New Education Funding Formula Contributes to Increases in State Aid

Dan McGowan at GoLocalProv has a story on how Governor Chafee's budget sends more money to the cities and towns.

A GoLocalProv review of the Governor’s budget plan shows Barrington, East Greenwich, Lincoln, Cranston, Scituate and North Providence will all receive at least 16 percent bumps in aid, with Barrington and East Greenwich – two of the wealthiest communities in the state – getting 38.2 percent and 36 percent increases, respectively.

In total, 15 communities will receive at least ten percent increases and Providence, which receives by far the most state aid of any city or town, will get a 9.5 percent increase in aid.

As Dan notes, the increase is "mostly in education aid". That is because the state passed a new funding formula bill (PDF) last year and, based on the calculations, communities such as Barrington and East Greenwich are seeing an increase because they had been getting less money on a per pupil basis than other cities under the old, hodge-podge,/who-you-know-in-the-legislature system. The percentage increase looks big for the "rich" towns like Barrington and East Greenwich, but they are less in real dollars when compared to the nearly 19% increase for Cranston, for instance.

Additionally, GoLocal didn't include school aid for a couple cases where communities share a school district--Exeter/West Greenwich and Bristol/Warren. With the exception of Portsmouth, these four communities are the only ones experiencing an overall decrease in aid. Based on the new funding formula, these towns will be receiving less education aid, which makes their reduction in state aid even more than that indicated by GoLocalProv.

In years past, the perception in the Legislature (and, probably, in the general population) has been that Barrington and EG didn't "need" more aid. Conversely, the old system failed to account for population and demographic changes that have occurred in some communities--Bristol and Warren, for example--by continuing to send the same or a little more money every year while, for instance in the case of Bristol/Warren, the student population continues to go down. Well, a comprehensive funding formula takes out such "gut feel" factors. We'll see how this plays out: To some, the new funding formula may not be "fair", but it is equitable.

Providence Mayoral Academy Gets First Approval From Board of Regents

According to Blackstone Valley Prep's Twitter feed, the State's Board of Regents has given preliminary approval to an Achievement First operated mayoral academy to be sited in Providence -- with Board of Regents chairman George Caruolo casting the 5th and deciding vote in favor.

Achievement First, Paying Twice?

The application by Achievement First to open a new charter school (a Mayoral Academy) in Providence is up for approval before the Board of Regents today. In an effort to promote this application, RI-CAN has been rolling out "7 Facts in 7 Days" on their website. Whether you approve, oppose--or are pre-disposed to either--one fact (already touched on by Andrew) contained some additional information that was news to me.

FACT #5: Under Rhode Island’s new fair funding formula, money follows the child, so the Achievement First Mayoral Academy would not be taking money away from its host districts. --- Because of Rhode Island’s new school funding formula, each of the four communities that the Achievement First Mayoral Academy would serve are set to receive additional resources from the state in the coming years. Instead of a lump sum, districts will receive funding based on enrollment and student need, so that every child will get their fair share of state dollars, whether they go to a public charter school such as Achievement First Mayoral Academy or a traditional public school. To allow districts to adjust to the new funding formula and changes in enrollment pattern, districts will even get funding through the 2017-18 school year for the students who are no longer enrolled in their schools. {Emphasis mine}.

So for 4 or 5 years, districts sending kids to the Providence Mayoral Academy will still receive compensation for students they won't be directly educating. What is the more likely scenario come the end of the 2017/18 school year: 1) The districts will have planned accordingly and their budgets will anticipate the oncoming "shortfall" such that they will be able to absorb budget cuts or 2) The districts will factor in the windfall and expect it to be part of the new funding baseline regardless of the "deadline"?

The Most Disingenuous Argument Against Mayoral Academies

Suppose you have two schools. Both are funded with public money. Each is run by a principal, with both principals reporting to a superintendent, who reports to a school committee. (This is a small-scale model of what opponents of structural education reform, in Rhode Island and elsewhere, believe is the primary way -- if not the only way -- that public education should be delivered).

Now consider a different system. There are still two schools, again both funded with public money. In this system, one school is run by principal who reports to a superintendent, while the other is run by principal who reports to a Board of Directors headed by a Mayor.

In both systems, the same amount of money is spent per-pupil in each school.

Opponents of structural education reform will argue that the second school in the second system has taken money away the first school, even when the same amount of public money is spent in both systems to educate the same number of students. It makes no sense, unless complaints of charter schools and mayoral academies taking money away are understood to mean that money is being taken away from the control of a school committee, which has nothing to do with either the educational function or the public status of the schools being considered.

Scale the numbers of schools, students, and personnel to a more realistic level, and the argument is equally as nonsensical. Suppose there are 20 schools in a system. Each school has a principal, who reports to a superintendent, who reports to a school committee. Next postulate a system with 18 schools, each with a principal, who reports to the superintendent, who reports to a school committee -- plus 2 more schools, each with a principal, who reports to a Board of Directors headed by the Mayor. Again, opponents of structural education reform will (seriously) argue that, in the second case, the 2-school subsystem has taken money away from the other 18 schools, even 1) if the total amount spent across the 20 schools in both systems is the same and 2) the same amount per-student is spent in each of the district schools in both systems.

Those advancing a rationale that money that is part of a system that they don’t control automatically must be money that has been taken away from them cannot be counted on to get anything correct about the rational management of public finance, or of public education.

Trapping the Motivated in Failing Schools

This thinking, expressed by "Cranston parent," "graduate of the Pawtucket public schools," and "professor of law at New England Law - Boston" Monica Teixeira de Sousa in an op-ed, yesterday, is telling of a certain mentality:

We know that parental involvement in a child's education is one of the most powerful predictors of educational success. It is clear that a lottery system admissions process results in enrolling those students who have parents or guardians who are willing and able to take the affirmative step of placing their child's name on the list.

This seemingly small act is no small feat for many families who may be experiencing crippling problems such as illness, domestic violence, poverty and homelessness, among others. The children being raised in such circumstances and whose parents for whatever reason may not enter them into the lottery are denied any educational choice.

Underlying this sentiment is a broadly held and deeply flawed worldview that our circumstances can make us something less than human. Illness, violence, poverty, and homelessness can so rob us of our individual agency that we lack the capacity to choose even to try to overcome by the minor act of placing a name on a list. And that, naturally, is why we need leftists and education bureaucrats to tell parents where they must send their children to school and what models to use for the design of their services.

More acutely disturbing is the insistence that parents who are truly motivated to find opportunities for their children should be denied those opportunities because other parents may not seek them. It reminds me of the video making the rounds of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher explaining that progressives would rather that the poor live in worse conditions so long as the wealthy lived in worse conditions, as well. I wonder whether Teixeira de Sousa has considered that the presence of a choice might inspire some parents to realize that they should be involved and considering their options.

Be that as it may, I'm inclined to take her argument and run with it. Fine, let's amplify educational choices by developing a voucher system allowing parents to send their children wherever they like.

Reform Is Good for Education

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity has just released a study showing that education reforms involving "accountability, transparency, and parental choice" can catch minority and disadvantaged groups up to the average, while increasing the average overall. Most striking, in my view, is the comparison between a state that really wants to reform and one that wants to make make it look like it's reforming:

Florida grades all district and charter schools based on overall academic performance and student learning gains. Schools earn letter grades of A, B, C, D, or F, which parents can easily interpret.

The full study (PDF) provides more detail:

Florida determines schools' grades in equal measure between overall scores [on a standardized test] and gains over time. In addition, the state divides the “gain” portion of the formula equally between the gains for all students and the gains for the 25 percent of students with the lowest overall scores. Figure 14 below illustrates how the state determines these grades (50 percent on overall scores, 25 percent based on the gains of all students, and 25 percent based upon the gains of the lowest performing students).

In Rhode Island, as I've pointed out before, the performance of our schools is, first, masked by significant changes in testing mid-decade that boosted the impression of progress and, second, inflated by the fact that schools with too few children in a particular category automatically get credit for adequate progress in that category. Andrew put it well a few years ago, when he said that "the final classifications have more to do with some obscure bureaucratic criteria than with how well students are learning."

Much of the Center's study, which was initially developed by Bill Felkner for the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, compiles charts to illustrate that, yes indeed, Florida's students have advanced considerably, to the point of surpassing Rhode Island. The key takeaway, though, ought to be the description of the state's reforms:

• Public-school choice. Students in low-performing public schools may transfer to a higher-performing public school of their parents’ choice.
• Private-school choice. Families with special-needs children have access to the McKay Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to attend a private school of choice. Corporations in Florida can also receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for contributions to organizations that fund private scholarships for low-income students.
• Charter schools. Charter schools offer families another choice. During the 2008/2009 school year, more than 100,000 Florida students attended charter schools and more than 50 new charter schools began operation.
• Virtual education. Florida is a leader in online learning. More than 80,000 students in the state take courses online.
• Performance pay. Florida’s performance pay system rewards teachers who achieve student gains, not necessarily those who have the longest tenure. It also provides bonuses for teachers who increase the number of students who pass Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Since beginning performance rewards for AP completion, Florida has considerably increased the number of all students who take and pass AP exams.
• Alternative teacher certification. Non-traditional routes to teacher certification, such as permitting school districts to offer teacher certification programs, reciprocity with other state teaching certificates, and honoring certification offered through alternative teacher certification programs such as the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (“ABCTE”), play an important role in bringing qualified teachers into the classroom.
• A+ Accountability Plan. In 1999, Florida required that students be tested annually. While Florida has graded the performance of its public schools since 1995, the Sunshine State moved to a more straightforward grading system in 1999.7 The new grading system, coupled with the introduction of the annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), means that students and schools are held accountable for academic outcomes.
• Social Promotion Ban. Florida has also curtailed the “social promotion” of students. This reform plan requires students to pass the third-grade reading (Florida Common Assessment Test) FCAT before progressing to fourth grade

Once such reforms are implemented (and I don't encourage any breath holding on that count, in Rhode Island), the next step would be to expand them such that they apply not only to minorities and the disadvantaged. There's plenty of room for average and above average students to be assisted to real, world-class excellence.

Connections: Cranston Prayer Banner->Teacher Pay->Failing Catholic Schools

Back when TLC actually put on programs that reflected their actual name (The Learning Channel) instead of just reality crap, there once was a show called Connections, hosted by a balding English dude with glasses named James Burke. I loved that show. In it, Burke would link seemingly unrelated items through history. (Like getting from sugar to atomic weapons). This morning, I felt like I went down a similar path as the Cranston school prayer banner led me to Rhode Island's attempts to equalize teacher pay in the late 1960's and how that ultimate failure played a part in the decline of Catholic schools in the state. Interested? Read on.

It started when I read the judge's decision on the Cranston school prayer banner. In it, he bases much of his reasoning for removing the banner on the Supreme Court's ruling in Lemon vs. Kurtzman, which established a three part test for determining the establishment of religion. From Judge Lageux's finding (p.28):

According to the Lemon v. Kurtzman analysis, a governmental practice, or legislative act, must satisfy three tests in order to survive an Establishment Clause challenge. It must: “(1) reflect a clearly secular purpose; (2) have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and (3) it must avoid excessive government entanglement with religion.”

While Judge Legeux provides other "tests", he relies greatly on Lemon (and, interestingly, puts great weight on the Cranston public's reaction--from fellow students, to School Committee Members, to Mayor Fung--to Ahlquist's request to remove the banner. In essence, her instigation resulted in a reaction that, according to the judge, confirmed her fears. But I digress).

What I then discovered is that Lemon actually dealt with a Rhode Island statute--originally challenged under DiCenso vs. Robinson--as well as the Pennsylvania Lemon vs. Kurtzman. Both had to do with sending public funds to private schools. In the case of Rhode Island (from the Supreme Court ruling, emphasis mine):

The Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act was enacted in 1969. It rests on the legislative finding that the quality of education available in nonpublic elementary schools has been jeopardized by the rapidly rising salaries needed to attract competent and dedicated teachers. The Act authorizes state officials to supplement the salaries of teachers of secular subjects in nonpublic elementary schools by paying directly to a teacher an amount not in excess of 15% of his current annual salary. As supplemented, however, a nonpublic school teacher's salary cannot exceed the maximum paid to teachers in the State's public schools, and the recipient must be certified by the state board of education in substantially the same manner as public school teachers.

In order to be eligible for the Rhode Island salary supplement, the recipient must teach in a nonpublic school at which the average per-pupil expenditure on secular education is less than the average in the State's public schools during a specified period....The Act also requires that teachers eligible for salary supplements must teach only those subjects that are offered in the State's public schools. They must use "only teaching materials which are used in the public schools." Finally, any teacher applying for a salary supplement must first agree in writing "not to teach a course in religion for so long as or during such time as he or she receives any salary supplements" under the Act.

The "appellees" (ie; plaintiffs) were Rhode Island taxpayers who "brought this suit to have the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act declared unconstitutional and its operation enjoined on the ground that it violates the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment." In this case, the Rhode Island taxpayers won as the court ruled that such public/religions "entanglements" were unconstitutional. (The court also didn't like the idea that the necessary government auditing required in the statute relied upon the State examining the books of many a private, parochial school or church).

So what have we got? In the late '60s, public school teachers were having success in collectively bargaining higher salaries and private (ie; Catholic) schools in Rhode Island were experiencing a lay teacher shortage. As summarized by the appellate court that dealt with the DiCenso case:

The Salary Supplement Act [includes] specific legislative findings: that non-public elementary schools enroll 45,000 students, or 25 per cent of Rhode Island's elementary school children; that because of the numbers enrolled, these schools are vital to Rhode Island's educational effort; and that the rising cost of teachers' salaries makes it increasingly difficult for these schools to maintain their traditional quality....The financial crisis in these schools stems from the rapidly changing composition of their faculties. As recently as ten years ago, the Archdiocese of Providence relied almost exclusively on nuns to staff its school system. Lay teachers filled only 4 or 5 per cent of the system's 1200 teaching positions. By 1969, lay teachers constituted one third of the teaching force....Each shift from a teaching sister to a lay teacher represents a threefold increase in salary expense (i. e., a shift from approximately $1800 to $5500 at present levels). Moreover, the increasing salary levels in public schools make the task of recruiting lay teachers annually more expensive.

...A comparison of past and predicted salary levels [shows]...[i]n 1968-1969, a starting lay salary in the parochial schools was $5000 a year. In 1969-1970 the diocesan school system offered $6000, hoping that 15 per cent of this amount, or $900, would be paid by the state under the Supplement Act. In the meantime, however, the standard beginning salary for public elementary school teachers in Providence and elsewhere has increased from $6000 to $7000.

Ultimately, because of its unconstitutionality, this attempted remedy failed and many Catholic schools--School Choice 1.0, if you will--were impacted and, ultimately, closed.

ADDENDUM: There is a case study written by Patrick Conley and Fernando Cunha that is out there, but I couldn't get my hands on it (for free--I'm not payin' for it!).

* NOTE: To be sure, there still remain parochial schools in Rhode Island, but they no longer educate the 25% of Rhode Island students they once did. Affordability isn't the only reason for the decline in number; the fading importance of religion in our culture is also a factor. Incidentally, my kids go to public schools.

Effective Use of Experienced Teachers' Time

Today's Providence Journal had an interesting story about Lillian Turnipseed, a Providence teacher coach. She is a teacher with 38 years of classroom experience, so it would be natural to believe that she would be a great candidate to tutor new teachers.

She is one of Rhode Island’s 17 “induction coaches” responsible for helping the state’s 270 new teachers improve during their critical first year.

I've had discussions with others who believe that this is a very good an efficient use of older and experienced staff. I agree that it seems to be a smart use of these valuable employees. Rather than having a teacher burned out after 35 years in a classroom or a 50 year old fireman carrying people out of buildings or a 55 year old police officer chasing down criminals on foot, use their wealth of knowledge to the benefit of the group.

With a teacher, my thought is you will have one of three situations. Either the teacher will be like Mrs. Turnipseed and be a great fit for tutoring the new and upcoming teachers or still be willing to be in the classroom and be effectively teaching into their 60s or they'll be a burned out and ineffective teacher who should be allowed to leave or retire when they want. However, I don't see it as a valid excuse to start collecting a pension after 20 or 25 years in the classroom because we simply have "burned out teachers." Change it up and find new and exciting challenges for them. If they don't want to do either one, that's ok, no one is going to force them to stay, but that's no reason to start the pension payments either.

With police and fire, a similar experience could be had. I agree with those who ask if I want a 50 year old firefighter trying to carry me out of a burning building and down a ladder after the job had taken its toll on their body for 25 or more years. No, I don't want that. But at the same time, I see no reason for that firefighter to retire yet. Why can't that person do a part of the job that doesn't require carrying one out of burning buildings, like conducting fire alarm inspections? Traveling to schools and offering fire safety tips to children? Training the younger firefighters entering the job. Even cleaning and maintaining the equipment. Again, no one is going to force these people to stay on the job, but if they do want to keep collecting a paycheck, find tasks they are capable of doing that help efficiency and can properly use their years of expertise and knowledge.

Mrs. Turnipseed is an excellent example for all, as she could have retired many years ago, but still wants to help others and has found a way to use her strengths and experience to benefit Providence.

Schools from Bailout to Bankruptcy?

An article in today's Providence Journal describes a familiar aspect of a town's movement toward receivership that might point to a common contributing factor:

A national investment ratings agency, Fitch Ratings, on Thursday downgraded the outlook for Woonsocket. In its report the agency said the city of almost 42,000 people faced a School Department deficit of about $2.6 million in this current budget and that it views "the potential implementation of state oversight positively." ...

The city narrowly averted not meeting its $1.7-million school payroll next week, the re- port says, until the state altered its payment schedule for education aid and gave the city its $4.5-million share early.

As we've been discussing a school department deficit is at the center of East Providence's problems, too. It would take some research to confirm, but I'm beginning to suspect that President Obama's stimulus gifts to public schools might be a proximate cause of the bankruptcy.

I know that the Obama windfall to Tiverton averted the difficult decisions that the local taxpayers had managed to force through budget maneuvers and, indeed, led to additional spending. The following year, the school department successfully manipulated the budget system in its own direction (with threats of school closings and more) in order to build the federal handout into the regular budget. Indeed, it was clear from the first mention of the magic Obama money that the plan was to do exactly that.

In towns that hadn't just slowed the growth of their school budgets (which the public-sector folks love to refer to as "a cut"), the stimulus funds wouldn't have been used to replace lost funds, but to add new services. When the funds went away, the result would be a massive deficit. So, I wonder: how much of these budget-and-democracy-destroying deficits are attributable to the federal government's gifts (borrowed from future taxpayers)?

To the extent that such is the case, the obvious and fair remedy is to stop the unfunded services, raises, and whatever else the federal money covered.

Government Edges into Preschool... Expensively

Over on the blog for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, I've highlighted the high cost of letting government edge its way into the preschool business.

Closing the Achievement Gap, One Way or Another

The big education news this morning is that Rhode Island has won another Race to the Top grant, this time for early childhood education. Details will come later in the day, but it is another step in closing the so-called achievement gap between poor, disadvantaged students and those who, I suppose, are considered advantaged (middle-income, stable families, etc.). It's, obviously, a desirable goal, but there are, as always, unintended consequences. For while our attempts to close the gap appear to be working--disadvantaged students are getting better--I've mentioned before that our normal or higher achieving students are getting worse in the process. In a piece in today's Washington Post, Michael J. Petrilli and and Frederick M. Hess summarize the problem:

In 1996, Rand Corp. scholars determined that low-achieving pupils benefit when placed in mixed-ability classrooms, faring about five percentage points better than those placed in lower-track classes, but that high-achievers score six percentage points worse in such general classes.

In 2008, six years after No Child Left Behind became law, a survey of teachers found 60 percent saying that struggling students were a “top priority” at their schools, while just 23 percent said the same of “academically advanced” students. Eighty percent said that struggling students were most likely to get one-on-one attention from teachers; only 5 percent said the same of advanced students.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Northwest Evaluation Association released a study in September that tracked more than 100,000 high-achieving pupils over time and found that more than one-third lost steam as they progressed through school. The Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless has reported that, while the nation’s lowest-achieving students made significant gains in reading and math between 2000 and 2007, top students’ gains were “anemic.”

Good-faith efforts to help disadvantaged kids are not intended to hurt average or high-achieving students, but such leveling is an all-too common, unintended result of such good intentions. We may not be leaving as many children behind, but we're also slowing many of them down in the Race to the Top. If it's a tie, everybody wins....right?

NEA as Reformer?

The national NEA's Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching published a report, "Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning," (PDF) that lays out their vision for modernizing and reforming the teaching profession.

The Commission laid out three guiding principles upon which the teaching profession should be based: Student learning is at the center of everything a teacher does; Teachers take primary responsibility for student learning; Effective teachers share in the responsibility for teacher selection, evaluation, and dismissal. It recommends a better system of teacher development (including reforming teacher certification programs), the creation of National Teaching Standards, peer-review based teacher evaluations, and they even recommend an end to the traditional step-contract. As Rick Hess (a member of the advisory committee, incidentally) says, these ideas and proposals are all well and good, but:

And what will the NEA actually do with its big report? Will the locals and state affiliates that drive the NEA take the effort seriously, or will it gather cyber-dust on the cyber-shelf? Is the national NEA serious about any of this, or is just an effort to deflect criticism and slow down the push for policies designed to reshape teacher evaluation or pay? How many teachers does it expect to actually be moved out of the profession under peer review? How seriously should we take its talk about removing licensure barriers or closing down lousy teacher prep programs?

We'll see.

Mayoral Control Not a Panacea

One of the most attractive aspects of imposing Mayoral control--vice school board oversight--via Mayoral Academies or the like is that it is a vehicle by which a school can start fresh by cutting through the red tape and other problems currently hamstringing innovation in our schools. Further, it puts one person--and a visible one at that--"in charge" and accountable. But it's not a panacea and some of the very criticisms currently levied against politicized school boards could eventually be applied to mayoral-controlled schools .

For his part, eduwonk Fred Hess thinks mayoral control can be effective in urban districts, but also warns that it's a model that doesn't address the root problem of school district composition and the delivery of services. He and Olivia Meeks advocate for "organiz[ing] schooling around function rather than geography" in an interesting paper that delves more deeply into the issue. Have a read.

Board of Regents Approves a New Teacher Evaluation System for RI

The Associated Press is reporting that the state Board of Regents has approved a new evaluation system for RI public elementary and secondary school teachers...

Rhode Island teachers who receive poor evaluations for five consecutive years will lose their certification under new rules adopted by state education officials.

Teachers will receive 1 of 4 ratings during annual evaluations: highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective. Any teacher deemed "ineffective" for five years in a row will automatically lose their certification.

Questions for 21st Century Teacher Union Members and Their Leaders

Celine Coggins, founder and CEO of Teach Plus, has some questions for 21st Century teacher union leaders. Please read carefully before assuming the worst (regardless of which "side" you are on the issue).

What would it mean to put an emphasis on the New Majority? After almost a half-century of baby-boomers as the dominant demographic in the teaching force, we've reached a tipping point whereby those with fewer than ten years classroom experience are now the majority in teaching. These are the teachers who are the future of the profession. These are the teachers who will determine whether the union will remain a force. Yet, they are wildly underrepresented in holding union offices and participating in union activities. Successfully getting newer teachers involved in the union would almost certainly lead to challenging debates within union halls. Union leaders must judge for themselves whether they are up for that challenge and what the future might hold if they are not.

What would it mean to put an emphasis on high-performers? To start, this bias would lead to a serious, quantified look at the proportion of time the union as an organization spends on (A) grievances and the due process rights of those with questionable records relative to (B) cultivating leadership and growth opportunities for others in the teaching force. That would open up a conversation about whether the organization could put more time and effort into those in category B. Quite possibly, the answer would be no. There may be no room to shift focus to better address the interests of high-performers. All of the other things the union does may be too important. In that case, though, the natural next question would be: how might the union benefit from an outside partner like Teach Plus to address an unmet need among an important subset of teachers?

What would it mean to put an emphasis on solutions-oriented teachers? At Teach Plus, we often hear from young teachers that they see their union as--to borrow a phrase that doesn't fit exactly--the party of "no." They see a need for reform but don't identify their union as taking a leadership role in reform. In many cases, this reputation is undeserved. In every city where Teach Plus has had a role in helping young teachers get involved in policy decisions, it has been with the collaboration of the union. Yet, this impression is pervasive. How do we get to a place where the accomplishments of the AFT Innovation Fund and the NEA's efforts to close the achievement gap are more visible than the negative stereotype of the ever-complaining teacher down the hall who is very active in the union? I don't know; but I know Teach Plus has been able to build that type of community on a small scale.

In-State Tuition Raises Larger Question About Social "Investment"

In a Providence Journal op-ed (which now apparently inevitably means "not online"), Sandy Riojas and Daniel Harrop argue in favor of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. The first part of their argument is that President Ronald Reagan would have supported their side of the debate.

As admirable and iconic as Reagan may have been, a former president's view of a current state policy question is effectively irrelevant. And besides, it's not as if illegal immigration and in-state tuition are recent developments, so one might well reply: Forget "would have"; the applicable question is, "did he?" I've not seen the evidence.

More interesting, however, is the view of government and higher education that Riojas and Harrop promulgate:

There are Rhode Island Republicans who believe the state wastes its investment when it educates undocumented students through high school and then forces them to pay hiogher prices to attend a public college. Is high school graduation the milestone when these students are penalized for unknowingly entering the country illegally?

