tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90259488329136943452024-03-15T22:56:10.040-07:00Jersey JazzmanWord Jazz served (mostly) daily. Education, politics, music, the arts, New Jersey, and whatever else strikes me.
"<i>A widely read teacher blogger</i>" - Jane Roh, Courier Post.
"<i>One of my favorite bloggers</i>" - Diane RavitchDukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.comBlogger2657125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-2338763855472030742021-08-27T12:15:00.004-07:002021-08-27T12:21:17.607-07:00On Remote Teaching and Learning In an Ongoing Pandemic<p>Some recent stories I've been thinking about (all emphases mine). <a href="https://tn.chalkbeat.org/2021/8/24/22640395/covid-tennessee-remote-learning-restrictions-students-memphis-school-board">Tennessee</a>:</p><blockquote><p id="RpXyDJ" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">Gov. Bill Lee’s administration is getting pushback in Memphis on new Tennessee restrictions that make it harder for district leaders to close school buildings and shift students to remote instruction as pediatric COVID cases climb.</p><p id="XDxrp9" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">Meanwhile, school board members with Shelby County Schools held a moment of silence Tuesday to remember two students, two teachers, and one young alum who recently died. School officials did not release the cause of death for any of the five.</p><p id="JN00of" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">“We must stand together during this difficult time,” Superintendent Joris Ray said.</p><p id="x8hJcW" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">A day earlier, district officials encouraged families to direct their complaints to the governor’s office as a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/bill-lee-scs-virtual-or-inschool-option-for-students?redirect=false" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(23, 130, 135); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #393939; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: inherit; transition-duration: 0.1s, 0.1s, 0.1s; transition-property: color, background-color, fill; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; vertical-align: inherit;">petition</a> circulated <b>demanding a virtual option that allows students to stay with their teachers.</b> More than 13,000 people had signed the petition by Tuesday afternoon, and a small group of parents also protested outside the district’s headquarters on Monday. </p><p id="swzwBZ" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">“We hear your concerns and understand your frustrations regarding options for remote learning,” said a statement from the district. “Stand for safety with us by contacting Governor Lee and state legislators.”</p><p id="6jX8io" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">The call to action reflects the ever-growing divide between the Republican governor and Tennessee’s largest school district over the best way to teach while protecting the health of children too young to be vaccinated. COVID’s delta variant has returned Tennessee’s case numbers to levels not seen since the pandemic’s wintertime peak.</p><p id="ABGhNl" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;">Shelby County leaders said their hands are tied on remote learning options beyond enrolling in <a href="https://tn.chalkbeat.org/2021/8/5/22610360/virtual-schools-virtual-learning-increased-enrollment-memphis-and-nashville" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(23, 130, 135); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #393939; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: inherit; transition-duration: 0.1s, 0.1s, 0.1s; transition-property: color, background-color, fill; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; vertical-align: inherit;">Memphis Virtual School</a>. They cited new rules and criteria passed recently by the Tennessee State Board of Education for closing schools and remote learning. </p><p id="dBwr8x" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: inherit;"><b>Those rules allow individual students to switch temporarily to remote instruction if they’re sidelined by the virus, either because of illness or exposure. But districts can’t toggle back and forth with remote learning without an executive order from the governor, according to state officials. </b>School systems that have to close entire schools because of COVID outbreaks must use days usually stockpiled for inclement weather, flu outbreaks, or staffing problems.</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/delta-variant-surges-remote-learning-spotlight-school-year-79531347">New Jersey</a>:</p><blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Theinhardt, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: 0.20999999344348907px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;">As students head back for a third school year impacted by the pandemic, <a href="http://www.abcnews.com/coronavirus" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(255, 240, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(255, 240, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">COVID-19</a> continues to complicate the education landscape and the impact of remote learning has yet to be fully assessed. As achievement gaps have emerged, many districts are planning to return fully in person learning in hopes of restoring traditional learning, even as safety concerns mount around the highly contagious delta variant.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Theinhardt, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: 0.20999999344348907px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;"><b>But remote learning will remain a part of students' lives for the foreseeable future, experts say, with tens of thousands of students in quarantine just weeks into the school year for some</b>. How schools approach remote learning is varied: While some view it as a Zoom extension of the classroom, others are taking novel and holistic approaches to try to improve the quality of instruction.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Theinhardt, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: 0.20999999344348907px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;">For now, in-person learning is the only option for students like Cosby's daughter, a rising senior, as New Jersey's governor was among several leaders to require full-time, in-person K-12 instruction this school year. Other large school districts, like New York City, are starting the year without a remote option.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Theinhardt, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: 0.20999999344348907px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;"><b>In recent days, however, the New Jersey state education department has <a href="https://www.nj.gov/education/broadcasts/2021/aug/11/Educating%20Students%20During%20Quarantine_.pdf" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(255, 240, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(255, 240, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">issued guidance</a> that "strongly encouraged" schools to provide remote instruction for students during quarantine</b>, <a href="https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/education/2021/08/14/some-new-jersey-schools-prepare-remote-learning-options-fall/8123292002/" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(255, 240, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(255, 240, 0) 0px -2px 0px 0px inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NorthJersey.com reported</a>.</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://time.com/6092595/schools-remote-learning/">Atlanta</a>:</p><blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.95); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.95); font-family: "PT Serif", georgia, times, serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 28px; margin: 28px 0px 28px auto; max-width: 640px; width: 640px;">(ATLANTA) — A few weeks into the new school year, <b>growing numbers of U.S. districts have halted in-person learning or switched to hybrid models because of rapidly mounting coronavirus infections.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.95); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.95); font-family: "PT Serif", georgia, times, serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 28px; margin: 28px 0px 28px auto; max-width: 640px; width: 640px;">More than 80 school districts or charter networks have closed or delayed in-person classes for at least one entire school in more than a dozen states. <b>Others have sent home whole grade levels or asked half their students to stay home on hybrid schedules.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.95); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.95); font-family: "PT Serif", georgia, times, serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 28px; margin: 28px 0px 28px auto; max-width: 640px; width: 640px;">The setbacks in mostly small, rural districts that were among the first to return dampen hopes for a sustained, widespread return to classrooms after two years of schooling disrupted by the pandemic.