Senate Bill 1: A classic illustration of the definition of Insanity

On March 1st of 2011 the Pennsylvania Legislature and its Senate Education Committee will demonstrate its inability to avoid following failed or unproven programs and initiatives.

The vote on Senate Bill 1 is a vote which could potentially remove 1 billion dollars from already cash strapped school districts in our state.

 Local school districts must pay for each student who uses a voucher out of its funds.  The cost is often more than the real dollars allotted for each public school student.  Therefore, the local district ends up spending much more of its monies on students going to other schools than it does on its own students.

The following Tuesday our new governor will introduce his first fiscal budget, by all accounts that budget will reduce spending on public education by another 1 billion dollars! A situation he did not create but has inherited do to the kick the can approach of many Governors and Legislatures before him.

So in a matter of two weeks public schools in our state could get hit with a loss of 2 billion dollars in revenue that will be added to the current 4 billion dollar state-wide budget shortfall.

For what?  So that a number of centrally located school districts can provide vouchers to some of their students! Senate Bill 1 would institute state sanctioned and funded vouchers.  Who will make up this budget shortfall in areas like ours where the districts will receive little to nothing in real or perceived assistance from this initiative?

The history of the state funded for-profit vouchers and their related success is at best unclear and at worst another mythical success akin to the great for- profit Charter School experiment. The limited research we do have tells us that vouchers are directly linked to for-profit Charters or Catholic schools in that there is where most students wind up going.

The history of State funded vouchers really begins with the Milwaukee Experiment in the 1990; therefore it has been the most studied. What does the research tell us about the success of that great experiment? In truth not very much because after 1995 the State of Wisconsin ironically embargoed and or suspended progress reports on students’ performance due to fears of religious entanglements.  From the outset Catholic Schools declined to share their students’ progress. Voucher student reports only ever included about 8% of the public school students eligible and well below the 15% cap permitted in the legislation. Therefore, we have little to no specific data as to its effectiveness. Research on student achievement can best be characterized by stating that it is inconclusive: The Witte study found no significant improvement in math while Rouse and Greene found improvement. Green found significant improvement in reading while Rouse and Witte did not.  

The next grand experiment occurred in Cleveland in 1995.
The Cleveland experiment at one point included about 7% of the eligible public school students. This current year’s data clearly demonstrates that Cleveland’s public school student’s do as well as or better than their publicly funded voucher program students. A similar set of data results as found in the Stanford University study of Charter Schools. In grades 3 to 8 Cleveland’s public school students had on average 56% of its students perform at the proficient level while their counterparts in voucher programs had 49% score in the proficient range. The data is even more compelling in math with public school students having 42% on average proficient while their counterparts in voucher programs had 27% proficiency average.

Ohio hired Indiana University researchers to sample and analyzes Cleveland voucher students' academic data from 1998 through 2004. The work evaluated the performance of 4,000 students in 100 schools.
The study, which followed individual students over time, found that when researchers controlled factors such as minority status and prior academic records, there was no significant variation in achievement.

 “The study found no significant differences in achievement between the two groups at the end of the first year. By the end of the second year, the study found positive effects in language and science for voucher students on average. But according to this study, voucher students in new private schools performed significantly less well by the end of the second year than either the public school group or voucher students in pre-existing private schools. Students who left the voucher program after a year also performed less well than those who stayed.”

 The program in Florida was the first state-wide initiative. The Florida program requires students receiving vouchers to take state assessments but the rest of the population of the schools they attend are not required to do so. As was the situation in Cleveland; Florida had its Voucher Program declared unconstitutional in 2000! Florida has commissioned The Universities of Florida and Princeton, as well as the Urban Institute to complete research on student achievement. The research data is best characterized in the report done by the Center for Educational Policy when it states:

Publicly funded voucher programs in the U.S. have been subject to surprisingly little research compared with the attention they have attracted.

Much has been made about the relatively few studies of publicly funded programs. A lack of cooperation among people on different sides of the issue has probably inhibited researchers from undertaking other studies. There is a need for additional high-quality research.

 What do we know for certain about publicly funded voucher programs?

Data supports improvement in student performance in Public Voucher Programs when it is directly linked to small class size and major parent participation and involvement in their child’s education. How ironic, when public school teachers speak of these two issues it is perceived as them scape-goating or justifying their own poor performance.

