The Observation Deck

Three months ago we held an election for school board. During the campaign the incumbents told us that:

1. New school construction was on time and on budget,
2. Employee relationships between our teachers and administration were great,
3. School finances were okay and,
4. Our schools were doing fine and our students were getting the education they need.

Here we are 3 months later and we now know the following:

1. Construction on our new schools is running $6 million over budget and we are scrambling to find the extra money needed to complete the construction. One only has to read the front page of Lakewood Observer dated Feb 2, 2016 to know that we are in trouble. It defies belief that the incumbents did not know of the cost overruns 3 months ago and that we are just now realizing we are $6 million short. Perhaps this is because, as one school board member admitted, they don’t feel that it’s their job to tell employees/contractors what or how to do their jobs. This lack of oversight should be appalling to taxpayers.

2. Employee relations with our teachers are deteriorating and the teachers are very concerned about how our administration is handling their concerns. We know this because at the Dec 14, 2015 school board meeting, over 100 teachers attended to express their concerns with the relationship between the teachers and administration. They provided each board member with hand written letters from the 100+ teachers detailing their concerns. These concerns included 1) workload, including meetings and development, 2) curriculum (pace and content), 3) technology support and 4) the tone and content of the administration response to their concerns. See video ([url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCth_bNSjyE&feature=youtu.be[/url] ) As far as I know, this showing by teachers is unprecedented.

3. Our finances are deteriorating and our administration is planning on asking for a tax increase in the next 12 months. This is despite the fact that we rank #5 out of 48 schools our size (5,000 to 9,999 students) when it comes to spending per student. On a statewide basis we rank in the top 60 out of all 609 school districts on a spending per student basis.

The most troubling part of our finances is that if we just spent the average amount per student of the 48 districts our size we would save over $17 million a year. Or, if we just moved from #5 to #9 out of 48 (still in the top 20%) we would save over $8 million a year. It is obvious that our community has provided our schools with more than enough money to educate our children. Our leaders just need to do a better job of spending our tax dollars. See chart here ([url]http://www.calleriforschoolboard.info/FY14_Rankings%20per%20expenses.pdf[/url]) How do the schools that rank better in academics do it? Maybe our school board can investigate. Our community should demand it.

4. Our schools are struggling and educational outcomes are declining based on the recent state report card. Despite what we have been told, our schools are far from “Excellent!” The recently released state report card covered graduation rates, ACT/Remediation rates in college, AP course/exam success rates and k-3 Literacy. On these topics we have seen a significant decline in our student’s success / scores over the past 10 years.

See below for the information for the State Report Card for the Class of 2014

4 year Graduation Rate - (Shows the % of students getting a diploma. It is adjusted for students who leave the district.)

Lakewood Score - 82.7%

• This ranks us in the bottom 10% of the state.
• This ranks us 25 of 31 in Region 3 of Ohio (Cuyahoga)
• This ranks us 16 of 17 Districts west/south of Cleveland.
• This is down from 84.5% in 2013
• This is down from 5-10 years ago (2006-2010) when we were consistently at 92%.

% of Class of 2014 Scoring Remediation Free on ACT
(Shows the %age of college bound students who would NOT need to take remedial Math or English. Based on this score 73% of our students will need remedial help!!)

Lakewood Score - 27%

• This ranks us 19 of 31 in Region 3 of Ohio (Cuyahoga)
• This ranks us 12 of 17 Districts west/south of Cleveland.
• This is in line with 2013.
• This data is only available for the past 2 years.

% of Class of 2014 Receiving an AP Score of 3 or Higher
(Shows the percentage of our best and brightest who are passing the AP exam and getting college credit. Only 1/3 or our students take the AP exams to begin with.)

Lakewood Score - 34.6%

• The national average for 2014 was 58.9%
• This ranks us 19 of 31 in Region 3 of Ohio (Cuyahoga)
• This ranks us 14 of 17 Districts west/south of Cleveland.
• This is down from 5-10 years ago (2006-2010) when we were consistently at 75%+.

K to 3rd Grade Literacy Percent
The state also publishes a Literacy Grade for each school based on K to 3rd grade students. Those scores are listed here.