... [Subsidizing in-state tuition, the] state ultimately loses nothing, while gaining a greater proportion of the population that is college-educated and can participate in improving the future of Rhode Island.

Is high school really so worthless that a graduate cannot "participate in improving" the state? I'd argue that such an attitude, with the concomitant increase in the subsidization that the government provides for higher education, is what's driven the unsustainable inflation of tuition across the board. A high school diploma is, or ought to be, valuable in its own right, and any reasonable assessment of the actual skills needed in the workforce will likely conclude that it is sufficient for a great many jobs. So, yes, a high school diploma may, indeed, be the line after which the local society should consider legal residency status.

A precondition to both the development of the economy and the improvement of the state and nation as civic units is that the rules apply. Individuals and private organizations can bend them, but the state — with its ability to apply force and confiscate property — cannot. Putting aside the fact that subsidizing in-state tuition does, undeniably, cost the state something, the greater cost may lie in the lesson that doing so for illegal immigrants teaches about the validity of the rule of law.

Later Retirement Doesn't Harm School Districts' Payroll Costs

The notion that forcing teachers to work an additional five years before retirement will cost districts money came up during my appearance on the Dan Yorke Show, last week, and it apparently has some currency in the General Assembly. Obviously, though, a replacement hired on a five-year delay will cost less than one hired earlier until he or she hits step ten, so to see how the balance works out, I've taken a look at the numbers.

The upshot is that, in the long run, the later retirement saves the district money in salary — which doesn't factor in the post-employment benefits, like healthcare, that it would have to pay for five additional years of retirement under the current system. (In some districts, a later retirement date would eliminate their post-employment healthcare costs entirely.)

Being Forgiven

It seems lately one of the topics for discussion is that of the heavy burden from college loans. Some are calling for the loans to be completely forgiven. That means the debt is eliminated.

The money was borrowed from a lending institution, where that might be a private bank or the US government, papers were signed agreeing to pay it back, the student received the education, and now they don't want to pay it back. It's too much money. The banks knew they were lending these people more than they could afford to pay back. "Predatory lending."
Interestingly, an NYU professor is actually advocating for students en masse to simply stop paying their college loans

New York University professor Andrew Ross led a discussion about the burden of student loan debt — now estimated to be between $550 billion and $829 billion — and proposed a radical solution: “A Pledge of Refusal.” The idea is that protesters would sign a pledge to stop making payments on their student loans as soon as 1 million had joined in making the pledge.

The article goes on to ask about the professor biting the hand that feeds him.

Ross acknowledged the irony of protesting against one of the main sources of his salary but added, “I feel very bad that my salary has actually been financed (by these debts). … To me it is just heartbreaking to see my students carry so much debt. It’s just immoral.”

However, the repayment of the loans isn't a source of his salary. He already has his money. He won't be out anything and neither would NYU. It is the banks and the US government who would be out their investment.

Also, the money that is repaid by graduates for their loans goes directly back to current students to pay their college costs. So if Professor Ross is successful, what will happen is the low-income students today won't be able to go to college because the money won't be available. Is that what they want to be responsible for? Some hard-working, low-income student not being able to go to college?

Where is the personal responsibility in this? Where was the plan here? Where was the forethought in signing for five- or six-figure loans for an education that may not have jobs available to pay the bill?

Some people today believe that higher education is a basic human right. I would disagree. People have a right to an education through high school and then the rest becomes a privilege. Especially when today, a college education is not a requirement to get a good paying job in many fields. Yes, there are fields where a college or graduate education is required, but for many other fields, it is not. I would love to have a 6,000 square foot house on a cliff overlooking the ocean with a garage full of fast cars. I can't afford that. College is no different. People need to learn to live within their means. If that means going to CCRI for a couple years to get the general education requirements in first and then transferring to get the bachelor's degree to save money, then that's what they should do. If it means getting a low-level job at a company and using a tuition reimbursement benefit to get a degree, then do that. If it means working your way up in your chosen field and getting experience instead of the education, then do that.

The bottom line for these people is they took on the debt, there's no way to give anything back like you can when your house or car is foreclosed on, so the debt has to be collected on. That's why it is guaranteed. This is explained to people when they sign the note and agree to put themselves in debt. Forgiveness? No. Please pay what you owe so the next person in line can make their decision about whether they want to borrow the money to go to college too.

Education Idea: Flipping

I found this interesting:

Students watch short online videos of lessons at home and do homework in class with their teacher's help....The videos are mostly created by the district and led by the best teacher on a topic. And when kids do homework, they're getting help from their teacher, rather than parents at home....Teachers say the method frees up time to make sure students understand.

"It's made my job a lot easier," said Chris Carpenter, a social studies teacher. "I do like this model, because what we've done for the last 10 years just wasn't working anymore."

...flipping allows the school to put the best expert in front of students at all times. The best teacher on a topic makes the online videos, so one teacher can reach hundreds of students.

And when kids do homework in class, they're getting help from their teacher rather than parents who might struggle with the material. Teachers say flipping at times quadruples the amount of time they spend working directly with students -- ensuring students have a firm grasp of the lesson.

The initial returns are good, but it's a small sample and there are hazards (as always). Regardless, it shows how technology allows us to break old models and try new ones that may work better in today's day and age.

No Cell Phones In Schools

Well, it's about time. In today's Valley Breeze, Marcia Green tells about a new policy at Cumberland High and Middle schools that ban any use of handheld devices. The policy is based on one that was previously instituted in Warwick schools. The Cumberland schools used the first two weeks of the year to inform and remind both students and parents of the new policy. CHS Principal Dorothy Gould explains the policy succinctly, "If we see it or hear it, we're going to ask for it." The penalty is to lose the device for five days.

My first thought on the punishment was that it sounds a bit harsh. Five days? Why not give it back at the end of the day? But on second thought, there isn't much "risk" in the "risk vs. reward" equation. If the risk is to lose the device for five days, including nights, that might make someone think twice about bringing it into the school or at least into sight of a teacher.

Of course, the policy isn't without its opponents either.

Gould said five families have "raised a big, big stink by arguing, fallaciously, we can't keep them overnight. Or they say, 'My kid is a good kid so you should do something differently for my kid.'"

Two of the cases are even arguing this to the superintendent, who completely supports the policy.

Some parents try to argue that they need to keep in touch with their children during the school day. I don't quite understand that one. They're at school, they're learning, if something comes up that you need to know about, the school will call.

Then there was also a woman who posted in a Facebook group about her son having a health "emergency" at the school. He was vomiting. She said the school tried to get in touch with her by phone, but her employer doesn't allow her to receive phone calls. Being aware of this, the son texted his mother to let her know what was going on. The son lost his cell phone as well and the mother isn't happy. Does this situation smell fishy to anyone else? How does her employer prevent her from taking calls during the day, even in an "emergency", but she can accept text messages? I just don't get some parents.

So I would like to take this time to congratulate the Cumberland Superintendent Phil Thornton and the school principals on adopting this policy. School time is learning time and the other eighteen hours of the day can be used for cell phone time.

In-State Tuition for Illegals, Whether You Want to Pay for It or Not

Last night, with the approval of RI's chief executive, Lincoln Chafee, the Board of Governors of Higher Education decided to act in lieu of the General Assembly and implement a policy of offering illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates for the state's public universities. That makes Rhode Island just the fourteenth state to be so generous, and the first to make the decision without involving the people's elected legislators.

The big lie of issue, which Ted Nesi describes here is that there is no cost to this decision — perhaps even an increase in revenue. I spent some time looking at the numbers, last night, and although I don't have time, this morning, to make my findings presentable for this post, I just don't see how that could possibly be so.

I'll show my work (as the math teachers say) in a future post, but in a nutshell, dividing the total operating costs of the University of Rhode Island by the number of full-time equivalent students suggests that the university has to make $20,615 per student. Clearly, total tuition and fees of $11,366 for in-state matriculating undergrads won't cut it. If, as advocates claim, in-state tuition were sufficient to educate a student, then the University ought to be investigated for price-gouging out-of state students, who pay $27,454.

Closing the Achievment Gap the Wrong Way

Frederick Hess:

Today, the notion of "closing achievement gaps" has become synonymous with education reform. The Education Trust, perhaps the nation's most influential K-12 advocacy group, explains: "Our goal is to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement."...Such sentiments are admirable, and helping the lowest-achieving students do better is of course a worthy and important aim. But the effort to close gaps has hardly been an unmitigated blessing. In their glib self-confidence, the champions of that effort have refused to confront its costs and unintended consequences, and have been far too quick to silence skeptics by branding them blind defenders of the status quo (if not calling them outright racists).

The truth is that achievement-gap mania has led to education policy that has shortchanged many children. It has narrowed the scope of schooling. It has hollowed out public support for school reform. It has stifled educational innovation. It has distorted the way we approach educational choice, accountability, and reform.

For example:

Of particular concern is the way "achievement-gap mania" has forced educators to quietly but systematically shortchange some students in the rush to serve others. Pollsters Farkas and Duffett, for instance, have reported that struggling students possess an unrivaled claim on teachers' attention. In 2008, the team found that 60% of teachers surveyed said that struggling students were a "top priority" at their schools while just 23% said the same of "academically advanced" students — even on a question to which teachers could provide multiple answers. When asked which students were most likely to get one-on-one attention from teachers, 80% of the survey participants said academically struggling students, while just 5% said academically advanced students.

The results have been troubling:

And children who are ready for new intellectual challenges pay a price when they sit in classrooms focused on their less proficient peers. In 2008, Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless reported that, while the nation's lowest-achieving students made significant gains in fourth-grade reading and math scores from 2000 to 2007, top students made anemic gains. Loveless found that students who comprised the bottom 10% of achievers saw visible progress in fourth-grade reading and math and eighth-grade math after 2000, but that the performance of students in the top decile barely moved. He concluded, "It would be a mistake to allow the narrowing of test score gaps, although an important accomplishment, to overshadow the languid performance trends of high-achieving students . . . .Gaps are narrowing because the gains of low-achieving students are outstripping those of high achievers by a factor of two or three to one."

Defining success downward isn't the way to close the achievement gap. It has also resulted in an loss of "buy-in" from parents.

Gap-closing strategies can be downright unhelpful or counterproductive when it comes to serving most students and families, and so can turn them off to education reform altogether. Longer school years and longer school days can be terrific for disadvantaged students or low achievers, but may be a recipe for backlash if imposed on families who already offer their kids many summer opportunities and extracurricular activities. Policies that seek to shift the "best" teachers to schools and classrooms serving low-achieving children represent a frontal assault on middle-class and affluent families. And responding to such concerns by belittling them is a sure-fire strategy for ensuring that school reform never amounts to more than a self-righteous crusade at odds with the interests of most middle-class families.

So they take their kids and put them in another, alternative system. Like private/parochial schools. In short, a laser-like focus on closing the achievement gap in math and reading has left much by the wayside.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

The North Providence school system is getting national notice for letting cameras into their schools to help film the documentary "Bullying: Words Can Kill". This is a problem that is finally getting some notice around the country, as it has gone on for decades.

We have seen multiple examples of suicide among school children (like this, this and this) because of bullying and the newer version, cyberbullying. The previous kind of bullying is what probably all of us saw growing up on the playgrounds. The biggest and seemingly toughest kid in school would get what he wanted by either verbally or physically intimidating other students. Now, the cyberbullying has extended itself to the internet where rumors and stories can reach dozens or hundreds of classmates in seconds through email, texting, Facebook or Twitter.

It's great for the kids themselves to learn what are the results of this bullying, and what it does to others. Take the example of one eighth grader

“I never hurt anyone,” Berdecia says. “I called them names, spread rumors and said stuff.”

This student was invited to join the school's anti-bullying campaign and he eventually came to see the light.

"I thought, ‘No one should be treated like that."

So why is it that an eighth grader can figure out that "no one should be treated like that" but adults still haven't? Even professional, educated adults working in professional fields? Or worse, why is it that others in the field of education work so hard to eliminate this behavior among the students of their schools, yet implicitly condone this behavior among adults and peers?

This week, the Deputy Executive Director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island was convicted of cyber-stalking. The NEARI is one of the two organizations in RI that represent school teachers. Another NEARI officer, Secretary Louis Rainone has been involved in a number of altercations as well, including comments to the East Greenwich School Committee "All of you who voted for this will burn in hell." Then at a State House demonstration where someone was videotaping the proceedings and after Rainone attempted to prevent the filming and was informed of the cameraman's First Amendment rights to film, he replied "My First Amendment is that I’m gonna take you outside and stick this [camera] up your ass." Most recently WPRO's Bob Plain recorded an encounter with State Rep. Jon Brien when Rainone offered to step inside the elevator and "show you how charming I can be".

Is this all behavior that the teachers condone? Implicitly, they do. They pay these people to represent them. While North Providence is represented by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) not NEARI, other schools in the state have their own anti-bullying efforts. Some of those schools are represented by NEARI and are represented by Leidecker and Rainone. Here is a list of cities and schools who are represented by NEARI*:

• Barrington
• Bristol/Warren
• Burrillville
• Chariho
• Cumberland
• Davies
• East Greenwich
• East Providence
• Exeter/West Greenwich
• Foster
• Glocester
• Jamestown
• Little Compton
• Middletown
• Narragansett
• Newport
• New Shoreham
• North Kingstown
• North Smithfield
• Ponaganset
• Portsmouth
• RI School for the Deaf
• Scituate
• Smithfield
• South Kingstown
• Tiverton
• Westerly

Until the teachers at those schools step up and tell their NEA that this behavior is intolerable both in the schools, around town and on the internet,
they are implicitly condoning this behavior and are involved in hypocrisy between their leadership and the lessons they're teaching at school.

* - information gathered from http://www.neari.org/

Teachers Bucking Their Union

Out in Chicago, Democrat Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel campaigned on a promise of longer school days. Now that he's actually following through with this, the teacher's union is balking. But the part of this that is most surprising is the teachers are knowingly and voluntarily contradicting their own union.

Last month, the union rejected the district’s offer to give elementary school teachers a 2 percent raise in exchange for adding 90-minutes to the school day.

Maybe not so surprisingly, the union is accusing the school district of bribery and coercion to get the extra school time in place. I think the part I don't understand is why is it now bribery to pay teachers more money for extra work, but when the union wants to discuss that kind of setup, it's called "compensation". If the union's not involved or opposed, it's "bribery". Just making sure I have all the facts straight. And as to that whole coercion part

STEM principal Maria McManus said her staff had been discussing a longer day since August 1, when staff received their schedules. “The teachers asked for it,” she said.

So then we can wonder how the union is taking this with regard to its members. I'm sure the union understands that it actually works for the teachers and not the other way around right? Because if the teachers want to do something in the name of improving education, who is the union to stand in their way?

A STEM staff member who participated in Friday’s meeting said a CTU representative came to the school to speak to the staff about the waiver vote. The staff member said the representative seemed to be using “scare tactics”, at one point telling teachers he would put on his “mean hat.”

“He made it seem like it was more about the rights and compensation and less about the importance of the extra time,” she said. “He didn’t really hear our voice.”

So I guess the teachers being educated professionals in the field know less about what would be good for the students than the unions?

So how much extra time are we talking about here? In RI, the minimum requirement is 5.5 hours of instruction time and 180 days. That math says we must have 59,400 minutes or 990 hours in a school year. In Chicago, the current requirement is 52,360 minutes a year or 873 hours. That works out to about 4.85 hours of instruction a day in Chicago. They're looking to add an extra 1.5 hours a day. That is quite the investment for teachers and what they're being offered in return is a 2% raise.

So let this serve as a blog post where teachers are congratulated for doing what is right, doing what is best for education and the students they serve, even if they are directly contradicting the wishes of their own union.

A Focus on Spreading Largess

Meanwhile, in education, Commissioner Deborah Gist is trying to change the way in which Rhode Island schools handle's a teacher's career trajectory so that performance coincides with raises and advancement. (Readers from the private sector may recognize this strange concept as "the way things work.") One of the means by which the commissioner would achieve this shift is through the certification process:

For the first time, certification would be tied to a teacher's effectiveness in the classroom, based on the new evaluation system rolling out this fall.

Also, certification would be tiered, with new teachers receiving a three-year "initial" certificate, and advancing to a five-year "professional certificate" if their evaluations are satisfactory. To distinguish the top level, teachers who are "highly effective" would be eligible for a seven-year "advanced" certificate.

Moreover, teachers wouldn't necessarily reap rewards for putting in their time in a college classroom, gaining credits. Instead, working with their principals — and with reference to their evaluations — they would pursue continuing education that applies to their own skill sets and situations. That could still mean college courses, but it could also mean workshops or other less formal (potentially less costly) activities.

Not surprisingly, some members of the Rhode Island Certification Policy Advisory Board, "which includes teachers union officials, the heads of schools of education at the state colleges, and representatives of teachers, principals and superintendents," aren't fond of the idea. Rhode Island College Dean of the School of Education Alexander Sidorkin, for example, thinks it's important for teachers to continue purchasing his organization's offered courses. To reach the "advanced certificate," he'd like to require teachers to have purchased their full Master's worth of 30 credits.

Any teacher who goes through RIC would thereby ensure that Sidorkin's department would bring in something north of $11,400 per teacher. It doesn't take but a bit of back-of-the-envelope calculation to observe that the market in question amounts to tens of millions of dollars.

Nonetheless, a professional analyst of such things, Arthur McKee, doesn't think this money transfer (ultimately from the taxpayer to institutions of higher education) is necessarily worth the investment:

"By and large, getting a master's degree in education does not increase effectiveness in the classroom, whatsoever," he said.

But it does increase the revenue of organizations with representatives in notable positions in state government.

Who Pays for Past Mistakes

Generational warfare: It's bound to happen here in Rhode Island with the pension crisis. It's also happening nationally on the budget deficit debate with the new Super Congressional panel set to convene. Education Policy wonk Rick Hess offers his perspective:

You're either with the kids or with those rushing to the ramparts to defend retiree entitlements. So, which is it?

Consider the President's vague calls last week to spend billions more on school construction and preserving school staffing levels (which would've been more compelling if he had offered any inkling as to how we might pay for it). Obama finds himself unable to do more than offer marginal, dead-on-arrival programs because the feds have spent more than half the budget just mailing checks to retirees, covering health care bills, and paying interest on the accumulated debt. Everything else—schools, financial aid, the FBI, defense, transportation, the environment, NASA, foreign aid, you name it—has to make do with what's left.

As Julia Isaacs at the Brookings Institution has pointed out, the federal government now spends about $7 on seniors for every $1 it spends on children....Do we really think it's a good idea to spend half of all non-interest spending on making retirement ever more comfy?

Past or future? Which will it be? He provides an important breakdown of we pay for current Medicare spending:

[T]oday's retirees have contributed taxes that amount to less than half their Medicare outlays. Today's Medicare payroll tax doesn't fund Medicare--it funds only Part A (hospital expenses). Premiums cover just 25 percent of Part B (doctor treatments and visits). And premiums for Bush's Medicare drug program (Part D) cover just 10 percent of the cost. The rest of the hundreds of billions in outlays for these programs is vacuumed out of general revenue. (See here for a good breakdown on Medicare funding.)

And Social Security:

Social Security has the government reflexively spending hundreds of billions to mail out monthly checks to the wealthiest segment of the population, without an ounce of thought as to whether that's the best use of borrowed funds (the famed Social Security "trust fund" being, you know, nonexistent). The Social Security Administration reports that more than 20 percent of those 65+ have incomes over $65,000 a year. In a nation where median household income is in the $40,000s, is it really radical to rethink how much we mail to these households every month?

As for taxes:

Toss in all of the tax deductions that President Obama called for eliminating this summer, including the corporate jet deal, and you address another $400 billion over 10 years, or less than 2 percent of the shortfall. So, just keeping the deficit from exploding will involve all those taxes and trillions more in cuts. Those demanding substantial new spending then need to raise hundreds of billions beyond that, through additional cuts or tax increases....Even with hefty tax increases, protecting existing entitlements ensures that we won't have much available for schools, colleges, or anything else.

He urges education advocates to step up to the plate and take on the AARP and similar groups so that more money can go towards kids and education.

In short, it's possible to get our house in order, free up dollars for schooling, and shift dollars towards youth. But doing so requires facing down the massive, intimidating seniors' lobby.

Shared sacrifice involves asking Baby Boomers and retirees to step up and, you know, sacrifice. It doesn't mean holding harmless the generations who voted themselves free stuff through the good times and doesn't rely almost entirely on raising taxes and curtailing benefits for the under-40 set.

Hess' bailiwick is education and his goal is to increase funding for it. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Hess' priorities, his argument helps to lay out the choice that needs to be made: should the people who benefited or made the mistakes in the past be held most accountable for those mistakes? Or should their kids and grandkids?

Speaking of Corruption and Inefficiency in Public Schools

Ed Achorn's latest column, in support of mayoral academies, gives a bit of the flavor of the sorts of people whom Governor Chafee has granted authority to judge and shape Rhode Island's education system:

Soon after taking office, Mr. Chafee purged the Regents of reform advocates, and installed people who seem much more inclined to defend the status quo, including Chairman George Caruolo, a casino lobbyist and former state representative. Some believe that the governor made the appointments specifically to kill off mayoral academies, for the very reason that they are so promising, and might prod traditional public schools to change in ways that would shift the focus from rewarding special interests to serving students.

Another Chafee appointment was Carolina Bernal, of the union-backed Rhode Island Institute for Labor Studies. Ms. Bernal’s boss, Executive Director Robert Delaney, is married to Colleen Callahan, the "director of professional issues" for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals. She is herself a member of the Board of Regents.

Governor Bought-and-Paid-For has only made explicit that which has been dragging Rhode Island and its education system down for a long, long time. Too many people are empowered to feather the beds of interests that have absolutely nothing to do with how well educated our children become.

Vouchers for Private School Are Only Fair (and a Smart Way to Save Money)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this:

Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were only recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils.

It's a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say the practice violates the separation of church and state.

As a society we've determined that public money should be set aside to ensure a minimally educated population. In a voucher system, the parents receive some of that money and determine where to direct it. "Separation of church and state" should apply such that schools that are accredited for that objective should not be penalized just because they also provide religious instruction.

In a recent conversation with a woman who's renting a property on which I've been working, she mentioned that she'd transferred her children from a Catholic school to the public schools in her town for various reasons. We're not talking one of the elite private schools, by any means, but still, her son's commentary on fourth grade in the public school was that it was like going back to kindergarten. I've had similar experiences with my own children and have heard other parents express agreement.

Yet, the teachers at this particular school make less than half of what public school teachers make — with the comparison becoming even more imbalanced if we factor in benefits. That fact should shame public school teachers and spark a revolution at the voting booth.

Even if parents could receive back the portion of their own taxes that goes to educating their children, the education system couldn't help but become more efficient and achieve better results as a whole.

Rising College Costs due to Administrative Bloat

From Investors Business Daily:

An IBD analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that from 1989-2009 the number of administrative personnel at four- and two-year institutions grew 84%, from about 543,000 to over 1 million.

By contrast, the number of faculty increased 75%, from 824,000 to 1.4 million, while student enrollment grew 51%, from 13.5 million to 20.4 million.

The disparity was worse at public universities and colleges, where personnel in administration rose 71%, faculty 58% and student enrollment 40%. Private schools also saw administration and faculty growing faster than student enrollment, although faculties slightly outpaced administration increases.

Nifty graph here! More:

Administrative personnel are employees who are not engaged in instruction and research. The jobs range from university president and provost to accountants, social workers, computer analysts and music directors.

One reason administration at public institutions has grown faster may be that bureaucracies tend to expand their staff and programs over time, regardless of need.

"The increase has a lot to do with all the money these institutions pull in from third parties, like state funds and student financial aid," said Daniel Bennett, a research fellow at the conservative Center for College Affordability & Productivity. "They're using it to grow their staff rather than on students."

The Cranky Professor adds his first-hand two cents:

What's gone up is staff....And by "staff" I don't mean "departmental secretaries."...What we mean are student services. And the people who defend this growth, almost all of whom are self-interested members of the student services staff, explain that we HAVE to grow here because students now expect these services.

I suppose they're right. Advertise a full service nanny-system and you will get parents and students interested in a 4 to 6 year extension of the nursery.

Perhaps it is the only way to run a college nowadays. I am skeptical. I'm not skeptical about the quality of our support staff - I'm sure they're as excellent and hard-working as the faculty and secretarial staff. But the trend lines are undeniable -- that's where the growth in full-time, benefit eligible appointments is. Faculty have grown too, but as we know from all too many articles, that growth is not in the tenurable category.

Government's Version of Accountability

So, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is threatening to stop enforcing regulations if Congress doesn't modify them to account for the failure of those regulated to comply:

Frustrated by what he called a "slow-motion train wreck" for U.S. schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he will give schools relief from federal mandates under the No Child Left Behind law if Congress drags its feet on the law's long-awaited overhaul and reauthorization. ...

Duncan has warned that 82 percent of U.S. schools could be labeled failures next year if No Child Left Behind isn't changed. Education experts have questioned that estimate.

Still, no one thinks states will meet the law's goal of having 100 percent of students proficient in math and English by 2014. A school that fails to meet targets for several consecutive years faces sanctions that can include firing teachers or closing the school entirely.

Therein lies the problem with repairing government ineptitude with greater and more-centralized government authority: Nobody actually believes government will use the stick against itself or its favored constituencies when the carrots stop working. Government self-regulation is a perpetual bluff.

