Ralph Munyan's weblog
School board elections come at crucial moment for KC district
By JOE ROBERTSON
Joel Pelofsky (foreground), who voted for the school closings, is stepping down from his Subdistrict 2 seat. He was commended at a Kansas City school board meeting last week for his service.
With his audacious school closings plan, John Covington is trying to go where few other superintendents have gone - and survived.
Come election day April 6, the school board that passed his plan by the narrowest of margins could be reshaped. With the real work to come, many observers wonder whether the district will have the strength and unity to pull it off.
Other superintendents and boards have stood at this doorstep, like Pittsburgh's. Like Detroit's.
"You worry, are they (board members) going to debate it?" Pittsburgh Superintendent Mark Roosevelt said of his plan to close a quarter of his district's schools. "Are they going to demagogue it? Cause trouble? ... It could have gone two ways."
Pittsburgh tells a story of how a board, superintendent and community can hang together.
Detroit tells how it can fall apart.
In Kansas City, five of the board's seats are up for election. Three of them are contested. The balance of power could change.
Eight candidates are jockeying for the three seats.
Three have positioned themselves against the closings plan - at-large candidates Cokethea Hill and Kenneth Hughlon, and Subdistrict 4 candidate Linwood Tauheed. They say they would open the door for changes if the community demanded it.
Five say the plan needs to proceed, with scrutiny, despite whatever disagreements the board members had in getting to this point.
At-large candidates Rose Marie Bell, Kyleen Carroll, Robert Peterson and Crispin Rea Jr., along with Subdistrict 4 candidate Joseph Jackson, all say they support Covington's plan.
The board's role will be critical in the months ahead, said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools.
"They have to do it without whining, without grousing, without bitterness, with leadership that pulls the city together," he said.
The temptation to micromanage will be greater than ever, Casserly said, but it will be essential that the board give the administration room to navigate the mountain of tasks ahead.
Detroit repeatedly backed off many of the school closings it needed to make, said Lou Glazer, president of the think tank Michigan Future Inc.
Detroit's school boards - when the district wasn't under state control - "were most concerned with adults and the contractors who worked for the district, and not the kids," Glazer said.
"We never learned how to do it."
If Kansas City somehow makes it, Casserly said, "it ought to be a good lesson."
Larger school districts have closed more schools at one time than the 26 Covington has planned. But that number represents 43 percent of Kansas City's schools.
"The Kansas City scope is unprecedented," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C.
If the district's leadership could get on to the work and put the politics behind, Jennings said, "they've been through the worst. They've been through hell, really."
But political organizers on each side of the closings issue are jostling for public support as the April 6 election nears.
"No one has experience with a closure of this magnitude," said Spark Bookhart, who is managing the team of candidates who oppose the closing plan. "No one has the experience. If the board is listening to the community, it will be wise to look at it in a much more deliberate way."
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- The Kansas City Star; Friday, Mar. 12, 2010
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/11/1806920_p2/covington-says-kc-district-is.ht
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Covington says KC district is up to the challenge
By JOE ROBERTSON
The Kansas City Star
While the community and board members wrestled Wednesday night over his school closings plan, Superintendent John Covington only watched.
Not until the morning after the 5-4 vote did he talk about the monstrous load of work ahead.
In anticipation of the board's action, he said, his staff had already begun developing plans to close 26 schools and improve instruction in classrooms.
His staff will have to manage logistics of unprecedented scope to revive a district that he said is ready "to rise from the ashes."
The district is up to the task, he said.
"It is my firm conviction. ... I am confident in the ability of the leadership team I have, that the school board will come back to the table, working in the spirit of cooperation."
Based on district reports and interviews with members of his Cabinet, here are some of the questions the district will face in the weeks and months ahead.
How will the district go about reducing staff?
Covington intends to cut about 700 positions, including 285 teaching positions.
The district has evaluated virtually every teacher, including those with tenure. Principals have made requests not to renew the contracts of more than 50 tenured teachers, based on performance. The district also plans to offer buyouts to many teachers eligible for retirement.
