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Category — Education

Race to the what?

June 5th, 2010 — Education, Federal

New doubts about the Chicago Public School's performance pay system for teachers make it clearer that Colorado is desperately trying to recreate a failure.  

An early analysis of the system from Mathematica Policy Research "found no evidence that the program raised student test scores."    The system "did not have a detectable impact on rates of teacher retention" either, according to the study.

Why should we care in Colorado?  Because our entire anything-but-teaching education reform effort now centers on doing whatever U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan did while he was chief of Chicago's public schools.  He started the new performance pay system.

We already know that he misled America about the academic results he got in Chicago's schools.  This is just more evidence that his miraculous results in Chicago are no more real than the so-called Houston Miracle that led President Bush to pick Roderick Paige as his secretary of education.

The continuing and growing doubts about Chicago should get us thinking.  Maybe we should work on really improving our schools, rather than blindly following the latest "reform" fad.  

Not likely.  For one thing it would cost us money to make sure every child in Colorado gets a good education.  And we're broke.  Blindly following the Duncan Dream could actually make us money.  Last week the state reapplied for a Big Cash Prize in Duncan's Race for the Top contest.  Winning could get us $175 million.

There's a catch, of course.  We can use the money to restore any of our cuts or to teach students, it all has to go to "reform" administration costs.

On the plus side, wining doesn't require educating students, all we have to do is convince the Secretary that we'll adopt his free-market-solves-everything education ideology without asking any questions.

One question we're consistently not asking is "Race to the what?"

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June 5, 2010   No Comments

Help for Schools, Maybe

May 29th, 2010 — Budget, Education, Federal

Colorado could get up to $350 million from the federal government to avoid laying off teachers, without having to enter a contest.  That amount could avoid nearly all of the cuts for next school year, if it comes through in time.

The money is in a bill the U.S. House will soon be debating.  As of now, the bill would divvy up $23 billion among all 50 states.  A preliminary estimate puts Colorado's share at about $350 million.

Of course the bill would have to pass for us to get the money, but at least it's a possibility.

The catch?  It's only for one year.  Our cuts to K-12 are permanent, so we'd still eliminate the jobs — just a year after we thought.  

 
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May 29, 2010   No Comments

Et tu CDE? Et tu O’Brien?

May 12th, 2010 — Budget, Education, Politics, Taxes & Fees

Our official, state web page is pretty bland and not very informative.  A few years ago I asked if I could substitute this site, or at least link to it.  "No," was the answer.  The state pays for the official page and state money can't support anything political or partisan.

Fair enough.  Except that it doesn't seem to apply to sites endorsed by the state's Dept. of Education and Lt. Governor.
 
A link on CDE's home page takes you to a list of bills by a group called EdNews.  In the opinion section that site trashes Democrats.
 
For instance, on SB10-191, which some of us have questioned, it says:
 
I single out Democrats for an obvious reason; to vote for Senate Bill 10-191 – aka the teacher evaluation and tenure bill – means bucking the Colorado Education Association, the most powerful education interest group in the state. The CEA is pulling out all the stops – including fear-mongering, arm-twisting and fact-twisting – to defeat this bill.
 
The organization obviously views SB 10-191 as an existential threat; not to teachers but to itself. Why? Because if SB 10-191 becomes law, it means the CEA failed to muster the political force to stop it, despite having both houses of the legislature and the governorship in the hands of the Democratic Party, CEA’s longtime soulmate.
The next post is an endorsement from Lt. Governor Barbara O'Brien:
 
 
O'Brien endorse
 
The site's attacks on Democrats go beyond education policy.  For instance, it also goes after our attempt to shore up tax revenue.
 
We passed a bill to collect sales tax on purchases from out-of-state, online retailers just like we do from local stores.  It would bring in more revenue for the state and eliminate the unfair advantage the online stores currently have.
 
EdNews attacks us and the Colorado Education Association for supporting the bill:
 
Perhaps CEA should strive to be more honest, or at least to do its homework by reading this thorough and careful analysis from the Tax Foundation (H/T Free Colorado). Among other things, the analysis shows that Amazon taxes:
  • Are “unlikely to produce revenue in the near-term”
  • Make the playing field less (not more) level between brick-and-mortar businesses and their Internet-based counterparts “because they require Internet-based businesses to track thousands of sales tax bases and rates while brick-and-mortar businesses need to track only one”
  • “Undermine legal certainty, burden interstate commerce, and harm economic growth”
 
So maybe CEA is ignorant of tax policy and chose to accept the official fiscal note that claimed Colorado’s Amazon Tax (aka HB 1193) would raise nearly $5 million more state revenue per year. Or maybe CEA is just trying to provide cover for its allies in the legislative majority at the State Capitol. 
 
CEA’s choice in supporting tax policies conveniently appears less dependent on how the policies affect school funding than on how they affect the interests of its Left-leaning political coalition.
 
