Jennifer Berkshire and historian Jack Schneider discuss a new phenomenon: schools that advertise for students. They identify one charter that spends $1,000 per student to recruit new ones. This is the new world of school choice and the free market, where schools compete for customers and your tax dollars are spent for advertising and marketing, not for teacher pay or supplies.
Archives for category: Funding
The public schools of Albuquerque, New Mexico, plan to save money by eliminating middle school sports teams.
Be it noted that Republican Governor Susanna Martinez has refused to raise taxes and has threatened to defund state universities.
The one potential cut that gets parents’ attention is sports teams.
New Mexico doesn’t want to pay for educating its children.
“Parents reacted with dismay to 3,400 students in Albuquerque Public Schools losing a traditional training ground for high school athletics. Basketball, volleyball and track and field teams in the district’s 28 middle schools are set to be disbanded next school year, leaving families to find private leagues for children in grades 6, 7 and 8.
“Some worry that low-income families in particular may be hard-pressed to find teams and facilities outside public school, while others say the opportunity to play sports is critical for students at such a formative age.
“Vanessa Petty, president of the parents association at Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School in Albuquerque, said her daughter was looking forward to playing volleyball next year.
“Their first introduction to sports for a majority of children is middle school,” Petty said. “It’s huge not just for their personal health but more for social aspects. They learn teamwork, they learn respect for others.”
“Under the athletic cuts, teachers would lose coaching stipends and short-term coaching contracts would go away. The changes will save $580,000 and help avoid classroom cuts, district spokeswoman Monica Armenta said.”
That is a small fraction of the $26 million in reductions that the district says may be needed as New Mexico wrestles with a downturn in tax income linked to oil prices, a sluggish economy and the highest U.S. unemployment rate. Public schools in New Mexico rely on the state for nearly all their operating budgets.
Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and the Democratic-led Legislature are in a standoff over how to fill a $156 million budget shortfall and protect the state’s credit rating. Martinez vetoed tax increases that she called reckless and plans to call lawmakers back to the Capitol to renegotiate.
Lawmakers are preparing to sue the governor to block vetoes that would defund all state universities, the Legislature and other core government services.
Michael Messer is a parent activist in Texas. He wrote this comment in response to Sara Stevenson’s post about the true cost of testing in Texas.
I am glad to see people writing about my bill. I am the original author of HB 1336 (aka, “Transparency in Testing”), and the person who Mrs. Stevenson saw speak at the Save Texas Schools rally. Representative Leach is the legislative sponsor. I am not a CPA, but I have been an accountant for the last seven years. During that time I have served as the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Organizer for Save Texas Schools.
It was through my public education advocacy work that I found out that nobody has any idea how much we are really spending on standardized testing. The commonly reported number is $90 million per year, but that accounts for little more than the state’s contract with ETS & Pearson to print the test, score the test, and send out a few roaming consultants. It fails to include the bulk of direct costs associated with testing (most notably the salaries of certified educators who are forced to proctor the tests) which are paid for by the districts.
Recent estimates have indicated a price tag closer to $13 BILLION per year. That is over 1/5th our entire public education budget every year, or in terms Texans can appreciate, up to 10 times what we spend on our athletic programs or even administrative salaries.
I wrote HB 1336 in December to address what I believe is a material lack of transparency in the yearly financial reports submitted by our school districts to the Texas Education Agency. It was written in consultation with education experts from both sides of the political spectrum, and it has gained public support from county parties, elected officials, and candidates from across the state. Representative Jeff Leach, a noted conservative Republican, sponsored the bill, and it was co-authored by Representative Lina Ortega, a Democrat out of El Paso.
In short, HB 1336 adds just a couple of lines to the Texas Education Code which would require the districts to include a total of testing-related expenses on the financial reports they already submit to the TEA every year. In my opinion, we cannot expect to engage in any substantive conversation regarding the finance of our public schools without a full picture of how the funds are being spent.
Here is a link to the text of the bill:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/pdf/HB01336I.pdf#navpanes=0
The draconian $5.4 billion cut imposed by the Texas Legislature in 2011 was devastating to our schools, and that was over a two year period. Every other year, the public has to fight over the scraps we are given for gifted, AP, disability, athletic, music, art, career & tech, and numerous other programs. Giving the public a view of exactly how much we are spending on standardized testing is the first step toward freeing up the $13 billion (and 45+ class days) per year we spend on the tests.
