brief report

Well, I was going to write an account of last night's PTSA Forum, but now it's 5:39 pm and the whole thing's a blur.

Let's see.

Basically, it went great.

Since Ed had been asked to give a statement, he came prepared. [update 4-11-06: Ed now says he wasn't invited to give his statement, he was merely asked whether he'd like to give his statement or have the PTSA president give it &mdash which, if true, completely changes my view of reality....sigh]

We were both semi-braced for tension, because the PTSA-hosted Q&A with the school board candidates had been so unpleasant.

Part of the reason it was unpleasant was that we were apparently the only people in town remotely concerned about annual tax increases. We've had double-digit property tax increases for at least two years running; it might be three.

Last winter, when Ed asked the school board how much money we're spending on administrative costs the President of the Board said, "A lot."

A lot.

That was the answer.

He clearly thought 'A lot' was a good answer.

It was a nasty scene. The school board was threatening to increase class size slightly in 4th and 5th grades, and parents were frantic. One mother was in tears; others basically said, 'We'll spend whatever it takes. Just tell us how much.'

The board voted to increase class size and then, at the last moment, 'discovered' some sources of revenue they didn't know about — something like that. (As I say, I'm not a Budget Maven.)

But that was the jist, more or less, and it didn't make us happy.

Surprise money?

In a school district?

Doubletree suddenly paid its taxes?

The whole scenario seemed cooked-up. Threaten parents with increased class size & voila. They're begging for a tax increase. (One parent directly asked the Board to increase taxes as much as possible.)

We could be wrong about this, and we probably are. But the fact remains that the budget drama last year gave the impression of having been manipulated for maximum impact, whether it was or not.

So that's the back story.



yes, it's a $9 million dollar playing field!

Last night's surprise, which wouldn't have been a surprise if we'd been paying attention, was that the district is planning to propose a Bond to borrow money for a $9,000,000 playing field at the high school.

This on top of the $50,000,000 we just borrowed 4 years ago to build a new Middle School Campus equipped with state of the art everything, but already in need of repair. I've mentioned the architect we know here, the guy who's working on the new buildings for Ground Zero.....he's not happy.

If he's not happy, we're not happy.

All of which means we are so not interested in putting 9 million dollars into brand new state of the art playing fields virtually guaranteed to make the Ground Zero guy even more unhappy than he already is.



so here's the good news

Nobody was interested in putting 9 million dollars into a brand-new state of the art playing field. Nobody. Not one living soul.

In fact, one group has already formed to oppose it — and guess what?

They're none too happy about the curriculum, either.

They want to know how we can be spending $18,000 per pupil and have no books in the library.

That was a shocker.

The Forum was held in the brand-new state of the art Campus Presentation Room, located just off the brand-new two-story state of the art Library.

The mom who's leading the group opposed to the 9-million dollar playing field pointed around to the bookshelves on the 2nd floor. They're empty. I had no idea. I'd never looked at the shelves to see if they actually had books in them. I just assumed there were books. My thinking was: It's a library, there are shelves, ergo there are books.

There aren't.

There are all kinds of missing books, as a matter of fact. Fourth grade ELA doesn't have a textbook at all, just packets; other classes have some books, but not enough books.

Then there are the missing tissues. Apparently the district has formally dropped its budget for Kleenex in the classroom. So, unless the teacher buys Kleenex for the kids with her own money, there's no Kleenex.

Who knew?

Ken said once that tax revolts can happen fast. There's a tipping point.

Last year's budget sailed through 2 to 1, so I assumed every budget would always sail through 2 to 1, forever & ever.

That's not the way it looked last night.

Even one of the moms who's been most active getting budget increases passed every year (we have to vote the budget through) was sounding astonishingly negative. She was saying things like, "I've always done a lot of propaganda^* that was the word she usedfor the budget, back in the Dark Ages when nobody voted, and now parents all vote, and it's great, and now we have a Superintendent and an Assistant Superintendent and an assistant for the assistant and a Principal K-3 and a Vice Principal and another Principal Grades 4-5.....' I'm serious! This is the way she was talking! (This particular mom is a Math Brain who has an autistic kid, and she's always like that. She's hilarious; speaks her mind. She's a friend of ours. She asked Ed to write an op-ed supporting a tax increase a couple of years ago, and he did.)

There wasn't One Living Soul there who was feeling like The School Needs More Money.



TRAILBLAZERS

I've been saying Since Day One that I didn't know why on earth the district would deliberately go out and choose a math textbook that was guaranteed to get parents up in arms.

