Town Hall With Carr and Maier

As I previously reported, I attended the Town Hall last night on the legislative session coming up and what impacts it might have for public education. The speakers were Rep. Scott White (who becomes Senator on Monday when he gets sworn in) and Directors Sherry Carr and Peter Maier. It was hosted by Principal John Miner of Thorton Creek who told the crowd he had been had TC for 25 years. Wow. I would say there were about 50 people in attendance including Seattle Council PTSA reps, Stand for Children reps, and SEA reps.

There were several handouts. They had the letter that MGJ sent to the Seattle delegation. There were some interesting sentences that I'll put in here:

"Thus, while we began this year with a balanced budget for 2010-2011, we must now find an additional $5.24 million to end the year balanced."

Now initially I thought, "How did this happen?" but I know that at least $2M of that is because of the Auditor's finding over the Small Business works program for which the district had to pay back the Capital Fund $2M from the General Fund. Please remember, this happened entirely on her watch.

"Already not enough students are graduating from high schools ready to complete in college,..."

No, she didn't used the 17% figure.

There was another sheet about SPS and their legislative priorities for 2011. Number one is "fully funding the new definition of 'basic education' included in HB 2261." Another is funding to "support innovative ideas like extended day or extended year". I pick these two out to ask what they are thinking.

Look, you can't get blood from a stone. Yes, the state should be fully funding education but now? Tell me how? They've taken 65,000 people off basic healthcare. Is education important? Yes, but where is there money to fund extended day or extended year? Heck, one of the questions last night was about shortening the school year to save money.

Highlights:

• Senator White brought up the Governor's proposal on public education. Like many in the room (maybe more so), he seemed enthused about it but naturally cautioned that there were many details. He pointed out that while the Tim Eyman (insert hissing) measure passed, that a referendum from the people could pass with a simple majority. He also said that many cuts were coming that nearly everyone in Washington state would see if not feel.

• A teacher from Ingraham asked if the district might consider some ways to save money like suspending the mid-year MAP testing (big applause) and suspend some of the Strategic Plan elements (also applause).

• I made the comment that I know that some legislator is likely to introduce charter legislation this session. I said that I didn't want to debate whether charters are worth it or not but that (1) I hope that our state as one of the few states without charters would learn something from other states' mistakes and (2) that legislators need to realize that there would be state costs to starting a charter system and that money would start to drain out out of already struggling public schools. I said it certainly is no short-term solution to education issues and probably should be shelved until we can get our economic footing.

• The PTA president from Lafayette Elementary rose to express concern over capacity issues in West Seattle. She said a couple of schools were bursting at the seams. She also said there was worry over losing the Spectrum program because of budget cuts. Senator White said that he would be working to restore some of the funding cut for Highly Capable programs.
  

• Another person asked about allowing state universities to set their own tuition rates. Senator White said that he would vote to allow them to raise their tuition rates but would want predictability (and likely a cap) on those rates. As well he said he wants to see people who can pay to pay full price with the lower costs/scholarships for those who are truly needy. (I know that UW has one of the lowest costs for a public university in the country and regularly gets called a best value by U.S. News & World Report because of their excellence for the cost. I support the raise in tuition but I fear the middle class is going to get squeezed out.)

• A TC teacher (and SPS parent) asked why the district management never asks teachers their opinion about what works and what doesn't and what they would suggest. She said there's never a forum for feedback. She said it felt like there was a growing adversarial position between teachers and district leadership. (big applause)

• Another teacher suggested that cuts should be made to those areas where once our footing is back, we can easily backtrack and bring back what was cut.

• Another parent said that central administration cuts should be going directly to schools to help them. She asked about shortening the school year and Senator White said no to that on his part.

• Peter said he was intrigued by the Governor's proposal (Sherry called it bold) but he asked where School Boards and districts would fit in. He also made a strong point that if the State makes cuts to education that the the districts could then stop funding any unfunded state-requirements. (I think this is a valid point but it would depend on what it was.)

