Greeley School District Six Mill Levy Blues

Writing about the Mill Levy Override in Greeley Colorado's District 6 makes me really uncomfortable in my own skin. Mostly because I believe anything the community of Greeley can do to help District 6 schools improve should be done. When a community creates a climate of education good things happen. When it doesn't stagnation sets in. People create divides and develop cultural barriers to success. Children with great potential go undeveloped and unrewarded. Children who desperately need support and help get shuffled off to the corner. Yet, before I can simply just vote yes, I still have some lingering doubts and questions about just what this Mill Levy is designed to produce other than additional assets like textbooks and security systems.

Of course the exaggerated claims about the Mill Levy, from various sources, having been pouring out about how classroom size will grow or not depending on the vote. How Kindergartners will be left adrift after tea time every day. How miserable it is for social tweeners and teens to share books and learn cooperative time management skills. How, even though there really isn't a growing gang problem in District 6, we need security cameras so the parents feel safer. And how the heaven and stars can start falling but not one teacher will get one dime of the Mill Levy but teacher's aides, without the real-deal teaching credential, will be hired to help lower the teacher's burden.

As someone likes to say, "You get what you pay for."

Or do you?

What no one really seems to want to talk about is whether or not this Mill Levy will produce better learning results for our kids. Isn't that the operative goal we are all striving for as a community? Perhaps it is my reality that is skewed but it looks to me like we've basically drawn a 2 inch target on a huge red school barn and are standing ten miles away with shotgun in hand trying to hit it.

Sounds ludicrous? That is my point. Every one is shooting at something but no one really wants to talk about whether or not they are hitting that 2 inch target. Just as long as they get their shot off everything is handy-dandy. The School Board is hollering "Trust Us". The Administration is hollering "Support Us". The media arm is hollering "Fire-pay to put it out." Parents are hollering "Fix it" while the community grouses "Make Us"!

Greeley is caught up in the idea of improving education but not in the action of improving education. That action begins with the community idea that education is THEE priority.

Education takes a lot more than one kid in a classroom with a book in hand and a teacher calling home every time the kid looks out the window. We all know that by now, right? We've heard for years how parents should get involved. Yes, somewhere between working fourteen hours a day, taking the dog to the vet, doing community service for that overdose of Prozac, pasting up flyers for next city council election cycle, baking treats for the girl scout meetings, ballet lessons, soccer practice, trading playtimes and babysitting out with the neighbor, cooking that eight course organic nutritional meal, refurbishing the caulking before the next storm, making sure the lawn stays a pretty shade of green for the neighbors, and listening to the spouse grouse about those little lines starting to bag under the eyes, you, yes YOU, are supposed to make sure you are reading to your child at least a half an hour every night and that the science project you know you'll being doing most of, gets done on time and turned into the teacher, and that your kid gets up every morning to eat a healthy breakfast on time, gets dressed in the designer jeans without resident gang colors anywhere to be seen, plus makes it to school with a happy-sunny face every single day. Only then can you truly earn the badge of "responsible parent" according to the education community.

But I digress into reality. Back to my point.

What hasn't been fully addressed is the role community plays in building a healthy respect for the education process. And by community I don't just mean grandma and grandpa with aunts and uncles and anyone else your kid drags to the play at the local schoolhouse. I mean everyone--the business owners, the workers, the retirees, the unemployed, the illegals, the legals, the pseudo human beings, and the real human beings. Those who wear Prada and those who don't. Those who play poker and those who don't. Those that go to church on Sunday and those that show up just for the Hail-Mary at the end of the show. The dregs under the bridges and the all-mighty sitting in the resident temples. Single, married, unmarried, sort-of-married, married-until-last-night, divorced, over-the-hill, and under-the-hill. Yes, even the corporate executives at the slimy snail-snotting JBS Swift company are included here.

Everyone.

Education is an investment. It is an investment in the future. Today's Greeley District 6 kids are our future. All of us have a stake in this game. If Greeley expects to have good community leaders in the future who can handle the world of technology, the world of climate change, the world of energy crisis, the world of ever expanding population, then it needs to create these leaders. They don't create themselves.

