Education

WPC's Center for Education conducts objective research and makes practical policy recommendations to improve Washington State's ability to carry out its paramount duty to educate every child within its borders.

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What's New

Teacher layoffs can be avoided by putting principals in charge of school budgets

May 8, 2009 in Blog

In my previous post, I provided statewide school personnel numbers, to illustrate that our schools employ many employees (over half the total of 104,000 employees) who are not frontline classroom teachers.  Even so, school districts are reporting that class sizes may have to increase because of teacher layoffs required by I-728 reductions. 

This situation clearly illustrates what is wrong with school funding:  local school managers, principals, have no control over their budgets.   Principals receive staff from the school district, and are forced to run their schools with the staff that legislators and school district bureaucrats have decided meet school needs. In addition, principals are unable to reallocate staff and resources from outside the classroom to inside the classroom, so as to minimize the impact on student learning from reductions to hoped-for spending and the vicissitudes of the economy.

It is important to first point out that spending on public schools is increasing by 3%:  from $15.16 billion in 2007-9 spending to $15.65 billion in the 2009-11 just- passed budget, propped up by nearly $ 1 billion in federal stimulus dollars.  But even so, classroom teachers may be cut.

School districts receive funding based on fixed, inflexible staffing ratios (so many teachers and non-teachers per thousand students) and for spending programs based on categories (special education, vocational ed, compensatory education, transportation and others).  Teachers and non-teachers are hired based on these legislative mandates and categorical spending streams, not based upon rational decision-making by a school principal.  And when state tax revenues level off, requiring reductions to spending on unfunded initiatives like I-728 (class size reductions, extended learning for students, professional development for teachers and other purposes), school districts cannot easily s!
hift money from one silo of spending to another.  So unfunded initiatives such as I-728 and I-732 (teacher pay increases) are the first to go, even if these programs can be shown to improve student learning.  

Notice that the principals of our schools are nowhere to be seen in this discussion of cutting classroom teachers.  This is so, even though the principal is the key person at a school in the position to evaluate and assess the contribution, effort and value of every public school employee, and to determine which staff members are critical to the mission of the schools and which are not.  This is true even though he is the only manager who knows the name of every school employee and knows most intimately the needs of his school’s students. 

This must change if we are serious about reforming our schools to meet the challenges of the future.  We must put the principal in charge of his budget.  If he or she is not up to the task, they must be trained to do so, or be removed from this key leadership role. 

Imagine what could happen with a principal transformed from building-manager status to genuine instructional leader.   A principal may, in his judgment, decide that instead of having a nurse on staff, students at his school are better served with two extra math tutors, or a social worker, or another classroom teacher.  A principal may, in his judgment, wish to pay a bonus so that his most effective math teacher remains at the school in the classroom, teaching kids.  A principal may decide that students need to go to summer school so as to retain learning gains, and provide teachers for that purpose.  >

Only the local school principal with the authority and power to act as an instructional leader can best decide how to deploy resources to create the best possible learning environments for the children at his particular school.  Only a local school principal can determine whether the school district has sent too many “teaching support” or “educational staff associates” to “help out” at the school.  My previous post reveals the numbers of such personnel on the payroll. 

Schools, driven by legislative mandates and ruled by central school district bureaucrats stymied by legislative mandates, can instead lay off only the most recently hired and those hired with I-728 funding, regardless of their beneficial effects on student learning.      

 

   

Laying off classroom teachers is not necessary

May 4, 2009 in Blog

Two articles appeared today decrying teacher layoffs:  one in the Seattle Times and another in the Tacoma News Tribune .  School districts can avoid laying off classroom teachers, and should. 

Here are the numbers for school personnel hired statewide in School Year 2007-2008:

Administrators:  4038.Classroom Elementary Teachers: 26,494; Classroom Secondary Teachers: 22,237; Other teachers: 5183. Other certificated staff, extracurricular:  267; Education Staff Associates (other support, library media specialists, counselors, occupational therapists, social workers, communications, psychologists, nurses, physical therapists, reading resource): 7347; Classified Personnel (aides, crafts/trades, laborers, office/clerical, operators, professional, service workers, technical, director/supervisor): 38,604.  Total:  104,174.

School districts are well able to avoid cutting classroom teachers, as these numbers reveal.

    

    

Why lay off classroom teachers?

April 29, 2009 in Blog

The Seattle Times reports today that between 3000-6000 new teachers may lose their jobs due to a $800 million reduction to planned public school spending increases.  Why would school districts lay off classroom teachers?  

