How many years have you lived in Maine?: 6

What experiences,  motivations, and leadership styles will make you an effective School Committee representative?:
I have 19 years of professional experience, including economic and policy analysis and strategic planning. As a principal associate at Abt Associates, I manage and conduct a wide range of economic and risk analyses and oversee efforts to help federal agencies with program planning and evaluation. I supervise technical staff in Cambridge, MA and Bethesda, MD and play a senior-management role in the company's strategic business planning and tracking. For nearly two years I worked for the White House Office of Management and Budget, where I held federal agencies accountable for their actions. I had a unique opportunity to critically evaluate a wide range of economic and risk analyses to determine the need for, impacts of, and alternatives to proposed regulations.  In addition, I evaluated federal paperwork requirements to maximize the usefulness of collected information, ensure sound statistical and analytical methods, minimize public burden, and eliminate unnecessary duplicati!
on. I routinely negotiated among high-level government officials regarding controversial regulations and policies. I see this background as a valuable addition to the School Committee during these challenging times.

My wife and I moved to Portland, in part, due to the reputation of the schools and the rich diversity that they offer. I am a product of public education and a strong supporter of a quality school system. I believe that quality schools are important not only for the success of our children but also for the vitality of our city. I have two children in the Portland school system. For the last several years, I have actively participated in our Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO), volunteered in classrooms, and contributed to School Committee discussions as a Portland resident as well as a recently elected member of the committee (June 2007). I am on the board of the Portland Education Partnership and run the e-mail discussion groups for Nathan Clifford Elementary School and for Building Bridges.

My leadership style is based on open process and fact-based decisions, and the need for constructive collaboration to reach a common goal. I know my limitations and do not hesitate to reach out to experts on a particular topic to ensure that I have the information I need to make a decision and to understand the consequences of that decision. We need to avoid short-sighted actions that may appear easy or less controversial, but could make matters worse for our students and community.


If elected, what would your top three priorities be?  How do they affect young people in Portland?:
My first priority is to strengthen leadership, fiscal oversight, accountability, and responsibility on the School Committee as well as in the school department. We face significant fiscal and programmatic challenges this year; we need to regain the publics confidence to successfully pursue our other needs. For example, we need to address high-school dropout rates and prepare all students to fulfill their potential and lead productive lives. Spending and programmatic decisions to help address these areas will be hampered by the lack of public trust.

My second priority is to ensure that we have a meaningful and complete strategic plan for meeting our educational goals. These goals support a vision for our schools that is shared by the School Community as well as by the city at large. The school department has developed a series of goals and performance measures, but doesnt have a detailed plan for achieving its objectives. Without a clear strategic plan, it is difficult to make decisions regarding which programs to pursue and which ones to forego. We are not in a position to eliminate programs that are cost-effective and contribute to educational achievement. A strategic plan will help us focus on areas that will yield the greatest benefit for our students.

A quality school system is important not only for our students but also for all Portland residents. That said, we have real financial constraints that force tough choices affecting educational programming, staffing, and school facilities. We must avoid short-sighted decisions to cut apparent big ticket budget items, without considering the consequences and our ability to achieve similar savings through other means. My third priority is to improve the budget process, including ensuring a careful and thorough review of school spending, identifying options to make spending more cost-effective, increasing the availability of financial information and budget assumptions, and collaborating with the City Council and Portland residents to address the factors affecting school spending and the tradeoffs caused by funding constraints. We need to demonstrate that schools spending is worth the investment. Greater public understanding and involvement will also help the city lobby state !
and federal officials for more reasonable financial support.

Please share one positive change you have seen in our schools and in the School Committee over the last year?:
I am encouraged by the increased involvement by parents and other residents in the decisions made by school and city officials. The public is increasingly calling for longer-term planning and responsible, cost-effective spending to support a quality school system.

Please share one frustrating change you have seen in our schools and in School Committee over the last year?:
The most frustrating development for me has been the loss of public trust in the management of our schools. The committee must exercise leadership and fiscal oversight and ensure that it holds the Superintendent accountable for the day-to-day management of our schools. As fiscal constraints grow, we need to pay even closer attention and take nothing for granted. We need to be asking the right questions, asking them in a timely way, and expecting to hear complete answers. Without the publics confidence, all other decisions will be more difficult to implement.

What competing responsibilities do you have: professionally and personally?:
I am a senior manager at Abt Associates overseeing more than $2.2 million each year in project work and supervising staff across multiple locations. That said, I am a full-time telecommuter who works out of the house, which provides some flexibility in scheduling important activities. Personally, I am a husband and father of two young girls. I enjoy watching my children participate in extracurricular activities and serving as an advisor to the Portland assembly of the Society of Young Magicians, in which my older daughter is a member.

