It's Absolutely Critical That I Eat this Candy Bar

From the list of personal service contracts filed in September of this year (page 42), $900,000 to the Association of Washington School Principals...

"To design, field test, and implement a state-of-the-art Leadership Academy for school principals and administrators, based on research correlating leadership practices and student achievement here in Washington State. The OFM Director approved an exception to ESHB 2921 based upon critical necessity."

When we're living off of Federal credit, when levy equalization is always at risk, when the state budget is $5.8 billion dollars in the red, is a program like this really a "critical necessity"?

Read more here, if any.

Doesn't State Law Already Require We Have a Balanced Budget?

Representative Gary Alexander (R-Olympia):

Alexander also said her budget was out of balance and reiterated his call for a balanced budget amendment to the state constitution.

“If the Legislature adopted her budget today, we’d be embracing the deficit spending so prevalent in Congress and in the federal government,” Alexander said. “This is exactly why our state needs a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. The temptation for continued deficit spending is too great for some to resist.

Many blast away at Governor Gregoire for saying during the 2008 campaign that the state didn't have a deficit, but she was technically correct: a projected deficit is not the same as a real deficit. Right now, the state doesn't have a deficit--there's a projected $2.6 billion dollar hole, which is the big kerfuffle of the season, but not an actual hole (see: California) yet.

Read more here, if any.

WeWee #5: Chris Gregoire Ate My Baby

One big story this week with 100 different facets to it.

#1) The Governor's Budget: As required by law, Governor Gregoire released a balanced budget that really takes the piss out of a ton of sacred cows. General Assistance Unemployable? Gone. The state's Basic Health plan? Eliminated. 3 year olds in ECEAP pre-school? Not any more.

In the K-12 realm specifically, we're looking at the elimination of levy equalization ($142.9 million), the K-4 class size reduction money ($110.6 million), all-day kindergarten ($33.6 million), the Student Achievement Program ($78.5 million), gifted ed funding ($7.4 million), as well as a bunch of the categorical programs I listed here.

I'm having a hard time with this. On one hand, the state revenue forecasts don't lie--we're well below the projections that were set, and that hole has to be closed. On the other, there are still pieces in this budget that are impossible to justify given the hole that we're looking at, and frankly it makes her oft-repeated statement of "We've looked at everything with three zeroes" nothing more than the usual political bloviating.

Do I think this was a hard budget to put together? Absolutely. I refuse to grant, though, that this is the absolute best work she can do, because if this is all that Governor Gregoire and our leadership have, I've made some pretty horrible voting mistakes these past few elections.

#2) But There's Taxes Hope on the Horizon: At the same time she was releasing her budget Governor Gregoire was also saying that she'd be releasing a different budget next month that could bring in more state revenue. This could include closing tax loopholes (Dot Foods comes to mind), ending the sales tax exemption for folks from states like Oregon that don't have the sales tax, and a potential $1 billion plus in taxes from things like securities, detective work, and data processing. The first things to come back, should the money come in? Levy equalization, all-day kindergarten, and the basic health plan.

The response was predictable, with Republicans like Sen. Joe Zarelli and Rep. Gary Alexander blasting the budget as a charade to justify more tax increases, while Democrats like Lisa Brown bemoaned the general situation and said they looked forward to seeing what the Governor proposed come January.

(But not an income tax)

Given the way things are going, it wouldn't shock if the deficit by then was $3 billion.

#3) You Can Blame All of This On Eugene Debs and Joe Hill: There was a good write-up in the Spokesman-Review on how Spokane County officials are pushing for concessions from their union contracts in order to avoid laying off 150 workers. In a similar vein you've got the Fordham Foundation urging Arne Duncan to be more aggressive about challening teachers unions on Race to the Top, and the usual from Mike Antonucci sharing the books that make up his spank bank.

