Hayward Teachers Announce Victory - 10 Day Strike Ends

Steve Rubenstein and Nanette Asimov of the SF Chronicle just reported that Hayward Teachers have reached a tentative settlement with their district.

"All 1,300 teachers are expected to return to their classrooms Thursday, which will be a minimum day with early dismissal, according to union spokesman Mike Myslinski.
The agreement between the Hayward Education Association and the Hayward Unified School District came at around 9:30 p.m., after a round of talks that followed a large protest at the Hayward school board meeting.
When the strike began on April 5, teachers were demanding a 16 percent raise over 2 years and the school district was offering a one-time raise of 5.5 percent. It was not clear which side made additional concessions, if any, to reach the agreement tonight.
"After months of telling the district how the low pay for teachers is hurting our schools, the district finally agreed to do something about the problem," said Kathleen Crummey, president of the union. "This salary agreement isn't perfect, but it acknowledges that Hayward teachers are underpaid. It will help retain and recruit more dedicated educators for our classrooms."
...During the strike, only about a fifth of the district's 20,000 students were showing up for class. They were being taught by 180 substitutes and non-striking district employees."
Full Story and More at Bay Area Independent Media Center or Hayward Education Association

Stanford Report #5 - Critique of Loeb et. al's District Dollars - A Bird's Eye View

SF Freedom School founder and author Kathy Emery's commentary on the Loeb, Grissom & Strunk study:

District Dollars: Painting a Picture of Revenues and Expenditures in California's School Districts By Susanna Loeb, Jason Grissom, Katharine Strunk

This report is part of Getting Down to Facts: A Research Project to Inform Solutions to California’s Education Problems, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and The Stuart Foundation.

(Emery's comments [below are within blocks] and CAPITALIZED):
From Conclusion:
We find that, although California has operated under a school finance equalization plan since the early-1970s, there is substantial variation in spending across California school districts. The causes of these spending differences are not readily apparent. [I THINK A GENERAL PROBLEM WITH THIS ANALYSIS IS THAT IT IS TOO MUCH OF A BIRD’S EYE VIEW – DATA NOT DISAGGREGATED ENOUGH. NOT TO MENTION …..]

. . . . there are some concerns about the accuracy of LEA reporting. (p. 5)

FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Across all funds, the difference in total expenditures in a district at the 25th percentile of spending . . . the 75th percentile. . . . is more than $3,000 per student.

K-12 salaries constitute . . . 60 percent of student spending.

Urban districts, high school districts and districts with high proportions of black students or students in poverty have higher overall revenues than do other districts. Districts with the highest proportion of black, Hispanic or poor students spend the most on special education overall and the highest percent of special education spending on severely disabled students. [BUT THIS SPENDING IS MOSTLY RESTRICTED WHEREAS RICH DISTRICTS SPEND MORE OVERALL BECAUSE THEY CAN RAISE PRIVATE FUNDING – NOT REALLY CALCULATED BY THIS REPORT--, WHICH THEY CAN THEN CONTROL ON WHAT IT IS SPENT – A DOUBLE WHAMMY IF YOU WILL FOR POOR DISTRICTS]

Ninety-two percent of teachers in California districts are fully credentialed

Controlling for inflation, California school districts are spending approxim ately 40 percent more now than they were ten years ago. This ten-year expenditure gain is especially pronounced for high poverty and small districts.

FROM BODY OF REPORT:

basic aid [RICH PEOPLE’S SUBURBAN] districts spend $14,160 per student on average while non-basic aid districts spend only $10,475, a 35 percent difference. P. 54

spending on capital outlay and facilities and on debt services are the largest non-student spending categories for districts . . . these come mostly from funds other than the general fund. (p. 12)

Accounting for inflation, between 1995 and 2004. … Mean total spending per student increased from a low of $5,329 in 1995 to a high of $7,463 in 2004.. . growth occurred relatively uniformly among the poverty groups . . . . growth in capital outlay expenditures comprised a significant portion of total expenditure growth over this time period. . . . for some groups capital growth has offset declines in operational spending in the most recent years.

Mean current district spending on retiree benefits is small, at only $86 per ADA, though
there are a few large outliers. However, . . . Many California school districts have contractually promised their teachers generous health and welfare benefits upon retirement,. .. . . Many districts have not put sufficient funds away to cover these future expenses. (p. 12)

With an average of $1,409 per ADA, employee benefits cost districts, almost 30% of the cost of K- 12 salaries. (p. 16)

[there is greater variation per district in non-student spending than in student spending]

Average total expenditures per pupil is $10,586 when including spending from all funds and $7,380 using spending from the general fund only as CDE does in its reports on school spending.

