Arne Duncan: A Discussion with Students

C-SPAN hosted a discussion between students and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan this morning.

The topics covered a wide range, and there were questions asked of the students as well as Secretary Duncan.

I listened to much of it on C-SPAN radio, but plan to re-listen or watch on the Internet soon.

There was discussion about curriculum and local control. No Child left behind and state assessment tests were discussed.

My favorite comment from Arne Duncan involved whether a teacher that brought a student that was three grade levels behind in reading to one grade level behind in one year should be viewed as successful or a failure. Listen to the discussion. I wholeheartedly agree with Secretary Duncan on this one.

Graduate Exams: An attractive idea that turns out to be a disaster?

There is an interesting article in today's New York Times about the new Pennsylvania graduate exam. That is the new test that all high school graduates must pass to get a diploma.

A law adopting statewide high school exams for graduation took effect in Pennsylvania on Saturday, with the goal of ensuring that students leaving high school are prepared for college and the workplace. But critics say the requirement has been so watered down that it is unlikely to have major impact.

"The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

Other states have used graduate exit exams, and many have lowered the standards so much that they are meaningless, wasting time, effort, and money, while still managing to hurt some students.

"Education officials in Pennsylvania estimate it will cost $176 million to develop and administer the tests and model curriculum through 2014-15, and about $31 million to administer each year after that."

Since school districts do not have to adopt the state test, but can opt for their own evaluation methods, DVSD will need to decide how they will implement the new graduate evaluation requirement.

Alcohol and college life

This year, The Princeton Review named Penn State the #1 Party School in America.

"This American Life" does a great job of looking at just what this means while investigating drinking at college.

Be careful; listening may change your perspective.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=396

Vote for the first FOUR (and Charles Pike)

Here is the official order of the candidates on the Nov 3, 2009 ballot:

Delaware Valley School District School Director
(Vote for not more than FOUR)

Pam Lutfy (Democratic/Republican)
Sue Schor (Democratic/Republican)
Jack Fisher (Democratic/Republican)
Bill Greenlaw (Democratic)
Robert Goldsack (Republican)

Vote counts from the primary:

Pam Lutfy (1,337 total votes)
Sue Schor (1,269 total votes)
Jack Fisher (1,132 total votes)
Bill Greenlaw (1,106 total votes)
Robert Goldsack ( 674 total votes)

For those that care about political parties: ALL the candidates in this school board race are registered Republicans.

Three of the candidates prevailed in both primaries, the other two candidates rounded out the field of four in the Democratic and Republican primaries.

Please ask all your Republican friends NOT to select the party line vote option, but to vote for the BEST candidates in the school board race.

PA law allows School Board candidates (and candidates for the Court of Common Pleas) to petition to be put on the ballot in the Democratic and Republican primary, regardless of the party affiliation of the candidate. Pennsylvania considers these offices as non-political All of the candidates sought to be listed on both the Democratic and Republican primary ballot.

Charles Pike is the only candidate on the ballot for the two year slot, so it looks like Chuck will be on the DV School Board starting in December. Early Congratulations to Chuck!

Get your absentee ballot aplication NOW!

There is less than a week left to get your absentee ballot application done! If you will not be in the County on November 3, apply for an absentee ballot.

The application must be received by the Board of Elections (in Pike County) by Tuesday October 27, 2009.

After the application is in, they will mail you a ballot. Vote and return the ballot.

You can cast one of the first votes for Greenlaw, Lutfy, Schor, Pike, and Fisher.

A link to absentee ballot applications (and other election information) can be found here: http://www.futureofpikecounty.org/Elections.html

Merit Pay

There is an interesting discussion of merit pay at the Education Sector's "The Quick and the ED" blog.

The blog entry highlights a couple of perspectives on merit pay:

• "money is an ineffective motivational tool" for encouraging effective teachers.
  

and, seemingly conversely, another view:

• While beginning teacher turnover can be high, rewarding effective teaching may help "to make sure that it’s your most effective teachers who are least likely to quit"

The blogger feels that these perspectives may not be inconsistent:

• "I don’t think there’s really much distance between these perspectives. Professionals engaged in creative work are more likely to be motivated by autonomy, and by the feeling that they are part of a larger, socially important enterprise, and by working for an organization that employs other similarly-minded professionals, and by being paid well. Successful organizations put all of these pieces together, because if they don’t, someone else will and hire away all the good people."
• "To recruit and retain good teachers, schools need a lot more than merit pay–they need strong leadership, good facilities, safe working conditions, and the right kind of organizational culture. You can’t paper over the lack of those things by simply tacking on a salary bonus, even a big one, to the existing steps-and-lanes pay scale. That’s what most most “merit pay” plans have been, historically, and that’s why they haven’t worked."
  

