Volusia schools to cut 450 jobs
June 9, 2010 12:05 AM
By LINDA TRIMBLE, Staff Writer
DELAND -- The last dismissal bell for this school year had hardly finished ringing Tuesday when the Volusia County School Board learned it will have to eliminate about 450 jobs to balance its budget for the year starting July 1.
"There are some layoffs unfortunately," Superintendent Margaret Smith told the board, although she said it was too early to give a specific number. "This is all very heart-wrenching."
Some of the jobs being eliminated were vacant and employee retirements and resignations will free up other positions to which some affected workers can be transferred over the summer.
Word about the job cuts had started leaking out in the past few weeks as about 100 facilities and maintenance workers, bus attendants and campus advisers were notified they wouldn't be rehired. Smith also opted not to fill some administrative posts left vacant by retirements.
But some employees won't be notified until today that their jobs are being eliminated and they may face transfers to other positions or even be cut from the payroll.
The job cuts were prompted by funding reductions, partly brought on by declining enrollment and property values, and rising costs for such things as employee health insurance that left a $17 million hole in the budget for the year that starts July 1.
The School Board has cut more than $54 million and 1,231 jobs from its budget since 2007.
Smith said firm numbers on the latest job reductions and what they will save the district will be reported to the School Board on June 22.
New cuts announced Tuesday include 108 jobs in district level departments, 14 assistant principals, two psychologists, 10 social workers, five media specialists and 26 guidance counselors.
Also on the list are 10 school clinic health assistants and the equivalent of 36 full-time teachers' aides and 21 full-time office workers at middle and high schools. Many teachers' aides and office workers have part-time schedules, so those cuts represent more people than jobs.
Smith doesn't expect the overall number of teachers to drop because of the need to add 177 teachers at a cost of $10.5 million to meet tougher state class-size rules that take effect in August.
Many of the employees with teaching certification who are being cut from other job classifications will be able to move into those spots, she said
OPINION: Editorial
February 18, 2008
We're hurting children
when we close their schools
for a tax break
By MARCY GALBREATH
COMMUNITY VOICE
My mother sometimes said be careful what you wish for;
how true this is in the case of Amendment 1.
Recently passed by the citizenry of Florida,
now we will see what it really means in our communities and our lives.
First up: Citing budget constraints, the Volusia County School Board announces the closing of five small schools . . . and so we begin to reap what some have sown.
One of the schools slated for closure is Samsula Elementary, an institution that has anchored the Samsula community for close to 100 years. The folks who bash public schools always talk about the failure to educate, but Samsula Elementary is not a failing school; it has had an "A" report card for five out of the last six years. Before the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, the school turned out generation after generation of Samsula children who went on to high school and college. It is not this little school's failure that brings on the ax; it is the will of an electorate that gives lip service to education, then fails to support it.
I read one commentary on the Web site addressing this issue,
stating that Florida
"Was, and should remain a retirement/vacationing state,"
and
that families with children
really don't belong here.
That was news to me.
I am a sixth generation Floridian on my dad's side,
and my mother's family came here in 1923.
None of my forebears was here on vacation or early retirement; they worked and raised families in a time before air conditioning, interstates, condos and retirement villages had changed the face of Florida.
They and others of like mind invested in the communities in which they lived, and paved the way for the life we enjoy today. I understand the high cost of living chafing folks. I am in the same leaky boat with high property taxes and insurance. But you can't lay all the blame for high real estate taxes on the schools' doorstep. The greed of speculative expansion and our culture of more, more, more can take most of that credit.
Heck, I don't even have kids,
but I am still part of the community.
We all have a responsibility to help provide a good education for today's children. They are our future, the people who will be running things in a few years. Prior generations worked hard to provide the foundations of public education for us; it's only right we do our part in turn.
A free public education is one of the primary factors enabling America to achieve prosperity
in the 20th century,
a fact
those who came before us
understood and sacrificed
to make a reality.
I'm sure most have heard about the "Greatest Generation";
I wonder if some historian 50 years from now will look back on our time
and label us the
"Most Selfish Generation"?
It is hard for me to understand how anyone can be smug and self-satisfied
that these schools are closing,
and harder still to understand how we as a people can rationalize downsizing our future.
This is an issue
that will erase our neighbors' jobs,
impact our communities and
deny tomorrow's students the opportunities we enjoyed.
Surely we can do better than that.
Galbreath lives in New Smyrna Beach
December 07, 2009
City-school politics
Deltona antagonism for rezoning unhelpful
School rezoning is often an emotional earthquake for small communities. Students are pulled from the school they're used to and placed in another, dislocating attachments and memories along the way. But rezoning is also routine and necessary to even out a school district's best uses of its buildings, especially in places like Central Florida, where school populations have been in flux year after year. It's not fair to students to cram more of them in a school designed for smaller numbers. It's not fair to a school's staff to have to contend with the stress of overcrowding day after day when alternatives are available. It's not fair to taxpayers to have them foot the bill of a new school only to see it underused because one community or another prefers to cling to a vague sense of identity at the price of its overcrowded school rather than let a new school forge a new identity of its own.
Most people familiar with rezoning issues, parents and students included, know all this just as school boards gird themselves for difficult public hearings. But emotions and occasional protests aside, acceptance usually follows. What school boards don't expect is to have to contend not only with public protest, but with opposition campaigns organized and paid for by a fellow-government agency.
