Merger Averted

Oh, yes, as a point of reference, I would like to know from those posting messages in favor of merger, how many of you actually have a "dog in this fight?"

Mr. Clapp, you didn't seem to be so upset last Fall supporting a candidate that didn't have all her "dogs" (as you put it) in the "fight".

Why does it have to be a "fight"? Why don't we solicit the advice of the entire community?

Joseph K. -

agree that everyone should give input.

However, when people - or commissioners -- say redistricting or bussing don't matter it is obvious that they have

1. forgotton what it is like to run all over town to get your kids to their next stop or after school activity and

2. were lucky enough to not be involved or not be redistricted farther away from their house. The last in town redistricting was upleasant enough for some of us that some really fear a county wide redistricting would be awful.

so when redistricting and bussing get dismissed out of hand some wonder whether the officials really get it.

I've got to weigh in here against the concept of merger, though it isn't directly my business since I don't live in Orange County. School-merger debates follow predictable patterns. One or two previous attempts fail. Finally, the effort succeeds, supporters celebrate and preen, then other problems consume the public attention and little follow-up analysis is performed.

Opposition is usually more vocal and more energized, though it isn't the largest faction of voters on the issue in most cases: that would be the apathetic.

Mergers are supposed to increase cost-efficiency, but rarely do because whatever redundant costs are eliminated is outweighed by other cost pushes. Mergers are supposed to improve student outcomes, and the evidence is at best mixed on the point. States with a larger number of school districts per capita, such as in the Northeast, typically perform better on tests -- but a host of other factors likely explain that. Test scores have risen in North Carolina counties with fully merged districts, but then again they've risen elsewhere at roughly similarly rates as far as I can determine.

When in doubt, I would argue, err on the side of decentralization. I don't buy Mr. Marcopolos various conspiracy theories on the issue, but I agree with the underlying sentiment.

Jay--are you on the steering committee of NoMerger.org? I ask because I'd like to be able to read your comments with the understanding of how strong your opposition to merger is.

Terri

I think the comments are pretty strong -- don't you?

But yes I am on the steering committee.

visit

http://www.nomerger.org

big whoop!

dimion-

dude - I was just answering a question. I didn't mean to make anything of it --- What's your name? O anonymous big guy.

Thanks Jay. Lots of people post "strong" opinions here and I've found myself misunderstanding individual statements lately so the up front clarification/declaration is very helpful.

By "No Child Left Behind" I am referring to Big Education (as someone else aptly called it on another thread0 as promoted by Education Secretary Paige, the Bush cabal, and their ilk. This is the sytem that our schools are a part of. And Paige is the guy that Neil Pedersen came in 2nd to in the national Superintendent of the Year contest and Pedersen had glowing accolades for Paige. Anyway, without writing a book, Paige is well known as a corporate shill and a bullshitter. Anything that makes it easier for corporations to get their message to our kids is good with Paige. That's what No Child Left Behind really means.

Mark

As far as no child left behind that is no reason to merge the schools. Some districts have already decided against trying to comply because the costs of complying can excede the federal dollars at stake for some districts. (I believe NPR talked about somewhere in Ohio). No child left behind may be left behind in a few years by congress.

And melanie is probably right. The merger is pushed by transplants who look a lot like the transplants in chapel hill. educated NY, boston etc..... I guess they figure they can convince the commissioners easier than they can convince their own long time neighbors and county school board to raise taxes for education -- which is a pathetic reason for merger.

I have yet to hear an educational benefit to merging the schools for town folks. I don't buy the capacity arguments as both places will grow throughout our lifetimes and you could argue building schools sooner is more cost effective than waiting for interest rates and labor to go up. The town would give the commissioners political cover if they ever wanted to put a countywide supplemental tax on the ballot.

I don't think they'll escape the issue by appointing a task force.

Since the issue will be up in the air and unsettled come November, I imagine it will be Question #1 at every single candidate forum and meet-and-greet. And next fall, I would hope there wouldn't be any voters or reporters willing to accept this answer: "I haven't made up my mind [ed. translation: 'Thank God I haven't had to vote on this yet.'], therefore I have developed no thoughts on the subject lo these 18 months since we raised the issue -- again." On candidate surveys, this answer should be described as "would not answer" or "refused to answer," because I think that it's fair for us to expect that they would have formed _some_ ideas about the subject.

