Spring  2010• Volume 8 • Issue 2

In every budget season, school board members must do more than balance expenses with revenue. They must determine if the district is saving enough. It is never easy.

Indisputably, maintaining reserve funds is part of sound financial management, but school districts find criticism no matter how they handle them. To starve them is to gamble, to fund them modestly can violate accounting standards and risk lower bond ratings, and to fund them to the accounting profession's specifications would break state law and bring accusations of hoarding from politicians and special interest groups.

Winter  2009 • Volume 8 • Issue 1

More than 60,000 inmates - a population roughly the size of Schenectady - inhabit 67 correctional facilities within New York State. Many are individuals who first got in trouble when in school.

Research shows that a child who has been suspended or expelled is more likely to fall behind in school, be retained a grade, drop out of high school, commit a crime and become incarcerated as an adult. Critics say many students - often poor and from minority groups - are “pushed” into the criminal justice system in a phenomenon called “the school-to-prison pipeline.”

In studies of the relationship between school discipline and incarceration, school boards are usually cast in the role of the villain. Analysts say students’ downward spirals often begin with school districts’ zero tolerance policies and the suspensions and expulsions they trigger. Advocates for change in school discipline and juvenile justice say children are being denied their right to an education as a result of school and government policies and practices.

Fall 2009 • Volume 7 • Issue 3 

More babies were born in 2007 than in any year in American history, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. A steady stream of births and waves of both legal and illegal immigrants promise to flood the nation’s schools at the same time that many baby boomer teachers retire, prompting many experts to predict a major teacher shortage for public schools. Shortages will be particularly acute in science, math, and other specialty subjects, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Special education and urban school districts are expected to suffer heavily.

Summer 2009 • Volume 7 • Issue 2 

From the time a child enters kindergarten, expectations for 13 years later are plain: the student must learn to read and write, become mathematically literate, comprehend what American citizenship requires, and demonstrate a level of mastery in both history and science. Such achievements are symbolized in a single piece of paper called a diploma.

Yet, three of every 10 children who enter kindergarten in the United States will not stroll to the clichéd salute of “Pomp and Circumstance,” nor clutch the coveted rolled parchment. For non-white children, about half will fail to graduate.

Spring 2009 • Volume 7 • Issue 1 

At the start of the 2008-09 school year, seventh-grade student Kaz Felix-Hawver walked into his Maryland middle school with a T-shirt that would cause.

It read: “Homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, gays, transgenders: All are cool with me.” controversy.

November 2008 • Volume 6 • Issue 3

With fuel and energy costs again devastating school budgets, districts around the nation are resurrecting the four-day school week, or considering that option for the first time.

Districts in New York State might be tempted by the idea. The 62 city school districts endure a constant cash crunch; suburban school districts strain with depleted dollars to save prized programs; and rural school systems incur higher fuel costs from long bus routes.

August 2008 • Volume 6 • Issue 2

As the 21st century unfolds, school board members face an escalating array of challenges that require them to make decisions about academic improvement strategies, long-range construction plans, legislative lobbying, investment and financial commitments, as well as delicate issues involving the management, training and deployment of personnel.

It’s a daunting list, and it raises questions about who is qualified to assume such a responsible, crucial role. After all, students, teachers and administrators are all being asked to meet higher standards of achievement or professional standards. What about school board members? What can be done to raise their quality and professionalism?

February 2008 • Volume 6 • Issue 1

Federal and state governments are requiring big changes at public schools whose students persistently fail to meet state standards. With the federal No Child Left Behind Act in its sixth year, more schools will be facing the most radical form of change authorized by the law: restructuring.

Every school in the nation is expected to make “adequate yearly progress,” meaning a majority of students – regardless of poverty, disability, language or other reasons – meet or surpass benchmarks on state exams.

June 2007 • Volume 6 • Issue 2 

There is a stirring among key education leaders and influential politicians in Washington, D.C., about the need for a complete set of national academic standards that apply to all public school children in the United States.

The very thought strikes dread into the hearts of school board members and superintendents. At present, state governments establish the knowledge bar that students must hurdle, and then local officials develop the curriculum to reach that goal.

The accountants have spoken, and school districts across the nation are scrambling to obey.

A rule passed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) encourages public entities – including school districts – to estimate the total cost of retiree benefits (amortized over a 30-year period) and then publicly disclose the price of that package.

The change is applauded by some as bringing new transparency for taxpayers and a sobering understanding for policymakers of the true outlay for retiree perks such as health care, dental, vision and prescription benefits, in addition to the actual pensions.

For others, it is yet another way to make school district budgets appear inflated, and forces districts to run a strange maze, hiring actuaries every two or three years to do lifeand-death calculations and assigning a number to the unknowable.