Cripes am I tired. Tons of work at the office and many long City meetings. The joint City-Schools meeting covered here went pretty well. I’ve recieved some questions about my comments so allow me to clarify:
I believe we spend enough for our schools to perform at a higher level and we must endevour to discover the cause of our poor performance. I don’t pretend to understand the root causes (I have my suspicions) but I absolutely will not endorse increased spending to increase performance until I’m satisfied that we are getting what we pay for now. There are other jurisdictions in VA who have challenges similar to ours and they get better results and spend close to what we spend. I would hasten to add that I’m not much interested in turning this into a hunt for the guilty. I’m interested in a hunt for results.
For those that doubt my motives or dedication to this issue I would point out that my kid is in those schools. Sarah and I are very lucky that our child is smart (comes from me!) but she’s there nevertheless. If I thought the schools were a limiting factor she’d be gone in a millisecond. I’d also say that I took a fair beating last year on the budget (older post here) – the same budget that reserved $250,000 for Education Forward initiatives. I want the schools to work better – it’s our number 1 problem and, if after examination and remediation, we come up with a plan that requires more money then so be it. However, we’re a long way from there right now.
The worksession on Fire and Rescue was interesting….and long. The long and the short of it is that there is a plan. It’s a bit sparse but it is complete. It’s also expensive – which is what everyone expected. I thought that, between the proposed plan and some alternatives presented, there is a path forward. The current plan needs to be sharpened up a bit – it costs 1.25 cents on the tax rate and the guidance was 1 cent. That doesn’t seem like much but it adds up quick. I think it should be easy to get it sorted. I’m not interested in picking winners and losers – I’m interested in solutions.
Perhaps the most surprising worksession was the Chesapeake Bay cleanup worksession. That’s got the potential to blow our budget to pieces in short order. The EPA has designated a specific amount of pollution that is allowed to go into the Chesapeake Bay. From that total they have further assigned an amount of solids, nitrogen and phosporous that can go into the Bay from each jurisdiction. It only gets more complicated from here but, suffice it to say, that unless we get favorable consideration from the state on some our existing stormwater facilities that this thing has the potential to cost the City citizens as much as $7 MILLION a year for 3-4 years. In the worst-case scenarios that could have the City buying land and tearing down houses to build stormwater ponds. This is a completely unfunded mandate. We don’t have any choice in this matter so let’s keep our fingers crossed!
I’m off for an adult beverage soon….
September 30, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Andy,
Thought you would want to know I have spotted a glaring typo in the second line of your third paragraph. “Me” should be “Sarah.” I’m sure that you (and everone else) agree!
September 30, 2011 at 10:41 pm
I can’t believe one of the school board members said the City should trick people on the internet about our school system in order to get them to move to the City. Really? Is that the message he wants to send to the children of our schools, that it’s ok to mislead in order to get a favorable resort? That guy is just an an idiot of the first degree. He just wanted to completly gloss over the issues we have. Talk about “leadership”.
While you may not want to hunt down those that are guilty, until we crack down on illegals, we will continue to see issues. What we need to do is what Alabama did, pass laws that allow us to check the legal status of students. Alabama is already seeing a decrease in illegal students.
October 1, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I agree with you 100% Andy about not giving the schools any more money at this time. Throwing more money at a problem does not guarantee a different result. The root causes of why our schools are not performing as well as they should with the funding they currently receive should be dealt with first. So much of the other needs of the City go underfunded for the needs of our schools and they should not be given more tax dollars to try and fix their current problems.
October 1, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Lets see some results for the money being spent. And, the agreement to provide the school system with a certain percentage of the general funds needs to be revisited as well.
The area that makes up GTS and the flea market shopping center would make for a nice sized pond, lol.
October 1, 2011 at 5:18 pm
On schools: I have posted in other places here how the Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee provides a report to the General Assembly every year on “State Spending on Standards of Quality Costs”. If you don’t want to read the report, they always attach the slide presentation.
Recommend interested parties look at the latest one, for that matter, prior ones to see trend. For the School Districts, it breaks out how much funding is received from various sources, then gives the percentage of the Local Contribution (as of Dec 2010, MCPS contribution should be 46%).
Latest report is “Strategies to Promote Third Grade Reading Performance in Virginia”.
