The 8th Grade Algebra Debate

There has been a lot of interest on my blog, and in the community, in 8th grade algebra, so I've posted an interesting summary by the Brookings Institute on this topic below. Let me make a few points here first.

First, I'm definitely in favor of increasing the % of our 8th graders who take algebra. Taking 8th grade algebra is virtually the only way (other than doubling up on math classes in high school or going to summer school) to be able to take calculus in high school -- and taking calculus in high school opens many doors to college classes and majors (math, economics, sciences). Again, this does not mean EVERYONE should take calculus ... it means that it would be good if more students had the OPTION to take calculus (which means they need to take 8th grade algebra).

Second, there are districts (some in California most famously) in which people said "let's make them all take algebra in 8th grade" -- and this is, I think, a bad idea. So, increasing the % of our kids in 8th grade algebra does NOT mean just enrolling all of them in that class! It means seeing what skills are necessary to succeed in 8th grade algebra, and then making sure that our entire curriculum (K to 7) prepares ALL kids to get these skills. It may also mean adding a regular algebra class for those who COULD do algebra but aren't ready for HONORS algebra (currently our only option).

One more thing, for those (like me) who like numbers from other districts: As part of my work on the math curriculum council, I contacted math curriculum leaders in other MSAN (Minority Student Achievement Districts) and asked the following questions: What percent of students take 8th grade algebra (and of these, what percent take 8th grade algebra and are then ready to move on to geometry in 9th)? These districts were: Arlington (VA), Brookline (MA), Cambridge (MA), Champaign (IL), Chapel Hill (NC), Framingham (MA), Evanston (IL), Princeton (NJ), Newton (MA), Windsor (CT). Here is what I found.

• In Amherst, roughly 35% of 8th graders take algebra, and most of these move on to 9th grade geometry. Two to three percent of 7th graders take algebra, and then take geometry in 8th grade.
• In some districts, most or all 8th graders take algebra and move on to geometry in 9th grade (80% in Chapel Hill; 80 to 85% in Princeton; 100% in Brookline).
• In other districts, approximately half of 8th graders take algebra and then move on to geometry (52% in Arlington; 50% in Framingham; 55% in Newton).
• In still other districts, fewer than half of students take 8th grade algebra and move on to 9th grade geometry (43% in Champaign; 34% in Evanston; 26% in Windsor).
• In Cambridge, no 8th graders take algebra.
  

Moreover, in several school districts, a relatively sizable proportion of 7th graders take algebra and then as 8th graders take geometry or algebra II (10 to 15% of kids in Evanston; 15 to 20% in Princeton; 13 to 15% in Chapel Hill; one class each year in Arlington).

In sum, the percentage of 8th graders taking algebra in Amherst compares favorably or at least equally to some of these districts (Cambridge, Champaign, Windsor, Evanston). However, our percentage is lower than that in the majority of these districts (Arlington, Brookline, Chapel Hill, Framingham, Newton, Princeton). The districts which are most similar to Amherst in terms of the percentage of students finishing 8th grade algebra (Champaign, Evanston, Windsor) all have approximately 40% low income children (more than double that of Amherst).

Two more points to note: none of these districts reported using an "extensions" model to prepare students for 8th grade algebra, and none of these districts reported teaching only "honors algebra" (instead of regular algebra) in 8th grade. These seem to be two areas in which Amherst is unique.


The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth-Grade Algebra

Tom Loveless, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution, September 22, 2008

(Web link: http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/0922_education_loveless.aspx)

The following is a special advanced release of a Brown Center report on eighth grade algebra levels. The full report will be published in February 2009.

Algebra in eighth grade was once reserved for the mathematically gifted student. In 1990, very few eighth graders, about one out of six, were enrolled in an algebra course. As the decade unfolded, leaders began urging schools to increase that number. President Clinton lamented, “Around the world, middle students are learning algebra and geometry. Here at home, just a quarter of all students take algebra before high school.”¹ The administration made enrolling all children in an algebra course by eighth grade a national goal. In a handbook offering advice to middle school students on how to plan for college, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley urged, “Take algebra beginning in the eighth grade and build from there.”² Robert Moses ratcheted up the significance of the issue by labeling algebra “The New Civil Right,” thereby highlighting the social consequences of so many poor and minority students taking remedial and general math courses instead of algebra.³

The campaign was incredibly successful. Several urban school districts declared a goal of algebra for all eighth graders. In 1996, the District of Columbia led the nation with 53 percent of eighth graders enrolled in algebra. From 1990 to 2000, national enrollment in algebra courses soared from 16 percent to 24 percent of all eighth graders.

