posted by Mike Madison at 3:16 PM /
Here'a a Blog-Lebo comment from earlier today:
Here is the P-G link:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07056/764840-298.stm
Here are the questions that the comment prompts:
To what extent -- if any at all -- should development, re-development, and renovation decisions involving public facilities be guided by the need to protect residential real estate values? If, for example, having a "crummy, old, hard to get around, leaking window building" makes the jobs of Mt. Lebanon real estate agents more difficult, when St. Clair agents can point to a gorgeous new building, how should that factor into decisionmaking about the future of the high school? There are other examples of this sort of issue around Mt. Lebanon, both present and past. The question can be restated more bluntly: My taxes go up; public services may not improve, but real estate churn and a steady supply of "prestige" public and commercial properties ensures that neighboring houses increase in value each year. Is that a bargain that Mt. Lebanon should strike?
Discuss, and include flaws in or modifications of my premises. Thanks.
Educational achievement is driven by: a) Students, b) Family, c) Faculty, d) Administration or e) Bricks and Mortar
A, B, C and D appear to be the critical factors. The article in today's Post Gazette about Mt Lebanon leading public schools in SW PA in SAT scores, makes me wonder how important "E" is. Will we be off the charts by spending money on a new High School or will it not move the needle? We are doing pretty well with our crummy, old, hard to get around, leaky window building.
Here is the P-G link:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07056/764840-298.stm
Here are the questions that the comment prompts:
To what extent -- if any at all -- should development, re-development, and renovation decisions involving public facilities be guided by the need to protect residential real estate values? If, for example, having a "crummy, old, hard to get around, leaking window building" makes the jobs of Mt. Lebanon real estate agents more difficult, when St. Clair agents can point to a gorgeous new building, how should that factor into decisionmaking about the future of the high school? There are other examples of this sort of issue around Mt. Lebanon, both present and past. The question can be restated more bluntly: My taxes go up; public services may not improve, but real estate churn and a steady supply of "prestige" public and commercial properties ensures that neighboring houses increase in value each year. Is that a bargain that Mt. Lebanon should strike?
Discuss, and include flaws in or modifications of my premises. Thanks.
13 Comments:
Mike,
It seems you are boiling “Community” down to an Economic proposition for property owners – OK – so let’s develop that with some basic measures: Effectiveness and Efficiency.
Creating Economic Value is very much dependent on Effectiveness. Without results there would be no point, no matter how fabulous the facilities or activities. MTL has to get the job done in Education, Public Safety, Essential Government Services (sewers, roads, etc…), Recreation and more.
Efficiency though, is critical to having something left at the end. We cannot save our way to prosperity, but we can certainly spend our way into oblivion.
Peter Drucker wrote:
There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. … What we need is (1) a way to identify the areas of effectiveness (of possible significant results), and (2) a method for concentrating on them.
Effectiveness first, while paying close attention to the use of resources (efficiency).
Arm MTL agents with results and property values will follow.
The State Report is here - Excel
MtL scores a 580.44 combined average on all three parts. 4th in the state among schools releasing their numbers. Highest in Southwest PA. Over the six years of data in that sheet we consistently produced similar numbers.
I'm still waiting to hear the four options the renovation committee intends to present. Looking at this data though, it seems clear we're at least doing the educatin' part right.
To answer your Real Estate question (and a beatiful new state of the art school), I would have to say to each his own.
Many people love the idea of a very old looking school (as long as it is kept up and looks nice). They are buildling new boxes everywhere in the country, and I believe that Mt Lebanon High School (at least it's frontage on Cochran), is as good as it gets around here, and still looks great to new residents (as long as they don't go around back.... :) )
With that said, maybe a partial update and renovation would be best, not only for our tax dollars, but for everything else too.
They can keep building mcSchools everywhere, but that old school on Cochran still puts out the best scores.
It's not just about property values. Kids' academic achievement is strongly correlated with that of their parents. If high-achieving parents stop choosing Mt.L. as a place to live (for any reason), SAT scores will go down, and Mt. Lebo schools won't seem as great anymore.