I had a meeting with my staff on Friday morning to talk about the Governor's budget. My district could be on the hook for about $1.5 million in cuts if nothing changes; that's about 8% of our budget. The guidance I need from them is pretty simple: jobs, or money? I can protect salaries as per the contract, but that'll mean a lot of our members are pushed out the door. I can save jobs, but it'll be at the cost of per diem money, supplies reimbursements, and other pieces that I've talked about here and here.

I'm a proud union guy because I've seen the difference that collective action can make, and I make absolutely no apologies for that fact. At the end of the day, though, there's always going to be that tension between the needs of the individual against the needs of the body, and it's finding that balance that is the absolute hardest challenge in my work.

#4) And Moses Walked Through the Palouse and Said, "Lo, Let There Be LEA": Goldy over at Horse's Ass points out that the money that funds levy equalization tends to come from property-rich districts that happily vote for taxes (Seattle, Bellevue, Mercer Island) and goes to support school districts in some of the most conservative bailiwicks in the state, notably around Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and Vancouver.

It bugs me that levy equalization could be political--those districts need that money, sometimes quite desparately--but (and this is a point I've been trying to get across in my WEAPAC work) school funding is based off the state, and it all comes to us through a political process. I'm working with a lot of my small school districts even now on how to get the right things said to the right legislators, and it's quite an adventure.

#5) Well, That Could Be Interesting: Part of the Governor's budget plan is to close the juvenile facilities at Green Hill in Chehalis and Maple Lane in Rochester; I had just mentioned them two weeks back. I'm curious to talk to their local presidents, because what do you do with the union members when the state closes the school? It could be an early preview of what will happen with the State Board of Education school reform plan.

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Bits and pieces:

• It's not looking good for job hunters in the Yakima area. On a 1-to-10 scale of surprise, this rates a negative 7.
  
• The EFF has an idea on how the state can save a little scratch. They've clearly picked sides in the War on Christmas, and I'm telling.
  
• It really isn't funny, but a headline like Drug Counselor Arrested for Dealing Drugs does lend itself to some humorous quips, no?
  
• This made me genuinely and sincerely happy as a kid at Christmas. Similarly, this video sums up several hundred hours of my childhood in one easy package.
  
• Pretty interesting thread over at Sound Politics on new legislation from Cathy McMorris-Rogers that would ban certain kinds of restraints used on students. This came up in our own legislature not too long ago, and I'll stick by my same principle: you shouldn't substitute the judgment of an OSPI or DoEd bureaucrat for that of the teacher in the classroom. Not on this, anyhow.

I'm traveling for Christmas next week, so no Washington Education Week until the new year. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010!

Read more here, if any.

50 Ways To Save Money in the Education Budget

Yeah, I'm ripping off the EFF. So sue me.

A nice thing about Assembly Days for the legislature last week was that you see everything that's going on around education, from the PESB to the SBE to the QEC to the OSPI. It's difficult to keep track of--I don't know, frankly, how my friend the education staffer does it--but for education wonks and education hobbyists, it's fun stuff.

Anyhow, all the conversation about cutting education makes one wonder just what could be cut. I did a little playing around with the idea in April, when things were last going to hell, but I think it's worth bringing up again.

First stop: the enacted state budget, beginning on page 123.

Idea #1: Suspend development of the new finance system. I'm not saying throw all the work that's been done away, but is there any reason that it can't sit on a hard drive at OFM for a year until things maybe start getting better? Savings: $941,000.

Idea #2: Put aside the alternative pipeline programs at the PESB. These are the paras-to-teachers pipeline programs, alternative certification programs, and the conversion math teacher loans. All of them are good programs in a shortage, but we're laying people off--the market doesn't need these programs. Savings: $4,501,000 (I'm blending together subsections i and ii on page 124).

Idea #3: Suspend the Recruiting Washington Teachers Program. Same rationale as above--it's not needed right now. Savings: $231,000.

Idea #4: Suspend the Retooling Math/Science Educators Program. I'd be willing to bend on this if there was still a demonstrable need, I suppose, but in this economy I'm doubtful. Savings: $244,000.

