Sullivan on Gatsas' Solution for the Wrong Problem
by: Dean Barker
Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 19:14:19 PM EST
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I haven't seen a takedown this clear-cut, data-driven, and devastating in a long time. Kathy Sullivan on Mayor-Elect Gatsas' plan to move 9th grade down to the middle school in Manchester schools:
The Gatsas plan is based on the faulty premise that Manchester's high schools have too many students. As Memorial High School Principal Arthur Adamakos points out, each of the three high schools is designed to hold 2,500 students. Currently, none is at capacity.
There is a significant overcrowding problem in the classrooms, however, because of a lack of teachers. This problem is the result of the budget Ted Gatsas wrote with Alderman Mike Lopez. That budget's flawed math resulted in teacher layoffs, which in turn caused too many students in classes. It is a little unsettling that an incumbent alderman who is about to become the city's mayor is confusing building capacity with classroom capacity.
According to school board member Arthur Beaudry, the one group of Manchester schools that does have capacity issues is the elementary schools. They cannot absorb the city's sixth-graders. The Gatsas plan would solve the nonexisting capacity problem in the high schools by exacerbating the very real capacity problem in the elementary schools.
But read the whole thing.
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