Funding Basic Education

Last week the Basic Education Financing Task Force (BEFTF) met for two days on Monday and Tuesday. In addition to the proposal that we (“The Legislators group”) put in front of the task force 4 other proposals surfaced. There are some similarities, but the differences are pretty stark. In this post I’ll try to summarize the strategic differences and point you to the details if you want to bury yourself in policy.

The BEFTF needs to come out with a final report in mid December. We have a pretty intensive process lined up in front of us for the next few weeks. This week we have two full-day meetings (Mon, Tue) to continue going through the proposals and making rough choices of options. From these decisions the staff will draft a preliminary version of the final report. The following week we will spend three days going through it line by line making whatever amendments we feel we need to get the report to say what we want.

At the end of the editing process the staff will have a chance to go back and re-draft the report. We then have two more meetings in December scheduled to go over it. It’s always difficult in processes like this to get the entire report to tell a cohesive narrative. Our group spent 6 months putting together our proposal, and it’s not as cohesive as I would like. The perfect can be the enemy of the good here though, and the goal will be to get broad support for the plan from the entire task force.

Summary of other proposals:

Full Funding Coalition:

The Full Funding Coalition (FFC) is made up of the WA Education Association, the WA Assoc. of School Administrators, the WA Assoc. of School Directors, Public School Employees, and the Principals Assoc. The FFC proposes a similar “model schools” approach to defining the appropriate level of spending, as do all the other proposals. The key difference between our proposal and the FFC one is the Commission on Quality Education in Washington (CQEW.) The CQEW is responsible for analyzing what it will take to adequately fund the system, and then setting the achievement targets based on what percentage of this is actually provided by the legislature. They propose the CQEW to be appointed by the governor, but with 6 of the 11 members coming from the education system.

They try to define an “output-based” system for determining the right funding level for schools. This is really hard to do and the current research does not provide a definitive way to specify this. I’ve struggled with trying to do this for a long time and have not come up with a way that works. The problem is that the way you fund things changes behavior. The FFC does not believe this – they seem to think that we are doing it as efficiently as we can and that all we need to do is add money. My personal belief is that more money is necessary, but not sufficient.

Superintendent Bergeson

Superintendent Bergeson has a complex proposal that maintains the current structure of the system, but adds several things to it. She has a similar model school approach to funding details, but isn’t as radical in her change to the compensation plan as we are. There are lots of things to like in this proposal but I don’t find that it makes the system easier to understand, one of my key goals in approaching the project.

League of Education Voters (LEV)

LEV proposes a similar structure to the FFC’s CQEW. Their K12 Expenditure Forecast Council would set specific funding levels required to be funded. LEV agrees with us on the compensation plan, replacing the current education-driven model with one structured more around demonstrated competence. They have some other suggestions that solve some ugly problems, but create new ones.

• Eliminate TRI pay, reasoning that it’s the source of the current structural problems in how the state and local districts pay for teachers.
• Move bargaining to be between the governor and the districts. It’s not clear if they want a singe state-wide contract or 295 individual ones. Since the state provides the money that pays the teachers, they argue that the state should be the bargaining agent.
• Replace tenure with three-year rolling renewable contracts for teachers and principals.

Chairman Dan Grimm

Grimm’s proposal is similar to the LEV one in many ways, but goes further in changing how teachers are brought into the system, paid, and their professional development. He thinks we should eliminate the current salary grid and allow the union to directly bargain all aspects of the salary system with the governor. (Typically in these arrangements the Legislature has to approve the contracts before they take effect.) He would also repeal the TRI law, repeal I-732, etc, and replace them all with bargaining. He also proposes eliminating tenure.

His proposal has significant changes to teacher certification as well, largely replacing the current system with one that is almost totally focused on subject matter expertise.

Summary

All of these proposals have interesting parts. We took a straw poll at the beginning of the process and I believe that our proposal will wind up being the core of the final agreement. This may just be because we had 5 voting members of the coalition working on it day after day, and they tended to agree with what they worked on, or it may be because we are brilliant. Who knows?

