by P.D. Lesko

Now is the Winter of Our Discontent.

To hear AAPS insiders tell it, the atmosphere at the Balas Administration building is like the Court of King Richard III, the atmosphere unhealthy, the established nobles at odds with the upwardly mobile members of the AAEA teacher’s union. What the tax-paying peasants have been reading in the media’s coverage of this year’s AAPS budget-a-palooza mirrors the life of the hunchbacked king. For those not up on their Shakespeare, the Machiavellian and increasingly paranoid Richard III eventually loses what little initial popularity he had, and then the rebellions begin.

Enter stage left AAEA President Linda Carter, who in late-February all but challenged the Superintendent to a duel when she called the Sup.’s $300,000 pay package “asinine” on AnnArbor.com.

Right about now, Dr. Patricia Green is being haunted by the ghosts of her declarations (“I came to Ann Arbor to eliminate the achievement gap.”—December 2011). Thoroughly irked peasant taxpayers, fed up with paying $300,000 per year for a Superintendent who hasn’t delivered on her promises, post cranky comments to AnnArbor.com in response to articles about Green: “Despair and die!” after which they wish victory upon anyone willing to run for the Board of Education in 2014.

Today, Superintendent Dr. Patricia Green announced she is taking a pay cut. She also announced that it would take 12 months to put controls and practices in place that would allow for full line-item control over the District’s $180 million dollar budget. This claim met with derision from local bank president Stephen Lange Ranzini who responded to Green’s assertions thusly: “Translation: the current budget documents are for show and sit on the shelf collecting dust after approval by the AAPS BoE and are quite useless. It will take us a year to create detailed budgets that we can actually use to track expenditures at the level of detail required to actually know what we are spendig the money on, how much each school actually costs to run and to catch waste.”

Zounds!

Dr. Green’s announcement that she was cutting her own pay and getting a grip on the District’s finances comes on the eve of her upcoming evaluation by the BOE, and on the heels of the very public rebuke by Linda Carter. Carter went on to tell AnnArbor.com, “She  (Green) needs to come back down here with the rest of us.” Obviously, Carter’s not-so-subtle hints hit home. On March 7th Dr. Green was quoted in the media as saying she “didn’t need to be asked,” to take a pay cut. Green, who continues to shoot herself in her stylishly shod feet, told the local education reporter in an interview: “I already shared with the board that I intended to take a cut in my pay. And that precedes anybody saying anything publically about it. … If I’m asking concessions from individuals in this organization, how could I not take the same thing myself? I don’t need anybody to ask me to do that. Because as a superintendent I recognize, that as a leader of the school district, you don’t ask people to take compensation cuts and not do it yourself.”

When asked by a reporter how big a cut she was prepared to take, Dr. Green took a dainty .22 caliber pistol from her purse, pointed it at the toe of her patent leather sling-back and said in her usual off-putting style, “I don’t think that detail is something we’re prepared to talk about yet.”

Since January, Dr. Green has been taking a brutal PR beating thanks to public accusations of working only four days per week (refuted by AAPS staffer Liz Margolis, as well as BOE member Christine Stead), being arrogant, aloof, not worth her weight in gold, and downright dismissive of concerns from within her own organization by her own administrators. Watching Dr. Green being peeled like an onion by those commenting on articles posted to AnnArbor.com is like watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. It’s riveting and revolting all at once.

The bottom line is that, like Ann Arbor city government, the AAPS administrators are spending big on travel, eating out and luxury hotels while cutting funding for music camps, sports and transportation. This is business as usual and it has continued, unchecked, under the not-so-watchful Ann Arbor Board of Education members (Deb Mexicotte, Irene Patalan, Christine Stead and Glenn Nelson) who behave as though pushing for specifics is beneath their dignity. Trustees Susan Baskett and Simone Lightfoot have been chastised by the current Superintendent, as well as fellow BOE members for trying to deconstruct the librettos penned for them by AAPS administrators concerning a variety of financial, educational and operational challenges facing the District.

The frustration on the part of AAPS parents has reached a boiling point, and we will see trustees whose terms end in 2014 challenged for their seats by well-funded and well-organized candidates (more on this in a later post).

What follows is a letter I recently sent to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Trustees.

To the BOE,

by P.D. Lesko

Republicans, Tea Partiers and malcontents have blamed Obamacare for the rise in health insurance premiums. Republicans in Washington complain that Obamacare will result in soaring costs for health care providers. Progressive Washington DC think tank Think Progress offered a different explanation for the rising cost of health insurance premiums. In August 2012, Think Progress published a piece titled, “Rising Health Costs, Not Obamacare, Are Increasing Insurance Rates…” In that piece we read: “It’s true that health insurance rates are rising, but data from Connecticut suggests it has nothing to do with Obamacare. Filings from Connecticut’s two largest health insurers, which both applied for double-digit rate increases this year, show that the insurance companies are not driving up their prices because Obamacare is leading them to do so. Rather, the rate increases are due to increasingly expensive health costs that are unaffected by the implementation of the health care law….Providers are raising their prices.”