• Lincoln 60.9 out of 100
• Roosevelt 60.7 out of 100
• Horace Mann 55.6 out of 100
• Emerson 55.1 out of 100
• Grant 51.7 out of 100
• Hayes 48.3 out of 100
• Harrison 37.1 out of 100

A = 82.6 - 100.0%
B = 64.9 - 82.5%
C = 47.2 - 64.8%
D = 29.5 - 47.1%
F = 0.0 - 29.4%

* The state report card can be found on the Education.Ohio.Gov website under Community or at [url]http://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/Pages/District-Report.aspx?DistrictIRN=044198[/url]

* Districts west/south of Cleveland include Avon, Avon Lake, Bay Village, Berea, Brecksville, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Fairview Park, Independence, North Olmsted, North Royalton, Olmsted Falls, Parma, Rocky River, Strongsville, Westlake.

The results of the state report card are disappointing to say the least. Our schools, which 5-10 years ago were consistently at the top of the state, have declined significantly and are now in the bottom half of the state. This is a result of poor leadership that continues to ignore the problems our schools are facing.

The bad news is that by ignoring our problems, we are not addressing the underlying issues and we will continue to see our schools decline.

The good news is that the issues, while serious, can be fixed. The only reason we have not fixed them is that our current leadership continues to refuse to admit we have problems. They continue to tell us that everything is fine. They tell us that we may have challenges but there are no real problems. They ignore what needs to be done.

To fix our schools, our school board is going to have to realize that theirs is a full time job. Their job is not to rubber stamp everything, but to dig in to the data and see what is really happening. They are going to have to roll up their sleeves, put in 25+ hours a week and do some serious work to get to the root of the causes of our schools’ decline. The first step is to lay out a 5 year plan that provides solutions to these problems, rather than our current 5 year plan which is nothing but a vague, unachievable slogan: “Top 20 in 20.”

To help them, they could create 4 committees of local professionals. One committee to address each of the four issues raised here 1) construction overruns, 2) financial stability, 3) employee relations, and 4) student performance. The committees should benchmark what we are doing against the other 17 area districts or 31 region 3 districts, find the root cause of the problems and work with the educational stakeholders to find the necessary solutions.

I for one would be happy to put together a 5 year plan to turn our schools around if I thought our current school board would implement it.

Additionally, community members could and should attend the monthly school board meetings, the Superintendent’s Chats and/ or contact school board members to make them aware of your concerns and to hold them accountable for the above issues.

Lakewood and our schools have a lot going for them and there are many great projects and teachers in our schools. However, if our community continues to ignore the facts, taxpayers, home values, our schools and our children will suffer.

Thank you Woody for this information. I believe Lakewoodites made a big mistake by not electing you on the the school board. I knew our stats were not good, but this is really awful!
Woody, do you know why students with disabilities are put into the Lakewood City Academy? Many of our students with disabilities have a high level of anxiety and require specialized learning settings. Stress levels for them would be high because I believe they must have difficulties with some of the students with bad behavior issues. What happened to mainstreaming among REGULAR ed peers? I don't feel that students with behavior issues qualify as regular ed peers. I will check with the state. I am sad to say that I believe most of the members of our school board are team Summers people. I don't mean to offend anyone, just wondering where this all fits in with state regulations.

Cleveland Heights spends about $19,000 per student and gets some of the worst results in the entire Country. Lakewood is heading in the same direction.

If Lakewood increased its spending to match Cleveland Heights, Lakewood would be spending nearly $21 million more per year. There is no evidence that any extra money would make a difference and yet that's where we are heading. If $400,000 per classroom is not enough how much is enough?

Thank you for being the ONLY school board candidate who addressed the real issues affecting Lakewood City schools.

Woody Calleri wrote:4 year Graduation Rate - (Shows the % of students getting a diploma. It is adjusted for students who leave the district.)

Lakewood Score - 82.7%

• This ranks us in the bottom 10% of the state.
• This ranks us 25 of 31 in Region 3 of Ohio (Cuyahoga)
• This ranks us 16 of 17 Districts west/south of Cleveland.
• This is down from 84.5% in 2013
• This is down from 5-10 years ago (2006-2010) when we were consistently at 92%.

That is a very steep drop in a short amount of time.
Did they change the methodology of calculating graduation rate between 2006 and today?
You mention that the number is "adjusted for students that leave the district".
So if a kid leaves the district after 10th grade and never graduates, is he or she removed from the statistical pool? Who is in charge of tracking when and to where students move?

Assuming that the drop is not a matter of methodology, what are the reasons for the steep drop?
Many folks will quickly cite "poverty" and/or "ESL students"....however, we've had poor and immigrant students since long before 2006. Something else must be happening.

