Unoccupied Carlsbad?

For carlsbadistan.com

On Saturday I had an attack of déjà vu in downtown San Diego that made we wonder if Occupy Wall Street could ever come to our sleepy little Village By The Sea. Let me explain.

My wife and I had to wade through an Occupy San Diego encampment in front of the Civic Theatre, where we were headed to see the revival of the 60’s rock musical, HAIR. Karen was more excited about seeing the show than I was. Although we both have vivid memories of those psychedelic days, hers are more pleasant than mine.

She found her inner flower child in the late 60’s, leaving a stuck-in-the-50’s husband who preferred the kind of obedient wife we see today only in the popular retro TV series Mad Men. I was a high school English teacher affecting a Bono look, no not that Bono, the Sonny one who harmonized with Cher. Sporting fashionably long hair and a slightly droopy mustache, I wore paisley ties, a macramé belt and waffle-stomper boots. But my polyester sport coats gave me away. The only risk I took in the 60’s was standing too close to an open flame in that attire. I was a hippie wannabe.


The hundred or so protesters camping out in front of the theatre appeared to be about the same ages as the actors on stage portraying pot-smoking, advocates of peace and love. But there were some important differences. There were no faint aromas of marijuana, petula oil, or incense wafting through the air. No angry chanting or taunting of the four good-natured police officers keeping a friendly eye on the group.

We were approached by a young woman who asked if we had any questions. I asked her if she was a student. She had been, she explained. But after completing two years of college, planning to be a teacher, she had run up $18,000 in student loans. She dropped out because she feared she’d be taking on more debt than a teacher’s salary would allow her to ever pay off. She’s now making what she called “good money” as a waitress, earning a whopping $2,000 a month. Her top priority in the protest was to make college more affordable…like free, as it is in several other countries.

Her sad story helped me see a link between the reason she was there and what’s currently happening with funding for Carlsbad schools. Announcing a potential budget shortfall of $11 million next year, the district is asking the public for feedback on how to cut costs by responding to a survey on the district’s web site.
The irony here is that, according to SANDAG figures, the city has the largest collection of wealthy households in North County, with nearly one in four enjoying incomes exceeding $100,000. But, revealing the wealth gap, more than half have incomes below $60,000.

While its schools face severe cuts, Carlsbad enjoys a comfortable budget reserve exceeding $50 million and provides annual million dollar bailouts of its failing golf course. The city council is currently looking for ways to save more money by outsourcing the jobs of the city’s lowest paid workers.

In his state of the city address, Mayor Hall declared that Carlsbad’s business climate “is about to explode” because of the city’s special efforts to become business friendly.

Will the city consider a bailout of its public schools, or does that not qualify as business friendly? I’m not holding my breath. It appears Carlsbadistan is not ready to be occupied.

Stop testing and start listening to students

For San Diego's North County Times

States opting out of No Child Left Behind are required to find other ways to hold schools accountable for student success. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed California's first try, SB 547, which would have replaced the Academic Performance Index (API), with an Education Quality Index (EQI) that includes graduation rates and career and college-readiness, in addition to standardized test scores,

Never having been a fan of test scores alone to measure a school's success, I was initially disappointed by the governor's action. But after reading his veto message, I think he got it right, praising the bill for going beyond test scores, but pointing out the new EQI would require "multiple indicators that would be expected to change over time, causing measurement instability and muddying the picture of how schools perform."

Brown suggested that a better way of measuring success might be for "locally convened panels to visit schools, observe teachers, interview students and examine their coursework." He apparently doesn't understand how vulnerable to local politics that would be, creating the illusion of accountability, but making it more difficult to measure achievement over time or to compare schools.

If we don't use test scores, must we return to the days when schools were judged simply by how well-behaved their students were and how many of their graduates go to college? I don't think so. Despite its many failings, No Child Left Behind's use of measurable results has held schools accountable for the success of all students, regardless of family background. There's no turning back from that worthy goal.

