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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

 
Follow-up on the Tier VI Pension Issue

spacer I saw the pig (pictured at left)! This was the inflated, oversized Wall Street capitalist pig that was placed Capitol Park in Albany by groups which are protesting against Tier VI.

Public union members were in Albany today to oppose Governor Cuomo's Tier VI plan. I saw mostly New York City firefighters in uniform in and outside the Capitol. From speaking to some, it's clear to me that this pension issue reaches an emotional level and they take a jaundiced view by assuming the worst about any attempt to make pensions more affordable, regardless how many times you tell them it wouldn't apply to current workers.

One fireman told me that the "firehouse" is like a family, and it's generational. They want to see the system preserved, though I suggested that absent an unlikely boom in the stock market, higher pension costs will continue to crowd out funding for other needs that firefighters, teachers, police and other public workers need in the course of their service. It was a good, cordial exchange with the firefighters who made the trip to Albany.

It's unfortunate that some groups (not sure it was the firefighters) would hand out literature opposing the pension reform plan, made in good faith, by conflating it with giving "Wall Street [a] free pass." Saving pension costs doesn't "blame" workers. The flyer also claimed that a Tier VI would "pull billions of dollars out of the current pension system to put into private savings accounts run by Wall Street banks - putting current employee benefits into jeopardy!"

As a reminder, public pension funds do not sit in a vault in the state Comptroller's Office, or at the offices of the Teachers Retirement System or Police and Firefighters Pension System. In fact, they are invested in "Wall Street" already through brokerage houses and firms who invest in companies, mutual funds. T-bills, and so on.

Ironically, the better "Wall Street" performs with a growing stock market, the less of a need to reduce pension costs since their investments would cover actuarial costs, as was the case in the 1980s and 1990s.

Those days, however, are long gone, which is why Tier VI is on the table.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 5:17 PM
 

 
Taking to the Airwaves on Education Reform; More Issues May Follow

spacer Governor Andrew Cuomo is on the commercial airwaves discussing the teacher evaluation deal that his administration, the state Education Department (which actually is separate) and the state and New York City teacher unions agreed to last month.

The ad is paid for by the state Democratic Committee, which the Democratic governor is the titular head and its chief fundraiser.

Interestingly, the governor highlights the need for school districts and teacher unions to implement the plan, and he urges listeners to sign up for his email list at www.ourstudentsfirst.com/. This particular pitch appears to be one means for his administration to prepare for potential resistance for local districts and unions to agree to contract changes to reflect the teacher evaluation system. Key to that happening is the governor's proposal to tie school aid increases to individual school district-union adoption of the evaluation system.

This issue support ad was not the governor's first; he previously conducted ads on behalf of the property tax cap. This ad almost certainly won't be his last since it is a useful means to talk over the the legislature, interest groups and media to get a message out to the general public.

Budget Fight on Pension Tier VI
On a larger and immediate issue, look for Gov. Cuomo to hit the airwaves to advance his proposed Tier VI pension savings plan that is meeting stiff opposition from a plethora of public employee unions. Neither the Senate nor Assembly majorities included the governor's new pension tier in their respective state budget resolutions.

Still, the governor reiterated yesterday his determination to get the plan approved by the legislature; meaning, he will use his considerable leverage in crafting a state budget to see it through to enactment. The legislature surely knows a new pension tier is needed o reign in skyrocketing pension costs, but it is under relentless pressure to resist. As a result, I doubt too many legislators will mind the governor going to the mattresses to push pension reform through by attaching it to legislation to keep the government funded and operating passed the start of the new state fiscal year on April 1st.

Considering the bevy of dishonest ads by groups like the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), the governor may need to counter them with a few ads on this issue to set the record straight: to wit, no current employee loses benefits and municipalities, school districts and those charter schools in the public retirement systems will save billions of dollars in the years to come with each new employee.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 10:40 AM
 
Monday, March 12, 2012

 
Assembly Gives Both Barrels to Albany and Buffalo Charters

spacer The majorities of both houses of the state legislature today released their respective "one-house" budget bills for the 2012-13 state fiscal year, which begins on April 1st. Competing bills between Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans, along with Governor Andrew Cuomo's Executive Budget, are all part of the annual budget-making process, as each house has now presented its budget priorities.

