Apr 12, 2007
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Tendentious headline? Yes. 100% true? Yes.
The Cooperstown Crier reports that CCS will finally taken action to reduce its unreserved fund balance:
The Cooperstown Central School board of education has approved a plan to reduce the amount of money in the unreserved fund balance to two percent of the total budget, the maximum amount allowed by state law.
According to a fund balance reduction proposal, the projected unreserved fund balance will be $975,000 at the end of the fiscal year, June 30.
New York State Real Property Tax Law requires that school districts maintain unreserved fund balances of not greater than two percent of the subsequent year’s budget, or about $317,000 this year.
In July, 2007, the money will be applied to the increased tax burden and several small reserve funds will be created for employee benefits. We first heard of this problem a year ago:
The amount of money in the district’s fund balance was first questioned at a board meeting last April and brought up at meetings for several months as residents criticized the district for retaining more money than was legal to do so.
District officials estimated the unreserved fund balance amount at $1.29 million at the start of the 2005-2006 fiscal year, almost $1 million more than it was allowed to have.
Being over by a few dollars is one thing. Being over by 300% of the legally-allowed maximum shows contempt and ignorance toward the law. Or maybe it’s a willfully-blind eye?
Board president Anthony Scalici said the fund balance became an issue recently because increased state aid and unexpected reduced expenses resulted in more money going into the fund balance.
And because it grew so large, it drew more attention, he said.
“It’s a tough issue,” he said. “Yes, there’s an official rule, but it’s not enforced and there are benefits to holding onto the money. But that’s not what people want us to do.”
You’re right, President Scalici. We want our elected officials to know the law and follow it rather than skirt it until they get caught. That isn’t too much to ask. Why don’t they want to comply, though?
Superintendent Mary Jo McPhail said the board is still concerned that two percent is not enough of a reserve to deal with unforeseen costs in today’s economic climate.
“Two percent is not sufficient in today’s economy,” she said. “They still have that concern, but they are sensitive to wanting to be very transparent as far as their fiduciary responsibility.”
Superintendent McPhail, undoubtedly under the advisement of Alan Greenspan [I imagine this is how he spends his retirement?], has concluded that the reserve isn’t enough. Is that accurate? I can’t say for sure, I haven’t crunched the numbers. I do know that the proper way to handle this is to request an exemption or fight the state to have it changed - and in the meantime, you comply fully.
That’s better than avoiding the issue for several years, ignoring the findings of an audit, lying to the public [compare their 2006 comments here with the article cited above], and then playing the smug victim.
Apr 11, 2007
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The 114th Carnival of Education is live at The Education Wonks. It’s got the week’s most relevant posts on many relevant topics in education.
This week’s All-Star Team:
- Going to the Mat reports on a massive failure by the Baltimore Public Schools Board. The Baltimore Sun shows that BPS just can’t make a budget that isn’t rife with errors.
- A Red Mind in a Blue State opines on recent findings of the (in?)effectiveness of technology in the classroom. He offers an interesting twist: could this suggest that the tech is just as effective as the teachers?
- Buckhorn Road wishes everyone knew a little bit more about political history. So do I.
- A Shrewdness of Apes points out that a parent’s idea of a school’s purpose isn’t always aligned with a teacher’s. Or with common sense.
- Teaching in the 21st Century asks whether it’s better to teach process or content. I can’t imagine not teaching both.
- Scenes from the Battleground tells us to stop listening to the children. Why not listen to the adults? You know, those veterans of childhood?
You can read the entire Carnival here, including my submission about reactions to the AP audit and how AP teachers fail their students.
A note from the Wonks:
Next Week’s Carnival midway will be hosted by Dan over at DY/DAN. Contributors are invited to send submissions to: dan [at] mrmeyer [dot] com , or use this handy submission form. Entries should be received no later than 11:00 PM (Pacific) Tuesday, April 17, 2007. Please include the title of your post, and its URL, if possible.
If you’re interested in some other good stuff [not just education], you can see the best of what I’ve read this week by going to my del.icio.us.
Apr 11, 2007
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‘Tis the season to talk about thick and thin envelopes and, evidently, to draw erroneous conclusions from basic statistics.
The great myth that grows more legendary every April is that America’s most selective colleges are, by the year, tougher to get into. Harvard accepted 9% of its 23,000 applicants this year; Columbia: 8.9%; etc., where the formula is “etc.” = School With Competitive Admissions: Low Percentage of Acceptances. What Godin and the analysts fail to understand [or, more appropriately, what they choose to ignore] is that an increase in applicants does not necessarily correlate with an increase in the quality of applicants. Only an increase in quality applicants would make it tougher for a worthy student to be accepted.
