Education Stimulus Dollars Used to Fill Budget Holes

In a story by Kelsey A. Kemp, "A survey recently conducted by the American Association of School Administrators reported that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding has prevented school districts nationwide from implementing reform and changes.

The survey, Schools and the Stimulus: How America's Public School Districts Are Using ARRA Funds, reports that while the ARRA funds mean additional dollars in school districts, most of that money is being used to shore up fiscal budget holes and, even then, the stimulus money is often not enough to prevent school districts from eliminating personnel and core subject teaching positions. According to the survey, more than 67 percent of the 160 school administrators said that the stimulus dollars were being directed toward filling state and local budget holes, and 53 percent of the administrators surveyed said they were unable to save teaching positions for either core subjects or special education."

Does it surprise anyone that stimulus money is being used to fill holes created by budget shortfalls? The money from the federal government was supposed to be used for new programs and innovations. What does this mean for the future of our schools? You can bet the opponents of public education will talk about how the stimulus money didn't work without addressing the real issues.

It's time we let President Obama and Secretary Duncan know what is taking place and we need to hold our legislators accountable for the budget mess they've created.

Editorial Facts and Common Sense: Plan B Less Money for Teachers?

"How do you fill a $55.6 million hole in your grand strategy to reshape the education world?

It's a good question, but not an insoluble one. The answer will require the help of all the people who have brought the district this far in the process. The Tulsa philanthropic community will be called on for bigger donations. The state will need to give more, too. The teachers' union may need to consider taking a bit less. The district will have to scour its budget looking for other ways to reallocate the tax resources it has."--Tulsa World Editorial

The Tulsa School District found out it was not one of the schools selected for foundation money from Bill Gates. These excerpts from the world let you know how difficult it is to put these plans in place. There isn't enough money to do this kind of plan so the "teacher;s union" needs to take less.

Another broken promise in the performance pay debate. This isn't unusual. Performance pay plans fail because there is never enough money as they collapse under their own weight. Teacher's "buy in" to a program while changing aspects of their bargained contract. What do they get for it--broken promises and a weaker contract. It takes money to fund these programs and Tulsa has its work cut out for it to fund what they wanted to do.

Editorial Facts and Common Sense: The Same Weak Argument

"Furthermore, the income tax cuts of recent years aren’t responsible for the revenue shortfall."--An excerpt from a recent editorial in the Oklahoman when discussing the shortfall in collections as state agencies are notified they will face a 5% cut in their budgets.

The impact of the cuts will have cost Oklahoma $ 2 Billion in growth revenue. The writer(s) try to continually make their weak argument at every chance they get forgetting the lessons they should have learned if they would have done their homework regarding the last time our state cut growth money when oil prices were high.

Lessons from the Horizon Summer Programs

Earlier this evening, NBC News ran a story on the Horizon Summer Programs that are helping public school students address the "summer brain drain". According to the video, the programs help address the achievement gap issues by providing selected students with tuition to attend, individual attention, and a varied curriculum involving swimming and other electives.

In order to attend, public school teachers nominate kids to be considered, and the ones who get accepted have their tuition paid by a private foundation.

It would seem that money, individual attention aka. lower class size, quality time with kids (including schedule) and a well rounded curriculum make a difference in the achievement gap.

These are the same issues public school teachers have been advocating for their schools. Maybe now the "so-called experts" will address those needs for all of our public schools.

2009 RA Sights & Sounds--Anthony Mullen, Teacher of the Year

"America's teachers and education support professionals live in very challenging and stressful times. Incredibly, many of the nation's economic problems are now directed at unions. We have become easy targets for some misguided government officials, economists, and media talking heads who believe it is time for us to give back and to share the pain. Well, teachers and education support professionals have burdened the pain of being underpaid and overworked for too long.

And since we have been given very little, we have nothing to give back. Teachers did not leave their classrooms and abandon children when the best deal in town was to work in the financial services sector. We did not join the legions of people that became wealthy by sitting in front of a computer and selling stocks and managing hedge funds. We did not envy friends and neighbors who prospered during the 1980s and 1990s and bought McMansions and took trips to Bali. No, we stayed with our students because we believe that education and our nation's children are too valuable to be abandoned for a new sports car. So we accepted our meager raises. We worked harder to narrow the achievement gap and did more with less to help our nation prosper. And now, some of the very same people who once asked me how I could live on a teacher's salary, are now asking me what I can do to help the economy. What my union is going to do to help the economy.

