As mentioned by David Forbes and emailed in by Susan Davis, the Bay Area Hall of Fame is offering a dollar for dollar match to raise money for the Alameda Unified School District Sports Fund. Want to make your dollars stretch? Donate now!
From 3:00 – 7:00 pm TODAY KNBR 680 is partnering with the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame to raise funds for high school athletic programs in AUSD.
The Hall of Fame has donated a $30,000 matching grant to AEF, specifically for high school sports. KNBR will be contacting and interviewing professional athletes that came up through our athletic programs. The challenge? To get these athletes (and everyone listening) to match that $30K — or more! Please tune in to Tom Tolbert today, after the Giant’s game, from 3:00 to 7:00 pm.
Want to be a part of the excitement? Call in to the program or donate via the AEF website (www.alamedaeducation.com). Write “High School Sports” or “KNBR” on the item line.
Dontrelle Willis just donated $20K.
Very exciting!!
Comment by Susan Davis — March 7, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
In September of 1973, the cover of my favorite magazine: THE NATIONAL LAMPOON, carried a photo of a dog, of dubious lineage, with a nickel plated revolver held to its head; the caption read, “Buy this magazine or we shoot the dog.”
Needless to say, I bought two copies: one for my intellectual and moral edification and the other to help pay the ransom on the dog.
Presently the local mavens and apparatchiks of Public Education have forged the impending financial crisis into a similar extortion racket, right here in River City.
One of the ransom notes left on a tree stump reads: “Give us a parcel tax or you will never see a sports program alive again.”
Another note reads: “Give us a parcel tax or we’ll have the children of Alameda trudging across town; flirting with rush hour traffic.”
Yet another reads: “Vote for a parcel tax or we’ll mix Encinal students—and maybe even Encinal teachers—in with Alameda High students.”
No one is expecting the AUSD educational bureaucracy to think outside the box; let’s be honest, the bureaucracy IS the box and the box is sacrosanct.
Ironically, its mission is to solve some of the same problems it creates or sustains.
We live within Qassam missile range of Silicon Valley, yet our anachronistic thinking is not even within ICBM Range of the cutting-edge creativity inherent to the hi-tech culture that we blithely coexist with.
Wind River Systems, within earshot of AUSD Headquarters, has a motto: “Throw Away the Box.”
Were I of the literati persuasion or a cabalist, I would decipher this to mean: “Focus on function and toss out form.”
THE ECONOMIST, the only magazine that Bill Gates reads, recently reported on e-government i.e. how technology is integrated into all levels of government.
It reports that the biggest failure in e-government occurs when governments utilize technology to preserve old operational paradigms: i.e. technology is used to continue doing business like we did in the days of duplicating fluid and inkwells.
The realities of California Education and technology are not manifested within AUSD.
When California Education capitulated to the hue and cry for accountability, local autonomy re curriculum and assessment was ceded to Sacramento.
Since 1997, teachers teach to standards promulgated by Sacramento and students are tested on these standards by examinations promulgated and distributed by Sacramento.
Every test that influences our Academic Performance Index (API), including the High School Exit Exam, originates in Sacramento; yet AUSD still maintains an Assessment Office and a Curriculum Office.
Why pay for redundancy?
If a high muck-a-muck wants to issue a memo or letter or manifesto, he or she e-mails its proposed contents to a secretary who reformats it and disseminates it; but wait, who typed the contents and who cut and pasted that content into a traditional format?
Computers have obviated stenography.
Yet one high school has as many as four secretaries.
When parents call a school, are they calling to talk to a secretary or to a Principal, a Vice Principal or a Counselor?
Picking up the phone or responding to an answering machine, has made the telephone receptionist an anachronism.
Attendance is performed at the click of a mouse, yet the inputs are reverted back to paper.
Why? Data is most easily accessed when it is on a hard-drive, not paper.
The number of AUSD employees performing attendance function has remained a constant.
Teachers still sign in daily on paper; these sign-in sheets are collected and stored: senseless punctilious labor.
Why?
We waste paper, energy and labor to feed dinosaurs.
Our student population is dwindling, yet we have two superintendents; each knocking down six figures.
Reluctantly I announce that I have taught eleven years and have had one visit by a superintendent viz. Dennis Chaconas, who blustered in one day circa 1998.
AUSD hires and fires and retires perhaps 30 to 40 people in a given year: the Human Resource office is staffed with no fewer than six people.
Payroll is direct deposit: the AUSD computer talks to the Bank of America computer the last workday of the month; do will need three people to eavesdrop on this conversation.
AUSD whimsically created a centralized copy center.
