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Boardside: Dispatches from the Education Wars

A Brief History of Boardside

Or

How I Became an Education Blogger

In the early spring of 2005, a friend called and asked me to run for our local school board. I had received stranger requests, but at the moment I was hard-pressed to name one. Even so, I understood my friend’s frustration with our school taxes and the current board. Recently, there had been a town-wide property reassessment in which millions of dollars of the tax burden had been shifted onto residents, many of whom were confused about the new assessments and tax rate. The confusion was inevitable, I suppose, given that a majority of Americans regard math as the catatonia-inducing wizardry of nerds, Asians, and little green men who, ’round about midnight, land UFOs amid the patio furniture.

One man who was not confused was the school superintendent, Greg Aidala. As a former middle-school math teacher Aidala was intimately acquainted with the widespread aversion to the multiplication tables and long division. But for Aidala this aversion, coupled with the reborn valuations and tax rates, was an irresistible knock of opportunity. With the backing of his faithful board, the superintendent proceeded to raise the tax levy by 9.7 percent, all the while claiming that the already eye-popping school taxes were not really increasing by much.

Even though many community residents were not precisely certain how their school taxes had gone shooting through their re-valued roofs, they were—shall we say—upset. (My wife and I would spend nearly $4,000 in legal fees and court costs over two years to straighten out the mess the town had made over-valuing our home.) Worst of all was the scene I witnessed the morning I went to town hall to double-check the accuracy of our reassessment notice.

As a writer I have acquired a kaleidoscope of images that have stayed with me—from hollow-eyed children playing in the ashen shadows of Appalachian strip mines to Mikhail Gorbachev’s face flushing as he recalled his stormier encounters with Ronald Reagan. And what I saw that morning, in the quiet, workaday surroundings of town hall, has become a permanent feature of my collection.

Across from the tax assessor’s window, there was a small couch with two elderly women  sitting on it, both of them immaculately dressed and staring at the floor. Standing to their left was a third woman of about the same age—tall, as well turned out as her friends, with neatly coiffed white hair and the approachable dignity of a compassionate headmistress. Her arm was draped, like a protective wing, over the shoulder of a woman seated on the couch. The standing woman caught my eye as I got in line and said: “They don’t know what to do. About their assessment. They can’t afford the new taxes.”

The two seated women nodded, but they did not raise their eyes, as though they were ashamed to be trapped in this financial bind. Whether the women understood it or not, they were casualties of the slash-and-burn spending of public education and it is this image—two elderly women seated on a couch and crushed by an undeserved sense of shame—that has, like a battlefield photograph, stayed fixed in my memory.

So: running for the board sounded like an interesting idea during those days of sudden snowstorms that pass for the first blush of spring in upstate New York, though I doubted that I would win. Our family had only been living in town for five years, most of which I had spent traveling or alone in my office completing a biography and then starting a history of the Cold War. On the other hand, our son was about to graduate middle school, where I had already volunteered to help start a literary journal; I had been educated in public schools, kindergarten through college; my wife was a professor at the State University of New York; and I had promised a friend of mine, who had given an enormous boost to my career and who had just passed away, that I would dedicate some serious time to volunteering for local causes, and so I agreed to pick up the petitions at the school district office and get the required signatures to run.

For the next six weeks, I walked door to door and, once winter decided it was over, went to the parks as the children’s softball and soccer leagues began. I enjoyed that part of the process immensely, except for the unremitting drumbeat of anxiety that I heard from people about their taxes and a frequently asked question that I couldn’t answer: “Will we be able to afford to stay here?”

Six candidates were running for three seats on the nine-person board. All of us were interviewed by the local paper, The Altamont Enterprise, and we also appeared at a PTA-sponsored “Meet the Candidates Night,” which was broadcast live on cable from the high school TV studio and then re-broadcast several times prior to the election on May 17.  On the program we spoke about our backgrounds and what we hoped to accomplish as board members—I spoke mostly about controlling the budget—and then all of us answered questions submitted by the audience.

By 10 p.m. on Election Day I was the most astonished person in town. I’d come in third and won a seat on the board. In second place was an incumbent, John Dornbush, who would be starting his third three-year term. The biggest vote getter by far was another newcomer, Catherine Barber. Cathy was in her late thirties, an attorney who spent a good deal of time appealing the convictions of violent felons and also played violin in the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra. I was amazed by her win: from what I knew, she had done little campaigning and, from her performance at “Meet the Candidates Night,” she was obviously quite shy and uncomfortable speaking in public.

This should have taught me a thing or two about school boards, but as I drove home on that balmy May evening I remained blissfully unaware of the forces that determined these elections. Later on, I’d see that incumbents like John, who seldom disagreed with the superintendent’s recommendations and did not challenge the status quo—particularly when it came to spending on salaries and benefits, funding new programs and hiring new staff—were normally re-elected. My win—it would become clear—emerged from the lingering anger over the reassessment and the fear of wildly escalating taxes. The reasons for Cathy’s impressive vote total, however, took longer for me to discern. It was rooted in her involvement with a powerful advocacy group—the parents of children in the our district’s first-rate music program—and that her husband had grown up in the community, graduated from the local university and law school, and was involved in an all-important facet of the town’s economic and political life—the Zoning Board of Appeals. And eventually Cathy did manage to come out of her shell. In response to my writing letters about board issues to The Enterprise, she may well have distinguished herself as the only school-board member in American history to propose that the board adopt a policy revoking the First Amendment rights of its members.

But all of that, plus an untidy assortment of other adventures, would come later. Just then, even before the July meeting where I’d be formally installed on the board, I focused on the $76 million budget, studying the printout and believing that it would be a simple matter to pare some of the expenditures. After all, I had plenty of experience with budgets. I’d been an advertising executive; a managing editor of a magazine; a software designer and project manager; a business writer who analyzed major companies and startups and later moved on to dissecting foreign-aid packages. And all of these various experiences had reinforced the one great fiscal truth that nearly every American family learns out of necessity—you can always get by on less.

Except, I was to discover, for our school district, which invariably had to spend more than the previous year. The increases were generally tied to salary increases and benefits, demonstrating, in part, that greed is not the sole province of the bling-and-ka-ching crowd on Wall Street. Most distressing was that the board, as a whole, appeared no more inclined to exercise its oversight powers than the Securities and Exchange Commission had been to explore the obvious depredations of Bernie Madoff.

During my three-year term I would try to address some of the more flamboyant budgetary nuttiness and, in the process, I managed to ignite a firestorm by stumbling across the third rail of public school education—student performance. The blowback from administrators, some teachers and much of the board was intense, a reaction that took on the proportions of a mushroom cloud when, after serving for two years on the board and having had my fill of personal nastiness and educational absurdities, I began to post some of my impressions on a separate section of petergolden.com, a web site where I had put up some of my journalism and excerpts from my books. I called the new section, “Boardside: Dispatches from the Education Wars.”

What was so curious about the anger over Boardside was that I had written nothing you could not see by watching our meetings on cable. I did include some satire on the site, but it was issue-oriented. (See: What is a Dronoid?, Stone of Madness, The Scream,  Lifelong Learner,  Micromanager, Board of Ed Meets in Hell,  A. Hamilton: Blogger, Superintendent. ) I didn’t level accusations at specific board members nor did I use any material from the journal I’d been keeping to write about the behind-the-scenes action, which by this point resembled a combination film noir and screwball comedy.

I had started the blog thinking that it could stimulate debate and entice more of the community to take an interest in the process. I was not optimistic about accomplishing either goal: in fact, I thought it was hopeless enough that I didn’t mention Boardside to anyone. People began discovering it on their own, which surprised me because I rarely updated petergolden.com and had no idea anyone was checking it.

What happened next was predictable, though back then it didn’t seem that way—not to me and surely not to the administrators and board members who didn’t like the site. At a televised meeting, a handful of board members attacked me, and The Enterprise reported the story. Our weekly community newspaper has a circulation of 7,000, with a readership of maybe three times that number, and right after the story ran I noticed a modest bump in visits to Boardside. But then a reporter at the Albany Times Union came calling to do a feature, and it appeared above the fold on the front page of the local section—on a Sunday no less, when circulation tops 140,000.

The hits on Boardside jumped exponentially, and that was just the beginning. The New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA), an umbrella organization for the more than 700 boards of education across the state, provides a free e-mail clipping service delivered each weekday with links to education-related stories from 26 newspapers in New York. On Monday morning the Times Union feature was included in the E-Clips, and by the end of the day there was an avalanche of new hits. Then I started receiving e-mails from parents, educators, and school board members from all over the state.

A NYSSBA spokeswoman had told the Times Union that my site was the first blog written by an active school board member. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but it was unique enough that people began to visit regularly and to get in touch with me, and I posted some of their e-mail. Most heartening was the response of school-board members outside our district, who wrote to tell me that they shared my dismay at the dysfunction that seemed to afflict their boards, and they were stunned by the hostility directed at them by some district employees and fellow board members when they raised the all-too-obvious issues.

Frankly, it was a relief to hear from people who understood the awesome power of school boards, a power that frequently goes unchecked because even when the law provides a means to put an end to some of the more egregious behavior—for example, handing out confidential information to the teacher’s union to help elect its preferred board candidates or hoarding tax dollars beyond the legal limit—pursuing remedies is unnecessarily complex and rarely worth the effort because the remedies lack teeth.

Since arriving on the board I had been trying to make this case to individuals I thought could do something about it—at least as far as the public discourse was concerned: a gubernatorial candidate; an assistant attorney general; professors at several universities; a host of a political talk show; an executive at of the one the most influential newspapers in the country; and a handful of reporters and columnists. I cited the burdensome school taxes in states like New York and New Jersey, adding that while almost 50 cents of every dollar in property tax collected in the United States goes to fund public elementary and secondary education—costing taxpayers trillions of dollars—the competitive standing of our children compared to their peers around the world did not notably improve.

No one disagreed with me, but neither did anyone get too excited, as though this state of affairs had emerged willy-nilly, without any recognizable causes or potential solutions. The biggest roadblock I encountered when speaking to these people was that they were unfamiliar with the workings of school boards. They knew the stories about boards who advocated teaching creationism, but more often than not they could not see boards as much beyond the PTA on steroids—bands of well-meaning volunteers (or misguided well-meaning volunteers unaware of the importance of the separation between church and state), who just wanted to spend money helping children. Every once in a while I’d come across something that underscored how shocking the uninitiated found the behavior of boards when they got a closer look. A judge, after finding school administrators guilty of fraud and embezzlement, commented in open court that “When a school board says ‘We may be stupid, but we are not liars,’ something is terribly wrong.”

Clearly, this judge was lucky not to hear one candidate for our board trumpet her qualifications during election season by stating on TV: “Basically, I’m unemployed.”

Americans are not better informed about the workings of school boards because the media ordinarily reports on large urban school districts. No question—the stories are dramatic, not infrequently touching on the wider national problems of race, poverty, drugs, gangs and illegal immigration. And the players involved are certainly newsworthy, national heavyweights like Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City schools, and Michelle Rhee, the chancellor in the District of Columbia.

But unfortunately the relationship between school districts and boards in big cities is not the same as what we find in the suburbs and rural towns. And even more unfortunate for education policy is that less than 20 percent of children in the United States are part of a large urban district. Most children are educated in suburbs and towns, where the more traditional role of boards holds sway.  

Thus, if you are unhappy with property taxes, or the product produced by the public education system, or both, than your argument is, in most instances, with school boards, who are, almost without exception, the reason that, despite the tidal wave of funding from state capitols and Washington, very little changes in public schools. How that money is spent and the return communities receive on investment is the responsibility of the boards, which are guided by superintendents who are routinely rewarded by their boards with salaries that rival and often surpass the governors of their states. And when a board does manage to vote for an outside consultant to explore an issue—say a problem with a reading program—it is the superintendent, along with other administrators, who select the consultants. It is not uncommon for these consultants to be the friends and former colleagues of the administrators who hire them and, even if consultants bring a hard-eyed objectivity to their tasks, it is rare that they report that all is not well for the simple reason that if they did word would get around and soon no one would hire them.

When I began serving on the board, I was naïve. I expected much from public education: it was intended to be the great leveler in American life—the one dependable way up the social ladder, an escape for countless children who were born toward the back of the line. My view was not purely an intellectual conviction, but a result of my own remarkable experience with public education decades ago, when teachers in high school and college, unbeknownst to me, handed me my life’s work complete with the skills required to pursue it.

As a board member I was soon disillusioned with what I saw of the far more generously funded education system of today, which herds students onto a conveyor belt to college, where some 50 percent of them are so inadequately prepared that they fail to earn a degree in six years, and so leave deeply disappointed and often deeply in debt—money they will have to repay from the meager paychecks earned at the same type of minimum-wage jobs that they held during high school.

In re-reading my entries in Boardside—the earliest ones at the bottom, the most recent at the top—I detect a barely restrained outrage, a residue of my disillusionment that, even with the passing of time, still persists, like a cut that stubbornly refuses to heal.

When I began my term on the board I had one overarching philosophical goal: Not to live up to Mark Twain’s observation that “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

I’m not sure how successful I was at avoiding Twain’s characterization, but here, in Boardside, I have sketched a brief record of my efforts.

December 31, 2009

So far I have not been able to learn if Governor Paterson knows about the money stockpiling by school districts. I'll be out of town next week for business and pleasure, and I'll return to the question in 2010.

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Year.

December 27, 2009

Ya gotta love this guy. With polls showing that he is about as popular among New Yorkers as the flu, Governor Paterson seems to have concluded that he has nothing left to lose by addressing the school taxes that have been chasing people out of the state for years and suffocating those who remain.

Reacting to the greed, theft and all-around general psychosis that passes for the state’s budget process and a balance sheet that would have landed a 19^th century British lord in debtors’ prison, Paterson decided to delay 10 percent of aid payments to schools.

His move drew a law suit from the teacher’s union, the NYS School Boards Association, and the NYS Council of School Superintendents.

Enter the president of the superintendents’ council, Shenendehowa Superintendent L. Oliver Robinson.

In a public rejoinder to the governor's plan, Dr. Robinson played the you’re-hurting-kids’-card, the stock answer of public educators whenever anyone questions the cost of their enterprise.

“What do we say to our students?” Robinson bemoaned aloud at a press conference and managed to surprise this observer by not breaking down into tears for the fate of his beloved students.

Now, I have never met Dr. Robinson, and admittedly my experience with superintendents has been with men of—at best—modest gifts. But you do have to wonder if Dr. Robinson’s sense of entitlement got the better of him or perhaps he was just counting on the governor being cowed by the public-education lobby.

However, during a radio interview with WBEN-930 AM in Buffalo, Paterson nailed Robinson with a right to the jaw, saying that Robinson’s school district “has $3.8 million—$3.8 million—in reserves. And the cut, the delayed payments that we are imposing on them amounts to $180,000. . . So I don’t know what [he is] complaining about.”

The story was wonderfully reported by Tim O’Brien of the Albany Times Union. According to O’Brien, after the Paterson interview, “Robinson did not return a request for comment.”

Maybe one of Dr. Robinson’s colleagues pointed out that he sounded foolish—or dare I say it, greedy—whining about money when he had close to $4 million of the taxpayers’ hard-earned cash sitting in his checkbook. Or maybe Robinson couldn’t be bothered trifling with the governor. After all, Paterson only earns $179,000 a year. Robinson’s salary is just south of $190,000.

And yet, like most stories about public education, the real issue remains hidden. School districts across the state continue to hoard money.  By law, districts are permitted to save 4 percent of their budgets for emergencies, but the NYS comptroller has determined that districts routinely ignore this law, socking away taxpayer cash while continuing to increase taxes.

When questioned about this practice superintendents and school boards frequently respond that they are being prudent. My experience on a board led me to a different conclusion.

On average, superintendents serve for five years—long enough to lift their pensions about as high as they will go. During their tenure superintendents want no trouble passing budgets, so they use the hoarded money to tweak the tax rate, often trumpeting their skill at controlling costs while in reality using tax money to keep the rate artificially stable. School board members are in a position to shut down this behavior, but board members—at least those who consider their reelection more important than their duty to protect their communities—play along with this illegal sleight of hand.

There are 700 school districts in New York. If each one is hanging onto to an average of just half a million dollars, then the governor could have withheld $350 million in aid. Then, when educators complained, all he had to say was: “Stop breaking the law.”

Why didn’t Governor Paterson raise the great hoarding? I have no idea, but I’ve never been surprised by what people don’t understand about the reality of school districts. So, this week I’m going to try and find out. My first call will be to the budget office. Then I’ll start calling the governor. It should be interesting.

Stay tuned.

April 8, 2009

At the board meeting last night the something-for-nothing psychology trumped rational, long-term financial planning. On most of the budget there was a generally sane discussion. Then all-day kindergarten came up, and I thought of these two guys below trying to decide who was on first.

You should try and catch the replay of the meeting on Channel 16. I can't judge for certain the long-term educational benefits of all-day kindergarten--in fact, according to the district experts, no one can--but the justification used to pass it was really quite funny, a bit of circuitous reasoning that was worthy of Abbott and Costello. I'm going to watch the tape and try to recreate the argument. Then you can decide

For now, though, I do have one word of caution: in two years, when the taxman knocks on your door, don't answer it.

April 6, 2009

Ah, Monday mornings. A good time to reflect, a cure for the start-of-the-week blues. Here's something to contemplate:

Tomorrow evening the board will weigh in on the budget. If the past is any indication, there will be an impressive amount of hemming and hawing--especially regarding the controversy over all-day kindergarten, and the more nervous board members will probably try to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing before addressing the topic.

A number of people have asked me which way I think the board will go. I'm starting to feel like Nick the Greek, and maybe one alternate funding source the board could explore is a community-wide pool on how it is going to vote.

Right now, I'd say it's 50-50, but it would be risky to put such an expensive program in place when so many members of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee were against it, and many pledged to work against the budget if it were included.

One question I've been asked, which I'm unable to answer definitively, is why the superintendent, John McGuire, would tell the CBAC that the government warned school districts that the infusion of cash this year should not be used to start new programs and then proceed to do exactly that.

I suspect one reason Mr. McGuire proposed it was political. You get a bunch of parents, hard-pressed by the economy, who are faced with big child-care expenses, to form a groundswell of support, and presto!--you have a new, rabid constituency that will help pass a budget.

However, with so many young mothers in the workforce who are making a substantial  contribution to the family income, Mr. McGuire underestimated how protective these women would become regarding the financial health of their families. In the past, this had been the primary focus of husbands, but times have changed.

Yes, we have a fair number of women in our community who do not work outside the home, but my guess is that this number is dwindling. These women are often the strongest supporters of new programs and the least likely to object to new spending. In my view, the biggest spender on the board is a stay-at-home mom, and I'm guessing that this is not unusual. It would be an interesting study for a public-policy institute. Perhaps one has been done already. I'll look around.

Well, work calls. Enjoy your Monday morning.

April 3, 2009

So spring returns to Guilderland with a warm breeze and the usual school-budget silliness—board members lamenting that since three-quarters of the budget goes for salaries and benefits they have no control over the size of the budget.

With increasing despair, and not a little alarm for our shrinking bank balances and skyrocketing taxes, the community is spoon-fed this same worn-out lie every year. The truth is that the board approves the hiring of all employees and the terms of their contracts, so the board is wholly (and legally) responsible for every single dollar in the budget.

Here are the facts: The 2009-10 enrollment in the Guilderland Central School District is estimated at 5,252 students. The proposed $85 million budget, plus the $27 million upgrade to the schools that will take place, means that the GCSD proposes to spend $21,325 per student–fully $3,700 more than the current annual in-state cost to attend a four-year SUNY school with tuition, room-and-board, books and supplies, student fees, and personal expenses. 

Given this expense one can understand the anger in the Letter to the Editor written by Barry L. Uznitsky regarding the $5,000+ raise for Superintendent John McGuire that bumped up his salary to $170,150. After all, Mr. McGuire only bought a place in Guilderland after he was hired, and he just pays about $2,300 in taxes—quite a nice deal considering that Mr. McGuire can expect such healthy raises every year–regardless of how troubled the economy becomes. 

Why Mr. McGuire did not choose to forego his raise as a sign of leadership and to demonstrate his appreciation for the hardships faced by so many families—including a long-time member of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee who spoke of losing his home—is a question in search of an answer, but a number of superintendents did just that.

With his raise in his pocket and such a light school-tax burden on his shoulders it is easy to understand why Mr. McGuire thinks it is no small matter for the community to start up full-day kindergarten. True, for two years it will be paid for by stimulus money: after that, the bill to the community will begin at $750,000 a year–1.5 percent on the overall tax rate–and go straight up from there.