Idea #5: Suspend CEDARS. This is the new data management system, and while I really like how it's coming together and the potential it has for the future, there's no reason it can't wait for a year. Savings: $1,227,000.

Idea #6: Don't put extra into teaching financial literacy to students. Yes, the lessons matter, but "practice what you preach" is a pretty good lesson to teach, too. Savings: $75,000.

Idea #7: Suspend the Interstate Compact on the Military Child. This one hurts to even suggest, because these are my kids--my school is 90%+ the sons and daughters of active duty servicemembers. The trick is that many of your school districts that serve military installations also are heavily into levy equalization money, and if this "macro" cut helps at the "micro" level, we have to do that. Savings: $45,000.

Idea #8: Suspend implementation of SB5410 (On-Line Learning). There's no reason that this can't wait until a different year. Savings: $700,000.

Idea #9: Eliminate Project Citizen. Good goals, not worth the money right now. Savings: $25,000.

Idea #10: Suspend School Safety Training. Training is important, but try to find a cheaper way. Savings: $100,000.

Idea #11: Eliminate the School Safety Center at OSPI. This would also have the happy side-effect of eliminating another state board (The School Safety Center Advisory Committee), which fits in with where we're trying to go in streamlining government. Savings: $96,000.

Idea #12: Cut funding for suicide prevention programs. This isn't an easy call to make. This is what the Governor means when she says that the cuts will hurt. But it's an open question as to whether the program works, and in these times....you have to. Savings: $70,000.

Idea #13: No more leadership training from the Institute for Community Leadership. Savings: $50,000.

Idea #14: Money for the technology to make CEDARS happen. There's absolutely no reason we can't wait a year for this. Savings: $1,045,000.

Idea #15: End the Special Services Pilot Project. They never should have started it to begin with. Savings: $1,329,000.

Idea #16: No more money for the Washington Achievers program. Savings: $750,000.

Idea #17: No more money for information about women during World War II. Being someone's pet project shouldn't make it a legislative priority. Savings: $25,000.

Idea #18: Eliminate Navigation 101. It's a decent curriculum that has a lot of district support, but there's no reason we can't go back to it when times are better. Savings: $3,220,000.

Idea #19: End dropout prevention programs. Research says this will cost us more money in the long run. Research also says that we can put a cost to this line item RIGHT NOW. Savings: $675,000.

Idea #20: End the initiative to reach out to Latino families. This was a partnership with the Seattle Community Coalition of Compana Quetzal, and they're just going to have to find their own way for a year. Savings: $50,000.

Idea #21: End the program to encourage bilingual students to go into teaching. Ideally every teacher would be bilingual. These aren't ideal times. Savings: $75,000.

Idea #22: End the dyslexia pilot program. Dyslexia has turned into a catch-all for 100 other reading difficulties, and this is a need that could be better met through federal Reading First dollars, Title funds, or other avenues. Savings: $145,000.

Idea #23: Stop the support of vocational student leadership organizations. I love the Future Farmers and Future Business Leaders and Future Whatever the Homemakers Are Calling Themselves Now, but they may have to find their own way. Savings: $97,000.

Idea #24: End the Communities in School Program in Pierce County. It's not basic education, and if Pierce County schools really need this, that's what levy dollars are for. Savings: $25,000.

Idea #25: Enough of the Math/Science work out of the ESDs. My hunch is that a lot of this money is going towards LASER, which has been one of the biggest time-wasters that I've ever encountered in my 10 years in the classroom. I truly don't believe that they have their act together; this cut seems common sense. Savings: $3,355,000.

Idea #26: End support for Destination: Imagination and Future Problem Solving. They're great programs--I worked with DI for about a decade before my schedule got to busy, and I've been a DI coach--but we can't afford this. Savings: $90,000.

Idea #27: End support for the Centrum Program at Fort Worden Park. I know nothing about this, beyond what it says in the state budget. Savings: $170,000.