That's what the Deltona City Commission is doing against the Volusia County School Board -- at taxpayers' expense.
The City Commission, led by Mayor Dennis Mulder, spent more than $5,000 for a mailing to 37,000 residents urging them to "fight for your city and our students by telling the school board not to displace Deltona residents and alter their education to keep DeLand and Lake Helen happy!" City commissions aren't supposed to spend taxpayer money on political campaigns. Deltona commissioners may argue that the mailing isn't political. But of course it is: Commissioners make it so by inserting themselves officially and financially into the issue and deliberately pitting government agencies and schools against each other. And commissioners are doing so to protect an image, not to ensure that their students get the best possible education they can.
Deltona and Pine Ridge high schools are overcrowded. They have a combined capacity of 3,575 students but had a September enrollment of 5,178 -- an unacceptable 45 percent over-capacity. Next August a new high school will open on Rhode Island Avenue in Orange City, with a capacity of 2,564. Not only do DeBary and Orange City have too few students to fill it, but Deltona has too many to justify not welcoming a rezoning plan that relieves overcrowding at Pine Ridge and Deltona highs.
Nor is rezoning in this case much more than a minor change of venue. You'd think the distance between Deltona High School and the new high school on Rhode Island Avenue was the distance from the plains of Marathon to Athens. It isn't. It's four miles at most. In fact, the distance between Deltona High School and Pine Ridge High School is almost twice as long. For many students, rezoning will mean a shorter distance to the new high school and a better (because less crowded) educational environment. Students adjust quickly. The school district ensures that they do by moving quickly to foster a new school's identity and a sense of attachment.
The job is made harder when politicians make noise and goad parents to sabotage what, in this particular case, should be applauded. Deltona city commissioners individually are free to speak their mind on the issue or even to pass a resolution making their concerns or opposition official. But they're misguided on two counts.
It's wrong for Deltona to spend taxpayer dollars to do battle with the school district:
Taxpayers are underwriting the school district's operations, rezoning included.
The same taxpayers shouldn't be undermining what they pay for.
And it's wrong for Deltona to put its schools' identity ahead of its students' education.
June 22, 2007
Call this a rant if you will; here's
why I don't teach
By DEBRA FERNANDEZ
COMMUNITY VOICE
I recently attended the Volusia County Elementary Teacher Job
Fair, where approximately 700 invitees were trying to land 157 teaching jobs.
The fair had the air of a funeral, somber and ghostly. What a different place
from last year! At the 2006 job fair, the
Advanced Technology Center was bustling, loud and exciting with people
interviewing all day long. The school board set up a processing center on
site to expedite paperwork which had wall-to-wall people in it all day long
as well as a long line of another 20 or so snaking down the hall waiting to
get in. This year the processing
center was empty, and I had a sad thought as I walked by that all of those
excited newly hired teachers from last year might be the first ones to get
cut this year. Seniority rules.
I've been making a living doing freelance artwork for years and
periodically substitute teaching and every year receive an invitation to the
Volusia County Teacher Job Fair. When I've attended the fair in the past, I
was mildly interested in teaching, not seriously looking for a job, but
networking and keeping my options open should I need steady income. And I
liked being there and taking a gander at all of the new recruits vying for
jobs. It felt a little like spying, but it gave me a feel for the types of
people being hired to teach locally and with two children in the public
school system I felt it was my civic duty to check it out.
So many people ask me why I don't teach full time. The short
answer I usually give is that someone has to raise my kids. People usually
give me a strange look when I say that, as if I said I was abducted by
aliens. Public perception of good parenting is low on the totem pole as a
career choice these days. The long answer involves monster student loans,
stolen family time, disrespectful students, absentee parents, lousy pay and
legislators and administrators who seem to have forgotten that humans are
involved in the teaching and learning part of education.
Both my husband and I have been certified to teach since 1997.
After college graduation, I stayed home with our small children while he
started teaching high school mathematics. His starting teacher salary that
year was so low that we qualified for food stamps and Medicaid, which was
good because we couldn't afford the county's insurance plan anyway. I started
doing freelance art work and we were somehow able to make it but had to go on
an income-contingent plan to repay our student loans. That's where the
government adjusts the loan payment every year based on our income.
If we had to pay the
loan back on a regular plan, the payment then was almost $700 per month, but
on the ICP our payment was $52 per month. We never could afford to get off the
ICP plan and are still on it and since the payment doesn't even get close to paying
off interest (8.25 percent locked in forever) or principle, the loan just
keeps getting bigger every year. To us it's like the national debt, a number
so large that all of the real money and make-believe money in the
world would never pay it off. But wait, there's more.
After 30 years of paying monthly for a loan to finance an
education in a field where one doesn't make enough money to pay back the
loan, the government graces it. That means that we don't have to pay it
anymore, but whatever we owe that year becomes income and we then begin a
long-term love affair with the IRS. Maybe that's why I don't teach.
There are no tuition
reimbursement or teacher loan forgiveness programs for me or my husband, and
after 11 years of teaching, his two-week take home pay is $1,254. My husband teaches
full time and is gone from 7 in the morning until 5 or 6 at night with either
Saturday or Sunday devoted to grading papers and planning. He's really an
absentee dad for the 10-month school year, and our weekends are shot. Even if
we manage to make a day trip, he always is dragging his briefcase with him to
utilize any spare time to mark math papers.
