North Haven Posts Schools Chief Job

The New Haven Register is reporting that the job posting for Superintendent has been made public and that the deadline for submission of resume and materials is October 8th. Whoever will follow Ms. Querfeld has some really big, compassionate, qualified shoes to fill.

Summer Reading

If you or your children have not completed your summer reading yet, now is the time!

I'm currently working on a thriller or two myself.

One way or another, please make sure that your children do their necessary reading, for school and for their intellectual development.

Even better, be sure to let your children catch you reading. Your literacy has a very big impact on theirs, which in turn has a big impact on their future success.

What are you reading?

While I'm on a Roll! TEACHERS...

I saw a discussion about teachers on Chris's blog this past week that I found interesting, and the conversation seemed to stop at a really crucial point. I would have liked to have seen it go forward.

Are teachers, overall, liberal or conservative?

A link was posted by one of the commenters ("Fed Up" or is it just "Fed" now?) showing research to this effect, and I found it really captivating. This research, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) over the last several decades here in America, had some really interesting perspectives on where teachers fall on the political spectrum - in both directions - being both more conservative and more liberal than the regular public, depending upon the issue and the relative level of education to which they are compared.

I would highly recommend the read if you are either concerned about the state of education (as a parent or educator yourself) or if you have reason to fear the politicizing of the classroom, which I think we can all agree is a terrible thing, barring intolerance, in either direction.

Here it is - http://educationnext.org/american-teachers/

Passing the Budget

Passing this budget next week (05/18/2010) will maintain our current level of services, not least of which being all day kindergarten, high school electives, middle school teams, leaf collection, bulk pick-up, the pool, the library, et al.

I see no other option. A reduction in the tax increase means a reduction in town services means a reduction in town value so far as I can figure it. Saying "no" probably feels justified and satisfying, but it does not resolve any of this town's issues, or the state's, or the country's.

I urge all parents of school age children and all residents who enjoy the quality of our community to turn out and vote "yes" on this upcoming referendum. Voting "no" will only lead to chaos in terms of writing a budget somewhere between bad and worse.

Ann Rocco (I apologize for having misspelled her name during my blogging last night) made an excellent point from the other side of this argument last night. She said that if the mill rate goes up, it is not likely to come back down. I don't disagree with her and I don't enjoy having to concede that point. However, I would interject likewise that lost services that this town has historically enjoyed will also never return if cut. It's one thing to add paramedics. It's quite another to return to leaf pick up if we lose that town service and somehow contract out for it. I am of the unpopular opinion that we will then have less, not more, control over the cost of providing such a service. I don't want to be guilty of adopting a "wait and see" attitude, like our First Selectman.

Town Meeting, the Next Installment

Tonight is the next installment of our awesome town meetings, and alas, I cannot make it, though I will certainly be watching.

My first sincere hope is that a proper amount of professionalism and decorum can be kept. The last meeting saw no attempt to stick to the stated agenda - ensuring that both sides of the budget would get its proper time to be debated. One of the meetings last year featured the red hooded intimidation crew - definitely in bad taste.

I will be voting yes. I believe that every investment necessary to maintain our town is worthwhile, no matter how painful. Others will disagree. I certainly hope that plenty of yes votes make it out and speak carefully and profoundly on this view. At the meeting last month very few people came out and only a couple of people bothered to counter some of the rambling negativism.

So, Mr. Freda, people will be watching. Please keep it sharp and focused tonight - the way meetings have been run in the not too distant past.

Early Childhood Education

http://northhaven.ctcitizens.com/story/community-conversation-zooms-early-childhood-education

Maybe this means that cutting all day Kindergarten in this or any budget is off the table in North Haven . . . ?

Raise the Drop Out Age?!

http://nhregister.com/articles/2009/04/30/news/doc49f9da2e8648d307766500.txt

If you don't work in or around a high school, this might sound like a good idea.  Keep the kids in school and they just might learn something.

This is, in fact, a TERRIBLE idea.  There is a small number of students who are little other than distractions and even dangers in the halls of a high school.  They are either completely disrespectful and consciously disruptive of the learning process or they engage in behavior that endangers other students either directly or through negative influence.  

Oftentimes, the only way to get these students back into the learning process is to allow them to leave it, discover the difficulties that creates, and then come back.

Raising the age to 18 only forces schools to keep students longer who are likely only detrimental to what the school is achieving with the rest of the student population.  Call your representatives.  This might be good politics, but it is a lousy practical solution to the challenge of uncooperative students.