ADDENDUM:

For those who might be tempted to make the distracting claim that I can't believe what I write because the legislation in question passed during the Bush Administration, I should note that I thought, said, and wrote much the same back when the law was still in the works.

Feedback and the Public Sector Exemption

A recurring theme arose when the Providence School Board voted to eliminate administrator unionization:

[Stephen Kane, executive secretary of the Association of Providence Public School and Staff Administrators] now worries that the fate of each administrator will be left to "the whim of the School Board. Of course, it's going to get personal. It's going to get political."

You can call it "whim" or "judgment," but granting responsibility throughout any organizational hierarchy is the most effective way to ensure efficiency and productivity. Whether the goal is corporate profit or public education, whether consumers react to policies through purchase decisions or taxpayers through votes, administrators must be accountable to policy makers, and policy makers must be accountable to stakeholders.

Unions certainly change the calculation a bit for their members, but not unlike resistors in an electrical circuit, they inherently distort the feedback loop by distributing some of that responsibility onto labor processes. That can have its benefits, but over the long term, it hinders the organization's ability to adjust to the interests of those it ostensibly serves.

And when the organization is a government entity, it can survive by fiat as problems fester.

On School Budget Confusion and Arbitrary Authority

Trying to follow public policy debates — particularly those having to do with the transfer of government money — is like trying to make sense of an incoherent dream. Whenever you hear or read that there is "confusion" or "ambiguity" related to a particular law, it's a reasonable assumption that one or more parties are doggedly asserting false conclusions based on irrelevant information. Such appears to be the case with a recent disagreement between the Warwick School Committee and City Council concerning legislation that allowed towns to reduce their contributions to their schools during the recession.

Normally, towns must follow "maintenance of effort" provisions in the law that require at least the same amount of local money to be appropriated for the schools each year, with some allowance for reduction based on shrinking enrollment. In 2009, the legislature added the following language to the relevant statute:

Provided, that for the fiscal years 2010 and 2011 each community shall contribute to its school committee in an amount not less than ninety-five percent (95.0%) of its local contribution for schools for the fiscal year 2009.

The clear and plain reading of that language would allow a town to hold the schools to 95% of their 2009 local contribution for 2010 and 2011 without regard to the rest of the statute. The fiscal 2012 requirement brings back the requirement to contribute at least as much as "the previous fiscal year." Careful reading of the article (which is confusing, and which, for some reason, doesn't cite the relevant law) suggests that Warwick allocated $123.9 million in local funds for schools in FY10 but took the legislature up on its offer to reduce that amount in FY11, to $117.7 million.

The Warwick School Committee is asserting a legal right to at least the FY10 amount for its FY12 budget. Since the law makes no mention of reverting back to 100% of older budgets, however, it is clear that "the previous fiscal year" (FY11) would be the new baseline. That is, the Warwick City Council is entirely within the law to hold to the $117.7 million, and the leaders of both chambers of the General Assembly have chimed in to confirm as much.

School Committee Chairwoman Bethany Furtado cites a letter from Commissioner of Education Deborah Gist justifying the schools' position and, no doubt, in true Rhode Island fashion has some behind-the-scenes assurances from the Department of Education. Although I can't find the text online, having read a few such "rulings," I'd expect it to be the legal equivalent of mumbling in one's hand before asserting an arbitrary decision. Unfortunately, these things aren't decided by the clarity of the law, but by the willingness of the parties to keep rolling the dice at each successive stage of legal review, up through the Department of Education and then the judiciary.

That's all pretty standard, though. The disturbing aspect is what tends to get lost in these narrow debates and, through accumulation, in civic discourse more generally:

"She is the commissioner of education and she's our boss," Furtado said. "I honestly don't know where we're going to find the money; we're already down to the bone."

Deborah Gist is not the boss of the Warwick School Committee; the people of Warwick are. Too often, elected officials join with the education bureaucracy to conspire against their communities' taxpayers. Rather than muddying the legal waters with strained analysis, Furtado and her committee ought to set about finding a way to live within the restraints that they have insisted must be imposed. Many of the people of Warwick are surely "down to the bone," as well, and very few of them have $150 million annual budgets to comb for savings.

Training for Jobs That Don't Exist

Under normal circumstances, this program might be an unalloyed positive, and I do believe that every student should have some familiarity with construction and trades:

On Olmsted Way, a short street across from the Wanskuck Mill on Charles Street, 10 graduates of the YouthBuild Providence program are at work this summer, renovating 24 apartments in two buildings at the Olmsted Gardens affordable-housing complex. ...

In the YouthBuild Providence program, www.youthbuildprov.org, part of the national YouthBuild network, low-income youths ages 16 to 24 work to earn their GEDs or high school diplomas while also learning job skills by building affordable housing. Marques said the 10-month educational program includes alternating weeks of classroom work and on-the-job training.

The money for the program appears to come, ultimately, through the federal government, in part (one infers) by paying for the projects, which thereby operate with the inexpensive labor. But are public dollars spent on training for a flailing industry really a good idea?

The organization's Web site calls construction "a booming industry in our state that is poised for substantial growth." Another article in Sunday's Providence Journal, however, describes the industry's employment position as follows:

In building construction, slight job gains in commercial and industrial construction are being swamped by losses in residential, where foreclosures, tight credit and depressed prices have taken a toll. In June, residential and commercial building companies employed 1.2 million workers, down 15,900, or 1.3% from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.

Back in October, Rhode Island led the nation in its percentage of construction jobs lost, and I haven't seen any evidence that much has changed. That means that job training programs focusing on building are adding low-end labor to an industry that already has a great deal of downward pressure on employment and salaries. And a 10-month program does so relatively quickly.

That sounds like a blueprint for stagnation for older workers and disappointment for new entrants to the trade. Were it a (gasp) for-profit program — with enrollees paying for their training — it would have to adjust to economic trends. With government funding, the folks making the financial decisions aren't those who stand to gain or lose by graduates' success or failure, and the bureaucracy in place to funnel the funds generates its own motivation.

Pensions Are an Example, Not the Whole Problem

I'm skeptical that anything substantial will come of the current push for pension reform among elected officials, but even if some positive change results, I'm concerned that elected officials and the public alike will wipe their hands together with a collective "problem solved." This article explaining that growing pension costs promise to eat up whole increases in school budgets for the next fiscal year, for example, doesn't offer any hint that labor costs have been doing just that for years, decades.

But let's start with the faulty attitude under which the public sector has become corrupted:

"In some regards the state Retirement Board made its adjustments in a void without thinking about the wealth of the communities in the state or conflicts with the tax levy cap," Peder A. Schaefer, assistant director of the [Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns], said.

The only consideration that the Retirement Board ought to make when setting payment requirements is what reasonable predictions should be applied. The fact that the promises of elected officials will be difficult to requite does not lead to the conclusion that the state ought to pretend otherwise, which is what Schaefer is ultimately suggesting.

The executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Tim Duffy, gets a little closer to my main subject, though:

"Hopefully the pension review commission will address this major problem," Duffy, from the school committee association, said. "Otherwise we have a situation that doesn't even allow for critical decision-making by school committees. "They won't even have the ability to weigh what [programs] are most important to student learning because basically they'll have budgets that are just funding a retirement system."

This dynamic is nothing new. Schools have been ending programs (like music) and forcing parents to pay separately for sports precisely because school budgets, which almost never actually decrease, whatever enrollment may do, are basically just funding the salaries and benefits of the adults employed within them. Pensions are unique because they were future payments that administrators didn't have to slip into the system on an regular basis, as they have had to do with salaries and more immediate benefits, like healthcare.

Even with those, though, the game is stacked in the unions' favor, with steps, longevity, and the arsenal of budgetary tricks that make voters believe that they have no choice but to pay up. We don't need structural changes just for pensions. We need them for our entire school system.

NEA Convention Wrap-ups

I touched on some of the goings on at the NEA convention earlier in the week. Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week and Patrick Riccards at Eduflack have summaries up about the now-wrapped NEA convention and what came out of it. Some points from Sawchuk:

* [T]he NEA removed the sentence from its resolution on compensation that prohibits performance-based pay or merit pay. Make sure to read this important update, which potentially gives the union more flexibility in how it handles compensation changes.

* On the Common Core State Standards Initiative, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told me that the union is fully supportive of the effort and hopeful that the new generation of tests will be much more sophisticated. He said he has, however, gotten some queries about teachers uncertain of what to do because they are now expected to teach to the new standards, while their students are being assessed on the former ones....At the same time, Van Roekel acknowledged that stopping annual testing until the new assessments are in place could jeopardize students who have gotten more attention under the NCLB-required disaggregation of data.

* [T]he chair of NEA's Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, Maddie Fennel, made a short presentation to delegates....Fennel said the best and most successful teachers should work with the toughest students, just as the best doctors see patients with the most challenging symptoms. Will the NEA as a whole go along with that idea? Stay tuned.

* The union is now pushing for regulatory relief from elements of the No Child Left Behind law (like the 2014 deadline, the sanctions cascade, and the "highly qualified teacher" designation), but without the strings that the Obama administration plans to attach.

And from Riccards:

* NEA moved to condemn, but not call for the ouster of, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (most notably for his support of teacher firings in Rhode Island and presumably for his defense of the tying student performance data to teachers in Los Angeles), yet then turned around and endorsed President Barack Obama for 2012. If there was ever a cabinet secretary in tune with his president, it is Duncan. So are we truly upset with Duncan or truly content with Obama's leadership? And if it is the latter, are we endorsing his work in issues like the economy and healthcare, and setting aside concerns with his Administration's education policies? And was endorsing Obama in 2011 an apology for waiting so long to endorse him in 2008?

* NEA officially placed Teach for America on its public enemies list. For years, union leaders have tried to discount the role that TFA does or should play in public education. In recent years, union cities like Boston have complained about TFA teachers taking away previously union jobs. So now the NEA has a policy stance that matches its rhetoric regarding the TFA movement. But what about those TFA teachers who are members of their local unions? How do they show up at the next union ice cream social?

* NEA approved the use of test scores to evaluate teachers, with one important caveat. Yes, the NEA said, student test scores should be one of the elements used to determine the effectiveness of a teacher. The catch? NEA says that there are no current student tests that meet the standard for the tests allowed under the new NEA policy. Essentially, we will gladly be measured by student test scores assuming the test meets our criteria. But since no current tests do (and we assume the new ones being developed through RttT Assessment grants won't either), I guess you just can't use test scores to evaluate teachers.

Binding Arbitration Bill Made Public

The arbitration bill has been made public (PDF) along with a press release explaining the rationale. A "Last Best Offer - Final Package" model has been added:

The legislation changes the arbitration process to one in which the complete “Last Best Offer” from both teachers’ unions and management is considered in its entirety, as opposed to the current approach in which various elements of proposals are considered individually. It extends matters eligible for arbitration to wages, and changes the manner in which arbitrators are selected. Under the current system, one arbitrator is chosen by each side in negotiations, and the third arbitrator is selected from the American Arbitration Association. The new legislation proposes that the third arbitrator would be selected instead by the Presiding Justice of the Superior Court from a list of retired judges and justices.

The legislation also outlines what the arbitration panel is supposed to consider before making a decision:

28-9.3-9.2.1 Factors to be considered by the arbitration board. – The arbitrators shall conduct the hearing and render their decision upon the basis of a prompt, peaceful and just settlement of wage or hour disputes or working conditions and terms and conditions of professional employment between the teachers and the school committee by which they are employed. The factors to be considered by the arbitration board shall include, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) The interest and welfare of the students, teachers, and taxpayers;
(2) The city or town’s ability to pay;
(3) Comparison of compensation, benefits and conditions of employment of the school
district in question with compensation, benefits and conditions of employment maintained for other Rhode Island public school teachers;
(4) Comparison of compensation, benefits and conditions of employment of the school
district in question with compensation, benefits and conditions of employment maintained for the same or similar skills under the same or similar working conditions in the local operating area involved; and
(5) Comparison of education qualification and professional development requirements in regard to other professions.

According to various reports, mayors, the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, RISC, the Moderate Party, the RI Tea Party and others are against the legislation. For example:

The bill’s opponents say they are concerned that the expansion of binding arbitration would instead place job protections for teachers ahead of sound educational policy.

“The temptation for an arbitrator to look at financial issues — to the detriment of the contract overall — is overwhelming,” said Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees.

“If the union says they are willing to freeze pay and give an additional 5 percent to health care, but insist on no changes to existing language that protects, for example, 30 paid days of teacher sick leave each year, will an arbitrator say, ‘Well it’s a good financial deal?’ ” Duffy said.

“Our concern is, the unions understand the difficult environment for wages right now, so what they will use binding arbitration for is to dig in on the contract language they want to protect....We know teacher unions are worried about teacher seniority and teacher evaluations,” Duffy said. “Binding arbitration is a way of handcuffing the entire education-reform movement.”

The only apparent supporters of this legislation are teacher unions. Why?

Are pensioned and retired judges the best people to assess whether the contract proposals offered by municipalities are a result of fiscal reality? Will communities be more generous than otherwise in hopes of possibly "winning" the "last best offer" showdown? What will inevitably happen is that both union and community proposals will mean more dollars for the unions. Like I said before: binding arbitration = tax hike.

Finally, the whole concept of binding arbitration provides an "out" for our elected officials, making it easier for them to avoid really negotiating when that is a major part of the job that we elect them to do. "It wasn't us, the arbitrator made the decision."

An A Priori Ruling from RIDE

Every year, for the past several, Tiverton's Financial Town Meeting has made a distinction between the amount that it was appropriating from "local funds" and the amount that it expected from state and federal aid. For fiscal year 2010, the state aid came in $367,165 less than predicted, and the school department took the money out of the town's general fund, anyway, even though it had a surplus that year.

The town treasurer at the time, Philip DiMattia, returned the money to the town, and the school committee sued. Not surprisingly, given that this is Rhode Island, the first step in such litigation is with the state Department of Education, and even less surprisingly, RIDE ruled in favor of the government body more directly under its control:

In her summary, [Education] Commissioner [Deborah] Gist stated that "[w]hen state aid does not materialize in the sum expected, a city or town must still fully fund the appropriation it has made."

In other words, she said, the Town of Tiverton is required to hold the school committee harmless for the total appropriation if the anticipated state aid does not materialize. The law requires a single sum ("an amount") to be appropriated, she ruled.

In a broad context, the ruling illustrates a huge problem with our modern bureaucratic system of government. The elected legislature passes laws, and the elected governor appoints bureaucrats to implement those laws, but often those bureaucrats make significant changes to those laws while acting as all three branches of government in one unelected body: legislature (by creating specific "regulations"), executive (by implementing the laws), and judiciaries (by, as in this case, ruling on disputes related to its execution of the regulations).

There are two relevant statutes containing the reference to "an amount." 16-7-23 doesn't refer to "appropriations," but to "provision":

The school committee's budget provisions of each community for current expenditures in each budget year shall provide for an amount from all sources sufficient to support the basic program and all other approved programs shared by the state.

The law goes on to say that the "community shall contribute local funds to its school committee in an amount not less than its local contribution for schools in the previous fiscal year," with certain exceptions, and to say that additional state funds cannot displace local funds already appropriated. The simple reading of this statute is that the town's appropriation of its own money must take into account revenue from other sources and then provide enough funding to meet the state's basic education plan (BEP). That this is the appropriate reading is solidified when "an amount" appears again in 6-7-24:

Each community shall appropriate or otherwise make available to the school committee for approved school expenditures during each school year, to be expended under the direction and supervision of the school committee of that community, an amount, which, together with state education aid and federal aid: (1) shall be not less than the costs of the basic program during the reference year, (2) plus the costs in the reference year of all optional programs shared by the state; provided, however, that the state funds provided in accordance with § 16-5-31 shall not be used to supplant local funds.

There's no way around the fact that the law draws a distinction between what a town appropriates and what it receives in state and federal aid. It cannot do otherwise, because a town cannot appropriate money from other, higher government entities. In the case at hand, the schools did not prove that they need that $367k to meet the BEP; it was, after all, a surplus.

So now, to force the law to be applied accurately, the town would have to appeal the commissioner's ruling to the Board of Regents, which is just as likely to be in schools' camp, and then to the state judiciary, all while paying the lawyers on both sides of the aisle. Little wonder citizens become apathetic; the law, as Tiverton's school and municipal government entities have proven repeated over recent years, is whatever you can get away with.

Teacher Union Logic... Maybe It's Me

There are a number of weird statements in this article about the Providence Teacher Union's attempts to protect seniority-based hiring. First is this statement, which I'm not sure is entirely meant to say what it does but indicates a mentality that surely exists in the public school system:

The new BEP is designed to ensure that the most effective teachers are placed in classrooms of students who have the most need.

If the "most effective" teachers are serving the children "most in need," what about the other students? Somehow our system seems to favor hard cases, which is fine, to an extent, but it doesn't seem like the best strategy for building a globe-leading advanced nation.

Then there's the peculiar union worldview:

[Union lawyer Marc] Gursky says it makes no sense to talk about seniority before the state has rolled out a new system for teacher evaluations, which will begin to take place statewide this fall.

"To say that seniority can't be a factor before you have an evaluation in place is like putting the cart before the horse," he said.

Evaluations and minimizing seniority-based decisions would seem to go hand in hand. Indeed, one way to find a merit-based system that works is to let administrators begin experimenting.

But the weirdest statement may be this one, in reporter Linda Borg's paraphrase:

The PTU argument is similar to one made by the Portsmouth School Committee two weeks ago. In a lawsuit filed against the Portsmouth Teachers Union, the School Committee claims that it has final say over how teachers are assigned. The committee, in April, approved a new hiring process that diminishes the role of seniority in staffing decisions.

The Providence Teacher's Union is arguing that the state can't insist on an end to seniority, and the Portsmouth School Committee is arguing that it has a right to end seniority in contravention of contractual habits. How are those the same?

Yes, Let's Address the Problem

I have to express agreement with this comment that Project Future 2000 and Beyond founder Osiris Harrell made during discussion of the proposed Cranston mayoral academy:

"Public schools can be fixed if you people focused on what's wrong with the public schools, instead of spending all this time in trying to reinvent the wheel," Harrell said.

The difference is that many of us believe that the underlying problem with public education is the unioniized, bureaucratic morass into which it's been dragged, and by layering in some degree of competition, to highlight the problems of the public school system by contrast, charter schools can at least begin to change the discussion from the well worn rhetoric of unions and other entrenched players.

Not So Much a "Skills Gap" as a Motivation Gap

Count this on the list of problems that will likely never be solved unless we change our approach to solving them:

On Monday morning, about 70 people — educators, government bureaucrats, elected officials and business representatives — gathered at the Community College of Rhode Island to discuss a problem that is only expected to worsen unless deep changes are made to the national system of education.

In the keynote speech at the Rhode Island Pathways to Prosperity Summit, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education Brenda Dann-Messier said that the technological revolution over the last generation has transformed the employment environment.

"Gone are the days of the well-paying job requiring low levels of education," she said.

Although the article doesn't go into too much detail on the matter, one can infer the general character of the solutions that such a gathering would pursue. They'll seek to pour additional money into secondary and post secondary education, taking money out of the economy in order to make it as easy as possible for young adults to stumble into the jobs that they want to fill. But the underlying problem is much deeper, as one can begin to see in this quotation:

State leaders have long known of a skills gap in Rhode Island and have been working to find solutions, said Ray Di Pasquale, CCRI president and state commissioner of higher education. But, he acknowledged, the state needs to do more to cater to student needs to keep them in school.

Why should we devote resources begging people to act in their own self interest? They ought to want to pursue a path that leads them to high-paying jobs. If the route to a comfortable life is to stay in school, all that ought to be needed is for young Americans to be made to understand that — and to understand that hard work, dedication, and sacrifice on their own part is going to be required.

If we're getting a contrary message from younger generations, then clearly, we're allowing them to develop a faulty sense of life. Perhaps it's the emphasis on self esteem. Perhaps it's the rhetoric of entitlement that characterizes our public discourse. Or perhaps the eagerness of adults to make kids' path to adulthood seem easy conveys the impression that the world owes them something.

Whatever the case, what's needed are clear, direct incentives tied sharply to candidates' successes. The difficulty may prove to be that only adults will respond to such stimuli. The solution, that is, may be to let kids taste adult life and figure out that they're actually going to have to earn their employment.

The Long Reach of Educational Inadquacy

Here's a little nugget of insight that deserves broader comment. Apparently, Rhode Island is having a difficult time filling the open position of Director of Health:

In a phone interview, [former director David] Gifford said that a number of prospective applicants had contacted him with questions. The salary, he said, is an issue, but not the top one.

Instead, doctors considering moving their families from out of state were concerned about the quality of public education in Rhode Island, which some found to be below par, he said.

No doubt, progressives will be chime in to declare this as evidence that people don't migrate on the basis of taxation, but that would be a distraction. The point that must be understood is that progressive policies — educationally and as a matter of civic structure — have brought us to this point. On the educational side, the emphasis of public schools has shifted toward catering to disadvantaged and challenged students to the detriment of the broader mission, and curricula have been politicized both in the content and in the amount of time that schools spend concentrating on what might be termed institutional parenting (the focus being on imparting self esteem and teaching behavior).

More significantly (and harming Rhode Island disproportionately to its competition) is the structure of the system. Centralization toward an educational bureaucracy has left municipalities less able to address the communities that they actually serve, and the unionized workforce, with the advantages that it has secured through hardball negotiations and state-government advocacy, has driven up the cost of public education to the degree that programs must be cut and schools operated inefficiently.

The pervasiveness of that problem can be observed by expanding the above quotation by another paragraph:

Additionally, continual funding cutbacks will make it hard for any director to take on new initiatives.

As a small-government type, I don't take it to be inherently a bad thing for government departments to be constrained in that way. The point is worth making, though, that limits in what they can do and the ways in which they can experiment to become more effective and efficient are sure to be imposed when an ever-growing portion of their budgets must go to labor — both current and retired.

The Diane Ravitch/Deborah Gist Meeting, and What it Tells Us About the Failure of Progressive Education Reform

In mid-May, education reformer Diane Ravitch visited Rhode Island to speak with Governor Lincoln Chafee. We do not know precisely what she wanted to tell him, but we do know that she does not feel that she was afforded the opportunity to fully express herself. After her meeting with the Governor, Dr. Ravitch posted an item to her Education Week blog saying that an unexpected invitee to the meeting, Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, had "dominated the conversation, interrupted me whenever I spoke, and filibustered to use up the limited time". Dr. Ravitch went as far as to demand an apology from Commissioner Gist, though she later retracted the demand. (Governor Chafee told a Providence Journal reporter in regards to the meeting that "Commissioner Gist comported herself in an appropriate and respectful way at all times during this discussion").

Meeting protocol aside, the incident invites speculation about what it was that Dr. Ravitch felt the governor needed to hear that he hasn't already heard and isn't likely to hear from anyone else. A broad outline of themes that Dr. Ravitch could have been expected to talk about can be found in a March 2010 Wall Street Journal op-ed where she explained her widely noted change-of-mind regarding educational philosophy. The op-ed concluded with Dr. Ravitch offering definite positions on several big-picture areas of education-reform: that "the current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools" and that students need a "coherent curriculum" instead of a "marketplace". But why a "coherent curriculum" should be posited as the alternative to a "marketplace" is not obvious, and the juxtaposition is worth pondering -- especially when combined with the idea of reduced accountability.

* * *

Leftist phobias aside, the features that define a marketplace are that, within its structure, transactions only occur when they are individually agreed upon by all parties involved, and outside parties do not get to veto transactions they are not involved in. Obviously, Dr. Ravitch doesn't want curricular choices to be determined by the market; she wants the choice of curriculum to be set outside of the market, and not allow other curriculums to be offered by others who might try to create one. She is not alone in this belief, and this idea not inherently unreasonable. Not everything is best delivered by pure market mechanisms.

However, simultaneously rejecting markets and accountability is problematic. When someone, or some small group, is given strong powers to limit what others may choose, mechanisms must to be put into place to make sure that the choices provided are good ones. Something must be done to guarantee that people impacted by restrictions on their choices still get access to optimal-quality choices, especially if the option-setters can compel the selection of inferior options, even when better options might be possible. You could say that the answer to this problem is to create a system of accountability for those setting the options, but that answer is nearly tautological -- which is what makes the idea of reducing accountability seem to be such an odd focus for an education reformer.

One possibility is that Dr. Ravitch is using the term "accountability" in some way peculiar to the education reform community. It is possible, for example, that the accountability she objects to in her WSJ op-ed is the specific regime imposed over the past decade by the Federal No-Child Left behind Act, but the record indicates that this is not the case. In a Policy Review article written in 2002 on testing and accountability, Dr. Ravitch described a "professional education paradigm" that included the idea that professional educators should be "insulated from public pressure" and was "suspicious of the intervention of policymakers". After her change of mind, in a December of 2010 entry on her Education Week blog, Dr. Ravitch relayed a story of being told that there is "no word in the Finnish language for 'accountability'", while praising the education system of Finland. And in the more comprehensive exposition of her current thoughts on accountability contained in her recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, despite expressing support for the validity of testing, Dr. Ravitch criticizes an over-emphasis on accountability in education systems, on the grounds that education measures tied to consequences will always be gamed, no matter how accurate tests and evaluations might have a potential to be. Consistently throughout her career, Dr. Ravitch has treated the idea of accountability in its broadest possible sense, and not used the term as a shorthand for testing or a particular program like NCLB.