Public schools in Washington State employ 104,174 people.  Only 48,731 are elementary or secondary classroom teachers, and another 5183 are "other classroom teachers," so about half of public school employees work outside the classroom.  Shouldn't administrators be looking outside the classroom to reduce costs?

State law lets public schools hire any qualified teacher, but they don't

April 28, 2009 in Blog

Last week, Peter Callahan of the Tacoma News Tribune pointed out to me---thanks Peter--that the provision in the new basic education bill, HB 2261, allowing public school administrators to hire teachers of "unusual competence" without certification already exists in law:  RCW 28A.150. 260.  

It's great this provision exists on paper, but it doesn't seem to have much effect in the real world.  I wonder why.  I'll have to research this a little more. 

HB 2261 education reform would let public schools hire qualified teachers without restriction, just like private schools do

April 24, 2009 in Blog

    There are many problems with the new education reform bill (more on that later), but there is one little-noticed provision that can do tremendous good for improving the education of our children.  Section 102 would allow school districts to hire qualified teachers who don't happen to have an approved state certificate, just like private schools do.  Eighty percent of the teachers at the prestigious, private Lakeside School in Seattle do not have a state-approved certificate.  The new hiring authority will go a long way toward solving the math and science teacher shortage ; for example, many of the highly trained people being laid off at Microsoft can now accept teaching positions in public schools. 

Washington is in big trouble--Arne Duncan ties dollars to number of charter schools

April 22, 2009 in Blog

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, Arne Duncan writes:

    "As states and school districts across American begin drawing down the first $44 billion in education funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, they should bear in mind the core levers of change under the law.  In order to drive reform, we will require an honest assessment by states of key issues like teacher quality, student performance, college-readiness and the number of charter schools."

                                                                                                            Arne Duncan

Arne, let me tell you something you already know:  the number of charter schools in Washington State is ZERO.  Only eight other states have banned charter schools from their borders.

If you are looking for an independent, honest assessment of key issues like teacher quality, student performance and college-readiness, look no further than past entries to the Washington Policy blog on education and to our education reform plan, Eight Practical Ways to Reverse the Decline of Public Schools.   

And let me also tell you that the big new education reform plan which just passed by the legislature, HB 2261, is not a charter school bill, but just the opposite.  It adopts a one-size-fits all prototype school model and promises that work groups formed by the bill will address issues of teacher quality and student performance at some future time. 

The only way to get charter schools in Washington State, Arne, is to withhold federal funding.   Then, perhaps, the legislature will sit up and enact real reform.

HB 2261 - Education reform in Washington State would not improve school management

April 18, 2009 in Blog
HB 2261, the big education reform plan which may pass the legislature soon, would increase the definition of Basic Education by adding 80 instructional hours, 24 high school credits, five more than the 19 currently funded by the state, all day kindergarten, early education for at-risk children, and other reforms. 
 
Even if we had the funds to pay for HB 2261, none of these very expensive programs will improve student achievement in Washington State, unfortunately. The bill would support additional centralized, bureaucratic mandates which do not address or correct the reason for Washington's failing schools---that principals are not in charge of their budgets or staff. See the Washington Policy Center Education Reform Plan: "Eight Practical Ways to Reverse the Decline of Public Education."
 
Think about it: if we raise the $7-8 billion to pay for these programs, will principals have the power to allocate resources to the classroom to raise the effectiveness of the teachers? (Less than 59 cents of every public education dollar actually reaches the classroom and only 45% of public school employees are classroom teachers.) Will principals be able to give bonuses to hard-working teachers so as to create cultures of excellence to replace cultures of mediocrity? Will principals be able to replace ineffective teachers?
 
The answer to all these questions is NO. We'll have a much more expensive system and achieve the same abysmal results. More money is not the answer---the way we spend current education dollars must be improved. And decentralizing authority, not more unfunded mandates from Olympia, is what is needed in Washington State.  Principals should be given the tools they need to reallocate resources to the classroom, improve the culture of their schools and raise the effectiveness of teachers.

Here comes a 30-40% increase to your property taxes: HB 2261

April 17, 2009 in Blog

HB 2261, the bill which passed the Senate last night, resembles Initiatives 728 (smaller class sizes and other reforms) and Initiative 732 (teacher pay increases).  Here we have yet another expensive, unfocused education spending program without a revenue source. 

