Finally. At Monday’s BOE Committee of the Whole meeting, Board Member Larry O’Connell stated for the record that “Proficiency” on the HSPA exam was a low bar. He made the comment when asking about the high school’s educational goals. Ms. Ruscavage, the newly appointed principal for the Matawan Regional High School, stated that, for the short term, she’s focused on ensuring that the 30% of seniors who failed the HSPA exams last year are on course to graduate. As for long term goals, she doesn’t have any.
An earlier comment to the blog suggested that school officials and parents may be setting their expectation levels according to their personal classroom experience. If so, that would go a long way towards explaining the chasm between my expectations and the school district’s objectives.
I attended a private Hebrew day school. Most of my teachers were not certified; they were primarily Rabbis and local parents. Nor were they well paid, earning about twenty percent less than public school teachers, not to mention a lack of benefits. As for socio-economic diversity, everybody was white and Jewish with household earnings ranging from low-middle income to fabulously wealthy. I only had one friend whose parents were divorced.
I’m consistently surprised by expectations that students from Matawan-Aberdeen will do worse than their counterparts from Holmdel. In my class, the brighter students usually came from the poorer families because they knew they’d have to work harder for success. Everyone was expected to go to college and did. Community colleges weren’t considered “real schools” so many of my friends went to Queens College to save money.
We didn’t have teenage pregnancies, hard core violence, or widespread drug abuse. We didn’t need an onsite police officer, drug counselor, or full-time psychologist; nor would the parents ever send their children to a school that did.
We were required to take the New York Regents exams but no one took them very seriously. The only time we ever discussed the regents exams was during the last week of class when students could ask questions from the Barron’s review books.
In fact, my school had a philosophy that our focus should always be on education. We never studied test-taking strategies or took practice exams except at home. The school allowed Kaplan to give SAT courses on premises but not Princeton Review because Kaplan taught substance and Princeton Review taught strategy.
Being a Jewish school, we were never proud of our athletics department. To be honest, we didn’t have much school pride. Our pride came from individual achievement.
Compared to my alma mater, the Matawan Regional High School resembles Club Med. We didn’t have artificial turf, just a paved-over yard. No air conditioning, showers, weight room, TV studio, lunch program, or music room. We were happy the toilets flushed.
I don’t know how we compared to the other schools. Like I said, it didn’t matter how other people did, only how you did. Each student was required to take 4 years of math, 3 years of science, and 2 years of a foreign language (not including Hebrew, which we began learning in kindergarten).
We did okay. I still remember my 8th grade math teacher, Mr. Samuels, who was crazy like a fox (and tragically died young). I never had a more demanding teacher. Half the 8th grade was in honors math and I still remember him reprimanding a classmate who had only gotten a 90 on her algebra regents exam, the lowest score in the grade. I had gotten a 96, one and a half points below the class average. 10% of my senior class later graduated from Ivy League universities.
Ms. Ruscavage and our school board see a socio-economically diverse student body. I see bright-eyed students with vast potential. They’ve set proficiency (50%) on a state exam as our district’s goal. I view scoring 50% on a state exam as a failure. At the prior school board meeting, Athletic Director Martucci commented that our athletic team’s failures were attributable to our students. I hold all wins and losses are attributable to the teams, both students and coaches.
Granted, I come from a very different community. My classroom experience is quite distinct from what we see in Matawan-Aberdeen. I view our students and schools very differently from the school board. My question isn’t whose view is closer to reality but which view is more beneficial to our students. Personally, I never want my children to have a teacher, coach, or administrator, who does not have high expectations. >>> Read more!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
A Different Perspective
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Tales of Avalon
Driving along the Garden State Parkway, you can appreciate the natural feel of the highway. Trees are planted along both sides of the highway with a wide meridian designed to mitigate the glare of oncoming traffic. Nearby development is mostly hidden from view by trees and grassy knolls. You can almost forget you’re driving in “The Soprano State” until there’s a sudden break in the scenery and you’re struck by the Avalon at Aberdeen Station apartment complex overlooking the parkway. How did that get there?
In July, 1998, longtime local, Joe Rettagliata, was in danger of losing a thirteen-acre parcel of land in a property tax foreclosure proceeding. (The actual size of the property is up for debate. Discounting the parcel later sold by the New Jersey Highway Authority, the CME tax maps list the property at 16 acres while the T&M survey only shows 13 acres. Go figure.) He had owned the land for fourteen years but was never able to develop the property despite its proximity to the train station and highway. Sadly, his was a familiar story. Three years later, the township seized several properties that had been “abandoned” by their owners, including the Ernest Zobel property that is now part of the transit village development project.
