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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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September 2008
Charters win first round vs. Marc Dann
Remember last year when then-attorney general Mark Dann began filing lawsuits to try to force low scoring charter schools to close? Well, the attorney general’s office is still pressing those initial lawsuits and on Monday a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judge’s ruling dealt a stiff blow to the state’s argument for shutting charter schools down.
You may recall that Dann’s legal argument, which apparently was suggested by the Ohio Education Association, was that the schools had failed to serve their purposes as charitable trusts under Ohio law but failing to educate kids.
But in a ruling today in the case of Dayton’s New Choices Community School, Judge Michael Tucker ruled that New Choices does not meet the definition of a charitable trust and therefore the attorney general’s office does not have jurisdiction to close the school.
This is a pretty interesting legal debate and it could get interesting if the state appeals the decision. Don’t be surprised if this question eventually ends up before the Ohio Supreme Court.
I should have more information shortly.
UPDATE: Here is Columbus Bureau reporter Laura Bischoff’s story on this.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
This is where blogging came from
I stumbled across this story today about a new book that traces the history of blogging. The story begins farther back than I expected, dating almost to the birth of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s with Webmasters who were busy exploring the new only universe who kept reverse chronology daily lists of links to other interesting sites they found. If you’re interested, check it out.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Journalism
Here’s how Miami Valley districts rank for test scores, income
Ohio report cards hold all schools to one standard and make no effort to determine what you might call the “degree of difficulty” for educating each district’s student body. We know from research that wealthier students score higher on average than poorer kids.
If that’s true, shouldn’t districts get extra credit, or at least get noticed, when their kids’ scores compare well with districts that have wealthier families?
That’s the question that prompted this ranking, which looks at where each of the 60 Miami Valley districts rank among 610 Ohio school districts for performance index score, which is the state’s measure of test performance for all students at all grades in each district, and for median income in the school district.
Districts that rank higher for test scores than their rank for income are “overachievers” in my view. Those that rank lower for test scores than for income are “underachievers.”
Here are the ranking numbers. The first number is the district’s state rank out of 610 for test performance. The second number is the rank for median income.
For a list that shows the difference between the two rankings for each district, go to the DDN’s opinion blog here.
Sidney 230, 461
Botkins 26, 417
Versailles 74, 258
Ansonia 263, 440
Fort Loramie 40, 196
Piqua 370, 521
Milton-Union 195, 311
Russia 16, 123
Cedar Cliff 180, 282
Anna 48, 121
Brookville 140, 209
Troy 177, 241
Mississinawa Valley 474, 528
Vandalia-Butler 106, 152
Kettering 148, 182
Greenville 457, 482
Wayne 72, 96
Newton 170, 193
Northridge 580, 597
Covington 320, 336
Kings 43, 58
Miami East 128, 141
Mason 4, 13
Tipp City 76, 80
Oakwood 9, 11
Northmont 101, 103
Hardin-Houston 303, 296
Centerville 48, 34
Arcanum 315, 298
Lebanon 110, 167
Franklin Monroe 186, 167
Dayton 610, 590
Franklin 186, 167
Sugarcreek 51, 22
Mad River 492, 463
Miamisburg 170, 135
Yellow Springs 131, 95
West Carrollton 429, 384
Springboro 60, 9
Trotwood-Madison 591, 539
Beavercreek 79, 24
Fairborn 482, 418
New Lebanon 404, 338
Bethel 135, 68
Valley View 192, 124
Xenia 498, 398
Bradford 538, 419
Little Miami 152, 33
Eaton 412, 280
Twin Valley 416, 269
Tri-Village 525, 375
Greeneview 352, 194
National Trail 556, 397
Fairlawn 507, 346
Preble Shawnee 470, 277
Jefferson Twp. 400, 206
Huber Heights 370, 162
Tri-County North 352, 220
Jackson Center 446, 228
Carlisle 416, 190
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Testing
Does more time in school make the difference?
Education Week has a pretty thorough look at the issue of school day length and the sometimes contradictory results of studies about the idea of adding time to the school day or school year.
Some studies show longer school days or school years make a big difference. Others show it has little impact. There is a big national push for more time in school for kids right now. But of course the big unknown is how schools would pay for it.