Alas, in opposing accountability at such a high conceptual level, Diane Ravitch -- and her union allies -- have proposed answers to old and familiar problems that are based on ideas that repeatedly have been shown to be unworkable…

* * *

If both markets and accountability are to be rejected, then how can parents and students gain access to an improved education, when evidence appears that the education system is not working for them or the people around them? For those who oppose accountability and market mechanisms in education, this question is without meaning. Progressives say there are no visible, definitively meaningful signs that can tell a parent if an education system is working or not. No system of student or teacher evaluation can provide a picture accurate and reliable enough to be useful, because observing authentic educational progress and aligning progress with potential are processes too "complex" for anyone uninitiated into the education profession to command, and even if an effective accountability system could theoretically exist, there is still nothing can be done with many students to improve their educational performance, because socio-economic status is unalterable destiny. There is simply no information adequate to the task of helping a parent or student determine on their own if they need to move to a new system, or make a major change in their existing system, that can lead to better outcomes than simple deference to the professionals in the education field.

If changes to the education system do need to be made, it is members of the education profession who will identify the key problems (using their methods that can't be wholly explained to those outside of the profession -- after all, if they could be explained, they could be built into a system of accountability) and who will make the necessary changes, because that's what professionals are supposed to do, and professionals must always be trusted to do what they are supposed to do. This, in turn, defines a proper role for those outside of the education system. Theirs is not to try to hold those responsible for education "accountable", or to ask for some freedom to make their own choices; the role of non-professionals is to assume that the people on the inside of the education profession are delivering the best education possible (at least within existing resource constraints), and therefore to give the people on the inside whatever they say they need.

Degeneralize this non-market, non-accountable system from the specifics of education field -- while holding on to the idea that the education of children is a critical task in society -- and you are left with a small, mostly self-identified, group of people assuming the right to take a critical role in bringing society forward in a way that they themselves decide, regardless of what the broader population thinks should be done. As a guiding principle for social and government organization, this may sound familiar to you...

* * *

Another education reformer, E.D. Hirsch, has noted the strong impact that "romantic" ideas, rebranded in contemporary dialogue on intellectual history as "progressive" ideas, have had on the American education system. Hirsch's primary interest in romanticism is on how its ideal of doing things in a "natural" way has appeared at various times and places in progressive education reform movements; one of his interesting observations is that justifying something as being "natural" takes on a role today that a justification of pleasing the divine once took in earlier ages.

But the rejection of a broad based notion of accountability makes obvious that educational progressives have absorbed romantic ideology not only in defining their goals, but also into their organizational ideas for achieving them. Romantically-influenced ideologies, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's original writings, through the tragically influential Marxist variations and into modern progressivism, have stressed that average citizens are impeded from achieving their full "natural" or "human" happiness by societies that have been fragmented by competing, selfish interests, and that the only way to bring the great mass of citizens out of their confusion is to cede sweeping powers to a chosen group who has gained a true understanding of the natural order of the universe, so that they may structure a society that presents people with the proper, though limited, set of choices for fulfilling their potentials.

Of course, in none of its historical forms has romanticism/Marxism/progressivism solved the problem of actually identifying the group of people who can wield this considerable power over others. Romantics of various stripes have tried historically to fill this gap with a secular mysticism, assuming a "first legislator" (Rousseau's concept) or a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (the Marxist concept) possessing superhuman judgment and uncorrupted motives will appear when needed. This has been a key place where romantic ideas have met the less-romantic human reality, history having shown that giving one group of people unaccountable power over another never results in a system that works in the best interests of everyone. Still, the lessons of history have not dissuaded progressive education advocates from holding tight to the core romantic social and political concepts; i.e. a public trapped by a false consciousness and likely to be deceived by false choices, needing to be saved by an elite that possesses an unrivaled and authentic understanding of the natural, perhaps even divine, truths about the best ordering of society; in order to dismiss the significance of "accountability".

Take the false consciousness to be the idea that our schools could be doing better at their existing resource levels; take the false choices to be options for charter schools or cross-district choice, and take the divine truth that only the initiated can see about the natural order of society to be that top-down bureaucracies is the only viable way for organizing a school system, and you have a pretty accurate description of the position of contemporary progressive education reformers who reject both markets and accountability.

* * *

Understanding what possibilities remain, after progressive education reformers have taken both markets and accountability off the table, helps make sense of Diane Ravitch's out-of-proportion reaction to Deborah Gist's participation in the meeting with Governor Lincoln Chafee. Dr. Ravitch was eager to take an opportunity to pass along truths that she has spent a lifetime understanding, to an earthly authority that could reinforce their application on a broad scale. But the presence during her meeting of someone from outside of the educational elect introduced confusion into the communication stream. Dr. Ravtich felt her opportunity to share secrets with a high political authority was being compromised by pedestrian ideas that she and her elite had divined were distractions from the deepest truths of education like markets and accountability, and she worried that the Governor was losing his opportunity to hear an unfragmented message about the one true and natural way he should proceed reform for the good of all in the realm of education reform. Dr. Ravtich thus grew frustrated, and wrote her blog post lashing out at Commissioner Gist.

But in the end, markets and accountability cannot be simultaneously dismissed, to be replaced by monopoly leadership who claim they just understand more than the common people ever can. And the more that romantically-inspired education reform proponents claim that the results observable by the general public shouldn't matter, and that stagnation or decline in observable measures of educational achievement must simply be accepted, the more the result is a movement that marginalizes itself.

Seniority Means Efficiency in Whistleblowing?

Can't say I buy the rationale that Eloise Wyatt offers for preserving seniority policies among public school teachers:

By eliminating seniority you get rid of the protection that lets teachers speak, up and stand up when an administration is hurting children. In my time as a special-education teacher in Providence, it was common for administration to save money to shortchange or totally deny students the services they were required to have by law.

Only when students had teachers protected by seniority was there someone to advocate for those students. It is not only special-needs students who can get ground up in by administration. Often students need an advocate. Sadly, any teacher who speaks out now might find themselves without jobs.

That might be an argument for tenure (although one must then wonder why every employee of every conceivable business doesn't need such protections), but seniority? What if it's a young teacher who sees the need to advocate for students? Indeed, it seems far more likely that fresh eyes in an educational system are more apt to spot the inappropriate activities that have worked themselves into the school's culture.

Of course, even by considering the topic to this extent, I'm allowing for the sake of discussion the assertion that teachers are more likely than administrators to be students' advocates. It seems to me that, in a properly run school, the principals, superintendent, school committee, and other non-teaching personnel would have at least as much motivation to ensure that students are well served and their parents satisfied with the job that the schools are doing.

Increase Professorial Efficiency and Tuition Costs Will Go Down

Richard Vedder, an economics at Ohio University, explains that one way to cut college tuition costs would be to ask professors to, you know, teach more.

In a study for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, Christopher Matgouranis, Jonathan Robe and I concluded that tuition fees at the flagship campus of the University of Texas could be cut by as much as half simply by asking the 80% of faculty with the lowest teaching loads to teach about half as much as the 20% of faculty with the highest loads. The top 20% currently handle 57% of all teaching.

Such a move would require the bulk of the faculty to teach, on average, about 150-160 students a year. For example, a professor might teach one undergraduate survey class for 100 students, two classes for advanced undergraduate students or beginning graduate students with 20-25 students, and an advanced graduate seminar for 10. That would require the professor to be in the classroom for fewer than 200 hours a year—hardly an arduous requirement.

Faculty will likely argue that this would imperil the university's research mission. Nonsense. First of all, at UT Austin, a mere 20% of the faculty garner 99.8% of the external research funding. Second, faculty who follow the work habits of other professional workers—go to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and work five days a week for 48 or 49 weeks a year—can handle teaching 200 hours a year while publishing considerable amounts of research. I have done just this for decades as a professor.

Efficiency and higher education? Wonder if it would work...

Accountability in Politics and Education

The conversation was of the likely accountability that RI politicians will face for a vote on raising sales taxes and on perspectives on accountability in education during Andrew's call in to Matt Allen Show, last night. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

The Diane Ravitch/Deborah Gist Meeting, and What it Tells Us About the Failure of Progressive Education Reform, Part 1

In mid-May, education reformer Diane Ravitch visited Rhode Island to speak with Governor Lincoln Chafee. We do not know precisely what she wanted to tell him, but we do know that she does not feel that she was afforded the opportunity to fully express herself. After her meeting with the Governor, Dr. Ravitch posted an item to her Education Week blog saying that an unexpected invitee to the meeting, Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, had "dominated the conversation, interrupted me whenever I spoke, and filibustered to use up the limited time". Dr. Ravitch went as far as to demand an apology from Commissioner Gist, though she later retracted the demand. (Governor Chafee told a Providence Journal reporter in regards to the meeting that "Commissioner Gist comported herself in an appropriate and respectful way at all times during this discussion").

Meeting protocol aside, the incident invites speculation about what it was that Dr. Ravitch felt the governor needed to hear that he hasn't already heard and isn't likely to hear from anyone else. A broad outline of themes that Dr. Ravitch could have been expected to talk about can be found in a March 2010 Wall Street Journal op-ed where she explained her widely noted change-of-mind regarding educational philosophy. The op-ed concluded with Dr. Ravitch offering definite positions on several big-picture areas of education-reform: that "the current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools" and that students need a "coherent curriculum" instead of a "marketplace". But why a "coherent curriculum" should be posited as the alternative to a "marketplace" is not obvious, and the juxtaposition is worth pondering -- especially when combined with the idea of reduced accountability.

* * *

Leftist phobias aside, the features that define a marketplace are that, within its structure, transactions only occur when they are individually agreed upon by all parties involved, and outside parties do not get to veto transactions they are not involved in. Obviously, Dr. Ravitch doesn't want curricular choices to be determined by the market; she wants the choice of curriculum to be set outside of the market, and not allow other curriculums to be offered by others who might try to create one. She is not alone in this belief, and this idea not inherently unreasonable. Not everything is best delivered by pure market mechanisms.

However, simultaneously rejecting markets and accountability is problematic. When someone, or some small group, is given strong powers to limit what others may choose, mechanisms must to be put into place to make sure that the choices provided are good ones. Something must be done to guarantee that people impacted by restrictions on their choices still get access to optimal-quality choices, especially if the option-setters can compel the selection of inferior options, even when better options might be possible. You could say that the answer to this problem is to create a system of accountability for those setting the options, but that answer is nearly tautological -- which is what makes the idea of reducing accountability seem to be such an odd focus for an education reformer.

One possibility is that Dr. Ravitch is using the term "accountability" in some way peculiar to the education reform community. It is possible, for example, that the accountability she objects to in her WSJ op-ed is the specific regime imposed over the past decade by the Federal No-Child Left behind Act, but the record indicates that this is not the case. In a Policy Review article written in 2002 on testing and accountability, Dr. Ravitch described a "professional education paradigm" that included the idea that professional educators should be "insulated from public pressure" and was "suspicious of the intervention of policymakers". After her change of mind, in a December of 2010 entry on her Education Week blog, Dr. Ravitch relayed a story of being told that there is "no word in the Finnish language for 'accountability'", while praising the education system of Finland. And in the more comprehensive exposition of her current thoughts on accountability contained in her recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, despite expressing support for the validity of testing, Dr. Ravitch criticizes an over-emphasis on accountability in education systems, on the grounds that education measures tied to consequences will always be gamed, no matter how accurate tests and evaluations might have a potential to be. Consistently throughout her career, Dr. Ravitch has treated the idea of accountability in its broadest possible sense, and not used the term as a shorthand for testing or a particular program like NCLB.

Alas, in opposing accountability at such a high conceptual level, Diane Ravitch -- and her union allies -- have proposed answers to old and familiar problems that are based on ideas that repeatedly have been shown to be unworkable…

Ravitch Takes a Breath & Apologizes to Gist

The ProJo reports that that reformed education reformer Dianne Ravitch had apologized to RI Ed. Commish Deborah Gist for her actions following their recent meeting (which included a demand that Gist apologize to her). Ravitch issued the mea culpa on her blog after a visit to the Franciscan-founded Sienna College over the weekend. Apparently, the sense of community and the belief that we should treat others fairly impressed itself upon Ravitch.

I was indeed moved by my exposure to Siena. And when I came home, I reflected on a blog I wrote recently about my visit to Rhode Island. In that blog, I wrote harsh words about state Commissioner Deborah Gist. On reflection, I concluded that I had written in anger and that I was unkind. For that, I am deeply sorry.

Like every other human being, I have my frailties; I am far from perfect. I despair of the spirit of meanness that now permeates so much of our public discourse. One sees it on television, hears it on radio talk shows, reads it in comments on blogs, where some attack in personal terms using the cover of anonymity or even their own name, taking some sort of perverse pleasure in maligning or ridiculing others.

I don't want to be part of that spirit. Those of us who truly care about children and the future of our society should find ways to share our ideas, to discuss our differences amicably, and to model the behavior that we want the young to emulate. I want to advance the ideals and values that are so central to the Siena community: compassion, responsibility, integrity, empathy, and standing up against injustice. When Father Mullen presented me with my degree, he said that I am "now and forevermore a daughter of Siena." Although I am Jewish, not Catholic, I will strive to live up to that charge.

Credit goes to Ravitch for the re-set. My major criticism of her has been her stridency and her apparent unwillingness to believe in the sincerity of those with whom she disagrees. It's a trap that many of us fall into from time to time. Some of us live there. But being nice doesn't mean being any less passionate. It's important to realize that this came about because Ravitch had the opportunity to immerse herself in a community such as Sienna (or, say, a few days at a Portsmouth Institute event) that gave her time to reflect upon your outlook. It's a lesson to us all to take a breath every once in a while.

Tight School Budgets Don't Excuse Excuse-making

National education reformer Rick Hess recently spoke to a group of RI superintendents and school district business officers about how NOT to respond to shrinking budgets. He outlined four common mistakes:"excuse-mongering"; "imagining that progress only comes with new dollars"; "thinking that any budget cut will be debilitating"; and "countenancing rather than condemning unacceptable employee responses." For each excuse, he offers real quotes from principals/superintendents and then explains their flaw. For instance, regarding budget cuts:

Quote: "It is impossible to make cuts in a district and not have it impact teachers and students. We cut a secretary and many tasks are now falling to teachers. This takes up their precious time to prepare for students. We cut a technology integration person, and now teachers are having to spend more time researching web sites and online projects. We cut a mail delivery person, and now secretaries and paras are having to do curbside pickup and drop-off of mail so the mail can travel on buses." The underlying message is lunacy. By the speaker's logic, no organization--not the U.S. military, not the postal service, not General Motors--can ever make cuts or trim personnel without compromising quality. Well, the reality is that a slew of organizations have made cuts that seemed painful but that ultimately seemed to boost productivity, strengthen the culture, and left them more effective. Obviously, cutting in dumb ways (like by zeroing out music, art, or sports to save negligible dollar amounts) has an adverse impact. But the challenge for leaders is to prune in smart ways, to use rough periods as a chance to cut back so that their organizations will emerge leaner and healthier. To deny that one can do that is to abdicate one's responsibility.

As I said, he offered similar thoughts and commentary on the other common mistakes. So now we know he told this to Rhode Island educators. I wonder if they listened.

Grading by Ideology

An interesting tidbit from over the weekend is that college professors appear to grade differently based on political affiliation:

We study grading outcomes associated with professors in an elite university in the United States who were identified -- using voter registration records from the county where the university is located -- as either Republicans or Democrats. The evidence suggests that student grades are linked to the political orientation of professors: relative to their Democratic colleagues, Republican professors are associated with a less egalitarian distribution of grades and with lower grades awarded to Black students relative to Whites.

As you can see by the included chart, Republican-given grades track more closely with what one might expect: lower grades correlating with lower SAT scores and higher with higher. And I'd certainly be willing to believe that Democrats (presumed, in the study, to be liberal) are more apt to boost underachievers and resent overachievers, whom they attempt to humble.

Still, one major consideration that does not appear to have been taken into account (at least as apparent in a quick scan of the research document) is the type of courses involved. Humanities departments, to my experience, have a deeply entrenched and rigid screening process that surely keeps Republicans and (especially) conservatives out, so those Republicans whom one can find on faculty lists are likely to be teaching less mushy, more objective subjects .

Another explanation, apart from the urge to redistribute, could involve Republicans' status as a small minority. Whatever is cause and whatever is effect, professors who feel as if they exist behind enemy lines, as it were, might have a different outlook on testing and grading, making them more likely, I'd wager, to prioritize proven achievement in a competitive atmosphere.

Reform for the Difficult, Too

Much has been made of the peculiar meeting of flip-flopped-to-union-friendly education writer Dianne Ravitch and RI Commissioner of Education Deborah Gist, but Ed Fitzpatrick highlighted something from Ravitch's latest book that points to a more substantive debate:

In her book, Ravitch raises valid concerns, saying, "The question for the future is whether the continued growth of charter schools in urban districts will leave regular public schools with the most difficult students to educate, thus creating a two-tier system of widening inequality."

I'm not saying it's not, but I wonder what makes Fitzpatrick so sure that concern is valid. My brief experience teaching in a Fall River Catholic school included seeing the school accept children who were struggling in the public school system because it was part of the religious mission to help those in need. Similarly, consider the following, from an article in the Sakonnet Times about former Board of Regents member Angus Davis, who was a key figure in the hiring of Gist:

... he said, the current public schools system is not designed to allow underprivileged, impoverished students to prosper, which Mr. Davis sees at nothing less than a civil rights issue. "Fundamentally, it's so unfair," he said. "Today, low-income children of color have a huge disadvantage in their public school achievement compared to their wealthier peers. If we could close that achievement gap it would be an incredible lift for our nation."

The point is that, given a less rigid system for funding and executing education, there are people who would be driven to help the "difficult students" on moral and charitable grounds. And let's not forget that difficult children can be more profitable, because they're more costly to educate.

It seems to me that Ravitch's complaint might born of fear that only children with the least motivated parents will remain in public schools if better choices become available, which (if accurate) suggests that she should devote more effort to changing the status quo than fighting educational choice. Moreover, others who share her particular concern should reassess a dynamic by which public schools running low on funds tend to attack the extracurriculars and electives that the least difficult students and their families most desire. Perhaps those funds should not be siphoned off for unjustifiable longevity-based pay and benefits.

The Labor Model Must Change with the Education Model

Both sides in the debate over educational reform at Hope High School in Providence have made reasonable points. Those associated with the school note improved scores and a vitalized environment when reforms were under way. Those associated with the district cite the need to educate all of Providence's students and a need for consistency across the city. One suspects, though, that the final sticking point was money:

... Supt. Tom Brady persuaded the state Department of Education that the Hope academic model was too costly to maintain. While acknowledging that the school had made dramatic gains, he said that the reforms called for an additional 20 to 30 teachers at a cost of approximately $2.5 million annually — an expense he said the district could no longer afford.

Although governing bodies in Rhode Island have long behaved as if it were not true, the tax base is simply not a bottomless well. Even if a particular reform can be proven to improve results dramatically, the cost is not a negligible factor.

And that, to me, illustrates an underlying problem in the way we handle the education system. Insiders like to pretend otherwise, but there's no point of separation between the education model and the labor model, and the latter allows very little room for maneuvering. Even if the employees of Hope decided that the better work environment and the chance to be part of something revolutionary justified financial sacrifice, they could not have offered it, because labor contracts are district-wide documents negotiated through a statewide union that has its eye on trends and power all the way up to the national level.

If the faculty and staff who so believed in the steps that Hope had been taking had offered to meet former Supt. Brady halfway on the increased total cost, perhaps he'd have gone for it. Those employees would have certainly been doubly invested in making the changes pay off

Open Thread #3: In the Matter of Ravitch v. Gist

Education reformer Diane Ravitch (mentioned in recent Anchor Rising posts here, here, and here) is publicly asking for an apology from Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist (h/t Jennifer Jordan)...

Last week, I went to Providence, R.I., to give a lecture. Before my arrival, I was invited by Gov. Lincoln Chafee to meet privately with him. Thirty minutes before my hour with Gov. Chafee, I learned that state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Deborah Gist would join our meeting. As it turned out, I had 10 minutes of private time with the governor, then 50 minutes with Gist and leaders of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers.

I mention all this because of what happened during the 50 minutes. Gist is clearly a very smart, articulate woman. But she dominated the conversation, interrupted me whenever I spoke, and filibustered to use up the limited time. Whenever I raised an issue, she would interrupt to say, "That isn't happening here." She came to talk, not to listen. It became so difficult for me to complete a sentence that at one point, I said, "Hey, guys, you live here all the time, I'm only here for a few hours. Please let me speak." But Gist continued to cut me off. In many years of meeting with public officials, I have never encountered such rudeness and incivility. I am waiting for an apology.

The article mentions that a request for comment from Governor Chafee -- presumably on whether he would characterize Commissioner Gist's behavior as uncivil -- had not been returned at the time it was posted.

Ranking Schools: A Matter of Data Shaping

GoLocalProv released their 2nd annual school ranking list and, setting aside the specific rankings, the fact that fairly well-off suburban communities rated at the top of the list and urban schools at the bottom is really no surprise. However, the way that GoLocal formulated their rankings by weighting expenditure/pupil and teacher/student ratio more (15% each) as compared to academic scores (10% each) is a debatable approach.

Spending more money (#1 East Greenwich, despite the stereotype, is #33 on the expenditure list) and having more teachers per student (Classical, at #10, has a second-to-worst "high" ratio of 15:1) isn't necessarily representative of kids getting a good education. (For more on this, see this by Fred Hess). Perhaps the "inputs" of expenditure/pupil and teacher/student ratio are more important in determining school quality than the test result/graduation rate "outputs." (To say nothing of that other immeasurable, parental involvement). But I don't think they are 50% more important as they were weighted by GoLocal.

Contrasting Education Reformers

Education reformer Dianne Ravitch was in town the other day. Ravitch, a reformed school reformer, claims that the reform ideas she once espoused don't work and, as a result, has risen like the phoenix and hailed by groups in favor of maintaining the status quo.

Expanding charter schools isn’t the answer, she says.

Nor is paying bonuses to the best teachers, or tying standardized test scores to teacher evaluations and certification.

In fact, she thinks American students are tested too often.

And the real problem plaguing schools is not bad teachers, she says, but the insidious impact of poverty.

In short, Ravitch soundly rejects Rhode Island’s education-improvement plan, which is supported by a $75-million Race to the Top federal grant.

The policies embraced by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and by his ally state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist have demoralized teachers, says Ravitch, herself a former assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush. Ravitch once shared their zeal for teacher accountability and market-driven incentives such as merit pay, she says, before she witnessed their damaging effects.

Now is the time to question their logic, she said, and to investigate more closely their ties to philanthropic arms of wealthy corporations that have their own agendas, in particular the Broad, Gates and Walton Family foundations that Ravitch refers to as “the billionaire boys club.”

While she raises several valid concerns, she is no stranger to hyperbole (which, ironically, is what made so many of her current allies inimical to her back in the day). She's flipped sides, but making the same "mistakes" as before. As Rick Hess once explained:

Diane Ravitch charges that accountability and school choice have been ineffective, destructive distractions from real school improvement...she is now making the same fundamental mistake, in reverse, that she made previously. Ravitch’s stance reflects the misguided premise that chartering and accountability are best seen as ways to improve instruction — like a new curriculum or reading program — rather than ways to create the conditions under which sustained improvement is possible....Ravitch is disappointed because she thought accountability and charter schooling were supposed to make schools better, and now sees that they don’t....[she's] missing the central point: These structural reforms are means, not ends. Choice and accountability can only make it easier to create schools and systems characterized by focus and coherence, where robust curricula, powerful pedagogy, and rich learning thrive.

However, perhaps realizing this critique, she has taken to criticizing those who would seek to work outside the system. She particularly has an ax to grind against the role that private foundations--"the billionaire boys club"--are having in education reform. For instance, she writes, how can we trust these free marketers? "This is what I don't understand. The free market nearly collapsed our economy in September 2008". I don't think Ravitch is a socialist, she just saw an opening to score a rhetorical point. That's nothing new. Her hyperbolic style is in contrast to reformers, like Hess, who take a more nuanced approach.

For example, while Ravitch has railed against teacher evaluation systems, Hess explains that the current paradigm--so called value-added--contains concepts that are important when evaluating teachers but he fears that reformers are placing too many eggs in the value-added teacher evaluation approach, explaining:

Today's value-added metrics may be, as I wrote, "at best, a pale measure of teacher quality," but they tell us something. Structured observation tells us something. Peer feedback tells us something, as does blinded, forced-rank evaluations by peers. Principal judgment, especially in a world of increasing accountability and transparency, tells us something. Well-run firms and nonprofits use these kinds of tools, in various ways, depending on their culture and workforce.

This is why I believe value-added metrics should be one useful component, but that "I worry when it becomes the foundation upon which everything else is constructed." My quarrel is not with value-added, but with the assumption that we can and should gauge the validity and utility of all other measures against today's math and ELA value-added results.

While Hess recognizes that there are multiple aspects to evaluating teachers other than test scores, he believes in their utility as a component of the whole (and hopes they don't become the end-all, be-all). Ravitch would throw any type of evaluation out the window. She offers few, if any, new ideas other than blaming the "free market" (which is like red meat for her fans) and throwing more money at the broken system. Who's the real reformer?

