Turning the dirt in Tooele

Ground has been broken on the first charter school in Tooele County.

Excelsior Academy's Board of Trustees and Director, Ernie Nix, along with the school's builder and architect turned fresh ground in Erda, just north of Tooele on Saturday.
Future students at Excelsior also took their turn with the shovels.
Excelsior Academy will serve 648 students from grades K-8 when it opens this August.

1.5 percent

Any reduction in funding at this point in the year is tough to take. For many schools, a funding reduction means cuts to programs, salaries, benefits, or technology.

But schools have to be pleased at the apparent small size of the budget cuts agreed for this year. Rather than the 7.5 percent that many schools had feared and prepared for just two weeks ago, today's Tribune reports that the cuts will be only about 1.5% That number is much more manageable, though some schools will still face tough decisions and people may face uncomfortable reductions.

Rumors still have next year's potential cuts at up to 15 percent. Obviously, the state can't give to schools money they don't have, but just as schools prioritize different programs and staff to protect what is most important, state lawmakers should also prioritize education highly and protect it to the degree they can.

New Book focuses on charter success

Work Hard. Be Nice is the title of a new book by Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews. It focuses on the KIPP schools that are now operating in 19 states and D.C. Utah Law precludes KIPP from opening schools here based on their current model, which is unfortunate.

Utah's education laws and rules should encourage the kind of innovation and excellence that has been demonstrated across the country.

Behind the scenes

The depth of education budget cuts for this year are still unknown. Leadership of both houses are "scurrying behind the scenes" to get a proposal together that the GOP in the House and Senate, and the Governor would approve. I believe education cuts are likely to be three percent or less for this year, with heavier cuts coming next year.

See story in the DNews.

Not as bad as some say...

"It's not nearly as dreary and forlorn-looking on the horizon as people have been saying."

-- Senate President Michael Waddoups, commenting on the state budget outlook

Legislature Opens Tomorrow: Bills to watch

Here is a list of bills for charter people to watch as the legislative session begins Monday. To track the progress of these or any other bills, click here.

• HB96 by C. Watkins: Would allow charters a second chance to opt into the state retirement system.
  
• HB230 by L. Fowlke: Would require districts and charters to give teachers credit for time they worked out of state or at other schools within the state.
• HB242 by L. Black: Would move up the date for Kindergarten enrollment from September to July so kids would be a few months older to start Kindergarten.
• Gage Froerer has a bill called "Charter School Governance Amendments," but it isn't yet public.
  

How deep will cuts be? The latest

Legislative budget committees canceled planned meetings this week over concern (from many corners) that proposed cuts were too deep. Apparently, there is a tentative agreement between legislative leaders and the governor's office on a way to ease cuts for this year.

This is what I hoped and nervously predicted would happen, so I'm pleased, especially for charters who won't need to make the most drastic cuts that were presented as possibilities last week.

See stories in the Tribune and DNews.

How high will cuts be? Notes from yesterday's committee meeting

2:32—I wanted to get a sense from this meeting where the legislature stood on funding cuts, and it’s clear that this committee, and the Executive Appropriations committee will recommend to the houses of the legislature a 7.5% cut. That’s bad news. The governor doesn’t want such a large cut for this year, and that’s maybe some good news, though he’s not at this meeting, nor is a representative of his office.

2:42—Senator Morgan asks if this proposal includes any rainy day funds for this. The answer is no, but with a wrinkle that was helpful to know. Stephenson explains further: this committee was given a charge from Exec approps to cut 7.5% from the budget, and that if the cuts could be made less, what priorities are there for restoration. This committee doesn’t have the power to consider rainy day funds or any other revenue. He further explains that schools have flexibility, that it doesn’t matter what section we put it in. (So why continue with discussion of what programs to protect or prioritize?)

2:45—Morgan wants to recommend that the ExecApprops committee use rainy day funds to ease the cuts for education this year.

2:47—Brad Last says that the use of rainy day funds is under discussion, and that’s the next debate the legislature will have. I revise my statement from above about their desire to cut 7.5%. I think it is extremely unlikely that cuts would be that high, and that rainy day funds will be used at some level to protect education funding.

Please cut core services first

At today's Education Appropriations Committee meeting, Patti Harrington, the state superintendent, spoke about the impact of budget cuts on her office (USOE). She said that their first priority was to protect positions that deal with compliance, and then after that to protect positions that provide services to schools.

What?!

What if a district or school had said such a thing? "We want to make sure to cut services and instruction to students before we cut administration and bureaucrats that file paperwork and do reports to other bureaucrats."

But no one on the committee asked her about it.