 In order to account for improvement in performance, voucher programs permit statistical considerations for minority status and socio-economic background as well as prior academic performance {something public schools are never permitted to do. we count them all}.

Parents who choose publicly funded voucher alternatives do so for reasons of safety and security. Ironic, did public school teachers and administrators make the laws that make it so difficult to discipline unruly students? No! Was it they who allowed private schools to dismiss unruly students much more readily. No!

 Research reports on Student performance success indicators have centered almost exclusively in large urban centers.

Audits of publicly funded voucher programs have shown record keeping, compliance, overpayments, and reporting problems.

Attrition rates range from 44% to 23% depending on the years enrolled in the program. Ironic again in that how will Public, non-Public and Private schools be able to efficiently plan for budget, programming, curricular ,transportation and staffing needs with this kind of fluctuating enrollments! How is this increased efficiency?

Consistent and accurate data collection and reporting has been a major problem.

Another unanswered question is how publicly funded voucher programs impact racial segregation and social stratification.

Publicly funded voucher programs do not and are not designed to save taxpayer monies. In Milwaukee there was not significant change in educational dollars. It was directly related to a significant tax increase passed on to all taxpayers prior to the voucher programs implementation. Thus taxpayers paid more. In some cases local districts paid an additional 0.06 % of their tax base to funding public voucher programs!

I cannot honestly be opposed to vouchers, charter schools and or any other such type of reforms and still be true to myself. I am simply saying that before we head into another piecemeal fix to our Educational System let us get the real performance data before we spend billions of taxpayer dollars!

I am in favor of taking the public school system down to its boot straps and rebuilding it anew without creating another bureaucratic program.

Why not allow public schools to opt out of the numerous ineffective mandates and laws that are strangling them in their efforts to reform! Strip the old model down to its bare bones and rebuild it from the wheels up and not just another paint job on an old and outdated structure! This public education system has been the very foundation of this great Democracy and Nation! It simply needs to be completely overhauled so the new and great ideas and changes don’t disappear and become invisible!

If you think I am blaming one party over the other you are sadly mistaken.  They are equally responsible and we allow it! Democracy, by definition, only works when those governed are active, knowledgeable participants in the process of governance. That does not mean watching or listening to the current diatribes of the figure head networks or cable news programs mouth pieces! They are about entertainment and generating market share and nothing more!

In the interest of full disclosure; I myself am a product of a Catholic school education. I recently discussed these topics with one of my sisters who currently has five grandchildren attending Catholic schools. She asked me what I thought of vouchers for Catholic school students. She was herself not sure if this was appropriate.  I do not believe that my family’s decision to send me to Catholic school should come at the expense of the State. In my limited knowledge of the law I see it as a clear violation of the “Separate of Church and State Clause of our Constitution” despite the Supreme Court’s 5-4 2002 ruling in Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris. I know the argument that Catholic families give.  I pay taxes toward the funding of public education and receive no tangible direct benefit for my monies. Acknowledged!

 However, I know many people who rent and pay little to nothing toward the cost of their children’s public education.  I also know many people who have paid into the un-employment trust fund and have never received any funds from that program. Our system of Social Security is built on the same principles and would be just fine if our elected officials had not robbed the trust in order to pay for their respective pet projects and then announce to us all that they provided those initiatives without raising taxes!  What a distortion! I also know many folks who buy lottery tickets in the hopes of striking it rich despite the ridiculous odds against winning so that the state and local government can provide services to our elderly!

The point simply is that our nation has been governed by the principle that we all kick in to benefit those amongst us who are less fortunate!

Real Education Funding in Pa. 1790 to 2010

My Good night piece of trivia for you all to digest: For all those who want to suggest and believe, how much we are currently over paying for Public Education. State Funding began in 1790 and it covered 20% of the costs.in 1940 it reached about 30%. In the 50's when we were scared straight when the Russians launched Sputnik and we had to turn to Public Schools to save our bacon which they  quickly did,  with the help of Dr. Werner Von Braun funding was increased rapidly to 40%.In 1972-73 then things were aslo bleak, we kicked it up to 51% and since that time it has been a steady decline to were it is now 32%. During that decline every Politician{Especially one party in particular} alive kept complaining about how much they were funding Public Ed. So let me get this right with all the unfunded mandates and the States virtual abdication of its responsibilities ; We became the greatest country on the planet at funding levels slightly higher than those of 1790! What am I missing??

