Accountability for Thee, But Not for Me! Charter School Edition.

First, let's review:

• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Washington Policy Center
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Yes on 1240 Fact Sheet
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Lisa McFarlane in a Ballard News Editorial
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Mary Lou Evans in the Everett Herald
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Liv Finne
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Bellingham Herald
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Partnership for Learning
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Olympian

....and numerous other editorials, letters, Facebook posts, and pretty much everywhere else you looked.

Contrast that with this language from Senate Bill 5328, prime sponsored by Steve Litzow and co-sponsored by 7 others.  The effect of the bill would be to give every school a letter grade from A to F, of course based off of test scores.  Actually, not every school:

(3) Each school that has students who are tested using the assessments administered statewide in reading, writing, mathematics, and science required under RCW 28A.655.061, 28A.655.066, and 28A.655.070 shall earn a school grade, except as follows:
(a) To protect the privacy of students, schools, and district testing fewer than ten students in a grade level;
(b) An alternative school may choose to receive a school or a school improvement rating;
(c) Charter schools, unless the charter school governing board chooses to earn a school grade;

 There is absolutely no legitimate excuse for this.

"They're new, it's not fair to grade them!"  High turnover schools are practically new every year.
"They work with high-need populations!"  So do all of our alternative high schools.
"They have their own accountability!"  So does my public school, through the State Board of Education's Achievement Index.

This is what those who were against I1240 were talking about when they worried that the initiative would create a two track system of public schools that were accountable and charter schools that are not.  In the coming years, when the test scores tank because of the switch to the Common Core State Standards, this bill would create a reality where most every real public school had a scarlet F attached to them while the "public" charter schools could opt out and avoid the consequences.

There are other problem with the bill--the incentive piece is simply insulting, and this would be another layer of accountability bureaucracy on top of what the Board of Education is already doing--and I can't imagine it would pass the House.  It's simply sad to see just how little Senator Litzow and the rest of the Majority Coalition Caucus think of public schools.

Read more here, if any.

A Fail by the State Board of Education

No, not Core 24--this time, it's their Facebook Page:

Earlier this week whoever maintains their page posted a link to the Tacoma News-Tribune editorial about the Masters pay bump along with the question, "Do we need to change the way we pay teachers?" They didn't question the source material, they didn't stand up for the teachers--they just passed along the big lie without question.

Right now, the State Board is far more interested in reform than they are in education, and it's annoying.

Read more here, if any.

Why Ed Reform in Washington State is Completely Full of Crap Right Now

From the most recent Quality Education Council meeting, the League of Education Voters summarizes:

Concerns about growing budget deficits and lack of funding to implement bold reforms. Ms. Ryan vehemently pushed back saying she hears the budget concerns, but now more than ever is the time to step up and put forward a strong vision for the state — our kids deserve it. Dr. Bette Hyde agreed “125 percent.”

I watched the segment (it's about 2.5 hours in), and I'd say the LEV transcribed it accurately.

I'd also say that Ms. Ryan, of the State Board of Education, and Ms. Hyde, of the Department of Early Learning, are both talking out of their ass, which seems to be the pattern right now.

Exhibit A, right here at the Quality Education Council. Ms. Hyde had anothe quote later on about how people are looking to the QEC for hope (hope of what, who knows?), and that meant they needed to fulfill their charge. Sorry, Bette, but from where I stand in the classroom I'm not looking to you for jack-squat. I'd just as soon you left me alone instead of creating work to justify your existence.

Exhibit B would be Ms. Ryan's very own State Board of Education, which just passed new graduation requirements despite there being absolutely no way to pay for those requirements. But the reasoning goes that, hey, things will get better, and the State Board of Education has to do something, so why not.

You've also got the Professional Educator Standards Board screwing around with cultural competency requirements, the Superintendent of Public Instruction signing on to the common core standards even though we didn't get the Race to the Top money, the Center for the Improvement of Student learning doing who-the-hell-knows what, the Local Levy Workgroup just had a meeting, too, and the districts involved in the Evaluation Pilot Project are also clicking along, and I assume the Department of Early Learning and the Higher Education Coordinating Board are also putting out the paperwork, too.