With many of the support positions, such as maintenance and cafeteria workers, people will be let go based on seniority in accordance with union contracts. The district also will have to navigate seniority requirements as it transfers teachers to new buildings.
How does Teach for America fit in?
The national teacher program that recruits top college graduates for a minimum of two years of service already reduced its role in Kansas City when the district cut its teaching ranks a year ago.
Teach for America tends to recruit teachers in high-need areas such as math and science, and the program worked with the district last year to fill its needs without displacing more-experienced teachers.
The first group, who will complete their two-year contracts this year, will get the same consideration to continue with the district as other teachers without tenure as staffing decisions are made.
What about safety concerns with the plan to blend middle school and high school grades?
Starting times and bell times will be staggered to keep the grades separated. Also, the district intends not to reduce its security staff, so more security will be present in the remaining schools.
Who will provide moving services? How much will it cost?
The district intends to issue a request for bids. The district had estimated moving costs at $1.5 million for its original plan to close 30 schools.
How much will it cost to maintain the closed buildings, compared with the costs of operating them as schools?
The district estimates the cost of maintaining the buildings after they are closed to be $580,000. The costs to operate them as schools - including maintenance, utilities, food service and security - total $5.1 million.
Which schools will need the most retooling?
Most of the schools will already be equipped to serve the ages of the students they are receiving, the administration said. The main exception will be the Afrikan Centered Education Collegium Campus' upper school, the former Southeast High School building.
The building will now serve pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Portions of the building will have to be refit for young children, and it will need a new cafeteria on the first floor.
The district estimates the cost to retool Southeast at $500,000.
Does the district have a plan to relocate its central office if the downtown building is sold? What would be the potential savings?
The district has not identified an alternative central office site.
The district spends $980,000 a year to operate the building at 1211 McGee St. If the offices moved into a vacant school building, the operational costs would be hundreds of thousands of dollars less.
The district estimates it would cost $1.5 million to refit a school as an office building, mainly because of information technology costs. Moving expenses are estimated at $150,000 to $175,000.
What is the potential sale price of the downtown building?
Unknown at this time. When the district was considering selling the building in 2008, it received at least one offer of $7.5 million.
When and how will the programming in the classrooms change?
The administration has been developing ideas for instructional changes, including extending the school day and the school year, and grouping students by the level of standards they have achieved rather than grade level.
The district plans to develop individual learning plans for each student and invest in technology to help teachers instruct students who are at different levels of achievement.
The administration also is working on a new reading curriculum. And it intends to continue developing a stronger teacher evaluation system that can include pay for performance.
How many buildings are already vacant in the district and what is going to happen when 26 more get added?
Already there are at least 18 vacant buildings, including at least four that have been sold recently or have sales pending but remain undeveloped.
The district plans to create a "repurposing committee" that will work with community organizations to find new uses for buildings. Some may be sold. The district has money to raze buildings that are in too poor a condition to be worth redeveloping. That would clear space for parks.
Could the district lose more enrollment - and revenue - because of the school closings?
In some districts where schools have closed, enrollment has dipped. The Kansas City district has said that its plan going forward will include a marketing plan to recruit and retain families.
What are the chances that the board's slim 5-4 support of the plan could swing after the board election April 6?
Three of five seats on the April ballot are contested. Two of the three contested elections involve seats currently held by board members who voted against the plan. But one of the yes votes also is open. So the majority could swing if candidates opposing the plan gain a sweep.
That wouldn't necessarily mean that the plan would be undone. Some of the "no" voters Wednesday night urged the board and the community to unify going forward in support of the superintendent.
@ Go to KansasCity.com for a video report.
To reach Joe Robertson, call 816-234-4789 or send e-mail to jrobertson@kcstar.com.
© 2010 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com
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- The Kansas City Star; Thursday, March 11, 2010
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/10/1804197/kc-school-district-to-close-26.html
A divided Kansas City board votes 5-4 to close 26 district schools
By JOE ROBERTSON and MEREDITH RODRIGUEZ
The Kansas City Star
A divided Kansas City school board voted Wednesday night to move ahead with a historic plan to close 26 schools.
