March 7, 2008Page 2
N
orth
D
eNver
N
ews
The Dry-Rot Economy
Funding at Brown an on-goingchallenge
“DPS has stated that they are goingto continue to fund the IB program atBrown,” says Tony Curcio, a parent atBrown. “We’re looking for a commitmentfor Brown, Lake (middle school) and afuture Northwest Denver Diploma (highschool) program.”The Brown funding issue points out justhow difficult funding reform is. Changeand programming require funding, dol-lars that are just not contemplated in DPS’standard budgeting system. Those dollarsalso raise questions of funding equity —schools in line for revitalization money(now called Beacon Schools) receive moremoney per student than other schools.Revitalization was supposed to be thefoundation for sustainable change, butthat has not been the reality.The lessons at Brown, one of DPS’sBeacon Schools, may be equally difficultto replicate. Involved parents and pre-pared students are critical ingredients toschool success. Parents most engaged aremost likely to choice into schools show-ing success — a causal conundrum thatadministrators and think tanks don’t wantto admit, at least in public discussion of school success.At Skinner, after a contentious com-munity process, the Integrated Arts modelwas adopted, and funded at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But achange of principal meant the model waspartially abandoned, leaving observersquestioning DPS’s commitment to com-munity input in school reform.At Skinner today, vestiges of revi-talization remain. The AVID program,which both helps to organize students,provides them with learning skills, andstructures the classroom environment,remains, trademark binders and all. AVIDis a fourth- through twelfth-grade sys-tem to prepare students in the academicmiddle for four-year college eligibility.And Integrated Arts lives on, in the formof professional development, and manySkinner teachers have been trained in aDenver University program that teachesthem to use the arts to enliven the class-room and leverage learning.Despite student achievement prob-lems and declining enrollment, the levelof instruction in two classrooms visited atSkinner is high. The school has three Teachfor America teachers this year, benefit-ing from the national program that seeksto put graduates from America’s eliteuniversities in urban classrooms. Thathas added to Skinner’s teaching corps,without a budget drain. But the beat goeson, as the declining enrollment means themiddle school will be cutting teachersagain next year.DPS has inaugurated a new budgetingapproach, which, within limits, puts stu-dents at the core of the funding process.But the dollars are still too fragmented,too restricted and ultimately, too few, tomake meaningful changes in program-ming sustainable, successful propositions.Programs, particularly computer-assistedlearning interventions, are too expensiveto be within the reach of many schools.Further complicating the picture is thehigh cost of personnel. DPS’ budgetingrequires that each teacher cost a schoolover $62,000- even though teachers withfull benefits often make much less. So aschool that is able to find $35,000 in its budget to pay for a reading specialist ora program coordinator is still unavailableto hire a full-time teacher for the role.Those limits constrain innovation and stu-dent achievement by placing bureaucraticrules ahead of student progress. The DPSBudget Guidance Manual for 2008 runs55 pages, complete with clip-art from1989. Almost every page contains restric-tions on how schools can spend dollars,and admonitions that deviations have to be approved at the highest level of DPSadministration. The result is a centralplanning document that may stifle findingnew solutions. The words “flexible” and“innovate” are not to be found even oncein the document.For taxpayers and parents, DPS’ mixedrecord of success suggests both the diffi-culties and the potential for transformingstruggling schools. But DPS still has yet tofully integrate the reality of school choiceinto an institutional perspective that givesstudents the best chance at success.
When youneed heartattack care,we don’t wastea minutegetting youthe very best.
For a free online strokeor heart risk assessment, visit centuraheart.org
The national goal for cardiacintervention (opening a blocked artery) is 90 minutes.At St. Anthony Central Hospital, we’re proud to beat that time by24minutes.
When you need cardiac care, you want the most compassionateand state-of-the-art care available. But the truth is, even the bestcare is less effective if it takes too long. Because for every minutelost, more damage can occur. That’s why at St. Anthony Central Hospital, we are proud to have one of the quickest interventiontimes in the nation—getting you the care you need more than20 minutes faster than a national average. That’s 24 minutesthat could change your life forever.
Another way Centura Health is caring for our community.
. ::
continued from page ONE
The financial contagion of the sub-prime mortgage crash continues towork its way through the nation’s eco-nomic foundations like dry rot.But to put the blame on mortgagelenders, banks and the like is to mis-take swelling for the fracture. The U.S.economy is out of sorts at a very fun-damental level — and the result isthat we see municipal bond (bondsissued by cities and schools) marketcollapse at both the level of the insurerand at the lending window itself. Theentire auction rate securities market, anobscure flavor of government bonds,including some issued by the DenverInternational Airport and the City of Aurora, has interred itself for a lack of buyers. Interest rates for cities and, byextension, their taxpayers, have sky-rocketed. The entire ARS market, aslarge as $342 billion, has literally evapo-rated. If you hold an ARS bond, youliterally can not sell it today. Yet themainstream media, and public-at-large,have heard little of this.This trapped capital is yet one signof how bad the American economy isright now. Those billions mean highercredit card rates, student loan pay-ments, future mortgages and car loans.What has traditionally been a very lowrisk market, municipal bonds, is nowa bad joke. And job creating projects -roads, schools, bridges, hospitals - arenow at risk.One of the core reasons for the creditcalamity traces itself back to the federal budget deficit and the twin hallmarksof the Bush era - tax cuts, followed bydeficit spending and the $3 trillion Iraqwar. This huge debt, financed largely by China in service of a massive tradesurplus with the U.S. - has knockedflexibility out the American economyThe basic equation: buy cheap prod-ucts at Wal-Mart from the Chinese. TheChinese, with their fixed-rate currencysystem (part of the reason their goodsare cheap) then turn around and investthose dollars in American debt. Becausethe Chinese can’t reinject the full valueof their profits into their economy with-out causing hyper-inflation, largely because their fixed-rate currency can’tadjust relative to the dollar, both nationsare trapped in this worsening spiral.This in turn weakens the dollar inter-nationally, which causes energy (andfood) prices to go up, out of propor-tion with fundamental costs. Americanwages stagnate. In January, Americanwages suffered a real dollar decline.Savings and investment go down, cre-ating a negative feedback loop whichtightens credit.The answer, which is uncertain at best, is that we must get debt, both per-sonal and federal, under control; reduceour spending on energy; and re-invigo-rate the core of the American economy by boosting productivity through inno-vation, and keeping jobs at home.
—The North Denver News
denvercommunitynewspapers.com denverplumber.northdenvernews.com peakoilinvesting.com
Leave a Comment