The surge continued into the next decade. Eighth-grade enrollment in algebra hit 31 percent nationally in 2007, a near doubling of the 1990 proportion. Today more U.S. eighth graders take algebra than any other math course.⁴ In July 2008, the State of California decided to adopt an algebra test as its eighth-grade assessment of student proficiency. The policy in effect mandates that all eighth graders will be enrolled in algebra by 2011.

At first glance, this appears to be good news. Transcript studies indicate that 83 percent of students who take geometry in ninth grade, most of whom completed algebra in eighth grade, complete calculus or another advanced math course during high school.⁵ Research also suggests that students who take algebra earlier rather than later subsequently have higher math skills.⁶ These findings, however, are clouded by selection effects—by the presence of unmeasured factors influencing who takes algebra early and who takes it late. Schools routinely assign incoming eighth graders to math courses based on how much math students already know. Moreover, it is no surprise that excellent math students want to take the most challenging math courses available to them and that low-achieving students avoid these courses as long as possible. Whether algebra for eighth graders is a good idea, especially for those who have not learned basic arithmetic, cannot be concluded from existing evidence. Studies that test for causality, such as experiments with random assignment of students to treatment and control groups, have not been conducted.

The push for universal eighth-grade algebra is based on an argument for equity, not on empirical evidence. General or remedial math courses tend to be curricular dead-ends, leading to more courses with the same title (for example, General Math 9, General Math 10) and no real progression in mathematical content. By completing algebra in eighth grade—and then completing a sequence of geometry as freshmen, advanced algebra as sophomores, and trigonometry, math analysis, or pre-calculus as juniors—students are able to take calculus in the senior year of high school. Waiting until ninth grade to take algebra makes taking calculus in high school more difficult. From this point of view, expanding eighth-grade algebra to include all students opens up opportunities for advancement to students who previously had not been afforded them, in particular, students of color and from poor families. Democratizing eighth-grade algebra promotes social justice.

1 Remarks by President Clinton, Education Roundtable, Springbrook High School, Silver Spring, Md., March 16, 1998. Available at http://www.ed.gov/inits/Math/timsroun. html.
2 Quoted in Matthew Bowers, “Virginia and the U.S. are Improving Slightly at Math, but We Lag Behind Our Economic Competitors in the Developed World,” The Virginian Pilot, March 28, 1997, p. B3.
3 Robert Moses, “Algebra, the New Civil Right,” in The Algebra Initiative Colloquium, Volume II, edited by Carol Lacampagne and others (U.S. Department of Education, 1995), pp. 53-67.
4 Data available on the main NAEP data explorer: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/. See also Jay Matthews, “Adding Eighth Graders to the Equation,” The Washington Post, March 12, 2007, p. B1.
5 Carolyn Shettle and others, America’s High School Graduates: Results from the 2005 NAEP High School Transcript Study (Department of Education, 2007), p. 11. Other than calculus, advanced math is defined as pre-calculus or AP statistics.
6 Julia B. Smith, “Does an Extra Year Make Any Difference? The Impact of Early Algebra on Long-term Gains in Mathematics Attainment,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 18 no. 2 (1996): 141-153.

10 steps to world-class U.S. schools

I'm a bit late in my newspaper reading, so I just came across this Op Ed from the Hampshire Gazette earlier this week that I thought really suggested some concrete ways we could do education better (not just in Amherst, but across the country). I found all of these points very interesting -- and I agree with the authors that making these changes would have a dramatic (and I believe beneficial) impact on our education system.