Idea #28: Halt funding of math and science coaches. This money comes out of the Education Legacy Trust, so it's not general fund money, but it's the thought that counts. Savings: $1,925,000.

Idea #29: Postpone OSPI's STEM initiative. This pays for grants for 20 teachers and staff at OSPI to supervise; now is not the time. Savings: $139,000.

Idea #30: Cut funding for LASER. Oh, look, it's a line item just for my favorite science program! Lock the kits in a warehouse for a year and move on. Savings: $1,579,000.

Idea #31: No leadership academy for principals and superintendents. This has been one of the Association of Washington School Principals' big projects; in fact, they recently got a nice fat sole source personal service contract with OSPI to run the thing. This is a nice idea when things are flush--we can't afford it now. Savings: $900,000.

Idea #32: Eliminate the Washington State Reading Corps. This hurts, but it has to be done. Savings: $1,056,000.

Idea #33: Eliminate the Center for the Improvement of Student Learning. Savings: $225,000.

Idea #34: Cut back on OSPI technology leadership. This is a line item for improving, monitoring, promoting, and coordinating technology; it sounds like one big support program. Savings: $1,959,000.

Idea #35: Suspend National Boards bonuses for a year. Yeah, I said it. I have all the respect in the world for the people who go through the progress, and I believe that it's thorough--one of the most respected teachers in my district just tried and didn't get over the line, which is amazing to me. The point is that, reform efforts be damned, we simply can't afford this right now. Savings: $36,513,000.

Idea #36: Suspend the Local Farms-Healthy Kids program. I'm married to a farmer, and I think the state stinks when it comes to supporting agriculture most of the time, but a lot of this money went into creating yet another FTE at OSPI. Again and ideally, we'd be able to have this. Right now? Savings: $300,000.

Idea #37: Suspend the Beginning Educator Support Program (BEST). Here's the trick--since beginning educators are the first ones out the door in a financial crisis, is it better to support them and then fire them, or let them work? Savings: $2,348,000.

Idea #38: End the state funded internship program for principals and superintendents. Right now I don't perceive that these jobs go lacking for qualified applicants, and if districts have quality candidates who they want to support as they get their internships done that can be accomplished using local dollars. Savings: $530,000.

Idea #39: Lower the state funding for administrators by $1,000. Right now the state only funds about $59,000 of the cost per administrator, which is a terribly outdated formula. That said, the rest of the money comes from local funds, so let's allow local districts to make the decision: do they come up with the money, or do they ask their administrators to take a haircut? Teachers are losing the LID days, after all. Savings, based on about 5,000 school administrators: $5,000,000.

That's 39 ideas from the most recently enacted K-12 budget alone, and I didn't even touch everything there. Some of these may have already happened (I thought I heard, for example, that the WWII women's project didn't go through), and some of them are damnably shameful (cutting funding for Destination: Imagination would be a tragedy), but the discussion has to occur.

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Next up, playing with the Personal Service Contract (PSC) listings at the OFM website. This is money already spent, but I think it drives the point home that we could be doing things differently. I've listed them as "potential savings" instead of "savings", because the contracts are already signed.

Idea #40: Teach someone at OSPI how to read blogs: In July they issued a $15,000 PSC to a Washington DC consulting firm to track what's happening at the federal level. Can no one at OSPI do that now? Isn't there some sort of education department over there that tracks these things? Potential savings: $15,000.

Idea #41: Don't pay for crap like this. "Contractor shall communicate a vision for hands-on, project-based Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S.T.E.M.) curriculum, and promote the benefits and positive impacts of technology-rich learning environments attuned to the new digital learner." Bullshit bingo: succeed! Budget reality: failure. Potential savings: $12,000.

Idea #42: Put the Bylsma School Reform Plan on hold. Pete Bylsma's a nice guy--I've met him through WERA a couple of times--but we've already given him an awful lot of money to come up with his plan to fix failing schools, and now we're in line to give him $65,000 more. That's not OK. Potential savings: $65,000.

