<p>Are your districts facing extreme budget crisis? Our state has slashed aid to school districts and our neighboring district is eliminating 25 teachers, including the entire music staff. Our own district is also eliminating some teachers and not replacing those who are retiring. Since they can't cut special ed or academic intervention services, they cut enrichment, gifted (in the rare schools that still have it), the arts and APs.</p>
<p>One of the issues all of our little districts site is declining enrollment. I don't think they even consider why students are leaving. Every student who leaves represents a few thousand less in state aid. They are either going to private schools or being taught at home. </p>
<p>I'm wondering what the vibe is in other parts of the country. </p>
<p>Also, are private day schools facing the same dilemma?</p>
<p>I’m in chicago,
I just finished watching the oscars, and while washing the dishes I heard that illinois is cutting about 11 % on the education budget for next year…go figure.</p>
<p>Tomorrow many of the high schools are going to rally in front of their schools because they are cutting a big part of the sports budget, which does help a lot of kids have “hooks” into colleges.</p>
<p>I feel bad for them …but i have a gifted kid, very little support since she has been in the system. And she was one of the few that went to the gifted schools in the city.</p>
<p>Knowing what I know now…though i love my job, i would moved out of the city, taken a job that paid less, rented not owned and moved into a great school district.</p>
<p>Trust me…hindsight is 20/20 but it is very depressing to realize that though I thought I was doing a great job, i could have done much better. </p>
<p>I give myself some credit, I only had one child----lol</p>
<p>Alexz825mom, I, too, am in education and have a similar dilemna. I think those of us in education are even more familiar with what’s happened to enrichment and gifted curriculum. And I’m in a remote western town that had good schools when I came here. Good luck, Wednesday.</p>
<p>My public school district has lost millions of dollars in the last year and is going to lose millions more next year. So far they’ve increased athletic fees and now they’re planning to cut spring sports, reduce the music programs, cut teachers, include furloughs or cut classes, etc. I really hope I can get into boarding school and leave all this behind.</p>
<p>My DD isn’t in public school, but CA schools are facing HUGE budget cuts, and last week in our area, there was a protest by students and teachers. The private day schools in my area haven’t been affected, that I know of, however, the smaller religious schools (like the one my DD currently attends) have been affected by the economy and people pulling their kids out. At her school, they did layoffs last year and I can tell the quality of the teaching and the extra programs has gone downhill. They had to combine 4/5 grade last Fall and out of 9 fifth graders, only 3 are continuing to Grade 6 at that school. A lot of parents are either putting their kids in public school (and it is a really bad school district!) or transferring to other private schools.</p>
<p>We are moving in the summer and plan to move to a much better school district since we have another child that will start K in 2011. I am going to explore private day schools and charter schools as well, but we want to be in a better district in case that doesn’t work out. Even though our schools are affected statewide, there are still some pretty good school districts in our area.</p>
<p>Apparently we’re cutting grade 6 and 7 band, and charging a 350 dollar fee to high schoolers, just for taking it… not including instrument rentals… Insanity.</p>
<p>Some of my classes have OVER 30 kids We’re getting a 15 million cut, and we’re not that big of a school district… Ack.</p>
<p>We got our local weekly press and we were shocked to see that most of the surrounding towns will get zero (yes $0!!!) state aid for 2010-11. I can’t understand why one town will get aid, since it is demographically not materially different from the others. It is also laughable that the districts have only one week to submit a budget after learning this news. The municipal aid will be cut over 20% for most of the towns as well. These already were towns that generally sent much more in “aid” than they received. We have ever used the public schools in the towns that we lived in, but this is distressing to say the least.</p>
<p>I was wrong in my original post about enrollment and state aid. I found out that the amount of aid is not tied to enrollment so there is no financial incentive for schools in New York to retain students. The only thing that happens when the brightest students leave is that their test score averages go down.</p>
<p>What is wrong with our nation? Cutting education is the last thing that we should be doing. Spend money on early education or pay for jails in 20 years. The payoffs for early education will last a life time and benefit the nation.</p>
<p>Throwing money at the public schools won’t solve the problems. Sure, you can have smaller classes, etc with more money, but if the pedagogy remains the same as it was when there were 30 kids in a class, it’s just wasteful. My kids have only 16 kids in their social studies class but they still sit there with packets of fill in the blank notes and take multiple choice tests. If that’s all the teacher is going to do, why not put 40 kids in the class? Until schools abandon mixed ability grouping, all the money in the world won’t improve performance and no child (at whatever ability) will get what they need.</p>
<p>Some states plan penitentiaries based on the reading scores of 3rd and 4th graders. Low scores at that age are an accurate predictor for future crime activity (not universal - just looks at averages).</p>