Will the feds print enough to cover our budget cuts?

The $850 billion "stimulus" package that has been rolled out in Washington has billions for the department of education. The amount of new funding from this one bill is nearly double the DOE's annual discretionary budget. If that money makes it to schools in about its same proportions as now, and schools nearly double their federal revenue, that could be just about enough to erase a 7.5% cut coming from the state.

While Utah's government is cutting back to balance its budget and avoid deficits, the feds have no caution about their own. That may help schools in the short term, and here's hoping that it won't cripple the economy and the dollar past that.

Mountainville in the clear

Mountainville, the unfortunate subject of a state charter board investigation based on allegations from parents, was found to have violated no law or rule.

While there was no merit to the allegations, there is an important lesson to learn. When parents lack information, they will fill in blanks with assumptions based on the relationships they have. If there is not a productive relationship with the board and administration, parents will assume as fact what they hear from others. There will always be the disgruntled (no charter can please all of the people all of the time) and those few can have a powerful impact on how the school is perceived if there is not a conscious and ongoing effort from the board and administration to build proactive, open, and trusting relationships with all parents.

GIve the penalty before there's any evidence

The Tribune has unsurprisingly added their voices to the chorus of education establishment groupies wailing for an end to charter schools. Their song goes like this: there's no evidence that charters are harmful, but we should impose a penalty on them anyway. Their editorial is full of false assumptions, faulty logic, and outright lies. Here are some:

• "The original legislation creating charters allocated separate state funding to pay operating costs." This is simply not true. Instead of just taking districts' word for it, reporters may want to actually read the law. The original legislation required districts to contribute half of every charter student's allotment of locally raised taxes. Meaning the districts got to keep half of the property taxes for students they no longer educated.
• "It's time to figure out just how much charter schools cost and whether they're worth the money." The data is already out there. Either the Trib doesn't want to look or doesn't like the results. At least two legislative studies have been done, as well as in depth studies by the Utah Foundation and every year by the Utah Taxpayers' Association. Studies show that when considering taxes from all sources, charter students receive less than district students, and that for less money established charters outperform established district schools.
• "Advocates and critics of charter schools disagree over whether they are more expensive than traditional public schools." They only disagree when one side ignores the clear evidence that's out there and starts making stuff up. Charter students take fewer tax dollars to educate, in part because they are excluded from several programs.
• "Charters generally offer smaller classes, making the cost per student higher." Half right. Charters do generally offer smaller classes, but not because they spend more per student--they just spend more per student on instruction. Districts spend much more per student on non-instruction (administration and support staff).
  
• "Right now, there is not enough information to know which is true." Not so. The information is there, but the districts haven't given that information to the Trib, which won't do its own work, so they all just ignore it.

I don't argue against even another study into charter schools. A new inquiry will yield the same results: charter students cost less to educate; charter schools allocate more resources to the classroom; charters opening causes district schools to improve options and programs; parents are highly satisfied; and as charters become established they outperform established district schools.

But let's not stifle the growth and innovation based on ignorance. Calls for a moratorium on charter growth ignore the clear facts and impose a penalty (on Utah students most of all--especially the thousands already on charter waiting lists) for a crime that doesn't exist.

Limiting options doesn't increase involvement

I believe that the rule requiring 25 percent of a charter's governing board to be parents, and that one of those parents must be elected, is unnecessary. It also conflicts with the spirit and language of the statute authorizing charter schools. That conflict leads to a limitation on the innovative approaches that charters can take regarding school governance.

According to the legislative commissioned study on charter schools from 2006, 75 percent of the members of charter school boards in Utah are parents of students at the school. The majority of Utah charter schools have board members that are entirely made up of parents at the school. The State Board rule is a solution in search of a problem. Parents are well represented in the governance of charter schools.

In statute, one purpose of charter schools is to increase parental involvement. This rule is a clumsy and ineffective attempt to define the kind of involvement that charters should have. But this attempt ignores another statutory purpose of charter schools, namely to establish new models of schools and new forms of accountability. The board’s rule on board structure essentially says, “We want charters to establish new models of schools and accountability, as long as your model looks like the one we want.” If innovation is a mission of the charter school movement in Utah, we must allow that innovation to also include school governance.

While the vast majority of Utah schools include parents (and most boards are exclusively parents) in their governance, many schools outside of Utah have had success with boards that do not include parents, but include professional educators, business leaders, and other experts. Is there not room in Utah for successful models like this? Is the favored structure of the state board the only structure that can have the effect of increasing parental involvement?

