News Cut: February 28, 2012 Archive

Want to build a school?

Posted at 9:30 AM on February 28, 2012 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Schools

If you read nothing else today, you'll want to read Tom Weber's story about the school district in Rushford that wants to fund new school construction in a state bonding bill.

If allowed, it's a huge shift in philosophy and one that could lead to some of the most cantankerous floor debate we've seen at the Capitol in awhile.

Traditionally, new schools are funded by property taxes. There are two segments of a school district's budget: operating expenses and capital expenses. New school construction falls into the latter category and it's often accompanied by a levy -- taxpayers get to vote on whether a new school should be built.

By all accounts, the one that's there is a dump. According to Weber, the administrator in the school system has dismissed the idea of asking local taxpayers to foot the bill, because it would require a 48-percent increase in property taxes and there isn't enough wealth in the district.

There is a loophole in the current law allowing bonding money to be used when school districts consolidate. But Rushford consolidated 20 years ago.

"We do have districts out there in a similar situation as us; the buildings are literally falling down around them, and despite everything going on, we're making the best we possibly can, but there's no light at the end of tunnel for us," said district Superintendent Chuck Ehler. "And we need our state and we need our elected officials to be aware of that and be willing to be risk-takers, along with us, and say, 'Absolutely, schools are part of our infrastructure.'"

That may be, but it's not hard to see what the reaction will be in communities that just tagged taxpayers for new schools. Why should they not get other taxpayers in the state to help pay for what they're now paying?

It's also true, as a person on Twitter told me today, "we're all in this together and we all benefit from an educated population." That's true, which is why the state assumes responsibility for paying for a good deal of the "former" in the budget divisions above. But isn't it also possible that if some districts get state taxpayer help, more districts will have failed levy votes for new building construction, assuming the state taxpayers will help out?

If the Rushford proposal gets very far, that's the question that the debate will orbit.

One postscript: In July 2008, I toured the area of Rushford hard-hit by a 2007 flood that killed a half-dozen people in southeast Minnesota. My tour guides were readers of NewsCut. When we get to the part about the school, note its importance in the town's recovery from a traumatic disaster. It's a good testament that a school in a community is more than just where you learn things.

How should parents be held accountable?

Posted at 12:17 PM on February 28, 2012 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Schools

Two vastly different items in the news in locations 800 miles apart have both led to the same question: Where does parental responsibility start and stop in matters of school life?

On Monday, the Minnesota Senate passed a bill eliminating seniority as the guiding yardstick in deciding which teachers should be cut.

The move earned an "attaboy" from the editorial board of the Star Tribune today:

To be sure, experience matters. The proposal doesn't throw out seniority altogether -- rather, the changes are limited to the role tenure plays in layoffs. And even there, teachers with the same effectiveness rating will be laid off in reverse order of seniority. But the plan rightly recognizes that the number of years on the job is not the only or best way to judge who should remain there.

Teacher union opponents of the change say it would encourage districts to lay off older, more highly paid teachers to save money. And there is concern that without state seniority protection, layoff decisions would be left to the whims of administrators who might not be very effective themselves.

If a student doesn't learn, it's the teacher's fault. But what about parents? What are they held accountable for?

That question is also being asked in the wake of yesterday's school shootings in suburban Cleveland, where a third child died today. How, an educator and psychologist ask at Time.com, can we talk about school violence without any recognition of where the violence was conceived and nurtured?

Politicians and taxpayers like to hold teachers accountable for their students' failures. Most of the public's dissatisfaction with education seems to circle back to what's wrong with teachers, and the assumption that drives our endless rounds of flagellation and reform is the belief that a child's fate rests largely in the hands of the teacher in whose care he or she spends approximately 1,000 hours per year.

Yet the remaining 7,760 hours are on someone else's watch: the parents. That's right, children spend on average only about 11% of their childhood lives in school.

But we rarely talk honestly about what can happen during the other eight-ninths of their waking and even sleeping hours. Children arrive at school poorly nourished and too fatigued to work. They spend too much time on television and too little on exercise. They are poorly socialized in ways that inhibit learning and kindness. They also bring unsecured weapons to school and use them on innocent people, including, sometimes, themselves.

There's an eerie void in our discussions of school violence. Where are the adults? Where is the same cry for accountability in parents when things go wrong at home that we have for teachers when things go wrong at school? We aren't suggesting that one human being can be responsible for every misstep a child makes. Nor are we suggesting that parents shouldn't be allowed to make their own, often serious mistakes without fear of being criminalized.