Hampshire Gazette - Wednesday, June 3, 2009

By WILLIAM BROCK, RAY MARSHALL and MARC TUCKER

The key to U.S. global stature after World War II was the world's best-educated work force. But now the United States ranks No. 12, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and today's younger generation is the first to be less educated than the preceding one.

No Child Left Behind is about getting our lowest-performing students to minimum standards. That is nowhere near enough. To get us where we need to go, we propose the National World Class Schools Act to replace NCLB. To get its fair share of federal education funds, a state would need to:

1. Set standards for licensing teachers that are high enough to recruit from the top third of college graduates, as the top-performing countries do, and never waive them during a shortage. If we insisted on high standards for our teachers and didn't waive them, teachers' pay would have to rise, a lot, and the pay for those in the shortest supply - math and science teachers, and teachers willing to work in tough inner-city schools and isolated rural areas - would rise the most.

2. Get outstanding students to go into teaching and treat them like professionals, not blue-collar workers in dead-end jobs. That means putting teachers in charge of their schools.

3. Reward schools that do a great job. NCLB penalizes schools when they fail but offers no rewards for outstanding work. Provide cash payments of 10 percent of the school budget every year to every school whose students significantly exceed the statistical predictions of performance for students with the same characteristics. Tell principals and faculties that they will get their normal budgets if their students are making adequate progress toward the standard of ready-for-college-without-remediation by graduation, and that they will be handsomely rewarded if their students are making substantially more progress toward that goal than other schools with similar student bodies. The financial reward should come as a big bonus for the school, and the faculty should decide how to spend it. This is better than rewarding individual teachers on the basis of their students' performance, which is hard to measure and will destroy the team spirit essential to a good school.

4. Hold faculty accountable for student achievement. Take over every school that, after three years, is unable to get at least 90 percent of all major groups of students on track to leave high school ready to enter college without the need to take any remedial courses; do the same for every district in which more than a quarter of the schools are under review for underperformance for three years or more. Declare such schools and districts bankrupt and void all contracts with their staffs.

5. Replace the current accountability tests with high-quality, course-based exams. The way we measure student performance is crucial. Rigor, creativity and innovation in student performance require a high-quality curriculum and exams, and will be impossible to achieve if we continue to use the kind of multiple-choice, computer-scored tests that are common today.

6. Collect a variety of information on school and student performance and make it easily accessible to parents, students and teachers. Allow parents to choose freely among the available public schools.

7. Provide high-quality training and technical assistance to every school whose students are not on track to succeed. Most struggling schools are in chaos; their morale is in the basement and their faculties don't know how to improve things. States have little capacity to fix this; the federal government needs to help.

8. Limit variations in any states' per-pupil expenditures to no more than 5 percent by school, except for the differential cost of educating disadvantaged students and those with disabilities to the same standards as students who don't face those obstacles. In this country, students who need the most help have the lowest school budgets - a formula for national failure.

9. Make a range of social services available to children from low-income families and coordinate those services with those students' school programs. We have the most unequal distribution of income of any industrialized nation. If the problems posed by students' poverty are not dealt with, it may be nearly impossible for schools to educate the students to world-class standards. The state cannot eliminate students' poverty, but it can take steps to alleviate its effects on students' capacity to learn.

10. Offer high-quality early-childhood education to, at a minimum, all 4-year-olds and all low-income 3-year-olds. Students from low-income families entering kindergarten have less than half the vocabulary of other students. In kindergarten and the early grades, those with the smallest vocabularies cannot follow what is going on and fall further behind. By the end of fourth grade, they are so far behind they can never catch up. By the time they are 16 and can legally drop out of school, they do so because they can no longer stand the humiliation of not being able to follow what is going on. That is why we lead the industrialized world in the proportion of students who drop out.

Yes, these are radical proposals. But decades of incremental proposals have brought steadily increasing costs and flat performance. Time is running out. It is hard to make a case that the federal government should continue to fund the states to maintain the status quo.

Brock was secretary of labor in the Reagan administration. Marshall was secretary of labor in the Carter administration. Tucker is president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE). They are leaders of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, an initiative of the NCEE.