Would you be willing to pay more to lengthen the school day or school year? Let us know in the comments.
(Hat tip to Alexander Russo at This Week in Education, who led me to this link.)
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Is it time to kill the SAT?
Sorry for the sparse posting recently. The storm knocked out power at my house for four days and then I have been traveling for my sister’s wedding since late last week.
But today, we’re back at it.
In the New York Times yesterday an influential higher education panel says standardized testing should be dumped as a qualification for college admission. The group had some strong words about the SAT.
I think this is a step in the right direction. The SAT is misunderstood to be an intelligence test and misused that way. but it does not measure intelligence. There are plenty of other, better measures for judging students for admission.
Tell us what you think in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Post your comment | Categories: Testing
Talking education on public radio and TV
If you happen to have electricity in your home, there are a couple good programs addressing education today that you might want to tune in.
This morning I was on a public radio program at WCPN in Cleveland discussing the education proposals of presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama. You can listen to the archived program here.
And then tonight at 10, Think TV public television channel 16 will air Where We Stand, a special report from the Newshour with Jim Lehrer hosted by Judy Woodruff looking at the state of public education in the U.S. The program’s example schools all are in Ohio — one in Cincinnati, one in Columbus and two in the southeast quarter of the state.
If you’re not sitting in the dark tonight, check it out.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Schools and Politics
Does the Dayton levy need some urgency?
The Dayton Daily News editorial board today sends up a warning for the city schools’ levy try, coming up in less than two months. An editorial asks does the district have a plan to mobilize voters to show support at the polls on election day or is the levy campaign just counting on the list of big names backing the issue and a big Democratic turnout for the presidential race to carry the day?
If you live in the city or work for the school district, give us your impressions. Do you see the levy effort getting going? Is is ahead or behind where the the 2007 campaign was this close to election day?
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Check out a great new education blog
Recently I cited the work of Paul Tough, who frequently writes about education for the New York Times Sunday magazine, discussing Barack Obama’s education views and how various camps of Democrats are reacting to them.
Tough is working on a book about an ambitious program in Harlem that seeks to surround children in a large area of the borough with various enhancements aimed at producing more successful students. It is very interesting.
A friend recently also pointed me to Tough’s new blog where he writes about the book and other issues. As usually is the case when he is writing about education, it is worth reading. Check it out.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Journalism
Evidence that I’m insane
Longtime GOTB readers may remember this debate about kids walking to school alone that we had here a couple years ago.
In my opinion page column today, I again touched on this issue of parents who obsess about their kids’ safety, a group that I apparently belong to.
I’ve kicked off a new discussion of this over at the DDN’s opinion blog. Please hop over there and share your thoughts.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Student Health and Safety
Chicago’s influence on Obama’s education thinking
(Obama speaks at Stebbins High School Tuesday.)
Both the Eduwonk blog and The New York Times are writing about the ways Chicago’s school reform over the last decade or so has influence Obama, who was involved in community work and a member of the state legislature during much of that time.
If you want a fuller idea of where Obama is coming from on education, both are worth checking out. Personally, I’d like to see a story somewhere the describes how John McCain’s personal philosophy about education was shaped. McCain’s critics say this is not a topic he has much interest in and therefore there’s not much to learn about how his views were formed. Can the Times or another news organization dig into the truth or fiction of that assertion?
Update: Here’s an Associated Press story that compares and contrasts Obama and McCain on education that I found through Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
(Image credit: Teesha McClam, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
More blogging by yours truly
FYI, you can now find me blogging on a variety of topics over at the DDN’s Opinion Blog. In fact, if you check in over there right now you can read tomorrow’s editorial about Barack Obama, John McCain and their education proposals.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Obama outlines his education proposals
(Barack Obama speaks at Stebbins High School Tuesday.)
There weren’t a lot of new ideas from Barack Obama Tuesday during a speech in Dayton. The headline was his support of doubling to $400 million the amount of federal aid for charter schools. Otherwise, he mostly emphasized proposals he has made in the past.
Among the initiatives he highlighted:
—Heavier investment in early childhood education. He is pushing to expand federal aid for pre-school programs.
