LWVeducation
Researchers at Stanford University have published a new study comparing public school vs. school choice privatization systems. Public schools that focus on equity win hands down.
The data suggest that the education sector is better served by a public investment approach that serves each and every child than by a market-based competition approach that creates winners…..and losers.
It is worth taking a minute to see how and why.
Rep. David Simmons, the chair of the Florida Senate Appropriations sub committee on Education wants a serious look at way to reduce over testing. What is over testing? Is it all the prep testing that goes on prior to the state tests? On the other hand, is it too many redundant state or national tests e.g. requiring students to sit the FSA and the SAT if they are going to college? Or, is it requiring students to take a state test like the FSA every year? There is another way to look at over testing. Perhaps it is a way to avoid looking for solutions.
Suppose you are a really good teacher and can prove it. You notice that a neighboring district has a pay for performance plan where high quality teachers with less experience earn more money than average teachers with more experience. Would you change districts? In today‘s Gainesville Sun, a local economist, Dave Denslow, summarized a study by Barbara Biasi, a Stanford graduate student, who compared school districts in Wisconsin that used a ‘pay for performance plan‘ with districts that did not. The result?
The 2015 Florida legislature tied charter capital outlay funds to their academic success. Charters have privately owned school facilities paid for from public funds. The new rules would disallow facility funding not only for charters that have consecutive failing grades but also for those with consecutive ‘D’ school grades. The rule affects thirteen charters with consecutive ‘D’ grades. Charter owners are protesting. An administrative judge has agreed with them, and they will get their money. How much? $408,500 since school began this fall. Multiply it out and it would be over a million and a half dollars per year for 13 schools.
Let’s think about this. Charters located in low income areas are given more facility money. Public schools facility funding located in the same areas has steadily declined for years. If the State shifts money from publically owned schools to privately owned failing charters, who wins? Not the children.
Suppose a charter operating in the same neighborhood has a higher school grade than the local public school. Is the charter doing a better job? Or, do they enroll fewer children with learning disabilities? Do they dismiss children who do not ‘fit their school norms’. Do they draw the children from families at a higher income level? It is no secret that if you want a higher performing school, select higher performing students to begin with. This is a process called ‘creaming’. These schools do not make students better, the students make the schools better.
What does make students better? more time in school, tutors, support services, and good teachers and principals
Giving charters rent money is a much cheaper way to go. The problem is that nothing changes for most kids who need a place to go. School choice just moves children around; they go in circles leading nowhere. We could fix this.
We can continue to feed information to the public about the destructive impact of ill thought out school choice policies. There is a danger, however, that we are simply preaching to the choir. Those who should be aware may not be tuned in.
Our strategies to increase awareness must be more diverse. What would prompt your neighbor, colleague, fellow parent to tune in?
It is logical that busy people preoccupied with families and jobs will respond to calls for action if they recognize the urgency and the possibility for a positive impact.
I am working on a set of ‘headlines’ and slogans that communicate the immediacy of the need to preserve our public schools. What do we value about our public schools? What are the threats to public education? Which solutions do we propose?
Can we come up with short, single sentences that encapsulate a need or something you value. Then we can refer people to more in depth analyses and ways to respond.
Let’s see:
OR
OR
You get the idea. Send me your captions and communication strategies. We will hone them and use them to target issues. We will discuss these at the League’s Orlando leadership conference in January.
In today’s N.Y. Times, Douglas Harris who is a charter advocate and researcher from Tulane University, states that Betsy DeVos has easily the worst record of all the possible choices for U.S. Secretary of Education. Why is that?
I knew that the qualifications for Bright Futures scholarships had gone up. Now I understand the impact. In order for the State to save money, the rich get richer. The Florida lottery supports these scholarships. While the revenue for the lottery is still increasing, the percentage allocated to education is decreasing. It would be interesting to know why and how much.
The Florida School Board Association (FSBA) is shifting ground on third grade student retention criteria. Such issues make me think about ability grouping in general. Are we going overboard?
Are we putting huge pressure on kids not only to ‘get to grade level’ but also to be ‘gifted’ or ‘highly gifted’? Do all children feel like they have a FSA proficiency level painted on their T-shirts? This is an age old issue of grouping and tracking vs. diverse ability classrooms where children have different strengths and weaknesses regardless of “I.Q.” as measured by a test?
The FSBA wants more evidence than a single test score to determine student achievement. Fair enough, but there is more to think about! In a newly adopted platform, the FSBA calls for three revisions to current practice in retaining third graders:
There are solutions to complex problems. Take for example the issue of not enough time. We all experience this concern but for children, it can impact their entire lives. Over and over again we hear that children need more time in school. Parents too have concerns about child care while they are working.
School time and work time do not match. Everyone knows something should be done, but time costs money. Here’s an example from the Christian Science Monitor that describes how a school was able to solve the time problem. They managed it differently. Read the story here. This is a fundamental change but a feasible one. IT COULD SOLVE MANY FRUSTRATIONS IN OUR DAILY LIVES and help children learn.
Have you looked closely at schools in your district? After the comment by the attorney for the State in the Citizens for Strong Schools lawsuit, we looked at Alachua County schools. Were the citizens in our district doing their part to support our schools? Was the State doing its part? Here’s an overview of what we found.