Pop/business philosopher Seth Godin writes in “The Horrible Reality of College Admissions” that:
For right now, the key lesson is this: colleges (the most coveted ones, anyway) are picky. That means they have a choice. And given a choice, they always do the same thing: they pick the best in the world. It’s quite a Dip, one that most students ought to reject in my opinion. Instead, egged on by guidance counselors with a vested interest and parents who mean well but don’t see the problem, they throw themselves into the system, almost certain to get stuck in the Dip instead of playing a different game altogether.
The opportunity for 95% of the student body is this: reject the idea of being almost good enough to get in to Harvard and embrace the idea of being extraordinarily good at something else.
In case you didn’t get the reference, “The Dip” is Godin’s new volume [full title: "The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (And When to Stick)"] from his perpetually-bestselling contrarian files.
Godin’s not alone in using acceptance rates as a measure of how difficult it is to get into good schools; June Kronholz of the Wall Street Journal waxes here about the seemingly impossible task of standing proud of your peers in the admissions process. Kronholz and tens of thousands of reporters, teachers, parents and guidance counselors are right about one thing: it’s tough to stand out. They’re wrong about it being tougher than yesterday, though.
Applications are up, which means the percentages of acceptances is down. In order to say that having more applicants leads to more stringent admissions requirements, those “new” applicants have to be competitive - and that simply isn’t the case. Sam Dillon of the New York Times makes a few salient points about the “avalanche” of college applications and what they really mean:
- A demographic swell. He points out that there are ~3.2 million high school graduates this year and a higher percentage than ever are applying to colleges. In the WSJ’s Opinion Journal, Charles Murray discussed this phenomenon a few months ago; many more people are going to college than ought to. This means that these masses are applying to colleges, including the very best schools, at increased rates. More applications, yes; higher quality applications, probably not.
- College right after high school. Dillon tells us that thirty years ago less than half of high school graduates went directly to college; today it is over 60%. Again, more applications without any indication of applicant quality. We can assume with confidence that these additional applicants are coming from the lower end of the spectrum.
- Multiple applications. David Hawkins, Director of the National Association of College Admission Counseling, says that, “Multiple applications per student is a factor that exponentially crowds the college admissions environment.†NYT’s Dillon points to the following stat: “In the 1960s, fewer than 2 percent of college freshmen had applied to six or more colleges, whereas in 2006 more than 2 percent reported having applied to 11 or more, according to The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2006, an annual report on a continuing long-term study published by the University of California, Los Angeles.”
More applicants and applications do not translate into a more talented pool or a tougher admissions process. It just means that there are a lot more applicants, not necessarily that a worthy student faces stiffer competition. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the rest would tell you this, but it would mean that they’d have to admit that many in their application boom are, in fact, crapplications. It won’t happen. You don’t attribute any of your applications to pretenders, wannabes or delusionals when you’re trying to maintain a centuries-old image of prestige, and they’re right not to admit it.
There are other reasons why seemingly well-qualified students are getting denied. A proliferation in AP courses, which I’ve written about here and here, drive up weighted GPAs and the supposed college-readiness of applicants. Grade inflation, which I touched on here, gives many good-but-not-great kids a stellar transcript. Guidance counselors encourage students [rightly] to apply to many schools, including “reach” schools. And there are quite a few more that I can’t cover in this post, including a proliferation of the “lottery theory,” an example of middle class America apparently having a far better handle on simple economics than Godin and the rest. The simple truth is that most of these inflated applications just aren’t that good.
Godin quotes a bit about a girl who’s distraught over her lackluster extracurriculars because she “… doesn’t even play the harp.” The students I work with have heard the urban legends about the applicants who are already working on a cure for cancer, have sewn 100,000 sandscarves for our troops, walked around the perimeter of Alaska in nothing but Reefs to advance the indigenous Eskimo Rights cause - and they are intimidated. They should be, because the exemplary achievements of modern youth make those students who fail to adapt to cutting edge efficiencies in our ever-developing world look as unimpressive as they really are. Parents think that these honor roll kids are one in a million, but they don’t realize that means there are 1,300 kids exactly like their own in China. And another 1,100 in India. And only 2,000 acceptances coming from Harvard.
The achievements of this year’s class of applicants looks far grander than the class of 1978, but they aren’t. Whereas a student in 1978 could’ve spent hours at the library reading the classics, his 2008 counterpart is reading $.99 used books shipped in two days from half.com, prints volumes off Project Gutenberg and has dozens of smart blogs in his RSS reader. The ’78 student programmed in BASIC on an oversized computer while the ’08 can film, produce and edit a feature-length movie - and distribute it to millions - on the $1,000 inch-thick Mac in his messenger bag. His passion and ability is likely the same as Mr. ’78, he just consumes and processes information more rapidly because he - like all of the most talented students now, then and in the future - uses opportunity to his greatest advantage. 2008′s essays about worldwide travel are made possible by cheap international transport; more students are making waves in entrepreneurship because the internet makes it possible; they speak more languages, have mastered more arts, and have just plain done more of everything. They’ve done more because they can.