</p></blockquote><p>When the school year ended last year, I was sure we were going to be going back to something relatively close to "normal." But then came Delta, with Lambda and who knows how many others on the horizon. Combined with vax resistance that is, infuriatingly, larger than I expected, and an anti-mask movement fueled largely by inanity on social media, it's clear this year will be anything but "normal."</p><p>Which means we've got to come to terms with remote learning; it's not going away any time soon, if ever. For all its faults -- and they are many -- remote learning is a schooling option that can and should be deployed if necessary as a public health measure. </p><p>But the patchwork approach we're taking to remote learning isn't smart policy. We need to start delineating when and why we need remote learning, and then set standards for what it should be. We also need a clear-eyed acknowledgment of the challenges inherent in implementing remote learning, including an accounting of what resources will be necessary to make it work.</p><p>I propose we start by laying out some scenarios for when schools will need remote learning:</p><p><b>1) The all-out emergency. </b>This is the Spring of 2020 scenario all over again: a new health threat emerges that is so grave and/or uncertain we have no choice but to fully close down all schools. I think most of us acknowledge the chances are quite good this will happen again sometime in the not-too-distant-future.</p><p>What was lacking in early 2020 when we tried this for the first time? Universal broadband connectivity for all students and staff. Devices of high enough quality that instruction could be delivered. Curricular materials suitable for remote learning. Staff training in remote instruction. Student training. Parent training. Support infrastructure. Time flexibility to meet parent/student needs.</p><p>I'm leaving out a host of other things that aren't under the control of schools: adequate space for students at home, time off for parents, social services, etc. Remote learning doesn't work without them, but these are issues outside of education policy. And, arguably, so is broadband connectivity. It's clear the internet is now as indispensable to modern life as electricity, and high-speed access should be seen as a necessity.</p><p>Getting students devices is probably the easiest challenge to overcome: it's a matter of money and will, although supporting all those devices will require adequate staff. Developing high-quality instruction is another matter. I can see teacher prep programs developing entire courses on the subject, and on-going professional development for teachers will inevitably be focused on improving remote instruction. </p><p>You can probably guess my feelings on this: we already ask an awful lot of teachers. Now we want them to be able to turn their practice on a dime, always ready to jump to another mode of instruction immediately and seamlessly. This means teachers will not only have to add remote instruction planning to their already jam-packed days; they will need to develop skill sets similar to the ones already in demand in other parts of the economy.</p><p>If we're going to have a school system that is able to transition to remote learning in an emergency, we're going to have to pony up. We need more resources, we need more staff, and we need to pay teachers for their extra time and the skills they will develop. There's just no way we do this on the cheap.</p><p><b>2) The local response.</b> In this scenario, a local outbreak requires a temporary transition to remote learning for all students in a class, a school, or a district. In some ways, it's similar to the scenario above, except the participants are limited: other classrooms or schools carry on as usual.</p><p>The biggest difference I see between the local response and the all-out emergency is that totally going remote may not be the only option. A district or school may opt instead to implement a hybrid schedule, where students rotate their in-school and at-home days. Maybe all students attend in-school part of the day and learn remotely during another part. This was the case for many districts through the last school year, and I believe it's the most likely scenario for a local response to a pandemic.</p><p>The "good" news is that at least some of the preparation and planning for the all-out emergency can be transferred to the local response: broadband, devices, training, planning, etc. But, as I discuss below, there is a big difference between teaching everyone on-line and teaching some on-line, some in-person.</p><p>Again, adequate resources will be essential in providing accepted local responses. There is an <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/blog-category/new-jerseys-school-re-openings-are-racially-unequal/">obvious and clear connection</a> between a school district's ability to provide hybrid instruction and its funding. Districts will not be able to provide acceptable remote learning models unless they have the resources to plan and implement them.</p><p><b>3) The individual response. </b>Like everything else, America is divided on whether children should be back in school. Context matters a lot: people who might be comfortable sending their children to a school with mandatory masking may not want their child in a school without it. But even with strict mitigation in place, some families may see the risk to their child -- or other members of the family who are immunocompromised -- as too great.</p><p>In addition, a student who is exposed to the virus outside of school might need to quarantine for a while, even if they don't contract Covid. What sort of schooling should they be offered?</p><p>I see three possible responses. First, regular classrooms are set up to accommodate remote learners, essentially joining a regular class synchronously via Zoom or Google Meet or whatever. Second, separate schooling is provided to students that is entirely on-line and run by a teacher who only does on-line instruction. Third, some sort of combination of the two.</p><p>Each of these has its pros and cons. Teaching some students in-person and some on-line is really, really difficult. The classroom has to be set up to accommodate both sets of students. Lessons have to be planned so that everything students need at home is provided, and so delivery can take place simultaneously to remote and in-person kids. Some subjects -- PE, art, music, lab science -- are almost impossible to imagine being taught with both sets of students in sync. But in this model the students who are remote stay with their classmates and current teacher, which, if they return to live instruction, would make things easier.</p><p>Moving students to a separate class might work for those who make a long-term commitment to stay at home. One big advantage is that teachers who are immunocompromised, or who had family who were, would still have a place to teach. It's very difficult to imagine, however, a student who needed to quarantine for a short while benefitting from being temporarily placed into an entirely separate class with a teacher who had no prior experience with that student.</p><p>It's also worth noting the structure of school districts may make fully on-line classes harder or easier. Large districts may be able to set up and staff these classes more easily than smaller ones. Small districts may need to pool their resources to reach a critical mass where they can offer these classes.</p><p>Finally, it might make sense to have some sort of combination of the two. But no matter the mode of instruction, I believe there are several changes that would have to be made to make them work. Among them:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><u>Class sizes will have to be lowered. </u>You can't expect a teacher to give kids getting remote instruction the attention they need in a hybrid setting if the class is already too large. The cues teachers observe and react to during in-person instructions aren't available in remote learning. During hybrid instruction, their focus can't be distributed in the same way it is during in-person learning. Lowering class sizes is the best way to make sure teachers can respond to all of their students' needs in a mixed-mode setting.</li><li><u>Staff will need more planning time.</u> If it's coordinating across classes or simply planning lessons with two modes of delivery, teachers can't be expected to add this to their plates without additional time to figure out how to make it work.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>I'm not arguing here that remote instruction can't or shouldn't become a regular part of K12 schooling. I am laying out the challenges -- and I'm sure there are many more I haven't thought of -- to make the point that this will not be easy, more resources will be needed to make it happen, and this will take <i>time</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>No one who knows how schools actually work could possibly think we can just rearrange a few schedules and buy a few more laptops and schools will be all set for remote instruction. But if this has to happen -- and I think it does -- we'd better start making plans for it now.