—College tax break. Obama wants to offer a $4,000 tax credit for students willing to commit to community or military service after college.
—New teachers. He wants to recruit new teachers to the profession using service scholarships
—Replacing bad teachers. Obama said there should be a way to remove bad teachers from the profession, but said he was open to a variety of ways to do that.
—Pay for performance. He repeated his admiration for programs, such as on in Dayton, that gives extra pay to teachers who demonstrate high performance.
—Longer school days. He hinted that the U.S. may have to consider instituting a longer school day, pointing to other nations that have it.
—Graduation rate. Obama pledged to make the U.S. No. 1 for high school graduation rate. (I noticed he didn’t pledge to make the country No.1 in the world for test scores.)
—College level courses. He said he wants to increase by 50 percent the number of high school kids taking college level or AP courses.
—Innovative school funds. He wants special funds targeted to support schools trying new ideas.
—New charter accountability. In addition to giving more money to charter schools, Obama called for stricter accountability to shut down bad charter schools.
—After school and summer school. Citing China he said if other nations can offer these programs, the U.S. should find a way to do the same.
—New classroom technology. Obama said he wanted to improve school technology by adding new tools like video “smart boards” and student laptops to classrooms.
—Paying for it all. Obama said all this could be paid for by redirecting the cost of just a few days in Iraq
—Testing. He was critical of “teaching to the test” and called on teachers to be a part of an effort to create “new assessments” for the future.
—Accountability. Obama called for “parent contracts” in which parents would promise to do their part to help their kids in school and promised an annual address to the nation to discuss progress toward education goals.
NOTE: This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
(Image credit: Jan Underwood, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Obama to tout charter schools, performance pay
I’m here at presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign even at Stebbins High School and they have just released excerpts of his prepared remarks. He is scheduled to begin speaking at 10:10 a.m.
In what the campaign has billed as a major education policy speech, Obama will call for doubling federal support for charter schools as long as strict accountability that closes low scoring charters is part of the package. He also will tout performance pay — extra money for teachers or schools that show strong test score gains — a concept he has long backed.
And he points to China as an example of state-sponsored after school programs that work, suggesting the U.S. should do the same.
Obama has been supportive of the concept of charter schools in the past. But by calling for twice as much federal funding for charters he is nudging his previously moderate support of school choice to a new level.
Here are the speech excerpts:
“For decades, they’ve been stuck in the same tired debates over education that have crippled our progress and left schools and parents to fend for themselves. It’s been Democrat versus Republican, vouchers versus the status quo, more money versus more reform. There’s partisanship and there’s bickering, but there’s no understanding that both sides have good ideas that we’ll need to implement if we hope to make the changes our children need. And we’ve fallen further and further behind as a result.
If we’re going to make a real and lasting difference for our future, we have to be willing to move beyond the old arguments of left and right and take meaningful, practical steps to build an education system worthy of our children and our future.
In the past few weeks, my opponent has taken to talking about the need for change and reform in Washington, where he has been part of the scene for about three decades.
And in those three decades, he has not done one thing to truly improve the quality of public education in our country. Not one real proposal or law or initiative. Nothing.
Instead, he marched with the ideologues in his party in opposing efforts to hire more teachers, and expand Head Start, and make college more affordable. You don’t reform our schools by opposing efforts to fully fund No Child Left Behind. And you certainly don’t reform our education system by calling to close the Department of Education. That would just make it harder for us to give out financial aid, harder for us to keep track of how our schools are doing, and lead to widening inequality in who gets a college degree.
That is not my idea of reform. That is not my idea of change. That is not a plan to help your kids compete with those kids in China and India.
After three decades of indifference on education, do you really believe that John McCain is going to make a difference now?”
…
“Giving our parents real choices about where to send their kids to school also means showing the same kind of leadership at the national level that I did in Illinois when I passed a law to double the number of charter schools in Chicago. That is why as President, I’ll double the funding for responsible charter schools. Now, I know you’ve had a tough time with for-profit charter schools here in Ohio. That is why I’ll work with Governor Strickland to hold for-profit charter schools accountable, and I’ll work with all our nation’s governors to hold all our charter schools accountable. Charter schools that are successful will get the support they need to grow. And charters that aren’t will get shut down. And we’ll help ensure that more of our kids have access to quality after school and summer school and extended school days for students who need it - because if they can do that in China, we can do that right here in the United States of America.”
