Are You Freakin' Kidding Me?!?!, League of "Education" Voters Edition

I wish I was making this up, from a legislative review recently posted to the L"E"V website:

We’re all in this together

The budget cuts will have dramatic impacts on our state’s education system. The cuts to early learning and K-12 will mean less students graduate ready for college, job training opportunities and the workforce. In higher education, the combination of cuts and tuition increases will reduce quality, access and affordability for students vying to prepare themselves for our knowledge-based economy.

It’s up to all of us education advocates to stay vigilant. Continue to talk and work with your state lawmakers. And please volunteer in your local schools and help pass local levies.

Sure, let's remain vigilant--let's vigilantly watch the state spend more than $3,000,000 implementing HB2261, which will drastically alter certification and add more bureaucracy to the state in a time when classroom teachers--you know, us schlubs who actually work with the kids--are losing their jobs. I've made the Nero comparison before; shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic also fits. The patient is dying and Dr. L"E"V is calling in a make-up artist to make her look prettier.

The education coalition ain't just broken, it's at war with itself.

Read more here, if any.

This Legislative Session in a Nutshell

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness.
--Emo Phillips

(via)

Read more here, if any.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe is So Full of Crap She Cries Brown Tears

The big thing that I noticed when the conference budget came out on Friday was the $60,000,000 cut to levy equalization, which was certainly better than what the Senate had initially proposed, but still worse than the House, which had been giving good indications that they were going to leave LEA alone. It's levy equalization money that allows our property-poor school districts to have a shot at offering anything even comparable to what a Mercer Island, Bellevue, or other districts with high tax bases can provide. It's a lifeline to poor districts in a way that class size reduction isn't, and let's be perfectly clear: when you cut LEA, you are cutting the districts that can least afford the hit.

So an amendment came up during the Senate debate last night; you can watch it here, and I'm pulling the quotes out of the closed captioning transcript. Sen. Mark Schoesler from the 9th LD, an area of the state (southeast Washington) where levy equalization really matters, lead off with this:

This measure restores levy equalization payments by increasing funding through a variety of sources. We take one learning improvement day, we reform bilingual education and manage to achieve the savings. I think this is important in that it's the property-poor districts that have levy equalization needs. They're not necessarily in northeast Washington, they may be in federal way, they may be in north central Washington, they may be a property-poor district with students of color and of need in the Yakima valley, but they all share one thing in common:
A levy dollar doesn't buy very much.

In a property-rich district, a dollar buys a lot. To get the same earning potential in a property-poor district, you might need six or seven dollars. This restores that.
This puts school districts on a level playing field whether they're in eastern Washington, west, north or south, it puts them on a level playing field and it has the means to pay for itself. I urge your support.

Maybe, maybe Sen. Schoesler over-reached when his caucus added in the piece about bilingual education, which is a hot-button issue that gets a lot of hackles raised. The point remains, though--levy equalization matters.

Then Senator McAuliffe made her response:

I ask the body to reject this amendment. When these - this levy equalization is being cut about 15%. With the federal dollars for title one and special education, these districts are almost whole. In fact, let me just cite one, which is Aberdeen. The levy equalization payment is $480,000. And they receive in special education money $768,000. So many of these districts will have those dollars restored through the federal stimulus dollars.

Let's set aside for a moment the fact that I can't find the document that she's citing anywhere, and it seems like if she's going to read figures into the public record that the public should be able to see those figures for themself.

We'll also ignore the fact that her home district, Northshore, will be absolutely uneffected by this cut because they already don't receive any levy equalization money.

And maybe later we'll talk about the fact that lowering levy equalization at the same time as the Senate has passed a bill to lift the levy lid for districts that take in excess money means that the gap between the rich districts and poor districts will get that much wider.

For now, let's focus on one key fact: levy equalization money can be used for ANYTHING. Programs, teachers, salary, transportation--anything. It's a great source of money that way in that it can fill in any hole in the district budget.