This is the REASON to pay money for education. It creates a return on your investment. Alone, few but the most elite, would ever put forth the money to educate their children. This is why you get societies where only categories and groups of kids (usually by gender) get sent to school. Collectively, by uniting our resources, we create benefits for the individual AND for the group--our future.

One of the things I commonly overhear is "My kid goes to a Charter School." "My kid goes to the Christian Center." "My kid goes ....." Fill in the blanks. The problem with this type of thinking is not the selfish myopia so much but the selfish consequences we all pay for this single-minded mentality in the future.

If YOUR kid becomes a civic leader and all he/she has to work with are candy-crunching gang-banging cheering Prada-clothed undereducated semi-achievers there will be a problem. Maybe, just maybe, if your house is built high enough on a hill with gates around it you might not have to pay the consequences. But you can bet sooner or later one of your relatives will. It won't matter a lot if your kid came out of Harvard. Trust me. America may have been built on rugged individualism but now we are all in it together. You can cross America by yourself but one person can't fix a broken education system.

Which brings me to another point. What is really wrong in District 6? Is anything really wrong? Okay I mean besides the fact that the school board candidates running are looking like fresh ditzes out of a Cracker-Jack box.

These are all things that make me indecisive about the Mill Levy.

I've done some investigation. I know that the District is trying to change things around. They have a new math series coming online for example. They've hired a new (maybe not so new any longer) administrator and have brought in some new teaching talent. They have worked on developing a governance plan for the Board. They are looking at new testing series and how to perform better on old ones. They cleaned up their act by the State levels and received a brownie badge for doing so.

In the meantime they are stifling District 6 teachers on pay negotiations (there was a lock-out when the Union made an attempt to talk to their own teachers today), pushing a Mill Levy tax onto a public unready to receive it, and to my knowledge are pretty entrenched in the idea of not letting the public know just how bad the gangs are getting inside the schools. I won't even go into the rah-rah cheerleading tag-team District 6 and the Greeley Tribune are running together.

I've also combed through District 6's strategic plan (note: that is not the Governance plan). It is a nicely formatted, Susie-let-me-put-the-sunshine-here, kind of plan. It did not inspire me that the Administration has any more grasp on what the remedy may be for the problems showing up on the test scores than I do.

So I ask myself the following question. Why can't Greeley District 6 perform up to par with other similar school districts in the State of Colorado?

• Is the performance problem related to the notion that Greeley is a unique district?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the students?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the parents?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the community?
• Is the performance problem related to a lack of support materials?
• Is the performance problem related to the transitory immigrant population?
• Is the performance problem related to ineffective administration?
• Is the performance problem related to wages and quality of people hired?
• Is the performance problem a direct correlation to money?

I plan on answering these questions throughout the next week. In the meantime readers thoughts are welcome. Janepaudaux@gmail.com

In the meantime, let me add, I know of at least one excellent teacher that is talking about leaving District 6. She is not excellent just by my standards but by the standards of her students, peers, and parents of her students. Her test scores also give her the red tape for us to affirm her greatness as well as if we needed it.

She is burnt out. Between the stress of the classroom gang bangers, the general challenges of teaching, the District wage non-negotiations, she had the poor timing of overhearing two local women talking to their kids about how horribly they were treated by teachers. Too much homework! Too strict on time demands! Over paid! Undereducated!

For me, I have always been a firm believer that kids model after their parents. If the parents and other adults in the community do not show respect for educators, let alone the idea and concept of education, then is it reasonable to expect that kids will be showing up in the classroom ready and eager to learn? In today's society what does respect cost? It costs a big fancy house, lots of designer clothes, a fast sleek new sedan, and membership at the local country-club. You don't get that on a teacher's salary. You get that on an administrator's salary.

We make our own beds and then we complain when we have to sleep in them.

