Last night was the the reorganization meeting for your Mt Lebanon School Board. Typically, this type of meeting does not amount to much more than a procedural meeting with Board members simply casting their votes for who their want their next leadership team to be. Last night was different.
When I was younger and played sports in high school and then in college, it was always a given that every member of the team was to be on their best behavior at all times. When we traveled we would wear ties and when we stayed in hotels our coaches would even check our hotel rooms before we checked out to make sure we cleaned them up. We were part of a team and when you are part of your team your actions are a reflection of the entire team. When even a single teammate out of 40 would leave his hotel room a mess he is implying that the entire team is a mess. All the players understood this simple lesson. Unfortunately, last night we had far too many board members leave their hotel room a mess.
Its been kind of a running joke in my house the last two years that the first words out of my mouth when I would meet someone were, "Hi, I'm James Fraasch and I am on your Mt Lebanon School Board". And honestly, in some respects this is true. I do this because I have always been proud to be on the board and more than that, I have been proud of the trust that was given to me by the community when they voted me into office in 2007. Being a board member is not a responsibility I take lightly. Heck, I even changed jobs in 2008 to allow me more time for school board related activities. Every board member spends far too many nights away from kids and family while attending committee meetings, high school meetings, community forums, and regular and discussion meetings to not take this position seriously.
The Board is not a reality TV game show. It should not be a place where board members decide to publicly air their dirty laundry about their gripes and grievances against other board members. It should not be place where board members can publicly make up unfounded accusations and level them against other board members. It should not be a place where parents have to put their hands over their kids eyes and ears because some of the behavior that goes on is so reprehensible and distasteful that the parent just doesn't want their child to see that adults can behave this way.
Over the course of the last few weeks leading up to last night's meeting I have received phone calls and emails from just about every member of the board. These phone calls and emails always were invariably about how each of these individual members wanted to build trust amongst board members, how they wanted to reach across the divide, how they wanted to bring honesty and integrity to the board, and how they wanted to get the community to trust the board. There were literally dozens of emails and phone calls and hours and hours of conversation regarding these topics.
I ask you with all sincerity whether after watching that meeting you felt any of the ideas mentioned in the above paragraph actually were reflected in the meeting. Watch the meeting and see for yourself who and what is causing the divide.
I woke early this morning hoping that I would feel different about the meeting than I did six hours ago. But I don't. I am embarrassed that the meeting last night is a reflection on all of Mt Lebanon and that I was a member of a team that had individuals leave their room a mess.
The behavior displayed last night by your board is not what the voters of Mt Lebanon expect from their elected leaders.
James
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
December Update
Sorry about the long break between posts. Been a bit preoccupied with some other priorities. Hopefully this post will be an interesting one. In this post I will hit on three things; recent school board activities, economics, and curriculum. Hey, just because I haven't posted in a few weeks doesn't mean I have stopped trying to educate myself.
First, the Board itself has had a three week break between meetings. It's next meeting will be Monday December 7th at 7:30pm. This meeting is the Reorganization meeting where we will swear in the newly elected members of the Board and then elect the 2010 President and Vice-President. There are a few action items for the Board, one of which is to approve the Board meeting calendar for 2010.
As for the November meeting, one of the agenda items voted on was for the Districts graduation requirements. As many of you know, our students are required to do a project on a health topic in order to graduate. I suggested that we investigate what it would take to expand that project beyond just the health class. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that it would allow our students to shine with their creativity. I would not want to get rid of the health topic, but simply see what other possibilities there might be. Peter's Township recently approved a similar graduation requirement to what we have. See this article here from the Post-Gazette.