Money, Mandates and Education Reform: PA’s Pension Crisis

The pension and retirement law change in 2001 is a classic illustration of what we have all so willing allowed our elected officials to perpetrate upon us and thus we face another fiscal crisis.  A Crisis which is still being ignored by our Legislature in order that they might win favors from their respective Party Leadership.

 Why did the change of 2001 occur?

Primarily the belief that by incentivizing older teachers to retire they could then be replaced with younger, less costly staff. The approach had a twofold problem associated with. It did not fully take into account the substantial increases in salaries those younger teachers would gain over time and it didn’t appreciate how difficult it would be to replace key staff such as science, math and administrative personnel.  Therefore, Districts found themselves in a position of paying top dollar for those key staff in order to attract them.

 Another key factor in this pension crisis is that it was based again on the faulty projection of a never ending investment boom.  We all know how that worked out because we relied on the unfettered free market system and our own collective ambitions.

 Let me be perfectly clear, the Pension Crisis is currently the single most significant issue our legislators face today. They cannot continue to do what they have been doing since the mid 90’s, which is to kick the can down the road to the next group of legislatures, because failure to act now will lead to a major financial disaster in this area and state-wide by 2014!

 In this area alone I would predict that a good number of school districts could find themselves distressed by 2014 without huge tax increases which in themselves may not be able to generate the necessary revenues given the Act 1 limitations and caps.

 We are talking about a statewide calamity because when the state reduced its own required contribution levels, as well as those of school districts contribution levels, at various times by as much as 50-60% below the required amount necessary for the full funding of the Pension System, districts utilized those savings to offset present level expenditures instead of setting the funds aside for the rainy day they knew was coming.  Thus everyone avoided the necessary and dreaded tax increases.

Everyone from the, Governor, Legislature, to the local School Boards at that particular moment in time were roundly applauded for not raising taxes. Well, as we all know now and should have realized then, at some point someone has to pay and now that day that rainy day is here!

The parallels are striking with what is transpiring on the national stage now relative to tax cuts and hopefully we will not allow ourselves to be sold another panacea this time! The Federal tax cuts of the 90’s did not do what they were purported to accomplish in then and there is no assurance that they will now!

 Let me make clear up another myth now: Teachers have always and still do pay their share into the system.  It is the State and Local School Districts that have NOT.   Teachers, on the other hand, never received exemptions.

 I like many others of my former Teacher and Administrator colleagues went into the profession because we loved what we did.  It certainly was not for the pay which at the outset of my career was $3,800.00 annually.  However, with the promise of a guaranteed retirement I could feel somewhat assured in the end. When I entered the profession no one really cared about my retirement plan. The $3,800 annual salary made the vast majority of full-time working teachers and administrators eligible for food stamps although very few ever took advantage of the program. My retirement was seen as an incentive to attract people into a poor paying profession at that time! In fact, some in our society considered it a joke to be a teacher because of the poor financial benefits.

    Personally, I was in favor of many of Legislative acts and changes previously referred to in this and other writings and have contributed greatly to the increase in overall costs because we as a society could not continue to ignore those amongst who were less fortunate and thus not being served.

 I am simply saying that I like many others were constantly permitting ourselves into being hood winked by “The Heartless Lions we elected to office” because we so desperately want to believe that there exists a free ride.  As a nation or state just tell us the facts and the cost of a program you want to implement! Better yet, how about in this information technology and internet age, survey every registered taxpayer on that particular issue by asking the same two questions.

1. Do you really want or need this?

 2. Do you want or need it bad enough to be willing to pay for it?

 Unfortunately most Elected Officials and Pollsters today simply ask the first question and not the second. You get an entirely different set of responses when you ask both questions.

So again, who has to picks up the cost? Local taxpayers who were never really fully informed of the potential costs! Then those State-level elected officials go to Washington and repeat their voodoo programs at that level.

How much has the cost of Public Education gone up?

 Well, it depends on how you look at the numbers! If you look at the cost of Regular Education alone the Sandia Labs study indicates the cost has risen pretty much in line with COLA rates. If, however, you look at the cost of Public Education from the perspective of mandated special programs the increase reaches over 330%.

Please understand clearly that I am not saying we should not be offering these types of programs. I am, however, saying we need to better understand, what the costs are up front and why the costs may greatly increase over time! As some districts have found, the per pupil expenditure cost of just one student with special needs can exceed millions of dollars. 