If Supermarkets were like Schools

Imagine there was a Shaw's 1 mile away from you but that you preferred to shop at Dave's, which was 3 miles away. Now imagine the government had put a system in place that basically forced you to shop at Shaw's simply because it was geographically closer to you. What a ridiculous system:

Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—"for free"—from its neighborhood public supermarket.

No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes.

Of course, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families' choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.

Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.

And so on. Asinine, isn't it?

The Message of Union Defense

A whopping 300 union teachers and organizers showed up for a weekend event at URI's Ryan Center to back the opinion stated, as follows, by National Education Association Rhode Island President Larry Purtill:

In Rhode Island, he said, many teachers distrust state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist and her aggressive approach to changes that echoes the priorities of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

These include rigorous teacher evaluations, removing ineffective teachers, overhauling the nation's worst-performing schools and expanding public charter schools.

Message: We don't want change! Especially if it means evaluations and targeting those union members who are most vulnerable... because incompetent.

There is, however, one theme that's worth teasing out of the bunch, because it relates to a frequently made point:

Paul Taillefer, president-elect of the Canadian Teachers Federation, noted several key differences between the two countries, including Canada's more robust teacher selection, preparation and mentoring programs, the high regard society has for teachers and a stronger social safety net for students.

"We have medical and food programs that extend beyond the school walls that help students and level the playing field," he said. ...

"Her favorite refrain is, 'We can’t make any excuses,'" [North Kingstown High School history teacher Jay] Walsh said. "Well, we aren't making any excuses. When we ask these questions, we are trying to acknowledge that what we do in the classroom is connected to many other things outside of the classroom."

I don't support pursuing a government as broad as Canada's, but if the problem hindering our students' success lies outside of the education system, then we need to change the way we allocate resources to address that. If teachers aren't the key, then we should decrease our spending on them and target factors that really would help us, as a society, achieve our objectives.

Providence School Closings: Consequence of Decisions Past

The Providence School Board elected to close 5 schools last night. Parents were angry. Kids were used as props. I've seen it before. Similar circumstances occurred in Warwick a couple years ago, where a total of 4 schools were closed in two years (and everyone survived, believe it or not). My thoughts from 2009 are just as applicable to Providence now as it was to Warwick back then.

The entire problem was forged in a crucible of [Providence]'s own creation. The consequences of apathy often hit when the iron is hot, indeed.

Too many people simply don't pay attention unless they believe they will be directly affected. So the parents who are upset now need to recognize that they need to be involved in their children's education--whether in the PTO, School Committee meetings or other programs--all of the time. There's a chance that the budget shortfall could have been reduced, mitigated or avoided if more parents had attended School Committee meetings and advocated for their kids and schools by pointing out that every dollar spent on personnel costs...was one less dollar available for students. Perhaps that would have given the district more time to study and prepare for the inevitable downsizing without the added pressure they were under during this process.

So now we have kids who are going to have to adjust to new schools. I understand the anger and anguish felt by students and their parents. Perhaps there was more justification for closing other schools, but, as hard as it is to do, it's time to move on. Change happens whether we like it or not, whether we deserve it or not, whether it's right or wrong. Time for the grown-ups to remember that the kids are watching us. Instead of framing it as a loss, try to turn it into a new adventure. It's a life lesson, after all. Show them that it's OK to roll with the changes and hopefully they'll discover that change makes us stronger and, just maybe, even a little better.

To that I'd only add a couple additional observations. First, that, while this phenomena is not particular to Rhode Island, it seems that the geographic insularity characteristic of this state and its residents make the thought of closing a "neighborhood school" all the more intense and explosive. Second, I wonder how much easier such change would be if the students leaving the old school were going to an honest-to-goodness new school. As in, newly constructed, updated, latest bells-and-whistles. But that doesn't happen around here, either. Where the heck would we get the money, right?

Study: In Testing Era, Curriculum's Aren't Narrowing

There are (legitimate) concerns that student testing requirements will result in a "narrowing" of school curriculum. All math and ELA (and now a Science) and not much room for the humanities or arts. As Mark Schneider explains, the National Center for Education Statistics has released their High School Transcript Study and found that isn't happening. As Schneider summarizes:

The transcript study shows a long-term trend in which high school students are taking more courses and more academic ones than ever before—a trend that shows no sign of abating. In short, the high school curriculum, far from narrowing, is getting deeper and broader.

For example, the number of high school credits graduates took has increased by 15 percent since 1990 (up from 23.6 in 1990 to 27.2 in 2009). This increase was driven by an emphasis on academics. Between 1990 and 2009, high school graduates increased their enrollment in “core academic” courses (English, math, science, and social studies) by 17 percent and in “other academic” courses (fine arts, foreign languages, and computer-related studies) by almost 50 percent. In contrast, students took fewer “other” courses (such as vocational education and personal hygiene)....Since 2000, students took one additional credit in “core academic” courses, an additional 0.5 credits in “other academic” courses, and continued to take fewer “other” courses.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing that fewer students are taking vocational courses, given their practical, "real job" focus (and the growing belief that we're sending too many kids to college to effectively pay tuition, party and figure out that what they really want to do is work with their hands after all). But, be that as it may:

A second important finding in the study is that a more rigorous curriculum pays off with higher NAEP science and math scores. Students who took a rigorous curricula outscored students who took a below-standard curriculum by more than 40 scale points in math and science. Clearly, this is correlational and not causal. The study shows that the relationship between curriculum and performance has persistent race and ethnicity patterns. At any level of curriculum, black and Hispanic students lag, often considerably, behind whites and Asian/Pacific Islanders (chart, page 42).

The last is obviously a cause of concern (though I suspect the problems are less race-based and more economic, as usually seems to be the case). Despite the positive findings, Schneider points to areas of improvement.

While there has been progress in getting more students to take a more rigorous course of study, far too few students are taking the most rigorous curriculum. Only about 13 percent of students take the “rigorous” curriculum, up from 10 percent in 2000 and 5 percent in 1990, but still a low number. More encouraging: 46 percent take the midlevel curriculum and the percentage of students with that curriculum continues to expand.

But perhaps most disturbing is that high schools are failing to exploit emerging opportunities for students to increase their course-taking. Many critics argue that our school year and school day are too short—and clearly the evidence from the transcript study shows that exposure to more courses is associated with higher NAEP scores. The transcript study explores two ways in which students could take more courses: summer school and online education. In both cases, our high schools are dropping the ball.

The problem is that these two opportunities are utilized for remediation more than for adding value to education. Using on-line resources to supplement existing course work is a hot topic in education reform circles (just Google "personlized" or "digital" learning and have at it).

Re: Local Governments Founded in Deception

Rhode Island Association of School Committees Executive Director Tim Duffy commented as follows to the post in which I suggested that pension problems are a self-inflicted wound among governments, especially local governments:

The wound is not a locally self-inflicted one. School committees are not responsible for pension debt. We do not negotiate these benefits with unions. The rates we pay are determined actuarially and that is driven by factors set in state law. How long it takes an employee to become vested, when they can retire, when they can begin to draw down a pension, what % of pay the pension is set at, how much their pension increases annually, COLAs, are all embedded in state statute. During the 1990's recession the state changed the employer contribution ratio, from 60% state – 40% local to 40% state – 60% local. So when the retirement board changes the actuarial assumption, as they should, and it results in an increased unfunded liability, locals get to bill the pay.

A lot of communities are doing less with more, but our hands are tied by collective bargaining statutes that create an unleveled playing field in favor of the unions. Teacher unions can employ work to rule as a protest against management and hurt students in the process. Illegal teacher strikes, while infrequent, don't result in any financial penalty for teachers. Binding arbitration awards for police and fire have largely ignored a community’s ability to pay and in many instances have set conditions for retirement, selected costlier health care providers, and set manning and staffing levels.

When the legislature passed 3050 lowering the property tax cap, a bill we supported, it also required the state to fund mandates passed by the General Assembly or initiated by regulations of a state agency. The FY 2012 budget, like budgets before it, does not appropriate money for mandate reimbursement. In many instances local government is failing, but not necessarily due to any fault of locally elected officials. Rather much of the failure can be laid at the feet of state leaders who have passed the accountability buck down to the locals while denying them the authority to act in the interests of their citizens, taxpayers and students.

That's a reasonable response, but it requires a certain amount of acceptance of Rhode Island's paradigm for governance. Having watched school committees play at bringing negotiations to a close while continuing to promise that any raises would be retroactive, no matter how many times the union scuttled an agreement, I'm not willing to buy into the game.

More importantly, local government has played its role in the system of unions dominating the Statehouse and the Town Hall, as well, cycling taxpayer dollars into public-sector coffers.
As the elected officials closest to the voters, school committees (and town councils) should have pushed back harder. So, "self-inflicted" may be too strong, but only if one excludes passivity.

As the General Assembly has changed the pension system detrimentally to municipalities, those local governments should have taken steps to decline participation in the system altogether. If that didn't prove feasible, they should have insisted that new costs be worked into existing personnel costs, pushing salaries and other benefits down, as well. Let the unions decide whether they'd rather take their winnings in cash, benefits, or retirements.

There are surely dozens of actions, practical and political, that school committees could have taken to fight back. To my experience, they've been content to play along, complaining about labor and the legislature, to be sure, but also observably happy to have places to which to pass blame.

And if the system had pushed back more, then at the very least, those with an investment in the pension system wouldn't have been so complacent about its being sacrosanct.

Educational Choice

There is a white paper at AEI arguing that the it's time for a paradigm shift. Instead of school choice--which accepts the current whole school, institution (or "bricks and mortar") -based educational structure--reformers should look to educational choice as the true next-generation model:

By supporting reforms to increase choice only among schools, choice advocates are appealing only to a minority of parents who want to relocate their child to another institution and are thus missing the opportunity to boost choice among nearly all parents who would want some educational choice....

In an era when technology and cultural norms have made radical customization the rule in everything from cell phones to retirement plans to web browsers, it is notable that the vast majority of school reforms are "systemwide" measures that do little to bend schools into a shape more suitable for serving students with diverse needs. Indeed, most talk of accountability, merit pay, and school choice has emphasized "whole school" assumptions that simply take traditional schools and classrooms as givens. Such a mindset is ultimately crippling because the twenty-first-century schoolhouse is less likely to be the product of some big-brained reformer devising the one best model than the accretion of advances relating to diagnosing needs, researching interventions, employing online instruction, and permitting greater individuation....

The one-size-fits-all school system has passed its expiration date. There is nothing innately wrong with the "one best system" or the conventional schoolhouse. Indeed, they represented the best practices of an earlier, more bureaucratic era. Today, however, heightened aspirations, the press of student needs, and the opportunities presented by new tools and technologies mean that old arrangements are no longer a good fit. Likewise, school-choice advocates have missed an opportunity to appeal to the vast majority of parents who are not willing to relocate schools, but would be interested in greater choice among tutors, lesson plans, or instructional approaches. In these categories, the charge is for schooling to make the same shift from the centralized, industrial model to the more nimble, customized model seen recently in so many other areas of life--and to do so by leveraging greater educational, not school, choice.

Outlets like Khan Academy or concepts like "flip-thinking" (where students watch lectures at home on the computer but attend class sessions to do the "homework") are interesting ideas that are utilizing today's technology for new approaches to education. The educational choice is nested in the homes of the students and their parents instead of the "school system" while at the same time the "school system" still provides structure and guidance and can also facilitate some of the alternative options.

Whose Voice Are We Hearing?

Another interesting aspect of the article on Education Commissioner Deborah Gist's new regulations that Marc mentioned yesterday is the way in which one of the objections is answered in a separate article on the same page:

"If they gut collective bargaining, they are heading down a road to destroy public education," said Larry Purtill, executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island.

"Because in negotiating, you get the voice of the teacher who is in the classroom every day," he said. "And that's an important process. Without it, you take that voice away."

The other article is about negotiating difficulties between Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo and the union with which she negotiates. Gallo wishes to modify negotiations so that they follow a "streamlined compact," which would involve teachers, administrators, parents, and even students and vary from school to school:

"I think unions are an important check against the capricious actions of a supervisor," Gallo said. "But I also think unions come out more powerful [in a compact] because all 330 [teacher] voices are heard, not just the voice of the union leadership.... Dissent should be heard."

We could even bring in Julia Steiny, whose column on the facing page suggests that a rigid pension system that discourages changes in career path serve neither teachers nor students well:

When I write or speak about making pensions more portable and flexible, some teachers respond with effusive agreement. They say that they've had a great 12, 15, 20 years, but that now they're done. They want to do something else. But they can't afford to give up their investment in the teacher-retirement system, with its very attractive promises. They panic about becoming like the bitter burnout down the hall.

In general, I suspect most teachers would find much to like about life outside of the union pen, especially the best teachers.

Reshaping Education via the BEP

As reported by the ProJo this morning, the new Dep't of Education Basic Education Program attempts to implement a new way of doing business. It strengthens management rights, implements evaluations, defines a "code of responsibility" and removes seniority as the primary qualifier for job retention. All done to, as Commisioner Deborah Gist explains, to make the system "child-centered." To help explain these changes, Gist has written several advisories, including one on seniority.

Gist has sought to clarify the ramifications of these new rules by sending out “guidance memos” to districts. No longer will seniority –– the long-held practice of seasoned teachers being allowed to “bump” newer colleagues out of their jobs –– be the sole factor in determining teacher assignments, Gist says.

The new BEP aims to ensure “that highly effective educators work with classrooms of students who have significant achievement gaps,” Gist wrote in an October 2009 memo. “In my view, no system that bases teacher assignment solely on seniority can comply with this regulation.”

Obviously, teacher unions aren't happy and they're girding up for a fight. Yet, it's not just the teacher unions that are taking issue with Gist and her interpretation of the new BEP and Rhode Island law as it pertains to education. In Warwick, for example, Mayor Scott Avedisian is taking issue with school funding requirements that seek to reset the baseline back to 2009 dollars and not the prior baseline (2010/11) that had been legislatively reduced.

Gist’s memo is an answer to the hypothetical question if a community reduced its contribution for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 “is the maintenance of effort reference year FY2009 for purposes of calculating a community’s maintenance of effort obligation for FY 2012?”

In response, she says for 2010 and 2011, a 95 percent of the 2009 maintenance of effort is allowable but that for 2012 it reverts to the 2009 level. Further, she writes, if a community contributed more to schools than the 2009 amount that higher amount becomes the threshold.

I guess time will tell if this will fly.

Using Transparency to Know What Administrators Should Be Investigating

My Patch column, this week, notes that school administrators in Tiverton appear to analyze differences between their approach and that of one of the most successful districts in Rhode Island (neighboring town, Portsmouth) only to the degree that they can formulate excuses why their own students and community in general are to blame for the disparity in results:

It's typical, among public officials, to focus on others' mystery resources and sunnier demographics and to insist on the impossibility of comparison and accountability. The fact remains, though, that Tiverton pays $1,290 more per pupil. Yes, Portsmouth's budget is 33% bigger, but its student body is 46% bigger. And even if it were accurate to suggest that Portsmouth has expenses that it doesn't report to the Department of Education, its unlisted expenses would have to amount to $3.6 million, not $300,000-400,000, for the per pupil spending to match Tiverton's.

Moreover, the UCOA shows that one needn't imagine phantom revenue, because the lines in the budget show that the "philosophical shift" is reflected in how the district spends the money that it does declare. The two districts spend about the same percentages of their budgets on regular education (73% Tiverton; 72% Portsmouth) and special education (both 24%), and Tiverton throws another 1% in for vocational and technical education. The strategies for allocating those budgets makes all the difference.

A lower median income surely has some effect on educational outcomes and the strategy used for achieving them, but it doesn't explain why Tiverton appears to focus on higher-cost employees and, say, health education over math education.

How the Game Is Stacked for the Teachers' Unions

Predictably, teacher-legislator James Sheehan (D., North Kingstown) is vocally opposed to Providence Schools' attempt to save the necessary money while causing the least amount of harm to students. At bottom, Providence's approach is an attempt to keep the teachers who offer the most value per dollar, which will also allow it to keep more teachers, because the highest-paid and most-senior teachers are not necessarily immune. Sheehan thinks that the law requires Providence to raise taxes and cut services so that it can keep its most expensive teachers whether or not they're the most effective:

In the Richard Phelan v. Burrillville School Committee decision, on Aug. 26, 1991, the commissioner of education held that: In conducting our inquiry as to whether a bona fide financial exigency exists in a particular case, we will consider such factors as the money-saving measures other than tenured-teacher dismissals implemented by the school committee, and the proportion that the amount saved as a result of the school committee's money-saving measures, including the amount saved from the dismissal of tenured teachers, bears to the budgetary shortfall. In short, a school board/committee may only fire as many teachers as is necessary to cover the budgetary shortfall.

Firing all Providence teachers does not meet the latter standard of proportionality, especially when one considers that the dismissal of some hundreds of teachers, as opposed to all 1,926 teachers, would likely have been sufficient to cover the expected school-budget shortfall. Moreover, even these dismissals do not take into account the savings generated from the proposed school closings as well as other cost saving measures.

If financial exigency does not permit the mass terminations of all Providence teachers, as it appears, then Providence teachers must be dismissed according to the contract, namely on a seniority basis.

I'd argue that the district really does have to fire all teachers so that it can rehire the faculty that it requires to meet its budgetary and educational requirements. That there is likely to be substantial overlap of the new faculty with the terminated one is merely a testament to the value of district-specific experience.

Of course, the longer-term necessity is for school committees to stop agreeing to contracts that attempt to lock them into stultifying personnel practices. Unfortunately, Rhode Island's so-called leaders seem not to recognize pitfalls until they hurtle off of them. Or perhaps too many of them, like Sheehan, have a financial interest in maintaining the practices that are pushing the state to its doom.

Breaking the Mold

Just to make you think (h/t):

Now, it's a gross simplification, to be sure. I'd add a column labeled "Reading", for instance, and how much of the "classes" and "homework" laid the groundwork necessary for "perl". But the point being made is this: the basics of education are necessary, but it is often what kids do on their own time, outside of school, that helps determine their future career path. So when do we allow them to start charting their own (guided or mentored) course instead of having them wasting their time by keeping them locked into the current, rigid k-12 system? I'm a great works/western civ. kinda guy, but not everyone is. Up to a point, all students should be educated with the basics, but by...say...the 11th grade, maybe its time to break the old mold and let the kids have more flexibility and choice in their education and their future.

Gist, Education Consultants & Skeptical Radio Anchors

This morning, I listened as the new WPRO Morning News team of Tara Granahan and Andrew Gobeil went after Education Commissioner Deborah Gist for her proposal to hire up to 50 retired educators (teachers, principals, etc.) as 90 day consultants to help implement the programs funded via Race to the Top. Earlier, Granahan and Gobeil--apparently taking their cue from a ProJo story--interviewed Warwick Rep. Joe McNamara, who sponsored the legislation. I missed that part of the interview, but apparently McNamara basically explained that it was Commissioner Gist's idea. It was apparent that Gobeil and Granahan were particularly bothered by the fact that the bill would allow retired educators to make up to $500/day while still collecting a pension.

Commissioner Gist then called in to try to clear things up, but Granahan and Gobeil took a hard line on paying retired, pension collecting educators $500 a day to consult. The commissioner explained that, basically, $60-70/hr is the going rate for the expertise offered by "master educators" and that she wanted to be able to hire Rhode Island educators and this legislation enabled that. Gobeil and Granahan weren't buying it and pounded away on how $500/day seemed like an awful lot in these tough times. Further, Granahan asked Gist if the consulting fees would be subject to Governor Chafee's new 6% tax (like other consulting fees), to which Gist basically replied, "Of course."

Nowhere was the distinction made (though I think Gist may have assumed this was known) that the money to pay for these consultants was part of the Race to the Top funds. In essence, the bill was a mechanism to allow the Department of Education to hire Rhode Island based educators to perform the consulting. As Gist said, with or without the bill, she will hire the consultants--from another state if necessary--and the going rate is $500/day. I don't think she changed the minds of Gobeil and Granahan, but I'm not sure if they really "got" that the money was earmarked for that specific purpose.

I know $500/day seems like a lot, but professional consultants in all sorts of industries make that and more. I don't doubt that Gist is correct and that's the going rate (at the least!). And while Republicans like Joe Trillo oppose the measure, I think that its more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything else. One other thing: the teachers' unions apparently oppose the legislation:

Several union leaders voiced concerns again Wednesday, saying it was bad fiscal policy to have retirees drawing down the pension fund while working.

“This is bad for the pension system … and it’s bad employment practice when hundreds of teachers are out of work,” said Maureen Martin, political director for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers. “We want them to use local teachers already in the school system.”

But Gist isn't looking for regular educators, she's looking for experienced and special ones. Not just the most senior ones left on the laid off list or new hires with lower pay (as Trillo suggested). She needs top-of-the-line folks to implement RTtT (like it or not). As reported by the Brown Daily Herald:

Gist encouraged available teachers to apply for the positions, but emphasized that the plan "can't be a program for jobs."

"This is not going to resolve employment," she said. "We have to make the decisions that are best for our students."

But back to the interview itself. On the surface, it seemed like Gobeil and Granahan (in particular) were aggressive and skeptical of the Ed. Commissioner's motives because they were trying to safeguard taxpayer money. That may have been the case and, while there are important, technical reasons why their apparent watchdoggedness, in my opinion, was misplaced (the money is earmarked for a particular purpose, etc.), I won't fault them for that. (Plus, to the benefit of WPRO, they successfully turned it into a "newsmakers" moment and have been covering it in the news breaks all morning).

Yet, then I remembered their interview last week with new Warwick School Committee member Gene Nadeau. Nadeau had gotten some publicity for his statement that state education dollars were going disproportionally to Providence, Central Falls and other urban core cities and he was ostensibly on the show to talk about that, which he did. Then Granahan went off-topic and asked Nadeau, to paraphrase, "Is it true that they are going to close a high school in Warwick?" Nadeau was obviously surprised by the question and explained he hasn't heard any discussion of that during his time on the School Committee. Granahan wouldn't let him off that easy and re-phrased the question a couple times. It was clear to me that Granahan, who grew up and has family in Warwick, was skeptical of Nadeau and didn't believe him.

Taken together, the Nadeau and Gist interviews have left me with the impression that Granahan in particular is, at the least, skeptical of local and statewide education administrators. Yes, "twice is a coincidence" and all that. But that's two times in two weeks I've heard an education administrator interviewed and given a tough time by Granahan. That's not a bad thing, but it's interesting to see the perspectives and biases of supposedly "straight news" personalities slowly revealed.

Hess: One Size Doesn't Fit All with Teacher Evaluations

Rick Hess offers some thoughts on teacher evaluations and the polarization that occurs whenever the topic is discussed:

[O]ur teacher evaluation and pay debates are fought between two bizarre poles. One camp insists that teachers, for some reason that escapes me, can't possibly be evaluated fairly. Any tough-minded effort to gauge teacher performance or reward more productive or talented teachers is seen as an attack that must be ferociously contested. And those who see the value of paying good employees more than bad ones aren't content with creating systems that will push schools and districts to figure out how to do this; far too many want to settle for enacting prescriptive policies that gauge teacher performance in terms of reading and math value-added and then adjust pay accordingly.

In other words, this is a false choice. Teachers aren't some unique class of worker that either simply can't be evaluated or can all be evaluated the same way. Different methods at different levels in different districts or even the same district can be found (say, whole-school a la Deming in Cranston while Bristol does value-added) The point is that there is no one, single solution, but that doesn't mean there is absolutely no evaluation solution!

To most folks in health care, high tech, sales, advocacy, or just about any other field you can name, both positions are inane. To them, the complexities of evaluating personnel and crafting sensible pay systems are pretty obvious. That's why they've been tinkering with different ways to gauge and reward employees for more than half a century. Most people recognize that a boss's judgment is inevitably subjective, but also believe that it has real value--and that a boss who's responsible for their team will take care to weigh the range of relevant factors. Bottom line: most sectors don't turn discussions of employee evaluation and pay into moral crusades, they simply tinker with what might make sense. The biggest problem in education is that our current arrangements force us to approach these questions as "policy" questions, with the presumption that a state or district will set rules that apply to every teacher in every school in that geography. In that fashion, by enforcing uniformity, we stifle opportunities for variability or creative problem-solving, and accentuate the temptations to adrenalize these debates.

While many want to make Rhode Island one district--and that is an attractive thought from an administrative cost-savings standpoint--there are also potential benefits to our current "tiny kingdom" setup whereby different methods of evaluation could be tried. That will require some cooperation, though. We're not there yet.

This has real consequences. As I've noted before, clumsily-designed value-added measures risk "stifling the kind of smart use of personnel that reformers are trying to encourage." But I guess it's easier, and maybe more fun, to rant against step-and-lane pay and promote grand solutions--or to "defend the profession" against the crazy idea that some people are better at their jobs than others, that we can distinguish among them, and that we should take this into account when setting pay.

It ain't rocket science.

Patrick Kennedy: Brain Man of Brown

(H/T Ian D.) Well, it is something he knows about....

Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy has a new title- visiting fellow at Brown University's Institute for Brain Science. He'll be spending his time advocating for advancements in the field of traumatic brain injury....Kennedy will deliver two lectures on the Brown campus during each year of his [two year] fellowship. He says the details of his day to day work are still being defined.

Bwahhahaha! "day to day work"? Right. Looks like Kennedy will be paid a nice little stipend for two 10 minute, stream-of-consciousness rambles. Regardless, it was nice of them to tell him he was a lecturer and not an exhibit.

