Last night the board held the mandatory public hearing and voted unanimously to put a $119MM bond issue on the ballot in May. Well, actually, they only voted on the amount. Nothing was said about how it would get on the ballot. If you haven't been to a public hearing, that's where the public hears the board pontificate and then the board doesn't hear the public pontificate. Watching it on TV, it looked like the attendance was sparse. Only three members of the public spoke which was followed by a roll call vote. Much better than the circus Wendy orchestrated at Anthis last time. No bands or balloons either.
Each board member gave a brief explanation of their vote except of course GiaQuinta, who weighed in from the center of the podium sitting behind a banner with a big "A" on it. The mute button came in handy at that point. Then it was just his lips moving.
We're still waiting for more transparency in the details on the building breakouts. Don't hold your breath. They're probably thinking if voters see "AC" anywhere in there, it won't pass.
Later two administrators came in and were asked by GiaQuinta to report on the Thurgood Marshall charter school hearing they had just left. They gleefully related that a lot of the "Public" had expressed opposition to the new school. It later turned out that the "Public" who objected consisted mostly of EACS and FWCS officials, including GiaQuinta himself. How clever is that?
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As a Catholic school fundraiser, I can assure you there are some very wise ways, and strong suite of money that can follow, where a private school can be up and operational, and not need a lick of IDOE approval. Consider Canterbury K-8th school is not state accrediated!
Unfortunately private schools can only reach a small population, wheras the government system still gets the vast majority and does particularly poorly with minorities. Fifty years ago FWCS high schools were every bit as good as Canterbury is today. So how could private schools overcome overcome the massive racial gap we have today?
India has seemed to find a way. 95% of all schools in India are private, only 5% are public.
Less than half of India's children between the age 6 and 14 go to school.
A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one reach grade eight.
At least 35 million children aged 6 - 14 years do not attend school.
53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate.
from smilefoundationindia.org
Less than half of India's children between the age 6 and 14 go to school.
A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one reach grade eight.
At least 35 million children aged 6 - 14 years do not attend school.
53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate.
from smilefoundationindia.org
Congratulations on your being featured on Kevin Leininger's article on the approval to add the
FWCS schools' air conditioning ballot initiative!
So Krista Stockman claims that "ventilation" improvements does not mean AC. I wonder when she got her engineering degree.
But the telling quote - for what it does not say - goes to Krista baby.
"Mol, who has served as a tutor in some FWCS buildings, doubts air conditioning is vital, and pointed out the district would have millions of dollars more to spend on building improvements if not for diverting money from its capital projects fund to pay for programs associated with achieving racial balance.
Stockman, however, pointed out that the racial-balance fund was created under an agreement with the state and cannot be changed without its approval.
'The fund had to be tax-neutral, and in the late '80s the schools had enough money in the capital fund, so they chose not to take the (racial balance) money from the general fund (which pays operating expenses),' Stockman said."
Perhaps she can next address why, after all these years, a request has not yet been made to eliminate the racial balance fund.
Somehow, throughout the four year economic downturn, liberals have not yet figured out that we cannot afford to fund nonsensical, useless public programs like racial balancing and busing. Brown vs Board of Education was in a sense overturned in 2007 whem Seattle and Louisville were permitted to discontinue busing as a means to achieve desegregation.
Justice Roberts wrote: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Interesting note: This fall I met a young woman from India who was completing coursework and, as part of that coursework, she was shadowing a FWCS middle school principal for the semester. She returns to India in January to take over as principal of a private school.
In her words: private schools in India are very much like your public schools; our public schools are very bad.
Giving away buildings? Just one more reason to vote no on the referendum.
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/FWCS-Approves-119M-Building-Project-Donates-Pleasant-Center-to-Airport-Authority-135486858.html
Maybe they should have given the building to Doc Dancer in exchange for some HVAC work.
Gadfly - The "arrangement" with the state is merely a financial "bucket" they set up to transfer the money. The state had nothing to do with the agreement to do "racial balance". That was a local matter. No other district does it. What Stockman is saying is a smokescreen for a political decision to continue paying 56/60 teachers with building money. How is a resulting $119MM bond issue tax nuetral?
However the FWCS website did get a "B" rating for transparency.
Siesta - How's the AC in India?
Siesta - There are two issue that continue to stick in my craw. The first, of course, is paying teachers with building money, which is not "tax nuetral" and will continue to deplete the capital fund. If they insist on keeping the teachers, do it with a seven year referendum.
The other is blanket social promotion into the high schools. The high schools will not improve as long as this continues and belies all claims that FWCS is serious about improving them. Unless there is some credible threat of being held accountable for not paying attention in middle school, half our kids are screwed.
As long as these practices continue, the district is only paying lip service to their "mission statement". The only thing about FWCS we can take seriously is what they take out of our pockets.
I would be interesting to know what percent of students in private schools are socially promoted.
There is considerable research that indicates social promotion does more harm than good. I am not sure that 16-17 year olds in middle school is a good thing.
There are two theories: one is hold students back and two is advance and remediate.
FWCS has Montessori schools for those parents who want their students to advance at an individual rate.
Siesta - holding a few of them back will send a strong message to all that they aren't guaranteed a free pass. I agree holding them back for more than one year is counterproductive. Holding none of them back is an open admission of systemic failure.
