At last! The answer to why our students can't read or perform well on tests: Wikipedia!
This is a piece of fallacious crap. Just because bad information is out there doesn't mean we have to read it or accept it as gospel. One of the skills acquired through consistent reading is the ability to apply critical thinking to the information.
The internet is a wonderful place to research information. At the single press of an "enter" key, all sorts of information is thrown at you. It's up to you to read and comprehend that Elvis is not Bigfoot and that JFK did not stage Diana's death. What used to take me hours to research at the library can be done in moments. I'll agree that Encyclopedia Brittanica is an "authoritative resource" far more responsible than Wikipedia ever will be, but even back in the pre-digital day, I still had to cite three authoritative sources for my information that did not use the same root information.
The answer is not to ban Wikipedia. That's the cowardly and easy way out. Do the hard work of retraining the students to use their brains for more than just insulation and to constantly carry a 50 pound of bag of salt for use while reading. A lot of grains are needed for each trip through cyberspace.
Memo to students: The teachers know about Google too. Do the real work. The shortcuts will lead to disaster.
Is there a message in there for our intrepid Emperor and accomplices as well?
Falling exam passes blamed on Wikipedia 'littered with inaccuracies'
Published Date: 21 June 2008
By MARTYN McLAUGHLIN
WIKIPEDIA and other online research sources were yesterday blamed for Scotland's falling exam pass rates.
The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said pupils are turning to websites and internet resources that contain inaccurate or deliberately misleading information before passing it off as their own work.
The group singled out online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows entries to be logged or updated by anyone and is not verified by researchers, as the main source of information.
Standard Grade pass rates were down for the first time in four years last year and the SPTC is now calling for pupils to be given lessons on using the internet appropriately for additional research purposes "before the problem gets out of hand".
Eleanor Coner, the SPTC's information officer, said: "Children are very IT-savvy, but they are rubbish at researching. The sad fact is most children these days use libraries for computers, not the books. We accept that as a sign of the times, but schools must teach pupils not to believe everything they read.
"It's dangerous when the internet is littered with opinion and inaccurate information which could be taken as fact.
"Internet plagiarism is a problem. Pupils think 'I'll nick that and nobody will notice', but the Scottish Qualifications Authority has robust ways of checking for plagiarism and parents are worried their children will fail their exams."
Ronnie Smith, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said there was a higher risk of inaccurate information on the internet than in books. He added: "We need to make sure youngsters don't take what they read online as fact."
Several further education institutions have already banned students from using the interactive encyclopaedia. At one college in Vermont in the US, a history professor found several students repeated the same error in exam papers. On discovering the information came from Wikipedia, the college outlawed its future use.
Ms Coner said overuse of the internet also meant students did not develop interpretative skills.
She said: "Pupils are in danger of believing what they read. It's part of our short-cut culture, where we will do anything to pass a test, without properly engaging with the information or questions that are being asked.
"It's all very well to glance at a website for research, but you have to check what you are reading is correct. Anything can be untrue. I can claim to be a world expert on anything if I set up a website on the internet."
Alan Johnson, the UK Education Secretary, was lambasted earlier this year for suggesting the website could be a positive educational tool for children.
He described the internet as "an incredible force for good in education", singling out Wikipedia for praise.
A disclaimer on Wikipedia states "it is important to note that fledgling, or less well monitored, articles may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information".
Boasting over two million articles, Wikipedia is used by about 6 per cent of internet users, significantly more than the traffic to more authorised sites, such as those of newspapers. Its articles are mainly edited by a team of volunteers.
'There is a great deal of misinformation on the net'
LAST week I heard the writer Colin Bateman describe how, on looking himself up on Wikipedia, he was dismayed to discover that his young son had gone online and added the sentence: "Mr Bateman is currently suffering from penile dysfunction." Fortunately his dad saw the funny side – and was proud his child could spell "dysfunction" correctly.
In common with students everywhere, I use Wikipedia as a research tool, and so does my son. Occasionally, I come across areas where there is academic dissent – for example on whether Homer was an individual poet, and this is usually clearly indicated.
There are subjects on which I wouldn't trust any open-edit web resource, because I've come across too many conspiracy theorists in my time. But generally I think the biggest risk of using any internet source is that it leads to plagiarism, intended or unintended.
It is so easy to cut and paste, meaning only to put together some useful notes, and then to draw on them too heavily without acknowledging the source. At the extreme it is all too easy to buy "off the peg" essays on any subject.
When I was studying public health, we were trained to test the reliability of health-related websites, because there is a great deal of subjective misinformation on the net which may appear reliable.
The great strength of the internet is that it means we can amass information very readily, but it is hard to distinguish between authoritative, scientifically tested information, and something more akin to rumour.
One topic in my son's Higher History course is the civil rights movement in the US. Starting from the simplest of internet queries, it wasn't long before he got into quite contentious issues, which were presented in very partial terms by organisations with vested interests.
It was hugely useful to him to develop the skill of challenging what was presented as "fact", but it is a skill that has to be learnt, and which many internet users won't have. Of course, that skill isn't just useful for assessing the reliability of the internet. Mr Bateman, for example, earns his living by making up stories.
• Miranda Harvey is a parent of a pupil at Boroughmuir High School, Edinburgh.
Politics
POLITICIANS and their parties are among those Wikipedia entries most vulnerable to deliberate misinformation.
During his time in Downing Street, Tony Blair may have been alarmed to find himself slurred as "George Bush's bitch-boy".
The SNP's entry has previously seen the party described as one "influenced by childish Jacobitism", while Scottish Labour has been dubbed a "fascist organisation".
Celebrity
AS WELL as political heavy-hitters, the realm of celebrity is a favourite for Wikipedia's mischief-makers.
At different times, Kylie Minogue has had her genealogical history thrown into doubt after her entry claimed that she was "the more beautiful and talented older sister" of Michael Jackson.
Robbie Williams suffered an even crueller entry – it was at one point alleged on Wikipedia that he made a living from eating hamsters in pubs in and around Stoke.
Fantasists
WIKIPEDIA is seen by some as a blank canvas where self-publicists can promote themselves. In 2006, a call centre worker from Glasgow was exposed after concocting an elaborate alter ego through his Wikipedia page, which gave the impression he was a highly decorated war hero.
Alan Mcilwraith, renaming himself Captain Sir Alan, claimed to have been an officer in the Parachute Regiment, who finished top of his class at Sandhurst before going on to become a terrorism expert.
After two years of conducting this charade, someone who knew Mcilwraith revealed the sham.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Pennsylvania Taxation and Assessment Update
The Inquirer had part one of this series last week and it was mentioned in this post. Part 2 today looks at the city of Philadelphia.
Real-Estate Roulette
Philadelphia’s ‘unbelievable’ assessments confound property owners with wildly inequitable taxes.
By Anthony R. Wood and Dylan Purcell
Inquirer Staff Writers
Of the 400,000 homeowners in Philadelphia, only 3 percent receive property-tax bills based on the true value of their real estate.
For the remaining 387,000, the amounts they are charged are wrong, and often wildly so - derived from assessments that, on average, are 39 percent off the mark, according to an analysis by The Inquirer.
The appraisals border on the randomness of Ping-Pong balls popped from a lottery machine, with winners and losers. [More at philly.com website]
Real-Estate Roulette
Philadelphia’s ‘unbelievable’ assessments confound property owners with wildly inequitable taxes.
By Anthony R. Wood and Dylan Purcell
Inquirer Staff Writers
Of the 400,000 homeowners in Philadelphia, only 3 percent receive property-tax bills based on the true value of their real estate.
For the remaining 387,000, the amounts they are charged are wrong, and often wildly so - derived from assessments that, on average, are 39 percent off the mark, according to an analysis by The Inquirer.
The appraisals border on the randomness of Ping-Pong balls popped from a lottery machine, with winners and losers. [More at philly.com website]
Perspective
Maybe we should keep in mind what a disaster is. Yes, our taxes are high. Yes, we're indulging in quite a bit of neighbor to neighbor infighting. What we're fighting about is fixable. For some, fixable is a relative term.
Perhaps the American flag in the center of the photo should be upside down, but I'm guessing there wasn't time to do that.
Perhaps the American flag in the center of the photo should be upside down, but I'm guessing there wasn't time to do that.
Quakertown Alive!
According to the BCCT this morning, it looks like the town elders in Quakertown are doing their best to revitalize their downtown area. As always, nothing is done in great leaps. Baby steps, one after another, are the key to success. It's great to see Quakertown Alive! and the rest of the town working together, a key element that need to be more acutely developed here in Morrisville.
What a wistful quote is used to end the story: “Unless you put a river here, we’re never going to be New Hope.”
There's another plus for us. We don't need to be New Hope any more than Quakertown does. We need to be Morrisville. And a river runs through it.
Businesses coming — and going — on Broad Street
As some stores close in downtown Quakertown, others are opening up.
By HILARY BENTMAN
There are signs of new life in downtown Quakertown these days, as a handful of stores have recently opened.
But there are also the telltale markers of a down economy, including at least five vacant stores along Broad Street in the shopping district.
Downtown revitalization in Quakertown has been going on for at least a decade. Efforts have been made to pull people away from the national chain stores that line the strip malls of Route 309 in favor of the mom and pops along the main street of the Upper Bucks burg.
Success has been mixed, but business owners and officials say they are beginning to see a positive shift.
“It’s baby steps,” said Jim Wilson, president of Quakertown Alive!, a nonprofit revitalization group. “The downtown is better than it was a few years ago. We’re at the tipping point.”
In the past few months, Quakertown has seen some significant turnover in businesses.
Ava’s Glass Gallery, on the 300 block of Broad Street, closed earlier this year after being open just a short time. The business has relocated to a home studio outside of the borough.
Some say the store was too specialized, pricey, and did not keep convenient hours.
In its place, Blue Moon, a children’s consignment store, has opened.
A few doors away, the Broad Street Gallery shut down in April after 17 years. Owner Steve Swann blamed the lack of downtown foot traffic for the demise. He has a second location in the Quakertown Farmer’s Market, known as Swann Art and Frame, and has consolidated operations there.
Already the Broad Street Gallery space has been claimed. All Things Bridal and Cindy Landis Photography Studio, both owned by Cindy Landis, will move in next month, relocating from Route 309 in Colmar.
“It’s the nature of retail to have businesses come and go,” said Wilson, noting that people are inquiring about available space. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything drastically [different].”
The current economic slump is certainly playing a part in the empty storefronts, some argue.
“I’m sure it has an effect on it. People aren’t able to start up a business and there’s the price of fuel,” said Rich Scott, manager of Moyer’s Shoes, a mainstay on Broad Street for over half a century. He says Moyer’s secret is catering to people with special shoe needs.
Parking is also a problem, say some shop owners. Meters line the streets and there is limited parking in the center of the shopping area.
On the dining end, Quakertown has gotten a boost of late. The relatively new Front Street Café, across from the Quakertown Train Station, is attracting crowds with its more upscale fare.
And Broadway Café is now open on the 200 block of Broad Street, next to Miss Cindy’s School of Dance. Jay Johnston has owned the building since 1992, and recently decided to open up the restaurant, a cross between a 1950s retro diner and a shrine to New York City’s theatre district.
“People gotta eat,” said Johnston in his southern drawl. The restaurant has proven a convenient place for students at the nearby Miss Cindy’s School of Dance, his wife’s business, to grab a bite to eat and for their parents to wait.
“[Quakertown] has great potential and I do see some progress,” Johnston said. “It’s an all-American, small town atmosphere, friendly people. It’s a great little town here.”
Next door is the Katie Stauffer Memorial Arts Center, which recently took over the former Cohen’s card shop space when it outgrew its old location in Richlandtown.
“We decided we would do better if we moved into Quakertown, more visibility,” said president and founder Linda Stauffer.
From pottery to bead weaving, young and old can take art classes at the center, which also works with homeschooled children and will soon partner with the Bucks County Intermediate Unit to offer classes for special education students.
The Stauffer center has even started a First Friday event, which brings in local artists and live music. A few surrounding businesses are starting to join in.
“We’re just trying to get things going down there,” said Stauffer.
Although already open for business, the center will have its official grand opening June 24, a special date for Stauffer, as it would have marked her daughter Katie’s 25th birthday. Katie, a 2001 Quakertown High School grad and standout student, artist and swimmer, was killed in a car accident in March 2003.
“I read Katie’s journal [after she died] and she said she hoped to make a difference. I have to continue that for her,” said Linda, a retired art teacher.
Wilson is hoping the combination of the art center, Broadway Café and a nearby pretzel shop will help draw more kids to the downtown. “There is nothing like youth to bring energy to a block,” he said.
In the end, Quakertown’s economy depends on promoting the town’s uniqueness, he said. Although there have been successful models to follow in other towns in the region, Wilson said Quakertown must stay true to itself.
“Unless you put a river here, we’re never going to be New Hope,” he said.
What a wistful quote is used to end the story: “Unless you put a river here, we’re never going to be New Hope.”
There's another plus for us. We don't need to be New Hope any more than Quakertown does. We need to be Morrisville. And a river runs through it.
Businesses coming — and going — on Broad Street
As some stores close in downtown Quakertown, others are opening up.
By HILARY BENTMAN
There are signs of new life in downtown Quakertown these days, as a handful of stores have recently opened.
But there are also the telltale markers of a down economy, including at least five vacant stores along Broad Street in the shopping district.
Downtown revitalization in Quakertown has been going on for at least a decade. Efforts have been made to pull people away from the national chain stores that line the strip malls of Route 309 in favor of the mom and pops along the main street of the Upper Bucks burg.
Success has been mixed, but business owners and officials say they are beginning to see a positive shift.
“It’s baby steps,” said Jim Wilson, president of Quakertown Alive!, a nonprofit revitalization group. “The downtown is better than it was a few years ago. We’re at the tipping point.”
In the past few months, Quakertown has seen some significant turnover in businesses.
Ava’s Glass Gallery, on the 300 block of Broad Street, closed earlier this year after being open just a short time. The business has relocated to a home studio outside of the borough.
Some say the store was too specialized, pricey, and did not keep convenient hours.
In its place, Blue Moon, a children’s consignment store, has opened.
A few doors away, the Broad Street Gallery shut down in April after 17 years. Owner Steve Swann blamed the lack of downtown foot traffic for the demise. He has a second location in the Quakertown Farmer’s Market, known as Swann Art and Frame, and has consolidated operations there.
Already the Broad Street Gallery space has been claimed. All Things Bridal and Cindy Landis Photography Studio, both owned by Cindy Landis, will move in next month, relocating from Route 309 in Colmar.
“It’s the nature of retail to have businesses come and go,” said Wilson, noting that people are inquiring about available space. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything drastically [different].”
The current economic slump is certainly playing a part in the empty storefronts, some argue.
“I’m sure it has an effect on it. People aren’t able to start up a business and there’s the price of fuel,” said Rich Scott, manager of Moyer’s Shoes, a mainstay on Broad Street for over half a century. He says Moyer’s secret is catering to people with special shoe needs.
Parking is also a problem, say some shop owners. Meters line the streets and there is limited parking in the center of the shopping area.
On the dining end, Quakertown has gotten a boost of late. The relatively new Front Street Café, across from the Quakertown Train Station, is attracting crowds with its more upscale fare.
And Broadway Café is now open on the 200 block of Broad Street, next to Miss Cindy’s School of Dance. Jay Johnston has owned the building since 1992, and recently decided to open up the restaurant, a cross between a 1950s retro diner and a shrine to New York City’s theatre district.
“People gotta eat,” said Johnston in his southern drawl. The restaurant has proven a convenient place for students at the nearby Miss Cindy’s School of Dance, his wife’s business, to grab a bite to eat and for their parents to wait.
“[Quakertown] has great potential and I do see some progress,” Johnston said. “It’s an all-American, small town atmosphere, friendly people. It’s a great little town here.”
Next door is the Katie Stauffer Memorial Arts Center, which recently took over the former Cohen’s card shop space when it outgrew its old location in Richlandtown.
“We decided we would do better if we moved into Quakertown, more visibility,” said president and founder Linda Stauffer.
From pottery to bead weaving, young and old can take art classes at the center, which also works with homeschooled children and will soon partner with the Bucks County Intermediate Unit to offer classes for special education students.
The Stauffer center has even started a First Friday event, which brings in local artists and live music. A few surrounding businesses are starting to join in.
“We’re just trying to get things going down there,” said Stauffer.
Although already open for business, the center will have its official grand opening June 24, a special date for Stauffer, as it would have marked her daughter Katie’s 25th birthday. Katie, a 2001 Quakertown High School grad and standout student, artist and swimmer, was killed in a car accident in March 2003.