The comments on this blog entry are interesting. On commenter indicates s/he has "served as a consultant to labor unions and a middle manager supervising unionized workers." The commenter makes the point that successful merit based systems should have bargaining unit buy-in and the the administration must be seen as an entity that will not abuse the system:

• "The Denver ProComp system has survived, despite its struggles, in part because many Denver teachers saw the school superintendent (now a U.S. Senator) as a good-faith CEO who would block abuses of a performance pay system. The union’s participation in designing ProComp gave them a comfort level in supporting it."

I agree. For a merit-based system to be effective all stakeholders must participate in the design and it must be administered in a way that is seen as fair and impartial.

Full PSSA Results released?

Breaking news: PSSA results will be released erlier than ever, in stark contrast (and probably in part due) to the fact that the Pennsylvania budget is well overdue.

From yesterday's press release by the Pennsylvania Department of Education:

“Pennsylvania’s investments in increasing student achievement are working, and for the sake of our economic future we cannot afford to lose momentum now,” Secretary of Education Gerald L. Zahorchak said. “The last stage of any race is the hardest, and we need to accelerate our progress in helping the toughest-to-reach students succeed in the classroom.”

Governor Rendell’s proposed budget would build on student success by continuing to fund schools using a six-year formula enacted by the General Assembly last year. The formula, crafted as a result of the legislature’s “Costing-Out Report,” is intended to ensure all schools have the tools needed to bring all students to proficiency while minimizing the burden on local property taxpayers.

Interestingly, the results have not been posted anywhere yet. When the results are posted I will confirm this link and offer assessment of the DVSD performance. Of particular interest will be the grade 11 Reading and Math scores and some of the subgroup scores. We will see if the disparity between the DV schools in some elementary school grades has eased or increased from last year.

High School Graduation Exams

There is an ongoing controversy about High School graduation requirements in Pennsylvania. The Governor's budget includes over $200 million to develop state graduation exams in English, math, science and social studies. School districts and local boards (including DVSD) has protested that expenditure and the possibility of yet more mandated tests.

An article in today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette indicates that rather than requiring districts to adopt the new graduation exams the following options may be available to demonstrate competency for High School Graduation:

• Students could pass at least six of the 10 exams, one each from science and social studies and two each from English and math.

• Schools could count scores from Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests for comparable subjects.

• Schools could require students to pass state-validated local assessments.

• Students could complete a locally designed academic project if the student fails a Keystone or state-validated local assessment.

Some of the tests could replace some 11th grade PSSAs if approved by the federal government, but there would be more standardized tests than present in any case.

I have never heard the answer to this question: Why is it necessary to have an separate graduation requirement test? Why not improve the PSSAs, and use them along with the existing graduation requiremnts?

I believe the answer would cause state officials to acknowledge that the PSSAs are not a very good measurement tool.

What are your thoughts? Who and how should one determine if a student has demonstrated competency for High School graduation? Who should set the requirements and what should they be?

Some Positive PSSA results

There were some early PSSA results that list DVSD as a top performer in some areas.

I believe in celebrating good news, and there certainly seems to be some in the preliminary PSSA results. This does not mean that we can sit back and relax. These numbers look good, but the entire PSSA results have not been released yet. The math scores for 11th grade may still be a problem and there still may be areas of concern when you look at subgroups, even in the areas that we did comparatively well.

When the entire PSSA results are released you should be able to find them on PA's site: http://paayp.emetric.net/District/Overview/c52/120522003?schoolID=

On another blog, I responded to a commenter: I am not sure if you are referring to my comments, Anonymous, but be assured that I spoke up when the budget was adopted and voiced my concern for the $2 million in unfunded spending that is still not funded. A director asked what cuts I would make and I indicated that deferring some of the new curriculum and cutting back on some technology purchases as was outlined in "plan B" would be a place to start. The board passed the $70 million budget without the votes of the two sitting directors that I am running with. We advocated reducing the budget and presenting the actual tax increase that will hit property owners if PA does not pass the entire education budget, which few believe will happen at this point.