Hundreds of people in an overflow crowd - sometimes shouting out in dismay - watched with national media as the board ushered in Superintendent John Covington's "Right Sizing Plan."
While the nation may be watching to see whether Covington can carry out his sweeping plan, the superintendent and his board will tend to the task of working together in the weighty days ahead, board President Marilyn Simmons said.
"I do not think this is something for celebration," she said after the 5-4 vote. "This is a somber moment."
The school closings will reduce the number of district buildings by more than 40 percent and underpin Covington's drive to cut $50 million from the shrunken district's budget.
The board members who voted for the plan were Arthur Benson II, Duane Kelly, Joel Pelofsky, Derek Richey and Airick Leonard West.
Voting no were Simmons, Cokethea Hill, Helen Ragsdale and Ray Wilson.
The vote came after the board rejected a motion by Wilson to approve an amended plan that would have removed 10 schools and the district's central office from the closing list.
That amendment failed on a 5-4 vote that mirrored the overall vote.
Most of the board members called on the public to rally behind the district, rebuking occasional scattered outcries from a mostly orderly crowd.
Simmons noted that the vote split largely along racial lines, with all four of the board's white members supporting the plan, along with West, who is black. She urged people to resist making race an issue.
Kelly's voice shook with tears as he explained his intentions to vote for the plan.
"Everyone had a chance to speak," he said. "To change it now would create problems, not solve them.
"This is the most painful vote I ever cast."
Covington looked on without comment throughout the meeting.
The plan will leave the district operating 33 schools, the fewest in 120 years. The district's enrollment in 1889 was less than 18,000 - the same as its current enrollment. At its peak in the late 1960s, Kansas City was using more than 100 buildings and serving some 75,000 students.
Covington's administration spent nearly six months developing its plan, saying the district must be more fiscally efficient if education reform in the struggling district is to have a chance to succeed.
Covington aimed wide, proposing closings and consolidations across the district, including cuts in all the district's "signature" programs.
The plan consolidates the three-building African Centered Collegium Campus into one building and takes the Montessori program from three schools to two. Lincoln College Preparatory Academy and Paseo Academy are absorbing their accompanying middle schools into the high school buildings.
And Southwest Early College Campus will absorb the closing Westport High School.
The plan also calls for the district to sell its downtown headquarters at 1211 McGee St.
City Councilwoman Sharon Sanders Brooks, speaking to the board, lamented that the school closures will hurt the city's central core.
"Continuing the blighting of the urban core," she said, "is scandalous and shameful."
But others acknowledged a financial reality that the district has to take care of now.
Teachers union president Andrea Flinders said the long-term health of the district won't be determined by buildings, but by the success of students.
"It's not buildings that count," she said. "It's what happens in those buildings."
Wednesday night's proposal included some concessions made last week from Covington's original plan of 30 closures, unveiled in February.
Northeast High School was taken off the closing list - while Northeast Elementary was added. The district also took Carver, James, Wheatley and Whittier schools off the closing list.
While most of the district's high schools will be reconfigured to serve grades seven to 12, the combined Lincoln high school and middle school will continue to include sixth grade.
And the elementary school language immersion programs from Longan and Foreign Language Academy, which will be sharing the academy's building, will both retain seventh and eighth grades.
Covington did not back off his consolidation plans in some situations where program advocates' opposition to the plan had been strongest - including the African-centered program and Faxon Montessori.
Hill criticized Covington, saying he did not involve the board as much as he should have in developing his plan. She also said he should have presented more plans to improve student achievement before the closings plan.
"It pains me to my heart that the nine members of the board have not met with the superintendent - our employee - on the largest (closing plan) that affects 18,000 kids."
Benson replied that Covington has said all along that the district must move ahead with closings to build its financial strength so that it can make "transformational" changes to come.
Like the vote of the board, the audience was split, with many applauding the board's decision.
But many were left distraught, like Faxon Montessori teacher Nancy Haynes, who remained in her seat crying as the room emptied.