HB 1336 doesn’t eliminate standardized testing, but it sure as heck would change the dialogue about public education in Texas. For instance, I had one man ask me, “How much are you wasting on educating illegal immigrants?” Here is my response:
“While I’m not partial to calling anyone ‘illegal,’ nor do I consider education for anyone to be a ‘waste,’ I think I might actually be able to formulate a decent answer your question. First, let’s assume that you are asking about the total of all education-related expenditures on children of unauthorized immigrants who are also unauthorized themselves. Anyone born in the United States is a citizen of the United States.
According to a January 2016 report from the Migration Policy Institute, 834,000 children of unauthorized immigrants lived in Texas in 2013. Of those, 667,000 were U.S. citizens. That means that 167,000 were children who were at the time considered unauthorized immigrants.
Of the 834,000 children of unauthorized immigrants, 566,000 were of an age where they might have attended public school. Assuming the same ratio of roughly 80% U.S. citizens, the total number of unauthorized immigrant students in Texas in 2013 would have been approximately 113,200.
According to PEIMS statewide financial data which is publicly accessible on the Texas Education Agency’s website, we spent an average of $9,902.64 per student in 2013.
$9,902.64 x 113,200 = $1.1 billion
The acting assumption of most questions like yours tends to be that the parents of these children pay none of the associated taxes. While I could easily debate that with you, let’s assume that were true, and the entire $1.1 billion in funding associated with educating those children came out of the taxes paid by the rest of the children’s parents. That would mean that of the $9,902.64 schools get per student, $226.70 would be attributable to educating unauthorized immigrants.
If we were to presume instead that parents of unauthorized immigrant students pay sales and property taxes, then the only portion of the public education budget that this issue would apply to is federal funding. Of the $50 billion in total funding Texas public schools received in 2013, $5.6 billion came from the federal government. That’s approximately $1,101.27 per student.
$1,101.27 x 113,200 = $125 million (note the “m”)
Dividing that over the remaining student population would mean that $25.21 out of $9,902.64 would be attributable to educating unauthorized immigrants. So now we have a range we can agree is somewhere between $25.21 – $226.70.
By comparison, recent estimates indicate that we spend up to $13.4 billion per year on standardized testing. That’s around $2,700 per student. In light of all of this, wouldn’t it be more prudent to focus on how much we spend on standardized testing instead of blaming immigrant students for the scarce education resources our schools receive to teach our kids?”
It’s amazing how easy it is to put into perspective the scapegoats that have traditionally been used to justify minimal resources for public education when you’ve taken the time to research the numbers. Think about how conversations will change when the public has access to a full account of all expenses related to standardized testing. That is what HB 1336 (aka, “Transparency in Testing”) was written to accomplish. When we know better, we make better decisions.
If you would like to see a dramatic shift in the public discourse regarding public education in Texas, please visit my page, http://www.facebook.com/TransparencyinTesting, share the information, and ask your legislators to support HB 1336. Thank you!
Dear Senator Graham,
I hope someone on your staff sees this. If not, I hope that readers in South Carolina send it to you. This is an important message from one of your constituents.
She writes:
I had an opportunity to listen to Senator Lindsey Graham talk about how he lifted himself up and became the Senator from SC he is today. He said both his parents died before he began college.
But he failed to say his social security benefits (based on the death of his parents), at that time, continued through age 21 and that full-time tuition at a flagship state college in SC was roughly $287.00 per semester and $596.00 per semester, if you lived in a dorm (no food plan). This included University provide healthcare.
Back then it was easy to self-fund college on social security benefits and summer and part-time jobs. I know I did it, too. I earned $20.00- 30.00 per day waiting tables during the breakfast shift at Howard Johnson. My University even held my check for several weeks at that time. (My father was killed in Vietnam so I also had $330.00 per month VA but they paid really late during the semester). My husband also self-funded working a work study job and obtaining student loans. He left college as a chemical engineer with a $55.00 per month student loan.
He could not have done it today. Nor could I. Nor could my husband. It amazes me the disconnect of our politicians with the plight of our young people today. Comparing his experience of “lifting himself up by his bootstraps” with what our kids face today is ludicrous.
