Forrest Claypool, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, resigned following an ethics investigation critical of him. Rahm Emanuel applauded his performance, which was marked by cost-cutting. He will be succeeded by Janice Jackson, chief academic officer and a graduate of CPS.
Archives for category: Budget Cuts
The tax bills passed by Republicans in the House and Senate have some differences, but they jointly express disdain for students, public schools, higher education, and the importance of learning and opportunity.
Jeff Bryant explores the education details of the two bills, which will be reconciled in a conference committee.
The Senate plan “would double to $500 the $250 deduction teachers get for purchasing school supplies with their own money, rather than eliminate the deduction as the House version does. And while the House would eliminate deductions for student loan interest, college tuition and expenses, and tax breaks used by university employees and graduate students, the Senate proposal would preserve them.
“But many other features of the Senate plan would deeply harm students and schools.
“Both the Senate and House bills propose an excise tax on private college endowments with assets of more than $100,000 per student. Endowment funds are used to help pay for academic programs, campus facilities, and student services, private college leaders and advocates say.”
Endowment funds are also used to pay for scholarships. Taxing these funds will reduce the funding available for students who can’t pay tuition in expensive private colleges.
“The biggest threats to local schools in both plans are their proposals to end federal deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) that households take when they itemize. The House plan limits the pain with a $10,000 ceiling, but the Senate plan does away with the deduction altogether.
“Any reduction to the SALT federal subsidy will imperil the largest sources of school funding to education by eliminating the federal tax benefit to schools, discouraging new state and local tax initiatives to support schools, and pressuring state and local officials to cut local taxes to appease tax payers who can no longer deduct those taxes from their federal returns.
“Another feature of the House bill that the Senate also proposes would increase how much schools pay for long-term debt by eliminating a tax exemption school districts get when they refinance their debts at lower interest rates using certain types of bonds.
“According to Education Week, in the most recent year reported, districts carried $409 billion in long-term debt – a rate of $8,465 per student – and paid $17 billion in interest on those loans. Taking away any ability to write off some of that interest as a tax exemption would decrease money districts have to pay for teachers and student learning opportunities.
Bryant writes that education funding for K-12 remains below 2008 levels in 29 states.
“The cuts to K-12 spending have “serious consequences,” CBPP authors contend, including crippling efforts to hire and retain the best teachers, reduce class sizes, expand learning time, and provide high-quality early childhood education.
“Of the 10 states that have cut state and local education spending the most – Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Georgia, Idaho, Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Utah (in descending order from 25 percent to 8.6 percent) – all have had a Republican “trifecta” in charge, including a Republican governor and Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.”
He writes that:
“The Republican war on learning will have long term negative consequences to the nation.
“While the House tax plan’s cut to SALT deductions would “put nearly 250,000 education jobs at risk,” according to analysts at the National Education Association, the Senate plan to end the deduction would plunge the dagger deeper, potentially leading to a loss of $370 billion in state and local tax revenue over 10 years, the NEA calculates, and endangering 370,000 education jobs.
“Changes to higher-education tax benefits in the House tax plan “would cost students and families more than $71 billion over the next decade,” The Washington Post reports.
“Our country’s future depends heavily on the quality of its schools,” the authors of the CBPP study argue. The decade-long effort to cut K-12 school funding they chart “risk(s) undermining schools’ capacity to develop the intelligence and creativity of the next generation of workers and entrepreneurs.”
“Perhaps, the whole strategy behind GOP tax plans and budget cuts boils down to a short-term need to cut education in order to offset the large cuts Republicans are providing to wealthy families and corporations.
“But next year’s mid-term elections – in which a third of the Senate, 36 governors, and three quarters of states’ legislators are up for re-election – will give the rest of us a chance to speak up.”
The New York Civil Liberties Union recently filed a suit against East Ramapo, New York. The town school board has been almost completely captured by members of the Orthodox Jewish Community, whose children attend private religious schools. The school board uses its power to strip the budget for the students who attend public schools, who are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.
Teacher Bianca Tanis, a member of the board of directors of New York State Allies for Public Education, here describes this shameful situation and calls on the Nee York State United Teachers to take action to protect the children of the East Ramapo District.
She writes:
“96% of public school students in the East Ramapo Central School District are Black and Latino while 98% of the students attending private schools are white with most attending private religious schools. Only one of the nine Board of Education seats is held by a public school parent. Needless to say, the Board of Education has NOT acted in the best interest of East Ramapo’s 8,500 public school students.
