Harlem Village Academies

On Tuesday I visited one of the Harlem Village Academies, the leadership school, a 5-8 charter school in West Harlem. This school is a shining example of one of my mantras for successful schools. Know your mission, know what you're trying to accomplish, and let that mission permeate every aspect of what goes on at your school.

Like Manhattan Charter, this school was co-located in a public school building. In fact, HLA covers the fourth floor, and three different schools (a middle and two high schools) are on floors one through three. As you ascend the stairs you can tell when you've reached the charter school because you see this at the entry:

This school expects its students to treat education like a full-time job, stick with it, and go to college. Every classroom is decorated at the entrance and throughout the room with banners, pictures, and memorabilia of the teacher's alma mater.

Every year, the students also take a summer field trip to Notre Dame. Why ND? "It's the principal's school and she's playing favorites, recruiting for her school."

How deeply does the culture permeate? On the back of the student uniforms it reads, "Education is my full-time job" or "Those who stay will be champions." (The school asked me not to post pictures of any students or their uniforms.)

Observing their classrooms is a treat, and you can tell that, even though the 5th graders we saw had only been in the school for two months, they buy into the ethos. There's no talking in the hallways between classes, and that's not just a rule. We never saw a student talk in the hallways, even when walking without a teacher. Each classroom is established with a common procedure, and each lesson has a common structure.

Every student knows right from the beginning what they will be learning, and its reinforced positively. The above is from a reading class. GRWBAT means "Great readers will be able to..."

We had a tour guide, who is in charge of public relations and fundraising at the school, but honestly, the school is so dedicated to their vision and so effective at carrying it out, that the explanations were almost unnecessary. From entry, through every moment in the school, until you walk back down through three levels of different public schools, you have no doubt what HLA is trying to accomplish, nor any doubt that they are doing it very well.

Monticello Academy founder sues state over her ouster

Charter school founder Kim Coleman has renewed her legal quarrel with Utah education officials in a multimillion-dollar suit alleging that the State Charter School Board violated state and federal law in ousting her last year as director of West Valley City’s Monticello Academy.

The board acted “maliciously” when it barred Coleman from serving Monticello in any capacity, according to Coleman’s suit, filed Tuesday in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court. In formal findings issued in early 2009, the board found that Coleman failed to adequately provide special-education services and withheld pertinent information during a compliance review. Coleman, whose husband, Joel Coleman, hopes to be elected to the State Board of Education next week, alleges those findings have no basis in fact or law.

Entire article.

DNews calls for charter expansion

It's nice when the media take the time to be thoughtful, instead of jumping to conclusions and condensing a 60-page report into a ten column-inch news story. So, kudos to the DNews for their editorial in response to the recent audit of certain aspects of charter school operation. This is especially due because their original story was inaccurate.

But the editorial board gets it mostly right. Especially this part: "The state's charter school experiment so far is a success and, judging by the demand, ought to expand."

Manhattan Charter School

This morning I visited Manattan Charter School, a 260-student K-5 school on the Lower East side of Manhattan. The school teaches the full spectrum of curriculum and academics, of course, but also has a focus on music, with each student taking music classes every day, and all interested students performing either in Choir or Orchestra.

I toured the school with the school's equivalent of a business manager.

Later, we also sat with the school's principal. It is fascinating hearing how the charter environment in New York impacts the operation of the school and changes its demographics and students over time. MCS is now in its sixth year, having just received a five-year renewal of their original charter.

The school is located within an operating public school building, referred to here as "co-locating." P.S. 142 takes the lower two floors of the building, and MCS has the third floor.

The two schools have different staffs, students, dress standards, and funding formulas, but share playground, cafeteria, and building security, among a few other things. (MCS doesn't have a sign on the outside, and when we arrived, we wondered if we were at the wrong place.) Here's across the street.

How does it work to have a charter and traditional district school sharing space? MCS reports that they have a good relationship with their co-tenant, but that it's not always that way. They didn't choose this location. Rather, the chancellor of the DOE (a city Department of Education that's part of the Mayor's office--separate from the SED or Sate Education Department), Joel Klein assigns a charter to its public school location based on enrollment. The MCS charter was originally for 500 students, but their location only had space for about 250, so when they renewed it was for that lower number.

