Note: This is a copy of a June 2 letter from Oak Ridge City Council member Anne Garcia Garland to Parker Hardy and members of the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.Â
Dear Chamber:
The Oak Ridge City Council has always supported the needs and beyond of the city school system. This current council has lived in that tradition. We honor and appreciate our students and our teachers and have voted to provide whatever can reasonably be provided. We have also weathered the annual School Board predictions of educational catastrophe if the increased budget projections are not allocated.
This town depends upon the base of education and economic largesse of its original homeowners at the beginning of the 1950s for its sense of pride and place in academia. It is, however, that early well-being and the growth and optimism of the early post-war years which have created a myth of extraordinary wealth and erudition with which we are burdened today. Our reality is that we are a lovely small Southern town with great diversity of education, income, and opinion. We are neither young nor old, rich nor poor, progressive nor conservative. We are all of these descriptions and many between.
This town created a wonderful culture and honored its natural environment in such an outstanding manner that it has attracted citizens from neighboring counties to live and work here. Perhaps because we did not have a large stock of new or above-average priced homes, we have not attracted a large number of the professional transferees to the federal facilities in the past couple decades. After all, “youngish” professionals selling homes in more expensive markets need the tax protection of buying comparably priced homes in this area.
In that regard, new housing for incoming workers has been slow to develop partly because the lingering effect of the housing bust has made it much more difficult to get construction loans. And, no, I don’t know how west Knox finds lots of development financing, but I suspect it has to do with inertia.
Meanwhile, City Council has an obligation to spend the homeowners’ and business property owners’ money judiciously. Without a better understanding of why Maryville can graduate 20 percent more of its students with 10 percent less funding and one-third fewer school administrators, I am loathe to increase the city’s funding to the schools. I would also like a thorough explanation of why or how the electronic media program being proposed will pay for itself in scholastic improvements and lessened future costs. There are outstanding questions still about where the capital improvement monies given to the school system over the past decade or so were spent.
I have tried before to counter the plaintive refrain from so many members of the Chamber that people don’t move here because our property taxes are too high. Your declaration of support for an increased property tax rate to support the school board’s ambition to become “the premier STEM school district in the country “ is inconsistent with that refrain. Our property taxes are not too high in my opinion, but I am not interested in raising them just now either. In order for us to become the premier national STEM school district, we probably need the education foundation folks to concentrate on attracting private funds from foundations and corporate entities. Meanwhile, let’s remember that a lot of money is neither necessary nor sufficient for producing scholars or successful citizens.
As to the schools being the primary attraction for living in Oak Ridge, I can only say, yes, sometimes. I believe we are not marketing this fabulous town to a wide enough demographic. This is still a great place for all ages who love the out-of-doors access. It’s a great place for retirees and entrepreneurs. Y-12 and ORNL are wonderful neighbors who are good to and for the town. They are not the only game, however, and I still maintain that we need to envision growth which makes us independently sustainable even if the federal institutions were greatly diminished.
I cannot and would not speak for any others on council. For myself, I will vote for a no-tax-increase budget and look forward to more and better communication with the school administration and board.
Thank you so much.
Anne Garcia Garland
Council member
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
Thanks, Anna for being a voice of reason! You have read my mind.
bill bradley says
Good morning, Ms. Powers:
I’m not surprised that you are the first to support Ms. Garland’s comments above. And while I don’t support the majority of her comments, I do find merit in a couple of points.
But, let’s review one simple point: It was you who stated the following in a previous email string:
” …. I’ll leave you with a final thought. Think of OR schools in the national,no worldwide, arena. Are the students being made ready for that? The horizon needs to expand and that doesn’t necessarily mean throwing more money into the situation or giving each child a device when some of them can afford to buy one… and may already have one.”
This above is a direct cut and paste of your recent comments to me.
Later, you “liked” Mr. Jay Brandon’s comments re: the fact that Guilford County in North Carolina used a $30 million grant to buy 14,500 tablets for their students. He proposed that this was a better use of funds.
Ms. Powers…you can’t have it both ways. You can’t argue AGAINST supplying students here with tablets and “like” it in North Carolina. If you don’t mind, could you help me understand this discrepancy? I really want to understand this.
Thank you.
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
Good Morning, Mr. Bradley, For some reason you seem to be interested in my opinions/ideas while you will see that I am far from the only OR resident with these ideas/concerns. First point:OR needs to view itself in the broad perspective…. and use its funds wisely to do so. I stand by what I wrote in an earlier response. Second point: Instead of having the teachers go to the conference in Vegas (which you proposed that they really didn’t want to go to anyway!), the grant money could have been used to fund the iPad program. When I read Mr. Brandon’s response, I rethought my position. It’s called learning or perhaps modifying or qualifying an opinion. I still don’t think the program should be in the new budget at this point in time. I do not agree that the taxpayers of OR should pay for ALL the iPads/tablets either. Even Dr. Borchers has no data that this program will improve STEM. The city council actually asked him to provide the data… and he couldn’t!
bill bradley says
Morning: I agree there are others who support a different position. Personally, I’m going to be very disappointed if the school system does not directly contradict garland’s claims “that Maryville graduates 20% more of it’s students with 10% less funding and 1/3 fewer administrators”. Right or wrong, she’s now tied to that claim forever.
