AUGUSTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

12 Gedney Street

Augusta, Maine 04330-9105

Phone:  207-626-2468 Fax:  207-626-2444

www.augustaschools.org

 

M E M O R A N D U M

 

DATE:            March 5, 2010                      

 

TO:                 Board of Education

 

FROM:           Cornelia L. Brown, Ph.D., Superintendent of Schools

               

RE:                 NEWSLETTER

 

BOARD BUDGET MEETING:

 

The Augusta Board of Education will hold its next budget meeting March 1 beginning at 5:30.  The meeting will be in the CATC cafeteria.

 

The business meeting will follow. The first item on the agenda is a presentation by Gretchen Livingston concerning her recent trip to Guatemala.  Following Gretchen’s presentation will be several of the acts from the upcoming Chizzle Wizzle. This year the theme is Mystery, Mayhem and Madness.

 

Approval of Minutes from the business meeting of February 20 follow.

 

The following items are letters to the Board concerning proposed program changes/eliminations for school year 2010-2011.

 

Student Recognitions are next.  The Board will recognize the Rotary students of the month from CATC and Cony.  Those students are Gideon Forbes, Kristen Yeaton, Christopher Robinson, Erika Wilson, Robert Metcalf, Jessica Brox, Emily Carr, Katherin Hofferberth, Melissa Birch, Megan Barton.

 

The School Department received a letter from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges concerning the accreditation status of Cony High School.  NEASC was complimentary of the work done and gave numerous commendations, including the adoption of a standardized format for the design of rubrics for measuring academic expectations.

 

Committee reports follow.  The only Board sub committee that met in February was the Personnel Committee who met February 10.

 

Under the New Business portion of the agenda there is a student approval requested for a trip (Latin students) to Europe in 2011).  Lastly, the administration requests an amendment/change to the 2009-2010 calendar.  The change requested would add an early release day April 29 to make up for the one missed earlier this year.

 

The last item of business will be presented by Sue Campbell concerning a funding resolution and cuts to General Purpose Aid.   The resolution requests that the State needs to honor the 55% funding obligation to public schools and stop shifting the burden to local taxpayers.. 

 

The next school board meeting will be March 24.  It will begin with a public hearing on the proposed 2010-2011 school department budget followed by a board vote.  The meeting will be in the CATC cafeteria.

 

BUDGET DEVELOPMENT

The Maine Department of Education released new General Purpose Aid figures last week reflecting the Change package as proposed by the Governor.  The new figures will add approximately $20 million into General Purpose Aid.  For the Augusta School Department, the revised figures increase our General Purpose Aid figures by approximately $284,000.

 

Other updates last week concerning the development of the 2010-2011 budget include the recently released increases for health insurance.  The rate increase is expected to be 2% instead of the 10% that was anticipated.  This change in the budget will reduce the health insurance expenditures by approximately $200,000.

 

I will present the updated revenue information to the Board Tuesday evening at 5:30 along with any other information that has changed since the Board met March 1. 

 

A reminder to all interested parties that as we have seen, the budget development process is not static and can change from day to day.  The Board will vote on a proposed budget to send to the Augusta City Council who has authority concerning what figure to send to voters for the June referendum.

 

Which by the way, this year voters in the City of Augusta will be asked if they want to continue the budget referendum on the school budget or if they wish to return to the way budget adoption was done before.  Prior to the budget validation article the last step in the budget adoption process was a vote of the city council. \

 

Maine Center for Economic Policy Annual Conference

Critical Investments in Education Panel

Bill Bridgeo shared with Councilors and asked me to do the same this piece. 

 

Remarks by David L. Silvernail

January 11, 2010

How can we not only maintain, but enhance, our K-12 education system in light of our fiscal crises?

Ø      First we must recognize several realities; and we must face these straight on.

One, we cannot take a “time out” in our efforts to provide a high quality of education to see Maine’s youth.

The world will not stop while we fix our financial crisis.  The so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), our key international competitors, will not stop their drive to be number 1 in the world.

     

And the information describing the current state of Maine education confirms we have no time to waste.

Lowering or suspending our drive for meeting high academic standards is just not an option.

Two, we must recognize that the current budget shortfall is not just a momentary blip on the radar. The radar picture is that we must, for the foreseeable future, do more with less.

Three, we must make some very tough decisions, and choose between some very difficult equally desirable, but competing options.

 

Four,  We simply must become smarter about how we use our existing education resources.

 

Ø      But if we do these things, I’m convinced that the education for our children will have a promising future.

Ø      What does it mean to be smarter about how we use our existing education resources?

Before turning to this, a disclaimer is in order: I co-direct the Maine Education Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan institute which conducts policy research for the Education Committee of our state legislature, but I’m speaking for myself, not for anyone else or any other group. Not a representative of MEPRI, nor of the Committee.

Ø      So what does it mean to make smarter decisions?

It means, in my mind, two things:  

    1. Being more efficient in the ways we use our existing resources

 

    2. And it means reallocating existing resources more wisely.

 

Ø      Before describing these potential re-investments, let me describe a couple of examples where I don’t think we are being smart and efficient in the use of our existing resources.