Duncan,

The only problem with your analysis is that the county commissioners are elected in the Democratic Part primary. The November election is meaningless for county commissioner.

Of course, now we don't know when the primary will be. If the commissioner races weren't partisan - like the towns & school boards - we wouldn't have to put up with the redistricting bs interfering with our commissioner elections. It would also be more democratic as the uninfomred straight-slate voters who couldn't name a county commissioner if they were tortured wouldn't skew the results.

Mark

You guys paint a lovely picture of a merged system.

"developers want, real estate agents want it"

The stuff about the state wants it is a red hearing.

A republican controlled house ain't going to force a 20 cent/100$ tax hike on anyone. Besides I am told the house generally defers to locally elected officials on local issues. That's as phony as a 3$ bill. There are 117 districts for 100 counties so it is not as if we are the last ones standing. The beautiful durham school board votes on racial lines. I'd urge you guys to look at Wake County and Durham for the false panacea that merger may present to some.

I kind of think the democrat and republican party have already merged! It's hard to figure out who is more party establishment Kerry or Bush? Do anything say anything to get elected (flip flop on Gay marriage etc...).

Please read the wake county issues pertaining to bussing in their county. It reaks devastation on the parents and kids and immediately lead to 10% of the kids leaving for private schools.

I do agree it is a sneaky way of leting it sit until dealt with at a later time.

Why do we swallow up winmores, meadowmonts and the commissioners own "smart growth" for the 3rd high school only to create sprawl and build schools where we don't need them. The hypocrisy of a merged system contrasted with infill and winmores just doesn't make sense.

Do we have DC style government in the "southern part of heaven"?

I'm gald Terri brought up the 1986 task force. I remember that--and at the time, it was the people in the COUNTY who were dead set against merger, they didn't want their taxes to go up, and idn't want "THOSE PEOPLE" (the southern part of the county) choosing "THEIR" schoolboard. I think one of the reasons this has come back around is there is a growing population in the COUNTY system that wants to equalize funding--and is PUSHING for that, and the commisioners don't have the backbone to do what it takes to MAKE that happen. And somehow this is the fault of CHCCS for even HAVING a supplemental tax....but that is another discussion.

There is a LOT of history to the anti-merger sentiment...and those who haven't lived here throughout really ought to learn it. My guess is that the most ANTI merger people are the old-time COUNTY residents, and the relative newcomers to the CHCCS...but I have nothing to support hat but a gut feeling. I will add this--if I owned land in either the county OR the city system, that wasn't solidly in a walk-zone, I'd be concerned. Because it is the out-lying parcels that get redistricted constantly. Heck, that happens in the CHCCS system. Just as the people out on Jones Ferry how often THEY'VE changed schools in the last 10 years!

Melanie

I think it is a strategy of letting the merger issue sit on the outskirts of our political boundaries until everyone gets used to it. Then it is invted in. It was introduced to expected controversy. The controversy is allowed to simmer and then abate, but it still gets discussed and people just get used to it until the point when enough energy has drained off the issue that it is politically manageable. Meanwhile, the insiders in the school systems start planning for merger contingencies so that a lot of the groundwork is laid and it becomes more difficult to do anything but merge.

The public school system's history is one of increasing centralization. Gov. Mike "Corporation Man" Easley wants merger. "No Child Left Behind" wants merger - it's easier for the national school bureaucracy to deal with fewer school systems. Bussinesses who make millions of dollars off our school systems want merger for the same reason. Local real estate folks want merger. Developers want merger. And they all have reasons why merger is the best solution for your child's education. After all, it's for the children.

So it will be allowed to lurk around us until we are adequately familiarized with its inevitability. Like Blue Cross Blue Shield,Progress Energy, Duke Power, UNC, Waste Mangaement Inc., the Democratic and Republican Party, merger will prevail as long as we are willing to put up with the loss of control and homogenization that centralization brings.

Mark

The facts haven't changed since the last comprehensive study (1986?) that recommended the county move toward merger so I agree, Jay, they won't change any further in the next 6 months.

It's the same crap they pulled instead of biting the bullet and funding affordable housing several years ago (which they did do eventually). So I agree it's a do-nothing strategy. I don't really buy that it's designed specifically for Barry's benefit, but I can see how you think it will work out that way.

My guess is that it has more to do with the Commissioners' general discomfort about doing anything controversial (or substantial, for that matter) without hearing a chorus of voices call desperately for it for at least a year. In spite of the way they seem to characterize themselves, I don't see the County Commissioners as a particularly politicaly courageous group.