As for full-day kindergarten lets talk about the facts: Regardless of where you stand on the issue, there are no long-term verifiable benefits of attending kindergarten for a whole day. Researchers admit they can’t even accurately measure it. Still, this does not mean we should not have the program. Two-thirds of women with children under the age of five work outside the home, and yet our society is still organized as if June Cleaver is in the kitchen waiting for Wally and the Beaver to return from school for milk and cookies. And it probably does no harm to have young children attending school for the whole day.

The problem is that most of our community does not use the schools, and will full-day kindergarten be seen by these people as taking advantage of their generosity?

I don’t know, but I find myself wondering if it is worth eviscerating our middle school. Studies show that teaching in middle school has an enormous long-term impact on the performance of students, and I’m not sure it is wise to trade full-day kindergarten for all the staff we are losing at Farnsworth and for the kindergarten bill the community will be presented in two years when the federal money is gone.

At this point, the board appears split on full-day kindergarten, and Board President Richard Weisz has publicly stated that he would only vote for it if it were mandated by law. But with the state restoring our aid the cost of all-day kindergarten is momentarily hidden and some people may be inclined to feel as though they are getting something for nothing—always an effective, if dangerously flawed, argument to make at budget time. 

One interesting development at the last board meeting was that the question of accountability was raised. My late friend, Hy Dubowsky, used to raise this issue with some frequency, and he rarely found a sympathetic ear. Now, it seems, times have changed.

Superintendent McGuire, in support of his slashing 22 teaching assistants, stated that the layoffs were justified because other districts in our academic league–known by the State Education Department as Similar Schools–had fewer TAs and we don’t outperform them.

It is fascinating that Mr. McGuire would speak of Similar Schools–that is, the 50 big suburban districts around the state that statistically are Guilderland’s true academic competitors. Usually, district administrators prefer to trumpet Guilderland’s standardized test scores compared statewide, which in my view is the most shameless use of helpless children since slavery. New York State has millions of children living below the poverty line–more than 1 in 5–and not only are these children impoverished they often live in places with quality-of-life challenges that rival the Third World.

But now we are hearing about Similar Schools. Of course, if our administration and school board were genuinely concerned about our students’ competitiveness we would have been given the state’s detailed accounting of where we stand in the Similar Schools bracket. I assure you the numbers, with the exception of a few bright spots, are sobering, which, I suspect, is why our Similar School rankings are never shown in detail to the community. Furthermore, to this end, the district and board could also explore how many of the over 90 percent of our students who go on to college actually earn degrees. If the national statistics are any indication, I believe those numbers would also be sobering.

My guess is that the reason Mr. McGuire raised Similar Schools was to justify firing so many hard-working people, and yet the most distressing thing I’ve seen as I follow the developments in our schools is that the board–and therefore the community–seems no longer to be in control of the policies and spending in the district.

It was disconcerting to hear a story about one school administrator who told a community member that he/she shouldn’t be concerned about the opinions of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee because no one listens to the CBAC anyway. Worse are the stories of John McGuire’s top-down style that makes a mockery of shared decision-making, a treasured value of our district.

In the end, the schools are supposed to belong to the community, and theoretically at least, it is the job of board members to make certain that the schools reflect the community’s values.

The above also appears as a Letter to the Editor in the April 2, 2009, Altamont Enterprise.

Update: April 2, 2009

Wonderful news. The Times-Union has started an education blog by Scott Waldman. Definitely an idea whose time has come. Click here to read:

April 2, 2009

Some interesting stories about superintendents, and how they deal with the subject of their raises at this difficult financial hour.

Superintendent of Schools Brian G. Osborne signed a four-year contract with the South Orange-Maplewood School District on Monday that keeps him in South Orange-Maplewood until 2013. In a tough economy, Osborne said he plans to donate his $6,298 raise to the South Orange-Maplewood Education Foundation.

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
http://www.localsource.com/articles/2009/03/31/maplewood/news/local_news/doc49c1908aa063c319732072.txt

MAPLEWOOD, NJ - Superintendent of Schools Brian G. Osborne signed a four-year contract Monday that keeps him in South Orange-Maplewood until 2013.

Osborne will get a 3.25 percent raise that will bump his salary to $200,086.

But Osborne, speaking at the school board meeting Monday, announced he would donate his $6,298 raise to the South Orange-Maplewood Education Foundation.

“Certainly, the decision is reflective of the hard times,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “We’re asking a lot of everyone, especially during hard economic times.”

With the rough economy, some school administrators are freezing their pay to help cash-strapped districts.

The superintendent in Winona, Minn., for example, announced he would take a pay freeze for the next two years.

Osborne said he chose SOMEF because he loves the work the foundation does in providing grants to teachers and free tutoring to students.

Deborah Prinz, executive director of the foundation, learned of Osborne’s donation Monday.

“It was quite a surprise,” she said Tuesday.

She thanked Osborne in person Tuesday.

Board President Mark Gleason said officials feel Osborne “is the right guy” for the district.

With Osborne, he said the district has a smart, good manager who is an excellent communicator. He added that Osborne is passionate about eliminating the racial achievement gap while maintaining high levels of performance.

Part of Osborne’s salary goes towards tuition reimbursment for his doctorate at Harvard University.

Osborne, appointed in April 2007, came to South Orange-Maplewood from the New York City public school system. He was hired to replace then-Superintendent of Schools Peter P. Horoschak. At 39, he leads a school district of about 6,000 students and a budget projected for the next school year of $112.3 million.

Here's a local story from the Times-Union

Troy school superintendent to skip raise

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

TROY The city school district's superintendent is forgoing his upcoming raise to show his concerns about the impact of the tightening economy on local residents.

Superintendent Fadhilika Atiba-Weza has asked the board of education not to give him a scheduled $6,520 raise for the upcoming 2009-2010 school year.

"At this time while many people may face the prospect of losing their jobs, and in light of these current economic times, the thought of taking a pay increase doesn't sit well with me,'' Atiba-Weza said.

The school board is expected to approve a resolution when it meets Wednesday that will keep the superintendent's salary at $186,300. His salary was supposed to increase to $192,820 under the terms of his contract.

The move comes as the district grapples with developing its 2009-10 budget.

And then there is our superintendent in Guilderland.

G'land superintendent to see 3.75 percent raise

Posted on: 02/26/09
Written by: Dan Sabbatino,
email: sabbatinod@spotlightnews.com

Guilderland Central School District Superintendent John McGuire received a contract extension that included a 3.75 percent raise upping his salary to $170,150.

McGuire received the raise at a Tuesday, Feb. 24, meeting, and the school board voted unanimously to give McGuire the contract extension.

April 1, 2009

Last night was the opportunity for comments from the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, and I was absolutely stunned about the tidal wave of common sense that came from the overwhelming percentage of the CBAC members.

In general, they spoke of the budget as being short-sighted. First, because it removed teachers from the classroom while pushing all-day kindergarten, a program that is not even supported by many of our current kindergarten teachers. And second, because the spending being pushed by Superintendent John McGuire will not be sustainable over the long haul. 

This is a not uncommon complaint from communities buried in school taxes. One reason it happens is that superintendents are often not members of the communities they so ardently tax. They are hired from the outside, purchase a temporary residence, work for perhaps five years, until they max out their retirement benefits, and then depart, never giving their long-term impact on the people they leave behind a second thought. 

It is the school board’s job to make sure this doesn’t happen. We will have to wait to see how the Guilderland board does.

The comments tonight were notable in two specific areas. The CBAC was nearly unanimous in its criticism of the large professional development budget. CBAC members managed to do this even though I suspect that many of them don’t even know that professional development is available for less money if it is acquired outside the district.

Most impressive of all, to me, was the continuing demand from the CBAC for data that would support outcomes. In other words, what are we getting for the money we’re spending. It was raised across the spectrum, but one member, bless his heart, even asked how many of our students who go on to college actually earn degrees.

All in all, the CBAC reiterated what we all know: these are uncertain financial times. One CBAC member spoke of how the value of her home had dropped so precipitously that she can’t afford to sell it, and another CBAC member spoke of losing his home to the bank.

They did wonderful work, these CBAC members, and not only do they deserve the thanks of the community, but the serious attention of the Guilderland board of education.

March 31, 2009

Someone called me with an interesting thought. If all-day kindergarten is so crucial, why not have the families who use it pay for the difference between the new program and the old program? I'm not sure if that's possible, though I am certain the board would never consider it. What is so interesting about the idea is that it would be a good way to judge just how important parents think the all-day program would be. We might find that what is really most important to these folks is that someone else--that is, every property owner in our community-- should pay for it.

Of course, more and more this is what politics has become in our country: How can I get what I want without coughing up my own money.

Hey. Here's a plan. Let's call it, "The all-day kindergarten bail-out."

March 30, 2009

When you live in the north of the Northeast spring should be cause for cheer. Yet if you happen to reside in New York State, home of the highest school taxes in the land, then you know you will soon be in for less than happy news. Not only does the legislature get ready for its latest round of pick-the-pocket, your local school board gets ready to relent to the latest spending plans of school administrators. I'll have more on this later in week, but for now enjoy the warm weather if it ever gets here and your money because you won't have it for long.

Stay tuned. This is going to be downright funny.

December 22, 2008

Guilderland Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders told The Altamont Enterprise that the district's state aid will decrease by an estimated total of $3.15 million.

Whether this proves to be true depends on a number a factors--the budget debate between the Governor and legislators, for one--but I heard some more disturbing news that I've been trying to confirm.

School districts are reimbursed for expenditures tied to a variety of programs, not all of them used by every district. If the district doesn't spend the money on a particular program, then the district doesn't receive the aid. 

Whether this sort of aid will be reduced is an open question, and so exactly how much money Guilderland will not receive next year is unclear and may well rise above the $3.1-million prediction.

However, one thing is for certain. The times are too serious, and the stakes too high, for superintendents and school boards to fall back on the same casually dishonest double-speak that is often employed to dodge responsibility.

Homeowners should remember: Your school boards are ultimately responsible for your school taxes. Whining about the economic climate and pointing fingers at downtown Albany is about as helpful as complaining about the homework-eating dog.

The reality is the reality. The answer is leadership.

December 17, 2008

Desperate men do desperate things, and the Times Union makes it clear that Governor David Paterson is a desperate man. NYS will soon occupy the unique and ignoble position of taxing college tuition. Here's how it goes. This year SUNY tuition will be increased by $300 and next year by $600. Instead of SUNY using the money, the state will take 90 percent of this year's increase and 80 percent of next year's increase.

The plan is a very roundabout way of raising taxes, but don't worry: Governor Paterson is going to make it easier for students to get loans, so they can borrow the tax increase at a reasonable rate of interest and pay it back when they graduate and get jobs, presumably in another state, because what young person in his or her right mind would want to start life in a place with such a lethal tax burden.

The whole misguided idea recalls a George Harrison tune:

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet

Taxman!

'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman. . . .

It might be an amusing distraction from our fiscal troubles to collect signatures to petition the legislature to change the state song from "I Love New York" to "Taxman."

That way anyone crazy enough to move here would know what they can expect from their state government, which might blunt future protests.

I suspect that Governor Paterson's plan reflects his level of financial panic. Not that the governor, or any person who can do simple math, shouldn't be panicked. When you spend more than you take in over many, many years and promise pensions and health-care services that are beyond your means to provide, you are bound to go broke, and NYS is on its merry way to the poorhouse.

STAR exemptions are up for discussion along with salary reductions and job losses for the 190,000 members of the state labor force. The Times Union reported that one administration official opined that the "aggressive set of cuts" will lead to "blood on the streets."

Deep faith in the common good could help us out of these problems, but it has been so long since Americans have believed in this animating principle of democracy that I fear the "blood on streets" analogy is accurate.

Instead of an honest appraisal of needs, advocacy groups will be explaining why their needs are so much more important than any other needs, and the advocacy groups with the most money to influence legislators will get the lion's share of the tax dollars. (Note to Gov. Rod "Elvis" Blagojevich: Future employment may include ethics instruction and/or hair-styling strategies for certain members, on both sides of the aisle, of the NYS Legislature.)

Fortunately, at the local level, New Yorkers have a say in the amount of school taxes they pay and how those funds are apportioned. Governor Paterson has suggested $700 million in school-aid reduction, and my estimate is that our school district will lose anywhere from $2.5 to $3 million in state money.

This means school taxes in our community will jump 4 or 5 percent before the actual increases in school spending, and I've been wondering how all this will play out in Guilderland, particularly since so many of our residents are employed by NYS and must be concerned about the impact the Jenny-Craig  budget will have on their jobs.

Stay tuned. The curse of living in interesting times is upon us.

December 16, 2008

Here is a lovely homemade piggy bank for your consideration. It must be of the postmodern variety, since it is, you will note, quite empty.

Which puts me in mind of an old folk song, with updated lyrics:

Where has all the money gone?

Long time passing . . .

Where has all the money gone?

Long time ago. . .

Where has all the money gone?

Gone to bailouts, Wall Street thieves, political bandits, the big spenders of public coin--who feel entitled to gobble up our federal taxes, state taxes, town taxes and school taxes--everyone . . .

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Up until yesterday, the answer to that question--for New Yorkers--was never. However, yesterday, Governor Paterson's released his budget proposals, and according to the New York Times, meeting a $15 billion shortfall in the NYS budget will not be much fun.

Schools will receive less aid, and boards will have to be especially diligent to ensure that superintendents don't decimate the instructional side while trying to hold onto the supervisory and bureaucratic side of the operation.

This is not a criticism aimed at any superintendent in particular, but a result of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

Jerry Pournelle has been an essayist, journalist, science fiction writer and all-around intellectual gadfly for some forty years, and the eponymous law he popularized states that in any bureaucracy there will be two types of individuals: those who are dedicated to the mission of the organization and those who are dedicated to the organization itself--the bureaucracy. The Iron Law holds that the people dedicated to the bureaucracy will always control the direction of the organization and write the rules and ultimately reduce the influence of those dedicated to the mission--in this case, teaching children.

The sole hope to roll back this development is the school board. In fact, boards in general are supposed to serve this function, but the widespread incompetence and corruption in the corporate, financial and public sectors, which got us into this mess in the first place, is a testament to how well boards have been doing at exercising stringent oversight of their executives and their organizations.

So: Where does that leave us? I'm not sure right now, but this I know for certain: Keep your eyes on the school board. Ultimately, board members will be responsible for our community's tax burden and the future quality of the education offered to our children.

December 13, 2008

Mystery solved, at least according to Superintendent McGuire and some on the Guilderland School Board. It's Governor Paterson's fault.

Here's how Mr. McGuire was quoted in The Altamont Enterprise: “The government takes a state-level problem and creates crises in each local district.”

If local districts were interested in being ruled from downtown Albany, then such a statement would make sense. But districts relish local control and only complain when it comes time to pay for it.

If NYS would winnow the approximately 700 districts across the state down to 100 or less, the amount of money saved would be staggering--well into the billions according to some estimates. Part of that savings would be the hefty salaries of superintendents, since each district must have one.

Taxpayers rarely hear superintendents complain about that aspect of educational overheard. In fact, superintendents across the state often talk about their weighty responsibilities, the number of people they manage and how hard they work, all of this to justify their salaries, which, by the way, often match or exceed the salary earned by the U.S. Secretary of State, who has an issue or two to confront and manages over 50,000 employees worldwide.

But let's get back to Governor Paterson. What I suspect he is doing is his variation of "Starve the beast." Behind this approach is the presumption that school districts are not as lean as they should be and a reduction will only come if you cut funding and force localities to make choices.

This, I believe, is as it should be. If a community would like its school taxes to jump by double digits, that is the community's choice. No fair blaming anyone, particularly if you don't vote in May.

As a few of you mentioned to me after the last board meeting--yes, Guilderland School Board President Richard Weisz did bring up class size. And yes, he was presumably referring to elementary-school class size. But no, I do not think Mr. Weisz was threatening the community by attacking one of its most cherished values as it applies to our youngest students and their parents.

This is an ugly way to try and pass a budget--threatening to cancel a treasured program if the community doesn't accept the rest of the budget--and I certainly hope this board would never try such a thing.

Fortunately, as I'm confident Mr. Weisz knows, there are many aspects of the budget to look at before class size--millions of dollars spent that do not impact directly on teaching students, and millions of dollars that taxpayers have coughed up over the years in excess of the actual tax bill.

As time goes on I'll have more specific suggestions--some of them, I suspect, you will not hear from the superintendent or the board. However, in the meantime, if you're worried about the economy or your 401K or your healthcare or that next year your school taxes will resemble an auto-bailout plan, here's something to make you smile.

Have a nice weekend. And stay tuned.

December 9, 2008

Here we have G.M. CEO Rick (don't-look-at-me-it's-not-my-fault) Wagoner. I imagine he's had better days especially since it seems that if Congress decides to bail out his company Rick is going to lose his corporate jet.

My all-time favorite quote from this guy was when he tried to reassure Congress that they wouldn't be throwing away more money by giving G.M. $18 billion in federal loans.

Here's what he said: “Our plan is far reaching and extensive. It is a different way of thinking and our team is committed to achieving it.”

Of course, it might have been logical to ask Rick, who earned over $14 million in 2007, what he was thinking as his company was going broke lo these many years. No one did. Perhaps they were impressed he had a plan, which seemed to have suddenly taken shape when he was informed that no money would be forthcoming unless he had one.

However, what I found most interesting about the quote was that it included all these wonderful generic adjectives and said nothing. I suspect Wagoner's comment would have passed me by had I not spent so much time at school-board meetings, where one hears a fair amount of generic nonsense. Lately, though, the silliness has become quite specific.

Superintendent John W. McGuire has assured us that faced with cuts in aid from NYS (which will most likely be in the millions) the district has "implemented a partial freeze on. . . paper consumption, copying and mailings; equipment; conferences; field trips; overtime; and the utilization of substitutes."

I'm not sure that will close the gap unless the district has gone hog wild with what generally are its most minimal costs.

Ah, but there's more. The district, according to Superintendent McGuire, has realized almost $2.3 million in--get this--"cost-avoidance savings."

Now for those of you mystified by this term, let me explain. A husband walks into the house and announces he just saved $1,200. His wife asks how he managed such a miracle. To which the husband replies: "I didn't buy the set of graphite irons I just saw."

Cost-avoidance savings, in others words, is not spending money on something you shouldn't be spending money on.

I can understand the pressure Mr. McGuire must feel to assure the community that its property taxes, already among most burdensome in the United States, aren't going to get worse.

So here's a suggestion. Just say: “Our plan is far reaching and extensive. It is a different way of thinking and our team is committed to achieving it.”

Who knows? If it works for Rick Wagoner, it might work for you.

July 30, 2008

We're off to the land of endless blue skies and silver water, but before we go I wanted to mention the disturbing revelations of the editorial Melissa Hale-Spencer wrote in The Enterprise last week. According to the editorial, a number of ugly references to women in the redacted report were made by the individual who complained of sexual harassment. I suspect Ms. Hale-Spencer was speaking for many in the community when she wrote that she felt "duped by the part of the report we now know applied to the complainant."

My guess is that when the full report becomes public as Mr. Nelligan pursues a legal remedy to his situation the word "duped" will be insufficient to describe the reaction by the straight-shooters among us. Most likely "outrage" will be the word of choice, especially when we are made privy to the teachers' rebuttals to the charges of sexual harassment and the full interviews Dr. Michelle Paludi conducted during a cultural climate inquiry that is beginning to look like an undertaking which might have appealed to a certain group of judges in Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1692. One reason the full text of her interviews should be interesting is that they will give us some insight into how she chose to write her report. Was it simply an honorable summary or did the report reflect any biases on her part?

Time will tell.

So we're off on our sojourn. I'll have my laptop with me and if the mood strikes and I have something to say I'll keep posting.

Stay tuned. And enjoy your summer.

July 21, 2008

When the Guilderland School Board refused to intervene on behalf of the transferred teachers despite the outcry of community members--an outcry that continues in the local press, on the Internet and radio talk shows--the era of the 1960s was invoked by two board members. Essentially one board member referred to that era of protest as a giant civics lesson, as a way of underscoring how it was possible to protest and mind your manners. I imagine one could approach that complex wedge of Americana as though it were lived in accordance with the Beatles recommendation:

Wouldn't that be nice? Absolutely. The only problem is it wouldn't be true. Far more accurate is to quote the late journalist, David Halberstam, who described the 1960s as the era of "us against us."

