Wow, look at those diamonds sparkle.

I thought it might be interesting, and I’m sure quite refreshing for some of our readers, for us to talk about some reasons to vote “yes” on Tuesday. We have already established the following in previous posts:

1. The high school is not falling apart.
2. There is no evidence buildings improve student outcomes.
3. The current facility has deficiencies, but they don’t necessitate complete demolition and reconstruction.
4. There is a case to be made for economic development, but any positive effects will be much diminished by the necessary tax increase.

So why would you vote “yes” on Tuesday? To put it simply, because we like new, shiny, big things.  My choice of language here is a little provocative, but I don’t mean it to be derogatory.  All of us make investment/consumption decisions on a daily basis which are based, almost entirely, on our preference for nice things. We like our houses to be comfortable and to look nice, reflecting both our wealth and commitment to upkeep.  We like having the latest and greatest gadgets like the iPhone (I love mine) or a big flat panel TV.  We attend football games in Razorback Stadium with 75 to 80 thousand others, and we all look at the ginormous jumbotron for the replay. We like adorning ourselves and our children in fashionable – good looking clothing. None of these things are a matter of necessity, but we chose to invest in them because they are important to us, and because we have the ability to do so.

In contrast, the current Fayetteville High School campus is ugly. The walls are not falling down, but they are not attractive either. Most of the common spaces are not large enough to be useful, and when they are used…well, crowded may not fully capture the scene. The campus is a mishmash of architectural styles resulting from several renovations. It, in many ways, does not fit our community’s image, or at least the image we would like to portray.

Let’s be honest, we don’t have to spend $115.825 million to fix the current campus’ deficiencies. The proposed high school goes far beyond adequacy and approaches the realm of extravagance. If the voters approve the millage, we will have the nicest and most expensive school in the state.  It will be a monument both to our wealth and the value we place on education.  It will be a source of pride. And there is something to be said for going big and engaging in activities which celebrate the best attributes of our society. But do not be mistaken, a new building will not lead (directly) to better educational outcomes and it will not be the economic development silver bullet.  No matter how much technology we stuff inside the walls, the building will still not be able to teach our kids. The quality of our teachers and principals will still be the biggest deciding factor in our childrens’ education. We must guard against stretching our resources (financially and politically) to the point that we no longer adequately invest in the things that really matter.

Yesterday the Fayetteville School District announced on their blog that they could be in line to receive $54 million in stimulus credits (read Qualified School Construction Bonds) to help finance the building of a new high school.  Is this program to issue federally subsidized bonds new?  No, the district has known about the program since at least June.  In fact, they have publicly listed the program as a reason to vote for the millage for quite some time.  So what is so breaking about this news?  It must be that the district got some sort of insider information from the state regarding the proportion ($54 of $113 million or 47%) of these bonds they would receive this year.  It is unclear from the District’s post how certain the allocation is or if it is even certain we will receive anything at all.  I hope the district provides the voters with a little more info before Tuesday’s election.

Here is my understanding of how the bonds work. The state would issue the bonds.  The bond holder would receive a federal income tax credit.  The interest rate the taxpayers would be need to pay to attract investors would be partially offset by the federal tax credit.  The U.S. Treasury Department establishes state allocation limits, maximum maturity, and sets a tax-credit rate for the bond program that, on average, equals the amount of interest taxpayers would ordinarily pay on debt.  In summary, issuing this type of bond would reduce the interest rate on our debt.  A reduced interest rate results in a quicker payback period. Which, in turn, means the millage could be rolled back a few years earlier.  The citizens of Fayetteville would still need to pass the 4.9 mill increase, providing the district with $115.825 million to construct a new high school.  The amount of the debt principal would remain unchanged.

Here at Mid-Riffs we have not taken a firm “yes” or “no” position on the millage as of yet.  We recognize that the current facility has some very real deficiencies that need to addressed.  We are just uncomfortable with the enormous size and scope of the proposal that is currently on the table and the resulting tax implications.  The case for the millage has been filled with inaccuracy, competing claims, and borderline dishonesty (admittedly this has been a problem on both sides).  In my Castles Made of Sand post I pointed out how flimsy most of the arguments for the millage really are.  I do believe there are perfectly valid reason to vote for the millage (I plan to post about this later). I also believe there are people who have decided to vote “yes”, who have been thoughtful and honest in their reasoning.  I am just not there.  I worry about passing  a significant tax increase in the midst of a historic economic downturn, and what that could mean for residents and businesses alike.  In a few years my daughter will be attending class in what is, by all accounts, a good school district, and I would like for her to have the best learning environment possible.  However, I think it may be brash to put undue financial pressure on those who live and work in Fayetteville when we could easily break this project (or one that is more modest) into pieces to be completed in phases.  A phased approach would also provide the added benefit of increased accountability as we move through the project.  A friend of mine posted a message as his facebook status that captures my feelings on the millage pretty well:

“A good scenario for all would be for the millage to be voted down, forcing the decision makers into a more realistic, analytical approach to financing and building a new high school. The millage is really the result of trying to satisfy everyone in a community committee of about 200 people. Not the best approach for good decision making.” — A Wise Friend

The Fayetteville School District announced today that..well, it’s not exactly clear. A cryptic post on the District’s blog says the following:

The Fayetteville School District learned today that the Arkansas Department of Education plans to release $113,443,000 in stimulus credits on September 21. Applying the rules of the program and understanding that a limited number of school districts applied for credits by the 2009 deadline, the new Fayetteville High School project could receive approximately $54 million of these credits for use in financing the project.

This will significantly lower the district’s interest rate on the bonds and reduce the date the bonds will be paid off by perhaps as much as six years.

The Stimulus credits could equal an interest savings of approximately $63,000,000, depending upon market conditions at the time the bonds are being offered. According to Dr. Lisa Morstad, chief financial officer of the district, “Due to the Stimulus Act, this is a very unique opportunity in which the district will be able to finance the new high school under extremely favorable terms. We are uniquely positioned in 2009 to take advantage of these credits, since the 2010 credits cycle will likely have many more participants, making the allocations much smaller. We’re grateful to Dennis Hunt and the staff at Stephens, Inc., for informing us of this opportunity and helping us through the process.”

Use of the credits for the new high school is contingent on the passage of the proposed millage increase on September 15.

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It’s not exactly clear what this means for the district, and they should work to clarify the meaning of the announcement as soon as possible.

1) First of all, uhh, what does it mean to receive a “stimulus credit”? In layman’s terms, how does the credit work? Does the state subsidize the interest on the bond?

2) What do they mean by “could”? Do they mean the district could be awarded the stimulus credit? Or do they mean the district will receive the credit and it could total $54 million?

3) How is it that the credits are contingent on the passage of the millage?

4) How do the credits translate into savings for the community? Will the credit simply increase the total amount the district has to spend,  or will the effect be a net reduction in the amount citizens are being asked to fork over on Tuesday?

Hopefully the district will soon be offering a clearer explanation.

In a famous article in the 1982 Atlantic Monthly, James Q. Wilson and George Kelling argued that a good way to prevent serious crime would be for police to intervene as to seemingly low-level crimes or misdemeanors:

[D]isorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.
* * *

We suggest that “untended” behavior also leads to the breakdown of community controls. A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other’s children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move; they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates. People start drinking in front of the grocery; in time, an inebriate slumps to the sidewalk and is allowed to sleep it off. Pedestrians are approached by panhandlers.

At this point it is not inevitable that serious crime will flourish or violent attacks on strangers will occur. But many residents will think that crime, especially violent crime, is on the rise, and they will modify their behavior accordingly. . . . Such an area is vulnerable to criminal invasion. Though it is not inevitable, it is more likely that here, rather than in places where people are confident they can regulate public behavior by informal controls, drugs will change hands, prostitutes will solicit, and cars will be stripped. That the drunks will be robbed by boys who do it as a lark, and the prostitutes’ customers will be robbed by men who do it purposefully and perhaps violently. That muggings will occur.

Via the New York Times’ Idea Blog, Folwell Dunbar (Louisiana’s academic adviser for charter schools) describes his very similar rules of thumb for guessing whether a school is any good.  The title: “You don’t always need a standardized test to know a school is in trouble. Just look in the boys’ john.”  In other words, just as broken windows are a sign of a bad neighborhood, a school bathroom with graffiti, trash, and unflushed toilets is a good sign that the academic achievement level isn’t too hot.  That is, the fact that school administrators are incapable of monitoring bad behavior is a sign that students are probably being hampered from learning.