People always are quick to say "aren't you lucky to have
summers off," but we always need extra income so he has to find
temporary work during the summer. It's usually some kind of manual labor, as
summer jobs are tough to find. He could tutor, but the demand for tutoring is
mainly during the school year when schools are gearing up for FCAT. He has a
love/hate relationship with teaching.
He loves the kids but hates the paperwork and administrative
pressure to magically transform passionless, lazy, disrespectful students
into smart, motivated young adults who test well. Forty percent of his time
is spent managing behavior, administrative duties, and endless interruptions,
leaving little time to actually teach. When he lectures, his words must be
carefully crafted so that nothing could be construed as harassment, innuendo,
bigotry, misrepresentation or secular. He doesn't have a problem with that,
but lessons often turn into informational marathons devoid of personality. He
cannot touch a student. Even a pat on the back for a job well done could be
twisted into sexual harassment. Maybe that's why I don't teach. My
50-year-old husband feels 70.
I started substituting in Volusia County Schools two years ago
for extra income. If you think
teachers have it rough, try being a substitute. I have nearly been
stabbed by a pencil and had chairs, pencils, markers, books, erasers, balls
and coins thrown at me by students. I've been spit on and been called stupid,
moron, and a few of George Carlin's seven dirty words that used to not be
allowed on television. All of this while earning $11.50 per hour, which I
didn't think was so bad until my son's teenage friend told me that he makes
$12.10 an hour working at Radio Shack.
I have been offered full-time jobs at area schools through the
years, but I honestly don't see how I could take the stress on a daily basis.
Some of the worst-behaving students are classified ESE, but most of them were
regular education kids. Defiant, disrespectful students are referred out
regularly where they sit in a classroom with others for the day -- their only
consequence -- where most of them sleep the rest of the day. If a student's
behavior is really out of line, then parents are called, but often those
parents can't manage their own behavior, much less their children's. There are great parents but so many are
self-centered and looking to blame everyone else for their problems. Our
generation has turned into a society of hedonistic, absentee parents
expecting educators, tutors, music, dance and karate instructors, and nannies
and after-school caregivers to raise our children. Maybe that's why I
don't teach. It's a full-time job raising my own children and teaching them
to be respectful and accountable for their own behavior.
Because I am in the schools so often, I see what teachers have
to deal with and understand their burden. For a new teacher the excitement of
getting hired fades quickly under the weight of beginning-teacher
responsibilities and the uncertainty of a permanent job until tenure is
attained after three years. Tenure means a teacher can't be laid off but if a
position is cut, the school board will find an opening which could be
anywhere in the county. Good news for job security, bad news for a teacher
driving a 14-year-old car getting 20 miles to the gallon (which happens to
describe my husband's car).
The worst thing about
all of this is that while teaching is not a great job, it looks good compared
to the rest of the job market in this area. Those people landing the precious
few teaching jobs available this year are lucky to have a job with benefits and
regular hours. Maybe that's why I don't teach. Perhaps I just don't want to
be that lucky.
Job fair results
This is the first year Volusia County Schools split its teacher
job fair over two days -- one day for elementary level, one for middle/high
school.
· More than 1,100 applicants attended over the two days.
· The district hired about 50 elementary school teachers at the
fair and about 100 for middle and high schools.
· Additional teachers will be hired through the summer as others
retire or resign. A school official estimated the district will have about
350 new teachers when classes begin in August.
"It's a difficult
problem, but our perspective is rather clear,"
School Board Chairman Larry Metz said.
"We're not going to turn students away.
We can't just have
endless portables."
"Childrens do
learn,"
Bush tells school kids
"the death of democracy
is not likely to be
an assassination from ambush"
but rather
a slow extinction
from apathy,
indifference,
and undernourishment."
-Robert Maynard Hutchins
SENTINEL SPECIAL
REPORT
Gaming donors lift GOP
As
lawmakers look at the industry, contributions help Republican coffers.
Aaron
Deslatte |
Florida Power & Light
and TECO
Energy,
two of the state's largest utilities
grappling with
Crist's
goals to cut greenhouse-gas emissions,
gave $196,000 to the Republicans.
TECO and Progress Energy gave the
Democrats $55,000.
And Florida Realtors,
who have pushed lawmakers to cut property taxes and
insurance rates,
chipped in $1 million
to a committee Crist formed
to campaign for a Jan. 29 property-tax
amendment
and another
$75,000 to the
party.
At posh retreat, Florida GOP leaders wield budget ax
By Alex Leary, Times staff writer
In print: Thursday, November 20, 2008
SANTA ROSA BEACH —
Washington has pork.
Tallahassee has turkey.
Or did.
Don't ask,
House Speaker Ray Sansom and Senate President Jeff Atwater declared.
But the austere message was delivered in a wildly contrasting setting —
a $400-a-night beach resort
that is hosting a retreat
for more than
70 GOP House members and their families.
Class size hit again by GOP
FRESH TALK
No, no, no, no, no.
Won't they ever get it?
Republican lawmakers are trying one more time to gut the class-size amendment Floridians passed five years ago.
That landmark measure demands the most basic educational insurance for Florida's children -- to cut the number of students each teacher instructs.
It leaves no wiggle room, either, setting the numbers of children in each classroom at 18 for kindergarten through third grade, 22 for fourth through eighth grade and 25 in high school. School districts have until the 2010 school year to accomplish it.
But in a sour grapes move, GOP lawmakers moved the deadline up two years, complete with fines for districts that don't meet it.
