Staub Sense

The NECAPS are out and I looked through them briefly to see how we are doing. Dr. Brennan presented some information at the District Leadership Team meeting last week. There is some encouraging news and some things we need to work on. 

I stole Dr. Brennan’s idea of making graphs showing progress, but I also added the current year’s state averages for comparison. For example, if you look at the high school math scores and see that only 27% of students scored proficient or above, it might give you a heart attack until you see that only 33% of 11^th graders  in the entire state scored proficient or above in math. We also have an average number of high school students scoring proficient or above in reading and although I didn’t make a chart, our high school students dominated the writing test. The average score in the state was a 6.5 and our average score was a 6.9. Central’s average score was a 7.4! Let’s have a little cheering and fist pumping for our high school teachers and students.

There was a story in the paper on Tuesday about how Goffstown High School improved their test scores considerably over last year by offering students incentives to do well and by having proctors who knew the students. Last year their scores were similar to ours, but his year 88% of the students scored proficient in Reading and 48% scored proficient in Math. It might be worth sending some spies over.

Mark Twain once said that there are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics. Nevertheless I really like looking at the data. Setting it up this way gives you the bird’s eye view of what is going on. You can look at progress at individual grade levels and you can follow cohorts of students by looking diagonally.  I noticed that the 4^th grade reading scores didn’t go up as much as the other grades for example. Does the curriculum at that grade level need to be adjusted? Do the teachers need additional resources or training? Is it that cohort of kids? They were at 59% in third grade and they are at 59% in 4^th. The cohort before them went from 61% in 3^rd, down to 58% in 4^th, and back up to 66% in 5^th. It just gives you something to think about.

Here are the graphs. Some of them got a little cut off on the side but you get the idea.

I used the district-wide scores but you can look at the scores for your individual schools  by visiting the NH DOE website

I also looked at the scores of ELL students. As you know, the school district sent a letter to the state asking that ELL students not be tested for two years after they come into the system and for an additional 3 years if they have never been to school.

I took exception to that. First, because we have serious, systemic problems that affect all of our children and we ought to focus on that and I don’t think it is right to single out a  group of students as the cause of our problems.

I also think that this promotes a one dimensional view of ELL students.  We are made to believe that more and more ELL students are flooding our system and that most of them have never been to school and neither have their parents. Well, that depends. The Somali Bantu were prohibited from getting an education because the larger ethnic group wanted to insure that the Bantu would be available for menial labor. Nevertheless, my friend Geraldine enjoys working with them becuse they are respectful and work hard. The most recent group of refugees from Bhutan  have many educated adults among them and they educated their children in the camps.  When I talk to people from the immigrant and refugee communities they think our perception that the United States is the only place in the world that has good schools is a little ethnocentric.

 I looked at a few of the most recent NECAP results  to see how the Limited English Proficiency students did. 37% of 3^rd grade LEP students were proficient in reading. Among the students in the second monitoring year after being mainstreamed, 92% were proficient in reading. Among English speakers it was 68%. While newcomers are exempt from the reading portion of the exam, they do take the math portion. A translator helps. In 4^th grade, 35% of LEP students were proficient, and 65% of English Speakers were.

I also tried to find total numbers of ELL students.  According to the NH DOE in 2000 there were 1,326 LEP students in our school district or 7.62%. In 2008, which is the last year they have data available, there were 942 LEP students or 5.78%. The actual percentage of LEP students is declining and I’m told that ½ of our ELL students are now American-born children of foreign-born parents, just like my mother.

I expect the next large group of ELL students will come from Haiti and they will have a variety of abilities. If they aren’t tested, we’ll never know. In the interest of transparency I think the public needs to know who the kids are in our schools and what their challenges are. ELL kids are not all alike, they have different backgrounds, different abilities, and different aspirations.

Luckily, when the ESEA act gets renewed a lot of the punitive aspects of No Child Left Behind will disappear, however standards based assessment and transparency are here to stay.

This afternoon I ran across this great article from Atlantic Magazine. The Teach for America Program takes recent college graduates and places them for two years in schools in low-income neighborhoods. They have been collecting data on which of their teachers have been the most successful and agreed to share the information with a writer from Atlantic Monthly. This is a great article, please read it. The link above will take you to the Teach for America research page.

What Makes a Great Teacher?

Meanwhile, back in ManchVegas our new elected officials have been sworn into office. As soon as their contact information is posted in the city and school websites I will put a link up here.

