School Choice Workshop

Two town council meetings ago we set October 26th as a date for a workshop to discuss a school voucher or tax credit program that would empower parents with consumer choice when selecting a school for their child. I’m putting together a proposal with the guidance of Adam Schaeffer, Ph.D., Policy Analyst Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, and Dick Komer, Senior Attorney at the Institute for Justice.  This is a tremendous step and I hope those interested will send me their input and attend if possible.

New Ashaway Principal

Has anyone had an opportunity to meet, talk or work with the new Ashaway principal, Steven Morrone? He came to the town council meeting to talk about a bus issue. He and Bob Petite were there asking for a parking ban during school bus loading and unloading times. Tom Buck has a good handle on the issue and I’m comfortable with his direction on it. But I was more concerned, or curious, about the principal.

My concerns are based on the principal’s experience, or apparent lack of. The principal is on the front lines of interaction between our kids, the teachers and parents, and what little I know of this person from searching the internet and what he wrote us in a letter does not give me a great deal of confidence. 

According to the letter he sent the council, he “taught in Westerly for the past five years in special education and in the classroom. (He) also completed (his) masters degree in administration through Providence College. As part of that program (he) completed a principal internship under Victor Ventura, principal of Springbrook School in Westerly.”

I don’t want to assume that that is the extent of his experience, maybe there is more and he just didn’t mention it. Then again, as young as he is there couldn’t be much more. According to the Westerly Sun he is 28 years old.

Personally, I’m not comfortable with someone so young being in such an important position – a position that requires him to be the facilitator of interactions between children, teachers and parents.  He is younger than 2 of the three.  And he has no experience and very little experience in education at all.  And in this high unemployment you would think we could have found someone with experience. Was this a cost savings move? Does this person posses unseen talents?

The principal also spoke about a new program encouraging “community” he has started. Instead of having the kids go from the bus to the class, he has them go to the  gym so they can build “community.”  I think of community more of helping your neighbor and stuff like that, and whenever a newly educated educator speaks about “community” I fear phrases like “social justice” are soon to follow. But I shouldn’t read too far ahead.

That being said, there are freakishly talented young people who are dedicated at an early age. Maybe he is one of them. I also see he has modeling aspirations. So, I’m not sure what to read on his dedication or capacity. His letter was what I would expect from someone 28 years old.  My first inclination is to be insulted that Ricci would put someone in our schools with so little, strike that – NO, experience in the job. And if his letter is the totality of it, he only has a handful of years in teaching.

That’s why I’m asking if anyone has had contact or interaction yet. Let us know.

Chariho contract

This article is from the Sun. Below that you will find a link to videos from the Tiverton School Committee discussing open negotiations. Wouldn’t that be nice…

 

WOOD RIVER JCT. — Contract talks between the Chariho Regional School Committee and the district’s teachers’ union is expected to resume this week.

Private negotiations for a new, three-year pact are scheduled for Tuesday. The parties last met on Sept. 3.

A three-person negotiation team has represented the school board since talks began in January, but other board members began participating at the last meeting. The issues now at hand “require a full school committee focus,” said School Committee Chairwoman Holly M. Eaves.

“It’s getting down to the more difficult stuff,” she added. The current contract with NEA Chariho — the local arm of the National Education Association that represents 341 full-time certified employees — expired on Aug. 31. The union has opted not to strike or “work-to-rule,” when teachers do not participate in extra-curricular activities like tutoring.

Jeanette Woolley, Chariho’s NEA representative, did not return a phone message by press time.

Fire Tax

I’ve gotten some comments about the Ashaway fire district tax. I was as surprised as the next guy. My bill went from about $170 last year to $270 this year. Maybe the next time someone wants to spend tax dollars we should make sure they know the costs involved. I just thought I would start this post for people to comment on it.

Great show on FOX

There is a great show on FOX tonight at 8 and midnight – Tucker Carlson – Do you know what is in your kid’s textbook.

Try to catch it.

Shhhh! Nobody is watching so maybe they won’t notice

I should say, “Shhh! We won’t let anybody watch so maybe they won’t notice.” What I’m referencing is the Chariho teachers contract. It expired Aug 31 but I don’t recall seeing anything in the paper during the entire process. One would assume that since it’s overdue, maybe the school committee is pushing the envelope and the union isn’t buying. But we can only guess…

Having spent time on both governing bodies, I can tell you that the process of deciding how far to push the envelope is a matter of power.

In the town council our choice was to use the town manager and council person to negotiate the contract and find a reasonable middle ground, which has not impact on the budget, or spend money for legal help.  And in the case of police and fire, they have binding arbitration so at best you will be ordered a middle ground resolution (although more and more legalminds are suggesting that binding arbitration is unconstitutional). So the POWER goes to the union because they have plenty of lawyers on staff and love long expensive battles.

