BOE President Kiernan, blames the Reconfiguration for the $72 million budget increase from 2001-2 to 2006-7. The District's “kitchensink” annual brake down says all Reconfiguration costs $11 million?

Go to ttp://www.sachemunspun.com/schoolsinfoemployeelist_files/documents/6-7Reconfig.pdf It's The District's total reconfiguration cost from bricks to Kindergarten aids including every kind of chargeback he could add.

Please note the annual cost of the reconfiguration is $3 million less than this years Budget increase of $14 million and was fully incorporated 2 years ago.

The other $61 million mostly went to salary and staff increases that had nothing to do with reconfiguration.

Go to revenue page http://www.sachemunspun.com/documents/estimrev_000.pdf and

http://www.sachemunspun.com/06-7budget%20history.pdf to see history of taxes, 2001-2 actual expenses.

The District's most controversial educational change in educational direction is the elimination of the Modified Program

Go to the Sachem Unspun forum and read both the Modified Program & The Modified Myths must be unspun after comparing both you will have an excellent understanding of both concepts and what is causing the controversy.

Does Reducing class size from 30 to 20, improve academic results?

Go to http://www.ed.gov/pubs/ReducingClass/Class_size.html

When is a Reduction Not a Reduction?
The question of class size is not simply a matter of less is more. The pattern of research evidence only favors class size reduction if it is substantial and brings the class size below a certain threshold. Reducing class size from 30 to 25, for example, may well have no effect whatsoever. The research evidence from Project STAR showed that students in smaller classes with fewer than 18 students did better when compared with students in larger classes. Given the variations among individual students and teachers and the way they interact, it is unlikely that there is a single "magic number" below which class size suddenly produces a beneficial effect. But it is fairly clear that class size must get somewhere below 20 in order to make a real difference.
Conclusion
Reducing class size to below 20 students leads to higher student achievement. However, class size reduction represents a considerable commitment of funds, and its implementation can have a sizable impact on the availability of qualified teachers. Strengthening teacher quality also leads to higher student achievement. There is more than one way to implement class size reduction, and more than one way to teach in a smaller class. Depending on how it is done, the benefits of class size reduction will be larger or smaller.