Obamacare is designed to make health insurance more affordable by reforming payment models and reducing payments to hospitals—companies that have raised prices exponentially, costs that health insurance companies have passed right along to business owners, their employees and other consumers in the form of higher premiums.

The University of Michigan Health System rakes in around $2 billion dollars per year, and has operated at a profit since 1997. It’s an enviable track record, but one that has contributed to the dramatic rise in the cost of health care premiums in Michigan. According to research by the Washington, DC nonprofit  Families USA, “Over the past 10 years, Michigan’s working families have seen their health care costs go up significantly faster than their earnings. As a result, health insurance premiums now place a greater burden on family budgets than ever before. Premiums for job-based health insurance have risen rapidly over the past 10 years: Health insurance premiums for Michigan’s working families have risen by 76.5 percent—12.9 times faster than median earnings in Michigan.” According to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, between 2000 and 2011, the cost of employer-provided health benefits in the state jumped a whopping 75 percent, on average to between $6,900 and $12,000 per family covered per year. Meanwhile, the cost of health insurance for individuals doubled from an average of $2,400 per year to $4,800.

In June 2011, Doug Strong, who oversees the University Hospital, C.S. Mott Children’s and Women’s Hospital, 30 health centers and 120 outpatient clinics told University of Michigan Regents that the construction of the new C.S. Mott Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital would “squeeze” the UMHS budget. Strong told U of Regents he expected a $23.5 million budget shortfall in 2012. In June 2012, when Regents again approved the UMHS budget, they were told by UMHS administrators that increased patient demand would help move the UMHS back into the black by 2013. Over the next four months, however, the UMHS experienced “expenses…greatly exceeding our revenue.”

Six months after Doug Strong assured Regents that strong patient demand would help move UMHS “back into the black,” in December 2012, UMHS staffers were told that without cuts to the lowest paid workers (temp workers and part-timers), among others, administrators projected a $200 million annual gap in its budget by the end of 2020, or an almost 10-fold increase in the organization’s project 2013 deficit.

In 2009, the UMHS instituted a wage freeze. It was, in part, in response to a profit margin that dropped from 3.9 percent in 2007 to just 1 percent in 2009. Below, is a table of the UMHS annual revenues and operating (profit) margins:

In December 2012, Pescovitz sent out this email to all UMHS staff:

A message from Dr. Pescovitz, Doug Strong and Dean Woolliscroft

There is much political conversation about the country being at a fiscal cliff – a precipice of tax increases and spending cuts that will occur Jan. 1 unless the federal government gets its financial house in order.

We also find ourselves at a significant crossroad for our Health System, where larger-than-expected deficits now require us to focus intently on ensuring we have a positive margin for this year so that we have a solid foundation to weather expected financial pressures in the years ahead.

Our expenses after the first four months of our current fiscal year, which began July 1, are greatly exceeding our revenue, which leaves us with a much larger than expected financial challenge. Both the Hospitals and Health Centers and the Medical School need to considerably reduce operating expenses for the remainder of this fiscal year to offset this deficit.

One month ago, we asked leaders of each unit of the HHC and each academic and administrative area of the Medical School to consider how best to reduce expenses. The approaches were different for those two parts of our Health System, given how different the business and operations are for each.

HHC leaders were asked to develop detailed expense management plans to adjust to new revenue realities. Those plans included attrition management; reductions in appointment effort, overtime, temporary staff and contract labor; and savings from improvements in supply chain efforts.

In the Medical School, each of the departments underwent a “stress test” by looking at expenses should there be an additional 10 percent reduction in revenue to each unit. Each of the department leadership teams considered hard choices about what programs and projects could be reduced or cut to remain solvent, including support for unfunded research and targeting clinical areas where revenue could be enhanced. The Faculty Group Practice asked each of the Ambulatory Care medical directors to bring their margin back to at least the level of FY12; their detailed plans exceeded this goal.

All of our leaders have responded with plans that will significantly reduce our negative margin. But more work remains. We have not closed the gap between our expenses and our revenue for this fiscal year, and our challenges moving forward are growing.

By the end of the decade, the Health System may be facing a $200 million annual gap in our clinical margin. In the Medical School, the challenge to secure research funding will continue. The fiscal pressures on our federal and state governments are very real, and the actions taken by government will hit our Health System – and all hospitals and medical schools – hard.

Across-the-board cuts to reduce the federal budget deficit (also known as budget sequestration), could be the path our legislators take. If this happens, we will see a decrease in National Institutes of Health and medical education funding, potentially significant reductions in payments for hospital outpatient services and decreases in physician reimbursement.