Idea #43: Price your meeting facilitators better. On page 38 you've got someone making $2,400 to facilitate a two day meeting. Why? Hell, that may not have even included expenses. Potential savings: $2,400.

Idea #44: Write your own damned reports. "The Contractor shall research if the two incentives for attaining National Board certification and serving challenging schools make a difference in the mobility, distribution, and retention patterns among the National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) compared to teachers with similar characteristics that teach in schools with similar characteristics and do not obtain this certification." There's no one on the state government payroll, be it OSPI, OFM, WSIPP, or whatever, that can do this? Potential savings: $80,000. (source)

Idea #45: No, really--write your own damned reports. "The Contractor shall analyze 2008 graduates’ course-taking patterns in high school and their enrollment in two-year and four-year colleges." Offered without comment: that particular contract went to the BERC Group. Potential savings: $30,000.

Idea #46: Avoid the appearance of impropriety. A $251,240 sole-source PSC look funny on its face--when you're giving it to the Washington Association of School Administrators, a group that's heavily involved in the consequences of the school reform debate happening right now, it's proper to raise an eyebrow.

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And ideas that I can't put a cost savings to:

Idea #47: Take another look at school district consolidation. Sure, it's the same drum I've been pounding for a while, but it's being taken up by more and more states around the country. Why not take a closer look at it for Washington State? Potential savings: depends on how you do it.

Idea #48: Freeze the state salary schedule. There was a rumor running around late last session that the legislature was seriously considering this, and it just might be the right thing to do. Sure, we teachers wouldn't get our step and lane increases, but on the other hand it could save jobs and have the happy side effect we wouldn't go backwards. Potential savings: millions of dollars.

Idea #49: Don't make membership in the Washington State School Directors Association mandatory. This also came up last session, but the time is ripe to revisit it, especially since the WSSDA just put a dues increase in front of their members. The timing couldn't be worse. Potential savings: varies by district; dues depend on size, and the district would have to opt-out.

Idea #50: Take a closer look at OSPI personal service contracts. Go here and marvel at the number of $100,000+ a year contracts that OSPI is giving out to support the school improvement efforts. Sure, they're paid out of Title I Part A, but is there no room to pay some of these folks $90,000 (still more than any teacher makes!) instead of $110,000? How competitive are these grants, anyhow?

Read more here, if any.

Thoughts on the Budget Forecast

2012 has come early! Repent! REPENT!

Last year we had a $9,000,000,000 hole that hurt, but at least we had a lot of options for what we could cut, and we had stimulus money that made things better than they would have been otherwise.

This year we have a $2.5 billion dollar hole, and we’re screwed hardcore.

The thought being expressed by some now is that we have to look at revenue possibilities—a tax increase—because the cuts that are coming are just too much for the system to handle. With regards to the schools I’m 99% sure that levy equalization is dead when the Governor releases her budget next month (she just as much said so on Weekday this morning), because that’s one of the few areas in the education budget that can be cut and because the schools that are impacted by levy equalization are mainly in legislative districts represented by Republicans. Want to put pressure on a Joel Kretz or Joseph Zarelli? Cut their schools.

That said, I don’t think the political will is going to be there for any democrat to vote for a tax increase. I often think about John Driscoll in the 6th LD, who won his 2008 election against John Ahern by about 100 votes. The intent behind voting to raise taxes doesn’t really matter when it’s drilled down to a soundbite: “JOHN DRISCOLL VOTED TO RAISE YOUR TAXES!” Even someone like Sen. Lisa Brown out of the 3rd LD in Spokane isn’t immune to that pressure, because if she does have her eyes on running for Governor in 2012, does she want the “She voted to raise your taxes during the Great Recession!” tag following her around, even if it is a principled vote?