To be sure, Dunbar’s theory doesn’t rest solely on bathrooms. He lists many other conditions that, in his experience, indicate a poorly run school, such as:

• Administrators are unwilling to let credentialed visitors roam. Instead, they insist on “giving a tour” of the usual, safe suspects.
• Teachers read newspapers and take cell phone calls during professional development events.
• Teachers play solitaire on their computers during planning periods (or class). Or: the Web sites most visited by teachers include eBay, ESPN and Monster.com.
• Teachers and staff talk more about their latest degree or certification program than what they are doing with the kids.

The whole thing is worth reading.

The Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas is reporting that Governor Beebe has named Dr. Tom Kimbrell the next Commissioner of Education for the State of Arkansas.  Kimbrell has been the executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators since 2005.

I heard the roof was caving in at Fayetteville High.  I can’t believe we allow our children to attend class in such a dangerous building.

The myth that the Fayetteville High School campus is “unsafe” or  “falling apart” seems to have a life of its own.  I attempted to debunk this claim in my Castles Made of Sand post, but it would seem I was unsuccessful. Over the past couple of days, I’ve encountered some version of this myth as a facebook comment, in actual conversation, and in anecdotes from others.  I reassert that the building, while it does need some repairs, is structurally sound. Take a look at this report from the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) – click here to view report.  The state estimates the facility condition cost (money the district would need to spend to maintain a safe learning environment) for Fayetteville High School (the entire campus) to be $2.9 million (2006 cost) and the 3 year cost from 2009-2011 to be $5.9 million – hardly full replacement cost. The state also ranks schools based on their facility needs.  A ranking of 1 represents the most facility needs and 1129 represents the least facility needs.  Fayetteville High School ranks 988.  I didn’t get to blow anything up, but consider this myth BUSTED.

For more info check out the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation web site.  They have a handy tool that allows users to look at facility reports for all of the districts in Arkansas.

Update: Facility Condition Cost clarification made

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“If you’re not ‎with me, you’re my enemy.”

– Anakin ‎Skywalker (Darth Vader) to Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars ‎Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

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At one time or another, most of us have confronted the false dilemma: “You’re either for us, or agin’ us.”  I remember vividly a time in the spring of 2003, after our troops had entered Iraq, when I considered putting a “Peace Post” in my Fayetteville front yard.  In my musings about whether or not to place the Peace Post, I recall thinking — do I really want to engage in such a political and controversial act?

In retrospect, of course,  you might ask why a small, simple, red-white-blue, wooden post with the word Peace painted on it would be controversial.  In most circumstances, it wouldn’t.  But in 2003, the “for us, or agin’ us” mood seemed to scream to US citizens: “If you are not in support of invading Iraq, you must hate our troops, freedom, and even apple pie!”

This may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one.  Indeed, those with the temerity to question the justification for or the wisdom behind the Iraq war were unfairly cast as un-patriotic.  Fast forward to 2009 … more local, right here in Funky Fayetteville, AR, USA.  Our citizens are engaged in animated debate about the proposed new high school.  While the scene is smaller and the topic is more friendly, the climate of the debate seems eerily familiar — “You’re either for us, or agin’ us.”

That is, “if you are not in support of building the new, improved, and expensive high school, you must hate education, progress, teachers, kids, and even apple pie!”  Just read the rhetoric and take a look at the signs in the yards — supporting this millage is a Vote for our Kids.  Indeed, in one of the editorials highlighted on the “A+ Stronger Fayetteville” website, Grady Jim Robinson argued, in so many words, that we are wealthy folks who are morally obligated to use this wealth to support this particular proposal.  He concluded:  “So, if you still don’t want to vote for the millage for a new high school and a new generation, then why don’t you just go out to the mall and buy yourself another pair of shoes or some fancy sunglasses.”  Is he arguing that those who disagree with his view are doing so simply because they want to keep a few bucks in their pockets to purchase unnecessary junk from the mall?  Really?

Such attempts to shame the other side may be viewed as a good strategy to persuade voters, but they do not promote healthy discourse.  As the September 15 vote draws near, let’s all take a deep breath and give the proposal serious consideration.  There are reasonable and thoughtful arguments to be made on both sides.  The issue is complicated.  It is not obvious if we should build a fantastic (and expensive) new school for all of our District’s students in grades 9-12 … or … if we should renovate one and build a second high school and become a 2-high-school district (as have our neighbors to the North).

In a school district that has recently gone to great lengths to promote (and presumably encourage) so-called 21st Century skills such as critical thinking and thoughtful debate, we should nurture open discussion of ideas and consideration of all alternatives.  We should not attempt to demonize or marginalize counter-arguments.  This is not good 21st Century thinking, or good thinking in any century for that matter.  Most importantly, it is definitely NOT good for our kids.

