One More Thing About the 3%

No administrator is fully funded by the state. Last I looked the state kicked in about $60,000 per principal and superintendent, with the rest being made up by local or levy dollars.

Why does this matter? The 3% cut that the state senate proposes only touches that state funding. A superintendent that makes $120,000 a year is only going to lose 3% of the state allotment (3% of $60k, or $1,800), leaving them with $118,200. In reality, that's only 1.5% of their salary. The teacher who makes $40,000 a year would lose $1,200, a real 3%

More fun with numbers--using the examples above, the teacher who makes 1/3 of what the superintendent makes would lose 2/3 of the amount that the superintendent would.

Read more here, if any.

Joe Zarelli's Bad Week

Budget expert? Not this week.

I'm watching the Senate Ways and Means Committee testimony from Wednesday, and the gyrations that Sen. Zarelli is going through to defend crappy, crappy proposals like average daily attendance (ADA) and a 3% cut to salaries is absolutely fascinating.

Why is ADA a loser? Look just east to Idaho, where a study reported that ADA "may occasionally create unexpected and inequitable results in funding for smaller districts and charters." If you're Benge with 6 kids, and one has an unexcused absence, you're screwed in a way that the Seattle School District never will be. On top of that, imagine the next swine flu epidemic and what a legion amount of unexcused absences could do.

The 3% pay cut was blasted by everyone from the Governor to the Superintendent on down. It looks like some of the blame for this falls on the shoulders of Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, who needs better researchers. It's chicken to say that the local districts can figure out how to make that cut work--if you want to cut salaries 3%, do it in the salary schedule.

But you know you can't, because that's a cut to basic education. I'll give them praise for a bipartisan budget, as well as to the House GOP for turning out a budget as well and helping the conversation along, but at the end of the day Murray and Zarelli screwed up to the tune of $350 million dollars, and that doesn't reflect well on either of them.

Read more here, if any.

Freedom (Funded with Tax Dollars) Isn't Free

We need charter schools, the thought goes, to allow experimentation. To get rid of silly, onerous regulations. To provide choice. How's that working in practice down in Utah?

The State Charter School Board needs to polish its practices to more effectively regulate Utah’s growing number of charter schools, according to a legislative audit released Thursday.

The report highlights the board’s handling last year of financial struggles at Beehive Science and Technology Academy in Holladay. The board voted to revoke Beehive’s charter but later reversed that decision because of its own “ambiguous standards” for charter finances, the audit states.

The report recommends the board establish and apply clear financial standards for all charter schools. The board also needs to clarify procedures for disciplinary actions and school closures.

“We agree with the legislative auditor that it is important to have clear policies for financial management and oversight in place so that all charter schools are held to consistent standards,” Beehive principal Yavuz Durmus said via e-mail. “With [the charter board’s] cooperation, we have decreased overhead expenses and increased our enrollment this school year, placing us in a sound financial position.”

This is my concern with charter schools: that we'll set up a two-tiered system with state schools that have to follow legislative whims and chartered schools that don't. If the goal is deregulation, the legislature can do that. Snide remark, start by defunding the PESB.

Read more here, if any.

I'm Still Right About Timber Money

You may remember that last spring I ran a New Business Item at the WEA Rep Assembly related to federal timber money that comes from the feds and is then skimmed off by OSPI. I made a Facebook group, worked with a lot of Uniserv councils, had some fun....good times.

At RA my NBI got kicked over to committee (note to self--find out which one). I hadn't put a whole lot of thought into it the last few months, but then as I was going through the materials from the last Quality Education Council meeting I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were doing a whole segment on the topic. Score!

The point? Going off of this spreadsheet, 199 out of the 295 districts in the state would get additional money if the forest funds were allocated as they should be. 84 districts would receive less money, but of those 84 only 12 would stand to lose more than $10,000 and the biggest loser is Spokane at $54,000, which works out to roughly $2 per student.

Given that members of the QEC asked directly to have the issue studied, it's a fairly sure bet that it'll come up during the legislative session. It'll be worth watching.

Read more here, if any.