Imagine: they hired professionals to make photocopies.
An AUSD employee picks up originals at the school sites; originals are driven to Oak and Central; originals are copied; bundles of copies are redistributed to respective schools.
Teachers would gladly print their own copies.
Think: no labor charges, no transportation, no fuel costs, no vehicles.
Copy machines are user friendly, neither advance degrees nor vocational education are needed to photocopy.
Does AUSD think outside the box?
Extorting a temporary parcel tax is not outside the box.
As they say in Bulgaria, “There is nothing so permanent as a temporary tax.”
Bureaucratic and administrative efficiency will adjust to tax revenues available.
A parcel tax was passed to rescue the Alameda Hospital; now the Hospital Director earns $400,000 per year.
Why tax to enable kleptocrats?
As of January 2001, the U.S. President earns $400,000 per year.
Depending on the source, 6 to 8 people within the AUSD HQ are knocking down six figures: these are generals who eschew the trenches.
Has AUSD thought about turning over its swimming pools, its athletic fields, its gymnasiums and its entire grounds to Alameda Parks and Recreation?
AUSD would save maintenance costs.
As a city, Alameda has money: it opulently dumped $120 million into a bogus cable company and continues to subsidize elitist golf.
That $120 million operating debt would have surfeited a $4 million shortfall for nearly 30 years.
Has AUSD considered renting or selling the property and buildings it no longer uses?
Has AUSD considered going paperless administratively?
Has AUSD thought about charter schools?
AUSD effectively holds students hostage for their ADA money.
AUSD should let students choose to attend a charter school where they could earn more ADA money and a federal grant for their educational venue.
Instead AUSD, and the ovine school board, recently nit-picked an ACLC charter request, seizing on jots, iotas and uncrossed tees, to veto an option that would have effectively increased educational revenue within Alameda.
Inflation is spooling up; real estate values are declining; we are entering a recession; the new millennium has arrived.
The cost of education will inevitably ratchet upward.
Given the housing bust and Proposition 13, tax monies will not be escalating.
The time to streamline—indeed revolutionize—educational administration is now.
Do we need a county Department of Education?
No: chop redundancy.
As my students will tell you, I am unequivocally no martyr to public education.
For ten years I have hunkered down in my classroom; I down-loaded state math standards from the state website i.e. http://www.cde.ca.gov and have blown them up at Kinko’s to poster size for my wall; I make 120 copies of worksheets per day at home, on my LaserJet 4 HP Printer; the textbooks my students carry were purchased with a Schiff-Bustamante grant for which I applied; last year with no intervention from AUSD, nearly 60% of my students miraculously achieved “Proficient” or “Advanced” scores on their math CST: they bested the district average.
Is a burgeoning bureaucracy sine qua non to modern education?
I think not.
California tax dollars are siphoned out of every school district in the state; these dollars are unequally redistributed back to school districts with Alameda getting less than the state average per student.
To reach the classroom, i.e. where the educational tire actually hits the pavement, these dollars flow through a conduit, educational bureaucrats and administrators, like Ixodes scapularis, invariably succumb to the temptation to diverting into this flow.
Ignore false pundits: Alameda should NOT approve a parcel tax until AUSD has demonstrably ended inefficiency, tossed the anachronistic box and ushered the district into the new millenium by embracing its technological potential.
Comment by Jeffrey R Smith — March 9, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
Re: #1 Wow, that post was magnificent!!
Comment by Neal_J — March 9, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
Err, meant #2. Well said!
Comment by Neal_J — March 9, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
re #2 Not having time to delve into each point raised, I have to keep this comment mostly in the realm of the general.
I think many of the specific points you raised misrepresent the state of things and are refutable. More generally, though, I think most informed, reasonable people would agree that, despite how well Alameda schools are doing right now and how efficiently they are doing it with limited resources compared to most other districts, change and improvement here are still necessary and possible.
One major problem I see with opposing the temporary parcel tax is that we have to tune up/repair/redesign the car while the car is still driving. If we take a 4-5 million dollar hit, the car is going to stop completely. Should all the kids take a year or two off from school while we do that? Why not the car running until 2012 and work on it in the meantime?
If the car analogy doesn’t work for you, others have used a medical patient analogy in response to critics who have charged that the parcel tax is just a “band-aid”. For those who prefer medical to automotive analogies, if AUSD is sick, shouldn’t we keep the patient alive while we get an effective treatment plan?
Comment by Rob Siltanen — March 10, 2008 @ 5:41 am
Also, re your opening, the one with the gun is named Arnold aka The Terminator.
