New Study Connects the Dots Between School Funding Choices and Student Achievement Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

New Study Connects the Dots Between School Funding Choices and Student Achievement, Highlighting the Dangers of Retrenchment in Courts

 The Educational Testing Service (ETS) released a new study by Bruce D. Baker, Danielle Farrie, and David G. Sciarra, analyzing the connections between improving school finance systems,improving educational outcomes and closing achievement gaps. After working through multiple factors and layers of data, the report zeroes in on the effects of school funding on pupil-teacher ratios and salaries.  It them shows how those two factors relate to the achievement gap between low and middle-income students.  The findings are rather impressive:

• These higher spending levels translate into higher statewide staffing levels—more teaching staff per pupil.
• These higher spending levels translate into more competitive statewide teacher wages.
• Increased targeted staffing to higher poverty schools within states is associated both with higher measured outcomes of children from low-income families and with smaller achievement gaps between children from low-income and children from non-low-income families.

More specifically, they "show that the level and distribution of pupil-to-teacher ratios are highly and consistently sensitive, both across states and over time, to changes to the level and distribution of school district current spending; that is, more spending, holding other factors constant, drives lower pupil-to-teacher ratios, and fairer spending across districts within states drives fairer pupil-to-teacher ratios. Spending also drives the competitiveness of teacher wages. States with higher spending have more competitive wages, all else being equal. And as one might expect, available spending and the equity of that spending remain contingent on the revenues that support that spending. Increased state support provides the opportunity for improved equity of current spending, whereas the stability of both state and local revenues dictates the overall level of spending."

The point about sensitivity to change "over time" is key to appreciating the significance of the deep cuts in education funding since the recession and the failure to replenish those funds even once state tax revenues rebounded. As I argue in a recent article, courts would normally serve as the check against states' wholesale abandonment of their constitutional duty to deliver equal and adequate educational opportunities.  Unfortunately, as the Texas Supreme Court decision from last week shows, courts are increasingly shying away from their duty. As they do so, they place the very right to education in jeopardy both in the short and long term--the effects of which will be far worse than the legislative stand-offs that courts are seeking to avoid now. A full discussion of this new trend is available here.

Education Law Prof Blog:

Russ on Reading: What is a "Just-Right" Class Size in Public Schools?

Russ on Reading: What is a "Just-Right" Class Size in Public Schools?:

What is a "Just-Right" Class Size in Public Schools?

This post is adapted from my book, A Parent's Guide to Public Education in the 21st Century, now available in print and Kindle versions.

Class size matters. Class size matters because it is an issue that impacts the lives of the children in the classroom, the work load of the teacher and the school budget. Teachers and their representatives argue for smaller class sizes, while school boards try to balance parent and teacher desires for small classes, with the demands of keeping the budget under control. Apparently, private schools think class size matters. They advertise small class size in an effort to attract students to their schools.

Intuitively, most parents and teachers think class size matters, but from a research standpoint the impact of class size has been harder to pin down.  At the heart of the argument is the question, “Do the academic gains achieved through smaller class sizes justify the cost of hiring more teachers to accommodate those lower class sizes?” Some education reformers have even suggested that children would be better off if schools would identify their best teachers and then pay those teachers more to accept more students in their classes.

A research study done in Tennessee is considered the gold standard of class size studies because of its rigorous experimental design. This so-called STAR study(1995) found that students in small classes learned more than students in larger classes and were more likely to complete school and attend college, but those small classes were so small that the STAR study simply rekindled the cost/benefit debate.

More recently, Northwestern University professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach published a study through the National Education Policy Centerthat summarized what we know about class size. Considering all the research as a whole Schanzenbach concluded that

·         Class size is an important determinant of student outcomes, and one that can be directly determined by policy.

·         The evidence suggests that increasing class size will harm not only children’s test scores in the short run, but also their long-run human capital formation. Money saved today by increasing class sizes will result in more substantial social and educational costs in the future.

·         The payoff from class-size reduction is greater for low-income and minority children, while any increases in class size will likely be most harmful to these populations.

·         Policymakers should carefully weigh the efficacy of class-size policy against other potential uses of funds. While lower class size has a demonstrable cost, it may prove the more cost-effective policy overall (NEPC, 2014).

So, class size does matter and it matters especially for low-income and minority children and it is likely to be worth the taxpayers’ money to attempt to keep Russ on Reading: What is a "Just-Right" Class Size in Public Schools?:

This ed-reform trend is supposed to motivate students. Instead, it shames them. - The Washington Post

This ed-reform trend is supposed to motivate students. Instead, it shames them. - The Washington Post:

This ed-reform trend is supposed to motivate students. Instead, it shames them.