 

This time, however, legislators stand poised to expand the definition of basic education to include a variety of additional programs, costing perhaps as much as $7 to 8 billion.  The legislation provides no fiscal breakdown of the cost categories for this 50% increase to state spending on education.   

 

Why would we expand the definition of basic education, when we can't even get basic education right? 

 

HB 2261 sets the stage for shifting the blame for our failing schools to the taxpayer, even though the blame lies squarely with the legislature and with the schools themselves.

 

I can hear it now:  the schools are failing because you (the taxpayer) won’t agree to an increase of 30-40% to your property taxes. 

 

Schools can be improved within existing revenues, without HB 2261 spending formulas, without a prototype school model, without CORE 24 or full-day kindergarten.  See our "Eight Practical Ways to Reverse the Decline of Public Schools," at http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/education/policybrief/Education_Reform_Plan.html.

 

Taxpayers can instead demand that schools:

1) Put the principal in charge of his budget and staff

2) Give parents choice among public schools

3) Let teachers teach

4) Double teacher pay

5) Replace the WASL

6) Create no-excuses schools

7) Make the Superintendent of Public Instruction an appointed office

 

The Senate takes an important step to restore arm's length transactions with unions

April 14, 2009 in Blog

Last night the Senate voted 30-20 to pass an amendment to a bill, HB 1329, which considerably slowed down the union-led effort  to force small day care workers into a union.  A study will now be undertaken to determine if collective bargaining improves quality of day care or benefits for workers, or not.

Richard Roesler's blog points out that critics of the bill were also uncomfortable with a provision of the bill that would have taken union dues directly out of the state's subsidy payments, instead of directly from workers.  (This involves a considerable sum of money---$6.1 million in dues from subsidy payments to the union of family day care providers.)

Last legislative session, we pointed out in the Seattle PI here that the proposed bill would turn the state into a bill collector for the union, essentially allowing the state and union to act as one party for the purpose of dues collection, threatening the interest of the public and taxpayers to understand what is really going on.  I said : "When you have a contract, you are supposed to have an arm's length relationship so that the interests of the parties are clearly defined and not veiled to the public."

Another analogy can be made here to illegal contracts of adhesion, which are contracts so imbalanced in favor of one party over the other that there is a strong implication it was not freely bargained, for example, a rich landlord imposing onerous contract provisions on a poor tenant, or a large and powerful union imposing onerous contract provisions on small day care centers.

By passing this amendment, our legislators have demonstrated their understanding of the need to put a powerful union at arm's length from the state.  The legislature is wise to prevent the deduction of union dues from state subsidy payments.  The legislature should consider that the same lack of arm's length, the same appearance of impropriety, exists when the state directs day care centers to deduct union dues from workers' paychecks. 

Every other professional organization (Bar Association, the American Institute of Architects, the Professional Engineers, the Association of General Contractors, to name just a few) has to collect dues from its members without help from the state.   Why is the state in the business of helping unions collect their dues?

Legislators should extend this arm's length thinking to other contracts with other unions.  Local school districts automatically deduct teachers' union dues from their paychecks.  This allows powerful unions to act like rich landlords, forcing school districts to agree to contracts they cannot afford. 

Retraining teachers has not worked to improve student learning

April 13, 2009 in Blog

Today, the Port Orchard Independent published two letters reacting to my editorial "Our schools need better teachers, not more money." The first letter concludes that "the entire education system is out of whack, and money isn't what it will take to fix it."  The second letter states that in order to have good teachers, we have to pay extra education dollars for "coaching, training, development, performance management, classroom audits" and such.  

More money will not fix our schools.  Only better hiring and spending decisions at the local school level will improve our schools.

We have already spent billions of dollars to raise teacher quality.  Between 1993 and 2008 the legislature spent over $5 billion in 80 education reform programs aimed at teacher training and other efforts--see Appendix to our Education Reform Plan.

Yet only 19 students out of every 100 manage to earn an associate or four year college degree. Many of the kids who make it to college drop out, as they have not been prepared for the rigor of college by their K-12 education.

As the most important factor for student learning is the quality of the teacher, why can't we allow principals to hire the best possible teachers (by not limiting the hiring pool to those who hold a credential) for the classroom?  And why can't we allow principals to control their budgets, so they can spend education dollars in the best way possible to reduce student loads on classroom teachers--a reform which is now working in other states to raise achievement?

Pouring more money into a dysfunctional, broken system will not improve our schools.