11/11/98
Opelika * Auburn News* THE NEWSPAPER OF EAST ALABAMA*11/11/98
Letter: Debate divides community
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Auburn community is questioning the wisdom of Year-Round Schools in Auburn. In the materials that Auburn City Schools sent to parents and teachers it was said that Year-Round Schools would help at-risk children. If this were true then a change might be worth considering, so the claim should be examined.
Nine studies were cited in that mailing in support of the claim that a year-round calendar would help at-risk children. I read these studies and I was stunned by what I found.
Four studies ("Campbell," "Greenfield," "Haenn," "Peltier") report no statistically significant effects of year-round calendars on reading, math, or other academically relevant areas. None. There were no benefits at all to anybody.
The authors of one study ("Cooper") wrote that their report cannot be applied to alternative school calendars, so this report says nothing about reducing summer vacation from 11 weeks to, say, 7 weeks as is being proposed here.
One of these ("Greenfield") did not appear to involve at-risk students at all.
One study ("Roby") compared some 6th graders from one year-round school against some 6th graders from a traditional-calendar school and found a difference in math scores. The effect was attributed to the calendar, but it is just as likely that one school had a better math teacher than the other.
No details about the pro portion of at-risk children were presented in that study.
One citation ("Kneese and Knight") is a two-page transcript of a paper read at a professional meeting. It is not otherwise in the open literature and is too brief to evaluate or to use for such an important decision.
Of the above studies the relevance to at-risk children is not at all clear from reading the studies.
One study ("Curry") is a detailed report of 12 elementary schools in Austin Texas in which 50 to 85 percent of students were Hispanic. Benefits were reported in Hispanic students, for many of whom English was a second language. This is not a problem that faces Auburn City Schools. The authors noted that the year-round calendar was so disruptive in the middle school that it should be abandoned. More important, however, a report on National Public Radio (25 Oct. 1998) reported that test scores from Hispanic children were fabricated by school principals in order to make their schools look better. This study cannot be trusted.
One study ("Shields and LaRocque") is a literature review conducted for the British Columbia Ministry of Education. It says any benefits that might appear come from reforms accompanied by the year-round calendar, and not the change in the calendar.
This proposal is dividing the community and no benefit to such disruption can be anticipated. It threatens to damage the credibility of the leadership of Auburn City Schools in a community that cares deeply about education. Withdraw this proposal before more damage is done and lets go about the business of educating our children.
Christopher Newland,Ph.D.Auburn
Article: YRS dominates Auburn BOE meeting
Greg Markley Opelika-Auburn News
For two hours Tuesday, members of the Auburn Board of Education heard from city residents about the year-round schools/alternative calendar concept at a meeting packed with YRS opponents.
"This issue has not been decided," said BOE president Carol Pittard. "Believe me, we and the board are listening. To my knowledge, there is no agenda at any level."
"It's obviously not in the best interests of our children, and not feasibly sound," said Doc Satcher. "It will take away from the educational benefits we have now.
In a brief video that was shown, YRS opponent Dr. David Elton noted that just 3,000 of 100,000 school systems have YRS arrangements. He added that many of the systems reverted back to a traditional school cal endar after YRS wasn't shown to be a success.
Frances Stuckwisch presented BOE members with an eight minute video and two binders, one about as big as a major city telephone book. Inside the binders, she said, was plenty of evidence that YRS is not the best idea for helping students, even the hard to reach at-risk ones.
Alice Pate said the Auburn school board could better spend its money on more teachers and other ways to improve classroom reports.
Mary Ann McKenzie presented petitions against YRS signed by 2,000 Auburn residents. She said the signatures came from a wide spectrum of demographic groups.
"These signatures were very easy to obtain. We did not badger people. This shows that the community does not support year-round schools," Ms. McKenzie said.
Rachel Bailey said most of her fellow Auburn city schools classmates are opposed to YRS. "The students were eager to sign the petition. The students also need a voice in this," she said. "I think this money could be put to better use by hiring more teachers."
"We are not here because this is a cute thing to do, be an activist," said Anne Spry. She said she and others oppose YRS because there is so little statistical support for the idea that YRS improves student academic performance.
She said the survey on YRS was confusing. "Why can't they come out with a survey that wouldn't confuse the heck out of the community?" she asked.
"It is creating a lot of animosity in this community," said Grace Lewis, a teacher for 27 years. "This is consuming this community."
She said the board of education should look at other ways to lift up at-risk children, such as remediation targeted to specific weaknesses and small-group instruction .