“I read Katie’s journal [after she died] and she said she hoped to make a difference. I have to continue that for her,” said Linda, a retired art teacher.
Wilson is hoping the combination of the art center, Broadway Café and a nearby pretzel shop will help draw more kids to the downtown. “There is nothing like youth to bring energy to a block,” he said.
In the end, Quakertown’s economy depends on promoting the town’s uniqueness, he said. Although there have been successful models to follow in other towns in the region, Wilson said Quakertown must stay true to itself.
“Unless you put a river here, we’re never going to be New Hope,” he said.
Watch our student video and call your legislators today
Check out Good Schools Pennsylvania
Watch our student video and call your legislators today!
Please watch this video – Student Voices on Pennsylvania School Funding Reform. The first :30 seconds are a TV commercial now playing around the state, followed by five minutes of students from throughout Pennsylvania sharing their hopes and commenting on the need for adequate school funding to support their goals. Now be sure to forward it to your friends, family and colleagues!
Take action
Contact your state legislators in Harrisburg. Email them directly or find their phone numbers here.
Tell your legislators to strongly support the Governor’s proposal for historic reform of Pennsylvania’s funding system for public education. State legislators will vote on this proposal by June 30, as part of the annual budget process. Governor Rendell has proposed a new funding system that will: (1) ramp up state funding to relieve the relentless pressure on local property taxes to support public education; (2) fairly distribute funding to ensure that all children – especially those in poverty and disadvantaged in other ways – have a quality education supported by adequate resources; (3) hold school districts accountable for investing the new resources to improve student achievement; and (4) implement a 6-year funding equity plan to provide predictability and funding stability for public schools.
You pushed for the costing-out study; now is the time to contact your legislators and demand education finance reform. The Governor’s plan merely implements the recommendations of the costing-out study commissioned and paid for by the General Assembly in 2007.
Thanks for making sure Every Kid Counts!
For more information...
Visit Good Schools Pennsylvania's website.
Help us help them – Donate today!
You can help us make sure the voices of students are more broadly distributed by making a secure online donation, or sending your contribution to Good Schools Pennsylvania, 6757 Greene Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119.
Good Schools Pennsylvania is a statewide network of citizens who are informed and mobilized in support of public education. We believe that we can improve our schools when we join together in calling for adequate funds that are equitably distributed, proven educational practices to meet a standard of excellence, and effective accountability measures. We invite you to become part of the movement for educational justice in Pennsylvania!
Dotted Line
Good Schools Pennsylvania | www.goodschoolspa.org | info@goodschoolspa.org
6757 Greene Street, Suite 310 | Philadelphia, PA 19119-3508 | (866) 720-4086
Watch our student video and call your legislators today!
Please watch this video – Student Voices on Pennsylvania School Funding Reform. The first :30 seconds are a TV commercial now playing around the state, followed by five minutes of students from throughout Pennsylvania sharing their hopes and commenting on the need for adequate school funding to support their goals. Now be sure to forward it to your friends, family and colleagues!
Take action
Contact your state legislators in Harrisburg. Email them directly or find their phone numbers here.
Tell your legislators to strongly support the Governor’s proposal for historic reform of Pennsylvania’s funding system for public education. State legislators will vote on this proposal by June 30, as part of the annual budget process. Governor Rendell has proposed a new funding system that will: (1) ramp up state funding to relieve the relentless pressure on local property taxes to support public education; (2) fairly distribute funding to ensure that all children – especially those in poverty and disadvantaged in other ways – have a quality education supported by adequate resources; (3) hold school districts accountable for investing the new resources to improve student achievement; and (4) implement a 6-year funding equity plan to provide predictability and funding stability for public schools.
You pushed for the costing-out study; now is the time to contact your legislators and demand education finance reform. The Governor’s plan merely implements the recommendations of the costing-out study commissioned and paid for by the General Assembly in 2007.
Thanks for making sure Every Kid Counts!
For more information...
Visit Good Schools Pennsylvania's website.
Help us help them – Donate today!
You can help us make sure the voices of students are more broadly distributed by making a secure online donation, or sending your contribution to Good Schools Pennsylvania, 6757 Greene Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119.
Good Schools Pennsylvania is a statewide network of citizens who are informed and mobilized in support of public education. We believe that we can improve our schools when we join together in calling for adequate funds that are equitably distributed, proven educational practices to meet a standard of excellence, and effective accountability measures. We invite you to become part of the movement for educational justice in Pennsylvania!
Dotted Line
Good Schools Pennsylvania | www.goodschoolspa.org | info@goodschoolspa.org
6757 Greene Street, Suite 310 | Philadelphia, PA 19119-3508 | (866) 720-4086
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Kimberton Followup
Here's a follow up from the Inquirer on the story about the Kimberton, PA school on a Superfund site. Ain't gonna happen...
Board scraps proposed school site
By Kathleen Brady Shea
Inquirer Staff Writer
The Phoenixville Area school board last night scrapped a two-year-old plan to locate an elementary school next to a Superfund site - a proposal that provoked intense controversy in recent weeks.
Before the vote, about a dozen residents, including a cancer survivor, urged the board not to put the district's children at risk.
"I'm a board-certified toxicologist, but more importantly, I'm a parent," said Conney W. Berger Jr. "There is no way you can get rid of all risk . . . however, this is an absolute no."
Donna Jackson, a parent, said the fact that the district needed "testing, experts, reports and an environmental lawyer" suggested the plan was fraught with peril.
In the end, the citizens' concerns trumped the district's scientific data, which had sanctioned the site near the intersection of Cold Stream Road and Route 113. The board voted, 6-2, to abandon the project, receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of more than 100.
Retiring Superintendent David Noyes, who also received a standing ovation for his seven years of service, said after the vote that the next administration would have to find a way to recover almost $4 million.
Noyes said that the land was purchased for $1.85 million in 2005 and that money had been spent on architectural and environmental studies.
"All the experts said it was safe, but emotion took over," Noyes said after the vote.
Many of the opponents said they learned of the project in the last month and were appalled.
Fred Romano, a parent and physician, said he attended the last board meeting and was challenged for not coming forward sooner.
"Apparently we've been in the dark," he said, adding that he collected 375 signatures in four days from citizens who shared his fears.
After the vote, he called the $4 million cost to taxpayers "a bitter pill to swallow," but felt "it was worth it."
Before the meeting, Romano and a dozen other members of the newly formed Coalition of Concerned Citizens held a news conference in front of Phoenixville Area High School to voice their opposition to the project.
Paul Gottlieb, a Pennsylvania State Education Association representative, said the EPA cited risk but called it "reasonable," which he found unacceptable. "No unnecessary risk is reasonable, especially when there are other properties," he said.
The 45-acre Superfund site - across the street from the proposed school - was used previously for manufacturing resin, textile and asphalt products. The former owner, Ciba-Geigy Corp., now Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., disposed of residue in eight lagoons on the property.
An October letter from a Ciba attorney labeled the district's plans for the school "ill-advised," but Ron Miller, the district's chief of operations, said the company ignored a request to provide specifics.
Donna Jakubowski, a Ciba spokeswoman, did not return repeated telephone calls.
In 2002, Ciba and two other firms admitted no liability in a confidential settlement regarding a higher-than-usual rate of childhood cancer in Toms River, N.J., home of two Superfund sites.
Board scraps proposed school site
By Kathleen Brady Shea
Inquirer Staff Writer
The Phoenixville Area school board last night scrapped a two-year-old plan to locate an elementary school next to a Superfund site - a proposal that provoked intense controversy in recent weeks.
Before the vote, about a dozen residents, including a cancer survivor, urged the board not to put the district's children at risk.
"I'm a board-certified toxicologist, but more importantly, I'm a parent," said Conney W. Berger Jr. "There is no way you can get rid of all risk . . . however, this is an absolute no."
Donna Jackson, a parent, said the fact that the district needed "testing, experts, reports and an environmental lawyer" suggested the plan was fraught with peril.
In the end, the citizens' concerns trumped the district's scientific data, which had sanctioned the site near the intersection of Cold Stream Road and Route 113. The board voted, 6-2, to abandon the project, receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of more than 100.
Retiring Superintendent David Noyes, who also received a standing ovation for his seven years of service, said after the vote that the next administration would have to find a way to recover almost $4 million.
Noyes said that the land was purchased for $1.85 million in 2005 and that money had been spent on architectural and environmental studies.
"All the experts said it was safe, but emotion took over," Noyes said after the vote.
Many of the opponents said they learned of the project in the last month and were appalled.
Fred Romano, a parent and physician, said he attended the last board meeting and was challenged for not coming forward sooner.
"Apparently we've been in the dark," he said, adding that he collected 375 signatures in four days from citizens who shared his fears.
After the vote, he called the $4 million cost to taxpayers "a bitter pill to swallow," but felt "it was worth it."
Before the meeting, Romano and a dozen other members of the newly formed Coalition of Concerned Citizens held a news conference in front of Phoenixville Area High School to voice their opposition to the project.
Paul Gottlieb, a Pennsylvania State Education Association representative, said the EPA cited risk but called it "reasonable," which he found unacceptable. "No unnecessary risk is reasonable, especially when there are other properties," he said.
The 45-acre Superfund site - across the street from the proposed school - was used previously for manufacturing resin, textile and asphalt products. The former owner, Ciba-Geigy Corp., now Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., disposed of residue in eight lagoons on the property.
An October letter from a Ciba attorney labeled the district's plans for the school "ill-advised," but Ron Miller, the district's chief of operations, said the company ignored a request to provide specifics.
Donna Jakubowski, a Ciba spokeswoman, did not return repeated telephone calls.
In 2002, Ciba and two other firms admitted no liability in a confidential settlement regarding a higher-than-usual rate of childhood cancer in Toms River, N.J., home of two Superfund sites.
Business Proposal
Comments, anyone?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Director of Pupil Personnel Services":
I'm sorry "save the school." I don't mean your blog is trash but just some of the comments on it. Yes I'm looking in a mirror and am guilty of occasional trash writing. It's just irritating when people criticize and name call without doing one spec of research. As much as I diaagree with Jon and Borows who may slant things, but they do their homework and I have to respect that. As for you "save the school." You may be on to a brillant thought. We may not agree on everything but business is bsiness and you got the blog and I got the book. How about after it's ready and you've reviewed it and determined that IT IS NOT MORRISVILLE SCHOOL BASHING, you promote the book on your blog and I'll donate a percentage of each book to the Morrisville School District. How bout it?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Director of Pupil Personnel Services":
I'm sorry "save the school." I don't mean your blog is trash but just some of the comments on it. Yes I'm looking in a mirror and am guilty of occasional trash writing. It's just irritating when people criticize and name call without doing one spec of research. As much as I diaagree with Jon and Borows who may slant things, but they do their homework and I have to respect that. As for you "save the school." You may be on to a brillant thought. We may not agree on everything but business is bsiness and you got the blog and I got the book. How about after it's ready and you've reviewed it and determined that IT IS NOT MORRISVILLE SCHOOL BASHING, you promote the book on your blog and I'll donate a percentage of each book to the Morrisville School District. How bout it?
Greenland Update
No real news just yet. The Arkansas Dept. of Education isn't announcing anything until mid-July, but the surrounding districts are already scrambling to assess the impact. This is what Pennsbury and any other targeted potential pasture for our farmed high school students is doing.
This is a great quote: "It may come down to where it doesn't matter what any of the school districts want," said Tim Helder, the board president. "The state board may just tell us how it's going to be."
Yup. That's pretty much the way it will go.
West Fork Board Considers Financial Impact Of Greenland
Surrounding School Districts Awaiting State's Decision
Last updated Thursday, June 19, 2008 9:54 PM CDT in News
By Bob Caudle
The Morning News
WEST FORK - Greenland School District's financial woes are not confined just to Greenland.
Diane Barrett, the superintendent of West Fork schools, said a preliminary look at absorbing certified staff members from Greenland and bringing them up to the West Fork school salary schedule would cost about $1 million.
"Those are just rough figures," Barrett stressed.
Greenland school officials received a letter from state department of education June 13 informing them the school district faces being dissolved because of fiscal distress.
The West Fork School Board met in special session Thursday night to discuss the impact on West Fork if the Arkansas Board of Education annexes Greenland schools into contiguous school districts.
Barrett told the board she doesn't have sound financial figures yet, and there's no guarantee West Fork would be the only school forced to take Greenland staff members and students.
The Department of Education recommended to the Board of Education to immediately annex Greenland schools into another geographically contiguous school district. The other schools mentioned by the department as possible destinations for Greenland students are Fayetteville, Elkins, Farmington, Mountainburg and Prairie Grove.
Greenland will have a chance to appeal the recommendation at a meeting of the state school board at 9 a.m. July 14. The contiguous school districts also can attend the meeting to present a case on whether they want Greenland schools.
"It may come down to where it doesn't matter what any of the school districts want," said Tim Helder, the board president. "The state board may just tell us how it's going to be."
Helder said the best outcome would be for Greenland to win its appeal and be able to keep its school.
"Maybe Greenland can present information at the appeal hearing that shows they've gotten their ducks in a row," Helder said. "We do have empathy for what Greenland's going through."
Barrett said she participated in a Thursday morning meeting with superintendents of the other contiguous schools.
"The consensus seemed to be the board will look at things geographically," Barrett said. "We have to look at the financial impact. But we don't know if the board is going to consider that."
About 15 people attended the meeting, including two Winslow patrons, Leta McGuire and Velma Duncan.
Both are members of the Winslow City Council, and both expressed bitterness about the closing of Winslow schools after Winslow was forced to annex and chose Greenland.
Duncan said Winslow residents don't want even to consider going to Fayetteville.
"We don't want Fayetteville's tax base and they don't want us because it's too far to bus us," Duncan said. "We'd petitioned Greenland to just let us go since they blamed this whole mess on us. But they wouldn't listen."
Duncan said West Fork already has about 80 percent of former Winslow students after Greenland closed Winslow schools.
Helder said the West Fork School Board will meet again, tentatively at 6 p.m. June 27. Any input from West Fork on the Greenland annexation must be into the state board by noon June 30, Barrett said.
"We need to meet when you have figures you're comfortable with and listen to your recommendation," Helder told Barrett.
This is a great quote: "It may come down to where it doesn't matter what any of the school districts want," said Tim Helder, the board president. "The state board may just tell us how it's going to be."
Yup. That's pretty much the way it will go.
West Fork Board Considers Financial Impact Of Greenland
Surrounding School Districts Awaiting State's Decision
Last updated Thursday, June 19, 2008 9:54 PM CDT in News
By Bob Caudle
The Morning News
WEST FORK - Greenland School District's financial woes are not confined just to Greenland.
Diane Barrett, the superintendent of West Fork schools, said a preliminary look at absorbing certified staff members from Greenland and bringing them up to the West Fork school salary schedule would cost about $1 million.
"Those are just rough figures," Barrett stressed.
Greenland school officials received a letter from state department of education June 13 informing them the school district faces being dissolved because of fiscal distress.
The West Fork School Board met in special session Thursday night to discuss the impact on West Fork if the Arkansas Board of Education annexes Greenland schools into contiguous school districts.
Barrett told the board she doesn't have sound financial figures yet, and there's no guarantee West Fork would be the only school forced to take Greenland staff members and students.
The Department of Education recommended to the Board of Education to immediately annex Greenland schools into another geographically contiguous school district. The other schools mentioned by the department as possible destinations for Greenland students are Fayetteville, Elkins, Farmington, Mountainburg and Prairie Grove.
Greenland will have a chance to appeal the recommendation at a meeting of the state school board at 9 a.m. July 14. The contiguous school districts also can attend the meeting to present a case on whether they want Greenland schools.
"It may come down to where it doesn't matter what any of the school districts want," said Tim Helder, the board president. "The state board may just tell us how it's going to be."
Helder said the best outcome would be for Greenland to win its appeal and be able to keep its school.
"Maybe Greenland can present information at the appeal hearing that shows they've gotten their ducks in a row," Helder said. "We do have empathy for what Greenland's going through."
Barrett said she participated in a Thursday morning meeting with superintendents of the other contiguous schools.
"The consensus seemed to be the board will look at things geographically," Barrett said. "We have to look at the financial impact. But we don't know if the board is going to consider that."
About 15 people attended the meeting, including two Winslow patrons, Leta McGuire and Velma Duncan.
Both are members of the Winslow City Council, and both expressed bitterness about the closing of Winslow schools after Winslow was forced to annex and chose Greenland.
Duncan said Winslow residents don't want even to consider going to Fayetteville.