I do, however, also believe that we must re-construct and pay entirely and pay for those programs : such as Vocational Education, Special Education, Bi-lingual Education, Transportation, Compulsory Education/ Attendance, Discipline and Alternative Education , Merit Pay, School Choice , Professional Development , School Calendar/Day and perhaps most importantly the tremendous cost burden litigation places on Schools today. We must simply keep in mind our responsibility: caveat emptor!

Money, Mandates, and Reform in Education: The Current McCarthyism

In last week’s article we said we would separate the facts from the myths as they pertain to public schools in our state and nation. We propose to break those realities into three perspectives on current Education reform; Financial, Assessment / International Comparisons and School choice or Charter schools initiatives. In this article, we center on the real financial costs of Public Education because one of the most frequently expressed concerns by taxpayers is the cost. Is it expensive? Absolutely!  If it’s the priority that everyone in this country says it is, perhaps that is as it should be.

 Let’s examine the real dollars and cents of this issue from a very local perspective.

If you took the average per pupil expenditure for a student in one of Somerset Counties’ School Districts your average cost would be roughly $12,500 per student. If that family had 3 children the mean cost to that district would be $37,500 to educate, transport and provide co-curricular programs for those three children.  Assume now that family pays roughly $2,000 in school district property taxes and if they rent they pay nothing. They are essentially receiving $37,500 in education while paying $2,000 dollars or nothing in out of pocket expenses. Obviously they may also be paying state and federal taxes; some of which are returned to each school district in programs and services.

That, however, creates another issue; funding inequity. Several districts in the county appear to be wealthy because of valuable real estate held by large corporate entities in their respective boundaries. However, when you look at those districts in terms of their residents’ ability to pay property taxes, their income levels indicate some of the lowest per capita incomes in this state!  The State’s response to those districts is either you increase local taxes to higher levels or your funding formula from us will still be kept to minimal levels. Well, as you imagine, those districts are faced with the reality of raising taxes on individual property owners who rank amongst some of the poorest in the state based on per capita income data. If they raise taxes on those corporate entities and businesses they run the risk of losing either some jobs or, in other cases, the entire business itself.

The Somerset County district which had the highest per pupil expenditure in 2008-2009 was the Shanksville – Stonycreek School System which had a reported per pupil cost of $14,113 and an MP/PI aid ratio of 0.24 {most Local districts contribute 76% of every dollar spent} and an average teacher salary of $45,167. The three districts with lowest local taxing efforts are Shade:  0.74, average salary $48,557, Windber: 0.70, average salary $56,585 and Meyersdale: at 0.68, average salary $58,195. Two of those districts {Meyersdale-$58, 195 and Windber-$56,585} have average teacher salaries above the state average which is $56,091.

The problem here is districts such as Meyersdale and Windber with some of the lowest local taxing capability and effort can afford to spend more on salaries and student programs because they stand to receive .70 cents or.68 cents return for every dollar they spend. Districts like Shanksville 0.24, Rockwood 0.36 {average salary $51,732}, and Somerset 0.46 {average salary$54,663} are required to support their cost for education to a large extent from local taxes, while others can rely on State funds to a greater extent.

 This situation is compounded in the districts with the higher local taxing effort in that when it comes to competitive grant programs those districts which have high local effort are usually ruled out totally or partially because they are perceived to be wealthy.

We must all understand this is in no way anyone in particulars fault, but rather a systemic problem due to the archaic funding system our state Legislature and both political parties choose to utilize and lack the courage to alter!

 My purpose in this report has nothing to do with finding fault with the 501 school districts in this state, but rather to acquaint the public with the real problem and that is the archaic system they are forced to operate in! Hopefully the public will stay informed and district leaders will more systematically educate and inform their respective communities, not just during periods of labor strife or turmoil.

 District leaders in this information age should better utilize their information technology tools to more frequently survey their communities and inform them of the thankless struggles they face daily. If a student can text a survey or inform a group of students about the comings and goings of their social group; how difficult can it be for a school district with all its technological resources to conduct serious civic engagement questionnaires in order to achieve real community feedback on the issues rather than accepting simplistic statements like, “My Constituents want.” when deciding a course of action for their respective communities. It can and must be done in this day and age when we are allegedly basing our decision making on another of our educational clichés, “Data Driven Decision Making”.