It gets worse. The community colleges are in line to get pillaged, which is ridiculous right now in a time when unemployment is 10% and the CCs are needed now more than ever. The University system already has choked down 30% tuition hikes; how much more can we ask of the college kids? If we believe that there’s an abiding interest in having a system of public universities in the state, then what level of support do we need to show?

I’m really not looking forward to going to my members and telling them about the hit they’re going to take. It’s going to be brutal.

Read more here, if any.

Errrrrr..........

From Rep. Bruce Chandler's web site:

The quarterly revenue forecast for Washington was released today, with state forecaster Dr. Arun Raha predicting another decrease in expected revenue for state government. Dr. Raha predicted with tax collections down and continued weak economic activities, revenue will decrease about $760 million in the state's two-year budget.

Rep. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger, said that while the decline in revenue is serious, it represents just .004 percent of the state's revenue. He is confident Washington will rebound from the recession stronger and more prosperous.

.004%?

That means if you multiplied $760,000,000 by 250, you'd have one percent of the state's revenue. That equals $190 billion dollars.

Of course, then you can multiply that by 100 to get the full state revenue, which is an impressive $19,000,000,000,000, or $19 trillion dollars.

Or, another possibility, Rep. Chandler meant to say 4%, which then multiplies up to about $19 billion dollars. Of course, the decimal equivalent for 4% is .04, not .004, but all the same.....

Read more here, if any.

Washington Education Week

Or, the WEWee for short. Essentially, the crap that's cluttering up my desktop that makes me go, "You know, that'd be great for the blog!" but that I secretly know I'll never actually get around to devoting an entire post to.

• The Budget Stinks: So I expected that the Caseload Forecast Council might say that there were going to be more K-12 students in the system (they did), and I figured that next week the Revenue Forecast Council would crap in everyone's cereal bowl again (they're going to), so that leads one to believe that the Governor's budget next month is going to be an untold litany of horrors; truly, Chris Gregoire just may be one of the Four Horsemen.
  
  
• Federal Way Stinks: So the schools are likely to take a hit, but the Supreme Court says that's OK because the schools are amply funded anyhow so, hey, what's more cuts? I mean, if everybody EXCEPT you had a school librarian, that wouldn't be fair, but if nobody INCLUDING you has a school librarian, that's equality, baby!
  
  Talk about a race to the bottom. The thing that's being lorded over Federal Way is that their WASL scores aren't terrible, but that only means that X number of kids have gotten over an arbitrary bar. Madness that way lies.
  
  (The Senate Democrats blogged with links aplenty, here. However, since I'm a good union guy and TOTALLY PISSED at the Dems, I encourage you to go and read 5/17 instead.)
  
  
• The NAEP Stinks: Over at Crosscut Dick Lilly wrote what could be considered a call for national standards. Sadly, he wrapped it up in the NAEP, and I'm not frankly a fan. My bottom line--if the NAEP is the "gold standard", then why is there such a big push for national standards? If the NAEP was what it has presented to be, wouldn't we just use the standards it's been written to?
  
  
• Fred Jarrett.....Doesn't Stink? So the dynamic last year around education reform and HB2261 seemed to be that Ross Hunter was leading the charge in the House, Fred Jarrett was leading the charge in the Senate, and everything was going to be awesome until the stupid WEA brought O'Douls to the party (I mean, who does that?!?) and injected politics into education, which was never, ever what Hunter and Jarrett wanted to do while springboarding off of Ed Reform into a run for King County Executive. The WEA, thralls to the Democratic Party that they are, then contributed to an independent expenditure against Democrat Ross Hunter accusing him of actually, literally being Willy Horton. The pleasing end result was that Rep. Hunter finished in 5th place, and when you're not at least a factor of 10 ahead of Goodspaceguy, well, you're not having a good day.
  
  I only rehash all of this because #1 Ross Hunter still exists, and he's coming back.....FOR REVENGE! and #2, Sen. Jarrett got himself appointed to a plum position in the Dow Constantine administration, meaning there'll be a Senate vacancy that could lead to some shuffling in both of our state legislative bodies. One of the commentators on Weekday on KUOW yesterday seemed to think that this would be a real blow to an education reform agenda that may already be teetering under it's own weight; it could be a really interesting dynamic to watch.
  
