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For Real Equity: Give Schools the Money Instead of Staffing Positions

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:18:00 EST

In the "Highly Qualified Teacher Dodge," the New York Times editorializes that the Obama administration has failed to drive reform that would give poor students better teachers.

The rules for the Race to the Top Fund, which is designed to reward states that embrace reform and bypass those that do not, are generally sound and have been greeted with enthusiasm. But some school reform groups and some in Congress have reacted with dismay to the part of the stabilization fund that was supposed to require the states to end the longstanding and reprehensible practice of shunting unprepared and unqualified teachers into the schools serving the poorest students.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 was clear in requiring states to remedy situations in which high poverty schools were being disproportionately staffed by teachers who were inexperienced, unqualified or teaching in fields that they had not majored in.

The country would be much further along on the reform trail had the Bush administration followed the law. Instead, it allowed the states to define away the problem by re-labeling the existing, inadequate teacher corps as “highly qualified.”

Congress tried to discourage the use of inexperienced and unqualified teachers a second time when it passed the stimulus act. Education advocates inside and outside Congress

Unfortunately, federal regulations are never going to correct for problems that are inherent in the collective bargaining and labor practices of school districts. The federal government would be much more effective if they attached strings to federal dollars and required school districts to pay schools in real dollars rather than teaching positions. As long as staff is placed in schools based on seniority and school principals do not control the resources generated by their students, teachers will continue to be distributed inequitably between schools. If principals had the resources that each student generated they could use the money to hire more qualified staff or arrange their schools in ways that better served the unique needs of their students. Currently, the way resources are distributed within school districts guarantees that higher paid teachers will keep moving to what they perceive to be “more desirable” schools. If two schools have 20 students and one school has a new $40,000 a year teacher and another school has an experienced $80,000 a year teacher; the resource allocated through staffing looks the same on paper. Each school has one teacher for twenty students. However, one school is receiving a lot more money for the same 20 students. The federal government can define "highly qualified" any way they want, and until local schools receive money rather than staffing positions based on collective bargaining rules, these inequities will persist. We need true vertical equity in public schools that attaches the money to the backs of each child and sends that money to the school where the child enrolls. This will go much farther in solving the teacher equity issue in our schools than federal rules that decide which teachers are the most qualified.

To see which school districts are succesfully attaching the money to the backs of students see Reason's Weighted Student Formula Yearbook 2009.

Preschool Hype: National Security Edition

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:05:00 EST

Retired officers push early childhood benefits to help national security

A bipartisan group of retired military officers says without more educational and health investments in children the country will face a growing “national security threat.”

Now, the group is pushing for significant investments in early childhood education, parenting guidance as well as mental and nutrition services.

“The safety of our country demands urgent and intelligent action,” the group says in its mission statement. “We call on all policymakers to ensure America’s national security by supporting interventions that will prepare young people for a life of military service and productive citizenship.”

Congress is considering legislation for a new initiative called the “Early Learning Challenge Fund” designed to help states improve their early education programs and expand access to include more at-risk kids. The House already passed its version of the bill, which would fund $1 billion annually for eight years in competitive grants to states. The Senate has yet to vote on that bill.

Ayn Rand Preschool Action with Barack Obama, Preschool Advocates as Comprachicos, and "Maggie Roark" Standing Alone Against the Daycare Worker of Her Time...

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:39:00 EST

Perhaps the title of President Obama's education agenda could have been pulled right out of an Ayn Rand novel: Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for Lifetime Success through Education and perhaps Rand might see the President's objective for "a Preschool Agenda that Begins at Birth," as more evidence that the education establishment is made up of "Comprachicos" or individuals and entities who manipulate the minds and attitudes of children in a way that will permanently distort their beliefs or worldview. As Rand wrote in The New Left:

The production of monsters--helpless, twisted monsters whose normal development has been stunted--goes on all around us. But the modern heirs of the comprachicos are smarter and subtler. They do not hide, they practice their trade in the open, the results are invisible. In the past this horrible surgery left traces on a child's face, not in his mind. Today it leaves traces in his mind, not on his face. In both cases the child is not aware of the mutilation he has suffered. Today's comprachicos do not use narcotic powders. They take a child before he is fully aware of reality and never let him develop that awareness. Where nature put a normal brain, they put mental retardation. To make you unconscious for life by means of your own brain, nothing could be more ingenious. They are the comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body to its contours. They place him into a school to adjust him to society.

See Reason.tv's Rand-O-Rama here including the bit from The Simpsons where "Maggie Roark" stands alone as an independent thinker against the daycare worker of her time. . .

In Honor of Ayn Rand's Long Legacy: Rand on Tax Credits for Education

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:14:00 EST

In honor of Rand-O-Rama (The Long Shelf Life of Ayn Rand's Legacy) and Reason's week-long tribute to Ayn Rand, I acknowledge that she was an early supporter of tax credits for education choice which has grown up into a robust school choice option for families in the United States. In a 1973 essay she wrote:

The essentials of the idea (in my version) are as follows: an individual citizen would be given tax credits for the money he spends on education, whether his own education, his children's, or any person's he wants to put through a bona fide school of his own choice (including primary, secondary, and higher education).