Comment by Rob Siltanen — March 10, 2008 @ 5:54 am
Amen to #2. Most people will see the parcel tax for what it is … an attempt to cover up AUSD’s bloated inefficiencies.
Comment by Phil S — March 10, 2008 @ 8:13 am
5. I think the patient’s staff has a larger interest in keeping the patient sick.
Comment by Jack Richard — March 10, 2008 @ 8:54 am
Since the majority of students in Mr. Smith’s class will tell you he is the weakest teacher in the math department, perhaps he should learn to do that before he proclaims to know how to run the district. In my experience, Mr. Smith has an opinion on how to do everyone’s job better than they do it. Perhaps he should look in the mirror and give some pointers to the guy he sees there. It takes a gutless wimp to name the problems (In my opinion, Jeff Smith is the Wiki definition of this) and a courageous person to add a creative solutions (Ron Mooney & Rob Siltanen) and work to see them through.
Before you all get crazy that I am using this as a way to bash someone via the blog, I will be on campus today and let him reply face to face. I bet he won’t because bully’s always back down when they are challenged.
Comment by Barbara M — March 10, 2008 @ 9:29 am
I think Ms. Smith’s ideas should be judged on their merits without regard to his strengths or weaknesses as a teacher. We all have plenty of strengths and weaknesses in our professional lives.
As I tried to explain in comments #5 and #6, I disagree with Mr. Smith’s ideas, but I don’t think such a line of argument as outlined in comment #9 is constructive or appropriate.
Comment by Rob Siltanen — March 10, 2008 @ 9:59 am
Barbara Mooney goes off the rails, again!
Comment by James Chen — March 10, 2008 @ 10:12 am
I agree completely with Rob on all his points. Let’s not bash a teacher for speaking out.
Post #2 does bring up some interesting points, however, you will always find inefficiencies in any organization – even in High Tech. These inefficiencies do need to be exposed and do need to be corrected – especially if they save money.
I do not care for the following comment:
1. Yet another reads: “Vote for a parcel tax or we’ll mix Encinal students—and maybe even Encinal teachers—in with Alameda High students.”
This just feeds this so called east vs. west thing that a lot of people are whining about. This is a non-issue. I especially liked the commentary on this in the Alameda Journal last Friday.
Now the following point is very interesting:
Our student population is dwindling, yet we have two superintendents; each knocking down six figures.
I’ve heard this before was well – do we really need two? The reduction of one would save a swim center. As for the population dwindling – it should ebb and flow – there are going to be tons of kids in Bay Point that are going to be going to high school very soon. In my neighborhood there has been a huge turnover in the last five years – we used to be surrounded by seniors – now we have tons of new families and kids all over the place.
Comment by ChrisO — March 10, 2008 @ 10:47 am
Correction on #12
Change ‘a lot of people are whinning about’ – to a few people – I’m sure it is only a few.
Comment by ChrisO — March 10, 2008 @ 10:49 am
ChrisO,
I would estimate Ardella and Debbie each put in an 70-80 hour work week, probably even more. They are both very smart and I am sure not doing this because it feels good to bang your head against a wall. I can’t imagine how anyone could come up with a way to consolidate those positions without creating something that in the end would be the same thing. You want to get rid of waste start with the county level of education.
Comment by Barbara M — March 10, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
I’m getting ready to go visit my parents in TN, which I haven’t done in several years. Since my Mother and Aunt are both public school teachers and have been for several decades and hence familiar with their respective districts, I would be curious to see if their state is also suffering from the same drastic and crippling cuts to their schools. As far as I know, both of their districts still have all extracurricular programs in place so I imagine, not greatly.
Secondly, I read a report that TN actually has the 2nd highest foreclosure rate nationally… behind California. If that be the case, I would be curious to see how their tax system is set up to handle changing property markets. It could be that declines aren’t as severe there. But despite the high foreclosure rates, the same effect on the state’s government hasn’t been as severe as in California. This is interesting because the budget crisis in CA seems directly linked to the declines in the property markets but in at least TN’s case, there isn’t such a connection. I’d be curious to find out why.
Thus I think there’s some interesting and comparative information to be gained between the comparisons. By doing so, perhaps there’s some lessons to be learned in regards as how California might need to alter their tax and income management system because at the end of the day, this is all about financial mismanagement and the lack of preparedness when the economy goes sour.
Perhaps instead of trying to fix a system that obviously doesn’t work and actually grows worse over time, maybe gaining information about how other states handle their money would be better beneficial.
I’ll report back with my findings. adios.
