Big Hollow Debate
- on 08.20.07
- Fund The Child, General
- 2 Comments
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I have had a commenter, Adam Casbarian, who claims to be a Big Hollow Schools District resident debating me on the situation at Big Hollow. I am moving this dialogue up to a full post for those who do not look back to older posts. First, he tried to answer myself and some district residents have asked. Adam’s answers are below each question to make it easier to follow:
- Why did the district build new schools if the finances were so bad? Why didn’t they scale them down if they needed more room?
They built more schools because their student population has tripled. They were able to build these schools with SPECIFIC money that can only be used for building facilities. This money cannot be used for anything else. (People are always willing to spend money on a building…not on personnel.)
- Does Ms. Gallichio know that there are many people in the district on fixed incomes? Seniors, empty nesters etc. who can not afford to pay higher taxes anymore?
Although there are many people who are on fixed incomes, the population within Big Hollow has hugely grown to be a younger public. It seems misguided to provide poor public education just because retired individuals want to save money on taxes. I understand their needs, but we need to contribute towards our future and not just respect our past.
- The tax increase has been voted down! It was voted down last time, why isn’t someone coming up with a plan to really cut spending instead of directing cuts at the children?
The tax increase does continue to be voted down. For some reason, people believe that there is rampant spending going in within the district. However, if you look at their financial statements and compare them with other districts in Lake County, they spend the least and are funded the least. They are, in fact, the lowest funded school district in Lake County. Feel free to look at their staff list and try to find positions that are not needed. If you compare it with other school districts, you’ll notice that many positions are actually missing. (And probably could be used!)
- Why wasn’t the old property put up for sale sooner, so the transition would be smoother?
The old property is still property and not just a liability but a potential asset. I’m sure that the school district hoped that the community of Big Hollow would actually desire to have a good public education program. This would result in higher property value and then Big Hollow School District could later sell the property for additional value. Regardless, with a $30M debt and growing, a $5M sale of property isn’t going to help very much.
- What personnel cuts are being made?
The personnel cuts are the programs that were cut. There is a requirement to provide certain types of education and although some people would not mind having 50 kids per classroom to save money on teacher salaries, this is absurd. If you look at their staff lists…they are already barebones. If you go to a popular website and look at the teacher salaries, you may also notice that they are poorly paid already.
- What class will Ms. Cosman be teaching next year? What is here degree in? If her degree is in music, then why will she be teaching another subject that she has not mastered? If her degree was not in music to start with, why was she teaching music?
Teachers can be proficient in more than one field. In fact, with the current NCLB requirements, all priorities must be towards supplying highly qualified teachers whenever possible. Those teachers would not be placed into regular classrooms if they were not qualified.
- Now that grades K-8 are in one location, why is there a need for two priciples and an assistant?
There are 3 buildings and each administrator must actually evaluate every teacher, maintain the school management, deal with the community as a whole, provide professional development, and ultimately be the leader and manager of a large staff. I find it hard to swallow that a suggestion of LESS administration is the solution than already exists. Many elementary schools have 1 principal AND 1 assistant principal. Middle schools in many cases have an assistant principal for each grade level. If you compare Big Hollow with other school districts, you’ll see that they have the bare minimum to function. By requesting that they actually remove more personnel is simply asking for them to give up and crumble.
- Is it true that the Superintendent received a 5.5% pay increase?
There is no problem with a Superintendent or any other individual receiving a raise. If you look at his salary on a popular website, you’ll see that it is $40-50k less than other superintendents in the area. I’m not against pointing figures at overpaid teachers and administrators, but this is not the district to do so.
- How many other administrators received raises and how much were they?
It doesn’t matter…what matters is that those administrators are still underpaid and will possibly go elsewhere where the salaries are better.
- What was the average raise for teachers this past year and also again for the upcoming school year?
Raises are contractual and one of the few motivators for teachers to stay in their profession. This is especially true for Big Hollow who get paid so little considering their educational background. The theory is simple…the more experience a teacher has the better they are. I believe this theory holds true for the majority of teachers out there. Although we could hire 1st year teachers every year and fire them because they’d not be tenured, the quality of education would be even worse for the students.
- Is there a plan to freeze salaries? If so, for who?
The beauty or curse of contracts is that you cannot just freeze the salaries. See my multiple previous mentions about poorly funded/paid teachers and you’ll see why freezing salaries is not a good option.