I didn’t attend the inauguration but the Union leader published the text of Mayor Gatsas’ speech.

He talked about better communication between the boards and expediting the budget process. He mentioned the schools a few times.

“If possibilities are to become reality, we will need a robust education system. By preparing our students for their futures, providing them opportunities, engaging their parents, creating a more disciplined and respectful school environment, holding leadership accountable for results, and lobbying for fair testing standards, we can and will get the Manchester School District back on track.”

He also said that he was going to name two task forces. One to look into improving the efficiency of city government and the other to look into whether we need to redistrict our schools.

“The second group is the Task Force on Student Alignment. This team will conduct a non-political and thorough review of how we are currently aligning our students across our school facilities, how school district lines are drawn, and what busing routes are in effect. Recommendations will include how to more efficiently align our student population, where the greatest opportunities to reduce overcrowding are, and whether the current facilities usage is optimal based on the adopted K-5, Middle School and High School model.

Each of these groups will seek input from the public at large – so all Manchester residents will have a voice. Beyond each group hosting a public meeting, we will create an online survey within the city website where residents can offer their ideas. And for those who may not be web users, we will also activate a separate telephone line where residents can participate.

The Task Force on Efficiencies and Consolidation will provide a full report including specific recommendations to the Board of Mayor and Alderman and the Board of School Committee by March 15th in line with this year’s expedited budget process. The Task Force on Schools will provide their report and recommendations by April 15th. Once submitted, we will host joint meetings of both boards to review the reports and discuss the findings.”

 Because these task forces will be taking public comment it may provide us with an opportunity to voice other concerns. I do not know who is on these task forces, but I will let you know as soon as I find out.

Happy New Year. On Tuesday the new mayor school board and board of aldermen will be sworn in. Ted Gatsas has already said he’s going to cut the city budget by 1.5%. Fasten your seatbelts everyone.

I still have not heard back from the State DOE on Race to the Top however I wanted to get out the information that I have been able to find. But first,  check out this video of NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein at the Get Schooled conference last August.  I particularly love what he says about the relationship between schools and poverty.

Now back to the Race to the Top program. As you know, it  is part of the US Secretary of Education’s initiative to turn around the 5,000 lowest performing schools in the nation. In this first step he asked each state to identify their worst performing schools. NH identified five of our Title 1 schools, Bakersville, Beech, Gossler, Parker-Varney, and Wilson because they have exhibited slow growth. I used the AYP index numbers  from the NH DOE website to plot the numbers for the last 4 years. I also included the state average and I threw in the Dupont School in Allenstown for comparison.

Math Indexes

Reading Indexes

Here are the links to the complete school indices and rankings for reading and math. The first section is by school district and if you scroll down further the schools are listed in order of rank out of 381 schools. These numbers are very interesting. They also include middle schools. Pretty soon the DOE will be releasing the scores for this year. The indices and AYP calculations wont be available until later.

Here are the 2008 rankings for the 5 schools identified for the Race to the Top money. The highest ranking school in Mancester is Green Acres. It ranks 138 in Math and 204 in Reading.

                                  Reading                                                Math

Bakersville                          376                                         366

Beech                                   381                                         377                        

Gossler                                 364                                         313

Parker-Varney                        377                                         371

Wilson                                  380                                         367

As you know, the Race to the Top money is offered with significant strings attached. In order to get the money originally the principals of the schools would need to be removed. However, it was later stated that only one of the 5 principals would need to be removed and Jim Adams from Gossler volunteered  to move to another school.  Gossler was the only one of the schools that made AYP this year.

The deadline for the first round of the grant funding is on January 19. There is also going to be a second round for districts that are unable to get all there ducks in a row by the Jan. deadline.

Don’t forget, MCQE will be holding a general meeting on January 13 at 6:30 at Highland-Goffes Falls school. I hope you can make it.

December 8 was the 9^th anniversary of the first meeting of MCQE. At that time the big issue was facilities. It is good that we have kept the organization together but, of the original group that came up with the mission and goals, I am the only one who still has kids in school.

MCQE will be holding a general meeting on January 13  at  Highland Goffs-Falls  from 6:30-8 PM  to discuss where we are now and  what we need to do moving forward. There is a lot going on which I think we, the parents and the community, need to respond to and  be active participants in.

I have posted  the original mission statement and goals from 2000 so we can have some conversation about them and how relevant they are to our current situation.