Amherst looking for union givebacks

Amherst looking for union givebacks
By SCOTT MERZBACH
Hampshire Gazette

Friday, June 5, 2009
AMHERST - With the teachers union not prepared to reduce or eliminate cost-of-living adjustments in the next budget year, getting other municipal unions to adjust their salary arrangements may be a daunting task.

But Town Manager Larry Shaffer said Wednesday that, despite the Amherst-Pelham Education Association's reluctance to give up its negotiated pay raises, he will engage in respectful, courteous discussion with the other unions.

"We will have a conversation with our unions, but I won't predict what their response will be," Shaffer said.

Shaffer has twice sent letters to the police, public works and service employees unions, the three unions on the town side with settled contracts for next year, asking their members to consider forgoing cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) because of the difficult budget year. But all have said that unless the teachers are on board with similar discussions on the COLAs, they would be unwilling to do so.

The COLAs on the town side total about $380,000.

Already, more than nine positions have been removed from next year's budget, and Shaffer said another six to seven jobs could be eliminated to bring the town budget to $18.3 million. The specific positions being cut have not yet been outlined by Shaffer, though department heads are actively working with Shaffer on this task.

Tim Sheehan, president of the Amherst-Pelham Education Association, said Wednesday that no meetings are scheduled with the School Committee to discuss the teachers' contract. Instead, teachers are prepared to wait and see how other things play out that affect the budgets for the regional and elementary schools.

"We bargained in good faith," Sheehan said. "It's the obligation of both parties to uphold the terms of the contract."

Sheehan said he was dismayed at the tone of the School Committee meeting this week, at which it was announced that up to 50 full-time equivalents will be laid off and at which committee member Andrew Churchill said he wanted to "send a clear signal" to the association in hopes it would reconsider its decision not to reopen the contract and its wage provisions. The contract calls for 3.5 percent COLAs, and about half of the teachers will also get 4 percent step raises.

Sheehan said Churchill was at the bargaining table when the contracts were negotiated.

He added that there have already been concessions from teachers. First, the union accepted the new health plan for school and town employees that will result in $280,000 in savings for the school budget. This comes by increasing the cost of co-pays for doctor visits and medication purchases, meaning some teachers will see an increase in out-of-pocket expenses.

"Teachers should be acknowledged for that and appreciated," Shaffer said. "It's movement."

With the exception of the fire union, all municipal unions have agreed to this, as well, saving $85,442. "It's a big number, and very gratifying," Shaffer said.

Shaffer said it reduces the amount of premiums the town has to place in its health trust fund and encourages employees to transition to an HMO, which is less expensive for the town.

The teachers union, Sheehan said, is also giving up its stipends for individual teachers and groups of teachers who do high-quality research. Finally, middle school staff recently revised the master schedule, a means of providing more class offerings for students, but which will force staff to work harder during the school day and need to do more work at night, Sheehan said.

At the Tuesday School Committee meeting, member Irv Rhodes called the cuts "devastating and unconscionable."

He said all around the country, teachers are agreeing to concessions rather than sacrificing the jobs of their colleagues. "Adults used to sacrifice for kids, and it wasn't the other way around," he said.

Amherst schools budget calls for 'staggering' cuts

Amherst schools budget calls for 'staggering' cuts
Teacher union won't give up wage hikes
By NICK GRABBE - Hampshire Gazette
Wednesday, June 3, 2009


AMHERST - The Regional School Committee voted 6-1 Tuesday to approve a budget with massive cuts, in response to drastic reductions in state aid.


Member Andrew Churchill said he wanted to "send a clear signal" to the Amherst-Pelham Education Association, in hopes the union will reconsider its decision not to agree to reopen its contract's wage provisions.


The contract provides teachers with a 3.5 percent cost-of-living increase for the next fiscal year, with about half the teachers also getting 4 percent "step" increases. Interim Superintendent Maria Geryk announced the union's decision at Tuesday's School Committee meeting.


The $27.7 million regional school budget, as voted, is 1.2 percent lower than the current year's. The budget would require cuts of the equivalent of 17.66 positions at the high school, 8.2 of them teachers. The middle school cuts would be 9.4 positions, 8.4 of them teachers.


