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Indiana: Vouchers Drain Money from Every Public School in the State

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2018 //
26

Phil Downs, superintendent of the Southwest Allen County schools in Indiana, explains here how the cumulative effect of vouchers reduces spending in every public school in the state. 

There are about 1,040,000 students in Indiana. There are 35,500 voucher students in the state, most attending religious schools. Most have never attended a public school in the past, and only 274 were issued to students leaving F-rated public schools. Each voucher is worth about $4,258. Basically, the state is using public dollars to subsidize tuition at religious schools (which the state constitution explicitly prohibits but which the state courts approved).

He writes:

It is conventional wisdom that the voucher program only affects big cities. While voucher usage is higher in big cities, the financial effect is felt in every school district because the voucher dollars come out of Tuition Support, in effect reducing the dollars supporting students in all public schools…

The impact of the voucher program is not based on how many vouchers are used in your district. It is based on each year’s voucher program cost to the Tuition Support budget across the state, regardless of the number of vouchers used within the district. For example, Lebanon Schools lost more than $530,000, Plainfield Schools lost more than $770,000, and Carmel Schools lost more than $2,365,000 this year. Currently, there are 23 school districts where no vouchers are used. They are small districts and the voucher program costs them more than $4 million this year combined. Peru Schools is the largest of these districts and it lost more than $321,000.

Here are this year’s losses in Allen County: East Allen County Schools, $1.38 million; Fort Wayne Community Schools, $4.47 million; Northwest Allen County Schools, $1.13 million; and Southwest Allen County Schools, $1.08 million.

To make this complicated issue much simpler…think of a loganberry pie. Indiana has baked a smaller pie and expects it to feed a larger number of people. More kids, fewer dollars.

Put simply, one million students are suffering loss of school funding so that the 35,000 students previously enrolled in religious schools get a subsidy. The one million pay for the others. The one million lose teachers, get larger classes, and have fewer programs. Is that fair? It is certainly not wise.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Indiana, Vouchers

EdWeek: Congress Rejects Trump-DeVos Education Budget Proposals

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2018 //
11

 

EdWeek reports that Congress’s new budget ignored the funding proposals by the Trump administration’s to slash education spending and shift large sums of money to choice. 

Congratulations to a bipartisan coalition in a congress that stopped Trump and DeVos from performing radical surgery on useful federal programs.

“Lawmakers sent a message to President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in their bill to fund the federal government: We’re not the biggest fans of your big education ideas.

“Congress would increase spending at the U.S. Department of Education by $2.6 billion over previously enacted levels in fiscal year 2018, up to $70.9 billion, under a new omnibus spending bill that could finally resolve a months-long logjam on Capitol Hill.

“In addition, funding for Title I, the biggest pot of federal money for public schools, which is earmarked for disadvantaged students, would increase by $300 million from fiscal 2017 enacted spending, up to $15.8 billion.

“The fiscal 2018 spending bill, released late Wednesday, doesn’t contain several key changes sought by Trump in his first budget plan. In fact, Trump’s budget plan for fiscal 2018 would have cut discretionary education spending by $9.2 billion. So Congress’ bill is a significant rebuke of sorts to the president’s education vision.

“In fact, the spending bill leaves out a $250 million private school choice initiative the president and DeVos sought, as well as a $1 billion program designed to encourage open enrollment in districts.

“Title II, which provides professional development to educators, would be flat-funded at roughly $2.1 billion. The Trump budget pitch for fiscal 2018 eliminated Title II entirely—it was the single biggest cut to K-12 Trump sought for fiscal 2018. And Title IV, a block grant for districts that can fund a diverse set of needs from school safety to ed-tech, would receive $1.1 billion, a big increase from its curent funding level of $400 million. Trump also sought to eliminate Title IV.

“Funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers would rise up by $20 million up to $1.2 billion; that’s another program the Trump budget proposal axed. In addition, special education grants would go up by $299 million to $13.1 billion. And federal aid to charter schools would increase to $400 million, a $58 million boost…

”The top Senate Democrat for education, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, praised the bipartisan agreement to dismiss the “extreme ideas to privatize our nation’s public schools and dismantle the Department of Education” from DeVos.”

Too bad that the federal government will put more money into charters. Democrats still fail to realize the dangers of privatization posed by privately managed charters, which take public money but fight accountability and oversight. Nor do they seem alarmed that public schools are being eliminated in cities like Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Funding, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Michigan: Business Leaders Examine Academic Crisis and Conclude: Do More of the Same

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2018 //
6

 

Michigan has a major problem. Test scores on NAEP and state exams have fallen signicantly over the past decade for every demographic, the state spends $1 Billion on charter schools with no accountability, Detroit is the worst performing city in the nation on NAEP.