Still, a lesson may well be drawn from that time period, a lesson that might help illuminate the current hour in Guilderland.

The decade got off to a roaring start on a cold January morning when JFK was inaugurated.

The energy and optimism released by the Inaugural Address was greeted by the Soviets in a somewhat less enthusiastic manner. They built the Berlin Wall and shipped missiles to Cuba. I suppose this is a piquant reminder to those in authority to remember that your words reach not only those who see things your way, but those who do not. Thus, it seems best to choose your words carefully.

Below, Dr. Martin Luther King, on August 28, 1963, the day he delivered what is arguably the most famous address in twentieth century American history. And, who, we ask ourselves, could possibly disagree with his dream?

We learned the tragic answer to that question on a Sunday morning less than three weeks later when a splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan blew up the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four little girls. I recall seeing this on the news when I was young and wondering how grown-ups could do this to children.

Forty-five years later, I don’t have a good answer beyond a few incomplete thoughts: Change can be terrifying, probably because it involves so much loss, and terror all too often sours into anger, and angry people look to cast blame. Once they find a target the focus of their energies becomes to destroy it—no matter what the consequences. Perhaps this explains the expression, "Blind hatred." It is almost as if they believe that if they could just vanquish a perceived enemy then all would be right with the world. This doesn’t work—ever.

And the hatred goes on. . . .

The Civil Rights movement provided more than legal rights long denied to African-Americans. In fact, liberation movements in the United States often combined citizens with multiple causes. For instance, in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention, the former slave, Sojourner Truth said:  "Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon."

The modern Civil Rights movement gave all Americans a new language of protest, and since the protests were broadcast on television the sit-ins and marches were easy to emulate. In October of 1967, after over two years of open warfare in Vietnam with little progress, 70,000 people marched on the Pentagon to express their displeasure with the war.

Ignoring the mounting opposition to the fighting in Southeast Asia, President Johnson sent in more American troops, and in the spring of 1968 a protest at Columbia University in New York City turned violent.

The Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement emboldened other groups of Americans who felt deprived of their rights. In 1968 and 1969 women protested at the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

These women are on the boardwalk with posters of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth. The reason the pageant was selected as a protest site was to make the point that women offered more to society than a quick walk across a stage in a bathing suit. However, the women's movement soon marched past cultural issues to legal ones. Though it sounds remarkable today, in those years, in a number of states, women who were gainfully employed were not permitted to apply for a credit card without a co-signer.

For decades, police in American cities routinely raided gay bars and harassed or arrested the clientele. In June of 1969, police officers entered the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, and this time some patrons resisted. What followed became known as the Stonewall Riots, and it stands today as the start of the gay liberation movement.

Still, there was always the war, and even after Richard Nixon replaced Lyndon Johnson in the White House, the fighting and dying went on. Protests increased, and yet the war did not end. On April 30, 1970, when President Nixon announced that the United States had invaded Cambodia, demonstrations broke out across the country. The National Guard and police were called to college campuses. At Kent State in Ohio, four students were shot and killed, two of them while they were walking to class.

In response to the shooting, 441 colleges and universities were affected, many of them locking their doors until the fall semester. Less than a week after Kent State, 100,000 people poured into Washington, D.C., to protest the killings and demonstrate against the war. Thirty-seven college presidents came to the capital to speak with President Nixon, but he refused to hear them out. More violence erupted, and the 82nd Airborne was summoned. One observer, looking at the troops, recalled thinking that this was no longer the preeminent democracy in the world, but a nation in the throes of civil war. President Nixon did have some advice for the student demonstrators: "Have a good time in Washington," he said. "And don't go away bitter."

In no way am I suggesting that the current controversy in our community has reached the level of a nation turning violently against a war that no longer made sense, while its elected officials ignored their concerns and marshaled all of their forces to suppress that protest.

I am suggesting that a school board is designed to reflect the will of the community. And that no hiding behind secret documents or alleging ignorance on the part of the electorate or refusing to give those who disagree with you a fair public hearing will accomplish anything but create angrier protests and drain away the dwindling faith people have in orderly process. 

If there is any lesson in that era it is that the exercise of arbitrary power by elected officials who refuse to listen eventually destroys their own moral authority, and by doing so, robs them of the consent of those they govern and painfully divides the community they serve, inflicting wounds that can take far too long to heal.

July 17, 2008

If you ever doubted that Guilderland School Board President Richard Weisz is passionate in his devotion to process, you should have been at the special meeting on the muggy gray morning of July 14. In grave lawyerly tones, Mr. Weisz treated his listeners to eighteen-minutes worth of his reverence for “policies, rules and procedures,” and cautioned community members who did not share his respect for these safeguards that they were inviting “rule by mob.”

Far be it from me to dare question Mr. Weisz, but I would suggest that his devotion is of recent vintage.

I recall another board meeting—this one in March—when it had become clear that the district, after repeated denials, had handed out the private addresses of our students to former local union leader, Chris Claus, an act the NYS Committee on Open Government deemed, “contrary to law.”

Naturally, community members were troubled by the district’s behavior, and at that March meeting, Mr. Weisz shut down the controversy by holding a vote in complete violation of board policy—despite the strenuous objections of Barbara Fratterigo and me. Assisting Mr. Weisz in that vote were Catherine Barber, John Dornbush, Colleen O’Connell, and Gloria Towle-Hilt. Apparently, the mob rule Mr. Weisz opposes is when the mob is not on his side.

One reason for the controversy was that according to Mr. Claus the addresses were used to help union-supported candidates in elections; one of them was Mr. Weisz; the other two were Ms. O’Connell and Ms. Towle-Hilt. In addition, Mr. Claus later supported Mrs. Barber, Mr. Dornbush and Judy Slack. Over three election cycles the support doled out by Mr. Claus included a combination of public endorsement to our teachers; mailings; phone calls; and in at least one instance, a cash contribution.

Mr. Claus is the union leader that Matt Nelligan, Anne-Marie McManus and other members of the social studies department criticized publicly. At the July 14 meeting, six out of the seven board members who voted against interceding on behalf of the teachers owe their seats, in varying degrees, to Mr. Claus. Not for a moment am I suggesting that this could have influenced their vote.

Besides, who is the community to question the board? You have no right. You are a mob, a taxpaying mob, perhaps, but a mob nonetheless. Don’t you understand? Board members are not cut from the same base, self-interested cloth as you or I. They possess no ego. Every decision they make is made without passion or prejudice. You are lucky to have them. If you wish to elect replacements, heed the warning that Mr. Weisz so generously offered at the meeting: Be careful what you wish for. You could wind up with someone who actually listens to you.

Calm down, be quiet. I know you’re upset, but as Mr. Weisz stated you wouldn’t be so riled up if only you knew what the board knew. If you only had its knowledge and vision you would never be dim-witted enough to suggest that office gossip is still office gossip even if you call it a “culture climate inquiry” and hire a Ph. D. for a gossip columnist. After all, who wouldn’t support a job transfer based on the yackety-yak co-workers trade in the restroom?

“These reports are no better than blogging,” you say? Please. Don’t be ridiculous. The district paid Dr. Michele Paludi somewhere between five and ten thousand of your tax dollars for her efforts. Most bloggers work for free.

What? Say it ain’t so. You’re still complaining? You better stop or Mr. Weisz will make good on his threats to conduct more inquiries and run for re-election in May. Listen to me: none of this is the board’s fault. Can’t you comprehend who is to blame here? The professional press, that’s who, that nosy drooling mob with their notebooks, tape recorders, cameras and microphones. Where do they come off with their highfalutin mumbo jumbo about the public’s right to know? The board talks, they listen, and that’s the news—end of story. As for their opinions—we should double their taxes just for having them. Where do they get their nerve? How would you like the Times Union editorial board to call you a coward simply because you ran away from the people who elected you with the bogus explanation that your own policy prevented you from hearing them out?

Oh, you poor, lost tax-strapped souls. I ache for you and pity you. In your feverish desire to have these remarkable teachers returned to their beloved classrooms and students you have no idea what disaster you are bringing upon our district. You’re burning down villages, destroying our schools, hurting our children, criticizing your school board and probably, when no one is looking, knocking down old ladies instead of helping them across the street. You are blinded by your ignorance. If only you could go to an executive session where nobody has an ax to grind; everyone tells the truth; and all mysteries are made plain.

Don’t you see? There are people in this world who would rather watch their house burn down then admit they made a mistake and go back inside and turn off the stove?

And any of you reckless enough to imply that these very people could be members of a school board should be cast into the hottest pit of the netherworld, where, for all eternity, you will be sentenced to hear Board President Richard Weisz proclaim his reverence for “policies, rules and procedures.”

The above also appears as a Letter to the Editor in the Altamont Enterprise.

July 16, 2008

I came up with about 1,000 words on my reaction to the July 14 meeting of the Guilderland School Board. The truth is that if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. I sent what I wrote to the Enterprise and I agreed with the editor that I wouldn't put it up here until Thursday when the paper comes out. So I will wait till then to post. I hope you find it worth the wait.

Meantime, I'd just like to make a few comments. Let's begin with the above painting, Impression Sunrise: It was done in 1872 by the artist, Claude Monet. A critic who did not appreciate the work dubbed this style, Impressionism. It soon became a widespread, influential movement, partially because of the rise of photography and the belief that a photograph could more accurately capture reality.

Impressionism, then, would turn to capturing the subjective experience of the world. It is a magnificent style of art. It is far less attractive when applied to the public arena.

To listen to board members talk about their impressions of other people's impressions was as disheartening an experience I have had in some time. Listening to them I understood why so many disagreements wind up in court, where standards of evidence preclude gossip and dismiss self-appointed judges and misinformed experts as blabbering clowns. I would hate to see this whole mess wind up in front of a judge, though I can imagine that Mr. Nelligan and other members of the social-studies department would like a peek at the un-redacted report if for no other reason than to clear all their names.

Worst of all have been the phone calls, e-mails and the people stopping me in the supermarket to tell me how angry they are that their high-school age children will be deprived of these teachers.

Here is something I hope the board remembers: taxpayers count.

July 14, 2008

I know many of you have been checking in to see if I have something to say about the board decision at today's meeting. Unfortunately, I have a day job writing a book, but I will have something to say in the not too distant future.

Thanks for checking. And stay tuned. From what I can tell by the e-mail and phone calls I'm receiving, none of this is over--not by a long shot.

July 12, 2008

See you bright and early Monday morning. I'm looking forward to hearing what the board has to say. So far, Superintendent McGuire has been alone in this decision. After the 8 am meeting I expect he will have a good deal of company.

Enjoy the weekend.

July 11, 2008

Three days ago the Times Union reported that John McGuire has been at the center of the community's ire before, when he was the superintendent of the Greenwich Central School District. At that time, McGuire "stripped the varsity football coaching position from high school history teacher Jason Slater," a move that created "an uproar" in the community.

Today I learned from a Greenwich resident that this spring the school community had an answer to Mr. McGuire's move: the high school yearbook, the Cauldron, was dedicated to Mr. Slater with the following words:

Mr. Jason Slater has been teaching United States History and Government at Greenwich since 2002.  Mr. Slater is also actively involved in GCS athletics.  He coached football at modified and varsity levels from 2001-2006.  He also coaches the girls JV basketball program here at GCS.  The students who have played for him will always call him coach. But Mr. Slater is more than just a list of coaching and teaching positions. He makes students his priority especially us 08'-ers.  His door is always open to talk about school, life, and of course last nights game. Junior year, he organized our class trip to Washington D.C., to give us a first hand look at U.S. Government.  The trip was amazing, and he even put up with our complaining as we drove home for thirteen hours--in a blizzard. Taking us on field trips, as well as showing movies, bringing in food and speakers ( and that one time we came up with our Native American names) are some of the ways that Mr. Slater spices up USH&G. Anyone who has ever known Mr. Slater as a teacher or coach (and even those who haven't) knows there is no end to his kindness, generosity, and commitment to coaching and teaching,  For these reasons and many more, the Class of 2008 would like to dedicate this year's Cauldron to Mr. Jason Slater.

So let's see: Mr. Slater was a beloved history and government teacher and coach, a man of generous spirit and intellectual vigor who always put his students and players first and gave unselfishly of his time, and Superintendent McGuire would appear to believe that he was not performing up to snuff.

Somehow, it seems, this all sounds depressingly familiar.

July 10, 2008

I have been thinking about Watergate. For younger history buffs or those of us old enough to remember the scandal playing out in the news, the word itself calls to mind so much more than a break-in at the Washington, D.C., Democratic Committee headquarters. Of course, we can remember this image:

Yet the fact is that when people refer to Watergate they are often referring to a series of crimes or an ongoing abuse of power that began before Nixon was elected. The Pentagon Papers became associated with the scandal, and LBJ's misleading the nation about widening the Vietnam war. There were fund-raising irregularities, dirty tricks, cover-ups, and as I recall it seemed as though every ugly thing that had happened for years bubbled up to the surface of American life. Oh, and there was an oil crisis going on.

What brought all this up has not just been following the controversy in the media of moving teachers between the high school and middle school or reading the blogs on the subject. Quite frankly, it appears that regardless of the position people are taking, mass insanity has descended on our community. I have found it especially troubling that many of the bloggers clearly work in our schools.

Accompanying this backwash are allegations that have nothing to do with the teacher controversy; in fact, I have heard more gossip in the past week about our district than I heard in three years as a board member. Allegations of a crude remark passed in public; allegations of student records being destroyed; allegations of one staff member verbally assaulting another staff member in front of students; allegations of theft; and on and on. I don't know if these things are true; I can't believe that they all are. But it is no longer my responsibility to separate fact from fiction.

What I believe is that whatever complaint our community has about the district--from taxes to block scheduling--is exacerbated by the teacher controversy, and I believe it will grow worse over time as this gossip bleeds into public view. In that sense, it resembles the Watergate scandal, bringing with it so much unpleasantness unrelated to the original controversy.

And unless the board chooses to restore some order to the district, and the community, I fear that all of this will go on with no end in sight.

July 9, 2008

Here's a sample of the e-mail I've been receiving:

Peter: Your coverage of these events and your insight are stellar. The new Superintendent appears to be the root of this problem, although the spectacularly bad judgment of the board is what has made residents angry.  Can you explain how the Superintendent can be removed? I think after all of this plays out, that is going to be the least that district residents will be expecting. Parents and students want heads to roll. It wouldn't be bad if the entire board resigned, as well.  I understand that this would cause a massive disruption, but I doubt many residents will care at this point.

I appreciate the kind words about my coverage, but what I take away from this e-mail is a tone I've been hearing from friends and neighbors and just people who have been e-mailing or calling. It is the purest anger I've heard since moving to Guilderland, and it does not bode well for future confidence in the board or support for the school budget. By the way, for the sake of the truth, the board was blind-sided by this move. On the other hand, after Monday morning, when the board votes on whether to get involved in the superintendent's decision to play musical schools with our teachers, our entire community will know where every board member stands.

Which brings me to the most frequent question I heard today: what do I think is going to happen at the Monday meeting?

I have no idea, but I do have some theories. So today I'm going to write about a general aspect of what each board member faces: Will I be called a Micromanager? Or a Dronoid? This is a common feature of serving on a school board.

Behold the Micromanager:

By definition a micromanager is a meddler, a person who tries to extend his or her control beyond the bounds of reason, guidelines, or law. The word is a pejorative: it is always used to express criticism or disapproval.

To hurl the charge, "Micromanager!" at someone represents the high-art of name-calling. It certainly sounds better than denouncing somebody as a jerk, because it makes the accuser appear to be operating at a more mature level than a frustrated three-year-old. Yet in practice it's generally the same. 

For instance:

Mom to Child: Eat your vegetables.

Child: No!

Mom: If you don't eat your vegetables then you won't get dessert.

Child: Micromanager!

That's the basic form, but it's not so simple when it comes to school boards. My guess is that on Monday morning a number of Guilderland Board members will vote not to consider the move of the teachers, claiming that this would make them "micromanagers." This, to a shrunken mind, would appear clever. After all, if you do vote to review the superintendent's recommendation then you are a micromanager. I believe the community will see such a move for exactly what it is--a flight from responsibility, the signature behavior of a Dronoid.

As far as I know, the word "Dronoid" didn't exist until I made it up. Here's a picture and a definition.

Dronoid

 dro·noid  [dro nòyd] (plural dro·noids) noun

A term derived from a combination of the words, “Drone” and “Android.” It refers to Board of Education members who emit a boring, low-humming sound that is often confused with human speech and human thought. In popular usage Dronoid frequently appears with the modifier rubber-stamping Dronoid. In the strictest sense, this formulation is redundant, but it does capture the essence of an individual who is given to the knee-jerk agreement without thinking, researching, questioning, or dissenting. Dronoids are frequently cited as the reason behind bloated school budgets and exploding property taxes.

However, on Monday morning a Dronoidial response by five members of the Guilderland School Board will wreck havoc with our teachers, harm our students and divide our community in ways that I find too painful to imagine.

Update July 8, 2008

The Times Union put last night's meeting on the front page, and it is worth reading. The reporter, Scott Waldman, tracked down the Greenwich board member, Kim Fitzgerald, whom I'd heard on the call-in show. Ms. Fitzgerald recalled that while McGuire was superintendent in Greenwich, "he stripped the varsity football coaching position from high school history teacher Jason Slater."

"The move," according to Fitzgerald, "caused an uproar and people flooded board meetings to voice their support for Slater." Understandably, Fitzgerald explains, the decision "made people in Greenwich feel powerless because they felt their voices were not heard."

"This really divided our community, this decision," Fitzgerald said. "Nobody ever knew the reason why."

Fitzgerald, says the TU, credited her landslide election victory to backlash against McGuire's decision.

This is disturbing enough, the sense that someone who rules with such blatant disregard for the pain he causes the community he serves is better suited to running a penal colony than a school district.

Yet the most unsettling fact that Scott Waldman dragged into the light was: "Three middle school teachers were also reassigned to the high school. Patricia Hill, who retired from teaching at Farnsworth last month, said that move created extremely low morale among much of the middle school staff as well."

So now not only does Guilderland face problems in the high school, but the middle school teachers, who have not been featured at the meetings and, to some extent, have been forgotten in this controversy, are also demoralized.

It is only natural to ask: For whom do the schools exist? A few insiders--administrators and board members--who wield awesome power over our children? Or the community that nurtures and cherishes these children?

By the way: WGY is running a poll on who everyone supports: the teachers or the administrators: Click here and vote. It's on the left hand side of the home page. So far 84 percent are behind the teachers, 16 percent for the administration.

July 8, 2008

On some summer evenings you want to reach for a beer, but last, evening, when the Guilderland School Board returned from a four-hour executive session, I felt like grabbing one of these:

And why, you may ask, was I feeling unwell? A number of reasons. To begin: the board was in no mood to hear from the crowd, which I estimate at one hundred and fifty, and immediately adjourned to their private meeting. Then one by one people stood up and began to speak: I found some allegations by a Mr. McKenna, a Bethlehem resident, especially troubling. He said that Superintendent McGuire had removed two popular, longtime employees in other districts where he worked, much to the displeasure of community members. Earlier in the day, I had heard a similar story on a call-in show from a board member in Greenwich, and it was haunting to hear it again from Mr. McKenna, given the repetitive nature of some people's behavior.

Then, as I waited for the board to return and walked among the crowd, I heard several comments from adults that were disheartening. The gist of their remarks was that if the superintendent and board were behaving with such reckless disregard for students, parents and teachers, why should the community fund their budget. Taxes were too high already, so they can just forget passing a budget. I would've dismissed this as the annoyance which is only natural waiting around with the media gaggle, but I had heard the same thing in some of the blistering e-mails I'd received.

Will this anger be around in May? I don't know, but I wouldn't bet the ranch against it.

Well, at last, the board returned and announced that they will be releasing the "Culture Climate Survey" or "Climate Culture Survey" or, as I sometimes think of it, the somewhat tattered "Joe McCarthy Handbook."

Only problem with this document is that all the names will be blacked out--redacted is the term of art--so whatever misbehavior is listed no one in the community will know who did what. This may be a legal requirement, but it also adds to the confusion and does nothing to establish who did what to whom. Sort of like throwing the guilty and the innocent into the same snake pit.

Still, I might have made it through the evening without the hurly bag except the board had a really big announcement. Next Monday morning it will meet again to vote on whether the decision to move the teachers rises to a level that the board should address.

For anyone who knows how a school board functions, specifically the Guilderland School Board, this is utter, intelligence-insulting, nausea-inducing,   nonsense. The board has repeatedly addressed this very issue throughout its history. No vote required.

