Rochester Concerned Taxpayers

After reviewing all the information supplied regarding the Big Step Forward, I cannot support this endeavor. This is definitely the wrong direction for our children. It is time to stop playing games with the education of our children. Instead of looking at why the schools in the top 100 are successful, we would rather reinvent the wheel at the expense of our children.

Mr. Shea is passionate about his ideas and dreams which is a great attribute in an individual. However, there are more questions than can ever be answered. Even if they could be answered would we truly get an answer? I have read and reread the 66 pages and it is just fluff. Mr. Shea has called the existing system trash and garbage. It seems to me that the 100+ year old system has served us very well. We have become educated individuals that were prepared to enter the workforce. Over the years the educational system of the United States has produced CEOs and Presidents of the United States. We entered the Industrial Age and Technology Era and have managed to come out ahead of other countries. I know that I am far from ignorant and I definitely have common sense, two attributes that Mr. Shea stated those of us in Rochester lack. Name calling and attempting to attack the taxpayers of this community who do not agree with his philosophy is a sign of desperation.

First and foremost Spaulding High School is not a “Big” school. As stated by many researchers … “If policy makers can better appreciate the role of grade span configuration in determining school size, they can avoid the misconception that merely reducing total enrollment in a school constitutes a reduction in school size.” (Howley). As of December 2009, 9th grade had an enrollment of 460, 10th grade of 369, 11th grade 374 and 12th grade 326, not very big by any standard.

Mr. Shea’s entire concept is based on Competence Based Education, which is surprisingly similar to that of Outcome Based Education that came about in the 1970s and abandoned in the early 1980s and considered an abysmal failure as it offers no method of accountability to students, parents, teachers or taxpayers. It will be years and millions of tax dollars into the future before we know whether schoolchildren are learning anything important or are wasting their time. It tosses the traditional units out the window and replaces them with vague and subjective “learning outcomes” that cannot be measured objectively by standardized tests. It will make it virtually impossible to conduct any kind of tests that allow comparisons with students in other schools, other states, or prior years. Grades have no relation to academic achievement and knowledge. Colleges will have no criteria by which to judge whether students are ready for admission. It involves high costs for administration and retraining of teachers in an entirely new system, which will be reflected in higher school taxes. Competency testing for Mr. Shea’s dream has yet to be developed.

Of the schools that Mr. Shea listed as those following one or more of his five steps, one is just starting its second year, one may be closing due to lack of funding and a third did not make AYP (Adequately Yearly Progress) in 2009. If established schools are having problems with funding, where does Mr. Shea think he is going to get funding for his dream?

Tech Boston Academy did receive a Bronze award in the state of Massachusetts for 2009, but none of the others made it on the list of the Top 100 High Schools in the United States in 2009. Going back to 2008 none made the top 1398.

As a taxpayer, I would like examples of schools with a proven track record, not examples that are having the same problems we are currently experiencing. It would be like going from the frying pan into the fire.

Funding will also be an issue because unless we live near the Great Lakes, in Flint, Michigan, are already a college, involved in educational research, want to be involved in fellowships, live in Indiana, Asia, China, Vietnam, etc money is pretty tight. Race To The Top funds have too many strings attached and would ultimately cost the taxpayer. Even AFT/NH has not signed on to this. It is a one time allotment of funds and then it becomes the responsibility of the taxpayer.

In Foster’s on 12/08/1987 there was an article about the Bud Carlson Alternative School in Rochester. Why is it that Mr. Shea continues to state that the Bud Carlson Academy Alternative School is only in its second year? The school has been around for over 40+ years serving our students at risk. To say that it has been around for only two years is just semantics and smoke screens.

In Fosters on 6/20/01 the school board approved a proposal to change the student promotion policy at Rochester Middle School. A student can fail one core class and still advance to the next grade. With the new policy students will be required to achieve a grade-point average of over 70 to continue to another grade. If this policy is still in affect then students should not be moving out of the middle school without being competent in all subject matter before entering the 9th grade. Mr. Shea stated this is one of the biggest problems with transitioning from 8th to 9th grade…students are not prepared to go on. Why is this policy not being enforced? They will say that it is, but then one must question why students are not ready if we are.

In Foster’s7/27/01, Rochester School District finalized a new curriculum. The new curriculum was to span from Kindergarten to grade 12. This entailed new materials, specifically textbooks.

Also in Foster’s 7/21/01, we hired Richard Towne and Eric Ross as new administrative teacher evaluators. Their job was to evaluate new teachers and those in need of assistance.

In Foster’s 3/25/2002, the School Board successfully amended the means of determining class rank at Spaulding High School. An edited policy from the Instruction Committee regarding the use of “quality point totals” – student grade point averages multiplied by the total number of credits earned – was adopted. The changes will ensure that only 8 of a student’s credits per year are used in tallying their quality point totals, or “QPTs.” The alterations will make sure that students who take more than 8 credits per year do not receive mathematical advantage when rank is determined. Is not this what high school is all about? Shouldn’t we be encouraging high achievers instead of punishing them?

Another Foster’s article dated 9/5/02 – A Short History of Spaulding.. it talks about the “new” open concept school opening in 1975. Spaulding High School then housed the Junior High School. In 1991, the Richard Creteau Technology Center was opened, which was separate from Spaulding High School. In 1992, the new Middle School was opened on Brock Street for grades 6-8 and at the same time the “newly” renovated Spaulding High was opened for 1600 high school students, thus giving the City of Rochester three high schools.

