Funding Schools

There was an interesting article in USA Today on September 2. It addressed how some schools are grappling with how to pay for extracurricular activities. It profiled a school in Ohio that had shut down its athletic and other extracurricular programs. It says in the article that one hour after the final bell the school is shut down for the day. The district spokesperson said the move saved 2.5 million dollars.

In Michigan, we are headed toward a funding crisis. There are projections that next year - 2010/2011 - funding will be reduced by $500 dollars a student. In Grand Ledge that would mean a reduction in funding a 2.5 million dollars.

How will districts throughout our state manage if that actually happens?

The Ohio district decided to eliminate athletics and extracurricular activities. That seems like a bad idea to me. Students need opportunities. While these activities are not directly related to math or science, they do help students learn skills and attitudes that are invaluable as they grow. Skills like teamwork, discipline, and perseverance can be learned in a variety of places, but they can truly be learned on an athletic team or a marching band.

In addition, extracurricular activities can connect students to schools in meaningful ways. Students who are connected to school through an extracurricular activity are often connected academically as well. Without these opportunities we may find it harder to engage students in the learning that should be the centerpiece of our schools.

I don't know what the answer is in Michigan. We need to have a better funding system. Many of us are working hard to find ideas that would help Michigan find a better way to fund education. Can we change the system before the 2010-2011 school year? I hope so but it truly does take time to develop a new way to fund schools.

My hope is as we try to work through what school funding looks like in the years to come we won't sacrifice opportunities for students in the short term.

Evaluating Schools

Tomorrow - September 3, 2009 - the state of Michigan releases the AYP status for schools in Michigan.  The law requires that they release this data before the beginning of a new school year.  

The report will show that our district - Grand Ledge - did very well.  As I review data like this I wonder how important is it to parents.  Do parents look for this information when looking for a school district?  

Part of me hopes that parents do pay attention.  While AYP and School Report Card grades are imprecise measures of school performance, these measures do provide one standardized way to measure how well a school is doing. I want all of our schools to meet the AYP standard and to receive high report card grades. Our schools need to be able to demonstrate that our students are learning. 

Another part of me, however, hopes that parents also look at other things when deciding on a school.  I hope that parents also look at the intangibles.  I hope parents look to see what opportunities students have in academics, athletics, and the arts.  I hope parents look at the physical facility.  I hope parents try to discover the district culture.  I hope parents try to get a sense of what schools feel like - the culture of a school.  I hope parents ask questions and try to make sure that teachers, administrators, and other school employees have a passion for making sure that students learn.

My hope is parents understand that there is more to measuring a school than just test scores.  Test scores are important, but so are so many other things that can't be recorded and reported.

Transforming Schools

I watched an interesting video segment by Chris Lehmann, who is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy.  He argues that schools unplug students - making them turn off cell phones, Ipods, etc. - and as a result schools do not connect with students.  Instead, he argues, schools need to learn how to connect in meaningful ways with the tools that students have and transform their educational experience.  

Lehmann suggests that schools need to care more about students than about the content.  He is not saying that content is unimportant.  He is saying, I think, that unless we connect with the students, make class meaningful and purposeful, and help students understand the importance of the content, students will not learn the content anyway.

He argues that technology can help us connect with students, make learning more personal and meaningful.  The way we use technology now in schools is not transformative.  For the most part, technology currently increases the excitement level but not the educational value of school.  

If we don't figure out how to harness the transformative power of technology, schools will continue to suffer and not fulfill their transformative potential.  

Musings About Twitter, Blogs, and Technology

I read an interesting blog from Karl Fisch, a technology coordinator at a high school in Colorado.  His August 15th entry talks about the use of Twitter.  It seems there was an editorial in the Denver Post about Twitter and how the writer hopes that it is just a passing fancy.

Karl Fisch in his blog has a rather interesting discussion about Twitter and whether or not it is useful or important.

I found the discussing rather provocative, in that it made me think.  I have a Twitter account - twitter.com/docsmatthews.  I use Twitter in ways that the editorial writer and Mr. Fisch suggest are not very interesting.  I post little statements about what I am doing or announcements on the district, all of the posts are work related but really not very revealing.