Right now ed reform in Washington is a sad, expensive Dilbert cartoon with board after board, committee after committee working on scores of different projects and none of them possessed of the moral fibre to admit that we're in a budget crisis and maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be re-arranging the furniture when the house in on fire. The first rule of being in a hole, the one about stop digging? That's not going to happen as long as the Big Shovel lobby that makes up all these commissions keeps thinking that their work trumps the reality that everyone else in the state is having to live with.

If you put them together, the packets from the last Quality Education Council and State Board of Education meetings come up to exactly 800 pages. Not 800 pages of how to preserve what we have, not 800 pages of acknowledgement that we're in the worst budget crisis since the Great Depression--800 pages of change that we just can't afford. And to put it bluntly, if the bureaucracy can't figure that out for themselves, then Lord let the legislature defund them and use the money for something worth a damn. There may well come a time where what Hyde and Ryan want can be--this is absolutely not that time.

And that's my rant.

Read more here, if any.

Because of A, B

Because it is raining, there's an article in the newspaper about the figure skating championships.

Because I'm losing my hair, Cheap Trick is popular in Japan.

Because a study is casting doubt on Head Start, we need more vouchers and charter schools.

It's simple cause and effect.

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Also on charters:

So this makes being a parent much easier. If my kid flunks out, there's clearly something wrong with the school and it must be closed or replaced by a charter. At the very least, we need to fire all the staff.

That seems to be where the Washington State Board of Education is going with their reform proposal, which is a state takeover even if Board Executive Director Edie Harding wants to run away from the term. And why wouldn't she? It's a much easier sell when you go to the public and present it as the benign, benevolent State Board doing "what's best for kids" instead of them shoveling hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pete Bylsma and other highly paid contractors in the OSPI/SBE/PESB circle of friends.

There is nothing good in education right now.

Read more here, if any.

Washington Education Week #6: The Calm Before the *hitstorm

The Washington State Legislature gets back to work tomorrow. It's expected to be a bipartisan affair where tough budget decisions are made in a spirit of teamwork and cooperation, where the needs of the individual are pushed aside so that the needs of the state can be fully shriven to the benefit of the citizens that make the Evergreen State great.

Nah, just kidding! Think crabs in a bucket, or out-of-control toddlers. Think out of control toddlers in a bucket with crabs. That's actually probably pretty close to the reality.

Item #1: School District Consolidation and Levy Equalization. It's looking like Rep. Sam Hunt of Olympia is the guy who's going to be the grinch that finally brings this conversation to the forefront. The money quote:

"It's a terribly hot issue. But I don't think we can justify having 295 school districts," Hunt said. "If you want to save money, I think this is one way to do it. It sets up a commission."

Rep. Hunt's proposal to get it done is HB2616, which would establish a commission to look at cutting the number of school districts in the state from the current 295 down to 150. Looking it over I like how he's written it--there's a lot of public involvement, and the bill just commits to the conversation, not the eradication of school districts. Whenever it comes up before the House Education Committee (and given that Rep. Dave Quall, the committee chair, is a co-sponsor, you can bet that it will) I'll have to try to make the trip over and watch the proceedings.

Another piece to keep an eye on is the School District Cost and Size Study that the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) has started work on this year. Their final report is due in either May or June, which means that this is an effort that could really work hand-in-glove with what Rep. Hunt is proposing.

The practical impact, then, is that Eastern Washington newspapers like the Yakima Herald-Republic can host superintendents and write angry editorials until they're blue in the face, but if small school advocates aren't willing to look at every cost--including the cost of their very existence--then they're ceding the moral high ground to folks like Governor Gregoire who can now go out and say "Look, I wanted to save levy equalization, but we can't poor more money into those districts without knowing that it's worth it, yadda yadda I hate this budget."

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Item #2: If the State Doesn't Want to Raise Tuition, Let the Colleges Do It To Themselves. An interesting idea wandering around Olympia is to allow the University of Washington the power to set its own tuition prices. It's come up before and never really gone anywhere, but maybe this is the right economic climate for something to happen.

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Item #3: Things That Only the Shadow Knows. On one hand, you've got budget director Victor Moore saying that we can't change union contracts.

On the other, you've got Amber Gunn of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation with the contract language; her reading is that the state can re-open should revenues decreased.