The cost of Public Education is high but compared to what? Research has shown us that Public Schools overall are a bargain when compared to private schools and certainly less than charter schools, in particular Cyber Charter Schools when you factor out the cost of mandates and bricks and mortars issues faced by Public Schools.

 In later articles we address the assessment data question.  We can and will demonstrate clearly that there are many misconceptions about Public, Charter, and Cyber-Charter School performance.

After all many of the same people complaining about the cost of educating a child think nothing of spending hundreds, even thousands of dollars on sporting events or paying professional athletes millions of dollars in salaries to entertain themselves. Is it any coincidence that teams with the highest payrolls like the Yankees, Red Sox, Lakers, and Celtics consistently win championships while teams with the lowest payrolls like the Pirates, Brewers, Bucks, and Clippers regularly finish at the bottom?

Is it just about more money?  Absolutely not!   As I have often stated unequivocally.  Can it assist in the furtherance of great ideas? A resounding YES! Our problem in Education has been we have been doing the reverse; putting more money first and then hope we come up with a great idea! 

My point here is very simply this.  No matter what our political parties’ leaders attempt to convince us of on a regular basis?  Quality Education in an extremely divergent society with increasingly dysfunctional families is EXPENSIVE!!

Money, Mandates, and Reform in Education: The Current McCarthyism

In last week’s article we said we would separate the facts from the myths as they pertain to public schools in our state and nation. We propose to break those realities into three perspectives on current Education reform; Financial, Assessment / International Comparisons and School choice or Charter schools initiatives. In this article, we center on the real financial costs of Public Education because one of the most frequently expressed concerns by taxpayers is the cost. Is it expensive? Absolutely!  If it’s the priority that everyone in this country says it is, perhaps that is as it should be.

 Let’s examine the real dollars and cents of this issue from a very local perspective.

If you took the average per pupil expenditure for a student in one of Somerset Counties’ School Districts your average cost would be roughly $12,500 per student. If that family had 3 children the mean cost to that district would be $37,500 to educate, transport and provide co-curricular programs for those three children.  Assume now that family pays roughly $2,000 in school district property taxes and if they rent they pay nothing. They are essentially receiving $37,500 in education while paying $2,000 dollars or nothing in out of pocket expenses. Obviously they may also be paying state and federal taxes; some of which are returned to each school district in programs and services.

That, however, creates another issue; funding inequity. Several districts in the county appear to be wealthy because of valuable real estate held by large corporate entities in their respective boundaries. However, when you look at those districts in terms of their residents’ ability to pay property taxes, their income levels indicate some of the lowest per capita incomes in this state!  The State’s response to those districts is either you increase local taxes to higher levels or your funding formula from us will still be kept to minimal levels. Well, as you imagine, those districts are faced with the reality of raising taxes on individual property owners who rank amongst some of the poorest in the state based on per capita income data. If they raise taxes on those corporate entities and businesses they run the risk of losing either some jobs or, in other cases, the entire business itself.

The Somerset County district which had the highest per pupil expenditure in 2008-2009 was the Shanksville – Stonycreek School System which had a reported per pupil cost of $14,113 and an MP/PI aid ratio of 0.24 {most Local districts contribute 76% of every dollar spent} and an average teacher salary of $45,167. The three districts with lowest local taxing efforts are Shade:  0.74, average salary $48,557, Windber: 0.70, average salary $56,585 and Meyersdale: at 0.68, average salary $58,195. Two of those districts {Meyersdale-$58, 195 and Windber-$56,585} have average teacher salaries above the state average which is $56,091.

The problem here is districts such as Meyersdale and Windber with some of the lowest local taxing capability and effort can afford to spend more on salaries and student programs because they stand to receive .70 cents or.68 cents return for every dollar they spend. Districts like Shanksville 0.24, Rockwood 0.36 {average salary $51,732}, and Somerset 0.46 {average salary$54,663} are required to support their cost for education to a large extent from local taxes, while others can rely on State funds to a greater extent.

 This situation is compounded in the districts with the higher local taxing effort in that when it comes to competitive grant programs those districts which have high local effort are usually ruled out totally or partially because they are perceived to be wealthy.

We must all understand this is in no way anyone in particulars fault, but rather a systemic problem due to the archaic funding system our state Legislature and both political parties choose to utilize and lack the courage to alter!

