Deval’s charter plan NOT essential for new school funds

July 24, 2009 By Pablo

Given that:

Massachusetts is a very-charter friendly state.

Massachusetts has been very aggressive in pushing high standards.

Our governor appears to be on very good terms with the president and his secretary of education.

One would think that we are in really good shape for the new funding. (Note to legislators: Forget about the faux-funding threat, do the right thing, and defeat Deval’s education package.)

But wait – there’s another provision we need to worry about. The state will be evaluated on “whether they cut state K-12 funding this year.”

In most states, where payments to schools go directly from the statehouse to an autonomous school district, this shouldn’t be hard to prove. But Massachusetts – that’s another story. State money gets filtered through town hall, and there’s plenty of opportunities for the town-side to claw back school funds.

It should be interesting to see how the Feds define maintenance of effort. Will it count the bottom line that ends up in the account of the local school district, or some bottom-line figure? Will they restrict their analysis to school aid accounts (Chapter 70), or will they include other payments to school systems, including Special Education circuit breakers and regional school transportation?

Plenty of interesting news to be made in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

Please share widely!

Comments

goldsteingonewild says

July 25, 2009 at 7:44 am
1. Amigo Pablo, I’m game for anything not related to Cambridge PD….
2. Disclosure – I work for a charter, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

(Actually, now that I think about it, many of the commenters in our friendly BMG charter threads are part of organizations that formally oppose charters. So perhaps BMGers should take all charter threads with grain of salt).

3. Here are the regs.

To get these $200 to $300 million grants – all of which would flow to district schools in Massachusetts – a state is judged in 4 areas:

A. Standards
B. Data Tracking
C. Great teachers and leaders
D. Struggling Schools

A key part of the last category is charters.

(D)(2) Increasing the supply of high-quality charter schools

States will be judged on:



The extent to which the State has a charter school law that does not prohibit or effectively inhibit increasing the number of charter schools in the State (as measured by the percentage of total schools in the State that are allowed to be charter schools) or otherwise restrict student enrollment in charter schools.

It goes on for like 2 pages.

Add to the regs the repeated statements by the Secretary of Education that lifting charter caps are key, the Presidents direct calls to lift the caps on charters, and….I think suspect are a key part of MA’s chances.

I’ll write another post about how I think MA can win this. We can disagree about charters but may agree in other arenas.
- sabutai says
 
 July 25, 2009 at 10:49 am
 
 One thing that stands out about this story is that it was announced as “$5 billion” of funding, and a few hours later cut to 4-point-something, and is now down to an even $4 billion. This may turn into another NCLB — bribing states to change their entire education policy on the promise of a few dollars, then never coughing up the cash.
 
 As for the rest of this program, as I said in my blog, this is just an attempt to buy a policy that Obama knows could never make it through the legislative branch.
 - goldsteingonewild says
 
 July 25, 2009 at 12:43 pm
 
 but here’s how it works
 
 there’s $5 b
 
 4.35 of it is for grants to states
 
 635 million is a different fund which doesn’t go to states, but to districts or nonprofits
 
 
 
 The $650 million What Works and Innovation Fund will support competitive grants to LEAs and partnerships between nonprofit organizations and LEAs that have made significant progress in improving student achievement, or have demonstrated significant improvement in other areas, to expand their work and serve as models of best practices.
 
 I’d guess Boston Public Schools would have a shot at, say, a $20 million grant.
 
 
- amberpaw says
 
 July 25, 2009 at 2:06 pm
 
 What is your data-set on Charters [the one you work for, at a minimum] and:
 
 1. Dyslexic students
 2. Students with sensory integration disorders, such as dyspraxia, dissemia, gravitational insecurity or tactile issues?
 3. Students with other differences in learning styles [think Gardener’s “many intelligences”]
 4. Students with fine motor or large motor delays or differences
 5. Students with ADD, ADHD, or other neurologically based challenges?
 6. Students who struggle through anxiety disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder or panic attacks?
 
 Just for starters.
 
 And I do not work for a charter school, I am not employed by any town or city school system, in fact, I am self employed and once was appointed as a Guardian Ad Litem for Education to assist families and minors who had had a CHINS “filed against them” – before Chief Justice for Administration and Management [“the CJAM”]Robert Mulligan abolished that category of guardian – but THAT is another sad story entirely.
 