Thoughts?

When one considers school district evaluations, there are always many more factors involved than meet the eye. Simple answers are seldom "simple" when it comes to meeting the best interests of children.

For just one example, looking at the communities just listed above. (and their relative scholastic success rates) one observes that there appears to be a strong correlation between the overall wealth of a community and the performance of the students in a given community. Put simply, the better off a community is, the higher the test scores tend to be.

Why would this be so? Perhaps some of this ties into the sublime effects of poverty and perceptions involved concerning students growing up in less-than-affluent situations? Does this mean that rich suburban students are inherently "smarter" than poor students who happen live in urban areas? The absurdity of that thought should be patently obvious. There's an old saying that one should never let schooling interfere with one's education. Our own common sense should tell us that there needs to be many more factors in the measurement of learning than any one pencil-paper test would reveal.

In recent years, the question of money-expenditure-per-student often comes up too, but that statistic often masks the fact that many unfunded mandates have entered the schools. Accountability measures, costs of testing, supplemental and social services, funding for charter schools, special needs students, limited English language concerns, transportation, and many other financial issues compete with dollars that might otherwise be spent for public school in-classroom activities.

Lakewood's schools serve a very wide demographic of students, having needs ranging from special education, to others who require English as a second language assistance. For the most part, (excepting only a narrow percentage) these students must also participate in mandated testing. An otherwise brilliant student struggling with English mastery or special needs, for example, may not perform as well on a mandated standardized pencil-paper examination.

To be truly effective, academic measurement should generally be multi-factored, (that is, having several ways to evaluate a student beyond the usual pencil-paper exam) individualized, and diagnostic-prescriptive. (isolating the weaker areas and deciding an effective approach to correcting them)

There is a huge political movement pushing a one-size-fits-all approach to education, but the effects of many such simplistic programs have seen far too many students fall through the cracks of the system. Just as young children do not all potty-train, or tie their shoes at the same time in their lives, so too, will students advance academically at different times in their school careers. That's why support is crucial for struggling students, and that support comes with a price tag too.

There are many other issues involved here, as well. As a Lakewood Schools volunteer and as a retired teacher from another district, I would encourage anyone to visit our schools. Look for waste or fluff, and you will not find those conditions in your Lakewood Schools. Your dollars are being spent wisely and well in an atmosphere that is welcoming and inclusive for all students. Individual student needs are carefully considered and addressed, and while there can always be different opinions as to what would be the best academic setting for a particular student having educational issues, at the same time, individual cases can and are regularly reviewed by academic teams, in order to insure opportunities will be provided to achieve the best possible student outcomes.

In my opinion, Lakewood is doing a wonderful job serving a wide demographic of students. There are always areas where our schools can improve, of course, but on the whole? In my honest opinion, you have a district that you can be proud of.

Back to the banjo...

As always, Gary brings wisdom to the discussion.

The obsession with standardized testing will continue to have disastrous impact on Lakewood Schools.
I know it would never happen with our current board, but would it make sense for the district to "opt out"?
As Gary points out, these tests are unfair to districts like ours that have a higher percentage of ESL, special needs, and underprivelged kids.
Those scores will be used by other towns to badmouth our city, despite the fact that most kids are getting a fine education here.
During my years at the Observer, I've consistently been impressed with the hundreds of students, staff, and teachers that I've met.

With that said, the drop in graduation rate is alarming. Graduation rate is not an arbitrary test or measure concocted by a testing company or by the Feds. It's a simple, "real life" measure of our kids' chances in the future.

NO CHILD'S BEHIND IS LEFT

Ann Richards

Lori Allen _ wrote:Thank you Woody for this information. I believe Lakewoodites made a big mistake by not electing you on the the school board. I knew our stats were not good, but this is really awful!
Woody, do you know why students with disabilities are put into the Lakewood City Academy? Many of our students with disabilities have a high level of anxiety and require specialized learning settings. Stress levels for them would be high because I believe they must have difficulties with some of the students with bad behavior issues. What happened to mainstreaming among REGULAR ed peers? I don't feel that students with behavior issues qualify as regular ed peers. I will check with the state. I am sad to say that I believe most of the members of our school board are team Summers people. I don't mean to offend anyone, just wondering where this all fits in with state regulations.