  
• King5 on the coming pension crisis. Prepare for the savagery to follow when the state passes an income tax and most of us get nothing out of it because all of the money goes towards paying of our Plan 1 obligations.

Have a great week!

Read more here, if any.

Chatter

Talked to a couple of principals on Friday who attended the AWSP conference down in Yakima last week. Apparently a couple of State Senators were there who said that they fully expect the budget deficit they have to deal with to roll right past $2 billion dollars and settle--maybe--at right around $2.25 billion.

So long, levy equalization.
Nice to have known you, K-4 class size enhancement.
Hey, full day kindergarten! We had a good coupla years, didn't we?
I-728? You've been mostly dead, so let's just make it official.

There is no hope.

Read more here, if any.

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.

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 #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.

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.

Sadly, I've Had to Let Most of My First Graders Go.

The economy is bad. You could argue that we haven't even hit bottom. Given the state of the state budget, it's pretty clear that the schools are going to get raked through the coals to help plug the budget gap.

I think that one of the big problems with teachers is that we're way too willing to sit back and let things happen to us instead of being proactive, so during parent/teacher conferences this week I went ahead and took the bull by the horns and told 50% of my class that they were being laid off.

Confusion, of course, was understandable. Many of the families that I fired were under the impression that they had some sort of "right" to a quality public education. One ridiculous wag even suggested that it was some sort of "paramount duty" for the state of Washington to fully fund public schools, but I think it's understood by all that the state constitution is meant to be a living, breathing document, and that most of us don't really know what "paramount" means anyhow, so what's the fuss?

It was hard on me, as their teacher, to watch these sad little first graders clean out their cubbies and return their school-issued glue sticks, but in these tough times I just can't keep on all the people that I taught before. Sure, having the campus security officer walk all the families out to the parking lot and order them off the school grounds immediately under threat of tresspassing charges maybe, maybe was a little over the top, but I have to look at the big picture, and the big picture right now is that me and the 12 kids who made it through this round of cuts are going to be OK.

I'm finding it very easy to sacrifice other people's educations to improve my own lot. I can see now why Olympia is finding it very easy, too.

Read more here, if any.

The State Budget Deficit is Bigger Than, Like, Godzilla, Man!

Given that we have no money, my proposed legislation to give every state employee a free pony may not come true. This is clearly Dino Rossi's fault, for running on BS stances like "fiscal responsibility" and "no new taxes" that caused our beloved governor (pictured here) to slam her wallet tighter than a Joan River's facelift and squeeze nickels (not Greg) until Jefferson got a migraine.

The answer, of course, is to legalize pot, because that is NEVER NOT THE ANSWER, and we should privatize the liquor stores, too, since not being able to buy my MD20/20 on Sundays is why the state has a revenue shortfall. This is fact, and not open to debate. It's especially important that Washington State take off the shackles that bind booze and drugs, what with the pr0n industry needing a federal bailout and on the verge of insolvency BWAHAHAHA yeah, I know, that's not going to happen, but still, it'll only contribute to THE REVENUE CRISIS.

5 days until Budgetmageddon begins!

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.

I Get Mail! How To Figure Out Your District's Cut.

To whom it may concern,

Is there an easy way to find out how much money the cuts in Gregoire's budget would cost my school district?

Thank you for any help you can offer,

(Annonymous)

Well, there's not exactly an easy way, but it can be done with only a few clicks around the OSPI website:

1. First, click here to go to the Apportionment and Financial Services subsection of the OSPI website. There's enough data here to keep you up for days.
   
2. On the side menu go to Reports ---> District Reports (or click here).
   
3. In the menu, select the name of the school district tyou'd like to look at and click the "search" button.
   
4. Scroll down to the 2007-2008 school year and click on the report called "F-196 All Pages." This is the yearly financial summary that the districts report to OSPI.
   