A third-grade teacher on why "data walls" don't work.

Launa Hall says posting her students’ test scores made it harder to connect with them. (iStock)

 My third-graders tumbled into the classroom, and one child I’d especially been watching for — I need to protect her privacy, so I’ll call her Janie — immediately noticed the two poster-size charts I’d hung low on the wall. Still wearing her jacket, she let her backpack drop to the floor and raised one finger to touch her name on the math achievement chart. Slowly, she traced the row of dots representing her scores for each state standard on the latest practice test. Red, red, yellow, red, green, red, red. Janie is a child capable of much drama, but that morning she just lowered her gaze to the floor and shuffled to her chair.

In our test-mired public schools, those charts are known as data walls, and before I caved in and made some for my Northern Virginia classroom last spring, they’d been proliferating in schools across the country — an outgrowth of “data-driven instruction” and the scramble for test scores at all costs. Making data public, say advocates such as Boston Plan for Excellence, instills a “healthy competitive culture.” But that’s not what I saw in my classroom.

The data walls concept originated with University of Chicago education researcher David Kerbow, who in the late 1990s promoted visual displays to chart students’ progress in reading. Kerbow called these displays “assessment walls,” and he meant them to be for faculty eyes only, as tools for discussion and planning. But when that fundamentally sound idea met constant anxiety over test scores in K-12 schools across the United States, data walls leaked out of staff-room doors and down the halls. Today, a quick search on Pinterest yields hundreds of versions of children’s test scores hung in public view.

“Diving Into Data,” a 2014 paper published jointly by the nonprofit Jobs for the Future and the U.S. Education Department, offers step-by-step instructions for data walls that “encourage student engagement” and “ensure students know the classroom or school improvement goals and provide a path for students to reach those goals.” The assumption is that students will want to take that path — that seeing their scores in relationship to others’ will motivate them to new heights of academic achievement. They are meant to think: Oh, the green dots show my hard work, yellow means I have more work to do, and red means wow, I really need to buckle down. Now I will pay attention in class and ask questions! I have a plan!

How efficient it would be if simply publishing our weaknesses galvanized us to learn exactly This ed-reform trend is supposed to motivate students. Instead, it shames them. - The Washington Post:

News Analysis: Education fight ‘over shades of Democrat’ | CALmatters

News Analysis: Education fight ‘over shades of Democrat’ | CALmatters:
Education fight ‘over shades of Democrat’

A group that lobbies to change public education is pouring money into a handful of Northern California legislative races ahead of the June 7 election, aiming to influence the kind of Democrats who hold power in the state Capitol.

Democrats make up a solid majority of the Legislature, but they do not agree on everything. A band of business-friendly Democrats has gained enough clout to buck more liberal Democrats on some environmental issues. Campaign spending by EdVoice, an advocacy group that supports charter schools and tying student test scores to teacher evaluations, reveals an attempt to build a cohort of Democrats who might break from their colleagues on some education issues, too. At stake are pressing questions about how to help the most disadvantaged students succeed in the nation’s largest public school system.

“In California, we’re fighting over shades of Democrat,” said political consultant Phil Giarrizzo, who represents Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, one of the Democrats backed by EdVoice.

Teachers unions have been a prevailing influence on Democrats for decades. EdVoice, funded by philanthropists from the business world, is part of a counterforce that often supports policies opposed by organized labor. Unions and school reformers have sparred over charter schools, teacher tenure and how to measure school performance – dividing Democrats at many levels of government.

The tension has been obvious in the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama, who’s come under fire from national teachers unions. It surfaced in California’s 2014 race for state superintendent, when the California Teachers Association spent big to elect Democrat Tom Torlakson, while reform groups put money behind Democratic challenger Marshall Tuck.

Now it’s emerging in a cluster of legislative races that stretch from the Bay Area cities of Concord and Vallejo to rural swaths of Yolo and Napa counties. With super-PAC style independent expenditures, EdVoice has spent nearly $2.3 million as of May 17 on four races, blanketing the region with mailers supporting Democrats who are not endorsed by the California Teachers Association. EdVoice has spent more on these races in the last month than the candidates themselves did in the first four months of the year. On May 16, the group poured about $86,000 into a fifth race based in Silicon Valley.

