Some discussion of this year's school board race has started in last
year's item.  I'm posting that discussion in a new item to make it easier
to keep the two elections seperate.

#42 of 45: by Rosalind King (roz) on Sat, Jun 11, 1994 (09:37):
 The last response in this item is from July 1993 -- well, the
 elections are upon us again.  Uy, Westfall and Campbell are up for
 re-election opposed by another slate of three plus an independent.
 Does anyone know anything about the woman running independently?
 The Ann Arbor News has endorsed the incumbents, to my surprise. 
 
 There are a couple of changes to the mix from the last election, it
 seems to me.  First, the incumbents are running on their actual
 record, not a projection of how members of that slate are likely to
 act.  Second, there was a record-breaking line at Community High
 this spring, a demonstration of a significant minority position on
 alternative schooling with the Ann Arbor community.  Third, and I
 think most significant, charter schools have become a possibility in
 the interim.  One of them, the Noah Webster Academy in Ionia, is
 chartered to offer K-12 education with contact over modem so it
--More--
 is enrolling students state-wide.  This places it in immediate
 competition with every school district in the state.  Family 
 choice is going to become a much more major player, and I think the
 local schools are going to have to become far more responsive to 
 parents' wishes than they've had to in the past.
 
 Any comments?
 
#43 of 45: by Steve Gibbard (scg) on Sat, Jun 11, 1994 (16:34):
 I have been covering the school board for The Communicator, the newspaper
 at Community High, for the past year, so I have gotten to watch this board
 in action.  I went into this with a low impression of CBE, and came out
 thinking even less of them.  I'll start out by looking at some of their
 claims.
 
 -They have had "the courage" to expell two students.
        There was nothign couragious about that at all.  While it may have
 made the schools slightly safer, it did nothing to make the students, the
 teachers, or the rest of the community safer.  If the students had been
 suspended and given some alternative program they would have had the
 chance to get their lives back together, and they would have been off the
 street and out of school, where they would no longer be as much of a
 danger.  But expulsion terminates a student's right to an education and
--More--
 shoves them out onto the street, where they can be even more dangerous
 than they were in school because nobody is watching them as carefully. 
 What good is it for students to be "safe" in school, if they are in emence
 danger the moment they walk out the door?  If the school board, which is
 supposed to do what is best for *every* student showed courage in this
 action, it was the courage to give up on two students.
        Furthermore, the board has really done nothing to make schools
 safe.  They have adopted a very firm stance in terms of discipline, but
 have at the same time been gutting programs designed to prevent problems
 before they get this big because they consider them to be a waste of
 money.  What the board has essentially said with the expulsion policy is
 that the schools are safer because no student may kill somebody in school
 more than once.  It should be noted that the event that led to the
 expulsions, and therefore to the assertion that our schools are much
 safer, was a knife fight at Pioneer in which a few students were seriously
 injured.
 
 -They have made academic excellence the first priority
        It's very easy to vote to say that academic excellence is the
 first priority.  What school board member wouldn't?  In fact, that's all
 they have done for academic excellence.  They have done nothing to turn it
 from a priority to an accomplishment.  On the other hand, they have showed
 a total disregard for programs that are meeting their goals.  Community
--More--
 High School, for example, has been getting much better test scores than
 Pioneer or Huron.  Does this board see that they are doing something right
 there and look at how the things going on there could best be set up to
 serve more students?  No.  They just brand the program as elitist, on the
 grounds that it is working, and do everything they can to undermine the
 program.  They even made Community take a massive funding cut recently, in
 the name of equality, despite the fact that Community was spending pretty
 close to what Pioneer was spending per student, and far less than Huron. 
 Asked why she had refused to consider the administration's budget report
 that showed this, CBE Trustee Mei Mei Uy said the numbers were invalid
 because they were too complicated for her to understand.
 
 - They are making the meetings run more efficiently:
        It is true that the meetings have not been going as long lately as
 they used to, but this is only partly the doing of the CBE board members. 
 While some of it is a matter of better orginization, most of it is that
 they just aren't putting as much time at the meetings into considering the
 decisions.  This may be more efficient, but it is also pretty
 irresponsable.  As for the part that is a result of better orginization,
 that is mostly the doing of new Superintendent, Dr. John Simpson.  While
 this board, most notably Trustees Westfall and Uy, have been claiming
 credit for shaping Dr. Simpson's first year here, Dr. Simpson was hired by
 the previous, not CBE dominated, board, over the objections of Trustees
--More--
 Westfall and Uy.
 