Title I money and Special Education money, on the other hand, can only be used for NARROW, LIMITED PURPOSES. You can't take sped money and use it to pay for an activity bus, or to reduce class size in kindergarten, or for a boost to the ASB.

So the money that Sen. McAuliffe is treating as equal is anything but. It's a nice comparison to make if you're trying to make it look like you didn't really cut anything, but it's an awful long ways from reality.

The reason that this particularly pisses me off is in light of the Basic Education Reform Bill that passed both the House and Senate and is now on its way to the Governor's desk for a signature. I fought against it because I hate what it could do to certification and the salary schedule, but such is life and now the battle turns to mitigating the impact of a bad, misguided bill. Senator McAuliffe took note of the divisiveness of the bill when she released her open letter to the education community, wherein you'll find this gem:

I have heard that this is the wrong bill and the wrong message at the wrong time. I have heard that it is an insult to our hard-working teachers and educators that come to work every day and are committed to providing every child with the opportunity to learn. I want to be clear – teachers are the single most important part of our educational system. This bill is not a commentary in any way about a failure of our teachers. It is a recognition that our teachers deserve better and a recognition that our state's definition of basic education has failed to keep pace with the evolving expectations of society and has failed our teachers.

Senator, YOU ARE THE STATE. You voted to take away money THIS YEAR from districts that are already teetering. You refused to look at bilingual education with a serious eye. You refused to cut the other LID day. You refused to freeze the salary schedule, or take additional money from the rainy day fund. Your caucus chickened out on sending a revenue package to the voters.

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Millions of dollars will be funneled off to OSPI and their ilk to study changes to the system, changes that the state isn't bloody well likely to be able to afford until 2012 at the earliest. The idea of looking at school district consolidation to save money went away, probably because it's politically unpopular.

Where there's a will, there's a way. This education budget is the triumph of no-will.

Read more here, if any.

The Education Budget #5: Should Navigation 101 Get Lost?

From the Senate budget (p. 92 line 37):

$3,220,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $3,219,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the dissemination of the Navigation 101 curriculum to all districts, including disseminating electronic student planning tools and software for analyzing the impact of the implementation of Navigation 101 on student performance, and grants to at least one hundred school districts each year for the implementation of the Navigation 101 program.

Nav101 is a curriculum/intervention program designed to provide individualized lessons for kids grades 6-12 and help them plan for their future. It's labor intensive--to do the "advisory" periods requires changing the schedule twice a month, meaning that the other classes get shortchanged on those days. Reaction from teachers is mixed depending on who you ask--in my district some teachers love it, others hate it.

All that said, if you didn't fund Navigation 101 with state money you could save 40 teaching positions.

If relationships are the heart of student success, then let's give them teachers to have relationships with instead of spending money on curriculum.

Read more here, if any.

The Education Budget #4: While Education Crumbles, Let's Study Education!

This is the *hit that drives me mad. From the Senate budget (p. 90, line 29):

$50,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $50,000 of the general fund--state appropriate for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for implementation of Engrossed Senate Bill No. 6048 (relating to education). If the bill is not enacted by June 30, 2009, the amounts provided in this subsection shall lapse.

Cheeky, putting aside money for a bad education bill while at the same time rocking education to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars in cuts.

Not nearly as cheeky as their counterparts in the House, though (p. 96 line 36):

$1,819,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $1,181,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the implementation of Substitute House Bill No. 2261. The funding supports preparation for the implementation of a new funding formula and accounting system, including convening and staffing costs for technical working groups and funding for reprogramming apportionment and accounting information systems at the office of the superintendent of public instruction.

If you go by the House number, and the $80,000 average cost of a teacher that we've used before, that means you could save 22 teaching jobs by not implementing HB2261.

