In an oped in the TAB, William Heck expresses alarm about the growing Newton school budget, saying…
Perhaps taxpayers could tolerate this spending surge if the School Committee used these dollars to maintain and improve buildings, but they didn’t. The School Committee didn’t use the dollars to institute foreign languages in our elementary schools, either. And, the School Committee didn’t use the dollars to institute tuition-free full-day kindergarten or to create cutting edge 21st century technology programs that improve education and reduce costs.
Newton taxpayers pay too much for public education due to ineffective and inefficient management — management that flails in the status quo because it has no vision, expectations, or discipline in its process.
What do you think of this last comment? Do we not have better buildings; foreign languages in elementary school; full day kindergarten; or better technology because of “ineffective and inefficient management” or for a different reason or reasons? And is this the School Committee’s fault?
Actually, the schools have been very well managed for awhile, specifically in their target goal of making the Newton Schools a private school experience so that even those that could afford to send their children to private school do not have to pay the costs. Towards this end, the SC, with the support of about 2,500 hard-core parents, have worked for years to make sure that the schools were as close to a private school education as they could be. As Susan Albright told a bunch of us in a packed 2002 NNHS room, they deferred maintenance and all other improvements, technical or otherwise, to hire more teachers to keep classroom sizes small. The ruling elite gave Jeff Young and the SC this mandate and it’s carried out to this day as indicated by David Fleishman’s reaction right after the current override to hire more teachers to keep classrooms small.
The new NNHS also reflected this. It wasn’t alright just to have a box. It had to be the newest, best, brightest, most private looking college campus in the state.
Of course with new teachers come the associated costs such as pensions, benefits, etc., and thus no money for anything else. That is the decision. That’s why, in big and little ways, so much else has suffered. The sixteen years that separate my oldest child’s school experience from my youngest child’s experience is sadly telling. It’s a small thing but the difference between the musical recorder instruction my oldest received from the barely-there instruction my youngest received is actually quite sad. And don’t get me started about Math. I always hesitate to get into log cabin stories, but sorry, there has been major slippage since 1983 even with this constant push for smaller classrooms.
I don’t say any of this with any heat – it is what is and the majority of my neighbors have decided this is what they have wanted for years now. I just hope they know that the sidewalks will remain the same and the textbooks will remain old.
As a parent if two kids in the schools, I feel like I must write. My kids attend a school in newton that is old and run down. This is not a private school! I, along with other parent, are asked every year to purchase paper towels, Kleenex and other classroom supplies for the class….not my own kid. While I don’t envy the school administration, I believe my kids have had a poor math education and have not been exposed to enough science. I think the reading curriculum is great.
I don’t know how dollars are allocated but neither of my kids have a classic text book…so the school administration is not spending tax dollars on elementary text books.
I feel as though I am responsible for supplying classroom supplies, instrument fees and providing more affordable health insurance to city employees than what I can get in the private sector. I won’t get a pension when I retire and I won’t get health insurance for life when I retire. But I know that right now Newton is the best bet for my kids education and I can supplement at home math learning….not Russian school of math. I am one of those middle class parents that struggle here and I hope when my kids graduate that they have the skills to fix these problems that we have created over the last 20 plus years.
I believe Mark meant private school experience, not private school buildings. In attempting to get the former, the latter suffered.
Like Mark, I’ve kids with a large age span (10 years) in NPS. I see lots of good things happening – the science and writing curriculums in Elementary school are greatly improved and I am thrilled Mason-Rice finally got new windows and a boiler. Snow inside the classroom was a distraction, to say the least.
That said, the music program has suffered and the math program is long overdue for an honest and open evaluation. And don’t even get me started on the quality of the college guidance at South. Parents shouldn’t have to beg for testing accommodations when their child has a genetically confirmed disability with a standard, run-of-the-mill accommodation request.
I gave up on using the Newton schools years ago. I was taking my son out of private school and talked to the local elementary school, asking what they would do for an 4th grader who had already finished 4th grade math and some of 5th grade (his previous school had mixed-age classrooms). They’re response was “If we let him do 5th grade math in 4th grade, what will he do in 5th grade?” At that point (and given other similarly idiotic comments at that meeting) I decided there was no point even trying.
Newton Mom, Bill made an interesting point about why you and your children get such a poor value proposition from the school system.
We opposed the override precisely because we are “responsible for supplying classroom supplies, instrument fees and providing pension and more affordable health insurance to city employees than what we can get in the private sector.”
When 84.3% of the budget goes to fund compensation and 6.9% goes to out-of-district SPED, that leaves 8.8% of the budget that can be used… for the children.
Read more: http://village14.com/netwon-ma/2013/05/are-newton-schools-run-by-an-ineffective-and-inefficient-school-committee/#ixzz2Uhk5ZKXN
Joshua – I understand the point you’re making but …. I can’t not respond to “that leaves 8.8% of the budget that can be used for the children”. Paying for teachers is “for the children”. A teacher is the most essential element to education.
So yes, make the case that you think we’re paying too much in teacher compensation, but please don’t imply that the compensation that the city pays for school staff has no value to our children and their education.
Jerry, I think what Joshua is saying that of course teachers are for the children, but every school has them and needs them. I think he means that 8.8% are for innovative programs that allow the schools to experiment and grow. In our younger days, the city experimented with a high school that allowed the children to pick their own curriculum (like a college) and to many, it was a success. Can you imagine something that creative used with the 8.8%. Out of the 8.8% I wonder how much of that money is used for buildings and modulars, the margin of error is alomst nothing.
The Mayor made a promise to not only zero base the city side (where he found $15 million in cost savings over the past 3 years) but also zero base the school side. This might find cost savings where he can utilize the money for other programs, Maybe someone on this blog who he has an open dialog with can try to remind him of that.
The previous statement when talking about zero basing the school side budget was not in favor for or against Metco and other programs, only to publicly review them to see if we can find funds.
Jerry, when we consider the value proposition high performing districts like Hingham and Belmont offer in comparison to Newton, it is obvious that Newton School’s need to offer a better value proposition to Newton taxpayers and schoolchildren.
Newton spends 48% more than Hingham on a general fund, per student basis and yet Hingham High ranks higher than Newton North and Newton South. Hingham has a higher weighted average MCAS score than Newton.
On or before the first week of October, I will complete an analysis and evaluation of Newton Public Schools versus Hingham which will show that the reason why we pay more but get less than Hingham is because of compensation.
Joshua – As I said, “I understand the point you’re making”
Jerry, Let us circle back around October with regards to the schools and compensation.
In the meantime, I’ll be also writing about the school building projects, pensions and OPEB between now and November.
http://newton.patch.com/blog_posts/newton-schools-are-too-costly