My point about the Vegas trip is this: I leave it up to the supt. and others to determine if it’s a worthwhile trip. They are the professionals here. Apparently, others outside the school system thought the trip was worthwhile, otherwise, they would not have approved the funds either. You claim that this is NOT a wise use of funds, but why?
-Do you know why they went?
-Do you know what the objective was (were)?
-Certainly, I don’t…but I’m not prepared to criticize it as if I do!
I did not say they didn’t want to go. Others were insinuating it was a pleasure trip, as you certainly are aware. I was shocked that Rebecca Aubut was allowed to post that she was pretty sure the only reason anyone needed to go to Vegas was to train in gambling and prostitution (her words) and was allowed to remain as a member of one of those groups by the administrators there. That’s not the way we should treat our teachers. And what a horrible comment to make about anyone. Yet no one from “the other side” called her out for such vulgar comments. And that’s just plain wrong. And her comments are still posted as of now.
As to your last two sentences, I didn’t witness that conversation so I’ll bow to your knowledge of this.
There’s a certain element of our community that seems prepared to criticize without considering both sides. Certain people seem to crave the attention and like to stir the pot. We’ve seen a lot of false claims (OR taxes being used for this trip, 13 Vice Principals, accusations of lies by the school system, etc). This really should be a much more civil discourse. Take care. And yes, I am interested in your opinions!
John Beckley says
Aren’t the funds being used for the Vegas trip from a grant specifically earmarked for that kind of thing and nothing else? If so, they can’t be used for tech items for students.
Also, expecting someone to be banned from a Facebook site for expressing their opinion is pretty lame. The sites are made and run by everyday people, not the city gov’t or the school system. If you don’t want to read opinions then leave the group(s). It’s Facebook.
bill bradley says
Hi John, I think I may not have been clear. I wholeheartedly agree with the funds being used for the trip. And I understand that these requested funds had to be used for that trip.
It was Ms. Powers who first complained about possibly buying tablets later, then changed her mind and said it was ok after someone else pointed out that another school system had chosen to use their requested funds for tablets…and what a good idea it was to do that.
O.R. chose a trip for another reason. There must have been a valid reason. Someone in control of the funds thought so, too.
Now, regarding expressing one’s opinion … I apparently failed to express my thoughts well enough. We have a bunch of teachers going on a professional trip to learn about a program and their responsibility is to come back and teach this program to other teachers in the system. It doesn’t matter if the trip is to Vegas or Miami…you go where they have the facilities and where the program is set up. Yet we have an individual who says “the only reason she can find to go to Vegas is to train in gambling or prostitution”.
That’s just wrong. Those teachers don’t deserve that disrespect. Or any disrespect. At the least, a moderator should have deleted that. We are a community. We can disagree, but that comment is just vulgar. Yes, I think that kind of comment should get you banned.
Rick Hasbrouck says
Ms Garland, thank you for taking this stance.
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
Very true,Martha Maria.
bill bradley says
Martha, you are certainly correct about financial changes in O.R. But you are dead wrong about one thing – we have a high school ranked 6th in the state and all the others above OR are magnet schools – and one with NO free and reduced kids! Thank your administration and teaching staff for that … and the residents who support it!
Here’s what I find striking…NO one is proposing SOLID proposals. For instance, Ms. Powers said, essentially, hey Mike Mahathy (sp) let’s hear your proposals first…then she’ll come up something, I guess.
Brick and mortar stores are disappearing everyday. 70% of Fedex’s business is delivering online purchases to homes and offices. Let’s quit pretending the mall will ever be full of stores. It just ain’t happening.
Certainly Ms. garland didn’t make any proposals above.She looks forward to better communication with the school board – well, who’s fault is that that she doesn’t have it now? Isn’t that her job?
People have picked apart the Vegas trip, yet few seem to be asking why they went, what the value was, etc. All I hear is “it was a waste of money” yet NO one KNOWS that….they just like to whine and bitxh and complain. That’s the easy part. I challenge the complainers to make a list of SPECIFIC suggestions…and I haven’t seen on yet! Be the solution!! Yes, we know there are needs, be intelligent enough to think thru some answers.
Someone said let’s get 1000 new families here and another person asked “where would they live” and another answered to the effect that people in existing homes could sell their homes. That makes NO sense to me at all. You still need 1000 homes. It’s bizarre logic. Are you seeing a pattern here?