At least the community will hear a discussion, and so the viewpoints of various members will finally become clear, and that, I imagine, will be good information to have going forward.

But I am now convinced that if the board takes the easy way out and jettisons its responsibility by voting to do nothing, everyone who cares about education in our community, and the community itself, will be in for a long and bumpy ride.

And that result will be the fault of the board--and the board alone.

July 7, 2008

According to today's Times Union, the Guilderland School Board "will privately discuss the fate of two popular high school social studies teachers tonight -- while hundreds of angry students, alumni and parents are expected to be on the other side of the meeting-room doors."

I wonder if this is what the board and superintendent are expecting:

One aspect of the Times Union story that caught my attention was the assertion by Superintendent McGuire that he and his "administrative team transferred the teachers as a way to reinvigorate the department." He added that moving Mr. Nelligan and Ms. McManus "was not punitive" but was because "These are the people who can do the job well,"

This drew my attention because it seems to fly in the face of his other explanations.

On July 2, the Times Union reported that Superintendent McGuire "said the teachers' actions were 'inconsistent' with the departmental policy."

On July 3, the Times Union reported that "a district 'culture inquiry' concluded that the two teachers were fostering a 'locker room' atmosphere among staff."

Also on July 3, Channel 13 reported that the superintendent said the move was based on his view that "there was an environment in the high school that did not include respect and tolerance."

These are just a few examples of what the superintendent has told the media. He appears to be revising his reasons by the day, and I'm unable to make sense of them. I do hope this is settled this evening, but it would be quite interesting to hear Superintendent McGuire explain the reasoning for his actions under oath.

As for those of you who have been in touch about my opinion of tonight's outcome: I have no idea, though I'm not overly optimistic. In the Times Union story the superintendent seems to think it's a done deal. He opines that "it would be unusual for the school board to reverse the move." And board President Richard Weisz says the board's "job is easy. We have to do what is best for the kids."

That should make the decision pretty obvious, but it certainly is vague in that  lawyerly way. Of one thing I am sure--if the move stands, this drama is far from over. 

Stay tuned.

July 6, 2008

Superintendent McGuire wrote a July 5 Letter to the Editor of the Times Union that strikes me as absolutely Orwellian, a stunning example of doublespeak.

Here is the text of the letter interspersed with my commentary.

I'm writing in response to Thursday's editorial, "School board cowards." I believe you are correct in acknowledging that school board membership can be the most challenging form of public service. Respecting that fact, I take strong exception to your mischaracterization of Guilderland Board of Education members regarding their conduct at their meeting Tuesday.

Nice beginning. Not a whiff of Orwell. Not yet. However,  I was curious about the superintendent's defense of the Guilderland School Board. From my experience serving with eight out of the nine members of the current board, they have always been able to defend themselves, and one member even has a record of writing a Letter to the Editor that positively dripped scorn. So I did wonder: Does Superintendent McGuire believe that he will soon need the board to defend him?

In the next paragraph, Superintendent McGuire gets warmed up, writing,

To set the record straight, the board of education, consistent with their well-established practice of welcoming public input, attempted to provide a forum for those who wanted to address them either in a public forum or, for those speaking on a personnel item, in executive session.

 l love the beginning, "To set the record straight." It reminds me of a great Orwellian T-Shirt I once saw:

What is so amusing is that after promising to do a little straightening out  Superintendent McGuire proceeds to bend reality into a pretzel. He suggests that the Guilderland School Board only discusses personnel matters in executive session. This is not the case, and anyone claiming otherwise is a) ignorant of the facts; b) lying; or c) auditioning for the role of Big Brother.

The next paragraph is a real doozy. Superintendent McGuire writes:

In providing these opportunities, first public comments then executive session, the board was shouted down by many of those in attendance. Having attempted to provide for public comments twice, without audience cooperation, the board adjourned into executive session. . .

Note the picture below; I assure you, this is not the board meeting:

Now, as I mentioned, I was there, along with approximately four hundred other community members, and I heard only a handful shout out comments, one of which was the highly ominous, "Please speak up, we can't hear you." Furthermore, in a touch of the Orwellian, Superintendent McGuire would have readers of his letter believe that it was in the face of a howling mob thirsty for blood that the board retreated into executive session. Here is the truth: The board voted to go into executive session with the claim that it does not listen to personnel matters in public. This is not wholly true, but it is the board's prerogative. The board could have suspended its rules and listened. The board chose not to, which was its right. The board's procedure was beyond reproach. Its judgment is another matter.

Upon adjourning to executive session, Superintendent McGuire writes, the board--

respectfully listened to the perspectives of 19 students, graduates, parents, teachers, and community members. The board extended the time typically allocated for executive session, to accommodate those wishing to be heard.

I have no doubt this is correct; there are many good, decent people on the board, and I imagine it was difficult to know exactly what to do when a superintendent backs them into a corner filled with so much community disapproval. What I find disturbing is the next part of the letter, where Superintendent McGuire states that during the executive session . . .

Several of those presenting to the board took the opportunity to apologize for the behavior of the public meeting audience, which had made proceeding with the public session impossible.

Here, Superintendent McGuire reaffirms the myth that the board was driven from the room, and he uses what was said in executive session to support his claim.  As a former board member I was always told that by law what was said in executive session was privileged. My understanding of the legal complexities involved may be imperfect. Perhaps there is an exemption for a superintendent writing a Letter to the Editor.

Finally, and mercifully, Superintendent McGuire concludes:

As an educator and a parent, I was saddened to witness what might have been a positive experience in civil discourse compromised by those who chose to disrupt rather than participate in the dialogue. To lay the responsibility for this on board members who tried valiantly to facilitate a mutually respectful public forum, is simply wrong.

Those who chose to disrupt? So let's see: A small group of people out of hundreds made a public airing of differences impossible? It's hard to imagine anyone with a functioning brain stem swallowing such poppycock. And I especially like the characterization of the board "who tried valiantly." How flattering. And understandable--a superintendent under fire buttering up his board.

In my view the goal of the board adjourning to executive session was to prevent the taxpayers at home from watching the proceedings on television. I may be wrong, and it would be easy to prove me so. All of the speakers after the board left the room were filmed by the camera. A record exists, and it would be a simple matter to play it on our public access station.

That way, the people could decide.

July 5, 2008

A quick post about our young people who have become involved in trying to see that Anne Marie McManus and Matt Nelligan are returned to their classes in the high school. The young men and women seem to be current students and recent graduates. What they have done on such short notice on the Internet is wonderful, as is their commitment and the courage and eloquence they exhibited at the board meeting. Our entire community owes you a debt of thanks and should be proud of you. So should your parents. I know I am, and so up above I have tipped my hat to each and every one of you.

P.S. A number of my blog readers have requested that I post links to some stories about what's going on and one of the Web sites that the students put up (you can find others on Facebook and Myspace).

July 1 Teacher's Reassignment Controversial

July 2 Board Walks Out on Public

July 3 School Board Cowards

United for McManus and Nelligan

July 4, 2008

Happy 4th! On this day of that celebrates American freedom, it might be a good idea to get a couple of things straight regarding the decision of the Guilderland School Board not to listen in public to what hundreds of our community members had to say about the transfer of Mr. Nelligan and Ms. McManus to the Middle School.

According to the Enterprise board President Richard Weisz stated that "It's disappointing when people confuse adhering to rules and processes with rejecting viewpoints."

Mr. Weisz is exactly right. After all, he is a bright, affable fellow and a talented lawyer. And he also tells the Enterprise that "People are not willing to give institutions the benefit of the doubt while they let processes work out."

Again, this is true, and it is a very clever slice of rhetoric, It takes the historical mistrust that Americans have always had of centralized government, the mistrust that led to today's celebration, and applies it to the Guilderland School Board.

Perhaps that mistrust for the board is rooted in different realities. For one, as a former member of this district's board, I can tell you that on Tuesday the board could have easily suspended its rules and listened to the public. It would have been a simple motion and vote. In fact, in the past they have listened to these kinds of presentations--for instance, when a coach's contract wasn't renewed and when a gym teacher was recommended for tenure by the administration and parents came to object to the teacher's behavior. In neither case was the board sued for allowing the community to speak. And the fact that the district might get sued for something that might be said, I believe, is specious reasoning. In today's litigious society it seems as though institutions can get sued for just about anything. Does it follow that we should then close down all our schools?

It is my personal view that some on the board--including Mr. Weisz--did indeed want to hear the hundreds of community members. However, I suspect, some on the board and maybe even the superintendent himself did not want the larger community at home watching the meeting on television to hear what the people had to say. Once the board walked out for good, the live TV coverage ended.

Why? In my opinion, a couple of factors may be involved. First, some people are rather intolerant of having their judgment questioned, and in my experience I found this to be particularly true of certain board members and administrators. And secondly, this kind of displeasure has the potential to spill over to budget votes, a distinct possibility given what some folks were shouting out at the meeting. The greatest tragedy about the meeting on Tuesday, from my perspective, is that the community at large, namely, the taxpayers, did not get a closer look at the operation of the district they are funding. I doubt that my perspective is shared by every board member and administrator.

One final reality that may partially explain the distrust is that Mr. Nelligan is claiming his situation is rooted in his conflict with former union leadership. That leadership supported six out of the nine current board members. This support was made up of a combination of things, not all of them for each candidate but including in various combinations: public endorsement to our teachers; mailings; phone calls; and in at least one case, a cash contribution. It should also be noted that those mailings utilized private district addresses that were handed out, according to the NYS Committee on Open Government, “contrary to law.” (Read about it here in the Enterprise)

Perhaps this current wave of  distrust is much less general than some might think. Perhaps it goes to the heart of the board and the administration's behavior, both in the unfortunate past and the painful present.

July 3, 2008

How tragic. Two excellent high-school teachers, Anne Marie McManus and Matt Nelligan, transferred from the social-studies department they cherish based on a “climate study.” That term strikes me as an upscale managerial synonym for “McCarthyism,” which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as using “methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair. . . with insufficient regard to evidence.”

As any social studies teacher worth his or her salt will tell you, Senator Joe McCarthy used his despicable version of the climate study—televised hearings—to charge whole sections of the government, including the Army, with being Communists and Soviet spies; and today McCarthy’s corrosive antics still stand as one of the most shameful chapters in American history.

McCarthy proved nothing except that being a colossal moron was no impediment to winning an election; that the United States could produce a demagogue in love with his own morally outrageous pronouncements; and that it was easy to smear people with innuendo and rumor. In the end, McCarthy was roundly discredited—fittingly enough, on TV, where Joseph Welch, the lead attorney for the Army, answered another of McCarthy’s unfounded charges by saying: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” (Click the link to listen.)

Whether McCarthy ever had a sense of decency is an open question, but he did take his loss of status rather hard and proceeded to drink himself to death.

So. How did Ms. McManus and Mr. Nelligan wind up on a forced march to the Middle School? I heard rumblings about this climate study a while back, but the Board of Education was not informed about the process or the outcome, never a good sign, for it excludes the very people who are elected to speak for the community. It has been my experience as a board member that when a superintendent bypasses or misleads the board he has a plan or has acted in a way guaranteed to infuriate a good many taxpayers—for instance, as happened two years ago, handing out private district addresses to the local union for an election—an act that the NYS Committee on Open Government has deemed “contrary to law.” (Read about it here in the Enterprise.)

Anyway, in April, a group of social-studies teachers wrote a letter to the Enterprise in which they outlined their view of the unhealthy cooperation between local union president, Chris Claus, and district administrators. Reading the letter in the paper, I grew concerned and set up a meeting with our superintendent, John McGuire. I knew the conflict between Chris Claus and some of our teachers had a complicated background, and since Superintendent McGuire had only been with the district for less than six months I thought it might be helpful for him to hear about it.

I told the superintendent what I knew of the history, not placing any blame, just recounting the stories I’d heard. I mentioned that if the climate study had focused on any of the letter writers it would be advisable to solve whatever problems arose in a quiet, judicious manner, since any heavy-handed response to such popular and remarkably successful teachers, who had consistently produced some of the finest Regents results in the Capital Region, would create a gale-force blowback. Since climate studies are highly questionable as a method for making ground-level labor decisions, my concern was that the whole mess would wind up in court, where the district would waste a barrel full of tax dollars, and every incident that had ever occurred in the high school, regardless of how trivial, would be rehashed and magnified in the press. This is not necessarily the most productive scenario in a community already concerned about its tax bill.

In retrospect, I should have known I was wasting my time speaking with the superintendent. In my three years on the board, I cannot recall a superintendent ever changing his mind in response to the advice of a board member. In fact, I had heard such advice given, not always by me, and, as if by reflex, immediately dismissed. Whether dismissing the advice represented the superintendent’s best judgment or the knee-jerk negativism not uncommon to the insecure or the resistance of administrators who tremble at the idea of progress or simply the mammalian instinct for marking territory, I cannot say. Still, while I take some small comfort in making the effort, I regret that it did not head off this unfortunate situation.

Just how unfortunate became clear at the July 1 meeting of the Guilderland School Board. Hundreds of students, past and present, teachers, former teachers, parents, newspaper and TV reporters jammed into the meeting room until they were three deep along the wall and some of the crowd had to move to the cafeteria in order to comply with the fire code. They were angry, and they wanted to be heard, and they began to call out, “We are the public! What is a culture climate study? Can we see it? We’re going to beat your budget in May and vote you off the board!” Cheers and applause echoed in the room, but when speakers approached the microphone to address the board and began discussing Mr. Nelligan and Ms. McManus, they were informed that personnel issues could not be discussed in public, and the board walked out. It also stopped the television coverage.

I was glad, at least, that ultimately the board decided to listen in private to what community members had to say. After all, the final decision rests with them. And as they were conducting their private inquiry, young men and women began to address the empty seats at the board table and the hundreds of people who remained in the room, discussing how they felt about losing these teachers. The speakers had many interesting and amusing things to say: someone suggested that perhaps the administration and the board might benefit from a civics class. Less amusing were the comments I heard from a few current and former employees, who basically asked if the superintendent and board had any idea how it appeared treating teachers like something that should be scraped off their shoes. As a former board member it was a disturbing question to hear; I had spent three years listening to administrators tell me how crucial teacher morale was to the success of our students, and this seemed as demoralizing a question as one could ask. Worse, I was told that it was a question many teachers were asking themselves.

But what I will take away from that evening was not this question or the overwhelming size of the audience or the determined climate in the room or the impassioned words of praise the students had for Mr. Nelligan and Ms. McManus—how they had showed them a more vigorous way of interpreting the world and bequeathed to them intellectual skills to carry into the future. No, my enduring image of that evening is something else entirely—it is waves of young people wearing suits or summer dresses or bright T-shirts and shorts or their CVS uniform polos approaching Mr. Nelligan and Ms. McManus, many of them crying as they hugged their teachers, holding onto them, really holding on, as only young people in that strange shadow land between childhood and adulthood can—both fiercely and shyly—understanding that these two teachers, who had been so important to their lives, now needed them, and so the young men and women cried and held on to their teachers, not wanting to let them down or let them go, certainly not on this summer evening, not ever.

The above appears as a Letter to the Editor in the Enterprise.

May 24, 2008

The New York Now program on WMHT turned out to be an interesting discussion of the problems New Yorkers are facing with respect to paying for public--that is, government--schools. From my perspective one of the great issues is deciding which parts of the budget can be cut in order to make room for rising costs, much in the way that families scale back so as to accommodate rising energy and food costs. Government entities, like schools, are reluctant to take this tact--in my view, because they always have a method for meeting increased expenses, asking the taxpayers to pony up. This will become increasingly difficult over the next few years, given the fiscal anemia of New York State, and so it should be an interesting moment in the history of public education.

It looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend, and so if you miss the show I will post a link to it here, or just put up the video next week.

Enjoy the sunshine.

May 22, 2008

So we have had the election, and it turned out as I expected, but of course it is more fun to win than to lose. Thank you for all of the e-mail, and as I said an election is nothing but a pause in a conversation, which then continues all the way until the next election. Turnout was low, and while that is not what I had hoped, to some degree it is verdict on the job the board has done, both in the area of education and controlling taxes.

Some of you have asked if I will continue writing this blog, and at the moment that is the plan, though I will probably settle on regular days for posting. One upside to the election is that I will be able to be more frank here, and I'm looking forward to that.

Also, I was interviewed for a couple of hours by Susan Arbetter for her public affairs show, "New York Now." According to Ms. Arbetter, her show will focus on "the outsize power of the unions and how that affects school budgets and property taxes." The piece should be about 15 minutes, and I have no idea what part of our interview she will use or what portions of our meetings might be included. You can find the schedule at this link: http://www.wmht.org/newyorknow/

I'm on my way to Montreal. so I have to get going. There will be more when I return. Have a nice weekend.

May 18, 2008

Well, the vote is almost here. These last few days seem to move by in dream time. Day dissolves into night, and you wonder where the hours have gone. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. And please come out to vote. However it turns out, at least you have had your say.

See you soon

.

May 15, 2008

Sorry I've been away from here, but I've been out speaking with people. This is the most interesting part of the job. Learning a lot, and it's always wonderful to hear how many people follow the school board. Indeed, I'm hearing some anxiety about taxes, and the current gas/grocery situation. The Times Union did a story on it that's worth reading.

Many of you have expressed support in the face of the nasty personal attacks in the letters that appeared in the Enterprise. Thank you, but please don't be concerned: First of all, I just glanced at them because the letters are nothing but a distraction.

And the letters have a lighter side. After they appeared, one of the letter-writer's neighbors invited me out to their neighborhood and personally brought me around to their friends and neighbors. And another of the letter-writer's neighbors called and requested a lawn sign.

Hope all are enjoying the spring weather. I am, but not nearly as much as meeting all of you. And I appreciate you taking the time to talk.

May 8, 2008

One of the most interesting events I've ever seen happens every year before the Guilderland School Board election, a televised Candidates Night. It is sponsored by the PTA Council, and it is among the most noteworthy contributions made to our community. The show is recorded and played over and over again in the two-week run-up to the election. It is an extraordinary demonstration of local democracy in action. Any resident who wants to know about the people determining the direction of their school district and the amount of their property taxes can take a nice long look at them. Add that to the interviews in the Enterprise and you get a good idea of where people stand.

This was true the other evening: No one watching would have been the least bit confused about who had the backing of our local union. (I wasn't one of those.) It was also quite clear who had a grasp of the issues and who did not. Speaking in vague generalities about  new opportunities for our students is the giveaway, because that's what everyone likes to hear, and how you pay for them is far less attractive. 

Last night, there was some inside baseball--board conflicts reconfigured to resemble issues--and though these attacks were directed at me I'm not sure they did much to lessen people's anxiety about our property-tax burden, the current financial atmosphere in New York State, and the price of fuel and food.

Below is a draft of my opening statement. And I hope you take the time to watch our discussion on Channel 16. It should be a good show.

* * *

Before I begin I’d like to thank the PTA Council for inviting us, and all of you in the media center. A televised Candidates Night is a remarkable opportunity, and a crucial one for those of us who believe in the importance of open government. So again, thank you.

Hello, I’m Peter Golden. I’ve lived in Guilderland since 2000, and I’m proud to have been on the board for last three years. I serve on the audit committee, which was mandated by the comptroller to prevent fraud, and for the last two years I’ve been chairman of our business practices committee, whose goal is to bring a disciplined approach to spending. On a personal note, I earn my living writing articles and books. My wife is a SUNY professor, and our son is a junior at the high school.

I’m running for a second term on the board for the same reason I ran the first time: Someone has to ask the difficult questions for the benefit of our children and the taxpayers regardless of the answers or how uncomfortable the questions may be.

I could tell you about the programs I supported: from Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools to music funding and our summer-reading program. I could tell you that two years ago I, along with another board member, Dr. Dubowsky, brought Project Lead the Way to our former superintendent. I could also add that I believe the time has come to look at all-day kindergarten.

Establishing new programs is the fun part of the job, but being on a board is far more complicated if you choose to do the work. And so I thought I would tell you a story that will illustrate some of the challenges. It’s a particularly fitting story with our increasing property-tax burden and the fact that we have now reached the unsettling moment in our economy when the read-out at the gas pump resembles our grocery bill and our grocery bill rivals our mortgage payment.

When I was first elected, the board was given an overview of our district’s health insurance payments. I noticed that in four years our payments had doubled. I asked about it and was told by our former superintendent costs were high everywhere, and at our next meeting he produced a document that showed our neighboring schools were in the same boat.