The upper limits of what he may spend on any one person would be equal to what it costs the government to provide a student with a comparable education (if there is a computer big enough to calculate it, including all the costs involved, local, state, and federal, the government loans, scholarships, subsidies, etc.).

If a young person's parents are too poor to pay for his education or to pay income taxes, and if he cannot find a private sponsor to finance him, the public schools would still be available to him, as they are at present--with the likelihood that these schools would be greatly improved by the relief of the pressure of overcrowding, and by the influence of a broad variety of private schools.

I want to stress that I am not an advocate of public (i.e., government-operated) schools, that I am not an advocate of the income tax, and that I am not an advocate of the government's "right" to expropriate a citizen's money or to control his spending through tax incentives. None of these phenomena would exist in a free economy. But we are living in a disastrously mixed economy, which cannot be freed overnight. And in today's context, the above proposal would be a step in the right direction.

Parents would still have to pay for education, but they would have a choice: either to send their children to free public schools and pay their taxes in full--Or to pay tuition to a private school, with money saved from their taxes.

Rand would be pleased because during the 2008-09 school year, an estimated 109,604 students benefited from seven scholarship tax credit programs operating in six states. In 2008, scholarship granting organizations received approximately $218 million in donations from generous companies and families. Scholarship tax credit programs provide smart incentives for individuals and businesses to get involved in education, ensuring that children are able to attend the schools that are right for them.

Check out RAND-O RAMA at Reason.tv!

Tennessee's Gold-Standard Preschool Not Effective After 2nd Grade

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:44:00 EST

Via Education WeeK:

A report released Thursday shows the effectiveness of Tennessee's pre-kindergarten program diminishes after the second grade, but supporters say it still provides a valuable foundation that will help at-risk children succeed.

The report commissioned by the state comptroller's office reveals kindergarten students who participated in the pre-K program performed better academically than a group of those who didn't.

However, it shows that there is "little evidence that the unique effects of pre-K" last beyond second grade.

Education Week also reports that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says that Preschool is Key to Solving the Education Crisis. Who knew the education crisis was kindergarten readiness?

My So-Called Stimulus Job: Higher Education Edition

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:58:00 EST

Via College Life blog at the Orange County Register, UCI folks question the Governor's claim about the number of jobs the stimlus created for California colleges:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says Congress’ federal stimulus program has saved or created 8,356 jobs in the University of California system, a claim that comes as a surprise at UC Irvine, Orange County’s largest employer.

Schwarzenegger’s claim was made by his California Recovery Task Force,which also says the stimulus created or saved 26,156 jobs in the California State University system, bringing the total for the two systems to about 34,500.

“We can’t figure out where the governor’s office got the data to support saying 34,000 jobs have been saved in the CSU and UC systems. No such data has been forwarded by our campus to the state,” said Cathy Lawhon, director of media relations at UCI.

And in other education stimuls news, Politics K-12 reports that VP Joe Biden says 325,000 education jobs have been created or saved. Let's go with saved, because in the education sector there was much more state budget fill than new job creation. As Governor Schwarzenegger explained:

"Those teachers would have been gone if it hadn't been for the stimulus money."

Joe Biden real man of genius here.

Lower Standards in Schools: Preschool Edition

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:23:00 EDT

The new report from the National Center for Education Statistics calls into question whether we need a new $8 billion federal investment in early education challenge fund or whether we need to be spending scarce taxpayer resources on fixing the schools.

Today the New York Times reports on a new study from the National Center for Education Statistics that examines the rigor of proficiency standards from one state to another.

In the study, researchers compared the results of state tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2005 and 2007, identifying a score on the national assessment that was equivalent to each state’s definition of proficiency.

The study found wide variation among states, with standards highest in Massachusetts and South Carolina. Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee had standards that were among the lowest.

What do Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee have in common besides setting a very low bar for proficiency for their kids? They all have what advocates consider to be gold-standard state-run preschool programs. Georgia and Oklahoma have universal programs.

There is a huge disconnect between these states spending billions in taxpayer funds on early education and then being in the very bottom for proficiency standards for 4th and 8th graders in math and reading in the nation. What's the point?

And it gets much worse! Not only do these states score very low when compared to federal benchmarks and other states, they have actually lowered their standards between 2005 and 2007.

Oklahoma is the poster child for high-quality universal preschool. Unfortunately, this supposed investment in high quality does not include having high standards for students once they enter elementary school. Oklahoma is perhaps the worst offender for gaming the state system and lowering proficiency rates for 4th and 8th graders so that more of them would appear proficient under the No Child Left Behind requirements for proficiency in reading and math. In fact, Oklahoma was one of three states that lowered the proficiency standards in all measured subjects and grade levels from 2005 to 2007. Georgia and Tennessee were among the 15 states that lowered proficiency standards for some of their tests in math and reading in fourth and eighth grade.

