More Light, Less Heat

Dear PTA Presidents & Others:

When I wrote last week’s emails, I was fired up. I had come to the last few days of advocacy for the LCPS budget. I had discovered that many PTA leaders were not aware of the Supervisors budget proposals.

Many of you passed my emails along to your membership, which I had hoped you would do and appreciate. Many PTA members were grateful and responded by advocating to the Board of Supervisors. Others were upset about the PTA email lists being used for political purposes. Upon receiving responses from their reps on the Board of Supervisors, many parents became unsure about just who is responsible for the salaries of school employees.

I am concerned that in the desire to raise awareness and do all I could for our schools, I may have overstepped and done more to blur the situation than to clarify it. I am also concerned that I continued the “sky is falling” rhetoric of past budget years. I took the weekend to refocus and find perspective on the situation, and concluded that I need to add more light and less heat today.

1. The Board of Supervisors allocates funds; the School Board determines how they are spent. Therefore, within limitations it is the School Board who determines teacher salaries. The School Board may be able to offer staff a modest raise this year by cutting back on programs and staff levels. Doing this will require substantial cuts, and I don’t think it can be done without impacting the quality of our schools, but it is possible.
2. There are two kinds of salary increases for LCPS employees. One is a cost of living adjustment (COLA), the other is called a “step increase” and is essentially a raise for gaining another year of experience. The $10M I have been advocating for the past few days is for a “step increase” without a COLA.
3. The Board of Supervisors has fallen short of allocating funds equivalent to stable per-student funding plus a step increase for LCPS employees, a standard I had hoped they would meet.
4. PTA parents are not uniform in their feelings about school funding, class sizes, teacher salaries or tax rates. They are as politically diverse as our entire community.
5. My job as a School Board member is to ensure that Loudoun County has an effective and efficient school system and to advocate for what is best for that system.

I continue to ask that our Board of Supervisors allocate an additional $10M to the school budget to allow for stable per-pupil funding plus a step increase for our staff. I hope that through my emails you and your members have become better informed about the budget for the upcoming school year and that through your emails the Supervisors have become better informed about how strongly the Loudoun community feels about its schools. Nevertheless, I apologize for any adverse effects stemming from the information I have sent to you in the past week.

Penny for a Pay Raise: 4 Days Left

Download these budget facts and distribute.

The situation:

• The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has voted to cut the School Board’s
• funding request by $49.8 Million.
• The adopted tax rate ($1.14) does not provide enough funds for LCPS to give even modest raises to its teachers, staff, custodians and other school employees.
• The supervisors did vote to give County employees a 3% raise.
• Three Supervisors (Buckley, McGimsey, Burk) have voted for a tax rate of $1.15, which will enable the schools to give a 3% step increase to all employees. It is a Penny for a Pay Raise.
• The final vote on the tax rate will be Tuesday morning, April 1st. Supervisors Buckley, McGimsey & Burk need your support to get the last Penny for a Pay Raise.
  

What you can do:

1. Write to the Board of Supervisors and ask them to support a Penny for a Pay Raise: BOS@Loudoun.gov
2. Join the rally at the County Government building in Leesburg on Monday March 31st at 5:30pm. Teachers, custodians, school staff of all kinds and the parents who support them must come and demand that the Board of Supervisors provide a Penny for a Pay Raise, ensuring that teachers and school employees will get a modest raise this year just like other County employees.
3. Thank Supervisors Buckley, McGimsey & Burk for their support of the Penny for a Pay Raise.
4. Let your child’s teachers know that you support the Penny for a Pay Raise.
5. Pass this along to the people you know who want to support our teachers and school employees.

Penny for a Pay Raise: 5 Days left

Last night the Board of Supervisors had a chance to give our teachers a pay raise. They failed. By a 5-4 vote, they approved a tax rate of $1.14, which provides the same number of dollars per student as the previous year's budget but falls $10 Million short of a pay raise for school employees. Adding insult to injury, the Supervisors at the same time voted a pay raise for County employees.

Please take a moment to thank Sugarland's Susan Buckley for standing strong for schools and teachers last night. She stood alone. I am particularly disappointed that Leesburg's Kelly Burk switched her vote after initially voting for the pay raise. I am further disappointed by Andrea McGimsey, who just last week joined Kelly Burk in voting for a tax rate a penny higher that would have funded teacher pay raises.

