Sycamore Taxpayer

 

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE
FLAG,
OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA ,

AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR
WHICH IT STANDS, 
ONE
NATION UNDER GOD,
INDIVISIBLE,
WITH LIBERTY
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

 

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Passion will take the place of reason when the PEOPLE lack information and ability.

Withholding information is secrecy tactic of control.

 

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Board members depend on union support

Unions are the dominate special interest group

Whose existence depends on satisfying teacher interests

The education system is built for adults

Not what is best for the children

People are lambs, who lose their liberty, unless they exercise

Their power and rights to change the system.

 

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Eric Osberg* writes, “AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION is facing a fiscal crisis, one that is unlikely to get significantly better absent important, structural changes in schools.” State budget shortfalls are expected to last through 2013. A longer term more fundamental problem has been in the making for about a century. “A hundred-year era of perpetual per-pupil fiscal growth will soon slow or stop,” says Osberg.

Our nationwide public school system is more adaptive than innovative in its work. More of the same rules, remedies and programs just won’t work in the long term. This web blog is dedicated to providing a one stop gathering of facts and perspectives, that at this time, many will find hard to understand or accept. It focuses on a local school district, **Sycamore Community Schools, since the data is within reach and a complex story can be told. While the trends are to an extreme in Sycamore, they are likely the same trends found in all American public schools.

I see no evidence that the current Sycamore district leadership comprehends the seriousness of the long term fiscal problems all American schools face. A recent State of the School presentation and the October, 2010 Five Year Forecast not only doesn’t show solutions, but doesn’t even sound the alarm of deeper more fundamental problems.

The policy of slowing total district expenditure growth, which the board continues to tout in the May 2011 Five Year Forecast, is an indication that this administration and board do not comprehend the problem. Controlling expenditure increases in Total Expenditures is not a wise practice in today’s world. They have not learned that the strategy of spending more money doesn’t work. As a result, the management skill of continuous improvement and cost effectiveness – doing more with less – is not being emphasized, nor practiced.

Our state and local education system must be viewed within the context of the long term U.S. economic problems. Focusing only at the district and state levels isn’t prudent. There has to be a prioritization of needs as money will not be available to fund all desires.  Schools will be forced to live within the constraints of its actual income and stop deficit spending. Sycamore plans to spend $23.8 million more than its income from 2011 through 2015.

The need for real productivity growth will be of paramount importance for any school district. The conventional measures of cost per student and students per teacher will have to be expanded. Our reaction to advanced degrees and experience overplayed the real value – they don’t improve classroom teaching. Personal computers have not improved educational productivity. The many rules that constrain management discretion and lead to an ineffective school organization must be revised to make schools as effective and efficient as they possibly can be.

Sycamore’s policy of more spending, pay increases affecting all levels equally, more teacher development (training), smaller class size—have little to do with student performance (achievement), and a lot to do with why the Sycamore education system gets more expensive while not gaining in productivity.

The current cheerleading mentality by our school leaders and community members isn’t very helpful. Hearing only good news doesn’t help us understand the truth and results in faulty decision-making.

At last, there is some hope that the last 28 years of compounded public compensation increases will be reigned in. Matt A. Mayer explains that collective bargaining existed since 1983. Public compensation increased that was greater than inflation because of pay steps, birthday bonuses, longevity pay for 28 years compounded to where the pay is fairly high and unsustainable. The thrust of the new Ohio collective bargaining law enacted March, 2011 provides system reform that helps “get control over wages.”***

“… the 613 Ohio school districts are headed to a $7.6 billion deficit by 2015. By then, 96% of cost is compensation,” said Matt A. Mayer. If you don’t get the wages under control you will have to raise taxes, cut kids programs, or be unable to respond to safety concerns.

The sections of this web blog are:

1. Home
2. Huge Compensation Imbalance
3. Academics
4. Cost Effectiveness (productivity enhancement, improved efficiency)
5. Fiscal Responsibility
6. Solutions
7. Future American Education
8. Miscellaneous Topics

*Eric Osberg is an editor along with Frederick M. Hess (resident scholar and director of education policy at AEI) of the Harvard Education Press book – Stretching the School Dollars. How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best. He is VP and Treasurer of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

**Sycamore Community Schools is one of Ohio’s 613 public school districts. The $75 million total expenditure Sycamore Community School district has 5,223 students of which 15 percent are economically disadvantaged. It has seven schools located in a suburb of Cincinnati. The district is one of 81 Ohio districts rated excellent with distinction, had 17.3 pupils per teacher in FY08 (down to 14.1 in FY10), and spent $14,733 per pupil during the 2009-2010 school year. The district leaders are focused primarily on cost control (Sycamore defines cost control as capping annual expenditure growth to 2.5% maximum) and academic excellence even though the district is one of the least efficient in the state and forecasts five years of deficit spending. October, 2010 Five Year Forecast –  Sycamore Projected Deficits

Sycamore Projected Deficits as of May, 2011:

FY 2011  -$2.0 million
FY 2012  -$4.8 million
FY 2013  -$5.7 million
FY 2014  -$5.3 million
FY 2015  -$6.0 million

Sycamore Projects a $23.8 Million Cumulative Deficit from 2011 through 2015

***Matt A. Mayer, president of The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, being interviewed by Bob Connors (June 9, 2011 audio blog) about its new compensation tool.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/01/educational_productivity/

The pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together.

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Now Chester E. Finn adds more pieces to the K-12 Education puzzle.

Chester E. Finn Jr. provides an additional perspective on the state of education in the US with his 12/14/11 OPINION article, Unsolved problems – and signs of hope – as 2012 dawns. His focus is on ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT. Note: see “Central Problem & Barriers” under “Future Education” section of this weblog

Central Problem:
Far too few of our kids are Not Learning Enough for their own or the nation’s good

Barriers to major gains in academic achievement:

• HR practices & policies are sorely antiquated
• pre-occupation with at-risk population
• archaic governance of K-12 Education
• dysfunctional system of school finance
• instructional technology
• choice programs
• weak-kneed accountability
• academic standards too low