The California Crunch

In case you haven't heard, there is a major budget crunch going on in California this year. Gov. Schwarzenegger has asked for a 4.4 billion dollar reduction in education spending. This is hitting schools hard, causing uncertainty and layoffs, which has left young teachers scrambling searching for new jobs in a tight market.

The San Diego Unified School District, the second-largest in the state,
has sent pink slips to roughly one in 10 of its certificated base. More
than 900 employees – mostly teachers hired after September 2002 – face
unemployment. Source.

And Statewide ...

More than 10,100 teachers will
see pink slips in their mailboxes over the next few days as districts
up and down California meet a Saturday deadline to warn staff of
anticipated layoffs due to the state's budget crisis. Source.

The proposed cuts have already caused some to hit the streets and march in protest. Meanwhile, the Gov. has also backed a new report that calls
for teacher incentive pay, universal preschool, and a governor
controlled Department of Education - all of which costs an additional
10.5 billion in new programs. The union, of course, hates the merit pay plan. And Democrats in the state are gearing up for a battle. Democrats have proposed a tax increase and are planning a statewide campaign to gain public support for additional funding for schools. Finally, the Governor has a new budget proposal where money would be saved in good times so that less fluxuation would occur in bad times.

These education budget cuts almost seemed to be designed to show just how bad fluxuations can be ... thus lending ideological support to his new budget proposal. But, the real affect of these political games on teachers and schools is devastating. Not only are schools facing budget uncertainty, but teachers are not just going to stand by while the politics works itself out. Teachers will probably flock to other states seeking employment and California, who has already faced teacher shortages, is only going to exacerbate the problem. Not only is this going to harm lots of lives of individual teachers and students, but the loss of young teachers statewide is also going to be really harmful.  

Anyway, keep an eye on California in the next few months. It is going to get worse before it gets better and the fight will probably intensify over the summer. It is going to be a real rollercoaster ride for our educator friends in California.

UPDATE: And the California Senate Democrats have posted a series of YouTubes of a recent event protesting the budget cuts.

The Integration Report at the Civil Rights Project

By far one of the best things going in educational law is the Civil Rights Project, now based at UCLA. They have a new feature I want to pass along called The Integration Report. It is sort of a blog and sort of a newsletter and sort of a journal article all in one nice little, bi-weekly package. In this episode, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley explores the feasibility of using SES as a proxy for race in affirmative action integration policies. She concludes (and uses scholarly research to make her case - very nice) that SES is not a good proxy for race and while it may have benefits it does not directly serve the purpose of racial integration.

In conclusion, while SES integration may produce academic and social
gains distinct from the documented benefits of racial diversity,
research suggests that income-based student assignment does not
necessarily create or maintain racially integrated schools. In our
ongoing examination of the various plans being developed around the
country, we have highlighted many districts currently in the process of
adopting some measure of SES as part of their revised plans. Using SES
as a basis for student assignment without also considering some measure
of race or ethnicity will not guarantee continued racial integration.

The full (page long or so) article is well worth the read and kudos to the folks at CRP for putting this out - I am looking forward to the next issue. Also, they have an extensive list of news links related to desegregation and diversity issues in the post that may also be worth your time. You can read the Integration Report at their blog site, or RSS it (see my earlier post on the Edjurist Aggregator) or you can subscribe to CRP's mailing list. I subscribe and it is not too intrusive, only an e-mail or two a month.

Kill all the School Boards? ... Maybe. Nationalize Education? ... Maybe Not.

I read this article a week or so ago when my Atlantic Monthly came and I almost wrote a critique of it then, but I also listened to this interview on NPR the other day and I needed to point out what I see as a serious flaw in his argument. Here is the article ... it is not bad and raises some interesting questions so it is worth the read.

First, Kill all the School Boards ... by Matt Miller.

But, here is a couple of quotes to give you the gist if you are not in for reading the whole thing:

When you look at what local control of education has wrought, the
conclusion is inescapable: we must carry Mann’s insights to their
logical end and nationalize our schools, to some degree.

and ...

[Local Control] has spawned several crippling problems:

1. No way to know how children are doing.
2. Stunted R&D.
3. Incompetent school boards and union dominance.
4. Financial inequity.

