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Board Forced to Settle ACLU Lawsuit:  April 24, 2006

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 24, 2006

Upper St. Clair, PA.  Although the supporters of responsible-ed.org are very disappointed that the Upper St. Clair School Board was forced to settle the frivolous lawsuit brought against the school district by the ACLU, IB plaintiffs, Kirkpatrick/Lockhart and Schnader Harrison, we can sympathize and understand why the difficult decision was made.  Amid the waste of time and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars, the onslaught of personal attacks and character assassination, and the destructive impact on the community, the school board chose to put an end to the madness created by a small group of dissident parents.  Since the lawsuit was filed, board members have endured continual nuisance heckling, harassment of family members and threats of  subpoenas and depositions, and threats on their professional careers and livelihoods through personal lawsuits and intimidation.

In an attempt to overturn the election of November 2005, the ACLU plaintiffs, et al found a pyrrhic victory.  They may have prevailed in the backrooms of the courthouse—but at what cost?  The reasonable citizens of USC will not permit a special interest group to crush a small town’s representative government.  This temporary setback for the citizen majority will not suppress the will of the electorate.

The voters in November clearly preferred board members who pledge fiscal common sense.  This lawsuit was pushed by the same people and their supporters who lost in the last election and refuse to take economic realities into consideration.  It is frightening to watch the ACLU and the 2 mega law firms use their techniques of massive litigation, disruption and imposition of runaway legal costs on USC.

It is a shame that a small minority in USC is going to compel the School Board to choose between making taxpayers fund an inefficient, failed program of no advantage and little appeal—that graduated 10 students in 6 years—or waste more tax dollars by taking an inane journey through a legal labyrinth.

It is our hope that the School Board members will be allowed to guide the school district as they were elected to do.

 

 

Rendell offers $85,000 to Upper St. Clair:  March 22, 2006

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 22, 2006

Upper St. Clair, PA  In an appalling lack of judgment and leadership, Gov. Edward G. Rendell has offered Upper St. Clair School District $75,000 to reinstate the International Baccalaureate Programme cancelled in February.  The Governor would use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to inject himself into a partisan local debate over the fiscal and educational direction of one of Pennsylvania’s most successful school districts.  In so doing, the Governor takes the side of the faction that has consistently favored more spending and higher taxes, the side that appeared on the Democrat line of last November’s ballot, and the side that lost by a significant margin.

One of Gov. Rendell’s first acts as Governor was to sign an income tax increase.  It is not surprising to Pennsylvania taxpayers, therefore, that Gov. Rendell’s response to the cancellation of IB is to spend tax dollars to prop up the duplicative and costly program.  As the School Board majority has tried to make clear (over the shouting and disruption of the opposing mob), there were many reasons for the cancellation of IB.  Gov. Rendell’s offer to use taxes taken from taxpayers across Pennsylvania to support an elite program chosen only by a select few in Upper St. Clair does not address all of the reasons to terminate the IB experiment.  Whether the tax dollars come from Upper St. Clair property taxes or statewide income taxes, it makes no sense to fund a program that costs so much and offers so little. 

The costs of the IB program total approximately $200,000 annually.  The Governor’s offer, therefore, covers only a fraction of the program’s cost, and only for the current year.  The Governor’s offer is an election year band-aid, not a long-term solution.

Experience at Upper St. Clair proved that IB had little appeal to students.  Since Upper St. Clair’s adoption of IB in 1998, less than 10 students graduated with IB diplomas.    

The School Board’s IB decision is part of a comprehensive review of the District’s financial and educational soundness.  The District is at risk from years of tax-and-spend policies.  The District faces enormous legacy costs created by prior Boards’ decisions to add administrators, pay exorbitant benefits, and accede to teacher union demands.  A one-time $75,000 check from the Governor’s walking around money does nothing to address the District’s long-term fiscal health.  Nor does the short-term retention of a program that did not enjoy widespread student acceptance enhance the District’s academic mission. 

 Although Pennsylvania schools have long depended on (dwindling) state subsidies, financial and curriculum decisions have always been assigned to the sound discretion of locally-elected school directors.  It is critical to maintain this local control because long after Gov. Rendell leaves office, local taxpayers will still pay the cost of commitments made today.

