Dear Editor,
Please consider community service as a new member of the 2016 Owego-Apalachin CSD Board of Education. Why? Read the Tioga CSD Education Philosophy www.tiogacentral.org/EducationalPhilosophy.aspx and compare to OACSD BOE: www.oacsd.org/BoardProtocol.aspx. Then compare results! It is excessively expensive and poor results, like Detroit 1983.
Read the District Goals and Mission Statement. 1. What do they mean? 2. Who is responsible “to educate”? Is it students or faculty? 3. Has there ever been any measurement to any meaningful standard? 4. Has anything positive been accomplished since 2006? If academic performance and fiscal soundness are the OACSD function then students and taxpayers have suffered. 5. Have the tenured BOE members (those of 2008) acted on your behalf? Facts, performance, comparisons and New York State (NYS) indicate not.
The organizational values and character of the BOE must change with new blood. The tenured BOE failed to exercise any commonsense code of ethics to avoid conflicts of interest, or the appearance thereof, relative to nepotism and teachers union interests.
When alerted in 2011 to the trend of excessive employee compensation growth, no one bothered to check. See http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/pmf/.
When concerned citizens’ questions began to reveal the absence of management the BOE stopped answering questions. OACSD distinguishes itself by not posting performance measurement documents like the NYS ED Report Card, NYS Comptroller’s report, Scholastic Aptitude Test scores (SAT is the gold standard to college admittance) teacher salaries and performance (APPR), etc. These all reflect badly, particularly when compared to our neighbors and demographics. We should compare favorably to Vestal and Tioga CSD.
Why address the NYS Union of Teachers? Unbiased sources, including the NYS School Board Association and Education Department will identify the NYS Union of Teachers as the greatest detriment to NYS public education. Yet every penny of increased property taxes, since 2007, has gone directly to NYSUT without any benefit to taxpayers or students. Check out how OACSD stacks up on the teacher performance measurement of APPR.
Look forward from 2007; a) OACSD has made the greatest transfer of taxpayer money away from students and to the District Unions, b) five of seven BOE members were directly or indirectly (family members) affiliated with District unions. The BOE clarified that legally, there was no conflict of interest and cast commonsense aside. c) The graduation rate has declined from 85 to 81 percent, it is one of the lowest in BT counties, and d) Never has a quantitative goal been set to retain or exceed any level of performance or frugality. Goals mean nothing without measurement. The BOE must at least set a goal to reverse the declining graduation rate and at least meet or exceed achieve local norms.
The NYS Education Dept. and Comptroller’s office provide you the numbers our OACSD should be providing you. Our District paints a façade; see www.oacsd.org/AboutOurDistrict.aspx. Fact check it.
Every year OACSD is leaving more children behind! Please consider running for the OACSD BOE, for our children.
Sincerely,
Haig McNamee
Owego, N.Y.