"We don't want Fayetteville's tax base and they don't want us because it's too far to bus us," Duncan said. "We'd petitioned Greenland to just let us go since they blamed this whole mess on us. But they wouldn't listen."
Duncan said West Fork already has about 80 percent of former Winslow students after Greenland closed Winslow schools.
Helder said the West Fork School Board will meet again, tentatively at 6 p.m. June 27. Any input from West Fork on the Greenland annexation must be into the state board by noon June 30, Barrett said.
"We need to meet when you have figures you're comfortable with and listen to your recommendation," Helder told Barrett.
Orange and Black Uniforms?
It looks like Pennsbury may be the next district to go for school uniforms. Maybe orange and black aren't the best combination...Can you imagine celebrating Halloween year round?
District mulls uniform policy
By MANASEE WAGH
Fretting over what to wear to school could become a thing of the past for Pennsbury High School students starting in fall 2009. That is, if a budding idea for a mandatory uniform policy bears fruit by the end of the coming school year.
A few board members and parents expressed an interest in having students wear some kind of uniform, said Gregory Lucidi, school board president.
“Mainly it’s the idea of dress appropriateness in schools. In high school, there are many instances of inappropriate dress,” he said, adding that a generic dress code for all students would also eliminate any gang-related dress.
Quickly identifying people who don’t belong in the schools is another benefit, said Lucidi, who’s been thinking about a dress policy for some time but hadn’t brought it up earlier because the board had been busy with more pressing items, like the budget.
Over the summer, the administration is going to look at creating a committee to study the issue, said Lucidi. “We’d like it to be mostly parents. That would be our first focus,” he said.
Having student representatives on the committee might be a possibility as well.
If the board approves forming the committee in September, it would give the members three to four months to come up with recommendations.
Lucidi said he’s discussed the issue with some parents, all of whom love the idea. On the other hand, students with whom he’s broached the subject aren’t too keen on wearing the same thing to school day after day.
Lucidi said he has nothing specific in mind that he believes students should wear.
“I’d like to see something generic they could purchase anywhere. It’s less expensive to dress in uniform every day than to buy children the clothes they want to wear to school.”
Khakis and a golf shirt for boys, with flexibility in garment colors, for example.
Other districts have instituted uniform policies in the past year. School Lane Charter School in Bensalem started a policy in 2007, while Bristol’s board implemented a procedure for Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School students to wear uniforms, though it’s not an official policy.
A voluntary uniform policy for Bristol Township students will start in its nine elementary schools in September, and Morrisville is also considering a school uniform policy to begin in the fall.
Lucidi believes students would be better off if they stay away from risqué and unsuitable outfits. “It would also help with esteem issues. This way everybody’s equal.”
District mulls uniform policy
By MANASEE WAGH
Fretting over what to wear to school could become a thing of the past for Pennsbury High School students starting in fall 2009. That is, if a budding idea for a mandatory uniform policy bears fruit by the end of the coming school year.
A few board members and parents expressed an interest in having students wear some kind of uniform, said Gregory Lucidi, school board president.
“Mainly it’s the idea of dress appropriateness in schools. In high school, there are many instances of inappropriate dress,” he said, adding that a generic dress code for all students would also eliminate any gang-related dress.
Quickly identifying people who don’t belong in the schools is another benefit, said Lucidi, who’s been thinking about a dress policy for some time but hadn’t brought it up earlier because the board had been busy with more pressing items, like the budget.
Over the summer, the administration is going to look at creating a committee to study the issue, said Lucidi. “We’d like it to be mostly parents. That would be our first focus,” he said.
Having student representatives on the committee might be a possibility as well.
If the board approves forming the committee in September, it would give the members three to four months to come up with recommendations.
Lucidi said he’s discussed the issue with some parents, all of whom love the idea. On the other hand, students with whom he’s broached the subject aren’t too keen on wearing the same thing to school day after day.
Lucidi said he has nothing specific in mind that he believes students should wear.
“I’d like to see something generic they could purchase anywhere. It’s less expensive to dress in uniform every day than to buy children the clothes they want to wear to school.”
Khakis and a golf shirt for boys, with flexibility in garment colors, for example.
Other districts have instituted uniform policies in the past year. School Lane Charter School in Bensalem started a policy in 2007, while Bristol’s board implemented a procedure for Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School students to wear uniforms, though it’s not an official policy.
A voluntary uniform policy for Bristol Township students will start in its nine elementary schools in September, and Morrisville is also considering a school uniform policy to begin in the fall.
Lucidi believes students would be better off if they stay away from risqué and unsuitable outfits. “It would also help with esteem issues. This way everybody’s equal.”
Schools News Around the Blogosphere
Subjects, Verbs and Disagreement
Washington Post
By Linton Weeks
Survey finds that Internet language and text-messaging abbreviations are seeping into academic writing, worrying scholars that the death of the English sentence is looming.
'Two Million Minutes' suggests it's time to improve U.S. education
Los Angeles Times
A Memphis entrepreneur's documentary compares high-achieving students from India, China and America. It has drawn mixed reactions from academics. That conversation launched Compton, 52, of Memphis, Tenn., on a mission. As both an entrepreneur and the father of 14- and 16-year-old girls, he wanted to know what schools in other countries were doing that American schools weren't, and why the United States performed so miserably on international student comparisons.
Study Finds Little Benefit in New SAT
New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN
The revamped SAT, expanded three years ago to include a writing test, predicts college success no better than the old test, according to studies by the College Board, which owns the test.
Many states watch - and like - Florida's education policy
St. Petersburg Times
By Ron Matus
Florida is No. 1 in the nation in vouchers. It's No. 2 in charter school enrollment. It's No. 4 in the percentage of high school students passing college-level exams.
Predicting success, preventing failure
San Francisco Chronicle
Julian Betts, Andrew Zau
After the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance" have faded, Californians will find out just how many high school seniors actually graduated this year. A significant number will be denied diplomas because they failed the California High School Exit Exam.
Washington Post
By Linton Weeks
Survey finds that Internet language and text-messaging abbreviations are seeping into academic writing, worrying scholars that the death of the English sentence is looming.
'Two Million Minutes' suggests it's time to improve U.S. education
Los Angeles Times
A Memphis entrepreneur's documentary compares high-achieving students from India, China and America. It has drawn mixed reactions from academics. That conversation launched Compton, 52, of Memphis, Tenn., on a mission. As both an entrepreneur and the father of 14- and 16-year-old girls, he wanted to know what schools in other countries were doing that American schools weren't, and why the United States performed so miserably on international student comparisons.
Study Finds Little Benefit in New SAT
New York Times
By TAMAR LEWIN
The revamped SAT, expanded three years ago to include a writing test, predicts college success no better than the old test, according to studies by the College Board, which owns the test.
Many states watch - and like - Florida's education policy
St. Petersburg Times
By Ron Matus
Florida is No. 1 in the nation in vouchers. It's No. 2 in charter school enrollment. It's No. 4 in the percentage of high school students passing college-level exams.
Predicting success, preventing failure
San Francisco Chronicle
Julian Betts, Andrew Zau
After the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance" have faded, Californians will find out just how many high school seniors actually graduated this year. A significant number will be denied diplomas because they failed the California High School Exit Exam.
Friday, June 20, 2008
BUCKMAN!!
To the utter surprise of, well, no one, John "Jack" Buckman, formerly of the Morrisville School Board and formerly of the Borough Council, is once again, a school director.
Vacancy filled by former board member
By ELIZABETH FISHER
The Morrisville school board on Thursday night appointed John Buckman, a former board member and a former councilman, to replace board member Ed Frankenfield, who died May 28.
Board members Alfred Radosti, Bill Hellman, Brenda Worob, Bill Farrell and Marlys Mihok voted for Buckman; Joseph Kemp and Robin Reithmeyer voted no.
Buckman was previously on the school board from 1987 to 1991. At the time, he did not run for a second term. He also served on the Morrisville council for several years.
Four other residents had sent resumes expressing interest in taking, including former borough police Chief Victor Cicero, currently a substitute teacher in the district.
Each candidate underwent 15 minutes of scrutiny, offered a statement and answered questions from board members. Buckman said his main concerns centered on money — an important issue in the cash strapped school district — and quality education.
“I’d like to keep the taxes down as much as possible while inspiring the kids,” he told the board.
Suggestions from the candidates included pressuring Harrisburg to come up with more school funding and adding muscle to their demands by forming coalitions with other local school boards.
Buckman’s appointment didn’t go through without friction. Reithmeyer objected to inclusion of candidates whose resumes were received after the 9 a.m. June 13 deadline.
Buckman’s and Cicero’s resumes were among those that missed the deadline.
“Why do we have deadlines?” asked Reithmeyer. “It’s a bad precedent. In the future, if the deadline is 9 a.m., and if they have to be [turned in] at the school district, we should adhere to the rules.”
Buckman’s and Cicero’s applications were dropped off at Chairman Bill Hellman’s office and did not reach the office until after 10 a.m.
District Solicitor Mike Fitzpatrick intervened, saying board members could nominate anyone, even someone who did not submit a letter, up to the time the vote was taken.
Worob, who nominated Buckman, was pleased. “I was persuaded by the fact that Jack had been on the school board in the past and was very productive. He’s a caring person and has a lot of integrity. I feel he is the right person to replace Mr. Frankenfield.,
Vacancy filled by former board member
By ELIZABETH FISHER
The Morrisville school board on Thursday night appointed John Buckman, a former board member and a former councilman, to replace board member Ed Frankenfield, who died May 28.
Board members Alfred Radosti, Bill Hellman, Brenda Worob, Bill Farrell and Marlys Mihok voted for Buckman; Joseph Kemp and Robin Reithmeyer voted no.
Buckman was previously on the school board from 1987 to 1991. At the time, he did not run for a second term. He also served on the Morrisville council for several years.
Four other residents had sent resumes expressing interest in taking, including former borough police Chief Victor Cicero, currently a substitute teacher in the district.
Each candidate underwent 15 minutes of scrutiny, offered a statement and answered questions from board members. Buckman said his main concerns centered on money — an important issue in the cash strapped school district — and quality education.
“I’d like to keep the taxes down as much as possible while inspiring the kids,” he told the board.
Suggestions from the candidates included pressuring Harrisburg to come up with more school funding and adding muscle to their demands by forming coalitions with other local school boards.
Buckman’s appointment didn’t go through without friction. Reithmeyer objected to inclusion of candidates whose resumes were received after the 9 a.m. June 13 deadline.
Buckman’s and Cicero’s resumes were among those that missed the deadline.
“Why do we have deadlines?” asked Reithmeyer. “It’s a bad precedent. In the future, if the deadline is 9 a.m., and if they have to be [turned in] at the school district, we should adhere to the rules.”
Buckman’s and Cicero’s applications were dropped off at Chairman Bill Hellman’s office and did not reach the office until after 10 a.m.
District Solicitor Mike Fitzpatrick intervened, saying board members could nominate anyone, even someone who did not submit a letter, up to the time the vote was taken.
Worob, who nominated Buckman, was pleased. “I was persuaded by the fact that Jack had been on the school board in the past and was very productive. He’s a caring person and has a lot of integrity. I feel he is the right person to replace Mr. Frankenfield.,
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Is That White Smoke??
So what is the color of the smoke coming out of the Imperial Palace on Palmer Avenue? Is it white yet? Who is the new school board member? How many candidates? Were the Emperor's handpicked minions well represented?
Don't keep us in suspense...
Don't keep us in suspense...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Director of Pupil Personnel Services
Here's a job opening in Morrisville that used to be contracted out through the BCIU. It was held by a very talented lady and the Emperor is about to find out just how talented she was.
We better find someone new quickly. There's a lot of work to do over the summer.
Director of Pupil Personnel Services
Location: US-PA-Philadelphia
Status: Full Time, Employee
Job Category: Education/Training
Industry: General/Other: Training/Instruction
Career Level: Manager (Manager/Supervisor of Staff)
Job Description
EDUCATION -Director of Pupil Personnel Services: Requirements: Strong interpersonal, organizational, supervisory skills to direct all aspects of the pupil services and special education programs; Supervisor of Pupil Services and Special Education Services certifications in addition to School Psychologist certification with at least three years experience and a minimum of an Educational Specialist degree required; Send letter of interest, resume, copy of certifications, clearances and three letters of reference to : Office of the Superintendent. Morrisville School District, 550 W. Palmer St, Morrisville, PA 19067.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News
Contact Information
Reference Code: pn2402088
We better find someone new quickly. There's a lot of work to do over the summer.
Director of Pupil Personnel Services
Location: US-PA-Philadelphia
Status: Full Time, Employee
Job Category: Education/Training
Industry: General/Other: Training/Instruction
Career Level: Manager (Manager/Supervisor of Staff)
Job Description
EDUCATION -Director of Pupil Personnel Services: Requirements: Strong interpersonal, organizational, supervisory skills to direct all aspects of the pupil services and special education programs; Supervisor of Pupil Services and Special Education Services certifications in addition to School Psychologist certification with at least three years experience and a minimum of an Educational Specialist degree required; Send letter of interest, resume, copy of certifications, clearances and three letters of reference to : Office of the Superintendent. Morrisville School District, 550 W. Palmer St, Morrisville, PA 19067.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News
Contact Information
Reference Code: pn2402088
Special Meeting Reminder
Don't forget the special meeting of the board tomorrow night (Thursday, June 19, 2008) at 7:30 P.M. in the LGI. This is open to the public.
Does anyone know who the candidates are seeking to replace Ed Frankenfield? The early line has the board selecting another unthinking accomplice to unquestioningly follow the Emperor.
Does anyone know who the candidates are seeking to replace Ed Frankenfield? The early line has the board selecting another unthinking accomplice to unquestioningly follow the Emperor.
GOP seeks to cut school funding
From the Inquirer this morning.
Our PA state legislators: Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
GOP seeks to cut school funding
A Senate Republican bill would cut $400 million from Gov. Rendell’s budget.
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG — Public school funding is emerging as a friction point as state budget negotiators work to find common ground on an approximately $28 billion budget in the last two weeks of the fiscal year.
A Senate Republican budget bill that is primed for floor debate today would slash the $28.3 billion spending plan proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell by about $400 million. Of that, about $120 million would get cut from Rendell’s suggested basic education subsidy — state money that pays for instruction and operations in public schools.
Rendell called the proposed cut “hugely bad policy.”
“I asked around this morning, but the last time ... the basic education subsidy suggested by the governor was cut by the Legislature, no one could remember,” Rendell told reporters Tuesday.
The bill emerged from the GOP-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday on a party-line vote. A Senate Republican spokesman, Erik Arneson, characterized the bill as a step in the process of ongoing budget negotiations.
The sides have clashed over how much the state should increase spending. Rendell has advocated a 4.2 percent increase that includes $291 million more for basic education, a boost of 6 percent.
The Senate GOP bill puts forward a 2.8 percent overall spending increase. It would increase basic education spending by about $170 million, or 3.5 percent.
In the past, lawmakers have been averse to cutting a governor’s proposed education budget because school districts immediately plug their expected share of the money into their budgets. Should the Legislature trim down the governor’s proposed amount, lawmakers could face blame for local property tax increases that might result.
Rendell said he would he would rather use some of the state’s approximately $750 million budget reserve to fill in any cuts to his school funding proposal.
Arneson, however, said Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, would not discuss using the budget reserve until Rendell releases a fresh revenue projection for the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Without that projection, legislative negotiators do not know how much the state can spend. Rendell said his budget office is still watching the state’s daily revenue collections before it settles on a figure.
The 2008-09 fiscal year begins July 1. Rendell, who met legislative leaders in closed-door budget talks Tuesday, described the negotiations as making slow progress on various fronts.
Our PA state legislators: Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
GOP seeks to cut school funding
A Senate Republican bill would cut $400 million from Gov. Rendell’s budget.
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG — Public school funding is emerging as a friction point as state budget negotiators work to find common ground on an approximately $28 billion budget in the last two weeks of the fiscal year.
A Senate Republican budget bill that is primed for floor debate today would slash the $28.3 billion spending plan proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell by about $400 million. Of that, about $120 million would get cut from Rendell’s suggested basic education subsidy — state money that pays for instruction and operations in public schools.
Rendell called the proposed cut “hugely bad policy.”
“I asked around this morning, but the last time ... the basic education subsidy suggested by the governor was cut by the Legislature, no one could remember,” Rendell told reporters Tuesday.
The bill emerged from the GOP-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday on a party-line vote. A Senate Republican spokesman, Erik Arneson, characterized the bill as a step in the process of ongoing budget negotiations.
The sides have clashed over how much the state should increase spending. Rendell has advocated a 4.2 percent increase that includes $291 million more for basic education, a boost of 6 percent.