"If you want to open a charter school in Brooklyn, you can try, but you might end up in Queens," I was told. It just depends on how enrollment goes everywhere and where the public schools have space.

But can't you just choose to be in a non-public school building, like a storefront or a commercial building? Yes, schools can, but if they do they have to pay for the space themselves. When you apply for a charter in New York, you elect if you want the DOE to cover the cost of your building, and co-locate with a public school, or if you want to go out on your own. Obviously, there are a lot of incentives for having your own building and your own lease, but the incentive of operating without paying rent is also pretty attractive.

The drawback for the school is that they have little security in their location, and I don't mean the security guard and camera kind of security. They are in a building at the assignment of the Chancellor, don't have a lease, and don't have a guarantee. If the Chancellor leaves and is replaced by one who is less friendly to charters, schools like MCS may have to scramble unexpectedly for facilities.

Instead, they make the best of what they have. They are maxed out on space, but enjoy funding that made me drool. Without the costs of lunch or maintenance staff, and without any payments for a facility, they spent $12,443 per student last school year, 85 percent of which goes to instruction. In Utah, we average under $6,000 per students, with up to 25 percent going toward facility costs. I wondered if the school had gold-leaf wallpaper with that kind of money.

No. Instead, they have teachers with masters' degrees or higher, and full-time assistants in every classroom that are enrolled in masters' programs. They pay between $2500 and $7500 per teacher in performance pay, based entirely on student achievement. And, of course, the cost of living and therefore employee compensation is much higher in NY than in Utah, though we didn't talk specifics of employee salaries.

But, hold onto your socks. The school below them spent $21,500 per student in the same year. Platinum leaf wallpaper? Nope. Union employment requirements, and also more high-cost students.

MCS performs well, according to the school--one of the top schools in the state. The school's results are so well-known, in fact, that Secretary of State Clinton visited the school last year during President Obama's address to the nation's school children. How do they do it?

"It's all about getting the right teachers and helping them hone their craft." MCS pays more than districts in salary, offers performance pay, and spends a lot of time and money developing their teachers into better and better ones. They only hire teachers who have at least three years of experience. Because experience automatically means good teaching? No. Because after that time a teacher knows more about what she's looking for and works for her, so they are more likely to find teachers for whom the educational model is the right fit for both. Every candidate provides a "written response" to interview questions, so the school can find out how "literate" she is. (Many teachers just can't explain themselves well in writing, which is a disqualifier for MCS.)

Another contributor to the school's success is the parents. MCS has a very positive attitude about parental involvement, but with a clear definition of who is in charge at the school. The principal is. No question. She greets every student as they arrive to school every morning, and if not in uniform, the child can't go to school that day. MCS has high expectations of their families, and pushes hard to get support in ways that the parents can give. Does that too restrictive? Not with the MCS attitude.

According to the Principal, "Parents are sending us the best children they have, and they are doing the best they can with them. It is our job to educate the students. It is the parents' job to support us. We help parents understand that we will do everything in our power to make sure their children succeed in school, and they need to do support us." How do parents show support? Bring kids to school, bring them on time, bring them in uniform, and do homework at home.

MCS sets this as a high bar before school starts, knowing that parents who clear that bar and make that commitment are the kinds of parents who will help their children succeed and who will stay at the school for the long term. MCS never "counsels families out," but gets buy-in by making a strong commitment to the families to do whatever it takes to help children succeed. Parents, in turn, commit to support the school.

I had hoped to have more pictures of the school, but as we were wrapping up our visit, the fire alarm went off, and out we all went. I did get this gem, outside a first grade classroom, which was a bulletin board of math projects:

If you can't see that very well, it's projects with cotton balls and addition problems, labeled, "Cloudy with a chance of addition."

Tomorrow: Harlem Village Academy.

Equalization isn't just about charter schools

The average charter school student is funded about $500 less than the average child attending a district school. But, as each district is funded at a different level, the difference is almost nothing in some districts (Tooele) and gigantic in others (Park City).

According to this DNews piece, the largest difference in per student funding is between those two districts ($1,000 to $11,000 in local funding per student through district-levied property tax). Charters aren't mentioned in the piece at all.

My long-time mantra isn't just because I believe in charters. Rather, I believe that the education of each child is important, and that a child's education doesn't have more value to taxpayers because of race, religion, or zip code. Rather, all children should be treated equally by taxpayers, no matter the model or location of the public school they attend.

New Jersey charter school unionizes

From New Jersey, just twelve miles from my hotel:

In an unusual move, teachers at Englewood on the Palisades Charter School unionized this week and so joined a national debate about how well union rules can co-exist with charter schools' push for autonomy.

Several teachers at the cozy enclave for 200 elementary school children said they joined the American Federation of Teachers to gain a stronger voice in school policy after the charter's board unilaterally extended the school day this fall.

The AFT says it hopes to give more charter teachers negotiating power through collective bargaining — especially as the number of charters seems poised to grow.

"If we don't organize charter schools we'll represent a smaller percentage of teachers and have less ability to bargain for market wages and hours," said Shaun Richman, deputy director of organizing at the AFT. "Every teacher deserves a union."

Prominent New York education reformer calls on charters to avoid Race to the Top

Blogging from Detroit, on a brief layover on the way to New York.

Not that it matters in Utah anymore, since we long ago (twice) were rejected for the money, but it's interesting reading for its warnings and argument, anyway. Plus, he is making the same argument that I often do.

Thomas Carroll, President of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, argues that charters shouldn't sign Memoranda of Understanding to receive RTTT funds. (SED is the State Education Department in New York.)

Up front, let me make clear that the charter schools in Albany I helped establish have long embraced the key principles of Race to the Top, including the extensive use of classroom data to inform classroom instruction and also to serve as a very large factor in teacher evaluations. And all of the schools happen to exceed the standards set by the Department’s memorandum of understanding, including that at least 40 percent of teacher and principal evaluations should be based on student achievement measures. We didn’t need Race to the Top or SED to implement these best practices.

But, that does not get around the inappropriateness of what SED is attempting. The New York charter-school law very specifically prohibits the State Education Department and Board of Regents from imposing additional requirements on charter schools outside of health, safety, civil rights, and student assessments.

Charter schools are exempt from these one-size-fits-all mandates. The fact that many charter schools, including those in Albany, already do much of what SED proposes is no excuse for mandating that it be done the SED way. Charter schools were authorized to innovate with a great variety of approaches, not to follow mandates from SED.

Off to New York

I'll be in New York City visiting four charter schools on Monday and Tuesday. Here are the schools I'll see:

• Manhattan Charter School
• Harlem Village School
• School of One
• The Young Women's Leadership School

I'll be trying to find out their models for success. Also, the Manhattan Charter is a block away from what Food Network called the best steak in the country.

I'm taking three books with me for the long plane ride and the hotel. (Yankees lost, so I won't be seeing a ballgame.)

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (preparing for Nov 20)
• Kill Artist by Daniel Silva
• Trophy Hunt by CJ Box

New thoughts on the "charter" audit

Media reports (DNews, Trib, KSL) haven't been entirely accurate when it comes to the audit released yesterday by the Legislative Auditor General. Least accurate? Deseret News, which was first up with their story.

The report itself is almost entirely focused on Beehive, with Merit coming in second, and then a few other schools mentioned, but only in passing. For example, C.S. Lewis is mentioned only once in the report outside of a table, and Soldier Hollow not at all, yet the DNews story gives them equal play. There are key differences. The four schools had similar enrollment challenges, yet only Beehive and Merit have had the critical financial problems. Lewis and Soldier Hollow have been able to make it through with relatively stronger finances.

The key challenge that must be addressed isn't necessarily more oversight (though that't not necessarily bad if handled properly), nor more training (though good training is always a positive). No amount of oversight or training can compensate for no students. (And unfortunately, CS Lewis's enrollment is lower this year than last.)

Beehive and Merit, according to the report, also had some financial mismanagement, that CSLA and Soldier Hollow didn't. It is important that new oversight standards be "targeted" (to use one of Superintendent Shumway's favorite words) on the small number of schools that have had elevated issues. No amount of "oversight" will overcome enrollment that doesn't generate revenue to cover fixed costs, so we shouldn't just throw a new regulatory blanket over schools and think that will solve the real issue.

Which is accountability. The State Charter Board recognized that when it tried to close Beehive, but failed to do so. The SCSB is already underway drafting measurable standards, which is right. Closing an operating charter will be painful for the movement in the short term, but will demonstrate to all schools that there are real consequences for financial failure. That will be healthy in the long-term.

Interestingly, the same day as the audit report on charters came out, so did an audit finding that districts are wasting money in similar ways. Beehive was criticized in the report for spending tends of thousands of dollars on the extra expense of importing teachers from Turkey, and districts are criticized for the expense of sending dozens of teachers to China.

There are instances of financial mismanagement in all aspects of government, and in district and charter schools. The right way to handle that is accountability. Grand School District has that accountability to its voters. Charters have it to their customers, who can choose to leave at any time. Charters need additional accountability in the form of real consequences for failure.

Tribune on the right track

The Trib is typically a reform-unfriendly paper. They're editorial page has often been critical of charters, hated vouchers, and usually is against reforms that will make a real difference in the lives of kids.

But, recently, they've been on the right side when it comes to reforming the structure, responsibility, and organization of teachers. They've editorialized in favor of bills that would prohibit districts from paying union salaries, in favor of performance pay, and now, in favor of Superman-type reforms when it comes to teacher accountability.

But the bottom-line issue is teachers. While Utah has many fine teachers, it has far too many mediocre teachers and some who should not be allowed in a classroom. And while Utah unions don’t officially embrace the concept of tenure — protecting teachers from dismissal for life — every parent knows that incompetent teachers are seldom fired once they’ve passed an initial probation period. And the unions consistently resist rewards based on performance.

Utah is not immune from failure. And we can’t wait for Superman.

Audit finds four schools wanting

The DNews has a story on a new Legislative Auditor General's report on charter schools. Spurred by the financial dire straights of Beehive Academy, the LAG looked at charter school finances and found that four schools haven't been able to attract the students necessary for financial success.

Unfortunately, the article only quotes this sentence from the actual report: "'While most state charter school enrollments are close to their projections, four schools have a history of missing their projections by a considerable margin,' the report said." The link to the report on the LAG website was broken at 10:14 this morning.

The article seems to have a conflicting message, and I'm curious if the report does as well. On the one hand, they say that the problem is insufficient enrollment, while on the other (at least according to the paper) the solution to that is further financial training. That may be well and good, but unless the financial training includes how to grow money if you can't attract students, there's not much that any additional oversight or training can do.

Speaking about one school, C.S. Lewis Academy, a former client of mine, lack of financial oversight was never the problem. The school's audits always were in line with other schools' and showed proper segregation and controls. But, financial statements always showed shortfalls, and that is simply because the enrollment was never high enough to cover the costs of the facility and the program. It was a constant struggle. The school obtained rental concessions, loans, and deferments. It reduced staff and benefits. Yet with all of that, enrollment was never able to get within 80 percent of capacity. The biggest reasons for that are location and the economy. Santaquin was growing when the school was approved in 2006, but busted as the school opened in 2008, and Santaquin's growth halted. The school's academic results, especially for at-risk students, were pretty strong in student growth, but there just weren't enough students willing to make the commute.

CSLA faced the same challenges that most schools do. Full enrollment is able to cover a lot of challenges, and the four schools noted in the report (Beehive, Soldier Hollow, and Merit) didn't have the enrollment and funding to weather those storms.

**Update** The report is online now.

Some thoughts on "Superman"

The media mostly covered the Chamber of Commerce's Waiting for "Superman" screening and panel discussion on Monday, but turnout and energy was high for the UAPCS and PCE jointly sponsored screening yesterday, which I attended. on Monday, but turnout and energy was high for the UAPCS and PCE jointly sponsored screening yesterday, which I attended.

For my first time seeing the movie, what struck me the most is how old hat the information in it is. The movie presents its data in a moving way that brings most people to tears by the end as we actually watch five children sit through charter lotteries. (I've attended my share of those over the years, and it's heartbreaking that thousands of kids in Utah can't get into the school they need because of an arbitrary cap on enrollment.) What's extra frustrating is that the information about the complete failure of public education to provide a quality education for every child is so public and obvious, yet the nature of the system and its calcification and resistance to any change is so great that the massive problem has been staring us all in the face for nine presidential administrations, and yet the dropout factories are getting worse.

In the nearly 20 years since charters have shown that inner city students can overcome their circumstances and excel in the right environment, the public education environment is largely the same and the teachers' unions are just as resistant to any change. They say they are fighting for students, but in fighting for the status quo they doom children to a cycle of failure and poverty.

Some highlights:

• When Michelle Rhee, chancellor of DC Public Schools, offered teachers the chance to choose a dual track system, one that kept tenure and one that eliminated it but provided performance bonus potential of double their salary, the union wouldn't even allow it to come to a vote. Instead they mobilized and voted out the mayor who appointed her, and Michelle Rhee resigned.
• While the dropout rate is lower in suburban districts, the failure is just as obvious. Students leave high school unprepared for college or the workforce. Society continues to look at poor inner city schools and believes it to be someone else's problem, when the problems are rampant throughout the system and affect all of society.
• If you take 100 district schools, a few will be failing schools, most will be above that to mediocre, and about one will be excellent, the kind of school everyone wants to attend. If you take 100 charter schools, the majority will still be mediocre, but 20 will be at the level of high achievement and excellence. If you're investing in public education and wanted the best results and return available, where would you put your money? Since charters make this 2000 percent improvement on less funding per student, why in the world do we use that as an excuse to cap and underfund charters? Charters get better results for less money. Funding them more and allowing them to grow is a no-brainer. That is, if the priority is on the children instead of the system and the adults in it.
• When a system's structure is as flawed and full of the wrong incentives as the traditional public school system, good people adapt to the system, respond to the incentives in it, and behave differently than they would in a system with the proper incentives. It's simply human nature. If we want to change the outcomes we get from the system, we must change the structure and incentives in it. No amount of money, spent on the same failed structure will get any better result. Since 1970, funding, adjusted for inflation, has increased more than 300 percent, but results have not improved at all.

Senator Adams' idea to equalize funding

Senator Stuart Adams's idea to replace some property taxes with sales taxes as a way to equalize funding across the state has made its way to an actual proposal.

Adams proposed boosting the state sales tax by 1 percent to generate $533 million, reinstating the full sales tax on food to raise $150 million, or a combination of both. School districts would get a share based on their enrollment and growth rates and be required to slash their property taxes by an equivalent amount.

I doubt this bill is ready for passage this session, but I love the idea. Of course, the idea only makes sense if you believe that all children deserve a quality education, and that students shouldn't be treated differently by taxpayers just because of the school they choose to attend.

State Board election will go forward

A judge refused to cancel the election for the State Board of Education as incumbent member Dennis Morrill requested.

Attorneys for state school board member Denis Morrill had asked the judge to consider issuing a preliminary injunction to keep votes for the two candidates running for Morrill’s seat from initially being counted, certified or publicly revealed. Morrill, of Taylorsville, had hoped to run again for his District 9 seat, but a governor-appointed nominating committee voted in May, initially by secret ballot, not to forward his name to the governor for ballot consideration.

For previous posts on Morrill's sour grapes, go here.

Warning signs, or reason to celebrate?

The local and national Chambers of Commerce held a special screening of Waiting for "Superman" on Monday, followed by a panel discussion. On the panel were the president of the UEA, Superintendent Larry Shumway, and Salt Lake Chamber education task force leader Mark Brouchard. The Tribune called the panel discussion "heated."

According to the press reports, there seemed to be agreement on the panel that Utah's situation isn't as bad as in other states. And in fact, Utah has made some changes to the Orderly School Terminations Act to make it easier to let bad teachers, er, find success in other fields. It used to be the case that teachers could only be let go if they sucked, and if they sucked on purpose. Now they can be let go for plain "incompetence" rather than the "willful" kind, after months and months of paperwork. The real problem is that termination procedures require "due process," as though all teachers have a right to their job, which is more important than the right of students to have a better teacher.

Brouchard said, “When you take a look at the challenges of a New York or Milwaukee or Los Angeles, that probably is two or three generations away from where we are today.”

The fact that Utah isn't as bad as some other places sometimes stands in the way of real reform. Instead of being a warning of where we are heading, Utah often counts its blessings that we're not there yet.

If that continues, Utah will continue its educational slide past mediocrity and into failure. If we don't want to be the topic of the next Waiting movie, we should take steps now to reward successful teachers and programs, and have real consequences for failure.

Charter news briefs

From across the country:

In Georgia, there is controversy about using locally raised property taxes to fund state-created charter schools. The controversial plan there is somewhat like the current structure in Utah where districts keep all local funding, but the state withholds funding equal to some local dollars and uses that to fund charters. Watching this legal battle could be instructive for Utah.

Having a governor pledging to expand charter schools has a big impact. In New Jersey, the Department of Education has received a record number of charter applications.

In Maryland, charter schools are part of the Gubernatorial debate. Only "nuanced" differences separate the Republican and Democratic candidates, both of whom support charters. That's how the media describe the difference between one candidate who believes that the number of charters should double under independent authorizers, and one who doesn't even mention charters on his website.

Tribune gives "Superman" 3.5 stars

Waiting for "Superman" opened yesterday at Broadway Center Cinemas in Salt Lake City for a three-week run that may be extended if ticket sales warrant it. The UAPCS/PCE event on Wednesday is full for both shows.

The Tribune gives the move 3.5 stars.

Free screening of "Waiting for 'Superman'"

UAPCS and PCE are partnering to present a free screening of Waiting for "Superman" on Wednesday, October 20 to coincide with interim day at the legislature. Media, lawmakers, and education officials will also be present. (Charter Solutions is also a sponsor.)

Event Details:
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Location: Broadway Centre Cinemas @ 111 East 300 South SLC, UT

Validated parking is available just east of the of the Broadway Centre Cinemas. Just bring your parking ticket in the theater with you.

Time:

• 5:10 - Movie Screening
• Between Shows - Pizza and Popcorn
• 7:20 - Second Movie Screening

*Register for Free Tickets Here

*Tickets available on a first-come basis. Limit two tickets per person through online registration.

Perpetuating the myth

"Why don't you tell me something about you two." That's what the administrator of the fictional Sycamore Charter Elementary School to two parents who were interviewing for a chance to get their child into this charter school, that "never has openings."

The administrator goes on to imply that if the father, a music producer, would donate the use of his studio to record a CD of the school Spring Sing performance, it will help their chances to get in.

That's completely illegal, of course, as charter schools can't select their students, can't give preferential enrollment to those who can donate or support the school's fundraising, and can't let in only married parents of well-rounded kids.

Shows like this perpetuate the lies about charter schools that are an unfortunate part of the narrative about our movement. Most people picture charter schools as elitist schools that cater to the wealthy and well-connected. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Utah's own charter schools are great examples of the main philosophy behind our movement--that every child, regardless of income, family, language, special needs, or learning style deserves the best education, tailored to that child's needs.

A call to fix education in America

A who's who of education executives (all from public schools) has an incredible (all the more so for those leaders of establishment education that are the authors) op-ed today. They focus on the core of addressing what is holding schools and students back from achieving excellence, chiefly the absence of real adequate choice in education and the inability to staff and compensate educators based on performance.

It's really worth reading the whole thing, but here are the highlights:

The transformative changes needed to truly prepare our kids for the 21st-century global economy simply will not happen unless we first shed some of the entrenched practices that have held back our education system, practices that have long favored adults, not children. These practices are wrong, and they have to end now.

For too long, we have let teacher hiring and retention be determined by archaic rules involving seniority and academic credentials. The widespread policy of "last in, first out" (the teacher with the least seniority is the first to go when cuts have to be made) makes it harder to hold on to new, enthusiastic educators and ignores the one thing that should matter most: performance.

A 7-year-old girl won't make it to college someday because her teacher has two decades of experience or a master's degree -- she will make it to college if her teacher is effective and engaging and compels her to reach for success. By contrast, a poorly performing teacher can hold back hundreds, maybe thousands, of students over the course of a career. Each day that we ignore this reality is precious time lost for children preparing for the challenges of adulthood.

The glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher -- and our discomfort as a society with criticizing anyone who chooses this noble and difficult profession -- has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.

There isn't a business in America that would survive if it couldn't make personnel decisions based on performance. That is why everything we use in assessing teachers must be linked to their effectiveness in the classroom and focused on increasing student achievement.

District leaders also need the authority to use financial incentives to attract and retain the best teachers. When teachers are highly effective -- measured in significant part by how well students are doing academically -- or are willing to take a job in a tough school or in a hard-to-staff subject area such as advanced math or science, we should be able to pay them more.

Let's stop ignoring basic economic principles of supply and demand and focus on how we can establish a performance-driven culture in every American school -- a culture that rewards excellence, elevates the status of teachers and is positioned to help as many students as possible beat the odds. We need the best teacher for every child, and the best principal for every school.

Just as we must give teachers and schools the capability and flexibility to meet the needs of students, we must give parents a better portfolio of school choices. That starts with having the courage to replace or substantially restructure persistently low-performing schools that continuously fail our students. Closing a neighborhood school -- whether it's in Southeast D.C., Harlem, Denver or Chicago -- is a difficult decision that can be very emotional for a community. But no one ever said leadership is easy.

We also must make charter schools a truly viable option. If all of our neighborhood schools were great, we wouldn't be facing this crisis. But our children need great schools now -- whether district-run public schools or public charter schools serving all students -- and we shouldn't limit the numbers of one form at the expense of the other. Excellence must be our only criteria for evaluating our schools.

Who looks through the scope?

In Superintendent Larry Shumway's "State of Education" address last night, he called for "targeted" spending (quote from the DNews headline and article, not necessarily from the text of Shumway's speech). Shumway highlighted Utah's efficiency, getting adequate (though that's debatable) results on far less funding than other states.

So, targeted investments make sense. My question is, "Who is doing the targeting?"

Will politicians in the legislature decide that their pet project should get more money? Will bureaucrats at USOE direct schools how money must be spent? Or will local boards and principals, who know their needs better than anyone, get to allocate money to meet those needs?

Since our funding is low, our flexibility must be high. Let's increase local control and local accountability and let individual schools decide how best to target their students, and then be accountable for the results.

More praise for charters and "Superman"

The Heritage Foundation joins the chorus (of voices from the left and the right) praising the movie Waiting for "Superman" and its highlighting of the shortage of charter schools, when so many who try to get in lose the lottery and remain trapped in systems that can't even graduate half their students. Some excerpts:

Waiting for Superman shows several examples of successful charter schools that serve some children but do not have enough spaces for all children to receive a quality education. The reason they don’t have enough spaces is that education unions have stood in the way and opposed increasing the number of charter schools. This is just sad and unacceptable.

The most dramatic and heartbreaking part in the film was witnessing the charter school lotteries, which are held to determine which few students of the many who applied will be accepted to schools known to successfully educate and graduate students. Sitting with their parents in crowded auditoriums, you can see and feel the children’s profound disappointment as they realize that they have lost something special that they and their families badly wanted: brighter hope for their future.

We need to provide parents and children with a full range of choices now—not wait for the broken education system to heal itself. Charter schools and voucher initiatives are succeeding. We know the solution—now it’s time to open the path of opportunity across this land, not just in a few pockets where reform has broken through the union lines.

Plenty to go around

The Park Record (perhaps better known as the Park City School District Newsletter) writes today about enrollment at Park City School District shrinking "due to new charter school." Weilenmann School of Discovery, the "new charter school" has enrollment of 550 students. PCSD's enrollment shrank from the previous year by about 200 kids, less than the district anticipated.

Why such a small change in district enrollment? After all, Weilenmann's enrollment is more than double the district's change. Well, last year the Colby School, a private school in Park City closed, and many of its students were attracted to the innovative and independent nature of the charter school. Also, many Weilenmann students commute to the school from Salt Lake or Summit Counties.

I'd further like to harp on a couple of points:

1. The students don't exist for the sake of the district. If a new option means that students withdraw from the school district, it's because their parents believe that the district isn't providing those children with the right education for that child. Our public schools (all of them) exist to provide quality education for children. It's not reasonable to expect a single system to be the best for all students, and we should applaud when families find an option that meets their child's needs better.
2. The article makes the point that PCSD students receive about $10,000 in taxpayer funding per child, but skips out mentioning that WSD students get by on thousands less. If we are really concerned about financial impact of a charter on the taxpayers, we should applaud when charter schools can demonstrate greater efficiency.

In short, having a strong system of innovative and efficient charter schools is good for taxpayers and good for children.

Virtual schools growing and growing

Utah Virtual Academy director Jeff Herr believes "in 10 to 15 years, most kids will probably do a big chunk, if not most of what they do, in a virtual environment." In three years, virtual charter enrollment has increased by nearly 600 percent, according to this KSL story.

Two more virtual schools (Alianza Academy and Utah Connections Academy) will open next fall. (I'm on Alianza's board.)

I attended the Virtual School Symposium last year and saw the vast potential, and incredible success, of virtual education programs across the country. If schools are to do more with less on limited budgets with higher expectations, we'll have to find a way to use technology to leverage the cost of our labor.

State Board wants to raise taxes, and blame charters

The State Board and Office of Education have been working for some time on how to get more money. The Utah legislature doesn't want to raise taxes (except on cigarettes), so for many months (years?) the establishment education bodies have been working on a plan that would create a new tax to "pay" for charter schools. Friday, the State Board adopted that plan and will present it to the legislature. (Story in the Trib and DNews.)

It's a clever game for those that oppose charters. They get to raise taxes, and blame those evil charter schools, who are taking money from the poor school districts. Unfortunately, members of the State Charter School board are lending support to that false narrative. “It will help us have better relationships with districts because right now charter schools are taking some of the districts’ money away,” added Tim Beagley, State Charter School Board vice chair. Chair Tom Morgan also expressed support for the idea.

Charter Schools do not take funding from school districts, any more than private schools do, or more than home schools do, or more than schools in other states when children move. Schools are funded based on the students they educate, which is as it should be. When a student chooses a different school, the funding (most of it) follows the student. That's true whether the child moves, makes a different choice, or dies. (Do fatal car accidents take money from school districts?)

We pay taxes for public education because we want to educate children. Schools, teachers, computers, textbooks, and everything else in schools are the tools we use to accomplish the goal, but aren't the goal themselves. When we treat the purchasing of tools above the education of children (which is what happens when we bemoan "loss of funding" when enrollment drops), we lose focus, and the quality of education suffers.

It's another example of how the incentives of the education system lead to mediocrity, and this proposed new tax would further the problem. The incentive should be to educate children in innovative and successful ways, not to protect the tools in a district that is educating fewer children because families have made a choice to find the quality of education they are looking for elsewhere.

News from across the country

Indiana charter school enrollment doubles.

New Jersey's governor wants to aggressively expand charters.

Juan Gonzales (New York Daily News columnist, not the former Texas Ranger outfielder) thinks that the scenes in movies like Waiting for "Superman" are just clever marketing ploys.

Speaking of Waiting for "Superman," it has almost universal praise among movie critics. The movie continues to generate positive buzz and huge box office receipts.

The movie will be coming to Utah, though I don't yet have specifics on timing.

Students added today for today

Two schools, Karl G Maeser Preparatory Academy and Walden Academy, were approved by the State Board of Education's Law and Policy Committee today for an increase in authorized student capacity. What's unique about these two (Providence Hall was also approved for an increase) is that the increase is effective for the current school year.

So, today, both schools have enrolled beyond their authorized capacity, and I assume both had their student count audits this morning. So this approval means that the extra students each school has enrolled will now be counted and funded.

The committee was wary about setting a precedent that would lead to a flood of schools making this kind of request outside the regular procedure, but approve both anyway.