Whitman has a spending problem

On June 3 in Roseville, California, candidate Meg Whitman told an audience that California does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.  This is a common rant among Republicans.

Well lets see, in the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 billion  cut back in  state funding.   California presently ranks  44th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.   This year  the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion. Taxpayers are getting precisely what they are not paying for – a Mississippi class education system.

National Assessment of Education Progress [NAEP]:

• California is tied for 47th among states in fourth-grade reading. (NAEP, 2008-09)

• California is tied for 46th in eighth-grade math. (NAEP, 2008-09)

• California’s economically disadvantaged students rank 49th in fourth-grade

reading. (NAEP, 2008-09)

Finance;

• California spends $2,131 less per pupil than the national average, ranking the State  44th in the country. (National Education Association [NEA], 2008-09)

• California spends less per pupil than each of the largest 10 states in the nation –

almost $6,000 less per pupil than New York. (NEA, 2008-09)

This is the state of the California education, and Meg Whitman proposes to cut more.  That is what she means when she says California does not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

The state's financial crisis

Reporters at the Bee's Capitol alert say that the Big 5 will reach a budget deal this PM. Lets see.

California budget deficit dwarfs other states
California isn't alone in facing very severe state budget deficits, but a new report from the National Conference of State Legislatures cites the "sheer size" of California's problem as dwarfing those of other states, even in relative terms.

The NCSL report says that collectively, states faced $142.6 billion in deficits for the 2009-10 fiscal year and many already are seeing signs that the total could grow.

"If you think legislators are breathing a sigh of relief because their budgets are passed, think again," said William Pound, NCSL executive director. "If history repeats itself, states are bound to see budget gaps reappear within the first quarter of FY 2010."

The report focused on California, noting that the original estimate of a $24.8 billion gap for 2009-10, plus a leftover deficit of $14.8 billion for 2008-09 "was resolved in a February 2009 budget agreement--except that it wasn't. The resolution included five ballot measures, representing about $5.8 billion of the fix, that failed to get voter support in a May special election.

"Adding the $5.8 billion unresolved figure to the amount of the gap that was closed ($18.9 billion), plus the newest gap ($14.2 billion) that officials expect because of declining revenues, California's cumulative FY 2010 gap explodes to a whopping $38.9 billion or 35 percent of the general fund budget."

The full NCSL report is available here.

Protect school funding

Schwarzenegger is the problem.

We need to deal directly with the attack on school funding. In the past 6 months, school funding in California has declined from 56.5 billion to 50.7 billion . Now, the governor and the Republicans propose to set aside Prop.98 in order to cut even more.

Since the passage of Prop. 13, California’s schools have been destructively under funded. We have gone from one of the best school systems to 29th in per pupil expenditure. California’s students rank 48th. out of the states in 4th. grade reading. So , if 4th. grade reading is a predictor, then perhaps we should do something about reading such as adequately fund the schools. California has remained with the poverty stricken states since the passage of Prop.13. Remember when the ideologues all claimed that by switching to phonics reading scores were going to go up? Or, others claimed that by eliminating bilingual education would produce dramatic gains. Well- how did that work out for you?
Schools have increased class size and severely cut back on counselors thus promoting violence and drop outs. Over half of California schools are in crisis caused specifically by lack of sufficient funds.
Rather than accept the budget limitations and plan to intervene before grade 4, we should change the budget. It does not have to be this way. Voters could keep Prop.13 benefits for private home owners but use actual assessed valuation of property for corporate property- the split roll approach. Rather than simply accept that these are difficult budget times, voters favor improved funding for public education. This change to a split role approach would immediately solve our state budget crisis, and the one coming next year. Or, we could as proposed establish an oil severance tax. This is where you make the corporations pay a tax when they take our oil out of the ground and then sell it to us. Even the most conservative of states have an oil severance tax. California does not because of the power of lobbyists in Sacramento.
We need all of the children in the state well educated to have a prosperous economy. Unless we change our schools are sinking toward those of Alabama and Mississippi.
We cannot have sustained prosperity in California without decent schools, and we will not have decent schools unless we amend Prop. 13 and tell the legislature to adequately fund the schools. Or, we could remain a poverty stricken state.

