SCHOOL DISTRICT MUST ASSESS ITS PROGRAMS
We would like to elaborate on the information provided in
the June 9 article related to steps the Rochester City School District might
take to resolve its budget gap or at least to make the case for sustained
support from its funders (“Caught in the Middle: The
City Schools’ Struggle”).
Rob Brown
of the School Board expressed consternation at the observation of some
observers that the district does not routinely conduct reviews and assessments
of the effectiveness of its programs and policies. At the same time, he
questions the relevancy of such assessments, routinely done in the private
sector, for education-related activities. He nonetheless asked for suggestions
on what programs are in need of such analysis.
At the risk
of sounding flip, we respond, “What current District program is not in need of such analysis, to
determine if the costs are ‘worth it’ in terms of outcomes achieved — most
especially, increases in student achievement and graduation rates?”
At times of
budgetary stress, every public-sector entity must make the case that each
dollar raised from the public is being used as judiciously as possible. (Even
school districts, which in recent years have relied increasingly on nearly
guaranteed state largesse, still need to justify that each program is worth the
money spent to operate it.) As long as taxpayers in one form or another pay the
bills, such accountability is necessary. Equally important, we owe it to our
students to make sure that the resources are adding value in terms of improved
student performance.
In some
cases, a cost-effectiveness study may show that costs do not justify the expense, at least as the program currently operates, as was
the case in a past evaluation we did of the Young Mothers Program. We found
that participants in that relatively expensive program actually graduated at a lower rate than comparable students who
did not participate. In other cases, an analysis may show that more money should be spent on a program
that has proven results, as is the case for our recent evaluation of the
Hillside Work-Scholarship Program. Its participants graduate at twice the rate
of comparable students who do not participate.
Throughout
our 90 years of observing — and often partnering with — the Rochester
school district, we have advocated that the district review and ensure the
effectiveness of every program and policy on a three-year cycle. These
evaluations would go well beyond such statewide assessments as the 4th and
8th-grade state standardized tests, which Rob Brown offered as the example of
district program evaluation.
And in that
context, we would suggest that evaluations are necessary to assess the impact
of specific initiatives, if any, designed to improve results on those tests,
such as the 10 percent “pass” rate of Rochester’s
8th-graders for math.
Do we have
a list of specific programs that should be assessed — starting this year? To start the discussions, how about StudentSupportCenters and WellnessCenters, now
that the district has reorganized the middle and high-school grades?Or the district’s truancy-prevention policy?Or the Young Mothers Program? Or the drop-out prevention
program slated for possible termination by the district?
Do these
programs contribute adequately to improved student achievement and graduation
rates, relative to their costs and to other ways the district could be
providing services? Are there improvements that should be made to increase
their cost effectiveness and relevance to students’ needs? Would other
approaches have even more impact on student performance, for similar or reduced
costs?
And beyond
individual programs, what trends should the district be routinely analyzing and
reporting to the public? How about studying this conundrum:
we have succeeded as a community in significantly improving the readiness of
our kindergarteners for school, based in part on the district’s early-childhood
programs, which have proven their excellence in past evaluations. Yet performance
declines in early elementary years, and achievement on state math and English
tests goes down the longer students stay in the District.
And what
about the problem that student enrollment is projected to continue to decline,
requiring the district to present for public discussion a plan to close
schools?
Routine,
every-three-year evaluations of programs and policies would allow the District
to tout the need for increased funding
and/or replication of its successful programs and would increase credibility
with the public and financial support from funders.
We welcome the implementation of such practices by the district, in the
interests of both taxpayers and the students of our city.
Patricia Malgieri,
president and CEO, and Don Pryor, director of human service analysis, Center
for Governmental Research, Rochester
THE RICHNESS OF BUDDHISM
Joseph Sorrentino’s spot on local
Buddhists’ “Change Your Mind Day” (Metro Ink, June 16) highlights
some of the stereotypes we hold about Buddhism and Buddhists, but the realities
right here in Rochester are at once
richer and more complex.
While the ZenCenter is the granddaddy among
local Buddhist institutions (founded in the mid-1960s) and was followed by the Amitabha Foundation (Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism), both
attract relatively small numbers of almost exclusively Caucasian-American
convert Buddhists.
Anthropological
research we are doing at MonroeCommunity
College, under a grant from HarvardUniversity’s Pluralism Project, has
“mapped” no less than five additional Buddhist temples in the city
and immediate suburbs; all were founded by refugee Southeast Asian populations
fleeing war and genocide in Vietnam,
Laos or Cambodia.
(For details, visit www.monroecc.edu/go/pluralism). For these vibrant diaspora communities, the temple, with its huge golden
Buddha images, its resident cadre of orange-robed monks, and its colorful
ceremonial calendar, provides a spiritual, cultural, and emotional anchor in an
often turbulent and alien world, as well as a symbolic link to the homeland.