What's the education angle? Idaho, where school districts are declaring fiscal emergencies and reopening their teacher's contracts. Numerous small districts here in my area have given back pay and benefits, and as my local president I might end up leading my people that way as well.

You might be surprised at how many teaching contracts have language related to financial conditions. An example:

The following instructional load standards are established except for traditional large group instruction classes, such as music, K-6 physical education, team teaching and special education programs for which state standards are prescribed, and except when the District because of financial crisis (such as levy failure) has significantly less money for the instructional programs than it traditionally has.

The trick is that these things have to be collectively bargained, but that is also as it should be. Some districts are overstaffed at the administrator level, and demanding that the cuts be applied to the classified, certificated, and administrative levels is fair.

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Item #4: The State Board of Education and the New Accountability Plan. This is one of those stories that I've been wanting to spend more time on. With the Bylsma Plan set to come on line soon and the Board of Education getting ready to push through legislation, this'll be something to keep an eye on. Edie Harding, the executive director of the SBE, says that it's not a state takeover. Edie Harding is a damned liar.

The trick is, like with everything going on in the state right now, there is no money. It's a happy conceit that you can make extremely troubled systems better with only existing resources, but anyone who has worked with struggling kids knows that is not true. The money quote from the article:

“Some of the lowest 5 percent have made attempts to improve and have not been successful,” said board member Kristina Mayer, an educational consultant from Port Townsend.

She said some districts have not chosen to make changes, so the state board is acting on behalf of the children in those schools.

If it sounds outrageous, it probably is. C'mon, Ms. Mayer--if there really are districts that have chosen to ignore the needs of their kids, name them.

If you want a hint of where things could go, check out the EFF's School Rankings and go to the bottom of any one of the lists, like I did with elementary schools. This isn't going to be easy.

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Bits and pieces:

• No Child Left Behind had a birthday last week. The CW is that reauthorizing the ESEA with a new name will be a high priority this year so that the DC pols have something to hang their hat on as they gear up for the mid-term elections.
  
  
• Calculated Risk says that the reason the unemployment rate is holding steady is because a lot of people are just dropping out of the job hunt and not trying any more. Similarly, the Huffington Post says that 1-in-5 working age men is unemployed. That's scary.
  
  
• WEA President Mary Lindquist on school funding in Washington State.
  
  
• Offered without comment: the League of Education Voters is very proud of their recent appearance on Fox News.
  
  
• A group called MomRising is deliving brown-bag lunches to the legislators on Monday, encouraging them to work hard on the needs of kids. This is much better than my "A Flaming Bag of Doody on Their Doorsteps" initiative.
  
  
• I still haven't seen a good answer to the concern that privatizing the liquor stores would only make our short-term economic problem worse.
  
  
• The Washington Budget and Policy Center on what the Governor's proposal could mean for the schools and colleges.

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This week in the Legislature:

Tuesday, January 12th:
House Education Appropriations Committee, 8:30.
House Education Committee, 10:00.
House Higher Education Committee, 10:00.
Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development, 10:00.

Wednesday, January 13th:
Senate K-12 Education and Early Learning Committee, 8:00.
House Education Committee, 1:30.
House Higher Education Committee, 1:30.
Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development, 3:30.
House Education Appropriations Committee, 6:00.

Thursday, January 14th:
House Early Learning, 8:00.
Senate K-12 Education and Early Learning Committee, 10:00.
House Education Appropriations, 1:30.

Friday, January 15th:
House Education Committee, 8:00.
House Higher Education Committee, 8:00.
House Early Learning, 1:30.
Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development, 1:30.

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Next time: we'll look at the Governor's State of the State address, I'll have finally digested the report coming out of the QEC, and the first 7 days of the legislature. Salud!

Read more here, if any.

Why I Scream

The State Board of Education just redesigned their website. More than a billion dollars in cuts to schools last year, another $400,000,000 hit coming this year, and yet the SBE has the money to redesign their website. It reminds one of an old joke:

A little girl from Spokane is told by her parents that, because of the lousy economy, they're not going to be able to celebrate Christmas this year. With tears in her eyes she writes a letter to Santa asking him to bring her family $100 so that they can afford to have the holiday.

