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  • From: Paul Cory <paulwcory AT yahoo.com>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Justifying a Web Presence
  • Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 15:14:27 -0500




> this is one of the most repulsive ideas i have heard in some time. the
> people "pushing" this idea on you should be ashamed of themselves.

Perhaps I should explain the push for money from the Website. :-) I doubt it
will make it any less repulsive to those who hate it, but in fairness to the
folks who came up with the idea, I should at least present the circumstances
behind the push.

To wit: Good education is expensive. Good education for children with less
than ideal circumstances is even more expensive. The district has a goal of
having 95% of all students performing at or above grade level at grades 3
and 8 by 2003.

Right now, we're in the mid to upper 80s. Meaning that we are, for the most
part, past dealing with the easy kids, the ones with two parents at home,
the ones with interested parents, the kids in families with middle-to-upper
class incomes, the ones with college-educated parents. We are now facing
those children with circumstances that detract from their education: parents
who aren't there, parents who don't care about their children's education,
parents who aren't well educated themselves, parents who are poor.

Getting these kids up to speed requires extra resources be made available to
them to help overcome the handicap imposed by their circumstances: extra
teachers for after hours tutoring, extra teachers to shrink class sizes to
create more time for individual instruction, extra assessments to help
pinpoint problem areas for the teachers and tutors to work on. Naturally, we
can't redeploy too many resources from the more fortunate areas without
having an army of middle and upper class parents launch a full frontal
assault on the Admin building in their SUVs. :-)

This means, that overall, we need more money if we are too reach the goal.
In theory, the public supports the goal. In reality, the County
Commissioners perceive the Wake County voters as unwilling to pay a penny
more in taxes than they already do, and fear for their political lives if
they raise taxes to provide for the School System. Impact fees are not an
option, as the General Assembly has not granted Wake County the power to
impose such fees. It is unlikely Wake County will get this power as some
members of the local legislative delegation oppose it.

Finally, the rapid growth of the student population is eating up the annual
increase in the budget that would normally arise from economic good times.
Not to mention that the County Commissioners cut the tax rate last year to
offset the effect of the county-wide property revaluation (revenue neutral),
meaning they have, at best, a little more money to spend than last year.

So, faced with these challenges, folks started looking for ways for the
School System to generate money outside of taxes. Thinking that there was
gold mine in a site that gets 800,000 - 1,000,000 page views a month, and
under the influence of a pie-in-the-sky presentation by folks from the
Denver Public Schools (who were going to make a mint off their Websites by
partnering with the now deceased Kickstart.com) they directed that the site
contribute $50,000 to the general budget.

And that's where this push came from. :-)


Paul


>
> this is a public school website. why in the world would it participate in
> selling anything? the only reason for that resource to exist is to enable
> people involved with the school system (be it parents, educators,
> administrators, or otherwise) to locate and exchange information related to
> that particular school system.
>



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