Fees for after-school programs make little sense
I read with dismay the article "After-school clubs
need private funds to survive".... As a parent of a freshman at Andover High
School, and of a 7th grader who will be, I want to declare my opposition, in
principle, to activity fees for clubs at AHS....
(appeared in
Opinion
section of The Lawrence Eagle
Tribune , Friday, September 30, 2005,
p. 18)
To the Editor:
I read with dismay the article "After-school clubs need private funds to survive" (Tribune , 9/21/2005, p. 3). As a parent of a freshman at Andover High School, and of a 7th grader who will be, I want to declare my opposition, in principle, to activity fees for clubs at AHS. I would happily pay them, as we do at Andover West Middle School. But I cannot fathom that a school district this size could not find $29,000 in its budget for its "Commonwealth Compass School." This is closer to $16 per capita than the $75 we pay at West Middle. I have difficulty accepting that we would allow another avenue for hiding the true cost of education, or shift that burden away from the community responsible for providing that education.
Partly I feel this way because at the high school level, clubs are not an optional part of a college preparatory education. We point proudly at the high rates of college acceptance among our seniors at AHS, but not to the fact that participation in extracurricular activities figures prominently in college applications. As a college professor, I know keenly that the best students are not one-dimensional. More importantly, perhaps, extracurricular activities provide a needed outlet for stress. Such stress increases with the increasing demands we place on today's students. Having avocations also is a way for adults to create connections unrelated to work. Young people need practice doing that. Not all of our students participate in competitive sports, but all need rich opportunities to find out who they are. If we do our job right, enough of them will discover they are people who give back to the community, and enrich us all.
Sincerely,
Richard Hudak
Andover
To the Editor:
I read with dismay the article "After-school clubs need private funds to survive" (Tribune , 9/21/2005, p. 3). As a parent of a freshman at Andover High School, and of a 7th grader who will be, I want to declare my opposition, in principle, to activity fees for clubs at AHS. I would happily pay them, as we do at Andover West Middle School. But I cannot fathom that a school district this size could not find $29,000 in its budget for its "Commonwealth Compass School." This is closer to $16 per capita than the $75 we pay at West Middle. I have difficulty accepting that we would allow another avenue for hiding the true cost of education, or shift that burden away from the community responsible for providing that education.
Partly I feel this way because at the high school level, clubs are not an optional part of a college preparatory education. We point proudly at the high rates of college acceptance among our seniors at AHS, but not to the fact that participation in extracurricular activities figures prominently in college applications. As a college professor, I know keenly that the best students are not one-dimensional. More importantly, perhaps, extracurricular activities provide a needed outlet for stress. Such stress increases with the increasing demands we place on today's students. Having avocations also is a way for adults to create connections unrelated to work. Young people need practice doing that. Not all of our students participate in competitive sports, but all need rich opportunities to find out who they are. If we do our job right, enough of them will discover they are people who give back to the community, and enrich us all.
Sincerely,
Richard Hudak
Andover
Tue - January 31, 2006
Thu - December 2, 2004
Below-average argument on salaries
The average undergraduate student in one of the
social sciences should be able to point out difficulties with arguments made in
the article "Average teacher salary higher than in most comparable towns." The
Andover School Committee has chosen to report as an "average" the arithmetic
mean of salaries in the district. It is wise to be wary of the mean when
extremely high numbers can inflate the "average" so calculated. It is important
to supplement this with a consideration of the median salary in each
district.
Editor, Townsman :
The average undergraduate student in one of the social sciences should be able to point out difficulties with arguments made in the article "Average teacher salary higher than in most comparable towns " (Townsman, Nov. 25). The School Committee has chosen to report as an "average" the arithmetic mean of salaries in the district. It is wise to be wary of the mean when extremely high numbers can inflate the "average" so calculated. It is important to supplement this with a consideration of the median salary in each district. This number represents the midpoint, or point along the distribution at which half the employees are above and half are below. There may be very good reasons why the average is inflated: we may have a greater proportion of teachers with longevity and seniority, for instance. Use of the median can help shed more light on what is "average."
Other factors need to be considered. A few years ago, it was fashionable for large companies to speak of "total compensation," including with salary such things as health care and merit-based profit sharing. We have no such comparison with "statistically comparable" communities on issues such as health care.
In addition, these comparisons are presented in the abstract, divorced from any longitudinal or historical data on salaries in these communities. For example, are contracts up for renewal in any of the comparable towns? Are we soon to be leapfrogged? Has any of these towns already negotiated smaller increases for recent years and larger increases for coming years? Is the school-age population in these communities growing or declining? Growth may mean a sudden influx of younger teachers whose lower salaries deflate the mean. This is a difficulty in taking much of a snapshot figure.
Finally, I would think that even if median salaries were found to be similar to mean salaries across these communities, that we would want to continue to pay competitively to continue to attract and retain the quality of teachers that best serve our children. Are we willing to risk making more than is warranted of a single-digit percentage point difference with most of these other communities? If the community is to enter the admittedly difficult period of contract negotiations, we had better well do our homework first.
Richard M. Hudak II, Ph.D.
68 Stevens St.
Adjunct Instructor
Sociology Department
Merrimack College
Posted at 07:02 PM
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Published On: Jan 31, 2006 10:28 PM
Published On: Jan 31, 2006 10:28 PM