I’m still gathering information about the Race to the Top Initiative and will post something after I have talked to a few more key people.  I’m looking forward to hearing your comments.

Mission Statement: The Coalition’s purpose is to gather information, inform parents about school facility and education issues, and develop a plan of action that will express our concerns to school officials.

These are the goals we set forth at that time

• Inform citizens about issues affecting our schools and how to effectively voice their concerns and create change;
• Support the capital improvement budget(s) necessary for immediate and long-term school facility improvements;
• Support a school operating budget that addresses the needs of all of our students, attracts and retains excellent teachers, and meets urgent needs for improvements in curriculum, resources, class size, and environment;
• Improve communication between the schools and the community through a newpolicy aimed at increasing parent involvement; and
• Elect officials who support improvements to our schools.

Yesterday Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released the final requirements for Race to the Top School Improvement grants to turn around low-performing schools. This is how it was characterized by the Education Equality Project.

” For School Improvement funds, district must do one of four things: 1) Fire the principal and at least reduce the staff by half and reopen the school with new personnel, 2) Turn a school over to a charter school operator or other management organization, 3) Close the school and send students to higher-achieving schools in the district, or 4) Replace only the principal and take other steps to change how the school operates.”

Previously, bringing in a turn-around specialist like America’s Choice, which we have done this year, was a possibility and now it is not. In explaining why this is no longer an option Duncan states:

Over the course of the past eight years, States and LEAs have had considerable time, and have been able to tap new resources, to identify and implement effective school turnaround strategies. Yet they have demonstrated little success in doing so, particularly in the Nation’s persistently lowest-achieving schools, including an estimated 2,000 “dropout factories.” [States] have thus far helped no more than a handful of these schools to successfully restructure and exit improvement status, in large part, we believe, because of an unwillingness to undertake the kind of radical, fundamental reforms necessary to improve the persistently lowest-achieving schools.

In short, the states are now being held accountable for schools that have continued to languish. In Manchester the five Title 1 schools that have been identified by the US Department of Education for slow growth in student achievement over the last 5 years are: Bakersville, Beech, Parker-Varney, Wilson, and Gossler Park. If I understand it correctly, these schools will need to undergo these changes in order for NH to be eligible for its share of Race to the Top money.

Here is a link to an Edweek article. I also heard that there will be a story in the Sunday News tomorrow that may shed more light on this.  As we go forward with our community dialogue process, these developments will certainly be at the center of our plans.

Yesterday when I saw the teaser on the Union leader that the Sunday News would reveal Mayor-elect Ted Gatsas’ big plan for fixing our schools, I have to admit, I was very curious. This morning, just like Christmas, I ran down the stairs to get my paper so I could see what the grand idea would be. As I opened the paper and began reading, I imagined that I heard the collective sound of thousands of readers across the city choking on their Cheerios.

The big idea, the great plan to move our city’s education system forward in to the 21^st Century, is to move kids and teachers around the city into different school buildings. Our 9^th graders will move to middle school, our 6^th graders will move back to the elementary schools, and the elementary schools will be redistricted. Read more about it here.

Well, trying to figure this out will certainly keep everyone busy for a while. Maybe we’ll even have a task force, which will meet for a while and then make some recommendations, which will likely be ignored. One can only hope.

What in the world could he be trying to accomplish with this? He says he wants to relieve overcrowding in the High Schools. Well, the design build project took care of that. There is plenty of room now, but thanks to his budget we don’t have enough teachers. Moving people around like this will wreak havoc on kids, families, and teachers. On the up side, redistricting is a hot button issue and will likely bring lots of usually quiet people out with their torches and pikes. Not to mention what Hooksett, Auburn, and Candia will do.

Maybe he is trying to turn the clock back. If the schools look like they did 20 years ago maybe they will cost the same as they did 20 years ago. Who knows? They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think we must be living in an asylum.

I guess the important thing is not to be distracted by this game of musical chairs. We need to stay focused on improving what is being taught in our classrooms and how well our children are learning it. This exercise is not going to yield any beneficial results. I hope that we don’t waste a lot of time on it.

Speaking of productive activity, the District Leadership Team met again last week.  I am on the Parent Involvement subcommittee with 2 other parents, Bill Hughen and Stacey Weigler. We are looking at developing a district newsletter and redesigning the website to make it more user friendly.

Also, MCQE is going to try to figure out our next steps with the community conversation we started just before the election. Stay tuned.