How would you make Portland schools more effective and cost efficient?:
As noted above, we need a comprehensive strategic plan to help guide our decision-making. I also recommend the following action items:

-- evaluate all school programs, assessing cost trends, goals, measurable outcomes, and performance (comparing among programs and against system-wide objectives)
-- evaluate teacher class loads, student-teacher ratios per class and by school, and reasonable student capacity per school, in order to identify opportunities for efficiencies
-- evaluate non-instructional costs to ensure that we are paying competitive prices (for purchased items) and identify options for consolidating services with the city
-- evaluate special-education mandates, decision-making processes, costs, and opportunities for savings

We must resist the temptation to cut items simply on the basis of their dollar amount in the budget. Tough decisions require an open and fair process, access to data, and information on the potential consequences of our actions.


Where do you see Gov. Baldacci's consolidation plan or school closings fitting into your measures to increase cost effectiveness?:
Even for districts like Portland that do not plan to merge with other districts, the new state law mandates reductions in transportation, facility operations, special education, and system administration. A consistent budgeting framework is required, with greater input from the city council and the need for public approval. Budgets will be closely aligned to the states assumptions about the funding needed for Essential Programs and Services (EPS). Greater consistency in budget development will make it easier to track spending and compare ourselves to state assumptions and to situation in other districts. The new law will also motivate discussions with the city (and even surrounding towns) on ways to consolidate services and purchases to reduce costs.

The new state law actually makes it harder to close schools. Indeed, the Governors materials supporting his original proposal explicitly said that no schools would close. Nevertheless, we need to examine teacher class loads, student-teacher ratios, facility capacity, and enrollment trends to see if our buildings are being effectively used. We need to start with our assumptions regarding staffing, which represents approximately 80 percent of our budget; closing buildings is not expected to result in meaningful savings. Closing a school is a serious decision that can negatively affect the surrounding neighborhood and the city at large. We should be prepared to close unnecessary facilities, but only if we can demonstrate that doing so will yield meaningful savings and/or increased educational achievement and that the benefits outweigh the impacts to the community. We should first look system-wide. Unfortunately, recent attention has focused on elementary schools, which have se!
en level enrollment over at least the last four years. (Elementary schools have already been closed over the last few decades to address drops in their populations.) Recently, the greatest drop has been at the middle-school and high-school levels.

What is the role of School Committee in determing the school budget?  What ways would you improve the process of school budgetting?:
The School Committee provides for the preparation and adoption of the annual budget. Budget originates with the school department, which reviews its projected needs for the coming year with cost-center directors and weighs changes in enrollment and funding. The School Committee, starting with its finance committee, must then evaluate the proposed budget against existing policies and objectives as well as anticipated funding constraints. Ultimately, the School Committee is responsible for developing a budget that will support the operation of the schools and that will gain City Council approval. Starting this year, the budget will also require a public referendum  with additional votes required if the initial budget is rejected. To improve the budget process, I support a longer budget development process, starting soon after the previous years budget is adopted. Early efforts should involve the public and city officials in monitoring spending and revenue, evaluating trends,!
  and discussing priorities as they pertain to a comprehensive strategic plan and the citys vision for its schools. The process should be fair and open, with budget data available in formats tailored to the needs of different stakeholders. The need for specific budget items and for proposed cuts must be justified, to build support for the final plan. The School Committee must then exercise fiscal oversight throughout the year to ensure that spending stays within approved limits and adjusts to changes in budget assumptions.

With the current reality of Portland's school budget, cuts seem likely.  What would you cut and why?:
One of the problems with past budget discussions is that detailed information on school spending, revenues, and program effectiveness has not been readily available in a timely fashion and in a form that interested stakeholders can understand. Although I was recently elected to the School Committee (June 2007) and attended many committee meetings on the budget, I suffer from the same lack of information. Cuts will be likely and, given past efforts to trim spending, difficult and controversial. Without first analyzing our current situation (see How would you make Portland schools more effective and cost efficient?), I cannot speculate on areas should definitely be cut. We cannot afford to make decisions that will drive families away from Portland  whether its because a cost-effective program is cut or because taxes increase due to higher spending.

What priority in funding would you give Portland's new Expeditionary Learning High School?:
Casco Bay High School (CBHS) appears to be doing many things right: the energy and ideas of its principal and teachers, and the greater individual attention to students, holds promise for preparing our children for their future. That said, CBHS was started with little, if any, public discussion of how the school fits into the overall plan for the district. We need a thoughtful assessment of the impacts of the school on our budget, including the consequences for our other high schools. The school must be able to demonstrate its effectiveness in terms of cost and performance. I am open to considering whether the apparent strengths of the school could be combined with one of the other schools  either as a stand-alone school within a school, an integrated program, or as a new approach for an existing school. Offering a range of educational approaches to address different learning styles is important. But we need to clearly show that the school district  and the city  can affo!
rd our schools and programs and that we are delivering a quality education at the least cost. We must think creatively and be open to alternative ways to achieve our goals, even if that means a different structure than we have today.