Evidence from around the country makes it clear that many different models can be successful. Utah’s rules regarding charter school governance should allow for the new models of schools and accountability that are called for in statute

Will Huntsman save us from big cuts

The Tribune reports that the governor is "ready for a showdown" with the legislature over his priorities, which include protecting education funding. If that's true and school's budgets are protected this year, hopefully the painful decisions that schools have been considering will be just a helpful exercise in prioritization, rather than the first step in making the least bad of only bad options.

Have you seen the educational options we have in this valley?

I thought that was the best line from this story. Clearly Monticello Academy, like most charters, has parents who don't like some board decisions, and if those decisions conflict with the law, then the school will face consequences, including potential removal of the board or some members.

If the differences between parents and the school leadership aren't about conflicts with the law, but instead about differing judgments about what's best for the school, then the appropriate option for parents is to either work within the school structure to change things, or go to a school that operates more in line with their own vision.

But the main parent quoted in this story, even through it all, considers Monticello the best of her available options. Now that's something.

An unfortunate consequence of the economy

KSL shares my view about performance pay for teachers: disappointment that the programs will likely not survive legislative budget cuts. As much as I love the program and the concept, I have had to advise my schools to abandon the program because it is one of the few places to cut that doesn't directly impact programs, staffing levels, or teacher cash flow.

"In KSL's view, the potential benefits of developing an effective program that rewards teachers for going the extra mile is an experiment worth pursuing."

When 7.5% means a lot more than that

Schools are being told to plan for a 7.5% funding reduction from the state. In normal circumstances that would be hard. But doable. Families, businesses, and schools have all dealt with budget reductions before, and professionals can make the adjustments to the reality they face. But this year the funding hit will be much worse than just a 7.5% reduction.

First, the reduction is coming when the school is already more than halfway through the year. Half of the money schools were counting on has already been spent, and much more than half has been committed. Suddenly that 7.5% is more than 15%.

Second, schools are being told to "preserve teacher salaries and maintain current class sizes." Teacher salaries are usually the largest single part of a school's budget. If that remains untouchable (it certainly should be the priority to preserve) then the cuts can only come out of smaller parts of the budget. Debt service or facility payments make the second largest part of the budget, and those are pre-negotiated and set practically in stone.

Consider this:
Teacher salaries are about 30% of a school's budget
Facility costs are about 20%
Other untouchable admin (Principal, secretary, janitor) make up 5%
Equipment and curriculum have already been purchased for the year, for 10%

That's nearly 2/3 of the school's budget that can't be reduced. So, a 7.5% cut is more than doubled because we are over halfway through the year. That 15% can only be applied to about a third of the remaining expenses because of the reality of schools. That increases the effect of the reduction to 45%.

That's tough to make work.

Want to save money? Take a day off

From the DNews:

One less day of school among ways proposed to save money

Cuts looking more and more likely this year

USOE sent an email to charters and districts today based on the outcome of Monday's Education Appropriations Committee meeting at the Legislature. From that email:

It is my (Associate Superintendent Larry Shumway's) opinion that school districts and charter schools should anticipate a reduction in total state support of at least 4.5 percent in the current (2008-09) fiscal year. I believe that prudence requires that LEAs take immediate action toward implementation of a 4.5 percent reduction. I also believe that cuts of as much as 7.5 percent are not beyond the range of possibility. Of course, no cuts are official until the Legislature is in session and adopts the budget, but to wait any longer in the face of what I believe to be a certainty of reduction will only make the challenge greater.

On the bright side...

Turns out that a slumping economy helps the teacher shortage. Ha! When private sector jobs go away, suddenly more secure (if lower paying) education jobs start to look real friendly.

How does 7.5% become 30%?

Cutting budgets is one thing. Even though most schools already run a tight ship, they ought to be able to find ways to reduce expenses in the future.

Cutting budgets already spent is something else. If this article is correct and public schools take funding cuts of 7.5 percent for the current year, the changes would have to be drastic.

The legislative session won't end until March. By then the fiscal year will be 3/4 over, and the entire 7.5 percent cut will have to be implemented in the last two months of the school year. That's an equivalent of a 30% cut in funding for that final quarter of the year.

That's draconian. Obviously, if the state doesn't have the money it can't pass it on to schools and districts, but lawmakers should do all they can to protect students from such drastic reductions in the final months of this school year.

Districts at it again

School districts continue to demonstrate their ignorance of public school finance.

The idea that charter school students are more expensive to educate than students in district schools is ludicrously false, and demonstrably so. (See earlier post.)

But, no complaints about the media here. Kirsten Stewart of the Trib at least quotes Brian Allen (chair of the State Charter School Board) refuting the laughable claim and calling their political posturing what it is.

Utah: Last in funding; first in equality; off the charts in clarity

According to a new report, Utah ranks last in the nation in per-pupil spending but first in equity of spending (Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune).

I'd like to focus on one line from the Trib article: "This year the state is spending $2,577 dollars per student, not including federal and local dollars."

That is wildly inaccurate. Regular state funding of public school students is almost $4,000, not including special programs like Special Ed, Reading Achivement, Gifted and Talented, and numerous other programs.

The Weighted Pupil Unit ($2,577) is only the base number that is applied to formulas and statistics in a variety of ways. In addition to receiving $2,577 for every student, public schools receive additional amounts for Social Security and Retirement, Administrative Costs, Class Size Reduction, several Block Grants, Professional Staff funding, and dozens of other state programs that are based on the number of students in schools.

There are dozens of state funding streams that use the WPU as a base multiplied by enrollment or other statistical factors. When all state funding streams are included, per student funding is well over $5,000 on average, though some students are funded more because of their demographics, educational needs, or geographic location.

Check out the current Allotment Memo for each school district and charter school in the state. Take a look at Granite School District, which begins on page 54. Their WPU funding (at $2,577 per student) totals $129 million. But their total state funding under the Minimum School Program is more than double that amount, $291 million. With federal funding and non-MSP state funding included, the total is $346 million. Local funding adds tens of millions more.

You can see that just from state funding for students in Granite district, is more than $5800 per student. That’s a difference of over 125 percent from the number stated in the Trib article.

Top 10 Education Qutoes of 2008--Utah Wins!

Check out the top ten education quotes of the year from Education Intelligence Agency.

Number one is from Alfie Kohn, the keynote speaker at last year's UEA convention.

"When the scores go up, it's not just meaningless. It's worrisome."

Congratulations to charter success!

The following charter schools were recognized as Title I High Performing Schools:

» Academy of Math, Engineering and Science

» Da Vinci Academy

» Mountainville Academy

» North Davis Preparatory Academy

» Renaissance Academy

» Walden School of Liberal Arts

A full list, including district schools, is here. Alpine school district had only one district school meet the standard, but had two charters. More than 10 percent of the qualifying schools are charters, even though charters only have about 6 percent of the student population in the state.

Political bias masquerading as facts

I struggle to appreciate bureaucrats who misrepresent facts, either out of dishonesty or ignorance. I struggle with politicians who disingenuously use unfortunate circumstances to further an unrelated political agenda out of fear. I struggle with that, but I understand it. The job of education bureaucrats (rather than providing the best education for children) is the perpetuation of their bureaucracy and jobs. The job of politicians is their reelection and political agenda, in that order. So, while I am disappointed at the outrageous misstatement of facts and the political posturing in this article, I would expect nothing less from a bureaucrat and opportunistic politician.

I like to think I should expect more from reporters. It is news when politicians and bureaucrats in a position of public trust make statements about freezing the growth of charter schools. That's a controversial statement that should be covered. Isn't it bigger news that the business administrator of the local school district (who should know school finance better than anyone in the county) has such a complete misunderstanding of how students are funded in Utah?

And shouldn't we be able to expect a reporter to drill a bit deeper in Rep. Mel Brown's statement that "There's no better time than when the economy is down to declare a moratorium; don't approve more charter schools." This shows the same tragic misunderstanding of school finance that is prevalent in the education establishment.

Charter school students cost taxpayers about $5500 each. Traditional public school students cost more than $7,000. When students attend charter schools, taxpayers save money. Here are some reasons why:

• Charter parents drive their students to school or carpool with neighbors, saving taxpayers the cost of buses, drivers, and gas--a savings of hundreds of dollars per student per year
• Charter parents usually provide their own lunches to their children, saving taxpayers the cost of school lunch, which is potentially hundreds of more per student per year
• Charter school buildings are built with private money, so no homeowner will see property taxes increase to build a charter school
• Charter schools usually spend much less on administrative overhead than school districts, meaning more money gets into classrooms
• Charters get hundreds of thousands of dollars from the federal government when they open. Utah would be losing out on that money if no more charters opened
  

A struggling economy is exactly the time to build more charter schools. It saves taxpayers money, and benefits students in local district schools by reducing class size while increasing per student spending. (Charter students leave most of their local property tax funding with the district when they move to charters.)

It will be a fine day when bureaucrats and politicians put the interests of students above their own. Reporters can help us get there by understanding enough about the issues and people they cover that they don't just parrot the bias and misunderstanding of those who should know better as facts.