How? It’s because these students understand how to take advantage of what’s available, not because they’re smarter than kids from three, thirteen or thirty years ago. These kids are the leaders of tomorrow and they’re still getting into Harvard - even if there are 30,000 other applicants.
It’s true; an excellent, fully-qualified applicant can still get denied from good schools. Exemplary SATs, GPAs, APs, community service, etc. doesn’t guarantee anyone anything - but that’s another story. When Godin and the rest look at an acceptance rate and wail about the hopelessness of the process, they’re missing the point entirely.
They’re doing us a favor, though. The ones who listen to these gross, uninformed and thoughtless misuses of statistics may not bother taking the “hopeless” chance of applying to our best schools. Then the admissions officers can spend more time reading applications from the very best.
Apr 10, 2007
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Sherry Saavedra of the San Diego Union Tribune writes that high school students simply aren’t ready for college:
What students learn in high school doesn’t match with what they need to know as college freshmen, according to a national study released yesterday.
The real difficulty here is deciding whether to file this story under “N” for “No S#@$” or “S” for “Sherlock.” But read on:
A really common complaint from (college) faculty is students not being able to put together a complete sentence properly,†said Erin Goldin, director of the Writing Center, which provides tutoring at Cal State San Marcos.
The ACT’s survey highlights several disconnects between what high school teachers think their kids should know and what college professors need them to know. A few examples:
- With reading and writing, college instructors stress the need for fundamentals; high schools don’t bother.
- With the sciences, college instructors want students to understand the inquiry process; high schools focus on content.
- With math, college instructors emphasize mastery of basic concepts; high schools want to expose students to advanced concepts.
It’s a serious problem. How serious?
Many of these students end up in college unprepared to do the work. Nearly one-third of new freshman required remedial help in English at San Diego State University in fall 2006, for example, while half were unprepared in the subject at Cal State San Marcos.
And SDSU isn’t a bad school. Students - yes, even our AP darlings - enter college woefully unprepared. The ACT blames [rightly] the imposition of ineffective state standards on curriculum for the students’ lack of college prep. But some states and districts are, believe it or not, working with colleges to help develop appropriate curricula. It’s a big project:
La Jolla High Principal Dana Shelburne said there are expectations from the California State University and University of California systems, the private colleges, the state and federal government, parents and political and philosophical groups. Simultaneously, schools are also expected to do everything from feed and clothe students to provide remediation and pave the way to athletic scholarships.
“We’re drinking from something of a fire hydrant,†Shelburne said. “Information and requests come out at us in such a flood . . . What a high school graduate is supposed to know to satisfy all the stakeholders is a question that has yet to be satisfied in my estimation.â€
Principal Shelburne misses the mark. The idea isn’t to satisfy every community or organization who speaks up, it’s to deliver the necessary skills to the students. That requires principals to make a distinction between right and wrong, beneficial and harmful, effective and ineffectual. They have to use their judgment, preferably based on professional expertise, to define the course for their school. That means they have to say yes to some people and no to others and base those decisions on solid evidence and reasoning.
You know, leadership.
UPDATE at 4/10/07, 7.41pm:
RightWingNation goes into more detail and references plenty of data to back it up.
UPDATE at 4/11/07, 3.10pm:
Take a look at Ken DeRosa’s comments on d-edreckoning, too.
Apr 9, 2007
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David Cole, a professor at Georgetown Law Center, has banned the use of laptops during his lectures. Why? He found that students who use laptops aren’t focused on the material, don’t process the content as they take notes, and just plain waste time on all that the internet has to offer. He took a survey after 6 weeks and found that:
About 80 percent reported that they are more engaged in class discussion when they are laptop-free. Seventy percent said that, on balance, they liked the no-laptop policy. And perhaps most surprising, 95 percent admitted that they use their laptops in class for “purposes other than taking notes, such as surfing the Web, checking e-mail, instant messaging and the like.” Ninety-eight percent reported seeing fellow students do the same.
I used my notebook computer in large lectures because I simply couldn’t write by hand quickly enough. I never looked at the screen when I typed and the only application I had open was MS Word.
WiFi and cellphone use are a major problems in classrooms and they most definitely hinder learning for individuals and those around them. The best solution for teachers and professors is to use a signal jammer that disrupts wireless activity within a short radius. Students won’t use technology at the expense of your classroom environment if they can’t access the internet - and the ones who utilize computers for note-taking/etc. can be productive. Read a little bit about jammers and consider the small investment [or pitch it to your department or district] - it’ll solve the problem and your teaching will benefit from it.