Oddly enough, this little girl's touching letter makes its way to Olympia and shows up on Christine Gregoire's desk. The governor is so touched by the girl's plight that she sends her $5 and tells her to keep her chin up. The girl gets the money, and writes another letter to Santa:

Dear Santa,

Thank you for the $100. Unfortunately, Olympia got their hands on it first and took off 95%.

Yours,

Susie

Read more here, if any.

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is the idea of linking test scores to teacher evaluation. It's a topic that's everywhere this summer:

• The EFF school report card makes the point.
  
• It's also the heart of Arne Duncan's remarks at the NEA Representative Assembly.
  
• The ASCD put out a newsletter recently on union/management collaboration; tying test scores to evaluation was a big part of it.
  
• And of course, there's the state-level hijinx going on vis-a-vis HB2261, the State Board of Education, and the PESB. Wheeee!

One of the notions that you often hear during these discussions is, "The good teachers have nothing to be afraid of." Let's talk about that for a bit.

Last year, for one of my Master's classes, I dug into testing data I had on hand for the first grade team in my building. These are real numbers and real averages with real kids behind them; the test in question is the Measures of Academic Progress, from the Northwest Evaluation Association.

Teacher A: In the fall, her class had an average score of 162.5 on the MAP. In the spring the class average rose to 184.3, an average gain of 21.8 points.

Teacher B: Her fall average was 164.7; her spring average, 183.85, for an increase of 19.15 points.

Teacher C: 169.05 in the fall, 189.35 in the spring, so an average gain of 20.3 points.

Teacher D: An average score of 155.30 points in the fall and 174.85 in the spring. Her fall-to-spring gain, then, was 19.55 points.

With this data, then, you could argue the case for two different teachers as the "winners" in the group. If you look at the average gain, Teacher A is your champion:

1. Teacher A: 21.8 points
   
2. Teacher C: 20.3 points
   
3. Teacher D: 19.55 points
   
4. Teacher B: 19.15 points

But, if you look at the overall class average at the end of the year, Teacher C is far and away your winner:

1. Teacher C: 189.35
   
2. Teacher A: 184.3
   
3. Teacher B: 183.85
   
4. Teacher D: 174.85

If we went strictly by these numbers from this year, then, you can see who your quality teachers are. If you were judging solely by the numbers, you might also think that you have a problem with Teacher D--her class average trails the class average of everybody else by almost 10 points, which on the MAP is very nearly an entire year's worth of growth.

But we have to dig even deeper before making a statement about teacher quality, because here the raw numbers aren't telling the whole story.

In the fall, the average score for this test is 164 points. In the spring, the average score is 178. Knowing that, here's some new data to chew on.

In Teacher A's room in the fall, 10 kids scored in the below average range. In the spring, 6 kids scored below average.

In Teacher B's room, 7 kids were below average in the fall, while 3 were below average in the spring.

In Teacher C's room, 6 kids were below average in the fall, and 3 in the spring.

In Teacher D's room, 16 kids were below average in the fall, and 6 tested below average in the spring.

With this new information, you can make two new arguments. First, Teacher B is your best teacher because she had more of her kids cross the finish line (the goal score, 178) than the other teachers did. You could also argue that Teacher D is your best teacher because she lowered her percentage of kids who were below standard more than any of the other teachers did.

So, who is your Most Valuable Teacher?

Is it Teacher A, who added the most value to her class over the course of the year?
Is it Teacher B, who had more of her kids meet the year-end goal?
Is it Teacher C, whose class scored the highest in the spring?
Is it Teacher D, who turned around more failing kids than any of the others?

"Value" is a homophone; there's the value signified by the numbers, but there's also the values of the school, the district, and the state which have to be superimposed atop any effort to link the data to the teacher. If the incentive pay/merit pay/whatever pay in this case goes to only one of the four teachers, you're making a statement about the value of the work the other three did, and it's a pretty lousy thing to say to the other three who also made progress that their success didn't matter as much.

Similarly, can we countenance a system where every one of these teachers is given the bonus money, indicating that they all did a good job? In the eyes of some reformers I could see that being too close to what we do now, where every teacher is assumed to be a good teacher. If a merit pay system is intended to have winners and losers, and to inspire the "less-capable" teachers to emulate the "better" teachers, can we really have a 4-way tie?

These are the questions that have to be answered going forward.

If you'd like to see the raw scores presented in a spreadsheet, you can find them here.

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.