Well, I got my tax bill yesterday. I was curious to see what the new tax rate was and how it compared to last year.

As predicted the municipal tax rate went up and the school tax rate went down. Here are the numbers

                                Municipal            County                 Local Ed                State Ed             Total

2009                       $9.27                     $1.02                     $5.34                     $2.22               $17.85

2008                       $8.05                     $1.04                     $5.98                     $2.28               $17.35

This is what it looks like. Basically, the municipal tax rate increased about 15% and the school tax rate declined about 10%. I compared this to a couple of other cities in the state.

Nashua for example looks like this:

                Municipal            County                 Local Ed                State Ed                    Total

2009       $7.91                     $1.12                     $8.37                     $2.42                     $19.82

2008       $6.50                     $1.01                     $7.79                     $2.25                     $17.55

And Dover looks like this:

                Municipal            County                 Local Ed                State Ed                    Total

2009       $8.54                     $2.72                     $9.54                     $2.52                     $23.32

2008       $7.57                     $2.43                     $8.79                     $2.31                     $21.10

I chose these communities because they are both cities and they also have to pick up the trash and plow the streets and maintain professional police and fire departments. They also both have tax caps. Nevertheless both communities increased their property tax rates by $2.00 this year and ours increased by 50 cents. They also both have lower municipal tax rates and higher school tax rates. Both of them treat their school systems better than we do.

We appear to be an anomaly. The state DRA hasn’t listed all of the tax rates for 2009 yet, so I wasn’t able to get figures for Franklin, for example. I also was not able to look at the change in the tax base. Ours apparently increased, which is why our State Ed. tax and our County tax went down.  I will update this post when that information becomes available. Here is a link to the NH Dept of Revenue Adminstration. You can look these figures over yourself.

Many people were confused about the outcome of the last election. Why did we elect 13 Democratic Aldermen and a fiscal conservative Republican Mayor, and pass a tax cap? As I see it, the aldermen were elected based on their ability to provide constituent services. Voters elect people who make sure the roads are plowed and the potholes are fixed, but they don’t want to pay for it, so they vote for a Mayor who will not raise taxes.

The aldermen know that if they want to get re-elected they better make sure those potholes get filled. But that takes money and the voters won’t allow an increase in their taxes. So, where do they get the money?  They underfund the schools and then point to the feeding frenzy that occurs, when teachers, administrators, school board members, and parents fight over these limited resources, as proof that the problem is that the school system is dysfunctional.  And of course, the types of innovations that would make the school system perform better are always the things that get cut.

How do we get out of this vicious cycle? As I have said before, elected officials do not follow the will of the people, they follow the will of the voters. In this last municipal election a lot of people who could have voted  did not. In my own Ward 4 only 1,100 people came out to vote, last year for the presidential election 3 times that many people voted.

It can only get worse. People who vote tend to be older and better educated. In 2007, according to the recently released Carsey Institute Report, the percentage of children living in poverty in Manchester is 25%. That is a 10% increase compared to 1999. Sadly, their parents, who have a direct interest in better schools, are more likely to be disengaged and disenfranchised.

How do we change the game?

A few weeks ago I was at the meeting at Southside and the principal, Mrs. Acevedo, said that one of the ways that they were dealing with the behavior problems at the school was to resurrect the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports) program. Some of the parents wanted an explanation of PBIS but it is pretty complicated and the only thing that the parents took away was that students are being rewarded for good behavior. Some people object to rewarding students for being good but, as Marty Boldin pointed out, it works. It is certainly done in business. High performing sales people get trips to Hawaii, and  others are given cash bonuses.

The reward or acknowledgement program is just a small part of the system. I was the parent representative on the PBIS team at Hillside when they were doing it a few years ago. I actually thought it made sense, especially  in middle school. For some reason, that I have never understood, people seem to think that 11-year-olds are going to know exactly how to behave in the new environment of middle school without any guidance. Anyone who has children knows that they continue to need our guidance well into adulthood.

The way PBIS works is that a team is assembled to determine how the school community wants the students to behave. At Hillside we had the ABCD’s: Act Responsibly, Be Respectful, Choose Wisely, and Do the Right thing.  Then the team is advised to pick a specific area of the building, the cafeteria for example, or a particular issue  where non-compliance is a problem, like dress code or electronic devices and think about how it would look if students complied.