Ms. Allen

Unfortunately, I have not looked into the issues you have raised and therefore I do not have the background or expertise to answer your question. I would suggest that you contact the current school board members directly for the answers. You could also attend a school board meeting and ask them directly. They meet on the first and third Mondays of the month and there is time set aside at each meeting for public comments.

Woody

Michael Deneen wrote:

Woody Calleri wrote:4 year Graduation Rate - (Shows the % of students getting a diploma. It is adjusted for students who leave the district.)

Lakewood Score - 82.7%

• This ranks us in the bottom 10% of the state.
• This ranks us 25 of 31 in Region 3 of Ohio (Cuyahoga)
• This ranks us 16 of 17 Districts west/south of Cleveland.
• This is down from 84.5% in 2013
• This is down from 5-10 years ago (2006-2010) when we were consistently at 92%.

That is a very steep drop in a short amount of time.
Did they change the methodology of calculating graduation rate between 2006 and today?
You mention that the number is "adjusted for students that leave the district".
So if a kid leaves the district after 10th grade and never graduates, is he or she removed from the statistical pool? Who is in charge of tracking when and to where students move?

Assuming that the drop is not a matter of methodology, what are the reasons for the steep drop?
Many folks will quickly cite "poverty" and/or "ESL students"....however, we've had poor and immigrant students since long before 2006. Something else must be happening.

Thoughts?

Mr Deneen:

Thank you for taking the time to read my article and for asking the above question.

My understanding is that the methodology has been tweaked over the years but in general is the same as back then.

The graduation rate starts with the number of kids who enter our school as 9th graders. The number is then adjusted for students who enter or leave the district on an ongoing basis. The final number is then the number of students graduating divided by the updated number of students who entered the school.

In the example you gave, the 10th grader would be on our “books” until he/she reports to another school. The new school contacts our district and requests the paperwork / file to be sent. Once the paperwork/file is received the student is removed from our number and added to the new schools number. If they simply drop out and never attend school again, then they count against our graduation rate. The state has put financial incentives in place to encourage the new school to report where the student is. It is not perfect but it tries.

The number of students who are “ESL” or in “poverty” is not the reason we have dropped from the 92%+ range to the 82% range (bottom 10% of the state). Our school board members need to dig in to the data and find out what is really driving our poor performance (drop outs, transfers, bad data, poor educational outcomes, etc.). Once we know what the problem is, we can address it. I know from having worked in an inner city school that we can turn these numbers around in 3-5 years if we address the issue, get the community involved, and develop a solid plan.

Gary Rice wrote:When one considers school district evaluations, there are always many more factors involved than meet the eye. Simple answers are seldom "simple" when it comes to meeting the best interests of children.
In my opinion, Lakewood is doing a wonderful job serving a wide demographic of students. There are always areas where our schools can improve, of course, but on the whole? In my honest opinion, you have a district that you can be proud of.

Back to the banjo...

Mr Rice

Thank you for taking the time to respond in detail to the above article.

While I agree that no one number, test or data point can evaluate a school district, the state report card covers many factors over a long time frame. It may not be perfect but the trend is telling us that our schools are struggling. The graduation rate is down 10 percentage points and we are in the bottom 10% of the state. Also our AP pass rate has dropped from 75%+ to 34%. We are not looking at movement or “noise” around a good number (say 91-93% grad rate or 75% AP pass rate) but rather a significant drop in results.

The communities listed in Region 3 and in West/South location include a diverse group of communities. I would hardly call Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga Heights, Olmsted Park, Fairview Park, Berea, Parma, Cleveland Heights, South Euclid, Garfield Heights, Cleveland, East Cleveland, Maple Heights City, or Warrensville Heights “wealthy communities.” Yet we consistently score below all of them except Cleveland and East Cleveland.

As for the expenditures per student we have to quit blaming the state. All communities want more money from the state. All schools have costs for test, services, charter school issues, etc. In fact we do not have to bus our kids to school. Most other districts do. That is a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

The fact that we are #5 of 48 in the state in spending tells you that we are not getting out spent by the other communities or wealthy districts. We are simply not getting value for our spending. Simply put, other school districts are getting better results with fewer dollars.

I also encourage all Lakewood residents to visit our schools, talk to our teachers and listen to our support staff. What you will hear / see is lots of waste. Our tax dollars are not being spent wisely. To give you an idea, I detail several areas of cost savings below:

• We spend over $500,000 on outside consultants every year. An example includes spending $62,000+ on consultants to teach our k-5 teachers how to teach reading. The teachers for the most part say it is a waste of time and dollars.