School administrators, local ones included, say they can't do it by next year. The state has never provided the money they needed to hire new teachers and build new schools. They're asking lawmakers to delay the fines and the deadline until the amendment date of 2010.
Districts had a hard enough time complying with school-wide averages. Sixty-nine regular public schools missed the mark, five in Volusia.
This is the opening GOP lawmakers have been looking for. Under cover of offering school systems flexibility, they propose scrapping the strictest requirement altogether. Schools would not have to reduce the number of children in each classroom to the mandated 18, 22 and 25. They could continue as they do today, merely meeting the average school-wide.
Yet reducing the number of students each teacher must teach is the heart and soul of the constitutional amendment. It doesn't do a kid much good to attend a public school that achieves the school-wide average while he's sitting in a room with 30 classmates.
If the prime learning environment is one teacher to one child, every pupil after that is one step further away from a solid education. Eighteen 5-year-olds per teacher is not too much to expect.
Still, a high-ranking House member is pushing the notion that schools shouldn't have to meet the class-size limit. A senator is too, although he suggested it to the Budget and Taxation Commission, which can put questions to voters without going through the Legislature.
Most Republican leaders, led by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, hated the class-size amendment from day one. Bush campaigned against it, saying it would destroy the state budget. While he was in office, not a year went by without him and House members trying either to eviscerate it or repeal it. Now this.
Even though lawmakers never give schools enough money to meet the requirements, districts cut class sizes drastically anyway. Volusia County alone built 14 new schools and hired 645 extra teachers since Floridians passed the amendment.
Gradually, the state is pulling itself up from the bottom of the nation's educational ranks. Lawmakers' continued effort to undo the amendment is beyond tiresome; it's repugnant. Florida's children are worth the investment.
Will they ever get that?
-- Call Hasterok at 386-681-2223
Class-size amendment: After reading Pamela Hasterok's Dec. 20 column, "Class size hit again by GOP," I was very distressed to learn that our lawmakers in Tallahassee are trying one more time to gut the class-size amendment to the Florida Constitution, which voters supported and voted for (by 52 percent) five years ago. Our former Gov. Jeb Bush claimed that the residents in Florida who voted for this amendment had been hoodwinked. As I wrote to The News-Journal then and reaffirm now, we were not hoodwinked. We recognized a problem with the education of our children when they were being taught in classes containing large numbers of students and voted for approval of this amendment to our constitution.
When our lawmakers, who are elected to represent the citizens of our state, take their oath of office, aren't they required to support the state's constitution and its laws? Apparently, on this issue, they keep trying to circumvent the will of the people and the laws that lawmakers affirmed to uphold. Enough is enough; our legislators should stop trying to gut this amendment and get on with other important matters before them.
DWIGHT K. NORIAN, Port Orange
FCAT Ripe For Change, Poll Shows
posted by John Kennedy on Dec 21, 2007 10:03:50 AM
Overall, 52 percent of Floridians said the FCAT is not necessary, according to the survey of 1,200 voters conducted Nov. 19-30 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percent.
"It tells me that politically, somewhere down the road,
it would not be terribly difficult
for Gov. Crist to get rid of the FCAT
or modify it into something different," Coker said.
"The FCAT is sort of property of Gov. Bush and now that he's gone,
I think it could fade away into the sunset
and with the exception of a few solidly Republican voters,
it wouldn't cause too much of an upset."
Florida Writing Plus
Fourth, eighth and tenth-graders statewide will try to draft a coherent essay in just 45 minutes on a topic they've never seen before -- and which they probably don't care all that much about, either.
Their essays will be evaluated over the next month or two
by a cadre of temporary workers who
will have received a few days' training
Most folks couldn't tell you what constitutes "good writing," anyway, and
I'm doubtful that some hastily trained laborers
earning about 12 bucks an hour can, either
February 12, 2008
Ready, set, write -- for a pointless test
COMMUNITY VOICES
I'm listening to Remo Giazotto's Adagio in G Minor as I pen this piece. Although I've freelanced for years and can crank out an article almost on a whim when I've got a message to convey, I find I write best with classical music or opera in the background. Depending on what I'm writing about -- or on my mood -- I may switch to John Philip Sousa's Songs of Grace and Songs of Glory or Strauss's Tales from the Vienna Woods, Op. 325, or any number of works by Hayden, Mozart or Vivaldi and other composers.
My husband and teenage children prefer other genres; Mike opts for classic rock when tinkering in the shed or fixing the car. And my kids? Well, I don't recognize the names of the "artists" or "songs" they listen to. Much of it doesn't even fall under the category of actual music anyway. But the point is, many of us -- including children -- work better when we listen to music.
I suppose that's partly why the Flagler County School District sent me and a few dozen other teachers to a workshop two summers ago entitled "Brain Compatible Learning." One of the things we learned was how to incorporate music into our classroom routines to help students work harder and achieve more. The workshop's instructor even weaved music into her multiday presentation to show us how to do it ourselves.
With all the material I must cover with my students, I haven't infused much music into my English curriculum. However, I do play Pachelbel or Beethoven when my tenth-graders read or take a vocabulary quiz. Amazingly, nobody complains. What's more, if I neglect to turn it on, one of the kids will ask, "Mrs. Nahirny, where's the music?"