Mr. Fisch talks about Twitter in the larger context of technology.  He suggests that any technology can help a person learn, grow, and become more productive.  That started me thinking about how I use technology - this blog, Twitter, emails, and such.  Have I thought about how to use these tools in thoughtful ways?  Have I thought about how I can use technology to connect with people, share ideas, think through problems, inspire or lead others?

The answer, sadly, is probably not.  Technology has certainly made me more productive.  I can do more things faster with technology.  But I haven't really looked consider technology thoughtfully.  Beyond an increase in productivity, how can technology enrich my life?

My goal is to think more carefully about technology - about Twitter and blogs and Facebook - to see beyond the surface and discover ways to use it more thoughtfully.

Getting Ready for the New Year

Today I met with the administrative team to discuss where we are heading.  One of the items that we discussed was whether we felt we could continue to improve or whether we had accomplished all that we needed to accomplish.  In other words, we talked about goals.  

The Michigan Department of Education has two data files, one for high school and one for elementary and middle school, that allow a parent or interested party to see how a specific school district performs or to compare how several school districts perform.  The files that are located at the links above are significantly better than files we have had in the past but they still take awhile to get used to using.

What the results show is that Grand Ledge performs better than any district in Eaton County and better than most districts in Ingham and Clinton counties.  We are a solid district.  Yet we could do better.  There are districts near use that outperform us.

So today the administrative team talked about what we could do to get better.  I talked about not setting arbitrary improvement goals - increase performance on the MEAP by 5% for example - but identifying how the school will be different next year.

There is an old saying that says if you always do what you've always done you will always get what you've always got.  If we are not satisfied with our performance we cannot continue to do things like we have done them in the past.  Working harder won't necessarily produce better results if we continue to do things that have not produced results in the past. 

Today our administrative team talked about what we would do differently next year.  If we want to improve our math performance, for example, what will we do differently.  What actions will we take to make sure that student performance improves?

I believe that we need to hold ourselves accountable.  Thinking through how we will do things differently I believe will help us continue to get better.  

Dealing With Our Budget

Today is the start of fall athletic practice.  For the 2009-2010 school year, the Grand Ledge Public Schools will transfer $597,780 from the general fund to the athletic fund.  Last year we transferred $716,480.  We asked the athletic department to reduce their budget by $118,700 for the upcoming school year.

Lest anyone think that we asked the athletic department to shoulder too much, it must be remembered that we asked every area to contribute.  The cuts in the athletic budget were part of the 1.9 million dollars of cuts that we made in our school district for the 2009-2010 school year.  For the upcoming school year we eliminated positions (assistant operations director, technology support, middle school assistant principal), restructured contracts (transportation and custodial), reduced our textbook budget, and reduced the number of employees we have.  We made sixteen different reductions to the budget. 

Even with these cuts, more needs to be done.  The budget picture for our school, like every school in Michigan, is not positive.  It appears that schools will have reduced state funding for at least the next two years.  The 2009-2010 reduction will likely be $100 a student, which in Grand Ledge translates to almost $570,000.  In 2010-2011 the reduction will likely be $500 per pupil, or approximately 2.6 million dollars. 

Can we continue to cut our way our of this budget problem?

In my mind, we cannot cut our way out of this problem.  We need to figure out a more stable way to fund schools. 

What is education worth?

I saw an interesting video clip from Reuters News that was on a blog of The Atlantic Monthly.  The report states that some teachers in Korea earn over 4 million dollars a year.  One teacher has over 50,000 subscribers to his video lessons.

There are some interesting facts about the Korean educational system - students often are in class 10-12 hours a day, the goal of education is to get into a good university, and the respect that Korean teachers receive.  

However, the most interesting aspect for me was the prevalence of online access to education.  These teachers make this much money because they sell their knowledge online.  This is so much different than what we focus on here in the United States.  We worry about the relationship between students and teachers and making sure students have a voice and constructivist learning.  The examples that were shared in this video make it appear that the focus on learning is more recall and not critical thinking.  Whether or not that is true I do not know.

It does raise some interesting questions.  Can we create a system in the United States that would allow every student to be taught by the "best" teacher?  What does it mean to be a great teacher?  What is the relationship between the soft skills of teaching - knowing how to reach disinterested students, developing good relationships with students - and the hard skills of teaching - knowledge of the content?