…
“And when our teachers succeed in making a real difference in our children’s lives, we should reward them for it by finding new ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. We can do this. From Prince George County in Maryland to Denver, Colo., we’re seeing teachers and school boards coming together to design performance pay plans.
So yes, we must give teachers every tool they need to be successful. But we also need to give every child the assurance that they’ll have the teacher they need to be successful. That means setting a firm standard - teachers who are doing a poor job will get extra support, but if they still don’t improve, they’ll be replaced. Because as good teachers are the first to tell you, if we’re going to attract the best teachers to the profession, we can’t settle for schools filled with poor teachers.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Tracking Barack Obama
Obama will talk about education in Dayton Tuesday
The word is Barack Obama will be talking about education policy on a visit to Stebbins High School Tuesday. I’ll have a report for the scene after he speaks.
Daytonians interested in education, and how Obama thinks about it, have been fortunate. When he came here in the summer he gave his education talking points after a question from the audience.
Where does Obama actually stand on education? That is an interesting question.
Is he sympathetic to teacher unions, who want to junk No Child Left Behind? Or his he in the camp of the school reformers, Democrats (especially in inner cities) that favor school choice, vouchers and other experiments. Obama has been vague about where he stands, enough so that both camps are trying to claim him as one of their own.
In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, writer Paul Tough deconstructions where Obama stands on education and suggests some policy ideas he already has (or might yet) embrace.
Tough, who has written some insightful education pieces for the magazine, cites Susan Neuman’s research and her forthcoming book, which says the U.S. must invest much more heavily in early childhood programs. During my sabbatical year at the University of Michigan in 2004-05, I studied under Neuman, a Michigan professor and former assistant U.S. education secretary under President Bush.
Neuman helped craft No Child Left Behind only to later become disillusioned with the law. When I knew her at Michigan, she had a lot of ideas for improving federal education law and was just beginning work on the soon-to-be-released book. In short, she believes effective early childhood programs should be replicated and focused on needy pre-schoolers, rather than mandated for all young children regardless of need. In this way, Neuman believed costs — which can be high for universal pre-school programs — could be better controlled.
Check out the magazine story for more. I’ll try to post an update from the Obama event after he speaks Tuesday.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Should low scoring schoools have to close?
In an editorial today, the DDN says a new law that forces low scoring charter schools to close is a good idea, but shouldn’t necessarily be applied to traditional public schools. But if closing down doesn’t make sense, what action should be taken to address chronically poor performing schools? Should they just be allowed to continue with bad performance indefinitely?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Reconsidering the former school board
Let’s remember back for a moment to the excitement of 2001. Gail Littlejohn, a retired corporate attorney, and three allies won four seats on the school board, taking control with a majority and promising big changes that would help lead the district back to respectability.
And for the first few years, the Kids First team had a remarkable run of successes. They replaced a well meaning but floundering superintendent with an efficient manager in Percy Mack, a move that was well received in the community. They put a reform in place that emphasized teacher training and focused on math and reading instruction. They got the NAACP and the state to agree to settle the 20-year-old desegregation case, bringing millions in cash and releasing the district from court supervision. They got a huge bond issue passed to rebuild all the schools in the city. Eventually, Dayton even had enough test score gain to jump from “academic emergency to “continuous improvement” in the state ratings. And for at least those first few years, Kids First got support from the rest of the school board, business leaders and much of the community.
But by 2007 a weary Littlejohn had stepped down as school board president and then left Dayton altogether, a crucial school board levy was soundly defeated and two key remaining Kids First allies on the board suffered stunning defeats to little known and underfunded challengers.
How did it all come apart? The dismantling was helped along by a handful of key missteps by the board and school administration. Some of the moves this year by the new school board and its hand-picked interim superintendent Kurt Stanic demonstrate that some of those past decisions haven’t worked out as the old board had hoped. Let’s consider a few examples:
The Reynolds purchase. In 2003, Dayton spent just under $20 millions to purchase, renovate and move into two downtown buildings that formerly housed Reynolds & Reynolds’ world headquarters. City officials, including the mayor, begged the district not to do the deal. The editorial board at the DDN was sharply critical. But they went ahead with it.
