Feedback WEEKLY SPECIALS
• $1 Oyster Tuesdays after 5pm only • No Corkage Fee Wednesdays • $5 Custom Craft
Cocktails on Thursdays OPEN FOR DINNER: Monday-Saturday
Local. Seasonal. Lento. 274 N. Goodman St., Rochester www.lentorestaurant.com
Call 271-3470
I’D TWEET THAT FOR A DOLLAR!
twitter.com /roccitynews DAILY UPDATES
facebook.com /CityNewspaper 2 CITY
FEBRUARY 19-25, 2014
We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews. com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @ roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources; those of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in print. We don’t publish comments sent to other media.
‘Don’t blame city parents’
I was disappointed to read that Rochester schools superintendent Vargas was essentially blaming Rochester parents for the district’s budget woes (“Budget Gap Grows for Rochester Schools,” News). It is scapegoating at its worst to blame parents for opting out of the state’s lowest performing school district and choosing public charter schools. How can you blame them? Almost every Rochester charter is doing better than the district schools – and they are doing it with almost the same percentage of economically disadvantaged kids (it’s 80 percent in charters to 85 percent for the district). It’s no wonder that charter enrollment is up. The dirty little secret is that the state actually sends Rochester about $10 million in bonus funding called “transitional aid” precisely because there are so many students in the city’s charters. And when you consider that the district no longer needs to provide teachers, classrooms, and playgrounds for these kids, there is no rational way to blame charter parents for creating this budget problem. The real problem is that the district needs to right-size itself and focus on improvement, because most of these parents aren’t coming back anytime soon. Rochester was once a city that aspired to create more district-charter collaboration and parent choice. It’s sad to see that great potential devolve into scapegoating of charters and parents for budget problems that aren’t of their own making. KYLE ROSENKRANS, ALBANY
Rosenkrans is vice president of the Northeast Charter Schools Network
Editor’s note: Rochester school district officials offer the following response.
“The state’s purpose in providing the aid is to help offset the increased tuition costs associated with rising numbers of students attending charter schools. This school year, the district is paying $41.1 million in charter-school tuition for 3,245 students; next year, the budget projects $51.7 million for 4,110 students. “The letter-writer is not correct to describe the transition aid as a ‘dirty little secret.’ It is reported as a separate line item in the budget book and all district revenue reports. “If the letter’s implication is that the district benefits from students enrolling in charters, that is also incorrect. The transition aid does not offset the increase in tuition costs. It also does not offset the cost of services that the district is required to provide charter schools without additional aid: transportation, nursing services, special education services, and instructional materials aid (textbooks, library books, computer hardware and software). “Superintendent Vargas frequently cites growing charterschool enrollment as one of the key reasons that the district must work to improve with a strong sense of urgency. The financial cost is not the only concern, but enrollment losses to charter schools are definitely a drain on district resources. The strategies Dr. Vargas is pursuing are aimed at creating district schools that families find preferable to charters and want to choose.”
Detroit and us
Fire, fire! (“A Place with No Vision,” Urban Journal) Another lame comparison to Detroit? Really? It might be time for an editor to retire and pass the torch to someone with vision. I completely agree with the situation with our towns, villages, and splintered lack of vision. But there are incredible things taking place in Rochester these days. Downtown will be transformed in the next year. Inner Loop filled in. College Town, etc. But how did this happen? Most of it was driven by private sector investment and federal money. Detroit has no private investment.
Get a cup of coffee and take a long walk. You need a perspective shift.
News. Music. Life. Greater Rochester’s Alternative Newsweekly
MARTIN EDIC, ROCHESTER
February 19-25, 2014 Vol 43 No 24
Dealing with fights in city schools School culture is everything (“Students’ Fights May Be Vargas’s Biggest Challenge,” News Blog). Without it, learning will be mediocre at best. Culture starts with relationships, clarity, and in the case of student behavior, very firm policies and enforcement. Hearing the superintendent talk about “lost instructional time” was very telling. He obviously does not understand that school culture must be developed before quality instruction can happen. The school environment must be respectful and honest but also have firm and consistent enforcement. The district has not cultivated caring school cultures and in fact, the mandates have worked against stability. Add to this the reality that suspensions are considered taboo, and you can see why things are out of control. Many people will not want to hear this, but a get-tough approach to student behavior is needed. This is one place where the district can learn from charters. Unfortunately, leadership seems to be in a reactive state. Seeing the future and planning for it look like impossibilities right now. It is hard to set the table when you are being swallowed.
250 North Goodman Street Rochester, New York 14607-1199 themail@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 fax (585) 244-1126 rochestercitynewspaper.com facebook.com/CityNewspaper twitter.com/roccitynews
GOTTA SAY IT
Operations/Circulation kstathis@rochester-citynews.com Circulation manager: Katherine Stathis Distribution: Andy DiCiaccio, David Riccioni, Northstar Delivery, Wolfe News
Suspensions are not taboo at Northwest/Northeast – they are extremely common. The district uses “in-school suspension” because staying at home was not seen as a punishment by the kids. Charters are tough about kicking students out, but the district does not have this option legally. ROCPARENT
I was assigned to “monitor” up to 25 suspended students. All in one room. All with nothing to do but make you miserable. Sound like the solution? If I had any “problems,” I was to contact a sentry via an intermittent twoway (more often no-way) radio. Support was more intermittent than the radio. After 25 years of service, I got out. FORMER TEACHER
On the cover: Photo by John Schlia Design by Matt DeTurck Publishers: William and Mary Anna Towler Editor: Mary Anna Towler Asst. to the publishers: Matt Walsh Editorial department themail@rochester-citynews.com Features editor: Eric Rezsnyak News editor: Christine Carrie Fien Staff writers: Tim Louis Macaluso, Jeremy Moule Music editor: Willie Clark Music writer: Frank De Blase Calendar editor: Rebecca Rafferty Contributing writers: Paloma Capanna, Casey Carlsen, Roman Divezur, George Grella, Laura Rebecca Kenyon, Andy Klingenberger, Dave LaBarge, Kathy Laluk, Adam Lubitow, Nicole Milano, Ron Netsky, Dayna Papaleo, Suzan Pero, Rebecca Rafferty, David Raymond, David Yockel Jr. Editorial intern: Taylor White Art department artdept@rochester-citynews.com Art director/production manager: Matt DeTurck Designers: Aubrey Berardini, Mark Chamberlin Photographers: Mark Chamberlin, Frank De Blase Advertising department ads@rochester-citynews.com Sales operations: Matt Walsh New sales development: Betsy Matthews Account executives: Nancy Burkhardt, Tom Decker, Christine Kubarycz, William Towler Classified sales representatives: Christine Kubarycz, Tracey Mykins
City Newspaper is available free of charge. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1 each at the City Newspaper office. City Newspaper may be distributed only by authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of City Newspaper, take more than one copy of each weekly issue. City (ISSN 1551-3262) is published weekly by WMT Publications, Inc. Periodical postage paid at Rochester, NY (USPS 022-138). Address changes: City, 250 North Goodman Street, Rochester, NY 14607. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the New York Press Association. Annual subscriptions: $35 ($30 senior citizens); add $10 for out-of-state subscriptions. Refunds for fewer than ten months cannot be issued. Copyright by WMT Publications Inc., 2014 - all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of the copyright owner.