</div><div><br /></div><p></p>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-51228104609452021762021-05-15T05:48:00.002-07:002021-05-15T06:38:37.085-07:00Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Whither, Part IV<p>In the decade I've been writing this blog, I've seen some really horrible behavior towards teachers (a prime example <a href="https://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/11/exclusive-govchristie-to-teacher-i-am.html">here</a>). But I don't think I've ever seen anything <a href="https://www.app.com/videos/news/2020/09/01/lakewood-board-attorney-michael-inzelbuch-chases-lea-president-kimberlee-shaw/3455965001/">quite like this</a>:</p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://uw-media.app.com/embed/video/3455965001?placement=snow-embed" title="APP-Embed Player" width="540"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is from last September, when the Lakewood Education Association (LEA), the local teachers union, was, like all other local unions in the state, advocating for the health and safety of its members while districts made opening plans. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Maybe you sympathize with the teachers; maybe you don't. But the truly obnoxious behavior of Michael Inzelbuch, the district's attorney, is remarkable. Inzelbuch wound up apologizing, as he should have, although as far as apologies go this one is awfully weak:</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Now this 👉statement from Lakewood School Bd Atty, first apologizing for accosting the Union President, then thanking her for 'finally' meeting w/ the board "after well documented efforts that have been rebuffed by Union leadership for more than 4 months" <a href="https://twitter.com/ReporterJim?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ReporterJim</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/News12NJ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@News12NJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/hgaay3BITX">https://t.co/hgaay3BITX</a> <a href="https://t.co/zrLWiuuRmJ">pic.twitter.com/zrLWiuuRmJ</a></p>— Eric Landskroner (@ericlandskroner) <a href="https://twitter.com/ericlandskroner/status/1300986900145229824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2020</a></blockquote><br />We'll talk later about how Lakewood's school district has responded to the pandemic. For now, let me restate that I believe at least three things will happen when public schools are left to wither, as they have been in Lakewood:<br /><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>When a large part of a community abandons its public schools, chaos ensues and accountability dissolves.</li><li>Segregation is the inevitable consequence of school privatization.</li><li>Educators will be disrespected in a community that does not support its public schools. </li></ol>#3 is precisely what's happening in Lakewood: a climate of disrespect for teachers working in public schools -- teachers who are educating only a small fraction of the community's children.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcfJKqSlsYuAhtqwyDQTXkzMOER51tuNw2gNrBbou9pYFZHkaMx0Uy5qC2pQjtyzNei_hMZ9Qrz2qyOfloYrBRzXhDrpPk-vb2uNCTBEsCsQ2CIPlukwgJOVke5828T9f3iilsFvl7DxG/s2048/Lakewood01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="2048" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcfJKqSlsYuAhtqwyDQTXkzMOER51tuNw2gNrBbou9pYFZHkaMx0Uy5qC2pQjtyzNei_hMZ9Qrz2qyOfloYrBRzXhDrpPk-vb2uNCTBEsCsQ2CIPlukwgJOVke5828T9f3iilsFvl7DxG/w640-h402/Lakewood01.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Again: Lakewood has highly segregated schools. The majority of residents send their children to private religious schools, mostly yeshivahs. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsLp6PtusACJPizWUQRNxLjvdJRms4UJ_yLY1kNQSODJ_TXS7dIOHvGD-JiIlI5VRdeLEvFuSQao08H6hVIRrwMmIh4fRO4vfooax2bOX3i5gF3sImUi3WPHtLTxcloqbjHf_9jjhl_bUL/s2048/Lakewood05.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1533" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsLp6PtusACJPizWUQRNxLjvdJRms4UJ_yLY1kNQSODJ_TXS7dIOHvGD-JiIlI5VRdeLEvFuSQao08H6hVIRrwMmIh4fRO4vfooax2bOX3i5gF3sImUi3WPHtLTxcloqbjHf_9jjhl_bUL/w640-h480/Lakewood05.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The Hispanic minority in the community, however, sends their children to the public schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLIFTeRiu-59gbWdKiVkOkFLTDYE3Cdt8XL7rhihpi7tu1uENFopFNVHRiHgX-aPaObvnVEUCMx7RAy1822we9W-sqKgKzMTO1CdM11_mnjrO3yN7N3BZWNU8tRoQJP5GxsDdxbJpHgPQ5/s2048/Lakewood02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLIFTeRiu-59gbWdKiVkOkFLTDYE3Cdt8XL7rhihpi7tu1uENFopFNVHRiHgX-aPaObvnVEUCMx7RAy1822we9W-sqKgKzMTO1CdM11_mnjrO3yN7N3BZWNU8tRoQJP5GxsDdxbJpHgPQ5/w640-h424/Lakewood02.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When your child attends a public school, and you actually see what teachers do for students, you're far more likely to appreciate their work and value it. But when the majority of a town's residents don't attend public school, they miss out on that perspective. It's not that they necessarily have disdain for public school teachers so much as they don't have a personal connection; they can't see the value of teachers through the eyes of someone whose own children were affected by them. Teachers might teach other people's kids, but they don't teach their own.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That manifests itself through things like Inzelbuch's embarrassing behavior. <b>But it also may manifest itself in how well teachers are paid. </b>Let's unpack this a bit:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When the majority of a town's children attend the public schools, there are at least two big reasons why residents will care about the quality of those schools. First, they care about the education their own children receive. They'll want good teachers, good facilities, and good administrators, and they'll be willing to pay for them, at least up to a point.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Second, the value of their homes will depend on the quality of the schools. The perceived quality of schools is a major driver of property values, so homeowners have an incentive to make sure that perceived quality remains high. To be sure, there are many negative consequences to this reality, especially because education is a "<a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ273517">positional good</a>," but there's little doubt concern about property values is a driver of concern about school quality.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In Lakewood, however, both of these drivers are switched off. The majority of parents in the town don't have a personal stake in the public schools; consequently, home buyers won't pay more for property in Lakewood if the quality of the public schools improve. I'm sure people in Lakewood who have opted out of the public schools don't want them to be "bad," but they have little personal incentive to make sure the those schools are "good" either.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A community like Lakewood, therefore, isn't going to have the same incentive to recruit and retain teachers for its public schools. And teacher salaries will reflect that lack of incentive.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7hOx2Q52ApURLTU6c11fGzavJnAbQj5SnoNAW9oo7-Yc_ezxfRRten6EJHGNP2cYmfoLmxoQyBzeWef1MKW27HGk6ThMmCNciDnSN55VqOla94NMvY939CMuFjQXh2NHQQMUYu03DFpOU/s2048/Lakewood10.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1466" data-original-width="2048" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7hOx2Q52ApURLTU6c11fGzavJnAbQj5SnoNAW9oo7-Yc_ezxfRRten6EJHGNP2cYmfoLmxoQyBzeWef1MKW27HGk6ThMmCNciDnSN55VqOla94NMvY939CMuFjQXh2NHQQMUYu03DFpOU/w640-h458/Lakewood10.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is a salary model I've used before. Basically, I take every full-time teacher in the state and predict their salary based on things like experience, labor market, job category, and so on. I then compare what the model says they should make to what they actually make; in this way, I can compare Lakewood teachers' salaries "apples-to-apples" with teacher salaries in the rest of the state.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Consistently, year after year, Lakewood teachers make <i>less</i> than what the average teacher makes in New Jersey, holding other factors constant. This is consistent with <a href="http://lakewoodlaw84048.ipage.com/documents/Rebutal%20to%20Exceptions.pdf">recent testimony</a> in a <a href="https://www.nj.com/education/2021/05/these-nj-kids-arent-getting-a-fair-education-judge-rules-but-fix-still-isnt-clear.html">trial about Lakewood school funding</a>, which found Lakewood salaries were the lowest in the state compared to similar districts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'll write more about this trial in a bit. For now, let me conclude with this: in both their interactions with district officials and in their pay, Lakewood's public school educators are being disrespected. But this is an inevitable consequence of what happens when a community largely abandons its public schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">More to come.