Board of Mythomania's Staffing Shell Game - Alive & Well?!?

Just happened to read the new ETEA President's Message here and it caught my attention. He's talking about welcoming 88 new staff members to their association. Now, maybe it's me but last I remembered the $212.3 million School Budget for 2012-13 had increases for only 10 positions - 8 teachers, 1 guidance counselor and 1 assistant principal. Hmm.. 10 - 88 - probably worthy of some explanation.

You remember this piece of staffing by the Board over the years discussed and shown in a previous post:

That's adding 391 unbudgeted heads since I've been keeping track (through 2011-12) and failing to disclose it in the budgets we were asked to vote on.

So, if we only had 10 new heads in the budget for the 2012-13 school year (going from 1,926 to 1,936 total staff- page 36)- don't you think someone should be telling us how the ETEA added 88 new staff members to their association this year??

Geez, can somebody over there on Mythomania Lane start paying attention to the changes in staffing and reporting it out to the residents? Not for nothing but such changes from the 2012-13 budget should have a reconciliation and explanation before we get to the 2013-14 budget and find out we added some more unbudgeted heads in 2012-13 to add to the existing 391 unbudgeted heads.

Board of Mythomania's NJASK Results - Gr. 3-5

Well, according to the agenda for tonight's Board of Mythomania's Caucus meeting, they will be presenting the NJ ASK Standardized Test Results for Grades 3 - 5. Now, this is something you probably want to pay attention to - whether you have kids in the school system or not.

Like I said before, the 2012 Results for 'Partially Proficient' alone are a tad bit of a concern but when you factor in the change in test scores over 2011 - it's rises to the level of a tad bit troubling.

Here's the summary again of the comparison with 2011:

Over half the 2012 test scores were Worse than 2011 scores for Grades 3 - 5.

Here's the breakdown by School:

Here's the actual Results by School and Grade:

Anyhoo, like I said before, this is Edison and we need to do a better job for the Kids - and we all have a vested interest in making sure.

A Big Kudos

to the Edison Board of Education and Super Dr. Richard O'Malley for opening the schools after the storm for everyone dealing with no power and a host of other storm related issues.

Thanks to all!