Ruby -

I suspect we are on opposite sides of the fence on this but...

from all the public hearings in the last 6 months the VAST majority of speakers were AGAINST merger.

So the cries (in public hearings) were against it --- I think someone even has the numbers spoken for and against.

What I find unbelievable is that everyone except Alice Gordon and Moses Carey has not made up their mind --- at least that is what they say.

Of course you knew I would post on this.

The part that disturbs me is that I received an email a week ago saying that the prediction was a study would be suggested to bury this issue to allow Mr. Jacobs to run for state house and the other commissioners to run for re-election without the "distraction" of merger.

I know this is a small town but whether this is Washington D.C. or Orange county a "task force" means lets find a way to get this out of the spotlight for a while. come on folks

Really, none of the signigicant facts or info will change much in the next 6 months. The only thing I can see is they find the county wastes too much money and overbuilt while the town is underbuilt -- but the fundamental issues will not change. (FYI the rich chapel hill district is discussing cutting teachers aids for 2nd graders. We need more in our district and generally we are happy to pay it - in fact the town school board requests more than is levied.)

If the commissioners intent is to see how many soccer moms and dads actually vote (the translation of the will of the residents into the will of actual voters )- I'd appreciate them saying this is so parents would be clear on the importance of this election. (I don't like John Kerry for a reason and when local elected officials start looking like seasoned politicos I like them less and less.)

Does anyone but me think this seems a bit too political and disingenious for "leaders"?

I'll continue this discussion from 11/2/04 local races, here on this thread.

Here's another reason why the summer primary was not an endorsement for merger. Yes, as Bolduc argued, the clearly merger candidate Carey won, and the most no-merger candidate Hemminger lost.

But here's why that's not a mandate. Does anyone really imagine that if Carey had been the no-merger candidate and Hemminger the pro-merger candidate, then Hemminger would have defeated Carey instead? No way, by my estimation. Instead, Carey would have won more handsomely than he did (especially assuming no change in Brown).

I have another thing to say about the merger debate itself. Some people started calling themselves anti-anti-merger. That's a linguistic cop-out, and a substantive one. We here are all informed enough about it to have formed opinions. More than enough. If you're pro-merger, then go ahead and call yourself that, and then accept (or refute, if you can) the consequences of diluting smart-growth density.

I'm with Moses Carey. MERGE NOW!!!

Nothing is ever accomplished without change,

Pain is temporary.

Gain is permanent.

Best, Jack

Jack,

The gain has not been substantiated.

M

The long awaited educational Excellence Report is now available. It will be a primary topic on the March 15th BOCC Meeting.

Executive Summary

Full Report

March 15th BOCC Agenda

Other questions are:

Is the real issue "equity" or "local control"?

Should the OCS BOE request an OCS district tax? Should the commissioners?

Can any commissioner who favors merger honorably continue to perpetuate such a difference in taxation that is the primary stated reason for proposing merger? Can any commissioner who favors merger honorably bring merger up again if the equivalent taxation on OCS or some path to such equivalent taxation is not proposed by said commissioner(s) in this budget cycle?

Should the OCS district propose a definition of "equity" and a suggested means to increase taxation on OCS (as requested by one commissioner last week)? Should the BOCC agree on a definition of equity prior to a funding debate (as brought up many times over the last few months by at least two commissioners)?

Without merger, I'm afraid equity is going to defined as a tit-for-tat budget balancing task. Educational equity includes a whole host of non-financial factors such as parental involvement in classrooms, community commitment to education vs non-educational funding needs, and impact of the schools on the larger social structure of the community. Assessing a new school tax on a community that already has problems with affordable housing, slow economic growth, etc. is not equitable. Equity is about more than just counting the number of social workers and foreign language courses. But I'm afraid that's how it's going to be approached.

The current school systems are financially bloated. Every year they need more and more money--even when enrollments decline. We have two good school systems in this county, and we all know that's one of the biggest factor behind our population growth. Trying to balance budgets (achieve equity) under our current growth prictures is going to simply extend that annual bickering over which districts needs should be funded and which shouldn't. I really hope I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any way to achieve equity without merger.

The State legislature almos took the argument out of our hands--there was a proposal to fund only ONE school system/county--but it got tabled at the last minute.

Bummer...would have been interesting to see what thestate legislature did with this...