 My purpose in this report has nothing to do with finding fault with the 501 school districts in this state, but rather to acquaint the public with the real problem and that is the archaic system they are forced to operate in! Hopefully the public will stay informed and district leaders will more systematically educate and inform their respective communities, not just during periods of labor strife or turmoil.

 District leaders in this information age should better utilize their information technology tools to more frequently survey their communities and inform them of the thankless struggles they face daily. If a student can text a survey or inform a group of students about the comings and goings of their social group; how difficult can it be for a school district with all its technological resources to conduct serious civic engagement questionnaires in order to achieve real community feedback on the issues rather than accepting simplistic statements like, “My Constituents want.” when deciding a course of action for their respective communities. It can and must be done in this day and age when we are allegedly basing our decision making on another of our educational clichés, “Data Driven Decision Making”.

The cost of Public Education is high but compared to what? Research has shown us that Public Schools overall are a bargain when compared to private schools and certainly less than charter schools, in particular Cyber Charter Schools when you factor out the cost of mandates and bricks and mortars issues faced by Public Schools.

 In later articles we address the assessment data question.  We can and will demonstrate clearly that there are many misconceptions about Public, Charter, and Cyber-Charter School performance.

After all many of the same people complaining about the cost of educating a child think nothing of spending hundreds, even thousands of dollars on sporting events or paying professional athletes millions of dollars in salaries to entertain themselves. Is it any coincidence that teams with the highest payrolls like the Yankees, Red Sox, Lakers, and Celtics consistently win championships while teams with the lowest payrolls like the Pirates, Brewers, Bucks, and Clippers regularly finish at the bottom?

Is it just about more money?  Absolutely not!   As I have often stated unequivocally.  Can it assist in the furtherance of great ideas? A resounding YES! Our problem in Education has been we have been doing the reverse; putting more money first and then hope we come up with a great idea! 

My point here is very simply this.  No matter what our political parties’ leaders attempt to convince us of on a regular basis?  Quality Education in an extremely divergent society with increasingly dysfunctional families is EXPENSIVE!!

Money, Mandates, and Education Reform: Charter Schools - Fact and Fiction

 How much and why has the cost of Education increased in light of the state and federal governments unwillingness to live up to its promises and  former constitutional requirements?  In Many instances on the national and state level we have and continue to witness an extraordinary shell game. Governors and Legislators get elected on a fiscal restraint agenda and enact what appear to be cost cutting measures. It is only later that we find out they simply passed the cost of those services on to local governmental agencies.

We have a classic example of that from the mid 90’s to 2003. The State obligation for Education is a 50% share of the cost. The last time this Commonwealth lived up to that responsibility was in the 1972 – 73 fiscal year when it paid 50.96% of its share of the cost.  Since then it has been a steady decline to 2007-2008 level when the state’s share was 32.99%. This is why our state receives a C or D grade from the “Leaders and Laggards” report card on educational innovation.

 What does that mean to you at the local level? It means local school Boards must raise local taxes to make up the difference in state and federally mandated programs that carry little or no financial support with them. The highly touted NCLB legislation is a classic example of federal legislation, which on its surface, sounded like a marvelous idea, but carried with it little if any federal funds.

 In Pa. we have a timeline replete with costly legislative changes beginning in 1970 with the passage of Act 95{collective bargaining} and the creation of IU’s to replace the county wide system, which is still a better idea. It would save a great deal of money by eliminating administrative positions without forgoing individual districts identity and simply consolidating programs and services.

In 1972-73 mandated transportation of non-public students { which has increased from a per pupil cost of $77 in 1971 to $779 in 2007}.

 1975 brought the IDEA which was rapidly followed by the revisions in ‘83,’86,’90,’97 and 2004.

 1990 brought us gifted education.  

1991 brought us PSSA’s.

 1992 gave us Act 88.  

1994-1995 brought an end to ESBE funding and excess costs for special education services. This meant the state would no longer pay districts what it actually cost them to implement all those IDEA requirements but based some imaginary mathematical formula allowed those real costs to be shifted to the local school district.

 1996 brought Charter Schools {which were to improve quality of education and save taxpayers money by being more efficient}.

Here are two examples of how that has worked out.