Blaming teachers

Jonathan Alter Joins the Teacher-Scapegoating Chorus: I'm Calling BS
Dan Brown. The Huffington Post
It is convenient to blame teachers for America's education woes because it lets everyone else off the hook. Tragically, this has become the vogue opinion in the mainstream media, and I'm calling bullshit. Jonathan Alter's latest column in Newsweek pushed me over the edge. (See post below) Here's the implicit argument:

Why do kids drop out? Not the stultifying test prep, overcrowded rooms, chronic absenteeism, or lack of personal connection to a counselor. It's bad teachers.

Why are America's test scores lagging compared to other countries around the world? Not deep-seated cycles of drugs/violence/ignorance in many neighborhoods or an antiquated school calendar with a ridiculous summer vacuum. It's complacent, unionized teachers.

What's the solution? Scrap the unions, clean house, and let the market sort it out.

Alter writes with certainty, "the key to fixing education is better teaching, and the key to better teaching is figuring out who can teach and who can't."

This spirit of exceptionalism is dangerous. According to Alter, you're either born with the teaching gene or not. You may have spent years earning a teaching degree, but that's worthless because, as Alter bizarrely claims, "most teachers' colleges teach the wrong stuff."

So who are among the special, birthrighted good teachers, benighted with secret understandings unavailable in higher ed institutions whose sole job is to prepare teachers?

Wendy Kopp, influential founder and leader of Teach For America, offered living examples of her vision for what teachers need to do in her recent commencement speech at Washington University. She cited Colleen Dunn, a rookie teacher working with struggling first-graders in St. Louis:
At the end of the school year, after nine months of days that began for Colleen at 4:30 in the morning and ended with her falling asleep over grading papers, lesson planning, writing parent newsletters, her students had made two years of progress in reading and math. The students who had started out so far behind were ready to enter second grade ahead of average second graders.

Judging from Colleen's example, the achievement gap doesn't need to exist...

Kopp's speech advances the argument for a paradigm of superteacher messiahs, one Alter appears to embrace. Surely, every example of an individual superteacher is above reproach and deserving of great praise.

But if Colleen is the model, working from 4:30 a.m. until a daily collapse, who's out? Forget single parents, who know more about facing challenges than just about anyone. Forget most that don't have the access to accrue the eye-catching resumes of Teach For America applicants. Forget people who choose balance over being a workaholic. The hero-martyr superteacher, cast in the mold of Hollywood friendly Freedom Writers or Dangerous Minds, is not replicable or realistic.

I agree with Alter that there are some complacent, ineffective teachers out there who should be fired. I also agree with Kopp that Colleen sounds like a superb teacher. However, this obsessive focus on cleaning house and demanding superhuman performance misses a larger point. (Time Magazine drew similarly raised blood pressure when they featured DC School Chancellor Michelle Rhee on their cover in December 2008, scowling and holding a broom. The headline spotlighted her gutsy "battle against bad teachers.")

Most teachers in America are smart and dedicated enough to help their students achieve. They're not the unaccountable fiends holding kids back, as Alter portrays them with his broad brush. Poverty, deficiency of support services, disjointed curricula, overemphasis on testing, and overcrowded classes do far more to impede student achievement.

If you are reading this with the slightest inclination to agree with anything I've written, Alter has already prepared for and discounted us. He'd refer to you and me as parts of

"the Blob, the collection of educrats and politicians who claim to support reform but remain fiercely committed to the status quo."
BS. I want kids to learn and I want bad teachers to go. I welcome reform and genuine accountability in my classroom, but to do that right it needs to come from more than a single, reductive standardized test.

We need those with the biggest microphones to stop scapegoating teachers and their right to have a collective voice, and to start stepping into living classrooms to see what's really happening on the ground. Then they can tell the real story.

Dan Brown is a teacher in Southeast Washington, DC and the author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. From the Huffington Post.

NCLB and Obama

No progress seen here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/education/15educ.html?hp
Education Standards Likely to See Toughening
By SAM DILLON
Published: April 14, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his team have alternated praise for the goals of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law with criticism of its weaknesses, all the while keeping their own plans for the law a bit of a mystery.