In addition, both Georgia and Oklahoma score below the national average on the just- released 2009 NAEP assessment for 4th and 8th grade math, which is considered the nation's benchmark for student achievement:

The average scale score in the nation for 4th grade math on the 2009 NAEP was 239; Georgia scored 236 and Oklahoma scored 237.
Similarly, the average scale score in the nation for 8th grade math was 282; Georgia scored 278 and Oklahoma scored 276.

The bottom line is that the two states in the nation with huge financial commitments to universal preschool for over a decade now have the lowest expectations for K-12 students in terms of grade-level proficiency and they continue to score below average on the nation's benchmark for student achievement.

Should the federal government really be investing more money to scale-up Oklahoma-style preschool programs that have not improved big-picture outcomes for the states that have already made these types of investments? Fix the schools, rather than spending billions more on the hope that early education can somehow compensate for low expectations in K-12 schools.

Reconsidering Seniority-Based Layoffs: Los Angeles Teach For America Edition

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:59:00 EDT

A new study from the Broad Foundation finds that Teacher for America teachers out-performed other LAUSD teachers including those with more seniority. This offers more evidence that it is detrimental for kids and expensive for school districts to lay-off teachers based on the number of years of service rather than performance.

Via Education Week's Teacher Beat:

Students taught by Teach For America teachers in Los Angeles outperformed peers who were taught by other teachers—including veterans with many more years of experience.

Initially, the study was performed for internal purposes. Having provided quite a bundle of financial backing for TFA, Broad wanted to get a sense of how its investment was paying off in terms of stronger student learning. But officials for the group said they ultimately decided to make the study public given the growing national conversation about teacher effectiveness.

California state test-score results of students of 119 second-year TFA teachers in grades 2-12 were compared with those of the students of 1,190 non-TFA teachers in the same grade levels, subjects, and schools as the TFA teachers, during 2005 and 2006.

The results are interesting for a few reasons. First of all, TFA teachers were linked to test scores that were 3 points higher overall than non-TFA teachers, even those who had been in the classroom much longer. And, they were even more effective than other teachers with similar years of teaching experience. (The scores for that comparison were 4 points higher for TFA teachers than for non-TFA teachers.)

I discuss the problems with California's seniority-based lay-off system here.

Record Charter School Enrollment Growth in California

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:17:00 EDT

The California Charter Schools Association reports some good news for California kids and school choice in the Golden state:

88 new public charter schools opened their doors for the first time this fall, bringing the total number of California charter schools in operation to 809 schools, serving approximately 341,000 public school students.
New and existing charter schools added an estimated 56,000 new students this year, the largest single-year enrollment increase in history and equivalent to adding the entire enrollment of the ninth largest school district in the state.
While it took California’s charter school movement 13 years to reach 200,000 students (in 2005) it only took four years to surpass the 300,000 students mark.
This year also marked the first year that more than half of all new charter schools that opened this fall (45 of 88 schools) are replications of existing, successful charter school models, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has the highest number of new charter schools in the state. With 19 new charter schools, for a total of 163 in operation, LAUSD also has by far the most charter schools for a single district in the nation.
As of this fall, approximately one in every six charter schools nationwide (16 percent) operates in California. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, based in Washington, D.C., there are now more than 4,900 charter schools currently educating over 1.5 million children.

Fulton County Schools Reps Praise Outsourcing of Capital Program Management

leonard.gilroy@reason.org (Leonard Gilroy) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:32:00 EDT

A reader forwarded an article in the October 2009 edition of The School Administrator (a publication of the American Association of School Administrators) that's worth a read.

In the article, Fulton County Schools (Georgia) chief of operations Patrick Burke and colleague Jennifer Klein tell the story of how the FCS achieved dramatic results from privatizing the management of its capital improvement program (e.g., new school construction, etc.) in response to long-standing problems of inefficiency and rampant cost-overruns under public operation.

The school board opted to change the way it managed construction through a type of outsourcing known as professional program management. In 2004, the board entered into an agreement with Parsons Corp., an international firm headquartered in Pasadena, Calif.

The school board's president, Linda Bryant, says of the decision to look outside for better management, "We needed better savings and more control and accountability for construction spending. Outsourcing our capital programs has gotten us better pricing from an honest group of suppliers and contractors and definitely more accountability." [...]

So what is professional program management? First, it is not a euphemism for facility management. Facility management is the day-to-day care and operations of the existing buildings, including repair and general upgrading of facilities. The Fulton County Schools still maintain a full facilities and maintenance staff.

Program management is a comprehensive method of managing a capital improvement program that covers planning, pre-design, design and construction oversight. While architects, engineering firms or construction companies may provide program management services, several firms, such as Parsons, Jacobs, MACTEC and PBSJ, specialize in K-12 program management. [...]

New approaches to contracting, cost control and capital projects management netted documented savings in excess of $6 million in the first year of operations alone, offsetting the fee to Parsons and yielding significantly better results than in-house. These changes continue to reap significant savings, particularly in the areas of general conditions costs, geotechnical fees, change orders costs and renovations management, giving the lowest possible cost for each project.

