Can Ridgewood Really afford a $48 million School Referendum?
Yes (27%)
No (72%)
Do you follow Any High School sports on a regular basis ?
Yes (44%)
No (55%)
Should Teachers Be Granted Tenure?
Yes (38%)
No (61%)
Posts
On Tonight's Kudlow Report
54 minutes ago
8 comments:
I do not understand the odd combination of topics in these "polls."
What on earth does following high school sports or teacher tenure have to do with the referendum? I can see your attempt to manipulate the discussion, but the link between these is tenuous at best.
Asking your extremely small and biased group of readers about "following" sports? Wouldn't it be more helpful to just look at the fact of the numbers of Village children who PLAY sports? No opinions necessary to evaluate that number.
Teacher tenure? It's a state law. There is nothing at all our BOE can do about tenure. Go to trenton and take it up with Mr. Christy if you don't like it.
It would be so much more productive if we could all discuss the referendum on its own merits, without the misinformation. thank you.
I agree with 9:22!
The referendum still stinks! Send it to time-out and come back when it's more responsible. Split the issues. The misinformation by the BOE trying to ram this through is Pelosiesque.
Now, back to the polls.
How about a poll of how many people have a child , who plays or has played youth sports or HS sports in Ridgewood?
"Teacher tenure? It's a state law. There is nothing at all our BOE can do about tenure." And that is why our schools suck, because folks like you refuse to think out side the box. Public schools are archaic relics of a by-gone era. They have evolved into a big, government run monopoly, funded at tax payers expense and protected by a union which owns the Democrat Party in a system that is totally unresponsive to its customers. Public schools defy the rules of what works... market capitalism, efficiency and providing the best product/service at the lowest cost.
There are a couple of things we could do to improve our children's education and lower the cost. First, we could privatize our schools and thusly eliminate tenure in one fell swoop. Or we could reorganize them into charter schools. Or we could fire their asses if they strike over contract negotiations.
To the elected Board of Ed - take heed. This is not a slam-dunk. Save face, withdraw the referendum, tweak it and come back in the spring.
If you need proof, each one of you should go have coffees - not at friendly venues - but at the Daily Treat, Pancake House, Ridgewood Coffee, etc. Have casual conversations one-on-one. The opposition is huge. If you continue this blind push, the opposition will become outrage as you minimize the citizens of Ridgewood.
Including turf projects in education bonds are like using it as a Trojan horse. We are currently experiencing a second year of 'unexpected' budget shortfalls. How does this happen? By not playing it straight with voters to begin with.
There is a new paradigm emerging, and that is one of voters demanding responsibility and accountability that have been lost here in Ridgewood due to years of neglect. The old way does not work anymore.
Please listen before it's too late.
922 you must be either naive ,ignorant or just full of crap?
all things involving public education are about teachers unions,teachers pay ,teachers benefits,hiring more teachers ,teachers ,teachers teachers ..kids who are they ? Oh yay they have to be in school because teachers need jobs and benefits. $48 million to hire more teachers ,turf fields to hire more teachers ,build class rooms to hire more teachers....party is OVER vote no to teachers and the NJEA!
I found the below comment from an earlier thread interesting:
"People seem to be confusing annual operating needs with capital needs. Voting against a referendum for important capital needs that have nothing to do with salaries and benefits is not the answer."
I am relatively new in this town (2006) and moved here for numerous reasons, one of which was what I had researched to be a fantastic school system, so I am working to educate myself on the referrendum and this site has been a helpful resource. I do agree with the above comment and feel that the anger at teacher's and administrators salaries and benefits, versus the decision on whether or not to approve this ammendment for Capital improvements are completely seperate issues?
I also see numerous commentors angry about the $$ to improve athletic facilities. I have zero knowledge as to whether or not the facilities are or are not adequate, the pro $48mm people insist they are not, and though some of the posters against the $$ believe the facilities are adequate, a majority of those posters seem to be arguing that money on athletics is a waste. I believe it has been proven time and again that education of our children should include not just math and science, but physical, musical, art, etc education as well.
If I wanted to live somewhere where the school system was in the level of dissarray that this issue seems to indicate they are, then I would have stayed living in the disaster that is the NYC Public School system.
My inclination, as a father of a young daughter is to vote yes, and say that $25 a month is money well spent for my family. I would much rather spend the money on the schools and carry my garbage to the curb or cut recycling to once a month if we want to talk about saving taxpayers money - but I do understand, that where taxpayer money should go is in the eye of the beholder.
11:06 - my family, too, came to Ridgewood in the 90's with the feeling that the schools were excellent and it was a great place to raise a young family. We soon found that in many cases, it was fools gold. The teachers already believed their own hype about how excellent they were and often ignored regular kids for more "enlightened" ones. It was like if you were not G&T, they you didn't get the teacher's attention. Before the dot-com bubble and 9/11, the budgets were passes without blinking, figuring the extra money would always come from somewhere else. In my memory, only one budget and one bond ref were defeated. The HSA mommies are well organized and echo the Board of Ed's requests. Our rankings, which used to be in the top 1% of the country started to fall. We went through 6 superintendents/interims in the span of 9 years. (John Porter, who was here for 4 years, loved consultants, had little to show for his time left to return to CA) Except for one "tense" REA contract, the board bends over backwards to the union. The staff at the board offices rival, in employees, of companies 10x their size. The number of unnecessary positions (ie: each elementary school has its own child study team, the IT staff is is large enough to run MySpace) is rampant. The special ed population is 14% - or about 800 kids its way out of NJ norms. Get the pic?
Am I trying to bum you out? No, in fact, just the opposite. You and your family are on the leading edge of change. You could blindly vote yes and things could mosey on or you could educate yourself and help make Ridgewood the town of your dreams. Just because the edict comes from board office, you should not accept this without question. You are the future. You came here for excellence - demand it from your elected officials and employees who work for the village. Mediocre just won't do.
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