Archives for category: Budget Cuts
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Justin Parmenter: Here Come the N.C. Teacher Thugs!

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2018 //
19

Justin Parmenter writes here about a state legislator in North Carolina who denounced the teachers who plan to protest on May 16 as “thugs.”

He says, here come the teacher thugs!

He writes:

Brody is right to be concerned about the more than 13,500 thugs who will be storming Raleigh on Wednesday. After all, these thugs bring a very special skill set that make us extraordinarily effective advocates:

We are black belts in sarcasm and penmanship. Just wait til you see our signs.

We can hold our pee all day long.

We reserve a special teacher voice that demands attention.

We are very good at waiting in line (no cutting).

We can go 8 hours without sitting down once. The secret is in the shoes.

Most importantly, these thugs are experts in fact-based arguments.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, North Carolina, Resistance, Teachers

Jeff Bryant: Charter Schools Are an Existential Threat to the Survival of Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
16

Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that charter schools create an enormous drain on public schools and cause damage to the great majority of children, who lose resources and teachers, so that a small number may attend an alternate school that is privately managed.

Jeff Bryant here points out that the proliferation of charter schools is more than a nuisance. It is an “existential threat” to public education.

New studies from California and North Carolina find charter schools extract millions from the public systems.

The California study, written by political economist and University of Oregon professor Gordon Lafer, looks at three large public-school systems in the Golden State and concludes the annual costs to the three districts run upwards of $142 million. The three districts in the study – Oakland Unified, San Diego Unified and East Side Union – struggle with annual deficits that have led to layoffs, class size increases, and program cuts.

The North Carolina study, written by Duke University economics professor Helen Ladd and University of Rochester professor John Singleton, finds evidence that charter schools come with “fiscal externalities,” or additional costs to the budgets of public schools. In their examination of urban and nonurban districts in the Tar Heel State, the researchers calculate an additional financial cost of about $3,500 per charter school enrollee to the Durham school district and “comparable or larger” costs to two non-urban districts.

Both studies note that additional costs imposed by charters are most apt to result in local schools cutting funding they need to maintain reasonable class sizes, well-rounded curriculums, and support staff including nurses, counselors, librarians, and special education…

As Lafer writes, “In every case [where charter schools have expanded], the revenue that school districts have lost is far greater than the expenses saved by students transferring to charter schools.”

Ladd and Singleton explain why: “If 10 percent of a district’s students shift to a charter school … the district cannot simply reduce its costs by 10 percent because some of its costs are fixed, especially in the short run.”

The NC researchers also point to costs that result from having parallel sectors of charter and public schools, which “implies duplication of functions and services (e.g., central office operations).” Also, the tendency of charter schools to open or close, often without warning, makes district budgeting uncertain and inefficient.

The costs school districts incur due to charter expansions are “unavoidable,” Lafer writes. “Because districts cannot turn students away, they must maintain a large enough school system to accommodate both long-term population growth and sudden influxes of unexpected students—as has happened when charter schools suddenly close down. The district’s responsibility for serving all students creates costs.”

Despite their protests, charter schools do not collaborate with public schools. They act more like parasites. In courts, they play both sides of the public-private issue. They are public when they demand more funding, but when sued, they are suddenly private, not “state actors.”

The attitude of the charter lobby is simple: “me-me-me.” The policy makers should not act as tools of the charter lobby. They should see the whole picture and ask whether it is wise to create a parallel school system, free to write its own rules and to drain resources from the public schools that open their doors to all students.

Despite what may have been the original intention of the charter school movement, these schools, as they are currently conceived and operate, now pose a severe financial risk to public education. Rather than operating as partners to public schools, they more so resemble parasites.

To address this growing calamity, Lafer recommends in his California study that each school district produce an annual Economic Impact report assessing the cost of charter expansion in its community, and local and state public officials take findings of these impact assessments into account when deciding whether to authorize additional charters.

Ladd and Singleton in their North Carolina study recommend states provide transitional aid to smooth or mitigate revenue losses charter school expansions impose on school districts. They point to examples of these policies in New York and Massachusetts, although they admit, “In neither case does the magnitude of the aid offset the full negative fiscal impacts of charters.”

