Someone needs to educate our Governor about small schools

Ted's Column Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper Thurs. Sept. 23, 2004
Link to a quickoverview.com of tom-visack

I apologize if many of you were offended by last weeks column. Like I said last week, you’re more than welcome to disagree with me. Believe it or not, I think President is a good man and I appreciate, even agree with many of his espoused values. Let me make up for last week, I mean it. I want you to know that I’m an equal-opportunity offender. This week I my rant is against our Democratic Governor.

I think that Tom Vilsack is off his gord. I’m so irritated with him for something he told a group of Iowa school superintendents last Monday that he may have lost my vote if he runs for re-election. No, believe it or not, I’m not just a party wonk. I occasionally break ranks and vote Republican.

Let me tell you why I’m so irked by Governor Tom. He wants to save the state $10 million dollars per year. “How can you be angry about that, Ted?” I hear you saying “Just last week you were complaining about skyrocketing deficits, I thought you might be a at least a FISCAL conservative?”

I’m angry, because he wants to save that money by consolidating small high schools, making them share principals and superintendents, even developing regional or high schools, as in one per county. Vilsack proposed an incentive plan to merge small high schools back in 2003, fortunately the legislature didn’t pick up his cause… yet

One small school superintendent told the Des Moines Register that at least one thing the Governor obviously overlooked is that consolidation would not be cost effective because of how much transportation costs go up.

"I can see where…sharing of administrators might be able to save both districts some money, but it would be at the cost of a quality education," said the superintendent. That’s because class sizes would be much larger.

If Iowa has been known for it’s excellent education, much of that reputation is because of it’s smaller schools, a legacy that began with one-room school houses.

Smaller schools like Charter Oak-Ute offer an optimum teacher to student ratio of one teacher with 13 to 17 students, or even better. Larger schools, like Denison are lucky to maintain "regular" class sizes consisting of one teacher with 22 to 26 kids. Schools in L.A. have as many as 45 kids in a class.

There is tons of research that indicates that smaller class sizes produce better results in reading and math skills. Small schools are amazing. Students achievement more, the gap between poor and affluent students is narrowed. Students are known as real people by their teachers. There is less absenteeism, maybe because people know you and notice when you’re missing. Did you know, even the cost per graduate is lower in small schools compared to large high schools?

Teachers will smaller classes are able to concentrate on teaching better because they spend less time in behavior problems and disruptions. They can deal with problems quicker than teachers with large classes, before they became serious. A school with fewer discipline problems makes it easier for younger students to adjust and older kids form a stronger social bond.

Students in small classes through most of their school years are less likely to be held back. Every kid in a small school is known by more than just one adult, and those relationships are sustained over several years.

Of course, the community itself, as well as parents and alumni are critical allies. Small schools tend to do a better job of finding ways to include them in the life of the school.
Vilsack claims that if Schools with less than 200 students merged, the new, bigger districts would be able to pay teachers more, and offer more advanced math and science classes. Of course, hundreds of us would lose our jobs, so what good is it of other teacher got paid more?

And we don’t need to consolidate to offer more classes. Boyer Valley has joined forces with Woodbine, Logan and West Harrison to offer Advanced Placement and college classes not only in math and science, but in English and History as well. Pooling resources does not have to mean consolidating.

Almost 40 % of Iowa high schools have fewer than 200 students. Does Visack really want to eliminate that many schools and lower the caliber of those remaining by straining their resources with huge class sizes? Especially so soon after introducing the Iowa Quarter that celebrates our great tradition of quality learning through small town schools?

I know that our schools aren’t perfect. I’m also realistic enough to know that our population is decreasing, therefore, so are our tax revenues. I’m just saying that consolidation should be the last resort. We can survive, we just have to think outside the box. Like Boyer Valley and those three other area schools banning together to offer more.

We should also be willing to think ahead. I for one would much rather see COU go in with Maple Valley or Boyer Valley or Schleswig, rather than get sucked up into Denison. The worst thing we could do is to sit and do nothing or fight amongst ourselves until it’s too late and we have no input anymore, like what seemed to happen to East Monona.

But I think that Charter Oak-Ute should have greater vision than that. Maybe we need an endowment fund like colleges, or maybe if worse came to worse, we should consider becoming a “charter school” or a parochial school.
No doubt, COU needs to be aggressive about finding grants. I want to suggest a couple of websites for school board members and administrators to check out:

www.smallschoolsproject.org and www.gatesfoundation.org/Education

This fall, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation opened 250 new or redesigned schools, mostly in New York, but also in 29 states nationwide. They realize that the best schools have less than 400 and even fewer than 200 students. They know that the best schools are locally controlled. Even if it shares an administrator, or sports or co-curricular activities with other schools they retain authority to make important decisions.

We’re all vulnerable to Vilsack’s consolidation plan. Dunlap, Woodbine, and Mapleton need to be creative too. Maybe Des Moines has it backwards. They seem to think that if we attract businesses with tax breaks then population will grow and education will eventually benefit. I say focus on our strengths. Focus on small-school education, and business will come seeking employees.

If you have a goose that lays golden eggs, you wouldn’t starve it to death to save money would you? That’s what Vilsack wants to do. Iowa’s small schools have been one of Iowa’s strengths. You don’t cut your arms off to make your legs stronger. We shouldn’t let them eliminate our small schools in an il-conceived scheme to help our large schools.