Everyone is Entitled to Their Own Opinion, But Not to Their Own Facts

The February 10th public meeting held by the School District at the High School Auditorium was the first opportunity for the public to hear about and provide feedback about the proposed elementary school realignment. But what people heard limited what they could say in response. Rather than dealing in facts and figures, the meeting’s currency was largely feelings and frustrations.

Superintendent Young began the meeting by indicating that, although he favors the proposal and has unanimous support amongst the administrators for the change, it is not a ‘done deal.’ Assistant Superintendent Darnall then delivered the same presentation the Board of Education had received the evening before at its open business meeting.

The report showed higher test scores at North Street Elementary and a lower incidence of poverty at West Street Schools. In many regards, the report was encouraging. If the premise was that high poverty rates makes education more difficult (something that sound education research supports) then the results analysis from North Street School shows that they are doing something right! It turns out that one of the things that they ‘get right’ at North Street is smaller class sizes. One teacher from North Street noted that there is a great disparity between the small class sizes at North and the larger classes at West. Ironically, the same teacher came out as a strong supporter of the realignment.

But according to the District’s website, the realignment might save the District upwards of $1 million. Superintendent Young admitted that the bulk of that savings was due to the initial proposal to cut one teacher and the corresponding aide/assistant positions at each grade level. The net result would be larger class sizes. However, Young said that the research provided by Dr. Charles Achilles (whom we referenced in a previous post on this topic) had convinced the Superintendent that larger class sizes would hurt student performance. Therefore Young said, the cost savings would not be of the magnitude initially projected.

If the average class size would actually decrease under the proposal, then that would be a compelling fact-based reason to support the change. Augustine, who was present at the meeting, asked the Superintendent to provide a comparative analysis of class size as it currently exists and as it would be under the proposal, and Young said that he would do so. But this is where discussion of research and facts ended.

Several supporters of the change offered anecdotal evidence of positive outcomes of realignment. According to the West Street principal, she could offer “85 reasons why this is a great idea.” She offered just a few, but none were based on educational research. Instead, there was much discussion about the way people ‘feel’ about the schools and how feelings might improve under the realignment.

But School Board Member Ford Weiskittel offered a suggestion about ‘feelings’ that actually has some sound research to back it up. Weiskittel asked if students would feel ‘more anonymous’ if they become one of 150 students in a grade, as opposed to being one in 75 according to the current arrangement? As it currently exists, a student moves through grades K-5 with the same smaller peer group which means more meaningful interactions with peers and more continuity with faculty and staff. The answer to his question was “We don’t think so.”

It may be the case that this realignment idea is a great panacea of achievement and school spirit for Geneva’s children. But, try as we might, we just can’t find any research to support that point of view. In fact, all the research we show indicates the contrary. Class size is an important factor, but also transitions and peer education. A very recent study from Prospect Heights, Illinois, outlines the potential pitfalls of a move from multiple K-5 or K-6 school buildings to consolidated ‘early learning’ (K-2) and ‘intermediate’ (2-5 or 2-6) buildings.

The study, that you can read for yourself here seems to mirror the discussion held at the February 10th public meeting. It says:

The belief of many policymakers and educators that grade configuration simply didn’t
matter educationally was unchallenged until recent research. Support or criticism of a particular school configuration or size was based on purely anecdotal experiences. Today, however, a substantial body of new research demonstrates that decreasing grade spans, thereby increasing the number of students per grade, and multiplying students’ transitions from school to school negatively impacts student achievement.

The study goes on to identify both quantitative and qualitative indicators of student achievement and provide comparative analysis to establish informative trends. We noted in a previous post that of the Federally recognized “Blue Ribbon Schools” in New York State, we found a preponderance of K-5 or K-6 models, rather than the proposed reconfiguration.

And since we don’t exist in a total educational vacuum, it’s also worth noting that a 2004 study in Canada, using data obtained in the United States, did not return conclusive results as to educational improvements attributable to the proposed grade reconfiguration. According to that study (which you can read here) ,

“Administrative purposes are often part of the reason for trying different models. These purposes may include:
-cost effectiveness
-transportation efficiency
-building usage
-personnel deployment”

However, it would likely be argued that the main purpose of a school is to educate students and the primary means of measuring success in that regard is graduation rate. We know that Geneva continues to work to improve graduation rates and minimize drop outs, so the following information from the same study seems useful to the discussion:

“The issue of drop out rates is frequently raised in discussions relating to grade span
configurations (Alspaugh 1999, Howley 2002, Renchler 2002, Rourke 2001). A key issue
identified in these discussions appears to be the number of transitions students make between schools in their careers. Generally speaking, the fewer transitions there are the better chance a student has of completing high school (Alspaugh 1998). Thus, as Howley (2002) reports, the K-12 schools compare quite favourably in the drop out rate to other schools.”

Going back to the issue raised by Weiskittel, about the feeling of anonymity when more students of the same age are brought together in one school and its possible consequences, an oft-cited study on this issue (which you can read here) states the following:

“every transition from one narrowly configured school to another seems to
disrupt the social structure in which learning takes place, lowering achievement
and participation for many students. Predictably, this damage will be most severe
in the cases of students from impoverished backgrounds. Short of providing an
adequate living for poor families, we can at least restructure our educational
system to mitigate the detrimental effects of poverty.”

If we take Assistant Superintendent Darnall’s data on student poverty seriously, we can reasonably conclude that the negative effects of reconfiguration, namely less cohesion within grades and more transitions between schools, will be borne most heavily by the very students who are being served very well by the existing system.

Far be it from us to commit the same errors that our President has chastised Congressional opponents for-- that is to criticize a plan without offering solutions to the problem at hand. According to the public presentation, the School Administration has identified two problems: First, an achievement gap between North and West Street whereby the former (North) is outpacing the latter (West); and second, systemic financial issues.

So, in a forthcoming post, we will take these issues seriously and consider: can West Street School do more to improve its educational offerings? Can other cost saving measures be found within the School District budget without serious negative impacts to education?

As we’ve said before, this community is demonstrating a rising level of civic engagement and a high degree of public intelligence. If the ‘powers that be’ can harness these resources in a meaningful way, we believe there are positive solutions to be found that will move this community forward. But we need to keep putting a premium on facts over opinion.