Prior to outsourcing, the school system paid general conditions fees for construction management at risk contracts, which cover such costs as management items over and above construction materials and labor. With Parsons, we pay no fees in this area, saving $3 million per year. Also, the company manages contracts directly for the school district for geotechnical surveys and studies and requires the architects and contractors to follow procedures that reduce design cost and overhead fees, saving the district $450,000 in architect and engineering expenses. [...]

Bryant [...] is convinced the outsourcing arrangement has given the school system "more bang for our buck. … We are now on time and on the money or even under budget." Dean, the previous board president, said, "Now I have the confidence I can spend my time and energy on student achievement, policy and overall budget management. I don't have to worry whether capital programs are running well. They've freed me as a board member to do my true task."

Read the whole article for a client/administrator perspective on the benefits of outsourcing—this is straight from the source. The quotes alone should be enticement enough. More on non-instructional school services outsourcing here.

One more thing. Poor Fulton County is well-known for its tax and fiscal policies that prompted roughly 200,000 citizens to effectively secede from the County via municipal incorporation in recent years. Those new cities are almost entirely privatized outside of public safety services. As if that's not enough of a signal to the County that it should be seeking increased efficiencies and cost savings through more (and more robust) competitive service delivery, here comes an example from its own school board.

» Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report 2009
» Reason Foundation's Privatization Research and Commentary

Hawaii Teacher Furlough Follies: A Test Case for a Longer School Year?

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:48:00 EDT

Education Week reports that in Hawaii a federal judge refused to block the first of 17 teacher furlough days to save on Hawaii's education budget. School will be out for 17 Fridays beginning today.

A federal judge on Thursday refused to immediately block teacher furloughs set to begin in Hawaii until he could fully study two lawsuits filed by parents opposed to the budget-cutting maneuver.

The decision by U.S. District Judge David Ezra meant the state's teachers would on Friday take the first of 17 days of furloughs this school year as planned, forcing parents to find something else to do with their children on what is normally a public school day.

Dr. Greene has perhaps the best take on this in his education post Getting Less for Less:

Hawaii public school kids will spend 163 days in school compared to about 180 for most kids nationwide. . . .

So, teachers work 9.4% fewer days for 8% less pay, full benefits and two more years of guaranteed employment. It’s not a bad deal… as long as you are a teacher. Kids will be shortchanged, parents have to scramble for daycare, and the state gives away more than it gets in savings. . . .

The only risk for the teacher union in doing this is that we might discover that student achievement is unaffected by 17 fewer days of school. If that’s the case why not cut 34 days of school for 16% less pay? Or maybe get rid of it altogether.

Perhaps Hawaii's furlough plan can become a test case for President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's proposal to add more time to the school year. If 17 fewer days do not make a difference, maybe we just need to use the time kids already spend in school more effectively.

More on the Higher Education Bubble

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:10:00 EDT

Why do college costs continue to go up? It's really quite simple, government subsidies continue to rise and have shielded college students and their parents from the real increase in college costs. As Joan Garret reports on 2009 higher education trends from the College Board in the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

The surging sticker price of higher education has gotten a lot of attention, but what most people don't know is that the average student is paying less for their college education than they were five years ago, according to an annual report on college pricing.

The average published tuition cost at private and public colleges has risen on average between 15 percent to 20 percent since 2004, according to a report by the College Board, which runs the PSAT, SAT and AP programs.

Yet, students' total costs for college were actually $400 less per year at public colleges and $1,100 less at private colleges than in the same timeframe, the report says.

State and federal grants are cushioning North Georgia and Tennessee students from the financial impact of rising tuition costs, and, after all the checks are cut, some students are making money by attending college, officials said.

"There is plenty of money out there," said Samantha Cox, a UTC student who uses grants and scholarships to pay for her schooling. "Most people are seeing that sticker price, but really you aren't paying that. ... People are worried about tuitions going up but, in reality, we are getting money to go to school."

What the Privatized Education Sector Looks Like

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:27:00 EDT

Two new reports out of the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University profile the Nonprofit and the For-profit Education Management Sector. The report offers detailed information about almost every management company from Green Dot to K12 Inc.

The reports defines an education management organization, or EMO, as an organization or firm that manages schools receiving public funds, including district and charter public schools. A contract details the terms under which executive authority to run one or more schools is given to an EMO in return for a commitment to produce measurable outcomes within a given time frame.