Then the team develops a behavior matrix of how students are supposed to behave with regard to the place or the issue. Everything on the behavior matrix needs to be phrased in positive terms. For example, in the case of Acting Responsibly in the cafeteria  you wouldn’t say, “Don’t be messy.” Instead you would describe how you want the students to behave, ” Take your tray to the rack. Throw away any leftover food or wrappers. Wipe up any spills.” If you don’t give kids clear direction on what you want them to do, they will pick up bad habits from other kids.  For example, if that kid doesn’t  pick up his stuff maybe I shouldn’t either.

Once the school has this matrix of mutually agreed upon expectations, you have a roll out. Schools use various methods of rolling out the expectations. Sometimes classroom teachers will handle it, sometimes there is an assembly, at Hillside the student PBIS team produced amusing videos that were run during Channel One. Teachers or students act out  the desired behavior.

Next,  you start the reward program. If you are a teacher on cafeteria duty, and you see a kid wiping up a spill at his table, you reward that behavior, usually with a ticket that entitles them to a small token or entrance to an event.

There is a second component which involves a monthly event, a movie or karaoke time or some other activity. Students who can avoid being sent to the office are eligible to participate in these events. Students who are sent to the office miss out on the activity but there are usually opportunities for redemption for these students. Some work is done with the faculty to make sure that they are all on the same page about what reasonably should result in an office referral.

Schools develop a system for collecting data, usually a referral slip that has a description of the infraction and where it occurred. Tracking the number of office referrals is a useful way to determine whether things are improving. Surveys of staff are also used to get qualitative feedback. Are the halls quieter? Does the cafeteria seem cleaner and more orderly?

Some kids will behave no matter what, there are some with behavioral problems who will not, and there are some kids who can go either way, depending on the environment. The philosophy behind PBIS is based on a triangle model. The bottom of the triangle which represents most of the kids is the green or universal section. The belief is that if you give kids good information about what is expected of them, most will comply. What I just described is the Universal part of PBIS implementation and eventually most kids will respond to this.

However, some kids have issues and won’t respond to the Universal approach right away. These are the kids on the Yellow section of the triangle or the targeted program.  For these kids, a failed relationship with school, distracting problems at home, a need for attention that has previously been satisfied by behaving badly, etc., means they need a little extra attention to get them on board. And there may be some recidivism, but in the long run many will respond.

The finally category is the Red zone or the intensive program. These are the kids with behavioral problems. They make up a small section at the top of the triangle. They have a behavioral plan usually as part of their IEP.

I guess the core of PBIS is looking at what is going on with the kids in an organized manner and then taking a problem solving approach to resolving the identified issues. Using this approach the staff can craft the kind of school climate they want. I found this great handbook from the Michigan Department of Education on implementation of PBIS. It is a lot more detailed than what I have said about it.

Also, I would encourage any parent at Southside to join the PBIS implementaion team. Here is a link to the NH CEBIS page about an article they wrote on Parent Involvement in PBIS programs that appeared in Teaching Exceptional Children Magazine. If you have a flexible schedule and can make the meetings I suggest talking to the principal.

Well, it has been a week since the election. Yeah, I lost, but I haven’t been licking my wounds. I’ve been trying to reclaim my house. I now understand how much work it is to run for office. Of course, there are people who can win with minimal effort but , clearly, I am not one of those people.

I managed to get 7,300 people to vote for me. That was about 1,300 shy of what I needed to win a seat on the board. I consider this election to be my baseline assessment of how ready the voters of Manchester were to elect me to office. I guess this would make me partially proficient. Actually I should say “WE managed to get 7,300 people to vote for me”. I really would like to thank all the people who helped out in this campaign. I never would have made such a showing if it hadn’t  been for you.

I’m going to be optimistic here and believe that I lost because most voters don’t know me from an anchor. While the idea of convincing 8,500 people to vote for me seemed really daunting when I decided to run for office, the idea of getting 1300 additional people to vote for me seems more reasonable. If I could get 100 or so new people in each ward to vote for me next time I could win a seat.  And there will be a next time.

As I have said many times before, democracy doesn’t follow the will of the people, it follows the will of the voters. This year we had18,000 people come to the polls, 2,000 fewer  than in 2007. We elected 13 Democratic Aldermen, a fiscal conservative Republican Mayor , and we voted in favor of a Tax Cap. From my perspective,  this tells us that the voters want aldermen who will make sure that they will continue to get great city services, but they don’t want to pay for it. In general, I would say that the people who came out to vote were people who did not want anything to change, and the people who wanted change did not come out to vote.