But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. The law’s testing requirements may evolve but will certainly not disappear. And the federal role in education policy, once a state and local matter, is likely to grow.

The administration appears to be preparing important fixes to what many see as some of the law’s most serious defects. But its emerging plans are a disappointment to some critics of the No Child Left Behind law, who hoped Mr. Obama’s campaign promises of change would mean a sharper break with the Bush-era law.

“Obama’s fundamental strategy is the same as George Bush’s: standardized tests, numbers-crunching; it’s the N.C.L.B. approach with lots of money attached,” Diane Ravitch, an education historian often critical of the education law, said in an interview.

In a recent blog Ms. Ravitch wrote, “Obama has given Bush a third term in education policy.”

The clues emerge from the fine print of the economic stimulus law that Mr. Obama signed in February, which channels billions of dollars to public education. The key education provisions in the stimulus take the form of four “assurances” that governors must sign to receive billions in emergency education aid.

In one, governors must pledge to improve the quality of standardized tests and raise standards. In another, they promise to enforce a requirement of the education law that their state’s most effective teachers will be assigned equitably to all students, rich and poor. A separate provision gives Education Secretary Arne Duncan control over $5 billion, which Mr. Duncan calls a “Race to the Top Fund,” to reward states that make good on their pledges.

“With these assurances and the Race to the Top Fund, we are laying the foundation for where we want to go with N.C.L.B. reauthorization,” Mr. Duncan said in an interview. “This will help us to get states lining up behind this agenda.”

One fix the administration is preparing focuses on failing schools.

Currently 6,000 of the nation’s 95,000 schools are labeled as needing corrective action or restructuring because they have fallen short of testing targets under the federal law, which nonetheless provided little financing to help them. Most states have let the targets languish. The stimulus law, in contrast, provides $3 billion for school turnarounds, and requires governors to pledge vigorous action.

The No Child Left Behind law allowed each state to set its own academic standards, with the result that many have dumbed down curriculums and tests. Colorado even opted to use its “partially proficient” level of academic performance as “proficient” for reporting purposes.

The stimulus requires governors to raise standards to a new benchmark: the point at which high school graduates can succeed — without remedial classes — in college, the workplace or the military. Mr. Duncan has gone further, saying he wants to be a catalyst for the development of national academic standards.

Cynthia Brown, vice president for education policy at the Center for American Progress, said she believed that Mr. Duncan was the first top federal official to make such a call.

“They’re putting money and ideas behind what they think are the changes needed in public education,” Ms. Brown said. “That signals their seriousness about major reform.”

So far, the administration has not described its plans for the education law’s 2014 deadline for schools to bring 100 percent of American students to math and reading proficiency, which experts have likened to a certain date by which the police are to end all crime.

The teachers unions, which in 2007 fought a bare-knuckle lobbying battle that scuttled Congress’s last effort to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, are voicing muted concern over a couple of provisions in the stimulus.

In one of the stimulus assurances, for instance, governors must pledge that their states are building sophisticated data systems. Among other functions, such systems would link teachers to students and test scores and thus, in theory, enable the authorities to distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. In a March 10 speech, President Obama endorsed using such data systems “to tell us which students had which teachers so we can assess what’s working and what’s not.”

In an interview, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said he did not like that part of the president’s speech.

“When he equates teachers with test scores, that’s when we part company,” Mr. Van Roekel said. But he added: “Over all, I just really support Obama’s vision to strengthen public education.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that her union also had concerns about the president’s enthusiasm for data systems, which she said could be misused, but that she would give the new administration the benefit of the doubt.

“They have been consistent,” Ms. Weingarten said. “They’re trying to do reform with teachers, not to them.”

Including education reform ideas in an economic stimulus bill was a policy improvisation made on the fly during the December transition, when Democratic governors were pleading for federal help to prevent government layoffs amid the economic crisis, aides to Mr. Duncan said.

In a Jan. 7 meeting with senior Democratic lawmakers, Mr. Duncan announced the administration’s intention to channel billions of dollars to the states in exchange for governors’ pledges to double down on education reform.