There are still many unknowns. It is unknown if PA will fund DVSD as anticipated in the budget that was passed by the board. There is likely to be a shortfall, and the board will have to reduce expenditures. The board may to consider a tax increase for THIS year. Next year will likely be tougher, no matter what the outcome is this year.

While this is gloomy, I am not sure what else I, as an individual citizen, could have done to encourage cutting expenditures and present the potential tax increase. The equivalent tax increase if we do not get the $2 million that has not been passed by PA is 6% according to the district superintendent. I believe that she was excluding the use of some reserve money in her calculation as I calculated a 5.2% effective increase with the use of the reserve money. So much for the "0%" touted by some of the candidates this year! Even without the $2 million, PA has increased their contribution to DVSD by 11% over last year! We need to do a better job at scrutinizing expenditures.

There were two candidates that voted "No" twice, Sue Schor and Pam Lutfy. They advocated for reducing expenditures and making an effort to get to a true 0% tax increase. If I were on the board I would have voted "No" also, and joined them.

This can all pretty confusing for those that do not have the time to attend the board meetings. If you have specific concerns, feel free to contact me directly at wegreenlaw@gmail.com or post a specific question here or as a comment here.

The candidates on the slate that I am on do care about the citizens of the district and their views.

I believe that the current board, and its leadership:
-did not try hard enough to make cuts
-has been getting lots more money from the state in the past few years
-has deluding itself in thinking it is managing the budget well.

I think we can do better. I believe that we need to pay more attention to each line in the budget, we need to look at variances during the year, and we need to budget on a five year plan. We are certain to have challenges ahead when we will be required to adequately fund the pension plan.

When there is good news we should celebrate it. Don't misread me, some good news does not mean all is well, but it does mean that we should understand what we did right, and improve on that.

Evaluating our Schools

Recently Secretary of Education for the United States, Arne Duncan, addressed the largest teacher's union in the country, the NEA. He addressed many of the challenges and opportunities for educational improvement in America. Merit pay and student testing were two of his topics. I found his discussion of data interesting:

"Now let's talk about data. I understand that word can make people nervous but I see data first and foremost as a barometer. It tells us what is happening. Used properly, it can help teachers better understand the needs of their students. Too often, teachers don't have good data to inform instruction and help raise student achievement.

Data can also help identify and support teachers who are struggling. And it can help evaluate them. The problem is that some states prohibit linking student achievement and teacher effectiveness."

He goes on to discuss standardized testing as data, specifically, data that may be used to evaluate teachers:

"I understand that tests are far from perfect and that it is unfair to reduce the complex, nuanced work of teaching to a simple multiple choice exam. Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible."

Secretary Duncan then suggests a path forward:

"It's time we all admit that just as our testing system is deeply flawed—so is our teacher evaluation system—and the losers are not just the children. When great teachers are unrecognized and unrewarded—when struggling teachers are unsupported—and when failing teachers are unaddressed—the teaching profession is damaged.

We need to work together to fix this and I will meet you more than halfway. I will demand the same of every principal, administrator, school board member, elected official and parent. I ask only the same of you that I ask of myself and others."

He echos my philosophy well. Sitting back and saying that our standardized tests are not good enough is easy. Advocating for or against merit pay is easy. Getting the differing sides and stakeholders to come together and solve these problems is tough.

We need to open that dialog and realize that data is a four letter word, but it is one that we need to use, and not cover our ears when we hear it. Sure, data can be used inappropriately, and we tend to focus on what we can measure, but the alternative to using data is willful ignorance. We need to embrace methods to understand where we excel and where we are not effective. With good data we should be able to tailor curriculum, lesson plans, and teaching methods to improve the efficacy of our teaching. We should not be afraid to discover what works well, and what does not work.

We need to ensure that we use the data that we have is used its fullest while advocating for tests that provide more useful information and shaping the improved measurement systems of the future.

We need to remind ourselves that we all have a common goal of efficiently educating our students and providing them with the core competencies that they will use to be effective lifelong learners. We all benefit when our students are well educated.

Have a Happy Fourth!

