Budgets and Baloney or Put Your Money Where your Mouth Is

During the last few years New York schools have had to create budgets under the constraints of a tax levy limitation law. For most districts this has translated to a budget increase of about 2%.

If you consider the rising costs of insurance, fuel, and transportation, districts have had to make troubling cuts to program to keep their budgets in line.

A new report funded by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now being published identifying 10 key ways that schools can save money. The main report is titled "Spending Money Wisely: Getting the Most From School District Budgets" and is published by the District Management Council.

I was very interested in this report. I spend a great deal of time examining each line of our budget trying to save a buck without hurting our programs. I do this with a scalpel not a machete, but sometimes cuts have to be made.

Here is their advice:
1. Calculate Academic Return on Investment: A Powerful Tool and a Great Investment
Calculating the academic return on investment (A-ROI) provides the answers to critical questions such as: How much does that initiative cost? How much learning is being achieved? Is there a more cost-effective alternative for achieving the same or better results?

There is actually a formula for this:

increase in student learning X number of students helped
________________________________________________________
money spent
2. Managing student-enrollment projections to meet class-size targets

3. Evaluating and adjusting remediation and intervention staffing levels

4. Adopting politically acceptable ways to increase class size or teachers' workload

5. Spending federal entitlement grants to leverage their flexibility

6. Adopting more-efficient and higher-quality reading programs

7. Improving the cost-effectiveness of professional development

8. Rethinking how items are purchased

9. Lowering the cost of extended learning time

10. Targeting new investments by eliminating inefficient and unsuccessful strategies

Anyone involved in their district's budget process would be insulted by these recommendations. Take #6 for example. Do they think reading directors purposely select inefficient reading programs? I must include an aside here: Many of the reading programs and supplies being used in classrooms today are published by Pearson, a giant corporation that has been very involved in the reading reform movement. What is a high quality reading program? Identify one for me.

Let's take #4. Politically acceptable ways of increasing class size. We know that a first grade class size should not exceed 20. Very few districts can afford that practice, EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW IT IS EFFECTIVE.

This report is baloney. I understand fiscal responsibility and the sacred trust financial managers have when using taxpayer funds. Good education is expensive. So is poverty. Education is an investment just like a 403B or a portfolio fund. Acknowledge this fact. Then put your money where your mouth is...

For additional information on this topic please consult the "Doing More With Less" article in Education Week at the following link:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/05/07/30savings.h33.html

Doctor, Doctor---give me the cure...

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending the dissertation defense of an old friend. I have never attended this process. Five professors fire questions at you after they have read your thesis and you have given an oral presentation of the theoretical framework, methodology, and results of your study.

I think I was sweating profusely as I listened to each question, probing her research and her methods. I was more nervous than she was. She had completed a fascinating literacy study about students in her class finding their identities. She had created a third space in her classroom. This is a relatively new term. Wikipedia says that Third Space theory emerges from the sociocultural tradition in psychology identified with Lev Vygotsky. In educational studies, a researcher named Maniotes examined literary Third Space in a classroom where students' cultural capital merged with content of the curriculum as students backed up their arguments in literature discussions.

I think of a Third Space as being a FREE space. Years ago, in Brooklyn, we played a street game called Ringaleevio. It was kind of like tag. During the game some random object was declared a FREE space. In my neighborhood, it was the black pump by the curb. If you were touching that pump during the game, you could not be tagged. It gave you a moment of respite, to catch your breath. I think that is what the Third Space does in the classroom as well.

Well, I continued to listen to the dissertation. There were videos and transcripts of conversations with children. My friend had lessons and reflections. Then she revealed that during the course of her work, she received an evaluation score from one of her administrators that was subpar. This was because she had veered too far away from the subscribed lessons of the school.

How sad. In front of me was a dedicated and brilliant young woman who had invested years trying to create a special atmosphere in her classroom and help her students discover themselves. Yet she was judged by her supervisor as being less than excellent...less than good. What kind of system have we created?

We must repeal the Performance Review system that judges teachers using their students' test scores and some very subjective data. Do we judge a dentist on his ability by how many cavities we get? Stop the tail from wagging the dog. Evaluate teachers on their comprehensive portfolio of the work they have accomplished with students, inspiring them, not testing them.