Ø      At the request of the Education Committee, my center has been working on identifying higher performing, more efficient schools and school districts in Maine.  And our preliminary findings provide some interesting results.

1.      For example, there are approximately twice as many lower performing, less efficient schools and school districts as there are higher performing, more efficient schools and districts.

2.      Lower performing districts are only about 1/3 the size of higher performing districts, yet the lower performing districts have approximately 25% more staff per pupil.

3.      System administration costs per pupil in lower performing districts are 80% higher than they are in higher performing districts.

Clearly there is work to be done here in improving the ways we use our existing resources.

Ø      Turning to another example:

State aid (subsidy) to local schools has increased by over ½ billion dollars in the last four years.  Yet the percentage of funds school districts devote to Regular Classroom Instruction has actually decreased by 3 ½ percent over the same time period; from about 44% down to 40.5%.

Ø      To me these are clear examples that we are not using our current resources in the wisest, most efficient fashion.

Ø      So in addition to becoming more efficient in how we use our resources, what also could we do?  We could reallocate some of our existing resources.

Ø      Let me suggest what I mean by this in a couple areas, areas which I’ve found Commissioner Gendron talking about of late.  She has identified them as cost saving areas; I would offer them as examples of how we may obtain cost savings in order for these to be re-directed to other areas.

Ø      First, let’s examine student-teacher ratios.

Ø      Maine now has the most favorable student-teacher ratio in the nation.  The latest information indicates that Maine’s ratio is 9 to 1; nine students per teacher.  The national average is almost 16 to 1.

Ø      What does this difference mean in terms of dollars?

The difference between the Maine ratio and the national ratio is equivalent to about ½  a billion dollars – ½ a billion dollars in potential savings if we moved to the national ratio.

But that is just not realistic. We are a rural state, after all.  But what if we just increased our ratio to that found in other rural states – and, in particular, rural states that are currently performing as well as or better than us in student achievement?

The ratio in those states is about 13.5.  So if we moved to this ratio, this would represent approximately $400 million in savings (cost reduction).

Ø      A second area of cost reduction is special education. Maine’s identification rate of special education is the third highest in the nation (behind New Jersey and West Virginia); and 30% higher than the national average (approximately 11.7% vs. 9.0%).

This is for a variety of reasons, but not, as many think, because of poverty levels.  It is primarily because our identification guidelines are more lenient than the federally mandated guidelines.

Clearly, we must insure that all children with special needs receive appropriate services, but if we were to adhere to the national guidelines, as Commissioner Gendron has proposed, thereby lowering our identification rate to the national average, we could save over $60 million dollars each year.

Ø      So these two reforms alone could save Maine potentially over $460 million dollars a year.

Ø      What should happen with this potential cost savings?

[It would clearly wipe out any projected deficits] I propose these savings should first be re-invested in areas we know are related to higher achievement.

Ø      Where should these re-investments be made?

First, we know that investments in early childhood pay off.  Better performance, fewer special education referrals, fewer dropouts, and greater lifetime earnings.

So let’s fund universal pre-school for all 4 year olds in Maine. This is estimated to cost approximately $55 million dollars a year.

 

Second, we know more instruction time is related to higher achievement.  Maine’s school year is 175 days for students, 5 days less than the national average (and 25 days less than proposed by the Obama administration).

So let’s at least increase instructional time in Maine to the national average.  This would cost approximately $45 million dollars a year.

            Third, we know that effective teachers can make a difference.               So let’s:

A. hire better qualified teachers

B. pay them more and retain the best (Maine’s average teacher salary is about $9,000 less than the national average);

C. tie increased pay to performance; and

D. increase the amount of professional development for them (we spend 6 times as much on athletics as we do on professional development for teachers)

If we were to increase Maine teacher’s average salary to the national average, and increase professional development threefold, this would cost approximately $150 million dollars a year.

Ø      Thus, these re-investments would cost a total of approximately $250 million dollars – still leaving approximately $200 million in cost savings.  Savings that could be directed toward other re-investments, or to reduce property taxes.

Ø      So this is one example of how I believe we can face realities, make some very tough decisions, and still provide a quality education for our children. In fact, provide a better one for our children.

Ø      Is this the only way?  Could there be other decisions?  Other strategies? Yes, of course. But the bottom line is we must face these very serious realities, and make some very tough decisions.  Indeed, I believe we have a moral imperative to insure all Maine’s children receive a high quality education.  And this is an imperative that is not diminished in tough economic times.

 

 

CALENDAR of Upcoming Dates/Events

(Please note that this Calendar is to be used only as a guideline, and that all date and/or /events are subject to change)

 

DATE

TIME

EVENT

LOCATION

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 9, 2010

 

March 9, 2010

 

 

5:30

 

7:00 p.m.

 

School Board budget meeting

 

School Board Meeting

 

 

CATC Conf. room

 

CATC Cafeteria

 

March 24

 

6:00

Public Hearing on Proposed 2010-2011 School Department Budget

followed by School Board Meeting and vote on Budget

 

CATC cafeteria

 

April 5, 2010

 

 

5:30

 

6:30

 

7:30

 

Education Committee

 

Finance Committee

 

Personnel Committee

 

 

Superintendent’s conference room