Melanie

OCS is a very well-funded and high-performing school district which has the capability to raise taxes to get more operational funding if that is what OCS citizens want.

Without merger, I'm afraid equity is going to defined as a tit-for-tat budget balancing task.

If it can be established that the will of the people is "monetarily equal funding", then accomplishing this is very straightforward for the commissioners to do. The ad valorem operating allocation is done on a per pupil basis, so you just raise the ad valorem enough to meet the higher funded school system. Moreover, the commissioners have all the statutory authority that they need to make this happen today.

Let's be clear, this is a "taxation issue". One district chooses to be taxed and the other does not.

The other problem is defining "the people" in "the will of the people". It seems to me that if it were the will of the OCS district to be taxed, then the commissioners would have done it long ago. Should CHCCS dictate the OCS tax rate? Or should the OCS citizens have a say in their tax rate? Personally, I favor smaller school districts with local control. I'm not sure that I should be telling folks in Chatham or in OCS what their tax rate should be. But OCS is in our county and if we define "the people" to be the whole county from a base student funding formula, then the commissioners can increase OCS funding today. This is actually the heart of the problem, and some people like to ignore this aspect of the discussion because it does not serve their agenda. Interestingly, I think that this same issue that is at the heart of district representation. And it could be that the merger debate further fueled the issue of district representation. And if we do merge, even with some form of district representation on the BOE, OCS has lost control of taxation, curriculum, and other currently local decisions. Likewise, I heard some OCS board members express at a recent joint BOCC/BOEs meeting that they want control over how to spend money allocated to their district. They don't want the commissioners telling them what educational programming is right for OCS, nor do they want CHCCS dictating that either via some "same programming" mandate.

Educational equity includes a whole host of non-financial factors such as parental involvement in classrooms, community commitment to education vs non-educational funding needs, and impact of the schools on the larger social structure of the community.

Those factors vary school by school regardless of the district. Creating larger districts does not fix these factors. Larger districts are less responsive and less accessible. CHCCS has TWICE as many students as the average US school district. The average US state has almost three times as many school districts as NC. Wake and Durham parents would kill to break their districts up into racially similar, but smaller districts. Martinez of the N&O wrote a column about this last year. Are you going to bus city district parents out to the periphery of the county to somehow fix this?

Assessing a new school tax on a community that already has problems with affordable housing, slow economic growth, etc. is not equitable.

Are you under the impression that merger has no tax impact on OCS? The county staff says it is on the order of a 25% increase with no appreciable impact on CHCCS. The county staff has made it clear that no matter what option you choose, OCS bears the tax increase.

Let's look for a moment the statement "is not equitable". The property value per pupil is very similar between the two districts, which means that the taxation is actually equitable. If we had a different situation, where raising the property tax a penny would give one district $50 per pupil and the other $100 per pupil, then that would be inequitable.

Trying to balance budgets (achieve equity) under our current growth prictures is going to simply extend that annual bickering over which districts needs should be funded and which shouldn't.

Base operating funding from property taxes is allocated per pupil. If both districts are taxed equally, then there will be no "bickering" over this base operating funding.

Actually, regardless of the taxation, funding from the base operating funding is allocated per pupil, so to the extent that the taxation is the same, pupils in each district receive the same funding.

Thanks,
Mark

Did you know that Orange County has a 12% poverty rate? That's only 1 percentage point below the state average. I'd wager that most local poverty resides outside of CHCCS district although I haven't been able to find out where to local pockets are for sure.

Your data is all well and good, but it's based on averages. If you look at the tail ends of the data, in terms of who can afford tax increases and school performance, the picture becomes quite different. Raising taxes will have a direct and negative impact on those individuals who populate the tail ends of the data pool. Home ownership would be further eliminated for all those who are on fixed/marginal incomes. We'd run the risk of further reducing our farming population, etc. etc. etc. All the old arguments that are clearly not going to go away in the search for equity vs. merger.

"Local" control can be achieved by distributing power and authority to principles and SGCs and away from the centralized authority of superintendent. In other words, achieving what you want could be done within a merged system.

Raising taxes will have a direct and negative impact on those individuals who populate the tail ends of the data pool. Home ownership would be further eliminated for all those who are on fixed/marginal incomes. We'd run the risk of further reducing our farming population, etc. etc. etc.

So what are you proposing as the solution for this? Certainly merger is not the solution because it forces a 25% property tax increase in the OCS district.

