Story Hour In Rockwood

Last night I attended a district sponsored meeting about Common Core. They announced it in advance to the high school parents and planned it for the hour before the Open House began, thus ensuring that the meeting had a limited time frame. Parents were treated to about 40 minutes of a lovely fable about where Common Core standards came from and what they would do for our children. It went something like this.

Somewhere in a distant land not too far or too different from here, a group of teachers (like us) and parents (like you) and researchers (who are undefined but obviously brilliant) sat around a table and thought about what we should be teaching our children. It is a good thing they did this too, because this had never been done before. To reinforce that point they showed a short video about two peole getting stuck on a stalled escalator who could not think of an alternative way to get to the top of the stairs. This was meant to show what education had formerly done. It taught students one set of facts. When presented with a different problem, they were incapable of applying their knowledge to find a solution.  We parents could all laugh at the characters on the stairs and recognize them as the requisit simpletons in many folktales. In doing so, we were expected to accept the premise of education before common core.

This description of students obviously does not explain how we got to the moon, a place we had never been before under conditions that were in many ways theoretical. It does not explain the invention of the cell phone, or this child's invention of a new test for pancreatic cancer at age 15 but, hey, this was a fable.


Then we were introduced to a new character, the Modern Learner. The Modern Learner can solve "real world problems." Again, an example was shown of a very young child who needed to recharge a vacuum. Not knowing where the vacuum's charge cord was, she stuck a cell phone charger into the motor vents of the vacuum. This is how the Modern Learner works. They use accumulated bits of knowledge to form new solutions. In Common Core the Modern Learner does not have to have the right solution to the problem, just a creative one.

Did the child safety industry psychically predict the existence of the Modern Learner when they developed all those devices decades ago to protect children from their experimentations with their limited knowledge that things can go in an outlet and toilet seats can go up to reveal a great water filled play area where things can magically disappear if you push the shiny handle?

The Modern Learner is not at all like their predecessor who I think must have been paleolithic learner.
An older learner, when asked how they tell time, would have drawn a clock. The Modern Learner would draw a cell phone (a real example from the story.) In this fable, our long education history has not produced children able to figure out how the lesson on division in class could be used to divide up  the bag of candy they bought amongst their friends. Students have never had to supply documentation to support a research paper. And they certainly haven't ever had to work with other children on like, say, a team to achieve a shared goal. Thank goodness that team of kindly people got together to give us common core.

The story was filled with magic and things that are not what they clearly appear to be. The standards are just standards. The district will maintain complete control of the curriculum. We will not be teaching to the test. The magical 4 C's (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity) are all your child is going to need to succeed.

The standards are just guidelines except where they dictate how we will score children in our new standards based grading system. Then they pretty much change the way our teachers do their jobs. We will teach "academic vocabulary" which was later explained to mean teaching students how to read a test question and know how to answer it. Now we magically are not teaching to the test. We are using our focus on the test structure and parameters to guide our curriculum so, don't worry we are still in control here, not the test developers.

The district personnel talked about scary monsters like informational text and standardized testing.
Without mentioning that the requirement in common core is for 70% of high school literature to be informational text, they showed that they can slay that monster by having children read their science and math books. See? Not so scary now. And standardized testing is no big thing. The discussion leader listed off the numerous EOC's and other standardized tests our children are required to take. The SBAC test for Common Core would be just one more. They didn't mention a word about the tests being computerized and requiring 8-10 hours to complete so I think that monster may still be a little scary.

I give the district staff credit for keeping it together during all of story hour (and question time.) They were only expecting 5-6 people, not the 60 who showed up. They expected some of the questions, but not all of those asked by the fairly well informed crowd. There were many there who knew that the fictional assembly of kind hearted souls who developed common core was just that, a fiction created to passify the public. They saw that the standards really weren't an improvement for education in our district. They asked good questions like, "With all this standardized testing, do you even have time to teach any more?"