The regional cuts also include elimination of three full-time equivalents in the central office, cuts of three teams and an athletics fee hike at the high school, and giving up $115,250 for professional development. There are also cuts in supplies, books, equipment, and teacher substitutes.


The elementary schools face the loss of the equivalent of 16.55 full-time positions in school-based staff and 6.5 positions in the central office.


No one on the School Committee was happy with the cuts, which total 50 full-time equivalents at both the regional and elementary levels.


Irv Rhodes called them "devastating" and "unconscionable." Farshid Hajir called them "staggering" and said, "This is a sad day." Marianne Jorgensen, the only member to vote against the budget, called the budget "shocking" and "a severe altering of the programs of our schools."


Churchill said another reason to vote the budget Tuesday was to remove ambiguity. High School Principal Mark Jackson, who will speak to teachers after school today, said half of them are "hanging by their fingertips, wondering about their future." Many have rewritten their resumes and some have gotten other job offers, he said.


Administrators and the union have one more shot to come up with an alternative plan, Churchill said. The union should consider that "maybe we could make some concessions and have smaller class sizes and not get so many of our colleagues cut," he said.


Amherst Town Meeting will reconvene to vote on a budget June 15, and Pelham Town Meeting will reconvene June 13. Shutesbury and Leverett have already voted regional school budgets with a much less severe level of cuts.

Regional Meeting AND Amherst Meeting, June 2, 2009

The regional meeting began with announcements and public comment. Mark Jackson, high school principal, spoke about the upcoming high school graduation, which will take place the the Mullins Center. I asked whether the school district was charged for the rental of this space, and learned that we pay $13,000 to hold our graduation ceremony at this location (hmmm, perhaps this is a way that U Mass could help the schools -- by reducing or eliminating this fee?). Andy Churchill then suggested, in light of the many new SC members and the new superintendent, that the SC have an orientation meeting with a member of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC). We agreed that we would try to find a date to do such a meeting this summer, based on everyone's availability.

We then turned to the superintendent's update. Maria made three announcements. First, surveys have now gone out to parents at all of the schools electronically, and paper copies are available at each school (and are going out through PGOs). Work on translating the surveys into different languages is also now occurring. The staff survey will go out soon. A graduate student will work this summer on compiling the survey results and preparing a report for the superintendent and School Committee (and let me again convey my thanks to the current and incoming superintendent for their support of having this important data collected). Second, the search for an assistant superintendent has been suspended. Although a number of good candidates emerged, and 6 were interviewed by the search committee, the conclusion of the committee was that candidates with the particular range of desirable experiences did not emerge (this committee including the HS principal, an elementary principal, parents, adminstrators, and me as the SC representative). Thus, this budget line has been cut, and the roles this person would have taken on will be filled by a combination of current staff members (to be determined) and some paid outside consultants. Third, there was an update on the discussion with teachers/staff about opening negotiations regarding contracts. Thus far, the teachers union has declined to enter such negotations, the administrators (assistant principals, administrators) are accepting a 2% (instead of 3.5%) raise, and the non-unit staff (principals, directors) are accepting a 2% raise. In addition, the paraprofessionals unit has voted some changes in health insurance (including increases in co-pays for emergency room visits and prescription drugs) that will lead to lower insurance costs to the district. There was then some discussion about whether the teachers should agree to enter negotiations.

I am not speaking for the entire SC here -- let me be clear. I believe the teachers union needs to decide for themselves whether they want to enter such negotiations. These wage increases were negotiated in good faith, and thus it is up to teachers whether they would or would not like to enter such negotiations. Salary discussions are complex for many, many reasons, and I think teachers are in the best position to decide for themselves whether entering such negotiations (and of course agreeing to new terms) makes sense.

