Schools get the bad news on the state budget

[irishbobcat]

Merit pay doesn't work in public education
By Michael L. Hays • 11/18/10, 6:30 am • Print



Merit pay for public school teachers is an idea that refuses to die. Born during the "Reagan Revolution," along with privatization and supply-side economics, the idea relies on a simple principle: Reward better (teaching) performance more (and worse performance less?). I understand that Republicans and some reformers glommed onto merit pay in their desperation about the decline in student education in public schools evident even 25 years ago and continuing since.

The principle works in commercial and manufacturing sectors, but not in public service sectors, especially public education. The reason: What works in competitive contexts and cultures does not work in non-competitive ones. No one becomes a public school teacher expecting to get rich, and none is disappointed!

No matter how school districts have designed and implemented them, all merit-pay programs, launched with fanfare, have collapsed as failures from which other school districts have learned nothing. Despite this unblemished record, the survival of this idea testifies to the strength of its ideological appeal in defiance of facts and factuality.

Some 10 years ago, while driving through Cincinnati, Ohio, I stopped for lunch, picked up the local paper, and read about a soon-to-be implemented merit-pay program. It resembled nothing so much as the multi-year failure attempted over a dozen years before in Fairfax County, Virginia.



When I got home, I placed two calls. First, I called the president of the Cincinnati School Board, who was not a little hostile both to me as a perfect stranger and to my bad report about the highly touted merit-pay initiative. He admitted that the school board had not considered the experience of other school systems that had attempted merit-pay programs, but assured me that Cincinnati's would work.

Second, given that reception, I called the local teachers union and spoke with the its vice president, who immediately understood my concerns. I explained why the program would collapse, predicted that it would probably collapse within a few, maybe only two, years, and forecast that his membership would be angry not only at the school board, but also at its leadership.

I could hear the alarm in his voice when he agreed. When I suggested that the leadership get to work at once on a plan for a smooth transition process when the program failed, he thanked me. Two years later, the program ended.

Unfair and unaffordable
All merit-pay programs thus far have failed because they are inevitably unfair and eventually unaffordable. All offer large salary increases to teachers who significantly improve student academic performance. Everything hinges on the selection process, which hinges on the evaluation process, which hinges on the criteria of student academic performance, which are biased or unreliable. For, inevitably, every year, teachers face different students, different mixes of students from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, with different family educational backgrounds and attitudes toward education, and from different schools, teachers and curriculums.

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True, pre- and post-testing scores can measure student change in one year. But the same teacher working at the same level of competence and effort can have students making more or less improvement in one year than in another – hardly a reliable measure of or reflection on the teacher, surely an adverse influence on results-based evaluation and selection, and certainly not fair.

Another reason for failure reflects the effort to be fair by basing awards on multi-year evaluation and selection. The unintended consequence is the creation of a two-class teaching force and, with it, the personal and professional ugliness of "class warfare." A rigidly structured program giving some teachers large, long-term rewards for improved teaching cannot terminate them without bruising egos, causing embarrassment, and lowering morale.

Worse, because of budget limits, those first awarded merit pay keep others from getting it, even if they improve their teaching – a self-limiting, if not defeating, program outcome.

[Why?Town]

I firmly believe that if an argument is valid, facts and only facts are all that is needed to support it. Anything used to sway the argument by use of emotional trickery just proves the argument can't stand on its own.

As for that article, the way it's written leaves me to suspect that there has been some poetic license used. Particularly this line:

"In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!"

Teachers and principals feeling that strongly, sure, bus drivers and aides, maybe, but custodians and secretaries that don't really deal directly with the kids? I doubt it.

And all of them yelling "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!" I can't see that happening even if the phrase made any sense.

I also googled this article and found that it seems to be used by those opposed to merit based pay for teachers citing inferior blueberries as a barrier to teacher success/ raises. I'm sure that merit based raises would be based on a much broader spectrum than whether or not the teachers succeded with only the inferior blueberries.

And it's a damn shame we can't get rid of the inferior blueberries masquerading as teachers. I know between my two kids we've averaged about 1 a year.

[irishbobcat]

The Blueberry Story: The teacher gives the businessman a lesson

by Jamie Robert Vollmer



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"If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!"
I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle1980s when People Magazine chose our blueberry as the "Best Ice Cream in America."

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society". Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced - equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant -- she was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."

I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, Ma'am."

"How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?"

"Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.

"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.

"Super-premium! Nothing but triple A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap.... I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie.

"I send them back."

"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. It's school!"

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!"

And so began my long transformation.

Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.

Reprinted with permission from the March 6, 2002 issue of Education Week

Copyright 2002, by Jamie Robert Vollmer

[Youngstownshrimp]

We fund our education system more than majority of the world and yet our children rank low.  However, our universities are the best so the argument that it is societies fault is bunk.  It is the fault of an inept school system, one merely can see it in Dennis's command of himself in this forum.  And Dennis, please give us an educated response instead of a school yard bully, name calling.

[irishbobcat]

The stimulus was used for capital improvements and purchases of supplies, equipment, and materials.

The bottom line is that school districts are not as irresponsible as you believe they are. Each and every year we
are under the gun to put in place more unfunded federal and state educational mandates. Plus we are seeing a rise in more students who
fall under special need categories, which costs more in the area of instruction and assessment. And the cost of doing business is every increasing
each and every year...and revenues are not.

If you were told a parent was providing less care for their child or children the general public would cry foul and run that parent out of town
on a rail...

Well, when you're told a school district must provide less funding or care for their children, folks like you seem to think that's OK......go figure.....