Interestingly, districts, on average, spend about two-thirds of their total expenditures on “services and operating expenditures” on professional consulting and other operating expenditures, . . . there is likely a wide variation (8-9 percent of ADA spending) in spending on this category (p. 17)

there is substantial variation in spending on regular K-12 education. . . .

Districts spend, on average, $10/ADA on vocational ed. California spends, on average, $64/ADA on bilingual ed. . . . substantial variation in spending on bilingual students.

On students with exceptional needs who are assigned IEPs. California spends, on average, $1,035/ADA . . . fairly substantial variation in this category. (p. 21)

most districts don’t spend money on child care (p. 21)

p. 25 revenues.
Unrestricted resources make up approximately 65 percent of all district resources, with a per pupil average of $6,786 [with ABOUT A $2K VARIATION BETWEEN BOTTOM AND TOP QUARTILE]

No Child Left Behind Act Monies – per pupil -- Mean $432; bottom 25% $ 202; Median $390; top quartile $677

Districts with 250 students or more receive, on average, $300 per ADA for child nutrition $24 per ADA in staff development funds.

Urban districts receive significantly more NCLB funds than do other districts . . . Districts with the highest proportion of students enrolled in the free/ reduced price lunch program receive over five times the amount of NCLB revenues as do districts with the lowest proportions of free/ reduced price lunch students;

Restricted Resources make up the other approximately 35 percent of all district resources.
Districts receive, on average, $3,666 per student, with a large inter-quartile range between $2,463 and $7,361. . . . Of these restricted resources, the state supplies the most, with the local government providing less than half of what the state provides.

Federal restricted resources . . . an average of $1,017 per student. . . . The State . . . restricted resources. . with an average of $1,754 per student.

In addition to the local resources described above, many districts receive Contributions
. .. from parents and foundations. . . . It constitutes an average of $181 per student …[$78 --- $212 ]. . .While contributions to schools get substantial attention and are large in a small number of schools, ------- on average they only account for less than two percent of funds to schools percent of funds for operating expenditures.

$2,154 per pupil, or 21% of total resources in Local Taxes. . . There is substantial variation in local taxes, with one quarter of students in districts that receive less than $1,166 per student and another quarter in districts that receive more than $2,747 per pupil. Parcel Taxes are the main tax available at the district level for generating supplemental funds. . . . .no group of districts raises a high quantity of funds through the parcel tax. There are a few districts in the state that do, but these do not lead to large differences between groups.

Staff Development. . .. .approximately $24 per student in revenues.

urban and unified districts and districts with high percentages of black and Hispanic students and of students enrolled in the free or reduced price lunch program spend substantially more on consulting and operating expenditures than do other districts.

urban districts and districts with a high proportion of students in poverty. . . receive substantially more restricted revenues. . . than their counterparts. . . .. federal government ... contributes … approximately 25 percent of restricted funds and ten percent of total revenues.

p. 54
[Basic Aid districts exceed the pre-defined per-student revenue limit for each school district that specifies the maximum amount of base funding it receives. Basic aid districts are 10% of all districts] – they have a higher income population ($75,090 vs. $47,841 median household income), who are more highly educated (49.4 vs 23.1 percent college graduates).

basic aid districts spend $14,160 per student on average while non-basic aid districts spend only $10,475, a 35 percent difference.

Basic aid districts spend 107 percent more on capital outlay on average than do non-basic aid districts ($3,330 per student vs. $1,607 per student).

Accounting for inflation, between 1995 and 2004. … Mean total spending per student increased from a low of $5,329 in 1995 to a high of $7,463 in 2004.. . growth occurred relatively uniformly among the poverty groups . . . . growth in capital outlay expenditures comprised a significant portion of total expenditure growth over this time period. . . . for some groups capital growth has offset declines in operational spending in the most recent years.

With adjustments, Texas spends 12 percent more than California; Florida, 18 percent; New York, 75 percent, and the rest of the country, 30 percent.

California spends less on salaries than other states and this is driven by lower adult to student ratios.

One manifestation of lower spending in California is substantially fewer adults in the public education system in California than in other states. There are fewer teachers per student, fewer school administrators per student and fewer district administrators per school administrator.