The Senate GOP bill puts forward a 2.8 percent overall spending increase. It would increase basic education spending by about $170 million, or 3.5 percent.
In the past, lawmakers have been averse to cutting a governor’s proposed education budget because school districts immediately plug their expected share of the money into their budgets. Should the Legislature trim down the governor’s proposed amount, lawmakers could face blame for local property tax increases that might result.
Rendell said he would he would rather use some of the state’s approximately $750 million budget reserve to fill in any cuts to his school funding proposal.
Arneson, however, said Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, would not discuss using the budget reserve until Rendell releases a fresh revenue projection for the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Without that projection, legislative negotiators do not know how much the state can spend. Rendell said his budget office is still watching the state’s daily revenue collections before it settles on a figure.
The 2008-09 fiscal year begins July 1. Rendell, who met legislative leaders in closed-door budget talks Tuesday, described the negotiations as making slow progress on various fronts.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
CALL YOUR PA STATE REPS-SCHOOL FUNDING CUTS
This email was forwarded to me. Please read and respond.
Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
CALL TO ACTION!
Your Help Needed Immediately!
More Info
Budget, Mandate Waiver, Tax Collection Issues
June 17, 2008
Call Your Senator Today
Late Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-10 to report Senate Bill 1389, an alternative to Gov. Rendell's proposed budget. SB 1389 proposes to cut education funding by $118 million or 41% -less than 2 weeks before school districts have to approve their own budgets for 2008-09. As reported last week, it was becoming apparent that some type of re-distribution of funds was imminent; however massive cuts of this nature are a different story and would cause chaos in the budgeting process for scores of school districts.
The message to your Senator is to vote against SB 1389 when it comes to the floor and to restore education funding to the $291 million level that has been proposed by the governor. A vote on this bill could come this afternoon, so your calls are needed today.
Efforts to weaken the mandate waiver program underway in Senate
Efforts to water down the current mandate waiver provisions of the School Code are indeed underway. In an effort to move SB 1412, a bill amending the Keystone Opportunity Zone Act to allow municipalities and school districts to extend the tax abatement benefits to those who develop unoccupied or blighted parcels of land, the Senate is considering an amendment that would remove the most important mandate waiver available to school districts.
Specifically, in a "deal" to keep them from offering an amendment to the bill to require prevailing wage provisions to cover projects that take place inside a KOZ, some trade unions have sought to have Section 751, the section of the School Code dealing with the separate prime contract requirement, added to the list of mandates that cannot be waived. The vote is said to be very close at this point and it appears that the deal may be approved.
School board members, particularly those who have applied for and received waivers from the separate prime contract mandate under the mandate waiver program, need to call their Senators immediately and ask them not to vote for any amendment to the bill that would make add this mandate to the list of items that cannot be waived.
Since the mandate waiver program began under Act 16 of 2000, school districts that have received a waiver from the separate prime contract mandate have realized savings of over $80 million. If this waiver were to be taken away, the entire mandate waiver program would be rendered meaningless since the only things left to waive are those things that could only result in marginal savings to school districts.
For years, PSBA has asked the state Legislature to help school districts reduce costs by lowering the cost of state mandates. The mandate waiver was a major accomplishment and a major step towards this goal. Ask your Senator to reject this "trade-off" because it will only harm school districts, particularly growing districts, and taxpayers.
House to vote on SB 1063 - Earned Income Tax collection
The House is set to call up Senate Bill 1063, the consolidated earned income tax sometime within the next few session days. This bill requires that local governments and school districts to form countywide tax collection committees for the collection of earned income taxes. Each municipality and school district will have representation on the tax collection committee. While the House Finance Committee approved several of the changes PSBA sought, the costs of the tax collection committee continue to be based on revenues collected, meaning that school districts will likely absorb most of those costs.
Members are asked to call their state Representatives and ask them to support an amendment that would more fairly allocate the costs of the tax collection committee amount all its members.
Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
CALL TO ACTION!
Your Help Needed Immediately!
More Info
Budget, Mandate Waiver, Tax Collection Issues
June 17, 2008
Call Your Senator Today
Late Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-10 to report Senate Bill 1389, an alternative to Gov. Rendell's proposed budget. SB 1389 proposes to cut education funding by $118 million or 41% -less than 2 weeks before school districts have to approve their own budgets for 2008-09. As reported last week, it was becoming apparent that some type of re-distribution of funds was imminent; however massive cuts of this nature are a different story and would cause chaos in the budgeting process for scores of school districts.
The message to your Senator is to vote against SB 1389 when it comes to the floor and to restore education funding to the $291 million level that has been proposed by the governor. A vote on this bill could come this afternoon, so your calls are needed today.
Efforts to weaken the mandate waiver program underway in Senate
Efforts to water down the current mandate waiver provisions of the School Code are indeed underway. In an effort to move SB 1412, a bill amending the Keystone Opportunity Zone Act to allow municipalities and school districts to extend the tax abatement benefits to those who develop unoccupied or blighted parcels of land, the Senate is considering an amendment that would remove the most important mandate waiver available to school districts.
Specifically, in a "deal" to keep them from offering an amendment to the bill to require prevailing wage provisions to cover projects that take place inside a KOZ, some trade unions have sought to have Section 751, the section of the School Code dealing with the separate prime contract requirement, added to the list of mandates that cannot be waived. The vote is said to be very close at this point and it appears that the deal may be approved.
School board members, particularly those who have applied for and received waivers from the separate prime contract mandate under the mandate waiver program, need to call their Senators immediately and ask them not to vote for any amendment to the bill that would make add this mandate to the list of items that cannot be waived.
Since the mandate waiver program began under Act 16 of 2000, school districts that have received a waiver from the separate prime contract mandate have realized savings of over $80 million. If this waiver were to be taken away, the entire mandate waiver program would be rendered meaningless since the only things left to waive are those things that could only result in marginal savings to school districts.
For years, PSBA has asked the state Legislature to help school districts reduce costs by lowering the cost of state mandates. The mandate waiver was a major accomplishment and a major step towards this goal. Ask your Senator to reject this "trade-off" because it will only harm school districts, particularly growing districts, and taxpayers.
House to vote on SB 1063 - Earned Income Tax collection
The House is set to call up Senate Bill 1063, the consolidated earned income tax sometime within the next few session days. This bill requires that local governments and school districts to form countywide tax collection committees for the collection of earned income taxes. Each municipality and school district will have representation on the tax collection committee. While the House Finance Committee approved several of the changes PSBA sought, the costs of the tax collection committee continue to be based on revenues collected, meaning that school districts will likely absorb most of those costs.
Members are asked to call their state Representatives and ask them to support an amendment that would more fairly allocate the costs of the tax collection committee amount all its members.
Chester-Upland School District in distress
Here's an article from the Philadelphia Daily News about the Chester-Upland School District. Declining enrollment and charter school competition are combining for a "perfect storm" of education.
Chester-Upland School District in distress
By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News
WHEN THE morning bells ring in the Chester-Upland School District, more students in kindergarten through eighth grade are sitting in charter-school classrooms than in all other district schools combined, according to district Superintendent Gregory Thornton.
State Sen. Dominic Pileggi, a charter-school proponent who represents Delaware and Chester counties, says, "It should be a wake-up call to school administrators that when parents are allowed choice, they're choosing another education provider over what the district is providing."
Charter schools are offering choices to parents in the city of Chester who have long been disappointed or discouraged by the school district. But the charter schools also present a challenge to a district that is trying to reform under new leadership.
Established by the state in 1997, charter schools are "self-managed public schools," according to the state Department of Education. They offer an alternative in public education for parents who can't afford private schooling.
The district is required to pay a per-pupil allocation from state funds for each child who opts to attend a charter school instead of a district school. Right now, that amounts to about one-third, or about $31 million, of the district's budget, Thornton said.
"I support charter schools," he said. "I believe communities need choice. But when you have a small pie it's very difficult to take that large of a slice out and still have a good meal for the kids who are left."
For a new superintendent who is trying to overhaul a district facing monetary, intellectual, human-capital and building-capacity problems, the rate at which charter schools drain district resources can be daunting.
In 2007, the Chester-Upland Empowerment Board, a state committee established to oversee the academic and fiscal recovery of the school district, passed a resolution to place enrollment caps on Chester's three charter schools.
Even after a Commonwealth Court ruling in January knocked down the resolution, the board continues to appeal the decision, said Widener University President James T. Harris.
"Widener Partnership Charter School had no choice but to enter into the lawsuit, which is a real shame because the children lose in the end," Harris said.
Annette Anderson, principal of the charter school, said that it's important for her charter and the district to support one another because the school serves students in kindergarten through second grade only. The charter plans to add 50 more students a year in each grade until it maxes out at fifth grade in 2011. After that, students will head into regular district schools.
"We have a vested interest in the success of the Chester-Upland School District," she said. "That's why it's not a good thing for us to be considered separate. We have to come together."
Thornton, formerly chief academic officer of the Philadelphia School District, said that constant leadership changes - he is the 13th superintendent in the last 12 years - haven't helped the district.
"There have been a lot of false starts over the years - so many that people don't believe in what could potentially happen," he said.
Changes in leadership and policy at the district caused Widener, which had wanted to partner with the district on a lab school, to instead form its own charter school, Harris said.
"Universities have tried to create relationships, but that becomes so discouraging when everything is constantly changing," he said.
Thornton said that he's also reminded daily of changes that the district has failed to make.
"Every conversation I start with a businessman or a vendor or whoever, they take great pains to remind me of our inability to make changes," he said.
Still, Thornton looks forward to partnerships with area colleges and with Chester's charter schools.
One impending partnership is the merger into the school district of the Village Charter School of Chester-Upland. The school is slated to be brought into the district in the fall as its charter expires, Thornton said.
Thornton also wants to divide the district's high school into three, use the city's soccer stadium and Harrah's Chester Casino & Racetrack as learning laboratories and start a class on Chester's history.
"We've just started the journey," he said. "We don't know where it's going, but it's one we must take or we will continue to lose generation after generation in this city."
In 2000, the district had an enrollment of 6,471 kids. Eight years later, enrollment has dropped to 3,947 students, Thornton said. In another eight years, projections show, it will have declined to 2,013, he said.
As charter schools continue to challenge the district for public-school students, each institution must vie to be the most attractive panel on what Thornton calls the "new American educational fabric."
"I believe, at the end of the day, when people look fairly at the comparison, we will be competitive," Thornton said. "This is an entrepreneurial experiment in competition."
Chester-Upland School District in distress
By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News
WHEN THE morning bells ring in the Chester-Upland School District, more students in kindergarten through eighth grade are sitting in charter-school classrooms than in all other district schools combined, according to district Superintendent Gregory Thornton.
State Sen. Dominic Pileggi, a charter-school proponent who represents Delaware and Chester counties, says, "It should be a wake-up call to school administrators that when parents are allowed choice, they're choosing another education provider over what the district is providing."
Charter schools are offering choices to parents in the city of Chester who have long been disappointed or discouraged by the school district. But the charter schools also present a challenge to a district that is trying to reform under new leadership.
Established by the state in 1997, charter schools are "self-managed public schools," according to the state Department of Education. They offer an alternative in public education for parents who can't afford private schooling.
The district is required to pay a per-pupil allocation from state funds for each child who opts to attend a charter school instead of a district school. Right now, that amounts to about one-third, or about $31 million, of the district's budget, Thornton said.
"I support charter schools," he said. "I believe communities need choice. But when you have a small pie it's very difficult to take that large of a slice out and still have a good meal for the kids who are left."
For a new superintendent who is trying to overhaul a district facing monetary, intellectual, human-capital and building-capacity problems, the rate at which charter schools drain district resources can be daunting.
In 2007, the Chester-Upland Empowerment Board, a state committee established to oversee the academic and fiscal recovery of the school district, passed a resolution to place enrollment caps on Chester's three charter schools.
Even after a Commonwealth Court ruling in January knocked down the resolution, the board continues to appeal the decision, said Widener University President James T. Harris.
"Widener Partnership Charter School had no choice but to enter into the lawsuit, which is a real shame because the children lose in the end," Harris said.
Annette Anderson, principal of the charter school, said that it's important for her charter and the district to support one another because the school serves students in kindergarten through second grade only. The charter plans to add 50 more students a year in each grade until it maxes out at fifth grade in 2011. After that, students will head into regular district schools.
"We have a vested interest in the success of the Chester-Upland School District," she said. "That's why it's not a good thing for us to be considered separate. We have to come together."
Thornton, formerly chief academic officer of the Philadelphia School District, said that constant leadership changes - he is the 13th superintendent in the last 12 years - haven't helped the district.
"There have been a lot of false starts over the years - so many that people don't believe in what could potentially happen," he said.
Changes in leadership and policy at the district caused Widener, which had wanted to partner with the district on a lab school, to instead form its own charter school, Harris said.
"Universities have tried to create relationships, but that becomes so discouraging when everything is constantly changing," he said.
Thornton said that he's also reminded daily of changes that the district has failed to make.
"Every conversation I start with a businessman or a vendor or whoever, they take great pains to remind me of our inability to make changes," he said.
Still, Thornton looks forward to partnerships with area colleges and with Chester's charter schools.
One impending partnership is the merger into the school district of the Village Charter School of Chester-Upland. The school is slated to be brought into the district in the fall as its charter expires, Thornton said.
Thornton also wants to divide the district's high school into three, use the city's soccer stadium and Harrah's Chester Casino & Racetrack as learning laboratories and start a class on Chester's history.
"We've just started the journey," he said. "We don't know where it's going, but it's one we must take or we will continue to lose generation after generation in this city."
In 2000, the district had an enrollment of 6,471 kids. Eight years later, enrollment has dropped to 3,947 students, Thornton said. In another eight years, projections show, it will have declined to 2,013, he said.
As charter schools continue to challenge the district for public-school students, each institution must vie to be the most attractive panel on what Thornton calls the "new American educational fabric."
"I believe, at the end of the day, when people look fairly at the comparison, we will be competitive," Thornton said. "This is an entrepreneurial experiment in competition."
President of School Board Attends Graduation!!
Imagine that...a school board president who 1) has a child in the schools, 2) has the audacity to not only attend the graduation ceremonies, but, 3) SPEAK! during the ceremonies.
Here's the link to Classroom Reflecting Pool, a blog from George Drake, the president of the neighboring Kennett School District.
The writer is a professor a special education and has some great insights into that segment of education policy.
Here's the link to Classroom Reflecting Pool, a blog from George Drake, the president of the neighboring Kennett School District.
The writer is a professor a special education and has some great insights into that segment of education policy.
New Member Activities
As jon posted earlier, reminder that Ed Frankenfield's successor will be identified and seated this Thursday, June 19. The 15 minute interviews and voting are open to the public.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Morrisville Borough Council Meeting Tonight
Reminder that the Morrisville Borough Council meets tonight. Will Steve Worob introduce his tax resolution? Or is he too concerned with promoting his book to be an effective council member?
Morrisville Council: 7:30 p.m., borough hall, 35 Union St. Agenda: public comment; payments to Morrisville Fire Co. and Morrisville Ambulance Squad; request the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission transfer of $40,000 from curb and sidewalk project to the Median Island & Traffic Signal Installation project; award contract for the Median Island & Traffic Signal Installation project; direct solicitor to create a referendum on the November ballot to increase the millage to support the Morrisville Ambulance Squad; ordinance for collection of insufficient-fund charges; final plan for Falkowski/Kilpinski Subdivision; advertise amended traffic ordinance; consider tennis program presented by NJTL of Trenton; establish recreation program director; consider supporting PA House bills 2532, 1065 and 2525 pertaining to animal regulations; consider preliminary subdivision plan for Christopher Urban subdivision at 121 Grandview Ave.; consider preparing and advertising an amendment to the zoning ordinance regarding signage; and consider entering a mutual aid agreement between the Morrisville Fire Co. and the Trenton Hazardous Materials Team. 215-295-8181
Morrisville Council: 7:30 p.m., borough hall, 35 Union St. Agenda: public comment; payments to Morrisville Fire Co. and Morrisville Ambulance Squad; request the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission transfer of $40,000 from curb and sidewalk project to the Median Island & Traffic Signal Installation project; award contract for the Median Island & Traffic Signal Installation project; direct solicitor to create a referendum on the November ballot to increase the millage to support the Morrisville Ambulance Squad; ordinance for collection of insufficient-fund charges; final plan for Falkowski/Kilpinski Subdivision; advertise amended traffic ordinance; consider tennis program presented by NJTL of Trenton; establish recreation program director; consider supporting PA House bills 2532, 1065 and 2525 pertaining to animal regulations; consider preliminary subdivision plan for Christopher Urban subdivision at 121 Grandview Ave.; consider preparing and advertising an amendment to the zoning ordinance regarding signage; and consider entering a mutual aid agreement between the Morrisville Fire Co. and the Trenton Hazardous Materials Team. 215-295-8181
As Promised, Monday's Followup
Here's the column that Kate Fratti promised last week from her recent discussions with the Emperor and Angry Al.