Profiles of Nonprofit Education Management Organizations: 2008-2009

A few facts from the new report:

While the number of schools operated by for-profit EMOs grew rapidly in the 1990s and is now leveling off, the number of schools operated by nonprofit EMOs has been growing more steadily and steeply over time.
Nonprofit EMOs operated public schools in 25 states during the 2008-09 school
year.
Nonprofit EMOs are most prevalent in Texas, California, Arizona, and Ohio. In terms of the proportion of charter schools managed by nonprofit EMOs, Illinois stands out, with 72% of its charter schools managed by nonprofit EMOs.
Nonprofit EMOs are garnering more support and are growing steadily, while the growth of for-profit EMOs is slowing.
A total of 103 nonprofit EMOs were identified and profiled in this report, including 16 large nonprofit EMOs, 40 medium-sized, and 47 small nonprofit EMOs.
The number of nonprofit EMOs that operated at least one charter school in 1995 is estimated to be 5. This number increased rapidly until 2004. Since then, only 5 new nonprofit EMOs have been established, although the number of schools operated by the existing organizations continues to grow.
KIPP, the Knowledge is Power Program, a national charter school network, experienced the largest net increase in schools during the past school year, from 57 to 64 schools.

Profiles of For-Profit Educational Management Organizations: 2008-2009

A few facts from the new report:

Since the first Profiles report was published for the 1997-1998 school year, the number of for-profit EMOs profiled has increased from 14 to 95, and the number of states in which EMOs are operating from 16 to 31.
Since the first Profiles report was produced for the 1997-1998 school year, the number of schools managed by for-profit EMOs has increased to 733 from 131. In the past year, the number of profiled schools has increased dramatically, to 733 from 533. However, we estimate that the actual number of EMO-managed public schools has leveled off over the past few years and attribute the dramatic increase only to a change in our methods.
Of the 733 schools profiled in this report, 74% are operated by large EMOs.
Fully 94% of EMO-managed schools are charter schools, and 6% are district schools. The number of district schools operated by EMOs continued to decline between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.
The majority (57%) of EMO-managed schools profiled are primary schools.
The number of virtual schools operated by EMOs increased from 40 in 2007-2008 to 56 in 2008-2009. This is equivalent to 7.6% of all schools managed by for-profit EMOs.
The five states with the highest numbers of schools managed by for-profit EMOs are Michigan (191), Florida (136), Arizona (103), Ohio (95), and Pennsylvania (39).
The number of students in profiled EMO-managed schools increased by 84,809 in the last year. In total, the EMO-operated schools profiled in this report enrolled 339,222 students during the 2008-2009 school year.

"Money Following the Child" Working in Baltimore

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:49:00 EDT

Today's Education Week reports good news from Baltimore's student-based budgeting efforts. Baltimore's Superintendent Alonso has one of the most aggressive student-based budgeting programs in the nation with close to 90 percent of resources going to principals to control through the school budget. Check out this great story about how student-based budgeting is changing the behavior of school leaders. Baltimore demonstrates how student-based budgeting can introduce real competition into public schools when the money is attached to the backs of children.

The Baltimore schools are seeing steady progress in student achievement and recently were released from 'corrective action' status by the state.

Two years ago, only 150 students attended Holabird Elementary, then a K-5 school in the southeastern corner of this city. Competition from charters and from regular public schools in nearby Baltimore County had drained families from Holabird, a chronic underperformer.

So when Andrés A. Alonso, the chief executive officer of the Baltimore city schools, began last year to allocate money to schools based on their students’ needs, Holabird stood to be hit hard. Achievement had started to rise, but its small roster put the school at risk of losing six teachers unless more students enrolled.

Principal Lindsay Krey, about to start her second year as the leader of the school, decided to knock on some doors.

“We were worried about how much we could lose, but it became a rallying point for our staff and our parents,” says Ms. Krey, now in her third year at Holabird. “We were starting to see some real progress, so our parents went door to door to tell others what was happening.”

Students in grades 3-8 in Baltimore have been making steady gains on the Maryland School Assessment.

Percent of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading:

Percent of students scoring proficient or advanced in math:

Superintendent Alonso has made rapid changes to the Baltimore school district:

Given broad latitude by the appointed school board members who hired him, Mr. Alonso has replaced roughly 40 percent of the city’s principals, eliminated more than 450 positions in the central office, shut down or overhauled failing schools, and opened a variety of schools designed to serve children at risk of dropping out.

I profile Baltimore's student-based budgeting system in the 2009 Weighted Student Formula Yearbook here.

Budget Woes Prompt Colorado State University to Consider Partial Privatization

leonard.gilroy@reason.org (Leonard Gilroy) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:47:00 EDT

The Denver Post reports today that officials at the Colorado State University system are considering partial privatization as one potential response to significant budget cuts to higher education in the wake of the state's fiscal crisis and the expiration of federal stimulus dollars in 2011:

As state funding cuts loom in 2011, leaders of the Colorado State University system have started considering an option unheard of in all but a handful of states: converting to a part-public, part-private structure in which students pay more for costlier degrees.

If implemented, the change could mean CSU's $4,800 annual in-state tuition jumps to about $13,500 for liberal-arts programs and as much as $20,000 for engineering degrees at the Fort Collins campus. [...]

CSU executives earlier this month raised partial privatization as a possible answer to the state's defunding or severely reducing its support for higher-education institutions. Also under CSU's consideration are plans to cap the number of Coloradans who can receive reduced, in-state tuition rates.