You can get an idea of the extent of social promotion from the 8th grade ISTEP scores. In FWCS about 50% can't pass it. They're not likely to succeed in high school and that's too many to remediate. In private schools the number is likely to be closer to 10%.
CB, your numbers don't match those on the IDOE website. Fifty percent? Come on...
Gadfly and others,
You just don't get it. Ventilation does not equal cooling. Ventilation is the process of providing fresh air to a space. Heating and cooling are separate issues in the industry. They need to replace the heating systems because they are broken and no longer viable. Buying new equipment to heat and ventilate the buildings to meet the current building codes and board of health codes pretty much requires cooling be there as well.
Do your homework. State board of health adopted new requirements for all school facilities and preschools in May 2011. They require HVAC systems that can ventilate to new standards that include indoor air quality, which does include temperatures both high and low, moisture levels, dust levels, and other pollutants. Cooling pretty much becomes required by state board of health statues.
Get over it and move on. As a parent of school kids, I will gladly spend the additional $30-60 per year to improve the buildings. My God, most people spend this on Starbucks in a month or on a texting plan with Verizon. It is small change compared to getting improvements to the environment that my kids learn in.
from IDOE
FWCS 8th grade pass percents
Math 71% (that is pretty impressive considering it includes spec.ed and ELL - two groups most private schools do not have)
Language Arts 59% (could be better but again this includes ELL students who may have only been speaking English for a year)
http://biggovernment.com/eagtv/2011/12/15/indiana-school-district-blocks-charter-school-competition/ See breitbart, Pleasant Center situationb
Come on yourself Siesta. The 8th ISTEPs jumped from around 50+% passing in 2009 to 67% in 2010 to 72% in 2011 The ECA scores remained at around 50% in 2010 and 2011 (not counted in 2009 when they were around 20%). That doesn't compute. Either Wendy took lessons from the Atlanta Ga. school district or the ISTEPs got easier while the ECA difficulty stayed about the same, at least from 2010 to 2011.
The high school scores are the bottom line. They tell me half the kids coming into FWCS high schools are unprepared.
Anon - I am over it, at least the money part. What I'm not over is that they won't reveal that 45% of the money is for that "essential" ventilation (AC). If that's legally required, that's all the justfication they need so just tell us what you're doing and what it costs, no problem.
But that's not what they're saying because they're afraid if voters see "AC" it's less likely to pass. They just tell us what they want us to hear. Same as bragging about the 3-8 ISTEP scores improving while not mentioning that the high school scores still suck. They have no credibility.
By the way I need some money for a new car. Everybody just send me your Starbucks money or send me the $48K she gave Glynn Hines last time to help "sell" the project and I'll go away.
Across the state, 8th grade pass percents jumped 6% from 2009 to 2010 so why should FWCS be any different (new head of DOE needed to look good maybe)?
You bring up a valid point...is there a correlation between 8th grade ISTEP and the hs ECA scores? Why should 71% pass eighth grade ISTEP but only 47% pass algebra ECA.
Of course, there is also this: 89% of FWCS 8th graders taking algebra passed the ECA. Maybe we should just have all students take it in 8th grade?
Don't you just love statistics?
Right on the 8th graders. Those kids who are ambitious enough to take algebra in middle school do well. There's one from Kekionga tutoring Project Reads with us at Indian Village who is very bright. But the ones (the vast majority) who take it as freshmen are a different story.
Get the Kekionga student a full scholarship to Canterbury. He/she would fit in very well, and in all honesty isn't Kekionga just down the road from Canterbury?
Siesta - I can attest you Canterbury has 20% Learning Disabled, and 10% ELL.
Siestagirl asks "Why should 71% pass eighth grade ISTEP but only 47% pass algebra ECA."
Well, according to those who oppose testing techers, most students will purposely fail a test just to spite a teacher they dislike. So, apparently, algebra teachers are not well liked.
To: Anonymous Ventilation Specialist Who Decides How Much In Taxes I Should Pay.
Sorry, I do no accept your right to do that.
Ventilation by definition deals with air handling and rate of air exchanges - it has nothing to do with conditioning the air by adding heat or cooling. Nice try though. Fan systems, BTW, are far less costly than heat exchangers.
The FWCS board wants taxpayer support in the upcoming vote. May I suggest less secrecy and more disclosure on construction plans in order that qualified experts can advise taxpayers.
Code Blue, we agree that any student ambitious enough to do well in FWCS can do so.
I am not sure why Canterbury keeps popping up in these discussions. Canterbury is an outlier. There is probably only one school comparable to them in Indiana, Park Tudor. They probably draw from a seven county area, so comparing them to any school in any of those counties is like comparing cats and dogs. They are just too different.
"Code Blue, we agree that any student ambitious enough to do well in FWCS can do so."
If what siestagirl says is true, then the problem would seem to be that trying to claim that all kids are the same is a flawed strategy.
We should seperate the "bad" students from the rest, whether they are developmentaly disabled or just lacking in discipline. Otherwise we can never truely ascertain whether the poor results are the result of the students or of the teacher.
But this is anathema to most in public education. They fear being called a racist or uncaring for labeling people accurately, so they insist on mixing them all together with the end result that the entire well is poisoned.
Gadfly - my point all along has been that the information (breakouts) on the FWCS website is worthless. They might as well say "we want $119MM, send us your Starbucks money for the next 20 years".
I call it lying by omission. Politicians think that's different from just lying.
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