I believe you can always try something, and I’m a journalist by training, so I began to talk with experts around the country and read up on what businesses and schools were doing. I brought my findings to the board, and while a couple of members supported me, most did not, and our former superintendent was upset that I would pursue this subject in an independent way.

Now I understand that moving an institution can be like moving a cemetery: You don’t get much help from the inside.

But I was surprised at the level and intensity of criticism in public and private from some board members and our former superintendent because of my questions and the research I brought to our meetings. I heard rumors I wanted to take people’s medical insurance away; I heard that I hated unions, even though my wife is a member of NYSUT.

But I didn’t stop, and the story has a happy ending. Much of my work was used to find a new way of doing business, and by the district’s own account we have saved $1 million dollars over the last few years. $800,000 for the taxpayer and $200,000 for our employees. In part, this money has been used to control the tax rate and, most important, to establish some of those new programs we all love.

In more ways than one the this medical insurance issue represented a new way of doing business. The debates were spirited, even heated at times, and I understood this chafed against the Guilderland culture. It was not pleasant for me, nor personal, and I sympathized with the desire for quiet and understood the sense of loss that accompanies change.

However, being on a board is not about the board members. It’s about our responsibilities to the community and our 5,000 plus students.

So when people express their wish for quiet, I reply: How much would that quiet cost our children, our taxpayers and employees? In the case of health insurance, the answer is $1 million dollars. And I thought the price was too high. And eventually, so did the board.

I believe this approach is a good model for the future—for seeking the common good, those win-win situations for our schools and our community—for pursuing new ways of doing business—financial and educational.

And it’s never been more important. Governor Paterson has already mentioned cutbacks, and the energy crunch will continue. History doesn’t shout out answers to us, but it does whisper, and what it whispers to the Guilderland school board is that if we don’t watch over our taxpayers, they will lose faith in us. As happened in the early 1990s, budgets were repeatedly defeated here. And who pays for that?

Our children, for they are deprived of that most valuable commodity: an excellent education. And our community also loses, for we destroy the heart and soul of our future.

So tonight I hope all of us can share our ideas on ways to find money or savings in our existing budget without putting every additional dollar on the back of the taxpayers. That is the opposite of the common good, and I believe violates our charge to govern on behalf of the entire community.

May 7, 2008

Out in the parks and walking the neighborhoods for the last two evenings. Watching our youngsters playing baseball was distracting--they were having so much fun: I could've stayed around until dark. One thing that is always striking when you go through the parks is how many parents and grandparents come to watch and cheer and coach. I imagine this is going on all over the United States in the spring, and I compare it in my mind to the bean-bag throwing of the presidential race. What do we truly value? That's a good question. Visit our parks and you'll find out.

It has been great talking to so many of you home and thanks for taking the time. I appreciate your suggestions and hope that you will pursue them by voting. I promise to raise them with others during the campaign.

I'd like to write more but I'm preparing for Candidates Night. It will be on Channel 16 tonight at seven. Tune in. The PTA Council sponsors the event, and it is a remarkable opportunity to see how candidates think on the issues.

I've got to run, but here's a corny joke for the budget season:

Joe says: "There are more important things than money."

Jim replies: "I'll buy that."

May 3, 2008

I love this picture of JFK campaigning in River Falls, Wisconsin. Here was a man--young, wealthy, handsome and so full of grace--getting out and talking to people, trying to find out what was on their minds and telling them what was on his. For me, this picture is a quintessentially American moment frozen in time, reaching back beyond the 1960 presidential election to the Founders, who had this crazy idea that a nation, and her communities, should be run with the consent of the governed.

Of course, as the saying goes, "I'm no Jack Kennedy," but yesterday I was out in the park for opening day of baseball and over at the high school to watch our young women play lacrosse, and it was wonderful meeting so many proud parents and grandparents.

I'm always struck by how many people follow what is going on at our school board meetings, and I was glad to meet a number of you who regularly read this blog. One thing I learned talking to folks is that so many of them understand the critical choice our community faces in our upcoming school-board election (Tuesday, May 20). As so many of you pointed out having a board controlled by our local union and recently retired employees appears to violate the idea that a school board should speak for the entire community, that the 70 percent of our people who don't use the school deserve a fair shake.

I happen to agree with this view and that it is in our best interest to set aside narrow interests and see ourselves as members of a larger community, with diverse needs. That we must keep in mind the magical sound of childhood laughter and those lovely curious faces we see riding past on the big yellow buses, but also those older weathered faces we see inspecting the flowers in their gardens and remind ourselves that these elderly folks, the people who built our community, are most likely trying to make ends meet on a fixed income. They also provide an invaluable economic service to our schools. They send in their tax dollars, but do not use the services. Without them, we would be lost.

I'm off to attend our neighbor's son communion, and then it's back to the campaign, rain or shine. Whether I win or lose this election, it has been a pleasure talking to all of you, and thanks for taking the time to share your ideas.

May 2, 2008

Well, the board came to its senses and approved a plan for permitting candidates to meet the community at the schools once the children have gone home for the day. I truly didn't understand the objections, though Catherine Barber and John Dornbush, two of the union-supported candidates, continued to advocate for shutting this down. To me that is the opposite of open government, and I do hope we are able to discuss this impulse to stifle discussion and openness in more detail as the campaign moves forward.

Speaking of the campaign: I've been out and about talking to many of you, and I appreciate the conversation and the suggestions. However the election works out, the best part of the campaign season is meeting the community and widening the discussion about our schools and the financial challenges we will face in the future.

A nice letter appeared in the Enterprise, written by an old friend of mine, Joe Siracusa. It was meant to be flattering, and it was, but it was also vaguely embarrassing. He e-mailed me a copy, and I'll post it, but I've never quite gotten used to reading about myself in the newspaper. At least here, on this site, I know people only come to read if they choose to. Newspapers just fly out into the world.

My Friend, Peter Golden

I want to tell you about my friend, Peter Golden. He is running for re-election to the Guilderland School Board. Peter has been my friend for twenty-seven years, and I’m the one who asked him to run for the board in 2005. I came to him three years ago because I was worried that the big jump in our school taxes would bring out the wild tax cutters and our children wouldn’t receive the education they need.

I knew Peter had lots of teachers in his family and that he had gone to public schools from kindergarten through college. I knew he earned his living writing articles and books, and he had held his own in interviews with Presidents, Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers.

I also knew Peter had the courage of his convictions. When an out-of-control judge kept threatening to sue him as Peter wrote about him, Peter pressed on and his work won the journalism award from the Bar Association. When drug-related violence first started to move up from Downstate, Peter wrote about it, talking to the police and DEA agents and addicts. I knew he had been in some tricky situations in the Middle East, talking and listening to all sides of the issues.

He had other important qualifications. He had won awards for business writing. He had experience analyzing foreign aid packages, and so unlike some board members I had seen he understood big budget numbers. And Peter was good with kids. I met him when we were both working with troubled teenagers. I watched him tutor these children and saw their performance improve in school. I knew Peter was always willing to help. I’m a volunteer firefighter, and when a group of volunteer departments in another town received some bad publicity, Peter helped them learn how to deal with the press.

For the last three years I have watched Peter stand up for children, parents, and the people who don’t use our schools. The year before he was elected, the tax increase was 10 percent. During his time on the board, it has averaged under 2 percent.

Peter didn’t do it alone, but he made major contributions. I remember Peter pointing out to the board that the medical insurance for our district had doubled in four years. Our former superintendent told him at a televised meeting that there was nothing that could be done—costs were high everywhere. 

Peter believed you could at least try, and I watched as he continued to bring his research to board meetings and argue for changes. I also heard the rumors around town that Peter wanted to take medical insurance from our school employees, that he was the enemy of public employees and their unions. I knew that view was ignorant or self-serving or both. I’m a public employee and a union vice president. 

And Peter turned out to be right. The taxpayers and employees saved money on medical insurance, and continue to save money. Those savings, as Peter said, could be split between the community and new programs and teachers for our children.

Peter has supported foreign language in the elementary schools; he brought up the engineering course, Project Lead the Way, two years ago; and he advocated for more money for our music students. He always pushes for excellence, whether in Special Ed or AP courses, and for all the children in between.

But he never forgets the taxpayer, which is important on a board where one member said it was disrespectful to ask administrators how much new programs cost before approving them. I want new programs, but I want the board to ask how much of our money is going to be spent. I don't think a board of rubber stamps helps our children or our township.

Three years ago I encouraged Peter to run because of his abilities, but there was an even more important reason. He had been a good, caring friend to me, my wife and children. I knew he would be the same kind of friend to our community. And I’m proud to say that he has done exactly that.

Let’s keep our friend on the board. Vote for Peter Golden on May 20.

April 29, 2008

Three weeks ago, at our meeting, a board member asked: "What does leafleting have to do with democracy?" Tonight, at our meeting, I hope we're able to answer that question

Of course, the gentleman below might have had something to say on the subject:

Here we have Tom Paine, known as a handy fellow with a leaflet and rather impatient with tyranny. I look at this picture and ask myself: Will there ever be a statue of a school-board member outside a school? A museum? Or even a comedy club? I wouldn't bet on it. Well, maybe the comedy club.

The result of not allowing school-board candidates to leaflet at school events in the evening is to keep new people from meeting the community and having a real chance to win an elected seat on the board. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Especially because the schools belong to the entire community. I'm not so sure it's a wise move to transform a board into a private society.

What's striking is that all of this is going on while a woman and an African-American compete for the Democratic nomination for President. What progress that represents.

Yet what would our headline be?

Welcome to the Guilderland School Board. We Go Backward

I guess you can make this stuff up, but who would want to.

Our meeting starts at 7:30. Stay tuned.

April 27, 2008

We are moving into school-board election season, and I will be blogging about it on most days. It should be quite a race. Our local teacher's union, unhappy with independent, fiscally-conscious voices on the board, is running a slate of three candidates against me--Catherine Barber, John Dornbush, and a retiring teacher's aide, Judy Slack. If they win, six out of the nine members of the Guilderland School Board will be union-backed candidates, including two recently retired school district employees--a development that I believe should give taxpayers pause. What's interesting is that the local union does not really represent the views of the majority of our teachers. The Albany Times Union wrote about the split and it's a story worth reading. I promise that in the coming weeks there should plenty to read here. So stay tuned.

April 19, 2008

Posting tomorrow's blog today because I think I'm on leaf-raking duty tomorrow, and because things are becoming, as Alice liked to say, "curiouser and curiouser." Found this on the TU blog. Sounds like AG Andrew Cuomo is getting serious and plans on following this issue all the way down the rabbit hole.

Following Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s announcement yesterday that he’d removed five four attorneys who worked for an upstate BOCES from the state pension system (a fifth lost his BOCES credits, but not other credits he might have), Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said today he is expanding his probe of the pension system to include all 37 of the BOCES organizations in the state.

That’s in addition to the hundreds of schools districts and thousands of local government entities that Cuomo wants information from on the benefits they provide to lawyers and other professionals who may not qualify as full-time employees. In the case of the five lawyers from the Girvin & Ferlazzo law firm cited by DiNapoli, all worked on a very part time basis, the comptroller found, but were each reported to the state as having worked the equivalent of a full year.

“We have reason to believe some BOCES may have unclean hands in this situation and that there may have been financial benefits for the BOCES to list professionals as employees instead of as independent consultants,” Cuomo said in a news release.  “There appears to be a chronic fraud that has occurred across New York State for many years, and we will work until we get to the bottom of it.”

Cuomo said that in many cases, attorneys are showing up on multiple BOCES and school district payrolls, and at least some did no actual legal work.

I have received a number of calls about this, since Jeffrey D. Honeywell, and his law firm, Girvin & Ferlazzo, P.C. represent our district. All I can say at this point is that we will be discussing it in the very near future. I'll keep everyone updated on the blog.

Have a great weekend. Hope you will not be raking leaves unless you enjoy it. Do I enjoy it? Guess.

April 18, 2008

You can't make this stuff up. Here, in abbreviated form, is what the NYS comptroller had to say about our district's current lawyer, Jeffrey D. Honeywell, and his law firm, Girvin & Ferlazzo, P.C.

Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES improperly reported Girvin, Wolveron, Lanchatin, Honeywell and Ferlazzo as employees to the Retirement System while these individuals were employed by the same private law firm. 

BOCES reported the attorneys as full-time and working a total of 1,157 days at BOCES, but they actually worked a total of 196 days. They inappropriately earned 5 to 16 years of service credit in the Retirement System. These attorneys did not work fixed hours, submit time sheets or work onsite at BOCES. In addition, BOCES management did not oversee the work they performed. In fiscal year 2006-07, BOCES paid the five attorneys a total of $234,000. 

After learning of the concerns raised by DiNapoli’s office, BOCES immediately removed all five lawyers from its payroll and fired the law firm.

If you'd like to see the full press release, click here.

Then today the Times-Union published a story on the subject (click here to see the article.) If you want to see just how disgusted people are with this kind of thing it would be instructive to read the TU blog on the subject.

I'm certainly going to raise this at our next meeting on April 29. I have long been an advocate for open government, meaning good government, and regretfully I must say that at times I have been disappointed in our board. Recently, we took up the subject of school-board candidates leafleting prior to the election on school grounds, and the reaction from some of the board seemed more fitting to the kind of things we used to hear from the leaders of the Soviet Union. For me, it's heartbreaking that while our military has people dying to bring freedom and openness to the Middle East, we roll back these freedoms in our own back yard. A number of you in our community have raised this with me, and I promise I will have plenty to say on the subject at our next meeting.

Enjoy the spring! Can you believe it? Winter is really over.

February 29, 2008

After our board meeting was snowed out on Tuesday night, we held an abbreviated meeting last evening, and it had to be one of the more fascinating things I've ever seen in government, large or small. Suffice it to say that the experience is responsible for the above picture of the Mad Hatter. If you could ignore the fact that what happened wasn't so contrary to responsible governance, the meeting was a regular laugh riot, but I'll get to the details later.

Meantime, on a much more positive note: Following our version of the Mad Tea Party, we held the first session of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, and as of now the estimated tax increase is 1.5 percent. That's very good news as the final increase is usually lower--at least that's what I've seen for the three years I've been on the board.

February 3, 2008

Altamont Enterprise story is a must read: Their Web site is altamontenterprise.com or you can just read it below:

Use of GCSD directory legal?

By Melissa Hale-Spencer

GUILDERLAND — Last spring, in a hotly contested five-way race for three school-board seats, the two candidates backed by the teachers’ union won. The union used a list of addresses of students’ homes obtained from the school district to mail postcards supporting the two candidates and the school budget just before the May vote.

Concerns are now being raised that releasing the directory information was illegal — either in violation of state law that prohibits school districts from campaigning or in violation of a federal act that protects students’ privacy.

Board member Peter Golden asked about the release of directory information at the last school board meeting and was told by the school board president, Richard Weisz, that directory information was only given out to the military as required by federal law, with parents or students who are 18 having a chance to opt out.

Susan Tangorre, the district’s freedom of information officer, agreed. She could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Chris Claus, the president of the Guilderland Teachers’ Association, which is affiliated with the New York State United Teachers, said yesterday that the GTA had filed a freedom-of-information request asking for the addresses of people with children in the school district before both the 2007 elections and the 2006 elections.

Postcards supporting the union-backed candidates and the budget were sent to those on the lists, he said. In 2006, the GTA supported Richard Weisz, and in 2007 the union supported Colleen O’Connell and Gloria Towle-Hilt.

Claus said he got the idea from a NYSUT workshop that “gave suggestions on being more politically active.”

“It’s a great idea to target a group of people with whom we have a common interest,” said Claus. “They have kids in school and we teach those kids.”

Asked if there is a district policy on releasing directory information, Claus said, “Not that I know of.”

Claus went on, “We would not ask for anything improper. We made this as a good-faith request, we believe, in a proper, legal way.”

Asked if he thought the mailing was effective, Clause said, “It was more effective than the list of New York State United Teachers in the district...It was much bigger.” The NYSUT list was used to phone teachers, said Claus. The list of students’ homes from the Guilderland School District contained just addresses, no phone numbers, he said.

Claus said, “I don’t have a way of gauging the effectiveness.”

He said the lists had “absolutely not” been used for any other purpose.

Gregory Aidala, who retired this fall after seven years as Guilderland’s superintendent, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In the midst of the spring election, which he and others called contentious and divisive, Aidala, with the advice of the school’s attorney, stopped three candidates from handing out election flyers at school events, a longstanding practice.

Those three candidates were not endorsed by the teachers’ union; they were running as a slate backed by a group of parents which had been critical of how the district teaches reading.

“We have to maintain the appearance of not permitting partisan activities on school grounds,” Aidala said at the time.

One of the losing candidates, Carolyn Kelly, who had filled out and returned a questionnaire for the Guilderland Teachers’ Association but had not received the union’s endorsement, said the day after the election, “It’s unfortunate postcards went out from the GTA on Saturday, supporting their chosen candidates. That’s a huge expense; it obviously worked...I don’t know if any parent can work past that type of machine.”

Golden, whose three-year term on the board is up this year, said he has not yet decided if he will seek re-election.

“Since this summer, at the urging of community members, I’ve been trying to learn if the district released any of our family information,” he told The Enterprise yesterday. “Our former superintendent indicated that we hadn’t and, at our board meeting on Jan. 23, the administrator overseeing this information also seemed to indicate that we hadn’t.

“Now it appears that the information was provided to the teachers’ union. All I’ve been trying to discover is what was released and whether the district met its obligations in part defined by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

“I just want to be sure parents were given the appropriate public notice that the district was providing family information to the teachers’ union and that parents had the opportunity to say no.

“As I look back, I’m having a hard time understanding the denials that we had released the information when obviously we had.”

FERPA

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which applies to all schools that receive federal funds, is to protect the privacy of students’ education records. Under the act, schools must generally have written permission from a parent or eligible student, age 18 or older, to release any information from a student’s record, but schools may disclose directory information, such as a student’s name, address, or telephone number, as long as parents and eligible students are told and allowed a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose their directory information.

Weisz, the school-board president, told The Enterprise yesterday that he didn’t know if the district had a policy on the release of directory information and he said he wasn’t aware of the school board discussing it. “We’ve got to check and see what happened,” he said.

Asked if he thought the release was legal and ethical, Weisz said, “I don’t know enough to answer that.”

John McGuire, who just became Guilderland’s superintendent this fall, said notice of FERPA is given to Guilderland parents and students each year in the school calendar.

He cited two district policies that deal with records. The first, on access to student records, which was adopted in 1995 and revised in 2001, lists “rosters and/or directories of pupils,” which it defines as “lists of names of pupils by grades” as not available for public access.

This policy is posted at the district’s website along with a statement under “Policies and notifications” that says, “From time to time, school district officials may release student information...for use in school district publications or within school building Web sites, or to the media for public relations purposes.” It goes on to say parents who object to the release of their child’s information are to notify the building principal and the district’s communication office “in writing on or before September 15 in any school year.”

Yesterday, The Enterprise shared these policy statements with Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government and an expert on freedom-of-information laws, and asked if the school district was correct to release the directory information.

Freeman responded by quoting from the federal regulation: “‘An educational agency or institution may disclose directory information if it gives public notice to parents of students in attendance’...Have they done that?...If they haven’t done it, then they haven’t complied with the federal law. That’s the simple answer.”

He also said, “I suggest to districts that they establish a policy on directory information so they can disclose...information without fear of violating federal law.”

Freeman said, too, that, although FERPA has been on the books since 1974, there is “rampant ignorance” about the act.

After Freeman had gone home for the day, the district office e-mailed The Enterprise the second policy that McGuire had cited, too new to be posted on the district website, on student records regulation. Just one section of that policy deals with directory information. It says that, at the beginning of each school year, the district shall publish in the district newsletter, school calendar and/or district website a notice to parents and students 18 or older of their rights under FERPA and the district policy.

“The policy applicable to the release of student directory information may apply to military recruiters, the media, colleges and universities, and prospective employers,” it states. “Subsequent to the annual notification of parents concerning directory information, a reasonable amount of time must be allowed for the parent or student to notify school officials that any or all such information should not be released.”

McGuire said that the directory information was given to the GTA on the advice of the school district’s lawyer. “Frankly,” he said, “I’m comfortable that what was done was done in compliance with the law and policy.”

He went on, “We want to be in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, but also acting in the best interests of our students and community.”

He also said, about board members’ seeming unawareness of the policy, “In fairness to the board, policy manuals are voluminous.”

McGuire said he will be asking the board to review the current policy. “They may say, ‘Yep, this is exactly where I want to be,’” he said.