This week we will work through the difficult bargaining solution. I repeat what I have said many, many times in task force meetings. No state has succeeded in rolling over their teacher’s union – we have to come to an agreement. The current compensation structure is non-functional and needs to be changed. There are some things in all of these proposals that every interest group likes, and some that they don’t like. We’ll have to strike a balance that works for kids and that we can get large bi-partisan majorities to vote for in the legislature.

In a short summary of these proposals I am sure to leave out significant elements. I urge you to read the proposals. We’d value your thoughts. You can find details at http://www.leg.wa.gov/joint/committees/bef/.

Our group continues to blog at www.WhatItTakesForKids.com, and we’d value your input.

Ross

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This is a 4-page document formatted for printing on two sides of an 11×17 piece of paper and folding. It’s probably the easiest to read of all the documents. It’s what we hand out at events.

basic-ed-funding-4-page-overview

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Go to www.gravatar.com, upload a picture and link it to your email address. Through the magic of the internet it will appear every time you make a comment on this or most other blogs.

Tags: blog.

This week the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning released a paper that dovetails with a lot of what we are proposing in our “model schools” approach. The group is led by Jacob Adams, a former professor at the UW and member of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the Evans School at the UW. The paper is pretty interesting, and worth reading. It’s a little too high level to be directly useful, but reinforces a lot of what we have recommended.

http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/csr_pubs/247

One of the really big differences is that they propose directly typing funding to students, and we use an abstraction of funding the number of teachers, and then paying the teachers what their salaries are. Some of the work of Professor Jacobs group has pointed out the difficulty of systems like ours. In Seattle, schools in the North end of town have a much more experienced teaching staff, and schools in the South end are more likely to be staffed by inexperienced teachers. More experienced teachers are better than less experienced ones, so we wind up with our least effective teachers in the schools that need them most.

We chose not to use allocating money by school as the solution to this because it’s inconvenient for districts to not be able to hire the best teacher that applies for a job. If they only have money left for a junior teacher they can’t make the best hire at the moment and the entire system we have today is built on the current model.

Instead, we choose a couple of strategies.

·         Provide an extra $5000 payment for nationally board certified teachers who choose to teach in our most challenged schools. This provides an incentive for our best teachers to teach in challenging schools, and uses a real measure, not just experience.

·         Give principals control over hiring in schools that need restructuring due to poor performance.

We’ll have to track the relative levels of teacher quality across our schools and make sure there is fairness. If what we’re proposing doesn’t work we’ll have to come back and re-assess.

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I’ve attached a spreadsheet that includes the summary of recommendations for all three levels of school. This has been requested. 

Recommendation Summary

Tags: summary.

These comments come from Barbara Poyneer and are thoughtful. I’ll try to dig through this and answer them, but it won’t happen tonight.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on your group’s proposal. The following are my personal comments.  I do not speak for the Coalition. I do not speak for any other gifted advocates in the state. (They may not agree with me.) 

I understand that this is only a proposal and thus lacks many details. But some details are so important they have to be recognized in proposals.

Specific comments on the gifted part of this proposal.

I am pleased with the statement “For gifted and highly talented students, access to enhanced learning opportunities is a part of Basic Education.” (Page 10.) It is an irreducible starting point in any discussion on gifted education. If it becomes law it will make it clear to school boards and administrators that gifted students are not a group that one can just ignore on the false assumption that they will make it anyway.

I must note however that gifted education does not begin with high school.  ”Enhanced learning opportunities” (page 10) lacks definition.  While you mention AP and IB in high school, what does the proposal offer for K through 8th grade in gifted education? From Special Education to Online Learning, each of these sections offer more definition, clarity, and direction than is found in this vague statement on gifted programs. 