A Lesson for the Town's Educators (and Parents)

Not surprisingly, a majority of Little Compton parents would prefer to keep the town's students flowing through one of the state's best high schools, in Portsmouth, rather than move them over to Tiverton's facility right next door. I've explained why I would feel the same, were I among them, but the number of reasons that the parents gave makes for a stunning rebuke to Tiverton and its leadership:

Some factors favoring Portsmouth are its 13 Advanced Placement classes. Middletown has 11 and Tiverton has nine, respectively. Portsmouth also offers 74 extracurricular activities and sports. Middletown offers 28 and Tiverton offers 22, respectively.

Portsmouth scored 70 percent proficient on their New England Common Assessments Program tests. Middletown scored 69 percent proficient and Tiverton score 63 percent proficient, respectively.

For the 2012-13 tuition, Portsmouth offered Little Compton $9,000, while Middletown offered $9,602. Crowley said Tiverton could not provide a cost, but instead, a range of $14,187 to $15,954. For the 115 slated pupils to attend high school during that first year, with tuition at a 3 percent annual increase, Portsmouth was the lowest. Middletown's would have increased approximately $69,000 and Tiverton’s approximately $596,000. ...

Another parent said one can’t ignore Tiverton High School's 827 suspensions, while Middletown has 252 and Portsmouth has 85.

Perhaps most stinging is the impression of one Little Compton School Committee member that Tiverton High School, alone among the three, lacks a "sense of community."

Joining the most limited offerings with the highest price (by far) is not a winning combination. One wonders why Tiverton tolerates that which Little Compton looks likely to decline to accept. Yet, scarcely a word can be heard or read from Tiverton parents demanding better results from the town's public schools.

The Prayer and the Regent

My patch column, this week, joins two topics related to education in Rhode Island:

The connection is indirect, to be sure, but the controversy over an old prayer banner in Cranston High School West brings to mind the Chafee administration - and not (only) because Rhode Island's new governor has me so worried that I think a school-system-wide prayer initiative might be beneficial.

Rather, what connects the items, in my mind, is an aspect of newly confirmed Board of Regents Chairman George Caruolo's not-so-surprising hesitance to embrace the reforms that Commissioner of Education Deborah Gist has been pursuing with such zest.

The Providence Substitute Situation and Demanding Negotiations to Correct a Mistake

Justin's post from yesterday mentioned that Providence Mayor Angel Tavares' decision to send dismissal notices to all current Providence teachers relates directly to the cost of substitutes. According to data available from the Rhode Island Department of Education website, Mayor Tavares has picked a reasonable area for reform, as the per-pupil costs of substitute teachers in Providence have for the past decade been significantly above the state average…

In terms of total dollars, this amounts to between about $6 million and $9 million more being spent by Providence per-year than would be, if substitute costs were at state average…

Putting things into a budgetary perspective, if Providence's substitute costs had been reformed in the first year of the Cicilline administration (humor me here) and brought into line with the state average, and all other school costs were held equal, the Providence education budget could have been expanded from its FY2003 level to its FY2009 level (the last year for which data is available) with less-than-1% annual increases.

This problem is more than just fiscal. Paying two to three times the state average for substitute teachers is not an "inefficiency"; it is a mistake. It makes public services more costly without doing anything to improve their quality. A school administration shouldn't have to "give something back" in order to correct an outright error that provides no value and only costs to the public.

There can be little doubt that the repeated drawing of lines in the sand by union leaders, behind which everything about a job intransigently is placed -- including practices that in no way serve the public interest -- has contributed greatly to Mayor Tavares' decision to send dismissal notices to the entire Providence faculty. His drastic, across-the-board action is no less likely to bring about change than would an effort to get union cooperation on an isolated issue, where a union is inclined to protect its economic benefits, despite no one else benefitting in any way from the current situation.

In theory, it doesn’t have to be this way. Public-sector unions could realize that their special position within government monopoly systems for delivering public services entails some responsibility for considering the public interest when determining acceptable "negotiating" goals, and that certain options that lack discernable public value need to be closed off. But I don't know that this theory will ever match up to reality.

Stephen Beale has more information on substitute teaching policies in Providence, at GoLocalProv.

Funding Formula: Dollars per Student

New Warwick School Committee member Eugene Nadeau has been quoted in the ProJo and stated this morning on the WPRO Morning News that he is against the new School Funding formula:

Eugene Nadeau, a member of the Warwick School Committee, said the formula is a “sweetheart deal” for Providence, which he said will receive five times as much aid as his school district.

“We have to subsidize the Pawtuckets and the Providences,” he told about 30 colleagues from around the state. “We’re being short-changed. It’s an abomination.”

Based on the latest information I could gather from various sources, here is the per pupil state subsidy for Rhode Island public school students using the new formula:

District	Total Students	FY 2012 Funding	Per Student
Central Falls	2848	$41,811,218	$14,680.91
Providence	23573	$182,710,182	$7,750.82
Woonsocket	6110	$44,999,994	$7,364.97
Pawtucket	8886	$63,214,367	$7,113.93
West Warwick	3520	$19,047,703	$5,411.28
Bristol Warren	3474	$18,410,883	$5,299.62
Burrillville	2460	$12,590,521	$5,118.10
Newport	2037	$10,231,545	$5,022.85
Glocester	584	$2,874,344	$4,921.82
Foster	274	$1,236,720	$4,513.58
East Providence	5638	$24,725,686	$4,385.54
Foster-Glocester	1296	$5,374,297	$4,146.83
Chariho	3528	$13,705,701	$3,884.84
North Providence	3278	$12,163,986	$3,710.79
Middletown	2407	$8,867,743	$3,684.15
Exeter-West Greenwich	1805	$6,599,824	$3,656.41
Coventry	5311	$18,623,507	$3,506.59
Warwick	10261	$33,718,511	$3,286.08
Johnston	3083	$10,033,085	$3,254.33
Cranston	10738	$33,589,074	$3,128.06
Tiverton	1906	$5,201,024	$2,728.76
Cumberland	4846	$12,654,496	$2,611.33
North Smithfield	1764	$4,551,639	$2,580.29
South Kingstown	3527	$8,579,666	$2,432.57
North Kingstown	4409	$10,710,031	$2,429.13
Lincoln	3301	$6,795,044	$2,058.48
Smithfield	2467	$4,812,133	$1,950.60
Westerly	3098	$5,975,377	$1,928.79
Scituate	1628	$3,081,712	$1,892.94
Portsmouth	2796	$5,132,335	$1,835.60
Narragansett	1479	$1,457,333	$985.35
Little Compton	309	$275,529	$891.68
Jamestown	492	$382,657	$777.76
Barrington	3498	$2,467,090	$705.29
East Greenwich	2398	$1,436,872	$599.20
New Shoreham	128	$65,960	$515.31

Here is the per student subsidy for Charter schools:

District	Total Students	FY 2012 Funding	Per Student
Trinity	34	$708,398	$20,835.24
Met School	650	$12,027,542	$18,503.91
Davies C&T	816	$13,960,522	$17,108.48
Blackstone Valley	256	$3,849,492	$15,037.08
Segue Institute	140	$1,746,233	$12,473.09
Times 2 Academy	650	$6,981,187	$10,740.29
Learning Community	471	$5,054,820	$10,732.10
Textron	213	$2,271,088	$10,662.38
Paul Cuffee	559	$5,904,155	$10,561.99
Blackstone	164	$1,589,968	$9,694.93
Highlander	282	$2,682,140	$9,511.13
International	312	$2,934,630	$9,405.87
Beacon	224	$1,880,544	$8,395.29
Greene School	81	$654,585	$8,081.30
NE Laborers	218	$1,728,789	$7,930.22
Kingston Hill	179	$727,305	$4,063.16
Compass	153	$616,322	$4,028.25

The state has different obligations (ie; basically foots the entire bill) for some charter schools and, for instance, Central Falls, largely because the formula takes into account a variety of factors related to the economic makeup of the district/student population (PowerPoint).

SOURCES: Providence Journal Funding Formula Chart, RIDE Statistics, Schoolfinder at Education.com (Textron and Times 2 student population), Schooldigger.com (NE Laborers Academy student population).

Like a Profession, or Something

The specifics could be adjusted elsewhere, but the general attitude that Julia Steiny describes at Blackstone Valley Preparatory Charter School, although there's no revolutionary "paradigm change," as the education academics like to contrive, seems like a profound shift. Note, especially, the handling of the teaching professionals:

... at Blackstone Valley the two-teacher classroom [with more students] is the beginning of a leadership-development continuum designed to grow each teacher's responsibility, autonomy, compensation and personal goals. New or "fellow" teachers plan and teach, but also learn alongside an experienced "lead" teacher. As lead teachers become even more practiced, they might become grade leaders for common planning time, or run professional development, or research a new technique and teach it to the others. Eventually, master teachers could become a Head of School. ...

So everyone in the organization has goals. Chiappetta says, "Some of our people want to be lifelong classroom teachers, so we'll support them becoming master teachers. Others say, 'I want to go to med school in a few years and be a pediatrician, with teaching experience under my belt.' Right now, three teachers leave early to take classes for their graduate degrees, and make up the time on Saturdays. We want to help you invest in yourself and move forward."

Gone is the rigid put-in-your-time factory model of public schools in general. At least by the impression that Steiny gives, the school hires the best candidate for each position, and being human beings, they're each potentially approaching the job from different backgrounds and with different plans. The administrators keep the project on track and are accountable for their results, because if their faculty doesn't succeed, students won't sign up.

What Elected Officials Have Negotiated For

Anchor Rising readers are already familiar with the explanation of the problem basic problem with public-sector unions in a democracy that Andrew Klavan offers in the following video, but it's worth a watch nonetheless:





This article describing why Providence Mayor Angel Tavares had to give teachers termination notices, rather than layoff notices, provides excellent evidence of the results of the tilted system:

If they are laid off, teachers are placed on a recall list. Those teachers who do not wind up with full-time jobs by the beginning of the school year are placed in the group of "regulars in pool." By agreement with the union, these substitute teachers have to be called in to fill temporary vacancies before any other category of teachers. ,,,

"Regulars in pool" are the most-expensive substitutes because they are paid at their full step. In addition, regulars in pool can also receive family health-care coverage, a longevity bonus and an advanced-degree bonus, depending on how many days they work. ...

But here's the real reason why regulars in pool are more expensive than the other substitute teachers, according to Clarkin:

"The district calls in the most expensive [subs] because they have to pay them anyway," Clarkin said. "If you need a sub, they get brought in first."

So teachers who are laid off tend to stick around in the system at full pay even if they don't work. Typically, not enough teachers would be laid off to fill up the substitute list, but with school closings, that outcome is likely next year.

Any one of high salary, lavish benefits, or job security would be tolerable if school committees had negotiated with one of the others as a priority. But the push back against unions is occurring because they've managed to transform negotiations into a process of moderating the rate at which they get all three.

A Fantasy Compromise

Earlier, I mentioned Julia Steiny's contribution to the belated march of red flags throughout the Providence Journal. Steiny's piece is interesting because she attempts to draw a line through the ranks of teachers:

... in the shrill, righteous rhetoric, sometimes screamed by both the left and the right, teachers are lumped together as if they are a homogenous group, with the same interests. Good teachers deserve far better. Academically, they're the best allies of the kids. Fiscally, they're our best buy.

Steiny elides the fact that the teachers have effectively assented to this treatment by, first, joining together into a collective and, second, failing to exhibit deep differences of opinion among themselves. It isn't really fair to fault the "righteous rhetoric" when educators present a unified face.

To be sure, Steiny notes that in "pay-to-play states, teachers can refuse to join" unions, but "payback for bucking the union can be ferocious." How much more ferocious things must be in states, like Rhode Island, in which union membership is compulsory. Indeed, I wonder whether it's possible to go from there to a "right to work" scenario in which teachers have a right to form unions but also a right not to participate in them, as Steiny suggests. In Rhode Island, the unions are already formed, which means that teachers would have to break away one by one. That sounds like a recipe for a divided workforce devoting far too much behind-the-scenes energy to the labor battle.

It's actually surprising that Steiny doesn't agree, given other observations in her article:

Unions are private-sector businesses with leaders that make fat six-figure salaries. If they do not give their teachers good customer service, state laws should not keep them in business. A pot of compulsory dues allows unions to ignore dissenting rank and file and use the money to, for example, fight much-needed reforms to professionalize hiring, or to weed out bad teachers, or to extend the school day (which every charter school has already done). Unions cling to hiring by seniority with a death grip, even though it is clearly detrimental to education.

Surely, Steiny has had some taste of the tactics that such vested interests will use against those who speak against them. Is that a battle that we want to impose on our best educators?

For their part, they've arguably already proven their disinclination for the fight by failing to speak out already.

The Union Rhetoric and Financial Reality

You know, this sort of talk can only expand the sense of unreality between unions and the general public:

"Something is insane in Providence," [American Federation of Teachers President Randi] Weingarten said, standing on the steps of City Hall. "On a week where teachers and students were taking a well-deserved break, a secret plan was being hatched in Providence. They thought no one would be there to hear it. Fire everyone — that was their plan."

Maybe it's because my family hasn't been able to afford to go anywhere during vacations since my honeymoon a dozen years ago, but it strikes me as peculiar to assume that February vacation finds full regiments of teachers flying off to vacation spots around the globe. It seems, rather, that a better time to slip secret plans through would be just before they leave or just after they return.

Moreover, Weingarten manages to remind the general public that the protesting horde just wrapped up another full week off — a winter break, not to be confused with the Christmas break or the soon to arrive spring break. Let the kids decompress, by all means, but are Rhode Island's schools running so smoothly that there's no need to fill time out of the classroom with strategy sessions, evaluation of successes and failures, and professional development — all within scope of the enviable employment packages that teachers already receive?

In similar regard, this statement from a parent at the rally emphasizes the point:

"Mr. Mayor," said Maria Almestica, "we don't want 35 kids in a classroom. This is not OK. Our children should be learning, not worrying. You're messing with their futures."

The children shouldn't have to worry that the city in which they live will not remain financially solvent, and they shouldn't have to worry that their state cannot produce adequate employment to allow them to remain within its borders when they enter the workforce. The status quo of the Rhode Island public sector is not sustainable, and at bottom, that is what's messing with students' futures.

ProJo Eds Get it Right: "Reject Caruolo"

From the Providence Journal Editors:

If George Caruolo’s blatant conflict of interest as a $5,000-a-month lobbyist for a gambling palace does not disqualify him from becoming chairman of the state board overseeing K-12 public education, his dismissal of the need for serious education reform surely should....Mr. Caruolo’s view is that all [of Education Commissioner Deborah Gist's reform measures are] too much, too fast. “It’s not as important to get all this work done in the next 15 minutes as it is to get it done correctly,” he said.

In truth, no one has tried to reform schools in 15 minutes and get it wrong. Indeed, this has been an agonizing process, taking years of thought and effort — often in the face of gale-force opposition from economic interests that oppose upsetting the status quo.

As the editors explain, now is not the time for "thoughtful pauses."

But exactly how long should poor and minority students trapped in Rhode Island’s badly underperforming urban schools have to wait? How long should Rhode Island parents and taxpayers put up with some of America’s highest per-pupil costs and teacher compensation, when student performance is generally mediocre, even adjusted for demographics? How many years should Rhode Islanders be happy that their students trail those of other New England states by most achievement measures? How long should the state’s economic competitiveness be damaged by graduating large numbers of students who lack the skills employers require?

I completely agree.

A Regent for One Reason

Marc's already posted on the topic, and I'm admittedly playing catch-up in my daily reading routine, but having read George Caruolo's declaration of the not-badness of Rhode Island schools (and the consequent no-rushism of the probable chairman of the state Board of Regents), I have to offer additional comment. What's striking, given the prominence of the position for which he's been nominated and the time that has elapsed since he first agreed to take the position, is that he does not, apparently, feel the need to substantiate his controversial opinion:

George Caruolo, a savvy former politician who has been appointed by Governor Chafee to lead the state's top education board, has his own take on the State of Rhode Island's $2-billion-a-year public school system.

It's not that bad, he says. ...

Caruolo, the father of four children, all of whom have attended East Providence's schools, is also not convinced that the demands of a high-tech, 21st-century economy require that students be educated to higher levels than ever before. ...

Caruolo doesn't believe that the state's public schools are in crisis, despite the fact they continue to trail other New England states by most achievement measures. And, while Rhode Island claims among the highest per-pupil costs and teacher salaries, the state lands in the middle of the pack nationally.

The notion of a crisis hasn't been a quick and unsubstantiated whim of public temper. As I've put it previously, Rhode Island joins an average median income with high (budget-busting) public school teacher pay, high private school attendance, low public school SAT scores, and high private school SAT scores. Education researchers regularly give the state poor grades for a variety of reasons, and our comparison with other states on standardized tests is not commensurate with our investment, especially considering that we share many of the regional qualities of the neighboring state, Massachusetts, that regularly tops all of the rankings in which we lag.

Caruolo's one purpose, as a Regent, (and Chafee's main purpose as governor) appears to be to gum up the process of reform so that teachers' unions can find ways to lock in more advantages for themselves and turn back the clock on progress.

When the the Rules Don't Work to the Teachers' Union Advantage, Obviously the Rules Must Immediately Be Changed

In yesterday's Projo, Linda Borg reported that Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith wants Mayor Angel Tavares to reconsider his decision to formally dismiss all of the teachers in the Providence School System...

The Providence Teachers Union president offered the School Board another option Monday night: send out letters that include the possibility of layoffs and terminations....

Smith, who met with Taveras on Sunday, said the mayor offered to recall approximately 1,400 teachers, but Smith proposed another solution: including the option of layoffs in a new letter.

However, as noted later in the story, the conventional reading of Rhode Island law says that it's too late to initiate a change...

After the public comments, School Board President Kathleen Crain stressed that that board’s hands were tied by a state law that says teachers must be notified of their employment status by March 1.

Hold on though -- a group of Democrats at the State House have suddenly decided that March 1 is obviously too early a date for making decisions for the next school year, and have already proposed changing the notification date for layoffs and dismissals (House Bill 5540)...

This act would extend the notification date for the dismissal, suspension or lay-off of teachers from March 1 to May 15.

So as long as Rhode Island legislators have had the epiphany that the March 1 date isn't sacred and can be changed, shouldn't we also be considering moving the notification date past the end of the school year, and at least pretend that this change is not being proposed solely for the of benefit particular union in a particular situation?

Changing the law to create a personnel process less disruptive to education process is deserving of discussion. Changing the law to benefit a single organization in its particular maneuvers is not.

ADDENDUMS:

Last month, a bill was introduced to the RI House that would move the notification date to June 1 (H5297). It was scheduled for a hearing that was postponed at the sponsor's request (J. Russell Jackson of Newport). Does this mean that today's bill indicative of some kind of negotiation going on in the legislature about a new date, or is this a routine case of multiple bills being submitted to the RI legislature on the same subject with rank-and-file legislators letting leadership decide which one, if any, will get a vote?

Also last month, Julia Steiny discussed the early notification date and its ramifications in her Projo column, available here (h/t Marc).

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Unions: Cause or Coincidence?

Thomas Russell of Barrington pushes a logical error frequently confused for an argument:

I am (unfortunately) old enough to remember the state of education before the birth of teachers unions. Teaching positions were treated as patronage jobs, and salaries were so low that many graduates only turned to teaching after they failed to find work doing something else.

It is ironic that so many people seem to want to return teachers to that status even as they proclaim themselves to be champions of education improvement.

Education has so dramatically changed in ways entirely apart from the employment arrangements of teachers that it's nearly got to be a deliberate avoidance to voice Russell's point. Most profoundly, the importance of education is much more frequently proclaimed, and for a broader cross-section of Americans than it was in those pre-union days. That is, society has come to value education (at least in the abstract) so hugely that the value of those who provide it is unlikely to decrease just because they don't periodically go on strike, work to rule, or otherwise bully school committees into signing unaffordable contracts.

Personally, I hope and expect education employment reforms to elevate teachers' status, because they will no longer be associated with such unseemly union behaviors... not to mention union characters who need not be named, here.

Of course, this accepts Russell's statement of history for the sake of argument. I, myself, am too young to remember those olden days, but the statements of respect for teachers that one frequently hears from folks who were their students suggest that his assertion is, at best, exaggerated.

Carruolo II: Pensive Philosophy or Excuse Making?

To follow up on last night's post, the full ProJo story provides more insight into the "What, me worry?" philosophy of George Carruolo. For instance:

For his part, Caruolo emphasizes cooperation among all groups — teachers, parents, students and the community — as the critical ingredient for school improvement.

“Everyone will have to make compromises on everything but this: having a system we are all proud of, and a system that works for children,” he said.

“I’ve never seen a turnaround in anything with an alienated work force,” Caruolo said. “And from my viewpoint, I don’t see a lot of talk about poverty and homelessness and family disruptions in the education dialogue, right now.”

Carruolo is correct: for a variety of reasons (often related to the effects of government social policy), families are different than they were 20 years ago. Single-parent families or two working parents are far more prevalent and parental involvement in schools has declined. This affects all the kids in a classroom as teachers have to spend more time catching up. However, I don't know of any education reformer who discounts the role that poverty and family play in education. For example, as Commissioner Gist has traveled the state, she's explained the components that comprise the new school funding formula:

Ms. Gist said that [the new funding formula has a] built in...“core instructional amount,” which creates a per-pupil spending base of $8,333. Another 40 percent ($3,333) is funded for each student receiving free or reduced lunch, an indication of additional funding needs since it costs more to teach a student living in poverty.

Sure sounds like someone who recognizes that poverty affects education, doesn't it?

As for the alienated workforce? Reform skeptics are very good at pointing at all of these outside reasons--excuses--for why reform can't work or is just too hard, too unrealistic, to implement. Yet, instead of looking at new ways to deal with these changing external dynamics, they double-down on the same, old industrial model of schooling. Why? Because even if it has proven inadequate to the task of educating today's kids--especially the poor and disadvantaged--the old system has turned out pretty beneficial for the adults who operate in it. The "alienation" they feel--stoked by hyperbole spouting union leaders--stems directly from the fact that they view reform as an "attack" on themselves and, too often, their own bottom line.

Carruolo: Hey, Why Hurry Reform?

Bah. Who needs a sense of urgency:

George Caruolo, the savvy former politician Governor Chafee has appointed to lead the state's top education board, says Rhode Island's $2-billion-a-year public school system is not that bad.

What is needed to improve the state's 300-odd public schools, he says, may not be an ambitious agenda of change but a dose of old-fashioned pragmatism -- or, as he puts it, "a realistic assessment of what's necessary to elevate results."

"It's not as important to get all of this work done in the next 15 minutes," Caruolo said in an interview last week, "as it is to get it done correctly."

Yeah. That sounds good in a platitudinous sorta way, except recent progress has been made due to a sense of urgency. Pragmatism--in our classrooms, in our administration buildings, at bargaining table--is what got RI at this point to begin with. So, yeah, I feel a sense of urgency. And so do the thousands of RI parents with kids in our public school system.

Mayor Taveras on the Notices of Potential Dismissal

Providence's Mayor Angel Taveras "blasted" the following last night to his e-list. [Note to NBC Nightly News correspondent Kevin Tibbles: painful as it may be to admit, Mayor Taveras is a (D), not an (R).]

Mayor Taveras' affirmation of a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers as well as his reminder of our collective "moral responsibility" to our children are refreshing and remarkable, especially in light of the notable silence of his predecessor on both of those subjects.

Dear Friends,

We made a difficult decision this past week to issue notices of dismissal to all of the City’s teachers, effective at the end of the 2010-11 school year. I want to share with you my thoughts on the issue, the process, and where we go from here.

The financial crisis facing the people of Providence is staggering. For too long, politicians have avoided making the tough decisions. When I took the oath of office on January 3, I made a commitment to be honest with you about the problems we face. I also promised that I would not shy away from making tough decisions to put our City back on firm financial footing. Our actions this week reflect this commitment.

Issuing notices of dismissals to all teachers was a decision of last resort. My administration has a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of Providence to address the fiscal crisis we face AND a moral responsibility to our children to make sure we manage cuts to school funding in a way that best serves our students and the community.

State law requires that teachers must be notified by March 1 about any potential changes to their status. Given the March 1 notice requirement mandated by law and where we are in the budgeting process, issuing dismissal notices to all teachers was the most prudent and fiscally responsible decision. Here’s why: We needed to retain the maximum flexibility we could to manage significant cuts to the school budget. We simply cannot have a situation next year where we have more teachers on the payroll than we can afford to pay or have expenses that exceed our resources.

This is also why we issued dismissal notices instead of layoff notices. As has been the case in the past, layoffs often come with many provisions, legally and procedurally, that could impact our ability to control costs to the degree we need to. A dismissal is different in that it enables the district to end its financial obligation to an individual completely.

Continue reading "Mayor Taveras on the Notices of Potential Dismissal "

Education Roundup

A bevy of education-related stories today. The repercussions following the Providence teacher "firings" continue, with Mayor Tavares getting attention from the New York Times. The ProJo reported that teachers fear it's the end for seniority-based retention, which is kind of a strange way to put it because, as the story also explains, that end was already foreshadowed by Education Commissioner Deborah Gist last year.

In Warwick, a review panel has recommended more transparency on the part of the School Administration, citing communication breakdowns between the City-side and School-side. According to one commission member, there was also "an air of mystery around school finances" that needed to be made more understandable. They also various scenarios for reconfiguring the make-up of the school committee. The report should be available at warwick.org some time soon. Meanwhile, the Warwick School Department unveiled an new electronic records program that will make student data available to all "stakeholders" (including parents!). Warwick also issued the contract-maximum 40 teacher layoff notices (but can only actually fire 20).