Two of the races are for open Assembly seats and demonstrate a clear schism between EdVoice, supporting lesser-known Democrats, and the CTA, backing those with family ties to elected officials:

In the 4th Assembly District (mostly Napa, Yolo and Sonoma counties) EdVoice is supporting Winters Mayor Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, while CTA has endorsed Davis Mayor Dan Wolk, son of outgoing-Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis).

Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (left) and Dan Wolk (right).

In the 14th Assembly District (mostly Contra Costa and Solano counties) EdVoice is supporting Concord Mayor Tim Grayson, while CTA has endorsed Mae Torlakson, wife of the state superintendent.

 Wolk and Torlakson each received $8,500 contributions from CTA, but the union has not spent money on independent campaigns so far. CTA spokeswoman Claudia Briggs wouldn’t say if the union plans to do so. Its endorsements, she said, reflect vetting by local teachers and school employees.

“The candidate that gets their recommendation is somebody who is … committed to working alongside them to make sure our students across this state have everything they need,” Briggs said.

The other two races where EdVoice is funding campaigns are in Senate districts where CTA has not made endorsements. EdVoice is supporting incumbent Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), a moderate Democrat who was opposed by labor in earlier elections, and Assemblyman Bill Dodd (D-Napa), a former Republican who registered as a Democrat in 2012. The seats overlap the 4th and 14th Assembly districts.News Analysis: Education fight ‘over shades of Democrat’ | CALmatters:

Judge calls Redding charter school’s bankruptcy bid “inappropriate gamesmanship”

Judge calls Redding charter school’s bankruptcy bid “inappropriate gamesmanship”:

Judge calls Redding charter school’s bankruptcy bid “inappropriate gamesmanship”

Record Searchlight file photo Members of the California Teachers Association, parents and students protest outside a meeting of the Academy of Personalized Learning in 2014 in Redding.

A federal judge says a Redding charter school only tried to file for bankruptcy to get out of further hearings on accusations it retaliated against union employees — an "in appropriate gamesmanship" tactic that showed "a disregard for the availability of this court's resources."

Now that the judge has not only rebuked the school but ruled against its bid for bankruptcy — which opponents say the school argued would have exempted it from simultaneous hearings — the Academy of Personalized Learning will have to face those hearings after all.

The newly formed union, Academy of Personalized Learning Education Association, has said from the beginning that the academy's bid for Chapter 11 bankruptcy only seemed to be a strategy to avoid the ongoing court case alleging school executives fired teachers for unionizing, since its budget numbers weren't actually in the red when the filing was announced late last year.

 But the judge's condemnation of the maneuver is now validation of that, said former teacher Candy Woodson, one of the fired union members.

"It was really refreshing to see somebody ... who is a trained judge look at all this stuff and say, 'Baloney. This is a ploy,'" Woodson said.

Fellow former teacher Mark Youmans agreed.

"It looks like the system actually works, because we felt all along the bankruptcy filing was simply to avoid (the hearings)," he said.

Youmans and Woodson said they formed a union in the first place not for benefits or wage increases but because they and other teachers had concerns with the direction the school was taking. Among their chief allegations was that — despite its public school status — school officials treated it like an elite private school that would only take high-achieving students in order to look better.

APL's executive director, Patricia Dougherty, didn't return messages seeking comment Wednesday, nor did Gateway Unified School District Superintendent Jim Judge calls Redding charter school’s bankruptcy bid “inappropriate gamesmanship”:

Don’t let statistics do a number on our children – The Review

Don’t let statistics do a number on our children – The Review:

Don’t let statistics do a number on our children 

More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing | Haymarket Books http://bit.ly/1XmRpWd

 Think back to graduating high school.  While you’re celebrating with friends and devouring yummy food at your graduation party, did it ever cross your mind, that you were part of the 2.9 million out of the 3.8 million high schoolers graduating in 2015? What might have happened to the other 900,000 high school students who should’ve walked across the stage too? Some of these statistics we know all too well. According to the Washington Post,

• Black students had only a 69% graduation rate,
• Hispanic students had a 73% rate,
• Asian students had a 88% graduation rate and
• Caucasian students had an 86% rate.

Rather than helping level the playing field, our education system promotes inequality but the failure of our system does not stop with inequality. While the inequality amongst students is a factor, the problem starts long before graduation.  It starts with the teacher.

Teachers are the key to every student’s success. The way we are rewarding teachers arose from the federal law, The No Child Left Behind Act. In order to achieve the goal of being above average on state standardized tests, schools pay teachers based on student performance.