And I tell these people two things: One, teachers did not crash the economy. Greed and corruption by people entrusted with our country's financial health collapsed the economy.

And two, unions are helping to recover the economy by protecting the rights of their members. Unions are making sure that what has made our country great, the middle class, will not be sacrificed for the decadence of Wall Street."--Anthony Mullen, 2009 National Teacher of the Year

2009 RA Sights & Sounds--Linda Darling-Hammond, NEA Friend of Education

"We need federal education policies that support educators in doing the challenging work they have committed to do, that supports schools to improve, that supports students in and out of school with adequate health care, with housing, with community supports. You know, when you go to high-achieving nations around the world, they don't have children who are homeless. They don't have children without health care. They have a safety net that enables every child to come to school ready to learn that day and to take advantage of what the school has to offer, as well as well-qualified teachers, counselors, principals and plentiful, high-quality learning materials. We need to meet international standards by treating education and teaching in this country the way they are treated in high-achieving nations around the world."--Linda Darling-Hammond, 2009 NEA Friend of Education

Flawed Research: Friedman Tax-Credit Reports

Friedman Tax-Credit Reports Inaccurate and Unsubstantiated

Reports’ conclusions highly suspect, according to new review

EAST LANSING, Mi., June 22, 2009. – A recent series of reports focused on Georgia, Indiana and Montana conclude that programs awarding tax credits to donors funding private school vouchers will reduce government expenditures and make the finance system more efficient. A new review of the reports finds their conclusions highly suspect and sharply criticizes them for presenting unsubstantiated claims and failing to adequately consider short- and long-term costs of such tax-credit programs.

The reports are The Fiscal Impact of Tax-Credit Scholarships in Montana and The Fiscal Impact of Tax-Credit Scholarships in Georgia, and The Fiscal Impact of a Corporate & Individual Tax-Credit Scholarship Program on the State of Indiana. All three are published by the Friedman Foundation, a think tank which advocates free-market approaches to education. The three reports were reviewed for the Think Twice project by Luis Huerta of Teachers College, Columbia University.

Tax-credit voucher programs – sometimes dubbed neovouchers – provide a non-refundable tax credit to individuals or corporations contributing to non-profit corporations, which then distribute the money to students attending private schools. These neovouchers (often called “scholarships” in the state laws) now exist in six states—Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Georgia—and others, including Indiana and Montana, are considering them.

The three Friedman reports claim that implementing such programs would result in a net financial saving to the states. They base their conclusions, Huerta observes, on assumptions about the sensitivity of public school revenues and expenditures to enrollment declines, as well as assumptions about a pent-up demand for publicly funded private school choice and the nature and degree of supply and demand pressures. Huerta tests all these assumptions and finds them to be largely groundless and frequently at odds with established research.

In fact, Huerta notes that the reports’ use of research is largely confined to work from advocacy groups like the Friedman Foundation itself. He observes that this “insular approach further calls into question the validity of the new reports’ conclusions.” While the report on Indiana offers a “more thoughtful” approach to research, Huerta continues, the literature it cites is poorly used and doesn’t clearly support the report’s estimates and conclusions.

Huerta’s review hits particularly hard on the reports’ failure to consider key factors concerning private school supply and demand if neovoucher programs were to be implemented. Specifically, these factors are crucial to the reports’ analyses, and the review shows them to be highly problematic. Similarly, the reports fail to adequately account for the additional expenditures of a tax-credit program when it subsidizes families who were going to choose a private school anyway, making their expenditure calculations almost worthless.

“Policymakers should be cautioned to look beyond the seductive promises of increased fiscal savings and efficiency, which are unsubstantiated and inaccurately estimated in these reports,” Huerta concludes. “Instead, policymakers should seek more balanced and empirically robust assessments that would allow them to make informed decisions about how to proceed with effective school reform polices.”

Find Luis web at: www.greatlakescenter.org.

Flawed Research: Preschool Juggernaut by Chester Finn

Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut is a new book published online by the Hoover Institution and authored by the Fordham Institution’s Chester Finn. It is an inaccurate and poorly reasoned attack on the movement to secure all children a good preschool education. The book cherry-picks a few weak studies to fit its preconceptions, and it builds the case for targeted programs based on errors, exaggeration, misrepresentation, and logical inconsistency. Below, I set forth 14 points to consider which together demonstrate these flaws and explain why an even-handed review of all costs and benefits tends to support preschool for all.

2009 OEA Friends of Education

The 2009 OEA Friends of Education are Rick George, Dr. Lisa Connery and Chuck Pack. The three honorees were the proponents of the HOPE ballot initiative that is now State Question 744.