The leaders of the state’s business community looked at the crisis and decided that the state needs to stick to its current policies and do more of the same. but with greater intensity.

Clearly, the business elite decided to ignore studies such as this one by Professor David Arsen of Michigan State University, which concluded that state policies promoting competition and choice were causing fiscal stress and instability in traditional districts. Even a small parasite can do terrible damage to a large body.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, Detroit, Education Reform, Funding, Michigan

Mitchell Robinson: Why Schools Are Not Like Uber or Lyft, or, the Hoax of “Choice”

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2018 //
21

 

Betsy DeVos thinks that school choice is just swell. After all, she said, people should be able to choose schools the way they choose modes of transportation, like hailing an Uber or Lyft instead of a licensed taxi.

Mitchell Robinson explains why she is wrong. 

A professor of music education at Michigan State University, Robinson knows that school choice has not improved education in DeVos’s state. It has actually been a bust. Not only has it failed to improve education, it has played havoc with district budgets.

The point of choice is choice, with no discernible benefits other than investors.

 

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Failure, Funding, Michigan, Privatization, School Choice

Roxana Marachi: KIPP Refuses to Abide by Conflict of Interest Law, But Gets Approved Anyway

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
8

Roxana Marachi, professor at San Jose State University, writes here that KIPP refuses to abide by the state’s conflict of interest law (that’s for the little people in public schools) but won approval of new charters by the state board anyway to open two new charters, despite public opposition.

Her post contains a wealth of documents showing the failure of KIPP to enroll the same proportions of ELLs and students with disabilities as nearby public schools, as well as documents about the damage that charters are doing to public schools in California.

This is great news for Betsy DeVos!

But bad news for public schools in California, where the state board rubber-stamps every charter proposal that comes before them, regardless of the views of elected local boards.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, California, Education Industry, Funding, KIPP Charter Schools, Privatization

Oklahoma: Teachers Edge Closer to Statewide Strike, With an Eye to West Virginia

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2018 //
2

 

Teachers in Oklahoma have been inspired by the teachers of West Virginia, and they are mulling their own statewide walkout. 

The budget for public schools is so bad that dozens of schools are open only four days a week

“Across Oklahoma, teachers, labor organizers, parents and school boards are taking steps to follow West Virginia in launching their first major strike since 1990 to demand higher pay from the state Legislature.
On Thursday, the Oklahoma Education Assn. teachers union plans to unveil a shutdown strategy and a proposed funding measure to pressure lawmakers to boost spending for education in the state. The union said 80% of more than 10,000 respondents to an online survey backed closing schools in support of a walkout.

“Association President Alicia Priest said the union was “working toward” bringing all districts on board with a possible walkout, as in West Virginia, though she said “not everyone is on board yet, and that’s OK.”

“The goal is not a walkout,” Priest said. “The goal is for us to have funding for public education to best meet the needs of our students.”

“Next week, teachers in Tulsa, one of the state’s biggest school districts, plan to engage in a work-to-rule protest — a labor slowdown in which workers do only the minimum amount of work required. They have the backing of top administrators, who said they plan to support a teacher walkout and school shutdowns “should they become necessary.”

Oklahoma is a right to work state.

“Talk of a possible walkout had been brewing for months, even before the West Virginia strike, as lawmakers struggled to pass funding measures that might raise teacher pay.

“The average salary of Oklahoma teachers in 2016 was $42,760, which falls several thousand dollars below the average salaries in neighboring states such as Texas ($51,890), Arkansas ($48,218) and Kansas ($47,755), according to the most recently available data from the National Education Assn. The highest-paid teachers in the NEA rankings are in New York, earning an average of $79,152. California teachers, at No. 2, earn an average of $77,179.

“The salary disparities have led Oklahoma educators to flee to higher-paying jobs in neighboring states. Oklahoma’s 2016 teacher of the year, Shawn Sheehan, moved to Texas, where he and his wife — also a teacher — expect to make a combined $40,000 more a year than they made in Oklahoma…

“In Bartlesville, population 36,647, administrators discussed the possibility of needing to plan for a walkout during a school meeting in September, and talks revived after the Legislature failed to pass a funding measure in February.

“Supt. Chuck McCauley emailed a survey to other superintendents around the state asking them whether their communities might support a walkout, and he found that there was interest.

