PTA's new focus is "advocating for funds"

Not your mom's PTA: Fun fundraisers yield to advocating for funds

That's the headline of a lohud.com article spelling out out why the PTA's new focus is on defending against education spending cuts during these tough economic times.  Although this new priority is understandable, I wish PTAs would spend more energy helping schools learn how to do more with less, since increasing productivity may be the best way to advocate for our children as government funding continues to feel the pressure of a faltering economy and crippling deficits.

Several straight years of budget crises that threaten to change the nature of public education have inspired the venerable PTA to modernize its approach to defending schools and students. Local and regional PTAs across the state are now trolling through legislation and contracts, fighting state-aid cuts, and meeting with lawmakers in an effort to get a seat at the lobbying table....
The cuts are devastating and coming at the wrong time, said Lex Kessler, a member of the Somers PTA Council. He said American kids are falling behind their peers in other countries, especially in math and science.

PTA members should be reminded that higher education spending has not correlated with higher student achievement levels.

Somewhat surprisingly, an ex-PTA president serving as a state legislator is advocating for the tax cap.

Even Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, a Democrat from the Sound shore who started out as a PTA president decades ago, changed her position and said she is backing a cap this year so she "can be at the table" and push for mandate relief.
Any discussion of a tax cap must address ballooning debt payments and pension and health-care costs, she said.
"I'm trying to offer some simple, but necessary changes to it," she said.

I agree with the sentiments expressed by this comment:

I do applaud all the PTA volunteers for their time & effort. However, their mission should not be a lobbying effort for the teachers & union.
The PTA should be asking the teachers how to do more with less.

Read the entire article after the jump.

Rachel's Challenge

Rachel's Challenge is a national anti-bullying program named after the first person killed during the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, Rachel Scott. Her journal, found after her death, was filled with words of hope and understanding. In particular, Scott wrote: "I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same."

Rachel's Challenge's mssion:

We exist to inspire, equip and empower every person to create a permanent positive culture change in their school, business and community by starting a chain reaction of kindness and compassion.

Program elements generally include school assemblies, student/staff training and community presentations.  It was recently implemented in our local middle school.

Eastchester Middle School's main corridor and cafeteria have been given over to colorful chains, kindness slogans and life-size silhouettes of students, all carefully limned on what had been cream-colored walls and old bulletin boards.

The mural project drew dozens of teen volunteers who stood on ladders and sat on floors, carefully filling in outlines of slogans and classmates. Their team effort paralleled the anti-bullying messages the students were illuminating: When people work together in harmony, anything is possible.

Does Rachel's Challenge really work?  What results have been measured?  Is a mural a meaningful measure of results?  From the Rachel's Challenge website FAQs:

Q: Do you have any data that supports your program?
A: We are currently working on an efficiency study for the near future. So far, most of our data is anecdotal.

Related:  Tuckahoe schools to host Rachel's Challenge
“We’ve heard from other school’s who’ve used Rachel’s Challenge and it has gotten great reactions from students and parents,” Moschetta explained, “everyone is encouraged to come.”

To read the entire article:

Bill Gates on how to get more value from our education dollars

Bill Gates wrote in the Washington Post:

Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat. Meanwhile, other countries have raced ahead. The same pattern holds for higher education. Spending has climbed, but our percentage of college graduates has dropped compared with other countries.
To build a dynamic 21st-century economy and offer every American a high-quality education, we need to flip the curve. For more than 30 years, spending has risen while performance stayed relatively flat. Now we need to raise performance without spending a lot more....

Schools keep doing things that don't work.

The United States spends $50 billion a year on automatic salary increases based on teacher seniority. It's reasonable to suppose that teachers who have served longer are more effective, but the evidence says that's not true. After the first few years, seniority seems to have no effect on student achievement.
Another standard feature of school budgets is a bump in pay for advanced degrees. Such raises have almost no impact on achievement, but every year they cost $15 billion that would help students more if spent in other ways.
Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets - and one of the most unchallenged - is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement. This belief has driven school budget increases for more than 50 years. U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960, yet achievement is roughly the same.

One proposal is similar to the "Gold Star Teacher" idea:

What should policymakers do? One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise. (In a 2008 survey funded by the Gates Foundation, 83 percent of teachers said they would be happy to teach more students for more pay.) The rest of the savings could go toward improving teacher support and evaluation systems, to help more teachers become

When he addressed the National Governors Association a few days ago, Bill Gates gave copies of Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best to audience members.  Many of the ideas are here.

In New York, state education costs rose more than twice inflation rate over last 15 years

Governor Cuomo wants to cut aid to schools, while the schools want the state to continue higher tax rates on wealthier taxpayers.  The Governor's budget comes out on February 1.

The state's fiscal picture is grim: a $42 billion budget gap over the next three fiscal years — $10 billion in the upcoming year, $15 billion in 2012-13 and $17 billion in 2013-14. 
"The State of New York spends too much money. It is that blunt and it is that simple," Cuomo said in his State of the State address this month. . . .
Fiscal experts say Cuomo has to retool a state budget with unsustainable growth rates. . . .
Cuomo has said that schools should no longer expect rapid rises in aid from Albany. From 1994 through 2009, inflation was about 2.7 percent a year, but education aid went up an average 6 percent a year, Cuomo has said.
New York spent $17,173 per student in the 2007-08 year, more than any other state and 67 percent more than the national average, according to U.S. census data.
School officials said they already dealt with a $1.4 billion decrease in aid in the current fiscal year and warn that deeper cuts would erode classroom learning. They are calling on Cuomo to continue higher income taxes for people making more than $200,000 a year, a provision set to expire at year's end. It brings in about $5 billion in annual revenue.
"Revenues and cost savings should come to the front of the line before we are cutting librarians, guidance counselors and teachers out of our classrooms," said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education.
Schools also want relief from state mandates, saying that costs for pensions and health care are driving higher expenses.

For budget cuts, look no further than the biggest expenses - JN, 1/31/11 

Putting the brakes on school spending in New York State

My friend Catherine alerted me to this:

5 Troubling Property Tax Facts

1. Property tax levies in New York grew by 73 percent from 1998 to 2008—more than twice the rate of inflation during that period.
2. New York has the second highest combined state and local taxes in the nation and the highest local taxes in America as a percentage of personal income —79 percent above the national average.
3. The median property taxes paid by New Yorkers are 96 percent above the national median.
4. When measured in absolute dollars paid, Westchester (1st), Nassau (2nd) and Rockland (5th) counties are among the 5 highest taxed counties in the nation.
5. When property taxes are measured as a percentage of home value over a three year period, the top sixteen counties in the nation are all in Upstate New York.

Cap NY Property Taxes - Andrew Cuomo’s Comprehensive Property Tax Reform Plan 

New York State school districts and municipalities are facing unrealistically large property tax increases this coming year, caused partly by "skyrocketing" pension costs.  The town portion of my property taxes will increase by over 16% this year.  It is simply unsustainable, and Governor Cuomo has proposed a property tax cap of 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.  If this cap is enacted, schools will be forced to make painful spending cuts.  But they have countered that any tax cap must be coupled with mandate relief.

The group is offering a host of recommendations to lower the mandates on schools. Among them is a one-year freeze on the salaries of school and public employees. They also want public employees to contribute at least 10 percent toward the cost of health insurance and establish a new 401k-type pension tier.

School Districts Warn About Property-Tax Cap

More details here:  Property Tax Cap: Pass or Fail for School Districts

Mandate relief is needed.  Something’s gotta give.