CSU chief financial officer Rich Schweigert cautioned that the suggestions are the start of a last-resort contingency plan, and their implementation depends on how the state handles higher-education funding. All of the suggestions would require legislative approval. [...]

Colorado institutions are scrambling to cut costs and find new revenue ahead of a funding crunch that will leave them a collective $230 million-plus short in 2011, when federal stimulus money runs dry.

That shortfall represents more than a third of the state's support for colleges and universities, and the shortfall is only expected to worsen with the state's budget crisis. [...]

Schweigert said the CSU programs most ripe for privatization are those that cost the most to provide, such as veterinary medicine.

At the same time, CSU could limit the number of students admitted at lower, in-state rates to the amount that state funding will pay for. Both scenarios would mean tuition hikes for many students.

And both will be met with resistance from the legislature in 2010, when lawmakers expect CSU and other colleges to start pushing backup plans such as these.

And the political honesty award of the week goes to Colorado State Representative Jack Pommer:

[Pommer], incoming chair of the budgeting committee, said higher education's funding crisis has been a long time in the making as lawmakers for years have shied away from politically inexpedient proposals to allow tuition increases and other fixes.

"I'm very glad CSU is looking at these options. They really don't have a choice," said Pommer, D-Boulder. "If we're not going to plan ahead, at least the schools are."

» Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report 2009
» Reason Foundation's Privatization Research and Commentary

California Must Do More than Link Teacher Performance and Test Scores

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:36:00 EDT

In Governor Schwarzenegger's latest round of bill signing, he approved legislation that would allow California to compete for the $4.5 billion in federal "Race to the Top" education grants. As the AP reports:

California is removing a legal ban on using the results of student achievement tests to evaluate teachers, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The bill lifts a barrier that prevented California from applying for $4.5 billion under the federal Race to the Top program. Schwarzenegger says more legislation is needed beyond the bill he signed Sunday. He has called lawmakers back into special session this fall.

Unfortunately, linking test scores and teacher performance will make little difference until California permits seniority-neutral personnel practices for teacher layoffs.

As I wrote in this recent column:

The governor shouldn’t stop at tying test scores to teachers. Layoffs by seniority -- last hired, first fired -- have been part of the California Education Code for over three decades. Schwarzenegger should introduce legislation to adopt a seniority-neutral layoff policy that allows districts to layoff personnel based on effectiveness rather than years of service.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa experienced the negative consequences of the seniority laws first-hand. Villaraigosa took over 10 low-performing schools under a partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District. But when layoffs and cutbacks had to be discussed, the mayor learned that all of his schools could be gutted: all of the principals and assistant principals and about 200 teachers would have to be replaced by more “senior” teachers from other schools that were not part of the reform efforts. The education establishment should realize it can’t afford to lose good teachers simply because they haven’t been on the job as long as less effective peers.

What Do School Districts and the Post Office have in Common?

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:11:00 EDT

Employees that are paid for not working!

As Jonathan Butcher explains at Jay P. Greene's education blog:

Apparently, the U.S. Post Service shells out $1 million every week to “pay thousands of employees to sit in empty rooms and do nothing.” Mail volume has slid 12.6% compared to last year, and the Post Office simply can’t find enough to do to keep postal workers busy. “So they sit — some for a few hours, others for entire shifts…They spend their days holed up in rooms — conference rooms, break rooms, occasionally 12-foot-by-8-foot storage closets…” Funny, this reminds me of grad school (without the free food).

The employees can’t be fired due to union rules, of course. Not only that, but workers at slower post offices can’t even be reassigned to busier locations.

Why does this sound familiar? Because teacher union rules in New York City created something remarkably similar. As The New Yorker pointed out recently (and noted on jaypgreene.com here) , teachers unions have some 600 teachers in the city sit in “rubber rooms,” playing cards, chatting, or fighting over folding chairs. These teachers get their summers off and are getting paid their full salary (in some cases upwards of $100,000 a year).

Federal Education Stimulus Funds "Supplant Not Supplement" State Education Funding

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:46:00 EDT

Some states have played a shell game with federal education stimulus dollars, going against the stated purpose of the stimulus and replacing state education funding with stimulus funding. Even in states that were not facing huge budget deficits the states have reduced state education spending and replaced state dollars with federal dollars.

As NPR reports:

The Department of Education's inspector general reports that some states are using stimulus dollars to replace money they've cut from their education budget — despite instructions to the contrary. . . .

Nonetheless, it wasn't long before the Education Department started hearing about states playing what it called "shell games" with stimulus funds. In at least one case, department officials blocked a state from drawing stimulus money because it was cutting school funding so deeply.

This growing dispute with states has become so politically charged that the department declined to comment for this story.

The department's inspector general, on the other hand, isn't shy at all.

In its report about how states were spending stimulus funds, the inspector general's office found that over a dozen states are inappropriately using stimulus dollars to replace the money they're cutting from education. It specifically cited Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

The bottom line is that the education portion of the stimulus has gone to backfill state education spending which simply allows states to shift money to other budget areas rather than solving ongoing budget shortfalls and ultimately does little to stimulate the economy.