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">ADDING: A recent and telling story from this past <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/education/in-our-schools/2021/03/29/lakewood-teachers-fight-covid-related-suspension-cite-dangers/7014632002/">March</a>:</div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Most recently, eight Clarke teachers and staff were infected with the virus, including four who were hospitalized, according to Kimberlee Shaw, president of the Lakewood Education Association (LEA), which represents nearly 900 employees. </p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">But instead of closing the school and switching to all-virtual classes, the district chose to suspend Assistant Principal Madaly Rodriguez-Jones and moved an administrator from another school to temporarily take her place. </p></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“They should have closed it for two weeks and given everyone the 14-day quarantine,” said Shaw. “They claimed they did put in purifiers, but that was after.”</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The Rodriguez-Jones paid suspension, originally set to end March 30, was extended this week to April 30, according to Shaw and the board agenda. District officials did not respond to requests for comment or explain why the move was made. </p></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">[...] </p></div></blockquote><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“I don’t know what the district thinks they know, but this is an ever-changing situation and I felt like my staff members were being blamed for getting COVID,” Shaw said. “And they felt that way, <b>they were upset that it was looking like the district was blaming the teachers.</b>”</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">But the Clarke situation is just the latest concern for teachers in the 6,000-student district, <b>which is among the few that have remained open for all students since the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year. </b></p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Shaw said that has resulted in 371 positive tests, 214 students and 157 staff, since July 2020, but no school closings or even partial shutdowns.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“It is taking its toll, our staff is tired, they are covering classes because they are short of staff, they are worried about the virus,” Shaw said. “Right now staff is doing their job and trying to stay safe and we are hoping that if another outbreak occurs that the district will reconsider and shut that building, it worries the staff, they feel they are not being notified.” [emphasis mine]</p></div></blockquote><p>I ask you: does this sound like a district where teachers feel respected? </p><p>ADDING MORE: <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/education/in-our-schools/2021/05/14/lakewood-nj-teachers-fired-without-cause-explanation-says-union/5072888001/" target="_blank">This</a> should come as no surprise:</p><blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">LAKEWOOD - More than 30 school district teachers are being let go at the end of the school year without clear explanation or cause, according to teachers’ union leaders who say the move is occurring at a time when the district faces a teaching shortage.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“We had staffing shortages before the pandemic and the pandemic only exacerbated it,” said Lakewood Education Association President Kimberlee Shaw, whose local represents more than 700 teachers and staff in the 6,700-student district. </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">[...] </p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“It’s chaos for our students,” added Shaw. “They crave routine and stability. They never know who their teachers are going to be from one month to the next. It’s stressful for all of us and makes me worry about our students’ safety and continuity of instruction.”</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In a release, the LEA stated that more than 100 staff members had left the district since June 30, 2020. “The district has a history of firing non-tenured teachers without cause,” the union release added. “Most of these teachers and staff members report being ‘blindsided’ by their non-renewals since they had positive evaluations and no history of disciplinary issues.”</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“Meanwhile, they’ve had little to no support from the district through mentoring or professional development. The district also lost nearly its entire guidance department and Child Study Team at the high school at a time when student mental health is at crisis level and the district is implementing a new Social-Emotional Learning initiative.”</p></blockquote><p><br /></p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
</div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-16117806417210732832021-03-31T09:39:00.001-07:002021-03-31T09:39:15.395-07:00COVID and "Learning Loss": Test Scores Should Not Be Our Immediate Concern<p>I'll get back to Lakewood in a bit, but I want to take a minute and talk about a <a href="https://jerseycan.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/03/03-25-21_JerseyCAN_ATimeToAct_Report_V1.pdf?source=email" target="_blank">new report</a> out yesterday from JerseyCAN and others about learning loss and COVID-19.</p><p>Regular readers know I've had my issues with JerseyCAN over the years: too many times, their analyses have missed the mark, often because of a <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2019/06/things-education-reformers-still-dont.html" target="_blank">lack of understanding</a> about things like what test scores actually represent and how they should be used to direct K-12 education policy. </p><p>I might make similar complaints about this latest report. Using a convenience sample's outcomes on one test to extrapolate outcomes on another for an entire population is inherently problematic. Further, changes in proficiency rates on the same test are often artifacts of the process of setting those rates, and not indications of any changes in actual student learning. There's also a whole problem of equating "proficiency" across grade levels that tends to get pushed aside in these discussions. Plus the easy way we accept "grade level" as some sort of absolute when it's really a social construct...</p><p>But in the end, none of that really matters, because what the report is showing is almost certainly correct: student learning has suffered during the pandemic, and the losses are almost certainly greater for students of color and those in economic disadvantage. </p><p>How could this be otherwise? There is a <a href="https://www.edweek.org/education/1-in-3-american-indian-black-and-latino-children-fall-into-digital-divide-study-says/2020/07">clear digital divide</a> along racial and ethnic lines in this country; when learning moves on-line, the effects will reflect that divide. And, as I've shown repeated, access to in-person schooling has also been <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/blog-category/new-jerseys-school-re-openings-are-racially-unequal/">racially unequal</a>, a reflection of the inequalities in New Jersey's school funding system. These factors are undoubtedly combining to disadvantage students of color and students in economic disadvantage. </p><p>I suppose there may be some value in presenting these losses as changes in test outcomes, as there are plenty of policymakers in the state who act as if test scores are the only measure by which we can evaluate the quality of schooling. But in all honesty, the report is telling us something we already knew: the pandemic has been bad for students, and worse for some than others.</p><p>So if JerseyCAN had stopped there, I'd really have very little problem with their report -- at least, the problems I'd have would be confined to technical details. But they took upon themselves to tell the state what it must do given their findings:</p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;">JerseyCAN recommends that stakeholders and policymakers consider the following solutions to help accelerate student learning for our students.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Urgently prioritize the adoption and statewide implementation of extensive summer programming so that we can stem the COVID slide now and further stop more students from falling behind;</li><li>Adopt and implement personalized, research-based solutions for accelerating student learning like high-dosage tutoring;</li><li>Allow parents to exercise their choice to retain or hold back their child, if desired, to provide additional time to students for learning and the provision of social and emotional supports;</li><li>Incentivize all districts to adopt high-quality instructional materials that are aligned to statewide assessments, which canprovide teachers and parents with ongoing information about student academic growth and that can project proficiency on NJSLA; and</li><li>Administer statewide assessments in Spring 2022 that are comparable to those administered in Spring 2019 to establish a new baseline from which to measure student growth moving forward and to also enable comparisons to pre-pandemic statewide proficiency.