These external forces make it more important than ever that we take meaningful and sustainable actions now to improve our operations and financial performance to prepare us for the financial pressures that will continue. The work we do now to create a positive margin for this fiscal year is the first phase of our cost-reduction efforts and will position us well, but we know that we must continue to look for more ways to improve processes, throughput and efficiency across our Health System, as we are doing through reductions in length of stay, improving capacity and access, expense management and revenue growth. In research, we are consolidating service contracts to reduce expenses, streamlining repairs to laboratory equipment and are using lean thinking to reduce the post-award management of externally-sponsored research.

Our strategic plan continues to be our roadmap: a combination of investing in growth in key areas and recognizing what we must stop doing to help improve our operating performance. Our rich history, excellence across each part of our mission and abundant assets afford us an opportunity that few other academic medical centers have to weather this period of financial uncertainty. But it will require diligence, hard work and undeterred focus to ensure we never stop seeking ways to improve.

We are committed to moving our Health System forward – strategically, strongly and effectively. We appreciate all you are doing to ensure The Michigan Difference continues to be more than words, but the palpable result of our commitment each day to make a lasting impression on all who come here for care, research and education.

Ora H. Pescovitz, M.D.
Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, U-M CEO, U-M Health System

Douglas L. Strong
CEO, University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers

James O. Woolliscroft, M.D.
Dean, Medical School
Lyle C. Roll Professor of Medicine

While the 2012 salary information of these administrators might be interesting, it wouldn’t tell the real story. Below, is a graph that charts the increases in salary given to the four top administrators. The graph shows that in the case of the Dean of the Medical School James O. Woolliscroft, M.D., between 2003 and 2011 his annual salary was tripled from $166,704 to $524,509. Doug Strong, CEO U of M Hospitals, saw his salary rise from $294,295 in 2003 to $612,000 by 2011. In contrast, the UMHS Senior Administrative Assistant’s salary (the purple graph line in the chart below) rose from $42,188 in 2003 to $53,921 in 2011, an increase of about 3 percent per year:

While the reduction in salary of any one or even all of the UMHS administrators who signed the email would not close the projected budget gap, focusing cuts, as Pescovitz writes, on “…attrition management; reductions in appointment effort, overtime, temporary staff and contract labor” is a strategy that targets the lowest paid employees—the most economically vulnerable, if you will. This strategy, combined with the immense increases in the compensation of top-level administrators over the past half a dozen years, and it’s a move that smacks of Wall Street-like business practices. The UMHS top-level administrators plan to squeeze revenues and savings out of lower- and middle-class workers to balance their budget. In light of their own pay and salary increases (even in the face of falling profit margins) Pescovitz, Woolliscroft and Strong’s strategy to return the UMHS to profitability smacks of white-shoed hubris and crass entitlement.  While we can congratulate the administrators for “freezing” their salaries in 2009, it’s also important to note that in 2010 Strong and Woolliscroft received 10-15 percent raises (helping them “catch up” on income lost during the sham pay freeze, one imagines). Meanwhile, the UMHS Senior Administrative Assistant, whose $51,324 salary was frozen, as well, received a 2 percent pay increase in 2010, or about $1,000, before taxes.

by P.D. Lesko

Dr. Susan Martin, Provost and Senior Chancellor at the University of Tennessee, is probably wishing right about now her parents had chosen a different name. The other Dr. Susan Martin, the President of EMU, is presently embroiled in a scandal that, EMU insiders posit, may yet force her resignation. College trustees loathe negative publicity. The EMU president’s scandal was revealed on the heels of former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s Report which condemns former Penn State president Graham Spanier for attempting to cover up the Sandusky/Paterno scandal.

However, like Penn State’s protection of its football coaches and its football program, EMU President Susan Martin’s scandal—and the attempt to hush it up—should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to local politics.

This is how EMU was described by the news media in 2008, when Dr. Susan Martin (pictured right) was hired as the 22nd president: “Eastern Michigan University — an institution plagued in recent years by a series of presidential missteps, communication blunders and even tragedy – is scrambling to get back on its feet…But in recent years, the university has faced accusations that it’s too secretive and prone to scandal.”

A year after Dr. Martin took office, she hired disgraced former Ann Arbor City Council member Leigh Greden as her institution’s Director of Government Relations. According to 2007-2008 Freedom of Information Act requests filed by citizens and an Ann Arbor News piece published shortly before the paper closed in July 2009, Greden scripted debates via email, telling Council members what to say and when. He rigged votes. He shot off emails mocking the people on Council for whom he had little respect, including Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje. Greden summed up Hieftje’s penchant for self-aggrandizing in a December 17, 2007 mid-Council meeting email titled: “The script is back….But short.” Greden writes an invented dialogue that includes this bit of actual insight and foreshadowing:

John Hieftje: “I call this meeting to order. I just returned from an important conference of Mayors in Oscoda. I was the only attendee. I gave a speech to myself praising Ann Arbor’s LED and rail programs. If the Mayor of Grand Rapids had been there, he would have praised me.”