[Rick Rowlands]

Dennis,  As a school board member, did Struthers receive any stimulus money?  How did the district use that money?  Was it rolled into the general budget for the school district, or was it instead used for capital improvements or one time purchases of supplies, equipment and materials?    I just don't understand how school districts could have just assumed that the stimulus money would be ongoing.  Everyone should have known that the stimulus was a one time deal, but apparently most districts either did not understand the program or were just wishing it would continue.   To use a one time windfall for hiring teachers or making commitments that would extend beyond the length of the funding is just irresponsible in my view. 

[irishbobcat]

Schools get the bad news on the state budget
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The Kasich administration says it is devoting more money to Ohio's schools, but the loss of federal one-time money and a tax reimbursement means most districts will feel the pinch.
Friday, March 25, 2011  03:07 AM
By Jim Siegel and Charlie Boss

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



More than 590 of Ohio's 612 school districts will see cuts in basic operational funding next year under Gov. John Kasich's proposed two-year budget - and that does not include $730 million that districts stand to lose from cuts in tax revenue.

"We've been doing things to make our last levy last, and when we add additional revenue cuts on top of that, it makes it difficult to make changes that are not going to affect programs and services," said Todd Johnson, assistant treasurer for Olentangy schools, which, despite rapid growth, are in line for a 48 percent funding cut next year.

The district expects to lose $2.5 million in revenue from the tangible personal-property tax reimbursement next year and another $2.1 million in 2013. "If those are right, it's going to be pretty big," he said.

The Kasich administration released district numbers yesterday showing that overall state funding for schools would increase each of the next two years. But those numbers did not factor in the loss of $454 million in federal stimulus money that schools used this year for basic operations, which turns the 1.9 percent funding increase that Kasich shows in 2012 into a 5.2 percent cut.

"What we have released is the state foundation aid," said state Budget Director Tim Keen, who offered no comment on the alternate calculation.

Howard Fleeter, an economist and consultant for the Education Tax Policy Institute, which is largely funded by public school organizations, said: "I understand their logic of just showing state numbers, but at some point you've got to add in the ($454 million) of stimulus for 2011, because that's the starting point for these districts."

In Kasich's proposed budget, state foundation funding - which represents per-student aid - would be cut by $337 million next year and then increase $181 million in 2013. The net effect: 546 districts would receive less money in 2013 than they had this year.

That foundation funding does not include the proposed cut to reimbursements that have protected districts from the elimination of the tangible personal-property tax. Schools that are heavily reliant on this funding will see their money phase out over time, but districts that rely on it for less than 2 percent of their budget will lose it all within two years.

The administration said it did not have district numbers available for reimbursement losses.

Districts across the state already have cut their budgets - many by 10 percent - to make up for the loss of federal stimulus dollars. But uncertainty surrounding the accelerated phaseout of the tangible personal-property tax reimbursement has muddied the picture.

"You can't make decisions on part of the information," said South-Western Treasurer Hugh Garside. "For me to speculate on how this affects us, overall, it's too early to because we don't have all the cards."

The district this year got $13 million in tangible personal-property tax reimbursements.

Several central Ohio districts, including some with May tax requests, already have outlined budget-reduction plans and could need to trim further:

• Canal Winchester school-board members made $3.7 million in cuts for this fall that included 49 jobs. They also would increase a pay-to-play fee that eventually would rise to $600, the highest in central Ohio. Some reductions could be avoided if voters OK a 14.78-mill operating levy.

• Officials in Amanda-Clearcreek in Fairfield County crafted a $2 million "worst-case scenario" plan if a 1.5 percent income-tax request fails. That includes cutting busing, art, music, athletics and students' lunch periods.

• After voters said no to two levy requests last year, Gahanna-Jefferson cut 37 positions and will institute a pay-to-play system to stem a $7 million deficit projected for next school year. The district is asking for a 5.2-mill operating levy.

• To erase a $13 million deficit, Pickerington cut 100 jobs, eliminated field trips, limited busing and reduced elementary art, music and physical education. High-school athletes also face $500 participation fees.

Kasich's funding formula seeks to protect low-wealth districts from significant losses. Cuts can have varying impacts depending on how much a district relies on state money to operate. In 2009, 143 school districts, including Hamilton, received at least 60 percent of their funding from the state.

The formula is scheduled to last for two years, though Kasich wants his staff to develop a new formula over the next year that Robert Sommers, his top education-policy adviser, said will be "performance-based."

Kasich has said that districts should not necessarily have to ask for new levies because he is giving them tools to cope. For example, the budget and Senate Bill 5, which would curtail public employees' bargaining rights, offer districts money-saving options and the ability to reduce employee costs and share services.

Kasich, promoting his budget proposals in Wooster yesterday, acknowledged that it will be difficult for schools to operate with less money but said he thinks they have no choice.

"Too many of our schools have been operating with stimulus money," he said. "I don't know how many of you operate your businesses with one-time money, but it's not a good idea to operate with one-time money. And I have warned people about this for over a year."

But David Varda, executive director of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials, said deep cuts will not give school officials enough time to implement cost-saving measures.

"We're going to try and save money, but there's going to have to be more revenues," he said.

Dispatch reporters Joe Vardon and Catherine Candisky and assistant city editor Rob Messinger contributed to this story.
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You can only cut so many teachers, aides, cooks, custodians, and bus drivers......

Look for higher new tax levies coming to your school district in the not so distant future.......

Rejoice Neo-Cons.....hope you are happy with the progress Ohio is taking under John Kasich!