Representatives David R. Obey of Wisconsin and George Miller of California, the Democratic chairmen of the House appropriations and education committees, immediately saw the importance of extracting reform promises from the states, said a Democratic House staff member who attended the meeting but is barred from speaking on the record about committee business.

Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for the House education committee, said, “Chairman Miller said this couldn’t just be free money, that we had to get something in return.”

The administration’s reform initiatives have thrust governors into an unusually prominent role in education policy, more often the province of state school chiefs and big-city mayors. Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland and several other governors met with Mr. Duncan during a National Governors Association meeting in February.

“In a nutshell,” Mr. O’Malley said in an interview, “Arne Duncan’s pitch was, ‘I want to partner with governors; I know you can be drivers for education reform.’ He wants us to step up.”

Mr. Duncan says that governors in Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and other states have also responded favorably.

“They are happy that we are pushing them to where they know they need to go,” Mr. Duncan said.

Economic crisis and the schools

Where We Stand _CTA.

January 15, 2009

California schools and students are suffering, and local school districts are already at the tipping point. The $3.5 billion in cuts made last year have led to larger class sizes, more than 10,000 layoffs of teachers and other education support staff, and the further elimination of art, music, and career technical education programs. Some schools have even shut down their libraries. The governor’s latest budget proposal would just make things worse.

The Governor’s proposal to cut an additional $10.8 billion over the next 18 months is an irresponsible assault on California’s students and schools. And adding further insult, the governor is redefining Proposition 98, the state’s minimum school funding law, to take $7 billion from our schools that would never be repaid, in direct violation of the constitutional guarantee. Lawmakers need to raise revenues and solve California’s budget problem without further detrimental cuts to an already underfunded public school system.

These additional cuts will further devastate schools and colleges, causing thousands of additional layoffs, even larger class size increases, more program cuts, and possible school closures. Some local schools are talking about increasing all class sizes to 40 students, while others are planning to eliminate all sports programs. The cuts proposed by the Governor will totally change public schools in California as we know them, robbing our children of a well-rounded education and leaving an academic scar on an entire generation.

It’s long past time for lawmakers to stop playing partisan politics and pass some revenue increases. Investing in public education is the best investment we can make in the future of our children and our state. We warned the Legislature last year that relying on more borrowing would just make the situation worse – and it has. Every day they don’t take action, our kids pay a bigger price.

Education Week recently released a report that shows California has dropped from 46th to 47th in per-pupil funding, and lags behind the national average by $2,400. Those figures don’t even include the latest cuts or indicate where the state would be ranked under the governor’s new proposal. Lawmakers should be working to improve support for students, not making things worse.

The governor’s proposal to cut the school year by five days does nothing to improve student learning. California students cannot continue their recent progress if the state takes away important instruction time. The governor’s proposal hurts students in poorer communities most by eliminating all funding designed to help lower-performing schools.

CTA opposes any changes to the state’s successful Class Size Reduction program. Smaller class sizes are key to improving student learning, especially for ethnic minority children and English learners. The governor’s proposal for complete and permanent “flexible” use of all categoricals is simply encouraging school districts to rob Peter to pay Paul. The fact is, flexibility without adequate funding provides false hope that schools can do more with even fewer resources.

The use of deferrals and accounting gimmicks in the Governor’s proposal further shortchanges schools this year and will lead to cash flow problems for school districts. It pushes the problem down the road and does nothing to address the need for new and reliable revenue sources for public schools.

For our community colleges the proposed cuts could reduce enrollment by at least 5 percent, force community colleges to turn away nearly 263,000 students, and seriously impact thousands of unemployed Californians who recently enrolled to seek training for new jobs.

The Governor’s proposed 10 percent cut to the UC and CSU systems would be devastating. The California State University announced the cuts will force CSU campuses to turn away at least 10,000 students who apply for admission next fall. It is the first time that the nation's largest four-year university has officially endorsed a system-wide concept of refusing admission to eligible students.