“Local” control can be achieved by distributing power and authority to principles and SGCs and away from the centralized authority of superintendent. In other words, achieving what you want could be done within a merged system.

It's not gonna happen. Money is given to the school system, which will make the major decisions on how it is spent. The pressure to make things the same across all of the schools from a programmatic perspective is too great to allow any significant SGC control.

The 25% increase in property taxes is based on the legal requirement of going with the highest funding rate when systems are merged. If merger had been chosen, the Commissioners could have gradually reduced the amount of the CHCCS tax in the years prior to merger (as suggested in the 1986 report) in order to avoid such a drastic increase for OC residents.

But now we are talking about equity instead of merger. We're right back where we started IMHO and I don't have a concrete solution to propose. Change is messy and painful and always involves someone loosing, typically those who have the loudest voice (the greatest confidence, most power or however you want to define it).

If OCS is provided with the funding need to bring their resources up to par with CHCCS this year, per the School Excellence report, what happens next year? It's an additive funding problem that has to stop somewhere. Short of following Mark Marcopolus's recommendation to eliminate all public schooling, I think we should hold a series of public charettes on what consitutes a quality education for this community (both districts). We need to start at the bottom and work upwards rather than trying to achieve balance with existing infrastructures and programming. And everything needs to be on the table. Cutbacks are inevitable--the current funding levels, for both systems, are simply not sustainable.

FWIW, other districts have applied local control through principals and SGCs successfully. The only reason it won't work here is lack of parental/political pressure on the schools boards.

...the Commissioners could have gradually reduced the amount of the CHCCS tax in the years prior to merger

I am not sure if you meant to omit this, but the key here is that the county rate is raised gradually in order to offset and reduce the CHCCS tax rate. I have not seen any proposals which suggest the CHCCS rate is to be lowered independently.

If merger had been chosen, the Commissioners could have gradually reduced the amount of the CHCCS tax in the years prior to merger (as suggested in the 1986 report) in order to avoid such a drastic increase for OC residents.

I think you have this backwards. The staff report shows that non-merger funding solutions can gradually increase the OCS tax rate to meet the effective CHCCS tax rate. Merger is an immediate increase.

“Local” control can be achieved by distributing power and authority to principles and SGCs and away from the centralized authority of superintendent. In other words, achieving what you want could be done within a merged system.

You missed one of the key points about local control - the ability to determine how much one will be taxed. Thus my earlier statement: "This is actually the heart of the problem, and some people like to ignore this aspect of the discussion because it does not serve their agenda."

If the commissioners decided to merge the system 10 years from now and their goal was to NOT impose a stiff new tax on OC residents, they could IN ADVANCE decide to lower the Chapel Hill rate so that when the merger actually occurred the new effective tax rate for all residents would be lower than the current CHCCS tax rate. The advantage of planning in advance per the 1986 report.

Local control in the larger educational literature that I've read is more focussed on meeting the needs of micro-groups of students. Taxation doesn't have to be part of it.

If the commissioners decided to merge the system 10 years from now and their goal was to NOT impose a stiff new tax on OC residents, they could IN ADVANCE decide to lower the Chapel Hill rate...

They can raise the ad valorem and lower the city district tax now.

... so that when the merger actually occurred the new effective tax rate for all residents would be lower than the current CHCCS tax rate.

So you are advocating a reduction in school funding? You want to first reduce school funding and then merge?

Local control in the larger educational literature that I've read is more focussed on meeting the needs of micro-groups of students. Taxation doesn't have to be part of it.

The whole issue here is taxation. Local control in the larger political sense is what I described when I introduced the term in this discussion above.

Mark--I really admire all the energy and effort you have put into protecting the local quality of education. But (to state the obvious) you and I are coming at this from totally opposite perspectives. After having worked on a large scale educational reform program in Florida for 6 years, I just can't look at current budgets and believe they are having any real impact on student learning. I've seen much smaller budgets result in truly innovative programs for kids who live in much worse conditions than exist anywhere in Orange County.

When I look at current budgets (and tax rates), while you see a community valuing education, I see a community diverting funds from other aspects of community life that are equally important to children's growth and development (parks, health care, environmental quality, etc.). The schools here in town have become so reflective of the larger, economically disparate community. Money may buy bigger and better houses, but that doesn't make the people in the house happy or healthy. If money was all that was needed to make the schools great, we wouldn't have so many kids feeling stressed out and worried about their futures.