Unfortunately, our path to better schools in this country has become a matter of teaching to the test and providing school choice. Finland proves there's a better way. Their 15-year-olds lead the world in reading, math and science test scores, but there are no mandated standardized tests in Finnish schools, other than one exam at the end of the senior year. Schools are not ranked. Every one of them is expected to do whatever it takes to help each student succeed. To see how they do it, read Lynell Hancock's recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine ("A+ for Finland," September 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html).

Vista's Trade Tech High School, enrolling many students left behind in other public schools, increased its API score by nearly 30 percent last year. The school uses the Hope Survey, and the Gallup Student Poll to assess three ingredients researchers say are directly related to school success: hope, engagement and well-being. All three can be reliably measured by student surveys and enhanced through direct action.

It's time to stop testing and start listening to the ones we're teaching to find out what gets in the way of their learning.

Trade Tech high lives up to charter school promise

For San Diego's North County Times

We once took pride in our nation's comprehensive high schools. While other countries divided their students at an early age into either academic or vocational training streams, our schools prepared students both for college and for jobs that paid a living wage.

Now, after a decade of obsessing over standardized test scores, vocational/technical education has been largely abandoned. What's been left behind is a lingering achievement gap between the haves and have nots and little interest in measuring skills required for jobs of the future: learning how to learn, becoming a self-starter, creative problem-solving, collaboration, teamwork, and leadership.

Not many charter schools live up to California's 1992 Charter School Act, requiring an "emphasis on expanded learning experiences for pupils who are identified as academically low achieving." Parental choice has resulted mostly in giving up on neighborhood schools as the great levelers of educational and economic opportunity.

Vista's North County Trade Tech High School is an exception, a charter school that lives up to its promise. The school's success with a diverse student population of 120 students (60 percent nonwhite, 66 percent disadvantaged), is a model of what charter schools were meant to do.

Doreen Quinn, Trade Tech's chief executive officer, and Principal Bryan O'Donnell explained how the school delivers on its mission statement by implementing the new three R's ---- Relationships, Relevance and Rigor: "to graduate students with a strong blend of academic and workforce competencies necessary for future success in post-secondary education and in the building and construction industry."

You read that right. It's a voc/tech high school, with state-of-the-art classroom technology, which also offers courses required for admission to the state's two public universities. Those not headed to a university may complete courses yielding community college credit. The school's affiliation with local building and trade unions offers opportunities for non-college bound students to enter paid apprenticeships directly from high school.

The school attracts many students who may have felt like losers before discovering Trade Tech High. O'Donnell told me, "Many, if not most, of our students have had attendance problems at previous schools." Their average daily attendance is now 93 percent. As Quinn put it, "There are many ways to win here."

If you measure success by test scores, Trade Tech's project-based learning is working. This year's Academic Performance Index score (API) rose by an astonishing 159 points, nearly 30 percent higher than last year's score. Success on the high school exit exam is even more impressive, with 87 percent of 10th graders passing in English Language Arts, higher than the passing rates of the district, county and state.

This charter school takes us back to the future to what a truly comprehensive public high school should be.

Direct democracy at its best

For San Diego's North County Times

As the campaign season heats up for the 2012 elections, we hear candidates singing the same old song, "What the American people want is ..." Candidates seem confident we want our elected officials to follow, rather than lead us.

If Californians don't like what politicians do after they're elected, they can take matters into their own hands by recalls, initiatives and referendums. Ours is one of 24 states that allow votes by the people to throw the rascals out, overturn unpopular laws and create new ones. It's called "direct democracy."

California adopted it by constitutional amendment exactly one hundred years ago in an attempt to eliminate the bribery and corruption that ruled state politics at the time. On Oct. 8, 1911, two days before the measure was passed by the legislature, a New York Times editorial warned of its potential negative effects:

"The number, complexity, and minuteness of the propositions submitted to the popular vote make it physically impossible that the ordinary voter shall understand their nature and effect or the actual consequences of his own act."

Peter Schrag, a former editorial page writer for the Sacramento Bee, recently praised the prescience of that editorial. In the recent edition of BOOM: A Journal of California, Schrag wrote, "What was designed to be an exceptional remedy has come close to overwhelming representative democracy."