 As a result of the GAL work I did in several school districts before the CJAM eliminated this work “since no statute or caselaw requires it” – I became familiar with a very wide range of school districts and learning challenges to a level of detail.
 
 I experienced a number of struggling students who had been “bagged” or sidelined in a number of charter schools; I am not aware of any charter school meeting the needs of students in categories 1-6, above.
 - dweir says
 
 July 25, 2009 at 11:34 pm
 
 These population you cite belong to a privileged class within the public school system. They qualify for an individualized education plan and the accompanying services that provides. Those services include meetings with a range of teachers and specialists, having personal aides in the classroom and other academic modifications and exemptions, special teachers that focus on their particular needs, individualized instruction, transportation accommodations (including door to door rides where they can be the only child in the vehicle).
 
 And when that isn’t enough they even have their own special schools — with tuition that far exceeds the cost of charter schools. Some can even board there. And they have state and federal laws that protect their access to these specialized services.
 
 Isn’t that enough?
 
 Why must you continue to go after charter schools which are among the few schools that accommodate high achieving or highly motivated students? Students with high IQs or the will the work hard who come from low income families are the most underserved in the Commonwealth.
 - sabutai says
 
 July 25, 2009 at 11:40 pm
 
 Gifted and talented students are the most deleteriously underserved in the public school system, an invasive problem that starts in teacher college and spreads through law and policy. I wish public schools would do more for them, I think it’s a crime that the law is written to essentially discourage that, it’s grievous that teacher colleges refuse to prepare future teachers to educate them well, and I wouldn’t blame the family of a gifted/talented student from being very leery of public education.
 
 However, what is not fine is that the different populations of these types of schools are not recognized when comparing the two types of schools. This is something that Deb is recognizing above.
 
 I’d have less of a problem is politicians were honest about the facts that A-charter schools serve a population easier and cheaper to educate than public schools, yet get results that are generally the same as public schools, and
 B-charter schools’ long-held hostility toward students with special education and English as a Second Language needs demonstrate that they do not serve the full public, and have no claim to funds destined for schools that do.
 - goldsteingonewild says
 
 July 26, 2009 at 7:03 am
 
 Maybe I need to be educated. So far as I am aware, MA public schools track % of students with special needs. That’s what charters, pilots, traditional district schools do.
 
 I don’t know of any place that tracks the number of kids with gravitational insecurity or how one can possibly classify “differences in learning styles” in a consistent way or by each type of disability.
 
 So if you send me to the link for an Massachusetts traditional district school or school district that has the data broken down in the way you request, I promise to follow the link to read how they classify this stuff, how they deal with privacy issues (which MA defines as less than 10 kids limits certain statistical disclosure, like MCAS scores of 5 Hispanic kids in a school or something), and then try to give you an answer based on whatever methodology already exists.
 
 
 - amberpaw says
 
 July 26, 2009 at 12:03 pm
 
 The vulnerable populations I am spotlighting DO NOT get services most of the time.
 
 Their immigrant parents or foster parents mostly DO NOT know how to advocate for them and DO NOT receive encouragement to do so.
 
 The challenges created by the various aspects of Sensory Integration Disorder or the Autism Spectrum DO NOT get recognized early, or accommodated without a major major fight in ANY school district.
 
 Dweir – the majority of kids who, when [in the “good old days” there were court appointed Guardian Ad Litems for Education] I was in those “old days” appointed to serve them – had CHINS [Children in Need of Services] petitions filed against them were severely learning disabled and almost none of them had IEPs at the time I was appointed. They were passed, year to year, without being able to read, for example – and in one case, without being able to hear. When these young folk hit about 12, they started cutting school because the sheer embarassment and frustration of having no idea what was going on around them in class became too much. Often I taught their parents how to advocate or what an IEP was – their school districts preferred to file a CHINS and hope the potential expenses and hard work just went away.
 
 In three cases the kids were actually psychotic and I was able to get psychiatric intervention. Please. Don’t go wailing about the special treatment and cushy lives of these special education kids to me, Dweir. At least I did not bury any of them [as in have them succeed in the suicides some of them threatened] on my watch.
 