Now, on to economics. At last Thursday's Audit/Finance Committee meeting we talked a bit about the ARRA (ie, stimulus) and what it means for our district. The committee was unanimous in saying that we did not want any of this funding directed towards activities that might become perpetual in nature. It would be a mistake to take that money, start new programs or hire new staff, only to have that funding not be available to us a year from now. That would only result in a need to raise taxes or cut programs/staff down the road when the stimulus funding ended. What I found most interesting was a conversation regarding how the District was counting the "Jobs Saved/Jobs Created" numbers with regard to the ARRA. My understanding was that if we used the money to pay for staff raises, then that counts as a job saved. It is somewhat more complicated than that, but essentially, it boils down to being comical. Mind you, this is nothing that has to do with how WE do this, it has to do with how the federal government is asking us how to report the numbers. See the Wall Street Journal article on this ridiculousness here. Jobs saved is a number that does not and cannot exist. It reminded me of an essay written by an economist sometime back.
Frederic Bastiat was a French Economist in the 1800's. He wrote an essay called "That Which is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen". He is the one that came up with the "Broken Glass" theory that explores whether breaking glass to create work for the person who repairs the glass is good for the economy. His conclusion is that if the shopkeeper whose glass was broken has to pay money to fix the glass, that is money that he cannot deploy elsewhere. It destroys economic activity that is not seen and cannot be measured. He further goes on to write:
This is very much in accordance with the idea I espoused on my blog earlier when I wrote about the Aftermath of Financial Crises. The government wants to appear as if it is helping even when doing so results in the delaying of true economic recovery. Call it Bond Illusion or whatever you like, the fact is, the money we borrow today has to be paid back and it has to be paid back with interest. The hope of the politicians that keep borrowing this money is that by stimulating the economy we will simply grow by more than what we owe-that our revenues will continually expand beyond our expenses. At some point (Japan has been here for 30 years), the debt becomes so burdensome and so much of your budget goes to pay debt that there can be no more stimulating. So yes, while we can see the big highway signs that say "This Project Brought To You By ARRA Funds", we should wonder what economic activity and what other jobs were destroyed because our politicians decided to deploy capital in this manner.
Finally, I wanted to share an article I read on curriculum. This doesn't have to do specifically with Mt Lebanon but it was something that gave me a bit of perspective on how curriculum is done on a national level. Please see this article from the City Journal titled, "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math, Anyway?" I don't know how much I agree with the conclusions of the article (that we have purposely dumbed down our math for PC reasons) but I very much enjoyed the passion of the author and thought the article gave a ton of good information on things outside of just the curriculum process.
Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading.
James
First, the Board itself has had a three week break between meetings. It's next meeting will be Monday December 7th at 7:30pm. This meeting is the Reorganization meeting where we will swear in the newly elected members of the Board and then elect the 2010 President and Vice-President. There are a few action items for the Board, one of which is to approve the Board meeting calendar for 2010.
As for the November meeting, one of the agenda items voted on was for the Districts graduation requirements. As many of you know, our students are required to do a project on a health topic in order to graduate. I suggested that we investigate what it would take to expand that project beyond just the health class. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that it would allow our students to shine with their creativity. I would not want to get rid of the health topic, but simply see what other possibilities there might be. Peter's Township recently approved a similar graduation requirement to what we have. See this article here from the Post-Gazette.
Now, on to economics. At last Thursday's Audit/Finance Committee meeting we talked a bit about the ARRA (ie, stimulus) and what it means for our district. The committee was unanimous in saying that we did not want any of this funding directed towards activities that might become perpetual in nature. It would be a mistake to take that money, start new programs or hire new staff, only to have that funding not be available to us a year from now. That would only result in a need to raise taxes or cut programs/staff down the road when the stimulus funding ended. What I found most interesting was a conversation regarding how the District was counting the "Jobs Saved/Jobs Created" numbers with regard to the ARRA. My understanding was that if we used the money to pay for staff raises, then that counts as a job saved. It is somewhat more complicated than that, but essentially, it boils down to being comical. Mind you, this is nothing that has to do with how WE do this, it has to do with how the federal government is asking us how to report the numbers. See the Wall Street Journal article on this ridiculousness here. Jobs saved is a number that does not and cannot exist. It reminded me of an essay written by an economist sometime back.