For more on Emery's reseach - see her Education and Democracy website

Stanford report #4 - Misunderstanding Incentives; Ignoring Reasons for the Evisceration of School Funding

Stanford Report #4
Understanding the Incentives in California’s Education Finance System, Duncombe, William and Yinger, John (2007), Syracuse University.

In two sections -- [my comments in blocks and italics; boldface is my highlighting their text]

I. UNDERSTANDING INCENTIVES [summary of state financing follows the incentive section, which is the reverse of the actual report #4]

[From Appendix D]
A ten percent increase in the API requires a 7.1 percent increase in spending, all else equal. We combine this result with various assumptions about school district efficiency to obtain estimates of the cost of reaching the 800 API target. [and this is useful info how?]

[HOW DO THEY ARRIVE AT THESE KINDS OF CONCLUSION?! Look at a paragraph from another part of the paper below to see how they deal with assumptions upon which they base these math formulas -- notice “but this adds amazing complexity” which they don’t do because they need to keep the math formula “manageable” – so human actions, motives, behavior are simplified so they can fit it into a math formula that predicts human behavior, ie what kind of tax would the voters support????]

. . . Finally, this issue is complicated because it introduces another margin—whether or not to increase property taxes. All existing models have a single margin and that margin determines the tax price. We don’t think it makes sense to have two tax prices. It might it make sense for a voter to pick the smallest tax price (that is, to increase the revenue source with the smallest impact on her). But this adds amazing complexity to the model and to the empirical work. We would have to calculate two tax prices and use the smallest—both in determining monitoring and in the demand model. To keep the analysis manageable, we assume that voters do not perceive borrowing for operating expenses to be the relevant margin when they make their monitoring decisions. Instead, they see money raised through this route as a contribution to augmented income. This assumption is somewhat awkward because the alternative margin, the parcel tax, requires a 2/3 vote and is rarely used. But the restrictions on borrowing for operating expenses are severe and the parcel tax logic is straightforward, so we keep the parcel tax at the core of the model. This leaves open the possibility that borrowing for operating expenses is a “margin” in the demand equation. In other words, the possibility of borrowing for operating expenses might influence the demand for school quality either through a price incentive or though augmented income, depending on voter perceptions. We can estimate it both ways.

An education cost equation indicates the amount of money a district must spend per pupil to obtain a given level of student performance. This type of cost equation is analogous to a cost equation in private production, which is a central tool in economics. [Output = API score, Input = teachers’ salaries. ] . . . A cost equation indicates how much a school district would have to spend to achieve a given performance level if it used the best available technology, that is, the best available teaching methods and management policies. We cannot observe costs in this sense, however, but instead observe actual spending, which may not reflect the best available technology. To put it another way, the dependent variable in our analysis, spending per pupil, is equivalent to educational costs divided by an index of school district efficiency. As a result, we need to control for efficiency to preserve the cost interpretation of student characteristics and other cost variables. . . . . spending on art is likely to a source of inefficiency in the production of mathematics performance. Our main analysis measures school district performance using API.

[I don’t even know where to start with taking apart all the horrific assumptions that underly the statements in the above paragraph]

[do they really believe that this kind of talk is helpful??] School officials in high revenue/high performance districts may work especially hard to maintain the performance level in their district despite the decline in their revenue. Similarly, school officials in low revenue/low performance districts may be able to use the relatively large increases in their revenue limits to increase their relative performance even without being relatively efficient.

II. SUMMARY OF STATE AND LOCAL FUNDING

[the report summarizes prop 13 and Serrano, but doesn’t explain how the commercial real estate loopholes have contributed to an evisceration of school funding – without explaining that, they don’t reveal an important way to increase funding – close the commercial loopholes in prop 13. PICO attempted a campaign to do so several years ago, and CTA began a campaign last year. Both were told by the CBR not to do it and were stopped by the power of CA CEOs]

Proposition 13 sets the parameters of the expected local contribution . . . . In a fundamental sense, these restrictions on local supplementation transform “local” revenue into “state” revenue, that is, they take decisions about the property tax and other local revenue sources out of local control.. . . the Serrano decisions reduced revenue-limit differences across districts . . . . the amount of revenue is much higher in New York, but that, in some cases, the variation in revenue is higher in California. . . . [the variation] shows up in state categorical aid and in federal revenue.