As far as using the Gates Foundation as a criteria for changing how schools are set up, Gates’ success is very limited. The bad news about the Gates’ initiative began to accumulate in 2005, when a Gates-funded study by the American Institutes for Research showed that students in traditional, comprehensive high schools were learning more mathematics than those in the Gates’ small schools. The researchers also found that “relevance” was not correlated with the quality of student learning. Then in 2006, additional research commissioned by the foundation concluded that the Gates-funded small schools had “higher attendance rates but lower test scores” than other high schools within the same school districts in both reading and mathematics.

Bill Gates pointed to New York City’s Gates-funded small schools as a success because early reports showed a 70% graduation rate compared to a district-wide average of 50%. But what Gates did not realize was that the small schools in New York City were permitted to restrict the admission of English-language learners and disabled students, meaning that the large schools got a disproportionate share of students with high needs. In April 2008, the New York Times revealed that some of New York City’s small schools achieved higher graduation rates by practicing “credit recovery, “meaning that students could get full credit for a course they had failed or never attended by showing up for an extra class for a few days or by finishing a project out of school. But even in New York City, Mr. Gates acknowledged, less than 40% of the graduates from the small high schools were ready for their college classes at the City University of New York. (Forbes Bill Gates and His Silver Bullet 11.19.08).

We are taking the dream of one person and attempting to put it into action. The majority of the School Board has done absolutely no research regarding the BSF and are taking the word of one person that this is the way to go. Maybe the time has come that we let the teachers teach their chosen subject. A student either passes or fails and must repeat. We are not preparing our students for the real world. No boss will hold an employees hand. They will not continually redirect them and correct their work. The only thing they will do is show them to the door.

A realistic question to ask is where is the money coming from? There is no money coming from the state and even if there was the taxpayer would be on the hook for the interest on the entire bond, obviously this is something Mr. Hopkins is hoping the people do not know about. The taxpayer is due a break.

Rochester School District has a history of playing games with the students of this city. Open concept, block scheduling, changes in curriculum and on and on. Our students are being cheated when it comes to their education. Mr. Shea should continue to move forward with the changes he has implemented at Spaulding. We have no idea how much this is going to cost. There are too many other problems in this School District that need to be handled and starting another school should not even be on the table. With the high unemployment and the fact that 47% of the tax base is low/fixed income and cannot afford another drain, again the taxpayer needs a break. It is time the School Department stopped living in a bubble thinking there is an endless supply of funds and come back down to earth for a reality check. They need to provide stability for our students not continually trying out fads and learn to function within the means of the taxpayer.

Sue O’Connor

For the RCTA
by Jane Aitken

It has come to my attention that the City of Rochester is being asked to consider the construction of a second, ’small’ high school.

While I do not dispute the idea that smaller schools and classes can be more conducive to learning, the community must be made aware of certain facts that may immediately send up a red flag.

As a teacher of almost 35 years, I am a proponent of strong curricular standards and content, and the use of proven teaching methods to deliver that content. I believe that success can be achieved by hiring teachers who are experts in their fields, and then empowering them with the proper scope, sequence, and materials. They also must be allowed to employ proven methodologies, as well as given ample support in all disciplinary matters.

But lately, it seems that our tax dollars are not going to support the classroom or the hardworking teachers that work in them all day long and beyond. They have instead been hijacked by salesmen from the education ‘industry’.

These education industry operators sell at huge prices their services which include designing new schools, selling new methodologies, and offering workshops that guarantee the teachers will come to any conclusions you wish them to during their ‘retraining’ sessions. (Delphi Technique) These salesmen are more often no more than highly motivated charlatans who take advantage of the money we spend on our extreme desire to improve our schools in any way we can. An example of one of these education industry operations is the Quaglia Institute of Student Aspirations to which the state of NH paid $250,000 to Russell Quaglia in 2008 to administer “happiness surveys” to high school students.

The list of snake-oil salesmen is far too long to delve into here, but they abound.

The Big Picture is just another one of a vast network of revolutionary school ‘movements’ that are attempting to make social changes within our society using our children as political pawns. If you peruse their website you will see that the founder is Dennis Littky. Littky’s history with the failed Thayer Academy in Winchester NH Part I and Part II should speak for itself. Project-based learning, or ‘constructivism’ is listed as one of their methodologies, something that has been proven a failure. The philosophy employed is based on a similar model known as the Theodore Sizer Coalition of Essential Schools, something that is used in Souhegan School District and also considered to be a failure. Jargon such as “authentic assessment”, and “collaborative learning”, are more indications that progressive experimentation is being used in these schools. For a complete list of eduspeak terms and lingo and the translation of same, see The Illinois Loop lingo page.

Another program trying to make its way into NH schools comes from UNESCO, administered from Geneva, Switzerland and is called International Baccalaureate. The world view it presents is often not pro-American. It admits it wants to create global citizens and teaches government from the UN’s point of view.

In any case, I urge the citizens of Rochester to do some further investigation on the founders of the “Big Picture” schools and know what it is you may be buying into.

With all the money we spend on education in NH it would seem that we simply have to summon the courage to do what is right, not what we are told by these self-described educational snake-oil salesmen and psychologists coming from the Annenberg School, the home of William Ayers and other educationists.

One final disturbing but not surprising discovery was the mention of their ‘good friend William Ayers’ on the Big Picture website in conjunction with the The Small Schools Workshop, which he co-directs and in a quote from the writer who said he was his ‘good friend’.

It is commonly known by those who study this issue that our schools are being used to effect social justice and political change on the taxpayers dime, but without much of a record of academic success.

It is my thought that NH schools can instill excellence without buying into yet another fad program.

Rochester, don’t fall for it!

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Jane Aitken taught in the public schools for almost 35 years and is currently available to speak about educational issues all over the State of NH.