</li></ul></span></blockquote>Let's take these one at a time.<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I am all for high-quality summer programming. <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/summer-learning-loss-what-is-it-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/">Summer slide</a> is a real issue, especially for economically disadvantaged children. But if our metric for determining that "loss" is test scores, we're running the risk of creating programs that sit students in front of screens all summer long doing test prep. As an educator, it is my opinion that this is the last thing kids need after this very difficult year. How about a lot of physical activity and socialization, music, art, free reading, exploratory learning -- what those of us in the education research field refer to technically as "<i>fun</i>"! In fact, we could do that, and add access to counseling and health services, family engagement programs, early childhood education... golly, if only there was a <a href="http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/what_is_a_community_school.aspx">model of schooling</a> that did this...</li><li>Tutoring can be good -- but you have to remember a few things. Tutors need training. Good tutoring <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/high-dosage-tutoring-is-effective-but-expensive-ideas-for-making-it-work/2020/08">is not cheap</a>. Tutoring is a supplement for high-quality curriculum and instruction, not a replacement. Again, if all we're doing is getting lower-paid workers to sit in classrooms with kids while they drill on test-prep instruction, we're missing an opportunity to help kids address the trauma they've experienced this past year.</li><li>Expanded grade retention is probably one of the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/joes.12406">most overhyped policies</a> that has been pushed over the past couple of decades. There is good evidence that the <a href="https://caldercenter.org/publications/uneven-implementation-universal-school-policies-maternal-education-and-florida’s">games Florida has played</a> with retaining kids was behind its <a href="https://www.bc.edu/research/nbetpp/statements/nbr6.pdf">unearned status</a> as an educational "miracle." While I am certainly sympathetic to the idea of giving parents more of a say in the decision to retain their child, and while I do believe there are times when it is warranted, pushing retention immediately after a <i>cohort</i> has shown learning losses doesn't make a lot of sense: if everybody suffered, why hold only some kids back? Besides, are our schools really ready for a mass mixing of age groups? </li><li>Everyone is for high-quality materials. But if the primary goal of those materials is to increase test scores, they will run the risk of emphasizing only those skills needed to pass the test, which can <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189x07306523">narrow the curriculum</a> and constrain instruction. I am not against using test scores judiciously as a data point in helping to assess a child's learning, but state tests are simply not a practical, nor particularly useful, way to inform student instruction -- especially when teachers can't see the exam.</li><li>There are always items put in different administrations of standardized tests to help equate scores. And, to the extent possible, proficiency rates should be equivalent between different years. So, sure, we can use test outcomes to help determine where we stand. But what really matters is this: <u>What are we going to do with those results?</u></li></ul><div>This gets to the heart of my concerns about the premise behind JerseyCAN's report, which I see manifesting in the statements of other education policy stakeholders. We are coming through an unprecedented crisis in modern American history. Children are hurting. Families have been traumatized. Schools have suffered losses in their staffs. We haven't faced this kind of trauma since World War II. So what are these folks proposing to help kids?</div><div><br /></div><div>Testing. Analyzing test scores. Instruction based on test outcomes in two areas of the curriculum. Tutoring in support of that test-centered instruction. Then... more testing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Look, I like a good run at the data as much as the next guy. I've said consistently testing has its place. But our kids are hurting, and the last thing we should be doing is trying to recreate the test-obsessed pedagogy we were using before the pandemic. Further, we shouldn't be going back to the test-and-punish systems we used to hold schools and educators "accountable," which was doing nothing to address the root causes of unequal educational opportunity, like <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/report/school-funding-in-new-jersey-a-fair-future-for-all/">inequitable school funding</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>We should instead be focused on getting kids to love school -- especially if they weren't loving it before the virus hit. We should get kids and families access to the health and emotional supports they need so students can arrive at the schoolhouse door ready to learn. We should be investing in our school infrastructure to make our buildings safe and healthy. We should be expanding things like arts education, <a href="https://www.artsednj.org">a proven strategy</a> for boosting student engagement and learning.</div><div><br /></div><div>A less stunted, more comprehensive view of schooling is required at this time. Testing can be part of it, but students, not test scores, should be the focus.<br /><br />Now, back to Lakewood...</div></div><div><br /></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-10646272259867436432021-03-18T17:13:00.001-07:002021-03-18T17:13:41.481-07:00Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part III<p><i> Here are the other parts of this series:</i></p><p><i>- <a href="https://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2021/03/lakewood-where-public-schools-are-left.html">Part I</a></i></p><p><i>- <a href="https://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2021/03/lakewood-nj-where-public-schools-are.html">Part II</a></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>What happens when a majority of citizens rejects its own public schools? We need look no further than Lakewood, NJ -- a town that I contend is an object lesson in the consequences of school privatization. Again, I believe at least three things will happen when public schools are left to wither, as they have been in Lakewood:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>When a large part of a community abandons its public schools, chaos ensues and accountability dissolves.</li><li>Segregation is the inevitable consequence of school privatization.</li><li>Educators will be disrespected in a community that does not support its public schools. </li></ol>Regarding point #2: in the last post I showed definitively that Lakewood's public and private school populations are highly segregated. In this post, let's spend some time discussing point #1.<div><br /></div><div>I'll note first that, <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/02/local-control-in-new-jersey-its-not-for.html">as I've written before</a>, there are plenty of examples of corruption and malfeasance in districts where the majority of children attend the public schools. And the problems with private schools enrolling special needs students in New Jersey have been <a href="https://www.nj.com/politics/2013/10/nj_private_schools_students_disabilities_spotty_oversight_high_salaries_nepotism_luxury_cars_busines.html">well documented</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>But one of Lakewood's private schools had, according to the verdict of a jury, taken things <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/2019/02/27/lakewood-nj-schi-osher-eisemann-verdict-guilty/2929593002/">to a new level</a> (all emphases mine):</div><div><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></p><blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">2/27/19: NEW BRUNSWICK - <b>The founder of a Lakewood special education school is guilty of money laundering and misconduct by a corporate official, but not guilty of corruption involving public funds</b>, a jury said Wednesday after deliberating for about 20 hours over four days.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The jury's mixed slate of verdicts expose Rabbi Osher Eisemann, founder of the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence, to possible prison time of five to 10 years, according to prosecutors. He was acquitted of three charges, including the most serious count brought against him: First-degree corruption of public resources, which carried a prison term of at least a decade. </p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Eisemann left a courtroom Wednesday afternoon surrounded by supporters and family members, who have occupied courtroom benches throughout the trial. He smiled as he thanked his defense team, which declared victory shortly after the verdicts were announced.