Last week's storm hit many of the local businesses hard. If you have visitors this weekend, or just have not strolled around the town of Milford lately, consider walking around downtown. Have a mini vacation just by spending a few hours and eating a meal locally. From Noon to 5pm on the Fourth there are activities planned in downtown Milford. We need to support our local businesses!

Please encourage celebrating responsibly. I vividly remember the hand of the vice principal of my high school which was missing a few fingers from an accident involving fireworks. Be careful while driving as the roads will have heavy traffic and distracted drivers.

I'd encourage you and your family to take some time and read the Declaration of Independence again, or watch it being read on video:
A reading of the Declaration by members of the 1998 Supreme Court.
A phrase by phrase discussion of the Declaration

It is also a convenient time to re-read the the Constitution.

Have a great Fourth of July celebration!

The Tie is Broken!

The tie on the Republican side of the ballot was broken today at noon.

For the play by play, see Ryan Baton's blog, RBforDV.

There will be 5 candidates vying for 4 seats in November. Pam Lutfy, Sue Schor, Jack Fisher, Bill Greenlaw and Bob Goldsack will be on the ballot November 3, 2009.

Chuck Pike will be the only candidate on the ballot for the 2-yr slot.

An update was published in the on-line edition of the Pike County Courier, and the Pike County Dispatch.

This November...

REMEMBER...

...EVERY vote counts!

Do we encourage effective teachers?

"The Widget Effect", a study by The New Teacher Project was released yesterday.

From the press release:

Though a teacher’s effectiveness is singularly important to student success, schools do not distinguish great teaching from good, good from fair, or fair from poor, and a teacher’s effectiveness in helping students to succeed academically almost never factors into critical decisions such as how teachers are hired, developed or retained.

This pervasive indifference to teacher performance is fundamentally disrespectful to teachers and gambles with the lives of students. It means that excellent teaching goes unrecognized, hard-working teachers who could improve are ignored, and poor performance goes unaddressed.

The study illustrates that teacher evaluation systems reflect and codify the “Widget Effect”—the tendency of school districts to treat teachers as essentially interchangeable—in several major ways:

• All teachers are rated “good” or “great.” Less than 1 percent of teachers receive unsatisfactory ratings, even in schools where students fail to meet basic academic standards, year after year.
• Excellence goes unrecognized. In districts with more than two ratings, 94 percent of teachers receive one of the top two. When superlative ratings are the norm, truly exceptional teachers cannot be formally identified. Nor can they be compensated, promoted or retained on a systemic basis.
• Professional development is inadequate. Almost 3 in 4 teachers did not receive any specific feedback on improving their performance in their last evaluation.
• Novice teachers are neglected. Low expectations for beginning teachers translate into benign neglect in the classroom and a toothless tenure process.
• Poor performance goes unaddressed. Half of the districts studied have not dismissed a single tenured teacher for poor performance in the past five years. None dismiss more than a few each year.

Please visit the site and read more about the study. I think there is much here that can generate good discussions about how to encourage more effective teachers. Teachers, students, and the community will all benefit from efforts to encourage effective teachers.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Common Core State Standards Initiative

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) today released the names of the states and territories that have joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Pennsylvania and 48 other states and US territories have joined the Initiative.

• According to a press release by The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO):

"By signing on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, governors and state commissioners of education across the country are committing to joining a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades K-12. These standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills."

• Purpose of the Initiative:

"The Common Core State Standards Initiative is being jointly led by the NGA Center and CCSSO in partnership with Achieve, Inc., ACT, and the College Board. It builds directly on recent efforts of leading organizations and states that have focused on developing college-and career-ready standards and ensures that these standards can be internationally benchmarked to top-performing countries around the world. The goal is to have a common core of state standards that states can voluntarily adopt. States may choose to include additional standards beyond the common core"

• Committee composition and timing:

"This committee will be composed of nationally and internationally recognized and trusted education experts who are neutral to – and independent of – the process. The college and career ready standards are expected to be completed in July 2009. The grade-by-grade standards work is expected to be completed in December 2009. "

• We will watch this effort and see what this will mean to the patchwork quilt of state tests under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and for DVSD, the PSSA. United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan indicates that he belives that the state initiated standardized tests are not always adequate, and that the Initiative has his support:

Secretary Arne Duncan praised the effort to create common core state standards in math and language arts. “This is a giant step,” he said of the initiative, which includes 46 states and 3 territories and is being led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Secretary of Education Speaks at the National Press Club

Secretary Arne Duncan discussed President Obama’s education agenda in a speech at the National Press Club on May 29, 2009.

