PT Council Leaders Urge Parents to Fight State Mandates

Poet William Butler Yeats said, "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." But according to the leadership of the Scarsdale PT Council, the NYS Education's Department is doing everything they can do extinguish the fire at the Scarsdale School District.

Swamped with state mandates, a proscribed core curriculum, hours of state tests and a new teacher evaluation system based on the results of those tests, the district is hard pressed to deliver the world-class education the community expects. In fact, the leadership of the PT Council estimates that the testing alone costs the district $2.5 million per year, decrease morale, quash creativity and undermine the carefully-crafted educational program that the district has honed through years of research, testing and development.

These mandates were the subject of a special presentation by the PT Council to the community on Tuesday November 19 dubbed, "Is New York's Race to the Top Dragging Scarsdale Down?"

PT Council leaders Pam Rubin, Diane Greenwald, Nan Berke, Pam Fuehrer, and Mary Beth Evans reviewed the impact of these mandates on Scarsdale and discussed their efforts to advocate for relief.

Diane Greenwald described a recent meeting in Port Chester where local educators and parents met with Chancellor Merryl Tisch and NYS Education Commissioner John King. She said the state's top two educators were "cranky and arrogant" and were not listening to the hundreds of local educators and concerned parents who came to address them.

Nan Berke explained that in the past the state would give high performing districts like Scarsdale waivers to allow them to opt out of state mandates that were inappropriate for the district. However, those days are over. Even though Scarsdale taxpayers fund 95% of the school budget and state aid has dropped from $7.1 mm to $5.8 mm in the last five years, Scarsdale is still required to follow and fund state mandates.

The district is additionally challenged by the 2% tax cap. Research done in Massachusetts shows that though the tax cap was implemented to keep down property taxes, it actually works to depress real estate values. Why? Because cities where local services are underfunded, are less appealing to buyers and therefore homes value fall.

Squeezed by expensive state mandates, a tax cap that prevents tax increases and decreasing state aid, the budget process becomes more difficult each year. As Berke said, the challenge reminds her of struggles with weight loss: .... "Striving to lose weight while you are being force fed high calorie foods and your employer has taken away your gym membership."

Pam Fuehrer discussed high stakes testing which has serious consequences for students, educators, schools and districts. Though teachers are evaluated on the results, the district no longer receives test results for individual students and therefore the data cannot be used to evaluate students or to assist them. Furthermore the validity of the states has not been evaluated and testing is taking considerable time away from direct learning.

Here is the amount of classroom time the PT Council estimates is lost to testing:

• 3rd grade lost 7 hours
• 5th grade lost 9 hours
• 8th grade lost 13-16.6 hours

Additional classroom time is spent prepping students for the test and teachers spend extra hours grading these tests as well.

The newly imposed Annual Professional Performance Review APPR is another "time waster" according to Fuehrer. The new system requires administrators to observe and assess every teacher every year. Administrators estimate that they formerly spent 96 hours per year doing teacher observations and now spend 396 hours per year. This prevents principals and teachers in charge from focusing on teachers who need help or improving the curriculum.

Feuhrer also voiced concerns about the newly implemented core curriculum arguing that some of the new curriculum modules were poorly designed and confusing and that "one size instruction does not fit all" students and classrooms.

Mary Beth Evans told parents what the PT Council was already doing to fight state mandates and discussed the Declaration of Intellectual Independence that has been signed by the School Board, PT Council and Scarsdale Forum. She said that PT Council representatives have testified in Albany and are working to raise awareness of the issues and encourage parents to take action. She said, "the NYS Education Department is not listening but our legislators are listening," and asked parents to know, think and act, to regain local control of the schools.

State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, SMS Principal Michael McDermott, STA President Trudy Moses and Superintendent Michael McGill then took part in a panel discussion on the issues.

Paulin said "we need to return to local control." In the old days, Scarsdale and other high performing districts were given waivers on state mandates but today we have a "very rigid systems and no waivers are permitted." Michael McDermott said we "must balance Scarsdale traditions of excellence with the new requirements."

Speaking for the teachers, Trudy Moses said that a poll of Scarsdale teachers revealed that they valued the following in Scarsdale:

• Professionalism of the district
• Collaboration and communication
• Commitment to excellence
• Classroom autonomy
• Valuing the individual teacher
• An environment of support for teachers

.. some of which are threatened by the new mandates. About the state tests she said, "Even though we tell teachers not to teach to the test, when there is a number hanging over your head, it is hard not to teach to the test. 40% of their evaluation is based on those test results."

Superintendent McGill characterized the Scarsdale Schools as "a place that is constantly reinventing itself, a place that marches to its own drummer, and a district
with the self assurance to be independent, to blaze its own trail in ways that really matter." Discussing the state mandates he said, "a handful of people are making a diagnosis and a prescription of what's wrong with education and marginalizing people like me."

He said he spoke with Regent Merril Tisch who said, "It's not until parents stand up and say something has to change that things will change."

Watch the entire presentation on the Scarsdale Schools Cable Channel or on Video on Demand at http://www.scarsdaleschools.org/Page/84.