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white;">"The reason you saw the defense team is enthusiastic overall about the verdict is this case is not about money laundering or misconduct by a corporate official," said Eisemann's lawyer, Lee Vartan. "This was about theft of public funds. The state made that clear in its multiple press releases, at every court appearance, in their opening statement, in their closing statement. And on theft of public funds, he was completely vindicated."</span></p></blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></p>It turns out the defense team had <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/crime/2019/04/29/lakewood-nj-schi-founder-sentence-60-days-jail-probation-money-laundering-case/3540401002/">reason to be optimistic</a>: </div><div><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></p><blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">4/29/19: NEW BRUNSWICK - <b>The founder of a Lakewood special education school will not go to prison, but will serve 60 days in jail and two years on probation <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" href="https://www.app.com/story/news/2019/02/27/lakewood-nj-schi-osher-eisemann-verdict-guilty/2929593002/" rel="noopener" style="color: #303030; text-decoration-color: rgb(0, 152, 254); text-decoration-thickness: 2px; text-underline-offset: 2px;" target="_blank">for laundering $200,000 from the school</a></b>, a judge here ruled Monday afternoon.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Rabbi Osher Eisemann, who founded the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence, must also pay a $250,000 fine, according to the sentence handed down by state Superior Court Judge Benjamin Bucca, sitting in Middlesex County. Eisemann will begin the jail term on July 1. </p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">[...]</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"The defendant is many things," Deputy Attorney General Anthony Robinson said. "He is a builder, a nurturer and an educator. But he is not a victim. ... The defendant has led a great life but that does not exempt you from the law.”</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">But Bucca found even the minimum prison term, six years, would be a "serious injustice" in part based on Eisemann's work in special education. More than <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" href="https://www.app.com/story/news/crime/2019/04/29/lakewood-nj-schi-school-osher-eisemann/3566519002/" style="color: #303030; text-decoration-color: rgb(0, 152, 254); text-decoration-thickness: 2px; text-underline-offset: 2px;">three dozen letters were sent to the judge in support of Eisemann</a>, many of them outlining Eisemann's dedication to students at the school he started to help his own son. </p></blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></p></div><div>The prosecution <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/17/lakewood-nj-schi-osher-eisemann-sentence-appeal/3693396002/">was not happy</a> with this ruling, however, and appealed the original sentence. The appellate judges, according to the <i><a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/local/courts/2021/01/05/lakewood-schi-rabbi-faces-prison-after-appeals-court-slam-heres-why/4130693001/">Asbury Park Press</a></i>, "<i>...issued a scathing opinion saying the judge who sentenced him to probation for money laundering and misconduct ignored the law and a jury’s verdict.</i>" At last report, Eisemann's sentence is on hold as his attorneys appeal the latest ruling.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's worth noting that this would not be the only time <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/education/2017/04/19/special-needs-school-overcharged-struggling-lakewood-district/100648640/">SCHI found itself in trouble</a>:</div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;">4/19/19: LAKEWOOD — A high-cost school for special-needs children, whose founder and director was recently indicted on charges he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in public money, overcharged the township's impoverished public school district and other schools by at least $340,000 in one year, the Asbury Park Press found.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;"><b>The School for Children with Hidden Intelligence overbilled the districts by paying uncertified teachers; paying certain employees more than permitted by state law; and buying items deemed unnecessary for the school, according to an audit by the state Department of Education of the 2011-2012 school year.</b> Some of those items were purchased at Costco, Staples and from merchants on eBay and mailed to the home of an employee not named in the audit. A large-ticket item, a power generator, was ostensibly purchased for the school's summer camp, but it could not be located by auditors. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;">The school also failed to do background checks on 71 of the 77 employees it hired that year, the audit found.</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;">Rabbi Osher Eisemann, the school's founder and current director, was indicted earlier this month for allegedly stealing more than $630,000 in public funds and laundering much of the money. He was not blamed for the overbilling in the state's audit.</span></div></blockquote><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;"></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I will confess that when I started following this story, my first reaction was: "Where was the oversight? Why wasn't the Lakewood Board of Education aware of this?" But the more I've thought about it, the more obvious it became to me that <u>it's unreasonable for a board of education to oversee the proper use of monies when so much of those monies are spent by entities that are not regulated by that board.</u></div><div><br /></div><div>Look at these figures again:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE0Id2XK6YxJw3PUmUMfhxDEeDUGn8dPEWrC0TsNiBK5DJ4BcJ_L9xKNLb3OPvk6v02nwr9eFXJzeMioCcFbLwpkGB1n174Povh0fz91klEmPfNvTsZLqQMECZvXI6CCE26QDm91WWv0rJ/s2048/Lakewood06.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1291" data-original-width="2048" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE0Id2XK6YxJw3PUmUMfhxDEeDUGn8dPEWrC0TsNiBK5DJ4BcJ_L9xKNLb3OPvk6v02nwr9eFXJzeMioCcFbLwpkGB1n174Povh0fz91klEmPfNvTsZLqQMECZvXI6CCE26QDm91WWv0rJ/w640-h404/Lakewood06.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The rest of New Jersey has to keep watch over less than one percent of its students who are placed into private schools. Lakewood, however, has to oversee the placements of nearly six percent of its students.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVqvUROPqsyEuCvPUUbzaBkR7Qmdofa4P4KyXMqKH2tpCg-AYXAUfVo5Apb6rvnbe5rkm5rhBh_VKRrx87PMC5mYNlPHBUk06cqIqEsoBxSq5tsk_DME0BUNUI1kcOnrft0FIwcc8Rfs2A/s2048/Lakewood09.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="2048" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVqvUROPqsyEuCvPUUbzaBkR7Qmdofa4P4KyXMqKH2tpCg-AYXAUfVo5Apb6rvnbe5rkm5rhBh_VKRrx87PMC5mYNlPHBUk06cqIqEsoBxSq5tsk_DME0BUNUI1kcOnrft0FIwcc8Rfs2A/w640-h434/Lakewood09.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The amount of spending on private schools is, on average, six percent of a New Jersey district's budget. But nearly sixteen percent of Lakewood's budget is spent on private schools. <u>How can a local board of education keep track of this much money if it is given to entities out of their control?</u> Local districts have enough to do keeping track of their own finances, let alone audit the accounts of private schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Eisemann's jury found he engaged in a complex financial scheme to evade the law. It took <i>years</i> for prosecutors to develop the case and win a conviction. It's not reasonable at all for any school board to be expected to catch a private entity in this kind of act. But if that's true, it stands to reason that bad faith actors will see an opportunity and try to game the system. And when there is a lack of accountability, bad things inevitably happen.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Should New Jersey completely eliminate private schools for special education students? That's a question on which reasonable people can disagree. In my own career I've worked with people who run these schools, and they were all decent, committed professionals who had the best interests of their students at heart. There are much easier ways to make a living than running a school for kids with the most profound special needs, so I give anyone who enters the field the benefit of the doubt.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But public policy can't be run on faith. And the more public revenue that is doled out to nongovernmental entities, the more oversight is required. Lakewood gives out a lot of money to private interests, but it clearly hasn't figured out how to hold all of those entities fully accountable. How could it? Boards of education were never designed to be overseers of private schools... but, in this case, it's precisely what the situation requires.