McGuire went on, “This, to me, is an appropriate question for anyone to ask...We’ll generate a lot of different opinions.”

McGuire concluded, “My feeling is, baseline, you make sure you’re in compliance with the law. Then, beyond that, where do you want to be as a superintendent?”

He said yesterday he had not yet formulated his recommendation on the matter.

It is truly mind-boggling in this day and age that this information was so readily available, and how it was handled by the district, not the request by the teacher's union, is still a question. I've been speaking to experts all week so I can address the issue with some intelligence at our meeting on Tuesday. Nothing is more annoying to a community, or insulting in the context of education, than to listen to people pop off without any facts. I'm still perplexed why our former superintendent would repeatedly deny to the taxpayers and the board that the information had been passed along, but I hope we can get to the bottom of that.

January 23, 2008

Happy New Year! Now that Governor Spitzer has unveiled his budget we have officially entered the Silly Season. Of course, not being an Ivy League grad I have trouble understanding how increased fees are different from a tax increase, but I'll write off my lack of understanding to my inferior education.

At the School Board we are also about to enter into program and budget discussions, and I suspect these will be even more amusing than those at the state level. Something about reaching your hand into your next-door neighbors' pockets (and pocket books) and pulling out a wad of their hard-earned money is a real laugh riot. As always, I will try to get a picture of what you are actually paying for and how our students are benefiting. This effort often annoys some administrators and board members, but it strikes me as only fair.

Unfortunately, fairness is not always a motivation for some. To me, however, it seems the essence of seeking the common good.

For those of you who have asked about test scores: NYS hasn't turned the new ones over yet, and I will hold mine a bit longer. If we don't hear from the state I will post them here and bring up my concerns at a future board meeting.

Stay tuned. Things are about to get interesting.

November 29, 2007

Below you will find a list of the Similar School group to which Guilderland belongs. I have been an advocate of presenting our School Report Card broken out to show how we perform on specific tests compared to this group. So far, the Board as a whole doesn't seem inclined in that direction. My view, however, is that if we are going to trumpet our commitment to excellence then we should be willing to compete on a bigger stage. So to start off I'm going to explain about Similar Schools, and in the not-too-distant future I hope to have some scores to discuss.

What Are Similar Schools?

  Adapted from the NYS Department of Education Web site: www.emsc.nysed.gov/repcrd2000/similar.html

Since there are so many schools in New York State, all of which face a range of different challenges, the NYS Department of Education developed groupings of statistically similar schools. This enables people to see how their schools are doing compared to other schools that are in the same league.

The Education Department found that many people are unsure of how to evaluate performance statistics and, without the comparison, the numbers do not reveal at what level the school is expected to perform. The Similar Schools grouping helps us to devise a more equitable evaluation of a school’s performance in the context of other schools’ efforts.

NYS uses three factors in establishing a group: 

            1. Grade Range of Students Served by the School

            2. School District Capabilities

            3. Needs of the School Student Population

Remember, there are many other factors that can contribute to differences in performance among schools. Any differences from the group values should be explored with concern and interest. One last reminder. The most similar school is the school itself. This is why multiple years of performance are presented. The year-to-year self-comparison is a very important part of evaluating school performance.

Here are the Districts that the NYS Department of Education deems similar to the Guilderland Central School District.

© 2007 The New York State Department of Education and The Grow Network/McGraw-Hill. All rights reserved.

November 28, 2007

Board meeting last night, and it got off to a beautiful start. Our high school choir sang, and what a remarkable group of voices. Nothing like the sound of young people reminding adults what can be done with hard work and a commitment to a purpose. If you're not usually one to watch the replays of our meetings on TV, you might want to make an exception and tune in for the opening to hear the choir. It was just beautiful.

The meeting itself was equally remarkable. We had a long and interesting presentation on professional development--an item on which we annually spend somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000. We heard about the impact this has on teachers and how it filters down to students. Of course, the question a number of you have asked me over the last couple of years is how do we know the investment pays off for our children. That is a complicated question, and I'm sure the board will delve deeper into it before we reach the Citizens Budget meetings in March. However, I do think it is unfair to view professional training as some sort of vacation for teachers. Actually, it looks like a good deal of additional work, and the most important question remains: if teacher training is a means to an end, what is that end and how do you verify that you have reached it? Time will tell.

Last night was the first meeting for our new superintendent, John McGuire, and I thought he did a fine job. By nature, he appears to be a good listener, and that seemed to set a tone for the meeting. The board had several lengthy discussions on educational priorities as related to the budget, and in my view this is the essence of our responsibility--governance. John also had some insightful suggestions, and I'm looking forward to our next few meeting where we wrestle with priorities for education in light of budget constraints.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. And yes, as a few have asked, I will put a list up of the Similar Schools. Just stay tuned.

November 10, 2007

I've been receiving a number of e-mails asking when I was going to continue the blog, so I guess the answer is right now. I've been busy with that book on the Cold War I'm writing, and any spare time I have has been taken up with putting together the Similar School numbers. They are certainly something to see, and I promise before too long we will be discussing them. So forgive the absence, and I will be back next week.

October 10, 2007

Board meeting last night. We started at 7 to hear budget input from the community and only two people showed up. That was a bit disappointing because the community often has much to say when the budget is finalized and yet so few came out to let us know what's on their minds. Oh well. I guess we'll hear more from citizens at the budget meetings in March.

We also discussed my motions for the District to present a detailed listing of Similar Schools. There was some support for exploring the Similar Schools numbers, but, at the moment, not listing them the way we list the scores in comparison to local schools. I put off the motions for now, and I'm going to do more research on the subject and bring this up again later in the year. My view: If we are going to talk about excellence, then we have to show performance in relation to other performances.

One of the reasons I started Boardside was because often things are said at board meetings that are flat out untrue, and they are said on TV and recounted in the newspapers and a blog was the only way to correct the record. So last night it was said that I voted against the new superintendent's contract and that I stated that our students think they are inferior to Downstate students.

Yawn. . . .

Here's what I said: Since the meeting our current superintendent scheduled may have been in technical violation of the Open Meetings Law then this may have a legal impact on the contract. If so, then we should vote again to remove any possible cloud: we owe that to John McGuire, our next superintendent. But this has nothing to do with approving the contract. The board as a whole has already approved it. Anyway, we're going to hear what our lawyer has to say about it, and so life goes on--now with a corrected record.

As for the Upstate-Downstate situation: What I did was point it out (see my blog entry from Sept. 27), and it's kind of funny to be attacked for pointing out an existing prejudice that you can hear anywhere from Buffalo to Staten Island.

Like I said: Life goes on. . . .

October 3, 2007

Since I've moved my earlier postings to the Archive a number of people have asked me where they can find the article that the Albany Times Union did on my education blog. You can get there by searching through the Archive (and you will see my response) or by clicking on this link: Times Union article on Boardside.

September 29, 2007

This week there were plenty of informative things to read about the district in The Enterprise. Also some pretty funny stuff on town politics: Nothing like an election in a tightly knit community, during a lovely Indian summer, to get the blood pumping and the letter-writers writing.

I know the tone isn't always what we want, but there is something gorgeous about all the opinions flying overhead, or rather, the freedom to let them fly. I imagine somewhere in the great airy beyond Winston Churchill is chuckling as he lights up a cigar and assures his audience that "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others."

As for our district: In her story about the early-morning meeting and the 6-3 vote to approve John McGuire as our new superintendent, Melissa Hale-Spencer wrote that "For the first time in at least 20 years, the school board here has appointed a new superintendent with a split vote." Later on in the story, Hale-Spencer cited the observation of an ex-board member who recalled that "the board used to really try hard to reach consensus on such important matters."

Personally, I think the ex-board member is correct: consensus has its benefits, but it requires a foundation--respect for differing opinions; openness in process; the confidence that people will do as they say; the realization that back-room deals lead to dissension; a true commitment--not lip service--to listening with the intent to understand;   faith in the democratic ideal of the public's right to know; a dedication to results, not public relations; an ability to refrain from attacking the messenger when it is the message that is the issue; the use of logical argument to persuade as opposed to characterizing those who disagree with you as "Destroyers of the District;" the discipline to stick to the subject instead of wandering off into irrelevant personal attacks; and, most important of all to the founding idea of public education, a profound willingness to reconsider opinions and prejudices in the face of facts. 

It was invigorating to read the insightful things that John McGuire had to say to The Enterprise. Regarding the split vote, he said that "any politician would be pleased with a two-thirds majority vote."

Exactly right, and furthermore, it is in no way indicative of the job a leader will do. In 1940, FDR won the White House with 55 percent of the popular vote. In 1948, Truman won with less than 50 percent. And in 1860, Lincoln received less than 40 percent.

Later on in the story Mr. McGuire made one of those diamond-bright observations that stick with you. "As a leader," he said, "a big way we can influence and set a tone is by our modeling. That helps to establish a climate."

In my view this statement marks the first contribution that John McGuire has made to our district.

I am looking forward to many more.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend.

September 28, 2007

Heard a wonderful phrase: "The deceit of averages." It means that when someone is trying to hide an unpleasant number among a group of numbers they average all the figures to raise up the bottom number. What a great expression: The Deceit of Averages: Sounds like a movie. Now I'm wondering: Who would be the star?

September 27, 2007

Forgot to mention something that I found mildly amusing at our last board meeting. It seems that some folks questioned whether the perception of Downstate as intellectually superior to Upstate was really alive and well as a variety of bigotry. I believe it is, and here are a couple of examples.

In an essay, "Exploring a New York State of Mind, Mark L. Irons writes: "To the residents of New York City and Long Island, the rest of the state is upstate. Wait, that's not right. It's not "the rest of the state"; it's "everyplace else". There's a subtle but important difference between the two definitions. The former considers a specific area, even if it's only vaguely defined. The latter treats upstate NY as the negation of downstate. . . ."

And here's an entry from Wikipedia, with an illustration: "In the New York metropolitan area, usage of the term "Upstate New York" typically implies unfamiliarity with (and often condescension towards) the area that the speaker is denoting as such. . . . Usage of the term is often taken to be an insulting manifestation of the famous New Yorker magazine's view of the world."

September 26, 2007

Well, last night the new superintendent, John McGuire, attended our terrific workshop on contract negotiations and then the meeting, and I look forward to working with him. The new high-school principal, Michael Paolino, was also at the meeting, but I didn't get a chance to speak with him. His wife was there, too, and their young twins, who were absolutely adorable. Mr. Paolino should start in October. It will be good to have a permanent person in that spot, but the interim principal, Harry Kachadurian is such a wonderful guy, and full of so many ideas, especially at our PTSA meetings, I'll hate to see him go.

We had an interesting discussion with the board on Similar Schools, save for a few tiresome moments of an ad hominem attack directed at guess-who, which only served to obscure the issue I was trying to raise--how to encourage people to keep their eyes fixed on the horizon of a far smaller and more competitive world without intellectual and economic borders. I was  happy to learn that the administration was willing to present that information, if available, to the public when the School Report Card comes out. I know a number of you have asked me about the earlier scores, and I'm busy compiling them, and I'm sure we can hear some explanations about them in the future during board discussion and sharing. I've been working on a new little satire about testing tentatively titled, "The Legend of Mr. Noit All." It's kind of funny so far, but time is scarce at the moment.

I'll be back soon.

September 25, 2007

Should be a wonderful Board meeting tonight. Tune in at 7:30 on Channel 16. You will get a chance to meet the new superintendent, John McGuire, and you will hear a discussion about whether the District should inform the community of the Similar School rankings. The numbers are easily available on the NYS Department of Education Web site.

What I believe you will find so fascinating about the discussion is it will give everyone a clear picture of the views that board members and administrators hold about what it truly means to prepare children for the 21st century and to pursue excellence. As I said, it should be fascinating. I'll have more to say about it after the meeting.

September 12, 2007

Interesting Board meeting last night. Talked about the plan for the bond issue, and I also finally had a chance to discuss the concept of Similar Schools. A couple of e-mail were waiting for me when I got home, and instead of writing a recap of my views on the subject, I'll just post what I said.

SIMILAR SCHOOLS

I had the pleasure of attending our opening football game against Albany High. During a break I spoke with our Athletic Director, Wayne Bertrand. Mr. Bertrand mentioned the teams he thought would move on to the playoffs, perhaps even to statewide competition, and the youngsters who might receive scholarship offers. There was such pride in Mr. Bertrand’s voice as he stood alongside the field in the beautiful summer evening, and understandably so, since moving beyond the narrow confines of your league is a measurement of success in sports.

As I drove home, I saw a certain irony in limiting this standard of achievement to athletics, since every day our teachers work diligently to prepare our children to compete on a stage far wider than New York—a stage that now stretches to every corner of the Earth. Even applying to American colleges pits our children against the world, since foreign-born students are a significant portion of college enrollment.

Yet, when it comes to our students, we still look at their progress in light of something akin to a local athletic conference. During a recent presentation I asked Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Nancy Andress why this was so, and her response was that this is the way the newspapers have always done it.

While I don’t doubt this is true, and I’m a fan of our local press, I do wonder about limiting our look at student performance to an area newspapers define as their advertising market. Especially in the 21^st century, in an intellectual and economic environment without borders.

Fortunately, the New York State Department of Education has devised a far bigger league, if you will, which the Education Department calls "Similar Schools." This league is the result of a statistical analysis that takes into account District resources and student needs, both intellectual and economic, and limited English proficiency. Guilderland is in a group with 50 other districts located on Long Island, Westchester, Rockland County and other schools further Upstate, including our neighbors in North Colonie, Niskayuna, and Bethlehem.

When I mentioned this to a couple of people involved in education their response was basically that it’s not fair for Guilderland to be grouped with downstate schools.

I wasn’t surprised by their reaction: I’ve heard it before. In fact, when I’ve heard this kind of bigotry from people in Manhattan, I’ve replied, on occasion, that yes life may be slower up here, but it takes true genius to pay a million dollars for an apartment no bigger than the cages we Upstate types use for our pet squirrels.

Of course, the worst part of bigotry is not that people give voice to their spectacular ignorance. It’s that those who are the focus of the prejudice begin to believe it—that they internalize a diminished view of themselves.

Luckily, State Ed has made the Similar School ratings easy to download and organize into a list. I have downloaded a few of these findings, and the numbers from 2005-2006 have some nice things to say about our performance in this 50-school league. For instance, on the French Regents, we are in the top ten of students scoring at the highest levels. On the European History Regents, we are in the top nine. There are also more sobering outcomes. On the 8^th Grade English Language Arts exam, we are well down toward the bottom. We recover a fair amount of ground on the English Regents exam, but the scores at the top level are not in line with our other top scores.

None of this should be seen as a criticism of teachers or students. Rather it is a signpost of where we need to direct our resources of time and money. Experience teaches that issues don’t dissolve by pretending they don’t exist. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need a bond issue to help fix our schools. We could save a lot of tax money by simply pretending that the schools don’t need an update.

Additionally, even operating with the enlightenment of Similar School rankings, one does not expect that we should always occupy the top spot. However, I think it’s only honest that if we are going to trumpet excellence at every turn that we compete in a more realistic arena and that we honor the hard work of our teachers and students by showing them that we believe they can compete with anyone, anywhere, any time.

I’ve heard the notion that we don’t teach to the test, and yet I wonder if it makes sense to assume that these other 49 districts ignore the broader educational needs of their students. Logically, I think that’s unlikely.

I’d also like to add a word to parents. I hope none of you allow anyone to suggest that your children can’t compete because they live Upstate. Our region has produced three U.S. Presidents; the inventor, George Eastman; the physician, Harry Stack Sullivan; the writers, William Kennedy and Joyce Carol Oates; the comedian, Lucille Ball; and Academy-Award winners, Kirk Douglas and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The list of accomplished Upstaters is long, and I’m confident there is no reason the names of our children can’t be added to it.

Actually, I’m so confident that at our next Board meeting I will be introducing a motion, asking two things: One, that the administration report these numbers to the Board and the public, and two, that when the School Report Card is presented in December that the Similar School rankings be included.

In the meantime, since I can’t imagine the Board and our community wouldn’t want this information, I’ll be happy to make my efforts available to all.

August 21, 2007

The air is cooler now after dinner, and sitting out on the deck and watching the evening come, you can hear the wind high up in the leaves of the trees. The sound is as soft as the rustling of silk, and yet it echoes in memory like the ringing of bells, because you spent so much of your early life in school that even with graduation long past you can’t shake the feeling that the year ends in the first fevered blush of summer and begins again when you hear whisperings in the cool, violet twilight. You think about seeing friends again and meeting new teachers and wonder what the coming year will bring. Your gains and losses are behind you now, the opportunities seized and lost. Even as the shadows fall across the garden you promise yourself to travel hopefully. This is the essence of courage, keeping your vision clear and your faith in the future strong, to remain relentless in pursuit of what you believe is right regardless of obstacles. In not too long a time, the leaves will blaze and drift down and blow across the yard, and autumn will gather around you. No matter. Experience teaches you that this is the season of hope, and so you sit perfectly still in the deep blue evening, smiling to yourself, renewed, ready for what lies ahead, and listening to the wind in the leaves.

Not a bad thing to remember in this blink-of-an-eye world.

Don't know if I'll have a chance to post while I'm away, but I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, and I look forward to being back here soon.  

August 20, 2007

I'm back, and if you get the chance, watch the board meeting on channel 16 tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. We'll be setting the tax rate, always an exciting moment, and it will give you something to think about, I hope.

Stay tuned.

July 24, 2007

Back late from the weekend and preparing to travel for a couple of weeks with lots of work to clear off my desk before I go. Thanks for the e-mails and calls, and I'll try to get back to everyone before I leave. But for a while now, ever since reading The Demon Under the Microscope by Thomas Hager, a terrific book about the discovery of the first antibiotic, I've been meaning to write about it, and now seems as good a time as any. The story of the search for sulfa is fascinating but what I’ve been thinking about was the section on childbed fever, because it highlighted some things about resistance to change.

Childbed fever dates to ancient Greece, but it wasn't until the 17th century, when more women started giving birth in hospitals, that the disease began its alarming spread. The symptoms of puerperal fever, the technical name, would appear 24 to 48 hours after a baby was born. Initially, the mother would develop symptoms similar to a bad stomach flu, and things would rapidly go downhill. By the late 18th century, childbed fever was raging in the cities of Europe and the United States, and at one point, 20 percent of all new mothers died from it. Doctors closed down maternity wards, burned all the bedding, opened up the windows or filled the rooms with smoke, in a futile attempt to dispel the "bad air" that some considered the cause of the disease.

In 1843, a young Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., the father of the future Supreme Court Justice, was a physician and writer teaching at Harvard. That year, Dr. Holmes published the "Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever," an essay critical of doctors for not seeing the obvious: that the disease was carried by physicians as they attended new mothers in the hospital. He suggested that doctors wash their hands between examining patients. His essay was not, shall we say, well received. One leading obstetrician, "who believed that childbed fever was spread according to the mysteries of God's providence," was morally outraged at the notion that he or his colleagues might be transporting the disease and rebutted Holmes’s premise with the statement that "Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen's hands are clean."

Far be it from me to suggest that if childbed fever had been a male affliction than the hand-washing suggestion might have fallen on more sympathetic ears.

Nearly two decades after the essay appeared, a balding, 43-year-old doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, who worked at Vienna's great lying-in hospital and who had watched childbed fever take away countless mothers from their babies, published the results of a study, concluding the disease was "caused by conveyance to the pregnant women of putrid particles derived from living organisms, through the agency of the examining fingers. Consequently, must I make my confession that God only knows the number of women who I have consigned prematurely to the grave."

In this painting, Semmelweis is standing in back, talking to a group of doctors, while in the foreground two other doctors are washing their hands, a practice that Semmelweis suggested, and one that reduced the incidence of childbed fever.

Still, it was years before the medical establishment accepted Semmelweis's findings, and it wasn't until the 1930s, when Dr. Leonard Colebrook identified a more effective antiseptic to kill the bacteria responsible for the fever, and later on with the discovery of sulfa, that the fear of childbed fever no longer haunted the mothers of newborns.

Two things struck me about this slice of history. First, that the all-too-human response to a suggestion of change, even change based on scientific exploration, is not a list of measured questions designed to investigate the proposals. Instead, you get full-blown moral outrage and an earful of the bizarre: Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen's hands are clean. Secondly, for me at least, the story serves as an object lesson: Whenever I feel the pull to retreat to the past, I remind myself that no matter how comforting it is to travel a well-worn road, this, too, can come with a terribly high price, and thus the wisest course is to head straight into the future.