Roadblock to drastic changes
Continuing their investigation into ways to reduce costs in Morrisville School District, Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.
She arrived at Hellmann’s West Bridge Street office just as a reporter and I were leaving it. We’d spent 90 minutes with Hellmann, Radosti and board member Bill Farrell, who agreed to share their rationale for proposing drastic changes to the financially strapped school system.
How drastic? They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition highschoolers out at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education. Although Shulick has expressed interest in privatizing Morrisville High, Hellmann maintains he met with DVH this time to learn more about how alternative schools work. I have trouble buying that, but he’s insistent.
As for changes, Hellmann acknowledges the high school would need renovations to accommodate new grades, but that’s the least of obstacles.
The roadblock to consolidation and severe cost-cutting is a 5-year teacher contract that prevents furloughs or any substantial change to the student-staff ratio until 2012. Morrisville’s student-staff ratio stands at12.3 to 1, which doesn’t always give a true picture of class size, but does dictate the number of professionals who must stay on the rolls. There are 71 teachers, 1 psychologist, 3 guidance counselors and a nurse and two gifted/instructional support aides for fewer than 1,000 kids.
Hellmann said savings realized by farming out high-schoolers could be used to reduce teaching ranks. “Maybe retirement incentives,” Hellmann said.
He conceded Morrisville, under the direction of Superintendent Beth Yonson, is successfully educating children in its elementary schools, but says the high school has become a last resort for kids failed by the Trenton school system across the river. They move into Morrisville at very low reading and math levels. “We can’t be the special education center for Bucks and Mercer counties,” he laments.
Radosti, whose gruff way of expressing his unfiltered thoughts about kids today, changes in society and Morrisville’s proximity to the Trenton school system has won few friends among more liberalminded residents, says he’s weary of being accused of being racist and anti-education just because he wants to cut costs so people his age can keep their homes. He raises his voice two decibels to explain to me just how weary.
A Morrisville grad and a retired police officer, he worked two and three jobs to send a son to Notre Dame High School and a daughter to Grey Nun Academy. In each case, because he feared Morrisville classrooms were too disruptive. Nothing like the school system he enjoyed years before them. Don’t tell him he doesn’t value education.
Hellmann sent all but one of his kids to Conwell-Egan Catholic. He has approached CEC about a tuition program for Morrisville.
Neither man pretends to have any warm and fuzzy emotional ties to a school system they say is a drain on its townspeople. It’s a problem, Hellmann says.
It looks like he’s working to be rid of it — and soon.
Roadblock to drastic changes
Continuing their investigation into ways to reduce costs in Morrisville School District, Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.
She arrived at Hellmann’s West Bridge Street office just as a reporter and I were leaving it. We’d spent 90 minutes with Hellmann, Radosti and board member Bill Farrell, who agreed to share their rationale for proposing drastic changes to the financially strapped school system.
How drastic? They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition highschoolers out at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education. Although Shulick has expressed interest in privatizing Morrisville High, Hellmann maintains he met with DVH this time to learn more about how alternative schools work. I have trouble buying that, but he’s insistent.
As for changes, Hellmann acknowledges the high school would need renovations to accommodate new grades, but that’s the least of obstacles.
The roadblock to consolidation and severe cost-cutting is a 5-year teacher contract that prevents furloughs or any substantial change to the student-staff ratio until 2012. Morrisville’s student-staff ratio stands at12.3 to 1, which doesn’t always give a true picture of class size, but does dictate the number of professionals who must stay on the rolls. There are 71 teachers, 1 psychologist, 3 guidance counselors and a nurse and two gifted/instructional support aides for fewer than 1,000 kids.
Hellmann said savings realized by farming out high-schoolers could be used to reduce teaching ranks. “Maybe retirement incentives,” Hellmann said.
He conceded Morrisville, under the direction of Superintendent Beth Yonson, is successfully educating children in its elementary schools, but says the high school has become a last resort for kids failed by the Trenton school system across the river. They move into Morrisville at very low reading and math levels. “We can’t be the special education center for Bucks and Mercer counties,” he laments.
Radosti, whose gruff way of expressing his unfiltered thoughts about kids today, changes in society and Morrisville’s proximity to the Trenton school system has won few friends among more liberalminded residents, says he’s weary of being accused of being racist and anti-education just because he wants to cut costs so people his age can keep their homes. He raises his voice two decibels to explain to me just how weary.
A Morrisville grad and a retired police officer, he worked two and three jobs to send a son to Notre Dame High School and a daughter to Grey Nun Academy. In each case, because he feared Morrisville classrooms were too disruptive. Nothing like the school system he enjoyed years before them. Don’t tell him he doesn’t value education.
Hellmann sent all but one of his kids to Conwell-Egan Catholic. He has approached CEC about a tuition program for Morrisville.
Neither man pretends to have any warm and fuzzy emotional ties to a school system they say is a drain on its townspeople. It’s a problem, Hellmann says.
It looks like he’s working to be rid of it — and soon.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Christmas in June?
Here's a nifty link to some video that was shot back in December. Fox29 came out to do a story on Santa's Workshop located right here in the Morrisville High School woodshop.
Can We Learn From Example?
In my trips through the blogosphere, all sorts of school issues come to the fore, but here's one that should be of particular interest to Hellmann's Heroes.
The Greenland School District, located near Fayetteville, Arkansas, was first placed on the state's fiscal distress list in 2003. In 2004, the state annexed the Winslow School District into Greenland because of financial problems and declining enrollment.
The Greenland-Winslow merger has been described as a "not very happy marriage." The Winslow residents complain consistently that the Greenland residents do not listen to them or take their ideas into consideration. "Winslow residents were 'treated like aliens from outer space' the last time they attempted to address the school board on an issue."
Fast forwarding through the painful details, Greenland made the hard choices necessary to get off of the financial distress list, and this happened in 2006.
But finances being finances, the progress made has slipped. Not all of the financial woes were self inflicted. Arkansas state law mandates millage rollbacks under certain conditions, and Greenland fell into that category. Now Greenland needs more money. So they went to the taxpayers.
District's Future in Voter's Hands
Monday, Jun 9, 2008 @08:33pm CST
The Greenland School District is asking voters for a mill increase. Administrators say it would help keep the district off the state's fiscal distress list. The district's asking voters to approve a 2.6 mill increase. To put it into perspective, that would mean the owner of a $100,000 home would pay an extra $52 a year-- or a dollar a week. The school district is suffering from millage rollbacks made by the state. It's state law to roll back millage rates if the value of homes in the district increases by more than ten percent. In Greenland, the state's rolled back exactly 2.6 mills. "The people in this district have at one time or another approved those 2.6 mills but they've been taken away on roll backs and all we're doing is asking them to put it back where it was by vote," says Greenland Superintendent Ron Brawner. The district's already cut costs by almost $500,000 from last year, but it's not enough. If the millage hike fails, Greenland may end up consolidating with a neighboring school district. "What folks have to realize, is if this doesn't pass and we get under even more scrutiny from the state, they may end up paying Fayetteville taxes, which are quite a bit higher," says Bill Groom, President of the Greenland Board of Education. The mill increase would put Greenland at a total of 39.5 mills. That's still lower than most districts, but it might be enough to save Greenland from consolidation. "We're not afraid to ask for it if we need it, and believe me, if we didn't absolutely have to have it we wouldn't be asking for it right now," Groom says. "It's just important for people that want to keep our school here and want to support our school to get out and vote on this thing," Brawner says. Plans to restructure some bonds are also wrapped up in this millage vote. The bonds would generate around $1 million for building improvements. If approved, the mill increase would take effect in 2010.
Even the superintendent got involved:
May 12, 2008
Greenland Schools have been placed in the Fiscal Distress category. This does not affect curriculum at this time. It does mean that all unnecessary expenses be eliminated. We are in the process of attaining this goal. Some of the cuts are not what we would like, but must be done. At this time, Greenland Schools need your support. Regardless of your convictions, we need you to vote on June 10, 2008. Remember your vote affects the present student population of Greenland Schools. The millage we are asking be passed is not a new millage. We are simply asking that you renew the millage of seven years ago that has been rolled back by Amendmant 59. We have lost revenue due to these roll backs. With the increases in costs (fuel for buses being primary), Greenland Schools needs this revenue.
Should the requested millage fail, there are unfavorable repercussions. One of these could be consolidation with another district. If this occurs, your taxes would increase by a similar amount or greater amount depending on the district Greenland would have to be consolidated. Some of our students have already experienced one consolidation. Do you really want to subject them to a second consolidation. Another consequence could be that all local control would cease. This would take the form of School Board suspension and a person being assigned by ADE as Superintendent with total control. These are what your vote decides. Go Vote, June 10, 2008.
It was up to the annexed Winslow voters:
Winslow residents were encouraged Thursday to think beyond hurt feelings when voting in the June 10 millage election.
Greenland School District officials hope their patrons to the south won't be swayed by the former Winslow School District's annexation into the Greenland district and its subsequent school closings.
"There are a lot of bad feelings about this thing. We have to move forward. We have to focus on the kids, " said Bill Groom, Greenland Board of Education president.
The millage increase passed. Barely.
GREENLAND June 10, 2008 10:30 PM CDT - Taxpayers in the Greenland School District will be paying higher taxes after approving a millage increase that won by a margin of only eight votes.
The unofficial returns show the millage increased was approved by a vote of 394 for the issue (51 percent) to 386 votes against (49 percent).
"I hope it holds up," said Greenland School Board President Bill Groom after learning of the results Tuesday night. "It's too close to make any plans yet."
In a breakdown of the votes, totals show the issue passed in Greenland by 346 votes for (64 percent) to 193 votes against (36 percent). However, voters in the former Winslow School District, which is now part of Greenland, overwhelmingly turned down the proposal with 32 votes for the issue (15 percent) to 178 votes against (85 percent).
All is well. The tax increase was passed, and Greenland can continue along on the path to recovery. Then, just four days after that tax increase was passed...
Greenland School District faces forced annexation
Officials notified Friday of pending annexation vote
The Greenland School District may be annexed into a neighboring school district because of financial woes.
Greenland School Board President Bill Groom and Superintendent Ron Brawner were notified Friday afternoon the Arkansas Department of Education staff will recommend the annexation into a contiguous district to the State Board of Education on July 14.
The receiving district was not identified in the letter to Groom and Brawner. If the state education board approves an annexation, it was unknown Friday when it would take effect.
Greenland is contiguous with the Fayetteville, West Fork, Prairie Grove, Farmington, Elkins and Mountainburg school districts.
Groom said he received a telephone call from Tripp Walter, an attorney with the state education department, notifying him of a letter that was faxed to the Greenland administration office. The letter was signed by State Education Commissioner Ken James.
James talked with Fayetteville Superintendent Bobby New about the possibility of annexing Greenland into the Fayetteville School District during a telephone call Friday afternoon, New said.
Such an annexation would mean Greenland would be absorbed into the receiving district. The receiving district would have to bring Greenland teachers to that district's salary schedule and Greenland's debt would be taken over by the receiving district.
Salaries, which account for about 80 percent of Fayetteville's budget, could be a critical issue. Fayetteville is among the highest paying districts in Northwest Arkansas; Greenland is one of the lowest.
The condition of Greenland's buildings and buses, bus routes, the cost of fuel and other financial considerations also need to be examined, New said.
The school district that was forced into accepting another school district, will now itself be forced onto another school district.
Perhaps the one reader comment said it best: "Now the school will die along with our pirate pride and tradition."
Just to put it into perspective, the Winslow students could face a 25 mile bus ride to Fayetteville.
Buckle up, Morrisville! This is the roller coaster ride the Emperor wants you to experience.
The Greenland School District, located near Fayetteville, Arkansas, was first placed on the state's fiscal distress list in 2003. In 2004, the state annexed the Winslow School District into Greenland because of financial problems and declining enrollment.
The Greenland-Winslow merger has been described as a "not very happy marriage." The Winslow residents complain consistently that the Greenland residents do not listen to them or take their ideas into consideration. "Winslow residents were 'treated like aliens from outer space' the last time they attempted to address the school board on an issue."
Fast forwarding through the painful details, Greenland made the hard choices necessary to get off of the financial distress list, and this happened in 2006.
But finances being finances, the progress made has slipped. Not all of the financial woes were self inflicted. Arkansas state law mandates millage rollbacks under certain conditions, and Greenland fell into that category. Now Greenland needs more money. So they went to the taxpayers.
District's Future in Voter's Hands
Monday, Jun 9, 2008 @08:33pm CST
The Greenland School District is asking voters for a mill increase. Administrators say it would help keep the district off the state's fiscal distress list. The district's asking voters to approve a 2.6 mill increase. To put it into perspective, that would mean the owner of a $100,000 home would pay an extra $52 a year-- or a dollar a week. The school district is suffering from millage rollbacks made by the state. It's state law to roll back millage rates if the value of homes in the district increases by more than ten percent. In Greenland, the state's rolled back exactly 2.6 mills. "The people in this district have at one time or another approved those 2.6 mills but they've been taken away on roll backs and all we're doing is asking them to put it back where it was by vote," says Greenland Superintendent Ron Brawner. The district's already cut costs by almost $500,000 from last year, but it's not enough. If the millage hike fails, Greenland may end up consolidating with a neighboring school district. "What folks have to realize, is if this doesn't pass and we get under even more scrutiny from the state, they may end up paying Fayetteville taxes, which are quite a bit higher," says Bill Groom, President of the Greenland Board of Education. The mill increase would put Greenland at a total of 39.5 mills. That's still lower than most districts, but it might be enough to save Greenland from consolidation. "We're not afraid to ask for it if we need it, and believe me, if we didn't absolutely have to have it we wouldn't be asking for it right now," Groom says. "It's just important for people that want to keep our school here and want to support our school to get out and vote on this thing," Brawner says. Plans to restructure some bonds are also wrapped up in this millage vote. The bonds would generate around $1 million for building improvements. If approved, the mill increase would take effect in 2010.
Even the superintendent got involved:
May 12, 2008
Greenland Schools have been placed in the Fiscal Distress category. This does not affect curriculum at this time. It does mean that all unnecessary expenses be eliminated. We are in the process of attaining this goal. Some of the cuts are not what we would like, but must be done. At this time, Greenland Schools need your support. Regardless of your convictions, we need you to vote on June 10, 2008. Remember your vote affects the present student population of Greenland Schools. The millage we are asking be passed is not a new millage. We are simply asking that you renew the millage of seven years ago that has been rolled back by Amendmant 59. We have lost revenue due to these roll backs. With the increases in costs (fuel for buses being primary), Greenland Schools needs this revenue.
Should the requested millage fail, there are unfavorable repercussions. One of these could be consolidation with another district. If this occurs, your taxes would increase by a similar amount or greater amount depending on the district Greenland would have to be consolidated. Some of our students have already experienced one consolidation. Do you really want to subject them to a second consolidation. Another consequence could be that all local control would cease. This would take the form of School Board suspension and a person being assigned by ADE as Superintendent with total control. These are what your vote decides. Go Vote, June 10, 2008.
It was up to the annexed Winslow voters:
Winslow residents were encouraged Thursday to think beyond hurt feelings when voting in the June 10 millage election.
Greenland School District officials hope their patrons to the south won't be swayed by the former Winslow School District's annexation into the Greenland district and its subsequent school closings.
"There are a lot of bad feelings about this thing. We have to move forward. We have to focus on the kids, " said Bill Groom, Greenland Board of Education president.
The millage increase passed. Barely.
GREENLAND June 10, 2008 10:30 PM CDT - Taxpayers in the Greenland School District will be paying higher taxes after approving a millage increase that won by a margin of only eight votes.
The unofficial returns show the millage increased was approved by a vote of 394 for the issue (51 percent) to 386 votes against (49 percent).
"I hope it holds up," said Greenland School Board President Bill Groom after learning of the results Tuesday night. "It's too close to make any plans yet."
In a breakdown of the votes, totals show the issue passed in Greenland by 346 votes for (64 percent) to 193 votes against (36 percent). However, voters in the former Winslow School District, which is now part of Greenland, overwhelmingly turned down the proposal with 32 votes for the issue (15 percent) to 178 votes against (85 percent).