But Joe Rettagliata had a sudden change of heart and, with it, a change of fortune. The following year, he settled his tax lien. Four months later, Aberdeen Township declared the area part of a redevelopment zone. The following year, after nearly forfeiting the property over $8,500 in annual property taxes, Rettagliata sold the land for $4 million. Nobody has suggested that Rettagliata benefited from being the chairman of the Monmouth County Planning Board but it certainly didn’t hurt.
The Developer’s Agreement for the property (then known as Jefferson at Aberdeen) included three payments unique to the development (pages 9 and 11) – “$39,000 for the construction of the Henry Hudson Trail”, “$100,000 towards the traffic signalization of the intersection of Lower Main Street and Gerard Avenue”, and “$75,000 to the Township’s fire company which will service the development to enable the fire company to purchase appropriate equipment to better serve the safety needs of the development and the Township.”
The $39,000 for the Henry Hudson Trail and the $100,000 for the traffic signal are sitting quietly in the bank; the trail is entirely owned by the county and the township never contributed anything towards the traffic signal. As for the $75,000, it’s interesting that there’s no formal fire department review anywhere in the file pertaining to the development. Even more interesting is how the money was used to “better serve the safety needs of the development and the Township.” Nearly the entire wad was blown on two red Ford Expeditions.
Another interesting facet of the file is that it only records a single engineering fee. It seems inconceivable that during the entire development, CME only issued one letter pertaining to payments. More disturbing is the letter on file. When SC Aberdeen (one of the owners) sought to have a maintenance property bond released in 2006, CME demanded a “cash contribution of $39,750” (page 1). The following week, SC Aberdeen sent a check for $37,300 (page 2). What happened to other $2,450? Undoubtedly, this is a pittance compared to the scale of the project but it is also the only payment on file that involves CME Associates.
From the township’s perspective, the development made financial sense. The 290 1-2 bedroom luxury apartments attract empty nesters and generate about $950,000 in annual tax revenue. On the downside are the COAH obligations – 38 affordable housing units, about half of which would go to the elderly. Of the remaining 19 units (including regional contribution agreements if they’re still permitted), plus the handful of kids from the apartment complex, we could expect about 25 children. At $16,000 a kid, it would cost $400,000 a year to educate them. That still leaves over half a million dollars in added tax revenue (not to mention the COAH units were never built).
On a final note, it was fun to review the Jefferson’s request to display a large rental sign overlooking the parkway. The parkway authority and township planner both objected to the sign, citing aesthetics, safety, and statute. The town planning board noted the objections but awarded the variance out of concern for the developer’s ability to rent apartments. Good to know the planning board knows who butters their bagel. >>> Read more!
Friday, August 8, 2008
Elephant in the Classroom
Quick – Name a dynamic industry that is union dominated. Can’t think of one? How about a highly regarded monopoly? No? Does anybody think it’s a coincidence that the most successful and enterprising companies in America have little to no labor union presence? Or that our ailing industries (i.e. manufacturing, steel, and transportation) are union dominated? In fact, the only industries that have thriving unions are the ones immune to competition – government licensed monopolies. It’s time to acknowledge the elephant in the classroom. We will never achieve a stellar educational system so long as we’re crippled by unions and monopolies.
I cannot understand how teachers, dedicated to their students’ welfare, would support a union that regularly puts children in harm’s way. Our teachers love our children. How can they force our kids into a classroom with a teacher who will rob our children of their opportunities to learn? Teachers are quick to respond that bad teachers often simply need more training but what of our children in the meantime? Are they to be sacrificed for the “greater good” while a failing teacher receives remedial training?
The two most promising industries, technology and finance, are also the two fields our children are least prepared to enter. We have no ability to compete for the best teachers because the best and worst are all paid the same. Nor can we make space for great teachers because the terrible ones have tenure. Our school district will always be handicapped so long as we’re beholden to labor unions.
Our only hope for salvation is a charter school that needs to compete for students. No public school in New Jersey has ever become a charter school but it can be done. All we need is the political will and leadership to make it happen.
According to the Charter School Program Act of 1995 (N.J.S.A. 18A:36A-4), a currently existing public school is eligible to become a charter school if the following criteria are met:
In contrast to a secret ballot, petitions are a far simpler method to garner a majority. People can be approached individually, over time, and pressured to take a public position. Still, attracting a majority of teachers and parents would pose an immense hurdle.