Comment by edvard — March 10, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
Why has there been no budget and or official task force or fundraising by the district since the Navy left years ago in order to address the funding equity or rather the lack thereof?
Is it not true that as this house of cards falls “2″ people are unofficially working on this with no real budget and the hope that pro-bono law will come to our aid? Why has our district squandered this time and invested no hard resources to challenging this aberration in funding that equals nearly $1000 per student?
Also, well said Mr. Smith and by the way just ask any Alamedan and a majority will tell you Barbara Mooney is a loud and obnoxious bore.
Comment by poguemahone — March 10, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Didn’t edvard say he was going to take a sabbatical from this blog? It only lasted two days …
Comment by James Chen — March 10, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
I will cop to sinking to Mr.Smith’s level.
That being said Mr.Smith has put his commentary out there in print and on this blog and never once has a suggestion that can be enacted on or back-up for facts. He loves to accuse other people of not doing their jobs. I have a different perspective on who is not doing their job and just like him I was stating it.
Comment by Barbara M — March 10, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
re #16: Based on his/her past practices, I don’t have a lot of hope that poguemahone/Mahoney will stop the name-calling, but I hope it doesn’t hurt to ask.
So, poguemahone/Mahoney, please stop the name-calling. Before your recent hiatus, you managed to call a whole bunch of people here a whole bunch of names. It wasn’t constructive or appropriate then and it still isn’t now.
Your earlier insightful critique/analysis of Prop 13 strikes me as pretty much on the mark, but the acid delivery makes it quite difficult to build a constructive dialogue.
Comment by Rob Siltanen — March 10, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
Jeez guys. That post about KNBR and the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame putting up a $30,000 matching grant for sports for AUSD high schoolers?
That was good news. Happy news. A “yes, we can” kind of positive message that was meant to inspire us all.
I myself let out a shout of delight when I heard Dontrelle pledge $20,000 on air.
And last I heard, the station had raised more than $52,000. That makes me pretty happy, too.
So could at least one person say, “Yay” or “hurray?” or “wow, man” or something else positive? I really wasn’t expecting this, um, blood bath.
Comment by Susan Davis — March 10, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
In response to #16 — I hope you have read Ann Caspar and Rob Siltanen’s excellent report to the Board of Education regarding litigation options. If you have not, it can be found at http://www.mikemcmahon.info/boe_meeting0612.htm. There is a link to the report under item 9.
Although the report is a little dated because it does not reflect recent developments, the conclusions they reach remain sound.
Litigation with respect to educational equity would be a long, drawn out, complicated and costly process. For purposes of comparison, in the Williams case which was settled a couple of years ago, the parties litigated for more than 5 years and Plaintiffs incurred in excess of $14,000,000 in fees and costs (which were fronted by the ACLU and Morrison & Foerster, a large San Francisco law firm).
While there is no way of predicting the exact costs that would be incurred if Alameda filed suit, it is probable that litigation with the State would last for years and could run well into the millions of dollars — funds which AUSD clearly does not have. Therefore, AUSD is in a position where it either needs to find a backer with very deep pockets to front the litigation expenses or it would need to combine forces with other school districts who are also facing their own budget crises and who also are not likely to have funds available to front the litigation costs.
In any event, there is no guarantee with respect to the outcome of any litigation or, perhaps even more importantly, how any changes would be implemented even if Alameda were to prevail in a funding equity lawsuit. Ultimately, equitable funding (however that might be defined by a court) would be left to legislative action. As a result, Alameda’s fortunes would be left to the Legislature which may or may not improve Alameda’s comparative posture. For instance, it’s important to note that while AUSD receives less per pupil funding than many other districts in Alameda County, when compared to districts across the State of California, Alameda’s funding is not that much below the statewide average. (This information can be found on the EdSource website) Therefore, even if a challenge to the current system based on comparative funding inequities were to succeed, the benefit to Alameda might not be as much as we would hope. (It is, of course, also possible that Alameda could come out far better after litigation, but that outcome is not guaranteed and would be many years down the road.)
In short, while the AUSD’s scarce resources could be directed to funding a lawsuit, there are likely far better and more efficient uses for that money. We are facing a crisis that can only be addressed in the near term by obtaining more money from the State through lobbying the Governor and Legislature or by passing a parcel tax (which is currently the ONLY legal option for communities to raise additional funds for school operating expenses). Litigation, even if successful, would only be of benefit to AUSD many years from now.