The result of this is teachers are teaching to the state standardized tests rather than physical education, arts, and history—all the things we found joy in learning about.

Without performance pay looming over their head the teacher could provide extra nourishment to children who lack a stable and positive home life. The extra nourishment could be all the child needs to stay motivated in school; however, it is nearly impossible for this to happen when the teacher is required to focus on the standardized test which will increase their below average salary of 40,000 dollars if students perform well.

OUR SCHOOLS ARE GETTING WORSE

Just how bad are American schools? Even the strongest schools are unable to compete globally.

The problems our children face stem from issues having nothing to do with education but in the end, wind up impacting it.

Flashback to your time in high school. Which is the easiest to remember? The anticipation of senior prom or Pythagorean’s Theorem? When social engagement between students was evaluated the United States came out in first.

To put things in perspective, for the majority of us, high school was a time to socialize, “working” in groups to finish an assignment as fast as possible so we could get back to playing each other in Trivia Crack.

While there are some benefits to social engagement, a study done by the National Center for Education Statistics shows when measuring academic engagement we came in far lower than our chief economic rivals. High schools in the United States require the bare minimum to graduate and that is setting up young students to fail in college. The social aspect of high school is a small factor that contributes to why less than 25% of our graduates are ready to attend a college or university.

A reason for the lack of preparedness can be seen in a poll distributed by CNN showing, 75% of high school students engage in “serious cheating” which entails:

• Plagiarism
• Using phones during an exam
• Copying work from classmates.

After the results were calculated CNN came to the conclusion that to alleviate the mounting stress to constantly perform at the highest level, students cheat, compromising their own education as a Don’t let statistics do a number on our children – The Review:

Primary dollars: It’s David vs. Goliath vs. Ant-Man in the battle to be Sacramento’s next mayor - Sacramento News & Review

Sacramento News & Review - Primary dollars: It’s David vs. Goliath vs. Ant-Man in the battle to be Sacramento’s next mayor - Feature Story - Local Stories - May 19, 2016:

Primary dollars: It’s David vs. Goliath vs. Ant-Man in the battle to be Sacramento’s next mayor

Follow the dollar trail with our breakdown of each candidate’s most spendy supporters

Darrell Steinberg

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JONATHAN BUCK

 You can learn a lot by digging through people’s financial records.

Case in point: In the race to be Sacramento’s next mayor, the varying support for former state Sen. Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Angelique Ashby—the top contenders to replace outgoing Mayor Kevin Johnson—comes down to scale.

According to the most recent batch of campaign disclosure statements filed to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, covering January 1 through April 23, Steinberg and Ashby receive monetary tributes from many of the same interests—builders and developers, public safety unions and attorneys, retirees—and sometimes the very same people. (24 Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov has some explaining to do at the next fundraiser.)

It’s just that Steinberg has received a whole lot more from a larger variety of zip codes.

It’s kind of an apples-and-oranges deal. The termed-out senate leader recently transferred approximately $1.4 million from an untapped lieutenant governor campaign account. In doing so, he capsized a midmarket political race that may end up being the city’s most expensive.

But what is all this money buying—and what favors could Sacramento’s next mayor owe when she or he takes up the gavel? SN&R combed hundreds of pages of financial records to find out.

While it’s too soon to say whether money can buy the love of Sacramento voters, it has injected drama into what was once a polite affair.

Some other things to note: Due to the transfer, more than two-thirds’ of Steinberg’s war chest originates from outside the city of Sacramento. Which makes sense, since he was a state politician storing up for a possible statewide run that didn’t materialize.

But the onetime councilman has also Sacramento News & Review - Primary dollars: It’s David vs. Goliath vs. Ant-Man in the battle to be Sacramento’s next mayor - Feature Story - Local Stories - May 19, 2016:

The Sacramento City Teachers Association and the Sacramento City Unified School District are on a collision course.Sacramento News & Review

Sacramento News & Review - Basic budgeting - Greenlight - Opinions - May 19, 2016:

The Sacramento City Teachers Association and the Sacramento City Unified School District are on a collision course.

Jeff vonKaenel is the president, CEO and majority owner of the News & Review newspapers in Sacramento, Chico and Reno.

Basic budgeting

Health benefit savings could have paid for wage increases

The Sacramento City Teachers Association and the Sacramento City Unified School District are on a collision course. The negotiations have been stalled for months. The district has proposed a 2.5 percent wage hike and the teachers association wants 5 percent instead. On May 12, the union escalated the tensions, with the SCTA work council unanimously approving a one-day-strike vote. If the membership approves, then the SCTA bargaining team can set the date for a strike.