“If somebody has a better idea, we’re all for it,” McCauley said. “The reason ‘right now’ is so drastic — we are hiring people that we would not have interviewed a few short years ago, and it’s impacting the level of instruction for our kids.”

“On Wednesday, McCauley plans to meet with other superintendents around the state to get a sense of the breadth of support for possible school closures to support a walkout.

“Every district, their boards may or may not choose to participate,” McCauley said. But in Bartlesville, “our board, our community, our teachers, our parents — they’re definitely urging us to consider this option.”

 

Categories Accountability, Funding, Teachers and Teaching

Arizona: No Cap on Corporate Tax Subsidy for Nonpublic Schools

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2018 //
12

 

Corporations in Arizona may soon pay no state taxes at all because the Senate cannot agree on a cap. 

Instead of paying taxes, the corporations can subsidize private and religious schools. This means the state will have less money for its underfundedpublic schools, which enroll nearly 90% of the state’s children.

“On a party-line vote, the Arizona Senate gave preliminary approval Wednesday to changes in laws that give corporations a dollar-for-dollar credit against their state taxes for money they give to “scholarship tuition organizations.” These STOs, in turn, provide funds parents can use to pay the tuition and fees for their children at private schools.

“But Senate Bill 1467 was missing the promise made earlier by Senate President Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, to eliminate a provision in the law that, if not capped, could eventually mean corporations would pay nothing into the state treasury.“Under the original STO law, the diversion of corporate taxes was limited to $10 million.

“But proponents, led by Yarbrough, put in an automatic escalator, allowing that cap to rise by 20 percent a year. This past year the diversions totaled $74 million.

“The law will allow corporations to divert more than “$89 million this year, $107 million next year and $128 million the year after that.

“There is no limit. And at that rate, corporations could owe the state nothing by 2027.”

Until last year, the president of the State Senate, Republican Steve Yarbrough ran one of the organizations funneling tax dollars to nonpublic schools. Yarbrough was both president of the State Senate and leader of the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization. Tuition organizations get to keep 10% of the tax money to pay for administrative services. His organization collected millions each year, and he was making about $150,000 a year to run the fund while writing laws to expand its funding. A sweet deal. For him. Not for public schools. 

The Arizona Republic described the program in 2015:

”It was pitched as a small tax-credit program to help poor and disabled students attend private school.

“Eighteen years later, $140 million is now being diverted from the state treasury, most of it to pay private-school tuition for non-poor, non-disabled students.

“It was pitched as a program that would expand school choice. But fewer students are attending private school now than when the tax-credit program began, yet more and more money is being siphoned from the state to pay the private school tuition tab.

“This, Senate Majority Leader. Steve Yarbrough calls a triumph.”

Yarbrough stepped down from his private sector job in December 2017.

The Arizona formula: More money for private and religious schools, less money for public schools.

 

Categories Arizona, Funding, School Choice

Ohio: Bill Phillis Blasts Education Trust for Praising Ohio’s Low Funding Levels as “Equitable”

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2018 //
7

 

Bill Phillis, founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy became outraged when he read that Education Trust praised Ohio for spending more in the neediest districts, because Phillis says the state is not spending enough on education. Equitable is not enough. Spending must also be adequate. Phillis is retired. He was Deputy Superintendent of the State Department of Education and probably knows more about the education budget than anyone else in the state.

He writes:

”Education Trust* report: Ohio provides more funds per student in districts with high concentrations of minorities and poverty-but what is the rest of the story?

A February 27 Columbus Dispatch article is headlined–Despite doubts Ohio gets high funding marks.

Education Trust gave Ohio high marks because, in contrast to many other states, high poverty districts receive more revenue per pupil than even the suburban districts. That should be no surprise. High poverty districts typically have greater concentrations of children with disabilities and other special needs such as English Language Learners.

This report provides no education policy implications for Ohio. It adds nothing to the school funding discussion. Ohio operates an unconstitutional system of public K-12 education. The school funding formula is plagued with caps and guarantees and other complicated nuances due to an unconstitutionally low level of state funding.

The funding formula is further bedeviled by charter school policy that drains funds from school districts.

With its robust largess, Education Trust may wish to become proactive and conduct a cost study to determine the level of funding that would satisfy Ohio’s constitutional provision to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools.