If Gov. Rendell were interested in the fiscal and educational health of Pennsylvania schools, he would not be interfering in the local dispute over IB.  Instead, he would be:  keeping his promise to reform property taxes; supporting referenda for school tax increases; advocating school vouchers; preventing unfunded mandates, and abolishing teacher strikes.  The problem with education in Pennsylvania has nothing to do with whether Upper St. Clair students have IB as well as AP.  The problem with education in Pennsylvania is that it is increasingly dominated by unions and bureaucrats in Harrisburg.  If Mr. Rendell’s interest in education is more than an election-year ploy, let’s see him attack the serious problems at the state level and let our locally-elected School Directors do their job here in Upper St. Clair. 

ACLU Lawsuit Filed:  March 13, 2006

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 13, 2006

Upper St. Clair, PA.    It is lamentable that a small group of citizens is trying to force their will on the rest of the community by filing a frivolous lawsuit.  This lawsuit is an attempt to overturn the election of November 2005.  The voters clearly preferred candidates who pledged fiscal common sense.   This lawsuit is supported by the same people who lost in November and they refuse to take economic realities into consideration;  all they want is to foster their own pet programs.

It is a shame that a small minority in USC is trying to compel the taxpayers to fund an unpopular curriculum at the expense of other programs that have broader advantage and appeal.  

The citizens of Upper St. Clair are committed to maintaining and improving academic excellence in our schools, but we must live within our means.  The new teachers’ contract negotiated by the former school board limits the current board’s financial flexibility.

The current school board majority was elected by the citizens of Upper St. Clair to provide fiscal leadership that has been sorely lacking.  The board is right to focus on cost-effective ways of improving our educational offerings for all students, not tie ourselves to expensive programs serving only a few.

It is our hope that those filing the lawsuit will come to their senses and realize this action will be detrimental to the community because it will be costly and foolish to pursue this issue in the courts. 

Friends and Supporters of the School Board

Citizens for Responsible Education

 

IB Program Phased Out By Board:  February 20, 2006

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Upper St. Clair, PA  As is often the case, the news media have presented a misleading picture of the USC school board’s decision to phase out the district’s experiment with the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program from Geneva, Switzerland.  Predictably, the media sacrificed accuracy for controversy.  The purpose of this letter is to give you correct information.

Contrary to media accounts, IB is not a popular program.  Out of thousands of school districts in the United States, only seven have chosen to participate at all levels of the IB Program.  Out of 501 public school districts and hundreds of private schools in Pennsylvania, only 17 PA schools offer a portion of the IB curriculum.  Aside from USC, none of the leading schools in western PA offer IB.  Locally, Mt. Lebanon and Pine-Richland considered and rejected the costly program.

The IB student figures reported by the media were exaggerated.  When the media talked about 650 IB students, that figure was misleading because it includes every student who takes a single IB course at any grade level.  A more realistic way to look at the program is to focus on the students who have enrolled for the entire IB curriculum.  This year there are only four such students in the senior class and only 17 in the junior class.  (The School Board voted to allow these students to finish their diploma program.)  The numbers show that the IB program served only a small number of students, despite its high costs.

IB was costly in several respects.  The ‘hard’ cost of the program was the $85,000 annual costs the school district paid for the participation.  The ‘soft’ costs were many, including high school IB classes with few students per teacher, extra teacher training, and transporting students to the elementary location.  The administration estimated the soft costs of the program are between $100-$150,000, so the overall cost was in the neighborhood of $200,000 annually.

The program cost not only dollars, but opportunity.  Resources devoted to the experimental IB program were taken from offerings in the traditional, rigorous, nationally-recognized Advanced Placement (AP) program.  USC offers only 12 AP courses—fewer than Mt. Lebanon (15), Peters Township (16), and Radnor in eastern PA (19).  USC offers no AP course in computer science, music, art, or world languages.  Now that the IB program has been terminated, the school district will seek to expand our AP offerings.

Many have cited the need for international studies in today’s global society.  Fair enough, but IB is not the only source of such a perspective.  Funds saved from the IB program could broaden our nascent Asian studies program.  Today’s technological world also demands students well educated in science and math.  IB was weak in these critical subjects.