The only way to get a majority of teachers to sign a petition is to throw buckets of money at them. At the very least, we would need to offer them a bonus equal to one-year’s salary and guarantee all existing benefits and job protections for three years. In exchange, the teachers would accept a non-unionized charter school. (Such an offer would also result in a high turnover rate among teachers near retirement since they could use the bonus to inflate their pensions.)
For the parents, we would need to conduct an ongoing informational campaign touting the benefits of a charter school that needs to compete for students.
At the same time, the teachers union, at the local, county, state, and national levels, will strongly oppose any measure that would diminish their power. No matter how hard we try or how much we invest, the teachers union will always be more organized and better funded.
Still, let’s say we successfully petition the teachers and parents, we would still need to submit an application to the State Superintendent who then passes the application to the Commissioner of Education for approval. We can only imagine the political array of characters doing their utmost to stop the first New Jersey school district that ever applied to become a charter school.
Another concern is that, even if successful, it could all be for naught. The national Democratic Party has been pushing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Under present law, a workplace can only be unionized following an election using secret ballot. The EFCA enables workers to unionize a workplace using the same petition process we’d be using to get a charter school. Barack Obama has endorsed the bill.
If the EFCA becomes law, the teachers union would be able to go into a charter school and strong-arm the teachers into forming a union, thereby defeating the whole purpose of creating a charter school. Even without the law, the Commissioner of Education has the right to withdraw or not renew a school’s charter.
Once we get our charter approved, we would then need to negotiate with neighboring school districts to give our children a choice of schools. Labor unions and bureaucracy are only part of the problem. The other part is a monopoly that’s not allowed to fail. Our district has to be forced to compete with other schools and the only way to create competition is to allow our children to choose among all the nearby schools.
Throw into the mix all the frivolous lawsuits we would be forced to defend, the concessions to gain teacher approval, the increased cost of busing, and we could be looking at 5 years and $30 million. Bonded over a twenty year period, we’d be looking at annual payments of $3 million or just under $300 per household. (Government funding would drop by 10% but that would likely be balanced by cost savings as charter schools have lower operating expenses per pupil.)
That’s a lot of time, money, and effort for something that Congress or a government bureaucrat could undo with the stroke of a pen. Is a charter school in a competitive environment worth it? I say yes.
That we need to debate whether bad teachers should be removed from the classroom or whether good teachers should be rewarded is sheer insanity. Despite the costs and all the attendant risks of creating a charter school, our community will never achieve academic excellence as long as our schools cater to the whims of labor unions. Our teachers are the first to argue that our children’s futures depend on a sound education. I agree. Let's start a petition and see what the community thinks. >>> Read more!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Budgeting CME Associates Style
Six weeks ago, we discussed how Aberdeen Township appeared hell-bent on spending as much as they could before the next election cycle (see “Aberdeen Township Goes for Broke”). Among the flurry of expenditures was $237,071.25 in no-bid contracts to the township engineer and the council's largest patron, CME Associates. Our town council has chosen to begin August by rewarding CME Associates with another $625,006 in no-bid contracts. Everybody knows these no-bid contracts enable monstrous overcharges. The only question is “How much?”
For one example, let’s review the Aberdeen (Strathmore) Pump Station. On April 14, 2004, CME submitted two proposals for rehabilitating the pump station at a total cost of $249,500. Eight months later, “[b]ased on the latest data, and based on anticipated material cost increases (i.e. steel and concrete)”, CME raised the combined cost to $320,000. During those eight months, the prices of steel and concrete increased about 15% and 8% respectively. Let’s assume that material costs accounted for 30% of the original estimate. A 15% price increase in materials would have been under $12,000. Yet, CME raised their prices by $70,500.
But the story doesn’t end there. In the revised proposals, CME listed their combined engineering fees as $30,000. Nearly two years later, they raised their fees by 125% to $67,750. To justify the exorbitant increase, the cited the following:
Never mind the proposals were always separated into two bids, that relocating the pole was part of the original project, or that the extra billings were bogus any way you looked at it, Aberdeen Township approved the additional charges.