“The New York Civil Liberties union found that between 2009 and 2014 the East Ramapo Board of Education slashed funding to public schools and eliminated 200 teaching positions in addition to cutting numerous social workers and other key personnel.
“According the the NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman, “The East Ramapo school district has effectively disenfranchised the Black and Latino community and allowed white residents to hijack the school board in service of the lily-white private schools. The East Ramapo school board has brazenly diverted taxpayer funds to bankroll white private schools and destabilize public schools. Their policies have compromised the education and well-being of thousands of Black and Latino children. The disenfranchisement and degradation must end.”
“What is happening in East Ramapo is tragic. I have seen it with my own eyes…
“The NYCLU lawsuit demands that the board stop holding elections until a “ward” system is adopted. This would introduce voting on the basis of geographic districts; there would be nine individual districts, with one member elected to the board from each district.”
This situation did not develop overnight. The Regents and the legislature have allowed it to fester, while the children of East Ramapo are cheated.
Betsy DeVos is not shy about revealing her priorities. She must cut positions to downsize the Department, making way for tax cuts for the 1%.
Look where the buyouts are concentrated:
CIVIL RIGHTS OFFICE COULD TAKE BIGGEST HIT IN ED BUYOUTS: The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights could lose 45 employees because of early separation offers – a big hit to an office that many argue is understaffed to handle the number of complaints it receives each year. In fiscal 2017, the office was funded to employ 569 staff members, according to the department’s budget request from earlier this year.
– It would be the most of any division within the agency, according to a document obtained by POLITICO from a congressional office. Of the 255 voluntary offers made Nov. 1 to employees to separate or retire early, 45 people work in the civil rights office, the document says. The Trump administration’s budget proposal had called for cutting 46 positions from the office, which the administration said it would do through attrition.
– The office receives 10,000 complaints of discrimination annually, but has half of the staff it had in 1980, when it received fewer than 3,500 complaints, according to Education Department figures. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the HELP Committee, said in a statement Thursday she was “appalled” that Secretary Betsy DeVos “would use a lack of staffing and resources as an excuse to roll back civil rights investigations and protections, and then turn around and attempt to shrink these critical offices … I will continue to work to give the Department the resources it needs to better aid students and families, and I strongly urge Secretary DeVos to stop putting her ideological agenda above students and work with us.”
– An Education Department spokeswoman noted in a statement that the offers are voluntary and approved by the federal Office of Personnel Management. “Keep in mind, these positions can be backfilled as the workload demands,” said the spokeswoman, Liz Hill.
I forgot to include the link on this post, so I am reposting.
This was one of the best keynote speeches from the fourth annual conference of the Network for Public Education in Oakland. They were moving, inspiring, powerful.
Please watch Dr. Charles Foster Johnson of Pastors for Texas Kids explain how he got involved in the fight for public education and why men and women of faith communities must support public schools and protect separation of church and state.
Charlie Johnson is a wonderful speaker. He is working with his peers in other states, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, and Indiana. When he finished talking, he was swarmed by people from the South and Midwest, seeking his help and advice.
You will enjoy and learn from his presentation.
The Oakland, CA, public schools are facing a new round of budget cuts. The district has been under the control of Broad-trained superintendents for years. The last one, Antwan Wilson, decamped to lead the Washington, DC, schools after a large increase in Oakland’s administrative staff.
When Kaya Henderson stepped down as chancellor of the District of Columbia school system, she was replaced by Antwan Wilson, superintendent of schools in Oakland, California.
Wilson came to Oakland in 2014 from Denver, where he was an assistant superintendent. He also graduated the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy in 2014.
He was superintendent for two-and-a-half years in Oakland when he received the invitation to take charge of D.C.
Reporter Ken Epstein of the Oakland Post reported on problems that Wilson left behind. Long before Wilson arrived, Oakland spent years in state receivership and was bailed out by the State with a loan of $100 Million. The state watches Oakland closely.
Now the District has discovered that Superintendent Wilson spent heavily on new administrative positions.
Epstein writes:
“The financial report, based on a close examination of the district’s income and expenditures, was presented by Interim Chief Financial Officer Gloria Gamblin and her staff at the school board meeting last week and at the board’s Budget and Finance Committee meeting this week.