Frederic Bastiat was a French Economist in the 1800's. He wrote an essay called "That Which is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen". He is the one that came up with the "Broken Glass" theory that explores whether breaking glass to create work for the person who repairs the glass is good for the economy. His conclusion is that if the shopkeeper whose glass was broken has to pay money to fix the glass, that is money that he cannot deploy elsewhere. It destroys economic activity that is not seen and cannot be measured. He further goes on to write:
"When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it implies that a taxpayer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But the expense of the official is seen, because the act is performed, while that of the tax-payer is not seen, because, alas! he is prevented from performing it...The State opens a road, builds a palace, straightens a street, cuts a canal; and so gives work to certain workmen - this is what is seen: but it deprives certain other workmen of work, and this is what is not seen."
This is very much in accordance with the idea I espoused on my blog earlier when I wrote about the Aftermath of Financial Crises. The government wants to appear as if it is helping even when doing so results in the delaying of true economic recovery. Call it Bond Illusion or whatever you like, the fact is, the money we borrow today has to be paid back and it has to be paid back with interest. The hope of the politicians that keep borrowing this money is that by stimulating the economy we will simply grow by more than what we owe-that our revenues will continually expand beyond our expenses. At some point (Japan has been here for 30 years), the debt becomes so burdensome and so much of your budget goes to pay debt that there can be no more stimulating. So yes, while we can see the big highway signs that say "This Project Brought To You By ARRA Funds", we should wonder what economic activity and what other jobs were destroyed because our politicians decided to deploy capital in this manner.
Finally, I wanted to share an article I read on curriculum. This doesn't have to do specifically with Mt Lebanon but it was something that gave me a bit of perspective on how curriculum is done on a national level. Please see this article from the City Journal titled, "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math, Anyway?" I don't know how much I agree with the conclusions of the article (that we have purposely dumbed down our math for PC reasons) but I very much enjoyed the passion of the author and thought the article gave a ton of good information on things outside of just the curriculum process.
Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading.
James
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Who Needs Math Anyway?
I ran across what I found to be a interesting article not just on math curriculum, but on the problem of nationalized standards. With the recent passage of the Keystone Exams, this might be a glimpse into our future.
Please see the article titled "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math Anyway" from the City Journal published by the Manhattan Institute.
Here is a quick excerpt that should catch your attention:
I am not claiming the article is right, but it is most definitely worth a read. I am still digesting some of the ideas and wondering if what the author suggests is actually happening and whether it did happen in Pennsylvania. For me, the article begs the question of whether or not our educational system has been taken over by bureaucrats and, if so, whether or not that has led to the overall decline of the US student achievement when compared to the rest of the world (another topic the article addresses briefly).
Regardless, the articles at the Manhattan Institute have earned a bookmark from me.
Thanks for reading.
James
Please see the article titled "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math Anyway" from the City Journal published by the Manhattan Institute.
Here is a quick excerpt that should catch your attention:
As part of his education-reform plan, President Obama wants to “make math and science education a top priority” and ensure that children have access to strong math and science curricula “at all grade levels.” But the president’s worthy aims won’t be reached so long as assessment experts, technology salesmen, and math educators—the professors, usually with education degrees, who teach prospective teachers of math from K–12—dominate the development of the content of school curricula and determine the pedagogy used, into which they’ve brought theories lacking any evidence of success and that emphasize political and social ends, not mastery of mathematics.Understand that this is not a hit-piece on Obama, the author is simply critical of a process that was started before the current administration was in place. The article takes a general look at some of the current curriculum out there and how it came to pass. She suggests that a study done by the National Council of Teacher's of Mathematics in 1989 was influential in "dumbing down" math curriculum across the country by putting social goals above academic ones.
I am not claiming the article is right, but it is most definitely worth a read. I am still digesting some of the ideas and wondering if what the author suggests is actually happening and whether it did happen in Pennsylvania. For me, the article begs the question of whether or not our educational system has been taken over by bureaucrats and, if so, whether or not that has led to the overall decline of the US student achievement when compared to the rest of the world (another topic the article addresses briefly).
Regardless, the articles at the Manhattan Institute have earned a bookmark from me.
Thanks for reading.
