Norwalk: 68 pages of Answers to 32 Questions

by turfgrrl

March 7th, 2007 · 20 Comments

Tags: In the News · Local · Norwalk

20 Responses so far ↓ “Norwalk: 68 pages of Answers to 32 Questions”

• 1 anonymous // Mar 7, 2007 at 8:49 pm

  Thanks for posting this.

• 2 anonymous // Mar 7, 2007 at 10:13 pm

  This is a lot to wade through - give us the weekend.

• 3 Anon // Mar 8, 2007 at 6:45 am

  Yes! Thank you for posting this file!

• 4 Mary Pugh // Mar 8, 2007 at 8:02 am

  Reviewing this provides some insight into the heavy expense load the public is paying for “non-academic” education. The expenses for art materials (kilns are necessary in the public school setting?), band (parents interested in band should fundraise if this is an interest- not the public), athletics (other than PE, the expenses for athletics seem high).

  My questions would be….

  “What % of our BOE budget is spend on academics versus non academics? (art, band, athletics, etc.)

  “What grade point average must a student have to participate in these expensive extra-curricular activities?”

  “What is the per pupil expense for non academics?”

  Unless our students are meeting our goals for academic achievement….and we lament that they are not, why are we spending money on entertaining them…instead of educating them?

  I think with all these non academic focused programs the school system is becoming more of a baby-sitting- child care institution instead of an academically rigorous program.

  Secondly, I do not understand the need for so many layers of administration: the housemaster system does not make sense to me. What are the job descriptions and roles of these extra administrators?

  If we look at the per student ratio of expense for educators vs administrators, over time….and not try to say…well, other towns are doing this, we would find opportunities to lower our expense without jeopardizing the education of our student population.

  Our BOE budget needs to be scrutinized on a line item basis by the BOE board members- with a careful attention to “educating, not entertaining” and determining how much administration is really needed to get the educational results we demand.

  We need metrics (analysis of spending trends by student population and ratios) and compare it to national averages and states, not just other local town spending.

• 5 Mary Pugh // Mar 8, 2007 at 8:06 am

  P.S. Fred Wilms is to be commended for asking these questions.

  Wholesale acceptance of the BOE budget can no longer be the norm…when we have many other needs that have to be addressed in the city. The flooding issue is a perfect example of something that has been ignored to the detriment of residents - is it more important to have “stellar non academic programs” in our schools…or to keep homes dry by having proper management of flood waters?

• 6 turfgrrl // Mar 8, 2007 at 10:33 am

  Mary: I disagree about the waste being non academic programs. Art, music and athletics round out one’s education just as much as “rigorous academic” programs. I’ll give you that they should not be a substitute for regular academic studies. But I think its the current fad of teaching to the test that takes more away from rigorous academic studies. The layers of administration and bureaucracy is the largest expense and obstacle towards actually educating students. I don’t think anyone, whether on the BOE, or within the school administration is evaluating line item spending. The easy answer is throw more money at it, which even the Governor seems to subscribe to.

• 7 anonymous // Mar 8, 2007 at 1:18 pm

  These are the same BOE that wants to ban cupcakes so what do you expect. Bruce Kimmel never did anything on the common council and doesn’t do anything on the BOE. Is he going to run again, or does he have delusions of running for mayor?

• 8 Anonymous // Mar 8, 2007 at 2:50 pm

  The BOE backed off the total ban on bake sales, so they can screw the tax payers in Norwalk. Every business knows you have to watch what you spend money on and work at bringing money in. Corda just puts his hand out and the BOE bends over to fill it with cash. It makes me sick.

• 9 Mary Pugh // Mar 8, 2007 at 3:40 pm

  non academic programs have their place ….but secondary to academics. Art, sports, theater, music etc. can be taught experienced outside the “public classroom” - spending for these kinds of programs is fine as long as it is controlled- a taste of various experiences is fine….we had art, PE, a class play etc. back when we were kids–

  –but those activities were secondary. I think if we look at the spending against non academics (over time) we will see that it is escalating. In times of “plenty” no one minds- but in times of ‘belt tightening” those programs need to be reviewed and pared down.

  Obviously, there are priorities to how we spend….academics first.

  How we managed to overburden ourselves with ADMINISTRATORS is a question we need to ask of the leadership of our public school system- housemasters and those types of admin positions need to be carefully scrutinized- what is it about our current system that requires these roles…when they did not exist in the past…nor do all schools avail themselves of this type of administrative help.

  It is mind boggling to me why we need so much management…..it seems to be “passing the buck”- the leaders need to manage…not create levels of management.

• 10 turfgrrl // Mar 8, 2007 at 5:00 pm

  Mary: The bloat of the administrative level, the lack of cost cutting on basic operations, building, energy use, paper use, instructional tools etc. is the big nut.

  Art is totally an academic program if the career path of a student leads to being an artist, or graphic designer or similar field. Should computer programmers take art courses, well why not? From Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford: And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

  Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

  None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.

  If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. The link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA.

  So do we know what will generate the spark of a multibillion technology innovation? No. But we do know that wasting money on non educational things is the worse thing we can do for students. Anyone can learn to fill out a bubble sheet with a number 2 pencil. Knowing that its no way to measure an knowledge: a priceless education.