All is well. The tax increase was passed, and Greenland can continue along on the path to recovery. Then, just four days after that tax increase was passed...
Greenland School District faces forced annexation
Officials notified Friday of pending annexation vote
The Greenland School District may be annexed into a neighboring school district because of financial woes.
Greenland School Board President Bill Groom and Superintendent Ron Brawner were notified Friday afternoon the Arkansas Department of Education staff will recommend the annexation into a contiguous district to the State Board of Education on July 14.
The receiving district was not identified in the letter to Groom and Brawner. If the state education board approves an annexation, it was unknown Friday when it would take effect.
Greenland is contiguous with the Fayetteville, West Fork, Prairie Grove, Farmington, Elkins and Mountainburg school districts.
Groom said he received a telephone call from Tripp Walter, an attorney with the state education department, notifying him of a letter that was faxed to the Greenland administration office. The letter was signed by State Education Commissioner Ken James.
James talked with Fayetteville Superintendent Bobby New about the possibility of annexing Greenland into the Fayetteville School District during a telephone call Friday afternoon, New said.
Such an annexation would mean Greenland would be absorbed into the receiving district. The receiving district would have to bring Greenland teachers to that district's salary schedule and Greenland's debt would be taken over by the receiving district.
Salaries, which account for about 80 percent of Fayetteville's budget, could be a critical issue. Fayetteville is among the highest paying districts in Northwest Arkansas; Greenland is one of the lowest.
The condition of Greenland's buildings and buses, bus routes, the cost of fuel and other financial considerations also need to be examined, New said.
The school district that was forced into accepting another school district, will now itself be forced onto another school district.
Perhaps the one reader comment said it best: "Now the school will die along with our pirate pride and tradition."
Just to put it into perspective, the Winslow students could face a 25 mile bus ride to Fayetteville.
Buckle up, Morrisville! This is the roller coaster ride the Emperor wants you to experience.
- Shotgun wedding to another district
- Being ignored by the other district in policymaking
- Paying the higher taxes anyway
- Facing mandated budget cuts, no matter the cost to the students
- Facing complete loss of local control by state takeover.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
How Pennsylvania Pays for Education
Here's a great article from the Inquirer taking a look at the schools funding problem in Pennsylvania.
Tax Divide
By Anthony R. Wood Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2008
After 34 years living in a four-bedroom brick home on a leafy acre in Radnor Township, retirees Karl and Jean Dorschu wanted something smaller, something with less raking and snow shoveling, something less taxing, physically and financially.
They chose to stay in Delaware County, buying a $325,000 two-bedroom house in the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, 20 miles away.
There, they assumed, their property tax would be much lower than the $7,000 they paid in Radnor. Their new place was half the size and value, on one-fifth the acreage, in a middle-class community without Main Line gilt or top-drawer schools to support.
So much for logic.
After moving in, the Dorschus learned they'd be paying $8,500, or 21 percent more.
In the two years since, their bill has jumped above $9,500.
"If we had a top-notch school district, I wouldn't mind," said Karl Dorschu, 77, a former engineer.
In Radnor, where his three children were educated, 88 percent of the students go on to four-year colleges, compared with 38 percent in the Chichester School District. Radnor students rank among the region's highest in academic performance; Chichester's are in the lower echelon.
All things considered, his tax bill "doesn't make sense," he said. But he is certain of this much: "They're choking us homeowners to death."
Complaints about the property tax - that it's unfair, bewildering, exorbitant, pick a pejorative - may be nothing new. But their volume and intensity are.
The colonial-era system that provides most of the money for America's public schools and local governments is under unprecedented assault, with taxpayer protests, lawsuits or legislative overhauls rumbling through at least 20 states.
Pennsylvania is one.
The state is jigsawed into 3,134 local taxing authorities, including 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities, and 67 counties - a patchwork among the most manifold in the nation. Here, the chaos and inequities wrought by a flawed, fragmented system are worsening as tax bills rise, the housing market falters, and the economy deteriorates.
An Inquirer analysis of 500,000 tax records in Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties has found wildly disparate property-tax rates that are widening the economic divide between have and have-not towns, and further balkanizing the region.
In poorer communities like the Chichester district's Trainer and Marcus Hook, where houses are modest and commercial property scarce, the effective tax rate (the average annual tax bill as a percentage of the average home value) typically is higher than in wealthier communities. But the analysis also showed that the tax gaps among municipalities were growing, helping to repel influxes of homeowners and businesses into troubled downtowns and hampering their revitalization.
For instance, in some economically distressed parts of eastern Delaware County, such as the six towns of the William Penn School District, the tax rates are nearly six times higher than those in West Conshohocken, a Montgomery County borough jam-packed with office towers. Just five years ago, the rates were 31/2 times higher.
Those poorer communities also tend to have lower-achieving students and far fewer resources than wealthy neighbors. The William Penn district - composed of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon - spends $12,701 per pupil. West Conshohocken is in the Upper Merion district, which spends $18,158.
Between 2002 and 2007 in poorer towns in the suburban counties, increases in millages - the taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value - were double those in affluent communities.
Regionwide in the same period, the average property-tax bill jumped about 25 percent. That far outpaced inflation, and tested many homeowners' ability to pay. The Inquirer found that local taxes now consume about 7 percent of household incomes, up from 5.5 percent five years ago.
Largely to meet the growing needs of schools and municipal governments, property-tax collections in Pennsylvania between just 2002 and 2007 ballooned 39math cq percent, from $10.4 billion to $14.5 billion. Nationally, they soared 40math cq percent, from $288 billion to $404 billion. New Jerseyans paid $22.1 billion last year, up 38math cq percent from $16 billion. The Garden State has the highest average property-tax bill - $6,331 - in the nation.
Boomer backlash
The opposition ranks have swelled along with the bills. They include tax analysts, economists, community-development experts and lawmakers. But the angriest voices belong to increasingly organized blocs of voters.
Many are retirees, an age group hit hard by the rising property taxes - and one that will build into a demographic tsunami of more than 70 million baby boomers, due to begin turning 65 in 2011.
Beware the Me Generation on fixed incomes, free of school-age kids and united by the Web, warns Peter Sepp, a vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group of 350,000 members based in Alexandria, Va.
That "big crop of retirees," he said, will "see less justification for paying huge property taxes."
Pennsylvania already has 35 grassroots groups, representing about 20,000 property owners, that aim to overhaul or abolish the real estate levy. Eight are in Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties.
Protesters also are meeting online at the virtual offices of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalitioncq. A similar site is in the works in New Jersey, which has at least seven activist organizations.
Many groups have emerged in just the last few years, even as the two state legislatures offer rebates from slots revenue and sales taxes.
Last monthmay, Pennsylvania announced it would dole out $613 million in a first installment of property-tax relief from its new gaming industry. In the Philadelphia suburbs this year, an average of $245 will be applied toward bills.
But the much-ballyhooed break brings out the Peggy Lee in John J. McCartney, 73. Is that all there is? wonders the retired registered nurse, who pays $6,000 annually to the Octorara Area School District in Chester County.
"It's nowhere near enough to begin to address the problems that everyone's having," McCartney said, "especially with gasoline prices, and everything else, going up."
Rebates aren't placating the 55+ Coalition, made up of 6,000 residents of more than a dozen adult communities in Delaware County and thought to be the largest citizens tax group in Pennsylvania.
"If ever we have the opportunity [for major change], it's now," said Anthony Santore, 72, a retired hospital administrator from Glen Mills who founded 55+ two years ago.
Rough going in Harrisburg
Its members were among 400 tax activists from across the state who held a raucous rally in Harrisburg on June 2, hoping to fillip a bill that would redesign the system. They were joined by 30 legislators.
Proposed by Rep. Sam Rohrer (R., Berks), House Bill 1275 would replace property levies with a broader state sales tax, extended to such items as sports tickets, dry cleaning and plumbing services. It also would shift the bulk of school funding to the state, which now pays 35.4 percent of education costs, on average. Pennsylvania ranks 44th in the nation in the portion borne by the state.
In a House vote in January, Rohrer's proposal was trounced. It came under withering attack from two dozen special interests who feared it would hurt business.
So Rohrer is trying again, having removed white-collar services such as lawyers' and accountants' fees from his tax list and inserted a limited property tax on commercial real estate.
His tweaked plan remains the most dramatic of three major proposals before the House. But they are alike in one way: All are buried in committee, continuing the legislature's historic reluctance to take up an issue laced with political cyanide.
The key to rectifying the tax disparities among towns and taking the pressure off property taxes lies in bumping up the state's share of public-education costs, the Rendell administration contends.
Gov. Rendell has proposed increasing state aid by a total of $2.6 billion during the next six years, targeting the poorest districts. But his plan's fate in the legislature is uncertain.
Combined with school-tax discounts from slot-machine revenue under the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, also known as Act 1, the state share of education costs would rise from 35 percent to about 45 percent in 2014, administration spokesman Chuck Ardo said. That would put Pennsylvania near the national average.
Ardo added that the administration had lessened the burden on fixed-income seniors by increasing rebates.
However, in the view of tax activists and their Harrisburg allies, neither the governor nor the legislature is going far enough.
"It makes no sense," said Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R., Dauphin), "to use a 19th-century tax to fund 21st-century education."
A flawed system
Even in this miasma of discontent, the property tax finds defenders.
Free of any state or federal claims, it provides a dependable source of income so school districts and municipal governments can both pay their bills and borrow, said Steven Wray, a researcher for the Pennsylvania Economy League, a public-policy research group.
"I can't say I'm a raving fan of it," Wray said. But real estate, he added, is the logical source of local income, and homeowners reap the reward. In Pennsylvania, 80 percent of the tax goes to education. And "the better the schools," he said, "the better the property values are going to be."
Yet even its defenders concede that the system is badly flawed, and that Pennsylvania is an eye-popping measure of just how bad.
Behold the tax madness:
Less is more. In some wealthy communities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, residents pay hefty property taxes, up to 10 percent of robust household incomes. Nonetheless, rates in many of the poorest towns are among the highest in the region and, in fact, the country - higher even than New Jersey suburbs of New York City, often cited as national chart-toppers.
Of the 25 suburban municipalities with the steepest rates, 22 are in eastern Delaware County. Of those, 16 rank near the bottom in median income.
Example: In June 2006, Victor Ko bought a $256,900 house on Whalen Court in Upper Darby. The median household income in the Delaware County township is $46,606. Its tax base is dominated by modestly priced homes, while its commercial property is worth less than $900 million.
Ko's tax bill is $6,912.
Also in 2006, Susan Scanlon bought a $259,000 home near the King of Prussia malls in Upper Merion. The Montgomery County township has a median household income of $79,653 and a prodigious tax base. Its commercial property, including the mighty malls, is worth $3.4 billion - almost four times that of Upper Darby.
Scanlon, an Upper Darby native, has a tax bill of $2,080, or less than one-third Ko's.
To have and have not. In the latter half of the 20th century, taxes helped deepen the divide between Philadelphia, where they were high, and the rest of the region, where they typically weren't. But municipal competition for residents and commerce is no longer so clear-cut.
Example: Tax-wise, it doesn't get any worse than in Colwyn. The small, struggling borough in eastern Delaware County has the highest effective property-tax rate in the region - 4.52 percent of the average home value.
But the rate is 0.97 percent in Chester County's East Bradford, a considerably more affluent township, where new tract houses abut bucolic open space.
In 2002, Colwyn's effective tax rate was about four times that of East Bradford. Now it is 4.7 times higher.
Older, poorer towns such as Colwyn are caught in a sorry cycle from which few escape, said Wray, of the Economy League. Their high taxes drive out homeowners and businesses; to compensate for those losses, they hike taxes on those who stay - with predictable results.
From 2002 to 2007 in East Bradford, 140 homes were built, at an average price of $230,000. Only 16, averaging $41,000, went up in Colwyn.
Double whammy. Pennsylvania's rules on property assessment have created two sets of losers. Both often pay higher taxes than the rest of the community where they live and, in a sense, are subsidizing their neighbors. Many don't realize they're getting clobbered.
Owners of newer homes constitute one victim group.
When a county decides to reassess, state law demands that all properties be done at once. The exception is new construction, which is appraised upon completion.
The overwhelming nature of a mass assessment is one reason it is so rarely done. That's a boon for owners of older properties that appreciate; their taxes are based on lower values.
But homes built after a countywide reassessment carry fresher appraisals, closer to 100 percent of current value. Those hapless owners frequently end up paying a higher effective tax rate.
Example: Since Delaware County's last reassessment was completed in 2000, home values in Radnor Township have, in general, appreciated dramatically. Consequently, the average assessment is based on just 46 percent of a property's present worth.
No such break for William and Carol Knott.
They bought a new house on Mill Road last year for $1.8 million, and got hit with a $25,250 tax bill. Elsewhere in Radnor, near downtown Wayne, an older home sold for $2.2 million a few months later; the tax, based on the 2000 reassessment, was $16,141.
Paying $9,000 more in taxes for a house that cost $400,000 less is "just outrageous," Carol Knott said. If she and her husband, a banker, had it to do over, "we would not have bought new construction."
The other group that gets whomped is made up of owners of homes whose values have stagnated or sunk since they were appraised.
Example: In Montgomery County, the average home value has doubled since the last reassessment in 1998. But rates of appreciation have been uneven, to say the least.
Norristown, the county seat, is a down-at-the-heels borough dreaming of a renaissance. More than 7 percent of the homes lost value since 1998. Their assessments generally are double what they should be, and their owners are paying double the taxes.
Buy a cow. Pennsylvania assessment law also extends an array of property-tax exemptions, typically to nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, churches and museums. But a major break also goes to owners of "farmland." They need just 10 acres - or less, if they can show that the land produces an annual minimum of $2,000 in "farm income."
Example: In Chester County, more than $1 billion in "farmland" is off-limits to taxation. That shifts more of the burden to nonfarm residents such as Paul Belleza, whose tax bill is $5,000 - up 67 percent from five years ago.
Belleza lives in the Octorara School District, where about $100 million worth of land is exempt.
"I've got 11 acres with a matchbox house," he said. "I'm paying five times the tax" of nearby landowners.
Belleza said he believed that some people taking the exemption weren't legitimate farmers.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a tax fraud," he said. "We're subsidizing wealthy landowners who can well afford to pay their own taxes."
School budgets defy cuts
If the property tax remains the chief money source for public education in Pennsylvania, the only way to reduce it is to reduce school spending, significantly.
That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Taxpayers may rail against perceived Taj Mahal excesses, but the bulk of the typical district budget goes to negotiated salary and benefits packages and state and federally mandated programs. Those costs will keep growing.
In Lower Merion Township, where the average property-tax bill has increased 34 percent in the last five years, the district's $175 million budget has little wiggle room, said Scott Shafer, the district's acting business manager. After labor, mandates and other fixed costs come out, he said, only about $3 million in discretionary money remains.
That reality frustrates tax activists.
Rick Ritter, a founder of the 1,875-member Coatesville Taxpayer Alliance, was so angry about escalating property taxes in his district that in 2006 he ran for the school board on a victorious activist slate.
But after he and his compatriots parsed the Coatesville Area School District's $69.2 million budget, they concluded that 80 percent of costs were locked in for years. They have held the line on school taxes the last three years, but homeowners still are stuck with some of the region's highest taxes: almost $2,000 for every $100,000 of value, plus a 2 percent wage tax. Facing those rates, Ritter's mother-in-law gave up her home and moved in with him.
Encompassing nine communities, the district is an example of the vagaries of school-system boundaries. Its poorest part by far is the city of Coatesville; there, the average home price in 2006 was $120,000, compared with $294,800 across the other towns. Devastated by the loss of the steel industry that once defined it, Coatesville has a painfully sparse tax base, which forces higher rates on everyone in the district.
The circumstances are similar - and the taxes even higher - in the Chichester School District in eastern Delaware County. The district consists of Lower and Upper Chichester Townships and the ravaged riverfront boroughs of Marcus Hook and Trainer.
Upper Chichester, where Karl and Jean Dorschu live, is relatively well-off, with an average home price of $220,165. But in the other three municipalities, the tax base is paper-thin; houses average less than $95,000.
So the district's residents are forced to dig deep at tax time, paying up to $3,300 for every $100,000 in property value.
Had they stayed in Radnor, the Dorschus would be paying $1,138 per $100,000 in value. That district includes just one township, with $3.6 billion worth of real estate. That's four times the total for all property in the Chichester district.
The builder of the Dorschus' new home seriously underestimated the tax bill, although Karl Dorschu said he believed not even the builder had expected the levy to be so high.