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But now imagine if we expanded the subsidies so all students, not just those with special needs, could attend private schools. Who would provide the necessary accountability? Boards of education clearly aren't up to the job. Who instead would protect the public's interest? Who would be in place to make sure public monies were being spent responsibly? For that matter, given how much support Lakewood provides to private schools right now...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9byxF4-AIqvaFDYbkTMOliza2KTZhjuuTR71r3iZN9NueSu6D0ns6SAcIqB8moyp0KQ9q-DoJDMGrFU5kHZF4mbdcgjS6t58zEA-c1gMbFUovV2DBr7LAiukW3TdjyefRmwMQSo01to7a/s2048/Lakewood07.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="2048" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9byxF4-AIqvaFDYbkTMOliza2KTZhjuuTR71r3iZN9NueSu6D0ns6SAcIqB8moyp0KQ9q-DoJDMGrFU5kHZF4mbdcgjS6t58zEA-c1gMbFUovV2DBr7LAiukW3TdjyefRmwMQSo01to7a/w640-h434/Lakewood07.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>... who's making sure that those private schools are spending it properly?<div><br /></div><div>Point #3 on my list mentions disrespect for teachers. Let's talk about that <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/education/in-our-schools/2020/09/14/michael-inzelbuch-lakewood-school-board-lawyer-teachers-seethe/5750361002/">next</a>...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-66098689654435491892021-03-13T08:21:00.007-08:002021-03-13T08:29:29.211-08:00Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part II<p><i><a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2021/03/lakewood-where-public-schools-are-left.html">Here's Part I of this series.</a></i></p><p><br /></p><p>In this series, I'm taking a look at Lakewood, NJ, with an eye toward what might happen if more communities abandon their public schools and, instead, embrace the idea of school "choice." Lakewood, in a state by some accounts with the <a href="https://patch.com/new-jersey/princeton/nj-top-education-state-latest-u-s-news-ranking">highest ranked public schools</a> in the nation, is a town where the vast majority of families choose to send their children to private schools.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcfJKqSlsYuAhtqwyDQTXkzMOER51tuNw2gNrBbou9pYFZHkaMx0Uy5qC2pQjtyzNei_hMZ9Qrz2qyOfloYrBRzXhDrpPk-vb2uNCTBEsCsQ2CIPlukwgJOVke5828T9f3iilsFvl7DxG/s2048/Lakewood01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="2048" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcfJKqSlsYuAhtqwyDQTXkzMOER51tuNw2gNrBbou9pYFZHkaMx0Uy5qC2pQjtyzNei_hMZ9Qrz2qyOfloYrBRzXhDrpPk-vb2uNCTBEsCsQ2CIPlukwgJOVke5828T9f3iilsFvl7DxG/w640-h402/Lakewood01.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>The <i><a href="https://www.nj.com/news/2017/08/why_is_lakewood_spending_32_million_to_send_kids_t.html">Star-Ledger</a> </i>explained what's driving this phenomenon back in 2017:<span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote>Lakewood has more than 6,300 students registered in its public schools and another 30,000 mostly Orthodox Jewish students enrolled in the town's 130 private schools. Under state law, towns must fund buses for students attending private schools more than two miles from their houses.<br /><br />In the upcoming school year, Lakewood expects to spend $27 million on busing alone, <a href="http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2017/08/11_ways_lakewood_is_like_nowhere_else_in_nj.html">more than it spends on classroom instruction</a>, according to the school budget. <br /><br />Town leaders say Lakewood is severely underfunded by the state, which does not consider the busing of large numbers of private school students when calculating how much state aid the district receives. A permanent source of school funding for busing and special ed would ease many of the town's problems, said Rabbi Aaron Kotler, one of the leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community. <br /><br />"It would also make Lakewood a place where you wouldn't have people feeling that your children's future is at risk due to a budget problem," Kotler said. </blockquote></span>As we'll see throughout this series, the argument that Lakewood is "<i>severely underfunded by the state</i>" is open to debate. For now, let's do what regular readers know always comes next: take a data dive into Lakewood's schools. <div><br /></div><div>Remember: the data I'm using above, given a very conservative estimate, suggest private schools students outnumber public school students by at least 4-to-1; the <i>Star-Ledger's</i> report suggests the real ratio is even higher. Let's start by looking at the population in the public schools.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEileJDoTY5FJHmghQ2-4xn6wZkSAeXuSWOZ3mpMR0_slzANA4SNkbZfLhssLjX8XUtrBRWT5CuRzt7iluOINUeJ0tpvd_GHnOXZ4i0F_4-0tsoGKRM8icjVlWaX3EQXQGvrypGLvm_xNk1C/s2048/Lakewood02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEileJDoTY5FJHmghQ2-4xn6wZkSAeXuSWOZ3mpMR0_slzANA4SNkbZfLhssLjX8XUtrBRWT5CuRzt7iluOINUeJ0tpvd_GHnOXZ4i0F_4-0tsoGKRM8icjVlWaX3EQXQGvrypGLvm_xNk1C/w640-h424/Lakewood02.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Overwhelmingly, Hispanic students make up the population of the Lakewood Public School District -- far more than the rest of Ocean County, and far more than the rest of the state. It's worth noting that, as <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/report/school-funding-in-new-jersey-a-fair-future-for-all/">Bruce Baker and I point out</a>, one of the best predictors of whether a school district in New Jersey is underfunded <i>according to the state's own law</i> is whether that district enrolls an inordinately high number of Hispanic students.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxL9tr4eWE57yQHWN20pBG4zxPSLiRCFWnC1O2ZixN27h1dkoen8a5_n7YeGwlOCWCUinG2VHqMtDxWC5q1f9f58hAO-Pt7qtrBMB-NoWC3eFa3J7JXf9OjYOlGvJ6fnRG5LcVqa1XpwiP/s2048/Lakewood03.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxL9tr4eWE57yQHWN20pBG4zxPSLiRCFWnC1O2ZixN27h1dkoen8a5_n7YeGwlOCWCUinG2VHqMtDxWC5q1f9f58hAO-Pt7qtrBMB-NoWC3eFa3J7JXf9OjYOlGvJ6fnRG5LcVqa1XpwiP/w640-h424/Lakewood03.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Lakewood's public schools students are also overwhelmingly in economic disadvantage, as measured by eligibility for free or reduced-price lunches. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30uY15pw1oHR_zbd7LXZlXoYHlUCrWkAGZhdxPeToU-PdPOb9vto6S6QXlwc0QO7rjE4cZqX4sypsraJjWeFXiUmZ68D24JDwj9iEiGCzXgUiiZhQMgPx9CJDreEUyngzecVCh2Jqz6pX/s2048/Lakewood04.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30uY15pw1oHR_zbd7LXZlXoYHlUCrWkAGZhdxPeToU-PdPOb9vto6S6QXlwc0QO7rjE4cZqX4sypsraJjWeFXiUmZ68D24JDwj9iEiGCzXgUiiZhQMgPx9CJDreEUyngzecVCh2Jqz6pX/w640-h424/Lakewood04.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Given this population, it's not surprising that Lakewood Public School District's Limited English Proficiency (LEP) rate is very high: over five times the state average.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To recap: the public schools in Lakewood enroll students who are overwhelmingly Hispanic and disadvantaged, with many who do not speak English as their first language. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now, we don't have the same data for the private school students. But looking as the religious affiliations of those schools gives us much of the information we need.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQD1yZ3vuQqoUC6T_-YRjsZ7T-zfDhD7-UQm-qZVO5KxlxR-Id4SYOeeEpQWCcr0maJHojWKWm8yLIyLYsfR5x7Tg37tlz0yH8291tDTnK8qhCupTPDGpWXvWSDzwXnLiq6lGnfqTsMxk_/s2048/Lakewood05.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1533" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQD1yZ3vuQqoUC6T_-YRjsZ7T-zfDhD7-UQm-qZVO5KxlxR-Id4SYOeeEpQWCcr0maJHojWKWm8yLIyLYsfR5x7Tg37tlz0yH8291tDTnK8qhCupTPDGpWXvWSDzwXnLiq6lGnfqTsMxk_/w640-h480/Lakewood05.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The vast majority of private schools students in Lakewood go to Jewish schools. As I said in the previous post, the religious denomination of the private schools students isn't important: what's important is that the majority of the town's families have opted out of sending their children to the public schools. This is, for many in the school "choice" movement, exactly what they'd like to see: a large number of a community's families choosing not to send their children to local public district schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There are at least two consequences to the majority of Lakewood's families rejecting public education. First, the student population of the public schools is very different from the private schools. Second, the majority of the town's families do not have a personal interest in the public schools' success. Let me be clear: I'm not saying they want the public schools to fail; rather, whether those schools fail or succeed does not impact them personally.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This has profound effect on the Lakewood Public School District's budget. The local school board is elected by a citizenry that is <i>not</i> invested in the public schools in the same way as is found in most other towns and cities. Whose interests, then, will the district's budgetary decisions serve?