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September 2002 Vol. XVI, No. 8 November
Elections Occupy Albany’s Attention
With
the primaries of September 10th in their rear view mirrors, the State
Legislators and the Governor have now turned their attention and efforts toward
the general election on November 5th. The Governor is facing a strong
challenge from the combined effects of the McCall campaign and the Golisano
campaign, both of which will be well funded. State Legislators are likewise
feeling the effects of the heated gubernatorial race, despite the protection
afforded by re-districting to incumbents. While no one is predicting a change in
leadership in either the Senate or Assembly, both parties know that much rides
on the outcome of voting this November and that losses in key races could weaken
their majorities for the 2003-04 sessions. The
McCall candidacy is a serious threat to the Governor’s overall strategy of
moving to the center of the political spectrum through greater appeal to
minority issues. Moreover, the Golisano message has resonated with the
ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party which has been unhappy with some
of the Governor’s fiscal policies of late. The result so far has been a
narrowing of Pataki’s lead in the polls from a majority to a plurality of
“likely voters.” Looming in the not too distant future for the eventual winners is the State Budget deficit for 2003-04 predicted to be in the $5 to 7 billion range. As Tom Rogers, Deputy Executive Director of NYSCOSS, pointed out at the Associations Summer Conference in Ithaca last month, this deficit is produced by the one-time revenues used to balance this year’s budget. The deficit is made even worse because some of those revenues came as loans from funds which must be replenished next year, doubling the effect on the deficit. Education
funding has become a political issue complicating the races even more. The
Appellate Division, 1st Department, decision of June 25th
in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, which reversed the trial court
decision, was initially praised by the Governor. With the primary victory for
McCall, education funding equity, which has been a major concern for the
Comptroller for many years, became a prominent topic. The McCall slogan “eight
is not enough” referring to the court’s holding that only an eighth grade
education is constitutionally mandated, forced the Pataki campaign to respond in
agreement. The Governor is now being taken to task for the inconsistency in his
position on education. There could easily be an argument made that there is no
inconsistency because the Governor merely is saying that the level and
distribution of funding is a legislative/budgetary prerogative and has not been
left to the courts to determine once the very minimum education required under
the constitution has been provided. Nevertheless, that argument raises nuances
which are usually ignored in the context of a general election and places the
Governor in an awkward position on the issue. This public debate over education aid equity is an opportunity for small city school districts, which have been repeatedly shortchanged in aid distribution over the last six years. During that time small city districts on average have received lower increases in state aid than the average district, despite being significantly poorer than average and having greater student needs. When the failure of growth in Hurd Aid is taken into account, the disparity is even larger and a rough estimate is that the loss in aid in this year alone is over $50 million, or nearly $1 million for each small city district. Cumulatively over the period, the picture is far worse and increased the enormous burden that local taxpayers in the cities have had to support. This
inequity is further demonstrated by comparison of wealthy and poorer district
budgets this year. The comparison shows that the poorer districts have had to
increase local taxes more than the wealthier districts but that their spending
per pupil increased far less, and in the case of the poorest districts,
actually decreased. The conclusion is stark and startling: poor districts
tax harder but spend much less per pupil than the more affluent districts, and
the gap is steadily increasing. These points have recently been shared with
Regents Chancellor Robert Bennett, who as a guest at the Association’s Summer
Conference, invited the Association to express its concerns to the Regents and
to him at the Regents Public Policy Conference on October 2nd. (See,
below, a graph illustrating some of these points, as prepared by the
Association’s Consultant, Charles A. Winters)
Summer Conference Speakers Focus
on Character Education
The
theme of the summer conference this year was Character Education. The Program
Committee, comprised of co-chairs Judith Pastel, Supt. Ithaca CSD, and Dr.
Richard Jorgensen, Board Member Norwich CSD, together with committee members
Michael Egan, Supt. Fulton CSD, Dr. Ronald Friedman, Supt. Long Beach CSD and
Dr. John Lutz, Supt. Cortland CSD, chose this topic as one of particular
interest and concern to the small city districts. With the many challenges
facing our city schools, from the higher standards and assessments to
increasingly limited resources, they believed our districts were looking for new
paths to travel toward the goal of improved outcomes. They concluded that
Character Education could provide the way to reach that goal by changing the
educational environment and making school a positive, supportive experience. The
speakers chosen to present at the conference delivered the message of Character
Education through inspirational examples of specific successes. Sunday
night, Richard Parisi, Principal of Wetzel Road Elementary School in the
Liverpool School District, spoke of his experience at the Morgan Road Elementary
School and his efforts to establish a character education program. The Morgan
Road School, which is a National School of Character, became a model for all
schools in the state to follow. Richard shared the struggles they went through
to develop and implement the program, the Ten Commandments of Character
Education Leadership and the goals of their program. He also shared many of the
quotations and sayings used to invest the program with spirit, e.g. “Character
Education is not something else to put on the plate, it is the plate,” and on
how to deal with failure, “The difference between greatness and mediocrity is
often how an individual views a mistake.” On
Monday, Dr. Robert Brooks, a psychologist and former principal of a
school in a locked ward of a psychiatric hospital, spoke movingly of his
experiences. He addressed the issues of educational strategies, school climate
and teacher mindset. As a beginning therapist for children with severe emotional
and other problems, he was extremely nervous, hoping, as he said (somewhat
facetiously), that they wouldn’t say anything important when they met with
him, like “ I want to kill my mother.” He had been taught that these kids,
if violent and oppositional in one setting, would be so in another. But his
experience with them was different; they were doing well. Why? He wondered. He
saw that these kids were motivated. He came to realize that to motivate, the
teacher has to know the subject well and employ a spiritual basis for learning.