I was right.

Parents are just about to be up in arms; more than a few already are.

That's the point of the Math Enrichment Specialist: appeasement. Consciously or no, the administration is attempting to buy off the GATE parents by spending more of our money.

First we have to pay for a lousy math curriculum; then we have to pay for a Math Enrichment Specialist (which means health insurance & pension paymentsuntil that person is dead) to make up for it.

No one was told, going in, that Implementing TRAILBLAZERS would then mean HIRING AT LEAST TWO MORE FULL-TIME PEOPLE just to make up for the deficiencies of TRAILBLAZERS.

No thanks.

Give the Math-Brain kids a decent curriculum, and while you're at it give my kid a decent curriculum, too. That's what I thought I was paying for when I came here.



drip, drip, drip

I've mentioned that 'spaced repetition,' which is the fundamental principle of learning, works.

Last night was further proof.

I've been saying the words 'Singapore Math' constantly ever since fall 2004.

It's gotten around.

Late yesterday I made up a Fact Sheet to hand out to everyone so I could avoid the humiliation of my Previous Appearance at a PTSA event, when I spoke longer than my allotted 3 minutes and then got ticked off when they told me to sit down.

(I will never get over that.)

So I printed up a Fact Sheet.

Four sections:

Sample problem from Singapore grade 6 placement test (end of grade 5)

Can Irvington children pass Singapore tests?

Mathematics achievement in the U.S.

The spiraling curriculum

I got there late, and sat in the back. The mom next to me said hi, and I gave her one of the sheets. She took one look at it and said, 'Oh, Singapore Math. I'm very interested in that.'

Word gets around.

You just have to keep putting it out there.



consciousness raising

Ed and I both spoke about spiraling versus mastery curricula, separately, so we were able to do spaced repetition in the same night. Then I brought up spiraling versus mastery for a third time when a mom complained about backpack weight.

I'd be willing to bet that every person there, or close to, could tell you today what spiraling is.

They could certainly tell you what mastery is: teaching to mastery is what they thought their schools were already doing.

That's sure what I thought.

When it was my turn to talk, I said I'd made up fact sheets and would just pass those out instead of speaking. Then I asked the president to add 'spiraling versus mastery curriculum' to the list she was writing up front, because she hadn't written down the point when Ed made it first.

At that point, people asked me to stand up and tell them what spiraling was.

They wanted to know.

The cool thing was that a 2nd grade teacher was sitting behind Ed, and she confirmed to parents sitting around her that, yes, Irvington schools use a spiral curriculum. I'm not sure whether there were 2 teachers there, or just one. One teacher told the parents nearby that some skills are taught to mastery while others are spiraled. I'd love to know how they choose which skills to teach to mastery, and which to teach to exposure.

Once people know that teaching to mastery isn't being done — purposely and knowingly is not being done — that knowledge isn't going to go away. It's going to grow, and the implications are going to become clear.



other parents

The other parents were fantastic.

This was the single best parent meeting I've ever attended.

People were incredibly articulate, and no one was competing for attention, undermining other people's positions — fantastic.

No one wants a 9 million dollar playing field, everyone wants an excellent curriculum, and everyone wants to know what that curriculum is.

My friend Kathy said (paraphrasing) 'All the extras are nice, the art, the drama. But having earned a Ph.D. in the social sciences, I'm aware that American students are considered completely unprepared. Our children need an excellent education in the basics. If my daughter has a calculator in 6th grade, that's all the technology she needs. I don't want to buy any more technology for the school until I can sleep at night knowing she's getting a sound education in the basic subjects.'

It was brilliant. Amazing. She had a huge effect on the room.

Her friend, Ellen, was incredible, too (she's the mother of the GATE child).

Great, great, great.



lost instructional time

I'll have to check this story, but Kathy also heard, from a teacher, that the kids in her class had only two uninterrupted weeks of instruction all last fall. Their routine is chronically interrupted.

We are besieged by extras.

Every week there's some Special Event for the kids, something wonderful, special, and extra. It's chronic.

It's time to get back to what should be the core mission of the schools. Education. Reading, writing, math. Taught to mastery.



sample problem

Here's the sample problem I included at the top of my Fact Sheet, from the 6th grade placement test:

8. The ratio of Zoe’s money to Yolanda’s is 3:7. Yolanda has $64 more than Zoe. If Yolanda gives ¼ of her money to Zoe, what will be the new ratio of Zoe’s money to Yolanda’s?