*Education Trust was involved in writing No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The Gates Foundation has given it over $30 million. High stakes testing is part of its DNA.
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Categories Funding

The Topic That Reformers Forget: School Funding Is Not Fair

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2018 //
16

 

The latest report of the Education Law Center demonstrates the unfairness of funding in many states. When funding is unfair, equal educational opportunity is sacrificed. Somehow, this crucial topic never makes it onto the agenda of corporate education reformers. They want to cut costs, not assure that funding is both adequate and equitable.

“The nation’s continuing failure to sufficiently invest in public schools stands in stark contrast to a growing body of research demonstrating that increased funding leads to better outcomes for students. Studies show that school finance reforms that increase spending in low-income districts result in improved student achievement in those districts and a narrowing of achievement gaps. In fact, these benefits have been shown to last into adulthood in the form of greater educational attainment, higher earnings, and lower rates of adult poverty.

“The National Report Card (NRC) uses data from the 2015 Census fiscal survey, the most recent available. The NRC goes beyond raw per-pupil spending calculations by analyzing factors crucial to educational opportunity: whether states provide a sufficient level of school funding and then distribute that funding to address greater student need, as measured by student poverty.

“The latest NRC results confirm a disturbing trend: almost no improvement since the end of the Great Recession in those states that do not provide additional funding to districts with high student poverty. There is also no change in the vast disparities in levels of funding for K-12 education across the states, even after adjusting for cost. The states with the highest funding levels (New York and Alaska) spend more than two and a half times what states with the lowest funding levels spend (Arizona and Idaho).

“Key findings include:

*Funding levels show large disparities, ranging from a high of $18,719 per pupil in New York, to a low of $6,277 in Idaho.

*The ten states with the lowest funding levels – less than $8,000 per pupil — include Florida, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Three of those states, Arizona, Idaho, and North Carolina, provide less than $7,000 per pupil.

*Many low funding states invest a low percentage of their economic output to support public education. These “low effort” states include California, Utah, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

*Seventeen states, including Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, and Illinois, have “regressive” school funding. These states provide less funding to their higher poverty school districts, even though students in these districts require more resources to achieve.

*Students in the South and Southwest face a “double disadvantage” because their states provide low funding with no boost in funding for high poverty districts. States with flat or regressive funding include Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida in the Southeast, and, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico in the Southwest.

*Only a few states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Wyoming, provide high levels of school funding and distribute more funding to their high poverty districts. Notably, New Jersey and Massachusetts are the top performing states on student outcomes.

*States with low or flat school funding have poor results on resource indicators crucial for students to succeed in school. In these states, access to early childhood education is limited; wages for teachers are not competitive with those of comparable professions; and teacher-to-pupil ratios in schools are unreasonably low.

“The NRC released today is a sobering reminder of why unfair school funding is the most significant obstacle to improving outcomes for our nation’s public school students,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director and report co-author. “The stark reality is most states still fund their public schools based on pure politics, not on the cost of delivering quality education to all students.”

“School finance reform is long overdue,” said Bruce Baker, the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education Professor who developed the report’s methodology. “It’s long past time for states to develop, and then fund, finance formulas built on the costs of providing essential education resources, accounting for diverse student needs and local fiscal capacity.”

Categories Equity, Funding

“Yes, Charter Schools Do Take Money Away From Public Schools”

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2018 //
17

 

It is hard to understand why anyone thinks that charter schools have. O fiscal impact on public schools. There is only one pot of money for education, and not many (or any) states are expanding that pot. The Trump administration wants to cut the federal education budget and divert more money to charters and vouchers.

This is a post about a new study by Duke University economist Helen Ladd and John Singleton that nails down the fiscal Harm that charter schools do to public schools.

Here is the summary.

Here is the study.

Here is the abstract:

”A significant criticism of the charter school movement is that funding for charter schools diverts money away from traditional public schools. As shown in prior work by Bifulco and Reback (2014) for two urban districts in New York, the magnitude of such adverse fiscal externalities depends in part on the nature of state and local funding policies. In this paper, we build on their approach to examine the fiscal effects of charter schools on both urban and non-urban school districts in North Carolina. We base our analysis on detailed balance sheet information for a sample of school districts that experienced significant charter entry since the statewide cap on charters was raised in 2011. This detailed budgetary information permits us to estimate a range of fiscal impacts using a variety of different assumptions. We find a large and negative fiscal impact from $500-$700 per pupil in our one urban school district and somewhat smaller, but still significant, fiscal externalities on the non-urban districts in our sample.”

Public schools that are underfunded must cut their budgets so that a small minority of students can attend charter schools. It makes no sense.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Disruption, Funding
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