Woodstock CT Café

from Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYz8qoYN004

from Taxpayer

Certainly I don’t support radical, ideologically-based, sweeping change to any social system (like the Democrats do), but I think we can and should begin to incrementally make changes that address the failures of our school systems. We can’t afford not to.

These incremental reforms may include many of the things that conservatives have advocated for years: School choice, charter schools, merit pay for teachers, expansion of technical/trade school systems, transformative changes to curriculum, financial rewarding of successful schools, fairer school funding practices, ect.

But let’s not ignore the elephant in the kitchen. While I am a supporter for reform efforts simply because the expensive status quo isn’t working, the reality is that student success is more dependent on personal motivation and student accountability (values that liberals like to ignore) than it is on teacher accountability and financial motivation.

Robert Samuelson noted in a recent editorial that “against these realities, school reform rhetoric is blissfully evasive. It is often an exercise in extravagant expectations. Even if George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program had been phenomenally successful (it wasn’t), many thousands of children would have been left behind. Now Duncan Arndt routinely urges “a great teacher” in every classroom. That would be about 3.7 million “great” teachers — a feat akin to having every college football team composed of all-Americans. With this sort of intellectual rigor, what school “reform” promises is more disillusion.” Read the rest of this entry »

 Reposted from July 17th.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon in previous years. It’s remarkably demonstrated by tracking the performance of the 8th Grade Middle School class that moved to the Academy in June.

Presumably this 8th Grade class had most of the same students from 4th Grade through 8th Grade. If you look at the dark blue (advanced students in this class) and light blue (students at or above goal in this class)  in the bar graphs, you can easily see that (overall) the number (%) of advanced students increased progressively in each year in each subject area throughout their progression from 4th Grade through 8th Grade. The data also show that this growth is striking in comparison to the state-wide average which also improved.

In general the same phenomenon can be seen for the students in the goal or above goal category (light blue). At the same time the percentages of students in the three lower categories diminished progressively (green, yellow and orange).

Perhaps it can be said that kids in the yellow and orange categories were successfully challenged to improve as well. This may be an equally important accomplishment of the school system. I would not be surprised if there are some gems in these lower categories that will flower later in life and do great things.  

I believe that this result indicates that the students in this class have thrived within the K-8 Woodstock School system.  This could only occur as a result of the hard work by the school administrators and teachers who have clearly created a positive education experience for these students.

This indication of improvement may also be true for Pomfret but it is not consistently evident in the graphs further below for Brooklyn, Eastford, Killingly, Thompson, Mansfield, and Tolland.

Congratulations to all who have been involved over the years with our successful school system.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Villager posts the crime events of the week each week and I have often noticed that there is little or no activity in Woodstock compared to surrounding towns. Usually if crime shows up in Woodstock, it’s a DUI or minor traffic violation. Last week, however, we had these incidents on September 3rd, 4th, and 5th possibly the tip of the iceberg. No incidents were reported on August 30th, 31st, September 1st, and 2nd. We will have to wait until next week’s Villager to find out if anything happened on the 6th (Monday). Could the Woodstock Fair have anything to do with this?

Woodstock Artist and Conservator RICHARD MCELROY has a group of his paintings being shown in the Atrium from September 8th through October at Sochor’s Gallery, Arts and Framing, 112 Main Street, Putnam, CT (Montgomery Ward Building).  Open Wednesday through Sundays 11 to 5.

RICHARD MCELROY (b 1928)    Over the years, Richard has completed some fine portraiture and realistic rural scenes, well composed, gentle and full of country light.      By the 1990’s his imagination began to come more into play, and he produced whimsical scenes of people at the beach and shore. His unique stylistic figures convey relaxed and playful moods, full of bright color and vision. Some pieces even reach into a world of mythical fantasy.

 
  “Artist Self Portrait” (28by21)                         “Sea Watch” (31by20) 

           Recently, Richard has produced a series of canvases depicting the Quinebaug River in nearby Putnam, CT. The river flows there, over and through the Cargill Falls with both the serenity of the mill pond and turbulent action of it’s cascades and falls.  This series explores different views, moods and seasons of the river and the old mill town, which has now settled into it’s post-industrial time, while still retaining the lively Falls.

                
“Putnam Mill Pond from Church Street” (18by24)                           ”Fall Cascade” (18by24)

   There will be an Artist’s Reception at the Sochor Gallery in Arts and Framing -  Meet Richard; Sunday, September 19th from 1 to 4. 

    Come, browse, and enjoy Richard’s attractive art.
 
