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Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association

July 1997                                                                                                                                                     Volume 2, Number 4

Welcome to new members and first time readers. We try to present information you won’t find in the daily media. If you have some information that you feel the public ought to know, please let us hear from you. Join us in opposing, exposing and disposing of false prophets working against the public good.

According to the Phyllis Schlafly Report, "The Clinton Administration learned a big lesson from the defeat of its plan to takeover the entire U.S. health care industry. Releasing its plan as a single 1,342-page bill in 1993 gave conservatives a large target to hit at and enabled them to identify at least a dozen fearsome features against which Americans could rally.

"When health plan author Ira Magaziner and other Friends of Bill and Hillary developed a parallel plan to take over the entire U.S. educational system, they used a very different strategy. They dispersed its coercive mandates among several federal statutes, bureaucratic regulations, a strange relationship between the Departments of Education and Labor, state legislation (whose authorship traces to a common source), and grant applications submitted by states seeking federal funding.

"The master plan for the federal takeover of public schools is contained in a remarkable 18-page "Dear Hillary" letter written on November 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE). It lays out a plan ‘to remold the entire American [education] system’ into ‘a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,’ coordinated by ‘a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels’ where curriculum and ‘job matching’ will be handled by counselors ‘accessing the integrated computer-based program.’

Central economic planning is a failure all over the world and always spells the end of individual freedom. Americans do not want their children to be pawns in this giant and expensive experiment!

Listen for the telltale jargon: School-to-Work, School-to-Careers, Career Awareness, restructuring, performance-based, outcome-based, Cooperative learning, group grading, teamwork, peer tutoring, job shadowing, mentoring, job profiles, portfolios, job site visits.

Watch for the branding of children with ugly labels that will haunt them all their lives: "at risk" or "learning disabled." Remember, labeling children makes more money available to the school. Labeling the child means blaming the child for the problem.

A change is past due. We, the New York upstaters should be demanding that our state legislators begin serious process of making upstate and the new state of Southern New York (including NYC, Long Island and Westchester County) separate entities. The likes of Sheldon Silver and the hundreds of his predecessors have been controlling our lives for 200 years. Sooner or later this will take place, let us make it sooner. Then NYC can build its own prisons, run its own welfare system, fight over rent control, etc.

If NYC were a separate state, the drug dealers would be committing a federal crime by crossing a state line in order to sell drugs in Troy. Our life style and that of one in NYC are not at all compatible. I do not see very many upstaters retiring in NYC.

Rude remarks from elitists who ridicule anyone who can produce useful work can be considered compliments. What some of our public officials should practice is tightening up on the expenditure of other peoples money. Please note the next article.

Now that we have the new East Greenbush town guide complete with map and a list of prominent employees published, it is only fair and fitting that we add to this list the salaries of our public servants, to wit-

Those readers who have been lulled into thinking smaller class size guarantees improved learning and enhances test score results should read on. A recent computer library search on small class size results by SRCTA was accomplished with inconclusive results. You may wish to do your own.

One study revealed short term success with higher scores in both reading and math. However, more important factors that class size in predicting a student’s Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills score were shown to be: special education status, English-Second Language status, ethnicity, free-lunch eligibility, and class configuration. Another study involving fourth and fifth graders revealed that there was no significant difference in test scores of classes with 16 or 37 students.

Concern about class size may be justified in the early grades where youngsters need a high degree of individual attention. However, as they progress through the education system, they need less and less individual attention. As can be noted on the collegiate level, larger classes are not an impediment to learning. Some of the advantages associated with larger classes are: they require fewer class rooms, fewer professional and semi-professional personnel, fewer school buildings, fewer administrators, and fewer tax dollars.

Readers in the SRCTA community may wish to start a national grass roots "wave" for a change that will sweep the county, state, and nation. This action should call for re-negotiation of teacher-union contracts. Call your Superintendent of Schools, President of the Teachers Union, and politicians. Change can start anywhere – why not here in Southern Rensselaer County?

Try taking an instructive days trip sometime. Start at Exit 24 of the NYS Thruway and drive west for a few hours through New York State. Next time, drive east for a few hours, traveling into Massachusetts on the Mass. Turnpike. Enjoy the scenery in both directions. More importantly, though, notice the dramatic difference in toll rates. Massachusetts has taken steps to reduce and sometimes eliminate tolls. New York, with high tolls to begin with, is thinking about raising them even further.