“Is anyone buying this?”

“Logistics” was a popular word among area school officials over the last few days.  Confronted with the benign (yet somehow controversial) opportunity to have a sitting United States President deliver a message that stressed hard work and personal responsibility directly to the nation’s schoolchildren, many school districts opted to punt.   Rather than take a stance one way or another, they took cover and cited “logistics.”  For example, the Bentonville, Arkansas  School District released the following statement:

“The decision to provide the recorded message and make it available on the website is being made for a number of reasons:
logistics – perhaps as many as 3,000 students will be eating lunch at that time; two schools are not in session on September 8^th; most students and teachers have already planned for instruction on that day; and several of our schools are not equipped with appropriate technology to show the speech in the right setting..”

Sounds plausible, until one considers that it’s simply illogical to insist that every student must be deprived of an experience simply because the experience can’t be shared by all.

In a similar move, after informing parents that the speech would not be a part of their students’  school day, the Fayetteville, Arkansas school district released a statement on Friday, saying that:

“The decision to provide the recorded message and make it available on the website is for logistics and convenience purposes.  Many students will be at lunch, P.E., music, engaged in pre-planned instruction, labs or other activities during the original broadcast.”

Alan Wilbourn, responding to questions over Friday’s announcement stuck to the talking-points, echoing that “In the elementary school, it’s primarily logistics.”  To be fair, Wilbourn later insisted that the district’s intent was not to prohibit student viewing, but that there would be no coordinated effort.

Of course we all know that logistics wasn’t the real issue.  Faced with tough choices,  most school officials would rather avoid controversy all together than to take a stand that is sure to please some and infuriate others.  In Fayetteville, with a ginormous millage election now less than a week away, avoiding controversy was especially important.

That strategy seems to have backfired.  As it turns out,  plenty of people in Fayetteville didn’t buy the “logistics” argument.  After what the Northwest Arkansas Times referred to as “a flurry of criticism by e-mail, telephone, and the Internet,” Superintendent Vicki Thomas held a Labor Day press conference to clarify completely revise the district’s plan.  Under the new plan, viewing of the speech was being “strongly encouraged” with the hope that  every student be given the opportunity unless parents requested that their children be kept from participating.

To their credit, district leaders responded to the public pressure quickly and reports  estimate that nearly 90% of the district’s children saw the speech.  And, in the end, they chose the best path.  They let parents decide what was best for their own children.  At the press conference, however, Thomas was asked the inevitable question that was on everyone’s mind: Will this controversy affect the millage vote?

It’s probably safe to say that those who had planned on voting in favor of the millage were many of the same people that were offended by the district’s poor handling of the Obama speech controversy.   While voters may cut the district some slack for eventually getting it right, the entire fiasco was a public relations nightmare.  At the very least, school officials came across on the various news reports looking a lot less like concerned members of the community and a lot more like, well,  politicians.  And, let’s face it, people have a hard time trusting politicians.  As we  have all recently learned, even benign messages  like “stay in school”— when uttered by a politician—can spark controversy.  If support for the millage vote next Tuesday comes up short, some of the loss may be attributable to the hit the district took in terms of credibility over the last few days.

In the end, Obama’s speech wasn’t controversial at all, and reasonable people appreciated the message he gave to students.  Maybe everyone should lighten up when it comes to Presidents spending some time with America’s children.

Thanks to the Fayetteville Flyer for the excellent video.

For all of the controversy over Obama’s speech to schoolchildren, the actual speech turned out to have some valuable advice. The following sounds like something that I’ve said many times, almost verbatim:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

Education reformers usually focus on all of the supply-side questions: how to spend money on schools, how to get good principals and teachers, how to inject competition and choice, what are the right standards and curricula, what are the right pedagogical techniques, what are the best accountability systems and merit pay, etc.

But all of that leaves out the demand-side: the students’ willingness (or not) to learn. We can deliver the perfect curriculum via perfect teachers led by perfect principals in perfect schools operating under perfect accountability standards and choice, but if the students have the attitude that “I refuse to learn, because it’s not cool, or it’s acting white,” they won’t learn very much. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

In fact, I might classify the cultural factors — whatever affects a student’s willingness to learn — as more important than anything we do with the schools themselves.  A motivated child can learn a lot on his or her own (say, by checking out books from the library) even if the school system is poorly run from top to bottom.