In Cranston, the School Committee is asking for $3.5 million in concessions from school unions and asked the City for more money. However, Mayor Alan Fung has already indicated he plans on level-funding the schools this year.

Providence Pink Slips II

The ProJo has more on the Providence School district sending pink slips to all teachers. Basically, it was Mayor Angel Taveras' call based on economic reality and trying to have as much flexibility as possible.

The mayor said the unprecedented move was necessary because of the depth of the financial crisis facing the city and the schools....[Providence School Superintendent Tom Brady] said the mayor alerted him about the impending crisis about two weeks ago. As Taveras became more alarmed, he asked Brady to come up with a solution that would give the city and the district “maximum flexibility” to respond to the city’s financial deficit, expected to top $57 million.

I also forgot that Providence Schools currently don't follow the traditional seniority hiring practices.

The district now fills openings based on an interview process that requires teachers to submit a model lesson and a writing sample.

It remains unclear how seniority will be used when teachers are rehired under the dismissal system, however....Supt. Tom Brady said it was too soon to say whether seniority would be eliminated in its entirety. The district is still embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the Providence Teachers Union that seeks to restore seniority, although both sides are reportedly close to an agreement.

Part of what spurred this is a loss of $14 million in stimulus money, which was used primarily to pay teachers. Additionally, the ProJo reports that an additional $11.5 million is needed to cover increases in health insurance and other benefits. It is also pointed out that Providence teachers pay 15% of their health insurance and will receive no pay raise this year. Unfortunately, they're learning what the private sector has already learned: making sacrifices for one year doesn't make you immune from making more sacrifices in subsequent years. I wish it were not true, but it's reality.

Pink Slips in Providence

Julia Steiny reminded us that it was the time of year when pink slips would rain down. Boy, did they ever in Providence where every teacher is slated to be "laid off". Well, not really--not all of the teachers will be fired. It's just a way for the Providence school district to enable the greatest amount of flexibility when it comes to budget time, as Providence School Superintendent Tom Brady explained:

We are forced to take this precautionary action by the March 1 deadline given the dire budget outline for the 2011-2012 school year in which we are projecting a near $40 million deficit for the district....Since the full extent of the potential cuts to the school budget have yet to be determined, issuing a dismissal letter to all teachers was necessary to give the mayor, the School Board and the district maximum flexibility to consider every cost savings option, including reductions in staff....To be clear about what this means...this action gives the School Board the right to dismiss teachers as necessary, but not all teachers will actually be dismissed at the end of the school year.

Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith doesn't like it:

This is beyond insane....Let’s create the most chaos and the highest level of anxiety in a district where teachers are already under unbelievable stress. Now I know how the United States State Department felt on Dec. 7 , 1941.

Nice hyperbolic analogy, there. Further, if we're to grant you that line of thinking, it would be more correct to say it's as if the "State Department" (the Providence Teachers Union) called the "air strike" (pink slips) down on themselves. After all, the union collectively bargained the March 1 deadline because it benefited them and it's a bit disingenuous to cry foul when the option is exercised. My guess is that if there were more management rights (ie; hiring/firing flexibility) within the contract, this could have been avoided.

What Hope for Education?

My Patch column, this week, questions whether there's much room for optimism about educational success in Rhode Island public schools over the next couple of years:

... the 2010 [NECAP] test was to be the first on which graduation actually would depend. It was do or die for students to achieve at least "partially proficient," and 38% did not. All stops should have been pulled; the urgency among educators should have been near frantic...an extra-effort, contracts-out-the-window kind of frantic. Yet, I can't think of a single concerted example of such dedication amidst the past few years of budget battles, contract negotiations, and work-to-rule actions.

And the result? A mere six percent proficiency gain. It's as if the education establishment knew that the requirements would never hold. ...

When the tests actually count again, the state will have been guided for two years by a union-friendly governor and his hand-picked education bureaucracy. More importantly, educators have now tested the resolve of the state to allow real consequences for systematic failure, and the state proved there to be none. Gist blinked, and at this time, reforms appear to have lost political teeth, rather than gaining them.

In E.P., New "Bosses" Start Cuttin'

East Providence, you were warned. Kinda. Faced with a $6.1 million school budget deficit, the new, labor-supported East Providence school committee took action by axing School Department Chief Operating Officer Lonnie Barham and his $109,000 salary. So, they're down to $6 million! According to the new School Committee Chair Charles Tsonos:

We have more school administrators than the City of Cranston and yet we have half the students...Our point is that we need to do everything we can to watch our costs and still provide the best education possible and allocate our resources to the classroom.

But they can't just focusing on cutting the administrative costs, which comprise 2% of the $75 million school budget (according to former SC Chair Anthony Carcieri). So, at some point, other personnel are going to have to take a hit. On another front, despite the aforementioned warnings by former EP Mayor Joseph Larisa, current Superintendant Mario Cirillo has gotten the (dreaded?) "vote of confidence."

Getting to Graduation

In addition to everything else on the educational plate, Rhode Island needs to increase its graduation rate, even as it requires a diploma actually to mean something:

Statewide, 76 percent of the Class of 2010 graduated within four years, up a percentage point from the previous year.

More than 2,900 of their classmates didn't receive a diploma last year, although a small number of these students stayed for a fifth year in hopes of graduating.

If these fifth-year students graduate in June, they will be counted in the state's five-year graduation rate next year.

The 2010 five-year graduation rate, which uses a formula to include both the Class of 2010 and students from the Class of 2009 who needed an extra year to graduate, was 79 percent.

The article notes some helpful activities at Davies Career and Technical High School in Lincoln, but it comes back to the same ol' problem:

The program added 90-minutes to the school day and cost about $90,000 extra for teaching and transportation. But, the director said, the investment paid off.

Everything costs extra money, and it's money that administrators and school committees have already spent on lucrative contract deals. Rhode Island has to change its paradigm to an assertion that school employees are paid to accomplish an objective, and they'd better do so within the resources already allocated.

Rhode Island NECAP Trends

Previously, I focused on tracking the NECAP results of one cohort of kids as the moved through the Warwick School system (to 11th grade). What I found was that reading and writing continued to improve, while math went in the opposite direction. I took this--cautiously--as good news as does Julia Steiny, with the usual caveats:

C’mon, it’s a big deal that Rhode Island’s high-schoolers pulled ahead of our two sister states in the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP). In reading, R.I. juniors kicked butt, scoring 76 percent proficient, besting Vermont’s 72 and New Hampshire’s 74 percent. In writing, our teens were 51 percent proficient, edging out Vermont’s 50 and New Hampshire’s 45....please, I know tests are not the be-all, end-all. But doing well is promising. I think of watching test scores as comparable to watching one’s weight. The number says nothing about the quality of life, talent, or character, but it’s a major indicator of overall health.

So for example, the last reports by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed that all three of the NECAP states’ fourth and eighth graders made significant progress. Only one other state and Washington, D.C., also did so. So working toward success on the NECAPs helps kids learn and perform no matter what the test. That’s huge.

Steiny also mentioned the charts that show cohort trends for all Rhode Island students that the ProJo printed in concert with Jennifer Jordan's February 10 story on the NECAP results. These charts weren't in the online edition--at least not that I could find--but (again, as Steiny points out) they are available at the RI Dept of Ed. website in it's Fall 2010 NECAP Report (PDF). It's worth taking a look at them given my belief that there is just as much--if not more--value in tracking cohorts as there is in comparing them year-to-year.

There were no writing results because it's a newer test, but comparing the previous data from Warwick to statewide cohort tracking reveals (unsurprisingly) the same sort of trend. Basically, each cohort is improving in Reading from year-to-year and getting worse in math (remember--this is according to the NECAP test standards for each grade level). It also looks like the test scores for each grade--as one cohort replaces another at a particular grade level--have continually improved. Though it does look like Math scores seem to have plateaued, particularly at the younger levels. This comparison could be more indicative of pedagogy and show that schools may need to freshen up their approach to math so they can get over the hump.

NECAP: Following a Cohort

Most of the analysis of NECAP scores seems to focus on the year to year improvement of results at a given grade level. For instance, we'll read something like "the percentage of students at School X who are proficient and above in Math is 55% this year, which is 5 points higher than last year." Well, that's comparing two different groups of kids. What if we look at the same cohort through the years, instead?

For the first time, this last round of NECAP scores allows us to look at results for one particular cohort--the 11th graders--from the time they were first tested in 6th grade (in the Fall of 2005) until this past fall. Obviously, you can't control for the changing makeup of the cohort as kids come and go, but these changes get smoothed out over time (with the possible exception of the private school flight that occurs between Jr. High and High school).

I took a look at my hometown, Warwick, and came up with the below. I used overall numbers because, while analysis could be broken down by student race, family income, etc., I wanted to focus on the "big picture." Numbers are percent of students proficient and above for the given subject.

First, here are the overall numbers for Warwick as a whole:

Warwick Schools - 2010 Gr.11 Cohort % Proficient & Above

	2005 Gr.6	2006 Gr.7	2007 Gr.8	2010 Gr.11
Read	72%	67%	65%	83%
Math	60%	54%	47%	31%
Write	*	*	37%	54%

I then broke it down by the three sub-districts (ie; High Schools and their feeder schools). I compiled the raw numbers for the feeder elementary schools (including those closed since 2006).

Aldrich Jr. High/Pilgrim High

	2005 Gr.6	2006 Gr.7	2007 Gr.8	2010 Gr.11
Read	75%	69%	60%	76%
Math	61%	51%	44%	31%
Write			30%	53%

Gorton Jr. High/Warwick Vets High

	2005 Gr.6	2006 Gr.7	2007 Gr.8	2010 Gr.11
Read	64%	58%	56%	73%
Math	54%	48%	45%	25%
Write			33%	39%

Winman Jr. High/Toll Gate High

	2005 Gr.6	2006 Gr.7	2007 Gr.8	2010 Gr.11
Read	86%	76%	78%	90%
Math	65%	64%	52%	38%
Write			50%	68%

Analysis: Writing proficiency certainly increased from 8th grade to 11th. Without exception, reading scores for this cohort were better in 11th grade than they were in 6th, though there were some ups and downs along the way. That's the positive. The negative are the math scores, which consistently trended down. Difficulty of the subject is one reason--math just gets harder as you progress.

Overall, it's a mixed bag. Warwick has a handle on reading and it looks like writing is coming along--more kids are getting better at both as they progress through Warwick schools. But math is a big problem as kids are getting less proficient as the difficulty increases. While that may seem to make intuitive sense, it's not a good result. We need to prepare our kids to compete in the global marketplace against kids who don't have such mathematical shortcomings. I know that Warwick recognizes the problem and is trying to take steps to address it. Only time will tell.

Source: NECAP Reporting

“As much as we went up, we'll go down”

Justin believes that Education Commissioner Gist's decision to delay implementation of tougher graduation requirements until 2014 is the day the reform died. I may not be quite as pessimistic, but I can understand his reasoning. One thing for sure is that, as reported in the Warwick Beacon, Warwick High School principals expect the improvements they saw this year go down next year. Toll Gate High's Principal Stephen Chrabaszcz:

As much as we went up, we'll go down...Please stop thinking that young people don’t know what’s going on....If we have a dramatic fall [in scores] next year I don’t want people to say, ‘What happened?’

Pilgrim High School Principal Dennis Mullen:

Students did take it seriously this year because it was tied to graduation....Scores [of the current sophomore class] could tank.

Gotta have a hammer.

The Day the Reform Ended

February third might be considered the day education reform ceased in Rhode Island:

Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist wants to push back the deadline for more rigorous high school graduation requirements, and is backing off her proposal that Rhode Island establish a three-tier diploma system.

Gist now says the date on the requirements to get a high school diploma should be pushed back two years, to 2014, to give schools and students more time to prepare. The tougher standards require students to be at least "partially proficient" on state math and English tests or retake the tests and show improvement, among other requirements.

A headline the day after the above suggested continued tough talk, with "Gist says R.I. schools can't postpone improvements," but with the current governor, Board of Regents, and General Assembly, Commissioner Gist is likely to lose teeth, not gain them. The fact is that statewide math scores have only gone up 6% in the past two years, to 28% even "partially proficient," and science scores nudged 3%, to 20%. If improvement continues at that rate, 2014 will still see large numbers of students unable to graduate.

RI Association of School Committees Executive Director Tim Duffy's commentary in the article found at the second link inadvertently illustrates the point:

"We need to put districts on notice that this is the last time the can gets kicked down the road," Duffy said, "because we can't afford to do that to our public school students."

Yeah, right. From participation in local governance and reading of events across the state, I can't say I've observed anything that might be considered a sense of urgency about students "unable to perform simple math problems that most people can figure out in their heads," as the article paraphrases Gist. Why would taking the pressure off them for another two years (with the union's governor in office) change that attitude?

But because so many districts have been lagging in making these changes, it is only fair to give everyone more time to adjust, Duffy said.

Fair to whom? Certainly not to children who are being given diplomas without learning critical material, and certainly not to other students whose diplomas are devalued by broad knowledge that public education in Rhode Island is "lagging."

All that's happened is that complacent administrators, unions, and school committees have bought, with their votes and political contributions, another two years to wait for a miracle change quite apart from anything they're actually doing — much in keeping with the state's budgeting strategy.

RIDE Infoworks Site Unveiled

The Rhode Island Department of Education's new Infoworks site has been unveiled and looks like it may be a valuable tool for wonks everywhere. Yes, there is student achievement data like NECAP and NAEP scores, but also some new info, like AP exam results. For instance, here are the Top 10 High Schools ranked by % of students who scored at College level mastery:

District	School	Number of Exams Taken	# Scored at College-Level Mastery	% Scored at College-Level Mastery
South Kingstown	South Kingstown High School	83	72	87%
Barrington	Barrington High School	422	363	86%
Exeter-West Greenwich	Exeter-West Greenwich Regional High School	68	57	84%
Lincoln	Lincoln Senior High School	229	179	78%
Cranston	Cranston High School West	77	59	77%
Providence	Classical High School	315	236	75%
Warwick	Toll Gate High School	77	57	74%
Westerly	Westerly High School	64	47	73%
Burrillville	Burrillville High School	91	66	73%
North Kingstown	North Kingstown Senior High School	234	169	72%

Additionally, there is also some basic teacher data that can be culled and studied. For instance, wondering which schools have 10% or more of its teachers considered NOT Highly qualified?

District	School	This School (2009-10)
Chariho	RYSE (Clinical Day and Alternative Learning)	27%
Independent Charter School	Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley Academy	25%
North Kingstown	Davisville Middle School	23%
North Kingstown	North Kingstown Senior High School	20%
Little Compton	Wilbur & McMahon Schools	16%
Providence	Nathan Bishop Middle School	15%
Central Falls	Central Falls High School	15%
Westerly	Bradford School	14%
Woonsocket	Fifth Avenue School	13%
Independent Charter School	Compass Charter School	13%
Cumberland	North Cumberland Middle School	13%
Central Falls	Veterans Memorial Elementary School	13%
Central Falls	Capt. G. Harold Hunt School	13%
Burrillville	Steere Farm Elementary School	13%
Cumberland	Joseph McCourt Middle School	12%
Barrington	Barrington Middle School	12%
Westerly	Dunn's Corners School	11%
Independent Charter School	Paul Cuffee Charter School	11%
East Providence	Emma G. Whiteknact School	11%
Cumberland	Garvin Memorial School	11%
Burrillville	Burrillville Middle School	11%
Barrington	Sowams Elementary School	10%

There is a lot more, like finding out graduation rates or the degree of stability in a school (how many transient students) or school funding information (various property tax comparisons). It looks like a helpful tool.

Ending the Caruolo Act

This being Rhode Island, one expects it to be a long shot, but it's worth noting that Patricia Morgan (R, Coventry, Warwick, West Warwick) has filed legislation to repeal the Caruolo Act:

The Caruolo Act allows school committees to file suit against their taxpayers when they overspend their budgets. Rep. Morgan’s legislation would eliminate this costly and lengthy method of resolving funding disputes.

"Quite simply, the Caruolo Act has been a costly and detrimental policy," said Representative Morgan. "What this law has done is increase the cities' and towns' costs of education, reduce their councils' ability to control spending, and drive up property taxes. It has done nothing to promote accountability for the efficient and effective education of our children. I believe that continuing this failed policy is foolish and the time has come to repeal it."

Her preemptive reply to those who might criticize her lack of alternative is that school committees should learn to live within their budgets. I'm not sure that goes far enough. As former Majority Leader George Caruolo has argued that the law that his displaced put judicial authority on these matters in the hands of the Department of Education, which is likely where school districts would argue it should return upon repeal of Caruolo.

The current and perennial makeup of the General Assembly (not to mention the governor) likely puts Caruolo beyond reach, but raising the subject of its repeal is a start to a start of some fiscal sanity for municipalities. Another route, or perhaps a next step, would be to put the taxing and spending authority in the same hands — whether with school committees or town councils — thus allowing more direct control by local taxpayers of school budgets.

Fordham Institute Reports on the State of U.S. History Standards (Except Rhode Island)

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has studied various State-level U.S. History Standards and come up with a report (PDF). For the most part, they didn't like what they found with a "majority of states’ standards are mediocre-to-awful." And, surprise, of all the states, Rhode Island was the only state to receive an N/A (Incomplete). Why?

As of 2010, Rhode Island has chosen not to implement statewide social studies standards....Rhode Island expressly declares its GSEs [Grade Span Expectations...for Civics & Government and Historical Perspectives/Rhode Island History] not to be general social studies or history standards, it would be inappropriate to review them as such.

Perhaps once Rhode Island implements the Common Core standard we'll have an analysis-worthy standard in place (though I think the initial emphasis is on Math and ELA). Until then, it looks like RI shares the same core problem with History standards with most of the rest of the states across the country. According to Fordham, this is the "submersion of history in the vacuous, synthetic, and anti-historical 'field' of social studies." They quote Dianne Ravitch.

What is social studies? Or, what are social studies? Is it history with attention to current events? Is it a merger of history, geography, civics, economics, sociology, and all other social sciences? … When social studies was first introduced in the early years of the 20th century, history was recognized as the central study of social studies. By the 1930s, it was considered primus inter pares, the first among equals. In the latter decades of the 20th century, many social studies professionals disparaged history with open disdain, suggesting that the study of the past was a useless exercise in obsolescence that attracted antiquarians and hopeless conservatives. (In the late 1980s, a president of the National Council for the Social Studies referred derisively to history as “pastology.”)

They also criticize "overly broad content outlines" ("isolated fragments of decontextualized history") and the practice of chopping up historical periods across grade levels, which leads to different levels of historical inquiry based on grade level. They also find that there is too much ideological pollution finding its way into History curricula.

Continue reading "Fordham Institute Reports on the State of U.S. History Standards (Except Rhode Island)"

Removing the Anxiety of School Layoffs

By way of applying emphasis to Marc's post about Julia Steiny's Sunday column concerning the March 1 deadline for teacher layoffs, I'd renew a suggestion that I've made before related to this paragraph from the latter link:

But in practice, it means that school communities suffer almost four full months of stress over who does and does not have a job. They live with four months of teachers feeling unappreciated, and four months of resentment against administrators who made the layoff decisions.

School districts should just make it practice that everybody gets a layoff notice. Doing so would preserve their flexibility, and in its sheer universality, the move would lessen the degree to which teachers feel targeted. That is, it would leave only the anxiety that most people who are employees bear regarding their jobs.

While I'm revisiting the column, I'd like to highlight a paragraph that captures the Rhode Island approach to public schools very well:

... that means that the staff members are the constant, and the kids' needs must adjust to them. Job security trumps the quality of the students' education, the demands of school reform, and any brave efforts to try a new strategy.

Steiny: March 1 Teacher Layoff Notices are No Help

Julia Steiny points to an annual March right--the sending out of layoff notices to teachers who might get the ax--as a flawed practice on many levels.

In theory, the law is supposed to give teachers time to look for a new job.

But in practice, it means that school communities suffer almost four full months of stress over who does and does not have a job. They live with four months of teachers feeling unappreciated, and four months of resentment against administrators who made the layoff decisions.

Anxious teachers make for unhappy school climates, which impede student learning. Obviously.

Yes, obviously. As Steiny explains, the law is "rock solid" and attempts to change the date have failed time and again even though it seems self-evident that the agida it causes isn't constructive. So why doesn't it change? Oh, it has its purposes:

But the March 1 law is also clever. Machiavellian. The misery that layoffs cause provides a powerful incentive not to freak the staff out, and to leave the status quo peacefully in place. Cowardly school committees and administrators hope to heaven that a few retirements will give them the flexibility to accommodate changes in programming or enrollment.

The March 1 date also clashes with a key time on the school planning calendar:

March is right about when schools are starting to hone their school-improvement strategies for the following year. Most schools are under tremendous pressure to improve their test scores and graduation rates. But only with personnel flexibility can they shore up their math program by hiring coaches, or give struggling readers a double period of English Language Arts. To get that flexibility for September, they must lay off all kinds of people in March to cover their bases, until administrators know exactly what teachers and skills they need.

So seas of pink slips must flow.

As Steiny suggests, let's have them flow in June instead.

Warwick NECAP Scores Up: Amazing What a Little Incentive Can Do

Warwick schools were pretty happy with the latest NECAP results, which showed improvement nearly across the board. From the Beacon

As for the improvements at the high school level where students were told for a first time that they would need to be proficient to graduate, [Warwick School Board Chair Bethany] Furtado concludes, “Students are taking it seriously. Kids need to know that that’s [school] their job. They need to do well in school.”

Principals at all three high schools agreed with Furtado, saying the fact that students took the test seriously because it counted toward their graduation eligibility was one of the major factors for improved scores.

“There was more motivation for the students to do well this time around because they understood that the scores would have an impact on graduation,” said Vets Principal Gerry Habershaw.

Habershaw said it wasn’t only the students that approached the test with a more serious attitude.

“After the teachers saw what happened in Central Falls, they took the NECAP preparation more seriously,” Habershaw said. “I also rearranged the way we did advisory periods because it had become a joke. So every Thursday, during advisory, teachers would submit a NECAP practice test so the students could get used to it.”

...“I’m very, very pleased with those results,” said Pilgrim Principal Dennis Mullen. “This was the first year that students were held accountable and they knew that it really mattered, but from a school and teacher perspective, we did a great deal of professional development.” {emphasis added}

Real consequences tied to failure helped get positive results. Imagine that. They also embraced the teacher development required to get results.

Mullen said writing was emphasized throughout the curriculum at Pilgrim by having each department create writing prompts for the students to perform constructed responses, which was an area the school had fallen down on in the past. He said each department chose a different prompt, such as persuasive writing, reflective writing, or responding to information from a text, in order to ensure that students were exposed to all prompts before taking the test.

...Mullen said one of the programs to improve math scores has already been implemented in all three high schools, which allows eighth grade students who are entering ninth grade that scored below proficient in math on the NECAP test to ramp up their math skills before taking Algebra 1, which will be implemented at all levels in ninth grade.

“We’ve aligned our curriculum to state standards and our expectations remain high,” Mullen said. “I’m very pleased with where we are, but I’m never satisfied.”

Good job and good attitude. Keep it up.

NECAP: Achievement Gaps Exist, but Middle Class RI Kids On Par or Better than ME, NH, VT Peers

Progress. That's what the latest NECAP results show, though Education Commissioner Gist still correctly points out there is work to be done, particularly in closing the "achievement gaps". What are these gaps? As 7to7 reported:

Achievement gaps among minority and low-income students and students with learning disabilities and students with limited English proficiency persist. The gaps are as large as 30 to 40 percentage points when compared to white students, students who do not receive free or reduced lunch, students who do not receive special education services and students who speak English.

Commissioner Gist:

“Today’s news is not all good,” Gist said. “In terms of statewide progress, we don’t see the gains we’d like to see …. And we are very, very concerned about achievement gaps.”

She reiterated her belief that Rhode Islanders need to ramp up their expectations for students and let go of familiar arguments about why some students don’t succeed.

“We are confident and feel very strongly that students across this state, whatever their neighborhood, whatever their school, whatever their family background, can achieve at high levels,” she said. “… At the end of the day, we will not accept excuses for our children not achieving because we know that they can. Teacher effectiveness is hugely important. If students have a highly effective teacher three years in a row, we can essentially close the achievement gap.”

That is all true and there is clearly work to be done, but we always seem to focus on the "overall" scores or the scores of disadvantaged groups. I wondered how RI students who have no "disadvantages" are performing as compared to those in other states. Looking at the various data--and there's a lot of it from 4 states--I finally resolved that using data for 5th graders (who also took the NECAP Writing test in addition to Reading and Math) would provide a good snapshot of the multi-state results.

Now, the data is inconsistent in that, unfortunately, Vermont doesn't break out their scores by grade in the aggregate data. However, I included their grades 3-8 data (hence the * in the tables below) because it's close--and I provided all of RI's data for comparision, which was 3-8 and grade 11.

First, here is the percentage of students Proficient and Above who were not considered economically disadvantaged.

Grade 5 - Not Economically Disadvantaged
	Reading	Math	Writing
NH	83	78	-
ME	79	73	52
RI	84	76	70
VT*	81	75	61
RI-All	83	68	-

It's clear that RI 5th graders--who could be considered your average, suburban, middle-class kids--are very competitive (and better in 2 out of 3 categories; 2nd to NH in Math) with their northern New England peers. That is good news, isn't it?!