The union correctly points out that its teachers are paid less than other California teachers, particularly those in the Bay Area and the big districts in Southern California. The district correctly points out that the costs for health benefits for SCTA are significantly more than other California teachers’. SCTA teachers receive around $20,000 in benefits annually, while the average cost of a teacher’s benefits in California is $13,000.

The union says that the lower wages have made it hard for the district to find qualified teachers. The district counters that if you include the cost of benefits, SCTA teachers’ total compensation is actually higher than compensation in the districts that are the most comparable to Sacramento’s cost of living—Elk Grove and San Juan.

While there will and should be differences of opinion between the union representatives and the district administrators, what is frustrating about this dispute is that it could possibly have been avoided with just a bit more cooperation between the union and the district.

Here’s how. According to the district, the difference between the offered 2.5 percent and the Sacramento News & Review - Basic budgeting - Greenlight - Opinions - May 19, 2016:

Who’s Blocking Obama From Helping Poor Schools? -- NYMag

Who’s Blocking Obama From Helping Poor Schools? -- NYMag:

Who’s Blocking Obama From Helping Poor Schools? 

Senate Education Committee Chairman Senator Lamar Alexander with Education Secretary Dr. John King Jr. Photo: Susan Walsh/AP

Congress is embroiled in an education policy fight that, while it revolves around esoteric policy details, profoundly clarifies the strange new battle lines on education policy that have been formed by the Obama administration’s education reforms. The debate centers on a plan to increase funding for poor public schools. In favor of the plan are the Obama administration and civil-rights groups. Standing in opposition are congressional Republicans and teachers unions. This strange collection of allies is not an anomaly. This is what the education policy fight looks like now.

The policy fight in question is an Obama administration proposal to require school districts to use Title I funds to help their poorest schools more than their richest ones. (Even within a school districts, more affluent schools often spend more per child than poorer schools.) Not surprisingly, organizations like the NAACP, the Children’s Defense Fund, and the National Council of La Raza support this idea. Also unsurprisingly, Lamar Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee, opposes it. What may be surprising to some is who has joined Alexander: the two giant teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, who have signed a letter supporting Alexander.

Why would the unions oppose a plan to shift resources to poor public schools? Because one of the reasons for the disparity in funding between rich and poor schools is the structure of teacher contracts, which tie Who’s Blocking Obama From Helping Poor Schools? -- NYMag:

PARCC's ultimatim in test leak riles educators | KGW.com

Publisher's ultimatim in test leak riles educators | KGW.com:

PARCC's ultimatim in test leak riles educators

A long-simmering dissatisfaction over standardized testing came to a head this month when an academic uploaded a handful of test items to the Internet and promptly got a note from the test’s creator, threatening legal action if she didn’t take down the items — and name her source.

The academic, Celia Oyler of Columbia University’s Teachers College, took down the items, which she said came to her anonymously. But the episode is irking educators and other observers who already believe that the powerful forces behind the tests are hijacking not just the educations of millions of children but, in this case, teachers’ rights to free speech. They note, for instance, that tweets about the episode have been taken down at the test publisher's request.

The controversy began nearly two weeks ago, when Oyler posted a lengthy essay by an anonymous teacher who set out to show that the fourth-grade reading test designed by the non-profit Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, is “developmentally inappropriate” for the children taking it this spring in a handful of states. The blog post included details from three test items.

Five days later, after other bloggers had shared the post, Oyler got an e-mail from PARCC CEO Laura Slover, who respectfully asked her to remove the items. They were protected by copyright, she said, and were “live” test questions, still being used in schools. The postings, Slover said, “threaten the utility of the assessments, both as their administration is completed over the next few weeks and in versions of the assessment to be administered in the future.” 

She said the anonymous teacher, who’d admitted in the essay that he or she had “breached a written undertaking not to reveal any of the material,” was clearly avoiding personal responsibility by remaining anonymous. Slover said PARCC would waive any damage claims if Oyler would take down the items and “turn over to us any information you may have about the teacher.”

She had 24 hours to comply.

In an interview, Oyler said that if PARCC set out to threaten her, it worked: “It took me five minutes to take those items down,” she said. “Of course it took me another 10 minutes to start finding a lawyer.”