I don't know if the problems with the HS are bad enough for that to happen, but they're only going to get worse with time.
I hate paying taxes. In fact, I despise them but accept that they are a necessary evil in American society as it is structured. And I also think our total tax burden is obnoxious, especially the EIT. And I know that things will not change until our county is reorganized away from the antiquated system set up when money flowed like liquid gold around here from the coffers of heavy manufacturing. That said, aside from the fact our students are doing great work in an old school, at some point everything (myself included) begins to break down and needs to be replaced. The high school is simply old and poorly designed. It's time to start anew. Now we as human beings have a choice. We can either stay here and probably pay more for a new facility OR we can put a "for sale" sign up in our yard and then move a few miles down 19 and have our sons and daughters enrolled in a beautiful new school that we didn't pay a dime for. That's the way it works in America. Public education comes at a price in the form of the distribution of tax dollars. The folks that ought to be complaining are those that enroll their children in private schools. Why shouldn't their tax dollars follow their students instead of going to educate their neighbors? (Disclosure - I am a public school kid as our my children.)
Want to grow the population of Mt. Lebanon? Have a great school district! Parents naturally want what is best for their children and frequently they will go out of their way (even moving out of more desired locations) in order to get their kids into the top schools.
The building itself has very little impact on the success of the school. After all, the college admissions officer is more interested in the quality of the education then the esthetics of the building...
It is the school district, not the buildings, that draws people to Mount Lebanon. Every town can have great buildings. Not every town can lead the sheet. We are here and pay the taxes for our kid's future. There are plenty of safe communities with nice neighbors. If the schools were not important to us, we would live there. What we need is to focus on the things that matter and recognize there are limits. If a new school will make a difference we should give it serious consideration. However, the 1/2 million dollar playground was a waste.
amen amen amen to the waste for the playground... why did we allow them to build such a pathetic over the top playground?? I guess most of us didn't attend the meetings so we got what they architects gave us..
a final thought, students pay top dollar to attend classes in old buildings in Oxford, Harvard, CMU, Univ of Pitt........... its not the buildings is the students....
We can't always have the best of everything. Which means we have to make the best of what we have. We do need to make improvements in the school but there are limitations. We need to figure out what is going to make a difference in our kid's education. If all it took was a new building, it would be easy, build it. But it's not that easy and nice for the sake of nice is a waste of money.
I've posted a lot on the HS blogs, and don't care to reiterate everything here, but I agree with the posters who emphasize restraint and attention to improvements that will truly improve the learning experience.
There is a tenuous correlation between learning outcomes and new facilities. A strong correlation exists between truly bad facilities, such as a poorly soundproofed school near an airport. Acoustic improvements in such a facility would likely show a bounce in outcomes, but I doubt we'll see movement in our outcomes as a result of construction. SES is the primary factor in performance - lucky us to have a relatively high SES population. Unfortunately, the rising expectations of wealth (high SES) have created a "Taj Mahal" facility mentality. We need to recognize not everyone in this community is wealthy enough to absorb the tax implications of the multiple building projects proposed by the municipality.
The options presented are enormously expensive and public monies are not an unlimited resource. So, fix and improve - heck yes! Better yet, how about going back to the drawing board and giving this more thought? Thought to give the max value for the money. Anonymous Mom of 3
2/25/07 Matt Wilson says "I'm still waiting to hear the four options the renovation committee intends to present".
Matt, if you have not already found it the proposals are on the school district website - one of the links on the left side of the first page.
Half the homes in Mt. Lebanon are assessed below $145,000 and half above according to information released at the February board meeting. That is $3,416 in school taxes.
Half get to pay more while the other half pays less.
Joe - thanks. I guess what I mean is, I'm waiting to see on which of the four the board finalizes on and why. My understanding is that the architect selected will be producing harder cost numbers that will support a final decision. Based on the RFP , Section C, it's clear they haven't decided how much new construction (if any).
This is all my own conjecture based on the Dejong report's next steps and the RFP. The HS Renovation Blog seems to suggest that input from the community on the renovation / new construction question is wanted. (here
and here)
If something changes, I would expect (hope?) the board would keep us notified.
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