FCFT President makes appeal on FY 2010 School Budget to School Board and Board of Supervisors

February 5, 2009

Dear Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board,

Bill Gates released the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation annual letter recently.  The Gates Foundation is currently trying to build better schools in targeted locations.  His report relates the trials and errors of doing such.  I would like to quote a couple of sentences that are important to reflect upon in this budget year.  He said, “It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one… If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.”

What Bill does not credit is the fact that effective instruction is a team effort, i.e. schools need to be managed correctly, technologically proficient, safe, and clean.  In essence it takes a whole village to raise a child.  Nevertheless, the point is to keep great teachers teaching and to keep instruction the #1 priority.

The draft of the 2010 School Board Budget promotes teacher-attrition which has been an outstanding problem in FCPS for many years.  Instruction has also not been the first priority.  Class size should not be raised and FCPS employees should get either their step or COLA.  I have been in communication with you for years about the teacher-attrition and the employee remuneration problem, yet the issues persist.  I know these issues won’t go away this year, but they don’t need to be exacerbated.  Please do whatever you can to help ameliorate the problems.

The Bill Gates’ full text annual report can be found at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter.

Sincerely yours,

Mark L. Glaser, Ph.D.

President, FCFT