PARCC is one of two groups commissioned to create tests based on new Common Core standards in math and reading. The standards — and the tests — have come under fire from critics on both the left and right, with a few educators saying the tests are poorly written and force teachers to squeeze out more satisfying subjects that schools have traditionally taught.

“You’re no longer permitted in many places to engage in rich, project-based, authentic learning, which is how we know children learn,” Oyler said. “We know this from years and years of research.”

In a few cases, tests items simply didn’t make sense: in one incident in 2012, students piloting a Common Core reading test complained about a baffling question involving a talking Publisher's ultimatim in test leak riles educators | KGW.com:

 Big Education Ape: Ed Bloggers Take On PARCC Test, Defying Intimidation Efforts - Living in Dialogue http://bit.ly/1V4NUn8



Big Education Ape: No secrecy for tests used on our children! | Parents Across America http://bit.ly/1To8Bbh

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Schools' Nutrition Services Report Released

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Schools' Nutrition Services Report Released:

Seattle Schools' Nutrition Services Report Released

The district released the report that they commissioned on their Nutrition Services department.  (I already read it earlier this week from a source.)  Pegi McEvoy just did an overview presentation to the Board which sought to make the report look better than it is.  She said the consultants said that they have seen operations where the recommendation was "burn it to the ground" and that is not the case here.  The report also compliments the professionalism and genuine caring of the nutrition services staff.

Here's the report.

My big picture view?  
Providing food service is part of the district's job.  They actually can make money on it.  For free/reduced lunch service students (well, most of them), it may be two of the meals they get in a day.  Both from a health perspective and an academic perspective, well-fed students do better, both in the classroom and the playground. 

The district is probably losing money on this department and there is no reason it has to be that way. 

There are many things in this report that will come as no surprise to many SPS parents.  However, it is distressing to read them here because it means that the Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Schools' Nutrition Services Report Released:

We Must Not Be Defeated (Optimism In May) | The Jose Vilson

We Must Not Be Defeated (Optimism In May) | The Jose Vilson:

We Must Not Be Defeated (Optimism In May)

62 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, we’re still having a passive-aggressive argument over whether every school-aged child deserves equitable funding for their school. Three-score and two years ago, the legendary Thurgood Marshall led one of the most influential civil rights cases in the nation in BvB, a case whose promise has yet to be delivered in full. Our country has neither the political nor moral will, and most of the arguments sound like “I know there’s a problem, but my kid.” We can’t blame “either side” because on this issue, Americans have reached across the aisle for centuries on engraving inequitable situations. These issues come up almost annually, and, with a renewed focus on racial and social justice, major educational figures from Secretary of Education John King on down have used moments like these to speak to the persistent inequities facing our schools.

In my classroom, I bear a different sort of responsibility to this legacy.

There’s the litigious elements of the work we do: education policy, implemented standards, school funding, and standardized testing, individualized education plans (IEPs), Title 1, and a host of other laws we’ve initialized acronymed. Yet, when our classroom doors shutter, there’s the daily We Must Not Be Defeated (Optimism In May) | The Jose Vilson:

Talking school funding issues with Ria Rai Harris on Straight, No Chaser. | Fred Klonsky

Talking school funding issues with Ria Rai Harris on Straight, No Chaser. | Fred Klonsky:
Talking school funding issues with Ria Rai Harris on Straight, No Chaser.

Tune in on Monday, May 23rd at 6pm cst to The Straight No Chaser Show as I discuss the “pay for success” social impact bonds, Illinois’ formula for funding public schools, charter schools vs public schools and the failures of the Chicago Public School System with host Ria Rai Harris. H Cortez will provide us with part 2 of his 8 part special series in the “Money Moment.” View us LIVE at www.IntellectualRadio.com and subscribe to the YouTube page The Straight No Chaser Show.

 

East Harlem School’s Utopian Spirit Devolves Into War - The New York Times

East Harlem School’s Utopian Spirit Devolves Into War - The New York Times:

East Harlem School’s Utopian Spirit Devolves Into War 

A group of parents, staff members and alumni of Central Park East I at a meeting in April, where they presented a petition demanding the removal of the school’s principal, Monika Garg. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Central Park East I, a small public elementary school at Madison Avenue and 106th Street, opened in 1974 with a lofty goal: to offer the children of East Harlem a nurturing, arts-focused education more often provided in private schools. There was no fixed curriculum. Students learned math through cooking and carpentry, studied violin and went ice skating. The utopian vision was carried over to the school’s democratic style of governance.