The Assembly's version of the education budget takes aim squarely at charter schools located in five school districts: Albany, Buffalo, Troy, Lackawanna (south of Buffalo) and Roosevelt (Long Island). This bill would singles out these charter schools for harsh, discriminatory funding cuts; for example, in Albany, next year's funding would be cut by 17 percent, or more than $2,300 per student, while Buffalo's would be cut by 13 percent, or more than $1,500 per student.

Why are charters in these districts being singled out this way? The reason is simple: they are too popular with parents in both cities.

Charter Schools' Popularity Makes Them a Target
Call this explanation "spin" if you want, but that's the rub. The respective administrations and teacher unions in the Albany and Buffalo city school districts loathe the fact that so many parents have enrolled their children in charter schools. The result is that in Albany, more than 20 percent of its public school enrollment (more than 2,000 students) attend one of the eleven charters located in the city; in Buffalo, about 15 percent of it public school enrollment (more than 7,500 students), attends one of the 16 charters in or just outside of the state's second largest city. The other three smaller school districts also have charter enrollment of at least 10 percent, which is the threshold to cut their funding.

Rather than simply compete for students, and dissuade parents from charters by improving district schools, the districts in Albany and Buffalo in particular instead have demanded legislative action to effectively teach parents a lesson in hardball tactics by taking an ax to charter school budgets unlike anywhere else in the state.

This popularity of charter schools in these communities is such that their students and employees are being singled out by the Assembly for punitive funding cuts the likes of which no school district must endure, certainly not this year when state aid to districts is increasing by at least an average of 4 percent. In prior years when state aid was cut, I can think of no school district that was treated this way, and certainly none that serves predominantly low-income, non-white students as the charters do in Albany and Buffalo.

Specifically, the Assembly education budget bill (A.9057-C, sec. 11) would require funding to be cut in any charter school in a school district that has at least 10 percent of its public school enrollment in charter schools. Funding to charter schools would be cut to levels that existed in the 2008-09 school year - four years prior. [Note: the bill refers to the 2009-10 school year, which was frozen at the prior year's funding levels].

Assembly Plays "Reverse Robin Hood"
For years, the Albany and Buffalo school districts have cried wolf on the financial impact of charter schools, which The Chalkboard has regularly refuted (e.g., here and here). And, the Assembly legislative delegations continue to be snookered and misled by both school districts to the point of proposing such harsh treatment of a segment of their own constituents. Even if such a policy was an opening strategy by Assembly members to get the state revisit (for a fourth time) the way charters are funded, putting a bullseye on their back is the wrong approach.

Consider the financial realities in these school districts:

-- Both school districts will spend more than $20,000 per pupil, while charter students in those districts get at least $5,000 to $8,000 less per pupil. The Assembly's bill will substantially widen this funding inequity in "reverse Robin Hood" fashion by taking from schools that get less in order to give to the school districts that already receive more.

-- Both school districts have run surplus fund balances, with Buffalo budgeting at least $30 million this year alone; in fact, the Albany school district actually reduced its school property tax rate for this year. The Assembly proposal would enlarge these fund balances.

-- Both school districts already get substantial "transition aid" for students who enroll in charter schools: Albany got $3.8 million this year, while Buffalo got $6.1 million; that is, extra funding for lower district enrollment that is phased out over three years for the same students. If the school districts and the Assembly believe these amounts are insufficient payment for losing students to charters, it should appropriate more from the state rather than take it from the lesser-funded charters schools.

-- As a reminder, every charter school student remains counted in the resident school district's enrollment for state aid, meaning that both Albany and Buffalo already are aided for their charter enrollment. In Buffalo's case, state aid alone on a per pupil basis approximately covers its charter expenses, making that district a mere pass-through.