… heavy reliance on categorical aid, as in California, gives state lawmakers more control over the allocation of school district budgets, but it also limits local flexibility and innovation and raises the share of resources that are devoted to bookkeeping instead of education. This trade-off is recognized in California. The six AB 825 block grants, which were passed in 2004, each combine several categorical aid programs and give school districts more flexibility in deciding how to spend the aid funds (Goldfinger, 2006). We believe these block grants were a step in the right direction. . . . . Categorical aid programs may therefore add to district inefficiency not only by adding constraints, but also by being unpredictable.

this “poverty gap” [Ed trust’s study between 25 districts with most and 25 with least poverty] is considerably lower in California than in the average state or the average big state. Nevertheless, this gap is still quite large, $534 per pupil, and it is larger than the gap in other West Coast states, $309 per pupil.8 To some degree, the relatively small absolute poverty gaps in California reflect the state’s relatively low spending per pupil. [and why are there high poverty and low poverty districts to begin with ...? oh, that's not part of the discussion is it?]

Overall, there is still plenty of room for debate about the features of each component in the California state revenue system, but the mix of revenue sources does not appear to be in need of a major overhaul. . . . Table 7 also indicates that taxes other than the property tax make up a very small share of local school revenue in California, as they do in other states. . . . the main source of this difference appears to be that in California, unlike other states, private educational foundations make large contributions to public schools in several school districts. . . . the parcel tax provided 8.0 percent of local non-property-tax revenue in 2002-03, compared with 5.6 percent in 1995-96. This growth in the reliance on this tax is likely to continue, because the parcel tax is one of the few revenue sources with clear expansion possibilities, but the 2/3 voting requirement obviously has minimized reliance on this tax up to now. . . . According to the criteria developed by public finance economists, a parcel tax is a poor substitute for a property tax. First, a parcel tax does not meet basic standards of fairness . . . it is very regressive.

Revenue from private foundations is distributed in a relatively inequitable manner, because districts with richer residents can attract more contributions. Unlike state aid given to wealthy districts, however, these contributions do not come out of the same budget that must provide funds to the neediest districts. Moreover, private contributions may be difficult to regulate; even if contributions directly to schools were prohibited, parents could make equivalent contributions through tutoring, art, music, sports, or other programs run outside the school system.

The foundation amount in California is not adjusted in any way for the higher cost of education in some districts. This situation is consistent with the Serrano guidelines for a minimal revenue-limit deviation across districts, which is expressed in terms of actual spending per pupil, not in terms of real spending per pupil (that is, spending per pupil adjusted for educational costs). The California approach is not consistent, however, with the central normative argument for a foundation formula, which is an education finance system should lead to an adequate student performance in every district. This view requires not only a decision about the resources needed to reach this performance level in a typical district, that is, a decision about the basic foundation amount, but also a decision about the best way to account for variation across districts in the cost of education.

[notice in this paragraph the paradigm IN which they are operating—the criterion for creating an incentive for financing should be “performance level” – in other words, standardized test scores. ]

[photos from Rethinking Schools]

Stanford report #3 - Power, CEO's and 'Getting Along to Go Along'

Evolution of California State School Finance with Implications from Other States, Kirst, Michael, Goertz, Margaret, and Odden, Allan. (2007), Consortium for Policy Research In Education (CPRE).

[by the way, Kirst wrote a paper a while back about how educators could influence policy: tell the legislatures what they want to hear in short sound bites!!]

[below are quotations from this report -- my comments in brackets - my research is at my website]

California has created an aligned system of standards based reform in numerous ways, but has never integrated its basic finance system with what students are expected to know and do.

California has one of the highest academic standards of any state (Education Week, 2006.) However, there needs to be some explicit linkage between state finance design and state academic standards policies.

Public opinion studies by Rich Neimand (2006) suggest that California public opinion may respond positively to a comprehensive finance plan clearly focused on high standards and individual outcomes.

a coherent comprehensive solution and compelling message has the best chance of convincing a skeptical, but concerned, public. Themes such as standards, accountability, transparency, and efficiency should accompany proposals for more money. Policy framing needs to emphasize children rather than the needs of the education system.

In sum, California’s school accountability and finance systems that are both centralized should be linked to each other.