This article was written by An Garagiola-Bernier and published in the Washington Post.
She had a difficult life, growing up in a low-income home, dropping out of high school to help pay expenses, then suffering a debilitating disease that made it impossible to work and required multiple surgeries. She relied on charity to get by, but eventually enrolled in a community college. She made it to Hamline University, where she has a scholarship awarded by the John Kent Cooke Foundation. But she could not have made it to where she is today without the help of multiple federal assistance programs for low-income students like her. Those programs are now jeopardized by the proposed budget cuts.
She writes:
President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos never had to worry about the cost of a college education for themselves or their children. They never had to skip meals because they couldn’t afford to buy food. They never feared becoming homeless because they couldn’t afford a place to live.
Unfortunately, I — like millions of other low-income people — have had these worries. Not because we are lazy, ignored our school work or are not very bright. We simply didn’t have the good fortune of Trump and DeVos to be born into wealthy families. Many of us have had other bad breaks as well.
In my own case, I dropped out of high school to work at a low-wage job to help my mother pay mounting bills. Later, I was stricken with a disease called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that made it impossible for me to work for seven years and required me to undergo 12 surgeries, leaving me and my husband struggling to get by with our three children. I turned to a charity to pay my enormous medical bills. Disabled, with little education, my employment opportunities were dismal.
Fortunately, I found my way to community college and then transferred to Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., where I am now a student. My life was transformed when I received a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship that provides me with up to $40,000 a year for my education at Hamline. But most low-income students aren’t as lucky.
I resumed my education after many years out of school because, like the vast majority of low-income students, I want to make something of myself, get a good job and leave poverty behind. I am told the best way to do this is to get an education beyond high school.
But instead of helping us to further our educations, President Trump recently proposed his “America First” budget that calls for a 13 percent cut in the Education Department budget, amounting to $9 billion.
In higher education, Trump has proposed taking $3.9 billion in surplus funds from Pell Grants for low-income students to use for other parts of government; $200 million in cuts to other programs that help low-income students pay for and succeed in college; cuts to the Federal Work-Study program that pays students to hold part-time jobs; and elimination of the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants for low-income students.
Two particularly effective programs that prepare low-income students for college and help them graduate would be hit hard — one called GEAR-UP (the acronym stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) would be eliminated, and a group of programs called TRIO would be cut. TRIO got its name from three initiatives that date to the 1960s.
How can Trump “make America great again” by denying access to higher education to those students who are low-income?
How is he “putting America first” if he closes the doors of opportunity to those who were not born rich like him?
I am happy to report that Valerie Strauss reposted my article on why public funds should go only to public schools, and she added a valuable introduction about the case that will soon come before the Supreme Court.
Last year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley. The case involves the appeal of a Lutheran church in Missouri and its preschool that had sought a grant from a state program to use scrap tires for a playground but was denied because of the 1875 provision in the state constitution — known as a Blaine Amendment — that forbids using any public money “directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, or denomination or religion.” The church and preschool sued the state, citing the First Amendment, but lost in a federal district court and a federal appellate court upheld the decision by the state.
Now the Supreme Court will hear the case, with arguments set to begin April 19, and the decision could determine the fate of Blaine Amendments across the country. The high court just returned to a full complement of justices, with President Trump successfully placing his first nominee, the conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, on the court to take the seat of Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch may well be the deciding vote in this case.
If the state is required to pay for the new playground, it would also be required to pay for a new roof and for any other expenses incurred by religious schools. You see where this is heading.
There won’t be more money for public schools, there will be less.
In response to the report from “In the Public Interest” about waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars in California facilities funding, Laura Chapman responded that the state doesn’t care if it wastes money:
This shows why the state will do nothing about fraud, waste, abuse. This is current information about charter school financing in California.
Begin Quote:
Through the passage of Propositions 47, 55, and 1D, and most recently, Proposition 51, $1.4 billion has been made available to charter schools for construction of new facilities or rehabilitation of existing school district facilities.
The state-funded Charter School Facilities Program (CSFP) is jointly administered by the California School Finance Authority (CSFA) and the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC). CSFA directs the financial soundness review process for the CSFP and provides certification of financial soundness for purposes of Preliminary, Advance, and Final Apportionments.