Questions Deserve Answers
The Assembly's proposal that targets charter schools in Albany and Buffalo in such a harsh and discriminatory way--charters that serve mostly low-income, minority students--begs the question: Why?

I could provide plenty of educated responses to that query, but it's better left to the Assembly members who represent Albany and Buffalo to answer that question from their own charter constituents that are being singled out for this unfair treatment.

This enormous, stand-alone funding cut would never have been included in this Assembly bill without the blessing of Majority Leader Ron Canestrari and Assemblyman Jack McEneny, both of whom represent Albany (and both of whom previously sponsored an identical anti-charter funding bill for Albany); Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Assemblyman Sean Ryan, both from Buffalo; and Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper from Roosevelt.

Their charter constituents deserve answers - and respect.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 2:29 PM
 
Friday, March 09, 2012

 
Should Absentee Students Affect Teacher Evaluations?

spacer (Editor's note: The following post was made by NYCSA president, Bill Phillips)

Fifteen years ago, I was a district school board member. One of the many frustrations of this role was the unwillingness of administrators and teachers to use test data to help discern district performance. “Unwillingness” is too polite. As I recall, the board had to fight to get ONE nationally-normed reading test applied to ONE of our elementary grades. It’s been a long-time hunch of mine that the reason educators have been run over on the testing issue in the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top era is because they were so extreme and unmovable back when they had a chance to make a contribution.

I fear that supporters of data-driven accountability are starting to make the same mistakes as they implement teacher evaluation protocols in New York.

Specifically, I was watching with pained interest the Buffalo Teachers Federation’s fight with the Buffalo Board of Education and the State Education Department. At issue is whether teacher evaluations should include the performance of students who are absent from the classroom for extended periods of time. The BTF wants the academic performance of students who are absent for at least twenty percent of the year -- approximately once per week -- to be excluded from teacher evaluations. Union president Phil Rumore wrote, “I believe any fair minded person would agree that basing a teacher’s evaluation on students whose attendance in school is close to nonexistent is wrong.”

I typically have no shortage of things to disagree with Rumore about -- starting with the existence of charter schools. However, his basic point is correct on the absenteeism issue. It defies common sense to suggest a teacher should be held accountable for the performance of students who they essentially do not teach.

I also have some sympathy for the the Buffalo Board of Education, as they would have to deal with the mess that comes with the loss of more than $9 million in federal money. But, when the Board’s justification starts with the potential loss of money rather than the logic of the policy, it is easy to speculate that in a quiet moment they would agree with the BTF’s position.

It is the Education Department that should reconsider its demand on the issue of absenteeism. With all the fanfare that came with last month’s agreement between the department and the statewide teachers union, it’s inconceivable that the revised evaluation protocol is not already a dramatic improvement. How hard could it be for the department to concede a reasonable and minor point, declare victory on the big issue of using test data in evaluations, and move on to the next issue in its reform agenda?

Like the educators of twenty years ago who never saw a test they liked, the department and the advocates who support these reforms would be wise to remember that the public is more in favor of “hard accountability” in theory than it is in practice. The degree to which we force test or data-based accountability into places where it does not belong is the degree to which we will struggle to defend pushback about the use of data in general. This is no small issue. The increased use of data is one of the most significant education reforms of the last decade. It’s not just integral to "high stakes" reforms like school closures, teacher evaluations, and student matriculation decisions, but undergirds almost every reform imaginable. It would be tragic if bureaucratic ham-handedness from our otherwise well-intentioned State Education Department was a catalyst for further opposition to the basic infrastructure of education reform.

Quick addendum: I have no problem with using student absenteeism as an accountability measure -- at the school level. It’s also fine to use absenteeism as a complementary measure for school closure decisions. This is one of many reasons I prefer charter school accountability to district-style accountability. Charter accountability has both the flexibility to avoid the unfair use of metrics, as well as more realistic consequences for failure -- namely, everybody loses their job when the charter closes.