Our fiscal notes are prepared by the legislature's non-partisan economics staff.  They scrupulously avoid being influenced by any legislator.  
 
Strange that a website that claims to support schools would attack our attempts to pay for them.  Stranger that the CDE and the Lt. Governor would endorse a site that attacks a bill the Governor supports

May 12, 2010   No Comments

K-12 cuts for 2010-11

May 6th, 2010 — Budget, Education

School funding's gotten pretty complicated over the past couple of years.  We've been slashing away at it, but it's hard to keep track of how much we've been cutting because there are so many different ways of looking at it.

Here's an overview of what we did this year.  It shows each increase and cut along the way, from the first 2009-10 appropriation through our FY 2010-11 appropriation.

 

School Finance Funding: FY 2009-10 and FY 2010-11 ($ millions)
  State Appropriations Informational Amounts
Description General Fund Cash Funds Total State Funding Local Funding State and Local Funding
FY 2009-10
Original Long Bill appropriation (FY 2009-10) $3,076.6 $619.7 $3,696.3 $2,002.0 $5,698.3
Cut in state funding to offset higher-than-forecast local tax revenue 0.0 (66.6) (66.6) 66.6 0.0
Increase in state funding to pay for higher-than-forecast number of students 0.0 19.1 19.1 0.0 19.1
Subtotal: 3,076.6 572.2 3,648.8 2,068.6 5,717.4
Cut in state funding to protect State Education Fund (0.3) (109.7) (110.0) 0.0 (110.0)
Cut in state funding to balance budget (eliminates money to pay for new students) 0.0 (19.8) (19.8) 0.0 (19.8)
Final Funding for FY 09-10 3,076.3 442.7 3,519.0 2,068.6 5,587.6
FY 2010-11
Increase required to restore FY 2009-10 cuts and fund Amendment 23 requirements for FY 2010-11 301.0 (56.6) 244.3 (27.1) 217.3
Subtotal: FY 10-11 Long Bill appropriation 3,377.2 386.1 3,763.3 2,041.6 5,804.9
Increase to pay for cost of living study 1.9 0.0 1.9 0.0 1.9
Cut to eliminate funding for cost of living study (1.9) 0.0 (1.9) 0.0 (1.9)
Cut to balance budget (about 6.3% for most districts) (365.4) 0.0 (365.4) 0.0 (365.4)
Recommended FY 10-11 funding 3,011.8 386.1 3,397.9 2,041.6 5,439.4
           
Cut from final FY 2009-10 funding to FY 2010-11 appropriation
(2.6% reduction in funding, on average)		 (64.5) (56.6) (121.1) (27.1) (148.1)

 

The first total, FY 2010-11 appropriation, shows how much money we're putting into schools next year.  It's a cut, but of how much?

The bottom box shows how much we're cutting from the amount we're spending this year.  That's the final FY 2009-10 amount minus the FY 2010-11 appropriation.  Remember, though, that we cut K-12 a couple of time throughout FY 2009-10, so that's the difference from the reduced amount.

Another way to look at the cuts is how much less are we spending from what we would have spent if we'd followed current law (including Amendment 23).  To get that amount, you have to subtract our FY 2010-11 appropriation of $5,439.4 from the the FY 2010-11 subtotal of $5,804.9 million.  Looking at it this way puts the cut at $365.5 million.

This is a common problem when you're talking about the budget.  We pass the budget before the fiscal year begins.  It's based on revenue and cost projections.  Once the fiscal year begins, we have to adjust spending to account for real revenue and costs. The budget is in flux until the very end of the fiscal year.

About a third of the way through the fiscal year, we start working on the following year's budget.  Almost immediately, people start asking about the difference between the two budgets: how much are you cutting from next year's budget?  The answer, of course, is the difference between the current budget and the next budget; but that's hard to calculate when the current budget is still changing and the next one isn't set yet.

Federal Money

May 6, 2010   No Comments

Thank you teachers

May 4th, 2010 — Education

I don't deserve it this year, but the Colorado Education Association named me their Friend of Education for 2010.  Someone at the event recorded it and put the video on YouTube.

May 4, 2010   No Comments

K-12 budget cuts

May 1st, 2010 — Education

The state's massive cut in school funding this year is forcing layoffs and other reductions in district budgets.  Here's a survey of some district cuts so far.

The Colorado School Finance Project has been collecting reports from districts on how much and what they're cutting.  Great Education Colorado is mapping the budget cuts across the state.

Boulder Valley Schools are planning to cut up to $24 million.  Parents and staff seem to agree on how the budget should be cut:

  • Chop administration
  • Spend some money from the emergency reserve
  • Slightly increase class sizes
  • Freeze salaries

Adams 12 is cutting $24 million.