To me it's not the bottom line amount of what is spent that matters, but how the funds are allocated. That was my point in responding to this thread in the first place. Across two districts with centralized budgeting authority, there simply isn't enough 'local control' to make informed decisions on the only real data point that makes a difference--the children in each school. Those kids look different across classrooms, grade levels, and schools. It's the school principals, teachers, parents, and kids who should making the decisions.

In the absence of that kind of local control, we just get top heavy bureaucracy that imposes 'technical' solutions, which typically translates into needing more funding. How else do you explain the fact that declining student enrollment in the CHCCS means they need MORE funding rather than less? The current educational model isn't flexible enough to respond to fluctuating enrollments, diverse student profiles, rising construction costs, etc. Large bureacracies simply are not as responsive to the individual children as I feel schools should be.

Given the environment in which these two school systems reside, I don't see how equity can be defined without continued controversy. In the absence of a real understanding of what equity means to the individual schools, where the direct impact is felt on individual children, I don't see any possible solution other than a formula that will serve as a placeholder for a few years, until populations shift by demographic profile and geographic location and the whole debate starts all over again.

Terri, thanks for the kind words.

I've seen much smaller budgets result in truly innovative programs for kids who live in much worse conditions than exist anywhere in Orange County.

By "innovative", do you mean that a similar percentage of the students in these systems attend public schools and outperform the students in the local systems?

If money was all that was needed to make the schools great, we wouldn't have so many kids feeling stressed out and worried about their futures.

There are many reasons kids are stressed out today. I am concerned about the level of stress of students today and have frequent conversations about it with other parents. However, I am also concerned that children in our society have the skills that it takes to compete in an increasingly global economy.

To me it's not the bottom line amount of what is spent that matters, but how the funds are allocated.

It's both.

That was my point in responding to this thread in the first place. Across two districts with centralized budgeting authority, there simply isn't enough ‘local control' to make informed decisions on the only real data point that makes a difference–the children in each school. Those kids look different across classrooms, grade levels, and schools. It's the school principals, teachers, parents, and kids who should making the decisions.

It appears that you are arguing for a completely charter school system, which would be the opposite of merger, it would be a breakup.

How else do you explain the fact that declining student enrollment in the CHCCS means they need MORE funding rather than less?

It is my understanding from a recent budget information session that student enrollment has not declined, but the growth has slowed. What may make it appear that it has declined is the formula used by the state to plan in advance for enrollment figures. Meanwhile, inflation is a reality and the chccs modest budget increase basically attempts to keep pace with inflation and keep many of the current programs running.

Large bureacracies simply are not as responsive to the individual children as I feel schools should be.

Agreed. And merger takes us in the wrong direction on this point.

Given the environment in which these two school systems reside, I don't see how equity can be defined without continued controversy.

There is no avoiding it, equity will always be a controversy. In merged systems, there are nasty fights over districting and busing.

In the absence of a real understanding of what equity means to the individual schools, where the direct impact is felt on individual children ...

When you propose a better metric and solution, then we can discuss it as another alternative.

BOCC Meeting Live...

The 1st of 2 budget hearings, this one at the Southern Human Services Center, filled to capacity over 30 minutes before the meeting. The hallway is full, too, and people are standing outside as of the start of the meeting. 80 people signed up to speak as of 15 mins before the meeting.

Thanks Mark, are you going to live blog it?

I can chime in some. I am busy taking pics, too.

John Link presented the budget using the presentation on http://www.co.orange.nc.us/budget/index.htm

One person spoke for $2K more for http://elcentrolatino.org/

Karl Knapp, CHCCS PTA Council president spoke on behalf of the council in favor of full funding for both districts.

A 7th grader from Smith Middle school spoke very eloquently in favor of more funding.

2 OCS parents have asked for more funding for Spanish and other programs.

There are many Orange County Recycling employees outside as well as a number of Special Olympics advocates, so they will probably be speaking. There are balloons that say "Help Families Pay For Child Care". There were signs along the entrance saying "Full Funding For Schools" and "No TA Layoffs". There are 40 people with school funding signs.

The child care representative is giving the stats on the amount that working families pay for. 25% of many families income is spent on child care. $8-10K/year(?) is spent on childcare.

Ray Martin, leader of teacher organization spoke, indicating that there is a many tens of billions of dollar lawsuit that the county can join in money set aside for NCLB that is not made available.

Several other CHCCS parents have spoken.