In light of this, I recently flouted the district's policy prohibiting students from using electronic devices during school hours. I broke that rule in my classroom just once -- while administering midterm exams last month. I told my students they could listen to their I-Pods or MP3 players as they responded to an extended essay question. They eagerly -- albeit incredulously -- whipped these items out of their backpacks.
"What if someone comes in and sees the earphones in our ears?" asked Keith.
"Just blame me," I said. "Now write your essay."
And write they did! No one talked or strayed off task. Noticeably absent were requests to get water, go to the restroom or sharpen pencils. The results? The essays ranked among the best they'd written all year. Less than 1 percent of students failed.
I pray they'll do as well on this week's writing portion of the FCAT, known as the Florida Writing Plus. Fourth, eighth and tenth-graders statewide will try to draft a coherent essay in just 45 minutes on a topic they've never seen before -- and which they probably don't care all that much about, either. Their essays will be evaluated over the next month or two by a cadre of temporary workers who will have received a few days' training in holistically scoring student essays on the basis of how well each illustrates focus, organization, support and conventions.
Students generally don't like this test. I can't say I blame them. Most folks couldn't tell you what constitutes "good writing," anyway, and I'm doubtful that some hastily trained laborers earning about 12 bucks an hour can, either. I wonder if Faulkner's trademark stream-of-consciousness writing would pass muster. Would Hemingway's simple, unadorned prose score well? How would Dickens' florid style rank? What about the rest of us? How would we fare? Take me, for example. I enjoy writing, and do it frequently. But I started this article two hours ago; I'm still not done because I've re-read portions several times, moved around sentences, altered words and phrases and consulted an online thesaurus. Writing well takes a lot of time, effort and patience.
Yet Florida's education officials expect a full-blown essay from a child in just 45 minutes? What are they thinking? "Good writing" just doesn't happen that way. When students write, they go through a series of stages ranging first from early random musings to final thoughts. They brainstorm, draft, revise, rewrite and edit. This process can't -- and doesn't -- often happen in 45 minutes. Writing happens developmentally, rather than all at once, and for students, looking back on what they've written is as important as looking forward.
Practicing writing in a variety of formats -- not just in formats which will be assessed on standardized tests -- is essential to developing fluency in writing. This week's FCAT writing test captures nothing more than a snapshot of each child's writing ability. Even the Florida Department of Education's Web page, which tells parents and teachers about how to use the results of this test, cautions
"because only one example of writing is collected from each student, scores for individual students are not reliable measures of a student's general writing achievement."
So why administer this test in the first place?
Now there's an essay question my students would love to respond to!
And the classical work I'll play in the background to inspire them as they write? Rimsky-Korsakov's Dance of the Buffoons.
Nahirny teaches English at Matanzas High School, Palm Coast. She lives in Crescent City.
White House opposes House higher education bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Wednesday
it "strongly opposes" a bill
to crack down on abusive market practices
in the student loan industry
that is set for a U.S. House of Representatives vote on Thursday.
A Democratic spokesman for the committee said the bill would make college more affordable and accessible and that it passed the committee in November with bipartisan support.
"Only the Bush administration, which has repeatedly broken its promises to college students over the last seven years,
could conjure up reasons to oppose a bill
that has such broad support
from members of Congress, students, and the higher education community,"
said committee spokesman Tom Kiley.
Three key House Republicans, including ranking committee member Rep. Howard McKeon of California, distributed a statement earlier in the day urging support for "critical college cost reforms" contained in the House bill.
The administration said in a statement that it opposes the House bill's proposal to withhold federal grant funding from colleges that raise their tuition rates too quickly.
The administration also said it also opposes a part of the bill that would mandate greater review of settlement agreements
by the Education Department that top $1 million in value.
The House floor vote will come at a tough time for higher education funding and the student loan industry.
On Monday, President George W. Bush proposed a fiscal 2009 budget that would hold federal student financial aid flat on a net basis. At the same time, a leading credit rating agency cut its ratings on top student lender Sallie Mae, formally known as SLM Corp, and said it may cut them further.
Congress last year enacted legislation slashing federal subsidies paid to student lenders including Sallie and others.
June 22, 2007
College Student Relief Act
http://capwiz.com/y/issues/votes/?votenum=32&chamber=H&congress=1101
Vote Passed (356-71, 8 Not Voting)
This House bill is intended to
make college education more affordable by
gradually reducing the interest rate on need-based student loans issued
after July 2007 from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent.
We, the residents of DELTONA, said no twice isn’t that special:)
Probe
shows conflicts over student loans
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD,
AP Education Writer Tue Sep 4,
WASHINGTON - Internal student
loan industry documents unveiled Tuesday provide further evidence of conflicts of interest between banks and
colleges or school officials.
Selling
Students into Credit-Card Debt
By Jessica
Silver-Greenberg Tue Oct 2,
Citibank (NYSE:C - News) pitched an offer at Ohio State University that few college students would refuse: free food. A company hired by
the bank plastered the Columbus campus with advertisements for free sandwiches
at a local haunt, Potbelly, and free burritos from La Bamba restaurant. The only catch? Students had
to submit a credit-card application before any free food crossed the counter
In California,
credit-card marketers can't lure students with free gifts; in Oklahoma,
colleges can no longer sell student information for credit-card marketing
purposes; and in Texas, on-campus credit-card marketing was curtailed, permitting
marketing only on limited days and in certain locations.
However, beyond the recent legislation, another type of
state-sanctioned credit-card marketing escapes serious scrutiny: affinity card
contracts and marketing.