Certainly, there are many factors affecting toll rates, including funding mechanisms, road conditions, road length, etc. It’s also certain that the New York State Thruway Authority has a staff large enough to quickly provide travelers with slick explanations as to why their roads are so expensive.

Still, the Massachusetts toll road appears to be maintained at least as well as that of New York, even though some of the terrain through the Berkshires may very well make maintenance more difficult.

The difference in toll rates may not always be this dramatic. (Massachusetts has never lagged too far behind anyone in the tax-and-spend department). However, a comparative trend is apparent: The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is taking a serious step to lower costs while maintaining good service, while the New York State Thruway Authority has no such goal in mind.

The recently published New York State report card for Columbia High School presents some disparaging trends. This analysis compares Columbia High School with another school in the same state classification (Similar School Group #49), namely Shenendehowa High School.

The first item that stands out as a red flag is the trend of the attendance rate. From the 1992-93 school year to 1994-95 school year the attendance rate has dropped from 95 % to 93%. Along with that drop is a more alarming trend, that of the suspension rate. From the 1992-93 school year to1993-94 school year the rate increased from 5% to 8% and then in 1994-95 the rate increased again to11%. The third item to note is the increase in the dropout rate. In the 1992-93 school year there was a 1% dropout rate which continued in 1993-94. But in the school year 1994-95 the dropout rate tripled to 3%.

The same analysis of the Shenendehowa High School shows that their attendance rate has remained constant at 92% over the same 3 year period, the suspension rate has DROPPED from 10% to 8% and then to 7%, and the dropout rate has remained constant at 3%. What do they know or do that we don't?

Over the same three year period tabularized in the school report card, the regents diploma rate has dropped from 59% in 1992-93 to 56% in 94-95 and 95-96. The report card provides data on the number of students tested in Regents in English, Language other than English, Math Sequence I, Math Sequence III, Biology, and Chemistry. While the overall trend appears to be increasing the number of students tested, the results appear to be diminishing.

What it comes down to is adding teachers, "Other Professionals", and "Paraprofessionals" to a school which clearly shows a downward trend in attendance and an increase in dropout and suspension rates is not the answer. Money, if spent at all, would best be spent on truant officers.

We had a great Memorial Day parade on May 31^st featuring the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Fire companies and civic groups. Where was the school band?
East Greenbush Resident

The salary(?) for the Commissioner of Public Works is set at $51,828. This is highway robbery.
Clinton Heights Resident

The 1997 Spelling Bee champ is Rebecca Sealfon, a 13 year old from Brooklyn. She was home schooled.
Schodack Resident

Why not a full audit for the Town of East Greenbush starting with fiscal 1994? Long overdue.
Hampton Manor Resident

There is one hold out who didn’t make the honor roll at East Greenbush high school. He failed to show up at volleyball practice and went to church instead.
East Greenbush Resident

A Hampton Manor Lady says, "The wearing of shorts by school faculty is disgraceful." We told her to go to the next School Board meeting and air a complaint.
Hampton Manor Resident

Noted in the Holy Spirit Church bulletin "We need a value-added education - its none to soon for public schools to show an interest in teaching kids more than reading, writing and arithmetic."
East Greenbush Resident

It is amazing that our liberals in and out of government dwell on human rights for foreigners, yet erode or ignore basic human rights for our own citizens. Our constitutionally protected freedoms are constantly set upon by willful public officials who restrict the use of private property, raise and collect taxes, and pass giveaway legislation. The legislation that provides funds for domestic special interests but also for overseas countries who not only fail to appreciate it, but scorn us for not giving more.

We not only have social welfare and corporate welfare but political welfare. The arrogance and audacity of our supposed representatives in Congress to fight and argue over our citizens’ hard earned money, none of which they themselves produced is the height of hypocrisy. They, together with their local cohorts are supposed to be servants of the people, not licentious dictators.


Happy Summer Days

We in SCRTA wish everyone a joyful summer. Bear in mind, you and your family should come first above all the entreaties of government and special interests who seek to control your privacy and limit your freedoms. Join with those who will not be influenced by the false prophets of socialism. Your family is too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of duplicity.

• November general elections are coming up.
• New York State Constitutional Convention.
• Possible SRCTA Awards Night to be announced.
• Next meeting, Tuesday, July 8, Town Hall, East Greenbush, 7 PM.