The fight is not over yet. The final budget vote is in five days.

Please write to Supervisors Andrea McGimsey and Kelly Burk and ask them to add a Penny for a Pay Raise next Tuesday when the final vote comes.

Supervisors Consider Operating Budget tonight

Last night's slog through the CIP, proffers and cross-dais put-downs got us through the CIP and passed a 10% reduction in the budget allocated for building schools in the future.

Tonight they will discuss the schools operating budget, and we know that the School Board request will be cut, but by how much is anybody's guess right now. Today may be your last chance to contact the Board of Supervisors and advocate. I'll be in the Board room again tonight to advocate to keep small class sizes, teacher pay raises, parity across the county and the needs of all of our students. I'll be liveblogging via Twitter again because... well, because I just can't keep my fingers still for that long.

Liveblogging the Supervisors

The School Board cut short its meeting tonight and is present at the Board of Supervisors budget discussion. Primarily they are discussing capital projects, which includes the cost of building schools in coming years. It is possible that they will begin motions on the LCPS operating budget tonight as well. I'll be liveblogging thoughts via Twitter.

Questions for Supervisors

Last week we met with the Board of Supervisors to answer more questions. Overall the tone was much, much better than two weeks prior. I especially thank Mr. Miller, Ms. Buckley and Ms. Kurtz for their helpful questions and remarks. Through it all I thought of some questions that I would ask the Board of Supervisors if they were sitting before our dais:

• When you are looking at School Budgets nationwide, are you aware that you are looking at the budgets of School Boards which set their own tax rates?
• Do you believe that class sizes affect student achievement?
• Do you believe that updated science textbooks affect student achievement?
• Do you believe that employee compensation is related to employee performance?
• Do you believe that lower per pupil cost relates to higher achievement?
• Do you believe that having good schools reduces the impact of an economic downturn?
• Do you believe that good schools enhance the resale values of the homes they serve?
• Do you believe that employee retention is considered to be a good thing?
• Do you believe that coming in under budget is a good thing?

The Break's Over: This week's schedule

Welcome back everyone, I hope Spring Break was restful for our students, parents and staff.

Update: The action items for tomorrow night's meeting will be moved to our April 8th meeting. The School Board will attend the Board of Supervisors meeting as our budget will be under discussion.

Where I'll be this week:

Tuesday, 3/25: School Board meeting, 6:30pm. Major items:

• Changes to teacher evaluation policies
• Use of East Gate proffered site (Staff recommends rejection of site)
  
• Grandfathering rezoned Hutchison Farm ES fifth graders.

Tuesday, 3/25: Board of Supervisors voting on Capital Improvement Plan, 6:30
Wednesday, 3/26: Technology Steering Committee Meeting, 6:30pm.
Thursday, 3/28: Loudoun Education Foundation, 8AM
Saturday, 3/29: Night at the Falls, Potomac Falls High School

Where I won't be:
Tuesday, 3/25: Finance, Construction & Site Acquisition Committee, 6:00
Tuesday, 3/25: Board of Supervisors voting on Capital Improvement Plan, 6:30
Tuesday, 3/25: Internet Safety forum, Potomac Falls High School, 7pm
Wednesday, 3/26: Diversity In Education College And Career Fair, Dominion HS, 6:30pm

Woodgrove HS

The following statement from Dr. Hatrick is (or soon will be) posted on the LCPS website:

On Tuesday and Wednesday, March 11 and 12, an e-mail was widely distributed throughout western Loudoun County stating that the School Board had effectively abandoned plans to build Woodgrove High School.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The school system is awaiting the end of litigation involving Loudoun County and the Town of Purcellville so that it can start building Woodgrove. Bond funding for this school has been approved and plans for Woodgrove have been submitted to the county and approved. The Supreme Court of Virginia is slated to decide litigation involving Woodgrove’s site within the coming months. When litigation hurdles are removed, the school system expects construction of Woodgrove to begin.

The e-mail also states that the School Board has moved HS-5, a new high school north of Leesburg, ahead of Woodgrove on its construction schedule.

This also is not true.

HS-5 also is behind schedule, again due to litigation that has now been resolved. The funds for this school have already been allocated through bond referendum. Its construction has not been made a priority at the expense of Woodgrove.