The school earned a reputation as an exemplar of progressive public education. Its founder, Deborah Meier, became a leader in the small-schools movement, starting several others and winning a MacArthur award in 1987.

Today, in an era of data-driven assessments, Central Park East I remains an anomaly, proud of its spirit of total freedom. Teachers decide what to teach, and students are encouraged to pursue their own interests, whether that means writing short stories or building a zoo’s worth of animals out of papier-mâché.

But since Monika Garg took over as principal last summer, simmering tensions among parents and staff members have erupted into an all-out war.

On one side are parents and at least half the teachers, who accuse the New York City Education Department of installing Ms. Garg in an attempt to make the school more traditional. These parents and teachers say that she is forcing teachers to adopt prepackaged curriculums, bringing in families with little stake in the school’s approach and retaliating against teachers who resist her policies by starting investigations focused on them. They held a rally outside department headquarters on Tuesday calling for her removal.

“In the nine months that she’s been there, she sort of has done everything she can to divide the community,” said Bonnie Massey, who has a son in second grade. “She’s mistreated teachers. She’s mistreated children. She has said things that are incredibly offensive.”

On the other side are parents who see Ms. Garg as trying to return the school to its mission of serving East Harlem’s children, which they say it has lost by increasingly catering to middle-class families.

“Debbie Meier said in one of her books that, without a powerful system of accountability, well-intentioned schools can easily become smug, secretive, tyrannical and even racist,” said Elaina Watkins, who has three children at the school and supports Ms. Garg. “And as a parent at C.P.E., I can see that is what has happened at the school.”

A Demographic Shift

What is not in dispute is that, in recent years, the makeup of the school, which does not draw from a defined zone, has changed significantly: In 2004-5, it was 92 percent black and Hispanic; 54 percent of students East Harlem School’s Utopian Spirit Devolves Into War - The New York Times:

NYC Public School Parents: NYC KidsPAC Report Card for Mayor de Blasio

NYC Public School Parents: NYC KidsPAC Report Card for Mayor de Blasio:

NYC Kids PAC Issue Education Report Card for Mayor de Blasio

The report card is below and posted here. 

For immediate release: May 18, 2016

Contact: Shino Tanikawa, 917-770-8438, estuaryqueen@gmail.com

Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329, leoniehaimson@gmail.com

Today, NYC Kids PAC released their second annual report card on Mayor de Blasio, grading him in several education categories based primarily on whether he has followed up on his campaign promises.   The report card is posted here: http://tinyurl.com/huu57xa

It has been more than two years since Bill de Blasio became Mayor, and Carmen Fariña was appointed Chancellor.  The good news is that the Mayor has restored the district structure, increased funding for the arts, rescinded the ban on cellphones, and imposed a moratorium on closing schools, though the moratorium has now ended.  He has also begun to reform school discipline, without providing sufficient resources or staff to ensure a positive school climate. 

The members of NYC Kids PAC include four sitting Presidents of Citywide and Community Education Councils, three past presidents of CECs, and one member of the Panel for Educational Policy.  Though these individuals would like to make it clear that they speak for themselves and not on behalf of their organizations, they have deep experience of how the current governance system and policies work, or do not work, for parents, students and schools. 

The report card exhibits particular disappointment with the lack of parent input at the school, district and citywide levels.  Citywide and Community Education Councils remain largely disempowered, with little or no say as to co-locations and space planning, and the DOE has argued in court that School Leadership Teams have only advisory powers, in an effort to keep their meetings closed to the public. School overcrowding and class size also continue to be major concerns.

Naila Rosario, President of the CEC in District 15 in Brooklyn, explained: “As a parent in one of the most overcrowded districts in the city, I am disappointed by the Mayor’s response. Our district, which is economically and culturally diverse, has experienced enormous growth as gentrification and immigration have expanded. Families are anxious as they wonder where their children will attend school, because enrollment is capped at their neighborhood schools.  Students are crammed into overcrowded classrooms year after year, and we have experienced the stress of losing space for specialists, interventions and even lunch. We urge this administration to show leadership and to press for expedited, responsible approval and construction of new schools.”

Gloria Corsino, President of the Citywide Council for District 75, says: "As a public school parent and committed advocate for all children and children with special needs, I remain hopeful that the campaign promises that Mayor De Blasio's made continue to move in the direction that they were stated.  I look forward to the growing relationships of CEC's and Citywide Councils with the DOE and becoming more than simply advisory boards, as parents are huge stakeholders in the education of their children.”
   