“One significant misstep last year was the failure of what is called “position control.”
“Supt. Antwan Wilson’s administration created 75 positions, mostly in the central office, that were not accounted for in the budget and for which funds had not been allocated, said Katema Ballentine, OUSD’s financial officer of budget development
.
“That’s huge. I’ve never seen a budget number that large,” she said…
“Ballentine told board members that budget staff realized during the last months of Supt. Wilson’s administration that the district was facing a $30 million shortfall, but she and Senior Business Officer Vernon Hal were not allowed to tell the board.”
In a follow-up article, Epstein reported that Wilson overspent the budget for administrators by 100%.
“As the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) struggles to maintain financial solvency – cutting expenses and realigning spending priorities – reports are coming to light indicating that expenditures for administrators and consultants grew dramatically during the three years of Supt. Antwan Wilson’s administration and regularly exceeded the adopted budget by as much as 100 percent.
“As leader of OUSD, these are not the kind of numbers I want to see,” said Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell.
“Our schools need the best leadership we can find, but we must find and keep those leaders while working within our means,” she said. “It is our duty to ensure that we are operating in as efficient and cost-effective way as possible. I am committed to putting us on the right path to fiscal stability.”
“According to one of the numerous financial reports presented Monday night to the school board’s Budget and Finance Committee, total spending for classified (non-teaching) supervisors and administrators grew by 69 percent during Supt. Wilson’s administration, July 2014 – January 2017.
“Classified spending was at $13.1 million in the final year of previous Supt. Tony Smith’s administration (2013-2014), and rose to $22.3 million in 2016-2017.
“At the same time, the district overspent its allocated budget for classified supervisors by over 100 percent in the past two school years.
“Spending for administrators and supervisors with teaching certificates grew 44 percent – from $13.9 million in 2013-2014 to $20 million last school year. Spending in that category exceeded the approved budget by $4 million in 2015-2016 and $1 million last year.
“In the category of professional and consulting services, spending grew 25 percent from $22.7 million in 2013-2014 to $28.3 million in 2016-2017.
“Last year, expenditures for consultants exceeded the budget by 32 percent.“
When interviewed by the Washington Post, Wilson said he had left Oakland with a balanced budget.
Not really.
In Texas, the Lt. Governor is considered the state’s most powerful elected official. That man is Dan Patrick, a flamboyant former talk show host who hates public schools. Patrick recently spoke in Houston.
Please read this brilliant reaction by Cort McMurray, a Houston area businessman.
A snippet of a great piece:
“Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was in town this week, talking schools, school finance, and property tax reform. These are favorite topics for Patrick, who, before becoming arguably the most powerful man in state government, was a Houston media personality, best known for undergoing an on-air vasectomy during a live radio talk show. In his 2015 inaugural address, tucked between the Stetsoned hubris and the cowboy booted jingoism and the liberal quotation of Scripture, Patrick bemoaned the failure of “our inner city schools” and invoked Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech to articulate a dream of his own, a “dream of the day every child gets a quality education so they can break the binds of poverty and live the Texas and American dream.”
“It was a “conversation” in which a middle-aged white man was having a “conversation” in a room filled with middle-aged white men and women, talking about “people in the inner city.” Mr. Patrick likes to talk about the “inner city.” It’s a phrase he uses often. He talks about “inner city” schools, which are invariably “failing,” and inner city residents, who are “losing their homes” because they can’t afford to pay the gosh-darn property taxes: It’s not the lousy economy or the drugs and gangs or the relentless tectonic grind of decades of tone deaf public policy that’s ruining the places where the poor folk live. It’s property taxes.
“Patrick speaks about “the inner city” with the smooth confidence of a man who’s never experienced the challenge but knows the precise solution. He’s the loudmouthed guy at the end of the bar, explaining how to hit a Clayton Kershaw slider. He’s the clueless uncle, giving an expectant niece his sure-fire, drug-free tips for managing pain during childbirth. He’s the eternal talk show host, all honeyed words and callus-free hands.
“What Patrick wants has little to do with bringing hope or light to the shadowy spots in our benighted inner cities. What Patrick wants is the evisceration of the Texas public school system, replaced with a quasi-public collection of “charter schools.”
