Tax Cap and Mandates Pose Challenges to the Scarsdale Schools

According to Scarsdale Schools Superintendant Michael McGill these are the best of times and the worst of times in his tenure at the helm of the Scarsdale School District. At a League of Women Voters forum on January 10, League members met with School Board President Jill Spieler and Superintendant Michael McGill for an update on the schools as the Board and administration begin their annual budgeting process for the 2011-12 school year.

According to McGill, the good news is that Scarsdale has begun to see the benefits of the administration’s plan to prepare Scarsdale students for a complex, interdependent world, by fostering critical and creative thinking and a passion for learning. McGill was proud to cite examples of how the district has moved away from rote learning and is now focused on working with students to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

McGill shared a few examples of the validation that Scarsdale has received on this novel approach and believed our district’s philosophy would become a standard for other schools.

Both Spieler and McGill recently attended a meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the Scarsdale Woman’s Club with representatives from leading colleges and universities. In discussions about the state of education in the United States, it was clear that the colleges were seeking students who were critical thinkers and problem solvers, confirming McGill’s philosophical approach.

McGill also provided several examples of how this approach is being integrated at all levels in the school system:

• Scarsdale’s Singapore Math program was recently featured in the New York Times and has been well-received by elementary school teachers and students.
• In the fifth grade, the Capstone Project teaches students how to do original research at a very young age.
• There will be new final assessments for eighth graders that are learning projects rather than exams.
• In the high school, the transition from AP to AT courses has been a success, and the College Board is now reformulating the AP exams to focus less on fact retrieval and more on critical thinking.

However, Board members and the Administration are fearful that mandates from the federal and state governments and the state’s budget crisis could undermine the District’s success. There are real threats to our independent decision-making process as well as serious budget challenges. Both McGill and Spieler shared the gravity of the situation with League Members and asked the community to lobby legislators on the District’s behalf.

Here are the issues facing Scarsdale:

Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed a 2% tax cap without providing local communities a mechanism to override the cap or providing relief from fixed costs such as the district’s contribution to the state pension fund. If the school budget goes up 5% due to contractual salary increases, pension costs and health care costs, and the district can only raise taxes by 2%, the Board will need to make tough choices to close the gap … possibly cutting facilities maintenance, raising class sizes, eliminating extra-curricular programs or cutting into the educational program.

N.Y. State won a Race to the Top grant, which will mean more funds for districts in need but no additional revenues for high-performing districts like Scarsdale. Even without funding, Scarsdale will need to conform to Race to the Top mandates. Two new requirements that concern McGill are as follows:

• All district teachers and administrators will need to be rated on a 100-point scale annually. McGill stated that it is impossible for supervisors to give in-depth evaluations every year to the entire staff. This is currently done every three years, though “problem teachers are under intensive supervision all of the time. “ According to McGill, the current three-year process has served us well for the last 20-30 years.
• In addition, the high school curriculum may be changed to require all students to take four years of math and science, where currently only three years of each are mandatory. According to McGill this will limit flexibility in the curriculum for juniors or seniors who may want to do science research, take interdisciplinary courses or take advanced courses in the humanities.

Both McGill and Spieler indicated that they have addressed the tax cap, mandated costs and Race to the Top requirements with lawmakers and education officials to little avail. They urged the League and members of the community to lobby legislators and write letters asking for the ability to override the tax cap, reductions in pension contributions and relief from federal and state mandates for high performing districts like Scarsdale.

As the Board and Administration begin their budget review process this month, they will confront these challenges and review potential scenarios with the community.

Pictured Above: School Board President Jill Spieler, Superintendant Michael McGill and League of Women Voters President Jane Veron. Photo by Angela Manson