Rising costs, static revenues

This from the Houston Chronicle, in "Schools say inflation puts them at risk":

"It's an untenable system. No business in the world would be able to survive with fuel, health insurance and salary increases and a flat revenue source," Falick said. "It's not sustainable.

The solution, according to the article, is to raise taxes and reallocate current apportionments. Not cutting costs. Not fundraising. Not partnering. Just raising taxes.

Based on current trends, I think it's clear that this single-minded approach is (or will soon be) a nonstarter. Let's hope the folks in Texas explore their alternatives before it's too late.

And so it begins

I've written about the budget crunch facing public schools, with the immediate iteration being kicked off by the subprime mortgage crisis. There were a couple of stories in today's ASCD SmartBrief that hinted at the types of responses we may start to see:

• The LA Times has an op-ed discussing parents at an LA school passing the hat to make up for a $180,000 shortfall, raising $30,000 in a single night. "Get out your checkbooks, parents were told. All those wrapping-paper sales and pancake fundraisers wouldn't be enough. We could either pony up some hard cash, or see Ivanhoe's standing as one of L.A. Unified's best schools threatened."
• An article in The State (Columbia, SC) shows another angle: a bill in the state legislature to ban the sale of snack foods is voted down because schools need that revenue. "Some Greenville high schools earn as much as $70,000 annually from vending machine sales, said Quentin Cavanagh, marketing and training specialist for Greenville County schools. 'None of (the principals) want to sell this stuff. But they need the revenue,' Cavanagh told the House panel."

Raising funds through available channels is a clear first step; but as the problem gets bigger, and stretches out into the future, It's going to take more - a lot more. Partnership people, get ready for the knock on your door, if you haven't heard it already...

Whither Education Week?

I just realized something.

One of the big features of the Business/Education Partnership Forum (a pro bono clearinghouse run by DeHavilland Associates) is the steady stream of news reports relating to business/education partnerships. Looking at the latest crop of articles, it struck me that we post almost nothing from Education Week: during the past two months we've posted just one article, and that one was only somewhat related to business/education partnerships.

Education Week bills itself as "American Education's Newspaper of Record," but despite that fact that there are tens of thousands of business/education partnerships out there (some have estimated as high as 100,000 or more), they write almost nothing about these partnerships. Same with workforce development, same with parental involvement. (There was actually an article a couple of weeks back about how demanding parents are, but that was (1) a rare feature, and (2) a negative angle.)

While they provide startlingly little coverage of the true customers of education (much less positive or productive coverage), there are pages and pages in each issue on government spending on education.

If you assume that organizations have to be responsive to their paying customers in order to survive and thrive, you have to acknowledge that in the world of education, government is the customer, since that's the entity actually writing the checks. And even for those individuals within the education system who do see the community as their ultimate customer (and there are many), they're forced into spending most of their time responding to the immediate paying customer (government) because that's the way the system is set up.

Education Week's coverage is the symptom; government as customer is the problem. Certainly one way to address this is to allow funding to follow children to the schools they select. But as I've said before, in the next several years the resource crisis hitting our schools will force communities to make up a larger share of the support mix, and that direct support will firmly plant the idea of community stakeholders as customers.

Where's the outrage?

In the wake of a report on stunningly low dropout rates in several major cities, Nolan Finney, editorial page editor of the Detroit News, wrote an op-ed piece asking what would be done about Detroit schools' worst-in-the-country graduation rate of 24.9%:

Bulldozers ought to be rolling across Detroit, leveling public schools that are trapping children in poverty and ignorance.

An army of civil rights lawyers ought to be marching up the steps of the federal courthouse on behalf of students being denied their basic right to a decent education by a chronically incompetent school system.

No other response is adequate to the report that Detroit Public Schools graduates just 25 percent of its students. That news last week should have rocked this city with outrage.

and:

Not another dime of taxpayer money should go to subsidize this failure. Nor should the future of another Detroit child be destroyed by a school system that will never get it right.

If a 25 percent graduation rate doesn't make Detroit parents angry enough to demand radical change from the education system, nothing will.

Well, at least somebody's outraged.

Unfortunately, he seems to be one of a select few: aside from a flurry of news articles published last week when this report was released, I've heard almost nothing about this new data, and certainly nothing along the lines of Mr. Finney's demand for real action. The Indianapolis Star, whose city schools saw a 30.5% graduation rate, wrote a mealy rally-round-the-troops editorial titled "Let's look forward to brighter education future"; the Cleveland Plains-Dealer, whose urban schools boasted a 34.1% graduation rate, wrote nothing at all.

Why is that? How can we, as a society, see systemic failure in these and other cities, and respond with a collective yawn?

I don't have the answer - but I can tell you that if we don't do anything, if we don't demand accountability and change, then those individuals perpetuating, enabling, or defending these failures have no incentive to change, the human costs be damned. If we can absorb reports like these with nary a word said, then we have proven to them that we're fine with what they're doing, and tacitly given them permission to keep doing it.

Is that what we want? Even if it doesn't affect your kids directly - even if you've got yours - is it really acceptable to allow this to happen to so many other children? Is it better to keep up appearances, not ruffle any feathers, than to demand dramatic change?

Where's the outrage?

K-12 funding, squeezed from the picture

The image at right comes from today's Wall Street Journal (see the article Deficit hawks try, try again). Pay particular attention to the Medicare/Medicaid category, and remember that states pay close to half (43% to be exact) the costs of these programs. So this increase in federal obligations is going to be matched, almost dollar for dollar, by the states.

Why is this important to education? Because the vast majority of K-12 revenues come from state and local sources, and as commitments to programs like Medicare increase, less funding becomes available for education.

We've already seen Medicare grow from 8% of state budgets in 1985 to 22% in 2006, the first year it eclipsed K-12 spending. What happens when the program realy starts to take off, per the chart?

I've been harping a lot on finance lately, both on the blog and in meetings and presentations. I honestly don't think the majority of people working in or with the education system see what's coming down the pike. But it is coming - and I hope that people will begin to see that and prepare for it.

Tight budgets, rising costs squeeze states

Take a look at this article from Stateline.org on the current budget situation for state and local governments across the country.

I've written before about the coming resource crunch; I didn't mention inflationary pressures, since those can be short-term, but their point about problems in the bond market is well taken and important for these government entities.

We're doing this for the kids, right?

I'm still on semi-hiaitus from blogging, but I had to come out of my hole to highlight this article in the New York Times:

Bill Would Bar Linking Class Test Scores to Tenure
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: March 18, 2008

While the state was consumed by the downfall of Eliot Spitzer last week, the Assembly passed a bill that would pre-emptively bar New York City and other school districts from linking teacher tenure to students’ test scores.

Read the rest here.

There's not much more to say here, other than how appalling this is.

Conference brochure

If you'd like all the information on the Effective Education Partnerships Conference in one easy-to-read and easy-to-email place, you can download our new conference brochure here (PDF format). As always, you can still get to the conference website for more detailed information and to register online.

EdNews Interview

I haven't blogged much lately, but hopefully this interview counts for something...

Blogging

One of my New Years resolutions was to consistently blog at least twice per week. A quick look at the archives shows that it was a resolution quickly broken. (Not the only one, either - but certainly the most public.)

Sometimes life gets in the way of good intentions. In my case it's been the realities of a move to a new office, absorbing new client projects and managing existing ones, launching a national conference, getting ready to sell a house, and coping with an almost nonstop string of family illnesses that started at the turn of the year (and if I never see another ear infection or case of strep it'll be too soon).

All this is to say that I haven't dropped the blog, and hope to be back soon. If you're interested in education reform and business/education partnerships, I hope you'll stay tuned. :-)

Education - off the radar

If the following is true (from a Boston Globe editorial), it's shocking:

IN THIS presidential primary season, the issue of education has been like Sherlock Holmes's dog that didn't bark. Education is so far off the radar screen that, in an Associated Press-Yahoo poll, it didn't even make the 18-item list when voters were asked, "How important is each of the following issues to you personally?"

Read the whole article for a thoughtful commentary on education reform.

NCLB and dropout rates

Found the following in Science Daily (hat tip to the NASSMC Briefing Service):

Negative Implications Of No Child Left Behind: As Graduation Rates Go Down, School Ratings Go Up

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2008) — A new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin finds that Texas' public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), directly contributes to lower graduation rates. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation -- a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, Latino and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students.

By analyzing data from more than 271,000 students, the study found that 60 percent of African-American students, 75 percent of Latino students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five years. The researchers found an overall graduation rate of only 33 percent.

"High-stakes, test-based accountability doesn't lead to school improvement or equitable educational possibilities," said Linda McSpadden McNeil, director of the Center for Education at Rice University. "It leads to avoidable losses of students. Inherently the system creates a dilemma for principals: comply or educate. Unfortunately we found that compliance means losing students."

The study shows as schools came under the accountability system, which uses student test scores to rate schools and reward or discipline principals, massive numbers of students left the school system. The exit of low-achieving students created the appearance of rising test scores and of a narrowing of the achievement gap between white and minority students, thus increasing the schools' ratings.

This study has serious implications for the nation's schools under the NCLB law. It finds that the higher the stakes and the longer such an accountability system governs schools, the more school personnel view students not as children to educate but as potential liabilities or assets for their school's performance indicators, their own careers or their school's funding.

The study shows a strong relationship between the increasing number of dropouts and school's rising accountability ratings, finding that:

• Losses of low-achieving students help raise school ratings under the accountability system.
• The accountability system allows principals to hold back students who are deemed at risk of reducing the school's scores; many students retained this way end up dropping out.
• The test scores grouped by race single out the low-achieving students in these subgroups as potential liabilities to the school ratings, increasing incentives for school administrators to allow those students to quietly exit the system.
• The accountability system's zero tolerance rules for attendance and behavior, which put youth into the court system for minor offenses and absences, alienate students and increase the likelihood they will drop out.

The discrepancy between the official dropout rates, in the 2 to 3 percent range, and the actual rates can be attributed to the state's method of counting, which does not include students who drop out of school for reasons such as pregnancy or incarceration or declare intent to take the GED sometime in the future.

The study analyzes student-level data of 271,000 students in one of Texas' large urban districts over a seven-year period. It also includes analysis of the policy and its implementation, extensive observations in high schools in that district and interviews with students, teachers, administrators and students who left school without graduating.

The study has been published in the peer-reviewed policy journal "Educational Policy Analysis Archives" and is the first research to track the impact of high-stakes accountability on students, employing individual student-level data over a multi-year period. The study can be viewed at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v16n3/.

Surely they're not really saying what I think they're saying.

They're saying that if you require kids to demonstrate a minimal level of academic proficiency, they'll leave rather than learn - and that their teachers and administrators will be the ones happily showing them the door.

They're saying it's better to advance someone who cannot demonstrate minimal proficiency than to hold them back.

They're saying that the disaggregation of data - highlighting the disparities in achievement among various groups of students - is a bad thing.

They're saying that enforcing behavior standards alienates students.

What they're saying is that the only way to engage kids and create real learning is to eliminate all traces of accountability. It's the perfect catch-22, saying that students will only learn when you remove any tools that can show whether they're learning or not.

I have no doubt that their facts are correct: that the dropout rate increases when you enforce learning and behavioral standards. But is eliminating accountability the solution to the dropout rate? You may in fact see more kids staying in school - but to what end?

Or is there another solution? Perhaps embracing accountability and using it as a tool to ensure that kids have the skills and knowledge they need before it's too late? That's what these schools are doing at least. Isn't it what we want from public education?

Case study competition

While planning for the Effective Education Partnerships Conference, one of the comments I heard most frequently was, "respect the talent in the room." Many of the people who will attend this conference (and who are already starting to sign up!) are experienced practitioners, and are interested in opportunities to share their expertise.

One of the ways we've found to address this is by hosting a case study competition. We've developed case studies with hypothetical scenarios featuring a business outreach initiative, a district-level partnership office, and a business/education coalition. Respondents will highlight the issues presented in each case study and provide their own solutions, with the winners in each category receiving a cash prize ($500 first place, $250 second place) and recognition at the conference.

These case studies, along with the selected winning entries, will also be the focus of a round of facilitator-led breakout sessions, in which participants can discuss the case studies and possible solutions - a great way to begin peer-to-peer discussions on effective partnerships.

I mention this in order to announce that the case studies are now available - go here to review and download them. I hope you'll find them intriguing - we're looking forward to a great response.

Retiree obligations cloud fiscal horizon

I mentioned before that teacher requirements and healthcare were going to put quite a pinch on K-12 spending - this Education Week article has more on the subject.

Garrison Keillor and NCLB

Of all the people who could be expected to defend NCLB, I never would have included Garrison Keillor on that list. Yet here he is, on Salon.com.

The heart of it:

Face it, the schools are not run by Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats but by perfectly nice, caring, sharing people, with a smattering of yoga/raga/tofu/mojo/mantra folks like my old confreres. Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy. When the grand poobah Ph.D.s of education stand up and blow, they speak with great confidence about theories of teaching, and considering the test results, the bums ought to be thrown out.

There is much evidence that teaching phonics really works, especially with kids with learning disabilities, a growing constituency. But because phonics is associated with behaviorism and with conservatives, and because the Current Occupant has spoken on the subject, my fellow liberals are opposed.

Liberal dogma says that each child is inherently gifted and will read if only he is read to. This was true of my grandson; it is demonstrably not true of many kids, including my sandy-haired, gap-toothed daughter. The No Child Left Behind initiative has plenty of flaws, but the Democrats who are trashing it should take another look at the Reading First program. It is morally disgusting if Democrats throw out Republican programs that are good for children. Life is not a scrimmage. Grown-ups who stick with dogma even though it condemns children to second-class lives should be put on buses and sent to North Dakota to hoe wheat for a year.

Who’d a thunk it?

Hat tip to Alexander Russo at This Week in Education.