We then turned to a (very depressing) budget update. The only "good" news is that the Amherst Finance Committee is suggesting the use of 1.2 million in reserves (including $700,000 based on the projected savings from closing MM), which helps avoids some of the even worse cuts than could have been made. I'm summarizing the cuts here, but the key ones I believe are:

Middle School
A reduction of one assistant principal
Reduction of 5 core academic teachers, meaning a reduction of 1 team in 7th grade (leading to class size averages of 27) and a reduction of 1 team in 8th grade (leading to class size averages of 25)
Reduction of 2 exploratory/integrated study teachers (1 on each of the eliminated teams)
Reduction of either a guidance counselor or librarian
A .40 cut in instrumental music (meaning music will now occur every other day instead of every day)

High School
A reduction of one assistant principal
A reduction of one guidane counselor
7.20 teaching positions (meaning class sizes of 25 to 29)
A reduction of three paraprofessionals
A reduction of $100,000 to the athletic budget (and cutting three teams)

These cuts are at the bottom of Level 2, which is further than we had all hoped to go -- and between the Amherst and Regional schools, a total of 50 positions will now be cut.

There was a discussion of these cuts, and their impact on education. A number of people asked questions/made comments, which I'm not going to summarize all of (watch ACTV!). I do want to highlight, however, a few things. First, Mark Jackson announced that Amherst College had eliminated its cap on number of students taking classes at Amherst (it used to be 30 seats, and there was high demand for those seats). In these tight budget times, perhaps this is a way in which at least some kids can explore options outside of the high school offerings, and, in turn, reduce some seats in other classes. U Mass allows students to take classes as well, but charges students the full tuition rate -- about $1200 a class, which thus makes this option less viable for many students. Second, Mark Jackson announced that the high school faculty voted in favor of keeping the trimester system by a 2 to 1 margin (this vote was for the 2010-2011 academic year -- it was already considered too late to make a schedule change for the 2009-2010 academic year). I am discouraged by this news, given that the trimester system (under our current tight budget) requires students to have two study halls, whereas under a semester system, our students would have only needed to take one study hall. It also means that students now are going to spend 13% of their day in a study hall, compared to 7%. This seems very, very unfortuate -- which is why I was so impressed with Mark Jackson's recommendation to his faculty this spring that such a change to a semester system from a trimester system be considered (in light of this year's budget, but also the expected very poor budgets in years to come). If a student has 2 study halls a year for four years, he/she will spend a total of 8 class periods in a study hall during high school -- and since students have only 15 periods per year, this is equivalent to 1/8th of their education time.

We then conducted a few small planning issues. We received information on recommended school choice seats (to be voted on at the next meeting), voted to approve four clerical/media awards (I served as the SC representative on this committee, and it was great fun -- with many outstanding candidates), and conducted a calendar review (the last two meetings in June will include information about an upcoming report from the "How Are We Doing Subcommittee" and middle school/high school school improvement plans and information on the teacher evaluation process). Finally, we voted on a vice chair (since Marianne was vice chair but is serving as chair since Michael Hussin's term expired) to serve for the next month, until the final new member of the SC (from Shutesbury) joins us on July 1st (and we hold new elections). Andy Churchill was nominated by Tracy Farnham to serve as vice chair and was elected unanimously.

*********************************************************************************

We then turned to the Amherst Meeting--which consisted almost entirely of a budget update. The final proposed budget cuts are as follows:

• 3 classroom teachers (1 at 5th, 1 at 6th, 1 at 2nd) -- which still allows classes to remain at appropriate levels
• 2.70 math/ELA coaches
• 1.25 instrumental music cuts (meaning a one year delay in music instruction, so that orchestra begins in 4th grade and band begins in 5th grade)
• 1 librarian and a library paraprofessional
• reduction from full-year to school-year for all assistant principals
• 1.0 specials (which will remain proportional at all the schools based on # of classrooms)
• .80 computer teacher
• 2.3 cafeteria paraprofessionals

These cuts are, of course, hard -- but I'm glad they are not worse than they could have been.

Our final meeting of the year will take place on THURSDAY, June 18th (based on conflicts of two members with the 16th). At this meeting, school improvement plans for WW and FR will be presented.

Amherst Meeting, May 19, 2009

Sorry for the long delay on doing the update of this meeting -- I rushed to post the outcome of the meeting in which the vote on closing Marks Meadow was taken, and just never got back to posting the rest of the meeting update. So, I'm starting with that.

Following the MM vote, a brief recess was taken. Some parents and community members had a few questions/suggestions -- how to plan for future facilities use, whether MM could potentially still close this year, and how we would solve our continuing structural deficit.