The Charter School Facilities Program (CSFP) provides fixed rate, long-term debt to schools at underwriting terms that are set by the state – not the capital markets.
A $1.4 billion program, CSFP provides low-cost financing for charter school facilities; 50% grant, 50% loan. This money is used to finance the construction of new, permanent school facilities or rehabilitation of existing school district facilities for charter schools throughout the state.
End Quote.
Nobody cares about fraud waste and abuse.
A quick check at the Gates Foundation website shows $31 million invested in amping up charter school facilities in Los Angeles, 24 million in the state of Washington, and some recent funding to promote facilities financing in Boston–not much about $20,000–sent to Bellwether Education Partners , the go-to consultancy for all things for all charter schools.
The nonpartisan group In the Public Interest has released a major new report on wasteful spending on charter schools in California. It is called Spending Blind: The Failure of Policy Planning in California’s Charter School Facility Funding.
The bottom line is that California spends on charter schools without planning, without supervision, and without accountability. Vast sums of public money have disappeared, as charters close or mismanage funds. Every attempt to impose accountability on the charter industry has been vetoed by Governor Brown. The State Board of Education, which the governor appoints, does not demand accountability. California thinks of itself as a blue state, but when it comes to education funding, it is a Trump/DeVos state.
The key findings:
The report’s key findings include:
Over the past 15 years, California charter schools have received more than $2.5 billion in tax dollars or taxpayer subsidized funds to lease, build, or buy school buildings.
Nearly 450 charter schools have opened in places that already had enough classroom space for all students—and this overproduction of schools was made possible by generous public support, including $111 million in rent, lease, or mortgage payments picked up by taxpayers, $135 million in general obligation bonds, and $425 million in private investments subsidized with tax credits or tax exemptions.
For three-quarters of California charter schools, the quality of education on offer—based on state and charter industry standards—is worse than that of a nearby traditional public school that serves a demographically similar population. Taxpayers have provided these schools with an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars in direct funding and an additional $1.1 billion in taxpayer-subsidized financing.
Even by the charter industry’s standards, the worst charter schools receive generous facility funding. The California Charter Schools Association identified 161 charter schools that ranked in the bottom 10% of schools serving comparable populations last year, but even these schools received more than $200 million in tax dollars and tax-subsidized funding.
At least 30% of charter schools were both opened in places that had no need for additional seats and also failed to provide an education superior to that available in nearby public schools. This number is almost certainly underestimated, but even at this rate, Californians provided these schools combined facilities funding of more than $750 million, at a net cost to taxpayers of nearly $400 million.
Public facilities funding has been disproportionately concentrated among the less than one-third of schools that are owned by Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) that operate chains of between three and 30 schools. An even more disproportionate share of funding has been taken by just four large CMO chains—Aspire, KIPP, Alliance, and Animo/Green Dot.
Since 2009, the 253 schools found by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to maintain discriminatory enrollment policies have been awarded a collective $75 million under the SB740 program, $120 million in general obligation bonds, and $150 million in conduit bond financing.
CMOs have used public tax dollars to buy private property. The Alliance College-Ready Public Schools network of charter schools, for instance, has benefited from more than $110 million in federal and state taxpayer support for its facilities, which are not owned by the public, but are part of a growing empire of privately owned Los Angeles-area real estate now worth in excess of $200 million.
This squandering of public funds is outrageous. Will the Legislature and the Governor demand accountability?
Joseph Batory, a retired superintendent in Pennsylvania, has been speaking out loud and clear about the deliberate defunding of public schools in Pennsylvania and other issues.
In this post, he describes the betrayal of the public schools by the Legislature:
The betrayal of Pennsylvania public schools by the State legislature began in the early 1990’s when Pennsylvania government consciously destroyed its Equalized Subsidy for Basic Education (ESBE) formula. That method of State funding had been successfully used to bridge the wide gaps between poorer and more affluent school districts. The ESBE formula each year had utilized factors of community wealth and pupil population to drive out annual subsidies to school systems that distributed State money equitably based on each school district’s affluence and pupil population. Unfortunately, the growing costs of this ESBE formula to the State budget, despite its positive impacts, caused cowardly politicians fearing necessary tax increases to eliminate the ESBE funding formula. This result has been that over two decades, billions of dollars in State subsidies have been denied to school districts across the Commonwealth.