On the other hand, consider this alternative speech that Obama could have delivered.

Administrators decide the new high school will be constructed from sand. One school board member is quoted as saying, “Sand provides maximum flexibility. The students can create a new learning environment each day. And it’s green!”

The date of the much ballyhooed millage election is swiftly approaching. Next Tuesday, Sep. 15th, the citizens of Fayetteville will decide whether or not to provide the school district with a $115.825 million line of credit. The district plans to use this tidy sum to replace the current high school with a brand new “21st Century” campus. And why, one might ask, is it necessary to replace the current facilities?  I can think of four reasons new construction might be necessary:

1. The buildings are falling apart
2. New facilities will improve student outcomes (i.e. the current facility is inadequate for 21st century learning)
3. The current facility is too small
4. New facilities will expand the tax base and enrich our community

First, I would like to dispense with the notion that the current facilities are dilapidated and deteriorating to the point that learning is inhibited.  Back around the time when the district was looking to sell the high school campus to the U of A, an assessment of the current structures was conducted.  The resulting report stated plainly that the buildings were in excellent condition.  In fact, the U of A facilities department estimated they would only need to spend $11 million to make the campus usable at the university level.  The propaganda supporting the millage often highlights the age of the main building. Take this quote from the A Stronger Fayetteville website, “The current Fayetteville High School was built during the Korean War…”  Let’s be clear, while the high school is half a century old, the current facilities have gone through several renovations in those years (the latest was finished in 1993), and they are in good shape.  There is a big difference between adequacy and wanting all the bells and whistles.  If the voters decide that they would like to pay for all the bells and whistles, that’s fine; but it is dishonest to insinuate that the building is falling apart to get what you want.

Second, is it true that new buildings facilitate better teaching, collaboration, and general 21st century-ness such that student outcomes improve? It could be the case that rearranging the learning space really will pay dividends, but we do not have to blindly trust that it will.  We can look at evidence from around the United States on the link between facilities and student achievement.  In the Handbook of the Economics of Education, Eric Hanushek provides a review of the research on school resources.  Professor Hanusheck identifies 91 studies which look specifically at the link between facilities and student achievement in the U.S. (see table on pg. 889).  He reports that 86 of them find no statistically significant relationship.  And in the remaining 14% of analyses, there was hardly a consensus: 9% were positive and 5% were negative.  The punchline is that most of the high quality research studies which have explored this issue have found no relationship between school facilities and student performance.  This is in no way a surprising result.  Buildings don’t teach kids, people do.

A third reason a district may need to construct new buildings is if the current facilities are simply too small.   The district brought this issue to a head by successfully lobbying the school board to add the 9th grade to the high school campus. This will increase the student population from about 1,800 to somewhere between 2,400-2,500 students.  The high school’s student common areas and entertainment/extra curricular facilities have been undersized for some time, and it is time we did something about it.  But building a top-notch performing arts center and student common areas does not necessitate demolishing all of the current structures and starting anew.  Space concerns could be alleviated through a more modest construction plan which makes use of the investments the citizens of Fayetteville have made over the past 50 years.  As a side note, it seems to me that trashing perfectly good buildings is about the least green thing we could do as a city.

The last argument that can be made in favor building new high school facilities is one based in economics.  The argument goes something like this – If we build a new high school with all of the newest amenities, more people of means and businesses will be attracted to settle in our fair city.  The resulting influx of businesses and people will expand the tax base and act as an economic engine for the city.  This was the case that was made last week at the economic impact panel discussion. The only problem with this argument is that it leaves out one crucial detail: Tax rates will have to increase to pay for the new high school. And an increase in the tax rate will discourage both people and businesses from locating in Fayetteville.  For the economic engine argument to hold true the positive effect of the new high school would have to outweigh the negative effect of the increase in the tax rate. A look at the whole picture reveals that Fayetteville already has relatively high tax rates when compared to other cities in the area (take a look at millage rates, assessed real estate values, and estimated tax to confirm this for yourself) and the high school is consistently ranked as one of the best in the nation.  These two facts lead me to believe that any gains made by improving an already very good school will be severely diminished by an increase in the tax rate.

I am by no means against spending money on facilities.  I just want us to be thoughtful and honest about our reasons for investing in brick and mortar when it is clearly secondary to what goes on in the classroom.

Update:  Also check out our interesting followups – Oh my…the sky is falling! and Why vote “yes”?…Because we want to have the best!