Most gifted programs are found in elementary schools with a few in middle school and practically none, except for AP and IB, in the high schools. Charts for all the grade bands (page 15) to show the adjustments for the various learning groups would clarify the scope of your proposal. This is one of those important details.

On page 5, the statement calling for a statewide diagnostic system is a good one but such assessment must provide for out-of-level testing to better assess the progress of gifted students. This way, gifted students will be accountable to the same standards as other students - “to ensure a year’s worth of academic progress for every student,” (page 25) . 

A “year’s worth of progress” needs more specificity. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure “a year’s worth of progress” for gifted students? See comment below regarding page 25.

Again on page 5, “flexibility to address unique needs is respected.” I want to know how much leeway districts will have and how they are to account for their choices, which may not meet actual assessed needs. 

Your chart on page 15 provides an additional 5% for high school. How will it be accounted for if there are no strings attached? What about the lag time between reporting and, if these funds are not being spent on gifted programs, remedial action being taken? How many kids will be harmed by the time lag? No doubt this is something that the Legislature will have to decide.

The “accountability and accounting system requirements” need to specify the various groups identified in this proposal so indeed there will be ensurance that both implementation and results are clearly transparent to local voters as well as Legilsators.

Page 7. In paragraph 3 you speak of planning time. In outlining what is expected of teachers in the clause “analyze data on students achievement and figure out how to help those who are struggling” I encourage you to expand the statement to include gifted students. It takes time to plan and to differentiate instruction for both ends of the spectrum. 

Page 25. First paragraph under School and District Accountability: How do you propose to measure “a year’s worth of progress” for gifted students? The WASL certainly won’t do it and most standardized grade level assessments won’t either. 

There is a definite need for appropriate out-of-level assessment. If you are already a level 4 on the WASL or a 95th or higher percentile on a standardized assessment, taking the grade level test the following year is unlikely to show any growth. Yet the growth is there and, by this proposal’s own criteria, must be measured.

Page 26. 2nd paragraph under Accountability for Student Progress. There will be significant benefits for gifted children too, especially if the diagnostic test provides for out-of-level testing for gifted.

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I close with some general comments.

Second paragraph on page 4. There is a problem with Core 24 which the Coalition has asked the State Board of Education to deal with. To make things short, I am simply attaching as a pdf file the statement we made to the SBE in July. I think it is self explanatory. It is however, something the Legislature will have to deal with if they adopt Core 24 and fund it. At first glance it may sound minor, but for gifted students, it can be a serious issue.

Also on page 4 you comment on educator preparation. You are, I assume, aware of the recent amendments to the Higher Education Act which now requires teacher preparation courses at colleges accepting federal money to specifically educate teacher candidates about the needs of gifted children and how to meet them. Implementation of these new provisions should benefit not only gifted students, but all students as teachers become more aware of assessment of individual student needs and best practices to meet them.

“Prior to the bill becoming law, most teacher-education programs were not required specifically to prepare future teachers to work with gifted children. However, as part of the section of the law on teacher quality enhancement, the newly passed version requires any school receiving grants through the Higher Education Act to begin training its future teachers on how to work with gifted children. Although mentioned only twice in the bill, provisions for gifted and talented students call for their educational needs to be both identified and met. In calling for teachers to be trained to identify and meet the educational needs of gifted and talented students, the law should lead to more and better educational opportunities for your gifted child.” 

Duke Gifted Letter, Volume 9, Issue 1, Fall 2008  

http://www.dukegiftedletter.com/articles/vol9no1_c1.html

The full text of the 431 page bill can be found at www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-4137.

Your call on page 6 for a single statutory reference point for the program of education and the financing system is a good one and much needed.

Barbara Poyneer

Tags: gifted.

I added a document - a 4 page overview of our plan - to the documents page. This is largely the intro from the larger document, but also includes the sample spreadsheet and contact info for the legislators. Here is a link: basic-ed-funding-4-page-overview.

Tags: overview.