 - They have refrained from micro-management
        Hardly.  This is the same board that, at one of its first
 meetings, tried to table the hiring of a political opponent for a teaching
 position.  Trustee Campbell has even tried to dictate the content of a
 student newspaper, threatening to shut it down, and telling me "You've
 attacked me on every issue, and I'm getting tired of it."
 
#44 of 45: by Patricia Snyder-Rayl (pegasus) on Sat, Jun 11, 1994 (20:26):
 When are the elections?

55 responses total.

The elections are Monday.

CBE came out with a new ad in today's Ann Arbor News.  Here are the claims
they made, and my responses:

"Fact 1:  The New Challenge Slate is running a slick, lavish campaign,
complete with professionally produced signs, mailing and TV COMMERCIALS! 
Apparrently, money is no object for their campaign."

        So, they have money.  It's interesting that CBE is complaining
about that, considering that they have generally spent *far more* than
their opposition in the years they have won.  Apparrently they are upset
about having the tables turned
        As far as the signs go, CBE is attacking New Challenge for putting
up campaign signs, but at the same time they have been putting up their
own signs.  Are CBE signs somehow less reprehensable?  And CBE has
certainly put out enough slick mailings in their time.  I haven't seen any
this year, but I can't imagine that they aren't sending anything to people
they think might vote for them.  It sounds like they are upset that the
other side would dare to campaign.
        CBE has never done TV commercials.  I don't think anybody has ever
done commercials in an Ann Arbor school board race before, but that
doesn't say there's something wrong with them.  The commercials were
produced by professionals, but they did it for free.  The only expense
involved, as I understand it, was the $1000 paid to Columbia Cable to air
the 75 comercials.  The commercials were arranged, and half paid for by
Ann Arbor Students for Political Action, a group of students at Huron,
Pioneer, and Community, that supports the New Challenge candidates.  So
New Challenge only put $500 into them.  But again, CBE seems upset at
having compitetion, and I wouldn't be at all surprized to see CBE
commercials next year.  When campaigns have money, they generally spend it.

"Fact 2:  The Ann Arbor Education Association PAC has endorced all three
New Challenge candidates."

"Fact 3: A mailing on MEA (Michigan Education Association headquartered in
Lansing) letterhead was sent to all teachers telling them to support the
New Challenge slate."

        The teachers like them, so they must be bad?  We wouldn't want a
board that had the support of the teachers, would we?

"Fact 4:  In 1991, it was a group of teachersalong with parents and otehr
concerned citizens who organized "Citizens for Better Education because
they believed basic change was needed in Ann Arbor's public education
policies and school administration.  CBE is proud of its longstanding,
close relationship with out teachers."

        Wait a minute... Didn't they just attack New Challenge for being
supported by teachers?

"Fact 5: Since CBE endorsed Trustees have been in majority on the Board,
much progress has been made in safety, fiscal responsibility and academic
achievement in our schools.  Unfortunately, the outside, paid leadership
of the MEA and AAEA have a diffferent agenda.

        If progress has been made in those areas, as a result of CBE
efforts, it certainly hasn't been noticable.  What has been noticable is
their attempts to cut funding from programs that have been working.
        As to the "outside, paid leadership..." statement, Linda Carter
and Allan Loeb, now the President and Vice President of the AAEA, were two
of the best teachers I had at Tappan Middle School, in Ann Arbor.  They
certainly don't seem to be "outside leadership."

I'm really concerned about the AAEA and MEA endorsements.  The board
needs to negotiate contracts with the unions -- I'm not sure I want
the board feeling like it owes the union something.

The AAEA and MEA represent far more than just pay issues.  They also
represent the teachers in all sorts of other areas, and the vast
majority of teachers are teaching because they really care about the
students.  Let's face it, nobody goes into teaching because it's a cush
job.  It isn't.  I would be very hesitant to support anybody who didn't
have the support of the teachers or students, because they are the ones
who see the direct effects of what the board does.  Now if you want to
talk about the funding CBE has gotten from big businesses...

I suggest immediately disabusing yourselves of the notion that because
a person or group supports someone in an election, that that someone
owes that person or group *anything*. It is insulting to even suggest it.
The support is usually because the supportive person or group agrees
with what the candidate has said or done in the past. There is a hope
that that behavior will continue, but there is certainly no obligation
associated with it.

I'm not saying that chips get specifically called in.  But I think it's
naive to think that there is no dynamic of payback.  What are the PAC's
so active for, particularly when they pick between two candidates that
are reasonably similar?  They want someone in office who knows that it's
their support that got him/her there, and, "oh, by the way, there's an
election coming up in a couple of years . . .".   I am *not* saying 
that there is anything at all sleazy going on in this election.  Just that
the AAEA endorsement does not encourage me to vote for any board
candidate.  

I'd be more concerned with whether the AAEA endorsement really represents
the opinion of the teachers, or of some association administrators. Does
anyone know how that endorsement was developed?

Hah!  Be glad you don't live in the Ypsi school district.  The two "finalists"
for Superintendent sound like losers to me and my wife.

As of right now, it looks like New Challenge has won, but not all the
precincts reporting.

It's official.  New Challenge won.

Yep - by a comfortable but not overwhelming margin.

Any feedback from voters as to what they thought casting for the New Challenge
people? 

I heard a quote from Willie Campbell where he said that the voters
would be unpleasantly surprised that the new folks would go for
alternative schools, or words to that effect.  Am I missing something
here?  Were they running on anything *but* alternative schools?

Alternative schools were certainly a part of their platform, but they kept
saying over and over again that they weren't promising to build another
alternative school, but rather to look at the reasons for the demand and
see what needed to be done about it.  That could either be more
alternative schools or improvements to the existing ones.  They were also
running on some other issues, such as taking a preventive approach to
violence, rather than relying entirely on after the fact punishment, and
generally being more progressive in general (if I weren't so tired right
now I would be more specific).

It's basically a single issue:  more support and money for alternatives
vs. improved education for all students.  Any other description was 
campaign rhetoric.

Contrary to the CBE propiganda, support for alternative schools and
improving the comprehensive high schools are not mutually exclusive. 
Support for all schools means putting students in the atmospheres they do
best in, and that means something other than our traditional high schools
for far more than 378 of Ann Arbor's high school students.  But putting
the students who do better in alternative schools in alternative schools
takes away absolutely nothing from the regular high schools.  Instead, it
would go a long way to help ease the overcrowding that those schools are
suffereing from right now, without the cost of buliding a new
comprehensive high school.  I keep hearing all those things about how
building a new alternative high school isn't fair to the students of the
Ann Arbor Public Schools, but I have yet to hear a single reason why.

I've gotta agree with you, Steve.  I see the alternative schools as
sort of like GM's experiment with Saturn.  It might even be more
expensive to run than the conventional divisions, but it's a worthy
investment in keeping ideas flowing and keeping the system competitive.
I'm sorry it's boiled down to being "for" or "against" alternative
schools since shades of gray seem more appropriate.  A school isn't
worth funding or not worth funding just because it's an "alterntive".
The question is, does it have the potential to more adequately
educate a fairly substantial subset of the students?  With the new
charter schools on the horizon, the public schools are going to have
to be more innovative to keep their student base and so to keep their
funding levels up.  It will end up being expensive to try to stay the
same.

Roz -- The analogy of the alternative schools to GM and Saturn
is interesting and I see your point, but let me point out:

1) GM paid for its Saturn experiment with its own money, not mine, 
   -thus the analogy kind of breaks down.

2) Desipite its positive image, it's doubtful that GM will ever
   recoup the *eight billion dollars* it sunk into Saturn.
   -thus the AA school board running "Saturn type experiment" is not 
   necessarily that great an idea.  

Of course, sgc, I see your point of view, as a chs student you love it.
Don't forget to thank me, I help pay for it.  (as well as for my 
daughter's education at Gabriel Richard!)  :)   or is it :(  

Where will the AAPS get the money to expand the alternatives, much less
build a new one?

The new alternative school that was approved last year before being
scrapped would have cost somewhat less per student than Pioneer or
Community, and substantially less per student than Huron.  The staff would
have been transferred from other places in the District, which wouldn't
need them because they wouldn't have as many students, and the costs for
the building, which already exists, could be easily recouped in terms of
not having to build the next addition to Pioneer (I know they just built
one, but the school is still very overcrowded).

Wasn't that going to be at Stone Shcool, which is Adult Ed?  In other words,
the building exists, but is is currently being used, hence, somewhere else
would have to be procured for adult ed., so the building is not really 
free.  That was my recollection anyway.

Yes, Adult Ed, which is not part of the Ann Arbor public schools, but
rents space from them, was going to move somewhere else eventually, but
I'm not sure if that was going to be right away or somewhere down the
road.  With only 100 students in the new program, as the pilot was going
to be, I can't imagine that they would need the whole building.  When
Community was there (and the original plan for the new school, before it
got postponed for a year, was to have it move in right when Community
moved out) we shared it with Adult Ed and both fit adequitely, if very
tightly.