This is why it is so hard for me to write about the Mill Levy. Good blankets make for a nicer, warmer bed. It is much easier to get out of bed in the morning after a good night's sleep. I'd really like to vote for the Mill Levy--because it does provide a couple of warm blankets for the local students. But first, I think, I need to answer the questions above and figure out just how much money or time it is going to take to pull this District into full performance and/or clean up its poor image on the streets of Greeley Colorado.

Greeley Colorado's Future--the SAT's Are In

Greeley Mill Levy Override Requires Trust

The Parable of Biting the Prada Apple: Math Reform

Greeley District Six Mill Levy: Jane's Thumb Critique

A Handy-Dandy New Tool For Greeley Citizens

A Review of Greeley's New School Data Tool

Jane's Beginning Thoughts on the Mill Levy

District 6 Teacher Union Negotiations

Greeley District 6 Performance Check

A Review of Greeley School Performance and SchoolView.org--the new Colorado State parent data tool

The new Colorado school report site Schoolview.org is a hit for the State overall. It isn't perfect but it is a start in the right direction. That is kind of the same thing the State is saying about teaching--identifying trends over time are important in accessing the real quality of your child's education and how your community schools are performing.

Jane Thumbs Up

1) You don't have to be a genius to go to this site and use it and get some information from it.
2) You can see how the specific school you are looking at is doing in math, reading, and writing. Then you can compare it against another school anywhere in the state. This is boon to people looking to relocate with families. It is also a boon to companies looking for a supporting workforce.
3) It makes the educational process appear to be more transparent to the taxpayers footing the bill.
4) It has the potential to improve even further.

Jane Thumbs Down

1) So far I haven't found a list of key terms used. A search on the site search bar brought up common terms that are not helpful nor readily accessible in the specific tool. But this may just be an oversight. The problem will be highlighted below as I write about some of Greeley District 6's data points. It is difficult to know with 100% certainty what terms, used in a school context, like PCI (Performance Cost Index) actually mean to parents and what type of data it reflects and how it should be applied. Frequently it is politically expedient to use confusing terminology. Being transparent is a good ideal. (Being really transparent can be politically deadly. But then that is the whole ideal of being accountable. Perhaps the good folks behind the tool are more governmental and less political and will fix this oversight soon or maybe I am overlooking it to begin with.) If I can't figure it out beyond an educated guess--there is a lot of other folks who are going to struggle. It is nice to look at the little bubbles on the site and be told a school is performing at 41% above proficiency level but parents still need a context for what that means. Especially if they are coming from a District like Greeley where math is one of the most dim performers. (Oh, and where, is the bilingual version for all the nonEnglish speaking parents and grandparents whose children are frequently on the short end of the performing and funding stick in Colorado yet a significant portion of the population? In the political graveyard no doubt...but I digress.)

What does the term "Developing" entail? What do all the acronyms mean? Data is a start. Meaningful data is good. Understandable Meaningful Data for the Public should be the objective.

2) This tool will create new focus on math, reading, and writing. Yes, good for the politicians, not nearly as great for the future of education on the whole. Education is about a lot more. Science is crucial. The Arts (see my previous post) are crucial. There are other areas that have been gutted from the public schools over the past decade in a time where problem solving skills and application of education have become increasingly meaningful. Have we resolved to just give the public a minimal effort or have we resolved to educate our future workforce to meet future economic expectations? If Colorado intends to create a highly skilled workforce and place an emphasis on Green jobs--math, science, and the Arts (innovation and creativity) are crucial to meet that aggressive agenda. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will need to do more to push Northern Colorado schools, and voters, in that direction. A good start would be in showing how far behind some Districts tail in this regard.

3) There are mixed feelings on rallying political support for gauging the school district as a measure of what has been accomplished over the course of a year (a small segment of time) rather than the final statistical outcomes as a whole (commonly referred to as "teaching the test"). On a generalized surface this implies that a teacher of fifth grade getting a class in at the beginning of the year, as a whole performing at a third grade level (as compared to appropriate incoming fourth grade proficiency), should be rewarded for a year's worth of student growth. So if that teacher elevates the largest portion of this class to a fourth grade level she/he has technically done the job. If she/he elevates the students beyond, say to the expected exit of fifth grade level of proficiency by the end of that year, she/he, some say, would deserve a bonus for going beyond the minimal expectations of the job.