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Linda Darling-Hammond on the Teacher Walkouts

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2018 //
13

 

Linda Darling-Hammond writes here about the historic protests by teachers now sweeping through red states. 

She writes:

“A nation that under-educates its children in the 21st century cannot long survive as a world power. Prisons — which now absorb more of our tax resources than public higher education did in the 1980s — are filled with high school dropouts and those with low levels of literacy. We pay three times more for each prisoner than we invest in each child’s education annually. With an aging population and only three workers for every person on Social Security, the United States especially needs all young people to be well-educated enough to gain good work in the complex and rapidly changing economy they are entering. Without their ability to pay the taxes that support the rest of society, the social contract will dissolve

“Inadequate education funding has created the conditions that make teaching the daily struggle that has finally drawn teachers and families to the picket lines: unmanageable class sizes, inadequate resources and facilities, cuts to essential medical and mental-health school services and more. As child poverty, food insecurity and homelessness have climbed to among the highest levels in the industrialized world (more than one in five live in poverty and in 2014 one in 30 were homeless), schools have been left with fewer resources to address these needs and support student learning.”
Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Arizona: State Must Spend $2 Billion to Rebuild Its Schools

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2018 //
16

 

A new report assessed the needs of Arizona’s schools and concluded that the state must spend an additional $2 Billion to upgrade its schools. 

Arizona ranks 49th in the nation for teachers’ salariesand dead last for per-pupil spending.

“The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI), an independent, nonpartisan think tank, conducted its analysis based on educational goals defined in the Arizona Education Progress Meter. The goals were established by Expect More Arizona and The Center for the Future of Arizona….

“It’s been nearly 30 years since Arizona’s state legislature approved a tax increase. Individual tax rates have tumbled downward, and exemptions have increased. Meanwhile, corporate tax cuts have drastically reduced the revenue collected from businesses.”

Sadly, the Republican leadership is deeply indebted to ALEC and the Koch brothers, whose gospel is low taxes and low spending on public services. Last year, the rightwing bill mill ALEC rated Arizona the top-performing state in the nation, despite its abysmal teachers’ salaries and high poverty. On its annual report card, Arizona received a B-, the highest score awarded by ALEC, mainly because of its many school choice programs.

Categories ALEC, Arizona, Budget Cuts, Funding, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage

Arizona: Ducey Offers a Deal with No Details, No New Taxes, No Negotiation with Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2018 //
22

 

The Blog for Arizona describes the inside story of the Arizona teachers’ strike and Governor Doug Ducey’s feckless efforts to stop the strike without making any concrete concessions to teachers.

“Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to run their Southwest subsidiary formerly known as the State of Arizona, is a practitioner of propaganda over policy. He rolls out a glossy media P.R. campaign and gets his corporate benefactors to pay for advertising praising him for his P.R. campaign. The substance of the actual policy gets lost.

“Ducey did this for his #ClassroomsFirst initiative in which he declared himself to be the “education governor,” he did this to sell his unconstitutional Prop. 123 to settle the education inflation adjustment lawsuit against the state so that the state would not have to pay restitution for funds stolen by our GOP-controlled legislature, and he is doing it yet again with his #20by2020 teacher pay proposal.

“Ducey’s dark money “Kochtopus” allies in the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry started a new group called the “Arizona Education Project” and fielded a $1 million soft-sell TV ad blitz to say  “Arizona schools are making progress.” Arizona “Ground Zero” for Koch Attack on Public Education. As the Arizona Daily Stareditorialized, “no number of feel-good TV spots will change the fact that Arizona comes in last, or almost last, in numerous rankings of per-pupil state spending in the nation.” Education ad campaign doesn’t change the facts.

“The “Kochtopus” Death Star, the Goldwater Institute, is now threatening school districts with lawsuits for closing during the #RedforEd teacher walkouts, no doubt on Gov. Ducey’s behalf. Goldwater Institute sends letter to schools calling Arizona teacher walkout unconstitutional. Per usual, the Goldwater Institute is full of shit and bluster. The actual point of their intimidation campaign is a reminder  that “We own this state, and you will obey!