A video of the speech is at the National Press Club’s website. Here are text excerpts from the speech.

I found the following excerpts particually interesting:

• You should not be comforted by meeting state standards under NCLB:
  

"When children are told they are “meeting a state standard,” the logical assumption for that child or for that parent is to think they are on-track to be successful. But because these standards have been dummied down and lowered so much in so many places, when a child is “meeting the state standard” they are in fact barely able to graduate from high school."

• A call for transparency, access to information, and data analysis, some of my passions:

"We have to be transparent about our data. We have to raise the bar so that every child knows on every step of their educational trajectory what they’re going to do."

• Assessing and correcting deficiencies. This is fundamental to improvement:

"You should know in fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth grade what your strengths are, what you weaknesses are. And we should be working with teachers and parents, and students should be taking responsibility for their own education to really improve where they have deficiencies, where they have weaknesses."

• How Chicago was able to turn around some of their under-performing schools:
  

"We kept the children and brought in new teams of adults – same children, same families, same socioeconomic challenges, same neighborhoods, same buildings, different set of expectations, different set of beliefs. And what we saw was dramatic changes."

Memorial Day

This Memorial Day please remember the fallen heroes of our armed forces.

We each have our own way to commemorate these men and women.

The Boston Globe's online feature, "The Big Picture," brings a glimpse of some of these commemorations.

Please follow the link, and remember the meaning of the day.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/05/memorial_day_2009.html

Your vote is ten times as important as you think!

Your vote counts! It actually counts ten times more than you may think! (I am not exaggerating.

School Board primaries are important. If you do not vote next Tuesday, May 19, 2009, you may have to live with the result for the next four years.

Four years ago, in the school board primary, the top four vote-getters in the Democratic primary and the top four vote-getters in the Republican primary were the same. Those four candidates went on to the November election unopposed. The elections were all over in May.

The highest number of votes for any one candidate four years ago was 1609. That is truly sad.

Here are some facts:

• Pike County has approximately 46,000 registered voters
• There are approximately 36,000 active voters in the county
• Pike County has the lowest percentage of active voters in the State of Pennsylvania.
• Because some voters are not registered as Democrats or Republicans only about 30,000 voters are able to effectively participate in the primary elections. This is due to Pennsylvania’s closed primary system.
• DVSD has approximately 5,400 students.
• We had a participation rate of less than 1 voter for every two students four years ago.
• It is likely that less than 10% of active voters in the district participated in the DVSD school board primary 4 years ago. That is less than 1 vote cast for every 10 active voters.

You deserve the best schools for your children. You deserve a school board that will responsibly manage the budget. You deserve a school board that will ask the tough questions and ensure that only those programs that are of proven value are implemented. You deserve a school board that will demand high performance from our administrators and our schools. You deserve a board that will get the highest performance from each tax dollar.

But you only deserve this if you vote. Vote for the candidates that will deliver quality education and responsible budgets.

Or sit at home and get whatever somebody else gives you.

Don’t let someone else decide this election. It is too important. Every vote counts. If the election four years ago is any indication, your vote represents 9 other citizens. One vote represents more than 2 students. Think about that and get to the polls next Tuesday. Vote for yourself, and your neighbors. Vote for your kids and grandchildren.

Vote for everyone on your street. Better yet, get them to vote too!

Your vote is ten times more important than you think!

For the four-year term, VOTE for:

Jack Fisher

Bill Greenlaw

Pam Lutfy

Sue Schor

For the two-year term, VOTE for:

Chuck Pike

VOTE! Tuesday May 19, 2009. VOTE!

The 0% Illusion

Bob Goldsack and TU want to take sole credit for this year’s 0% tax increase.

What are the facts?

Cost per student has never been higher in DV history, now at over $12,000/yr for each student. Cost per student went up 2% last year.

So how did Bob keep taxes flat? Lucky for Bob, revenue from the State went up a whopping 14% from last year. What did Bob have to do with this? That’s where the real 0% comes in.

Bob was against Act I (State gambling money). He did not want to accept it. He did not ask or plan for that money. As reported on May 8, 2008 by the Courier, he accepted the gambling money he had vowed to turn away. We should thank him for that.

