Author Archives: Jon Lowder

More on Textbooks

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Update: 8/26/08 – I received a follow up email to further clarify what they’d told me and you can see those updates highlighted in the bullet points below. It ends up that this will be discussed at tonight’s Board of Ed meeting.

Last week I wrote about learning that in some of my son’s middle school classes they don’t have textbooks for everyone, rather they have textbooks in the classroom, "classroom sets", and if students need to access them for homework they can do so online.  As I wrote in my post this troubled me, so I emailed the powers that be in the school system and heard back from them late last week.  Before I go on I’d like to say that they replied during what has to be a very busy time for them, it being the week before school starts and all.  They told me they’re going to dig into the details and send them to me, but in the meantime they gave me the rough version:

  • Not enough funding from the state for textbooks for everyone
  • They chipped in local funds but it still wasn’t enough
  • They had to choose between using old textbooks for everyone or buying new textbooks, using classroom sets augmented by online access for some –Update 8/26/08– I received a follow up email that corrected this (I reported correctly, it was a miscommunication on their end): "we apparently still have the option to return to last year’s textbooks and use them one more year."
  • Textbook purchasing is system wide so this isn’t peculiar to Meadowlark
  • Some middle school classes have classroom sets, and then arrangements with the publishers to access the text online — Update 8/26/08 — I received a follow up email that corrected this (I reported correctly, it was a miscommunication on their end): "we have a CD of the book for every book that we purchased, but a sales rep told our folks that the on-line version could be purchased for a fairly small fee."
  • Students are able to check books out overnight if they need to
  • Those students without at-home internet can use any of the over 40 Winston Net stations located in libraries, rec centers and churches throughout Forsyth County

They also said that they will review this policy at the end of the school year and if it caused problems they’ll determine what changes need to be made.

Like I said this is just the rough version and I’ll wait and see what the specifics turn out to be, but I’d say that in general it’s a good explanation. Those who don’t like this particular prioritization might want to speak up at future board of education meetings. I’ll let you know as soon as I get the details.

links for 2008-08-25

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Now That’s a Toll Road

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I read this article in the Washington Post with great interest.  It’s about HOT lanes being built on the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia that will have fluctuating tolls depending on such factors as the average speed on the road, the number of users at a particular time, etc.  According to studies done for the HOT project the average rush hour cost would be about $1.54 per mile an the lanes will run 14 miles from Springfield (home of the infamous "Mixing Bowl" where the Beltway, I-95 and I-395 all converge) to the Dulles Toll Road.  So that comes to an average toll of about $21.56 to use the full 14 miles, but if the traffic is really and the traffic is threatening to overwhelm the HOT lanes the toll operators can raise the price to price out people who don’t really need to get where they’re going that fast.

The article gives average time savings for the HOT lanes as well, and they don’t sound that impressive, but again that’s average.  At peak times I have a feeling that you’ll have people paying a lot of money to save significant amounts of time.  I used to use that route regularly when I lived in NoVa and I can tell you that that stretch of road at the height of rush hour can literally take you hours to get through, especially if it’s raining.  Since I haven’t lived there for four years and I know how much worse the traffic gets year by year I can only imagine how bad it is now.

If I still lived in NoVa I could easily imagine paying the toll on an irregular basis in times that I needed to make one of the kids’ school events or had a meeting I could not miss.  Unfortunately I could easily imagine paying that toll, whizzing through that 9 mile corridor and finding myself stuck in a traffic jam on the other end.  Thus you understand one of the motivations we had for moving the hell away from NoVa.  That ain’t a way to live.

links for 2008-08-22

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That Explains the Sirens and The Lost Guy With the Boat

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Earlier today a bunch of fire trucks went roaring by our house and at one point a guy towing a boat stopped and asked my son if he knew where a certain street was.  The roads around here get kind of screwy with Styers Ferry becoming Concord Church and then turning back into Styers Ferry as just one example, so we’re used to the emergency personnel making multiple passes to try and find what they’re looking for.  Anyway a body was found floating in a pond a mile or two from here and now the deputies are looking into it.

The article on the Journal site mentions an interview with a teenager who says that people use that pond to party and swim.  He also says that he often hears gunfire.  I can back up that last sentence since we often hear gunfire in the distance, but we never knew where it was coming from until now.

Here’s a Google map showing the pond with the satellite view.

View Larger Map

links for 2008-08-21

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Digging into the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Budget

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Okay, per my post yesterday about textbooks in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools I’ve contacted the school system and am waiting to hear back from them.  In the meantime I’ve decided to do some research and on the school system’s website I found the Proposed Budget for 08-09.  From their line item explanations I found this:

23. 2007-08 was the one year out of five
when state textbook funds are almost sufficient to purchase all new
textbooks needed.  Social Studies adoptions occur in 2008-09, and to
purchase new books for each student will require increases of
$1,372,337.

24. We centrally budget for curriculum and
instruction supplies, materials, small equipment, etc, for system-wide
instructional needs, including basic non-consumable supplies for new
classrooms to house the 555 projected new students, calculators
required for use with math textbooks, replenishment of larger cost
non-consumables such as maps and globes, plus a new $50,000 commitment
in 2008-09 to help bring the supplies and small equipment in
kindergarten classrooms up to the standards of newer school
classrooms.  The overall increase needed is $283,130.

Item 23 is interesting because it says that due to Social Studies adoptions in order to purchase new books for each student will require $1,372,337 in addition to whatever was appropriated before.  I need to clarify what "Social Studies adoptions" means, and are they implying that in subject areas that aren’t "adopted" they don’t need each student to have books?