The “script” leaves one wondering exactly what kinds of dialogues Leigh Greden must be inventing for Sue Martin.

Ward 4 Council member Margie Teall and Ward 2 Council member Tony Derezinski were also caught up in the City Council email scandal which triggered a lawsuit—eventually, settled out of court. While on Council, Greden worked part-time for Miller Canfield, a law firm that has its collective fingers in many of Ann Arbor’s real estate development pots and (though its political PAC) political campaigns, including Greden, Hieftje and many of Hieftje’s cronies on Council. It was speculated that when Greden lost his Council seat, he lost his usefulness at Miller Canfield and so he moved on to EMU, an institution plagued by scandal and where, obviously, his own poor judgement and scandal could be overlooked by a president whose own 2005 DUI had been overlooked by the Trustees who hired her. Both Greden and Martin were rewarded with positions of responsibility and six-figure salaries.

One year after Martin hired Greden (pictured left), she and Greden were “elected” to serve on the Board of Ann Arbor SPARK as members of the group’s executive committee, joining Paul Dimond, a real estate attorney employed by Miller Canfield.

Small town minds. Incestuous small town politics. Midwestern sensibilities. AnnArbor.com, a news blog that was new then, but whose reporting awards are now the subject of public protests and the butt of jokes.

Just months after Greden was booted by voters, in 2010, AnnArbor.com endorsed Margie Teall for office making no mention of her part in the unprecedented email scandal that triggered a lawsuit the city was forced to settle on behalf of taxpayers.

Former AnnArbor.com education reporter David Jesse jumped ship to the Detroit Free Press, along with several of his colleagues. A few days ago, Jesse broke the story about EMU President Dr. Susan Martin’s one-the-job, public, drunken altercation with a graduate of EMU. The piece, particularly in light of former FBI director Louis Freeh’s scathing report that blames Penn State’s Board of Trustees for their “inaction” and “lack of oversight” of former president Graham Spanier, is not only timely, it’s very important news.

In May 2012 EMU’s Board of Trustees sent a two-page formal letter of reprimand to Martin in which the group urges her to seek help for her drinking, and makes clear that should she have any further alcohol-related incidents, she will be dismissed. Jesse writes that “Martin disclosed the letter to the campus community this afternoon, four hours after the university fulfilled a Freedom of Information Act request by the Detroit Free Press for Martin’s personnel file. EMU was due to respond last week to the Free Press’ request but asked for a delay because of the holiday week.”

What Jesse did not reveal in his July 10, 2012 news scoop is just who at EMU tipped him to file a Freedom of Information Act request for Martin’s personnel folder. An EMU staffer who works in administration, and who asked not to be named, said, “I could give you a long list of suspects. Sue Martin isn’t exactly beloved by all.” Clearly, someone at EMU knew about the incident, the letter of reprimand, and obviously felt like the incident should not be hushed up.

The other interesting aspect to this story is that AnnArbor.com education reporter Kellie Woodhouse either was not tipped, or if she was acted slowly, or chose to ignore the tip. Only after Jesse’s story broke, did AnnArbor.com quickly post a piece linking to the letter of reprimand and David Jesse’s reporting. On July 12, 2012, Woodhouse posted a piece about a series of emails between Dr. Martin and the individual involved in the April 2012 altercation.

The comments in response to the July 10th and July 12th AnnArbor.com stories about Martin’s behavior are almost uniform in their outrage that the incident was made public. The first comment under the AnnArbor.com July 12, 2012 piece begins:

It appears that the only people who acted inappropriately here were the members of the Board of Reagents. Really a reprimand for an argument where the President is defending her self, reputation as well the University prior Board’s decisions and its reputation? That justifies a reprimand and public humiliation? That justifies all the personal assumptions being made about her drinking? Where are all the other prior incidents in her file that are alluded to in the reprimand? Her file says she is doing an excellent job…..

Another comment rips Woodhouse and the rest of the media who have, of course, picked up the story.

The EMU regents or whoever made this thing public are fools. Poor EMU covered up a rape and murder in a dorm room of one of its students by the hands of a stranger and typical thug who invest the campus area and now they make the current President the butt of jokes in all of academia in Michigan. They should of fired her if they wanted to go public with this. Murder and Rape are not to be kept secret but publicizing someone’s drinking is shameful in the context EMU did it. Just look at how the media swarms all over this. That includes you Kellie Woodhouse.

One regular AnnArbor.com commenter suggests the whole episode is even boring and not even worth reporting: “I almost fell asleep reading those emails, they were so dull. Could annarbor.com put this non-scandal to rest and start reporting actual news?”

Yet another comment compliments Martin.

A bit of a case of much ado about nothing, eh? I will never understand society’s perpensity to be be angry/hateful towards others, and it appears that this may be the case here. As a student at EMU, I have appreciated Dr. Martin’s work. I understand that a student’s perspective is often different than a staff member, the community of a board member, but if you will, I hope she stays.