But alas, story time ran up against a hard break and had to end without knowing what happens to the Modern Learner. Will he or she get to college? Will our children succeed?  Stay tuned.

Show Me Institute Showing Signs of Getting It

James Shul, Show Me's newest Education Policy Analyst, had conversations with teachers on both sides of the state and discovered that they were not happy with the Common Core Standards being rolled out across the state. (read article here)

Both were unhappy about the relentless testing associated with the standards, and that part hasn't even fully come into play yet.

At a recent Rockwood District public meeting Chief Financial Officer Tim Rooney reported that the district expects to spend $900,000 to retrain staff over the next two years to comply with Common Core. That's almost a million dollars to radically change the way the teachers, in a district that has very good stats compared to the state, teach. When it comes to Common Core the old adage, if it ain't broke don't fix it, doesn't apply.

Confounding this statement was an observation by one parent that the middle school had already begun teaching Common Core math through the use of new text books and no training was required. So what will we be paying close to a million dollars for? How to administer on-line assessments?

For Rockwood, the change in math standards has been a welcomed improvement. For years the district stuck with the Everyday Math program which is so bad at teaching math that it has been banned in two states. The majority of teachers hated it. Some even secretly refused to teach it. Students went home crying about math and Kumon Centers made a lot of money tutoring students in math. It is just a shame that it took something as dramatic as nationally imposed standards to move this district.

Before the Rockwood parents throw a party, they should realize the trade off Mr. Shuls pointed out in his article, "the math standards eliminate Algebra I in the eighth grade." One step forward, two steps back.

Show Me acknowledged the relative secrecy under which Common Core was introduced in the state. Since their focus is finance, they also reported the millions of dollars committed by the State School Board to adopt Common Core without public approval. Show Me is looking for comments or experiences with Common Core. Please be sure to share your thoughts with them.

Transition To Local Control Likely To Be Painful

If those opposed to Common Core are to be successful, local school districts may have more control than they've had in years. Are they prepared for it?

Kirkwood school district, one which could be locally controlled today since so very little of their operating budget comes from the state, has taken what has come from the state as a matter of course. Like many school districts they have enjoyed modest increases in their budget for a number of years, and have had the benefit of being able to pass bond issues or tax increases with relative ease because of their property values and demographics.

In fact, getting property tax money from Kirkwood residents has been so easy that they have a veritable war chest in their "maintenance" fund. In August 2010 they went to the voters with two bond initiatives which each needed 57-58 percent to pass.  Prop 1 built new classrooms across the district, new cafeterias, and science labs, passed by a margin of 400 or so votes.  Prop 2 which would have built a new swimming pool complex, new track at a middle school, turf fields for lacrosse, baseball and softball (which also had planned dugouts), plus a host of football stadium renovations only got 48 percent of the vote, way below the 57 needed to pass. No problem. Kirkwood was flush with funds in their maintenance budget so last year, they went ahead and put in the new track at the middle school as well as the dugouts at the baseball and softball fields.

That woke the public up, so this year, when the school board tried the same end run for the stadium renovations, the public showed up en mass to remind the board that the public specifically voted these projects down in 2010. Unfortunately the transition to local control is not complete and school boards still run somewhat unfettered by the public will. The decision to spend the money on the football stadium passed last night in Kirkwood 5:1.

It will take an active aware public to really make local control work. School boards can expect a lot more public scrutiny.  Being able to just push things through like they have is a thing of the past.

A little further west, the Rockwood School District, the third largest in the state, is also dealing with a public who is not going to go along easily. A bond issue failed in the August 2012 election which leaves the district with between a $5-$6 million deficit going forward. They hired a fancy consultant to figure out what went wrong and used public"listening sessions" to figure out how to sell what they want to the public better next time. They have whittled down the proposals to a choice of two, both including additional new teachers and full day kindergarten. The only difference is how the district will pay for these things and other operational needs, with a bond or not.