Bill Phillips
for The Chalkboard
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 11:41 AM
 
Wednesday, March 07, 2012

 
Charter School Proposals Keep Rolling In

spacer Getting a charter school to be approved for opening is no simple task in New York - nor should it be; it often takes years of planning and development and refinement--and often a political battle--all before children are enrolled and the doors open.

Still, charter proposals keep rolling in, which is a credit to those educational entrepreneurs who continue to step up to the plate and putting forth a quality public education for their communities.

It always was a challenge to get a charter approval, beginning with the first applications for new charter schools submitted in 1999. In some ways it is more difficult in 2012 to get an approved charter school in the state after two major revisions to the state's Charter Schools Act which added new public hearings requirements and more detailed information in a request for proposals.

On the other hand, charter applicants today have the advantage of experience and history: they can adopt best practices by reviewing previously-approved charters, visiting high-performing schools, and learning where some charters went wrong. In several instances, the charter proposals are proposed replications of existing charters operated by a nonprofit charter management company.

This week both the administrative arms of the state's two charter authorizers, the state Education Department and the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, announced that proposals for 31 new charter school are under consideration: 13 (listed here) for consideration by the Board of Regents and 18 (listed here) for the SUNY Board of Trustees.

Charter Proposals to Regents/SED
The Regents number consists of applicant groups that were approved to proceed after an initial review that resulted in several charter school proposals dropping away. Of these remaining 13 charter proposals, nine would serve either middle or high school grades with the remaining four proposed as elementary schools. Nine of the charters are proposed to be located in New York City with the other four to locate elsewhere: Yonkers, would be the second charter; Riverhead, Long Island, a 7-12 school to complement the existing K-6 charter; East Ramapo, which would be the first in Rockland County; and Utica, which also would be that city's first charter.

The department also will commence a second round of charter proposals beginning in June after the Regents act on the 13 active submissions.

Charter Proposals to SUNY/CSI
The 18 proposed charter schools submitted to SUNY is likely to decline in number by Friday when the Institute gives the green light to those applicants to submit full-blown applications. Fifteen of the charter proposals would be in New York City, and one each in Buffalo, Rochester and Middletown - the latter being the first in that small city.

New York's rigorous charter approval process by both authorizers is designed to ensure a quality school at the finish line. It is good news for thousands more students and their families that more than 30 charter schools already approved will be opening this year, and as many as 30 more that are now under consideration could open in 2013, including in several upstate school districts for the very first time.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 9:21 PM
 
Saturday, March 03, 2012

 
Rhetorical Overkill by Pension Reform Opposition

spacer As long as the actuarial cost of guaranteed benefit level public pensions continue their stratospheric rise, no amount of school aid is going to meet the spending needs and demands of public services, particularly for education.

This reality continues to be ignored as public employee unions step up their opposition to Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposed Tier VI pension system for a less generous guaranteed benefit or optional 401(k)-style contribution plan.

Not only is this reality ignored, but the Governor's modest reform is demagogued as though the end-times were near.

On Thursday, several groups, including an umbrella organization called the New York Alliance for Retired Americans, gathered at the state Capitol to oppose any changes to public pensions. The Alliance includes officials from the major public employee unions, including New York State United Teachers, Service Employees International Union, Public Employees Federation, and others.

Keep in mind that the governor's pension plan affects public employees that are not yet employees; that is, it only applies to future workers. No one currently employed and certainly no one currently retired is affected. In fact, the protection of current employees and retirees is safeguarded by the state constitution, which does not allow retirement benefits to be diminished; hence, the necessity for creating a new tier for future workers is the only means to save money without a constitutional amendment. A mere legislative change to existing law cannot save retirement costs by affecting current workers or retirees.

Regardless of these facts, the rhetoric of all these unions sounds as though the governor's plan would financially harm them. Included in the Alliance's description of pension reform is the following: "Cuomo's plans to target public workers and their benefits by unraveling retirement security ... proposals sacrifice public employees while benefiting only the richest few ...undermines retirement security of public employees ... Governor is willing to further undercut their retirement security in exchange for political gains ... Cuomo's proposals that penalize nurses and firefighters while exempting Wall Street and the wealthiest ..."