Meanwhile, at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Martin’s Republican political connections, and participation on the Board of “job creation” boondoggle Ann Arbor SPARK mean nothing. Between 1981-1984, Martin was the deputy state treasurer for Bureau of Local Government Services, serving for Republican William Milliken. Former Ann Arbor City Administrator Roger Fraser just “retired” from the city and walked into the same position for Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

While that kind of political mojo is obviously buying Martin all kinds of sympathy locally, it means little on the national stage. Unlike the first comment in response to the Woodhouse piece at AnnArbor.com which supports Martin, the first comment in response to the short write-up in The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) sets the tone for the dozens that follow:

She is not the only such president around and should be getting the boot given her previous driving infraction and other alcohol-related incidents during her term as president of EMU (mentioned in the board’s letter, which can be found as a link from the Detroit Free Press article). One can be sympathetic to the difficulties of alcohol abusers, but they do not belong in responsible positions in which the lives of others and the fates of great institutions rely upon them. One wonders at the board’s judgment in retaining her.

Comment number two on CHE website points out the obvious connections between the national efforts to deal with alcohol abuse by students on college campuses nationwide (including EMU), and Martin’s scandal: “Not to mention being in a position which is supposed to set an example for the thousands of young adults for won she is in some way an authority figure.”

Subsequent comments slam the EMU Trustees:

If it is a repeated incident, it pretty much does.  This was not at a Christmas party, and she has a history. Besides that, get real. This is a college president who has publicly been told her drinking is a problem. How much more evidence do you need? You can also bet that there have been other incidents that have not been reported. These people are protected, and for a Board to go to these measures, it has to be serious. Unfortunately this Board never followed through, and for that they are hurting the University. They obviously are not professional.

Was that really the best EMU could do, hire a President with a DWI? It just amazes me. Then we have to be PC about her drinking problem when she is in charge of the lives of young people, as well as serving as a role model? I’m as liberal as most academics, but this is unacceptable.

Similarly, at InsideHigherEd.com, a short post about the incident earned similar comments, including this one:

Good grief. Who’s doing the presidential hiring at EMU? First John Fallon and his shenanigans and now this? I mean, yes, there’s a simple “human failings” factor to getting drunk and acting a fool, but it seems like there’s sort of a track record of poor decisions regarding leadership. If the criteria for determining what makes an ostensibly desirable chief executive are the same at EMU as they are at my institution, then I can understand how you end up with people like this, though.

In her letter to students, faculty and staff about the incident and the Trustees’ letter of reprimand, Martin writes: “As your President starting my fifth year, I made a vow to never cover up or hide anything.” Martin was asked if anything regarding the incident had been released to the public prior to the Free Press FOIA. She said, “No, but it is a personal matter and I needed time to digest that and consult with my team and decide how to move forward and how to share this information.”

Susan Martin subsequently agreed to donate her 2012 raise of about $9,000 to EMU’s alcohol educational fund, and plans to seek counseling. Should the furor over her hiring and reprimand not quickly die down, she may also be seeking a new job.

by P.D. Lesko

Between 2003 and 2010, while total enrollment in Ann Arbor’s middle and high schools fell, average class sizes increased significantly, and so have actual class sizes, resulting in classrooms stuffed with 10, 12 and sometimes even 20 students more than the District’s class size targets. Class size targets for 2011 were 23-25 students in grades K-2, 26-30 students in grades 3-5, and an average of 30 students in grades 6-12. Middle school enrollment fell from 3,639 students to 3,406 students, according to District enrollment records. Likewise, enrollment in the District’s high schools has fallen. In 2003, the AAPS enrolled 5,410 students in five high schools. In 2010-2011, there were 5,227 students enrolled in five high schools (tip o’ the keyboard to Ruth Kraut.).

Abigal Alwin (pictured, right) teaches orchestra at Clague Middle School, on Ann Arbor’s north side. Alwin teaches six classes per day. The District’s 2011 target enrollment at the middle and high school level is 30 students in each class. October 2011 actual enrollment data revealed that Alwin’s 2nd and 7th period classes, however, contained 42 and 45 students, respectively. In fact, four of Abigail Alwin’s six classes exceeded the District’s stated “target” enrollment level. With 201 students in her six classes, Abigail Alwin has the second largest teaching load of any middle school teacher in the AAPS and, in fact, the second largest teaching load of any teacher in the AAPS.

The prize for the largest teaching load goes to Alwin’s colleague James McArthur, who teaches band at Clague. McArthur teaches 297 students. Those 297 students, put into classrooms that met the “target” enrollment goal—30 students per class—would just about fill 10 classes per day, classes enough to employ two band teachers.

Mary Shymanski (pictured, left) teaches English, history and geography at Clague. In October 2011, Shymanski had 38 students in her 6th period social studies class and after Alwin and McArthur, one of the highest total teaching loads at Clague.

