Grand District gets a massive anonymous donation

Grand School District, in major financial trouble after their business officer erroneously (no assumptions about intent) allocated and reported funds, just got a "late Christmas present."

"An anonymous donor is giving the district $700,000, which will save the jobs of seven teachers and enable the district to forego implementing a four-day school week."

Congratulations, I say. I hope other schools can find generous benefactors as well.

Arne Duncan video on "tough love" for schools

Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a great interview about education reforms. The link is to a page of video series, so if you click through after the date of this post, you may have to search to find Duncan's video in the archives.

Duncan speaks about schools, unions, and the bureaucracy changing to focus on outcomes. He wants the federal department of education to change from a "compliance" behemoth to one focused on reform and innovation.

Jay Mathews, Washington Post columnist and noted education reformer called Obama and his education department the greatest administration in terms of charter support. (On Hugh Hewitt's radio show. Unfortunately, no link--subscription only.)

Legislative roundup

Bill that would extend new teachers' probationary period from three to five years (charters are exempt from this statute) narrowly passes committee.

Governor's State of the State address calls for "protecting public and higher education." Governor continues to call for no cuts (except those related to student growth) along the lines of what the State Board of Education asked for, while the legislature prepares plans for cuts this year and next year.

Senator Howard Stephenson moves forward a bill that would reform U-PASS for fewer, more effective, and more locally controlled student performance measurements and assessments.

Bill that would require more background checks for volunteers passes committee unanimously.

Districts somewhat "hesitant" about race to the top

...but they've all signed on.

Districts share some of my concerns.

Superintendents with several school districts — including Salt Lake City, Jordan, Alpine and Canyons — initially were uneasy about signing the Race to the Top applications earlier this month. They said some of the goals required of the districts are vague and a work in progress.

"The application says we need to do these things to receive the money, but it doesn't say what things," said Salt Lake City School District Superintendent McKell Withers.

But, the districts (even small ones) all receive at least $1 million, and that much money over four years is pretty convincing. No matter what ends up being required, $1 million will likely pay for it, and more.

Charters on the other hand receive only 5 percent of that as a base--$50,000. That's a lot less convincing, and certainly a lot less to implement the vague and unknown aspects of a 600-page application, which still lacks details about what's expected.

Known is this: charters will each have the same reporting and participation requirements. It will cost the same to implement whatever is going to be required. Yet charters are expected to do 100 percent of the work with only 5 percent of the funding.

Is it any wonder that several charters elected not to participate? If the funding allocations don't change, I predict many more will jump off.

Half the WPU? Really?

I like the fact that the Davis County Clipper wrote about charter schools and how we deal with the challenges of underfunding. And it's nice that they quote Wasatch Peak. And I'm not one to be personally critical.

But the kind of factual errors included in this error, whether they come from the school or the newspaper or the management company, hurt the cause of gaining funding equity for charter school students.

According to the paper, "Right now, Wasatch Peak Academy’s weighted pupil unit is $2,577. That is about half of the weighted pupil unit for Davis School District students."

It's just too easy for districts to point out the fact that the Weighted Pupil Unit is the same for all districts and charters. Someone involved here doesn't understand how charter school funding works. And it's hard to convince the legislature to make adjustments if we don't present a consistent statement of the facts.

The facts related to funding are:

• Charter students don't have access to the local property tax revenue that funds students in school districts.
• The state tries to make up for that with Local Replacement Funding, which is supposed to be based on an average what students receive at districts statewide
• Unfortunately, that amount has been reduced over the years, lags behind district funding, and doesn't include all the relevant funding streams that make up district funding
• This year, the Charter Association and the School Boards Association agreed on an approach that would permanently address this problem.

I hope that all charter advocates will educate themselves on the funding problems and the solutions, and that the media will, too.

Ignorance is the main obstacle to change. The charter movement's principal is sound. All children in Utah should be funded equally. The value of a child in a school district is the same to taxpayers as a child in a charter school, and the law should recognize that.

Governor Herbert thinks legislative budget is "extra conservative"

"Gary Herbert said Thursday that lawmakers are already looking at budget cuts that are "too Draconian" as they ready for the start of the 2010 Legislature," according to the Dnews.

"He said he is "cautiously optimistic" lawmakers will choose to follow his budget proposal, which minimizes cuts without raising taxes by tapping the state's Rainy Day Fund and other sources."

Meantime, Senator Chris Butters is drafting his own plan for reform that would balance the budget by making cuts only, no tax increases. The biggest reduction in spending? Eliminating 12th grade.

Retroactive cuts?

The Education Appropriations Committee approved a plan to cut four percent from this year's spending in public schools. See the DNews piece here.

Superintendent Larry Shumway points out the school year is half over, essentially making it a potential 8 percent cut.

Killpack tragedy

I've not written about this prior to today, and expect not to again. However, the most impactful news for charter schools in some time happened last week when Senator Sheldon Killpack, the majority leader in the Utah Senate, political rising star, and vice president of charter development and management company Academica West was arrested and resigned.

Because of the fact that Killpack's company and mine are competitors in the charter industry, I hadn't wanted to draw attention to his personal tragedy. However, his resignation and the political impact that has for the coming legislative session--a key one for charter schools--is too big not to address.

Therefore, I will say that I will miss Killpack's commitment to equalized funding of charter school students and to providing real choices for parents in the education of their children. While others (especially in comment sections of online news stories) believe he was conflicted and writing laws to benefit his own business, I believe he was passionately committed to the principles of parental choice, accountability, and equality. That led to both his employment and his political positions.

If it weren't for the political aspect, this would simply be another tragic story of a flawed man (aren't we all?) whose personal failings have massive consequences for his professional and, undoubtedly, family life.

I agree with this editorial in the Deseret News, and wish Sheldon only happiness and redemption.

Utahans want to protect education funding

From Utah Policy:

Even though the state is facing a massive budget hole during the 2010 legislative session, Utah residents want the legislature to leave the public education budget alone.

A Dan Jones and Associates poll commissioned by the Exoro Group, Utah Policy and CPPA concludes that an overwhelming majority of Utahns want lawmakers to leave public education alone when making budget cuts.

71% say they either “strongly oppose” or “somewhat oppose” making cuts to public education when balancing the budget. Only 14% “strongly favor” or “somewhat favor” cutting public ed.

Additionally, 76% of registered voters said they favored sparing public education from cuts even if it meant greater cuts in other state services.

Districts all support Race to the Top...Not all charters

While this article in the Tribune doesn't mention the status of charter support for the Race to the Top application, apparently all districts are supporting it. That may put Utah in a stronger position than other states, who have some districts who have chosen to to support their states' applications.

However, several charters have chosen not to participate. Not like they all announce their reasons, but could the fact that the base funding for charter schools is 95% less than districts be a factor? The Utah application unfortunately puts 100% of the requirements, bureaucracy, and reporting on charters, along with only 5% of the base funding. Is it any wonder that charters look at that and think, "this creates an unfunded mandate that draws us away from our mission"?

Demand for charters soaring

Nationally, demand for charter school's is far outstripping the supply, particularly with many states' caps on enrollment, authorizers, and the number of schools.

"According to The Center for Education Reform (CER), an average of 239 children are waiting to enter each charter school in America, demonstrating a 21 percent surge in parental demand for charters over last year."

A breakthrough

For the first time, charter school representatives and district representatives testified together before the Education Appropriations committee with a united presentation to equitably fund charter school students. This really was a tremendous breakthrough in policy and represents years of effort.

Here's an article on the developments from the DNews. Check the comments, too. (I'm quoted in that article--sorry if that sounds scary.)

If this plan is adopted, charter school students will be funded as close to equitably as we have ever gotten, and as close as we could reasonably hope to be, except for maybe a statewide equalization plan.

Very long post on Race to the Top

I hope to explain what I understand about the state’s Race to the Top grant application, the requirements and risks for charter schools, the current financial plan for fund distribution, and how that might change in the future so you can make informed decisions about whether or not your school should participate.

The deadline to submit a Memorandum of Understanding is Wednesday, January 13, only six days from the time this email was first sent from the state to schools. That fast turnaround makes informed decisions difficult. I have spent those days trying to get as much information about the program and its impacts on schools as possible.

Over the last few days, I have met with representatives from the charter school office, the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools, the superintendent's office, and the governor's office. I wasn’t alone in these meetings—rather I worked as a team with other charter representatives and the leadership of the state association.

THE PLAN

The plan itself is, I believe, fairly solid. While it has weaknesses, I believe that the general approach is solid. The overall goals are to improve data collection of student academic achievement and to use that data to help schools make decisions about teacher retention, promotion, and compensation. From that standpoint, the plan calls for a statewide model that is what most charters do anyway. However, charters (and all schools) are limited by the time that a student spends in our own schools. One major goal of this program is to collect “longitudinal” (over a student’s entire Utah academic career) data for every child. With such data, charters and all schools can likely make better placement and intervention decisions for students.

STRENGTHS

If the plan is successful and fully implemented, every teacher in the state of Utah will be compensated based largely on the quality of their instruction and the academic performance of their students. The state will have a system to track the performance of students over grades and years. These would be positive developments that would benefit all children in the state.

WEAKNESSES

The plan is lacking in specifics. Reading the plan, a school really doesn’t get a sense of what, if any, reporting requirements will add burdens and cost to the school. Instead, we get statements that charters will be required to do “on-going implementation,” “Participate in professional development,” and “Participate in data collection.” In talking to others, however, the general belief (though specific details have yet to be announced) is that the reporting burden will be very large.

Another weakness is the uniformity that will be required of schools. That may be necessary in a state-wide application, but I do worry that such uniformity will crowd out innovative, but non-uniform programs. What if a charter school has a tested and successful way of measuring student data in reading and math, consistent with its charter and goals? Would a uniform and standard assessment implemented statewide force successful schools to replace such programs with newly developed and untested programs? That question is unanswered. While innovation is a goal of the application and overall reform, I worry that the uniformity and centralization (the state keeps almost half of the overall funding to develop things themselves) might actually inhibit innovation, particularly in charter schools.

Further information will surely come out to address potential weaknesses that I’ve raised. Unfortunately, schools are required to either state their participation or lack of it (in what for now is irrevocable either way) without that information.

REWARDS

The most important rewards for schools are money and influence. The application asks for $250 million in funding over four years. Statewide, that is substantial and really can help schools and the state develop programs and systems that can benefit students. For schools who already have systems in place that meet the goals of the state’s reform efforts, this increase in funding (if funding is high enough to cover the additional reporting and bureaucracy requirements) can probably pay for things you’re doing anyway. That means healthier budgets, increased flexibility, and program enhancements. All things I love.

If charters are well-represented and involved, we can really help steer the overall state reform efforts into new areas of innovation and flexibility. I look forward to showing the state the kinds of data tracking, innovative compensation programs, and quality measurement tools that charters have developed and successfully implemented for years.

RISKS

The biggest risk is that the funding for charters (which is very inequitable—more below) will be so low that the bureaucratic and reporting requirements will overwhelm the allocated dollars and not allow charters the capacity to fully participate, even adding a burden that will interfere with the implementation of the program you’re already doing. But, we should all understand that this reform effort will likely replace the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the federal education law) eventually anyway, meaning that whether or not schools participate they’ll have to do it all anyway—with no additional funding.

Other risks have to do with the weaknesses outlined above.

FUNDING

School districts (even very small districts—some with only a few hundred students) get a minimum allocation of $1 million. Charters have a minimum allocation of only 5 percent of that--$50,000. That funding is a one-time infusion of cash, but is meant to last the entire four-year span of the program. Charters may have to do with an average of $12,500 per year to implement all aspects of this entire program, while districts with fewer students receive $250,000 per year.

This situation further increases the potential risk that the requirements for charters will be essentially unfunded, increasing the bureaucratic burden on schools, hampering efforts to focus on building and refining programs. I believe that the funding inequities must be--and can be--addressed and corrected.

SHOULD YOU ELECT TO PARTICIPATE?

Well, that’s the million dollar question—at least if you’re a small school district. For charters it’s more like the $64,000 question.

Besides the funding inequity, the lack of reasonable time for schools to consider the ramifications of participation, and the lack of detail in the application itself, are the most frustrating parts of this process. That lack of time has resulted in seven charter schools already informing the state that they will not participate. (More potential funding for the rest of us, I guess.) All districts have announced intent to participate. Yes, even though this requires full performance-based compensation for all teachers within four years, the UEA and every district has announced their support, according to what I have been told. Wow.

At this time, I’d like to think that participating at this point will allow schools to opt out in the future if requirements (once they are known) are too onerous. Some I spoke to do not believe that. Rather, some believe that once you’re in, you’re in and you won’t be able to back out. And of course they also believe that all schools will be required to participate in the statewide programs that are developed anyway, eventually.

If you choose not to participate, it will be permanent. The school will lose any potential funding and influence in the process. You’ll also, at least temporarily, lose the obligation to meet the reporting and bureaucratic requirements. If enough charters (either because of lack of information, inequitable funding, or philosophical differences) decline to participate, it may demonstrate to the US Department of Education that Utah’s application doesn’t have the support of the parties involved, and could scuttle the state’s application.

If enough charters participate that our representatives outnumber that of districts, we could find that our philosophies of local control, choice, and data-driven accountability steer the overall state reform efforts in the right direction.

With all that said, I lean toward participation. If individual board members or directors are nervous because of what I’ve written here or what you already knew or heard about the program, I probably wouldn’t argue. However, I believe the potential rewards outweigh the potential risks. I believe that either the funding allocations will improve or the state’s application will be denied. I assume that people will behave reasonably in their reform efforts.

With all of those things, I believe that the application at this time deserves the support of charter schools.

USOE staff gets furloughs

According to KSL.

Three days. Rather than keep the office open and cycle employees through on different days, USOE will be closed one day each in January, February, and March.

The dog that isn't barking

There have been lots of stories like this one, about the big budget hole that the legislature has to fill. The curious thing is that the largest part of the states budget (public education) seems to be exempt. The discussion is about cutting roads and human services, and not education.

Making choice a real option

One of my big frustrations with NCLB in Utah has been that when schools fail to make progress, the information isn't released until after school starts--that is, too late for parents to make a reasonable choice to attend another school. I'm glad to see that USOE agrees and is making changes.

"To come to a parent two weeks after school starts and say you can go to a different school, you're not really offering school choice," said John Jesse, director of assessment at the State Office of Education, of the intent behind the change. "It's not really giving you a fair opportunity to make that choice."

Unfortunately, according to the article, these changes are driven not by the bureaucracy's desire to really allow choice for parents, but to comply with a new "federal requirement."

Racing to the Top

Well, the state has released it's Race to the Top (RTTT) application, which details how the state would use $250 million to improve data collection and tracking of students statewide over their academic career, and use that data to inform decisions about teacher retention, compensation, and promotion.

The state wants to do a number of things with the money, including hiring someone to help oversee early childhood education in Utah (the state lost funding for that position two years ago), keep full-day kindergarten programs going, create tools to measure teaching quality, revise the state's high school exit exam, improve training for math teachers and give the same type of help to troubled high schools that now goes only to troubled Title 1 schools.

I thought it was a good plan, but didn't like how it was presented to charter schools (and districts, I assume.) On Tuesday, school directors received an email with the 60-plus page application and told to respond by the next day with whether or not their school would participate. That fast turnaround led to at least some schools declining participation and funding out of ignorance of what the plan was or fear of what it might require. And now the opportunity to participate for those schools has passed.

No soup for them.

Grand District's problems...and solution

The State Board of Education approved waivers to allow Grand District expanded use of restricted funds to get through a financial crisis caused by incorrect accounting. Those errors were discovered when the district's business manager died last year. The district is also laying off 50 employees, selling a building, and increasing class size to up to 45 students!

I'd like to think that the SBE would be equally helpful if a charter school were in the same financial pickle, but I don't think parents would be. 45 students in a class would send charter students right back out the door. Grand District is home to the Moab Community School (K-6--60 total students, cap of 16 per class), but beyond that, families have little in the way of educational options.

Could a charter school survive the kind of situation that Grand finds itself in? I don't think so.

Want students to arrive on time?

Here's an innovative approach to punctuality from Mountainville Academy in Alpine.

Every day, on-time arrival is measured and plotted on this graph. The students receive prizes for having 95% of students arrive on time to school during a week, month, and academic term, with the grand prize being a week of free dress.

The reason for most late arrivals are parents, and as public schools charters have little in the way of consequences to be meted out for parent behavior. And school's can't hound such parents, but this approach lets the kids do the hounding, which is more effective anyway. When kids tell their parents to wake them up on time and hurry up with breakfast, I need to be to school on time, parents respond, and usually like it.

And kids get to school on time which helps the education of everyone.

Two charters face accreditation woes

Along with a handful of district and private schools, Merit and Pinnacle Canyon have been placed on "advised" status by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, the agency that accredits schools in Utah.

According to the Tribune:

Merit is being recommended for advised status because it didn't have course descriptions, according to the school's accreditation summary. A school official said the course descriptions are in the school's charter and just needed updating to fulfill requirements.

"It's not a huge reason for alarm, but it is what it is," said Merit board Chairwoman Jenni Theobald.

Attempts to reach officials at Pinnacle this week were unsuccessful, and the state office refused to release the reasons for putting schools on advised or warned status before the state board meets on Thursday. In the past, the state office has released those reasons to the public at the same time as the status report.