And — on another topic — while I was visiting Mike McMahon’s website, I looked at the agenda for the School Board meeting tomorrow night. It appears that the Board will be addressing some of the concerns that have been raised about where the parcel tax money will go. It looks like the Board plans to clarify that the tax is to be used to restore reductions with priority given to restoring funding for class size reduction, music prep and athletics. Perhaps this amendment will allay some of the concerns that have been expressed by some people on this website and on other websites that shall not be named.
Comment by Page — March 10, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
Rob Siltanen, while on occasion I may agree with you and your little clique it seems to me all of you often want to have it both ways.
You can sling mud but god forbid someone with an opposing view does the same. You can accuse someone of all manner of unfounded notions but forsake any to question your authority or reliability on any number of issues.
Who made you the hall monitor here anyway? This is a forum and any knucklehead including myself can rant and run their mouth off ad nauseam.
.
I also do not understand this fascination of yours as to my name and your attempts at “outing” me as it seems it must be taking a fair amount of your free time and effort, and frankly it creeps me out.
Finally, for anyone interested in setting the record straight here are some answers to some of the distortions you and your cohorts have floated around town about ACLC/NCLC. I received this in a mass email:
1. We are doing this to help more kids in Alameda, not to help
ourselves.
ACLC could continue to operate successfully without NCLC. NCLC will
not bring more resources to ACLC, nor increase space, nor lower class
sizes. ACLC learners and parents have contributed free time to NCLC
recruiting because they think more kids should have access to a similar
program. ACLC staff have put in dozens of unpaid hours because they
believe that the professional freedom they experience should be
available to other teachers. ACLC’s board has committed a portion of
our reserves to NCLC to help fulfill the original vision for our school
as an educational pioneer, and because it is personally painful to meet
with parents and their kids and not be able to help them.
2. NCLC will cover all school costs, and its share of central office
costs.
NCLC will cover all ’site’ costs – teachers, books, computers, etc.
We won’t have a full time administrator, but will share and cover all
the administrative duties among our facilitators. In the NCLC
proposal, we followed the ACLC AUSD central office cost coverage model
(through oversight and cost allocation formulas under state guidelines),
so that we are guaranteeing funding to AUSD’s central office.
Opposition statements take the state per student revenue that would come
to NCLC to educate our learners and treat that as a 1 to 2 million
‘loss’ to AUSD. That is grossly inaccurate, as we would take on all
the costs, including a contribution to central office, that AUSD’s other
public schools would have to incur.
3. NCLC will offer jobs to teachers, not create layoffs.
NCLC will offer jobs to local educators; if ACLC’s experience is a
guide, many will be from Alameda. At capacity in year three, we will
have 11 new facilitator “teaching” positions. Our understanding is
that 30 – 50 teachers retire or otherwise voluntarily leave AUSD every
year – clearly our small number of positions will have no impact.
4. NCLC will seek a diverse cross section of Alameda.
We will offer places to all applicants, using a supervised random
lottery if needed. So far, most elementary applicants have been from
surrounding west end neighborhoods. We will seek a west end location
to make attending NCLC easiest for west end parents, many of whom cannot
place their children in the higher scoring elementary schools in
Alameda.
5. We have 75 years of elementary educator experience on our team for
the new school
Our elementary team will combine their successful experience in
classrooms and leadership with the elements of project based learning
that will work with grades k-5. Opposition statements calling NCLC’s
educational model untested are misguided – few elementary schools have
as much educational experience as our team.
6. NCLC will add to the strength of public education in Alameda.
This is a challenging time for all Alameda public educators. The
state budget cuts impact all schools. At ACLC, the facilitators have
agreed to eliminate one position, reducing staff 8%, with the other
facilitators taking on additional responsibilities. We are urging the
ACLC and NCLC communities to support AUSD’s parcel tax, even though the
benefits to ACLC and NCLC are likely to be zero to very small; we
strongly believe that local communities should support public education,
which educates 90% of the children (and future citizens and leaders) of
America. We believe that we must persevere despite the fiscal
challenges to open up more educational opportunities and set high
standards for all Alameda children.
Thanks for your support.
NCLC Action Team
Paul Bentz
Maafi Gueye
Besty Weiss
James Venable
Linda McCluskey
Lowry Fenton
Comment by poguemahone — March 10, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
re #22: Rant away ad nauseum.
I think all I’ll have to say you for the forseeable future is “poguemahone.” Later.
Comment by Rob Siltanen — March 10, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Last Paragraph of #21 is good news – I’ll have to watch. -Thanks for the post Page.
#22 – If you posted on the Charter School thread it would be easier to locate your comments in the future as reference.
Barbara M – Still waiting for you to let us know who wrote the parcel tax measure, who was in your committee? Also tell us why the attempts to prevent “school merging” are part of the ballot measure if a single merger would save more than enough money to fund middle school sports.