[no challenge of the standards based system here – makes one think, who is the real audience for this paper? Whose agenda is this study promoting? Certainly those who support high stakes testing – since this paper’s stance was, how can we change the finance system so that it makes high stakes testing policy more effective, more legitimate. The author compares others states but doesn’t really point out that the overall trend throughout the US is decreased spending on education - - it is just most dramatic in CA. I think there is a relationship between standards based reform and the financial mess we are in – and that relationship is embedded in the rhetoric that says that you don’t need a lot of money when you have high expectations in the form of terror by testing]

But the first step must be to throw the current system out and not try to patch it. There is nothing much that is useful to start with in the current non-system.

[the most frightening statement in this report]: only a handful of experts understand the intricacies of the current finance system.

Legislation in 1972 established the basis for the current state general aid formula, but the state has been transformed in many ways since then.

The finance system is more centralized than almost any state system in the nation.

The result of Proposition 13 is even more state control of all school policy, because state politicians believe that they need to regulate a system that is state financed, but traditionally locally- controlled in other policy areas.

Moreover, state assumption of control of about 80% of total school funding meant that local schools became hostage to the state's volatile sales- and income-tax revenue streams. Even the 1995-2000 economic boom did not raise the state's per-student spending enough to reach the national average. Some districts have resorted to non-profit fundraising foundations and parcel taxes, but these fund-raising devices are not widespread and serve relatively affluent small districts. Voters recognized the schools' plight, and in 1988 passed Proposition 98, which earmarks a specific proportion (about 40 percent) of the state's general-fund revenues for K-12 schools and community colleges. But when state revenues decline, the school-aid guarantee declines as well despite Proposition 98.

Categorical aid represents about a third of the money Sacramento spends on schools. Each categorical program created a constituency of beneficiaries that lobbies to preserve it….Local school officials lack money to clean bathrooms, but have some categorical funds for adult education they cannot spend easily within the school year.

After Prop. 13, some California parents concluded they should use private money to help finance local schools. California foundations sprouted all over the state, but particularly in high income suburbs. Public school foundations have grown steadily since the early 1980s (foundations raised more than $70 million in 2004). Now California has nearly 600 local school foundations, by far the most in the nation.

California has never seriously considered a weighted pupil formula like Florida or Kentucky uses to adjust for different pupil needs. Pupil weights allow local discretion in program design in other states, but state lack of confidence in local policymakers has resulted in state specification of education interventions through categorical programs.

[but WSF doesn’t guarantee increased per pupil spending and could be used to justify continuing underfunding!!]

This state confidence issue has deepened and continued to build for many years. For example, Democratic Governor Gray Davis in 2000 said local control of education was a “disaster” and created many new categoricals. Some of these were incentive programs for local school bonuses if school test scores went up. But the incentive programs did not have much impact on local teacher behavior (PACE, 2000), and were eliminated when the state budget declined in 2001. In 2006, Republican Governor Schwarzenegger created 22 new categorical programs in such areas as art, music, and counseling. These new categorical program requirements add to a gigantic and bloated state education code.


But why has such an outcry not led to a substantial overhaul similar to New Jersey, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Wyoming?

[perhaps because California is much, much bigger than these states and the political power structure is very different??? This report says that the problem fundamentally lies with these reasons:]

1. Who must, and who has the right to, initiate state policy action?
Experience reveals that policymakers’ answers focus especially on the roles of the legislature and governor. In California, leadership by the governor has become crucial for a large-scale change in school finance.

2. What are the unacceptable policy initiatives? Again, experience shows that unacceptable state policy ideas trample on group, regional, or big- city interests; challenge dominant economic interests; or promote unorthodox approaches. Even limited inquiry among top state policymakers will provide agreed-on accounts of what policy ideas will not be feasible. In California, Prop. 13 is viewed as immutable and categorical aid is a prime state intervention tool. Rarely are finance incentives related to pupil performance utilized. Proposals to reorganize most categorical grants into a few bloc grants have been rejected by the state political system for decades.

[notice that these factors are all implied to be of equal influence – but why is prop 13 seen as immutable? When CTA attempted to challenge it, the large property owners association told them to scuttle it and CTA backed down in the face of overwhelming political power – academics don’t talk about POWER. High stakes testing was the promotion of an “unorthodox approach” – no?]

3. What are the appropriate state policy actions? Experience again points to such rules as: to get along, go along; carry out informal rituals that will recognize and define the boundaries of power; mobilize everyone who can benefit from a proposed policy, or conversely mobilize those who stand to lose something. Many of the major interest groups are used to Proposition 98 as the key framework and underpinning for California school finance. Interest group politics result in policy that the public may not endorse or feel involves them (Neimand, 2006).