Treasurer Stan Lucas defends the purchase to this day as sensible at the time and necessary to consolidate administrative operations. But the board certainly paid a big political price for the move thanks to fallout that they failed to anticipate from angry residents that eventually grew bigger and helped fuel future electoral defeat.
Let’s look at a couple recent developments and what they say about this move. Earlier this summer, the board said it would consider putting one of the two Reynolds buildings up for sale because it could fit all its administrators in one building, suggesting two buildings was more space than needed. And second, the board just sold its former First Street administration building to the Dayton Technology Design High School, a charter school the board sponsors, for $1. I specifically remember questioning a confident Littlejohn about her assertion that proceeds from selling the First Street building would defray a few hundred thousand dollars of the cost of the Reynolds purchase. It has sat vacant until the sale to DTDHS.
Debra Brathwaite. It was pretty clear soon after Brathwaite arrived as deputy superintendent under Mack that the board viewed her as a successor to be groomed. But after the board changed and Mack left the new board decided not to go with Brathwaite, who took the matter personally and left to follow Mack to Columbia, S.C. Stanic, who they picked instead, told me he personally prefers to groom internal candidates to replace himself when he leaves and when I asked about the board not picking the candidate they groomed, he said if the board was not comfortable with her they made the right decision. It seems this board thinks grooming Brathwaite was a mistake.
The 2007 school levy. Many people were shocked when the school board placed a huge 15.17-mill levy on the ballot in May of 2007, and a lot of them were angry. Today the board is asking voters for a significantly more modest 4.9-mill levy and Stanic said he personally would never have supported the larger levy.
The choice to go for the big levy demonstrates two big missteps by the former board. First, the board worked very hard to hold off a levy as long as possible. This was a noble goal, but the heavy focus on delaying a levy possibly blinded the board to the danger of waiting too long. There were some factors that worked against the board that were beyond its control, but it’s now clear it waited too long.
Had the board used some of the political capital it had earned during its run of success from 2001 to 2004 it probably could have gotten a 5-mill levy passed at that time and reduced the fiscal stress that eventually came in 2007.
It’s also now clear that the 15.17-mill levy had no chance of passing and was just an enormous waste of effort and resources. The board absolutely should have aimed lower with a smaller levy. That’s clear to just about everyone now.
School cuts. Last year, the board cut music, art and gym and eliminated teacher planning periods during the day, among a host of reductions. This was the biggest problem for teachers, who complained all year that they and their students were fatigued by the long hours of classwork without breaks. Stanic has since restored most of those programs and the planning periods while living within the same budget constraints. If they could do it this year, why couldn’t they do it last year?
Administrative cuts. A hot debate during the 2007 levy campaign was the size of the administration. Despite several rounds of cuts by the board, many observers still felt the administration was not cut deeply enough. Mack insisted he had gone as far as he could go. But this summer Stanic’s first order of business was to cut $2.2 million from the budget, including several more administration jobs. So it seems there were more cuts to be had at the central office.
Specialty schools vs. traditional schools. Mack and Brathwaite attempted to compete with Dayton’s huge charter school movement by starting their own charter-like schools. And its hard to argue their approach didn’t have merit. The Dayton Early College Academy and the boys and girls schools all are among the be among the best scoring schools in the city. But critics argued that they focused too much on those pet projects and not enough on the traditional schools, where most of the district’s kids attended.
That criticism seems to fit with Stanic’s approach to reform. Stanic has said several times that the district needs a heavy focus on instruction in its rank and file classrooms and that is where he has pledged to make his biggest push for improvement.
Looking back at the Kids First era, what comes to your mind as the key moments that led to their successes and ultimate downfall?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
I’m trying to check this out
I got a phone message from Oakwood school board Jim Uphoff this week and he had a theory about why charter school test scores are gaining in Dayton while the school district’s scores are going down. He thinks it’s because charters are now attracting a significant number of suburban kids, even from districts like Oakwood and Kettering.