The following was after the answers given above:
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The simple truth is that for public education to be successful, it needs to be funded well. This fact is what makes the difference between great school districts and horrible ones. It is a miracle that Big Hollow is doing as well as they are considering how little money they have to work with. When hiring new teachers, nobody is considering Big Hollow as their top choice to work. Nobody is dreaming of transfering there, and really some parents are not even glad that they are within this district as it stands. With poor funding comes poor quality and there is no getting around that. Nor is there any getting around the fact that the community is responsible for providing public education. The quality of that education directly reflects the community itself and if all you consider are dollars and cents…you may want to consider the damage that is being done to property value with the funding remaining where it is in Big Hollow School District. |
My Response:
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You really didn’t give good answers to the questions. You continually compared Big Hollow spending to the spending in surrounding school districts. This reminds me of the story about the soberest drunk in the bar. In other words, it just doesn’t make sense. Public education is currently overfunded. Charter and private schools get better results with less money. The system is broken in Big Hollow, Lake County, Illinois and across this country. Until we empower parents to choose their childs school public education has no incentive to be creative or cut spending. More money will not help Big Hollow, it will only perpetuate the spending problems without providing tangible results in the education the children of the district receive. |
I did forget this as well. Increasing property taxes decrease home values (Hat tip: Extreme Wisdom):
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Property taxes also, at the margin, lower property values. Retired Indiana University economist Morton Marcus calculates that for every $1,000 increase in property taxes, the value of a home falls by almost $12,000. Moreover, high and uncertain property taxes make it more difficult to attract workers and capital investment to the state. |
Adams next comment:
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It’s easy to compare public education to private schools…private schools don’t have special education requirements and do not have requirements to take EVERY child. It’s easy to get great results with only the children you’re willing to take. To me, comparing private to public doesn’t make sense. |
My response:
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You should go to FundTheChild.org and read the stories linked there. These stories lay out many examples of how charter and private schools save taxpayers money while providing education to the very students public schools are not teaching. These disadvantaged children are being taught, some are even getting jobs to pay for a better education. The insistence that only public schools can meet the need of every child is ludicrous. If the money was available there would be schools created to specialize in the areas needed. In fact there are private schools that do specialize in kids withs disabilities. Teachers complain that they have to teach everyone, and yet they fail to teach many students because they force every student to learn the same way. They complain parents are not involved enough, yet school choice has been proven to increase parental involvement. |
Adam’s Response:
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Let’s cut to the chase. Private schools are cheaper. They pay their teachers less and are run as a business yet seem to receive on-par or slightly higher scores compared to the average school. Everybody who is crying foul are those who are pro-private pro-voucher so the other side is never heard. Think about it though… The teachers are being paid less. As a teacher fresh out of college, am I going to look to private schools as my first choice to work? The answer is no. Private schools typically get the worst teachers that exist in the educational field and there are no requirements that private school teachers are highly qualified. You could have practically anybody in those classrooms…so why do those schools succeed? The answer lies with who is attending the schools. You’re dealing with primarilly higher economic higher educated parents who probably do a better job as PARENTS and are able to provide funding for tutoring or can tutor themselves. These students could be successful anywhere you placed them and practically are teaching themselves in private schools. Private schools have the safety of keeping the riff-raff out of their school and that is why people put their children there. The other 99% of the public is kept out and get to go to those public schools. I’ve seen private school teachers transfer to public education and you know what…they stink. Looking at it this way, those slight differences in test scores seem pretty amazing at the public education standpoint. Think about it…they take ALL students regardless of intelligence, regardless of financial or socio-economic backgrounds, regardless of what kind of parents there are, and they not only equal the scores of many these private elite institutions but do so with what those people attending the private schools consider inferior students. Maybe you should leave public education alone for awhile and try to get private schools to function better. Maybe insist that THEY take state tests so that we can really compare them. I have a feeling that they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. This one-sided argument where public education is held up to a microscope while private schools are simply placed on a pedestal need to be given light weight and less value to the public until private schools are held to the same standards. I’m pretty sure that once the laws that public schools follow are applied to all schools…those private schools are going to dry up pretty quick. |
My Response:
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Yes, there are some elite private schools. The majority however accept virtually all comers. As I stated before, the same poor kids in Helena, Arkansas had their scores improve dramatically once they were given an alternative. Poor children on the Southside of Chicago were given an alternative and the parents clamor for it because it works. How about the teen in SC who got a job to pay for a private school because his school was miserable? These are just a few examples of how alternatives help the very students you claim the public schools are teaching so well. Sorry, but the evidence is contrary to your generalization of private schools. Secondly, the laws governing public schools are created by the teachers unions to force more money in to the pockets of teachers and administrators and not for education. If you want see how competition works with private schools let’s disencumber both from the unnecessary mandates with the plan that follows:
If public schools are doing as great a job as you believe, they’ll get all the students and the money. |
Adam also commented on another Big Hollow post as well. You can read that exchange here.
[...] Big Hollow Debate [...]
My children will be starting Big Hollow in Aug of ‘09. After reading all the problems with the school, the lack of lunch time (!?), recess, etc, PLUS the fact that kindergarten is only a half day, it only makes sense to me to send my girls to a private school. I’d be paying the same amount as I will in daycare for before school & after school care, plus they would get 8 hours of learning each day!
In response to the salary freeze. I love that the principal got a 5.5% increase. Mine last year was 2.9%, HOWEVER, no one seems to care that my taxes went up. OR that my daycare costs went up. Or that gas went up. But by god, the principal got 5.5%? And there’s apparently TWO of them needed in one school? So you mean to tell me, not only will my children only get a half day of education, I STILL pay for full-day daycare once they start school, my raise still will never match cost of living increase despite the 4+ years I spent in college, they get no lunch time (only a snack), and because taxes go up, now my home value is going down. Nice one Big Hollow. Gives me a great incentive to move despite the housing market slump.
I came from a poor school district in the south, but they somehow managed to give me a great education, lunch time and playground time, a building to learn in, never once charged my parents registration fees each year, and I was still bussed to school FULL TIME. Sure, there were 30 students to a teacher, but guess what, I survived. Keep it up, and eventually every parent will opt to pay for private education because it will cost them just as much as sending them to part-time PUBLIC education. Then the district will truly lose money. Then what? “I’m sorry, we can no longer afford to offer kindergarten.”