 As to underserved gifted and talented, maybe the most difficult population of all are the gifted special education students. Ask me about it. Both my biological kids fit into that category – one has an IQ of 138 and one of 160; the kid with a 160 was – so out town said – not capable of being educated and three professionals tried to get us to institutionalize him…I am proud to say we did not do so, fought for him instead [I am not going into his 11 challenges and the autism rule out dyspraxia required is the least stignatizing of them]. Today he is an honors senior at UMASS. Anyway, neither could be educated in our town’s schools and have either their challenges [including a language processing disorder] met nor their gifted and talented areas met – and I would look at my husband and say, “If THEY treat US this way, what happens to normal families without our skills and resources?”
 
 So, both on a pro bono [i.e. unpaid when I could afford to do that – with my husband laid off I cannot, now – I am the earned income for four people these days] – and court appointed basis [that is, before court appointed educational advocates were unilaterally eliminated by the Chief Justice for Administration and Management – opn the basis that no statute required him to pay for that role and he had better things to spend money on]
 
 Am I unhappy as to the damage I am seeing done in the evisceration of our public school system? You bet I am.
 
 And – remember – there are thousands of kids in foster care, about 20,000 of them whose parents are either dead, in prison, missing in action, or otherwise rendered unable to advocate for them at all. THESE kids no longer get educational advocates/Ed. Guardian Ad Litems, either.
 
 Dweir – are THOSE the kids you are so jealous of, with regard to their cushy lives and schools?
 
 And Goldstein – as to what is tracked these days by the current incarnation of the department allegedly monitoring public education – maybe they can or will post here or you can ask them. I am not a state employee nor an insider to get that for you. Nor can I take dozens of hours away from my case load and family to do so.
 - dweir says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 7:18 am
 
 You aren’t discussing problems with charter schools.
 
 It would be more constructive for you to address the problems in district where the resources for this population have been specifically allocated.
 
 Re: Autism and PDD here is the resource you need
 http://www.doe.mass.edu/sped/l…
 
 You cannot blame the schools (conventional or charter) for lack of early recognition when symptoms show up before school age.
 
 However, your other allegations do fall at the feet of the district. Its foolish and selfish to get these students who need individualized or specialized services into charter schools. From a simple size perspective, there just aren’t the resources.
 
 It isn’t just foster children who get passed on year after year with deficiencies in reading and math. It’s a systemic problem in public education. And missing that a child had a hearing problem is also a failure of the district. See here: http://tiny.cc/0m890
 
 I’m going to ignore the personal attacks in your post because I know I’ve hit a raw nerve. I have a nephew with PDD and an a niece who graduated illiterate. I know about the advocacy that is too often necessary for these kids and what happens when there isn’t an advocate.
 
 However, I’ve also seen well-functioning schools that didn’t need to have a parent or guardian tell them the obvious. These were professionals who identified the need and provided the service. That’s the way it should be done. That it doesn’t happen is a fault of the system, not of charters.
 
 At the end of the day, at least you have resources to fight for. And the access to those resources is based on need.
 
 Charters are few and far between and you have to literally win the lottery to be able to access them.
 
 You might be very thirsty, but it doesn’t mean we don’t all need to drink.
 - goldsteingonewild says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 1:50 pm
 
 They were passed, year to year, without being able to read, for example
 
 Amen, sister. Now we’re talking. If you look at the charter school students in Lowell and Lawrence and Boston and Lynn, you’ll see many students whose parents chose charters precisely because they were passed from grade to grade unable to read.
 
 Think of the thousands of parents in Boston on the waiting lists. Ignore the myth that these are somehow superstar parents. They wouldn’t describe themselves that way.
 
 They’re usually black (2/3). They’re usually poor (2/3). They’re usually single moms (my guess is 2/3, but no data on that). They usually are the sole provider like you are right now. They’re way on the losing side of the achievement gap.
 