”With more than 50,000 educators and their supporters marching on the state capitol this week in a sea of red, our self-described “education governor” (sic) refused to meet with education leaders, Ducey to meet with ‘decision makers,’ not teachers to talk about salaries, and instead negotiated a “deal” with his GOP legislative leaders in a one-sided negotiation that did not include the teachers. Governor announces budget deal with teacher pay raise — but gives no details.”

Republican leaders negotiated a deal among themselves, refusing to talk to teachers. The presence of 50,000 teachers wearing #RedForEd did not earn them a seat at the table. One side talking to itself, said “Arizona Republic”columnist E.J. Montini, is not a deal. One little detail: the Republican Plan is to distribute any new funding to districts and let them decide whether to increase teachers’ salaries. Some pay raise that is!

Blog for Arizona writes:

”You have this weekend to contact your state legislators and to let them know that without new tax revenue dedicated to public education for teacher raises and to restore the billions of dollars cut by our GOP-controlled legislature over the past decade, there is no “deal.” And if they vote for this budget gimmick of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” yet again, you will be voting them out of office in November. Enough is enough.”

 

 

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Fraud, Funding, Koch Brothers, Resistance, Teacher Pay

My Explanation: Why Teachers Are Walking Out

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2018 //
65

 

This is a historic moment. Teachers have walked out in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky.

Today they walk out in Arizona and Colorado.

There will be more.

Huffington Post invited me to explain the reasons for this mass rebellion here.

I referred to the work of Bruce Baker and the Education Law Center about school funding, comparing the states. And I referred to the work of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities about the failure of many states to fund schools since the recesssion of 2008.

The bottom line: do we care about our children, our future, our society?

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Teachers

Nancy Bailey: Good Schools Have Libraries and Librarians; Poor Schools Do Not

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2018 //
59

 

Nancy Bailey writes here that one of the sources of reading failure is the disappearance of libraries and librarians. 

Ironically, I just learned that New York State adopted the edTPAassessment for librarians, and it is not liked by those in the field. Excellent would-be librarians, I hear, are not likely to pass it, while it favors those who give scripted responses. Is the goal to create s shortage of librarians? Ask the state commissioner.

Bailey writes:

Poor students attend poor schools where they miss out on the arts, a whole curriculum, even qualified, well prepared teachers. Students might end up in “no excuses” charter schools with only digital learning.

But, next to hunger and healthcare, one of the worst losses for children in poor schools is the loss of a school library with a real librarian.

Stephen Krashen, a well-known reading researcher and advocate for children, provided a study he and his co-authors did as proof why school libraries help children be better readers. He is adamant that children need access to books, and he believes good school libraries are “the cure.” We often hear that getting books into the hands of very young children is important. It’s also critical to ensure that children who are in fourth grade and beyond have access to books!

Many poor schools have closed their school libraries, citing a lack of funding. Oakland, California lost thirty percent of their school libraries. Cities from Los Angeles to New York report library closures.

Chicago has lost school libraries. Some there blame the teachers union who pushed not to replace the librarian at one elementary school with volunteers. But good school libraries require good librarians.

School districts in many places keep school libraries open, but they let go of their certified librarians. This is a loss for children.

In 2013, when I started this blog and website, I listed under “Reading” a link showing a map of all the schools in the country that no longer have certified school librarians. That link began in 2010, and sadly the list has grown!…..

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Librarians, Libraries, Poverty

Yes, Betsy: Spending Does Matter

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2018 //
51

 

Imagine billionaire Betsy DeVos telling the nation that spending doesn’t make a difference in terms of education outcomes. But she did and she is wrong, as Chalkbeat explained.

For starters, correlation is not the same as causation.

But let’s talk common sense, inasmuch as Betsy already said she is not a “numbers person.”

When parents have the means to do so, they move to high-spending suburban districts. It’s not just for the grass and the trees, Betsy. In high-spending districts, their children have beautiful, well-maintained buildings. They have small classes. They have experienced teachers who are paid well. They have up-to-date science laboratories. They have the best technology. They have classes in history, civics, and government. They have programs in the arts. Their schools have a band, a chorus, dance, film, an orchestra, a string quartet, and more. They have a robotics team, a chess club, a debate team. They have a library with a real librarian. They have a school nurse, a social worker, a psychologist, and all kinds of sports activities.