I can’t find an actual budget on the website so I’ve gone to the county website to find their budget.  The main budget page is here, and here’s a link to the PDF version of the breakout for the county’s education segment of the budget.  In a nutshell here’s what I found:

  • The school system asked for just under $122 million and the county appropriated just under $111 million from the general fund.
  • Of that $111 million the school spending is broken down into these major categories:
    • Instructional Programs – just under $71 million
    • Support services – just over $31 million
    • Charter Contingency – about $6.5 million
    • Capital Program – $2.4 million
  • They also break out their personnel spending and it’s a little confusing because you go from looking at millions or thousands of dollars to non-financial numbers.  I’m assuming that the numbers represent thousands of dollars.  Whatever, here’s the change in spending on their people from 07-08 to 08-09 for all funds:
    • Administrative staff – 275.9 to 285.5 (+9.6)
    • Instructional staff – 4,267.4 to 4,047.8 (-219.6)
    • Clerical staff – 2,042.1 to 1,941.5 (-100.6)
    • Hourly staff – 766.1 to 660.0 (-106.1)

So go figure, the only increase in payroll expenditures came in administration.  Huh.

I’m still trying to find out if there’s a break out on the website of how the school system spends their dollars on such things as books, computers, etc. I can’t find it yet and I may have to get it directly from the school system, but once I do get it I’ll cover it here.

Reading, Writing, Rithmetic Without Books?

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Celeste went to our youngest son’s open house yesterday at Meadowlark Middle School.
She said that in at least two of his classes the students will not be
receiving textbooks.  Rather there is a classroom set that will be
shared by all of each teachers’ classes and they are looking into
making the materials from the textbooks accessible online.  Celeste’s
question to me: "So where do all our tax dollars for education go?"

This question seems particularly relevant in the wake of my post yesterday and Esbee’s post about school supplies and the "Letter to the Editor" in the Winston-Salem Journal
re. why our kids’ supposedly free education still requires parents to
come up with money for school supplies.  When the school doesn’t supply
textbooks for students then we’re talking about failing at the most
fundamental level, not on the level of "nice to have" extras.

You could argue that this is simply our schools moving into the 21st
century, BUT if you’re going to make that move then you darn well
better make sure that everyone is able to move with you.  Some
questions that immediately pop to mind:

  • What about the kids who don’t have internet access at home?  If
    the answer is "They can go to the library" then I have to ask, "What if
    the library is closed at 6?" or "How do they print off any materials
    they might need?", or "How do they get to the library if their parents
    are working" or "What if the library is open but all the computers are
    occupied?"
  • What if your access goes down for the evening?  Will you be given extra time to turn in your work?
  • Finally, from the way the teachers were talking about it Celeste
    wasn’t sure that the book materials would definitely be available
    online?  If they’re not how are we as parents, some of whom haven’t
    looked at this subject matter in over 25 years, supposed to help our
    kids with their homework?

Like I said this might work if the school system had provided every student with a laptop and if WinstonNet
had gotten their free wireless network up and running so that everyone
had free internet access.  But neither of those things happened and
they probably won’t happen anytime in the near future, so the "digital
divide" still exists and if the schools are putting reference materials
online then they are putting those kids on the wrong side of the divide
at a further disadvantage.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m no Luddite,
and I wish the teachers at our kids schools would use the online tools
available to them even more than they do, but I also would expect that
if they want to communicate with parents then they wouldn’t just post
it on the website but also send a note home.  Believe me, there are
plenty of people still out there who don’t check the website or don’t
check their email everyday.  Shocking as it is to someone like me it’s
a reality.  So until they can be absolutely sure that every child and
their family has access to the online tools the school system’s
administrators need to stick to their knitting and provide the students
with the basics they need to do their learning.

I’m going to try and find out if this "classroom set" of textbooks is a system-wide policy with the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools.
I’m going to contact the school district and see if someone will talk
to me, so stay tuned.  Maybe we’re misunderstanding what the teachers
said, but my gut tells me this is a cost saving measure with the
schools, and if that’s the case then they can consider me the leader of
the pack in fighting against any future bond initiative until they get
this mess fixed.  Before they lay another brick I want to see textbooks
in every student’s hands.

Update 8/21/2008 – Last night at dinner I was talking about this with the kids and my daughter Erin informed me that they had classroom sets for her science class last year and that her teacher had said that if they wanted a book at home they could buy their own copy on Amazon.  This floored me because I had no idea that was the case last year (neither did Celeste).  I also remember a couple of occasions last year when I asked Erin why she hadn’t brought home her book and she’d merely said that she wasn’t allowed to bring them home, and I found this ridiculous.  Of course she never mentioned that there was only one set of books…I could write a book on how teenagers tend to not understand context in their communications…and that might have helped us understand this seemingly ridiculous policy.  Heck we might have even purchased the book, as much as it would have ticked me off.  As it was I thought the teacher was trying to keep the kids from damaging or losing the books.  Either way it seemed totally wrong that you’d assign a child homework and then not let them have access to the textbook.  BTW that was the only class that Erin got anything less than an A in all year.

Our youngest had a classroom text last year in his math class, but we were able to access the information online so it didn’t create a problem.  Again, we didn’t realize this was because there was only a classroom set of books, but just thought he was being a typical lazy 11 year old boy by leaving his book at school and his teacher was doing us a favor by making the stuff available online.

Finally, our oldest, who is going into 10th grade, told us that he had a couple of classes with class sets of books but that the school had an arrangement with the publisher for online access to the texts.

I guess none of this came up because we’re lucky enough to have a wireless network at home so that the kids can easily access the internet from one of their computers.  The oldest, Michael, saved up and bought himself his own PC because he was fed up with the "dinosaur" that we’d set up for the kids (one of my old wife’s old work computers) and when the dinosaur was too slow the kids could use one of our computers.  Now that I’m aware of why we’re constantly doing this stuff online I’m a little perturbed and concerned for those students who don’t have the resources at home.