Welcome!

Welcome to Laurie Goodman's blog. I use this space to share news and opinions about education and schools in Ridgewood, the state of New Jersey and the nation, in addition to other issues I'm personally interested in. I invite you to share your thoughts, feelings, questions or opinions, too, by posting comments on any blog entry. Please observe basic courtesy -- keep your comments focused on issues, no personal attacks or bullying, please. Contact me directly at: lauriegood@mac.com

Monday, September 26, 2011

Losing some school safety.


Yesterday’s Bergen Record had a story about budget cuts forcing school districts to lose their School Resource Officers. Ridgewood lost its SRO and it’s definitely a loss for our students.

It may surprise some people that I am a fan of police officers in schools for any reason, but the SRO is not simply an armed-guard. Rather than intimidating students, frisking kids, searching lockers or chasing down youthful offenders, the SRO’s benefits are more subtle and long term. In Ridgewood, our SRO formed relationships with students in the high school and middle schools. Actually, elementary school students became acquainted with him as he would occasionally talk to their classes, then when they got to middle school they’d see him more often and perhaps get to know him one on one. And then by high school they were comfortable enough to share information about activities and interests of kids in Ridgewood – things that might happen in school or outside of school. The SRO got to know many students by name, he had his ear to the ground, and heard stories about parties or incidents. He knew who had bad home situations. He helped get assistance for kids with substance problems. And the kids felt he genuinely cared about them. Students could come to him for advice. If he heard about an issue that was in the principal’s purview, he’s share that info. And vice versa. Without a doubt, the SRO prevented some crimes from happening and when there were incidents, he was able to follow-up with more precision and success.

It’s nice to read that some towns, such as New Milford, stepped in with funding from the town budget, to keep SROs in place. Our BOE was unsuccessful in getting the Village of Ridgewood to fund our SRO when grant funding ran out. So the Ridgewood SRO was reassigned to “regular” police work.

Does my opinion of the SRO program conflict with my opinion of extracurricular codes that punish kids for activities that take place outside of school? Absolutely not. I still am not comfortable with a school imposing sanctions – such as barring a student from sports or clubs – because of something they may have done on a Saturday night. But the SRO program was different. It was about communication and rapport and the “it takes a village” mentality, not simply a shortcut to official police reports.

It’s too bad we lost it.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Hawes School ribbon-cutting Wednesday night

Residents, neighbors, parents and kids are invited to the official ribbon cutting ceremony at Hawes School Wednesday night 9/14. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. I haven't seen the new addition at Hawes since back in March or so...can't wait to see how it all turned out.

This is the addition that was funded as part of the 2009 bond referendum. Other projects include the addition at Ridge School (not going as quickly, different contractor, different challenges), additions at Willard and GW (in progress), the RHS fields (need to be repaired) and lots of important but not-so-obvious work at RHS, BF and other schools.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Lunch point-of-sale system confusion.


Received this email from the Ridgewood Public Schools tonight:

Hello Parents of Ridgewood Middle Schools and High School,
As you may know, we have implemented a Point-of-Sales system in the cafeterias at the Middle Schools and High School.  In order to make the lunch period run quickly and efficiently, we ask that you remind your students that they will require a Key Pad number for purchasing items from the cafeterias, either on account or in cash.  Your students key pad number can be found in Skyward Family or Student Access under Food Service.  If you need assistance, please email skywardhelp@ridgewood.k12.nj.us.Thank you for your patience during this transition period.

I do encourage everyone to be patient (and nice) during the transition, but I have to agree with some of my friends who find it utterly baffling that students must enter a PIN number in order to purchase something with cash. Makes no sense to me. (Not to mention -- if you don't use Skyward to pay for lunch in advance, then you don't have a PIN...or you don't know you have a PIN.) I'm hoping this is something that can be tweaked and corrected. I don't understand why a Point of Sale system needs to track cash purchases. 

I'll let you know if I hear about anything changing.

The high cost of low salaries.

Now that my daughter (RHS Class of 07) has begun working on her Master’s and started student teaching at an elementary school in New Hampshire, I’m getting a fascinating look at the process of becoming a teacher. The view from the very first days of one’s career is so interesting – especially when that career is constantly in the news and the topic of blog posts, speeches, political posturing, national debate and local ridicule. More than a few young or aspiring teachers are asking themselves, “What am I doing? Is this really the smartest thing for me to do with my life?” For most young adults who enter the teaching profession right out of college, teaching is a calling. They’ve always wanted to be a teacher, or they’ve always know they wanted to work with children. Teaching is certainly not the career one lands on when scanning the list of Top 10 Starting Salaries or Top 10 Growth Careers, where it seems the primary focus is on how fast can you get out and how much money can you leave with. Teaching is no way to get rich – there are much higher starting salaries and much more lucrative fields. This fact, I believe, is directly related to the current worries about the quality of our schools.

I read a great piece in the NY Times about teacher compensation and the high cost of turnover -- as 46% of teachers quit before their fifth year. (The High Cost of Low Salaries, 4/30/11) According to the piece:
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates.
I find it difficult to argue with this premise. What do you say?