All other things equal, if State contributions had been flat, we would have had a 5% decrease in total revenue, which would have translated to a need to increase local revenues by 8%.

In other words, had it not been for the generosity of the State in the form of Act I money and some other minor increases, Bob’s plan would have resulted in an 8% increase in your taxes.

Property taxes were flat, but local revenues dropped by 9%. Anyone want to bet that they will be bigger this year? Bob?

We have seriously depleted our budgetary reserves. As reported in the April 24, 2008 Pike County Courier, Bob said:

"In past they’ve had too much in reserve and they’ve never used it to reduce taxes. We still have one, but not as much,”

Let’s see what happens this year under a shrinking tax base. Our reserves are lower than any time in recent history and we have spent half of the money we borrowed to build a new school without anything to show towards that school. We will need more of Bob’s lucky money this year.

There is potential for Federal stimulus money, but the State, which currently has a $3 billion shortfall, may drop their contribution accordingly. Can we count on another $3 million dollar last-minute gift again this year? I would not.

Like Bob, I would be happy to accept gambling money from the State.

Unlike Bob, I would not gamble with our own with unsound and irresponsible budgeting practices.

We need to determine our budget with funding that is certain. Our plan should not include getting an unexpected wheelbarrow of cash to bail us out each year.

As school board director, I will work to keep taxes low through indexing based on the cost per student. I will advocate for a more deliberative line-by-line budget process, including holding variance meetings throughout the year to make sure we are on track to meet our goals. I will also advocate for long-term 5-year budgeting so we are more prepared for challenges we will face in the future. I will advocate getting budget proposals well ahead of meetings so that directors can ask good questions of the administration and determine where money can be saved. I will get the details of the budget and the history of expenditures and revenue on the district web site for all to examine.

We simply can’t afford the Taxpayer United process anymore. That does not mean we have to raise taxes, but it does mean we need to restore sustainable fiscal discipline, lowering costs, not relying on State revenue and borrowing.

Bob, I wish you luck, I just wish we were not counting on luck. I propose we do the hard work necessary to maintain fiscal discipline.

Act Now!

Tuesday, April 29, 2009 there was an open candidates forum sponsored by the Matamoras Republican Club. No Taxpayers United candidate showed. They didn't even let the Club organizer know that they were not gong to bother.

Wednesday April 30, 2009 there was another open forum sponsored by the PTA, as usual, no Taxpayer United Candidate showed up. There were two other candidates that could not make it to that forum, both sent statements giving an overview of their qualifications and their candidacy. This opportunity was offered to the TU folks, but they couldn't be bothered. Apparently they had a prior engagement at a "kaffee klastch".

If you don't bother to complete a single questionnaire that was sent to all candidates (0 for 2) or show up to any candidate forum where all candidates have been invited (0 for 2) why should anyone bother to vote for you?

Taxpayers United wants to conduct their entire campaign through letters to the editor that are filled with errors, and have less truth than fiction. Are you going to allow them to do that?

As I like to say,
Learn; Educate; Vote.
We get the government we deserve.

If these TU candidates get elected running this type of campaign we will get the government we deserve: A board that is insulated, unresponsive, and "can't be bothered." Is this what you deserve?

By avoiding answering any tough questions, and by taking pot shots through letters to the editor they may win this one. If you think you deserve better representatives than these candidates, ones that avoid every tough question, you had better get motivated and get moving.

Get everyone you know to check the Future of Pike County out. Ask them if they read our completed questionnaires. Ask them if they read the endorsements that the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the Future of Pike County have given us this year.

Sign up!

Get Involved!

Candidate Events

This week there are two chances to hear from all the candidates.
Both forums are open to the public.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009:
Candidates Meet and Greet at the Matamoras Republican Club

· Matamoras Borough Hall

· 7pm

· Candidates will give a short introduction
· Followed by questions and an informal meet and greet session.

Sponsored by the Matamoras Republican Club, open to the public.

Wednesday April 29 2009:
Meet the Candidates for Delaware Valley School Board

· Shohola Elementary School

· 7-8 pm Candidates speak and answer questions
· 8-9 pm Meet & Greet over cake and coffee

"Please join us to learn about the candidates seeking election on May 19."

Sponsored by DV Council PTA and the Pike County Youth Coalition