This concept has mixed results. It is much more fair to teachers who are receiving children performing at lower levels and working their tails off to try to get these kids up to speed so to speak. It does reward the higher quality teachers for performance and is a form of merit pay for increased skills. But at the same time it takes some of the heat off the administrators for producing educational outcomes that are at proficiency. As well it could give a green light to average teachers to make only the average anticipated effort. (The lowest performers would be easier to identify though. Although in my experience the really low end performers in education get weeded out during student teaching and first year teaching. Sadly, often the high end performers leave too--but for other reasons like dismal pay, etc.) Essentially, the measure of performance over time concept as compared to specific outcome, gives the political cover to the education system to say "Well, look how much we did do..." rather than "We have done a stellar job and met all our objectives of education."

If you have ever been the parent of a teenager you should recognize this deep dark black hole of new-age logic for what it is. A double-edge sword to say the least. One I'd say we have already seen used here in Greeley based on the comments of District 6 covering the performance figures released yesterday.

What will the District Superintendent tell this year's, and probably the next three years' worth, Greeley District 6 graduates and their families about their education when they don't have the competitive skills they need--especially in math. "You should be thankful we are working on it. Come back in a few years and we may get it right." Heck there is a computer engineering whiz on the Board--what is he going to say? "I got my math background in another state. Greeley Colorado will get there some day and then, you too, can be just like me."

On the other hand the high-end teachers sensitive to public outrage at the overall performance and ready to burn out from overwork, underpay, and exhaustion may find some relief in being able to show that their individual efforts are floating the entire boat--if individual classroom data is ever allowed to go public.

4. Finally, this tool still does not give solutions to the public citizens with the least resources unless they have the ability and funds to relocate or move their child to a better performing school. It will give them the ability to see, instead, the specific failures of their school district and to watch as parents with resources relocate and move their students to higher performing communities. Without resources hiring private tutors isn't a reality either. Of course these parents will be able to complain to the authorities in charge but without political representation or community power (especially in the case of minority groups and immigrants) the complaints will fall on deaf ears. You don't have to own a crystal ball to figure out that this tool also has the power to erode poor performing inner city and barrio schools even further. Let's hope that isn't how it works out.

On to the specific Greeley District 6 Data.

I took a further look at it this morning. See my earlier post. The hole in funding the Board is going after to fill with the Mill Levy tax is obvious. I am assuming national stimulus funds are not aiming for the same per pupil funding deficit. While the State makes up some of the shortfalls in per pupil monies they do not cover the entire amount. Basically Greeley performs lower economically than the surrounding areas and property values are lower. In Colorado 60% of property taxes go to local schools. Therefore, I am assuming, the shortfall of locally dedicated funds. Of course these figures will not take into account any of the recreational facilities and other cultural learning activities put in place by the Greeley City Council that integrate and support the educational system. A higher tax base means more funding essentially.

What makes me curious though, again before I submit to endorsing the mill levy request, is the ROSI statistic (Return on Spending Index). Greeley's is 18.1 after being adjusted for student needs and geographic costs. Essentially those adjustments tend to level out the comparison between school districts with diverse populations and locational needs. Denver's stat is 14.7. Greeley appears to pump more money into core instructional expenses for less results if I am interpreting the data correctly (see my point about listing terms and acronyms above). That would give room to the idea that a higher score on the ROSI means lower performance for higher costs. Which, again, goes back to the administrative accountability I have posted on earlier.

I didn't appreciate the District Superintendent's push to single out the higher performance stats in her statements covered by the Tribune. Mark Twain would have been proud though. The deficiencies in math in the district are fairly appalling and giving parents a shell game approach to being seriously factual about the problems faced doesn't lend credibility to the Supe's management skills or long term planning strategy but certainly will score brownie political points within the staff and authority figures. I like to see educators leading the education system not politicians.