The over-enrollment at Clague extended to math classes, as well. As of October 2011, Steve Hollis had 40 students in his 7th period Alegbra I class. Colleague Ellen Hopkins, likewise, had 40 students in her Algebra I class. In classrooms with 40 students, then, Hopkins and Hollis are each teaching 10-14 more students than District officials led parents to believe would be placed in the classrooms when “target” numbers were released to the public in 2011.

Both Hollis and Hopkins also had sections of math with 39 students enrolled.

In fact, actual enrollment data reveal that  none of Ann Arbor’s middle schools met stated “target” enrollment goals in 100 percent of the classes offered. Clague Middle School students, data reveal, suffer from the most consistent over-crowding in classrooms, as well as the highest number of students in over-enrolled middle school classes.

Similarly, none of Ann Arbor’s high schools met “target” enrollment goals in 100 percent of the classes offered. Huron High School students, data reveal, suffer from the most consistent over-crowding in classrooms. In 35 percent of that school’s classes, the “target” enrollment goal of 30 students was exceeded, often by as many as 5-14 students.

Ann Arbor Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Patricia Green walked into a hornet’s nest when she arrived in Ann Arbor. A majority of Ann Arbor Board of Education members, lead by Board President Deb Mexicotte, infuriated taxpayers and parents alike by arbitrarily hiking the District’s pay for its Sup. by $70,000, to $245,000 per year. Ann Arbor’s school district has 16,000 students and a Superintendent who takes home a paycheck as large as a district leader who oversees a system double the size of Ann Arbor’s. Then, Green and the Board of Education members further irked the folks who pay the bills when they decided to give hefty raises to Green’s subordinates. Salaries of Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and Legal Services Dave Comsa and Deputy Superintendent of Operations Robert Allen were bumped up to $140,000 each. Comsa’s pay was hiked 14.7 percent and Allen scored a 7.2 percent raise.

Comments in response to a story posted to AnnArbor.com concerning the December 2011 pay raises for AAPS administrators were blunt:

“Words cannot express how disgusted I am by this move of the Superintendent and majority of the school board. We need to cut dollars and you give raises to an already top heavy administration? Classes are overcrowded -33 plus in middle and highschool; custodians are almost eligiable for food stamps their pay was cut so much; teachers took a pay cut; lunch room staff was privatized, bussing was cut with the poorest kids walking the farthest, and you approve a double digit raise?? You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“What a bunch of malarky! There is currently a huge upheaval at Balas in regard to assistants and secretaries. Why? Because they’re tired of doing the work of the administrators. So, what does the AAPS Board do? They let the assistants go and give the administrators a raise. And after 3 consecutive years of teachers taking pay cuts. That is the height of hypocrisy.”

Three months later, in March 2012, Dr. Green announced at a Board of Education meeting that she intended to eliminate the achievement gap between white and non-white students in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. The Executive Summary of Green’s plan was full of educational jargon and jingoisms. The plan, which Green said would take 12 months to flesh out and implement, calls for “clear district content standards; equity; accountability; professional development; parent and community engagement; student engagement; quality early childhood programs; addressing barriers to learning and allocation of resources, and Student Intervention and Support Services (SISS).”

Board of Education Trustee Simone Lightfoot expressed concerns about “flowery language; lack of specific academic supports such as support for 8th grade algebra; too much emphasis on how adults can grow and learn and not enough focus on students; and a lack of timelines.”

Dr. Green’s proposed plan to eliminate the achievement gap includes nothing about class size reduction.

By 2010, all but 15 states had laws restricting the number of students that may be included in a general education classroom, in some or all grades. Michigan is one of those 15 states. Why have the majority of U.S. states implemented laws restricting K-12 class sizes?

In 2000, the federal government began funding class size reduction programs (Title II Part A funding) based on studies that clearly demonstrated the benefits of smaller classes in reducing and even eliminating achievement gaps. The biggest and most credible of those studies, Tennessee’s statewide Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio, or STAR, project, begun in the late 1970s. Researchers found that the learning gains students made in classes of 13 to 17 students persisted long after the students moved back into average-size classes. In addition, the Tennessee researchers found, poor and African-American students appeared to reap the greatest learning gains in smaller classes. After kindergarten, the gains black students made in smaller classes were typically twice as large as those for whites. Follow-up studies through the years have found the students who had been in small classes in their early years had better academic and personal outcomes throughout their school years and beyond.

Likewise, a 2001 evaluation of the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education, or SAGE, class size reduction program by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that a five-year-old program of class-size reduction in Wisconsin resulted in higher achievement for children living in poverty. Research from Columbia University Teachers College in New York showed the context of class-size reduction can affect its success in improving student achievement.