The e-mail mentions alternatives for assigning students to Harmony Intermediate and Kenneth W. Culbert Elementary (scheduled to open for the 2009-2010 school year) should overcrowding in western Loudoun become too extreme. The School Board has discussed such options openly and honestly in various public meetings for the past two years. (See superintendent’s previous message regarding “Status of Western Loudoun Secondary Students.”) At these meetings, it was stressed that no definite plan has yet been reached for the reallocation of students because overcrowding at western Loudoun schools had not yet reached a critical point.

If you have questions about Woodgrove High School, or any Loudoun County Public School, you may contact the LCPS Public Information Office at schools@loudoun.k12.va.us or 571-252-1040.

Miller, McGimsey and Chalkboards

The longer this budget process goes on, the more upset I become. Not by the difficulty of the financial situation, but by the continuation of the previous board's condescension toward the School Board. I was hoping for better, I have worked for better, and yet very little has changed. The animosity in public pales in comparison to what is being said behind the scenes.

Listen to the comments of Supervisors Stevens Miller and Andrea McGimsey to a presentation by School Board member (and Loudoun County HS Teacher) Jennifer Bergel.

Miller, McGimsey & Chalkboards (1.7MB)

Some people will say that I have taken their remarks out of context. On the contrary, I have put their remarks into context by taking what they said two hours after the presentation and juxtaposing it against the words they were responding to.

To hear their remarks in their entirety and judge for yourself:

Stevens Miller, March 5 2008 (2.4MB)
Andrea McGimsey, March 5 2008 (7.7MB)

Miller & McGimsey are members of my political party. I particularly like Andrea and we have been working well together. I have no quarrel with any other aspect of the job she is doing. Here though her approach is deeply flawed and she knows I feel this way. My job is to fight for the best quality education possible for the children of my community. Political party and congeniality are secondary to that mission.

Listen to these words and if you disagree, let them know.

No Budget Meeting tonight

I should have put this up last night, but it was after midnight when I got home and before 8AM I was touring schools with Andrea McGimsey, that took up most of the morning.

The Board of Supervisors received a lot of material yesterday from LCPS in response to their questions from last week. They want time to go through it before meeting again, so the joint meeting of the two boards that was scheduled for tonight has been postponed until next Wednesday, March 19th.

I only found out last night and this morning that a lot of folks were planning to come to tonight's meeting in support of the school budget. I am very glad to hear it. My family and I, like many of yours, will be out of town on vacation all of next week. It is discouraging to be put off when we know that some Supervisors positions will already be set before we get another opportunity to work on the budget with them. It is also tempting to note that the meeting now comes in the midst of LCPS Spring Break, and the impact that will have on news coverage and the parents who planned to come tonight to support us.

Please, if you were planning to attend tonight's meeting, write an email to your supervisor NOW instead. It doesn't need to be long or convincing, it just needs to let them know how you feel. Use the links to the right.

Chairman DuPree's presentation

School Board Chairman Robert DuPree did not write his comments out, but did walk through a series of slides for the Board of Supervisors providing an excellent overview of the LCPS budget proposal. You can download that slideshow, complete with audio narrative using the link below.

Robert DuPree Budget Presentation

Warren Geurin's Budget Presentation

My colleague Warren Geurin has provided his comments to the Board of Supervisors for publishing here. The full statement is over two pages long, so I am providing a link to his remarks here and excerpts below:

We understand the revenue pressure you are under and we are very willing to change the Budget Process so that it is less confrontational and more collaborative. This should be a marriage that is headed for a 4-year honeymoon – not Family Court. Our budget is not just our agenda; it should be your agenda, too. These are not just our schools; they are your schools, too! Our budget is tied directly to the values that parents and taxpayers have supported over and over again. Taxpayers are interested in having a quality teacher in each classroom and classroom sizes that can be lower in the future than they have been in the past. These are the families who may find it hard to shoulder a property tax increase, but these are also the families for whom a good education for their children has the most meaning. These are the families who are most dependent on us to invest in education. These families are counting on us.