Classical-music lovers, the couple were drawn to Boothwyn because of its easy commute to the Kimmel Center and its proximity to I-95 and the Claymont, Del., train station. So they got what they wanted, and something they didn't.
"If we had known," he said, "we probably would not have settled here."
Tax Divide
By Anthony R. Wood Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2008
After 34 years living in a four-bedroom brick home on a leafy acre in Radnor Township, retirees Karl and Jean Dorschu wanted something smaller, something with less raking and snow shoveling, something less taxing, physically and financially.
They chose to stay in Delaware County, buying a $325,000 two-bedroom house in the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, 20 miles away.
There, they assumed, their property tax would be much lower than the $7,000 they paid in Radnor. Their new place was half the size and value, on one-fifth the acreage, in a middle-class community without Main Line gilt or top-drawer schools to support.
So much for logic.
After moving in, the Dorschus learned they'd be paying $8,500, or 21 percent more.
In the two years since, their bill has jumped above $9,500.
"If we had a top-notch school district, I wouldn't mind," said Karl Dorschu, 77, a former engineer.
In Radnor, where his three children were educated, 88 percent of the students go on to four-year colleges, compared with 38 percent in the Chichester School District. Radnor students rank among the region's highest in academic performance; Chichester's are in the lower echelon.
All things considered, his tax bill "doesn't make sense," he said. But he is certain of this much: "They're choking us homeowners to death."
Complaints about the property tax - that it's unfair, bewildering, exorbitant, pick a pejorative - may be nothing new. But their volume and intensity are.
The colonial-era system that provides most of the money for America's public schools and local governments is under unprecedented assault, with taxpayer protests, lawsuits or legislative overhauls rumbling through at least 20 states.
Pennsylvania is one.
The state is jigsawed into 3,134 local taxing authorities, including 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities, and 67 counties - a patchwork among the most manifold in the nation. Here, the chaos and inequities wrought by a flawed, fragmented system are worsening as tax bills rise, the housing market falters, and the economy deteriorates.
An Inquirer analysis of 500,000 tax records in Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties has found wildly disparate property-tax rates that are widening the economic divide between have and have-not towns, and further balkanizing the region.
In poorer communities like the Chichester district's Trainer and Marcus Hook, where houses are modest and commercial property scarce, the effective tax rate (the average annual tax bill as a percentage of the average home value) typically is higher than in wealthier communities. But the analysis also showed that the tax gaps among municipalities were growing, helping to repel influxes of homeowners and businesses into troubled downtowns and hampering their revitalization.
For instance, in some economically distressed parts of eastern Delaware County, such as the six towns of the William Penn School District, the tax rates are nearly six times higher than those in West Conshohocken, a Montgomery County borough jam-packed with office towers. Just five years ago, the rates were 31/2 times higher.
Those poorer communities also tend to have lower-achieving students and far fewer resources than wealthy neighbors. The William Penn district - composed of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon - spends $12,701 per pupil. West Conshohocken is in the Upper Merion district, which spends $18,158.
Between 2002 and 2007 in poorer towns in the suburban counties, increases in millages - the taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value - were double those in affluent communities.
Regionwide in the same period, the average property-tax bill jumped about 25 percent. That far outpaced inflation, and tested many homeowners' ability to pay. The Inquirer found that local taxes now consume about 7 percent of household incomes, up from 5.5 percent five years ago.
Largely to meet the growing needs of schools and municipal governments, property-tax collections in Pennsylvania between just 2002 and 2007 ballooned 39math cq percent, from $10.4 billion to $14.5 billion. Nationally, they soared 40math cq percent, from $288 billion to $404 billion. New Jerseyans paid $22.1 billion last year, up 38math cq percent from $16 billion. The Garden State has the highest average property-tax bill - $6,331 - in the nation.
Boomer backlash
The opposition ranks have swelled along with the bills. They include tax analysts, economists, community-development experts and lawmakers. But the angriest voices belong to increasingly organized blocs of voters.
Many are retirees, an age group hit hard by the rising property taxes - and one that will build into a demographic tsunami of more than 70 million baby boomers, due to begin turning 65 in 2011.
Beware the Me Generation on fixed incomes, free of school-age kids and united by the Web, warns Peter Sepp, a vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group of 350,000 members based in Alexandria, Va.
That "big crop of retirees," he said, will "see less justification for paying huge property taxes."
Pennsylvania already has 35 grassroots groups, representing about 20,000 property owners, that aim to overhaul or abolish the real estate levy. Eight are in Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties.
Protesters also are meeting online at the virtual offices of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalitioncq. A similar site is in the works in New Jersey, which has at least seven activist organizations.
Many groups have emerged in just the last few years, even as the two state legislatures offer rebates from slots revenue and sales taxes.
Last monthmay, Pennsylvania announced it would dole out $613 million in a first installment of property-tax relief from its new gaming industry. In the Philadelphia suburbs this year, an average of $245 will be applied toward bills.
But the much-ballyhooed break brings out the Peggy Lee in John J. McCartney, 73. Is that all there is? wonders the retired registered nurse, who pays $6,000 annually to the Octorara Area School District in Chester County.
"It's nowhere near enough to begin to address the problems that everyone's having," McCartney said, "especially with gasoline prices, and everything else, going up."
Rebates aren't placating the 55+ Coalition, made up of 6,000 residents of more than a dozen adult communities in Delaware County and thought to be the largest citizens tax group in Pennsylvania.
"If ever we have the opportunity [for major change], it's now," said Anthony Santore, 72, a retired hospital administrator from Glen Mills who founded 55+ two years ago.
Rough going in Harrisburg
Its members were among 400 tax activists from across the state who held a raucous rally in Harrisburg on June 2, hoping to fillip a bill that would redesign the system. They were joined by 30 legislators.
Proposed by Rep. Sam Rohrer (R., Berks), House Bill 1275 would replace property levies with a broader state sales tax, extended to such items as sports tickets, dry cleaning and plumbing services. It also would shift the bulk of school funding to the state, which now pays 35.4 percent of education costs, on average. Pennsylvania ranks 44th in the nation in the portion borne by the state.
In a House vote in January, Rohrer's proposal was trounced. It came under withering attack from two dozen special interests who feared it would hurt business.
So Rohrer is trying again, having removed white-collar services such as lawyers' and accountants' fees from his tax list and inserted a limited property tax on commercial real estate.
His tweaked plan remains the most dramatic of three major proposals before the House. But they are alike in one way: All are buried in committee, continuing the legislature's historic reluctance to take up an issue laced with political cyanide.
The key to rectifying the tax disparities among towns and taking the pressure off property taxes lies in bumping up the state's share of public-education costs, the Rendell administration contends.
Gov. Rendell has proposed increasing state aid by a total of $2.6 billion during the next six years, targeting the poorest districts. But his plan's fate in the legislature is uncertain.
Combined with school-tax discounts from slot-machine revenue under the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, also known as Act 1, the state share of education costs would rise from 35 percent to about 45 percent in 2014, administration spokesman Chuck Ardo said. That would put Pennsylvania near the national average.
Ardo added that the administration had lessened the burden on fixed-income seniors by increasing rebates.
However, in the view of tax activists and their Harrisburg allies, neither the governor nor the legislature is going far enough.
"It makes no sense," said Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R., Dauphin), "to use a 19th-century tax to fund 21st-century education."
A flawed system
Even in this miasma of discontent, the property tax finds defenders.
Free of any state or federal claims, it provides a dependable source of income so school districts and municipal governments can both pay their bills and borrow, said Steven Wray, a researcher for the Pennsylvania Economy League, a public-policy research group.
"I can't say I'm a raving fan of it," Wray said. But real estate, he added, is the logical source of local income, and homeowners reap the reward. In Pennsylvania, 80 percent of the tax goes to education. And "the better the schools," he said, "the better the property values are going to be."
Yet even its defenders concede that the system is badly flawed, and that Pennsylvania is an eye-popping measure of just how bad.
Behold the tax madness:
Less is more. In some wealthy communities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, residents pay hefty property taxes, up to 10 percent of robust household incomes. Nonetheless, rates in many of the poorest towns are among the highest in the region and, in fact, the country - higher even than New Jersey suburbs of New York City, often cited as national chart-toppers.
Of the 25 suburban municipalities with the steepest rates, 22 are in eastern Delaware County. Of those, 16 rank near the bottom in median income.
Example: In June 2006, Victor Ko bought a $256,900 house on Whalen Court in Upper Darby. The median household income in the Delaware County township is $46,606. Its tax base is dominated by modestly priced homes, while its commercial property is worth less than $900 million.
Ko's tax bill is $6,912.
Also in 2006, Susan Scanlon bought a $259,000 home near the King of Prussia malls in Upper Merion. The Montgomery County township has a median household income of $79,653 and a prodigious tax base. Its commercial property, including the mighty malls, is worth $3.4 billion - almost four times that of Upper Darby.
Scanlon, an Upper Darby native, has a tax bill of $2,080, or less than one-third Ko's.
To have and have not. In the latter half of the 20th century, taxes helped deepen the divide between Philadelphia, where they were high, and the rest of the region, where they typically weren't. But municipal competition for residents and commerce is no longer so clear-cut.
Example: Tax-wise, it doesn't get any worse than in Colwyn. The small, struggling borough in eastern Delaware County has the highest effective property-tax rate in the region - 4.52 percent of the average home value.
But the rate is 0.97 percent in Chester County's East Bradford, a considerably more affluent township, where new tract houses abut bucolic open space.
In 2002, Colwyn's effective tax rate was about four times that of East Bradford. Now it is 4.7 times higher.
Older, poorer towns such as Colwyn are caught in a sorry cycle from which few escape, said Wray, of the Economy League. Their high taxes drive out homeowners and businesses; to compensate for those losses, they hike taxes on those who stay - with predictable results.
From 2002 to 2007 in East Bradford, 140 homes were built, at an average price of $230,000. Only 16, averaging $41,000, went up in Colwyn.
Double whammy. Pennsylvania's rules on property assessment have created two sets of losers. Both often pay higher taxes than the rest of the community where they live and, in a sense, are subsidizing their neighbors. Many don't realize they're getting clobbered.
Owners of newer homes constitute one victim group.
When a county decides to reassess, state law demands that all properties be done at once. The exception is new construction, which is appraised upon completion.
The overwhelming nature of a mass assessment is one reason it is so rarely done. That's a boon for owners of older properties that appreciate; their taxes are based on lower values.
But homes built after a countywide reassessment carry fresher appraisals, closer to 100 percent of current value. Those hapless owners frequently end up paying a higher effective tax rate.
Example: Since Delaware County's last reassessment was completed in 2000, home values in Radnor Township have, in general, appreciated dramatically. Consequently, the average assessment is based on just 46 percent of a property's present worth.
No such break for William and Carol Knott.
They bought a new house on Mill Road last year for $1.8 million, and got hit with a $25,250 tax bill. Elsewhere in Radnor, near downtown Wayne, an older home sold for $2.2 million a few months later; the tax, based on the 2000 reassessment, was $16,141.
Paying $9,000 more in taxes for a house that cost $400,000 less is "just outrageous," Carol Knott said. If she and her husband, a banker, had it to do over, "we would not have bought new construction."
The other group that gets whomped is made up of owners of homes whose values have stagnated or sunk since they were appraised.
Example: In Montgomery County, the average home value has doubled since the last reassessment in 1998. But rates of appreciation have been uneven, to say the least.
Norristown, the county seat, is a down-at-the-heels borough dreaming of a renaissance. More than 7 percent of the homes lost value since 1998. Their assessments generally are double what they should be, and their owners are paying double the taxes.
Buy a cow. Pennsylvania assessment law also extends an array of property-tax exemptions, typically to nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, churches and museums. But a major break also goes to owners of "farmland." They need just 10 acres - or less, if they can show that the land produces an annual minimum of $2,000 in "farm income."
Example: In Chester County, more than $1 billion in "farmland" is off-limits to taxation. That shifts more of the burden to nonfarm residents such as Paul Belleza, whose tax bill is $5,000 - up 67 percent from five years ago.
Belleza lives in the Octorara School District, where about $100 million worth of land is exempt.
"I've got 11 acres with a matchbox house," he said. "I'm paying five times the tax" of nearby landowners.
Belleza said he believed that some people taking the exemption weren't legitimate farmers.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a tax fraud," he said. "We're subsidizing wealthy landowners who can well afford to pay their own taxes."
School budgets defy cuts
If the property tax remains the chief money source for public education in Pennsylvania, the only way to reduce it is to reduce school spending, significantly.
That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Taxpayers may rail against perceived Taj Mahal excesses, but the bulk of the typical district budget goes to negotiated salary and benefits packages and state and federally mandated programs. Those costs will keep growing.
In Lower Merion Township, where the average property-tax bill has increased 34 percent in the last five years, the district's $175 million budget has little wiggle room, said Scott Shafer, the district's acting business manager. After labor, mandates and other fixed costs come out, he said, only about $3 million in discretionary money remains.
That reality frustrates tax activists.
Rick Ritter, a founder of the 1,875-member Coatesville Taxpayer Alliance, was so angry about escalating property taxes in his district that in 2006 he ran for the school board on a victorious activist slate.
But after he and his compatriots parsed the Coatesville Area School District's $69.2 million budget, they concluded that 80 percent of costs were locked in for years. They have held the line on school taxes the last three years, but homeowners still are stuck with some of the region's highest taxes: almost $2,000 for every $100,000 of value, plus a 2 percent wage tax. Facing those rates, Ritter's mother-in-law gave up her home and moved in with him.
Encompassing nine communities, the district is an example of the vagaries of school-system boundaries. Its poorest part by far is the city of Coatesville; there, the average home price in 2006 was $120,000, compared with $294,800 across the other towns. Devastated by the loss of the steel industry that once defined it, Coatesville has a painfully sparse tax base, which forces higher rates on everyone in the district.
The circumstances are similar - and the taxes even higher - in the Chichester School District in eastern Delaware County. The district consists of Lower and Upper Chichester Townships and the ravaged riverfront boroughs of Marcus Hook and Trainer.
Upper Chichester, where Karl and Jean Dorschu live, is relatively well-off, with an average home price of $220,165. But in the other three municipalities, the tax base is paper-thin; houses average less than $95,000.
So the district's residents are forced to dig deep at tax time, paying up to $3,300 for every $100,000 in property value.
Had they stayed in Radnor, the Dorschus would be paying $1,138 per $100,000 in value. That district includes just one township, with $3.6 billion worth of real estate. That's four times the total for all property in the Chichester district.
The builder of the Dorschus' new home seriously underestimated the tax bill, although Karl Dorschu said he believed not even the builder had expected the levy to be so high.
Classical-music lovers, the couple were drawn to Boothwyn because of its easy commute to the Kimmel Center and its proximity to I-95 and the Claymont, Del., train station. So they got what they wanted, and something they didn't.
"If we had known," he said, "we probably would not have settled here."
Atomic Clocks Fail Too, You Know
Kudos to jon for pointing out that 9:00 A.M. isn't always 9:00 A.M. It sometimes depends on where you are.
What's this I hear that the Emperor is cooking the books when it comes to filling the late Ed Frankenfield's seat? Did he really stage a Godfather-like scene where he received school board nominations at his office from guests pledging everlasting fealty?
Inquiring minds want to know...
What's this I hear that the Emperor is cooking the books when it comes to filling the late Ed Frankenfield's seat? Did he really stage a Godfather-like scene where he received school board nominations at his office from guests pledging everlasting fealty?
Inquiring minds want to know...
Schools News Around the Blogosphere
New Orleans schools chief chips away at big issues
Associate Press
Paul Vallas recently passed his first major milestone when fourth- and eighth-graders in the city's woeful public schools posted significantly higher test scores on state tests.
Winston Churchill was right: education is too important to be left to politicians
Daily Telegraph
Just as hundreds of thousands of pupils, including my own children, sat down this week to start their A-levels, Imperial College, London, declared that what they were doing was, from its point of view, "almost worthless".
Milwaukee Public Schools ordered to do more for special needs
Milwaukee Journa-Sentinel
BY ALAN J. BORSUK
A federal judge has ruled full-force in favor of potentially historic changes that would require Milwaukee Public Schools to provide more services sooner to thousands of struggling students.
Part 2: America had the world's best school system.
Keith Baker
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
The idea that America was being harmed because our schools were not keeping up with other advanced nations emerged after Sputnik, took hold of educational policy after the Reagan Administration's "A Nation At Risk" report, and continues today. This concern is justified by evidence showing that within the USA, test scores predict a number of important life advantages, such as going on to college and making more money as an adult.