The article discusses a McKinsey study that looked at countries with successful education systems – you know, the countries frequently cited as shining examples of school systems that are “better” than ours, namely Singapore, Finland and South Korea. The study found:
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
The authors also remark that “turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.”

Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so. Great teachers are going to be the key to improving our education system, and great teachers – who possess the best and brightest minds and who can afford to teach and contribute for the long haul – will cost money.

The NY Times column concludes:
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
To which I add, it’s time to rustle up our collective will, leave the politics out, and make it happen. This is not to say it must happen by being fully funded by local property taxes. It's a federal issue. Right? Isn't our nation's overall approach to education a national issue? Hello? Is this thing on?

And to the young teachers just starting their careers now, perhaps in your first classrooms this week: Hang in there. Don’t be discouraged. Think for yourself and not your union’s political agenda. Be part of the conversation. And thank you.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to save someone's life.


As we sit here in our cozy Village, chilly rain falling, going about our daily lives, it's easy to forget some of the challenges experienced by people in other places around the globe. We're here getting riled up about fields and lunch-buying programs and teacher contracts. Those are all worthy topics of some concern. But sometimes our local issues make it easy to forget we're part of a bigger world. It's easy to remain uninformed, as we constantly filter the news that comes at us via the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, TV, radio, etc. But please don't filter this one out. It's about a problem that is literally killing millions of people -- and which each and every one of us could help fight with just pocket change and a few minutes of our time. Really.

Check out Seth Godin's blog today, which is End Malaria Day. Malaria? Isn't that some disease you get if you're on a safari and get bitten by too many mosquitos? It's far, far worse than that. Worldwide, a child dies of malaria every 45 seconds. But this disease could be virtually wiped out by something as simple as mosquito netting. Godin's blog post, and the End Malaria Day event, are designed to give people like you and me an easy way to learn more and save lives by contributing to the purchase of mosquito netting for families on the other side of the globe. Here's how simple it is:As suggested by Seth's blog:
Right this minute, right now, please do three things:
1. Buy two copies of End Malaria, an astonishing new book by more than sixty of your favorite authors. In a minute, I will explain why this might be the most important book you buy this year (not the best book, of course, just the most important one). You should buy one in paperback too so you can evangelize a copy to a colleague.
2. Tweet or like this post, or email it to ten friends (It only takes a second.)
3. Visit the End Malaria Day website and share it as well.
What would happen if you did that? What would happen if you stepped up and spent a few dollars?
Here's what would happen: someone wouldn't die.
A child wouldn't die from malaria, a disease that causes more childhood death than HIV/AIDS.
It's that direct. Malaria bednets are simple nets that hang over a window or a bed. They're treated with a chemical that mosquitos hate. The mosquitos fly away, they don't bite, people don't get malaria.
I hope you will do this. I'm going to do it right now.

Monday, September 5, 2011

First day of school 2011!

So here we are again, back to school. This time it’s strange for me for a couple of reasons. My son, who is my youngest child, is starting his senior year at Ridgewood High School. It’s hard to believe we’re already here. Hard to believe his college applications will be done in a couple of months. And hardest to believe he’ll be going off to college in one year. He is such a different person than my daughter, that the college app and senior process will be much different this time around. Let’s just say things aren’t quite so buttoned up. At the same time, things don't feel so stressful, either.

We did manage to get a few things done this summer. We researched and visited several schools. At the beginning of the summer, his list of potential colleges was around 40. It is now a manageable 11 schools – and that’s how many he will apply to. I think he’s got 2 reach, 3 target/reach, 4 target and 2 safety. Part of the challenge is that he is completely undecided in terms of what he wants to study or what he wants to do with his life. And that’s OK with me – in fact I think it’s great because I don’t think 16 or 17 year olds have the experience or knowledge of themselves or the world to be “deciding” on their careers. So while I’m glad he’s open to a lot of possibilities, it changes the college search process from one focused on finding the school with the perfect program to finding a school with a wide variety of options, where the important thing is he feels comfortable enough to explore.

I appreciate the fact that college is a priority among Ridgewood students – as my daughter used to say, it’s actually cool to be smart at RHS – but I don’t like the constant comparison and “where are you applying” and “what are your SAT scores” that can reach a fever pitch among some/many of the students (and parents). My number one goal with my son (and my daughter in 2007) was to get them to keep their heads down, focus on themselves and what’s right for them, and don’t listen to what everyone else is doing.

As a parent, it can be helpful to hear what others are doing as a way to get ideas, hear advice from those who’ve lived it before and to relieve stress (whew, glad to know all the boys are procrastinators!). But for the students, I think the constant talk and comparison is not helpful. So I try to be a counterbalance to that.

Anyway, the beginning of senior year is an exciting time. Even though I know that at the very end of the process there will be a letting go, I’m looking forward to the experience – the one I’ll be sharing with my son and husband and the one I’ll be sharing with my fellow RHS Class of 2012 parents.

Have a great year, everyone. Here we go!