We have one big selling point … the school system. We have plenty of others. I myself question the STEM program, but I don’t understand it all. But isn’t that what OR has always been? Science and technology and math specifically. Has anyone done that better than the OR schools have? I doubt it.
Lastly, Ms. Garland says we need to market ourselves better, to a wider range of people. Yet it would appear that some on council want to cut funds for those very organizations that are trying to do that. How is that a smart tactic?
Dave Smith says
I would really like to shake your hand. You should be on council.
bill bradley says
you’ve lost your mind.
Jeanne Hicks Powers says
Jay Brandon has made some very good suggestions on the OR leadership page. You might want to read them. They sound SOLID. It’s always good to ask for others ideas instead of just calling people out. A lot of great ideas come forward that way. New families would bring new construction i.e. jobs to build those houses. I, for one, would have sold my house years ago if the economy/market had not tumbled. The housing market here is still slow. Many other schools in other parts of the country are doing much better than OR. Also,last I read, there actually are new brick and mortar companies coming to OR…. finally. I would like to see candidates for the city council who have what it takes to get the job done well….
plus a calm demeanor to say the least.
Rick Hasbrouck says
“we have a high school ranked 6th in the state”, where is this data located? How is the district as a whole? STEM does not start in HS.
johnhuotari says
Rick,
Oak Ridge High School has been ranked sixth in the state by U.S. News and World Report for at least the past three years. You can see the last story I did this spring here: http://oakridgetoday.com/2014/04/28/orhs-ranked-sixth-state/.
I don’t have information on the district overall, and I don’t know if anyone ranks districts.
Thank you,
John
Rick Hasbrouck says
Looking at the current rankings, you have to wonder if the ranking is as high as it is do to the Student/Teacher ratio. It surely is not for English(72%) and Algebra(65%) proficiency.
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/TN/schoolrank.aspx?level=3 has Oak Ridge ranked 28th in regards to TCAP testing for 2012-2013.
As a district, Oak Ridge ranks 9th in the state according to this site.
bill bradley says
Hi Rick:
Little ole Oak Ridge, no airport, no viable mall, … the system some love to beat up on has a top 10 ranking from two different groups.
I’m not prepared, nor do I have the time to do the investigation on this, as there are a whole lot of people a lot smarter than me already doing this. But I found this interesting, according to this ranking site:
Profficient in English – Maryville 89% / OR 72%
Profficient in Algebra – Maryville 61% / OR 65%
College Readiness Index – Maryville 23% / OR 37%
So, the “gold standard” some want to compare ourselves to apparently has a few warts of their own!!
Rick Hasbrouck says
Bill,
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/TN/schoolrank.aspx?level=3 has Maryville Highschool 10th with Oak Ridge 28th. Maryville 16.5 Student/Teacher , Oak Ridge 13.4. Maryville combined TCAP 158, Oak Ridge 135.2. Looks like Maryville is doing more with less!
bill bradley says
guess we’ll agree to disagree on this one. I am reminded that Alabama claims 15 national championships in football yet many of those are rankings by associations no longer in business. If you want to dig around long enough, you’ll find several other lists, I’m sure. I prefer to use John’s story as a base.
good afternoon.
David Allred says
The STEM program has some real advantages over previous models, but what people don’t seem to understand is that education standards are a moving target — and they will continue to be a moving target because culture isn’t stagnate. The real rub is not taken by any one particular program, but by a longitudinal look at their overall effectiveness. And if the answer happens to be that such longitudinal studies demonstrate our kids are getting smarter, then the question has to be “Smarter at what?”
Everyone points to performance measures on standards, but no one seems to ask “whose” standards are we measuring against and why were they selected? Given the household income to debt ratios, the loss of quality of living for the middle class, and stagnate American economy and any number of other factors, I think it’s safe to assume that “Choose A, B, C, or D” model of intelligence is an absolute farce. But that’s what we keep funding, and that’s what we keep taking Federal dollars for… it’s a joke.
So, sincerely, I would encourage anyone to ask me if I care what a group of teachers learned in Las Vegas. Whatever it is, or was, or will be — it’s money spent on a moving target. It will be obsolete in a half decade. That’s what the history demonstrates anyway.
Oh, and btw, those tablets will be obsolete in a half decade too. Better get the kiddies out in the woods where the real learning takes place. I can’t remember which Nobel Prize Laureate said it, but it went something like, “There’s more commonsense in a back woods farmhouse than the United Nations.”
Something is severely wrong with what our kids are being taught. Until we address what that is we are sort of spitting in the wind.
David Allred says
I’m not sure intelligent discussion is even possible without some prerequisite reading:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mismeasure-Education-Jim-Horn/dp/1623963915
http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Education-Redefining-School/dp/0679750312
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Great-American-School-System/dp/0465025579