Citing several examples of how direct democracy doesn't work as promised, Schrag gave three important reasons for its failure:

1. It costs only $200 to file an initiative proposal, but volunteers alone can't bring it to the ballot. You need about $3 million to pay signature collectors, direct mail firms, consultants, pollsters and lawyers. The process is driven more by big money than by little guys with big ideas.

2. Rather than being subjected to the scrutiny of elected representatives, a proposition's fate is vulnerable to the rampant rumors of the blogosphere.

3. Successful propositions that don't allow for their own amendments can only be changed by another cumbersome and costly initiative process, even if serious problems turn up.

Direct democracy at its best comes to Oceanside in June, when residents will vote on whether to overturn the city council's decision to phase out rent control in the city's mobile-home parks. The referendum drive, conducted entirely by volunteers, produced 15,000 signatures, twice as many as required for the ballot and nearly four times the number of mobile-home park residents.

If rent control is phased out, the winners will be out-of-town park owners and the well-to-do. The losers will be Oceanside's most vulnerable residents: the elderly, retired military veterans and the disabled.

The city's values hang in the balance.

Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/riehl/article_16957d97-0a5f-58c9-a2a1-481b60f28aea.html#ixzz1YmSwh35v

Schools only part of the problem

For San Diego's North County Times

After 10 years of relying on student test scores to promote a competitive free market approach to school reform, what do we have to show for it?

Schools in wealthier districts continue to prosper. Those serving low-income populations face sanctions or closure. Charter schools, most of which enroll students who've never been left behind, flourish despite producing few measurable results of improved learning.

While we can argue about whether all that prepping for English and math tests has been worth taking so much time away from other important subjects, like science, history, literature, the arts and vocational training, most would agree it's good to track evidence of student learning.

The latest student tracking news came from last month's release of a report by the California Department of Education on high school dropout rates. It tracked the progress of the 2006 statewide cohort of ninth-graders. We learned 18 percent dropped out before earning a high school diploma. It was 16 percent in San Diego County and substantially lower in North County, according to a report in this newspaper ("Local schools have fewer dropouts compared with state, county," Aug. 11).

But before we rest on our laurels, consider this small sample of dropouts by student population. La Costa Canyon High School, with the lowest numbers of low-income and English-learner students, had a total dropout rate of 2.8 percent ---- but 16 percent of low-income students and 22 percent of English-language learners left school without a high school diploma.

Oceanside High School, with the largest number of economically disadvantaged and English learners, had a 14 percent total dropout rate. Fifteen percent of low-income and 25 percent of English learners dropped out.

The CDE released another report last month, "A Blueprint for Great Schools," issued by a 59-member committee consisting of parents, educators, business and union leaders appointed last January. Two of the committee's recommendations caught my eye.

The first was the call for a coordinated early learning system, beginning at birth, to assure that all children thrive in preschool. The second was the creation of wraparound support services in "community schools," incorporating school staff and their partners (local government, community agencies) working together to identify and address the various needs beyond the classroom of children and their families.

According to the report, "current education reform strategies often ignore the very real needs of children for secure housing, regular health care, supportive out-of-school environments, and educational assistance."

Maybe it's not schools that are most in need of reform. We may have to abandon the belief that schools alone can repair the damage done to kids outside the classroom before and after they get there.

Wrong jobs to outsource?

For San Diego's North County Times

The August edition of Carlsbad Currents, the city's bimonthly publication mailed to city residents, carries the headline, "Carlsbad maintains good financial health."

The story boasts of a budget balanced by reducing the size of the city's workforce and operating more efficiently. The city's 2011-12 budget report explains the workforce was cut back by eliminating 10 currently vacant positions, including a fire marshal, a graphic artist, a building inspector and two custodians.

We learn from the newsletter that sales and hotel taxes are expected to grow, while property tax is projected to decrease slightly. Finance Director Chuck McBride assures us that investment in the city created by new hotel, retail and commercial projects puts the city "in a good position to capitalize on opportunities as the economy recovers."