While I did not garner enough votes to win, I still consider my candidacy a success. One of the reasons I jumped into the race was because I wanted to change the conversation about education. And I did that.

For example, on the subject of Manchester’s District In Need of Improvement status, the positions of the other candidates were:

• 1.) The kids do poorly on the test because it doesn’t count on their grades and they don’t try.
• 2.) NCLB is an insult to teachers and it unfairly targets students with special needs and limited English.

As a candidate I was able to talk about how the DINI process forced us to come up with a continuous improvement plan involving Curriculum, Assessment, and Professional Development which won’t fix everything but will help us make things better. A lot of people probably had never heard about that before. Some of them probably had no clue what I was saying, but some did. We successfully used the campaign process to enlighten the public about what strategies we need to use not just to get off the list but to move our school system into the 21st Century.

I have to say that doing those debates is a lot harder than it looks. I wish I had had the presence of mind to challenge some of the things being said but instead I focused on getting out my own positive message.  I think I was a better spokesperson than a candidate.

Still, I met a lot of wonderful new people who will help spread the message that “A Great City Needs Great Schools”.  We now have some  good friends of MCQE on the School Board and though we lost Mark Roy, we gained Joyce Craig on the Board of Aldermen.  And I learned a lot!

My goal has never been to be a successful politician. My ultimate goal is a better school system and I do see serving on the school board as a means to that end . Many people who hold public office lose elections along the way. Someone said that the true test is whether you are willing to try again once you lose. I enjoyed the process for the most part and I will try again. I plan to take everything I learned this time and be a lot better organized next time. The truth is that I am who I am and I may not be electable in this town. We’ll find out in 2011.

There is so much going on that is of interest, but I have had very little time to write. This won’t be my most artful posting but it will certainly have a lot of information in it.

First, let me say how much I appreciate the enthusiastic outpouring of support that I have received from people.  If enthusiastic votes counted more than regular votes, I would be a shoe in. Hopefully, there will be enough people of all levels of enthusiasm who choose to vote for me on Tuesday.

On Monday the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council held their candidate debates. After I was finished with my debate I stayed to hear the Mayoral candidates. The students asked really good questions. One was, “How will you keep Manchester’s young people in Manchester after they graduate from college?”

Mark Roy answered that the keys were having a good school system, so that they would want to raise families here, and attracting high quality jobs for them.

Ted Gatsas said that being able to attend hockey games at the Verizon Wireless Arena would be an enticing factor.  I listened to see if he would say anything else, but he didn’t. I know that everyone says dumb things during debates. I certainly have, but it makes me nervous all the same. That is a big thing not to get.

I also have to say that Mark Roy has shown himself to be a good listener. He came to the MCQE education conversation on Oct. 22 and one of the things both groups said was that we wanted elected officials to be less reactive and more proactive and at the debate he said that twice. I think he not only listens, but he incorporates what he learns from engaging the community into his thought process.

Speaking of being proactive there is going to be a public hearing on the Master Plan tonight at 6 PM in the planning department. Here is a link to the report. It has lots of nice color pictures in it. It takes a long time to download  and it took me all morning to print it. However, I was a little disappointed in the minimal attention that the schools got. According to them we are going to see a sharp decline in enrollment. This is based on a NESDEC report, but I don’t know which one. What I know is that last year October 1 enrollment was 15,992 and this year it was 15,880. Yes, it is a decline, but we lost 230 odd Bedford students this year, so other kids are coming in.

It also doesn’t address setting aside land for future needs. Take Weston School for example, their enrollment is increasing. There are plans to build more big apartment buildings in the neighborhood. There are also plans to  build drive through restaurants and banks on the site of Brennan’s restaurant. If that intersection turns into one of those grab and go strips for people on the highway how will that affect the school?  If Weston is rendered obsolete where will its replacement go?

The final thing I wanted to mention was the Carsey Institutes study on Child Poverty in Manchester and Nashua. In Manchester, as of 2007, 25% of our children are living below the poverty level. I wonder what it is now that the economy has tanked. Also, only 58% of Manchester children live in a household with married parents. In Nashua only 8% of children live in poverty and 73% of them live in households with two married parents. This  certainly presents a challenge to Ted Gatsas’ plan to improve schools by forcing parents to take more responsibility. Although we can certainly reach out to single parents and help make it easier for them to be involved, we can’t turn them into June Cleaver. Anyway, this report is not that long and it is fascinating. Here is a link