<p>Having said that - our school district is closing a significant number of schools to save money. The cuts include the only college prep campus that is working and whose test scores are significantly higher than any other middle school/high school in the district and in some cases, the highest in the state.</p>
<p>My daughter saw the damage coming before we did and began to identify boarding schools on her own. She moving towards something, rather than escaping from something. But I’ll admit, I rejoiced when we knew we had a spot. She was tired of dumbing down her language and her classwork to fit the district’s image of what an urban child should be. And her teachers were constantly thwarted in their attempts to do right by their students. The best practice teachers are demoralized having to “teach to a test” and the good ones are having to “sneak” content to the students.</p>
<p>Money - in an urban district - has never been the issue. It’s teaching the basics and foundations of math, science and English. It’s helping develop student’s higher order thinking skills. Instead, urban school districts have become full employment councils for consultants with designer programs that never seem to work (and why would they? If they did, the contracts would stop.)</p>
<p>Then it struck me - if the district taught higher order thinking skills more kids like my daughter would see how bad the rest of the district is and would be fleeing.</p>
<p>To that end, I’ve told admissions officers at schools my daughter interviewed that I would help them with recruiting once she landed safely. If the district can’t get it’s act together (80% of the kids can’t pass the state exam, the average district ACT score is 14-15). My daughter is in the only district school where students take IB/AP courses. They’re on Newsweek’s top 100 HS list. But the district decided to close half the campus to save a few dollars - thus increasing class sizes to state maximums of 33 kids/class and leaving a lot of applicants on the outside looking in.</p>
<p>I told parents - last one to leave, turn out the lights and shut the door. I’ll show them the path out.</p>
<p>A class size of 12, with teachers allowed to actually teach - that’s nirvana.</p>
<p>Alex
I agree with you. We lived in Lincoln Park until our kids hit grade school. We did not want to go to Latin or move to the effluent burbs as we wanted our kids to be exposed to more than Doctor and Lawyer kids. So we moved to a place with great public education.</p>
<p>Daley tried to fix the loss in Chicago 20 years ago by promising parents that if they put $10,000 into the public school, he would keep $5K at their school and put the rest into the system and guaranteed = schools in (eg) Lincoln Park to Latin, etc. The people on the South side *****ed that it was not = and lost both that money and the tax basis.</p>
<p>There is no study - to my knowledge - that shows class size affects education and several which show that it does not. Not sure I agree, but that is the data. (or to paraphrase Sgt Friday, just the facts)</p>
<p>Speaking of Chicago Public Schools, what’s this I’m hearing about Arne Duncan’s highly coveted, confidential VIP list for well connected students to obtain entry into the city’s most selective schools? Sounds like the race to the top (of the VIP list). </p>
<p>Princess’Dad, that’s my point. It doesn’t matter how small the class size is if the teacher’s keep using one-size-fits-all methods. It’s not the number of bodies in the room; it’s what the minds in those bodies are doing while they are there.</p>
<p>Our problem in our district is 33 kids in a class - the teacher has to teach multiple sections of that subject, and the kids are all mixed (remedial, grade level, gifted) so the gifted scores were dropping to “average.” The remedial kids were left behind. The teachers were frustrated because they had not opportunity to do differentiated instruction.</p>
<p>So class size matters, unless the public schools learn to track the students by ability or lower the class size to give the teachers and students a fighting chance to absorb the material.</p>
<p>Our school district even get worse. Not only the budget cut but eliminating decade long diversity policy and try to de-magnate current magnate schools. The future of GT,AG,IB programs are uncertain now.</p>
<p>We did not know any BS at all until last October. My D refused to go to the high school that has uncertain fate and will determine by new school board members. She told me a counselor from Exeter came to her school to introduce/recruit students. That gave her a light to choose a school fit her.</p>
<p>Exie,
I would say your problem would exist with a class of 10 if the remedial are mixed with the gifted. That is the major problem and there are many studies to support that.</p>
<p>One thing that I note is the apathy of the public. At our recent elections, only 1/3 of those who voted in the mayor/alderman race also voted for the board of education and many of those only voted for their friend. Property tax increases for the schools are uniformly voted down.</p>
<p>You’re right - my daughter was at a charter years ago, in a class of 12, and the same thing happened.</p>
<p>I remember growing up in a poor neighborhood with no covers on my outdated textbooks - but got the basics, had committed teachers who could spin gold out of straw and most of my elementary class went on to graduate from top schools and with multiple degrees (those that went private and those that didn’t).</p>
<p>Now - good public schools are the exception not the norm. My vote - unless you live in a really good school district - the only hope is a private school with differentiated instruction. But these days - the only kids able to get into top schools are those already gifted - that leaves a lot of potential talent behind sifting through the debris. It makes me sad.</p>
We’re getting a 15 million cut, and we’re not that big of a school district… Ack.</p>