[no 3 applies to those coopted by the system – those who want to climb up the ladder, who place “getting along to go along” as their primary strategy for self promotion – who created and runs that system? CEO’s!!!! – who are effectively organized in CA in the CBRT or CBEE]

In California and other states, such attitudes about acceptable policy ideas have a dual effect; they keep the policy environment predictable, and they help policymakers build group cohesion that produces incremental education finance changes.

[again, CEO’s want the landscape to be predictable – hence their hostility to democracy—since capitalism is unpredictable, they want to control their costs, their labor pool as much as possible]

A majority of the public thinks the school finance problem is too big and complex to be addressed by the current mélange of politicians and entrenched interest groups. California has 6.3 million pupils and spends over $60 billion for K-12 operations. The public believes education problems are caused more by inadequate parenting than school finance shortcomings. Moreover, the public does not trust that money raised by state taxes and sent to Sacramento will come back to their local classrooms. The public believes there is substantial waste in local public schools, and want a finance system focused on pupil outcomes. The California public does not respond much to current finance reform symbols like equity, adequacy, or the need to fully fund Prop. 98. Equity implies redistribution of state funds among school districts with a lowest common denominator result. The public believes that adequacy is a minimum standard that will not enable high enough pupil outcomes.

[“the public” – those polled – voters? Who shapes public opinion? What were the assumptions of the pollers? How were the questions asked? These “opinions” are very gross generalizations at best, inaccurate and highly manipulated at worst]

Stanford Report #2 - From Local to State Control of Education

Financing K-12 Education in California: A System Overview, Timar, Thomas (2007), University of California. Davis.
[a few quotations from the second paper of the $3 million report from Stanford. I described this situation in my dissertation in 2002, for free!!]

From the Stanford University study
"Since the early 1970s, traditional patterns of school governance in California have changed dramatically. The presumption of local control, a system of governance based on local electoral accountability—the system in place for the previous 150 years—has been superseded by a system of state control. Decisions that used to be matters of local discretion‐‐‐among them, decisions about resource allocation, curriculum, student assessment, and student promotion and graduation—are now matters of state policy.

Districts are now subject to voluminous state and federal regulations and reporting requirements. The state tells teachers how to teach reading and tells teachers and administrators how to behave with parents. Since enactment of the Public School Accountability Act (PSAA) in 1999, the state can take over “failing” schools and fire teachers and principals. As a result of governance changes over the past 35 years, there are few areas of teaching and learning that are not subject to legislative mandate. "

…“so what”
question. What difference does it make where the money comes from?....."

[they answer this question in the third section of the report, and the answer is not very clear or coherent. On the one hand, they argue that state tak over of control of funding has equalized funding in districts, but only the base level funding. A number of districts have gone bankrupt as a result and had to be taken over by the state. Why? Because the state has no mechanism to make sure that districts spend the money effectively?????? This is a crazy argument that the authors make given that the real problem is NOT ENOUGH MONEY!!!. The state tells the districts what they can and cannot spend the money on, then the authors of this report blame the district for not spending the money effectively?! So the Stanford people are saying that the problem is too much bureaucracy, but they suggest adding another layer??? The solution is for the state to continue creating the framework for finance and policy—which really means that the CBEE will create it – a fact that the Stanford study ignores. This is the real problem with academics – they think that if they are clear and rational – which they are not always anyway – that the powers that be will listen and accept their recommendations. The reality is about power – who has it (CBEE) and who does not (teachers, parents and students, and local school boards) ]
"While the state allocates about $14 billion annually to categorically funded program, those programs are rarely, if ever, evaluated for their effectiveness or audited for compliance. Schools are generally limited to providing only those services that the state funds. There is little discretionary money available to districts that want to start a new programs, they must go to the state to get special purpose funding to pay for them, as few districts have any discretionary money for new programs or services.

The current system of school finance is one that has been cobbled together in response to various pressures over the past thirty‐some years. What is missing from the resulting patchwork of policies is an underlying framework or set of principles to guide the system. As a result, the system has little coherence or clarity. For instance, the policy goal of inter‐district equalization is achieved through revenue limits, but undone by categorical programs.