I would like to read an essay that Rigoberto Castaneda wrote for his application to the Academy of Science, which he gave to me that day:

I would like to go to the Academy of Science because I would like to go to Virginia Tech and then become an architect. I feel the Academy of Science will help me achieve my goals. I also like math and science a lot. Math and science I comprehend well. They are also two of my favorite subjects and my best. Also for the past two years I have done Continental math. Another thing I have done this past year was sorting food for Thanksgiving for those with no food, with my church. I also like the idea of going to Park View and the Academy of Science so I can see my friends and play sports at Park View, and still get a great education. I would learn how to write essays a lot better than this one, as well as a lot of college math and science.

Rigoberto is counting on us to invest in education.

Meetings this week

Meetings I will attend:

• Monday: (Info) Math Investigations briefing for parents, 6:30pm at Sanders Corner Elementary
• Tuesday: (Agenda) Full School Board meeting, 4pm. Public agenda at 6:30pm.
• Wednesday: Budget work session with the Board of Supervisors, 6:30pm.
• Thursday: Budget work session with the Board of Supervisors, 4:00pm.

Meetings I will miss:

• Tuesday: Finance, Construction & Site Acquisition Committee, 3:30pm
• Wednesday: (Info) Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents (LEAP), 7:30pm LCPS Admin Building
• Thursday: 27th Annual Science & Engineering Fair Awards Ceremony, 7:00pm Dominion High School
  
• Thursday: Gifted Advisory Committee, 7:00pm
• Thursday: Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee (MSAAC), 7:15pm Stone Bridge High School
  

See the LCPS Calendar for more district-level events, see your school's online calendar for more!

Bob Ohneiser's Budget Presentation

On Wednesday night, the School Board presented its budget to the Board of Supervisors. I spoke from notes in response to points that the supervisors raised during the Q&A that followed the presentation, but other members had prepared remarks. Below is an abbreviated version of Mr. Ohneiser's portion of the presentation. I'll share other member's remarks if they provide them to me for that purpose.

Under the law school boards are supposed to ensure school systems meet utmost efficiency standards. In the case of facility management this remains a unique challenge for Mr. Plattenberg. His staff has done exceptionally well when comparing the last two school LCPS built to the other 14 schools just built in Virginia. LCPS was lowest in square feet per pupil, ranked 3rd and 4th out of 16 in construction cost per square foot and ranked first and second in terms of cost per student. During this same period of time his department saves $126.5k per year by participating in regional natural gas bidding contracts.
The question I asked during my presentation to the BOS was how much should we challenge this department when they demonstrate great management practices but they really can't control their usage of resources completely. Every night parks and recreation open up the buildings for recreation and every daylight hour the fields are used by programs parks and recreation SELLS to our constituents.
LCPS has a budget enlarged due to accomodating district specific demands as well. Why shouldn't LCPS consider increasing efficiencies also on a district specific basis? Our bus services in rural areas are TWICE as expensive as the rest of the county. Our food costs per student are higher in rural schools. Our energy costs per student are higher, costs of running the school library are higher per student etc. Do we realize that it now costs an EXTRA $5000/student to provide ESL support. When the Supervisor in Sterling votes against the school budget (as he promised to do) does he want LCPS to save $21 Million per year by not supporting his immigrant non-english speaking population? Does he want Park View High School to have the same class size as Loudoun Valley? Does the Western Loudoun Supervisor want LCPS to run the bus system more efficiently by picking up middle and high school students at their local elementary schools instead of their driveways?

Shouldn't the school board enforce operational efficiencies BEFORE we consider educational program cuts? I pleaded with Supervisors to provide LCPS with some input on social program curtailment and efficiency enforcement not just a $ number to live by. It is totally unfair and blindly simplistic to merely claim LCPS should increase class size as a County objective when schools in Western Loudoun and in some far Eastern Louduoun schools don't even have enough students to fill up their schools in the first place. Using county averages without applying standards of deviation does nothing but insure unfairness in student teacher ratios. It remains my wish that both boards will work together cooperatively and make sure operational efficienices including sociologically driven programs, demographically driven programs and geographically driven costs are managed prior to even considering reducing the educationally necessary quality of LCPS.

Parents & Pictures (redux)

It's fun when an idle thought grows into a full-blown discussion. Please see yesterday's post for a very informative comment by Ed Myers that helped me to have a much better understanding of the concerns that some parents have about their children being photographed.