And why, oh why oh why, do some of our legislators equate improving schools with adding staff at OSPI? This is why I despise the new accountability system that the State Board of Education is working to ram through--it's most practical impact won't be to improve schools or districts, but you can bet the mortgage that OSPI will be coming to the legislature hat in hand in a couple of years asking for 20+ more FTE to staff their school improvement corp.

What you're seeing this year more than ever is the balkanization of the education stakeholders, where the League of Education Voters works against the Washington Education Association, the WEA rises against the State Board of Education, the SBE works at cross-purposes against the Professional Educator Standards Board, the PESB work runs afoul of the vision that Stand for Children has, and on, and on, and on. Politically it's dynamite to watch; in practicality, it's a slowly unfolding disaster.

Meanwhile the budget is a quickly unfolding disaster.

It's not a good time to be in education.

Read more here, if any.

The Education Budget #3: Whatever Happened to School District Consolidation?

The Governor's proposed budget had this in it:

(ii) Within the amounts provided in this subsection (1)(a), the superintendent of public instruction is to conduct the following activity to identify efficiencies in the organization and structure of school districts. The superintendent shall make recommendations for a streamlined school district consolidation process, develop appropriate criteria, and provide needed statutory changes to meet the following goals: Reduce operating costs; reduce administrative duplication; and create efficiencies to offer better programmatic opportunities to students. Recommendations shall also include specific proposals for realigned school districts. The superintendent of public instruction shall report to the governor and the appropriate legislative committees by November 1, 2009.

...but you won't find that language in either the House or Senate budgets, and that's a shame.

Long-term readers know that this is a drum that I've been beating for a while now, and it makes absolute sense--if some administrative functions in school districts can be combined to save money that can be re-directed to teachers and kids, why wouldn't we want to do that? It's not about closing schools, though that is the fear some have--it's about figuring out why Sprague, Harrington, and Lamont all have their own superintendent allotment for adjoining school districts that are less than 500 kids each, why we need three school districts in the Spokane Valley, why Orchard Prairie continues to exist, why we need 5 different school districts in the San Juan Islands.

We're either in an economic crisis or we're not--if we're not willing to take a long, hard look at *every* function of school governance, then this isn't really a crisis.

Read more here, if any.

The Education Budget #2: Useless Programs at the Professional Educator Standards Board

The Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) is the body here in Washington State charged with developing the criteria for teacher certification. In the last few years they've been responsible for implementing Professional Certification (which is a miserable flop), WEST-B testing of ed students at the colleges (which isn't doing any good), and the WEST-E alternate pathway to certification (which is poorly designed, stupidly onerous, and isn't working as it should.)

I'm not a big PESB guy.

In the proposed Senate budget, on page 88, you can read the earmarks for the PESB. There's a lot there to talk about:

• The overall budget for the PESB is $5,278,000 in fy2010 and $5,176,000 in fy2011.
  
• Within that, $1,070,000 a year is for operating costs for the PESB.
  
• $3,431,000 is for alternate certification programs, including:
  
  1. $500,000 a year for scholarships for people going into sped, math, science, or bilingual ed;
     
  2. $2,372,000 each year for a different alternative program for the high-need areas;
     
  3. $102,000 for work on the achievement gap in fy2010;
     
  4. $231,000 each year for the "Recruiting Washington Teachers" program;
     
  5. $200,000 a year for the "Pipeline for Paraeducators" program;
     
  6. $244,000 a year for current teachers to switch into math or science endorsements
• $1,146,000 each year to develop a student information database.

Here's the thing: when we're talking about laying off 3,000+ teachers, when hundreds more teachers graduate every year looking for jobs, when hiring at job fairs is waaaaaay down....do we really need to expand the pipeline? Sure, some of those programs are to create bodies in high-need fields, but with less slots (and more people looking to fill those slots!), is the need still there?

My suggestion: suspend all of the alternate-route certificate programs for the next bienium, saving 42.5 teaching positions.

Read more here, if any.

The Education Budget #1: Can We Afford National Board Certification Bonuses?

So with the two budgets (especially the Senate budget) set to have a devastating impact on the public schools, it's reasonable to pick through the proposed education spending that is in the budget and see what there is to see. Target #1--the $5,000 a year bonus for National Board Certified teachers. From the Senate budget:

(13)(a) $28,021,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $38,417,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the following bonuses for teachers who hold valid, unexpired certification from the national board for professional teaching standards and who are teaching in a Washington public school, subject to the following conditions and limitations:
(i) For national board certified teachers, a bonus of $5,319 per teacher for fiscal year 2010, and $5,325 for fiscal year 2011. National board certified teachers who become public school principals shall continue to receive this bonus for as long as they are principals and maintain the national board certification;

Similarly, from the House budget proposal:

(23)(a) $26,210,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2010 and $35,902,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2011 are provided solely for the following bonuses for teachers who hold valid, unexpired certification from the national board for professional teaching standards and who are teaching in a Washington public school, subject to the following conditions and limitations:
(i) For national board certified teachers, a bonus of $5,000 per teacher beginning in the 2008-2009 school year and adjusted for inflation in each school year thereafter in which Initiative 732 cost of living adjustments are provided. National board certified teachers who become public school principals shall continue to receive this bonus for as long as they are principals and maintain the national board certification;

So for the House the total 2-year appropriation is about $62 million; the Senate, about $66.4 million. Take the average of those, $64 million, figure $32 million a year, divide that by the $80,000 a year it costs for an average teacher, and you've just saved 400 jobs.

The piece that's the most galling to me is having the National Board bonuses follow teachers who move up to the principalship. They're going to get a big raise just by virtue of the job change; what is the state's abiding interest in paying this big bonus for someone who is now a step removed from actually working with kids?

As a state we've committed a hearty amount of resources to National Board certification, and I wish only the best for those who have it and those who are just starting out on the journey. If it's a choice between levy equalization cuts and the National Boards stipends, though, I know the directions I'd like to see the legislature go.

Read more here, if any.

The Union President's Dilemma

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

With the recent release of the House and Senate budgets it's looking like the economic situation for schools is going to get even more dire. Add in the fact that a lot of this year's relief is because of the economic stimulus money from the Obama administration, and I'm running under the assumption that as bad as this year's cuts have been next year could be even worse.

It's something I've been thinking about since September, when I officially took over as president of my local. It's been a hell of a first year, and the next two months could be the cherry on the proverbial *hit sundae. My superintendent has been telling folks to expect an even $1,000,000 in cuts--about 13 teaching positions--and in light of the past two days even that eye-popping number could be a case of raging optimism.

The question for local union leadership becomes this: how do you respond?

Consider my local of about 130 members. If we did lose 13 positions it would be devastating to all five of my schools. Morale would be ravaged, and I truly don't think that's too strong a word to describe the impact. Class size would spike, particularly if the cuts to I-728 and levy equalization that are being bandied about actually come to fruition. Members are looking to me to save their job, which is a hell of a responsibility; similarly, drastic cuts to staffing also lower the quality of the workplace for everyone left behind.

The temptation is to look at the contract and see what could be "given back" to the school district to save money. We have 86 hours a year of per diem, for example; that's more than $500,000 a year that could save roughly 7 positions. Given that per diem is extra money, some reason, they're willing to give up the extra for the good of the whole.

Not so fast, though. That money is also pensionable income, so any teacher who is within sight of retirement (3 years) needs that money in their paycheck to bump up the pension that they'll receive for the rest of their life. Giving away that $4,000 of per diem this year not only costs them now, but the difference for them every month of their retirement could be profound.

Or, consider my members at the very bottom of the seniority list. The $2,500 that per diem means for them is Christmas, is the property taxes, is the automobile insurance. How close to the bone would I be cutting if they didn't have that cushion?

Another area that comes up regularly is health insurance. There's a piece of the budget called the "Health Care Authority Remittance" (HCA), which is much better known as the carve-out. This is the money that school districts have to remit to the state to pay for health care for retired teachers, paras, and administrators, and right now the bill is about $60 per month per teacher. When carve-out started that cost was about $5 a month, which lead to many districts agreeing during contract negotiations that they would just cover the cost. Now that it's trebled four times over we're talking big dollars: for my district, about $90,000.

I could say, "OK--you can take that money out of the monthly health insurance allotment that we receive from the state." The practical impact would be that the people who are already paying out of pocket would see their costs go up $60 a month; for me, a guy who already pays about $440 a month out of pocket, that would make it about $500 a month. Those who insure only themselves--the single people, or those with a spouse who has good insurance--could come through untouched, or only paying a token amount.

Or, I could say that all the money that currently goes into the insurance pool could be used for the carve-out. That wouldn't completely eliminate the bill, but it would alleviate it some. The impact of that would be felt by anyone who uses the insurance pool to lower their monthly costs. That hits the people with families and kids the hardest.

My speech therapists get stipends--three days a year--but taking that away makes it feel like I'm targeting a very narrow band of my membership. My ag teacher at the high schools has a 40-day extended contract which pays him an additional $10,000 a year, but he earns every penny of it because his FFA duties keep him going all summer long. I could bargain those away, but that's lousy leadership.

What to do?

It's worth noting that the official advice of the WEA is that you never, ever trade money for jobs. Getting cost items into the contract is always a fight, and surrendering the long-term gain to avoid the short-term pain makes no sense in their view. The jobs always come back--remember, it's layoff AND recall--and while the pain is real for those sent away it's just part of doing business.

I understand that. Economically, intellectually, it makes all the sense in the world. When an organization that is fueled by member's dues money is telling you that the right thing to do is to have less members, that's probably something that you should listen to.

That said, teaching is a relational business, and layoffs hurt relationships. Culture counts, and I can understand the temptation to put the school family ahead of the fiscal ideal.

It's going to be an interesting couple of months.

Read more here, if any.

The Joys of Being in the Minority Party

Rep. Jaime Herrera:

"I continue to support a no-new-taxes budget that streamlines state government. This approach prioritizes public safety, transportation, education and safety-net services for our vulnerable citizens. At the same time, we must fundamentally change our budget process. For example, a constitutional spending limit, a balanced budget requirement and a system in which extraordinary revenue generated in good economic times is set aside. These are just a few proposals that would prevent current budget problems from ever happening again."

1) How do you prioritize public safety AND transportation AND education AND the safety net? It's kind of an either/or deal, innit?

2) I've read all of the House Republican ideas to help the budget process. There's some good thinking there. Not a one of them can make a difference this session, though.

3) Will Rep. Skip Priest and Rep. Glen Anderson, two of the signatories to HB2261 which would remake education, back off of that bill now given the size of the deficit and the costs incumbent in that bill?

Rep. Charles Ross:

"The Yakima Valley School is hanging in the balance as the Senate proposes to close the school, while the House proposes to keep it open. Putting out our most vulnerable from a high-care facility is not the way to solve our budget problems.

The best article I've read on the Yakima Valley School is here; my own district used to have a similar facility. I think that the community-placement advocates have gotten a bit out of hand; watching the testimony at the Senate Ways and Means Committee hearing yesterday was heartwrenching as the relations of people at YVS testified as to the good it has done. The school should stay open, but again--$9,000,000,000 is a lot of money.

Rep. Dammeier:

"It also means getting back to the basics by identifying the priorities of state government, which I see as education, public safety and the protection of our most vulnerable citizens."

Rep. Bailey:

"Our state faces tough choices and needs budget leadership. I believe this includes restructuring state government and focusing on priorities such as education, public safety and the protection of our most vulnerable populations."