It is true that Dayton charter schools do draw kids from a wide variety of districts. But the numbers from the suburbs have always been pretty small with the vast majority of charter kids coming from Dayton Public Schools. I haven’t seen any signs that there has been a big shift towards the burbs, but I have asked the state department of education if they can give me any data to prove or disprove this theory.
Anyone have any insights as to whether there had been an influx of suburban kids to Dayton charters?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Dayton Public Schools, Testing
An unexpected consequence of a bad economy
The New York Times’ national education correspondent Sam Dillon wrote an interesting story Monday about one consequence of a bad economy. More kids are poor enough to qualify for free breakfast and lunch, driving up costs for those programs.
This is just one example of how a poor economy really hits schools hard. Just ask local districts who have been on the ballot lately. It’s rough out there.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Post your comment | Categories: School Funding
My changing role at the DDN
I have some news to share with Get on the Bus readers. My role at the Dayton Daily News has changed. As of today, I am now a columnist and editorial writer for the newspaper and I no longer am a reporter covering the education beat after nine years in that role.
This means I have joined the editorial board, a group that together decides the newspaper’s position on local, state and national issues. My role will be to participate in deliberations about the issues, write editorials representing the newspaper’s views on the editorial page and write columns on the op-ed page. My writing will be more analytical and opinion-based in those venues.
I do not know who will replace me covering K-12 education and Dayton Public Schools, but I will introduce that person here as soon as he or she is named. My plan is to continue to write about education in the newspaper often, through editorials and in columns. I also plan to continue blogging about education here at Get on the Bus.
I remain highly interested in education issues facing Dayton, the state of Ohio and the nation. I will continue to pay close attention to everything from congressional actions to local school board decisions when it comes to teaching and learning.
So I hope you’ll stay with me here at Get on the Bus and help me keep the conversation going. Thanks.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Journalism
March of the penguins … in Ohio?
I took my eight-year-old to Saturday’s Ohio State football game for some quality father-daughter time. Kate is a big OSU fan and we had a blast. In the first quarter, red-shirted, buckeye-nut-necklace-wearing Kate looked up from under her new block-O, Woody Hayes-style Buckeye hat with a few questions:
Kate: What is Youngstown State’s nickname?
Me: The Penguins.
Kate The Penguins? Where is Youngstown State?
Me: It’s in Ohio. Sort of near Cleveland.
Kate: What does Ohio have to do with penguins?
Me: Good question. I don’t know.
Kate: I mean, penguins are cute and all, but penguins in Ohio?
Me: Yes it is pretty weird.
Kate: You know what? Instead of running onto the field like the Buckeyes do to start the game, they should all waddle out like penguins. That would be funny.
Me: That would be funny. Maybe they should come up with a penguin waddle touchdown dance.
Kate: That would be awesome. Maybe they have one already.
Me: We’re not going to find out today.
(Final Score: OSU 43, YSU 0)
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Sports and Athletics
Supporters launch drive to save Stivers art teachers (again)
Once again, the Seedling Foundation is seeking to rescue the arts program that has helped Stivers School for the Arts become one of the Miami Valley’s best rated high schools.
Seedling, a fund-raising support group for the school, typically raises smaller sums for expensive instruments or other enhancements to Stivers’ arts program. But last year, when the school board moved to cut most of the professional artists who make up the adjunct arts faculty at Stivers, Seedling came to the rescue.
The group last year surpassed its initial goal of $145,000 and reached a revised goal of $180,000 to pay the salaries for adjuncts, convincing the school district to restore their jobs. This year, Seedling is hoping for a repeat performance.
Like last year, the fund-raising campaign will kick off with an event downtown at Courthouse Square, featuring artwork and performance by dozens of Stivers students. The event will be at noon on Sept. 10.
Seedling’s commitment to raise funds again this year is the reason adjunct faculty positions were not again eliminated. The group is seeking big and small donations. A commitment of $18 pays for one hour of adjunct faculty instruction time.
To donate to the Seedling Foundation, mail a check to P.O. Box 1858, Dayton, Ohio, 45401-1858. E-mail Seedling President Bill Pflaum at wdpflaum@ix.netcom.com with questions or call the school at 542-7380.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