Funny that we heard so much eloquent speech last week on how important extra curricular programs are, and we know how sports not only ’saves’ some students who may be “on the edge”, but also teaches teamwork, coordination, physical awareness, health matters, etc…
How come we didn’t hear that AUSD middle school athletics was already gone as of this year? Is there a single varsity or JV HS athlete at any HS in Alameda that did not play sports in Middle school? The habits one takes to HS are learned in middle school. Sports are as important to grades 6 – 9 as they are later. Last week we heard the comparison of just keeping varsity sports to just keeping Spanish 4 and dropping Spanish 1, 2, & 3. I think middle school sports is the equivalent of Spanish 2 in that comparison.
I really think we should take a look at how students could be housed if we choose to save 300k for each school that could be merged. (This figure is probably greater in 2008 dollars) The savings would serve the entire district. All of Alameda elementary schools offer the best we can offer don’t they? It is not like I want a “lesser” education for the kids at our smallest schools. I expect they would still have, perhaps mostly the very same teachers – just in a bigger building. I do understand that many of the rooms at some of our elementary schools are under-utilized. (Used only for storage, or only for before, and after school programs that could be housed in the multi-purpose rooms.) Some schools have room for “modular classrooms to be installed. Not all of us move our kids to private school when they are done with Franklin. But isn’t that the way with some of the writers of this present proposal of the parcel tax?
While we do still have Measure “C” money and re-development funds to work with, school mergers should at least be on the table.
I know this is not an easy topic, but we can see that our elementary schools in the 600 student range are very successful, offer wonderful programs, have great parent and community involvement and are more efficient, dollar for dollar than our littlest schools.
If we can reap this benefit for the good of all (the students of the small schools could enjoy middle school athletics the way most of us did.) the it should be considered. This is not a ‘silver bullet for the budget problems. The savings would likely not be realized during the transition year, but then the savings would be perpetual, isn’t that what we need?
There is still talk of merging middle and high schools. Someone on the blog mentioned having one HS like in Berkeley. That clearly would not work in Alameda for so many reasons. Some of most obvious and insurmountable are;
There is no such facility to house them – to make the whole of the HAHS block legally permitted for student occupancy is out of the realm of fiscal possibilities.
Alameda does not have one central downtown. The 2 main HS’s give a character to our city and to each of the main business districts of the city. It also gives us a pleasant ‘home-town’ rival. Some of the Berkeley games have had to be called off because of weapon, threats, and fear of riots. Even the Berkeley police asked the principal to call off a home game. – Not a healthy growth pattern to wish for.
I have long been an advocate for protecting Alameda’s ‘small-town’ feel, which is very similar to wanting to retain elementary schools in every neighborhood, – ones that every kindergartner can ride a bike or trike to, where cars are only used during down-pours; but that is not practical, and it is not fair to provide it to only a few at the cost to all.
It is not democratic that authorship of this tax proposals skewed the proposal to do just that, for only their own school, in their own neighborhood. I hope the board clears this up. I will continue to be disappointed that such is not in the language on the ballot, and BOE comments likely does not carry the legal weight of public ballot wording.
Democracy can be messy, public input, and debating ‘fairness’ can be time consuming, but that’s part of the type of community, and the style of governing, that is worthy of us.
Comment by David Kirwin — March 10, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
David,
I did not write the proposal. If we are going to pass this thing in time to save these programs there wasn’t 6 months to talk about it.
I hear what you are saying about the high schools etc. I for one would say that if we had to close one school it should be an elementary. In fact I would say it should be Franklin. My children go there and that statement will make me less than popular with the play-yard moms but that is the school that should face the chopping block before the others. That being said the district would have to weigh the fact that it would have lots of parents walk-away from public education. I would not be one of them. If my child got sent to Haight or Washington I will go willingly. I frankly don’t think my child has better teachers than at any of the other schools. I love the fact that all of her close friends live within 2 blocks of my house, I moved 10+ times before I turned 18 so I never got to bond with the neighborhood kids and that is what does it for me.
I don’t know for sure but I think I am correct when I state that of the 18+ children belonging to people working on the parcel tax, 1 of those children attends private school.
Comment by Barbara M — March 10, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Barbara – Who was it that worked on the parcel tax? It should be public record – why not inform us? Why be secretive?
Comment by David Kirwin — March 10, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
#22 hip-hip-hooray for ACLC supporting the parcel tax! How would they look if they didn’t?