In addition, some LCPS teachers are apparently having a conversation about these same photo restrictions via email, so I went a little more in depth and pulled out the photo permission form, and the explanation provided in the Student Rights & Responsibilities handbook:

Students may occasionally be photographed or videotaped during their participation in school activities. These photographs may be used to provide information to the public about LCPS programs and activities through school system publications and displays, in newspapers and other print media, on television, and in connection with school system information provided on the internet.
Parents/guardians may elect not to have their child photographed or videotaped for use in media and may further request that no individual pictures be used in the school yearbook and that the child not be a part of classroom photographs.

On the form itself, parents have three options:

I grant permission for my child (named below) to be photographed or featured in any videotape, television, audio recording, or broadcast that will be produced by and available to the public from LCPS, or (to the extent that access is within LCPS’s control during school hours) to the media.

I do NOT grant permission for my child (named below) to be photographed or featured in any videotape, television, audio recording, or broadcast that will be produced by and available to the public from LCPS, or (to the extent that access is within LCPS’s control during school hours) to the media.

I do NOT grant permission for my child to be photographed for the school yearbook or in a classroom photograph.

Parents & Pictures

Two years ago I was having lunch with my daughter at school, which was a weekly tradition we had since she was in second grade. At lunch a couple of the kids noticed my cool PDA cell phone and wanted to check it out, so I let them, and of course they quickly discovered the built-in camera. Suddenly everybody wanted to take a picture and be in one. Instead of a free-for-all I set up a system. Each kid could take a picture of the kid next to them, then pass it along. The person who just had their picture taken could look at the picture of his/herself and then take a picture of the next kid. Everybody got their turn as both photographer and subject, without causing a lunchroom disruption.

Of course nothing is simple in this world, and I knew I was going to be reminded of that (again) when I left the cafeteria only to find the Vice Principal making a stern beeline for me. In her office she asked about what now could be best classified as an "incident." I told her, and she told me to delete all of the pictures on the phone, because not every parent had signed the photo permission form. Now mind you I was not a School Board member at the time, not a representative capable of acting on behalf of the school or the school system. I was a Dad. I was the same Dad who had made and edited a video of the same classroom of kids for one of their projects. The same Dad who had taken class portraits before on the playground at the request of a teacher. The same Dad who has taken pictures of Bingo and winter festivals and flag-raising ceremonies at elementary schools. I had hoped to take all of the pictures on that phone and make a collage for the kids, but somehow this was different from those and so I deleted all of the pictures right there in the school's office.

I hadn't thought much about it again until yesterday, when I was at another school, this time as a School Board member, reading a book for Dr. Seuss day. After I was done reading, a teacher asked to get my picture with the book for the website. I didn't want to be alone in the shot, so I plopped down on the floor and the kids instantly gathered around me to be in the frame. After a few takes (some with eye-crossing, tongue-sticking funny faces) we wrapped it up.

Later in the day, the teacher emailed me a copy of the photo, and I have to tell you that it is a wonderful thing to see. My smiling mug with a Dr. Seuss book, surrounded by countless, joyous bright eyes and shiny teeth. I sent copies to my family, I ordered large prints for framing. But when I showed it to a fellow Board member with delight, the reaction was quick... "you can't use that photo. Did those kids' parents all sign the release?"

It can't be simple anymore. A person can't just snap a harmless picture, because around every turn is a threat of one kind or another. The threat of a litigious parent. The threat of an abusive ex-husband stumbling upon a child's whereabouts. In this area, the threat of having your mother be a classified operative. I don't know why we need those permission forms, or why somebody wouldn't sign one, but we have them and that's the world we live in now.

I wanted to post that photo here, to share it with all of you, because it is the highlight of my month. It is escape from budget distress and fights about penguin books and the pile of papers that reappears on my desk every morning. It is the why. I wanted to post it here but if I do, will I be sued by the parent of one of those smiling kids? Will it be the principal or the Superintendent who calls me to tell me I have to take it down? Will the teacher be able to post it on the website?

The next time you see a picture of a public school class in a local paper, look to see if you can see the kids' faces, or if you just see the backs of their heads.

Pengins in Place

I am pleased to read today that Dr. Hatrick has reversed his decision to censor And Tango Makes Three from Sugarland Elementary School. I am grateful that Dr. Hatrick initiated a full review of the process and responded appropriately to the discovery that the School Board’s policies were not followed in this case. It is clear that our policies require revisions to prevent this kind of controversy in the future, and the Legislative Policy Committee will begin this process tomorrow at 6pm.

I applaud the contributions of the members of the public who expressed their concern about the Superintendent’s decision and the challenge process. The public schools are a public trust, and work well only with public input.

Even baseless challenges and reversed decisions can have a chilling effect on freedom of speech in our schools. This event and the words of the Superintendent and the Board will not be far from the minds of our librarians when they select new titles for next year. Our policies call for a selection process designed “to bring students into contact with the human experience and… provide a wide range of materials on appropriate levels with a diversity of appeal and point of view,” and I hope that our librarians and principals will remember this and not be reluctant to challenge our diverse students with diverse library collections in the future.

Penguins and Parrots

Leesburg School Board Representative Tom Marshall recently wrote what I thought was a very nice response to a constituent regarding the book And Tango Makes Three. He has given me persmission to share:

It was clear to any adult that the author(s) had an agenda. It is also true that Penguins will sit on eggs and hatch them. Given that fact it might be unusual but not impossible to believe that instinctively two male penguins would sit on eggs ( or rocks) when all the birds around them were doing the same. Furthermore, it is possible that birds and other animals will form same-sex bonds and act like a pair. I have raised parrots, as a hobby, and I have seen this. On the other hand, parents can direct or redirect their children to read or not read books they deem inappropriate, but is it reasonable for a parent to make that decision for other children and other parents? Is it not possible for elementary children to see this story differently from parents and understand simply that an egg was hatched, that might not have been otherwise, and people came to Central Park to see the new baby penguin's birth as a good thing to be celebrated for the fact that it happened against the odds and that it was being cared for and nurtured.? Could a parent from a non-traditional family (same-sex parents or parents or individuals who have adopted a child) feel this story could relate to their situation and make their child feel more comfortable as a member of family that may not be the norm compared to families of their peers?
I would not vote to override Dr. Hatrick's decision, but I am not in full agreement with it. I certainly don't feel threatened by the book being in wide circulation. The Board, however, may want to look at their policies on how to handle any future challenges of this nature.
Tom Marshall, SB
Leesburg district

New Challenge Policy Logic

I wrote the following to explain my proposal to my colleagues, I thought I'd share it with the rest of you:

I did not attempt to recreate the policy from the ground up. I worked very hard to propose simple changes that address only the problems that are now identified using procedures already in place in other districts. I did this for several reasons. I did it to preserve the committee's time in future meetings for attention to other matters. I did it out of respect for precedent, minimizing the effort to rewrite the existing regulation and the possibility of unforseen consequences. I did it to minimize the need for counsel's guidance, and ultimately I did it to reduce the likelihood of future controversies.

Specifically, the changes I propose intend the following:

• Board review prior to removal of material ensures that all sides are heard. Members of the community are more likely to respect a decision after being given a chance for meaningful input, even if the decision goes against that input.
• Board review prior to removal of material ensures that all policies have been followed.
• Board review prior to removal of material provides the Board the opportunity to expand the impact of a challenge District-wide.
• Prohibiting the inherently controversial decision of a principal or Superintendent to override the conclusions of a committee that s/he personally appointed.
• Clarifying the status of a material after removal, as current policy allows for neither enforcement of a successful challenge in future years nor any appeal for reinstatement. (This is the one proposal that is not implemented in other Districts).

Distilled Budget Tension

1. The School Board is the sole provider of public education in Loudoun County.
2. The School Board provides an excellent quality of public education that is valued by this community at an excellent price. This is repeatedly confirmed by multiple objective metrics (see Feb 25, Feb 16, Feb 2, Jan 3, Oct 11, July 18, July 3).
3. The School Board has informed the Board of Supervisors how much it will cost to provide the same quality of education (with modest improvements) next year.
4. The Board of Supervisors wants to have the same quality of education but believes it can be done for less, despite all objective evidence to the contrary. Without any other options beyond the School Board, the Supervisors believe that under-funding the school budget forces the School Board to find a way to provide the same quality of education for less money.

We all understand that if they underfund the Sheriff, they'll have fewer deputies patrolling more roads. We all understand that if they underfund the fire department, they'll have older fire trucks fighting more fires.

We need also to understand that if they underfund the Schools, we'll have fewer teachers with more modest skills teaching more children. It's that simple.