Andy, since you took the lead and the hits for Education Forward, I highly recommend you view the reports, and also pass them along to other Council + School Board + School Admin. Worth the effort and the research is solid. Link is below to JLARC reports.
http://jlarc.virginia.gov/pubs_rec.htm
October 1, 2011 at 5:20 pm
an edit to what I wrote above: “MCPS contribution should be 46%” should read as “our contribution to MCPS should be 46%”.
October 2, 2011 at 10:35 am
http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2011/sep/29/all-three-area-schools-receive-full-accreditation-ar-1347608/
“The state Board of Education annouced Thursday that
96 per cent of Virginia’s nearly 2,000 schools are fully
accreditied for the 2011-12 school year.”
Osbourn was not.
Trust MCPS leadership will address this in the very near future
and put forth a plan to help us insure all our schools become fully
accredited.
October 2, 2011 at 2:08 pm
On the Bay Cleanup & Stormwater: Interesting to note the EPA in its own filings regarding the various court cases involving Clear Air Act, The Bay, Stormwater – they admit the regulations can not be implemented in the timeline contained in the laws, and costs are prohibitive, yet their stand is they are just doing their jobs and complying with the legislation. 18K+ employees in EPA, and not one thinker I suppose.
Score another one for the Domed Palace on the Hill in DC that is in the center (more or less) of 17 square miles surrounded by reality!
October 4, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Concerning the schools, get rid of the here for a check teachers and replace them with teachers who know how to teach in inner city enviorments! Split the high school into two levels; vocational and academic. There is no sence in wasting money on a student who aspires to be a drywall man on teaching him to be prepared for college level classes. What ever happend to personal accountability for your inactions?
Spend the money on the best and the brightest students. They are the ones who are going to lead and create jobs in the future! Why blow 100k a year on special needs students to get them to tie their shoes? Spend the money on the creative problem solving children. These children ought not be restrained in order to get the whole group to meet the bare minumum of a state sponserd memorization test.
October 4, 2011 at 11:53 pm
Dear Mr. Heinziger,
I find your second paragraph to highly offensive and ignorant. I am a former “special needs” student as you called us. I was born with a learning disability. Regarding your comment on tying shoes, I was one of those very students. I couldn’t tie my own shoe for several years due to my disability. The velcro-strapped sneakers I wear are a throwback to this though I did learn to tie my shoes with time. For most people tying shoes is something that came naturally but for me, well, I remember my dad once saying that when I was born, the experts didn’t think it’d ever be possible me to even tie my own shoes. I should also add that I couldn’t write me own name or speak as well as those without a disability.
Let me tell you a few things about me I think you should know: I went through speech therapy in the MCPS. I went through physical therapy in the MCPS. The only therapy I had outside of what was in the MCPS was horse riding at the Rainbow Center. I couldn’t use my own hand writing until middle school, prior to that time a used basically a portable mini electronic typewriter called an Alphasmart. I had to take SOL tests separately until high school.I had to fight to take regular Algebra I instead of Algebra I Part I/Part II because some didn’t think I could handle it. I only considered to no longer have a disability (as defined using the legal definition), and thus no longer need an IEP, in the 11th Grade if I recall correctly.
Let me tell you more things about me that show your ignorance: I graduated in the top 10% of OHS’ Class of 2007 with I believe over a 3.90GPA. I took no special classes outside of my therapy sessions that I can recall, which were mostly at Weems. I passed every VA SOL Test I took and I usually scored above average on those tests. In fact, I received a perfect score on the 11th Grade VA SOL Reading Comprehension Test. (I even scored above average on the ACT.) I took AP and Honors courses and was one of only about a dozen students that participated in the OHS-GMU Guest Scholar Program in my senior year. In fact, I graduated from high school with about two full-time semesters worth of credits (24 at GMU).I graduated from GMU with a BS degree in three-and-a-half years with Latin Honors, manga cum laude, for having a GPA of 3.71 and with Honors in the Major for passing the ADJ Honors Seminar courses. All that at college with no requested, or recieved, special accommodations by the way.