So, what about the 5th graders who are economically disadvantaged?

Grade 5 - Economically Disadvantaged
	Reading	Math	Writing
NH	65	57	-
ME	59	47	31
RI	60	46	46
VT*	36	46	36
RI-All	56	39	-

The 20-25 point drop (the "gap") from not-economically disadvantaged and those who are defined as such is pretty consistent across the states no matter the tested subject. This difference based on economic prosperity isn't a surprise and, to my mind, when comparing the results across these 4 states, it is a more accurate comparison than using race, for instance. To begin with, there just aren't that many minorities in the northern New England states, but also, while the poor in Rhode Island are often urban minorities, that is not the case in northern New England. To show what I mean, here are the overall NECAP results for Whites (regardless of economic standing):

Grade 5 - Whites
	Reading	Math	Writing
NH	80	75	-
ME	62	62	44
RI	81	72	65
VT*	51	62	51
RI-All	79	64	-

Rhode Island white students track pretty close to non-economically disadvantaged students. Contrast that with Maine, for instance, where there is a 17 point achievement gap between all whites and non-economically disadvantaged ones in Reading. In fact, in Reading the 62% proficient or above score for all whites is barely above the 59% for economically disadvantaged Maine students. Vermont shows similar data characteristics Maine while New Hampshire is actually much more like Rhode Island.

What does it all mean? To be sure, as Commissioner Gist stressed, there is much work to be done where achievement gaps exist and I'm not trying to shove those students to the side. But positive news is positive news, folks. So, based on this limited survey (only so much time, folks!) I don't think it's being a Pollyanna to take these results as evidence that middle-class and above Rhode Island students are competitive with--or doing better than--their northern New England neighbors. Obviously, there is room for improvement and we should and will continue to push for 90% and better proficiency and above. Right now, it looks like we're headed in the right direction. Faster, please (to coin a phrase).

Sources: Maine Grade 5 2010-11 NECAP results, State of NH NECAP Grade Comparison, NECAP Fall 2010 Vermont Results, Vermont NECAP Fall 2010 Grades 3-8 disagregated data, State of RI NECAP Reports, Rhode Island’s NECAP Math, Reading, and Writing Results for Grades 3-8 and 11.

Short: 2010 NECAP Results

FYI, the 2010 NECAP Results will be up shortly. They may also show up here, but right now the 2010 results listed are from May of last year, not October.

UPDATE: Here's the overall report (PDF).

The Gamblin' Regent

The news is that Twin River is lobbying to be a full-fledged casino again (which really just means making the virtual table games real). But what caught my attention is who is helping to lead the charge: George Caruolo, Governor Chafee's nominee to be the Chair of the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education.

Caruolo, a one-time advisor to the Mashantucket Pequots, registered to lobby for the holding corporation that owns Twin River on Jan. 26. A week later, he surfaced as Governor Chafee’s choice to chair the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education.

After his lobbyist filing came to light on Monday, Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor said Caruolo, a former adviser to the tribe that owns Foxwoods casino in Connecticut, disclosed his relationship with the owners of the Lincoln slot parlor “when the governor first approached him” about chairing the board that sets education policy for the state.

“The governor sees no problem with George taking on lobbying assignments,” including this one, said Trainor...

Well, I see a problem. Are we so jaded, so anything-goes as long as its "legal" that we can't see the problem with the guy in charge of educating our kids also actively lobbying for a gambling operation? This is what happens when our political leaders keep going into the same shallow pool of insider "talent" whenever a leadership position comes up (see Hunsinger, Christine). Yeah, no cronyism here.

Harvard Study: 4 Year Colleges Aren't for Everyone

This really isn't a surprise, is it?

The U.S. is focusing too much attention on helping students pursue four-year college degrees, when two-year and occupational programs may better prepare them for the job market, a Harvard University report said.

The “college for all” movement has produced only incremental gains as other nations leapfrog the United States, and the country is failing to prepare millions of young people to become employable adults....Most of the 47 million jobs to be created by 2018 will require some postsecondary education, the report said. Educators should offer young people two-year degrees and apprenticeships to achieve career success, and do more to ensure that students who begin such programs complete them, said Robert Schwartz, academic dean at Harvard’s education school, who heads the Pathways project.

“For an awful lot of bored, disengaged kids who are on the fence about completing high school, they need to see a pathway that leads them to a career that is not going to require them to sit in classrooms for the next several years,” Schwartz said yesterday in a telephone interview.

This is an area of education reform that should get more attention. The report can be found HERE (PDF).

Watching the Intellectual Weight

Juslia Steiny deployed an interesting simile, a couple of columns ago, that serves the opposite point than that which she makes:

However, standardized-test scores in isolation, alongside no other measures, are a hurtful, immoral misuse of good information. Parents value many features of a school as much, if not more than, achievement. Along with their academic prowess, private schools always tout their strengths in building strong characters, developing citizenship or attending to the whole child. When it comes to evaluating schools, the public-education industry tends to turn a deaf ear to these values.

Our current use of tests is like judging my health by my weight, while ignoring my bone density, cholesterol and whether or not I'm depressed.

Certainly, test scores are not sufficient for total judgment, particularly when it comes to schools and programs that promise more than a baseline education. Nonetheless, following Steiny's analogy, one can see school as an intellectual health program, and standardized test scores (including NECAP minimums for graduation) are like bare minimum requirements that even overweight, depressed participants should achieve if the program is to be said to have any value.

Sure, fat camp might be fun and reward campers with many friends, but if it consistently fails to reduce children's weight by measurable amounts, then it really isn't what it bills itself to be. Parents and those who subsidize it should assess expenditures accordingly.

Brief Reactions to Chafee Board of Regents Nominees

I covered initial reactions to Governor Chafee's new Board of Regents appointments yesterday, so I won't repeat myself. The ProJo has more info and reaction, including the info that Central Falls School Board of Trustees Chair Anna Cano-Morales, lawyer Amy Beretta and school reform advocate Angus Davis were the Regents NOT re-appointed by Chafee. The Phoenix's David Scharfenburg has also been looking for reaction:

I've spoken with some in the education reform crowd - all strong supporters of Education Commissioner Deborah Gist - about Chafee's picks for the Board of Regents. Their official posture is wait-and-see. And there is even a glimmer of hope that Caruolo, a supporter of charter schools in the past, will give the reform push a fair shake. But the primary feeling, it seems, is one of deep concern - that Chafee is moving to check the reform movement.

Also, as if we hadn't detected the pattern already, it looks like the Governor continues to tap entrenched Rhode Island insiders when it comes to his political appointments. It's almost like he still thinks it's the 1990's.

UPDATE: Ian Donnis checked out Facebook and found Anna Cano-Morales' reaction:

Departing Regent Anna Cano Morales fumes via Facebook: “What is stunning is that I learned about [not being reappointed] by reading the paper. No call, no letter, not even a simple email. There is alot of work to do folks and because children don’t vote, don’t pay dues and don’t have access to power, I will continue to fight for THEM.”

UPDATE II: It's also important to see what these moves look like from the perspective of national education reformers, such as Tom Vander Ark (emphasis added):

Grant makers don’t like to take money back, but Rhode Island may become the first state that owes the feds a refund for [unfulfilled] Race to the Top plans.

Recently elected Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee canned state board member and reform warrior Angus Davis. Three other reform mined Regents are also leaving. Gov. Carcieri failed to make key reappointments before leaving office and, as a result, left the new governor the ability to appoint 8 new Regents (a big loose end that should have been tied up in support of RttT plans)....for kids in Rhode Island this really sucks. This is more bad news for Commissioner Gist, one of the Chiefs for Change. The new board will have a stronger labor voice, will support the governor’s ‘pause’ to reexamine charters, and could jeopardize execution of the state’s very specific RttT plans.

It’s still not clear how this will all sort out, but if they roll back the RttT plans, they should give the money back.

While I get the frustration with Governor Carcieri not filling the slots, the reality is that any of his nominees would have had to pass through the Legislature and there was no guarantee that a lame-duck Republican's nominees would have been approved by a Democrat legislature in an election year. Vander Ark thinks that the Legislature and various mayors are still on board for reform and national groups are supporting Gist.

In May, Rhode Island Mayor Academy will advance to the Regents a 5 campus proposal in partnership with Achievement First. That will be a pretty clear indication of whether the state is moving forward or rolling back reforms.

Reform groups like DFER [Democrats for Education Reform] are encouraging the governor to support one of the best chiefs in the country and a very good reform plan.

Eroding reform agendas will be a spring test for the Obama administration. We’ll see what team Duncan does when a state does not deliver (too bad they paid out all the money). As Whitney Tilson said this morning, “Here’s hoping they take a hard line!”

Breaking: Architect of "Caruolo Act" to Chair Board of Regents

According to ProJo :

Governor Chafee has in recent days asked former House Majority Leader George Caruolo to chair the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education....a knowledgable source has confirmed that the governor asked Democrat Caruolo, 58, of East Providence, to come out of political retirement to chair the board, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Caruolo was the architect of the so-called "Caruolo Act," which annually gets called into play/threatened as RI School Committees struggle with their Town or City Councils over education dollars. Caruolo explained the eponymous act in 2009.

Prior to passage of the so-called Caruolo Act, all funding disputes between school committees and city and town councils went to the Rhode Island Department of Education. The process called for an appeal of the funding level to be heard by an “independent hearing officer” employed by the department. After both sides made their presentations, a finding was rendered by the officer and the final decision was made by the commissioner of education. Almost invariably, the schools received the additional funds they sought. As the late TV educator Mr. Rogers would ask, “Can you say stacked deck?”

The Caruolo law was conceived and passed to give cities and towns a fair shake when these disputes arose, while at the same time it sought to protect the legitimate educational needs of the students. These questions were referred to the court system to give an impartial hearing to serious public policy disputes....When the law passed, it was greeted with enthusiasm by local mayors and managers. That was not the case in all quarters, however. The teachers didn’t like it. The teachers unions didn’t like it and the commissioner of education really didn’t like it. A small indication of that were the efforts that went into branding the law the “Caruolo Act,” which I can assure you is quite unusual.

...I was never a favorite of the unions when I was in the State House. There were times I supported union positions and times I didn’t. They weren’t happy with me or my colleagues when we raised their pension contributions or expanded charter schools, and maybe they didn’t like it when we mandated annual publishing of school results, but we did what we did in the best interest of the people of this state whether students, teachers or retirees.

We'll see if Caruolo is willing to support reform.

UPDATE: Bill Rappleye tweets: "Gist here at Chafee's regents news conference!"
MORE RappTweets: "Chafee says will keep working with Gist." --- Now that sounds kind of obtuse. Keep working with her for how long?

UPDATE II: Your new Board of Regents (via ProJo 7to7):

Robert L. Carothers, former president of the University of Rhode Island.

Carolina B. Bernal, an East Providence parent who works at the Institute for Labor Studies and Research in Warwick.

And Mathies J. Santos, an outreach associate for Rhode Island at the Boston Veteran Affairs Research Institute.

The following members will remain on the board:

Colleen Callahan, director of professional development for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, a Regent since 2003.

Patrick Guida, a lawyer and vice-president Barrington School Committee; Regent since 2001.

Betsy Shimberg, an East Greenwich parent; term expires Jan. 31, 2012.

Karin L. Forbes, a retired math teacher who has served on the Regents since 2004.

The new chairperson of the Board of Governors for Higher Education also serves on Board of Regents. Chafee said he will appoint that board later this winter.

Carothers is a known quantity, but not sure where he stands on reform. Bernal may be a parent---and I know nothing about her--but she works for the Institute for Labor Studies and Research, which is housed in the same building as NEARI and is essentially the research arm of the labor movement. In addition to his current work, Santos was in the DiPrete administration (this was an interesting read). As for those kept on by Chafee, we have: one teacher, a teacher union director, a parent and a school board member.

Chafee Decision on Gist Coming Soon?

NBC 10's Bill Rappleye tweets:"Chafee names 5 new education regents today. Gist cancels presentation to Senate. 2+2 ?" We know that the former head of the Board of Regents, Robert Flanders, is out and moving over to the position of Central Falls receiver. Governor Chafee has 8 slots to fill and the ProJo identifies former URI President Robert Carothers and "school consultant" Andrew Moffit (husband of General Treasurer Gina Raimondo) as two candidates (Moffit was originally nominated by former Gov. Carcieri). Flanders thinks it would be a mistake to let Gist go as does ProJo education columnist Julia Steiny, who notes Gist's successes but also points to why she has ticked off the usual suspects:

Perhaps Gist’s most abrasive characteristic is that she dares to be specific. She and her team devised an enormous plan of action, with a dizzying array of detailed steps, changes, and initiatives. So everyone, including me, disagrees with the plan on one specific or other. Specifics inevitably step on someone’s toes.

We can either improve school quality or we can avoid stepping on toes, but we can’t do both. She gets work done. I like that about her. She can seem tin-eared at times, but she works hard at listening and making herself accessible. We’ve seen her change her mind and adjust her course, so she’s not ignoring the dissenting views. Most wonderfully, she’s made very clear that kids and achievement are her priorities. Adults need to come second. And after a certain amount of deliberation, hurt toes must heal on their own.

Like Steiny, there are some policy proposals I'm not crazy about and Race to the Top isn't a perfect vehicle for reform by any means. Yet, a perusal of Gist's Facebook page shows that she is willing to engage anyone--teachers, parents--in a dialogue. That openness and genuine interest is refreshing and encouraging and in direct contrast with what we've seen from Governor Chafee so far.

Like it or not, Gist has gotten the conversation moving in this state. There has been genuine debate with some long-called for reform ideas actually getting a look. It hasn't been--and won't be--perfect. But it's a heckuva lot better than where we were. Do we really want to start over, again?

ADDENDUM: In the comments, Ken Block calls attention to a petition at RI-CAN asking Governor Chafee to stay the course on the current education reform path. Here is the link.

If We Take RTTT Funds But Don't Implement RTTT Mandates, Isn't that a Little Shady (or Worse)?

WPRO's Dan Yorke said it outright last week. An article on WPRI's website today references it a little more obliquely.

The rumor is that Governor Chafee wishes to accept Race to the Top funding for the state without implementing all of the conditions that accompany it. More specifically, it's purported that he'd like to duck out of the charter school component. (I wonder why?) The governor's averseness to charter schools became clear in the past couple of days when he invited to the state an outspoken opponent of them.

Race to the Top money is not a no-strings-attached gift. The federal government is sending us this money to accomplish certain things. Prudence dictates that we obtain answers to some rather obvious questions before going down this (rumored) road.

1.) What are the consequences of taking federal money without implementing the attendant requirements?

2.) Doesn't deliberately taking targeted funds with no intention of implementing the program border on something close to fraud?

3.) Even if such an action is not fraud, wouldn't the federal government find out and simply debit that amount from future monies headed to the state, putting us back at square one revenue-wise? Or, framing the question positively, under what scenario do we get away with doing this?

A Paradigm Without Structure

Both the content and delivery of this illustrated lecture are excellent:

I share Professor Ken Robinson's skepticism about a supposed ADHD epidemic, but when he goes on to describe studies that a shift in an education paradigm should address, the academic conclusions begin to look a bit too free-wheeling. He describes a study in which children are measured by the number of uses they can think of for a particular object, say, a paperclip. 98% of kindergarten children, apparently, score at the level designated as "genius," and the percentage decreases as they progress through school. The implication, obviously, is that school suppresses the true genius that lies natively in all children.

From the lecture, though, it appears that "genius" is essentially a measure of one's ability to come up with random connections, which seems to me to miss the point of education. It brings to mind a model for artificial intelligence that attempts to simulate creativity through randomness on a computer, matching flagging matched concepts when there are a certain number of coherent connections. The other part of actual genius, though, is the ability to reconnect those random associations into something relevant... something useful... something funny.

The Einstein, in other words, isn't the kindergartener who can see beyond the paperclip in his or her hand and assign to it all kinds of other uses were it otherwise than what it is. The Einstein can recognize that it, rather than something else, would be useful for some particular purpose.

I'm responding to a very short summary, of course, but I'd think the better test would not be to hand a kid a paperclip and ask, "What could you do with this?" The better test would ask, "How could this be used for X."

One gets the sense that academic theorists have this excited feeling that they're on the brink of discovering the key to a new paradigm for education, if only they can think beyond the boundaries of an inherited pedagogy. If only they can, in a sense, teach the kids to apply their free-range creativity to solve particular problems. I suspect that won't prove possible, because in order to solve problems, one must recognize and categorize — and thereby characterize for the purpose of modification. These are restraints.

Such is the model of creative evolution. Classical music, for one, pushed boundaries, but from within. Composers discerned the theories that their predecessors had employed (sometimes unawares) and modified them, broadened them, created new challenges for themselves from within them. At some point, though, those boundaries became so abstract that they broke free from aesthetics, which is a immobile attribute of humankind compared with theory. Once that happened, the theory was into the stratosphere of incoherence.

And so to standardized testing. It should be possible for an educated society to recognize some plain basics without which all of the free association in the world will be so much gibberish. Such are the bases of standardized scores: Basic math. Basic literacy. Basic logic.

"Surplus" Just Means They Haven't Spent It, Yet

Gary Trott tries to apply too much common sense to public-sector budgeting:

What should a Rhode Island city or town do if it suddenly finds itself with a surplus of unspent funds amounting to nearly $6 million? You'd think that it would do the responsible thing and not spend those funds in order to ease up a little bit on the taxpayer.

Well, that's not what the School Committee in Warwick did during the final days of December when it voted unanimously to take the $6 million surplus from the previous year and spend it by giving raises to teachers and also by cutting the 20 percent contribution that the teachers were to pay toward their health care benefits (ProJo 7 to 7 News Blog, Dec. 29).

The problem is that this isn't just spending for spending's sake, as Trott takes it. Rather, all of the incentives push government bodies in the direction of spending everything and, in particular, spending as much as possible on raises and benefits for employees.

Obviously, the electoral threat implicit in public-sector unionization is one incentive. So is the likelihood that unspent dollars won't just be considered a windfall to be kept, but will be targeted (rightly, in my view) both for a direct return to taxpayers and for a reduction in subsequent years' budgets. When the money isn't given freely as an economic exchange, but is taken under threat of law as taxation, the emphasis shifts from claiming as much money as a consumer can be convinced that the service is worth to providing cover for the claim that so much, and more, is needed, or even required by law. The process becomes one of budget tricks.

In Tiverton, for example, the school department claims that the town is required to make up for any difference in the amount of state aid that is estimated at the financial town meeting. (Naturally, extra aid is never reduced from the local appropriation.) So, say the local appropriation is $20 million and the FTM estimates that the schools will get $5 million in state/fed aid. If the aid comes in at $4 million, then the schools take another $1 million from the town's property tax pool.

Here's the best part: for the purposes of calculating the state-imposed cap on how much additional money it can request, the school department considers the $21 million to be part of its new baseline. It then begins the performance of declarations about what it will have to cut, close, and eliminate if the town doesn't bust the cap.

The process doesn't begin, in short, with the question of what the payer will bear, but with what the payee can take. The only way to change the incentives and the outcome would be to organize enough voters to place better candidates on the boards, councils, and committees and counterbalance the corrupt symbiosis between elected officials and labor.

There's That No-Can-Do Attitude, Again

My reaction to this sort of thing can't be uncommon:

Under proposed changes to the 2008 high school regulations, high schools would be required to offer support to struggling 11th graders this spring, and possibly this summer, to help them advance in math and reading, Gist said.

However, at a public meeting last week, several high school principals said they are worried they will be unable to offer adequate assistance given the short timeline and budget constraints.

Stay late. Work more. Convince the entire faculty and staff that it's necessary to take a 1% pay cut in order to hire a specialist or two. Get results, because otherwise you could be out of a job...

... oh wait. This is the public sector we're talking about.

Give Them Time... and Money

Although writing from Michigan, Kyle Olson has it right when it comes to his perspective on education happenings in Central Falls:

Central Falls students deserve a high-quality education. But instead, families are told to be patient as administrators and the teachers union hold meetings and create 45-page reform plans. And now the federal government gives the district a big check, which simply buys the defenders of the status quo more time.

At the School Committee meeting in Tiverton, this Tuesday, the committee and administrators turned part of their budget discussion into a plea that they lack the resources for early interventions that might improve results, particularly standardized test results, for students down the line. They talked about revenue sources that Portsmouth has that Tiverton doesn't; they speculated as to why Portsmouth's per-student cost might be lower, including the possibility that the town has fewer special education students. (Some quick research that I did online while they talked showed that a good portion of the difference is specifically in instruction, meaning the cost of teachers.)

As far as I'm concerned, that's all beside the point. Each town and city has the tax base that it has and the student population that it has. The principle studiously ignored during such discussions is that organizations must be built to do the work that must be done with the resources that they actually have. If that means that a particular district must pay teachers significantly less in order to hire math coaches or whatever else might be needed, then so be it.

The approach to labor and salary that has become part of public school culture begins with the premise that teachers should make roughly the same wherever they work, and the unions manipulate politics and local budget processes in order to prevent any real systemic balance of price, resources, and value. Pouring more money — whether local, state, or federal — into the equation causes the price of educators to go up and when the flow of revenue ebbs, programs and services go on the chopping block so that salaries never have to adjust downward.

The Science of Test Scores

Marc reviewed some of his findings with respect to the NAEP science scores on last night's Matt Allen Show. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

Once again, I didn't go into the sales pitch, but please email or call (401-835-7156) me to pledge financial support — as subscriptions, donations, or advertising — for 2011 to help us create a full-time job within Anchor Rising.

2009 RI NAEP Science Data: Part 2 - 4th Grade Teachers

In an earlier post I looked at Rhode Island's 4th grade student demographic data for the 2009 NAEP Science assessment and how it compared to national results. Now let's take a look at how the average 4th Grade scores compare based on various teacher qualification factors.

First up are results based on whether kids are being educated by teachers who are specialists in science instruction. The results are what you'd expect--science-only teachers get better results.

Continue reading "2009 RI NAEP Science Data: Part 2 - 4th Grade Teachers"

2009 RI NAEP Science Data: Part 1 - 4th Grade Students

The ProJo reported on the results of the lates NAEP Science (for 2009) results for RI and it wasn't pretty. I went over to the NAEP website and dug deeper into the data. What follows are some of the things I found related to the 4th grade results (all I've got time for, I hope to get to the 8th grade later on). So.....CHARTS!

I used the average scores as the main data point for comparison. First, here are the overall average scores for Rhode Island (ranked 26th), the nation and includes a breakout of public/private differences. Also indicated are the national scores for Catholic schools, which, this being Rhode Island, I thought worthwhile to include (again, the average is national, not just for RI). Finally, there were 47 "units" measured, which were 46 states and Dep't of Defense schools.

Continue reading "2009 RI NAEP Science Data: Part 1 - 4th Grade Students"

Failure With or Without Tiers

The idea of a tiered diploma system is causing much teeth-gnashing in Tiverton and elsewhere. My Patch column, this week, explains the effect of the proposal and points out that a related topic really ought to be the controversy to which every School Committee meeting is dedicated:

In light of that change, a cynic (or, the cynic would say, a clear-eyed observer of Rhode Island politics) might suggest that the "certificates" are being introduced to ensure that non-proficient students receive something for their efforts, with the new diploma tiers layered in to disguise the fact that Rhode Island's public educational system has failed to live up to its own standards. Those resisting both the tiers and the certificates are (by this interpretation) effectively playing chicken with the Board of Regents, holding them to their prior, more-dramatic regulations in order to force the Department of Education either to be lax in judging exceptions to NECAP proficiency or to postpone or scrap the current reforms altogether.

Rhode Island voters and parents should look beyond the blurry bureaucratic dances and focus on the truth behind all of the rhetorical agreements and semantic disagreements. When it comes to high scores on standardized math tests, Rhode Island trails the nation of Turkey.

Chafee and Charters: Thoughtful Pauses or Choir Preaching?

As Ed Fitzpatrick wrote about last week, Governor Chafee is taking a "thoughtful pause" on considering whether or not Rhode Island should allow more charter schools to open up. According to Chafee spokesman Mike Trainor, the Governor

...strongly believes Rhode Island needs a deep and healthy debate on the issue of charter schools because it represents to him a significant determinant in the future of our public school system....To help spur that healthy debate and discussion, he is going to bring Diane Ravitch to Rhode Island between now and the beginning of spring.

As Fitzpatrick explains--after noting the overwhelming support that teachers' unions had for the Governor--Ravitch was for charter schools before she was against them and has been vociferous in both roles. He quotes Arthur E. Levine, "former president of Teachers College (where Ravitch received her doctorate)"

She has done more than any one I can think of in America to drive home the message of accountability and charters and testing. Now for her to suddenly conclude that she’s been all wrong is extraordinary — and not very helpful.

Fitzpatrick, whose own children attend charter schools, believes:

It would be helpful if Chafee resisted the temptation to view charter schools from either of the polar-opposite perspectives that Ravitch has held in her career. Charter schools are not going to solve all that ails public education, but they’re also not an enemy that is going to ruin it.

That's not an opinion held by Ravitch 2.0. One solution to offer an opposing and articulate (and fair) counterpoint would be to invite Frederick Hess. Hess maintains a blog and, while attending an education conference in Boston, had guest bloggers fill in--and they didn't all agree with him. In other words, Hess is willing to look