John Vlemming is concerned that our proposal reduces the total amount of resources available to education and asks some questions about levy equalization that lead me to believe I should explain a little about levies and how they work.

Our proposal increases the state spending to cover the total amount of basic education. We believe that a 7-period day, 25 students per class, full-day kindergarten, and other additions to what is funded from the state will result in significant increases in the basic funding allocation to schools. In fact, we’re concerned that they are much too expensive to fund, but won’t know exactly until we finish costing the model.

The total amount a district is able to collect in a school levy is calculated by taking the combination several factors.

• The total of state and federal funding for a school district is called the “levy base.”
• The “levy lid” is a percentage of the levy base a particular districts is allowed to collect. The levy lid is arbitrarily different for different districts and ranges from 24% for most districts to about 34% for Seattle. Mercer Island is at 33.5%, and I think all the others are at 30% or below.

The levy is put before the voters and requires a simple majority vote. (Finally.) The amount collected from local voters is added to the amount from state and federal sources to make up the local budget for the school.

To recognize that some districts cannot pass a levy of the full amount they are allowed to collect, the legislature created “levy equalization.” This is money that is sent, via a very complex formula, to districts with very low total valuation of property. (If you don’t have a lot of highly valuable buildings to tax, the total tax rate has to be much higher. Yakima’s rtax ate can be 7-10 times the tax rate in Bellevue, and can result in fewer dollars per student.) Levy equalization comes out of the general fund, and does not come from the local levy collected by the richer districts.

Our proposal is to make the levy lids all the same at 30%. We would be happy to go higher but there are districts who would never be able to raise that much money, and we don’t want a huge fraction of school funding dependent on a vote every 2-4 years. This will lower a small handfull of districts, but we believe the increase in the “levy base” will much more than make up for the reduction in the lid. None of us got into this exercise to reduce funding to schools.

Tags: levy, levy base, levy equalization.

Andrew sent this to me on email.

“It’s great you’re working on this. Thanks! Some random thoughts:

- For HS and MS, I’ve heard about research (Ouchi) that suggests “Total Student Load” may be more impt than class size. TSL = how  many different kids a single teacher must track throughout the day.  Too many makes it too hard for the teacher to get to know each student so they can make a meaningful impact.

- Since teaching is a team activity, why not evaluate and compensate teachers as teams?  That will take the focus off of individual evaluation and competition. When teachers are given incentive to improve their peers, then it will also be strong incentive to deal with poor performers (through mentoring or moving them out), counteracting any union pressure to the contrary. The teams may be single grade teams and/or teachers at different grades that teach the same subject to the same kids.

- Are drop-out stats still really just “graduate in 4 years” stats?  Should we just make it ok to take 5 yrs?”

Tags: Class Size, Drop Out, Total Student Load.

John’s post (on the documents page, but the conversation is moving here) questions the revenue picture for Washington and why we didn’t do more in this proposal to specificly call for more revenue.

The brave talk in the preamble to your proposal of addressing more of future budget increases to education is, I fear, unrealistic. Given the current state of the economy state revenues are going to go down for the next several years and may not recover even to current levels by the end of the six year period your proposal addresses. In addition, health care costs are likely to rise faster than any conceivable increases in state revenues over that period.

We do not expect revenue to go down for several years. In fact, we expect revenue to go up over the next several years, including this biennium. It will go up slower than predicted spending, but we are not expecting a reduction in absolute revenue anytime soon. The mess in DC could expand beyond our current estimates, but we do not believe revenues will decline.

That said, we’re not convinced that our strategy of taking more of the growth will be sufficient. It will depend on what the actual costs of the system are, what our phasing plan looks like, and what the rest of the legislature is willing to do. Creating a revenue plan was not one of the jobs assigned to this task force, and we don’t think we should try to take on multiple impossible tasks. One seemed sufficient.

Deciding about possible revenue is the job of the legislature, not this group. We can’t ask school board superintendents and school board members to take that on. Let’s keep these as separate issues.

Tags: economy.