Warren, the point of the GM experiment with Saturn isn't public
relations, but that it's a division that might find out what
innovations are workable and might be transferred to GM as a
whole.  GM isn't spending its money to look good but to try to
get ahead of the pack again since their ability to build cars
for the previous decade's consumers caused it to lose ground
bigtime.  I think the analogy to the AA schools stands. I know
it's hard to watch your tax dollars go for educational resources
that your family isn't using, but the truth is that the School
Board is working with a certain amount of revenue, just like any
other company.  *Now*, with charter schools, etc., at least they'll
have to be increasingly responsive to their "customers" which
can only help, I'd think.

        Students have to be educated somewhere.  Should my parents be mad that
some of their tax dollars are going to Pioneer or Huron, or to the
elementary and middle schools, even though both their kids go to
Community?  Of course not.  The parents of the people at the other
schools, and the rest of Ann Arbor's tax payers are helping to pay for
Community just as they are helping to pay for the other schools.  It's all
part of one big system, and pitting parts of the system against other
parts doesn't help things at all.
        I do have to take issue with roz's Saturn anology.  According to
an article I read yesterday Saturn is still losing lots of money, and is
never likely to earn back all the money GM has put into it.  While
Community may be "losing money" as in spending lots of money but not
making a profit, its purpose is not to make money, but to educate
students.  Saturn's purpose is to make money.  As the four day line
outside Community a few months ago showed, Community is marketing itself
very well (too well?), and Community is doing a very good job of educating
its students.  Community and Saturn are reeally not a valid comparison.

A neighbor of mine, who has had all 5 of his kids in the alternatives 
at one time or another, with I'm guessing at least 12 "kid-years" in 
the alternatives, and counting, said to me, "Well it feels good to know
that at least I'm getting my money's worth.
              ^^^         ^^
The obvious implicaton is that the kids in the regular schools are not.
That in a nutshell is what many people object to.

re:#24- then why send kids to the regular schools?  Clearly, because they are
more suitable for some kids/families.  Otherwise, the clamour would be for
more More MORE alternative classrooms- universally.

re 25
Why send kids to the regular schools?  Because there are only enough
alternative schools for a small minority group.  There is a clamor for 
more alternative schools from the people who want to get in but can't 
because of limited availability.  

The opposing argument is to use the resoruces that are currently expended
on alternatives, and potentially would be expended if the alternatives
are expanded, to fix what's wrong with the rest of the schools, so that
there would not be such a clamor to get out of them and into the alternatives.

That in a nutshell was the underlying debate of the last election and 
the underlying debate that has brewed in school board meetings for the 
last three years.

That's the best argument for schools of choice that I can think of.  Why 
should the board decide what's best for all the students.  Since there are
so many individuals, let the individuals choose the environment that will
educate them the best. (And for those who will answer that kids don't have
the maturity to choose wisely, substitute "families".)

re 27
Yup, but we don't have a "schools of choice" situation here.  Schools of 
choice would solve the whole problem by means of the "free market".
In theory, the crummy shcools would die out because they would attract
no students.

re:#26- unfortunately, the educational bureaucracy keeps effective change from
happening most of the time: everything from "I wasn't trained that way" from
the teachers and "It was good enough for me, it's good enough for my kid" from
the parents to "We tried it (one year, with insufficiently trained teachers),
it didn't work, forget it." or even "You want to teach my kid about WHAT!" from
the parents.  In general, when you try to improve a large, established school,
there are plenty of self-styled experts trying to say what constitutes an
improvement, going in different directions, and nothing gets done because 
everyone resists change.  When a new school is started, with a particular
mandate or philosophy, recruiting students and teachers who are committed to
that philosophy, then it shows good results.  To do this in a large school,
you'd have to have a number of classes at each level or subject, with different
styles.  That's extremely inefficient, causes tension between students, and
makes it nearly impossible to use the interaction that's a primary advantage of
a large public school.

re 29
So the solution is obvious...  mandate that all schools "die out"
after , say, ten years, and start new ones.  Actually, youre right,
the "success" of the alternatives is due to the mix of comitted 
students, comitted parents (just look at how thand motivated teachers.

The trick is to get those 3 ingredients in to "ordinary" schools.

If schools had to die out after ten years, Community wouldn't still be
here.  It will be twenty two years old this Fall.  What really has to
happen in education is to look at what works and what doesn't, and then
fix what doesn't.

The comment about retiring schools after ten years was a jestful response
to the preceeding remark, ie, "new is good".

However I do want to emphasize the point that the alternative schools,
like private schools, have to their advantage a *very* motivated
student base with *very* motivated parents (in general).  That in 
my opinion is one reason why they "work".