• We are spending money on consultants who come in during the 20 minute lunch period and teach our middle school kids to color and relax.

• We grossly overpaid for Chromebooks for our kids. We spent more per Chromebook and more on insurance per Chromebook than other local school districts. The additional cost was over $100,000.

• We spend several thousand dollars a year more on health insurance per employee then the city of Lakewood does and both contracts are union negotiated. If we simply matched what the city does (send someone over to talk with them) we would save over $1 million a year.

• Our teachers and support staff have come up cost saving suggestions worth over $300,000 is savings. Unfortunately, our administration is not acting on their suggestions.

The bottom line is that we could save over $3 million a year just on what we know now. I also believe that if we bench marked what we do compared to area schools, we would find millions more in savings. Our community has been very generous to our schools and we need to do a better job spending their hard earned tax dollars.

Lastly, I understand your desire to put our schools in a positive light. I also want our schools to be the best that they can be.

However, the fact is our schools are not providing the best possible outcomes. You can see this in the state numbers.

• Our student graduation rate of 82.7% is at the bottom of the state rankings.

• Our students are not getting the education needed to succeed in college (only 27% are remediation free based on the ACT)

• Our best students, the 33% who take the AP exams, are not being given the instruction they need to pass the exam. Only 34% of our best students who take the AP exam get the 3, 4, 5 needed. 2 out of every 3 do not. The national average is 59% and we score below most other local school districts. We used to score above 75%. This drop from 75%+ to 34% is a huge red flag. This specific issue has nothing to do with poverty, ESL, mobility or the other excuses our current administration rolls out. These students are our best of the best and we are failing them.

In my opinion, we need to stop claiming that everything is fine. We need a full effort starting today to fix our schools so that we are providing our students with the education they deserve and our taxpayers the value they deserve for their tax dollars. Lakewood and our schools have a lot going for them and there are many great projects and teachers in our schools. However, if our community continues to ignore the facts, our schools and our children will suffer.

Woody Calleri

Woody,
Do you think that a small portion of this could be due to poor attendance? I am out in Lakewood just about every day and notice a lot of students on the streets when they should be in school. Is there a way to track this? What are the duties of the truant officer and do they work full time? Thanks.

by Woody Calleri » Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:55 am

Three months ago we held an election for school board. During the campaign the incumbents told us that:

1. New school construction was on time and on budget,
2. Employee relationships between our teachers and administration were great,
3. School finances were okay and,
4. Our schools were doing fine and our students were getting the education they need.

Woody-

I do not have time to elaborate on each of your points and others have done so effectively BUT I do want to say that I was at the League of Women Voters' Debate. You were very clear on the problems while most of the other candidates (incumbents) were not honest about the finances of the construction and the schools. I felt at that time that you were needed to shake things up and I am sorry that you were not elected (and Kristine Pagsuyoin as well). The relationships and school ratings issues are so much more nuanced but clearly need to be addressed.

Thank you for the information.

by Woody Calleri » Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:55 am

Three months ago we held an election for school board. During the campaign the incumbents told us that:

1. New school construction was on time and on budget,
2. Employee relationships between our teachers and administration were great,
3. School finances were okay and,
4. Our schools were doing fine and our students were getting the education they need.

Woody-

I do not have time to elaborate on each of your points and others have done so effectively BUT I do want to say that I was at the League of Women Voters' Debate. You were very clear on the problems while most of the other candidates (incumbents) were not honest about the finances of the construction and the schools. I felt at that time that you were needed to shake things up and I am sorry that you were not elected (and Kristine Pagsuyoin as well). The relationships and school ratings issues are so much more nuanced but clearly also need to be addressed.

Thank you for the information.

Just an opinionated general observation here:

Every now and again, for a variety of reasons, school "reformers" and critics come along.

They have their own reasons for raising their points, ranging from political, to philosophical, to personal. Sometimes what they bring to the table makes sense, and sometimes not.

Certainly, different school policies will not garner the agreements of everyone. Adding to that, there are oftentimes reasons why schools need to do what they do. School boards are, at times, very limited with the alternatives that are put in front of them.

Being involved with the public schools for most of my life, both as a student and a professional, I stand by all of my remarks concerning Lakewood's schools, including my point that the schools are, for the most part, prudent stewards of your tax dollars.

I truly believe that the proper forum for remarks or questions relating to our schools would be to bring them before the school board during the question and answer period.

Back to the banjo...