Virtually every major university boasts a
multimillion-dollar affinity relationship with a credit-card company. Under these deals,
the university can receive $10 million or more in exchange for offering
credit-card companies exclusive access to students, alumni, and professors at
school athletic events. In some cases,
the deals require schools to provide student e-mail addresses and phone numbers
to the card-issuing bank. As state funding shrinks for public universities,
such deals grow.
These deals
provide a steady income stream for the university, but at what cost to
students?
Tuition Hiked by 5 percent
The state university system's Board of
Governors voted unanimously on 9/27/2007 to raise tuition at all
Florida universities this spring by 5 percent. They did so while setting a
recommendation that the schools should try to use some of the revenue to help
poorer students with need-based financial aid.
Florida
Lawmakers propose tuition increase
The focus sharpened last week when former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Bob Graham, ex-U.S. Rep. Lou Frey, an Orlando Republican, spearheaded a lawsuit claiming the Legislature is ignoring a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2002 that they say gives authority to set tuition to the appointed Board of Governors.
Growing Number of Colleges Provide Tuition Aid to AmeriCorps Alums
Florida only state that decreased funding for Pre-K programs, report says
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
According to a national report, most states are embracing Pre-K for three and four year olds,
but some state are falling behind, according to the state-by-state analysis -
"Votes County: Legislative Action on Pre-K
Fiscal Year 2008."
While Florida has made it mandatory to provide Pre-K programs to 4 year olds,
the state is the only one in the nation that has decreased its funding.
According to the report,
Florida's Pre-K budget was decreased by $14 million
Critics will try to weaken Florida's rules on limiting school-class sizes
A move to give schools more flexibility on the state's rule about the number of students allowed gains momentum. Leslie Postal | Sentinel Staff Writer
December 17, 2007
Class sizes in Florida's public schools have shrunk considerably in the past five years,
thanks to a controversial measure voters approved in 2002.
But the toughest work comes in the next three years, and many school officials say that will require money the cash-strapped state does not have, leave them no flexibility to handle enrollment changes and lead to more portable classrooms.
Key Republican state lawmakers -- among a group that was never a fan of the class-size amendment -- say they want to give schools more wiggle room. In short, they are looking to delete the strictest parts of the law.
"We don't have the money to do what we're being asked to do," said Joe Joyner, president of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents and the superintendent in St. Johns County schools. "Something has to happen. We cannot accomplish that."
Voters approved the class-size rule in 2002 as an amendment to the state constitution, spurred by South Florida residents upset with that region's very large classes.
The amendment required a phased-in reduction of class sizes so that by 2010 there would be no more than 18 students in pre-K-to-third-grade classrooms, no more than 22 in fourth-to-eighth-grade classes and no more than 25 in high-school classes. At the time of the vote, some Central Florida schools had classes with 10 or more students above the amendment's goals.
The amendment has worked, most dramatically in the earliest grades.
Statewide, average class size in those grades has dropped by nearly seven students since 2003, when the law kicked in, according to the Education Department.
"Floridians amended the constitution so teachers can teach in an environment where children can learn," U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek.
The Florida Education Association, the state teachers union, supported the amendment and thought the state needed to invest in smaller classes. But it is willing to discuss slight modifications, said spokesman Mark Pudlow.
The union "would love to talk to lawmakers about something that provides a little flexibility."
The flexibility argument has some merit, agreed Damien Filer, a Tallahassee education consultant who worked on the successful class-size campaign in 2002.
But he said voters should be mindful that the state's Republican leadership has always seemed eager to kill rather than fulfill voters' class-size demands.
Charter Schools Might Not Be Better
On average, charter schools are not performing as well as their traditional public-school peers, according to a new study that is being called the first national assessment of these school-choice options. The study, conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, compared the reading and math state achievement test scores of students in charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia--amounting to 70 percent of U.S. charter school students--to those of their virtual "twins" in regular schools who shared with them certain characteristics. The research found that 37 percent of charter schools posted math gains that were significantly below what students would have seen if they had enrolled in local traditional public schools. And 46 percent of charter schools posted math gains that were statistically indistinguishable from the average growth among their traditional public-school companions. That means that only 17 percent of charter schools have growth in math scores that exceeds that of their traditional public-school equivalents by a significant amount.
In reading, charter students on average realized a growth that was less than their public-school counterparts but was not as statistically significant as differences in math achievement, researchers said.
"We are worried by these results," Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO and lead author of the report, Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, said at a news conference. "This study shows that we've got a 2-to-1 margin of bad charters to good charters."
Charter schools, free public schools that operate under their own mandate ("charter") rather than the overall district policies, are a staple of education reform agendas across the United States. Supporters say they improve public education by giving parents options and forcing schools to compete for students. The Stanford report already is riling up these schools' most ardent advocates.
The Washington-based Center for Education Reform disputed the findings, saying that they're based on uncorrelated variables, contradictory demographics, and a virtual methodology. The organization said that comparing the test scores of charter-school students to their "virtual" peers in regular public schools--students who match the charter students' demographics, English language proficiency, and participation in special education or subsidized lunch programs--is simplistic and is a fundamental flaw in the research because no two students are the same.
"More than 16 years of charter school research and analysis from CER shows that charter schools are outpacing their conventional public school peers with fewer resources and tremendous obstacles," the nonprofit group said in a news release.