 Why don’t you support them as mothers who believe they need something different for their kid?
 
 christopher says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 2:20 pm
 
 There’s no excuse for passing from grade to grade unable to read at a reasonable level for the age. This goes back to the question I’ve always had about charter (and private) schools. If we know how to do things better, then why don’t we require it of the public schools? In other words, using this example, if a charter school can figure out how to either get kids to read or deny promotion to those who can’t, why can’t public schools do the same? I usually get slapped around a bit here for advocating hard and fast standards (and yes, tests to be sure the standards are being met), but there should be some basic laws saying, “Thou shalt not promote the illiterate.”
 
 goldsteingonewild says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 3:52 pm
 
 certainly the choice is unappealing
 
 1. hold back a student. this can work at the school level with buy-in from parent, teachers, and kid around a clear plan of action, evaluation of underlying issues, and high dosage tutoring.
 
 alas, holdbacks don’t seem to work at the macro level, in that the data shows that kids held back continue to do badly. usually the parent, teachers, and kid don’t even meet; there is no plan of action; there is no precise evaluation; there is no high dosage tutoring.
 
 kid continues to struggle.
 
 or
 
 2. “socially promote” a kid. this can work at the school level with buy-in from parent, teachers, and kid around a clear plan of action, evaluation of underlying issues, and high dosage tutoring.
 
 alas, social promotion doesn’t seem to work at the macro level, in that the data shows that kids socially promoted continue to do badly. usually the parent, teachers, and kid don’t even meet; there is no plan of action; there is no precise evaluation; there is no high dosage tutoring.
 
 * * *
 
 GGW’s proposal for improvement over status quo:
 
 I think Title 1 could be helpful. Currently it’s maybe 1000 per kid per year thrown at high-poverty schools with a gigantic mass of regulations. Totally totally ineffective.
 
 Why not experiment with setting aside the $1000 of Title 1 for each meeting between teachers and a kid who failed for the year? Like the Geico commercial. Cash on the table. Let parent and teachers work out a plan for the coming year. Any plan.
 
 If plan is to pay a teacher $30 per hour to read with the kid each Saturday at 1pm at Dunkin Donuts, approved. If plan is to give parent $200 to buy some teacher-suggested books to read at home, approved. If plan is to reward a little kid for each week he brings home a paper with 5 stickers for good effort each day last week, approved.
 
 sabutai says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 7:26 pm
 
 How would you arrange it so that rich districts with “spare” personnel and subs don’t use it to get richer and widen the gap?
 
 In a more general sense, GGW, do you have any hesitation in expanding the flow of federal money (and influence) in local schools in the long run? Imagine the Republicans were back in power before you answer 🙂
 
 goldsteingonewild says
 
 July 28, 2009 at 5:46 pm
 
 i guess my basic view is –
 
 1. locals should make most decisions. you frequently make the point that most of the schools in MA are considered good on a world stage. i buy that. i’m expecting that our kid will be fine in watertown public schools.
 
 but i do worry about
 
 a. high-poverty districts. i don’t think it’s the “fault” of the district that the kids do very poorly, per se. in other words, i don’t think the schools CAUSE most of the achievement gap.
 
 but i do think the schools can be a big part of the solution. we can differ on how.
 
 b. struggling kids in good districts. i don’t know much about this world.
 
 2. so the state’s role is to make a difference where locals aren’t serving kids as well as they could.
 
 3. the feds only give 5% of the $. so they shouldn’t have much say.
 
 so i think they should mostly focus on stats. how do states do compared to each other. stuff like that.
 
 also R&D. your idea the other week about lesson plans database. i could imagine much more consumer-friendly products created by a R&D operation, where teachers could basically vote on what they wanted. seems like a good way to get stuff actually USED by teachers. and sometimes that stuff is really micro, as you know.
 
 but if states are willing to pretty much do nothing – which some are – then what?
 
 i guess then i overcome my fear of fed role, and think well if a state is willing to allow a district to provide bad schools for a long time, then someone should rein in the state, no?
 
 
 
 pablo says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 2:22 pm
 
 Goldstein, since you mention Lowell, let’s put the data on the table. Lowell offers school choice. Given the data below, how does this suggest that the public policy lever to improve schools is to threaten the public schools with state takeover and divert more resources to the charter school?
 