 Rockwood School District paid $228,311 in 2009-10 and got reimbursed $60,256 by the state.  Somerset paid out $432,621 and got reimbursed $114,176. Countywide districts paid $1,581,040 and got back $417,260.

So again local taxpayers picked up the cost difference for a program where half the students are cyber schooled and receive a family computer and paid internet services.  Local school districts would gladly provide all their students these things but cannot afford to.

 2001 gave us the major change in our pension and retirement laws. The Pension and Retirement Law change in 2001 is a classic illustration of what we have all so willingly allowed our elected officials to perpetrate on us and now we face another fiscal crisis, which is still being ignored by our Legislature so that they can win points with their respective party leadership.

 Why did the change of 2001 occur?  Primarily the belief that by incentivizing older teachers to retire they could then be replaced with younger less costly staff. The approach had a twofold problem in that it did not fully take into account the substantial increases in salaries those younger teachers would accrue over time and it didn’t understand how difficult it would be to replace key staff such as science, math and administrative personnel.  Therefore Districts found themselves needing to pay top dollar for those key staff in order to attract them.

 Another key factor in this pension crisis is that it was based again on faulty projections of the booming investment upswing of the 90’s. We all assumed the incredible upward swing would always continue.  We all know how that worked out because we relied on the unfettered free market system and our own collective greed.

Another of the prevalent myths today is based on the 1996 creation of Charter schools which were created in order to improve the quality of student performance and were to be more cost effective than their Public School counterparts. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Future articles will examine the performance and assessment data for Charter Schools, which will hopefully challenge your current views on their real academic prowess.

This week we will concentrate on the financial impact they have on our state and national expenditures.  In Pa between the 2006 and 2008 school districts have paid over $315 million dollars to Cyber Charter Schools alone.  Of that amount the State only reimburses the districts at a rate of somewhere between 26% to 36% or $94.5 million level.

 That means another mandate that our elected officials impose on local districts and then leave them to pay for!  Here are three case studies of how this legislation has worked out locally:

 Rockwood School District paid out $228,311 in 2009-10 and got reimbursed $60,256 by the state. Somerset paid out $432,621 and got reimbursed $114,176. Countywide districts paid out over $1,581,040 and got back $417,260. So again local taxpayers picked up the cost difference for a program where half the students are cyber schooled and receive a family computer and paid internet services which local school districts would gladly provide all their students but cannot afford to. The Philadelphia City School District paid out $313,790,529 and was reimbursed $115,830,766 with local taxpayers again being asked to make up the difference.

In 2007-2008 four of the state’s 11 cyber charter schools had fund balances of over 25%.  Local districts can legally only carry 8 to 12% if they are fortunate enough to be able to do so!  We are paying for programs for 4 year olds to attend charter schools while in our regular schools we cannot get funding to provide the same level of service.

Why did we need to create another entire bureaucracy when all we needed to do here was allow public schools the same discretion they now give Charter schools?

 Think of the duplication of hierarchy we could have prevented.

 What if we had allowed regular public school administrators to discipline students in the manner that is often permitted to Charters?

 What if we had allowed public schools the same opportunity to assign class credit, eliminate unnecessary seat time/ artificial instructional hour provisions that we grant charters?

What if we had reduced the professional development requirements for Public Schools?

 What if we had eliminated the artificially contrived certification requirements for teachers and administrators of Public Schools?

 What if we had allowed Public Schools to offer early start programs with reimbursement for four year olds as we do for Charters?

What if we allowed public schools the same loose attendance checks on students as we do for charters?

 I could continue on and on but the obvious reality is that had we done some of the aforementioned changes we would not have needed to create another elaborate bureaucratic structure and thus prevented the current politicization of our Educational Reform initiatives. Nor would we have turned over one of our Nation’s nonprofit institutions to the robber barons of our Capitalist System!

Does anyone really want their children’s education turned over to a for- profit enterprise in which their education is turned over to an administrator who is more motivated by his or her performance pay which is based on the ledger bottom line and not your children’s academic well being?   I don’t!

Part 1: Education Reforms, the New McCarthyism: Why they have not been Successful

 Last week we ended with Bush aide Diane Ravitch’s change of heart as to the effectiveness of NCLB. Her rationale is based on something that anyone who has been in a school for more than five minutes could have and did foresee. The system would be gamed. The quality of Education would be sacrificed at the altar of a panacea of a test and school choice. In some states standards have actually been lowered rather than raised in order that their students would have appeared to achieve proficient status. Test creation and the test industries as well as the charter school industry have been given a huge financial boon and in exchange they have made huge contributions to the political campaigns of one party in particular. In fact none of the six agreed upon goals that were associated with NCLB have been accomplished. In some instances it has worsened those goal areas.