The problem seems to be that the public is awake, educated and cranky. They are tired of the school board constantly coming back for another dip at the public trough. Only 19 percent of the district has children currently in school. The other 81 percent are made up of private school families and mostly empty nesters who are being hit by the economic downturn, living on fixed incomes and looking at permanent property tax increases from the recent Special School District tax levy and Library Levy. Looming over all of this is the expected though not completely known impact of the Health Care law going into effect next year. These combine to make a very cranky electorate.

Making the sale all the more difficult are the district's own numbers which show things like a static or declining student population, very good student test scores under current conditions and a request for a staggering 10% budget increase with few concrete details as to where that money is going. One of the facilitators even said at a recent public meeting that they tried not to confuse things at the public sessions by providing a whole bunch of confusing "numbers." From the questions in the room it seems like the public has taken the time to educate themselves about the numbers and is ready to talk about them. If only the district were.  All detail questions seem to be answered on a one-to-one basis through follow up after the meetings making such clarifications as were sought available only to individuals, not the public.

The public is only going to get better at this which should throw the Missouri School Board Association into a tizzy as they retool their school board member training program. MSBA should keep in mind that the public will be empowered by local control as much as the school boards. "After cutting through all the rhetoric, what today’s critical and inquiring public truly demands is an honest, unguarded representation of facts, figures, recommendations and actions that are not masking ulterior motives or hidden agendas." Michael T. Adamson Transparency and Good Governance

Local School Boards should also remember that the public is not as illiterate as the national media paint them, that local school issues easily cross party lines allowing for greater public coalitions and that there are an awful lot of us college educated mommies out here who have no problem analyzing a budget. We have also been known to be quite clever when it comes to raising money (just look at any PTO, Booster organization or private philanthropy) or stretching a budget,  so maybe they should start listening to us for a change.

If you're tired of your school board not listening, today is the opening of the filing for school board positions. The filing period runs through January 15th.

School Boards Aren't Getting The Message

 Cool Hand Luke

There seems to be an epidemic of communications breakdown between government and the people. It goes all the way to the President, who gave over 100 speeches in which he tried to get the public to see the beauty of the Healthcare bill.  He was largely unsuccessful. It was seen in the state likes Arizona where the immigration law SB 1070 was supported by the majority of the AZ population, but is being prosecuted by the Justice Department.  It can even be found at the local school board level where in Rockwood, for instance, the public did not vote in sufficiently large numbers to pass the latest bond issue Proposition R, but the school Superintendent has decided the problem was that the people were swayed by the media and so the district needs to hire a consultant to tell them why they voted wrong.

Proposition R was a $43.2 million "no-tax increase" bond issue to support technology, safety measures and infrastructure and maintenance of current Rockwood facilities.  The Rockwood School District (RSD) spans more than 150 square miles in total and is the fourth largest district in Missouri. RSD has 19 elementary, six middle and four high schools, in addition to separate campuses for two early childhood complexes, two Centers for Creative Learning (gifted students' programs), and an Alternative High School Education location. The district encompasses the communities of Wildwood, Eureka, Ballwin, Chesterfield, Ellisville, Fenton, Manchester and Clarkson Valley.

The no-tax increase descriptor is a favorite one for government officials because it gives the measure the aura of being free. In fact, any bond issue has cost for the issuer. The principal repayment requires cash, as does the interest payment, which is paid to the bondholders.  And then there is the cost of the company that handles the bond issuance for the organization.  Calling it a No-Tax Increase was Rockwood's way of selling the bond to the public. Apparently they weren't buying. One commenter on Rockwood's own website said, "Does this interest come from the interest fairy or does it come from my tax money?"

Failure to pass the bond issue has left the school board with a budget deficit that must be addressed. But here they are no different than the state, the country and even other countries like Greece and Spain. The public here (and in Germany) seems to be screaming that the time is now to start really tightening the belt and looking at budget cuts as the means to get us to a balanced state. That was the message that was sent by 46% of the voters in Rockwood in April (the measure needed 57% of the vote to pass but got only 53%.) That was not the message received by the school's top administration.

