Do schools routinely lie to parents?

Yes, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the Obama administration's Race to the Top contest has reversed the trend of officials lowering educational standards and misleading students into thinking they are prepared for college.

"As a country we've dummied down standards. We've reduced them due to political pressure and we've actually been lying to children and parents telling them they're ready when they're not," Duncan said on Sunday during ABC's "This Week".

He also argued the educational system in America has reached a crisis point that threatens the nation's long-term economic stability.

"We have to educate our way to a better economy. In this country we have a 25 percent dropout rate," Duncan said. "That's economically unsustainable and morally unacceptable. We have to get the dropout rate to zero as quickly as we can. The status quo is not going to work for the country, we have to get better."

Specialization is the key

...to all kinds of things.

Economies and societies flourish when people specialize in a skill or service, and then trade with others. It's why free trade agreements create jobs and opportunities for all parties, and is one reason why charter schools are so successful.

As charters and national and local charter movements mature, the kinds of charters that open change. At first you get "Dream" schools that release pent up demand. Then you get "back-to-basics" schools, and then a crop of general interest schools. But over time, more and more schools that fill specific niches in the marketplace crop up.

You saw that in Utah. Charters started with the "New Century High Schools" ten years ago, fulfilling the dream of many politicians and educators. Then we started seeing the back-to-basics schools that fueled an explosion of charter growth. Now, we are getting schools like Baer Canyon, a sports medicine school. Even the applicants are less and less about general interest, and more and more to fill smaller interests that have been unserved by a general-interest system.

And that's common across the country. Check out this article highlighting these schools:

• West Michigan Aviation Academy
• Democracy Preparatory Charter School

"The movement is beginning to expand and grow as parents figure out that public charters are doing a great deal in closing the achievement gap and offering options that public schools don't," said Peter Groff, executive director of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But what works in Harlem and in Grand Rapids, Mich., might not work elsewhere, advocates said, so the best approach to growing the charter movement rests in the hands of parents and their communities, and the marketplace.

Florida's rocketship, piloted by Jeb Bush

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush was in town yesterday to speak to education and policy leaders about the education reforms that were his signature achievement in Florida. (See reports in the DNews and Trib.) I attended the luncheon that capped the day.

I wish I had the powerpoint slides that showed the progress that Florida students have made in the last decade. The trajectory is like a rocketship, blasting past Utah, whose scores have remained largely stagnant despite large funding increases.

A combination of outcome-based accountability and parental choice is the key. Bush cited other reforms, including bonuses and financial incentives, but I am including those as part of accountability.

The event was great, and we're lucky in Utah to be able to have people with such connections on the charter school team.

Does school choice improve academics? Yes. Check out New Orleans

With a hat tip to Craig Frank:

Over the past five years, New Orleans has turned tragedy into triumph. It has quickly become the most market based school district in the country. The state of Louisiana took over most of the schools in the district and turned them into successful charter schools. As a result, 70 percent of students in New Orleans will be attending a charter school in the fall—the highest rate of any district in the nation. Additionally, the district now has an open choice policy that allows students to attend any public school regardless of their geographical location.

So far, the numbers show it has been mostly successful. A recent Stanford University study highlighted Louisiana…where charter schools outperform traditional pub lic schools. Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek reports that in New Orleans, the combined district test scores have risen 24 percent since 2005, when most stu dents attended traditional schools.

I hate to say this… I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster. It took hurricane Katrina to wake up the community and say we have to do better. The progress that they've made in four years is unbelievable.

President Obama calls a "truce" with teachers

From Politico:

After 18 months of frosty relations that at times bordered on outright hostility, it seems that Obama has called a truce — one that several education experts noted comes just in time for the midterm elections, when teachers unions can be a powerful Democratic ally.
Obama and Duncan have presided over historic increases in school financing and hastened changes, such as new teacher evaluation systems in states and school districts, often with the cooperation of local unions. At the same time, this Democratic president has aggressively confronted teachers unions with a spate of reforms out of a Republican playbook: more charter schools, merit pay for teachers and firing educators in failing schools.

New idea for equalizing education funding

There's no bill yet, so not a lot of specifics to discuss, but I like the idea of this proposal from Senator Stuart Adams.

Currently, there are large disparities among school districts and charter schools, said Sen. Stuart Adams, R-Layton.

Some districts have a much larger tax base than others, and charter schools can't impose a property tax, he said during the Legislature's Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee meeting Wednesday.

Part of the tax collection for schools is already "equalized," Adams said. For example, income tax is collected by the state and distributed to school districts according to a pupil-based formula.

Adams said that if Utah increases the tax on food from 1.75 percent to 4.7 percent and the $533 million in revenue from that increase were distributed to school districts, property tax would go down for property owners in all 41 school districts.

Charters in the news, unfortunately

Usually charters in the news is a good thing, but this week there's been:

• A teacher at Legacy Prep arrested and charged with molesting a 14-year-old student. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50133502-76/stokes-steenblik-girl-academy.html.csp
• Beehive, with their troubles and bad PR, makes it into USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-17-turkishfinal17_CV_N.htm
• A teacher at Entheos is accused of stealing thousands of dollars right out of the school's bank account. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50121579-76/teacher-bank-account-charged.html.csp

Hopefully, we'll start to see better news as school starts. Among my schools, Mountainville began this week and things are going great. Their PTO was an honorable mention in a national Parent Organization comtest.

Charter schools coming to Britain?

In a post about the new government's efforts to reduce the size and scope of the British government, is this gem, which describes what we call charter schools:

Groups of like-minded parents and teachers, for instance, are being invited to open their own taxpayer-funded schools. The groups — not government school boards — will be able to determine the curriculum at these “free schools,” using their own discretion to make some subjects compulsory while omitting others they find objectionable or unnecessary, such as lessons on multiculturalism.

Utah will, somewhat reluctantly, request education dollars

From the DNews:

Gov. Gary Herbert plans to apply for the money, which comes from a federal law enacted Aug. 10 that provides funding for Medicaid and education salaries. He told legislative leaders Wednesday that, although he is unhappy with the federal government's tactics and method of delivery, he will apply for federal funding because it will benefit public education in Utah.

"It would be foolish for the state of Utah not to accept this funding, which will directly benefit Utah's schoolchildren," Herbert said. "While I have serious concerns with the way these funds are being directed to the states, this is money that Utahns will be required to repay well into the future. Utah deserves to benefit from that obligation."

And there will likely be a special legislative session this fall to appropriate the money. If that's true, funds could flow to schools in November or December, instead of February as I initially predicted if the funding was appropriated in the general session in 2011.

Don't rush out to spend this money, though! The state is facing lower-than-expected revenues. This money should be seen not as a windfall allowing a hiring binge, but as a potential insurance policy against hard times.

Will Utah schools get the bailout funds?

As a taxpayer I'm plenty offended at the horrible continued practice by Congress and the President to let poorly managed states off the hook, thereby spreading the consequences of their poor decisions onto states like Utah that have managed budgets very well, thank you.

As the finance officer for a dozen charter schools, I'm excited to have more money to improve budgets, allow for stronger benefits, and to retain the staff that makes for the quality programs at each school.

Some legislators, including very powerful ones, are making noise about not accepting the new state bailout funds.

However, as noted in the article, I can't foresee any circumstance where Utah turns down these funds.

Turns out I was about right

Back in June, I tried to calculate what the recently passed education "stimulus" bill would mean for Utah schools. I wrote:

If $10 billion passes and is distributed equally, Utah would get about $100 million (about one percent, as we have about one percent of the nation's population of school children.) That's about $173 per student, at 575,000 students. So, a 600-student charter school would likely see increased funding of about $100,000

Today the DNews reports:

With President Barack Obama's signature on the $26 billion stimulus bill for education and Medicaid on Tuesday, Utah stands to nab about $101 million for education for fiscal 2011.

Though that number is just 1 percent of the $10 billion allocated for education funding nationwide, it could save the jobs of 1,400 to 1,500 teachers in Utah, according to state estimates, and up to 1,800 teachers, according to federal estimates.

The Utah State Office of Education would likely distribute the money equally among districts and charter schools by boosting per-student funding approximately $168, said state school Superintendent Larry Shumway.

Why charters will always be more efficient than district schools

The DNews has a story today on districts that are "looking at hiking property taxes" to close budget gaps. This structural difference provides real differences in incentives when it comes to dealing with budgets.

This headline reads perhaps more provocative than I intend it to be. I'm not here to criticize districts for trying to maintain their programs in tight budget years. Rather, I'm illustrating how the differences in incentives lead to the spending of taxpayer money.

Raising taxes isn't easy, neither logistically nor politically. Districts don't undertake it lightly. Yet, districts do have the taxing power, and when it is easier to do so, they will raise taxes as opposed to reducing spending. (I'm being careful here. I know districts have made painful cuts that have affected teachers, students, and education. So, please don't take offense!)

Charters don't have that taxing authority, so no matter how painful spending or staffing reductions might be, they have no choice but to make them. As a result, charters (which already operate on lower per student funding than district schools) find and take every efficiency in the system. Job sharing, reduction of hours, benefit reductions, maintenance delays, replacement of staff with volunteers, outsourcing. All these help increase efficiency in charter schools.

Districts take these steps, too, but they always have the fall back position of raising taxes, and therefore I believe will never have the same incentive to operate as efficiently as charters.

Money on the way, but in no hurry

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed and the President has signed a bill to send $26 billion to states to fund the jobs of teachers, police officers, and other public employees.

I did a very coarse estimate of what that might mean for individual charters a few weeks ago. I don't have information on the formula for how this will be given to states, so I don't know if the equitable formula I used will be anywhere close to reality. Some reports indicate that more money will go to states with bigger deficits. Congressman Bishop:

“This legislation unfairly distributes funding to irresponsible states that have made poor budgetary decisions and short changes states like Utah that have been consistent in the prioritization of spending."

Members of Congress were called back to their August recess and vacations to cast this vote before school started so teachers could be kept on staff or rehired.

“Utah children head back to school in two weeks. “For me, it’s a case of whether 1,800 Utah teachers are in their classrooms, or in the unemployment line.”

But the money can't be sent to schools without first being appropriated by the legislature, which doesn't meet in January. I haven't heard anything about the legislature being called to a special session to distribute this money before then. If the regular timeline sticks, schools won't receive this money until February at the earliest.

From my narrow focus on charter schools, this money will have a positive budget effect, but will have no immediate impact on schools' ability to hire more teachers or staff, and won't for at least half the school year.

Common Core Standards

The State Board of Education adopted, making Utah the 35th state to do so, common core standards for math and language arts.

Representatives from Utah, the District of Columbia and 47 other states worked for more than a year to develop the math and language arts benchmarks, which were released in June. For schools, the standards will mean new curriculum and computer-adaptive testing capable of giving teachers near-instant results — though the full effects of the decision won't unfold for several years.

Names these days...

New lunch regulations from the feds

After Utah's legislature and state school board declined to pass regulations about vending machines and whatnot, allowing local schools to meet the needs and desires of their families, Congress is about to pass new federal regulations on the nutrition qualities of school lunches.

The new nutrition standards would not remove popular foods like pizzas from schools completely, but would make them healthier, using whole-wheat crust or low-fat mozzarella, for example. Vending machines could be stocked with less candy and fewer high-calorie sodas.

More money coming to schools?

The federal government is about to send billions of more dollars to public schools to stave off teacher layoffs. After several attempts failed to gain enough votes, and the size of the package scaled back to address deficit concerns, the Senate passed billions in funding for states to give to public schools and other public employees on Thursday.

The House of Representatives will have to come back into session in order to send the bill to President Obama for his signature, but Nancy Pelosi says she'll call them back from recess if necessary so the funding can begin to flow before school starts.

Utah, like several other states, would have to have a special session of the legislature in order to formally appropriate this funding, and I have no word on what strings are attached to it by the feds, or what might be tied on by the state. I do know that there is at least some hesitation based on the state's experience with ARRA funding, and how the strings started coming along after the fact, even changing guidance that the states and schools had already received.

What will your school do if they get upwards of $100,000 in unexpected funding this year?

Good Guidance

At the state Special Education Finance Conference.

Quote of the day so far, "We have yet to see any "Good Guidance" from the department of education."

Apparently USDOE created a new layer of bureaucratic accountability between law and non-regulatory guidance, called "good guidance." Supposedly, it would be, er, better, because it would be reviewed by an additional layer of legal bureaucracy. But, before any guidance was released, ARRA was passed, and apparently the office had to spend its time implementing that instead.

Therefore, we have received no good guidance from the U.S. government.