Now, did you see how one the special students you would kicked out of the system in favor of the “best and the brightest” BECAME one of the “best of the brightest?” Oh, and when I became one of the “best and the brightest”, I was never “restrained.” No-one told to not do things or score less on purpose because it’ll upset the curve or whatever the heck you’re thinking. There were plenty of AP and Honors classes for the best students like me (plus almost anyone can get in NOVA as part of the duel-enrollment to take real college classes I believe) while others could take the “regular” classes if they didn’t want to try the higher level. Of course, what do I know? I was a special needs student who the Schools shouldn’t “blow a 100k a year on”. I’m glad the people in the MCPS think a heck of a lot differently then you do since while they gave me a chance and worked with me so I could become of the “best and the brightest” you like so much, you would have tossed me aside apparently. I overcame my disability to achieve academic greatness and you must be ignorant if you think that a) I’m the only one who did something like this or b) people can’t overcome their disabilities.
Plus there’s also a very good reason why the MCPS can’t get rid the special education program which I’m very thankful for at the moment: it would violate the Americans with Disabilities Education Act. Read a summary it and the rest of the ADA here: http://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm. If you don’t want the DOJ to come here and sue us into submission over the removal of the special education classes (which would only result in the classes being put back but with federal court ordered oversight that time), along other bad things that would happen, I suggest you rethink your opinion.
Ignorance is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the fact or state of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, understanding, or awareness”. I have hopefully have just given you knowledge, understanding, or awareness. If so, congratulations, you are no longer ignorant and should consider apologizing for that second paragraph, not necessarily to me personality, but to all teachers who teach special education students, parents who have to live with a child, or children, who has/have a disability or disabilities, and to the students themselves with disabilities that have had so many effects on their lives.
Have the best day ever,
(signed)
AB
PS, I hope I more then answered your question and justified why we should money on students who can’t tie their own shoes like I was once.
October 5, 2011 at 12:17 am
Now on a lighter note:
KABOOOOOONG! Only in GTS.
October 5, 2011 at 1:24 pm
@Mr. Heinzinger:
On your first point, I can agree with returning to the days High Schools had both an academic and vocational track. I graduated from Jacksonville Senior High School in Jacksonville, NC and we had three diploma tracks: Academic (aka College Prep), General, and Business. The “Business” diploma was a way to prepare young ladies for work as secretaries/bookkeepers/office workers – but that was all those decades ago where those occupations were the “norm” for young ladies to enter after graduation. As for restoring a vocational track within OHS, parternering with NOVA Community College would be the simpler solution as the LPN program already exists via Osbourn Park HS, and I believe is an option for our City students to take.
Your second point disturbs me on several levels. Aside from my own son’s commentary, as a City appointee to the Commission on Aging, involvement with Older Virginians who have life-long disabilities is an area I strongly support. As the Board President for the Independence Empowerment Center, I support the disabled of all ages. I have met Older Virginians (age 60+) that if there had been intervention as currently exists in our schools, that would have been a life-changing event. Additionally, our own MCPS Johnson Center provides the educational support for the students such as my son who cannot be inclusive. Your opinion, Sir, makes it sound like we should just lock away these kids in institutions….and that is a real Victorian approach and view.
Caveat: I can respect your right to express your view as I served in the U.S. Army for over 23 years defending the Freedom of Speech. That said, I defend the right, but do not have to support the view.
October 5, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Adendum to my above comment: where I wrote “educational support for the students such as my son who cannot be inclusive”. My son was “inclusive” meaning he was provided support, but included in the regular classrooms vs. seperate classes where only those children with disabilities where in. The Johnson Center provides the education to those students who, because of their disabilities either born with, occur because of an accident, or because of something they did (such as inhaling a chemical aka “huffing”) cannot be in the main building either as inclusive or seperate class within the building.
October 5, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Mr. Heinzinger, I’ve deleted your comment. This is a respectful forum and you’re over the line.
October 9, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Thank you Andy, for continuing to bring pressure to bear on the issue of our city’s public schools. You rightly identified this issue as our #1 problem some time ago.
At some point I hope you choose to start voicing your opinion on what/who is the problem and present your own plan to “move forward”. Undoubtedly, feathers will be ruffled but that should not stop you. At times offense, though unpleasant, is necessary to do one’s job.
I’m not sure that asking the bureaucracy of the MCPS to identify their own failures and report back is going to be productive. I imagine that you will get a report back that lists many reasons for the low scores on recent objective testing but none of those reasons will include accountability. Expecting meaningful and consequential self-examination from the MCPS will likely turn out to be sadly pollyannaish in hindsight.
You have a tough road ahead of you. I wish you all the best.