While it is
true that for many western converts to Buddhism, meditation promises a key to
some kind of personal transformation or spiritual growth,
it assumes somewhat less importance in the day-to-day concerns of ethnic
Buddhists. For these Southeast Asian-Americans and their children, (in the Rochester
area they number in the many hundreds), their many acts of daily merit-making
are balanced or rewarded by the spiritual food provided by resident or visiting
monks. That this sacred contract has taken root and thrives in Buddhism’s new
American setting makes it imperative that we not only acknowledge religious
diversity but embrace a more engaged pluralism for all faiths, as well as for
those with no faith.
David H. Day, Laney Road, Rochester (Day is professor of
anthropology at MonroeCommunity
College)
WHAT ‘BALANCE’?
Thank you for covering Metro Justice’s campaign to bring the
independent award-winning radio program, Democracy
Now!, to Rochester
(“Democracy… Later?,” June 9). We think Democracy Now! and WXXI are a good fit,
and so far hundreds of WXXI members have agreed, urging the station to try the
program for a year. (It is free for the first year.) We will continue our
campaign to mobilize member feedback to WXXI, and we invite people to get
involved by contacting our office.
It is
difficult to read between the lines of Jeanne Fisher’s statement that WXXI
accepts only programs that are balanced and objective. Certainly it is
disingenuous for Fisher to claim that NPR is objective and that WXXI talk-show
hosts are neutral. Curt Smith’s ode to Ronald Reagan was an example of his lack
of neutrality. In fact, last year Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting released a
study showing that in the run-up to the war, as millions of Americans were
protesting against an invasion of Iraq,
PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was just as bad as the rest of the corporate news. During that
period, while a majority of Americans opposed unilateral intervention, of 393
on-air sources for stories about Iraq
(on all network news shows), only three were from
anti-war groups. Balanced? Objective?Neutral?
We
understand that public radio has been under attack for being “too
liberal” by the far-right conservatives, but recent FAIR studies show that
NPR actually tilts to the right, not the left. In a recent issue of the New Yorker, Ken Auletta
exposed the degree to which the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been
influenced by conservative politicians. This month PBS will roll out a
magazine-format show hosted by the conservative co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, Tucker Carlson.
PBS also
has a show in the pipeline anchored by Paul Gigot, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial-page chief
who was skewered by Al Franken for playing fast and loose with the facts.
Meanwhile, Bill Moyers
Now will be shrunk to half an hour, and all funding will be cut.
WXXI
members don’t want the station to turn into Fox News.
Good
journalism is about knowing whom to interview and what questions to ask. That’s
why Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman
has won so many prestigious awards. According to Michael Della Carpini, dean of the AnnenbergSchool for Communication, Goodman
is carrying on the tradition of muckraking journalism. “She’s not an
editorialist,” he says. “She sticks to the facts. She’s not a Rush Limbaugh-type
who is simply letting her ideology drive what she does. She provides points of
view that make you think, and she comes at it by saying, ‘Who are we not
hearing from in the traditional media?'”
Obviously
WXXI has its biases. All journalists do. This issue is merely a red herring.
The bottom line is that WXXI members seem to want the station to try Democracy Now!.
Wouldn’t it be great if 1370-AM attracted new (and younger) listeners to the 9 a.m. slot (1370 currently replays Morning Edition for the third time at
that time). At KUNM in New
Mexico, Democracy
Now generated 22 percent more membership dollars per hour than Morning Edition during the station’s
membership drive last March.
We’d love
to meet with the WXXI Community Advisory Board to respond to the misperceptions
about Democracy Now!.
Jon Greenbaum,
Metro Justice, Rochester
Democracy Now!,
with award-winning interviewer Amy Goodman (George Polk Award, Robert F Kennedy
Prize for International Reporting) has scooped the 911 Commission, “60 Minutes,”
and public television’s “NewsHour” on major
issues. Let me tell you about the March 31 show I heard on WEOS at 89.7 from Geneva.
In a nearly
half-hour interview, former FBI translator Sibel
Edmonds, hired shortly after 9-11, explained in detail that the FBI had
information that an attack using airplanes was planned. She documented that
Condoleezza Rice’s claim of White House ignorance was “an outrageous
lie.”
Edmonds
was fired but did testify before the 9-11 Commission. Under a gag order
(“State Secrets Privilege”) imposed by the attorney general, her
brief testimony did not grab headlines.
And this is
where the value of a skilled investigative journalist as interviewer comes into
play: In the tradition of Terry Gross and Diane Rehm,
who never take sides but know how to probe on-air, Amy Goodman schedules long
interviews. Despite that gag order, listeners were provided a broad context of
events from this translator, who had been hired by the FBI to re-translate
downloaded messages, many of which were sloppily “summarized” by
inept translators.
Having
heard that interview, I believe I have reliable information, and it leads me to
be very skeptical of the testimony presented this past week to the 9-11
Commission. I don’t believe that it was solely ineptitude by the intelligence
agencies that allowed the attacks.
I urge
readers to demand that WXXI carry Democracy
Now!weekday mornings. It might replace the third
repetition of Morning Edition. The website “democracynow.org”
provides an archive of every show. Judge for yourself.
Richard Rosen, Edgerton Street, Rochester
“Democracy…later?” provided excellent coverage
of WXXI’s refusal to add Amy Goodman’s
“Democracy Now” to its AM radio programs. WXXI claims its policy
“calls for balance.” But what is “political balance?” and
what is the political center?