Pennsylvania now has the widest disparities in the nation in spending among its wealthiest and poorest districts with pupils who live in poverty and need the most getting the least, while students in wealthier districts live with all sorts of educational and school enhancements. This legislative incompetence has created a system where the gaps of per-pupil spending among Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts are now enormous, ranging from $9,800 to $28,400.
In September of 2016, attorneys representing seven school districts appeared before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court seeking judicial intervention in education funding in Pennsylvania. Commonwealth Court had dismissed this case last year.
The lawsuit contends that the State is not fulfilling its Constitutional duty as specified: “to provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education,” and that the resulting inequalities violate “equal rights protections.”
Pennsylvania courts have previously dismissed challenges to the legislature’s inadequate funding of public education using the argument that legislative matters are beyond review by the courts. However, NB—in 27 other states, the courts have intervened in similar circumstances and forced responsible behavior from state legislatures.
Incredibly, a representative of the Commonwealth made this outrageous argument before the Supreme Court in September: “No individual child has any specific right to an education at all. The Constitution requires the State only to set up a system…” According to this State representative, Pennsylvania has no responsibility to give children an adequate education or a quality education, but just to make sure schools exist.
City Councilperson Helen Gym termed this State position as “a deplorable argument that should shock the sensibilities of every Pennsylvanian. … One, that education is not a right – (It is in fact!) – and, Two, that inequity is not only inevitable, it is unfixable…”
Helen Gym could not be more on point: The Pennsylvania Constitution’s wording clearly stipulates “maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education” as a State responsibility.
Yet children in some Pennsylvania school districts have lavish swimming pools, while others graduate from schools without ever having used a computer or seen a library, attorney Brad Elias, representing several school districts, parents and civil rights groups, told the Supreme Court.
While states on average contribute a 45% share of public education funding, Pennsylvania’s share is at about 36%, ranking the Commonwealth 45th in the USA in terms of State support for education.
The Commonwealth’s political betrayal of its own public schools is a national disgrace. It remains to be seen if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has the political will to correct this malfeasance.
Miles Kampf-Lassin writes in The Chicago Reader that Rahm Emanuel’s plan to deny high school diplomas to students who don’t have a definite commitment from a college, the military, or a trade school is a farce.
He writes:
On its face, this may seem like just the kind of bold, innovative, and results-driven solution Emanuel has often said is needed to address the city’s pressing problems. But viewed within the context of a school system struggling to stay afloat, in reality it comes off as more of a Swiftian proposal that threatens the very students it’s aimed at serving.
Emanuel and CPS are calling the proposal “Learn. Plan. Succeed.” They tout it as way to get students to focus on their continued education post-high school. “If you change expectations, it’s not hard for kids to adapt,” the mayor said at a press conference Wednesday morning.
What Emanuel left out was that it’s a bit more difficult to adapt when your school is chronically underfunded and under-resourced, as is the case for the more than half of CPS students who live in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods on the south and west sides. This disparity has helped create a massive, 37-point gap in student achievement between black and white students in the city’s public schools.
Nowhere in the new initiate is there a plan to tackle this disparity, or to increase funding for crumbling schools—many of which are in such decrepit shape that principals complain about rat infestations while teachers are forced to buy basic supplies such as text books, pencils, and toilet paper.
And if their schools being mired in poverty isn’t enough motivation for students, there’s also the fact that CPS is now threatening to cut the school year short by three weeks. This follows a continued increase in furlough days in 2016-2017.
For all of the mayor’s self-praise for extending the amount of time students spend in the classroom, he never followed through on adequately funding the added time, which contributed to the growing budget crisis facing CPS. Now the system could be on the brink of taking a huge step backwards by cutting the school year nearly a month short….
While the mayor claims this will serve as motivation, it could also easily drive up drop-out rates by students who don’t have the support system they require to plan for secondary education while still in high school. CPS already has already seen a rise in layoffs of counselors due to budget cuts. Why stay in school if you might not even get a diploma upon graduating anyway?…
The plan is all but sure to be approved by the mayor’s hand picked board, another reason it’s a good idea to push for an elected school board.
But if the mayor really wants to help students succeed, he’d drop this initiative in favor of one that actually strengthens the city’s public schools. That’s something teachers, parents and students could all get behind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 