If anyone can help me out on clarifying these terms I'd appreciate it. I think I'll drop a letter into SchoolReviews "contact us" link and see if I get a reply. Overall this is one of the better, more user-friendly, approaches I have seen from a State in regards to making data accessible to the public. It needs some "fixin's" but it is a beginning.

*On another closing note. If you click on the stimulus funding link on the CDE Home page there are several options where the State does a better job than most of trying to lead citizens through the funding maze. I noted, if correctly, that stimulus funds can be used for technology and for teacher compensation. The Mill Levy has been initially directed toward technology funding with a complete dismal of the idea of teacher pay. At present I believe teachers were requested to forgo their cost of living increases this year. Perhaps the District is just creating plan B for technology funding at their teachers' expense? District 6 Union Representatives take note. District 6 missed their targets on LEAs. Perhaps this should be a focus in the future?

• Teacher Incentive Fund
  • Awarded to LEAs, state education agencies (SEAs), or partnerships of an LEA and/or SEA and at least one non&8208;profit organization, to develop and implement performance&8208;based teacher and principal compensation systems in high&8208;need schools, defined as schools with more than 30 percent of enrollment from low&8208;income families.

Mill Levy for Greeley's District 6 Schools--Jane's Thoughts

Greeley isn't a third world country. However I have been encountering a common troubling mindset, buried beneath the surface, that education is the sole responsibility of the individual family rather than the community. In my view a metaphor for this notion is Grandma ma's money getting stuffed under the mattress while the big-bad-wolf of inflation eats it away. The bed stuffing is in lieu of investing it into something that helps to grow the original amount like a savings account.

Education has always been my passionate topic. Children are simply the most obvious beneficiaries. But adults also need continual education to survive in a rapidly changing environment of technology and economic complexity. There is simply more competition out there for every job.

In economics one of the better class arguments I've seen is over third world child labor laws. There are still countries which do not educate all the children (only the ones that can afford schooling) and some that educate few. The children who are sent to school are family investments into the future. The children who stay at home work and contribute to the current needs of the family. The bottom line is that as per capita income rises the adults in the family are able to invest their children through education. This is in lieu of consuming the child (metaphorically) as an asset in the present by sending them out to a garbage pile to produce additional wealth to keep the family alive in the here and now and/or keeping them at home to help with household chores.

America invested early in mandating all children attend school. A brilliant move that has paid off handsomely in America's rise to global power. It would be prudent to continue to build on that sage investment.

Generally I will blanket support for any reasonable increase to educational resources. But after doing some background reading on the district 6 teacher negotiations and seeing some of the statistical performance figures from NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) I am wary about jumping into endorsing the mill levy tax. It doesn't mean I won't.

The early press relations coming out doesn't give enough information and the arguments are overly generalized. We've all heard them before. What I am having trouble envisioning is how these areas targeted for funding will improve the quality of education for students and the community rather than simply be used to acquire additional assets to management and maintain. That may be fine but I doubt it will get the community support it needs to pass. There is only a short hop until voting time and a cohesive well thought out approach to passing this tax doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

Of course I could be wrong. If anyone has additional insights please lend me your thoughts and I will post them here on the blog. In the meantime let me give an example of the rabbit holes this debate over taxing for education can go down. I'll take on one of the implied targets of funding--technology.

Just adding technology to the classroom is not the entire answer. It is simply the tools to arrive at an effective solution. Existing teachers have to be trained to use these tools. New teachers coming in with high level skills must be hired. From a management perspective this means increased training for teachers present and potentially more time away from the classroom. It also means a thorough reexamination of the rubric Human Resources is using currently to screen effective teachers and bring them forward to hiring committees. Plus there are technician requirements to upgrade and maintain the technology.