Let’s
define “center” as meeting a set of minimum but acceptable standards
for basic services. For example, most of us probably would agree that the
minimum wage should be at least enough
for a family of four with one full-time worker to rise to the official poverty
level.
We probably
would agree there should be enough affordable housing so that no one needs to
be homeless; that all should have health-insurance coverage for essentials;
that public schools should at least have
enough books; that everyone should be able to purchase enough food to avoid
malnutrition; that the air should be safe to breathe, water safe to drink, and
the environment clean enough that it will not cause children to be poisoned.
If
something like that were our definition of “center,” it would leave
plenty of room for us to be divided between leftists who want higher standards
and rightists who want lower ones. Since our whole population fails to meet
even these “minimum but acceptable” standards, it follows that our
community is right of center — as are most of the politicians and experts
interviewed on WXXI.
Surely, to
achieve a true balance, we need to allow space for an objective journalist like
Amy Goodman.
Peter Mott, South Main Street, Pittsford
NUISANCE CALLS
One bad business in a commercial strip can cause consumers
to boycott the whole area, says Neighborhood Empowerment Team Director Rod
Cox-Cooper (“Risky Business,” June 16). “The problem of illegal businesses
is of such a magnitude that we have to do something about them for the sake our
neighborhoods,” he says.
Although I
applaud the efforts of Mr. Cox-Cooper and Co., I would like to address his
efforts to remedy nuisance neighbors. I have called the Net Office in 14621,
also 311 and 911 and Animal Control. This has done nothing to change the
behavior of the neighbors. They are not a priority.
What would
you do if your neighbor played hip-hop music so loudly that it vibrated the
coffee in your cup on your front porch? That starts every weekend morning
around 9:30, and stops about 2 p.m.
How would
Mr. Cox-Cooper feel if a neighbor across the street began to mow his front lawn
at 9:30 at night? How would he feel if he could not use his back yard because
his backyard neighbor failed to clean up the “digestive remains” of
the family Rottweiler?
Or how
about the neighbor who does his arc-welding at 10:30 at night, fires up the
outboard motor on his boat, and adjusts the volume of the public-address system
on his boat, which runs through such a small speaker that the only thing we
ever hear is feedback? This neighbor has no backyard; it is filled with cars on
blocks and a motor home, also on blocks. The same guy snow-blows his lawn at
midnight.
I won’t
mention the lady who owns the sheep dog that barks all night long: four barks, pause; four barks, pause.
Mr.
Cox-Cooper wants to fine business owners to support NET enforcement efforts.
What is he doing about nuisance neighbors? Is there a plan in the works?
To date,
every contact with his beloved NET offices has been a failure. I know that the
law can’t be everywhere at once, but there are laws on the books, and they need
to be enforced every now and then. C’mon, Rod: let’s do something about this
before more people decide to leave.
Tom Catalano, Rochester
HOMEGROWN ABUSE
By now, we know well the terrible story of the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners. President Bush said a few months ago, “What took place in
that prison doesn’t reflect the America I know.”
The
president may not know America, or Texas, then. For example, in September 1996,
while he was governor, guards at the Brazoria County jail carried out a drug
raid on inmates, which was videotaped, according to a Reuter’s story. During
the raid, several inmates were forced to strip and lie on the ground. A dog
attacked some of the prisoners, and one of them was bitten on the leg.
Guards
jabbed at prisoners with stun guns and made them crawl along the floor. They
dragged the bitten prisoner face down back to his cell. Even though he was
bleeding, he wasn’t given medical treatment for several hours.
Here in New
York State, prisoner abuse has been reported at the Southport Correctional
Facility near Elmira, according to the March-April issue of Judicia,the Judicial Process Commission’s newsletter.
Why isn’t
disgust evinced when prisoner abuse takes place here in US? Some people say the
prisoners deserve it, that it’s an eye for an eye. But, as Martin Luther King,
Jr. said, “an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.”
Scott Fisher, Broad Street, Rochester
BAIT AND SWITCH?
I’m what Time Warner has declared a “loyal”
customer who has local telephone service through my cable. Time Warner has
decided to discontinue this local service (at $12.96 per month) in favor of a
new service that bundles local and long-distance together for $44.95 per month.
For those
who decide that this is a bad deal, they suggest that we are free to switch to
other providers, at our own expense for the switch-over fees. Time Warner is
threatening that these same loyal customers will be disconnected if we don’t
switch. The ironic thing is that most of Time Warner’s local telephone
customers were once loyal Frontier customers until they enticed people to join
them by offering a lower cost service and free switch-over.
Clearly,
Time Warner is more concerned with immediate profits rather than with serving
customers well and reaping the appropriate rewards.
Barry Silverstein, Brighton
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester 14607.
Our guidelines:
We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include your street
name and city/town/village. We don’t publish letters that have been sent to
other media. While we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words have a
greater chance of being published. We do edit letters for clarity and brevity.
And in general we don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the
same writer more often than about once every two months.
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2004.