This bevy of canards and falsehoods was packed into a single paragraph annoucing the Alliance's press conference.

Undermining Today's Needs
For every budget dollar being spent on actuarial costs for present-day and future retirement costs, a dollar is being denied for current services in the classroom and every other public service. Yet, the unions' railing against the Governor's pension reform plan effectively undermines their simultaneous demands for more funding for education and other public services, including salary increases of current members. Every year that goes by without attaining pension savings will continue of the trend of fewer dollars for salaries and services.

This stance in opposition to saving pension costs on workers who do not yet exist in the system at the expense of those who are remains an ironic mystery to me. With no one's retirement at risk, why are the unions pretending otherwise, even as it undermines present-day budget needs? Moreover, the attacks on the "wealthy" and "Wall Street" make no sense, especially considering that the leadership of nearly every school district and municipality in the state supports the governor's plan, neither of which should be confused with being wealthy or from Wall Street.

There is a third option: raising taxes on the wealthy - except it's already been done. Beginning in 2009, the wealthiest New Yorkers have been paying a top income tax rate of 8.97 percent. This was extended last December by Gov. Cuomo and the legislature at least through 2014. Since most wealthy New Yorkers reside in New York City with its own local income tax, the combined top rate exceeds 12.6 percent - the highest in the nation. This is politically unlikely to increase again any time soon.

Transferring Wealth from Children to Retirees
Absent legislative enactment of Gov. Cuomo's proposed Tier VI retirement plan, the state will effectively continue its transfer of wealth away from current needs, including students and teachers, to pension costs for current and future retirees who, of course, are no longer working. It would be nice if the unions got the message on such a raw deal.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 8:49 PM
 
Wednesday, February 29, 2012

 
Still Fighting NYC Mayoral Control and Charters

spacer Each of New York City's 32 community school districts has something called a Community Education Council that consists of 11 voting members, nine of whom are parents of a student attending a school in the district. These councils are advisory to the Department of Education (DOE), as they replaced the old community school board for each of the 32 districts that had more governing power in the old school governance system, before mayoral control took effect in 2003.

Many a New York City politician has railed against mayoral control because the DOE has greater control over policy and appointments at the community school district and building level than under the previous, patronage-filled system. Moreover, the greater emphasis on education accountability has resulted in more city district school closures for poor academic performance, which raises the blood pressure of the teachers unions, parents and sundry groups wedded to their schools, irrespective abysmal student results and its tragic ripple effects.

Add to all of this the policy of locating new charter schools in district buildings, and you've got a whirlwind of opposition up against those parents seeking charter opportunities for their children. This has been manifested at contentious hearings of the city's Panel of Education Policy over use of district building space.

CEC Building "Veto" to Kill Charters
The latest effort to undermine mayoral control and charter schools was announced yesterday at a press conference by the city's United Federation of Teachers (UFT), organized parents and local politicians where they are proposing state legislation to block space-sharing between district and charter schools. The UFT president, Michael Mulgrew (around whom this all revolves), state and city elected officials, and parents want the community education councils (CEC) to have a veto over any space-sharing proposal by the department.

Now, with nine parents of district students sitting on each CEC, take a wild guess how those votes are going to turn out for charter schools?

That old cliche that education policy is about the adults rather than the children was on full display at this anti-charter school event.

Literally hundreds of city district schools "share" buildings right now. School buildings in New York City are quite large, so this makes sense - it's routine, in fact. Dozens of charter schools, close to 100, have the same arrangement since real estate in New York City comes at a cost premium.

Since charter schools receive no building aid, the only way they can expand this vital educational opportunity in a place like New York City is to make district space available to them. The UFT and its fellow travelers latest attempt to block space-sharing is all about stopping charter schools - period.