Education Funding Lawsuit Unlikely to Improve Education Outcomes in California

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:14:00 EDT

The state of California will soon be sued for not funding its schools adequately.

As the San Jose Mercury News reports:

Top California school leaders said they soon will sue the state over chronically underfunded schools—a move that in other states has infused billions of dollars into school systems.

California spends $35.7 billion, or about 30 percent of its budget, on its 1,000 public K-12 schools. Like other state programs, education has suffered waves of cuts in two years as state revenues have shrunk. In per-pupil spending, California ranks anywhere from 30th to 47th among states, depending on how cost of living is adjusted.

The California Constitution requires the Legislature "to provide for a system of common schools by which a free school shall be kept up and supported." The suit will allege that the state violates that provision by not ensuring adequate support.

Given its low ranking in spending plus recent cuts, "nobody can rationally assert that the system is adequately supported," said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Association, which he said will file suit by the end of the year.

The important point in the Mercury News story is this:

How effective the suits have been is a matter of dispute.

Hanushek maintains that when courts have intervened, "We do not see any gains in student achievement."

In fact, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth have a new book out, Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America's Public Schools that sheds light on the depressing futility of adequacy lawsuits.

In addition, Education Next, has a must read debate with Eric Hanushek, Alfred Lindseth, and Michael Rebell that answers the question: Many Schools Are Still Inadequate, Now What?

Here is one small excerpt that summarizes what has happened in other states where education advocates have sued for large increases in education funding:

Beginning in the early 1970s, advocacy groups, frustrated with legislative efforts, began turning to the courts, initially to seek more equity in the allocation of education funds and later to seek vastly increased appropriations from state legislatures through “educational adequacy” lawsuits based on vaguely worded state constitutional provisions. A significant number of state courts responded positively to plaintiffs’ pleas and ordered unprecedented increases in K—12 funding in their states. Unfortunately, basic problems in the underlying systems of delivering education services were often ignored. In this sense, the courts mirrored what had been going on in the state legislatures, and the results were, not surprisingly, much the same: large amounts of money expended, but little or no improvement in student outcomes. An analysis in our recently published book examines the NAEP test-score trends in the four states that have implemented court remedies the longest, and demonstrates that, despite spending increases amounting to billions of dollars, the achievement patterns in three of them—Wyoming, New Jersey, and Kentucky—are largely unchanged from what they were in the early 1990s, before the court-ordered remedies commenced. Only in Massachusetts, where much deeper and broader reforms were instituted, has there been some improvement, although even there the state’s black students have not benefited from the remedy.

R.I.P. Bake Sales and More on Schools as Grim, Joyless Places

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:06:00 EDT

In a column back in 2001 or so, I once complained about how California schools would not let parents bring home-baked treats into the public school. I could not bake cupcakes and take them to my child's class for a birthday party. The only acceptable treat had to be store bought. And now how California children must long for the day when store-bought treats were acceptable. Now parents in California are stuck with carrot sticks (not even grapes--because the kids might choke) for Winter Holiday parties, spring festivals, and birthday parties. Alas, California is not alone.

As the New York Times reports:

There shall be no cupcakes. No chocolate cake and no carrot cake. According to New York City’s latest regulations, not even zucchini bread makes the cut.

In an effort to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fund-raising tool for generations of teams and clubs.

The change is part of a new wellness policy that also limits what can be sold in vending machines and student-run stores, which use profits to help finance activities like pep rallies and proms.

And in more school as police state action, Joanne Jacobs reports on a middle school Mom's fight with a school over a ban on bike riding:

Janette Kaddo Marino rides three miles to the Saratoga Springs school with her 12-year-old son Adam. She thinks it’s safe.

“They really don’t have the right to tell me how to get my kids to school,” Marino told FOXNews.com, emphasizing that she always accompanies her son and is “very safety-oriented.”

"Stand and Deliver" High School First to be Bid to Outside Operaters in LA Unified

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:59:00 EDT

The Los Angeles Times reports the first schools to be bid out to outside bidders because of low academic performance:

Garfield High, which became nationally known as the real-life setting for the film “Stand and Deliver,” will be among the first group of local schools eligible for takeover because of persistent academic failure, a high-level district source has told The Times.

Garfield’s selection means that the nation’s second-largest school system will invite bidders — from inside and outside the district — to run the East Los Angeles campus of 4,600 students. This “request-for-proposal” process could apply to more than 250 schools under a Board of Education resolution passed in August, but the initial set of schools will number 12, sources said.

How far Garfield has fallen from the "Stand and Deliver" days:

Garfield High, which for decades has served a largely immigrant population east of downtown, reached its recent high-water mark in the 1980s, when math teacher Jaime Escalante built a famed calculus program that became the subject of a book and subsequent movie. Under his leadership, dozens of students passed the Advanced Placement calculus test every year, a rare feat even at the nation’s elite high schools.