5. In that report, first do a search for the number "3300." This will take you to the line item for "Local Effort Assistance" (LEA), the area I blogged about yesterday. Write down the income number they show there.
   
6. Go to the very next page of the document and look for line "4166", which is the amount the state gave your district for the Student Achievement Fund (SAF), probably better known as I-728. Write down this number, too.
   
7. Now you get to do some math. LEA is looking at a 33% cut, so multiply that first number by .33 to see how much your district could be in line to lose.
   
8. Similarly, I-728/SAF is looking at a 24% reduction, so multiply your SAF number by .24 to see how much your district could stand to lose. Add the two together to see the total loss.

The hazard of using this method is that you're using last years reported numbers to make predictions about what could happen next year, completely skipping this year; there's a three year time span, then, and the numbers don't always play fair. For example, I think there was a bit of a bump in the I-728 money this year, which would make the potential loss greater, and the property tax valuation that impacts the LEA money is always hard to get a handle on. You could use the F-195 budget for this year, but the F-196 for the previous year is actual spending (not projected), which I think is a more solid base to work from.

I'm willing to bet, though, that the numbers you'll find in the method above are pretty close to the reality. The big districts are on the hook for the biggest cuts, sure--combined, Spokane 81 is looking at an almost $7 million dollar hit--but even a small district like Almira in Eastern Washington could stand to lose $57,000, mainly off of lost LEA money. Similarly, a really, really small district like Onion Creek (25 kids K-8) could take a $30,000 haircut.

Happy accounting!

Read more here, if any.

Gregoire's Education Budget: Levy Equalization

(First in a series of serious looks at the education section of Governor Gregoire's budget, which means I have to drop the l33t speak and put away the lolgregoire pictures I made. Damn.)

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Local Effort Assistance (LEA), also known as Levy Equalization--the money that the state gives to those districts with lots of non-taxable land (state parks, prisons, etc.) to make up for the lost levy money. The thrust of that post was that cutting LEA works politically because so much more of it goes to Eastern Washington school districts, making it easy for your political power base to make the cut--Seattle doesn't get any LEA money, so what does Frank Chopp (Speaker of the House, out of Seattle) care? The Governor ordered a 4% reduction to LEA for this biennium to make up for the hole that has appeared, and in her budget proposal that cut's going to get deeper:

Reduction in levy equalization, which provides a state match to local school districts with higher-than average tax rates to raise a local levy (those districts are more “property poor” than average). For calendar years 2010 and 2011, allocations for levy equalization are reduced by 33 percent. This timing allows school districts to phase in the reductions over two school years. ($125.4 million GF-S)

Putting it off helps slightly, maybe, I guess, but I tinkered with the spreadsheet to see how much money that could cost Washington districts, and it ain't pretty:

• Spokane: $3,998,849
  
• Yakima: $3,357,764
  
• Pasco: $2,535,265
  
• Kennewick: $2,342,471
  
• Evergreen: $2,193,321

The figure that I've used recently for the average cost of a teacher is $80,000; in real money, then, that's about 50 teachers in Spokane. For a district like mine ($442,000), it's about 4.5 positions out of 130 positions.

Now there's a lot of legitimate objections to be had here. #1 might be wondering why a decidedly urban district like Spokane is getting any LEA money. One would suppose, too, that Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown out of Spokane's 3rd LD would have something to say about a cut that could really hurt her home district. You could also offer that these cuts don't necessarily need to be staff cuts, as there are also other areas of the budget beyond salaries.
All well and good. My overarching concern, though, is that this isn't a cut that effects everyone equally. If you cut the class-size reduction money (that's the next post) you're at least being equitable; going after LEA, which was put in place to remedy a systemic injustice, just creates a different problem.

Watch to see what the legislature does with this, because it could be a hell of an albatross.

Read more here, if any.