Commentary：The value of adding instructional minutes is very questionable
Boardmember Miriam Walden of the Albany Unified School District wrote a commentary on Albany Today explaining her ideas on issues related to the staggered reading program:
There are really three issues being discussed. First, no board member denies the value of small group reading instruction. I personally believe this program is enormously valuable. Second, the value of adding instructional minutes, which I personally believe is very questionable – more minutes does not necessarily mean more learning. We have not yet received an evaluation of the impact of the additional minutes that we added to the 1-3 grade schedules this fall.
Third, the very difficult childcare / family arrangements required by the staggered start times that we currently have for grades 1-3. Which I said represent a hidden tax on families of small children to pay for the small group reading program.
All of the schedules presented maintained small group instruction in some form – but some of them were impossibly expensive and some reduced the small group time to about a half an hour.
“Scenario 3″ simply adds 20 mins of instructional time without giving parents any relief from the child care problem in the mornings. Some parents would still have drop off times as late as 9:10 – others would have to contend with getting small children up earlier in the AM to get to school by 8:10. Since it doesn’t help parents with the real problem that they have and it does present significant risks to our program by changing the schedule without sufficient evaluation of the potential impact on teaching and learning, I will not support it.
The real solution here is additional on site childcare and enrichment options in Albany. I believe we all need to join in working very hard on this so that we can have new childcare and enrichment programs – probably fee for service programs, but also scholarships for families that are struggling with the cost of childcare, available by the Fall of 2009.
More minutes may not necessarily lead to more learning, but more minutes will certainly not hinder that process. Do we, in Albany, so undervalue our children’s education that we will sign a waiver to go below the instructional minutes of almost every other school in California?
The question, Boardmember Walden, is not whether or not adding more instructional minutes to our elementary students’s curriculum will be valuable. I think it is very clear that adding more time for instruction will not be detrimental to their education. The true question at this time is budget. How can we afford either Scenario 1 which was proposed at the December 2nd Board Meeting, or the childcare and enrichment programs that you suggest?
I would suggest that you find a solution to this question before attacking our already limited instructional minutes.
More minutes may not necessarily lead to more learning, but more minutes will certainly not hinder that process. Do we, in Albany, so undervalue our children’s education that we will sign a waiver to go below the instructional minutes of almost every other school in California?
The question, Boardmember Walden, is not whether or not adding more instructional minutes to our elementary students’s curriculum will be valuable. I think it is very clear that adding more time for instruction will not be detrimental to their education. The true question at this time is budget. How can we afford either Scenario 1 which was proposed at the December 2nd Board Meeting, or the childcare and enrichment programs that you suggest?
I would suggest that you find a solution to this question before attacking our already limited instructional minutes.
What a joke! Walden where are you?
“Second, the value of adding instructional minutes, which I personally believe is very questionable – more minutes does not necessarily mean more learning.”
The above statement makes sense if you have children in class without breaks no lunch pe etc… 24 hours a day.
We are talking about five hours of learning a day versus six hours if I understand the article Linjun has written. (With normals breaks etc…)
This sounds like someone protecting her friends, perhaps the DA should make sure no kick backs are happening.
The teachers are under contact. The state has laws. Perhaps the missing hour is allowed, most likely otherwise it would have been order changed by the state many years before. None of that matters here! Vote for teachers and shorter hours or for parents and shorter childcare hours thus payments. Neither matter!
What matters is the school board asked an employee to produce a report, that person refused. Now the school board is going to vote without having the information they have asked for. Why has that employee or her boss Marla not being fired yet?
After getting all the data thatq you asked for then make take a vote.
In Peace,
Andy Austin
Dear Mr. Austin,
I may, perhaps, be misreading your message, but it is my interpretation that you are asking for the firing of Lynda Hornada for completing an in depth analysis (with a committee), through which she concluded Early Bird/Late Bird was a valuable program we should strive to protect for our children’s sake. The school board left the task of the EB/LB committee open to determine the best method for small group reading, clearly determined to scrap the current program based on her findings. That was not possible due to the overwhelming evidence from her research. The school board is now retracting their orders for data collection and are attempting to re-write their request, so as to let blame fall upon the best Head of Curriculum this district has seen.
Please take the time to study the data collected, the input from other districts, observations of other programs, teacher’s rational, and do some observations in classrooms. Please do this before calling for Lynda and Marla’s heads!
Meg,
I quote what Linjun wrote, if she mis-wrote what she was told then I would have to change or modify my statement. However, below is what she wrote if it is correct I feel that I can stand behind what I said. Although, I think Ron should not be on the school board he does know education and I know he knows how to make directions clear. I have seen him give clear directions when I was PTSA President at AHS. This means that Lynda and Marla did not do what the broad ask as Marla would have heard what was happening to the committee. Firing both would not be a bad thing. Especially good to fire when it is getting data that was not done so the board can not make an informed choice.
In Peace,
Andy Austin
Here is from Linjun’s article.
But boardmembers said that the report was not what they had asked for.
“We have went through a lot of difficult discussions to give a very clear direction as to what we wanted the task force to come up with,” said Boardmember David Glasser. “It’s a fully-day instruction with small-group reading. “
“I was surprised, ” said Boardmember Ron Rosenbaum. ” The task force did not completely respond to the board’s direction. “