Ossco Bolton, the leader of an anti-gang program in the district and a parent with students in the African-centered program and at Pinkerton, was disturbed by the racial division in the vote.
"How many kids in the district look like those four white males you see there (who voted for the plan)?" he said. "...You can't speak for my children if you haven't been through what they've been through."
The size of the cuts, unmitigated by the board's vote, remained astonishing to others.
"I think it's an atrocity to cut education this badly," said Cris Mann, a special education teacher from Longfellow. "The idea that you have to destroy something in order to build it up - that's like saying that you are going to go into Iraq, tear it down and expect peace."
Lincoln parent Fred Hudgins took heart in the passion of the audience, which came on the heels of public forums last month that were attended by hundreds of parents and community members. The district will be stronger, he said, if the passion carries back into the homes and schools.
"We want to know these parents are fired up," he said. "...But you have to channel that energy toward student achievement."
It was a sad day, Ragsdale said. She pleaded with the audience to keep faith in the district and its superintendent.
"Don't take your children out of the district," she said. "I have confidence Covington will live up to his word. ... Please stay with us. Stay with us and walk this road together."
Still on the list
Board member Ray Wilson proposed removing these buildings from the closing list. His motion failed on a 5-4 vote.
- Westport High
- ACE Sixth-Grade Center and ACE Lower Campus
- Kansas City Middle School of the Arts
- Lincoln College Prep middle school
- Franklin, Longan, McCoy, Woodland and Carver elementary schools
- Central office, 1211 McGee St.
To reach Joe Robertson, call 816-234-4789 or send e-mail to jrobertson@kcstar.com.
Categories: Education
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Posted 03/13/10
Deb Wells
Peoria, AZ | I am so happy they are closing these half-filled schools and combining them. Here's another great article on why this is so necessary - http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/03/why-did-kansas-citys-public-schools- fail.html |
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- Wall Street Journal; OPINION; FEBRUARY 3, 2010, 11:01 P.M. ET
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575017462822204340.html
Bernanke's Exit Strategy [?]: Tighter Reserve Requirements
We can end bank panics forever by limiting the ability of lenders to create money out of thin air.
Last week, voting 70-30, the Senate confirmed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for another four year term. So now what will he do?
Phase one of the recovery is certainly complete. Since September 2008, the Fed has bought mortgage-backed securities and Treasurys, and increased the monetary base to $2 trillion from $850 billion. The flood of dollars has bank profits booming.
Sadly, banks still have all those underwater mortgage-backed securities and derivatives, but Mr. Bernanke is assuming they will just earn their way out of this problem. Banks also are not lending enough to get the job-creation engine rolling again-though sooner or later they will, at which point inflationary pressures will build tremendously. So every currency trader, bond buyer and man on the Street wants to know one thing: "What's the exit strategy, Ben?" Raise interest rates, shrink the money supply and risk cratering the economy, or keep rolling along and risk a collapsing dollar?
My guess? Mr. Bernanke will leave the money out there but restrict banks' ability to create more out of thin air. He'll be called crazy. Crazy like a fox.
The Fed has a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to do away with banking panics. Investors will rejoice, but Wall Street firms are not going to like it one bit.
Our banking system has changed little since the days of Elizabethan goldsmiths writing more gold receipts (aka banknotes) than they had gold in their vaults. This "fractional reserve banking" system has caused every major panic in this country-I've counted at least 16 of them since 1812.
Whatever the era, the story is always the same. Banks keep small reserves, and then invest in supposedly safe "sure things" to generate profits beyond the interest paid to depositors.
Sure things can be real-estate loans, home equity, credit card and commercial debt. But bankers are terrible investors. There are no sure things.
Thus modern banking is protected by the twin pillars of the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The Fed, founded in 1913 out of the failure of Knickerbocker Trust when it tried to corner the copper market, finally learned after the banking crisis of 1930 that it is the lender of last resort. And the FDIC was established in 1933 to insure depositors against losses in case the bank is so bad at investing that there is nothing left for the Fed to lend to.