I am not going to argue with the connections he makes between local control and the problems he mentioned above, although I do think there are ways for local entities to engage in such research and R&D as technology becomes more available and if it becomes a central component of preparation programs. But, on points 3 and 4 ... yeah, you are going to have some of that with local control. But, based on those critiques (alone) this is his solution:

I asked Marc Tucker, the head of the New Commission on the
Skills of the American Workforce (a 2006 bipartisan panel that called
for an overhaul of the education system), how he convinces people that
local control is hobbling our schools. He said he asks a simple
question: If we have the second-most-expensive K–12 system of all those
measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
but consistently perform between the middle and the bottom of the pack,
shouldn’t we examine the systems of countries that spend less and get
better results? “I then point out that the system of local control that
we have is almost unique,” Tucker says. “One then has to defend a
practice that is uncharacteristic of the countries with the best
performance.

“It’s an industrial-benchmarking argument,” he adds.

Horace Mann wouldn’t have used this jargon, but his thinking was
much the same. In his time, the challenge was to embrace a bigger role
for the state; today, the challenge is to embrace a bigger role for the
federal government in standards, funding, and other arenas.

Okay? Um, wait a second ... how did we get from problems of local control to national standards? Especially when the author himself acknowledged that Horace Mann was interested in a bigger role for the state? Just because Finland has a centralized control system over education does not mean the U.S. should. New York is very different from New Mexico. Probably more different than Northern Finland is to Southern Finland. Sure, you can cite OECD countries for examples of national control working ... but the U.S. is a much larger country than many of these places. The U.S. has 28x the landmass of Finland (list of country landmass). You know who has a similar landmass to Finland? New Mexico (list of state landmass). Maybe New Mexico would be a good place to locate the major authority over schools in New Mexico? But, what makes it harder for New Mexico to serve that role is a decentralization of power both above and below them. They are getting mandates like NCLB from above and board decisions to ban books from below. It makes it sort of difficult for New Mexico, even if it wanted or had the capacity to, to function in a role similar to that of Finland.

Let's just not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Are there problems with local control? Yes. Does that mean we need national standards? No. Each of problem 1-4 listed above (if they are problems) can be equally if not better solved at the state level. When you are dealing with a landmass as large as the U.S. and a diversity in population and community desires as diverse as there is in the U.S. (compare Oregon and Idaho, for instance, and those states are neighbors), a centralized set of national standards can not be responsive to local needs. Alternatively, there is some truth to the point that local control cannot be responsive to issues of equity and research. Perhaps there is a happy medium somewhere in between local control and national standards ... oh yeah, that's right, there is ... the states. Perhaps that is why Horace Mann proposed a bigger role for states in the first place.      

Alaska to Spend a Billion Dollars a Year on Education

Just in case you were having doubts about how much we spend on education at the state level, the Governor of Alaska announced last week that she intends to increase state dollars for education to a billion dollars a year within the next three years.

The state revenues for each state can be seen here. Alaska ranks 43 for the sheer amount of money it provides its schools. However, if divided per capita, Alaska ranks in the top 5.

Vouchers Fail in Utah Referendum

The sweeping Utah Voucher plan is no more ... well at least not for a while. The plan that made headlines when it was passed was rejected by the voters Tuesday by a wide margin.

    Voters decisively rejected
the will of the Utah Legislature and governor Tuesday, defeating what
would have been the nation's most comprehensive education voucher
program in a referendum blowout.

    "Tonight, with the eyes of the nation upon us, Utah has
rejected this flawed voucher law," said Kim Campbell, president of the
Utah Education Association. "We believe this sends a clear message. It
sends a message that Utahns believe in, and support, public schools."

    More than 60 percent of voters were rejecting vouchers, with
about 95 percent of the precincts reporting, according to unofficial
results. The referendum failed in every county, including the
conservative bastion of Utah County.

Continue Reading ...

I will have to say I was a little surprised at the vote. It says a lot about the power that remains in the teachers unions, who were the chief opponents of the law. The Utah Education Association not only gathered the necessary signatures to force the referendum, but also took the lead in campaign advertising which totaled over 4 million, supplemented by teachers unions from other states. The result was a near landslide in the polls against the voucher law. Pretty impressive, and surprising, stuff.