The CREDO report identified five states--Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, and Missouri--where charter schools had significantly higher learning gains than traditional schools. But the report contended that if charter schools are to flourish, their supporters must be willing to establish accountability in exchange for flexibility. The reluctance to close underperforming charters because of powerful community supporters hurts students and reflects poorly on charter schools as a whole, the report said.
The research comes on the heels of a recent pledge by President Barack Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, to use $5 billion of the $100 billion in federal stimulus funds for education to press states on charter schools. "States that don't have charter school laws, or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools, will jeopardize their application" for federal grant money, Duncan said in a call with reporters last week. Currently, 10 states lack laws that allow charter schools, and 26 others cap their enrollment.
Are
New Middle and High School Teachers Being Cast Adrift?
Wed
Oct 10,
To: EDUCATION EDITORS
Contact: Michael Hamill Remaley of Public
Agenda, +1-212-686-6610 x13, mremaley@publicagenda.org
NEW YORK, Oct. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality
today released research indicating that new high school and middle school
teachers, challenged by their teenaged students are much more concerned about
administrative support, more frustrated by student motivation and behavior,
less likely to see teaching as a lifelong career choice and less likely to
believe that all students can achieve in school than new teachers in elementary
schools.
The series, "Lessons Learned: New
Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Term Plans," is based
on a nationwide survey of first-year teachers and aims to help leaders in
education and government understand more about the quality of current teacher
education and the on-the-job support and mentoring for new teachers.
"Issue No. 1: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and
Middle Schools" provides ample evidence that new teachers in middle and
high school feel most vulnerable to challenging teaching conditions.
The full report and complete questionnaire
are available online at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned1.
The research will be discussed on a live
web cast on organized by NCCTQ on
According to the survey, compared to new
elementary school teachers, new high school and middle school teachers are:
-- Less likely to say that teaching is exactly what they want to be doing
-- More likely to report frustrations with student motivation and behavior
-- More likely to be concerned about lack of administrative support in
their schools
-- Less likely to believe that good teachers can lead all students to
learn
-- Less likely to say they regard teaching as a long-term career choice
-- More likely to say that their preparation was too theoretical and did
not focus enough on practical classroom issues
SOURCE Public Agenda
December 29, 2007
Excuse me? Not enough 'oops' in the world for some
COMMUNITY VOICES
My pastor preached about personal accountability last weekend and his talk piqued my interest. As a high school teacher, I'm always harping on this topic myself, urging my students to take responsibility for themselves, what they do and what they fail to do. I listened expectantly to Father Jim's words; alas, he merely confirmed from the pulpit what my classroom experience taught me during the past decade:
Nobody takes the blame anymore.
It's always somebody else's fault.
I try to make reasonable accommodations for my students; let's face it, they're kids. They make mistakes, loath though they are to admit it. So at the beginning of the semester, I give them three "oops!" passes. Students may affix an "oops" pass to any assignment they submit late, and I won't penalize them or deduct points for missing the deadline. I don't want excuses; they needn't provide any, so long as they turn in the work by the next class meeting. This policy spares my listening to their pleading histrionics and cuts everyone a little slack, no questions asked. But once the passes are gone, they're gone, and I won't accept any additional late assignments for any reason for the rest of the semester.
Fair enough, wouldn't you say?
Apparently not, as excuses seem to be all the rage among teens these days -- even more so among their parents. Every year, they -- both the excuses and those who offer them -- grow more brazen and outrageous. For example, a couple of semesters ago, one boyfriend/girlfriend pair turned in identical work. So closely did their essays match that even the typos were the same, right down to the misspelling of the book's title, "A Separate Piece" for "A Separate Peace." Referrals were written. Parents were called.
One mother stormed to the school, demanding to see an administrator, where she excused her child's blatant misdeed by explaining how the two teens had merely "collaborated" on their essays utilizing e-mail and instant messaging. No one had copied, she insisted. Somehow the essays had unwittingly become "merged" in cyberspace. Neither ("honors") student realized they'd submitted identical essay responses, she claimed. How could it be their fault? Didn't we comprehend how such an innocent mistake could occur? Unfortunately, I couldn't.
In another example of a parental attempt to further erode any concept of personal accountability, several weeks ago, I graded -- well, attempted to grade -- an essay by one 15-year-old "honors" student, but didn't get very far, as it was replete with grammatical and spelling errors. The student repeatedly confused words such as to/two/too, and your/you're, and made multiple mistakes she could have easily detected and corrected by proofreading her work. Instead, she just turned her rough draft in, sans revisions, and reacted with amazed disappointment when I deducted points from her score. (This is English class, after all.)
During my lunch the next day, this young lady's mom phoned and informed me "all bright people misspell words," and insisted I not base any portion of her child's essay grade on spelling ability. She attributed her child's (basic) spelling errors to an (unnamed) "disorder," which she claimed her daughter was powerless to do anything about. Not even studying, proofreading or using her computer's spell check function, I guess.
I'd thought I'd heard it all until I passed out a vocabulary quiz during second period recently; one boy fell asleep after answering only two of the 35 questions. After waking him and speaking to him privately, he told me, "It's not my fault I can't stay awake. I'm too tired to take this quiz because our bus got back late after the game last night, and I was too pumped up to sleep." He actually perceived his excuse as plausible.
Apparently, so did his mom, for she phoned me the next day to urge me to allow him to retake the quiz, though his teammates had stayed awake, taken the quiz -- and passed -- with no problem.