Why, 14 years after studies definitively demonstrated the benefits of smaller classes in reducing achievement gaps, are the public and the Ann Arbor Board of Education getting served up a load of “flowery language” and “lack of specifics” by Dr. Green and her staff? One reason could be that the members of the Board of Education haven’t the first clue about how many children are actually in classrooms throughout the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

BOE Trusteee Andy Thomas confirmed this in an email. He responded: “The Board does not routinely monitor or track enrollment by classroom throughout the District.  It is not the role of the Board to engage in this level of management.  That is why we employ a superintendent.  Our role is to establish overall policy, to approve the budget and to work with the superintendent to set the overall goals and priorities for the District.  We trust Superintendent Green and her administrative team to monitor class size throughout the District, and to make whatever adjustments are necessary.”

Trustee Simone Lightfoot, a consistent advocate of transparency, accountability and a vocal supporter of the need to close Ann Arbor’s gaping achievement gap, responded via email, as well. Unlike Trustee Thomas, Lightfoot writes, “I received actual enrollment data annually.” While Thomas implies tracking actual enrollment to check whether targets are being met would qualify as micromanagement of district staff, Simone Lightfoot disagrees. She says, “I was aware of some of the concerns raised related to enrollment number differences at each of the high schools (an the other buildings as well)….I fully expect the administration to stick to our targets and resource distribution goals as they consider contractual obligations,  day-to-day operational insights and making recommendations to the board.”

That information is nowhere on the District’s web page. This means district officials can hide behind “target” enrollment numbers and easily misinterpreted teacher-student ratios. Meanwhile, frustrated parents remain in the dark concerning actual enrollment numbers, with only anecdotal reports from their own children, and other parents.

District officials faced a firestorm of criticism from parents in September and October 2011 concerning overcrowded classes. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by A2Politico, AAPS officials released parent emails sent on the subject of over-crowding. Parent emails to District officials paint pictures of noisy, crowded classrooms, and students without books or desks. The emails also reveal that District’s teachers are openly refusing to accommodate the additional students, but rather have told parents they will scale back on the quality and quantity of course assignments.

As one parent wrote to Alice Chamberlain, Assistant Director, Employment Services in an email dated October 6, 2011: “The additional teaching load that teachers in the Humanities program [at Huron] are carrying means that the writing component of the course must suffer enormously….Writing assignments are being cancelled because Humanities teachers simply do not have the time to guide students through longer paper assignments, nor do those teachers have the time and resources to comment on and grade those assignments.”

A PTSO board member at Huron High School emailed both Superintendent Patricia Green and Board of Trustee President Deb Mexicotte. The PTSO official writes, “Huron has 22 teachers with a student load of +150. Classes that usually had 27 or 28 students now have over 33 students.” The PTSO representative then goes on to state the obvious, “The large class sizes are affecting the quality of what’s happening in the classes.” The PTSO representative writes in her email that “several” teachers at Huron decided to deal with the ballooning class sizes by refusing to assign work that would need to be corrected, or by assigning shorter papers.

A2Politico also made requests to Ann Arbor Public Schools officials for the actual enrollment data. The requests were denied and the information withheld until A2Politico filed a Freedom of Information Act request for emails sent between administrators in response to parent complaints of over-crowded classrooms at Huron High School. Those emails revealed that AAPS administrators not only had actual enrollment data, but were sharing actual enrollment data among themselves to fend off parent complaints.

That data, however, were at no time shared with the general public until now.

Ann Arbor’s school district faces a $14-$16 million dollar deficit this year, $6 million dollars of which is a structural deficit associated with the construction of Skyline High School. The public supported and financed the construction of Skyline to ease crowding in the other high schools, particularly Huron and Pioneer.

Actual student enrollment data reveal that Skyline’s enrollment numbers were often well below the “target” enrollment level of 30 students. While Clague Middle School math teachers faced 40 students in their classrooms, Skyline teacher Daniel Neaton had 21 and 18 students enrolled, respectively, in his Math Analysis classes. While Mary Shymanski jammed 38 students into her social studies class, Skyline teacher Ashley Ducker’s 1st period social studies class had just 20 students, 10 students below the stated “target” enrollment number.

BOE Trustee Andy Thomas, speaking on behalf of his colleagues on the Board of Education, commented on the range of class sizes, pointing a finger in the direction of the Ann Arbor Education Association, the local teacher’s union. “We do not find it surprising that there is a range of class size, both within a particular school and between different schools.  There are numerous reasons why this might occur, including unexpected increases or decreases in enrollment at a particular school, the trade-off between splitting a particular class into two small classes (requiring an additional teacher) versus continuing with a single class with one teacher, the availability (or lack of availability) of a teacher’s aide, allowing a few additional students to enroll in an elective class when it is not feasible to add a second section, etc.  All this must be done within the structure of our existing contract with the teachers’ union.”

At Community High School, one might assume that a total enrollment of 420 students results in a majority of classes that fail to meet the “target” enrollment number of 30 students per class. Actual enrollment data reveal that this is not, in fact, the case. Community High School teachers had fewer under-enrolled classes than their colleagues at Skyline, and higher total student teaching loads. Community High School, according to 2011 drop-out and graduation data released by the state of Michigan, has the lowest drop-out rate, overall, of all of Ann Arbor’s high schools. Community also has the highest percentage of graduates who are deemed college ready, again according to data from the Michigan Department of Education.