The Cost of Educational Finance Suits

At any one time across the U.S. there are around 10 educational finance lawsuits at play. These lawsuits typically involve an entity attempting to sue the state to provide more adequate or equitable funding of the public education system. While I try to keep up with many of them, I don't note all of them on the blog. To see what is going on in your state, you can check this site maintained by Columbia University.

Anyway, I was reading about the ongoing Missouri litigation this morning and I came across a striking number. Here is the quote from the Columbia Tribune:

"We continue to believe the current school funding system and level of
funding deprives children of their fundamental right to a quality
education," CEE Chairman Jeff Lindsey, superintendent of Van Buren
schools, said in a prepared statement.

Lindsey told the Tribune that the CEE board vote was unanimous. The
board includes Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Phyllis Chase.

The Columbia district is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and has spent more
than $81,000 on the litigation to date. Board members are expected to
decide at the Nov. 12 meeting whether the district will remain part of
the suit. The court battle has cost taxpayers statewide more than $4.6
million so far.

Columbia Board of Education Vice President Darin Preis said this morning he supports being part of the appeal.

"We haven’t talked about this as a board, but, personally, I think it’s
a good idea to continue," he said. "We need to be part of the solution."

A more equitable funding system would not hurt Columbia if overall
education funding were increased, Preis said. "If we try to spread the
current pot, it could be damaging. But I would say there’s not enough
money in the pot right now," he said.

"I’m concerned about" the expense of the suit, Preis said, "but I think sometimes it costs to do the right thing."

Continue Reading ...

The cost of the lawsuit so far has been 4.6 million dollars? Compared to the roughly 2.7 billion that Missouri is spending on public schools, this number is quite small. But, it does still stand out to the general public and some in Missouri are calling on the districts to stop the lawsuit because of the high cost. I am not going to address the merits of the case, but consider the amount of money that could be saved if the schools and the legislature simply worked together more.

More Economists Suggesting Greater Investment in Education

My daily reading brought me across another interesting article today related to education and economics. In George Will's Washington Post Editorial today, he has a profile of the young economist Austan Goolsbee who is both an economics professor at the University of Chicago and an advisor to the Sen. Barack Obama campaign for President. Other than being an interesting article about a young economist with a very bright future, it is relevant to this blog because of this:

In 1980, people with college degrees made on average 30 percent more
than those with only high school diplomas. That disparity has widened
to 70 percent. In the same year, the average earnings of people with
advanced degrees were 50 percent more than those with only high school
diplomas; today, it is more than 100 percent.

The market is shouting "Stay in school!" and Goolsbee's conservative colleagues at Chicago
say a high tax rate on high earners is "a tax on going to college."
Conservatives say: Don't tax something unless you are willing to have
less of it. But Goolsbee says: Conservatives often exaggerate the
behavioral response to increased tax rates. The solution is to invest
more in education, which will raise wages, reduce inequality and move
toward equilibrium. The GI Bill was, he says, so prolific in
stimulating investment in "human capital" -- particularly, college
education -- that for a while the return on it went down relative to
high school.

This is the second influential economist in less than a month to laud the economic benefits of education, as you will remember Fed. Chair Ben Bernanke did so not long ago. While the simple statement that "education is a good investment" is repeated time and again, these types of recent statements by Goolsbee and Bernanke signal the possibility of a shifting view toward national and state investment in education as a long term profitable enterprise for government. How such a shift in economic views toward education's economic benefit on society will affect education in the short or long term is unclear, but given the relative importance of such economists on the fiscal allocations of this country ... it cannot hurt.

Fed Chair Bernanke: Education is a Good Investment

If you are reading this blog, you probably already know that education
is a good investment because most readers have devoted their life to
education in some form or another. But, just in case you had any
remaining doubts, the nation's top economist has confirmed your
suspicions.

         

 Education is the best investment not only for workers but also for the
economy in a time of continuing competitive strain, Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.

