of life is its uncertainty, and the prudent household must be prepared for those kinds of events.

But, when you use those funds, hopefully partially and not entirely, they are gone. They cannot be magically replaced as if your bank account was a self-replenishing wishing well. Therefore, what is used today is not available next year, or the year after, until such time as your own economic situation allows you to save additional funds for that rainy day in 2013 or 2014.

For Gov. Cuomo or his staff to be playing around, by this kind of dialogue and headline-making, with concepts of using reserve funds to replace State aid cuts is, in my opinion, dangerously irresponsible. And for Newsday to prepare a chart, that indicates whether a particular school district "Has enough reserve and stimulus funds to cover proposed cut," it is similarly absurd.

In the next to last paragraph of the Newsday article, a member of the Governor's staff tries to deflect criticism of this kind of gamesmanship and extremist debating thrusts and parries:

"Noting that annual dramatic aid increases were not sustainable, Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto countered: "We're not saying that the schools should use all this money to offset the cuts. We're just trying to give an appropriate context."

Oh goody! Let's throw some intellectual Molotov Cocktails and see what kind of damage we can do to the credibility of school districts, and what attention we can divert from Albany.

By the way, in the chart which Newsday created, there is another bit of absurdity. They note in the preamble to the chart that "The average superintendent salary in the state if $165,577;" they then go on to show a column indicating whether the salary of each LI district's superintendent does, or does not, exceed the state average.

One of my daughters went to college in Fredonia, in Chautauqua County, about 45 miles southwest of Buffalo. I could buy a beautiful large home, on ten or more acres in the surrounding communities, for less than you or I would need to spend on a small cottage, on a postage-stamp sized property, on Long Island. And if you go over to Allegany County, which some even more impoverished areas, I'll bet you could do even better.

In other words, it is ridiculous, and even stupid, to compare salaries or costs on Long Island to an average which includes upstate or Western New York. Whether you are a retail manager, or a mechanic, or a banker, or a lawyer, or a teacher, or a school superintendent, you would not accept (and not even be able to accept) the same salary on Long Island as you would in most of New York State. We should expect Newsday to do better than either create, or pass along, that kind of column.

This is turning out to be a very sad season for intelligent dialogue.

For those of you who are either Newsday subscribers, or Optonline customers, you can read the entire Newsday story at:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/cuomo-li-schools-have-millions-in-reserve-1.2671860?p=

Jerry Hannon

SED Commissioner Proposes Some Cost-Cutting Ideas

In the February 8th edition of Newsday, on page A6, there is a story by John Hildebrand outlining some of the ideas proposed by the State Education Department Commissioner, David Steiner, that are intended to begin the process of reducing the number of unfunded mandates for school districts. As you know, unfunded (or underfunded) mandates increase the costs for school districts but require the property taxpayers of each district to pay for such activities or services, thereby increasing the components of a district's budget which cannot be adjusted by its administration or board of education, except by increasing local taxes or decreasing other services.

Interestingly, some of Mr. Steiner's proposals are not even supported by the Board of Regents, as Mr. Hildebrand writes:

"But the Regents had reservations. For starters, members of the policy-making board nixed a proposal eliminating required middle-school courses in technology and Home and Career Skills. Steiner reports to the Regents, though he also sits on the governor's task force.

One board member, Roger Tilles of Great Neck, noted that fellow Regents want to put more emphasis, not less, on studies related to careers and technology.

"For us to take out something that we've been moving toward is just not something we want to do," said Tilles."

For those of you who are Optonline customers, or Newsday subscribers who missed today's paper, you can read the full story on Newsday's website.

Frankly, I am sceptical about the value of these kinds of tweaks and minor adjustments, but when combined with a lot of other adjustments to the cost structures of districts (personnel costs, transportation costs, shared services, reducing administrative overhead, etc) it may have a positive impact. One of my favorite lines was attributed (with some dispute about whether he ever said this) to the late Senator Everett Dirksen, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

So, when we add up the many things that we hope will be done to reduce expenses for school districts, the cumulative effect can be powerful. But the appropriate phrase would certainly not be "A hundred here, a hundred there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." The State, and school districts, need to focus upon the major elements of cost, and not merely the convenient minor elements.

Beware the sleight of hand, and the increasing use of smoke and mirrors, which some will undoubtedly employ in an effort try to deflect attention from the really big cost factors for school districts, hoping that people will merely focus upon very minor cost elements, or sacrifice by one or two.

Shared sacrifice means just that; sacrifice by all.

Writer Identifies Major Factors Affecting Education Gap

At a time when most of the news related to education is focused upon the increasing lack of affordability of education, and the problems which States create with unfunded mandates and structural barriers which tie the hands of school districts, there is a very interesting Op Ed piece on page A35 of Tuesday's edition of Newsday.

For those who are Optonline customers, or for Newsday subscribers, you may read this article on the Newsday website:
http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/the-world-passed-our-students-by-1.2651319?p=

The title of the piece is different in the print edition ("We're putting our students at a disadvantage") and in the website edition ("The world passed our students by"), yet both titles are supported by the article written by Anne Michaud. She points out how other nations are increasingly giving their students an advantage over American students, and she identifies some significant differences in US approaches toward education versus those of a number of other nationalities.

In my view, her critical paragraphs are those which follow:

"By the time American students reach eighth grade, they've spent roughly 400 fewer days in school. So there's a lot of pressure on teachers to cover subjects in a shorter time, and in less depth.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, middle school is where American students begin to fall behind their global peers. By high school, among 30 developed nations, U.S. students rank 15th in reading, 21st in science, 25th in math and 24th in problem-solving.

People who study these trends, like Education Secretary Arne Duncan, believe that the United States has stood still while others have moved past us. In an October speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Duncan said, "Here in the United States, we simply flat-lined. We stagnated. We lost our way, and others literally passed us by."

So while people of my generation might say to ourselves, "We didn't know much math, and we turned out OK," we'd be missing the point. The rest of the world is changing. We need to prepare our children for a knowledge economy."

This brings us back to the Japanese concept of Kaizen, or Continuous Improvement, which I have mentioned at various times. It is one of the principal reasons that the Japanese automotive industry was able to leap-frog past the American industry in the 1980's and 90's, but that is now also being practiced in Detroit, as well as by other American industrial companies.

Stagnation in effort, and stagnation in ideas, can only "work" when others are equally lazy or non-inventive. What you and I did in school, years ago, is not sufficient for the generation(s) which follow us, and if you want to help your children and grandchildren succeed in an increasingly global marketplace of employment and opportunity, then some dramatic changes will be required.

Her complete article is worth your consideration.