Mark Strickland worried that advanced city students have been overlooked in the mad rush to lift standardized test scores. So he proposed a solution: Place an “advanced instructor” in every school.
Strickland, who has a daughter in the second grade at Worthington Hooker School, pitched that plan to the Board of Ed at its regular meeting last week.
He said the school district needs to pay more attention to advanced students. He proposed putting a teacher in each school to teach advanced math and science to students who are at the head of their classes.
Assistant Superintendent Garth Harries (at right) said New Haven’s school reform efforts include tracking of student progress. He called Strickland’s idea in line with the new “master teacher” program. Harries listed a number of opportunities already available for talented students in the public schools.
To pay for the “advanced” teachers, the city should write more traffic tickets, Strickland said. (It turns out that part of his idea doesn’t hold up: The city earns only $10 for each traffic ticket cops write, and issuing citations can actually cost the city more money than it brings in.)
Strickland unveiled his idea during the public comment section of Monday evening’s Board of Ed meeting. He said the district’s school “tiering” system, by which all schools get graded into three categories, should put more emphasis on the improvement of individual students. He said the current system leads to a “triage mentality” in which the students who score the worst on standardized tests get most of the attention: “Students who score highly may be overlooked.”
The solution, Strickland argued, is to start a program for advanced students, with an “advanced instructor” in every school teaching higher-level math and English. That would free other teachers to focus on the students “in the median,” Strickland said. “Everybody wins.”
School board member Alex Johnston said that as the district’s tiering system “evolves” it includes “more emphasis on student growth.” He said it’s very important to look at “each kid’s progress.”
Harries said New Haven’s school reform movement has had “an emphasis on growth in student learning from the very outset.” The school district tracks graduation rates compared to student performance upon entering high school, Harries said.
He connected Strickland’s “advanced instructor” notion to the “master teacher” program, which would place certain teachers in mentoring positions to help other teachers improve.
Harries said New Haven schools offer a range of programs for advanced students. The district has a talented and gifted program, for instance, and high schools offer Advanced Placement course and even college enrollment, Harries said.
Harries said he’s very mindful of “the need to educate each kid to the highest standards” and to “differentiate” education “so every kid is challenged and learning.”
Strickland said he likes to think that his second-grade daughter is one of the advanced students he’s concerned about. He said her teacher, Tim Short, does a good job with teaching to varying abilities. Short assigns kids to different groups so they can learn at the appropriate pace, Strickland said.
Not So Fast
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Strickland pitches his plan to Assistant Superintendent Garth Harries.
Strickland told the Board of Ed that the city could pay for the advanced instructors by enforcing more motor vehicle laws and diverting the revenue to the schools. That would have the added benefit of making the streets safer, he said.
“I’ll do you one better,” said Alex Johnston. “Red light cameras!” If the state would grant a city request to install them, the city could have safer streets and more money, Johnston said.
But traffic tickets aren’t exactly a cash cow. Downtown Alderman Doug Hausladen, who has championed an effort to allow the city to install red light cameras to catch scofflaws, noted that the city gets only $10 from writing traffic tickets. The rest of the money goes to the state. The law is written that way so that municipalities don’t have an incentive to, say, set up a speed trap to collect a bunch of cash, Hausladen said.
Hausladen said issuing citations can actually end up costing the city money, when you factor in the work it creates for a cop: paperwork, appearing in court. And cops will argue they should be out catching violent criminals, not writing tickets, Hausladen said.
On the other hand, “there’s a huge economic benefit to having safe streets,” Hausladen said. “That’s a little harder to measure.”
The claim that we can't enforce our traffic laws because we don't get the money is a red herring.
When a driver runs a red light, the car is technically "parked" in (or obstructing) the intersection at an illegal time. Can it be given a parking ticket instead of a M/V ticket? I believe that other cities have taken this approach.
Similarly, the proposed red light cameras (which are used in thousands of other cities, including many around the Northeast) issue fines that would be considered in the same class as parking tickets (fines), not as M/V tickets that go on someone's driving record. That is why the revenue from the cameras would go to local municipalities.
As another option, the law that gives M/V ticket revenue to the State can be changed.