• 11 Anon // Mar 8, 2007 at 5:54 pm

  Why can’t we hire effective facilitators to help teachers run a school? The over-assessing of teachers by non-assessed administrators does not produce a well run environment with the positive, motivating climate required to achieve positive results that show up in test data. The outcome is low morale. Any good business knows this. Perhaps our administrators should require MBA’s.

• 12 Anon // Mar 8, 2007 at 6:03 pm

  I agree, TG. We are teaching our students to cheat a test with the over-emphasis on test prep and the use of clues, how-to’s, etc. This is not an accurate evaluation of what a student can do. It’s how well he/she can take a test.
  Also, don’t you feel we are cultivating what is known as “cookie cutter” kids? The test mentality does not celebrate diversity in talent and skill. According to test mandates, all children are required to have the very same abilities in all subject matter. Is this realistic? Don’t we each have skills and talents that make us unique and special?

• 13 turfgrrl // Mar 8, 2007 at 6:20 pm

  Anon 11: It’s the reliance on test data that is the problem. There’s this idea that somehow you can measure education, I don’t believe you can. You can certainly measure someone’s aptitude to learn measurement methods, but that gets you nowhere. Part of the joy of teaching is figuring out how to get a student to understand something, and more importantly exciting and interesting them in learning about something on their own. That, tinkering if you will, can never be replicated and applied in a factory automatic sorta way.

  Yet you have an industry devoted to the idea that it can. And parents who buy into it, sadly, even after experiencing a more organic form of education in their youth. Richard Feynman summed it up best when he spoke of the only thing a student really needs to know is to ask the question why?. He said it more eloquently than I just did, but the gist of it is what it is.

• 14 turfgrrl // Mar 8, 2007 at 6:29 pm

  Anon #12: Well here I’ll quote Principal Skinner, “Everyone is equal and everyone is the best at everything” because Matt Groening is a genius at satire. Well yes, we’ve taken a perfectly good educational system and killed it with tests. Being the luddite that I can sometimes be, I think that multiple choice tests are solely responsible for the decline and fall of American’s educational system. If you can’t explain what you know, either in writing or spoken, then you don’t know it.

  I know I’m skipping over the arts in that example, so I acknowledge that expression comes in many forms, but in terms of a basic education, you have to be able to express yourself in English in order to function in this world.

• 15 anonymous // Mar 8, 2007 at 6:34 pm

  Acedemics being the number 1 priority is where we should be looking but the sport and arts round out the student. sports programs are very important to our children. Most athlectic students are at above average levels in their acedemics because it is important to the that they meet all rquirements in order to participate. many students don’t hyave the ability/money to go on to full 4 year colleges after high school and look to futures in sports. Art is so very important to students who wish to further their education and go on to promising futures in the art world. Music too is important. what is not acceptable is filling the pockets of overpaid administrators and piggybacking on positions already in place. Why do we need 3 principals at tone school? What happened to PRINCIPAL, VICE PRICIPAL AND GUIDANCE COUNCILORS? For decades this sytem worked and the teachers were in the classrooms. Everyone in the school participated in teaching the children. Administrators were not housed at city hall and they were required to work full time schedules just as the teachers did. What happed to those days? Gym teachers taught gym and sports and there were specific teachers for specific classes.(We had football, baseball, track, archery, etc. and competed against some of the toughest schools around) Now we have administrators who sit in city hall and don’t come to work when there’s a snow day..Listen up folks, when city hall is open, ALL employees must work. Admin are not in the schools, therefore need to adhere to city hall schedules. We have out of state admins who haven’t a clue as to when to call a snow day because they live in an area tthat typically gets 8″ of snow on a regular snow day and we get flurries. Come on, lets get real, its not the extra curricular activities thats putting a strain on our budget, its all the fat cats getting fatter on tax payers money. When is Bruce Morris going to take a leave of absense and save us some money? We are paying him 2 salaries, both at taxpayers expense! Blame it on the admin not the school activities!

• 16 Watchdog // Mar 8, 2007 at 6:53 pm

  Kudos to you for this marvelous site. I wish you could acquire a wider audience. It would be great to hear more opinions, thoughts, and feelings on issues in our town.

• 17 turfgrrl // Mar 9, 2007 at 7:35 am

  Watchdog: Thanks. I think more people will start feeling comfortable posting and exchanging views in time. I welcome all thoughts, ideas, opinions and concerns. Let’s make this site a great resource.

• 18 jed722 // Mar 9, 2007 at 7:51 pm

  Grudgingly I admit that I’m starting to like the way this site is going. There’s some interesting comments.

• 19 turfgrrl // Mar 9, 2007 at 8:08 pm

  jed722: Thanks for contributing to making the site interesting.

• 20 anonymous // Mar 9, 2007 at 10:16 pm

  #15. you are right in many of your statements. We need Art and Music and Gym for all of our children and the admin. needs to sharpen up. Many of our teachers are working over time with teaching students and coaching or running an activity after school to keep students interested in learning new and exciting things. We have MANY talented teachers that could be used as administrators if a principalship or housemaster position should become available. The question is will the powers that be hire from with in to help better the community?