But at the school we had the fear of strike – POWER of intimidation. Andy Polouski carried the union’s water during the negotiations I was involved in and told the committee that (paraphrased), ‘if we push they will strike, then the food service strikes and the parents will complain because they won’t know what to do with their kids when they can’t go to school.’

In the town example, the union had the power of money, and in the school example the union had the power of intimidation (manifest in parent complaints). Both of these could be remedied with transparency.

I tried to make the case to the HTC that if we were transparent with the process we might find the people would support and want us to fight harder. Tom et. al., did well getting rid of longevity, but I still think more could have been done especially with the pensions – an issue that was mostly resolved until Bill DeLibero made a last day change.   To a woman, or man, most on the HTC agree that we treat the public sector employees better than private sector employees, but we can only change it in small steps – otherwise it would require legal help ($$$). My thought was that if we were willing to let the voters decide if we want to spend $2m to purchase open space (the bond) then we could ask the same people if they want to spend half a mil to fight the contract (and binding arbitration).

In the case of the school, transparency would let the public give input to the school committee members if they did or did not want them to push the envelope – and if they would be willing to stand behind the school if the teachers went on strike. Transparency also lets the people know the truth – that teachers, police, etc., are willing to strike to hold onto their double digit raises and gold plated pension while you, the ones paying the bill, must settle for much less. At least make them own it publicly.

But for now, we are on the outside looking in (through a blacked out window).  If anyone has heard anything in the news that I may have missed please let us know.

brainwashing starts young

If you haven’t heard, Obama is planning on speaking with ALL kids K – 12 on September 8th. After reading the linked items, I think this is a little creepy. 

I got the following notice today:

I’ve been further informed on the September 8th Presidential speech to ALL our Children. 

 

In the YouTube video, President Obama tells this child, “Yea, I get bullied and people say a lot of bad things about me.”  See President Obama – interviewed by a child

 

Please download the attached I took directly off the US Department of Education website. or click to view what I printed of their site if it is no longer available.  This includes the letter to all Principals – not even through the school boards as far as I can tell, and includes the “suggested” classroom asignments from the Federal Government.

 

_______________

You might consider keeping your kids home that day.

RI SAT scores 2nd worst

h/t(2) RS

From the ProJo

SAT scores for the nearly 8,300 Rhode Island high school students — members of the Class of 2009 — who took the college admission test remain fifth lowest out of the six New England states. Rhode Island students scored 498 in reading, 496 in math and 494 in writing, with just 66 percent of students participating.

The highest combined score possible is 2,400 points — 800 per test.

Only Maine — which boasts a 90 percent participation rate — scored lower, with seniors scoring 468 in reading, 467 in math and 455 in writing.

But when Rhode Island’s private school students are not counted, the state’s participation rate drops to just 54 percent, and scores also decline, down to 486 in reading, 487 in math and 482 in writing for public school students. These scores reflect a 3-point improvement in reading and writing and no change in math, compared with 2008.

Hopkinton down another $200k

h/t RS for posting this link to a list of how much money each town will lose from the Governor’s proposed withholding of the car tax. If you caught my interview on the 6:00 ch 10 news you know I think this is good. The more pressure onto the towns the better. Sooner or later we are going to have to stop paying our public sector employees so much better than the private sector employees.

Hopefully, Hopkinton and all the other towns will look to cut spending rather than increase taxes.

See the list HERE.

If you are unfamiliar with the issue check out this morning’s ProJo article HERE and here is an excerpt:

While the governor can shut down state government on his own, he needs legislative approval for a second piece of his plan: withholding the last $32.5 million in promised car-tax reimbursements to cities and towns, which are already reeling from the elimination of a $55-million revenue-sharing program earlier this year. In short, he wants the lawmakers to restore to him an authority his predecessors had until 1996 to withhold money they have appropriated for a specific purpose

Pension pro-con or not

After speaking with Sylvia and re-reading some emails I can understand where the different views come from.

On the meeting of the 20th they voted on the contract. Apparently, she was relying on me to finish the evaluation for their meeting.  But I didn’t get it right until the 21.  I wasn’t so concerned. We had a few meetings and the votes were always 4 to 1. Technically they weren’t votes, they were consensus. We would have had to announce them to the pubic if they were votes.

 Actually, I’m surprised nobody has ever done an evaluation before.  This pension has been used since 1998 (voted on in 2000). There were three contract votes since then.

So Sylvia wrote from the perspective that the council was voting on the 19th and since my numbers weren’t good at that time they voted for the status quo.  She defended that vote by identifying my errors.

But even then, assuming Sylvia had the right number or not, why did they still vote for it. The early data had the liability at $55 million. Now we know its only $27 million.  That’s still 27 million dollars more than if we used a defined contribution plan. If it was only $10 m, would we accept that?  Why do we have to give them a pension that is anything more than the private sector?