The Wisdom Of Moderate Spending

To the Editor:

Newtown’s discussion on education should start with the fact that educational results are not just a function of more spending! It must also involve what teachers do, and parental and student responsibility. The Board of Education and administrators ignore these important components. Parents who are too involved in their own lives to convey to their children that “education matters” usually result in having children who fail to achieve. Additionally, parents who fail to ensure that their children are disciplined enough to do their homework, in a sober manner, instead of in front of a distracting TV, will also see poor results.

Our Board of Education and school administrators should back up teachers when they need to give that type of message to parents, who are too involved with “paying the bills” to be bothered with their child’s education. A Board of Education that avoids the tough calls is shirking their duty to our children.

Newtown’s Board of Education should focus on academic improvements that are more cost-effective! Suggestions for academic improvement can be the following: using better classroom management and “one on one” classroom participation for as many subjects as possible. For example, when I went to high school, I had three different math teachers who all used this “one on one” classroom participation. The method permitted a 30-student class to function like one with 15 students. In addition, this also kept everyone’s attention and produced great results. How did they do this? Well, they assigned about 20 math problems daily; then, every day they would have half the class at the black board with each student putting a problem on the board. In turn, each student explained his or her problem. After 10 of the students completed their problems, the teacher would start calling on those who were seated to come up and explain what was on the board. The next day the other half of the class went to the board. Additionally, all of the students were able to visually grasp how to work the problem. As a result of this “one on one” classroom participation, just about every student earned a B or better, and there were no curved tests, because each student could do the work. There were students in those classes that got C’s or D’s in other classes, but when it came to algebra I, algebra II, plane and solid geometry, and trigonometry, the students were able to excel!

Regarding our school budget, most people do not realize there is nothing concrete about it! Once approved by voters, the budget is often manipulated. For example: in neighboring towns I’ve seen school budgets include large sums for the school roof repair or computer purchases. However, after the fact, the money that was designated was never spent on those items. Amazingly, the taxpayers never found out where it was spent, which was a red flag! In addition, the town in question, Brookfield, had to later vote on a bond issue to fix leaking roofs and purchase new computers.

This year’s school budget has $250,000 for travel and conferences? What travel and what conferences, for how many people?

This year’s budget could go up about 3.5 percent without increasing taxes, and would still provide about $3 million more than last year. Some selectmen recognize the wisdom of moderate spending, school officials do not!

Sincerely,

Daniel Kormanik

85 Great Ring Road, Sandy Hook                                  April 30, 2007