Every tax is a pay cut.  Every tax cut is a pay raise. Citizens for Limited Taxation

How Framingham Schools have morphed over 40 years

It is said that attempting to modify the Windows Registry is like entering the Temple of Doom without a flashlight. The Windows registry is organized in hives, much like killer bees. Coincidence? I think not. In 1971, Massachusetts became the second state to eliminate corporal punishment (104 years after New Jersey). Examine these two sites: Corporal Punishment 1 Corporal Punishment 2 When corporal punishment was applied, 80% of its victims were boys. Special Education (SPED) started in 1973. 80% of SPED students are boys. Coincidence? I think not. Here's some evidence. Follow the references from this article if you wish. More boys than girls are suspended from school. More are held back and more drop out. Boys are three times as likely as girls to be enrolled in special education programs and four times as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (Sommers, p. 25). The over-representation of males in special education classes and in virtually every other category of emotional, behavioral, or neurological impairment is undisputed (Kleinfeld, pp.20-21). The following was extracted from old annual reports or Finance Committee reports. Getting hard numbers is difficult because the school committee made sure there weren't too many of them. Massachusetts' first major special education law was Chapter 766 of the Acts of 1972 [session number], codified as MGL c.71B. ... Passed in 1972, effective for school year 1973-74 http://www.doe.mass.edu/sped/spr_conf00/guide.pdf 1971 annual report, page 307 15,780 students were vaccinated The number of students in Framingham schools peaked sometime around 1970-1973. This is from the 1970 report...... Positions 1970 Employment Page 375-6 2010 Employment School Budget Administrators 44 24.7 Central Office 8   Principals 27 12 Townwide directors 9   Teachers 795 726 Teachers Aides   153.5 Special program teachers 17   Guidance counselors 39   Health professionals 23 14 Secretaries 72 55.4 Bus drivers 67 82.7 Custodians 87 70 Noon lunch personnel 162   Maintenance personnel 17   Non bargaining   60 Total 1323 1199 Student Enrollment 15,118 8,383 School Budget $13,912,741 $86,346,829 Take the 2010 school budget of $86,346,829 and divide it by the 1970 budget $13,912,741 and we get 6.206. If we exponentiate 1.0467 to the 40th power, we get 6.207 The mathematical gibberish above says that across the span of forty years, the cost of schools has grown at a sustained rate of 4.67% year over year for forty years, irrespective of student enrollment. During this 40 year interval, the total town population has been stagnant. 1973 Annual Report: School year 74-75 $19.8 million school budget 14 elementary schools 4 middle schools 2 high schools 1 Kindergarten 1 bilingual Back then, we had far more students, more schools, but less bus drivers. FY 1971 enrollment 15,118 FY 1972 enrollment 15,437 FY 1974 enrollment 1,200 SPED FY 1977 enrollment 1,851 SPED FY 1978 enrollment 12,580 FY 1981 enrollment 10,578 FY 1983 enrollment 266 SAGE students, 127 SPED staff Taxpayers expect and legitimately demand significant savings to correspond to a loss of more than 7,000 students from our classrooms. In all the reports I read, the school report stated that enrollment dropped by so many students but only rarely would they dare state the actual number of students they had. It seems they purposely hide such information from the public. FY 2010 enrollment 8,400 and 23% SPED

There exists in the British Museum a plaintive letter written on papyrus in A.D. 288, signed by Servaeus Africanus, addressed to the district governors of Middle Egypt and reading as follows: It is apparent from the accounts alone that a number of persons wishing to batten on the estates of the Treasury have invented titles for themselves such as controllers, secretaries or superintendents, whereby they procure no advantage to the Treasury but swallow up the profits. (Papyrus 752)

Send comments to: hjw2001@gmail.com