Charter Parents & Students are Part of the "Community"
For all the talk by the UFT about the interests of parents, what gets lost in their charade are the interests of parents who are seeking a better education via a charter school. Charter school parents and their children are part of the same "community," aren't they? Are not they entitled to have a roof over their heads?

The reality that flies in the face of this selfish CEC proposal to shut out charter school parents is that every time a new charter school opens or expands, it is instantly filled with applicants to the point of needing a lottery. Tens of thousands of students throughout the city end up on charter school waiting lists for admission every year. If school district buildings belong to the parents in the community (rather than Tweed Hall), that also should include charter parents in the same community.

The state legislation being proposed to give CECs control over co-locations is designed to undermine mayoral control of the city's schools specifically at the expense of public educational opportunities offered by charter schools. That charters remain in strong demand by thousands of parents in every "community" matters not at all. Instead, this proposal to give CEC control will render charter parents and their children as second-class citizens.

It would be nice to see cooler heads prevail so that children are put in the best public school arrangement possible in both district and charter school settings. Competition and turf issues will always be a challenge, but shutting down charter competition with this latest CEC gambit ultimately serves the UFT and adult interests - not the interests of students.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 7:45 AM
 
Monday, February 27, 2012

 
Teacher Ratings Out in the Open

spacer The release last Friday of teacher ratings by the New York City Department of Education is yet another step in establishing greater accountability and transparency in the public school system. We heard a lot about accountability and transparency for charter schools from the state and city teacher unions about charter schools, but it has not been so well received when it comes to teacher ratings.

I can understand the concern that some teachers would be unfairly rated, resulting in their good names being besmirched by a misleading score, or an unfair rating system. All necessary efforts should be made to clear up such mistakes or flaws. By contrast, it is a good thing to see excellent teachers with high ratings get well-deserved exposure, including some celebratory news coverage.

Sharing Best Practices
It is those cadre of high-scoring, excellent teachers whom state Education Commissioner John King should fund extra for video-taping classroom instruction to share with teachers as part of professional development. At a recent panel on middle schools conducted during the annual conference of the state's Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, the commissioner advocated the taping of excellent classroom instruction as part of sharing best practices with other teachers. He now has a rating system from which to select teachers, and he should propose a state program to pay such teachers extra for filming their work.

It remains to be seen to what degree faulty ratings are the exception or too common - as the latter occurrence would clearly indicate a flawed rating system. The head of the NYC United Federation of Teachers has been loudly critical of the rating system, and sought in state court to block the release of the ratings, to no avail. One of the nuggets I learned from the weekend's stories, however, was that Mr. Mulgrew's predecessor, Randi Weingarten, supported the ratings system as a tool to improve instruction.

To be fair, supporting a rating system to inform and improve classroom instruction and professional development does not mean having to support the public release of the ratings. The UFT naturally sought to keep them internal. However, for all the union's talk about the interests of parents and empowering them, the release of the teacher ratings helps to fulfill this very purpose.

It also should be noted those teachers with accurate low ratings do not appear to be in any danger of losing their job - at least regarding those teachers with tenure rights. The exposure may be unpleasant, but their job is not at risk under the current system. Instead, it's the students who lose out.

Policy Implications
The larger policy implications from the release of teacher rating data is not so much an undermining of tenure, or rapid removal of poor-performing teachers. Rather, the conversation needs to get much louder about instituting merit pay and bonuses, and pay scale differentials based on ratings instead of seniority and college credits that have no correlation to student acheivement. The uniformity of the collective bargaining agreements do not reflect the varied expertise required to teach different subjects, and certainly do not reflect ability. The teacher unions want it to remain so, which serves its institutional interests, but has the contrary effect on other, more important concerns. This should change so as to reflect the reality manifested by this rating system.

To the extent the city's teacher rating system can be improved, and a genuine teacher evaluation system can be implemented, instruction can be improved, low-performing teachers can helped to improve or be weeded out, and students will be better off academically.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa
posted by Peter Murphy at PermaLink 10:16 AM