Peer review system for teachers spreads
By Claudio Sanchez, National Public Radio (Audio)
The teachers' union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It's called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
Associate Press
Paul Vallas recently passed his first major milestone when fourth- and eighth-graders in the city's woeful public schools posted significantly higher test scores on state tests.
Winston Churchill was right: education is too important to be left to politicians
Daily Telegraph
Just as hundreds of thousands of pupils, including my own children, sat down this week to start their A-levels, Imperial College, London, declared that what they were doing was, from its point of view, "almost worthless".
Milwaukee Public Schools ordered to do more for special needs
Milwaukee Journa-Sentinel
BY ALAN J. BORSUK
A federal judge has ruled full-force in favor of potentially historic changes that would require Milwaukee Public Schools to provide more services sooner to thousands of struggling students.
Part 2: America had the world's best school system.
Keith Baker
Guest Columnist EducationNews.org
The idea that America was being harmed because our schools were not keeping up with other advanced nations emerged after Sputnik, took hold of educational policy after the Reagan Administration's "A Nation At Risk" report, and continues today. This concern is justified by evidence showing that within the USA, test scores predict a number of important life advantages, such as going on to college and making more money as an adult.
Peer review system for teachers spreads
By Claudio Sanchez, National Public Radio (Audio)
The teachers' union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It's called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
Friday, June 13, 2008
So What Are Your Thoughts?
Here's a blog entry from Kate Fratti. Do you think the Emperor is simply chock full of waste products? Is Farrell a complete coward or just unwilling to be linked with a premature plan? Why is the Emperor backpedaling like a frightened deer? Is it time to replace the Emperor with someone else? Why is the Emperor excluding Reithmeyer and Kemp? (Do I smell fear in the water?) Why does the Emperor fear Reithmeyer and Kemp so much? (More fear! Are they strong with The Force?) What lapdog toadie is the Emperor's handpicked successor to the community minded Ed Frankenfield? These and other questions to be answered on the next episode of "As The Bulldog Turns"
As for a formal proposal? Let's make one and let it sit exposed to public scrutiny. The Emperor is unwilling to let anything he does be exposed to public scrutiny.
This Emperor? He is not clothed at all. He is a feeble mockery of a man.
Not so fast, Fratti
Last week, I met with Morrisville School Board President Bill Hellmann and members Al Radosti and Bill Farrell to understand better what changes they propose for the school district. The status quo, won’t cut it, they say. Morrisville is drowning in the cost of it all.
As I was leaving, the arrival of a representative for Delaware Valley High School was announced. I asked Bill Hellmann why he was meeting with DVH. He declined to comment.
You’ll recall that earlier this year DVH president Dave Shulick a Philadelphia attorney proposed privatizing MV High. Said he could do it for a fraction of the cost and could educate kids right in town. The school is best known for educating at-risk kids, but I was assured the school is accredited and experienced in regular education. Parent reaction to the offer was swift and negative. Prematurely negative, I think. I’d have like to have heard a formal proposal by DVH, but it wasn’t to be.
Intrigued by the meeting at Hellmann’s office now, I blogged about it to you. Looked like the presentation would be made not-so-formally first.
My blog turned up on Savethemorrisvilleschoolblogspot.com and comments from parents were fast and furious. They were ticked off.
That may have led to an email from Bill this morning, copied to all the majority board members, but not to Robin Reitmeyer and Joe Kemp, that he’d only met with DVH to learn more about how alternative schools work indicating that I’d jumped the gun and signaled to parents a worry where there shouldn’t be one. No talk of privatizing, says he.
No one knows if that’s true but Bill and Al Radosti. Farrell didn’t stay for the meeting. We’ll have to take the first two at their word.
More about my meeting with the fellas in my column on Monday.
Posted by Kate Fratti at 1:47 pm | |
As for a formal proposal? Let's make one and let it sit exposed to public scrutiny. The Emperor is unwilling to let anything he does be exposed to public scrutiny.
This Emperor? He is not clothed at all. He is a feeble mockery of a man.
Not so fast, Fratti
Last week, I met with Morrisville School Board President Bill Hellmann and members Al Radosti and Bill Farrell to understand better what changes they propose for the school district. The status quo, won’t cut it, they say. Morrisville is drowning in the cost of it all.
As I was leaving, the arrival of a representative for Delaware Valley High School was announced. I asked Bill Hellmann why he was meeting with DVH. He declined to comment.
You’ll recall that earlier this year DVH president Dave Shulick a Philadelphia attorney proposed privatizing MV High. Said he could do it for a fraction of the cost and could educate kids right in town. The school is best known for educating at-risk kids, but I was assured the school is accredited and experienced in regular education. Parent reaction to the offer was swift and negative. Prematurely negative, I think. I’d have like to have heard a formal proposal by DVH, but it wasn’t to be.
Intrigued by the meeting at Hellmann’s office now, I blogged about it to you. Looked like the presentation would be made not-so-formally first.
My blog turned up on Savethemorrisvilleschoolblogspot.com and comments from parents were fast and furious. They were ticked off.
That may have led to an email from Bill this morning, copied to all the majority board members, but not to Robin Reitmeyer and Joe Kemp, that he’d only met with DVH to learn more about how alternative schools work indicating that I’d jumped the gun and signaled to parents a worry where there shouldn’t be one. No talk of privatizing, says he.
No one knows if that’s true but Bill and Al Radosti. Farrell didn’t stay for the meeting. We’ll have to take the first two at their word.
More about my meeting with the fellas in my column on Monday.
Posted by Kate Fratti at 1:47 pm | |
Rendell Budget Plan
While the merry maulers of Morrisville are busy dismantling the school system, let's take out a moment to imagine how we could lower our taxes AND keep this a K-12 district. Answer: Change the funding formula.
So what are you doing about getting things changed? Let's keep the kids here and lower our taxes. Is there any Morrisville resident who DOESN'T see this as a win-win situation?
Rendell's school-funding plan is creditable
Carl M. Buchholz is CEO of Blank Rome L.L.P.
David L. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast Corp.
Joseph A. Frick is CEO of Independence Blue Cross
The future of our region's economic success depends on many factors: competitive tax rates, upgrades to our infrastructure, and high-quality schools that prepare every student for success in the workplace or college.
On the education front, the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell are working now to formulate a new plan to equitably distribute additional state funding to Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts.
The good news is that, over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen an excellent return on its historic investments in full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, smaller classes, more challenging high schools, and other improvements.
Pennsylvania is one of only nine states to make significant gains in elementary-school reading and math since 2003, which shows we are moving in the right direction.
Yet, even with these gains, a stunning 30 percent of the students who graduate in the school districts in the four suburban Philadelphia counties cannot read and do math at the 11th-grade level. The region's employers pay the price for this skills gap in unfilled jobs, increased employee-training costs, and lost economic opportunity.
The problem is that too many of our region's school districts lack the adequate resources necessary to deliver a high-quality education.
The 2007 Costing-Out Report found a $4.6 billion shortfall. This means students in the majority of the state's school districts are missing out on the educational opportunities proven to boost students' achievement levels.
Why? Because schools lack sufficient funds to provide quality education.
To this end, Rendell has proposed a $2.6 billion plan to move school districts across the state toward the adequate funding targets determined in the costing-out report. The proposal places the state on a pathway to a more reasonable school-funding model, where the state appropriately shoulders 50 percent of public education costs.
In addition, this proposal mandates that a large percentage of these new state funds be spent to expand the proven programs that result in student success, especially for struggling learners.
This targeted funding is to be spent on early-childhood education, extra support for struggling students, more classroom time for teaching and learning, quality training for educators, improved curricula and courses, and smaller classes.
In our region alone, the costing-out study found that our school districts need at least $1.4 billion to ensure our students get the quality of education necessary to meet the expectations of our colleges and employers. Two examples of the shortfall in funding are:
The Norristown School District in Montgomery County is $3,000 per pupil short. Under the governor's proposal, this district would receive nearly $10 million in new state aid, cutting their funding gap more than a third.
The Bristol Township School District in Bucks County is $2,100 per pupil short. The governor's proposal pumps $9 million into the district, cutting its funding gap in half.
For the last few years, this region has seen solid economic growth. However, just like every region in the nation, we are dealing with the impact of a national recession, increased competition, and deteriorating infrastructure.
But there is one economic challenge that is of our own making - poorly prepared high school graduates from underfunded school districts. In large part, this problem is a result of the gradual decline in the percentage of state funding to our schools.
Our region's vitality and prosperity depend in large part on successful deliberations by state leaders to boost funding for schools in a fair and equitable manner and help close the school-funding gap within the next few years.
The governor's proposal is a significant step in the right direction.
So what are you doing about getting things changed? Let's keep the kids here and lower our taxes. Is there any Morrisville resident who DOESN'T see this as a win-win situation?
Rendell's school-funding plan is creditable
Carl M. Buchholz is CEO of Blank Rome L.L.P.
David L. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast Corp.
Joseph A. Frick is CEO of Independence Blue Cross
The future of our region's economic success depends on many factors: competitive tax rates, upgrades to our infrastructure, and high-quality schools that prepare every student for success in the workplace or college.
On the education front, the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell are working now to formulate a new plan to equitably distribute additional state funding to Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts.
The good news is that, over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen an excellent return on its historic investments in full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, smaller classes, more challenging high schools, and other improvements.
Pennsylvania is one of only nine states to make significant gains in elementary-school reading and math since 2003, which shows we are moving in the right direction.
Yet, even with these gains, a stunning 30 percent of the students who graduate in the school districts in the four suburban Philadelphia counties cannot read and do math at the 11th-grade level. The region's employers pay the price for this skills gap in unfilled jobs, increased employee-training costs, and lost economic opportunity.
The problem is that too many of our region's school districts lack the adequate resources necessary to deliver a high-quality education.
The 2007 Costing-Out Report found a $4.6 billion shortfall. This means students in the majority of the state's school districts are missing out on the educational opportunities proven to boost students' achievement levels.
Why? Because schools lack sufficient funds to provide quality education.
To this end, Rendell has proposed a $2.6 billion plan to move school districts across the state toward the adequate funding targets determined in the costing-out report. The proposal places the state on a pathway to a more reasonable school-funding model, where the state appropriately shoulders 50 percent of public education costs.
In addition, this proposal mandates that a large percentage of these new state funds be spent to expand the proven programs that result in student success, especially for struggling learners.
This targeted funding is to be spent on early-childhood education, extra support for struggling students, more classroom time for teaching and learning, quality training for educators, improved curricula and courses, and smaller classes.
In our region alone, the costing-out study found that our school districts need at least $1.4 billion to ensure our students get the quality of education necessary to meet the expectations of our colleges and employers. Two examples of the shortfall in funding are:
The Norristown School District in Montgomery County is $3,000 per pupil short. Under the governor's proposal, this district would receive nearly $10 million in new state aid, cutting their funding gap more than a third.
The Bristol Township School District in Bucks County is $2,100 per pupil short. The governor's proposal pumps $9 million into the district, cutting its funding gap in half.
For the last few years, this region has seen solid economic growth. However, just like every region in the nation, we are dealing with the impact of a national recession, increased competition, and deteriorating infrastructure.
But there is one economic challenge that is of our own making - poorly prepared high school graduates from underfunded school districts. In large part, this problem is a result of the gradual decline in the percentage of state funding to our schools.
Our region's vitality and prosperity depend in large part on successful deliberations by state leaders to boost funding for schools in a fair and equitable manner and help close the school-funding gap within the next few years.
The governor's proposal is a significant step in the right direction.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Farming Poll: Part II
As you can see, I have a new poll entered and I encourage you to vote. The Emperor still doesn't "get it". Please vote and make sure that he and his accomplices know that you are tired of his egotistical ways.
If you vote one of the "do what's right for the kids" options, that's fine, but why don't you let us know what you think is the "right" thing to do.
If you vote one of the "do what's right for the kids" options, that's fine, but why don't you let us know what you think is the "right" thing to do.
The 110th and Next to Last Graduating Class
Last night the next to last (penultimate, for those sesquipedalians out there) graduating class from Morrisville High School was presented with their diplomas. Apparently the class of 2009 will be receiving walking papers.
Kudos to Superintendent Yonson and the institution of the Edward H. Frankenfield Memorial Award. A good man like that deserves to be remembered by the measure of a student's service to others. It's too bad that his memory is being trampled upon by the likes of the Emperor and Angry Al as they seek to dismantle the community they claim to be protecting.
Congratulations and best wishes to the Class of 2008.
Take a look at the statistics from these young women and men. Why is this school board trying to push them away? Why aren't their achievements and successes being celebrated?
Taking lessons into the future
“As we leave here, we should remember the lessons we learned and use them to the best of our ability,” one speaker said.
By MANASEE WAGH
While Morrisville High School’s graduating class was small, its seniors truly enjoyed the close-knit community they formed.
That was the consensus of many of the 73 graduates at Wednesday evening’s commencement ceremony on the high school grounds.
“It’s nice. You get to talk to everyone and you know everyone,” said graduate Ashley Woodhouse.
This year marked the 110th commencement of a high school in which teachers could connect with a small student body on a more personal level, said several students. Salutatorian Lauren Ramos, who’s planning a career in forensics, thanked several of her teachers for guiding her through the trials of four years of high school and for making learning fun.
“As we leave here, we should remember the lessons we learned and use them to the best of our ability,” she told her classmates.
The speaker giving the commencement address this year, sportscaster Don Tollefson, garnered much applause from listeners for his words of inspiration.
“Never let a single human being tell you there’s something you cannot do,” he told students. Tollefson brought up the Democratic election as an example of how minorities Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama bucked tradition to run for the White House.
He also advised them that failure is “a stepping stone,” and that they should never give up.
As a tribute to the graduates’ community involvement, Morrisville Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson introduced an award in honor of recently deceased school board member, Edward Frankenfield.
“He contributed to the community in so many ways,” said Yonson. With Frankenfield’s wife and son, she presented graduate Sarah O’Connor with the honorary Edward H. Frankenfield Memorial Award for many hours of volunteer service with a variety of community services and organizations.
Presenting one graduate with the award plaque and a monetary gift will become an annual tradition, said Yonson.
This year’s class earned nearly 6,000 hours of community service altogether.
Senior class President Justin Howell said that the community and the schools are closely connected in Morrisville.
“I’ll always feel I’m part of the community here,” he said. “We can move on with the knowledge that we can be proud of our hometown and we have a hometown that’s proud of us.”
Morrisville High School
Graduates: 73
National Honor Society members: 3
Valedictorian: Matthew Miller
Salutatorian: Lauren Ramos
Student speakers: Justin Howell (President of Class), Brittany Caldwell (Vice President), Christina Doan (Secretary), Andrew Brake (Treasury)
Percent going on to higher education: 81
Percent going into the military: 1
Percent going to the workforce: 18
Amount of scholarship money offered (to entire class; not just the amount accepted; this is the total amount offered) $257,734
Number of community service hours (by the entire class of "08): 5,933 hours
Noteworthy accomplishments of the graduating class: The seniors organized a charity Powder Puff Football Game for a local family whose daughter had cancer; Bicentennial Athletic League Championships in softball and baseball; 31 seniors earned 197 dual enrollment college credits.
Student Farming Plan Back on the Agenda
It looks like last night's Morrisville High School class of 2008 is shaping up to be the next to last MHS class.
What is it with these two and what do they have against the Morrisville school system? Here's two bitter and angry men out for destruction. Remember the January board meeting where the Emperor even conceded that "he got it" and the community did not want the high school students tuitioned out?
Private Morrisville High?
Posted in News on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm by Columnist Kate Fratti
Continuing their investigation into privatizing Morrisville High School, school board directors Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition high-schoolers out to another district or to Delaware Valley High School at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education that could be provided in or near Morrisville.
What is it with these two and what do they have against the Morrisville school system? Here's two bitter and angry men out for destruction. Remember the January board meeting where the Emperor even conceded that "he got it" and the community did not want the high school students tuitioned out?
Private Morrisville High?
Posted in News on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm by Columnist Kate Fratti
Continuing their investigation into privatizing Morrisville High School, school board directors Bill Hellmann and Al Radosti met with a Delaware Valley High School representative Tuesday afternoon.They seem to have given up hope of any merger with neighboring Pennsbury. So, by September 2009, some board members hope to have closed at least one grade school, maybe two, and consolidated all grades in the middle/senior high school building. That is unless, by then they’ve been able to tuition high-schoolers out to another district or to Delaware Valley High School at substantial reductions in cost per student. In that case, the current high school building would hold just K-8.
DVH is best known for educating at-risk kids, but President Dave Shulick has said it is accredited and experienced in regular education that could be provided in or near Morrisville.
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