I think someone in the communications department was getting in a bit of a rut.

Read more here, if any.

Heartbreaking

Watching the advocates for the Developmentally Disabled and their clients lobby to try and prevent cuts to their programs is really hard to do, especially as the father of a daughter who stands to access those kinds of services in a few years.

There is nothing good about this budget.

That said, I'm awfully surprised to see so many advocates for DD saying "Thanks!" for closing Yakima Valley School. I understand the belief that community based care is the best, but why close off an option?

Read more here, if any.

1/6th of school districts on the brink of bankruptcy?

No direct link available, but this is from the email that the Spokane Library Moms send out to their supporters via the Washington State Library Coalition listserv:

The library issue really symbolizes the failure on the part of
the state to fully fund basic education – but as we all know,
this goes far beyond school libraries. How bad is it? Yesterday
at a hearing in Olympia, State Spdt. Randy Dorn testified that
"42 school districts (14% of districts statewide) are on the
brink of insolvency."

I have a hard time believing that. Can anyone point me to the source material?

Email to the right if you'd rather.

Read more here, if any.

Rule #1 Of Lobbying

There is no tit-for-tat.
There is no tit-for-tat.
There is no tit-for-tat.
There is no tit-for-tat.

Just got a statement from Governor Chris Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown: The so-called ‘worker privacy’ bill is dead and there’s now an investigation over whether an e-mail “linking potential action on the bill to campaign contributions” broke the law.

The “worker privacy” bill was listed as the labor unions’ top priority this session — and among the top bills to quash on a list from the Association of Washington Business. The bill would have barred employers from requiring employees to sit through meetings about religion or union matters.

That's more than a little bit of a cock-up, Big Labor.

Read more here, if any.

The Washington State School Directors Association vs. Sen. Rodney Tom

From the floor of the sausage factory:

Earlier today, the Senate took action on its three unfunded mandates bills: SB 5880, SB 5889 and SB 5890. Each bill would delay, suspend or repeal a series of education unfunded mandates. Each bill was adopted today with amendments; however, we specifically want to make you aware of an amendment that was attached to SB 5880. Sen. Rodney Tom was successful in adopting language that would repeal current law provisions that school directors automatically become members of WSSDA. In arguing on behalf of his amendment, he said that this was needed to ensure school districts have the flexibility to decide for themselves whether or not they will be members of the Association. He also argued that larger districts were not adequately represented by the Association — even though WSSDA's own membership recently approved of major changes to our weighted vote structure. Ironically, WSSDA made these changes following an internal review that was prompted by pressure from then -Rep.- Rodney Tom.

Sens. Rosemary McAuliffe, Mary Margaret Haugen and Steve Hobbs each asked their colleagues to reject the amendment because WSSDA provides the services and training that school directors need to be effective. Sen. Hobbs strongly said that this amendment would ultimately hurt small districts because they can not afford any other representation in Olympia. Unless an oral roll call is requested, amendments are adopted by a voice vote in the Senate. When the vote was taken, there was some doubt as to which side prevailed; however, a division was called for (essentially a "standing vote") and 33 senators voted to accept the amendment. As SB 5880 moves to the House we will have to work with legislators there in an attempt to have this potentially crippling amendment removed.

You can read Sen. Tom's amendment here; TVW Washington video here, starting at about 39:30 in. Fun quote from Senator Tom:

"WSSDA is geared towards the smaller school districts. It's very undemocratic in the way they take their votes."

Fun quote from Senator Haugen:

"It sometimes gets to be the country mouse versus the city mouse down here."

It's obvious, then--school board members need an agency fee payer option.

Read more here, if any.

Maybe They Just Don't Like You?

Exhibit A:

Majority party ignores Angel's sex offender GPS monitoring bill
Port Orchard lawmaker calls on public to keep measure alive

Despite repeated requests for a hearing on a bill that would provide global positioning system (GPS) real-time monitoring of certain sex offenders, Rep. Jan Angel says her calls were never returned by the committee chairman. Angel says the bill might be dead this year, unless the public responds to keep it alive.

