What do we get for our money?

            At our October 3^rd Board Meeting, Jim Shrawder rose to speak once again about our High School’s poor PSSA performance, and continued to link this performance to the high cost per student in our district.  I concede the accuracy of both his points, but I have a hard time following his cause-and-effect logic.

First, I agree that there is a problem at the Senior High.  In fact, I decided to run for a spot on the School Board six years ago because I could see the problem developing.  I fail to see the logic, however, in suggesting that low PSSA scores justify spending less on educating our children.  Common sense would seem to dictate that you would want to devote more resources to a troubled area, not less.  Of course, those resources need to be used wisely.  We should be having a discussion over how best to use them, not about whether they should be provided at all. 

            Perhaps it is an acceptable business practice to take resources away from a troubled facility, declare it bankrupt, and shut it down.  It may even be very profitable.  However, I would hope no one is seriously suggesting we employ this practice with our schools.  I guess we could shut down the high school and pay the surrounding districts to take in our students, but I would much prefer that we try to restore the excellence we once had.

            Second, we do have a high per pupil cost.  Remember that we are not discussing whether or not we can afford this expense – a discussion I would very much like to have.  Instead, it seems that Mr. Shrawder has looked at one piece of data, the eleventh grade PSSA scores, and concluded that we are wasting money on failing schools.  He does raise a fair question, however, what are we getting for our money?  Here is a partial list.

• Grades 1 through 8 have astonishing PSSA scores.  Discounting them would mean that the only purpose of the education received in early grades is preparation for later ones.  As a retired ninth grade teacher I would challenge that it is the only value. 
• The High School’s Advanced Placement program, which, for a small school, offers a large variety of such courses, has had remarkable success.  All our students do well, but I am most aware of the success of our Chemistry and Calculus programs, where we consistently have 90 – 100%  of our students scoring at the highest possible level. 
• We consistently send students to the national level of the History Day competition, to say nothing of the success we have had at the local and state level. 
• Our Science Olympiad team has a long record of success.
• Let us not forget the success of our music program.  Not only do we have stunning performances by all the participants, we very often place our most talented students in the regional and state chorus and orchestra.
• Most importantly, on a test that, unlike the PSSA, has significance for the students themselves, our kids were second in Berks County on the SAT (College Board) exam.  (Reported in the Reading Eagle on October 12^th.)
• At the other end of the academic spectrum, we have a reputation throughout the area for our success educating students with special needs. 
• Our provision for the academic support of struggling students, and the opportunity presented by the Pyramid tutoring period are unique in this area. 

Admittedly, for the past few years, we may not have utilized academic support and Pyramid to their fullest potential.  We should be looking at ways to rejuvenate these programs.  In fact, a remediation plan was proposed by our Language Arts teachers a few years ago, but the cuts made in the High School staff have made this renewal impossible.

            Does anyone besides Mr. Shrawder seriously believe that we can eliminate almost thirteen teaching positions and still continue the successes listed above?  One of the major factors in that success was the time and attention our teachers had been able to devote to individual students.  Given the reduction in staff, there is too little time and too many students for even our most dedicated teachers to continue providing the same level of individual attention.  We have brought our student-teacher ratio, and our cost per student, closer to the state average.  I hope no one will be surprised if much of our students‘ performance follows our 11^th grade PSSA scores, and becomes merely average as well.