[in conclusion] A healthy partnership between the state and local education agencies is essential condition of a robust, effective system of education. As a partnership, it argues for the need to develop a framework for school finance. There should be a set of principles that define state and local roles and responsibilities for revenues, program control, and accountability. A coherent framework and set of principles are clearly missing from the current system which has been built opportunistically in response to specific needs and problems. It is doubtful that anything short of a comprehensive overhaul of the system is likely to lead to its improvement." [so the problem is an inability of local districts to tailor educational policy and programs to the unique needs of their district. and the solution, then, is to continue to direct educational policy and programs from the state level????]

Stanford Report #1 - welfare for scholars

The Stanford study cost what? $3 million? to tell us that "The “correct” answer to all of these questions will not be offered by any particular policymaker or scholar. . . .The answer must be provided in the form of an ongoing democratic conversation among citizens and their democratically elected representatives." from Reich's framework -- Paper#1 in the study -- I have pulled out some selected quotes from this study below.
1. Equality and Adequacy in the State’s Provision of Education: Mapping the Conceptual Landscape, Reich, Robert (2007), Stanford University. [my responses in brackets to Reich]

In school finance litigation, advocates and courts have abandoned equality and adopted the language of adequacy. . . .Along with this evolution – though not necessarily a consequence of the evolution [I think it was necessarily!] – has come a shift in attention on educational inputs (dollars per pupil, for example) to educational outputs (student achievement or, in California’s case, the API index). [in other words high stakes testing has legitimized the underfunding of schools]

“adequacy suits abandon the idea of tying districts together financially by requiring access to equal resources. Those districts that can fund a more-than-adequate education are free to do so.” [and have done so!]

[why the attraction to adequacy v equality?]

Though state education articles vary considerably from state to state, there is generally a requirement that the legislature provide a “thorough and efficient,” “uniform”, or “high quality” education to its children. This language was more amenable to an adequacy orientation rather than an equality orientation. Second, it was worries, sometime borne out in practice, that to achieve equality the state would level down spending of the wealthy districts rather than level up spending of the poorest. Given the precipitous decline of school funding in California, relative to other states, in the wake of the equalizing force of Serrano v. Priest and the tax limiting Proposition 13, the leveling down effect was seen to be of special concern in the nation’s most populous state

And moreover, despite the success of equity lawsuits in many states and the narrowing of funding gaps between districts, student achievement scores had not improved considerably. Most notably, the black-white test score gap, which had narrowed in the 1980s and early 1990s began to grow anew. One additional attraction of the adequacy paradigm, according to its supporters, was that it quite deliberately focused on academic outcomes in addition to resource inputs.

Nathan Glazer :

To be sure, the case for both [racial] integration and equality of expenditure is powerful. But the chief obstacle to achieving these goals does not seem to be the indifference of whites and the non-poor to the education of white and the poor. . . . Rather, other values, which are not simply shields for racism, stand in the way:
the value of the neighborhood school; the value of local control of education and,
above all, the value of freedom from state imposition when it affects matters so
personal as the future of one’s children. [???!!!!! But it is a matter of being able to hog a disproportionate share of the resources!!]

The equality framework has frequently been deployed to ask, “why should funding levels between districts be substantially different?” Adequacy, by contrast, incorporates educational outcomes – academic achievement – into its framework. Adequacy asks “What level of educational resources is sufficient to generate a specific set of educational outcomes?”

One fundamental distinction between equality and adequacy as applied to educational resource distribution is that adequacy seeks to ensure that all students have enough education and, if this condition is reached, will tolerate inequalities above this threshold.

In the end, then, the relevant question for citizens and policymakers seems to be whether the state’s obligation to provide education is exhausted once absolute educational deprivation, measured by some kind accountability system of state standards, has been eliminated. If this is the case, then adequacy is the right framework.
Alternatively, does the state’s obligation to provide education go beyond the production of good schools for all and require, say, that opportunities to attend college and compete for jobs in the labor market not merely be adequate but be equal? If so, then inequalities in resources and outcomes above the level of adequacy will undermine equal opportunity and only the equality paradigm will be able to address these relative deprivations.

Adequate for what? Equality of what? These are difficult questions. But it is important to realize the deep structure of what sort of issues we must address if we are to answer the question of what is the state’s obligation to provide education.
The “correct” answer to all of these questions will not be offered by any particular policymaker or scholar. . . .The answer must be provided in the form of an ongoing democratic conversation among citizens and their democratically elected representatives.

Its the Budget Stupid!