Last year, only 5% of Garfield students tested as proficient in any math class. The school qualified for possible takeover as one of more than 250 that had consistently failed to meet federal benchmarks and thus was designated as falling into “Program Improvement” status. The board resolution applied to any school with that designation for three or more years.

Only 5 percent proficient in any math class!! Reason magazine explored the depressing untold story of what happened at Garfield High and how Jamie Escalante was forced out here.

Denver School Closures Improve Outcomes for Students

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EDT

I profiled the Denver public schools in the Weighted Student Formula Yearbook. The Denver public schools have used school closure as an accountability mechanism in their sudent-based budgeting program. In 2007, the school board approved the closing of eight schools that were under-enrolled and low-performing.

The board projected that the realignment of students from these schools to higher performing schools would achieve projected yearly operating savings of $3.5 million. Those resources were used to improve the education of students that were affected by the school closures, deliver additional resources to under-performing schools and create funding opportunities for new schools and new programs.

In addition to the standard per-pupil revenue that followed students to their new schools, the district reinvested $2 million or 60 percent of the savings from school closures, to follow the students into their schools of reassignment.

A new district report finds that these students have improved their academic scores since moving to their new schools. According to a district analyses reported in the Denver Post:

Students from schools in Denver that were closed two years ago in a reform effort are performing better academically in their new schools, according to a district analysis.

In 2007, Denver Public Schools shut down eight elementary schools and announced the revamping of programs at five schools in a sweeping reform meant to reduce facility costs and improve student achievement.

The analysis of individual student scores from the 2008-09 Colorado Student Assessment Program shows that, at least initially, the effort is working.

The 2,000 affected students made more academic growth in their new schools in reading, writing and math than they did in the schools they left behind, according to DPS.

Millions More Wasted in Detroit Schools: Real Estate Edition

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:33:00 EDT

Via Education Week:

Detroit Public Schools overspent millions of dollars in taxpayer money because it botched real estate deals that involved too many agents and inflated property values, according to the findings of an investigation by the district's inspector general.

Here are some of the eye-popping deals:

Bought five floors of the Fisher Building in downtown Detroit in 2002 for the new district headquarters for $24.1 million from a company that in 2001 paid $21.7 million for the whole building.
Paid $5.6 million for properties for the new Cass Tech and Detroit School of Arts in 2001 and 2002 when the city had appraised the land at $812,800.
Spent $11.9 million for a property in March 2003 that less than two years earlier was sold for $1.3 million.
In one deal, two parcels valued at about $57,000 were bought by Detroit Property Acquisition for $550,000 and sold immediately to ISI for $701,500. DPS' final purchase price on the same day: $743,000.

This huge amount of waste occurred under the state's watch. This happened after the state took over the Detroit school district. Just another indication that a state takeover of schools in financial and academic distress is no guarantee of any future financial or academic improvement for those schools.

Los Angeles School Competition Update

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:07:00 EDT

The Los Angeles Times reports that more schools in Los Angeles may be subject to the competitive bidding process after state test scores were released this week.

Thirty-nine Los Angeles schools -- a group larger than the entire Glendale school system -- identified as "failing" under federal standards became eligible Tuesday for takeover under a recent Board of Education policy.

These schools bring the number of Los Angeles Unified School District campuses eligible for takeover to 252. Bidders from inside or outside the nation's second-largest school system could submit proposals to run such schools. The bidding process also applies to 51 new schools set to open over the next four years.

Under the policy adopted last month, existing schools become eligible for takeover when they reach their third year in "Program Improvement." A school receives this label after persistently failing a federal standard, called Adequate Yearly Progress, that measures whether a school has the required percentage of proficient students. This percentage is rising sharply every year, and, as a result, more schools are annually judged as failing.

In New Orleans School Choice and Autonomy Drive School Improvement

lisa.snell@reason.org (Lisa Snell) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:33:00 EDT

In Education Week Leslie R. Jacobs and Paul Vallas argue that autonomy, budget control, and school choice drive school improvement in New Orleans.

New Orleans schools now operate under a decentralized system that is unique. Sixty percent of students attend charter schools, and both charter and noncharter schools have autonomy over staffing and budgets. All schools are schools of choice. The money follows the student, so schools receive funds based on their enrollment. There is no longer a collective bargaining agreement, nor a citywide salary schedule.

The results thus far are compelling. In the four years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, New Orleans has shown more growth in student achievement than any other district in the state. The percentage of failing schools is down significantly, and student test scores are up in every grade and subject. Some of the gains are dramatic. The 10th grade math proficiency rate has jumped from 39 percent to 58 percent, and the senior graduation rate from 79 percent to 89 percent. The percentage of 8th graders proficient in English has grown from 26 percent to 42 percent. For context, from 1999 until the state takeover in 2005, 8th grade English proficiency had improved by a meager 3 points.

For a look at several districts that are moving toward charter-like autonomy, budget control, and choice see Reason's "Weighted Student Formula Yearbook."