Candidate’s Night and Other Events

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The League of Women Voters (LWV) will be holding a Candidate’s Night on October 6th at 7 PM. People can attend in person, or can view the stream on the League of Women Voters Facebook page (either in real time or later). I strongly encourage everyone to tune in and hear directly from all of the candidates!

I also plan to hold weekly meet-and-greets at the Glen Rock Starbucks, starting this Friday at 2:00 PM. Please come out and say hi, and feel free to ask me anything!

Finally, back to the subject of the LWV, they partner with Vote411, a non-partisan organization that helps voters navigate elections. You can enter your address, and Vote411 will show you all the races on the ballot and the candidates for each one. Critically, LWV sends a set of standardized questions to each candidate, and so you can view their responses and compare them to each other. I just submitted my responses – you’ll see them on Vote411 soon, but I’m also putting them below:

• What single district goal do you want to achieve during your term, how will you measure success and what specific skills from your background will you use to make it happen?

The goal which I both prioritize and for which success can be readily measured is that of reducing technology dependence in our classrooms. I have the somewhat unusual perspective of a STEM doctorate holder who is also a skeptic of STEM-centered education, particularly technology-focused approaches. I have extensive experience in higher education classrooms, and from that have an understanding of what skills graduating high school students truly need in college and in the workforce, and how those skills are being eroded by our current approaches. I will use my expertise to drive action towards this goal. I would consider it a success if all general middle-school classes used pen-and-paper classwork and assignments as a default, with exceptions for specific “computer” classes and for necessary individualized accommodations.

• What’s your view on using tools like collective procurement or shared services to manage costs? Please talk about an additional cost cutting strategy which you would propose to the BOE.

I am absolutely in favor of both of those tools. When you zoom out, New Jersey (due to long-standing factors) has relatively few students per school district, and more districts per county than any other state. While hyperlocal control of education may have some advantages, it is well known that New Jersey has one of the highest rates of administrative spending per student, and (not coincidentally) the highest effective property taxes in the country. Both the state senate (S-4861) and assembly (A-4584) have bills related to consolidation. While that is naturally out of the purview of the BoE, at our scale we should be taking every opportunity to work with neighboring towns and public institutions to collectively lower our costs. I believe spending money on education is critical, but as public servants it is equally critical to ensure that every dollar is spent in a way that maximizes impact. These efficiencies are a way to reduce costs without actually changing services or programs.

• How should the Board of Education consider and respond to concerns of residents when setting policy?

The BoE are democratically-elected representatives, and therefore should be balancing their own knowledge and expertise with faithfully responding to the concerns of residents. However, it is always important to first ascertain what those really are. A comparatively small number of people are able to physically participate in public meetings, but that does not mean that others hold uninformed views, or are unaffected. The Board therefore has an obligation to keep its finger on the community pulse through frequent interactions with community members, along with HSAs and other school groups, to fully understand what the majority desires. This can then be considered alongside any non-public information the BoE is privy to before making decisions. When a decision looks to be controversial, it is best greeted by transparency – voting one way or another will by definition not satisfy everyone, but a good-faith explanation may satisfy more people.

• What initiatives would you propose to support and retain teachers in the school district?

This starts with a very simple question, into which unfortunately we do not have great insight as members of the public – what do teachers that have departed say might have caused them to stay instead? Sometimes, departures are inevitable due to personal circumstance, and in other cases general dissatisfaction with the previous administrative regime might have been a factor. However, we simply do not know the answer. In the absence of definitive information, I would propose increasing teacher salaries, providing more pathways to advancement outside of an administrative track (e.g. reviving “department head” positions), and ensuring prompt corrective measures are taken when teachers leave our district for seemingly avoidable reasons. Keeping experienced, successful teachers who understand our district in the classroom is the best way to ensure the continued success of the district.

• Given residents’ concerns about administrative costs, how would you restructure or reduce administrative/supervisory positions? How would you weigh that against the cost of adding back separate leadership for Glen Rock’s combined middle/high school principal position, a model used in only about 1 in 8 NJ districts?

I approach fiscal questions with the starting principle that education is the best use of public money, but that people spending public money have a duty to do so effectively. In my mind, the concern isn’t about administrative costs themselves, but about the benefit students are deriving from them – and whether they would benefit more by restructuring that would free up money for other purposes. There is no current evidence based on academic performance that the district’s switch to a supervisor system over department heads has been a positive one. In the case of the middle/high school principal, there is actual evidence to suggest that increasing administrative costs by introducing a leadership position will benefit students. We need to look at the specifics, rather than bucketing “administrative spending” as a single thing.

• What areas of Glen Rock’s curriculum do you believe need improvement, and what specific changes would you prioritize?

Glen Rock curriculum needs to become less dependent on technology, with a focus on screen-free classrooms as the default through at least middle school. ELA and math achievement scores easily exceed state averages, but there is no good reason for fully a quarter of students to be performing below grade level in either of these disciplines – acceleration programs in elementary school are a useful tool, allowing teachers to focus more attention on those who need more help. There are also early gender gaps in both ELA (boys underachieve) and math (girls underachieve). Finally, our district has a poor track record of producing bilingual students – public records indicate that very few of our graduates receive the NJ State Seal of Biliteracy, awarded to over 11% of graduates statewide. Multilingualism is well known to benefit cognition and learning in other subjects, and requiring more rigor in second (and third) language achievement will benefit academic achievement across the board.