The end of bank runs? Mostly. Panics? Hardly. And Paul Volcker's proposal to restrict proprietary trading won't change a thing. Banks write bad loans at the top and dump them at the bottom.
Here is some recent history. The 1988 Basel accords set minimum bank capital at 8%, meaning banks could leverage their capital at ratio of 12.5 to 1. As long as their investments didn't fall by 8%, they stayed solvent. In 2001, U.S. minimum capital was set at 10%, more or less, but banks were allowed higher leverage if some of their capital was AA or AAA rated mortgage-backed securities. The rationale was that these instruments could never possibly drop more than 5%, let alone 10%. Oops.
Under the 2004 Basel II accords, so-called shadow banks (which don't take deposits) with $5 billion in capital were exempt from these regulations. So institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns regularly used 20 to 1 or even 30 to 1 leverage. This allowed these firms to effectively print money, inflate the housing bubble, and then watch those same AA and AAA mortgage securities fall by 70%-90% in value.
To sum up, the Fed creates a monetary base and the banks can create $10 for every $1 of monetary base. Wall Street firms created $20 for every Fed $1. In other words, the Fed only seeds the market. Beyond crude instruments like interest-rate policy, it has little control over how much actual money supply exists. In good times banks lend too much. And in bad times, such as today, they don't create enough money because they lend too little.
Perhaps the lesson Mr. Bernanke drew from 2008-09 is not that we need more regulation but that financial firms should not be allowed to generate money out of thin air to write soon-to-be-bad loans. To seal his legacy, it is fractional reserve banking that he can rein in. Limit leverage and you take away the hot air from these bubbles.
Free marketers blanch at the idea of more regulation. But banking isn't a normal market. Banks create money when it did not previously exist. We've built a regulatory structure around this sleight-of-hand and each time are astonished that banks still fail. I doubt we will ever get to no leverage, a dollar loan backed by a dollar of capital, but I think Mr. Bernanke could be headed in that direction. One potential target is a 5 to 1 leverage limit-he could increase reserve requirements by 1% per year until it hits 20% by 2020. With credit dear, perhaps banks will do a better job of deciding what is a "sure thing."
You do need lending for an economy to function, but you don't need all that much leverage. Increased reserves may be the best financial reform we can hope for without politicians mucking it up. No need for pay czars and repressive rules.
Even a whiff of lower leverage and increased reserves will create a dollar rally, as inflationary fears-that banks will create too much money when the economy gets going again-subside. Oil at $50? Gold at $700?
If I'm right, banks and Wall Street are going to scream bloody murder at their new shackles. But so what, they've had plenty of time to recapitalize themselves and show record profits and compensation, a gift of Mr. Bernanke's zero-interest-rate policy.
Tighter control of money supply would mean the Fed no longer has to guess if banks are creating too much or too little. Lower leverage would keep bubbles from forming in the first place. Crazy.
Mr. Kessler, a former hedge fund manager, is the author of "How We Got Here" (Collins, 2005).
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Posted 06/22/11
olde reb
Harrisonville, MO | Kessler sure spins a line of bull *hit that the Fed is the protecter of the American public from the corrupt local banker.
"This 'fractional reserve banking' system has caused every major panic in this country...." he claims. Hogwash !!! Bernanke has acknowledged Rothbard's accusation that the Fed was the CAUSE of the Depression of the '30's. Other writers have documented that the cause of every downturn in the economy was the result of the Fed restricting money availability and every boom was from their turning ON the money valve. And Kessler wants to give the Fed MORE power ????!!!
WSJ is neighbor of the banking center and seldom is critical of major Fed operations. Beware of Trojans bearing good news.
It is submitted a more realistic view of the Fed's Ponzi scheme that is driving our economy into inherent bankruptcy while "financiers" received $8.4 trillion from the Treasury security auctions last year is posted at http://www.usa-the-republic.com/banks/Federal_Reserve_Ripoff.pdf
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- The Wall Street Journal' REVIEW & OUTLOOK; FEBRUARY 17, 2010
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804204575069520491303964.html
Another Liberal Crackup
The real reason Evan Bayh wants out of Washington.