"Education lifelong education for everyone from toddlers to
workers well advanced in their careers is indeed an excellent
investment for individuals and society as a whole," said Bernanke. He
spent most of his professional life as a teacher and is married to one. ...

Although the United States has long been a leader in expanding
educational opportunities, it also has long grappled with challenges
such as troubling high-school dropout rates, particularly for minority
and immigrant youths, as well as frustratingly slow and uneven progress
in raising test scores, he said.

Continue Reading

While
this comes as no surprise to educators or lawyers that work for
educators, apparently in some of the nation's governing bodies this
fact is not so clear ... as schools are consistently underfunded and
the price of higher education is continuing to rise beyond the
affordability point for many young Americans even at public schools.
So, next time you are in a debate about school funding ... know that
you have the economists on your side.

Education Law Snippets

Well, educators, can you feel it? Yes, it is that time of year again and already this week there is a good deal of education law related news to tell you about in the snippets.

First, schools, such as this one in White Plains, are beginning to question their racial balancing plans that seems to have been working for years. This in reaction to the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Parents Involved in Community Schools (Louisville and Seattle) case. The White Plains plan gave parents some limited choice about where to send their children and required schools to achieve a racial balance (similar proportions of Black, Hispanic, and Other groups within 5%). However, under the ruling, such plans are likely unconstitutional. But, interestingly, already some lawyers for the White Plains district have encouraged the school to use socio-economic status (determined by free and reduced lunch) as a proxy for race to achieve the same results. I would imagine we will see a lot more of SES as an admissions factor in the near future.

In Seattle, The Network for Excellence in Washington Schools is challenging the Washington State system of funding public schools under the Washington Constitution. Apparently, education is the "the" paramount duty in the State of Washington. The group would like for the State to pay 100% of education funding so that no dollars come from local sources. Should be another interesting school finance case.

One in Four adults read no books last year. The typical person claimed to have read 4 books. Anyone else think those numbers regarding book readers are actually too high? Where I am from in Southern Illinois, I would put the number closer to one in 10. But, perhaps in the population centers, the cities, more people read books. (Just as an aside, the best book I read this year is Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Second place, Ishmeal Beah's A Long Way Gone - although it is very violent).

They are apparently partying in Morgantown. Congrats? Also, the latest US News Rankings are out. Although more and more schools are opting out.

They are thinking about doing driver's education courses online in Missouri. When I see Missouri license plates, I already get a little concerned, this is not going to help that any... just joking ...

Finally, school nutrition and PE were on the mind of Florida Governor Charlie Crist the other day. And this story gives us the quote of the day:

Many schools have been reducing or cutting out physical education to
provide more time for academics including preparation for high-stakes
standardized tests that can determine whether principals, teachers and
other staffers are rewarded or punished.

Crist was stunned,
though, when Ellen Smith, a physical education teacher at Gove
Elementary School in Belle Glade, told him one school was counting the
time it takes students to walk to the cafeteria for lunch as part of
the physical education requirement.

''Some principals are like good lawyers,'' Smith said. ``They find loopholes.''

Even though it was not intended, I will take that as a compliment.

Education the Great Civil Rights Issue of Our Time for Romney

Mitt Romney, one of the bevy of candidates running for president, was quoted as saying, "The failure of inner city schools, in my view, is the great civil rights issue of our time." Here is the story.

Well, to all presidential candidates concerned about education as a civil rights issue, I want to be clear. If they truly believe that and if they want to actually do something about it, it is a relatively easy solution. Make Education a Fundamental Right. Until such time as education is a fundamental right, you will continue to see vast disparities in the educations provided to different classes of citizens. I need not remind you that Title VII, which made race, gender, national origin, etc ... protected classes, is the most important legal tool that improved race, gender, national origin relations. This occurred because of the heightened judicial review standard, a compelling interest. Presently, the government need only prove a "rational basis" for funding education differently, for providing different services and opportunities. Move that standard to a "compelling interest" and you will see a dramatic improvement in the equality of education. It is all that simple, but that is the necessary first step.

So, if Mitt Romney and other presidential candidates are serious about education as a civil rights issue, they need to go a step further and support education as a fundamental right. Until then, they are just paying lip service to the disparities that exist in education.