Support for HOPE

This blog entry was written by Dr. Kurt Hochenauer and lends support to the HOPE ballot initiative.

History clearly shows Oklahoma has never funded education at adequate levels, but that doesn’t stop some legislators from working diligently against appropriating more money for the state’s schools and teachers.

A resolution passed by the state Senate Wednesday is directly aimed at the HOPE ballot measure, according to a news report. The resolution puts a measure on the 2010 ballot that, if passed, would supposedly make sure the state government can continue to fund education at inadequate levels even if HOPE passes as well. (Full Post)

Budget Agreement Supplants Education Dollars and Ignores the Intent of the Federal Stimulus Package

Today’s announced budget agreement is very disheartening for common education and higher education. While both will receive small increases, federal stimulus money that was intended for education is being used to supplant shortfalls in state education funding and shore up other agencies.

Of the $474 million Congress is sending for education in Oklahoma (not counting Title I and Special Education stimulus money), common ed and higher ed will receive a combined $71 million increase this budget year.

It’s a shell game to promise the public that federal money will be used for innovation in our schools when in fact we’re being held to the status quo. While it may be legal to supplant state money with stimulus dollars, it’s not right. Parents of public and higher education students were led to believe new money was coming. It’s sad that it won’t.

Flawed Research:Reason Report

Reason Report Found to be Reckless and Irresponsible

New review concludes report is “a major step backwards”

EAST LANSING, MI (May 13, 2009)—Two weeks ago, the Reason Foundation released a report titled Weighted Student Formula Yearbook 2009, which advocates for a package of reforms concerning funding, governance and school choice. A new review of that report finds that it cherry-picks evidence, lumps many different strategies under a single reform umbrella, ignores contradictory findings, and in one third of its examples credits the reforms for outcomes that actually preceded the reforms.

The Yearbook was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by Bruce Baker, a school finance expert who is an associate professor at Rutgers University.

Drawing from 15 case studies, the Yearbook relies on two underlying premises: (1) budgets should be allocated directly to schools within a district, with the amount based on each child’s needs; and (2) school principals should have full discretion on how to allocate those funds. The report examines 14 city school systems and one statewide one—Hawaii—that the report presents as reflecting “best practices” in implementing what the report calls Weighted Student Funding (WSF) reforms.

For many, the principle underlying WSF is appealing and common sense. The strategy is arguably intended to ensure that education funding adequately and fairly reflects the needs of students. In practice, however, the strategy has been found to be complex and its results much more ambiguous—and very much dependant on how it is implemented.

Baker finds that the Yearbook ignores all these complexities. Instead, the report mixes the basic WSF funding reform with other reforms ranging from site-based management and budgeting to school choice programs, including pilot, magnet and charter schools. In Baker’s words, the report “selects a hodge-podge of district reform strategies.” Some of those directly employ WSF but others “have little to do” with the funding strategy itself, or with district-wide reforms, Baker observes.

Baker’s review also finds that the Yearbook neglects “large bodies of relevant literature” and ignores “disagreeable findings in the literature it does cite.”

However, according to Baker, the most egregious flaw in the Yearbook is that in one-third of the examples it cites—five of the 15 case studies— “outcome successes mentioned actually occurred prior to the implementation” of the touted reforms. This is illustrated by the Reason press release promoting Yearbook, which points to impressive 2007-08 test score gains in Hartford, Conn., and attributes the gains to a change in policy directing 70% of resources to the classroom. Yet as the report itself notes, that WSF policy only began a year later, in 2008-09. Baker notes that it is difficult to conceive of a defense for such a claim.

“The report haphazardly aggregates a multitude of discrete policy issues under an umbrella labeled as WSF and deceptively suggests that all related policies are necessarily good—even going so far as to credit those policies for improvements that took place before the policies were implemented,” Baker writes. “The report then irresponsibly recommends untested, cherry-picked policy elements, some of which may substantially undermine equity for children in the highest-need schools within major urban districts.”

Instead of adding any serious information to the body of knowledge on WSF, Baker concludes, Reason’s Yearbook is “a major step backwards.”

Find Bruce Baker’s review on the web at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org.

SB 834:Senator Ford Responds to the OEA

From Senator Ford to his legislative colleagues: Attached is an “OEA Legislative Update” that was e-mailed to OEA members yesterday (Mar 4). This OEA update will generate many e-mails and phone calls from constituents. Following is a possible reply: Senate Bill 834 will eliminate many unfunded mandates that have hamstrung our local school districts. These mandates have negatively impacted their ability to develop innovative approaches and programs to ensure students will indeed master the skills and curriculum necessary to compete once they graduate—whether they go on to college, to a CareerTech, or straight into the workplace.