James
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
State Budgets Facing Financial Peril
I took this headline right from a CNN article. Many of these states are different than what I posted about just last month here. As I have stated on many occasions, state budgets lag the overall economy by at least year, usually two. This was a lesson learned in California where I worked for a County government and layoffs typically followed recession by 18-24 months. Governments can typically fill one or sometimes even two-year budget gaps using stopgap measures like borrowing money or pushing out expenses to a future date. Spread budget problems out to three years or more and things really start to pile up.
Why is this a big deal? Well, projected cuts to state budgets to make ends meet could lead to a loss of almost 900,000 jobs. These layoffs would begin next fiscal year which starts in July in most states.
It is absolutely amazing to me that there is a recognized economist in this article that is saying that there needs to be MORE federal stimulus to fill budget gaps in state budgets for 2011. Stimulus simply is a way to borrow against future production. It's really that simple. The solution to a spending problem isn't borrowing money to continue spending too much. The solution to a spending problem is to spend less.
I do agree with the economist that "budget cuts and tax increases will be a serious drag on the economy at just the wrong time".
My belief is that creative destruction needs to take place. This will mean a painful adjustment for some, however, it is the right path and it needs to take place in order for us to go through this. One of my favorite investment/economics writes often, "In order to get through this, we need to go through this." We are in for years of high unemployment. It will be the new normal. Central Bank economists are predicting that unemployment will continue to remain high for "years to come".
The last Pennsylvania budget gap was filled by federal fiscal stimulus funds. We are already $3 billion behind heading into the 2010-2011 budget. How that gets filled is anyone's guess. This kind of fiscal problem is going to trickle down to our District budget at some point. While Mt. Lebanon gets a huge majority of its funding from local tax dollars, even a reduction of 5% of state funding would be significant.
There is no easy way out of this for states or, eventually, for local governments. Belt tightening will have to take place at some point. The hope I have is that we make decisions that make the most long-term sense. If we can focus our decisions on future government entities and the impact our decisions today will have on these entities five and even ten (or longer) years down the road, then we can start to lay in stone a path for financial stability.
Thanks for reading.
James
Why is this a big deal? Well, projected cuts to state budgets to make ends meet could lead to a loss of almost 900,000 jobs. These layoffs would begin next fiscal year which starts in July in most states.
It is absolutely amazing to me that there is a recognized economist in this article that is saying that there needs to be MORE federal stimulus to fill budget gaps in state budgets for 2011. Stimulus simply is a way to borrow against future production. It's really that simple. The solution to a spending problem isn't borrowing money to continue spending too much. The solution to a spending problem is to spend less.
I do agree with the economist that "budget cuts and tax increases will be a serious drag on the economy at just the wrong time".
My belief is that creative destruction needs to take place. This will mean a painful adjustment for some, however, it is the right path and it needs to take place in order for us to go through this. One of my favorite investment/economics writes often, "In order to get through this, we need to go through this." We are in for years of high unemployment. It will be the new normal. Central Bank economists are predicting that unemployment will continue to remain high for "years to come".
The last Pennsylvania budget gap was filled by federal fiscal stimulus funds. We are already $3 billion behind heading into the 2010-2011 budget. How that gets filled is anyone's guess. This kind of fiscal problem is going to trickle down to our District budget at some point. While Mt. Lebanon gets a huge majority of its funding from local tax dollars, even a reduction of 5% of state funding would be significant.
There is no easy way out of this for states or, eventually, for local governments. Belt tightening will have to take place at some point. The hope I have is that we make decisions that make the most long-term sense. If we can focus our decisions on future government entities and the impact our decisions today will have on these entities five and even ten (or longer) years down the road, then we can start to lay in stone a path for financial stability.
Thanks for reading.
James
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Educational Videos
Every once in awhile I come across some videos that I think are worth sharing.
I was sent an interesting video the other day by another Mt Lebanon resident. Its a video that puts out some information that most people will find fascinating.
Here is another video regarding the education of leaders in our world and why it matters:
Enjoy!
James
I was sent an interesting video the other day by another Mt Lebanon resident. Its a video that puts out some information that most people will find fascinating.
Here is another video regarding the education of leaders in our world and why it matters:
Enjoy!
James
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