    Sheri and Peter McFarlin
 
    Putnam show sponsored by Sheri Sochor’s Art Gallery   www.artsandframingputnam.com/

    Richard McElroy is represented by McFarlin Fine Art.
    To see more McElroy art, go to;  www.mcfarlinfineart.com/
 

Tax,

the Woodstock Academy aka the town stands now to benefit greatly from 3.9 million in federal funding with 630 g. of that in free grant money if they play all the cards right. how do you feel about this? should the academy pass on this cheap and free money because the school should really pull itself up by its bootstraps a la horatio alger in order to install a much needed sewer line and erect a much desired football stadium. shouldn’t the school just refuse the federal money and go without until they can afford these improvements ON THEIR OWN. we don’t need any hand outs in woodstock do we? we’re NOT like hartford at all. we MERIT all the cheap and free money we can get, don’t we? Afterall, we know how to spend stimulus money wisely here.

Nary,

I believe that spending money on school systems like Woodstock’s is a good investment. The students at WPS/WA generally succeed and become self-sufficient tax-paying members of society. Unlike the Hartford Public Schools. In fact, the Hartford Public High School, which takes the lion’s share of education funding, is a lousy investment. Last I looked, taxpayers were spending $16,000 per pupil in the Hartford Public High School with a 34% drop out rate and a 25% retention rate. The average SAT scores were Math 382, Reading 380, Writing 384. Only 10.9% met the standard for physical education. Less than 20% hold jobs. Oh, and the teachers call in sick an avg. of 8.9 days a school year (half year–that would be like me calling in sick 17 days a year). Multiply this by every large city in the country and the waste this incurs is mind boggling. But this is old news.

Of course, liberals and their crony special interest groups don’t see it like this-and anyone who challenges these atrocities is name called, or labeled either racist or anti-education. The obvious idiocy of these inane tactics is why liberals cannot be taken seriously.

70 …..www.remindernews.com/ (updated Saturday)
77 …..www.norwichbulletin.com/news/ (updated Saturday)
57 …..karenmcfarlin.blogspot.com/ (updated Saturday)
47 ……www.woodstockrepublicans.com/ (updated Saturday)
51 ……www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bzcDDtLQiY (updated Saturday)
10 ……www.bowensgarageinc.com/history.html (updated Saturday)
53 (new) www.thepomfrettimes.org/ (updated Saturday)
31 ……www.woodstockctdems.org/ (updated Saturday)
29 ……www.woodstockschools.net  (updated Saturday)
23 …www.killinglyschools.org/20532072318737387/lib/20532072318737387/april_2010.pdf (updated Saturday)
1 ……www.townofwoodstock.com/ (updated Saturday)
14 ……www.jenranrealty.com/ (updated Saturday)
15 ……www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/opinion/25friedman.html ref=thomaslfriedman (updated Saturday)
13 ……www.taylorsbb.com/ (updated Saturday)
8 ………www.peets.com/ (updated Saturday)
8 ………www.taylorbrookewinery.com/index.html (updated Saturday)

These red dots represent the last 3815 visits from different locations of which 2808 are from the USA. The size of the red dot reflects larger clusters of visitors. As one might suspect a fair percentage of visits come from the Connecticut area.

Higher resolution clusters:

from Kevin

Taxpayer and I have talked about the history behind our current union negotiations system in the past. Additionally, the authors you listed talk about why unions have a role in this environment in protecting teachers from the year to year whims of political change in terms of $$ and jobs. In the end, much as a hate to say it, local taxpayers are not always good employers.

Having said that, there is a point to be made with respect to differing compensation systems, sometimes labeled as merit pay, incentive pay or similar terms. In my personal experience the local teachers unions have not embraced them with open arms. I have heard reasons ranging from not being comfortable with the administration’s ratings to the possibly of pitting one teacher against another.

In many ways it gets down to a philosophical question, how much competition is good in an educational environment? That’s what these programs ultimately lead to, is some teachers winning and some loosing, either through a carrot or a stick. I’ll give my stock and pragmatic answer here, some is good, too much is bad. Right now we have very little.

These type of competitions and incentive programs aren’t just to remove teacher’s who are “bad” and too often I hear it characterized as such. In the work place a little competition in incentives can be good to make everyone constantly strive to be better. The trick is the right amount to enhance, but not degrade, performance and picking metrics that incentivize the desired outcomes.

In my personal opinion this is an area where CT’s teachers unions could really step up and help shape these programs. The trend is for these types of programs to be put into place and I will not be surprised to see the state moving more forcefully in that direction, so it’s coming. The best programs will likely be designed with the community, teachers and school administrators working together to craft them and adjust them as needed. It would be great if the WAT came to us and state, “Let’s start talking about this so that we can put it in place for our next contract, we want to make this happen and make sure it is done right.” I can’t speak for anyone else but I would love to work with them on such an effort.

Thanks,

Kevin

This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BoE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BoE in any way.