The teacher must have empathy and encourage the children to have hope, to be
resilient. The kids must feel safe and secure before they become motivated to
learn. Resilient kids are those who have had at least one adult believe in them;
often time this is the teacher, from whom the child gathers strength. Dr.
Brook's cited two books in particular; The Courage to Teach by Parker
Palmer, and Reclaiming Youth At Risk by Brokenleg. Monday
morning’s speakers also included Dr. Stephen Uebbing, Supt. Canandaigua
CSD, and Mark Ward, Supt. Salamanca CSD. Stephen Uebbing shared his broad view of the development of
education philosophy in America, beginning with its early emphasis on reading to
making the Bible accessible to all, followed by a shift to education for its
utility in the economy and a further trend in the 1960’s away from teaching
values toward values clarification and finally to the emphasis on acculturation,
joining the family, school, church and community. Using thoughts such as those
of J.A. Frondi (“Morality when vigorously alive, sees farther than
intellect.”) as a basis, character education has now become a moral imperative
which should be infused into every aspect of school life and interwoven into the
life of children in their communities. He
also shared his district’s efforts to establish a consortium of districts
statewide devoted to proliferation and strengthening of character education
programs in schools throughout New York. Mark
Ward’s
district surveyed its community opinions relative to about 40 developmental
assets of their students (questions obtained from the Search Institute’s Profiles
of Student Life: Attitudes and Behavior). The results were shared at
a large community meeting at which representatives of the Indian community and
other minorities were present and active. The meeting/workshop resulted in the
character education program which is now being implemented. It involves monthly
lesson plans by teachers, words of the month as themes, district committee
plans, building committee plans, specific projects/tasks and a student
leadership team in the high school, among other things. The enthusiasm level for
the program is excellent and growing. Mark expressed great optimism about the
over all effect the program would have on the students, the teachers and the
community. Thomas
Rogers, Deputy Executive Director of NYSCOSS, spent lunch with the
conference attendees and gave an overview of the long-range issues facing
education. Those issues involve resources, privatization, standards, Federal
involvement in raising standards, character education and leadership, he said.
Districts will be faced with doing more by virtue of the new standards and
testing and the new federal law under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Nevertheless, with a huge State Budget deficit looming, resources to meet
these challenges will be scarce. He
also said that the move toward greater privatization of education will further
drain public systems and the NCLB Act will fuel the drive toward national
standardized testing. The “big lie’ spread by some conservatives that
education doesn’t need more dollars, but only needs to be made more efficient,
will make the national debate over education even more contentious. He
concluded by stating that character education and efforts to replenish school
leadership will become increasingly more important in the near future. Schools
are now expected to be surrogates for the family, and retirements of
superintendents/administrators will increase (in five years more than half will
retire). Newly
elected Chancellor, Robert Bennett, spoke to the conference at breakfast
on Monday. He invited the Association to give him a written statement of the
concerns of small city schools for the coming year (which the Association has
since done through delivery of testimony for the Regents Public Policy
Conference, October 2nd). The Chancellor spoke generally about
current education issues and emphasized the need for greater partnership between
education and the wider community. He then opened the floor for questions: QUESTION:
Sandy Lockwood of Rome CSD asked how much higher must “the bar” be raised in
NY under NCLB? ANSWER:
Chancellor Bennett replied that Deputy Commissioner Kadamus says that NY is
already “there.” QUESTION:
Thomas Gallagher of Rome CSD asked how we could retain teachers when some are
getting bonus offers from out of state? ANSWER:
Chancellor Bennett said that the recruitment efforts in NYC are working and need
to be replicated elsewhere if needed. QUESTION:
Judith Johnson of Peekskill CSD said that students with sizable student loans
couldn’t afford to become teachers. Thomas Gallagher of Rome CSD offered the
comment that incentives could include paying for a master’s degree, but that
early retirement incentives drain quality. ANSWER:
Chancellor Bennett agreed and stated that these are enormous problems made worse
by aid inequities but that we shouldn’t rely on the courts through the CFE
litigation, even though the Regents were shocked at the Appellate Division
decision in June. REPLY:
Daniel
Lowengard of Utica CSD said to the contrary, that with the power of the suburbs,
the courts are our only recourse. QUESTION:
Joan Purtell of
Binghamton CSD asked whether NYSUT lobbies for teaching incentives, and said
that a student with $50,000 in loans will go where the pay and bonuses are
highest. ANSWER:
Chancellor
Bennett said he agreed and was not aware of any NYSUT effort in that regard. DATES TO REMEMBER
October
1, 2002
CFE meeting on State Aid Reformed at NYSSBA Offices October
2, 2002
Regents Public Policy Conference October
25, 2002
Small City School Districts Breakfast at NYSSBA Conference November
29, 2002
Association Board Meeting November
29, 2002
Meetings with Commissioner Mills, DOB Director Carol Stone, Governor’s Education
Secretary Jeff Lovell (tentative) January___,
2003 (TBA) Association Board Meeting at NYSSBA
Mid-Winter Conference March
24, 2003
Legislative Breakfast and Seminar at Fort Orange Club, Albany August
10 and 11, 2003 Summer Conference,
Annual Meeting and Board Meeting |
Albany
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