Another example is the grant application for Fireman’s Field (Oakshades Park). Grant applications nearly always exaggerate the costs to cover any possible exigencies but look at CME’s forecasts. Lighting - $241,500 ($210,000 plus 15% contingency costs) and $78,681.33 for engineering and administrative costs (read “CME fees”). The actual cost for the lighting was nearly half that amount at $127,429 and the engineering component for the lighting was zero. CME Associates did not get one penny towards the field lighting despite their budget claims.
(So far, by my count, CME Associates lost over $150,000 during Stuart Brown’s tenure once you count the lighting at Fireman’s Field, cost reductions for the tax map revision, and the Aberdeen Recreation Master Plan. Makes you wonder why Brown got fired.)
To be fair, CME Associates is generally considered a competent firm but, as recent blog comments have noted, the road work on Gerard Avenue has demonstrated an astounding level of negligence. We know from prior experience that CME has trouble conducting a land survey but how did they miss the giant parcel of county land adjacent to the field (Block 169 Lot 9)? The lot isn’t listed on Aberdeen’s tax rolls and has never belonged to Aberdeen Tonwship. Hence, the work stoppage on Gerard Avenue – the township never received permission to work on county land. The cruel irony is that, not only had CME already reviewed the tax map for the Fireman’s Field project, CME was the company responsible for updating the tax map prior to the property revaluations.
From January 1st, 2005 through March 25th, 2008, CME received $3,692,445.72 from the township. (The total vendor payment sheet is 105 pages so I only uploaded the first and last pages.) Between no-bid contracts, a cozy relationship with the town council, and massively inflated billings, CME Associates is quite fortunate to never have to compete for any township work. Pumping money into the Aberdeen Democratic Party’s coffers is sufficient qualification. >>> Read more!
Friday, August 1, 2008
What’s the Charge?
Based upon recent comments to this blog, there appears to be a swelling interest to have the County Prosecutor’s Office investigate Aberdeen Township. The frustration is certainly understandable. Even if an opposition party swept next year’s township elections, former Township Attorney Norman Kauff would still control the council majority, most likely through Councilman Drapkin. Absent the opportunity to change an arguably corrupt government through democratic means, some people would like to force change by indicting council members.
If crimes are being committed, the perpetrators should be charged regardless of the political impact. Though I have always maintained there is no evidence of criminal action, the truth is, technically, there are sufficient grounds to suggest that some people could be charged with U.S.C. § 1346, a "scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right to honest services." Yet, I maintain this statute is unconstitutionally vague and should never be used.
First, let’s be clear what the issues are –
Yes, it’s quite a list. Congress specifically enacted U.S.C. § 1346 in 1988 to allow prosecutors to use the Mail and Wire Fraud statutes against corrupt politicians. Prosecutors have used the statute against Jack Abramoff and his clients (2006), officers of the San Diego Pension Retirement System who inflated their benefits by underfunding the system (2002), and the City Treasurer of Philadelphia who conditioned city business upon political contributions (2005). (For a detailed review of U.S.C. § 1346, please read "Honest Services" Fraud – Strong Medicine for "Pay to Play".)
Given the strong likelihood that we’ve only revealed a fraction of the township’s underbelly, we have certainly been deprived of our “intangible right to honest services”. I, too, have heard the rumors of shakedowns, inside deals, violations of the sunshine law, and even an attempt to influence Matawan’s recent mayoral election.
Still, I fear prosecutors far more than corrupt officials. We’ve all witnessed the damage crusading prosecutors can do, from Arthur Andersen (a company destroyed despite having the conviction overturned) to Martha Stewart (convicted of hiding a crime she was never accused of committing) to the bullying tactics of Eliot Spitzer against Wall Street corporations and financiers. (Does anybody remember the guy who ran against Spitzer for New York Governor? He couldn’t raise campaign cash on Wall Street because potential contributors feared retaliation from Spitzer.)
Prosecutors have the power to destroy life and liberty. Do we really want them determining whether someone has been deprived of the “intangible right to honest services”? Does anybody even know what that means? Who's to judge whether a person has acted impartially or not? How can we redraw the line between legal and illegal on a case-by-case basis?
The United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 9) states “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed”. We have the constitutional right to know whether an action may be criminal before we act. How could any politician be secure from a vindictive or self-serving prosecutor when every budget, zoning, and contractual decision involves picking winners and losers?
I believe crimes have been committed. I believe honest people have witnessed these crimes but have been afraid to speak. Let’s be careful to investigate actual malfeasance and not use the power of the state to settle vendettas. I’m prepared to wait for change through the democratic process of elections. >>> Read more!