It’s late for me to try to respond comprehensively so I won’t, but the whole list of six reasons to embrace NCLC is old stuff and does little to set any records straight or correct what you call distortions. In short it seems like window dressing.
#24 I was never aware of middle school sports when our now senior was in middle school, but they were not his focus. When were the programs dropped? The kids I do know now moving into JV baseball all came up through community leagues like Little League (rah-rah! for Pat Bail!) and Babe Ruth, or similar programs in basketball and football. Our experience of middle school sports doesn’t support your argument on this point.
Comment by Mark I — March 10, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
Gee … Barbara, you/your comments and actions are certainly a poster child for why the parcel tax should NOT pass!!! If it doesn’t, we’ll know whom to thank … atleast you got your 15mins of fame on the TV!
Keep up the good work.
Comment by Melissa J — March 10, 2008 @ 10:08 pm
Tonight the BOE will be discussing the prioritization of funds if/when the parcel tax measure is passed. Following is the list as I believe it is listed in the BOE Packet: This comes from an e-mail sent to the PTA which reads:
At Tuesday’s Board of Ed meeting (March 11, 6:30 p.m., 2263 Santa Clara, 3rd Floor), the District will present its recommendation of Reinstatement of Budget Reduction Items: Prioritization Based on Potential New Parcel Tax Revenue. It includes 3 tiers – see below in blue.
Some recent cuts (e.g., middle school after school athletics; clerical staff; health clerks) are not on the tiers. You may know of other cuts that are important to you and your schools for quality education. I know some PTAs have been covering some costs that traditionally are borne by the District – please check to see if they’re in these tiers. I would also suggest that anyone that’s voting for the parcel tax for anything in particular, look to see that it’s in these tiers.
I don’t know if they’re prioritized within each tier, so that K-3 CSR (which wasn’t cut) will be reinstated before 1-3 Music, and Middle School Counselors will be reinstated before 9th grade Class size reduction, and cleaning and minimizing school closures will be reinstated before high school counselors and college and career technicians. I’ve asked for clarification.
Based upon my reading of this agenda item, I would encourage you to share this information and now is the time for feedback to the district and Board members (emails; attend Board meeting). These tiers suggest that if it’s not on a tier, we don’t know when it’ll be reinstated.
Thank you for your help!
Trish Spencer
Alameda PTA Council, Pres.
Tier 1
K-3 Class Size Reduction $400,000
Grades 1-3 Music Prep Positions $200,000
High School Athletic Program/Swim Centers $265,000
Tier 2
1.5 FTE Middle School Counselors $90,000
Grade 9 Class Size Reductions $92,000
0.5 FTE Independent Study Teacher $40,000
Site alternating A/B schedule for cleaning $125,000
Tier 3
Restructure K-12 Schools .
• Minimize school closures .
• Minimize school services reduction, i.e. counseling, college and career technicians .
While this is encouraging as related by post #21 in “Dollar for Dollar”, it is just not enough information for the BOE to consider or to provide as an explanation of fund use.
There is a whopping disparity between the $1.212M for proposed and labeled expenses and $3.9M of proposed tax to be collected.
By this list, and my ‘uninformed view’, it appears that most of the tax COULD be used to maintain the little elementary school where the author’s of the tax proposal send their children.
Remember if you cannot attend the BOE meeting at 6:30 tonight in city council chambers – you can watch it live on cable or right here on the web at http://www.ci.alameda.ca.us/webcast/ but remember – unlike most city meetings the BOE meetings are not saved – you catch it live or not at all.
Comment by David Kirwin — March 11, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
I have not looked for or found a schedule, but BOE meetings have been in heavy rebroadcast because I keep stumbling across them, so I think “live or not at all” is inaccurate.
Comment by Mark I — March 11, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
-On the web Mark.
Comment by david kirwin — March 11, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
In response to #29 – I see there is already a projected shortfall of $2.5 M to make up for.. that adds to the $2.1M
Comment by David Kirwin — March 11, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Hello, all.
My name is Ian Merrifield, and I am Encinal’s student body president. I’ve been working very dilligently lately to try to save the schools that I care so deeply about. My youngest brother Elijah will be a kindergartener next year in AUSD, and so will be in Alameda schools for the next 13 years.
Now I’ve never been on this blog before. And while I admire every single person who has posted here for expressing their beliefs in a public forum, I am absolutely astounded that this has gotten so nasty.
Mr. Smith, (who is my math teacher, by the way. I’m risking chastisement for this) made the point that he thinks that the problem with our district is redundancy and a refusal to think outside of the box.