What is clear from the actual enrollment data is that Skyline classrooms are chronically under-enrolled and classrooms at Huron and Pioneer are still not close to totally meeting the “target” enrollment number, four years after Skyline’s opening. About 30 percent of the classes at Huron have more than 30 students. Meanwhile, at Pioneer High School actual enrollment data reveal that about 40 percent of the classes exceed the “target” enrollment number of 30 students per class by 3-5 students per class.

A2Politico asked Dr. Green, as well as the Ann Arbor BOE Trustees whether they would support the annual release of actual enrollment data to the public.

Trustee Andy Thomas argues that while the Board “favors transparency,” he argues against mandating the regular release of the information because compiling the enrollment data would be “time-consuming” and “labor intensive.” Trustee Lightfoot, conversely, would advocate for the annual release of actual enrollment numbers. “Absolutely without question I support such disclosure.  In fact, some of the detail we have now provided for your request would be beneficial to add as a part of our standard reporting template both for the board and the public.  Since joining the board, I have never ceased advocating for more disclosure and transparency, greater communication, more respectful responsiveness and ensuring our actual outcomes match our words and promises.”

Trustee Thomas appears unaware that District officials compile the enrollment data for their own use (as well as state and federal use), and in several instances emails show, used the data to fend off parent complaints concerning over-crowded high school classrooms in Fall 2011.

What is made clear by the analysis of the actual enrollment data is this: without actual enrollment numbers per school, per teacher, per class, parents, taxpayers and even the teachers themselves have no clue whether a school district is meeting stated “target” enrollment goals more often than not. The Board of Education members have no clue whether or with what frequency target enrollment numbers presented to them are being met. Parents with children at schools where officials are doing a particularly poor job of meeting “target” enrollment numbers who had regular access to actual enrollment data would be much able to better advocate for redistribution of district resources, including funding and teachers.

by Ernesto Van Dersar

John Wiley & Sons, one of the world’s largest textbook publishers, is continuing its efforts to crack down on BitTorrent piracy. The company has now named several people who allegedly shared Wiley titles online, and is demanding a jury trial against them. If these actually go ahead it will be the first time that BitTorrent-related evidence is tested in a US court.

Last fall, John Wiley and Sons became the first book publisher to go after BitTorrent users in the US.

By filing a mass-BitTorrent lawsuit the company followed mostly in the footsteps of several movie studios, who together have sued more than 250,000 people in the U.S. since early 2010. And the publisher didn’t stop at just one.

In recent months Wiley has filed more than a dozen mass BitTorrent lawsuits involving a few hundred John Doe defendants in total. The Does are all accused of sharing digital copies of titles including WordPress for Dummies, Hacking for Dummies and Day Trading for Dummies.

Wiley’s attorney William Dunnegan said previously that one of the main goals of the legal campaign is to obtain the personal details of the alleged infringers and offer them the opportunity to solve the matter through a settlement.

“Our intention is to stop the infringement and let individuals know that they are violating the law and depriving the creators of the works of rightful compensation. Our preference is to educate, settle, and prevent further infringement,” Wiley’s attorney William Dunnegan said.

However, this strategy doesn’t always work. While the courts and Internet providers have been cooperative in assisting Wiley to obtain the personal details of the alleged book pirates, a new filing suggest that some defendants are not taking the publisher’s settlement offer.

In one of Wiley’s cases four defendants have now been named in an amended complaint.

New York residents Jeff Ng, Ralph Mohr, Robert Carpenter and Xiaoshu Chen are no longer anonymous Does. Wiley is proceeding to call for a full jury trial against the quartet in which they will face accusations of copyright infringement and up to $150,000 in penalties for each offense.

Wiley’s attorney William Dunnegan declined to comment on the recent developments in these specific cases. “We are proceeding with these cases as a part of Wiley’s overall copyright enforcement and education program,” was the comment we got instead.

If one or more of the three cases indeed proceeds to a full trial it will be the first time that actual evidence against BitTorrent infringers is tested in court. This is relevant because the main piece of evidence the copyright holders have is an IP-address, which by itself doesn’t identify a person but merely a connection.

In a past RIAA court case experts described the evidence gathering techniques “as factually erroneous,” “unprofessional” and “borderline incompetent.” In addition, academics have shown that due to shoddy technique even a network printer can be accused of sharing copyrighted files on BitTorrent.

If the evidence is indeed tested in court, it should be a case to watch for sure.

That said, there’s also the chance that the lawyers are using the threat of a full trial by jury as a pressure tool to convince the defendants to settle. After all, the RIAA’s litigation campaign against individual file-sharers has shown that even when a jury awards hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, lengthy trials cost more than they bring in.

First posted to Torrent Freak.