Both the current education reform movement and McCarthyism had elements of truth to them and both were wrong headed and minded in their approach to a solution. Because of that we as taxpayers were asked to foot a bill for things that could not nor would not fix the root cause of the problem.

The problem is with our current approach in that it allows politicians to ignore and distract the public from the real problems associated with our Educational Systems. It is usually for political reasons that they choose not to deal with the real problems for fear of not being re-elected or turning off the faucet of campaign donations.

 It is also based on several clearly misguided facts in that it completely ignores deliberately the many salient positive aspects of our Educational system which are clearly present despite the lamentations of those seeking Political Office. The oft misguided media focuses on the 30 to 60 second sensational sound bites because they often lack the time to sufficiently cover an issue.

We in the general public share the blame for this as well in that our short attention span does not allow for in depth reporting and writing by journalists today.

As part of this series we will look at two major areas: 1.) assessment and the resultant data and 2.)public funding and taxation in order to demonstrate how the NCLB movement, while noble in purpose, cannot and will not succeed until we are willing to look at all the facts and not merely through the prism of 30 to 60 second sound bites!

As Part of our examination of assessment and its data we intended to look at historical data related to state tests, SATs, ACTs and various international assessments in a manner not normally utilized. We will look at the numbers to address commonly held myths about what the numbers do or don’t really tell us.

An example of which would be to ask the average person on the street, “Comparatively did the class of 1989 outperform the class of 2010 on the SAT exams?” The standard perception driven by misguided media and politicians would certainly suggest that the class of ‘89 did better. You would be only partially correct because the average 1989 SAT verbal score was 504 and math was 502.   In 2010 the verbal average was 516 and math in 492. We can document a major increase on the verbal side of the test despite a tremendous increase in non-English speaking students taking the test.  

Also the number self-reported C and D students taking the test has risen over the years. So we have students taking the test today and that in my day and age would not have considered taking the test at all.

Does anyone not understand the impact of the substantial number of students coming to our schools from dysfunctional families, single parent households, the number kids coming to school from poverty level households, kids who come from violent households, low infant birth weight mothers, and so many other negative demographic factors. Factors that our political officials repeatedly choose to ignore and duck. They usually say they we are not responsible for these conditions.

 Anyone who buys that argument needs to read Crane Brinton’s The Anatomy of a Revolution, Winford King’s 1915 work on Income Inequality and its Potential Negative Impacts on a Democracy, Andrew Carnegie’s 1889 Gospel of Wealth in which he lays out the social responsibility of the wealthy and how it can impact our society (His approval of death taxes might surprise modern billionaires!) , or the Census Bureau’s data on the record levels of our national income gap.

Does anyone then not understand how these factors diminish the national averages and why it is so vital that we address real Education Reform? I would submit to you that rather than being an indictment of Public Education it should be considered a minor miracle that Educators have been able to accomplish what they have been able to do!!

It is political scape-goating.  As H. L. Mencken would say, “There is a simple solution to every problem and it is usually wrong”. There are real problems which the present politically driven approach to reform ignores.

  We will look at the international test data not just from one isolated perspective but from a more microscopic view of the results. When you do that you get a whole different picture than the doom and gloom our political leaders and the media headlines are asking us to believe.

We will examine the investment in Charter Schools as the next panacea which is not borne out with the facts. A Stanford University study (funded by the Walton Family Foundation a staunchly pro charter organization) of Charter Schools in 16 States concluded that only 17% of those Schools actually outperformed their public school counterparts. It also concluded that Public Charters typically outperform others. Let me say here that my purpose is not to speak ill of Charter Schools; quite the contrary. I welcome and support their existence because I happen to believe that competition is a healthy and positive influence. I do not believe, however, that the education sector should be relegated to the status of for-profit! I believe they fall into the well being and public good of our nation status.  By failing to see them in that light we subject the public interest to profit and leaders of those sectors, when faced with the choice of the public good will all too often be tempted to choose profit over the collective good!

Next week a Historical in-depth look at the data on Assessment.