More school speakers.

The Orange County Special Olympics is the 4th largest in the US. Chapel Hill is contributing to a full time position and needs Orange County to contribute part of the position. Several speakers spoke on behalf of this.

Pics: http://www.orangecitizens.org/article.php?story=20050531201832342

John Link (county mgr), commented that Orange County will probably contribute one or part of one of their staff in lieue of $.

260 people were outside and most of them signed a piece of posterboard that someone got out of their car. The parking lot and drive was full and people had to park all along Homestead and over at Homestead park. Apparently only 70 people can fit in the room.

Seawell Elementary SGC co-chair Jennifer Jansen presented a petition with almost 300 signatures on it requesting full funding.

Many other SGCs, PTAs, and PTSAs spoke with official resolutions by their groups.

Channel 11 came, so we'll see what footage they got.

I left at 9:45 and they were still going strong and the room was still almost full.

Budget work session tonight - putting semi-live minutes here: http://www.orangecitizens.org/article.php?story=20050609194529934

Mark--at what point will parents think the school budgets are just too steep? We all want our children to have excellent educations, but I question the relationship between excellent education and money (after a certain point). If town budgets were growing at the same rate as the school budgets, there would be a huge outcry.

Terri has a good question, which has remained unaddressed by all parties - the relationship between education and funding.

I was curious about this myself, and so I collected data from MSN.com ("compare cities") on the 68 largest NC cities, and ran a statistical analysis (linear regression) to determine the correlation between graduation rates and funding, and the relationship between graduation rates and the percentage of the area's population over 25 with a 4-year degree.

What I found was that, for these cities, there was a very poor correlation between graduation rates and funding. There were certainly schools in NC that had graduated a higher percentage with even less funding, which agrees with a statement Terri had made earlier.

However, I found that there was a very strong correlation between graduation rates and the percentage of 4-year degree holders. Note that correlations do not imply cause and effect - more research is necessary to better understand causal relationships. But no effort is being expended in this direction.

Even the media has avoided an intelligent discussion on this topic, which is perhaps most disappointing of all. Without facts, the media has supported a position of increased funding with no indication of the impact on graduation rates.

And if we're not talking about graduation rates as the performance marker, which is something that affects the majority of citizens of the county, then why are we asking all of the citizens to pay a tax increase?

Mark–at what point will parents think the school budgets are just too steep?

Hi Terri,

The current CHCCS budget request is a 6.5% increase, which makes up for many inflationary increases and rising health care costs as well as the state abdicating responsibility for funding. Given that the state is giving less, then some of that 6.5% is a shift of taxes from what we pay to the state to what we pay to the county.

The current budget request is what it mostly what it takes to keep the current programs running. If we were talking about hiring bunches of new teachers or starting major new programs, then this would be a different conversation.

M

Hi Mark G.,

I want my children to be well situated for a college or advanced degree. Graduation rates alone are a poor metric for being prepared for the global economy, IMHO.

M

Mark Gill--

There is educational research on the relationship between funding and performance (more variables than simply graduation). It's not a part of the lit that I've stayed current on over the past couple of years, so I'll need to do some research before I can provide you with additional references. In the meantime, it might be interesting to take the data you've worked with so far and look at drop out rates and funding (I assume you're looking at per pupil funding).

Mark P--you're missing the point. Does the additional money, whether its for meeting previously defined needs or new ones, add value to the bottom line of the organization. Graduation is one data point; drop out rate is another. Given the high number of special needs kids in this district, we would need another data point for looking at their performance. My point is that the schools may have already been overfunded and this current disruption is serving as a negative feedback loop to bring them to a more sustainable funding level.

Question for Mark P--on the per pupil funding rate in CHCCS, what percentage goes to administration? same for OCS?

Terri

Mark P,

I don't buy the line that we're losing jobs (globalization) because of education. We're losing jobs because of cost of labor. Supposing that we equalized education, all that's left is cost of labor, and no amount of education is going to equalize that. Corporate and personal greed by the elite few is driving the destruction of domestic jobs. But that's a different subject.

So if we're not talking about funding to correct graduation rates, which benefits the majority of citizens who fund the schools, then we're talking about funding for AP classes and the like, which benefits the few. That's one sure way to continue leaving children behind. I would say that's neither a very civilized nor compassionate goal. I would also say that many county citizens are not wiling to increase their taxes to fund such a restrictive objective.

Mark