Eduardo Hernandez, President of the CEC in District 8 in the Bronx adds, “Although this new administration has taken some strides toward engaging parents and addressing their concerns, most of the time this engagement is simply done to fulfill regulations and mandates.  Parents are still dealing with some of the same issues that have been plaguing our school system for years,  like overcrowded classes, student enrollment,  and lack of diversity,  just to name a few."

“Parents are disappointed that specific promises de Blasio made during his campaign to reduce class size have not been fulfilled, especially considering that this is their top priority for their schools, according to DOE’s own surveys.  In addition, transparency and accountability in spending has not improved, and large contracts with vendors who have engaged in fraud and other questionable activities continue to be pushed through and approved by the Panel for Educational Policy,” points out Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters.

Shino Tanikawa, President of NYC Kids PAC as well as the CEC 2 in Manhattan and co-chair of the Blue Book Working Group concludes, “While we recognize Mayor de Blasio and his administration have made some improvements, we want to remind him of the unmet promises he made during his campaign.  We hope this report card will motivate him to review his campaign promises and implement more of them in the coming year.”

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DeBlasio's Ed Report Card 2016 Final by Leonie Haimson

 NYC Public School Parents: NYC KidsPAC Report Card for Mayor de Blasio:

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We will be honoring investigative reporter Juan Gonzalez and former Panel for Education Policy member Robert Powell on June 9th at 6:30PM - we hope to see you there!

NYC Public School Parents: NYC KidsPAC Report Card for Mayor de Blasio:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Erie and The End of Public School

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Erie and The End of Public School:
Erie and The End of Public School

While functional states may be basically all alike, when it comes to education, dysfunctional states are all dysfunctional in their own way.

In Pennsylvania, we have focused on developing one of the most dysfunctional funding systems in the country. We have a huge gap between rich and poor schools. We have a charter system that allows charter schools to bleed pubic school systems dry (in one spectacular case, a district actually got negative subsidy from the state because their charter bill is so huge).

On top of that, the legislature messed up the pension system so badly that districts are now making massive balloon payments on their pension obligations.

And the cherry on top of this is our state government's inability to do the whole budget thing. Last year's budget was a full ten months late and several dollars short, leaving districts both to do their own budget decisions in the dark while also holding up any payment from the state at all and triggering massive cash flow problems. Everybody lost, but nobody in Harrisburg learned a damn thing, so we're already right on track to create an equally ugly mess for next year.

How bad is it, really?

Here's how bad. Erie, Pennsylvania-- not exactly a teeming metropolis, but not exactly a one horse town, either-- is considering closing all of its high schools. Yes, at a meeting this afternoon, the leaders of the Erie School District will meet to decide if it might be more doable to just send all of Erie's teenagers to neighboring school districts.

The district is looking at a $4.3 million gap, and like many districts in PA, it has no possibleCURMUDGUCATION: PA: Erie and The End of Public School: 

Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds education superintendent's independence

Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds education superintendent's independence:

Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds education superintendent's independence

State Superintendent Tony Evers (right) had argued against the 2011 backed by Gov. Scott Walker. Credit: Journal Sentinel files

 Madison — A split state Supreme Court on Wednesday kept intact the powers of Wisconsin's schools superintendent, finding unconstitutional a law Republicans passed in 2011 that would have given lawmakers and the governor more of a say in education policy.

The 4-3 ruling is a setback for GOP Gov. Scott Walker and a victory for state Schools Superintendent Tony Evers. Evers holds a nonpartisan office but often sides with Democrats.

Conservatives control the court, but in this case two of the five conservatives sided with the court's two liberals to form a majority that blocked part of the 2011 law.

"Today's ruling is a victory for public education and the future of our state," Evers said in a statement. "It is a reflection of the value our public schools provide to communities across Wisconsin and the importance of having an independent state superintendent oversee that system."

A spokesman for Walker said the governor would continue to seek ways to change the state's educational system, invoking another 2011 law he signed known as Act 10 that all but ended collective bargaining for teachers and most other public workers.

"We will continue to advocate for policies that prioritize student success," said a statement from Walker spokesman Tom Evenson. "Beginning with the Act 10 reforms in 2011, Governor Walker is dedicated to challenging the status quo when it impedes the ability of parents, school boards and students to get the best educational outcomes."

Soon after taking office, Walker signed a law giving his administration a greater say in writing administrative rules, which are used to implement state laws. Administrative rules include more specifics than state statutes and carry the force Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds education superintendent's independence: