[Speed Gibson,
Sunday November 9, 2008 at 5:11pm]
T.E.R.M. Paper: Face Time
Teachers are the focal point of my T.E.R.M. paper. A commenter asked, am I talking the basics like English and Mathematics? Social studies and Art? Special education? Sports? Where do I draw the line?Good question, but not one to be answered here. All of those subjects are important, but that's a subjective assessment at every level. For my project, I don't think it matters that much because the union contracts are such that the district spends about the same for all subjects, at least during the 6+ hour prime time.
No, I think the place to start is with time, the student's time, from the time stepping on the bus in the morning to the step stepping off in the afternoon. I call it "face time." I want to know who at any given minute is in charge of the student and what service is being performing. That will be the bus driver at times, a playground supervisor at other times, but mostly, teacher time.
This fits my "sales and sales supporting" dichotomy I presented in my first post. Just as the salesperson at Dayton's was the predominant point of customer contact, so is the teacher the predominant point of contact with the student - the customer, if you will.
So what I need to put together is the answer to "how was your day at school?" - one minute at a time.
Nope, the place to start, here, IMHO, is with "program based budgeting" or "activity based costing." Figure out what every "activity" the district does costs, per pupil. Note: They will not have this information, so that alone will be a major contribution to their ability to manage their finances.
Once this is done, it will be fairly easy to apply priorities (simply rank by cost/pupil in each category), and then start looking at the most expensive as the lowest priority unless subjective factors (or state requirements) say otherwise. Dirt simple in concept. Tough in practice, especially if TPTB don't want to know.