Superintendent Bruce Borchers stated at a June 7 School Board meeting that “the community needed to be refocused with effective data.” Refocused on what?  Education. To him, the vote against Proposition R was a clear indication that the community was not focused on education. In order to address that he has proposed hiring a consultant to "engage the community."

So a public who said, "We do not believe you are spending our tax money prudently," will now have to pay for a consultant to tell them why their priorities are wrong. Spending money to convince you to spend more money. Sounds like the logic for the stimulus plan.

Borchers claimed that the public was swayed (incorrectly) by media coverage on Prop R.  Apparently he didn't think they could read Rockwood's own finance website which said Rockwood has only 85% capacity in elementary schools, with a forecasted decline of 5% by 2013/2014 and 7% by 2015/2016. Middle schools are at 80% capacity and will only fluctuate +/- 1% in enrollment through 2016. High schools are at 90% capacity with enrollment projected to increase < 2% through 2016. Combine that with the understanding that a bond issue, while perhaps not requiring a tax increase, was not cost-free and meant that tax money would be used to service debt instead of providing services directly to students and you have a public who was very well informed.

I would say that the public was directly focused on education. Most of the money was going to be used on construction projects like replacing gymnasium floors, updating fire sprinkler systems and build outs of library space or nurses stations. While it would certainly be nice to have shiny new facilities with everything totally up to date, such improvements do not improve student education on a dollar for dollar cost basis.

Rockwood is in their second round of "listening tours", but they don't seem to be very good at the listening part. If money is so tight and these projects are so necessary, why then did they vote 5:2 to extend the Superintendent's contract and provide a raise, in an economy where most people still are not seeing raises in their pay?

The Rockwood School District Stakeholders offered this advice:

simply listen

• listen – without an elaborate complicated “process” that takes 6 to 9 months.
• listen -  without delivering  “key messages”, which you have already done through the Guiding Change Processes of  2010 & 2011,  and the Superintendent’s Listening Tour of 2010.
  
• listen without a formal presentation.
• listen without an immediate rebuttal.

simply listen

• hold a number of meetings with stakeholders during the months of June and July
• have a fair number of Board Directors and Superintendent Cabinet personnel present at each meeting to hear and acknowledge the stakeholder input
• provide a variety of meeting locations and times  (early morning, mid-morning, afternoon and evenings)  reaching the different segments of our district community
• record the stakeholders’ input so there is public record of the feedback

seek  answers

Rockwood is not alone in its deafness to the voters. Washington School District, which touches on three counties, Franklin, St. Charles and Warren, also failed to pass a $65 million bond issue which included a 46 cent property tax increase this past April. They are looking to go back for another bite at the apple with hopes to get a slightly revised proposal on the November ballot. They too are holding listening sessions with the public. So far, they have focused on educating the public more about the need for the money to build new schools as well as renovate a building for an alternative education site, and make technology improvements districtwide. They have not yet begun discussions on program and service reductions and reorganization should the bond issue not pass the next time.
 
WSD Superintendent VanLeer said, "We also need to talk about what will be cut if a bond issue fails again. We will need to spell that out to voters."

It seems few school boards focus on this last statement. The first option is to go to the public and ask for more money because, it is all for the children. Then the only option presented to the public is how much more money the board wants and maybe how to finance those wants. It is an all or nothing vote. If you don't vote for the money, then you are misinformed or against the children. 

Like charter schools, this is really not a choice.  True choice would require the boards to seriously look at different ways to fund their wants/needs. Realistic program, service, and staff cuts should be developed that would reach the same goal. Then the public could weigh those changes against the new wants/needs and make an informed decision about which changes they wanted and how they wanted to pay for them.

RSDS recommends that school boards ask these four questions at their listening sessions if they truly want public direction on which way to go.

• What do you value in your school district?
• What do you want changed in your school district?
• What are you willing to do without in your school district?
• What are you willing and not willing to support in your school district?

 Then, of course, the school board has to listen to the answers.