Again, I will ask, 1) Why don't you just fund the mandates you expect schools to follow or 2) Did you know Oklahoma already has a deregulation procedure in place?

OEA is working to defeat this measure, and has made erroneous claims that educators, who are among the 74 percent of teachers in Oklahoma that currently work for districts paying above the minimum salary schedule, may face thousands of dollars in pay cuts.

It is important to point out that these districts are paying above the minimum salary schedule because they have chosen to do so....

I wonder if Senator Ford knows that the percentage of total school spending going into teacher compensation has declined from 56.3% in 1995-96 to 43.5% in 2006-07.

Or, has the Senator sat at a meeting with a Superintendent who said, "I'll buy 5,000 rolls of toilet paper before I'll ever give you a dime of that money."

RAA:Butner

OEA's Read Across America program made today's stop at Butner Elementary School in Cromwell. No matter what the size of the school, kids need to understand the importance of reading. And the kids were excited about the Cat sharing the stories about Dr. Seuss and following with the reading of "Green Eggs and Ham" that beat out "The Butter Battle Book" in a close vote.

Kids are great wherever we go and I see great things for Oklahoma. There are so many awesome teachers all across the state and they are providing our kids with the best possible education. Some of our districts have better access to resources compared to the larger districts, but our smaller schools find ways to get things done.

The kids, teachers, administrators and parents all take great pride in their school and community and Butner patrons were awesome today.

Investing in Education:Economic Recovery

In a quote from the "Oklahoman" Scott Meacham said, "The governor had hoped avoid cutting education, health care, transportation and public safety, but because those agencies make up about 80 percent of the budget that no longer is an option. "

Supporting the economic recovery bill will save jobs and provide funding for all of our districts. Take action and let your voice be heard.

Be Heard: Economic Recovery Bill Moves to “Conference Committee”

Your efforts paved the way for the Economic Recovery Bill to pass the Senate. At one point, education was going to be completely taken out of the bill. Your emails and phone calls replaced the majority of funding.

The House and Senate bills now move to a “conference committee,” which will work out differences between the two bills and bring a final agreement back to the House and Senate for a vote.

Contact your Members of Congress Today! Tell Members of the House and Senate to support as much money as possible for education in the final economic recovery package.

Economic Recovery--Contact Coburn and Inhofe

Senator Coburn and Senator Inhofe need to hear from you-TELL THEM TO PASS THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY BILL.

Thanks to your e-mails from last week, the threatened cuts to education in the Senate economic recovery proposal were largely averted. A compromise reached this weekend leaves much of the education funding that flows directly to local school districts untouched.

This economic recovery package is very important. It will help save jobs and put more money immediately into struggling local economies. It will also reduce pressure on state budgets so more cuts to important programs can be avoided.

The package includes funding flexible funding for local school districts, increased funding for Title I and special education, and tax credits to help school districts finance school modernization and repair.

Encourage Senators to Pass the Economic Stimulus Package

Take action! Tell Members of the Senate to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill. Senators Coburn and Inhofe need to hear from you. Let them know our schools need their support.

Oklahoma Initiative Petition Process Works

In a recent piece in the Oklahoman, the OEA was acknowledged as a group that has been successful in getting an initiative petition (HOPE) to the ballot. The piece goes on to talk about how the process needs to be changed by lowering the signature number and/or increasing the time it takes to get the signatures.

Our process works now. If you have an issue people support, they will sign your petition.

Here is the excerpt about the OEA from the Oklahoman:

Our biggest concern with the process has centered on the number of signatures required, which varies depending on the purpose of the initiative but is always a big number. The Oklahoma Education Association, for example, needed 138,970 valid signatures for its petition seeking increased funding for public schools. It had no trouble meeting that threshold....[More than 238,000 signed the petition.]

Eliminating Tax Incentives Urged by George Kaiser

Our elected leaders hear from a wealthy Oklahoman on doing away with some tax incentives. Will they act on his ideas? It will make for an interesting legislative session.

Listen up! Rational tax policy urged

Stop giving me tax breaks, the billionaire oil man told legislators. Now there's a new story for you. George Kaiser — arguably Tulsa's smartest and most generous man, and inarguably the richest — told a legislative committee on Thursday to cut tax incentives for the oil and gas industry.