If urban schools were well-funded, they would have all of this. But they don’t.

Betsy, if you truly believe that money doesn’t make a difference, try this thought experiment. What if you gave all your money away? Where would you be today?

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Funding

Linda Lyon: Will Arizona’s Teachers Walk Out?

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2018 //
7

 

Linda Lyon is the new president of the Arizona School Boards Association. She is familiar with the Legislature’s disdain for local control and their contempt for the public schools that 95% of the children in the state attend.

She writes here about the Governor and the Legislature’s empty promises, which have precipitated a likely statewide walkout.

”It is clear that there are many different approaches to achieving a goal that all seem to now agree on – Arizona’s teachers must be more adequately compensated. After all, teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions. That in itself, is no small achievement. But, if we can’t deliver on that goal, it doesn’t matter how much we agree.

“A major stumbling block to “peaceful” resolution is obviously the lack of trust the public education community has in Governor Ducey. As Laurie Roberts, of The Republic, writes, “Ducey didn’t create the crisis in Arizona’s public schools. But in the first three years and three months of his four-year term, he didn’t do anything to fix it. Didn’t recognize that while he and his pals were focused on ways to boost private schools, the public schools – the ones attended by 95% of Arizona’s children – were suffering.” Roberts goes on to say that, #20by2020 (Ducey’s plan) may make for a “trendy hashtag”, but teachers know the funding for Arizona’s public schools is still almost one billion below where it was in 2008 when inflation is considered. And that doesn’t even include the billions in capital funding the state has withheld. The result Roberts says, “is 25-year-old biology books and roofs that leak. The result is rodents running amok and schools unable to afford toilet paper.” The result is a set of poorly paid teachers and support staff who are tired of being ignored and are now shouting “Can you hear us now?”

“This next week is going to be a cliff-hanger for our entire state. One thing is fairly certain. If Governor Ducey and our GOP-led Legislature hasn’t yet adequately “heard” our teachers and other education advocates, incoming shouts from all corners of our state, will no doubt drown out their ability to focus on much else. This issue isn’t going away and our lawmakers better start thinking outside the box they’ve cornered themselves in.”

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Teacher Pay

Arizona: Why Teachers Plan to Walk Out

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2018 //
2

 

Dana Goldstein writes in the New York Times about the looming teachers’ strike (walkout) in Arizona, a right to work state, where most teachers do not belong to the Arizona Education Association. The state has cut $1 Billion out of the K-12 education budget since the 2008 recession, and is currently among the lowest-spending states in the nation on education. The tax-cutting Governor Doug Ducey has promised a 20% raise by 2020, but has offered no new taxes or revenue source to back up his promise. The New York Times is fortunate to have Dana Goldstein working the education beat because she is knowledgeable, having written “The Teacher Wars,” a history of the teaching profession in the U.S.

She writes:

Arizona educators voted late Thursday in favor of a statewide walkout, as teacher protests over low pay and school funding continued to sweep across the United States.

The spread of the protests to Arizona from West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, all Republican-dominated states with weak public sector unions, signaled the depth of frustration from teachers and parents over years of education budget cuts.

The movement first arose in West Virginia, where teachers walked off the job in February, winning a $2,000 raise. In Oklahoma, the threat of a walkout garnered a $6,000 raise for teachers, but they still picketed the Capitol for nine days, calling for additional school funding that mostly did not come. In Kentucky, teachers have rallied outside the State Capitol to protest changes to their pension plans and to demand more money for schools.

“It’s clear that our educators are inspired by what they’ve seen in West Virginia and Oklahoma and Kentucky,” said Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union. “They see educators rising up and lifting their voices for their students, and doing so in a way that can’t be ignored.”

The vote in Arizona followed weeks of protest across the state and promises from the governor to raise salaries. The Arizona Education Association and Arizona Educators United, a group of teachers who organized independently on Facebook, said that 78 percent of the teachers and school workers who cast ballots supported a walkout.