As an example, my kids attended a private school that begins with
the 4th grade (Huron Valley).  Every year several grades are 
tested with standardized tests.  The students and the school in 
general score extremely good -- like 99th percentile among
schools.  BUT, that includes scores of 4th graders tested in the
fall.  Obviously the school can't claim credit for the 4th graders'
scores.  It is because of who the kids are and the homes they come
from.  As a parent, I say, OK, so the school starts off with
exceptional kids.  That's another good reason I want to send my 
kids there.  I beleive the alternative schools start off with
the same sort of advantage in the kids they get to work with.

Yes, there's definately some of that going on.  An other issue to look at
in that is that people who don't pass five classes per semester don't get
to stay at Community.  Actually, I've always thought standardized tests do
far more harm than good.  Teachers often avoid asking themselves what the
students need to know to be successful in life, and instead end up asking
what the students need to know to do well on the tests.   Even though
taking standardized tests is not all that useful a skill in the long run,
compared to other things, the schools will lose money if the students
don't do well on the tests.  Teaching to the test forces many essential
things to be put on the back burner so that students wil be able to fill
in the bubbles correctly.

I can't say that I agree with you on the standardized tests.  "Far mor
harm than good" is kind of a strong statement.  I wonder what "essential
things" you are concerned about that aren't getting taught because of
the tests.  I tend to look at it this way -- "Ability to read"  and 
"simple math" are two essential skills that the standardized tests measure.
I can't think of anything more essential.

        One big thing standardized tests can't measure is writing, and
that is one of the most neglected subjects in American schools.  It is
impossible to measure ability to write by having somebody fill in bubbles
an answer sheet.  Even the math and reading comprehension tests don't
measure much, since all they show is the ability to tell which three of
the four are wrong.  Mostly what standardized tests measure is the ability
to take standardized tests.  It's usually pretty obvious just by looking
at the answer choices what the answers are, since the wrong answers
usually all have some part of the right answer in them in an effort not to
look totally wrong.  The answer is generally the one that combines parts
of all the other answers.
        But my big question on standardized tests is whether they help
with anything.  The amount of time spent testing the students in some
schools is just astounding, and that is time that could be used for
instruction.  And what do the students gain from the tests?  They get
another number added to their files.  They don't learn anything, and the
number from the test is pretty much useless, since all it says is "this
student is good at this subject," or "this student is bad at this
subject."  The only way tests can actually help students is if teachers,
not machines, go over them and find out what the students got wrong, and
why.  Then the teachers could use that information to help the students. 
Oops, I forgot.  The teachers don't have time to help the students,
because it might take time away from testing.

wjw wrote

"However I do want to emphasize the point that the alternative schools,
 like private schools, have to their advantage a *very* motivated
 student base with *very* motivated parents (in general).  That in
 my opinion is one reason why they "work"."

and makes a very good point. But, I am wondering whether a uniformly
motivated student body provides necessarily a better education? This
is a serious question as our daughter, entering 7th grade in an regular
AA middle school, is an "all A (+/-)" student, but beyond her classes
she is learning to deal with the shortcomings of a school system in
which not all the students, and perhaps some of the teachers, are fully
motivated. She tries to help the slower students, and has apparently
tried to help some teachers that have a problem in maintaining discipline
in class, by talking to them about it. The question I think I'm asking is,
whether or not its a good thing to have a school environment *closer to
the read world*, rather than primarily a self-selected "motivated" 
group?

My totally unfounded opinion on this is that it's probably better to
be in a self-selected "motivated" group.  Why do I say this?   Well,
for one thing the "real world" is actually made up of "self-selected"
groups.  Educated people tend to work with other educated people, for
example.  

I'd say your daughter should go to the school that best matches her
talents *and* personality.  If that should happen to be Community,
try and get her into Community.  

I'd say that it's a matter of her personality and learning style.  If she
is happy and doing very well, then she is probably fine where she is, and 
the "real world" experience may do her some good.  This is often true of
well adjusted people who work well in any environment.

On the other hand, there are people out there like me, who are not well 
adjusted, and who will not do well in a "real world" environment.  Those
sorts of people need to be in a program which is tailored to their needs in 
order to achieve their full potential.

I guess I would say it depends on what she is going to do later in life.
If she is going to be, say, a social worker, dealing with the "real world"
in all of its negative implicatons -- busted families, housing projects, 
crime, drug abuse, spouse abuse, etc,  then experience with the "real
world" in early years may be very helpful.  For my job (research engineer)
I would say the self-selected motvated student group is far superior.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss