Freedom Academy faces neighborhood protests

Charters in a neighborhood bring cars.  Lots of cars.  That's got to be the most troubling part of having a charter build in your neighborhood.  That's at least part of what some Freedom Academy's neighbors are complaining about, though the quotes in this story seem to indicate that even with no traffic the charter expansion would still be unwelcome.

Instead, upset neighbors say things like, "We're fighting for our neighborhood. Neighborhoods are threatened in Provo. If we let this happen the neighborhood will be gone."

Charters rightly have the same zoning exemptions as all other public school, meaning that a city can't use zoning rules to keep a public school away.  What charters lack is the ability to find land and condemn it and then raise taxes to pay for a new building.

Utah teachers' plights highlighted in story about union "bullies"

The Washington Examiner this week had an op-ed by Joy Pullman, a national education reform advocate and author, that uses examples from Utah and other states to showcase how unions bully teachers, administrators, and competing associations in order to maintain a virtual monopoly over access to teachers.

In February, a Utah teacher named Cole Kelly testified in favor of a bill that would penalize school districts for not granting all teacher organizations -- not just unions, but also other professional organizations -- equal access to teachers.

A week later, he was released from his position as athletic director, which for school districts is tantamount to firing. His principal admitted she approved of his job performance but had released him because of pressure. Subsequently, other teachers texted Kelly to say they agreed with him but were afraid of being fired if they spoke out or left their union. He is contesting his release. ...

In Utah, for example, a refusal to allow all teachers associations equal access to privileges like payroll deductions, teacher in-services and orientation, and committees (often a union, but no other teachers association, is guaranteed a seat or several) is illegal.

Rather than granting access, many principals and superintendents just ignore phone calls and emails requesting it to avoid admitting they are breaking the law, said the state's AAE membership director, Charity Smith. This year, Smith said, a large male union representative met her at her presentation to a group of teachers and demanded she reveal whom she had talked to, where she was planning to visit next, and her home address. Teachers have whispered to her they were interested in leaving the union but couldn't talk about it openly at school, slipping her their email addresses for later communication.

Thanks for making my same point

Senator Stephenson probably didn't read my recent post about the vast disparity between funding for district schools and charter schools, but he made my same point (reform is more needed than simply funding increases, which have been shown ineffective by themselves) anyway.  And he even gives a shout out to charters for absorbing most of the state's enrollment growth.  "Utah’s charter schools are so popular that they attract more than half of the annual growth in Utah’s student population."

Read the whole thing here.

Comparing charter taxpayer funding to districts

After a three-part series on school funding that focused exclusively on how charters spend their money, this is the first of a series of posts comparing the revenue and expenses of charters to school districts.

I expected to find that charters receive less money per student (they do) and that they therefore spend less in the classrooms on a per student basis (which they also do).  I also expected charters to spend more per student on administration, since each charter is a single-school district and has the full reporting and administrative burden but spread over many fewer students (also true).  I did not compare spending on facilities because the two models of governance are so different.  Every charter school is paying on 100 percent of its occupied buildings, while districts have taxing and bonding authority with the full faith of the state government behind them, and have buildings that are fully paid off.

So, if we can't compare buildings, and the findings on funding, classroom spending, and administrative spending are just as expected, what's the point of writing about it?  I'd say that digging into some details reveals some interesting things.

First, the summary revenue findings. District enrollment in the 2010-2011 school year was 536,113.  Funding for those students from taxpayers (including all federal, state, and local taxes, but no revenue from sales or donations) was $2,651,827,989.  (See explanation below for what sources of revenue this figure includes to make this number valid for comparisons to charter schools.)  That funding is $7,448 per student from taxpayer sources.

Charter enrollment in the same year was 40,132 with total taxpayer funding of $243,505,558, about $67 million of which is meant to "replace" the local taxes raised by districts.  That funding is an average of $6,068 per student--significantly less than districts receive per student from taxpayers.

There are some reasons for the disparity.  Districts receive and spend money for transporting students to and from school.  While a handful of charters also run busing programs, they receive no taxpayer funding for it, which results in lower per pupil funding.  Charter enrollment is also slightly more weighted to younger students, which for charters are funded at a slightly lower amount, also resulting in lower per student funding for a valid reason.  Finally, charter enrollment is also slightly less at-risk, slightly less special education, and quite a bit less severely disabled than district enrollment.  Some state funding and a lot of federal funding is based not on overall enrollment but largely on enrollment among these disadvantaged populations.

In fact, one can also see that disparity among districts.  For example, Ogden School District receives $8,342 per student in funding from taxpayers, while Weber District receives $6,745.  It's not geography, but demographics that make up the key difference (though fewer kids and more commercial property in Ogden City also contributes--there's also a nearly $300 disparity between those two districts in funding per student from local property taxes).

Still, the "valid" reasons for the disparity in funding for students in charters versus district schools don't come close to making up a $1400(!) per student difference in funding.  There is absolutely no reason why a child who chooses to attend a chartered public school should receive any less support from taxpayers than his neighbor who attends at a district public school.

I therefore pose these questions to policy makers:

1. Do you think there is a difference in the value of a child who chooses to attend a chartered public school than one who chooses to attend a district public school?  If there is a difference, why?
2. If you consider that taxpayers are investing in public education, in what model of school do the taxpayers get he greatest return on their money?  If you were investing your own money wanting the best "bang" for that personal buck, which model would you choose?
3. When you hear people complain about the amount of money going to charter schools instead of school districts to educate students, don't you just want to roll your eyes?
4. Now that it's obvious that students can receive a high quality education on significantly less money than we spend in school districts, isn't it time to recognize that the most important change to improve education isn't money, but reform?

Future posts will deal with how districts and charters spend their money.  Below here is all the funding data for each district and charter school, and below that all the sources for the data.

For Fiscal Year Ending
June 30, 2011	Enrollment	Property Tax or Local Replacement	Total State and Federal	Total Tax Per Student
01 Alpine	66,045	129,121,178	305,313,882	6,578
02 Beaver	1,566	6,282,817	8,521,274	9,453
03 Box Elder	11,187	24,341,199	57,959,405	7,357
04 Cache	15,409	23,722,109	80,859,689	6,787
05 Carbon	3,459	13,734,819	17,721,782	9,094
06 Daggett	168	1,064,590	2,164,042	19,218
07 Davis	66,071	130,640,061	316,682,048	6,770
08 Duchesne	4,449	13,944,870	24,472,740	8,635
09 Emery	2,360	9,681,974	10,823,380	8,689
10 Garfield	931	3,381,858	8,313,391	12,562
11 Grand	1,510	7,690,733	7,681,154	10,180
12 Granite	68,392	137,301,651	337,093,807	6,936
13 Iron	8,485	23,112,763	43,532,330	7,854
14 Jordan	49,730	109,217,107	226,645,196	6,754
15 Juab	2,286	6,005,524	11,302,084	7,571
16 Kane	1,176	6,351,658	6,960,869	11,320
17 Millard	2,827	10,808,377	15,428,568	9,281
18 Morgan	2,437	6,101,062	10,276,006	6,720
19 Nebo	29,137	55,610,702	149,776,287	7,049
20 No. Sanpete	2,420	4,432,580	13,188,991	7,282
21 No. Summit	979	6,069,526	4,932,536	11,238
22 Park City	4,351	47,585,662	5,595,384	12,223
23 Piute	305	628,253	4,177,235	15,756
24 Rich	484	3,364,491	3,244,159	13,654
25 San Juan	2,912	7,162,182	33,345,273	13,911
26 Sevier	4,533	8,794,677	27,715,630	8,054
27 So. Sanpete	3,038	4,971,057	21,743,827	8,794
28 So. Summit	1,433	9,035,144	5,842,507	10,382
29 Tintic	220	275,499	3,366,845	16,556
30 Tooele	13,439	28,445,680	70,963,753	7,397
31 Uintah	6,684	28,612,581	30,434,844	8,834
32 Wasatch	5,089	26,891,966	19,514,115	9,119
33 Washington	25,673	82,862,203	120,700,602	7,929
34 Wayne	567	1,137,907	4,475,823	9,901
35 Weber	30,350	52,196,413	152,518,086	6,745
36 Salt Lake	23,965	99,542,875	132,016,123	9,662
37 Ogden	12,568	25,972,716	78,865,076	8,342
38 Provo	13,376	31,263,588	71,093,211	7,652
39 Logan	6,133	14,377,497	30,553,773	7,326
40 Murray	6,500	16,850,949	27,858,815	6,878
42 Canyons	33,469	122,441,567	148,153,447	8,085
SUB TOTAL DISTRICTS	536,113	1,341,030,065	2,651,827,989	7,448
68 Ogden Preparatory Academy	1,068	1,786,764	6,617,604	6,196
74 American Preparatory Academy	1,141	1,908,893	7,361,546	6,452
81 Walden School	323	540,379	2,163,754	6,699
82 Freedom Academy	673	1,125,929	4,104,199	6,098
83 AMES	479	801,367	3,188,089	6,656
86 Pinnacle Canyon Academy	503	841,519	4,148,660	8,248
87 City Academy	185	309,505	1,544,196	8,347
88 Success School	41	68,593	337,938	8,242
89 Soldier Hollow	223	373,079	1,355,267	6,077
90 Tuacahn Hs For Performing Arts	295	493,535	1,882,150	6,380
92 Uintah River High School	45	75,285	589,971	13,110
93 John Hancock	185	309,505	1,092,059	5,903
94 Thomas Edison Charter School North	1,141	1,908,893	6,397,394	5,607
95 Timpanogos Academy	423	707,679	2,509,048	5,932
97 Salt Lake Arts Academy	301	503,573	1,670,491	5,550
98 Fast Forward Charter High School	213	356,349	1,521,100	7,141
A1 NUAMES	400	669,200	2,666,407	6,666
A2 The Ranches Academy Inc	351	587,223	1,967,387	5,605
A3 DaVinci Academy	378	632,394	2,728,863	7,219
A4 Summit Academy	1,000	1,673,000	6,026,346	6,026
A5 Itineris Early College High	245	409,885	1,655,980	6,759
A6 North Davis Preparatory Academy	982	1,642,886	5,479,074	5,580
A7 Moab Community School	70	117,110	425,661	6,081
A8 East Hollywood High	317	530,341	2,237,671	7,059
A9 Success Academy	337	563,801	2,213,965	6,570
1B Utah County Academy of Sciences	363	607,299	2,435,759	6,710
2B Lincoln Academy	643	1,075,739	3,901,528	6,068
3B Beehive Sci. & Tech. Acad.	233	389,809	1,366,550	5,865
4B Wasatch Peak Academy	375	627,375	2,250,808	6,002
5B North Star Academy	508	849,884	2,944,753	5,797
7B Ronald Reagan Academy	675	1,129,275	4,242,529	6,285
8B American Leadership Academy	1,506	2,519,538	9,354,628	6,212
9B Navigator Pointe Academy	527	881,671	3,024,484	5,739
1C Odyssey School	491	821,443	2,684,107	5,467
2C Intech Early College High School	141	235,893	1,121,166	7,952
3C Entheos Academy	514	859,922	3,285,843	6,393
4C Lakeview Academy	711	1,189,503	4,126,930	5,804
5C Legacy Prepatory Academy	876	1,465,548	4,910,907	5,606
6C Liberty Academy	687	1,149,351	3,543,234	5,158
7C Monticello Academy	756	1,264,788	4,343,017	5,745
8C Mountainville Academy	681	1,139,313	4,066,396	5,971
9C Paradigm High School	530	886,690	3,391,947	6,400
1D Renaissance Academy	677	1,132,621	3,804,037	5,619
2D Channing Hall	668	1,117,564	3,960,980	5,930
3D Spectrum Academy	333	557,109	2,781,305	8,352
4D Syracuse Arts Academy	1,019	1,704,787	5,715,765	5,609
5D George Washington Academy	721	1,206,233	4,105,420	5,694
6D Noah Webster Academy	552	923,496	3,191,353	5,781
7D Salt Lake School for Performing Arts	185	309,505	1,124,137	6,076
8D Open Classroom School	399	667,527	2,345,896	5,879
9D Canyon Rim Academy	530	886,690	2,890,186	5,453
1E  Guadalupe Schools	121	202,433	967,170	7,993
2E Karl G. Maeser	603	1,008,819	3,430,274	5,689
3E C.S. Lewis Academy	293	490,189	2,117,690	7,228
4E Dual Immersion Academy	451	754,523	2,954,622	6,551
5E Edith Bowen	302	505,246	2,546,825	8,433
7E Gateway Preparatory Academy	506	846,538	3,177,786	6,280
8E Merit College Preparatory Academy	400	669,200	2,591,387	6,478
9E Providence Hall	700	1,171,100	3,724,499	5,321
1F Quest Academy	679	1,135,967	3,731,322	5,495
2F Rockwell Charter High School	476	796,348	3,390,646	7,123
3F Venture Academy	472	789,656	2,848,518	6,035
4F Salt Lake Center for Science Education	290	485,170	1,807,826	6,234
5F Utah Virtual Academy	2,044	3,419,612	11,342,470	5,549
6F Early Light Academy at Daybreak	751	1,256,423	4,339,833	5,779
7F Excelsior Academy	658	1,100,834	3,927,255	5,968
8F Hawthorn	786	1,314,978	4,500,966	5,726
9F Open High School of Utah	227	379,771	1,509,485	6,650
1G Oquirrh Mountain Charter School	716	1,197,868	4,003,080	5,591
2G Vista at Entrada	823	1,376,879	4,572,685	5,556
3G Bear River Charter School	177	296,121	1,185,884	6,700
4G Maria Montessori Acacemy	455	761,215	2,549,904	5,604
5G Quail Run Primary School	555	928,515	3,355,222	6,045
6G Weilenmann School of Discovery	550	920,150	3,126,744	5,685
7G Summit Academy High School	172	287,756	1,166,741	6,783
8G Good Foundation Academy	305	510,265	1,838,239	6,027
SUB-TOTAL CHARTERS	40,132	67,140,836	243,505,558	6,068

All data comes from school Annual Financial Reports for 2010-2011 school year, available online here. “Local Property Tax” for purposes of this report includes only property tax (1100) for general fund, capital projects, or debt service for school districts, and only “Local Replacement Fund” for charter schools at $1,673 per student. State and federal revenue in the above table includes “Local Replacement Fund” for charter schools, which is also included (for the sake of comparing what districts raise in taxes to what charters receive to replace such revenue) in ”Local Property Tax.”

UCAS wins

Utah County Academy of Science won the state championship in the Science Olympiad this month. The leaders of the schools's team presented to their board at the meeting today. The school will now go to Orlando for the national Olympiad.

Pacific Heritage highlighted on Fox 13

As the first school of its kind in the country, Pacific Heritage Academy was highlighted this week on Fox 13 News.  The school offers a curriculum that highlights pacific cultural heritage.

Are charters more efficient than districts?

The USOE blog linked today to a study analyzing the administrative spending of districts and charter schools in Michigan. In Michigan, the study finds that charters spend $800 more per student on administration and $1100 less in the classroom.  As it happens, that's my next post in my series (see the previous entries here, here, and here.) on school funding in Utah.  You might be surprised at what the data show.  Stay tuned.

Consequences

I build budgets for a living.  My own budget workbook for the schools I work with has seven tabs, dozens of formulas and tables and hundreds of links back and forth.  All that so the "Budget" tab shows realistic revenue projections and expenses in line with the operation of the school.  A single error in any one of those tabs, formulas, or links and the whole system can collapse.  What looks like a balanced budget could actually be unsustainable.

A few weeks ago when the first set of state funding projections was sent out.  Schools and districts noticed that the numbers didn't make sense--they showed less funding than the current year on the same enrollment.  I suppose this is why.  The State Office, in its projections of enrollment, provided the legislature with faulty numbers generated from a single error in a massive spreadsheet.  The result was an under-appropriation of $25 million.

As a result of this error, Associate Superintendent Todd Hauber and Finance Director Larry Newton have resigned. I have nice things to say about both of them, but that will wait for a future post.

The cost of a building

This is the third in a series of posts analyzing school finance data. The first dealt with efficiency, defined as how much schools spent on the administration of their program on a per student basis. The second was about the results of that efficiency--schools that spend the most in classrooms on the education of students.  This post is related to that, as it analyzes the schools spend the most on their buildings. Rent is typically the second largest line item (after employees, if they are counted as a single category) in any school's budget.  Schools that spend more per student on buildings have less money for teacher salaries, curriculum, classroom technology and additional instructional staff like teachers' aides.

I take it as a given that while a building is necessary for educating students (no argument from virtual schools, please--that't not the point of this post) in a traditional setting, very little about that building has any impact on what students learn.  If the building is safe and functional, nothing else matters to the education of the students.  A school could theoretically spend its entire budget on the building, gold-plating the walls, and whatnot, and in fact the impact on students would be negative, as less money is available for things that actually do make a difference in the achievement of students.

Therefore, my postulate is that schools should seek a safe and functional building that costs as little as possible. In the list below, all charter schools are listed by those that spend the least amount per student to those that spend the most per student.  Since the cost of a facility is more than just the cost to be in it, the expenses here include what schools pay for rent plus the cost of maintenance and operation of their schools, including utilities.

Some interesting findings:

• At the top of the list Itineris, at only $2 per student, has the most efficient occupancy of all charter schools.  Their building was paid up front in one lump as part of the construction cost of a school they share with Salt Lake Community College and the Jordan Applied Technology Center.  The minimal cost here is reflective of other facility-related expenses.
• Utah Virtual Academy, as a large virtual school, spends very little on facilities, as you'd expect.  Open High School, on the other hand, spends significantly more, though still below the system-wide average.  Still, that's a lot for a school with no school and only a very small office in a cheap building downtown.
• As a group, high schools spend much less per student than elementary schools.  Several high schools (Itineris, AMES, NUAMES, Success, SL SPA) share facilities and their costs with other schools or colleges, while that arrangement is very uncommon in lower grades.
• High schools that operate out of portable units and old buildings (Moab, John Hancock) spend less.
• At the high end of the scale are schools (NPA, APA, Gateway) that purchased their building in 2011, leading to very high one-time expenses.  Next year's numbers will be more indicative of their ongoing facility costs.  
• In fact, this list is less apples-to-apples than previous lists on this topic.  Schools that opened in FY2011 (Weilenmann) don't have a full year's of occupancy included in their average, so they are understated.  Some schools (like Liberty) just got tremendous deals on their buildings because of other issues.  Some (Mountainville) expended their facility with large one-time expenses sending their average up.
• When you leave out the outliers at the top and bottom of the list, the average school spends $1536 on facilities.

School	Failities Spending	Enrollment
A5 Itineris Early College High	$                               2	245
5F Utah Virtual Academy	$                            41	2044
A1 NUAMES	$                          130	400
A9 Success Academy	$                          205	337
83 AMES	$                          230	479
7D Salt Lake School for Performing Arts	$                          243	185
7G Summit Academy High School	$                          367	172
1B Utah County Academy of Sciences	$                          408	363
93 John Hancock	$                          459	185
8D Open Classroom School	$                          462	399
92 Uintah River High School	$                          529	45
90 Tuacahn Hs For Performing Arts	$                          530	295
88 Success School	$                          697	41
3G Bear River Charter School	$                          731	177
95 Timpanogos Academy	$                          770	423
A7 Moab Community School	$                          841	70
4F Salt Lake Center for Science Education	$                          856	290
A2 The Ranches Academy Inc	$                          933	351
97 Salt Lake Arts Academy	$                          936	301
6C Liberty Academy	$                          975	687
94 Thomas Edison Charter School North	$                      1,024	1141
3C Entheos Academy	$                      1,160	514
9C Paradigm High School	$                      1,176	530
81 Walden School	$                      1,215	323
86 Pinnacle Canyon Academy	$                      1,221	503
6G Weilenmann School of Discovery	$                      1,227	550
9F Open High School of Utah	$                      1,236	227
1D Renaissance Academy	$                      1,271	677
1E  Guadalupe Schools	$                      1,275	121
1F Quest Academy	$                      1,290	679
4C Lakeview Academy	$                      1,303	711
9D Canyon Rim Academy	$                      1,309	530
2D Channing Hall	$                      1,319	668
7C Monticello Academy	$                      1,351	756
9E Providence Hall	$                      1,404	700
1C Odyssey School	$                      1,409	491
7B Ronald Reagan Academy	$                      1,429	675
5B North Star Academy	$                      1,510	508
5C Legacy Prepatory Academy	$                      1,514	876
3D Spectrum Academy	$                      1,515	333
87 City Academy	$                      1,523	185
6D Noah Webster Academy	$                      1,529	552
2B Lincoln Academy	$                      1,540	643
7F Excelsior Academy	$                      1,548	658
2G Vista at Entrada	$                      1,551	823
4B Wasatch Peak Academy	$                      1,554	375
2E Karl G. Maeser	$                      1,578	603
A4 Summit Academy	$                      1,590	1000
5D George Washington Academy	$                      1,611	721
A6 North Davis Preparatory Academy	$                      1,614	982
3F Venture Academy	$                      1,624	472
98 Fast Forward Charter High School	$                      1,634	213
8B American Leadership Academy	$                      1,659	1506
8G Good Foundation Academy	$                      1,671	305
4E Dual Immersion Academy	$                      1,684	451
5G Quail Run Primary School	$                      1,694	555
82 Freedom Academy	$                      1,715	673
68 Ogden Preparatory Academy	$                      1,759	1068
4D Syracuse Arts Academy	$                      1,963	1019
4G Maria Montessori Acacemy	$                      1,982	455
3B Beehive Sci. & Tech. Acad.	$                      1,989	233
2C Intech Early College High School	$                      2,014	141
1G Oquirrh Mountain Charter School	$                      2,099	716
8F Hawthorn	$                      2,183	786
A8 East Hollywood High	$                      2,309	317
6F Early Light Academy at Daybreak	$                      2,336	751
8C Mountainville Academy	$                      2,500	681
5E Edith Bowen	$                      2,617	302
8E Merit College Preparatory Academy	$                      2,640	400
3E C.S. Lewis Academy	$                      2,774	293
2F Rockwell Charter High School	$                      2,799	476
A3 DaVinci Academy	$                      2,868	378
89 Soldier Hollow	$                      3,940	223
9B Navigator Pointe Academy	$                      7,153	527
74 American Preparatory Academy	$                    14,365	1141
7E Gateway Preparatory Academy	$                    19,497	506

All data comes from Annual Financial Reports submitted by each school, which reports its own expenses. Expenses include function 26 (maintenance and operations, including utilities, custodial compensation and contracts, and custodial supplies) plus payments for charter school debt service (fund 31).