The groups said the walkout would take place on April 26 if legislators and the governor did not meet their demands, not only for a raise for teachers but also one for school support staff. They also called for an end to tax cuts until Arizona’s per-pupil spending reaches the national average.

Unlike West Virginia and Oklahoma, Arizona has never before had a statewide teacher walkout, and has experienced only a handful of districtwide strikes over the past four decades.

The state has cut approximately $1 billion from schools since the 2008 recession, while also cutting taxes. It spent under $7,500 per pupil annually in 2015, the last year for which census data was available; only Utah and Idaho spent less.

As in the other states where teachers have picketed, many districts in Arizona are facing teacher shortages in subjects like math, science and special education, with principals reporting that staff members are moving to deeper-pocketed states to earn up to $20,000 more per year, or to work in better-funded classrooms.

Noah Karvelis, an elementary school music teacher and the founder of Arizona Educators United, said he was sympathetic to the disruption that widespread school closings would cause students and parents. But, he said, that should not forestall a walkout.

“If we maintain the status quo, that is way worse than missing a couple of days of school,” Mr. Karvelis said at a news conference outside the union headquarters in Phoenix. “The biggest disservice any of us could do for our students right now is to not act in this moment.”

Across Arizona, tens of thousands of teachers, parents and students, clad in red, participated in protests outside schools on April 11. Gov. Doug Ducey said he was “impressed” by the movement, which calls itself #RedForEd. He promised to provide teachers with a 20 percent raise by 2020, and to restore school budgets to pre-Recession levels over the next five years. He said he could do so without raising taxes, because the state’s economy is improving and existing state programs could be cut.

But many teachers rejected that plan, or said they distrusted Mr. Ducey, a first-term Republican.

“You don’t rob Peter to feed Paul,” said Kassandra Dominguez, who teaches kindergarten and first grade in the Pendergast school district, near Phoenix. “That’s so wrong, and I wouldn’t want that money.”

Alternate proposals for raising school budgets include increasing an education sales tax from six-tenths of a cent to one cent, or closing corporate tax loopholes.

The average teacher salary in Arizona is about $47,000 per year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But starting salaries are much lower, and many teachers leading the protest movement are in their 20s and 30s.

Ms. Dominguez, 27, earns $38,250 per year, and says that because of low education budgets, she has had to pay out of pocket, or raise money from private donors, to buy her students science supplies, chairs and snacks. She voted in favor of a walkout. Her district had lost a total of $1.6 million over the past five years because of budget cuts, according to administrators, and the school board had come out in favor of the #RedForEd movement.

In San Tan Valley, an exurban area an hour southeast of Phoenix, Mary Stavely, an elementary schoolteacher, said she had also voted in favor of a walkout. Ms. Stavely, 34, earns $36,800. Thirteen of 38 teachers at her school, Circle Cross Ranch K-8, are planning to resign at the end of this academic year, she said, because of factors like low pay and a lack of rental housing in the area.

“It directly affects students” when teacher turnover is high, Ms. Stavely said, because children “lose morale and the connections that were made” with caring adults. Ms. Stavely, a single mother, is currently living with her parents, and said she has considered looking for a higher-paying job. Still, she said she had spent her spring break going door to door to recruit parents to enroll their children at her public school. Arizona has aggressively expanded charter schools and private school vouchers in recent years, leading to enrollment declines — and potential budget cuts — for some traditional schools.

More than 57,000 educators filled out a ballot in the Arizona walkout vote. There are approximately 90,000 certified teachers in the state, but only 20,000 members of the Arizona Education Association, the union. As in the other red states that have had recent teacher protests, union membership is optional for Arizona educators, and labor organizing is new for many of them.

Among those who oppose a walkout is Jim Segar, 64, a colleague of Ms. Stavely’s at Circle Cross Ranch K-8 and a physical education teacher.

Mr. Segar said the proposal from Mr. Ducey was the best teachers could realistically hope for. “You can’t get everything at once after years of neglect,” he said. “I think people would be crazy to walk or strike now.”

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Unions
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