 From the Boston Globe (percentage of students proficient or advanced):
 
 Grade 3 English Language Arts:
 Lowell Public Schools – 32%
 Lowell Community Charter – 27%
 
 Grade 3 Mathematics:
 Lowell Public Schools – 34%
 Lowell Community Charter – 34%
 
 Grade 4 English Language Arts:
 Lowell Public Schools – 22%
 Lowell Community Charter – 17%
 
 Grade 4 Mathematics:
 Lowell Public Schools – 27%
 Lowell Community Charter – 29%
 
 Grade 5 English Language Arts:
 Lowell Public Schools – 34%
 Lowell Community Charter – 24%
 
 Grade 5 Mathematics:
 Lowell Public Schools – 32%
 Lowell Community Charter – 31%
 
 Grade 6 English Language Arts:
 Lowell Public Schools – 45%
 Lowell Community Charter – 29% (last in the state)
 
 Grade 6 Mathematics:
 Lowell Public Schools – 36%
 Lowell Community Charter – 27%
 
 Grade 7 English Language Arts:
 Lowell Public Schools – 47%
 Lowell Community Charter -55%
 
 Grade 7 Mathematics:
 Lowell Public Schools – 30%
 Lowell Community Charter – 27%
 
 Grade 8 English Language Arts:
 Lowell Public Schools – 56%
 Lowell Community Charter – 50%
 
 Grade 8 Mathematics:
 Lowell Public Schools – 29%
 Lowell Community Charter – 23%
 
 goldsteingonewild says
 
 July 27, 2009 at 3:38 pm
 
 I think we’ve agreed on this in past – there are definitely charters where, even after a few years, aren’t outperforming.
 
 That’s why Gov’s proposal is only to raise cap permitting successful schools to grow. So while the school you cite couldn’t expand, Lowell could reach out to Lawrence Community Day Charter School to grow in Lowell. Not too far. Great leader. Well liked in community. Long waiting list.
 
 80% of kids at this Lawrence charter don’t have English as a first language. 70% low-income. So some of the similar challenges as in Lowell community. Solid MCAS, even as we agree MCAS is not be all end all.
 
 Grade 6 English – 92% proficient
 Grade 7 English – 97% proficient
 Grade 8 English – 95% proficient
 
 In some cities around the US, the superintendent or mayor actually invites charters to come in.
 
 Particularly if there’s a school where the superintendent has concluded simply has been struggling for too long. Supe can shut the school down, disperse the kids, allow a new school to open there. Then state isn’t even involved, it’s totally a local move.
 
 Anyway, the Gov’s proposal would only permit schools like Community Day to grow, and not in the burbs, only in the high-poverty districts.
 
 pablo says
 
 July 28, 2009 at 1:17 am
 
 In many cities around the US, mayors and superintendents invite charters to come in. I think that would happen in MA, if the funding and governance problems were resolved.
 
 I am a driven, data informed school reformer. I am a NISL-trained, standards based advocate for meaningful accountability. We should be strong allies, as I think our education DNA is aligned. I am not against charters. I am against the funding and governance structure now in place for Commonwealth Charters. As a rule, I would favor a charter that comes in under governance, that is accountable to the local funding source.
 
 My hypothesis is that charters are either excellent or awful. Those that get off to the right start, with a vision and strong leadership, can really soar. Charters that get started for the wrong reason, that lack the leadership and vision at the onset, will sink to the bottom and are almost impossible to turn around. The Globe data is filled with charters at the very top and very bottom of the list. I’d like to keep the schools at the top, and stop throwing money at the schools at the bottom.
 
 But my major point is that charters are not a magic bullet, and expansion isn’t a cure-all for the problems in K-12 education. It’s an interesting page in the playbook, but you can’t rely on one play to win a football game.
 
 The governor’s plans do not resonate with the folks who are concerned about their suburban schools, which was Deval’s base in 2006. He needs a plan that addresses the concerns of the voters and fulfills his campaign promises. If he wants to add some more charters to that mix, bring it on.
 
 amberpaw says
 
 July 28, 2009 at 9:09 pm
 
 …by the charter school still unable to read. Long story but I truly have not seen positives nor does siphoning money from the public schools seem either fair – or reasonable – to me.
 
 If charters were funded from another source I would not mind them, nor the fact that they are only for kids in the middle of the bell curve and leave any stragglers to sink.

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Deval’s charter plan NOT essential for new school funds

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