Friday, January 7, 2011

New Britain Schools Prepare For Choppy Budget Season: The Courant

Posted by Frank Smith at 7.1.11

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

vouchers would solve a lot of the problems!

January 7, 2011 at 1:02 AM
Nicholas D. Mercier said...

As far as the current budget year goes vouchers would solve little to nothing. The amount of students who typically elect to take vouchers is rather small. This means that in addition to all the current costs in the budget we'd see an increase in the town paying out vouchers. You wouldn't see enough students leave the system to allow for closing of schools or the elimination of teaching positions.

Whether or not vouchers have educational merit is a completely separate debate, but merely spouting the word "vouchers" at any educational discussion is not productive and furthermore shows a poor understanding of how most voucher programs actually work.

January 7, 2011 at 11:23 AM
The Thorn said...

With all due respect to Mr. Mercier because I believe he really does care, if vouchers have never been tried, how do we know how many children would make use of them?

January 7, 2011 at 2:41 PM
Anonymous said...

It sounds to me as if he is saying that no matter how many children were to leave, they will keep the same number of teachers whether they are needed or not--probably because of the union. Maybe we could pay them to look out the window all day, or set up a "rubber room" for teahcers like in New York.

It would be interesting to find out how many students per teacher need to leave in order for the city to benefit financially from paying a private school what I understand is a fraction of the cost compared to the cost in a city school for giving these same students what amounts to a better education because the private school teachers actually care about doing their jobs and are held accountable? Imagine that, teachers who are held accountable?

I guess we will never know, because the Democrats who control the process are beholden to the unions so they will continue to screw the children for the sake of their union cronies.

January 7, 2011 at 3:00 PM
Nicholas D. Mercier said...

Voucher programs in other areas haven't been terribly successful. There are many factors that lead me to the belief that a school voucher program would not be a good fit for New Britain.

1. We have few private schools that are local, they have a maximum enrollment they would be willing to take. So there is a limit as to how many students the immediate private sector system can bear.

2. Vouchers rarely cover the full cost of private school enrollment, meaning much of our city's poorer population may elect the "free" option of public schooling even if vouchers were available.

3. Given our current class sizes in the elementary schools you would probably have to eliminate 20 to 30 students from a grade level within a single school before the district would consider removing a teacher. Mainly because if you have 3 teachers teaching 75 students and 20 leave chances are the district would simply use it as a way to reduce class sizes down to 18. Especially since populations vary drastically year to year and dismissing a teacher you are just going to have to hire back in a year when the numbers go up is uncommon.

4. So if you create a voucher that is even a conservative amount of $6000 to $7000 you are talking about spending over $150,000 to remove a teacher who on average make less than half that amount.

5. Finally proponents of vouchers often ignore the fact that private institutions are under no obligation to accept children they do not want. Often students who are discipline problems or labeled as special needs students are shunted back into the public school system because the public schools are under a mandate to teach every child.

And to "anonymous", I did not say that the the school board would keep teachers hired no matter what. What I said was the number of students who would have to leave the system in order to see real savings is unlikely. You won't experience drastic savings until you are able to close down entire schools, that involves hundreds of students leaving and would cost the city millions in vouchers.

Furthermore, I know of several teachers and administrators who work in "private schools" who know nothing of accountability or dedication to their job. The idea that all private school teachers are talented altruistic beings and all public school teachers are slothful morons is completely inaccurate.

Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps the parents would take the vouchers and run in droves. But most voucher models that I've seen proposed in other parts of the country don't solve economic problems they just merely widen the achievement gap by creating brain drain in the public school system leaving the public system with even few resources to attempt to educate the most needy students.

January 7, 2011 at 5:15 PM
Nicholas D. Mercier said...

Voucher programs in other areas haven't been terribly successful. There are many factors that lead me to the belief that a school voucher program would not be a good fit for New Britain.

1. We have few private schools that are local, they have a maximum enrollment they would be willing to take. So there is a limit as to how many students the immediate private sector system can bear.

2. Vouchers rarely cover the full cost of private school enrollment, meaning much of our city's poorer population may elect the "free" option of public schooling even if vouchers were available.

3. Given our current class sizes in the elementary schools you would probably have to eliminate 20 to 30 students from a grade level within a single school before the district would consider removing a teacher. Mainly because if you have 3 teachers teaching 75 students and 20 leave chances are the district would simply use it as a way to reduce class sizes down to 18. Especially since populations vary drastically year to year and dismissing a teacher you are just going to have to hire back in a year when the numbers go up is uncommon.

4. So if you create a voucher that is even a conservative amount of $6000 to $7000 you are talking about spending over $150,000 to remove a teacher who on average make less than half that amount.

5. Finally proponents of vouchers often ignore the fact that private institutions are under no obligation to accept children they do not want. Often students who are discipline problems or labeled as special needs students are shunted back into the public school system because the public schools are under a mandate to teach every child.

And to "anonymous", I did not say that the the school board would keep teachers hired no matter what. What I said was the number of students who would have to leave the system in order to see real savings is unlikely. You won't experience drastic savings until you are able to close down entire schools, that involves hundreds of students leaving and would cost the city millions in vouchers.

Furthermore, I know of several teachers and administrators who work in "private schools" who know nothing of accountability or dedication to their job. The idea that all private school teachers are talented altruistic beings and all public school teachers are slothful morons is completely inaccurate.

Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps the parents would take the vouchers and run in droves. But most voucher models that I've seen proposed in other parts of the country don't solve economic problems they just merely widen the achievement gap by creating brain drain in the public school system leaving the public system with even few resources to attempt to educate the most needy students.

January 7, 2011 at 5:16 PM
The Truth Hurts said...

"brain drain in the public school system" certainly explains what happened to the slothful union slug teachers here in New Britain.

January 7, 2011 at 6:52 PM

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