The district is cutting administrators and overhead, but it's also cutting deep into the teaching ranks.  It plans to eliminate 90 teachers, academic coaches, reading specialists, librarians, counselors, assistant principals and special education specialists.

Cutting nearly $200,000 from it's School Effectiveness and Accountability Department, including 1.5 employees.  That might make it tough to do all of the new teacher evaluations.

The district is also increasing fees, including:
  • Middle School Technology Fee: $15/student
  • Transportation: $10/month
  • Athletics participation fees: 25 percent increase
  • High school parking fee increased from $30 to $50

In Durango, the school district has been listing options and asking the community for suggestions on what to cut.  The consensus seems to be for delaying purchases, raising lunch prices and a small to moderate mill-levy override.

May 1, 2010   No Comments

Collectively Wrong

April 25th, 2010 — Bills, Education

If you've been following education you know that Gov. Ritter's biggest efforts have been to continue previous Gov. Owen's failed policies: more testing and increasing privatization of public schools.  

One area where Ritter has exceeded Owens is in funding cuts.  Despite verbally attacking Amendment 23, Gov. Owens never actually recommended violating it.  
 
Gov. Ritter this year built his entire budget around cuts to schools.  He and his lawyers reinterpreted Amendment 23; in their view Coloradans who supported 23 were authorizing massive cuts to K-12.  (It's not clear that people who voted against Amendment 23 wanted big cuts.  They may have simply opposed a constitutional mandate to increase school funding).
 
Now Ritter, Owens and two others former governors have joined together to push for a bill that would grade teachers based on their students' academic growth.  It sounds great, and teachers should be responsible (and held responsible) for teaching their students.  
 
The trouble with the bill is its over-reliance on student achievement as a measure.  There's overwhelming evidence that a lot of factors influence how much students learn — some much more than the quality of the teacher.  For instance, Ritter's massive cuts to schools are bound to hurt student achievement and, at a minimum, complicate any effort to single out other factors, like the quality of the teacher, for measurement.  Finally, our method of measuring student achievement is flawed.
 
That last point is especially pertinent to the governors' letter.  At least the last three of them pushed changes they called education reforms, but steadfastly opposed measuring the result of those changes.  We've never checked to see of the CSAPs, for example, have lived up to their initial promise.
 
Their letter begins: "Over the 36 years we collectively governed this state…"  You might expect the rest of the line to list their achievements in education policy, possibly with some data to support their claims.  It didn't.  
 
In fact, the only reference to their education policies is oddly vague: "As governors, we each worked to improve public schools because we know a high quality education system is the key to Colorado's economic future."  It's disconcerting, too.  There are more reasons to support education than just the state's economic future.  That line reflects their narrow, chamber-of-commerce view of the world.
 
The simple fact is that their efforts to improve public education have accomplished very little, according to their own measurement scheme.  Worse, their efforts have economically segregated schools, wasted tens of millions of dollars and discouraged parents, students and teachers alike — all without improving education.
 
In that sense, they may as well have collectively governed.  (Well, maybe not include Lamm.  I don't remember much about this education policy).
 
Their reasons for supporting the bill range from obtuse ("Teachers will need to continue to demonstrate effectiveness to keep their non-probationary status) to dishonest (High-performing teachers and principals could have access to career ladders that would offer additional pay for additional responsibility that could support all educators in improvement).
 
The first one is a round-about way of saying that teachers with low evaluations would get fired.  The second ignores the fact that Ritter's K-12 cuts will force the firing of thousands of teachers (regardless of their ability) and make it unlikely that any employees of Colorado schools will have career ladders or significantly higher pay.
 
There's another line in the letter that is both dishonest and insidious:  "This bill also offers protections to ensure fairness. Evaluations are linked to how much a student has grown, not to their final score, so there is no penalty to teachers and principals who work with struggling students."
 
This is flat-out false.  (It's ungrammatical as well, reflecting the four governors' grasp of the English language.  I rarely notice, care about, or point out grammatical errors, but this one seems apposite).  The bill's emphasis on student academic growth will hold teachers accountable for things that are outside their control.  
 
A student could miss dozens of days of school, with his parent's consent, and the evaluations would hold the student's teacher responsible.  The evaluations will be based on CSAP results, but the legislature and the governors have refused to require students to take the tests, or have the tests count toward a student's grade.  That means students have no reason to care about their test results, but teachers' careers will depend on them.  
 
For those reasons, and some I mentioned earlier, these evaluations will penalize teachers for working with struggling students.  In fact, any teacher who's counting on the career to support his or her family would be foolish to work with struggling students.
 
This proposal is just another ideologically-motivated attempt to divert attention from the real problems in Colorado schools and our refusal to fix them.  Fortunately, there's a lawsuit working its way through the judicial system that will cut through the nonsense and go to the heart of the matter.  It will also offer a judgment on the governors' education policies.

April 25, 2010   No Comments