We then heard announcements from the superintendent about a number of topics, including the decision to adopt of Impact 1 math textbooks for the 6th grade (which I'm thrilled about -- this book will lead directly into the Impact 2 and 3 textbooks now in use in 7th and 8th grade, and thus will help increase both horizontal and vertical alignment in our math curriculum, at least in these three grades) and that surveys would be sent to all staff and parents from all elementary schools on June 1st (again, I think this is a great way to help our incoming superintendent learn about the strengths and areas of concern perceived by parents and teachers).

I then asked a question regarding the impact of the proposed cuts to specials (art, music, PE) for the elementary schools. The superintendent explained that the proposed cuts had been somewhat revised, such that only 1.1 positions were being cut (NOT 1.7 as had been announced), and that the cuts were now being done based on creating equitable cuts across the four schools so that children in all elementary schools would have equivalent levels of exposure to specials (so, teachers were allocated based on number of classrooms they need to serve). An art teacher from Wildwood spoke in support of the superintendent's decision to manage the cuts in this type of equitable way, and described the importance of specials to children's overall education experience.

We then voted on two policy issues (both were important to do in light of the MM decision): not accepting School Choice children (the same as our current policy) and suspending the open enrollment policy for new children (meaning that children must attend the elementary school they are zoned to attend, unless they are already attending another school).

Finally, we reviewed items for upcoming meetings (our last meeting of the school year will be June 16th). We will hear about the school improvement plans for both Fort River and Wildwood at this meeting, and we discuss sub-committee assignments for members of the Amherst SC. Steve Rivkin suggested two items: the teacher evaluation process and the math curriculum used in our elementary schools (K to 5).

School boards mull more cuts

Tuesday, June 02, 2009 - Springfield Repubican

By DIANE LEDERMAN
dlederman@repub.com

AMHERST - The Amherst School Committee and Amherst Regional School Committee will hold a joint meeting tonight to discuss new cuts to their budgets.

The Finance Committee last week approved a townwide budget that further reduces department spending to make up for more reductions in state aid. On June 15 Town Meeting will begin deliberating on the $62.2 million recommended budget, down from a $66.6 million level-services budget.

In approving a budget that does not meet the spending sought by the Jones Library trustees, the Finance Committee could be putting the library in jeopardy of losing state library funding, said Library Director Bonnie J. Isman.

Andrew M. Churchill, School Committee chairman and a member of the regional school committee, said elementary schools could be looking at another $232,000 in cuts, with the region needing to trim an additional $149,000 over previous cuts.

Churchill said the general theme is "sharing the pain."

"Nobody wants to be where we are," he said. "I'm particularly concerned we will be decimating the music program" in the elementary schools.

The School Committee last month voted to close Marks Meadow Elementary School in a year as part of a money-saving restructuring. The Finance Committee has indicated it would allow the schools to use some reserves to help in anticipation of that closing.

Churchill said officials are preparing more budget information for the committees to consider tonight.

There are other things under consideration besides cuts, including whether employees will forgo 3.5 percent negotiated cost of living increases for the next fiscal year and possible changes in health care, he said.

Isman, meanwhile, presented the Finance Committee with a budget that was .7 percent lower than a level services budget but one that would satisfy state requirements to qualify for state aid to libraries. She said however the Finance Committee cut the budget by an additional 1.5 percent or $34,704 in the town contribution.

That means the library system would not meet state requirements and could lose $70,000 from the state and its accreditation. Losing its accreditation would mean no interlibrary borrowing privileges, she said. It also means reducing library hours at a time when more are needing library services.

She said, however, the Finance Committee believes the library could apply for a waiver from the state because all the town departments are being cut equally. But if the schools don't have to cut as much she feels the library aid is still at risk.

The school meetings begin at 7 in the Amherst Regional High School.

The Jones Library Trustees are meeting tonight at the library at 7 with financial advisers to look at the library's endowment.

Isman said the Board of Trustees, meanwhile, will likely take the $2,121,288 budget that meets state library guidelines to Town Meeting for consideration despite the Finance Committee vote for a lower budget.