Who I am and What I Stand For

By Robert "Bob" Piliero

To be clear upfront, I am pro public education, pro schools and pro teachers. I am not in favor of tracking; I favor greater course opportunities on an oopen enrollment, no-cut score basis, with maximum flexibility between academic pathways.

Some of the current Board Members have occupied their seats for a decade or more. Although there have been some improvements in extra-curricular programs, our schools are no more competitive now than when they were first elected, and in many respects are less so. A decade ago, Harrison was widely regarded as a community rich in cultural and economic diversity, but that its schools needed a substantial overhaul in order to ensure a high quality of education for our kids. To remedy this situation, a new school Superintendent was brought in and many of the then-newly elected Board members (who are still serving today) promised to provide that needed change.

While the District has made many changes, due to a number of recent and in my view ill-conceived decisions, at the end of a decade of their stewardship the District's results are as follows:

• Harrison's average SAT scores rank 18 out of 19 in the peer group identified by the Superintendent as appropriate for comparison (this is actually an improvement over last year, when we ranked 19 out of 19).
• Harrison was dead last in its peer group in demonstrating what the NY Education Department calls "solid competency" in 4 of the 5 core Regents exam subject areas, and at or near the bottom in most other subjects.
• 48% of those who took the Advanced Placement exams produced failing scores of 1 and 2. That's 501 mkids who mwere steered into AP courses only to fail and become demoralized. This is because the District claims to believe that all our children will somehow benefit by taking as many college-level Advanced Placement courses as early as possible (and often before they have taken the introductory course in the subject area to prepare them). Even the College Board, the creator and sponsor of the AP program, disagrees with that premise, and for good reason. Taking a course is not the point; learning the subject matter is what matters.

• Harrison has the second-highest per-pupil expenditures. The budget proposed for next year is based on per pupil spending of more than $29,000.

• For next year, the current Board of Education--including all 3 incumbents running for re-election--has just adopted a proposed budget of $103.1 million, up nearly 2% from last year, and requiring a school-tax increase of 3.18%. And this is in a year where property assessments have declined by about $2.2 million.

In the past months and, I am sure in the coming weeks, you will hear some disputing these facts (all can be easily and independently confirmed on numerous State and local websites) I assume out of some misguided loyalty to the Superintendent and Board. My loyalty is to your and my children, giving all the opportunity to have the education our children deserve and our tax dollars are supposedly paying for!!

Low-ranking schools and high property taxes. This combination makes Harrison an unlikely choice for young couples with children. Based on 11 criteria, with schools, housing costs and property taxes being weighted 52% of the total, Westchester Magazine ranked Harrison dead last, 40 out of 40, in its list of Best Places to live in Westchester." Overall property assessments in Harrison are down by about $2.2 million, and houses placed on the market in Harrison languishes for an average of about a year (compared to 6 months or less in Rye and other neighboring towns), if they can be sold at all.

I believe that members of the Board of Education have a solemn duty to ensure the best possible education for our children, and to ensure that taxpayer money is spent wisely and productively to achieve that. These are some of the areas where I believe we can and must do better:

1. The Superintendent and the Board should set and communicate goals that are measurable, and time periods for achieving them. Without that, we will be unable to distinguish between mere declarations of success and true educational accomplishment.

2. The Superintendent should be accountable to the Board, not the other way, which is how it now operates. The Superintendent has a 5-year contract that is renewed every year. That makes it an evergreen contract with no accountability.

3. The commitment to "universal acceleration" should be reconsidered. It is irresponsible to force kids into courses (AP and otherwise) for which they are unprepared just so the District can report that we have a 500% increase in students taking AP courses over the past 10 years, without reporting that 48% of the AP tests are failed.

4. We need to provide our students with broader course opportunities so they are not forced to choose between what may for them be an unchallenging Regents level class or a college level AP class for which they are unprepared.

5. We need to re-examine the District's mis-application of the "differentiated learning" teaching model. Because of limited course offerings, classrooms are populated by students of wildly divergent abilities, but we irrationally expect our teachers somehow magically to bring out the best in each kid. Our teachers are highly skilled, but the "differentiated learning" model was never intended to be used in the circumstances the District has created through "universal acceleration" and inadequate course offerings.

My kids will be staying in the District's schools. I want what you want:

• Measurable improvement in the performance of our schools at all levels

• Real educational value for our school-tax dollars, which will, in turn,

• Stem and reverse the slide in our property values.