To take it one step further the adults in the home of these students also need to have a decent understanding of how these tools apply and how necessary these tools are to their child's future. A good community education system should be like an Octopus--threaded throughout the community with access available to everyone. Certainly the adults in the community, themselves, could utilize training and access to the same type of resources. Many grandparents are in charge of raising the next generations--they also can benefit from continued education. Being competitive in the future world is crucial to bringing real sustaining jobs and systems to our community, to our state, and to our nation. Education is a case where in order to benefit your own family the investment has to also benefit the entire community your family lives, plays, and works within.

Being realistic about the global economy our children and grandchildren will have to compete in may be the most important issue facing our community today. Yet it is one that is consistently thought of as an individual problem rather than a community wide problem. It is often ideological in nature. I like to think of it as the case where it doesn't do my own child a lot of good to rise to the top if his/her advisers and neighbors are stuck down at the bottom of the barrel on education. Good, effective, education rises above ideology and gives to its students a comprehensive global viewpoint so that they can draw upon the knowledge in any given situation and support whatever ideology they may choose to adopt.

For a community to dig in and root itself into the ideal that public education should be limited to "just the basics" is to ensure, in my view, that the endeared nearly universal idea of social equality will never be obtained. As the public fights to keep from funding the education of those who need it the most--those that have the resources send their kids and grandchildren to a private, and elitist, education system. It is not in any individual citizen's interest to have the bulk of its society undereducated. The competitive advantage in the workforce will not be productive in the long run because quality employees will become scarce goods and political unrest in the economic lower classes will continue to grow.

Other countries around the world have been targeting education to raise their citizen's quality of life and increase their national presence globally and enrich their economies. Some are very focused and quite progressive in their viewpoints--reaching not only into the next few years, but the next decade, and even into the next century. The American education model has been a model system. While that is an acknowledgement of American innovation and performance at the same time it is a weakness.

The weakness stems from the fact that other countries have looked at the model not only for its performance delivery but to see the flaws in the system so they will not be repeated. Hence new models of education with industrialized and high technology economies behind them have the potential to out perform America in the future.

Now, personally, I am not big on making national security arguments. But could there be any more important strategic support mechanism for our future national security than progressive up to date education for every child in America. Not just some. Not just the high performers or the children who look and act the most like "us". Everyone.

It is in our interest to see the community children well educated at any cost. It is in our interest to see the entire community integrate its resources to effectively help train and educate every willing person in Greeley. That is a prudent investment made for every generation to follow. However, before embarking on this investment, we need to ensure ourselves as investors that the managers in charge are doing their jobs as well as being capable of doing the future job required. It would be foolish to just pour money into the system without calling first for a clarity, and a strategic accountability plan, from this current administration. Additionally that plan should not just focus on teachers and equipment. It should focus primarily on the administration itself and their management of the resources.

Personally I don't buy into the tacit notion that per-pupil funding is the solution to a broken educational system. It may well be a part of the solution--but it isn't the entire enchilada.

Considering past performance statistics and oversight actions taken within district 6--I believe the administrators need to fully re-establish their credibility with the public before asking hard pressed citizens to step up. Will these teachers gain more training and how will you control those training costs both in and outside the classroom? Will the technology be used to telecommute training--covering more teachers for fewer dollars? Will new teachers be hired with the skill sets needed to take Greeley citizens into the future economy? Will the school improve on networking with existing educational and training resources? What are the specific, MEASURABLE, advances in the quality of education that the public will be able to check if this levy passes? And how soon can the public expect to see results?

Greeley's District 6 Negotiations: Just a Slice Out of the Middle
Greeley District 6 Performance Check
Parity and Greeley District 6 Negotiations

That is just the beginning list of questions I'd like to see answered and broadcast to the public households District 6 is anticipating to vote for this increase. The Mill Levy case needs to be brought to the door of every citizen in Greeley rather than bandied about in the exclusive and unfortunately insular hallways of the administrators. The majority of the public does not attend school board meetings. Bring it home where education begins.

Research Point
Assessment and Outcomes, 2008, New Mandates Technologies & Opportunities
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=25194&fID=568

Building the Team: Faculty, Staff, and Students
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=24499&fID=568

Democracy, Diversity and Social Justice: Education in a Global Age
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=2668&fID=568