“Property taxes are the primary means of financing public education in the state. Earlier this year, Education Week, a highly respected newspaper, published Quality Counts, its 20th annual analysis of performance in U.S. schools. Texas ranked 42nd out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in student performance, 42nd in “student chances for [post-high school] success,” and 45th in quality of school funding.
“Patrick’s solution to a stretched, struggling, woefully underfunded system? Cut the funding. Starve the schools. Starve them to death.“
The writer doesn’t mention Patrick’s passion for vouchers, which he has promoted for years. The rural districts have allied with urban districts to block them.
You can quote research or you can look at Michigan, where charter schools have proliferated for many years. On national tests, Michigan used to be in the middle of the pack. Now it has fallen to the bottom. Or D.C., one of the lowest performing districts in the nation, which has had charters and vouchers since 2004.
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and its Action Fund, writes:
I rarely agree with Fordham’s Mike Petrilli, but this week he nailed the Republican tax reform plan with these two tweets:
Every friend of public education must spring to action this week to oppose the House tax reform bill. That bill is a clever attempt to create a backdoor voucher, and at the same time undermine funding for public schools.
You cannot let this one pass. Act now. Send our NPE Action email to your House member. But that is not enough. Post the link on your Facebook page, send it by email,
pick up the phone and call your representative.
This bill is part of the master plan to destroy public education.
Use this link to send your email, and then share it.
Here are two views of Mick Zais, the new Deputy Secretary of Education selected by Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump.
First, from Politico:
“TRUMP TAPS NEW NO. 2 FOR THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT: The president on Tuesday night announced he’s nominating Mick Zais to be deputy secretary at the Education Department. Zais checks off a lot of conservative boxes – as superintendent of schools in South Carolina, he refused to participate in the Obama administration’s signature Race to the Top program, which encouraged states to adopt more rigorous academic standards like the Common Core in exchange for federal grants. Zais saw the standards, which were never mandated by the Obama administration, as federal overreach. He pulled South Carolina out of the Smarter Balanced tests, which are aligned to the Common Core. And he has supported the expansion of school choice programs in the state. Prior to serving as South Carolina’s superintendent, Zais was president of Newberry College for 10 years.”
The Council of Chief State School Officers expressed their approval.
But the grassroots group EdFirstSC were not so complimentary about their state school superintendent. They don’t think much of him.
“How about:
“Since taking office, Zais sent $144 million of our tax dollars to 49 other states, causing thousands of SC teachers to be fired and directly causing class sizes to skyrocket as we made the biggest cuts to education in the US…24.1%. SC test scores on NAEP plummeted over this period of draconian cuts that Zais would now make permanent.
“Since budgets have recovered, Zais has not requested that this funding be restored, even when the state had a billion-dollar surplus. To continue running SC schools on the cheap, he tried desperately to gut regulations limiting class-sizes.
“Zais has poisoned relationships with teachers, attempting to give them letter-grades based on test scores of students they’ve never even met. At a recent State Board meeting, he suggested making teachers at-will employees, to be fired without notice and without showing any cause or due process.
“Zais also took 29 personal days during his first ten months in office. He used those days to go golfing, attend stamp conventions, attend football games, and clean his shed.
“Zais allowed Jay Ragley to lie to the media, claiming that records related to those personal days would cost $500,000 in man-hours to process and provide under a Freedom of Information Act request. It ended up taking a staffer about two hours.
“His department has also conspired to censor and suppress public comment at a series of public meetings on teacher evaluation. At one meeting, staff members were caught taking audience questions into the hallway and stuffing them into a briefcase.
“At another, two senior staff members stood onstage giggling as they sorted questions into those that would and would not be answered. In a two-hour meeting, less than ten minutes were allotted for questions, and none were asked that raised concerns about their plan. That plan was ultimately rejected by the State Board because of serious concerns about its fairness.
“Even those who agree with his goals and radical Libertarian ideology would have to concede that Zais has been singularly ineffective in accomplishing anything of note.
“He runs the same play over and over: develop a plan with no input from stakeholders, keep the public in the dark, fail disastrously when it all comes to light…and then withdraw the plan to duck a vote.”
Usually, a new Secretary of Education selects a Deputy with extraordinary talents or a successful record.
DeVos seems to have chosen someone with more experience than she is (any educator fits that bill) but who is totally ineffectual and leads a low-performing state.
One thing she can count on: he shares her radical libertarian ideology.