Its the budget-Stupid! Part 2

It’s the budget: Stupid!
The opening sentence of the just published report on California education says, “California’s students are far behind those in other states on many measures of achievement. On the 2005 National Assessment of Education Progress, for example, California ranked 7th lowest in eighth grade math in comparison to the 49 other states and the District of Columbia. The story is at least as bad in other subjects. California performed 3rd lowest in reading, ahead of only Hawaii and the District of Columbia, and 2nd lowest in science, ahead of only Mississippi.” www.sacbee.com/links

Why is that?
The legislature and governors have meddled and muddled in education, but they have not done their job. Their job is to decide upon a reasonable, fair tax system and to raise the money needed for schools. They have failed at this task for over 20 years while California’s public schools have been forced into a steep decline in quality.
Rather than facing the inadequate funding issue , they have mandated school reforms stressing standardized testing as the driving force behind schooling at the k-12 level, particularly in low income districts. The testing mania has not improved schools, improved school funding, nor improved teaching. The current low level testing tells us what we already know, students in low income schools do poorly. (Rothstein, 2004)
There is always some new advocate who has a solution to failing schools; phonics, exit exams, etc. rather than to face the fundamental political issue of grossly inadequate funding. The Governor, with a two month advance view of the study, is already trying shift the discussion
In fairness, the failure is not the total legislature. The Democratic majority has usually been willing to spend more on schools, but they can not pass a budget without the votes of the Republican minority. Thus, a small group of Republican legislators have prevented adequate school funding. And the Governor’s budget continues that pattern.
The politicians – not the teachers- deserve an F for failure.
Duane Campbell
Sacramento

CA School Funding Adequacy Report says $23-32 billion per year more needed

I am home sick today from my teaching at SF State. Our faculty union - CA Faculty Association or CFA - is conducting our first ever strike vote this week. And I and others on our campus are sick and tired also of the CSU management's failure to bargain in good faith regarding a fair contract, their millions given for CEO perks, and their behind closed door decision-making.
We don't want to strike, but we may have to for the future our our university and because our working conditions are tied to our students' learning conditions. To help us please click here.

CA Study Concludes - at least $23-32 billion more needed for Public School Education
See also Duane Campbell's comments from his Monday blog.
The long awaited and very well-financed CA schools adequacy study is going to be released today and tomorrow in Sacramento. Juliet Williams from AP did a much better job than the SF Chronicle's Greg Lucas and Nanette Asimov in giving some of the dollar figures released yesterday. But it looks like the bottom line is that it will take at least $23-32 billion more per year to provide a high quality education to all our state's students, from the wealthiest to the poorest kids.

Getting Down to Facts includes 22 studies by more than 30 researchers from the nation’s leading universities and research institutions. It was formally requested by a bipartisan group of state leaders, including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, Senate President pro Tem Don Perata, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Committee on Educational Excellence and former Education Secretary Alan Bersin. To view the full set of studies released today, visit http://irepp.stanford.edu/.

JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press, reports:

A major overhaul of California's schools will cost tens of billions of dollars more per year, but money alone won't fix the many problems facing the nation's
largest public education system, according to a series of landmark studies to be released today.
The cost figures come from panels of educators who estimated how much it would take to bring all California schools up to a score of 800 on the state's Academic Performance Index, the state's system of gauging student proficiency in reading and math.
Two estimates, both based on interviews with educators, estimate the cost of meeting the state's achievement goals at an additional $23 billion to $32 billion a year...
California already spends nearly half its annual budget on education, a total of $66 billion in the current fiscal year, or about $11,000 per student in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Still, one estimate in the documents obtained by the AP says California might need to spend as much as $1.5 trillion a year to meet its performance goals, an amount equal to about half the annual federal budget.
... Full article

The Progressive California Budget Project also meets in Sacramento tomorrow - I am interested in their analysis of the foundation-driven study. From his Choosing Democracy Blog Campbell concludes:

The legislature and governors have meddled and muddled, but they have not done their job. Their job is to decide upon a reasonable, fair tax system and to raise the money needed for schools. They have failed at this task for over 20 years while California’s public schools have been forced into a steep decline in quality. Rather than facing the inadequate funding issue , major school reform efforts stress standardized testing as the driving force behind schooling at the k-12 level, particularly in low income districts. There is always some new advocate who has a solution to failing schools; phonics, exit exams, etc. rather than to face the real issue of grossly inadequate funding. The testing mania has not improved schools, improved school funding, nor improved teaching.