Patrick, I challenge you to read this story. Why should I or any other Cleveland taxpayer should believe anything the current BAC has to say at any meeting. I personally do not believe they are at all interested in community input. The money has been squandered and now after 12 years of foolish spending, the pitch is now to ask for more money. Patrick, you being the main PD education reporter I hope would have some interest in the graft and incompetence that has made this money disappear. Don't you owe it to your readers and the taxpaying pubic to do some real investigative reporting? Shouldn't you be asking the tough questions? You Patrick could expose the corruption of the cmsd machine. The teachers know about the corruption but they choose to be afraid and remain silent. So what do you say? Are you willing? http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/missing-15-billion/Content?oid=14948... [2]
Finally, according to the cmsd website, 12 of the cmsd's school buildings have 32 principals! Incredible isn't it? Just so the cmsd can have its additional boutique schools housed within the same building
What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? [1] Cleveland school district seeks your input [1]
Why did the PD push to have this levy passed when the district was flagged for attendance fraud? Fraud Patrick. The PD dropped the ball when it had the chance to blow the lid off of this situation. And it still refuses to do any real investigative reporting on the subject. This is why the PD has lost so much credibility.with so many taxpayers in Cleveland.And quite frankly, the PD should be held culpable for some of the cmsd's failure for failing to bring the cmsd's social ills to light. What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input Patrick, could you find out how much bond money was spent renovating now closed schools such as South High? There are others as well - Harvey Rice was "fixed up" and then razed. A lot of brand new windows are now sitting in the landfill. How much bond money was spent on these closed and razed schools? No wonder why the money has run out.
And of course it begs the question - why are more schools needed for a constantly declining student population? Why is it necessary to add an additional 15 principals to the payroll? This is a very expensive way to make the district "appear" better. And of course, the regular teacher population will be back in the 3,000 plus range thanks to the levy. Even though the student population has declined by over 30,000 students since 1997, the teacher population has remained pretty steady. Considering that there are pretty much the same amount of teachers today as their was in 1997, one would think that the performance of the cmsd would drastically improve having 30,000 less students to teach but alas, the cmsd is rock bottom even with the plethora of teacher resources and new school buildings they currently have. What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input Good. While you are at it, I would suggest you also look up some of Tom Ott's stories from a few years ago where he wrote about new schools being built in areas where the decline of student population no longer warranted a new building. Another story from Ott discussed how the cmsd would be spending bond monies fixing up schools that would be closing a few years later. The BAC from the very start has a long history of allowing the cmsd to waste tax dollars. The first BAC died before a real master plan was ever drawn up. There is no accountability, only illusion. From the cmsd website did you know that for the 2013-2014 school year, the cmsd is poised to have 115 schools! These schools will be housed in 100 builidings. Some school buildings will have three separate principals on the payroll! This is how the transformation plan will use smoke and mirrors to make it appear that the cmsd is improving. These schools will have small boutique schools within them that have a very limited hand picked student population. By adding additional schools to the school list, it will sway the performance curve of the overall cmsd. The reality is that the majority of the student population will still be housed within the failing schools. The cmsd will be hiding the majority of their failing students within plain sight while boasting that the district is improving. This is a ruse Patrick. I hope you can see this for what it is.
And if this is simply a refurbished school, it cost more to refurbish this school than it did to build some brand new schools. Which of course begs the question - why was so much money spent refurbishing a huge school that only has a student population of 400? Again either way you look at it, the waste is evident. What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input Of course I am going on what is written on the cmsd website. Perhaps it is the cmsd that has it wrong What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input FDR was built in 2011. http://clevelandmetroschools.org/Page/1330 [3]
Patrick, I contend that the bac has been irresponsible. I challenge you to do a piece on the capacities of the 97 cmsd school buildings versus how many students are actually enrolled there. And make sure you list the date the school was built. The capacity of new construction needs to be shown. Some new schools have enormous capacities that will never be seen yet millions were spent building these oversized schools. Where was the accountability? Here is a start for you Patrick, Franklin Roosevelt Elementary had 460 students enrolled for the 2012-2013 school year but it has room for a student population of over 1,100. It was built in 2011. Was this school necessary to be rebuilt? Even with a brand new school building, it continues to fail. The school is less than half full. How much money could have been saved by not building this school and simply using existing school buildings to house the student population? http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/29cgCschools.pdf [4] The waste of tax dollars is incalcuable. http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/07/post_112.html [5]
One thing that the cmsd along with the state has not done is to address the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Instead of constantly wasting money on re-inventing the education wheel looking for that certain alchemic formula that will "make" students who choose not to learn magically take interest, the cmsd and state (and the rest of the failing urban school districts in the USA) should take a very hard look at the enabling that has caused this dysfunction of urban culture. Kids are free not to learn. That is their choice. Parents are free not to value education. That's their choice. Nobody can make them do otherwise. Instead you find urban districts committing attendance fraud; scrubbing test scores; failing to report neglected kids to the juvenile authorities; Social promotion to a higher grade when the kids haven't mastered the previous grade all for the sake of keeping the money flowing isn't succeeding in boosting performance, it is the very thing keeping it dismal. As long as school and government leaders along with a biased media continue being in denial of the enabling and dysfunction, only chaos and ruin will continue to be the norm along with the fleecing of the responsible taxpayer
Why don't you answer GNG's questions Patrick instead of spinning back with questions of your own? How's the transformation plan going? How's the attendance fraud coming along? Any updates Patrick? Have you or any other PD reporters taken to task some investigative reporting concerning these issues? Or will the PD simply continue to ignore this injustice to the taxpayers while pusing for the next fiscal issue for the cmsd? What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input Patrick, do you really feel that the cmsd has used their bond money wisely since 2001?
Tell me patrick, how many master plans have there been concerning this bond issue? A master plan was promised from the get go by barbara byrd bennett yet when it was time to vote, that master plan was not in place. Sadly the PD still pushed for the bond issue to pass even though the cmsd was not prepared with their plan. There have been several other master plans as well as several bond accountability commissions. The cmsd has squandered tax dollars and the PD has been irresponsible with their endorsements. Perhaps the PD would like to make a donation to the cmsd What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input The cmsd is ripping off not only cleveland taxpayers but also from the state. Cleveland property owners are taxed the most as they are also state citizens. http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20050926/SUB/50923028?SearchID=73... [6]
The money has been spent Patrick, don't you get that? The bac has not done its job. It's too late to ask for public input Patrick. The money tree has dried up. Why hasn't this paper through the years kept an eye on how these monies were wasted? Other tv news outlets did do some stories only when challenged by the public to do so. Channel 5 did a great piece on Harvey Rice being torn down. They had a nice picture of the building being razed with all the brand new windows going to the landfill. Crains Cleveland did a great piece on how the bac soon fell apart and eventually died. Where was the PD? And I can assume with confidence that again the PD will support any new call for funds by the cmsd regardless of the fiscal irresponsibility. Truly Patrick, you have shown to be another cog in a media machine that continues to endorse failure at the cost of the property tax payer which you are not as well as the rest of the PD editorial board. You don't live in Cleveland anymore yet this paper continues to turn a blind eye to fraud. Why is that What new schools does Cleveland need? Where? How much more will residents have to pay? Cleveland school district seeks your input make sure those shovels in the picture are taken to each of the meetings to shovel the BS that will be coming from the cmsd mouth pieces.
Originally, the bac was supposed to engage the citizens. The citizens were supposed to be allowed to give input. But alas, this did not happen. The bac did not let the citizens participate. The bond issue was also passed with no master plan; a plan that was primised by barbara byrd bennett but alas, she failed to do her job. But she leaves a professional building named after her in bratenahl. What a crock! Now the money is all used up, wasted on new schools built where the neighborhood student population no longer warranted a new building. Huge schools built on the east side some of which were built to house a student population of over 1,100 students!. They now operate with 300 students like the old building. Monies were spent fixing up old schools. Brand new windows and heat only to have the school razed two years later with all the new windows going to the landfill. But this is Cleveland and Cleveland has its single newspaper which supports every fiscal measure the cmsd dishes out. For shame, shame on the cmsd, the reporters that support the cmsd's folly. $17,000 per student, That's what the cmsd gets and for all this money, all these new schools, all these high paid teachers, for all the test scrubbing and attendance fraud, the district is rock bottom in Ohio. It is allowed to continue stealing tax dollars without any fear of accountability or consequences for its failure and fraud.
I'll try to track down where the error is. And a $16 million cost to refurbish a school jumped out at me too. I'll poke around a bit and let you know when I find out.
getworking, I'll probably do what you're suggesting,or something very similar.We agree that the capacity of the buildings Cleveland already has is a big deal as the district sets new plans. Small point: I don't think FDR was rebuilt, but was refurbished, with the Issue 14 bond issue and it wasn't 2011. The bonds refurbished the building in 2006 for about $16 million, based on the BAC report I could quickly check today. I'd have to nail that down later to be sure. Note that the 2009 Plain Dealer chart you link to already shows the building as being way over capacity. The story that accompanied that chart starts off with: "Franklin D. Roosevelt Elementary School in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood has room for more than 1,100 students, yet two-thirds of the refurbished building sat empty last school year."
getworking, The BAC is not a district body so its meeting was not on the schedule provided by the district. Since it's not a district meeting, it shouldn't be. I forgot to list the BAC time in the story, as I had intended. West Park had nothing to do with it.
If you're going to measure the Transformation Plan by state test results, we'll have to wait for the next state report cards for a real update. This is the first full school year that the district has had the levy to work with. This is the best update on year one (with partial year of levy money) http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/c [7]... http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/cleveland_schools_misse... [8] As for the scrubbing, this is the last update. The state is still looking at this, I believe.
Links:
[1] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/11/what_new_schools_does_clevelan.html
[2] http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/missing-15-billion/Content?oid=1494896
[3] http://clevelandmetroschools.org/Page/1330
[4] http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/29cgCschools.pdf
[5] http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/07/post_112.html
[6] http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20050926/SUB/50923028?SearchID=73289655329731
[7] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/c
[8] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/cleveland_schools_missed_impro.html