Not a bad thing to remember in this blink-of-an-eye world.

Don’t know if I’ll have a chance to post while I’m away, but I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, and I look forward to being back here soon.

July 19, 2007

For some time I have been thinking about what I hope children will take away from their K-12 years. My answer, at the moment, is that I hope they are able to read with comprehension and to think clearly (and this includes an understanding of mathematics, science, history, literature and the arts) and to express their thoughts in a well-ordered, cleanly written form, with proper spelling and grammar. A common complaint you hear from students as they stare at a blank computer screen (and from professional writers for that matter,) is that "I don't know what to write."

My answer to this complaint is always the same and rooted in a lifetime of wrestling with the craft: "That's because you don't know what you think."

Yet if you can't begin to organize your thoughts, if you are a sloppy writer, then you will be a sloppy thinker, and your options will be sorely limited. Writing is nothing more than thinking in printed form.

More than anything this experience informs what I hope children will take away from their education, because with this skill young men and women will be prepared to go out and seek their fortune in any direction they choose.

All of this begins with small steps, but the smallest is instilling in children the habits of excellence. I heard this stated well in an interview with basketball great, Bill Walton. He was recalling something he had learned from a man who would have to stand as among our country's greatest teachers, former UCLA coach, John Wooden, seen below with his former pupil.

Walton told the story of how when he started practice on the UCLA varsity, and all of the players were eager to get going on the court, Wooden looked over what was arguably the finest college team on the planet and told them that the first lesson they would have to learn was how to put on their socks and lace up their sneakers.

Now, Wooden and his UCLA teams were already legendary, as were a number of his players, and we can assume that they at least possessed a rudimentary knowledge of footwear. Yet every player did as they were told, and the impact on Walton must have been enormous because he was telling this story over 30 years after the fact.

Walton understood what John Wooden was teaching him--that even the greatest enterprises start with strict attention to basics, to discipline and to excellence--and I can think of no greater single lesson that our children can learn.

July 17, 2007

I once had a conversation with an English teacher, a profoundly gifted woman whose students were--and I don't say this lightly--blessed to be in her class. As we spoke the teacher commented that she often wondered if her students, moving on to success in the adult world of journalism or academia or entertainment, would recall how hard she had tried to instill in them respect for the written word. I told her that I had never forgotten the high-school teacher who had helped me along that path: I still had a note he had written me 35 years ago on one of my early efforts. She accepted my response as a small measure of proof, but she seemed wistful.

A couple of years later, while I was writing a magazine profile of the playwright and screenwriter, Richard Wesley, I thought of her because Wesley not only remembered the teachers who had helped him more than 40 years ago, he told me that two of them had clearly changed his life, transforming him from a young man full of wishes and dreams into a working playwright. Wesley spoke about more teachers than I had space to fit in the profile: actually, he was so moved by what his teachers had done for him he eventually wound up in the classroom himself and became the head of the writing program at NYU.

Thinking back to my conversation with the English teacher, I wish I'd been able to tell her about Richard Wesley. And so I've told her now.

July 16, 2007

Fascinating story in the New York Post about a 13-year-old boy who was promoted to 8th grade against his mother's wishes. It seems that the young man hardly did any school work and frequently cut class, but did manage to pass a couple of standardized tests and so on he goes. His mother is pleading with Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to keep her son back. The story demonstrates the need for genuine standards of excellence. We'll see how this one plays out.

Also, I've been receiving more phone calls regarding the Times Union article on Boardside. It appears that a number of Capital Region residents are pleased to have a running take on the doings of a school board. I appreciate their support, and I'm glad they're listening because this should be an interesting year.

July 14, 2007

Last night, on our way to pick up our son from the camp where he is working for a month, my wife and I saw a bumper stick that said:

Change is Inevitable: Struggle is an Option

This has always been one of the great human themes, I suppose, but today, where reality is often measured in nanoseconds, the speed of our lives complicates this struggle, giving it more force than it deserves and pushing us to cling tighter to the past. It can be destructive to hold onto yesterday with such tenacity, and I have written about this impulse in a piece entitled, Culture Change.

Still, this desire to hide in the past is an understandable reaction. People gaze into the mists of the unknown and see monsters. Soon, their fear sours into anger, and so they lash out at those who are willing to take a second look, to accept that beyond the mist there is no monster at all, but a doorway to new accomplishments. Since I have been spending so much time reading and writing about the Cold War I feel as though I have one foot planted in the early 1960s and the other in 2007, a double bind that is both the pleasure and affliction of writing history. Thus, I find myself recalling the First Family of my childhood memory, seen here on summer vacation on Cape Cod.

I think about all of the optimism of that long-gone moment, and all of the sadness that awaited this family in the future, a series of shocks the country shared by watching them on TV. No question, the father in this photograph knew something of sadness: he was chronically ill as a child and adult; his brother and brother-in-law had been killed in action during World War II, and he himself had come close in the South Pacific; one sister had died in a plane crash, and another had been placed in an institution.

Yet JFK still possessed the courage to become the first Irish Catholic President, ignoring those who attacked him for both his heritage and religion. During his thousand days in office, he had the courage to promise that his nation would land a man on the moon; he had the courage to renounce the petty distractions of politics and to side with the angels in the battle for Civil Rights legislation; and he had the courage, always, to believe in the promises of tomorrow, saying, "Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

It is his unshakeable faith in tomorrow, his optimism, his refusal to quit, that I believe continues to endear JFK to the country he left behind, the reason he is still quoted and discussed. He understood something basic about the modern world as it unfolded before him--that it was a door opening, not closing--and his courage enabled him to see opportunity where others only saw the reflection of their own fear in the shimmering  dawn.

July 13, 2007

Thanks to a suggestion from a member of Boardside's informal editorial board I am reconfiguring my Random Jottings. The latest entry will be at the top and if you want to follow the history of the blog you can start at the bottom, which I would recommend for new visitors. There is plenty of new mail that is worth a look.

Have a great weekend.

July 11, 2007

The power was working, and the Board meeting went on as scheduled. Heard the Facilities Committee Final Report and saw a Power Point presentation on it, and you can find a copy of them by clicking on the above links. The committee did a good job putting it all together. They are recommending a project of $26,971,500. It includes: $17,380,900 for renovations at Westmere, Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush and Altamont Elementary Schools; $5,710,600 for technology infrastructure and program improvements and safety and security upgrades; $3,880,000 for the relocation of the district administrative offices to the high school and the construction of additional classroom space there to maximize state aid. NYS will give us approximately $18 million; the District will borrow about $8 million and pay it off over 15 years. Once the Board accepts it, the community will vote on it in the fall.

We also appointed a tech supervisor and staff developer, and we will be looking at the staff-development budget during the coming year. At the end of the meeting, a board member raised a concern about Boardside. I won't take up meeting time discussing this site--only the issues raised here--so I didn't respond. I'll do so now.

The concern raised was that I identified Don Csaposs, posted his picture, mentioned that he worked for the town and linked to his contact information on the town Web page. The board member suggested that these things would prevent people from appearing before the Board.

I'm not exactly sure why that would be so since people are identified by name when they appear at public comment, and they are on TV and the meeting is repeated on cable between our meetings. In fact, as you'll notice, the picture of Don was culled from our meeting.

In identifying Don Csaposs I was only following, and will continue to follow, standard, print journalism convention. For instance, when the Enterprise published the "Silence is not Golden" story, they wrote about Don's criticism of my site and said: "Csaposs, who works as development director for the town and is a long-time member of the school district's budget advisory committee." In addition, in the Times Union piece, when Don spoke to the reporter he was IDed as "Guilderland's director of development." The link to his site is to provide his contact information, a common practice on the Web. I also provided links to the experts who spoke to the Times Union, and many other people (and publications) mentioned on Boardside. This is not out of some imagined spite, but as a way to provide more information and give folks the chance to get in touch and perhaps, at a later date, continue the conversation.

One final observation, for what it's worth. If someone wants to remain anonymous, it's probably not a great idea to go on TV and give interviews to reporters.

On a more amusing note: I received a call yesterday from a resident of the Roslyn School District, who had seen the Times Union article. Roslyn is where former Superintendent Frank Tassone, now in jail, and some cronies stole millions from the school (and thus gave birth to Audit Committees in every NYS school district, which come complete with plenty of tax-funded overhead, money that is not spent on children.) According to this rather unhappy resident, this new Roslyn Board is not exactly a dream come true, and he is considering printing up "anti-Dronoidal" T-shirts. He said he'll keep me posted.

July 10, 2007

Board meeting was held mostly in the dark last night because of an electrical storm. No one showed up to comment on Boardside, so perhaps, for the moment, the personal attacks have stopped. Even in the dark we got some work done, and the young people working the TV cameras, an intrepid pair to say the least, did the best they could. The board is meeting again tonight at 7 to finish our business. Tune in on Channel 16 if you get the chance.

Just before I left for the meeting last evening I received an e-mail from Glenn Neuschwender, a Board of Ed member in East Moriches out on Long Island. He had read about Boardside in the e-mail from the NYS School Board Association. Glenn has had a Web site dedicated to his work on the board for over a year. You will find it at www.glenn4em.com. His site is different from Boardside, but the purpose is the same. Take a look. It's an interesting place to visit.

July 9, 2007 (Update)

I posted an interesting e-mail that touched on the role of the teachers union. I'm glad it showed up because it gave me the opportunity to address this sort of concern.

Work calls. Gotta go. And try to tune in tonight at 7:30 on Channel 16 for our meeting.

P.S. Every weekday, the NYS School Board Association e-mails education stories around our state. Now I'm starting to hear from people who received the TU story via the association. I've posted one of those e-mails in Letters.

July 9, 2007

Plenty of e-mail and calls about The Times Union article on Boardside. I've posted some of the mail in the letters section. There was an interesting e-mail on Dronoid, which gave me a chance to clear up some aspects of the definition. I would like to hear from the critics, but so far they don't seem to want to discuss issues here. Oh, well. And there is a rainy Monday morning outside. Now it's back to work. Later, if I have the time, I'll post some more of the e-mails.

July 8, 2007

The Times Union article on Boardside appeared today, and the reporter, Scott Waldman, did a nice job laying out the issues and the range of responses both pro and con. Don Csaposs showed up, calling me unethical, yadda, yadda, yadda, the kind of personal attack that has been declared logically worthless since the days of Aristotle. Don did make a comment to the reporter that is worth repeating. He claimed that Boardside "is not a good advertisement for the notion of collaborative behavior."

Ah. Now we're at the heart of the matter: How "collaborative" should school-board members be with each other and school administrators? For instance, if one board member supports more money for sports and another board member wants more money for art, do they get together and say I'll support you if you support me? Suppose an administrator wants to create two new jobs, and the board wants to hang onto an existing job that would be lost, do they "collaborate" and now have three jobs for the taxpayers to fund? This is known as "horse trading" and anyone familiar with the U.S. Congress is aware of the game. How does it work out? Go check the federal deficit.

In my view, school boards and administrators across our state have been far too "collaborative." There needs to be more distance between them if governance is to get done--governance being the reason that school boards exist. This is not to say I believe administrators are bad people: Quite the opposite, many of them are wonderful and care deeply about education, and it is easy for board members, many of whom also care about education, to feel as though they are all working together in "collaboration." If they are, they shouldn't be. In the long run, I'm convinced that the breakdown of this process will lead to ruinous property taxes, the continued flight of businesses from our state, school programs stripped to the bone, and children who will be deprived of that most valuable American commodity: an excellent public education.

I wish Don Csaposs much luck in his day job, bringing new business to the Town of Guilderland, since if he is successful the tax burden will be eased on the community, and there will be more funding for the children in our schools, two outcomes that I'm sure all of us would welcome.

One aspect of reading the newspaper I always enjoy is that, in a sense, it is an opportunity to meet new people, and in the Boardside piece we meet Sally Klingel, a senior extension associate with Cornell University's Industrial and Labor Relations School. Ms. Klingel had some sound advice regarding school-board members and blogs. According to the Times Union, Klingel observed that bloggers "must not reveal private information," but added that blogs "could be valuable if they encourage more discussion." We also meet, New York State School Boards Association spokeswoman Barbara Bradley. She said that "school board members have a right to speak as individuals [and a blog] is another vehicle for them." Then Ms. Bradley sounded what I considered an incredibly hopeful note. Although she was unaware of other sites like Boardside, she expected that "Golden's unusual site will be joined by many more."

I'm glad that two observers, with no stake in the issues before our board, see blogging as a valuable addition to the discussion of education. And I hope Barbara Bradley is correct. Nothing would be more helpful to school-board members across New York than to hear from each other by reading posts online. It would be a new community--debating, discussing, sharing their hopes and concerns--and I believe it could only benefit all the people of New York, whether inside or outside the schools, and ultimately add immeasurable value to the education of our children.

Outside my office window, I just saw the sun peeking through the clouds, so I wish everyone the perfect summer Sunday. For those in our town, remember, our board meeting is tomorrow night at 7:30 instead of on Tuesday. Please tune in if you get the chance.

July 4, 2007 (UPDATE Continued)

Returned home from a soggy outing, and there were a couple of messages from people who wanted to know exactly who is Don Csaposs. My understanding is that Don is a business-development director for the Town of Guilderland. He also seems to be involved in local Democratic politics and serves on the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, a group of volunteers that meet in March to give their opinion of a draft of the school budget. On occasion, Don also addresses the School Board at public comment. Here Don is at our last meeting on June 19.

On the surface, at least, it appears Don stopped by to comment on our civility level and, in a roundabout way, on Boardside, suggesting that it was part of a commercial venture, etc. etc. etc. Part of the whole Yours Truly Is Unethical nonsense. But I have no idea what he told the Times Union, so we'll have to wait until the article appears, and thus, in the words of the great Edward R. Murrow, "Good night and good luck."

July 4, 2007 (UPDATE)

The Albany Times Union is doing a story on Boardside. It seems a reporter, Scott Waldman, read the "Silence is Not Golden" piece in the Enterprise and decided to do a story of his own. I've been told that Don Csaposs, who works over at Town Hall, had some "colorful" criticism of Boardside, and I look forward to reading it. When the TU story appears I'll post the link here, and of course, provide some commentary.

Stay tuned.

July 4, 2007

Many of our Founders were deeply flawed individuals, and certainly some of their beliefs and behavior would fall short of modern standards of fairness and decency.

And yet. . . we owe them everything, don't we?  At the risk of their own lives they pursued this grand experiment in democracy and managed, with much moral compromise, to give birth to a republic that continues to struggle toward a "more perfect" realization of freedom and equality. 

One aspect of the Founders' vision that fascinates me is the connection they saw between democracy and public education. Whether it was Thomas Jefferson writing his bills for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge and the Establishment of a System of Public Education; or James Madison commenting that "No feature. . . of our Country is more gratifying, than the increase and variety of Institutions for educating the several ages and classes of the rising generation."; or Benjamin Franklin observing that "Genius without education is like silver in the mine," and then starting the first public library in America.

In the main, the Founders viewed education as the bedrock of democracy, for an informed public would be better able to understand the issues of the day and vote for its leaders. For some time, though, I have come to see public education as serving another, equally important function: It protects us from envy by providing the opportunity for all people, regardless of the economic class of their birth, to achieve success. One flaw of the majority of Founders was their elitism: when they spoke about the public, there were whole sections of the population that they didn't include, and my grandparents and parents would have been among them. (Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration, was one notable exception: he pressed for a network of public schools open to all.) Sometimes I imagine how tragic it would be for millions and millions of children, including me, who where not to the manor born, to be deprived of a chance to climb up the ladder. How would they pass their days? The answer is almost too horrible to imagine.

So today, between the gatherings with friends and family, or watching parades and offering our gratitude to our fellow citizens in harm's way around the globe, perhaps we can all save a moment to whisper a thank-you to the Founders for their unswerving  faith in the power of education to move us forward into a brighter future.

I wish everyone a wonderful 4th. And thank you so much for stopping in these last few weeks to browse through Boardside.

June 29, 2007

Every week, on Thursday morning, The Altamont Enterprise & Albany County Post is published. For local news, particularly the doings of  school boards, The Enterprise is the closest thing we have to an objective voice, thanks in large part to its editor, Melissa Hale-Spencer, whom I have discussed elsewhere.

This week Hale-Spencer wrote a piece on Boardside, headlined, "Silence is not Golden: Website riles school board," and so a few comments, both great and small, are in order.

Open up the paper and you'll see a picture of me from the summer of 2000 shaking hands with then-presidential candidate George W. Bush. On my site there are also pictures of me interviewing Mikhail Gorbachev, which didn't make it into the article. Under normal circumstances these facts wouldn't warrant a comment, but in some educational circles the hated No Child Left Behind act is viewed as a Republican plot/right-wing conspiracy, though this paranoia doesn't factor in that NCLB is ardently supported by Sen. Ted Kennedy and the editorial page of the NY Times. Thus, for the record, let me state that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Republican or Communist.

One comment Hale-Spencer pointed to, and I'm glad she did, was an observation I had made in an early draft of Broadside regarding the teaching of grammar and punctuation. The observation has not been on the site for some time, thanks to the comments of the community members who have served as an informal editorial board. In its original inception the observation seemed to call attention to a lack of ability in today's students. I regret that misinterpretation and apologize for it. Nor did I intend to suggest that teachers are somehow responsible. My point was, and continues to be, that there are no shortcuts to the habits of excellence--that you cannot offload the fine points to a computer. Educational leaders should take note and make the necessary arrangements for children to receive appropriate instruction.

I also feel the same way about the teaching of critical thinking, as if this  skill could be taught divorced from facts. I'm hardly alone here. The American Educator, a publication of the American Federation of Teachers, has reached a similar conclusion in its latest cover story. Again, no shortcuts and lots of hard work. In our district we spend approximately $1 million a year on curriculum and training. Surely some of that money could be reallocated to hire more teachers to inculcate the habits of writing excellence in students. This is no criticism of our current program: it is, however, the recognition of the inescapable reality that large amounts of classroom time are required to meet these goals.

I will be speaking out on this subject during the coming year, because I'm afraid that some believe, mistakenly, that technology holds all the answers. This summer I've had the opportunity to observe two online courses being taught. Since many educators and business leaders are convinced that written online communication will be even more important to the economy of the future, I think it is safe to say that being unable to express complex ideas in well-written sentences with proper spelling and punctuation will one day soon be akin to showing up for work with your shoes on your ears.

One thing that struck me in the Enterprise story was the use of the word "promote" to describe the reason for my Web site. It's funny: I've never gotten any work through my site, and the only time I felt it helped in an undertaking was when I ran for the school board. I put the Web address on my campaign literature because I was under the impression that some members of our community might think it was a good idea to have a writer, historian and biographer on the board. People mentioned it to me while I was campaigning, so I guess it was helpful. What has made me happiest over the years is that some teachers and scholars have used my recorded interviews with political leaders in their classrooms and their work. But, as I noted in earlier blog, if you hear people talking about my Web site as a commercial venture, take note of what they are not talking about--good governance.

Finally, as I read the recap of our meeting in the Enterprise, I found the ludicrous charge of my being "unethical" quite sad. Not the charge itself, which I suspect was made because our Policy Committee has not yet approved the throwing of rocks at board members with whom you don't agree, but because it seems that some believe that board members shouldn't engage in vigorous debate that sharpens their differences. Of course, this is utterly ridiculous, and I could cite numerous reasons in history and law for why it is so. Suffice it to say that every year board members compete for seats in an election, which is indeed all about these differences.

No, what made it so sad in my view is that to attack the idea of debate is to attack the roots of our educational system and to cheapen the mission of every educator and school-board member in our country: It was none other than Thomas Jefferson who saw education as the foundation of democracy, because as Jefferson observed, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free. . . it expects what never was and never will be."

I couldn't agree more.

June 26, 2007 (Update)

Wonderful column by Tom Friedman in the NY Times about the ways in which the blogosphere is changing our landscape for the better. Friedman writes about a new book on the subject, How, by Dov Seidman. The upshot is that transparency puts pressure on people and institutions to behave in a more acceptable manner, since “how you live your life and how you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it."

No wonder that those dedicated to operating in the dark and to vicious verbal assaults out of earshot and to passing off naked self-interest as effective management and to disguising every cut corner as a shrewd practicality and to placing the demands of their own ego above everything else, wish that the blogosphere had never been invented.

Blogging can help mitigate a whole gamut of behavior that gives us the moral dry heaves, because, as Friedman writes, those who "get their hows wrong won’t be able to just hire a P.R. firm to clean up the mess by a taking a couple of reporters to lunch--not when everyone is a reporter and can talk back and be heard globally."

