What are School Board Members thinking?

Should the School District’s Technology Levy be rejected? I think so.

The District is proposing a new six year levy that “Will not increase taxes” but this is not the whole story. This levy is designed to provide every student in the school district with some kind of “Digital device” in the next 6 years, presumably to “Increase student achievement!” All of this “Discussion” was done without any opportunity for public comment!

One could make a significant case for the fact that the increases in “Digital devices” we have seen in the past six years have mostly stalled the efforts we have seen to “Increase student achievement.” I-pods, X-Boxes, My-Space, text messaging, Twitter, cell phones, Game-boys have all been a distraction in the home and sometimes in classrooms. Kids no longer seem to have time, or focus, to devote to “studying” and “learning.”

Recently a prominent University of Washington Science professor discovered that only 57% of his students could calculate the area of a circle! How these kids got into the University of Washington escapes me. Could it be that their “Learning experiences” in high school, or middle school, didn’t cover this topic adequately? Or was it that most of the UW students have been “Busy” with their digital devices “Communicating” with their peers on other topics? I think so.

Schools have been guilty in the past of expending vast sums on electronics and other “Magic Bullets,” Language Labs, Television in every classroom, Dial Access Television to name a few concepts that are now in the scrap heap. The district now has approximately one computer for each six students. Most students now also have one in their homes and the few that don’t can easily access one in computer labs and libraries in the school as well as in the public libraries. Those that have an honest need to do either word processing, or actual research, are not without options.

How is it that the school district can say this will not raise taxes? Is this “Smoke and Mirrors?” I think that there is some of this here.

The current levy raises approximately $ 1.8 Million each year and the District proposes to continue this expenditure. These dollars will be used to maintain and support the current level of technology. This seems reasonable to me. Here’s where the kicker comes in.

The District wants to boost the expenditure from $ 1.8 Million to $ 4.4 Million by increasing the levy amount to offset the retirement of facilities bonds!

One has to ask, “What kind of facilities could be built with the $ 2.6 Million instead of spending $ 2.6 Million on temporary assets such as computers and the support of such a complex system?”

According to the Chief Financial Officer of the District this would fund approximately $ 25 Million of new facilities.

The District has many facilities that are either completely obsolete, and expensive to maintain and patch up, or facilities that will soon reach this status. Federal Way High School, a hodge-podge of buildings, some from the 1930’s certainly meets this criteria.

Clearly for $ 25 Million one could replace the academic portions of FWHS.

Are we looking at a short term possible panacea or should we be looking at something more long term? I would favor the long term investment.

If the voters would reject this levy proposal, it would be possible to propose one that doesn’t start with the idea of a “Digital Device” for every student, unless they can be determined to be the “Magic Bullet.”

Schools are already full of distractions. Do we need more distractions with declining achievement scores? I don’t think so.