The freight train of excuses barreled down the tracks at breakneck speed as the semester wore on. I referred one young man to the dean for disciplinary action -- after giving him multiple verbal warnings. He continually called out rude, inappropriate remarks. He conversed loudly and without permission with friends seated on the other side of the room, interrupting me while I was teaching, preventing others from concentrating and learning the material.
After school, his irate father phoned me and said,
"It's not his fault he acts the way he does. You have to understand, my son has a problem with strong, demanding women. He just doesn't do well with that personality type. Maybe if you weren't such a strong, demanding teacher, you'd have more success with him in the classroom."
I find excuses like these to be, well, inexcusable.
And I'm tired of hearing them.
Most teachers I know are, too.
So maybe as the new semester begins this January I'll make a resolution to revamp my policy and distribute "oops" passes to parents, too.
I can't help but wonder what they'll do when they exhaust their supply.
I guess that'll be my fault, too.
Nahirny teaches English at Matanzas High School. She lives in Crescent City.
Scott Maxwell E-mail | Recent columns
*The big-business interests opposed to Hometown Democracy must be getting scared. One of their latest tactics is to imply that this effort to give residents a direct say on growth decisions will actually deprive teachers of places to live.
Seriously.
An e-mail from the developer-friendly group Floridians for Smarter Growth claims that "Hometown Democracy will kill affordable housing plans." And it featured a picture that we're supposed to believe is teachers worried about being homeless asking, "Where will we live?"
So remember: If you support Hometown Democracy, you obviously hate schoolteachers . . . and probably America.
"Childrens do
learn," Bush tells school kids
Wed Sep 26, 2:03 PM ET
Senate panel sets
hearing on student loans
Fri Jun 1,
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
Bush
admin. shakes up student aid, proposes rules
By Kevin Drawbaugh
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department
of Education on Friday put its college student financial aid office under a
temporary, new leader and proposed a raft of new rules amid a scandal in the $85 billion student loan business
June 3, 2008
School District Begins Negotiations with Teachers Union
DELAND -- The School District of Volusia County recently began negotiations with the Volusia Teachers Organization (VTO) regarding the contract for teachers for the period of July 1, 2008 -- June 30, 2009. The school district proposed requiring elementary teachers to work a 7 1/2-hour day.
Currently, Volusia elementary teachers work a 7-hour day; however, middle and high school teachers work a 7 1/2 -hour day. Teacher pay for all levels is the same. The proposal to require elementary teachers to work a 7 1/2 -hour day will equalize the number of hours all teachers are required to work.
New and revised state standards in reading, mathematics and science, as well as additional requirements for elementary physical education, existing Sunshine State Standards in language arts and social studies, and state/federal compliance standards for students with disabilities have made it increasingly difficult to implement the scope and sequence of the district's curriculum in a 7-hour day.
Negotiations with the Volusia Teachers Organization are on-going.
June 3, 2008
Contact: Andrew Spar -- 386-295-9450
Lack of Respect for Teachers Continues in Volusia
Daytona Beach -- In what the president of the Volusia Teachers Organization called an "apparent lack of respect," Volusia County Schools proposed to lengthen the workday for elementary teachers beginning this fall during negotiations with the union yesterday. The proposal calls for elementary teachers to work an additional thirty minutes a day without additional compensation. "I cannot imagine why our district would add insult to injury during these difficult times," Andrew Spar, President of the Volusia Teachers Organization said. "They are telling some teachers they will be out of work next year, they are telling some teachers they will have to drive up to 40 miles each way to work next year, they are telling some teachers that they will not get supplemental pay for after school activities due to budget cuts, and now they are asking them to work for free. It is unfortunate that our district does not appear to care about the stress our employees are dealing with nor their well being. This is very disappointing," Spar added. "It is all about respect, or lack thereof."
Volusia County Schools and the Volusia Teachers Organization are in the middle of contract negotiations for re-openers of the contract that runs through June 30, 2009. Each side may open 2 language issues as well as salary and benefits. So far, salary and benefits has not been discussed due to the current budget crisis. The next bargaining session has not been set, but bargaining is expected to resume sometime later this summer.
Andrew Spar,
President,
Volusia Teachers Organization
www.vtoweb.org"
|
School
officials slash budgets but hope to spare essential classroom expenses
Volusia County officials, who are anticipating a loss of about $9.2 million, also imposed a hiring freeze on all non-teaching positions and reduced travel at the district level by about one-third. Volusia laid off 200
aides at the end of last school year because of previous shortfalls. At
least two school districts -- Volusia and Osceola -- got a jump on damage
control, explaining to parents and students why they're likely to see (FCAT)
scores drop from last year.
TALLAHASSEE
- It's a miserable time to be a school superintendent in Florida.
The
most immediate problem is the state's sudden budget crunch, and it has made
at least one superintendent suspicious: Duval County schools Superintendent Joseph Wise.
"There is NO WAY that even a mediocre-level revenue forecaster could be this wrong this late in the budget cycle," Wise wrote. "It seems that they knew much earlier and had political reasons for not telling us about this much earlier or there is gross incompetence - either way we deserve answers. ... We would all agree that diplomacy is the best
approach, but we should not tolerate dishonesty, if that is the case
here."
Education funding may suffer the most, advocates say, because it accounts for 53 percent of the state's general revenue fund. That means a $1 billion
reduction could cost $530 million
in public school money.
|