However, I would argue that many of us on this one blog post are doing the very same thing. We are refusing to look outside of conventional political wisdom: attack, attack, attack, to something much more progressive.
At the last school board meeting I spoke about how this is the time for our school district and our community to work together, to unify around our common goal, which is to keep public education in Alameda enriching and productive schools.
In my belief, we must stop all of this bickering, as it will get us nowhere. Instead, we should all realize that we are ALL fighting for common goals. We ALL want our kids to be in great schools. And these cuts will hurt ALL of us. So why don’t we stop the nastiness and instead treat every one of these cuts as if it were a cut to our child?
Now in regards to cutting at the district office, for those of you who don’t know, when the students from Encinal and Alameda walked out on Wednesday, a few of us had an opportunity to meet with Superintendent Dailey to ask questions and plan our next actions. One of the students in the room asked her if every other option had been considered before cuts that were this close to the students had been proposed.
She looked every one of us straight in the eye and said that every other option had been looked at, and that every district position that was being kept was one that was absolutely vital to the function of this district.
Now for what it’s worth, when my Superintendent looks me in the eye and says that to me, I believe her. We can disagree about how the cuts have been allocated, that’s fine. I’m not nearly naiive enough to think that we can all just smile and get along. But I believe that to question her integrity or her commitment to students is simply erroneous and narrow-minded.
And without sounding too condescending, I feel that it’s a little sad that a student has to come in to try to douse all of these flames. We should be able to see past differences of opinion to work with our opposition.
Comment by Ian Merrifield — March 11, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
By the way, I have one more thing to add.
I agree with what many of you have said that the parcel tax is completely unfair. Our state should have the (excuse my french) balls to fund all districts equally. They should have the gumption to compensate for the loss of state funding that we recieved when the base was closed. They should have the guts to reject Governor Schwarzzennegger’s proposal to suspend Prop 98.
But the fact is that they don’t. We have seen over and over again the ways in which the Alameda Unified School District is continually given the short stick by the state.
But I would ask you all one question. Is that the student’s fault? I have been in Alameda since fourth grade, when the 7.7 million dollars of cuts over 7 years began. In that 7 year period, what have I done to deserve the cuts that I have had to endure and continue to endure?
The answer is nothing. And while the philosophy of a parcel tax may be unfair, the fact is that it is truly the only thing that can save our students from losing even more programs.
You do not deserve to be taxed. But our students don’t deserve to have their programs cut. We simply have to put the needs of Alameda students before our own. If we do not, then we are flushing quality public education in Alameda down the toilet.
And if it’s any consollation, it’s not as if this parcel tax is the only thing being worked on to try to bring more money into the district. There are lawsuits on the table, there are protests in Sacramento being planned, there are hundreds of letters being written. There are many groups that are working very hard to find ways to bring more money into Alameda without having to tax people. So don’t for a second think that they’re trying to take the easy way out.
Our district is in desperate times, and we are therefore having to take desperate measures. And instead of blaming each other, or blaming the district, we can only truly blame Arnold.
So please, vote for the parcel tax. It will save our schools, and for the equivalent of two trips to starbucks a month, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Comment by Ian Merrifield — March 11, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
Oh, and one very final comment to Dave Kirwin.
I can’t give you every name of the people who worked on the parcel tax language. But I can tell you that one of the people who was very instrumental in writing it was my mother, Brooke Briggance, Executive Director of the Alameda Education Foundation.
Comment by Ian Merrifield — March 11, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
Ian, I have never been more proud to an educator!
Until I read your post, I was holding back tears reading the back and forth bickering from people who obviously do not know what the students, teachers, administrators and countless support staff have endured for well over seven years in regards to budget cuts. During that time district employees have gone without cost of living adjustments, medical insurance premiums have sky rocketed and student programs have been cut severely.
Additionally, I invite anyone to walk the halls of district office during business hours to see just how lean our administration truly is. I believe that before you comment on which jobs or programs should or shouldn’t be cut, you should have to have some first hand experience or knowledge of the impact said job or program cut would have on the future of our students.
This I believe:
Despite these setbacks the public education experience in Alameda has continued to develop amazing student leaders such as Ian and his peers. Reading Ian’s articulate comments in this blog made me know that I’m in teaching for all the right reasons and I must do whatever it takes to keep public education alive in Alameda.
Finally, I am ashamed at the destructive remarks made by ignorant and ill-informed community members. I have lived and worked my entire life in Alameda. I wouldn’t trade this place for anywhere else. I wish those of you who took the time to write negative comments, might put some energy into making a positive impact in our community.
Comment by Diana Kenney — March 11, 2008 @ 11:25 pm