• Olga Addae, SEA president, made the point that cuts aren't just about teachers but the support staff as well. She said that a schoolhouse is NOT just teachers and principals and that the support staff was vital to a well-run school. She said that the budget survey was not that useful and asked about the demographics of who answered. It was a good point that many seemed to support. (Someone told me later on that surveys are pretty useless and if the district really wanted to know something, they should spend the time and the money on a poll.)

• Eric Muhs, a Ballard science teacher, said that Seattle had the most top-heavy central administration in the country. He said that as recently as this year the Superintendent said class size doesn't matter. He said the budget seems to always protect Central adm as in when the coaches got reclassified and it looked like central administration had been cut. (Unfortunately at this point, Sherry and Peter were reading a chart and Mr. Muhs felt it was disrespectful and told them so.) He said he felt there was a perception that the Board doesn't stand up to the Super and asked what they were doing about that. Sherry said that there were significant reductions and that she and Peter had been looking at a chart about that. She said staff develops a data set and the Board looks at that and central is part of it. Sherry mentioned that on Jan. 12th there would be a work session on the budget and another one on the 26th.
  

I just want to pause to point out here that I have a chart from Nov. 2010 that states that in 2009-2010, executive management FTE was 8.6 FTE. In 2010-2011, it is 15.5 FTE. I rest my case. (It has gone up steadily since 2006-2007.)

• This talk about the Superintendent prompted someone else to ask how they were holding the Superintendent accountable for outcomes like MAP results and school closures.

• One person pointed out that the Governor's idea was bold but it seemed a little odd to not get buy-in from Dorn and just kind of throw it out as a smackdown to him. She also said that parents were not happy with RIFs last time that were based solely on seniority. She also mentioned supporting Core 24 (to raise the credits to graduate from high school). White said he supported Core 24 but where's the funding? He said there are 65,000 homeless kids in Washington state and that worries him every day.

Peter answered the parent's question saying they had signed a new contract with the teachers for another 3 years with seniority for RIFs and had to abide by that. Olga was allowed to speak and said that some of what she had heard from parents about younger teachers sounded like ageism. It was as if some parents did not believe it was not possible for older teachers to still be motivated and have great passion for teaching.

• Another parent asked us all not to forget about birth-three and Pre-K as that group seems to be forgotten about and are the key to the beginning of a good education.

• Another SEA rep said that it was valid to want high expectations to come from all teachers but to not believe it could only come from younger teachers.
  

• Peter said something interesting that I didn't quite get about spreading out the money for new textbooks over 3 years instead of spending it all in one year. He said "a job or a book" is one way to think about it.

• A parent also asked about TFA. Things started getting a little tense by then. Sherry said people were 50/50 on TFA and that she voted yes to do what is best for kids. Then someone said something about it costing the district money and Sherry and Peter tried to say it didn't. I said that there were mentoring and overhead costs. Then the same parent challenged the two Board members to explain how they were holding the Superintendent accountable. At this point, it had been a long evening and I think there was some frustration over the avoidance of no one answering this question. Now if it had been me, I might have talked about her evaluation as some degree of accountability. But Sherry said she needed an example. There were at least 3 things shouted out but naturally the one that got her attention was "17%". She went off on quite the tangent trying to explain what had happened and it ended with "it was a goof".
  

I pause here to say there are always times when we don't agree with Board members as well as times when we feel very proud of them for something they stood up for or against. But I was truly disappointed in Sherry in that moment because there were so many ways to explain that issue but "a goof " is not one of them.

She also went onto say she knew about this issue (of using the stat improperly) but it didn't registered. What? Michael said he knew the stat was off but never got an answer back on it but here's Sherry saying she knew it was being used incorrectly. Geez. What was funny was that Peter then said it was getting late and looked at John Miner and said, "Don't we have to leave?" He was right, of course, but picking that exact moment when people wanted a real answer about what the Board members had ever held the Superintendent directly accountable for, was not the right time. It looked like Monty Python, "Run away!"

And that was the end of the evening. I think Senator White got quite the earful (he said his kids aren't in school yet). It's funny because we have a couple of younger legislators - Senator White and Representative Pedersen - who will have children old enough for kindergarten soon and might have a different viewpoint when that happens.