Interesting stuff. I hope there's room for How on my summer-reading list.

June 26, 2007

Back from Washington, a long and interesting trip for business and pleasure. Between appointments I had a chance to get out to the FDR memorial, which is quite different than the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. It is much less intent on creating a sense of awe in the visitor--on exclaiming, "Behold the man!" Instead, the memorial tells a story in sculpture. You see the Depression-era images of people waiting in bread lines, listening to the radio, and waiting to leave their farms. Finally, in back, you come to FDR sitting in his wheelchair with his Scottish terrier, Fala, for company. Engraved on the wall is the following:

those who seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers  call this a new order. it is not new and it is not order

On this trip to D.C. I was lucky to have my fifteen-year-old son with me. He was one of the reasons I was at this memorial. I was looking for a way to broach the subject of the criticism that had recently come flying at me about Boardside, and my relative certainty that there was going to be much more. My son has a number of friends who do the technical work for our Tuesday night school-board meetings, and I knew he got the blow-by-blow on Wednesdays, a rather funny take on the occasional lapses in adult behavior by some of the board.

I started talking with my son about FDR and how today we remember him as magnificent, but while he was in the White House he was among the most vilified Presidents in history. FDR had been demonized for so long that in September of 1944 he gave a humorous speech on the subject, discussing the reaction of his dog, Fala. (To listen click here. If you need RealPlayer, click here.) I said that whether you're involved in issues of historic importance or simply sitting on a school board, if you try to change anything people will become frightened and angry, and start flinging accusations ("You're unethical!") or calling you names ("Micromanager!") or claiming that you want to take away their medical insurance, a charge I still hear on occasion even though the changes were approved by the employee health committee and saved money for both our employees and the community. It is the downside of public service, but it shouldn't deter you from doing what you think is right.

My son told me that he understood what I was saying, but added that it didn't start when I put up Boardside on the Web. He said that months ago a student had approached him in school and said some rather unkind things about me as a board member. I asked him what he did, and my son said, "I told him that I was happy he felt so free to express his opinion, but I didn't agree with it. Then I walked away."

This was one of those moments when a father believes that he and his wife actually did something right along the way, that you both had taught something crucial to your child, and somehow, through parental alchemy or God's grace, it managed to stick. I told my son that I was proud of him, and yet, at the same time, I hurt for the child who had approached him, a child whom, for whatever reason, felt impelled to bring this ugliness to school. Now that Boardside is up, I hope that in the future students, or their parents, would feel free to e-mail me their opinions directly.

Some time later, as we were returning from Washington, a discussion started about how one avoids the distractions of personal attacks and continues in a single-minded pursuit of the common good--in this case, the governance that the law requires of school boards. I had no answers for that question, just some guidelines I learned as a child in Little League:

Keep your eye on the ball and never, ever swing at a pitch in the dirt.

June 21, 2007

“Never confuse movement with action.”

Ernest Hemingway

Want to learn to write? The guy in the photo can help. He's no longer walking among us, but he left behind, among other classics, a memoir, A Moveable Feast. Plenty of good advice about the craft, including how hard it is to master, the hours of writing and throwing out what you have written and finally the satisfaction of having captured something essential with words. Hard, though. Like learning to hit a baseball over a fence or play a sonata that will bring joy in every emotional shade to your audience. Want to read about one's man's struggle for excellence? It's all in the memoir.

And now it's off to Washington.

June 20, 2007 (Update)

Received a call from someone who would like me to post the statement I read at last night's meeting regarding Boardside. Below the picture of Arlington are my prepared remarks. They may have come out a bit differently on TV, but in the main it's what I said, and I stand by it. (Yes, on occasion, board members prepare remarks. It's homework, of which we have plenty, an aspect of the job the public does not generally see. We all work hard, particularly now, interviewing candidates for the superintendent's job. To some degree this preparation and hard work  explains why are debates are so vigorous. Our board president, a handy guy with words, likes to describe us as "a highly interactive board." Nice phrase. Very high tech. And true. My mother, God rest her soul, would have called us "noisy.")

MY STATEMENT TO BOARD OF EDUCATION, 6/19/07

I’ll keep this brief because as a board I believe we have more productive things to do than go on about my Web site. The goal of the site is to promote positive change by promoting interest in the issues surrounding public education. I’m out to do the public good, and that’s not usually easy.

I will consult with some of the people who put me here, and those who have been generous enough to serve as an informal editorial board, offering critiques without personal motives.

The answer to the criticism of free speech is more free speech. So if you send me an e-mail I'll be happy to post it.

Finally, as a child, my parents took me to Arlington. I remember my father looking at the cemetery a long time, probably thinking about friends he’d lost in the war. And I’ve never forgotten what he said: "These people are the reason we can speak up. They’re the reason we can vote. And you respect them by doing both."

I feel grateful to those brave people and lucky to live in a country where a majority can’t order a minority to be quiet.

June 20, 2007

Board meeting last night. Boardside got mixed reviews from fellow board members and a member of the community. A few, shall we say, misconceptions arose. First, that Boardside is a commercial enterprise: Not likely, unless someone wants to send me one of their winning lottery tickets, which I'm not counting on, as from what I understand folks like to hang onto them. And here's a tip for anyone who wants to be a professional writer. Publishers and magazines don't pay you for things you give away for free on the Internet. They're funny like that. Another point: that somehow the artwork here represents real people: Wrong again. They are myths that try to capture challenges facing public education, with a special emphasis on school boards. When it's time to take a look at the real world we'll go to the video, which will show public statements, made at public meetings that appeared on TV. Can't imagine anyone would object.

There also seemed to be some idea that this isn't a blog: Here's the definition from Webopedia.com. A blog is "a Web page that serves as a publicly-accessible personal journal for an individual." I think the confusion resulted from the fact that this is not immediately interactive: that's because I have a day job. Sad but true. Still, my position is that the answer to any criticism of free speech is more free speech. So if you send me an e-mail I'll be happy to post it.

One interesting objection was that this blog violated the board ethics code. Hard to understand that one, since board members have written letters to the newspapers. Also, as much power as boards posses, I doubt it extends to cutting off free speech. The concern may indeed have been genuine. Here's the acid test. As we move into the school year and differences on issues sharpen, if you hear nothing about me being ethically challenged then the point was simply raised as a matter of concern. On the other hand, if you hear that my ethics are down on the level of the late Tony Soprano,  then it was a personal attack. Time will tell.

The community member who spoke mentioned that he saw Boardside continuing to present conflicts that appeared last year. True enough, but they are conflicts that any board doing its job will face, and trust me, they'll be around long after any of us are here or the government decides they want to run the schools. I'm sympathetic with the wish that many want a school board that does not do battle over big issues. Be careful  what you wish for. You would either wind up with programs stripped to the bone or a tax bill that would cause cardiac arrest in an elephant. At their best, schools sail in a straight line because boards battle against their members' desire to tug toward one side or the other. The battle doesn't just serve the public good: it is the public good. Does it get messy? You bet. Loud sometimes? Absolutely. However, as Winston Churchill observed 60 years ago: "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Boardside is a work-in-progress, and on occasion, you will find satire here. I appreciate those of you, without personal or political motives, who have been in touch to share your views and offer editing suggestions. I take all of them to heart, and I have made a number of changes.

I'm off to Washington Thursday until next week, and I'm sorry to miss graduation. Once again, congratulations to the class of 2007.

June 17, 2007

Between errands and commitments this weekend I read, Who's afraid of bloggers, a fascinating piece by Gal Beckerman in the Columbia Journalism Review. It seems that Scooter Libby's lawyers came up with a doozy of an argument for why the letters praising Libby's character and sent to Federal Judge Reggie Walton shouldn't become public. According to the NY Times his lawyers claimed "that these letters, once released, would be published on the Internet and their authors discussed, even mocked, by bloggers."

Well bust my buttons. Libby, a high government official, was convicted of perjury and prior to sentencing over 150 luminaries (Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, etc.,) wrote glowing letters to the judge on his behalf. Whatever your political slant on the Libby trial, you have to figure there is a smidgen of humor somewhere in that blizzard of mail. Judge Walton didn't strike me as a much of a jokester, but he was familiar with the Constitution, and he ruled that  the court "must strive to be as transparent as possible."

As you might guess, the bloggers had a field day with the letters, and a NY Times reporter did locate someone who raised concerns. Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Oxford University, said that the letters should be public, but added that the courts must deal with the lightning-like spread of information on the Web, information that once-upon-a-time was only found "in the dusty courthouse file.”

My opinion: Professor Z has been locked up too long in his ivory tower. As a writer I've passed more hours than I care to recall reading files in courthouses, halls of records, newspaper morgues, presidential libraries, and archives in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. 

And this is Beckerman's point in Who's afraid of bloggers. "Critics of the blogosphere," he writes, "often give the impression that they don't think people thought on their own before the Internet." An old-time reporter would have located the letters and printed them in the paper, where they would have been "mocked." The difference, says Beckerman, is that pre-Internet, ridiculing the letters would have gone on inside people's heads or in smaller conversations, "not out in the world for anyone to see. Maybe that's what's so annoying to the likes of Kissinger, et al."

Perhaps. But the story got me thinking. Today, you read and hear as much spin as good sense--spin to disguise unchecked self-interest, spin to cover up sloppy thinking or performance, spin that serves to place blame for problems instead of finding solutions. Note the recent hearing before a North Carolina state ethics panel of Michael Nifong, the Durham district attorney who charged three Duke University lacrosse players with sexual assault even though the evidence indicated the boys were innocent. Just before the ethics panel disbarred Nifong, one of Nifong's lawyers argued that he wasn't a liar: he was incompetent.

I thought Boardside should have a page of quotes dedicated to this mass silliness. I planned to call it, "You Can't Make This Stuff Up." Not exactly original, right? How unoriginal was confirmed by typing the phrase into Google: there were 229,000 hits. At least I'm not the only one thinking about this stuff. Still, I didn't have a name for the page--not until the next morning when I remembered Jackie Gleason playing Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. Whenever someone said something utterly ridiculous Ralph let out with a booming "Har-har-har-dee-har-har." So that's the name of the page. Now all I have to do is sift through material to find the quotes. In other developments, I put up the Micromanager page and made a first pass at outlining the issue, but I have a long way to go. I'll let you know when the page is updated. Have a good week.

June 15, 2007 (Tomorrow's blog today.)

On Tuesday night the Saratoga Springs Board of Education appointed Michael Piccirillo to the job of assistant superintendent for secondary education and curriculum. Mike has been the principal of our high school for the last 20 months. Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting him knows what a good person he is and could tell that Mike was headed upward in his career. I feel happy for him and his family, and yet sad to see him go. Best of luck, Mike.

The writer, John Taylor Gatto, was recommended to me by an e-mail to Boardside. Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year, and I've been reading a piece by him that appeared in Harper's Magazine. One interesting quote: "Childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty." Gatto discusses that observation in relation to public education, and whether you agree or not, you can't come away from his work without the sense that you have taken a look at things through an ex-teacher's knowledgeable eyes.

Far more amusing, and frightening, NYS Senate Republicans unveiled a plan to permit school districts to stop collecting property taxes over the next five years. Yahoo! The bill passed the Senate and is headed to the Assembly. Here's the really good news: The Times Union reported that according to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and the other plan-backers, no new state taxes would be needed to pay the annual bill of $9.5 billion.

Ya gotta be kiddin'. What do they have in mind? A driver's license fee of $8,500? Paying $6,000 in tolls to drive the Thruway? Or is NYS going to start issuing its own currency? Makes you want to track down the plan-backers' former math teachers and ask if these folks were taught arithmetic. "Of course," the teachers would reply. "We taught them how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, and also not to mislead people."

So what happened? Well, property taxes are so high New Yorkers are desperate to get out from under them and political leaders have trouble convincing businesses to relocate here because of the tax bite, and if they do come, they get huge rebates and/or investment of tax dollars, which doesn't do as much for revenues. The frightening part of the plan is wondering what-if NYS took over education? In the Capital Region we are well-acquainted with political squabbling and horse trading. Now apply that zaniness to your local district. If such a plan ever came into being, that would be the end of school boards. This is not a new idea. After World War II it was under discussion, only it was the Federal government that was going to take charge. The reason: The feds had just dragged us out of a Depression and won a war, and some thought they could handle the schools. Grassroots control won out in the 1940s and survives today, but the argument drags on, the debate between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton (one of our nation's first bloggers.) Jefferson saw us as a myriad of small, independent communities, while Hamilton saw us much more like we've become. On almost every point, Hamilton won the debate. Except with respect to public schooling. Still, the state and the federal government chew away at local control more and more. The pros and cons of that erosion are a long discussion for another time. What's crucial at the moment is the message this plan sends to school-board members to keep their eyes on budgets and the true outcome of programs--in other words, value.

And here's a question I leave you with dear reader: Would you trade your property-tax bill for giving up control of your schools? Tempting, isn't it? And scary, too. Let me know what you think.

June 15, 2007, UPDATE

I nearly forgot. Today is Friday so it's. . .

Packet Day!

The packet just prior to a board meeting also includes a notebook, and a fair amount of information, including the upcoming meeting agenda. This agenda should be quite interesting. So tune in Tuesday, on Channel 16, at 7:30. It will be the last meeting for longtime board member, Tom Nachod. Tom is among my favorite people on the board; actually, he's just one of my favorite people, period. For me part of the room where the board meets will always belong to him. However, from what I hear, Tom isn't a big fan of Boardside, and that's putting it mildly. Perhaps he'll speak about it, perhaps not. Either way, and whatever his opinion, I'm going to miss him.

A few words about navigating this site. I'm a rookie and doing this in my less-than-abundant spare time, so I ask you to please be patient. Many of you have asked for a few hints so here goes: Random Jottings is the blog, a daybook dealing with issues great and small, some funny, some not. The other pages I think of as feature stories, and you can get to them via Boardside Links. The first page you see upon entering Boardside, Dispatches from the Education Wars, is a front piece, a statement of purpose, and it may change as time goes on. You can read some of the e-mail I've received by going to Boardside Links and clicking on Letters. (Take a look at the new letter on SUNY-Albany's writing report.) I've been trying to get all the e-mail up, but there has been an electronic flurry the last 24 hours. (Apparently, there is widespread interest in China regarding U.S. education. I guess while we're focused on them, they're focused on us.) E-mail to Boardside takes me a while to reformat, so that adds to the lag in posting it, but if you have something expletive-free to say, please feel free to send it along, and I'll put it up as soon as I can.

Have a great weekend. The summer solstice is on the way.

Enjoy the sunshine. You deserve it.

June 14, 2007

Late yesterday afternoon I heard a wonderful sound: I was stretched out on the couch downstairs; the back doors were open; and a soft breeze blew in carrying the faint hum of a lawn mower. I had two reasons to feel glad: one, it wasn't me mowing the lawn, and two, ever since I was young that distant hum always meant to me that summer was just about here. And yesterday there was an added bonus: above the sound, closer to our yard, I could hear a group of children laughing, a wild laughter, actually, full-out, and I imagined them chasing each other in circles or throwing a beach ball, all of them wrapped up on a cool sunny afternoon in an act of childhood joy. It made me feel hopeful, and when I went back upstairs to my office I discovered that some kind soul had e-mailed me a wonderful column by Lynne Varner of The Seattle Times. If you care about school boards, I suggest you read it, and you will get a sense that you are not alone. Later on in the evening, when I thought about the music of the lawn mower and the laughter, it made me feel that way, connected, past to the present, yesterday to tomorrow.

June 13, 2007

One of the most informative things I've read on the state of school boards at the moment is Frederick M. Hess's study. Hess, a former public-school teacher, went on to receive a doctorate in government from Harvard and has been writing about school issues for some time. His study is filled with stats and observations about the political nature of school boards. (There are 15,000 boards of education in the U.S. How would you like to watch all those meetings? Cheer up. In 1930, there were approximately 130,000 school districts.) One point I wish Hess would have explored more closely is the actual experience of serving on a board. This was outside the scope of his work, but to turn away from that aspect of it is to miss what all the fuss is about: governance, and how this primary responsibility of school boards is either strengthened or weakened by a board's commitment to its core mission. One hears much chatter about how boards should all pull in the same direction, be on the same page, a garbled mouthful of clichés without end. Take a closer look and you'll see a majority, including a few Dronoids I'm sad to say, trying to roll over a minority. Worst of all, since in my view it violates the purpose of public education, the moving from the dark to the light, the majority frequently accuses the minority of neglecting its duties because they disagree and remain committed to advancing their viewpoint. This is when the real fun starts:

In the blink of an eye, differences of opinions are elevated, falsely, to moral failings, as though daring to disagree vigorously with one position or another qualifies you for a very long sentence in a very small cell in a very secure prison. This is what Benjamin DeMott, the esteemed literary critic and social commentator, referred to as "Junk Politics," and it is a phenomenon that I wish Hess had fully explored. Someone should, since as Hess's study indicates, school boards in sizable communities are filled with these fireworks. I understand why it is a difficult subject to examine, for it contains a variety of interests, the livelihoods of dedicated employees, meaningful (and ridiculous) political agendas, and most difficult to overcome, deeply held beliefs, rational or otherwise, about what the world once was and what it should be. In the end, the exploration, even if occasionally painful, should prove worth the cost. After all, ignorance may be bliss, but it is no virtue.

June 12, 2007

SUNY-Albany has just released a report on the state of undergraduate writing at the university. The report was done after a year-long investigation by a university task force. It is worth reading for a number of reasons, but particularly its evaluation of incoming students and the research regarding the crucial relationship between direct-writing instruction and learning. What struck me most was the unflinching honesty the task force, all of them SUNYA employees, brought to the job. No sugar coating. Here's the issue. Here's how we're going to try and fix it. Beautiful.

June 10, 2007

Packet arrived on Friday: Here it is:

At first, I was as happy as a kid on Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanzaa.  Then I opened it up, and. . .

Just kidding. It wasn't fatal. Not yet, anyway. We'll see, and I suspect you'll hear a good deal more about it in the near future. Have to check a few things regarding public and private information. On Friday after I read the packet, I had to get back to my paying job--I'm writing a history of the Cold War, and I've been doing that most of the weekend as well. But I'm telling you dear reader on Friday I could've dashed off five thousand words easy. Seems some folks are much less enthralled with free expression than even I imagined. Take a look at these pages I just put up and see how you feel:

Alexander Hamilton: Blogger and Blogs & Education.

And if you get a chance, check back with Boardside. I'll have more for you real soon.

June 7, 2007

Managed to swallow my corn muffin. President paid, and now that I'm back in the office I'm thinking I should've ordered two. We had a nice chat, the Pres, the Super, and I. Will Board members see their private conversations revealed? Fuhgedaboutit. We're interesting enough on TV. (Check Channel 16 for our bimonthly Mardi Gras. You're gonna love it.) And what will happen when Boardside becomes public? I have no idea. Truth is, I only thought four people and two cats knew about it. And the cats, Layla and Rocky, swear to me they haven't said a word. I guess some will like the commentary and others will be less enthusiastic. Story of my life. Still worth doing, though. A little bit of The Daily Show meets public education. Of course, I could've started a Think Tank. Just what the world needs. More hyper-serious babble from folks you'd throw out of your living room and articles so densely written they have all the appeal of overcooked oatmeal. The upshot of our gathering at the bakery was that Boardside will be announced in the packet. I feel like a debutante without the evening gown. Speaking of evening gowns, did I mention that once, in the balmy summer twilight of Saratoga, I danced with Ginger Rogers? She was wearing a gown; I wasn't.

On the dance floor I  suggested to Ms. Rogers that if she closed her eyes she might possibly mistake me for Fred Astaire. For some reason, this made her laugh. Actually, it made her choke with laughter, so I thought somebody would have to call an ambulance. I'm glad to report that the incomparable and very generous Ms. Rogers recovered, but my point is that out on that glimmering dance floor I did my best. Same with Boardside. At least that's the plan. So good night, sleep tight, and I'll see you around the Web.

June 6, 2007

D-Day! Seems that my modest satirical look at some issues facing public education has been discovered. The Board President, a good guy, asked to have breakfast with me to discuss it. Offered to pay, too. Must be serious. Then the Superintendent invited himself along. Like my favorite bakery is supposed to be a woodshed. Yikes! I’m hoping I can swallow my corn muffin. As if that wasn’t enough school news for one day the President also told me that the Superintendent is going to inform the rest of the Board about my efforts in the weekly Friday packet. All I could think was: "Oh, no, Mr. Bill! Not the Packet."

My friend, Mr. Bill