The political retirement of Evan Bayh, at age 54, is being portrayed by various sages as a result of too much partisanship, or the Senate's dysfunction, or even the systemic breakdown of American governance. Most of this is rationalization. The real story, of which Mr. Bayh's frustration is merely the latest sign, is the failure once again of liberal governance.
For the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House. Republicans haven't had such large majorities since the 1920s. Yet once again, Democratic leaders have tried to govern the country from the left, only to find that their policies have hit a wall of practical and popular resistance.
Democrats failed in the latter half of the 1960s, as the twin burdens of the Great Society and Vietnam ended the Kennedy boom and split their party. They failed again after Watergate, as Congress dragged Jimmy Carter to the left and liberals had no answer for stagflation. They failed a third time in the first two Bill Clinton years, as tax increases and HillaryCare led to the Gingrich Congress before Mr. Clinton salvaged his Presidency by tacking to the center.
A fourth crackup is already well underway and is even more remarkable considering how Democrats were set up for success. Inheriting a recession amid GOP failures, Democrats had the chance to restore economic confidence and fix the financial system with modest reforms that would let them take credit for the inevitable recovery. Yet only 13 months later, Democrats are down in the polls, their agenda is stymied by Democratic opposition, and their House and Senate majorities are in peril as moderates like Mr. Bayh flee the scene of this political accident.
Democrats have responded by blaming "obstructionist" Republicans, who lack the votes to block anything by themselves; or a failure to communicate the right message, though President Obama is a master communicator; or even Madison's framework of checks and balances, though this system has worked better than all others for some 225 years.
John Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama's transition and heads the Center for American Progess that has supplied the Administration's ideas, summed up the liberal-media mood last week when he told the Financial Times that American governance now "sucks." If you can't blame your own ideas, blame the system.
The real source of this mess is the agenda that Democrats have tried to ram through the political system. Far from offering new ideas to reform the welfare state or compete better against rising global powers, Democrats have with rare exception tried to impose the same spending, tax and regulatory agenda that failed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. Mr. Obama was a new face promising new hope, but his ideas are as old as the average Congressional Chairman.
To fix the economy, Democrats sent federal spending to peacetime heights in the name of replacing private investment with "public demand." But instead of spurring recovery, this spending spree has retarded it by frightening the public and business about future tax increases and the rising burden of public debt. The new jobs Democrats promised still haven't arrived, and while the recovery should finally produce job growth this year, Americans know they have received little for their $862 billion in "stimulus."
The rest of Mr. Obama's liberal agenda has foundered on its own overreaching implausibility. To fight the speculative threat of global warming, Democrats have tried to impose vast new taxes to raise energy prices. To address rising health-care costs, they proposed huge new health subsidies and political control of medical decisions. Medicare is heading toward bankruptcy, yet Mr. Obama's response is to make the entire health-care system like Medicare. And to fix the financial system, they have declared war on bankers while proposing reforms that would do little to prevent future bank bailouts.
The central contradiction in modern liberal politics is that Otto von Bismarck's entitlement state for cradle to grave financial security is no longer affordable. The model has reached the limit of its ability to tax private income and still allow enough economic growth to finance its transfer payments.
You can see this in bankrupt Greece, where government spends 52% of GDP; or in California and New York, where the government-employee unions have pushed tax rates to punishing levels and the states still can't pay their bills. Americans can see that this is where Mr. Obama's agenda is also taking Washington, and this is why they are rejecting it.
Can Mr. Obama still make a mid-course correction, a la Bill Clinton after 1994? Of course he can. What we don't know is whether he has the political instincts and nerve to do so. As a creature of Chicago politics and the legal class, he has lived his entire life in precincts dominated by the political left. On the other hand, he says he is not "an ideologue."
Americans have already sent one rebuke to Democrats in the form of Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Now Mr. Bayh, a senior Member of their own party, has sent another by skipping town and putting another Senate seat in play. Our guess is that it will take one more repudiation in November before Democrats relearn that you can't govern America successfully from the political left.
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