Schools and the Stimulus Plan

Published Online: January 16, 2009
Complete Coverage
Schools Would Get Big Boost in Stimulus Plan
By Alyson Klein


Cash-strapped school districts could see an unprecedented $100 billion infusion of federal aid under a massive economic-stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats this week.
The overall measure, put forth Jan. 15 by the House Appropriations Committee, is aimed at providing a $825 billion jolt to the stumbling U.S. economy, and to help avert what could be draconian cuts in state and local programs, including education.
The more than $100 billion in federal spending for education in the stimulus bill would be nearly double the entire $59.2 billion discretionary budget for the U.S. Department of Education in fiscal 2008.
The K-12 education funding would come from various components of the stimulus package. The legislation includes a $79 billion fund to help states to prevent cuts in services, the bulk of which is slated for education. On top of that, the measure outlines specific aid for school construction, support for early-childhood education, and substantial spending boosts for major Education Department programs, including Title I grants for educating disadvantaged students and aid for special education.
“We really have turned a corner here. This is a new era for education funding,” assuming the plan is enacted, said Edward R. Kealy, the executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, an advocacy coalition in Washington.
Mr. Kealy, who has been lobbying for increased federal education spending for more than two decades, said he had never seen dollar amounts for schools like those in the proposed House stimulus plan.
“This makes a very strong statement that providing adequate funding for education and modernizing schools is a key part of the solution to this economic crisis,” he said. “We hope this means that we can sustain that in future years. I know that’s going to be a challenge.”
Before taking office, members of President-elect Barack Obama's staff were on Capitol Hill this month, working with lawmakers to craft the measure. The House appropriations panel is slated to consider the bill Jan. 21, and the Senate was expected to release a similar plan.
Read the entire piece at EDWEEK.

California school budgets

The CTA position.

State budget debacle is failing students and schools

January 13, 2009

BURLINGAME – The news that California has slipped to 47th in per-pupil funding is another strong indication that the state is going in the wrong direction when it comes to financing public schools, and the state Legislature must take steps to address the problem, according to David A. Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member California Teachers Association.
“California schools have some of the highest academic standards in the country. With all the demands placed on our students, it is shameful that we should let our state fall even further behind in per-pupil spending. Quality schools demand a commitment to adequately fund education. It is time for the governor and state Legislature to pass a budget that not only restores funding to our schools, but gives our students a real chance for success.”
“With the dismal budgets passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor in recent years, we are not surprised to learn that new figures released by Education Week in its annual Quality Counts report reveal that California’s ranking has dropped another spot to 47th in the nation and lags the national average by nearly $2,400,” Sanchez said.
Quality Counts 2009 is the 13th edition of Education Week’s series of annual report cards tracking state education policies and outcomes. The report offers a comprehensive state-by-state analysis of key indicators of student success and is one of the most thoroughly researched reports on the health of the nation’s schools.
Quality Counts has given California a grade of F in funding public education.
“It’s appalling that the state with the eighth-largest economy in the world would allow this to happen. It’s time for our governor and legislators to provide our schools and students the resources they need to be successful,” Sanchez said.

California drops to 47th. in School spending

Cal drops to 47th in public school spending
Education Week magazine, in its annual state-by-state survey of public education, gives California an overall "C" grade, but the California Teachers Association is jumping on the state's "F" in school spending, which has dropped to 47th in the nation on a per-pupil basis.

"With the dismal budgets passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor in recent years, we are not surprised to learn that new figures released by Education Week...reveal that California's ranking has dropped another spot to 47th in the nation and lags the national average by nearly $2,400," CTA president David Sanchez said. He called it "appalling that the state with the eighth largest economy in the world would allow this to happen."

The Education Week data were released as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators wrestle with a budget deficit estimated at $40 billion over the next 18 months with schools the largest single item in the budget and the most contentious spending issue. Although Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders have agreed that school spending must be cut, they disagree on the extent and form of the reductions.

Although California received an "F" in school spending, its overall grade on education finance was a "C" due to its "A-minus" rating for equity of finances. The only other area in which it scored in the top ranks was in setting and enforcing academic standards, another "A-minus."

The full California summary is available here.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2009/17src.h28.html
Or by clicking on title of this post.