House Bill 1834 would require electronic GPS monitoring of all Level 3 sex offenders and sex offenders who are registered as homeless, transient, or have a prior conviction of failing to register.

"We have an opportunity to protect vulnerable citizens with new, effective technology, and yet the majority party completely ignores this legislation. How can majority leaders turn a blind eye to those who have been victimized by sex offenders?" asked Angel. "Weeks or months from now when another sex offender strikes, how do we tell the parents of a child who has been victimized, and whose life has been changed forever, that we could have helped to prevent it through GPS monitoring, but obviously it wasn't important enough to even warrant a hearing?"

Exhibit B:

Eryk's Law approved by House of Representatives
Eryk's Law, first introduced and co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Hope, R-Lake Stevens, was passed today off the floor of the House of Representatives. Eryk's Law (House Bill 2279) was heard and voted out of the public safety committee just Friday, March 6. It was approved by the full House 96-0.

If signed into law, the bill would require a review of sentencing guidelines for child abuse convictions and prevent child abusers from working with children under the age of 13 in a paid or volunteer capacity.

The humour that I find in this is that these two posts to the House Republican RSS feed are literally right next to each other in Google Reader.

But please, Rep. Angel, before saying that the majority party doesn't care, ask caucus mate Mike Hope how things are going for him.

Read more here, if any.

Yet Another Reason Not to Like HB1410 and SB5444

From The Oregonian, via Horse's Ass:

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman gave a far more dire economic forecast in Portland last week than Oregon experts continue to present.

Krugman, a Princeton University economics professor and columnist for The New York Times, predicts — at a minimum — several years of a depressed economy. He calls the recession’s resemblance to the Great Depression “extremely frightening” and finds new signs of collapsing global trade shocking.

That vision starkly contradicts the opinions of Oregon economists, who generally predict the economy will bottom out this year and begin recovery in 2010. The discrepancy is partly philosophical, but could also reflect pressures on local economists to avoid presenting nightmare scenarios.

Making wholesale changes in the education system with the promise of future funding is a stupid thing to do when there's a very real chance that the 2010 legislative session could be just as difficult as this one is and 2011 may be flat.

I understand what the League of Education Voters is getting at, that this really could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink how we do the entire system. What I see is one long series of expensive changes without a financing mechanism to make them happen, and that's the poison pill that should give any one of our legislators enough reason to vote no.

Read more here, if any.

Is the State Budget Shovel Ready?

Not in the sense that it's in the grave and should be buried, but ready for a big Obama bailout. From Politico:

A group of Democratic governors warned Friday that without as much as $1 trillion in federal assistance, many states will not be able to pay their bills in the next year.

The $1 trillion the governors are seeking would be spent to prevent cuts in social services and education, as well as “shovel ready” infrastructure projects that could begin with 18 months. The group has presented its plan to the transition team and congressional leaders. The New Jersey governor said both have been receptive to the idea.

Maybe this is where we'll get the money for the viaduct from. Remember too that (As Lisa Brown has pointed out) the Governor's budget counts on getting a billion dollars in federal aid to make DSHS run for the next biennium; maybe that's a part of the trillion-dollar number.

The legislature goes in on January 12th; Obama is sworn in January 20th. Lead GOP budgeteer Joe Zarelli has indicated that he wants to finish the supplemental budget in the first week of the session, which doesn't mean a whole lot since the majority party could kill a puppy on the floor of the Senate and get away with it, but it will be fun to watch what sort of signals come out of the Other Washington regarding any help that we could get here.

Update: Obama Pledges Schools Upgrade in Stimulus Plan, from District Administration Magazine.

Update 2: There's also Flypaper's take on how a stimulus plan could go right to the education budgets. Great post, well worth reading for anyone following ed finance!

Read more here, if any.

Gregoire's Education Budget: How to Save Levy Equalization

(For more posts about Governor Gregoire's proposed education budget, try here and here.)

In her budget proposal Governor Gregoire suggests cutting the amount of money from the state for local levy equalization by 33%, which would have a profound impact on many of the smaller, property-poor districts here in Washington (and, for some reason, Spokane, but that's a topic for another day).

There's an awful lot of information available from the Office of Financial Management website, and if you poke around in the agency summaries section you can get enough numbers to keep you in Excel for the next decade. One of the interesting documents to me is on the compensation plan, wherein we can read that the increases in health benefits for K-12 employees are projected to cost $127,904,000.

The cuts to levy equalization are estimated to save $125,400,000.

I think you can see where I'm going here.

If we suspended the increase in health insurance benefits for the next two years and instead fully funded levy equalization, the only hit to the district budgets would then be the reduction in I-728 money. This is fair, because then at least every district is getting hit in the same way. If you cut levy equalization, though, a lot of districts that are already struggling are going to get hit in a way that the Bellevues of the world will not, and that doesn't help anyone.

You can't mention levy equalization without also mentioning Neal Kirby, the godfather of LEA; he wrote a great editorial for the Aberdeen Daily World on what exactly levy equalization is and why it matters.

And sure, ideally, education wouldn't take any sort of cuts. I think we need to deal in reality, though, and look for those areas that would cause the least harm. Levy equalization is not that area.

Read more here, if any.

Legislative Preview 2009: What the Professional Groups are Saying

With the long legislative session set to kick off in 10 days I thought it'd be good to collect some of the proposals that will be kicked around during; it's one stop shopping for Ed-heads!

The longest document comes from the Washington State School Directors Association, but it's also the most thorough; they have 94 different items that they rank order by priority, so you can look at the top of the list and see they care quite a bit about unfunded mandates, and at the bottom and see that WASL accommodations aren't such a big deal to them. They then refine that down to a few priorities. It's a good read; the piece about unfunded mandates is one that I've heard from 3 members of the house in recent weeks, so that message must be getting through.

Next is the Association of Washington School Principals. I've already criticized an aspect of it, the push for continued funding for the principal interns, but it's a program that benefits their members so I can see why they'd work to see it funded. I don't think they have a prayer of making that happen, but hey!

The WEA legislative priorities can be found here; the work that RW and the rest of the communications crew have put into making this site hum shows. The breadth of the organization shows when they have collective bargaining rights for community colleges listed as a top priority; the focus on classroom matters is evident, too, in the push for WASL reform. I get to help carry the water for this agenda, and it's something I do gladly.

All three also mention the Full Funding Coalition, a group comprised of the WEA, WSSDA, AWSP, the Washington Association of School Administrators, and the Public School Employees. I'm doubtful as to how much of a chance their recommendations have to take hold in this financial environment, but if you're looking for signal, here it is.

Read more here, if any.

O Hai, I Make Public Policy.

Actually, Statcounter is brutally efficient in reminding me that no one visits this blog except for me, and I actually haven't even been here since late 2006 (all postings since are created by BlogBog 3000; I'm way too busy whinging about the Sonics and finding new TV shows to badparent my daughter with), but I did find this blurb from the New Tribune interesting:

Here's the general analysis of Gregoire's budget that was done by the House budget committee staff:

(snip)

Other Adjustments:

· OSPI is encouraged to look at school district consolidations with the goal of administrative savings. Report to Legislature Nov. 2009.

That sounds a lot like something that I've been pushing for a year now; I wrote a quick-ass paper on it for one of my Leadership classes, too.

I'm just happy to see the idea get a mention, anywhere, because I think it's the right thing to do. It will be painful, but there are way too many school districts out there where I think it would be better for a lot of the stakeholders.

Now I just need to find a way to get on that committee...

Read more here, if any.