How do we increase the number of graduates that go on to pursue post-secondary education?  What benchmarks would inform Portland schools towards reaching these goals?:
Encouraging students to go on to pursue post-secondary education requires that they complete high school in the first place; that parents, teachers, peers, and the broader community expect and support a decision to continue studies; and that we adequately prepare students to succeed once they leave high school. I am not an educator, but bring skills related to program planning and evaluation. To determine the appropriate steps to increase the number of students in post-secondary education, I will want to consult with school department staff, principals, teachers, other education experts (e.g., Quaglia Institute), students, and parents to identify appropriate approaches, performance measures, and interim benchmarks. Ideas have included increasing teacher/advisor attention to individual students; requiring students to take the SAT exam and to complete college applications; and encouraging students to take advanced placement and college courses prior to graduation. Another issu!
e to consider is that more students are entering post-secondary schools ill-prepared, leading to costly and time-consuming remedial courses. We need to strengthen the education foundation of our students before they even enter high school, so that they can complete the coursework they need to successfully move on after graduation.

Data shows enrollment is declining in Portland schools.  Why do you think this is?  What, if anything, should be done about it?:
Portland is not the only school system in Maine that is seeing declines in enrollment. One reason for these declines is an overall downward trend in school-aged children. That said, Portland faces additional forces that may drive families away from our school system: the desire for more land and possibly lower housing costs (including taxes) in the suburbs, employment opportunities, real or perceived shortcomings of individual schools, real or perceived strengths of private or suburban schools, and frustrations with school department and city leadership and management.

A recent presentation by a representative of the Greater Portland Council of Governments suggested that once children enter Kindergarten, they typically stay in the schools. We need to actively work to attract new families and keep existing ones in the system, while we continue to adjust to current enrollment trends. I believe the constant drumbeat of the need to close schools, cut the budget, and otherwise deal with declining enrollment  without a plan and enthusiasm for reversing the trend  discourages families from enrolling in the schools. The same is true for the frequent negative reporting of our school system in the local media, without coverage of the many accomplishments and energy in our schools.

We do need to address declines in enrollment. There are no easy answers. Some have suggested closing elementary schools, but no compelling evidence has been provided that such a move will save a meaningful amount of money or improve the educational achievement of our students. Indeed, focusing on elementary schools is problematic: elementary schools saw a slight increase in enrollment last year compared to 2003; meanwhile, our middle schools and high schools saw large declines. Portland has closed many elementary schools in the past to address enrollment declines. We need to carefully evaluate system-wide and school-specific enrollment and ensure that our resources are being used cost-effectively. We need to examine our programs, teachers class loads, and actual teacher-student ratios in each class and school, to evaluate opportunities for reducing staffing (representing 80 percent of the school system budget). If a system-wide review suggests the need for closing one or more schools, that option should be considered. At the same time, the city and school department need to take strong actions to attract families to the area.


Do students for whom English is a second language have access to a quality education?:
Immigrants represent a large share of our school population, and bring rich cultural diversity to our city. An effective program for English language learners is important. I still need to research the existing program in Portland and to talk with teachers and families who participate. However, a few parents have already expressed concern that affected students would benefit from more integration with their peers, to facilitate their transition to mainstream educational opportunities. One parent, in particular, is upset that students are bussed to one of the ELL schools and put into separate classrooms, where they stay for three to five years with no actual contact with other kids. She adds that [b]ecause the parents are largely struggling immigrants, and, therefore, unlikely to be able to advocate for their kids, [she fears] there may be poor oversight or parental involvement. We should investigate whether this parents concerns apply to all students. In the end, all students are measured against Maines Learning Results and should be prepared for a productive future.

Do you think student transportation needs any changes?  Why or why not?:
The school department appears to do an admirable job at transporting our students to and from school. That said, the focus often seems to be on bus transportation. As Maine, as well as many parts of our country, confronts childhood obesity and the need for greater physical activity for overall health, we need to promote the walkability of many of our school neighborhoods. Would providing crossing guards at key intersections allow more children to walk to school? If so, would the cost of crossing guards be less than bus service? At the same time, we should examine whether portions of our school population are required to walk nearly 2 miles  a challenge in inclement weather  and do not have access to or cannot afford alternative transportation. We can ill-afford to let transportation issues create a barrier to students who might otherwise consider dropping out.

In addition, I am open to considering greater use of our citys bus system for helping kids get to school. If the transportation policy changes to encourage Metro system use, we must ensure that the option is safe for our students and affordable. I would need to evaluate whether a meaningful number of students could shift to public transportation and yield overall cost savings to the school district and city.


Do you have children and where did/do they attend school?  If they were schooled privately, what was the single biggest factor in removing them from public education?:
I have two daughters, ages 6 and 9, who attend Nathan Clifford Elementary School. Like many students in the Portland school system, they have had a wonderful experience. I am impressed by the enthusiasm and contributions of our teachers and parents.