It appears happy times are here again.

But maybe not for the city's worker bees. Here's why:

1. A projected $600,000 surplus in the 2011-12 budget will add to the city's current $53 million in reserve. That's 47 percent of the 2010-2011 budget. City policy requires only 30 percent in reserve.

2. There's enough room in the budget for a $1.8 million direct subsidy to bail out golf course operations again. City Manager Lisa Hildebrand explained it "no longer made sense" to call the annual bailouts loans that have to be repaid ("Budget plan gives and takes away," North County Times, June 6).

3. This year's contract with city employees imposed a 7 percent pay cut for the lowest-paid city workers, resulting from a wage freeze combined with shifting to employees the share of pension contributions the city has formerly paid on their behalf.

4. Despite the city's projected prosperity, council members are considering outsourcing city services.

Outsourcing leads to layoffs or lower pay or both. With the latest uptick in the local unemployment rate from 9.6 in May to 10.5 in July, you'd think outsourcing would be an acceptable option only if the city were going broke or if residents were complaining about the quality of city services.

In this case, there's no evidence of either. Word from City Hall is that the budget's in great shape. The city's latest "Public Opinion Survey and State of Effectiveness Report" showed 92 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with city services (60 percent very satisfied/32 percent satisfied), causing Councilmember Ann Kulchin to gush about city workers: "This is your report card. As a parent, I feel like I'd like to take you all out for an ice cream cone."

When it comes to confidence in city government, 78 percent reported they were satisfied (22 percent very satisfied/55 percent somewhat).

Comparing report cards, I'd say it would make more sense to outsource city government than city services.

Carlsbad's Taj Magolf's extreme makeover

For Carlsbadistan.com

Mark Twain once called the game of golf “a good walk spoiled.” Something like that could be said of Carlsbad’s $68 million public golf course--a splendid setting for weddings, dining and golf, spoiled by tilting fairways, undersized greens, and lost balls.

A struggling economy, the many affordable courses nearby, and its playability have been blamed for the course’s annual deficits. Hopes for a financial turnaround are based mostly on the attractiveness of the venue.

That was a summary of a consultant’s report for the city of Rockville, Maryland on the financial condition of its Redgate Municipal Golf Course. The recommendations? Modify greens and bunkers, build additional facilities for player convenience, and launch a more aggressive marketing campaign.

Sound familiar? The differences between The Crossings and Redgate are foreboding. Rockville’s course is 40 years old. You can play it for half of what you pay for a round at Carlsbad’s Taj Magolf.

The Crossings has failed to meet its budgeted number of rounds each year since it opened, plunging from 52,000 in 2008 to 42,000 in 2010. Despite a three percent loss in green fee revenue last year, a three percent increase was budgeted last November for 2011.

A consultant, who was paid $16,000 by the city to explain why golfers weren’t flocking to Carlsbad, explained the course is too difficult and the players need a lounge to build camaraderie.

A third party golf course architect recommended modifications to 10 of the 18 holes. The Crossings website boasts the course was designed by Greg Nash, “whose name is synonymous with beautiful, playable courses.” Maybe he should be given the chance to rebut the claim that more than half his creation needs a do-over.

After city staff identified the three holes most in need of fixing, the council agreed to the one with the lowest cost, $80,000 for the 18^th green. Estimated costs to modify the 10^th green and the 15^th fairway were $179,000 and $264,000 respectively. If the average cost of these three is applied to the remaining seven needing work, the course will be acceptably playable after the city kicks in another $1.2 million.

City staff suggests the Boardroom be converted into a players’ lounge. That assumes the sweaty survivors of frustrating hours on an unplayable course will march happily up a couple of flights of stairs to relax with a cool one in a small, windowless room, surrounded by kitchen sounds, hall talk by diners headed for the restaurant, and the drone of TV sports commentators.

If revenue doesn’t increase this year as expected, will the city pin its hopes for next year on a friendlier 18^th green and a comfy golfer’s lounge?

Stay tuned.