</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaOfYl8VkJNTabj8K8gWqYbUYQqFOoCo1Kr7dbatQ4vXkjanO9lAPkkR_ZoVUd3y113gAjuUmpnY2DYX1ygzcvKh2XJBkAIQ-t11vCQmes8C3JQLvL8_18uo3biSAI8wrQCjqZAtxZdT0/s2048/Lakewood07.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="2048" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaOfYl8VkJNTabj8K8gWqYbUYQqFOoCo1Kr7dbatQ4vXkjanO9lAPkkR_ZoVUd3y113gAjuUmpnY2DYX1ygzcvKh2XJBkAIQ-t11vCQmes8C3JQLvL8_18uo3biSAI8wrQCjqZAtxZdT0/w640-h434/Lakewood07.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2020/04/can-nj-afford-to-continue-subsidizing.html">As I've written before</a>, New Jersey must, by law, provide funds for all sorts of supports to private schools attended by local resident children: technology aid, security, nursing, textbooks, handicapped services, and so on. In general, it's a very small amount of the overall K-12 school budget – except in Lakewood. <b>A huge part of the Lakewood school district's budget is spent supporting the needs of students who do not attend its schools.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The <i>Star-Ledger</i> also points out the district spends a lot of money on transporting private school students. The state data doesn't allow us to separate out that cost from the cost of bussing public school kids, but clearly there is an effect: Lakewood's transportation budget is very large.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS1Wnfu9R2YVZPwZ9c-ieS7BEZ3cQ3ORS0XStX5ldOAuoHsZdWoinBvO9lXrhgbaXuNVMtT-KAzI2UltvlpF1hSH4Q6TNloX0aMf4BzrNwTF72uuD_H_emJ2_QaR6LRdFGxqy2iEwdZhvi/s2048/Lakewood08.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="2048" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS1Wnfu9R2YVZPwZ9c-ieS7BEZ3cQ3ORS0XStX5ldOAuoHsZdWoinBvO9lXrhgbaXuNVMtT-KAzI2UltvlpF1hSH4Q6TNloX0aMf4BzrNwTF72uuD_H_emJ2_QaR6LRdFGxqy2iEwdZhvi/w640-h434/Lakewood08.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There's another expense Lakewood incurs far in excess of other New Jersey school districts: private school tuition for special education students. Back to the <i><a href="https://www.nj.com/news/2017/08/why_is_lakewood_spending_32_million_to_send_kids_t.html">Star-Ledger</a></i>:</div><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">Lakewood expects to spend nearly $32 million on tuition this year to send special education students -- including hundreds of members of the growing Orthodox Jewish community -- to private and out-of-district schools. The bill is among the highest in the state and <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/08/lakewood_inside_the_turmoil_in_njs_most_controvers.html">one of the reasons the booming Ocean County town is facing a school funding crisis.</a></span> </blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">Why do taxpayers pay private school bills? <br /><br />Under federal law, all children with disabilities are <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/education/specialed/form/prise/prise.pdf">entitled to a "free appropriate public education." </a>So, if a school district does not have the staff, programs or facilities to accommodate a child's specific disability, parents can request that the district pay for a more appropriate private school. <br /><br />Many parents turn to lawyers and education consultants for help. Their cases often end up before a state Office of Administrative Law judge, who rules where a student should be placed. <br /><br />In Lakewood, an estimated 361 current and new special education students will be placed in private schools at the district's expense during the upcoming school year, according to the school district's budget. Another 17 students will be sent to other school districts. <br /><br /><b>Lakewood sends more than a quarter of its special education students to private or out-of-district schools, according to the data.</b></span></blockquote><p>If you look at the percentage of all students on-roll who attend private schools, the figure is, once again, far in excess of the rest of the state.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2iQc2-Yb8YOMCmhd0USUJ_gG2MLHA9kuNJ9G7LZre49BKc88DNsHmeSYWv3dALlsPBg3am1yqvUYWup1oGRFLrl9uR-uCiPB_NEFD9k0UZU3g67tcE_d8h2NlJa0ZGahkD4sSHHrrpcC/s2048/Lakewood06.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1291" data-original-width="2048" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2iQc2-Yb8YOMCmhd0USUJ_gG2MLHA9kuNJ9G7LZre49BKc88DNsHmeSYWv3dALlsPBg3am1yqvUYWup1oGRFLrl9uR-uCiPB_NEFD9k0UZU3g67tcE_d8h2NlJa0ZGahkD4sSHHrrpcC/w640-h404/Lakewood06.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Lakewood's private school placement rate is nearly <i>ten times</i> that of the rest of Ocean County. Again, this has a powerful effect on the public school district budget.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg76_U-FuLeCGzBl_71dwhOiZeceVse5M_PLOgvCXKMI66JDgQKLhL-BQk2uv27QBKC_9COmx4LFAXcHey0cmeqFn5s3nGTxVWlNZLqgjQVBh07BtOTlhkg1Nn7WlR-KXlzgw-RZJnyuQ1X/s2048/Lakewood09.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="2048" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg76_U-FuLeCGzBl_71dwhOiZeceVse5M_PLOgvCXKMI66JDgQKLhL-BQk2uv27QBKC_9COmx4LFAXcHey0cmeqFn5s3nGTxVWlNZLqgjQVBh07BtOTlhkg1Nn7WlR-KXlzgw-RZJnyuQ1X/w640-h434/Lakewood09.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Lakewood spends more than twice what the rest of New Jersey's districts spend on tuition to other schools.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, given the data, what can we surmise about Lakewood?</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The majority of the population has opted out of sending their children to the public schools.</li><li>That majority is ethnically separate from the minority that sends their children to the public schools.</li><li>The budget of the public school allocates inordinately large sums in support of the private school population.</li></ul><div>Let's be clear before we continue: these are <i>facts</i>. We can debate the cause, but the data are unambiguous on what is happening right now in Lakewood, NJ's schools.</div></div><div><br />The question we must address next, however, has greater consequences for the larger conversation on education policy: What happens when a community abandons its public schools? Again, I contend there are at least three consequences:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>When a large part of a community abandons its public schools, chaos ensues and accountability dissolves.</li><li>Segregation is the inevitable consequence of school privatization.</li><li>Educators will be disrespected in a community that does not support its public schools. </li></ol><div>The data clearly support point #2. In the next post, we'll further explore <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/local/courts/2021/01/05/lakewood-schi-rabbi-faces-prison-after-appeals-court-slam-heres-why/4130693001/">point #1</a>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>ADDING: I'm using 2017-18 data as that is the last year for which we have audited, actual figures for the Lakewood Public School District, as opposed to projected or revised data. Lakewood is not included in the latest NJDOE fiscal dataset (<a href="https://www.nj.gov/education/finance/fp/ufb/">User Friendly Budgets</a>) for 2020-21. </div><div><br /></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-46399690237565144252021-03-08T13:27:00.003-08:002021-03-08T13:34:31.663-08:00Lakewood, NJ: Where Public Schools Are Left To Wither, Part IIf you follow K12 policy, you've probably noticed that the school privatization crowd has recently become reenergized. The folks from right-wing think tanks and the professional school "choice" promoters have been pushing the idea of school vouchers hard, certain that the pandemic has created widespread dissatisfaction with our current system of public school districts.<div><br /></div><div>Many times I've seen these people make the argument that private schools are fully open, and the only reason public schools are not is the intransigence of teachers unions and fecklessness of school boards. Of course, it's hardly that simple: consider that many "no excuses" charter schools -- free of both unions and BOEs -- remain <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/01/21/success-academy-to-stay-fully-remote-for-rest-of-school-year/">closed</a>. We also really don't know how many private schools are open, or to what extent, or with what consequences.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nonetheless, the privatizers see an opening. And considering the number of wingnuts out there who think COVID isn't a serious threat that requires extraordinary actions to secure schools, they may be right. School privatization was, to my mind, always a secondary part of the overall conservative agenda, but that may have changed, if only in the short term.</div><div><br /></div><div>Given the renewed focus on vouchers, I think we're justified in taking some time to really think about what it would look like if we embraced the idea of privatized schools in a "choice" system. What would it look like? If they still existed, what would the public schools do? Which students would go where? How would it affect the community? How would it affect the taxpayers? <br /><div><br /></div><div>In the upcoming series of posts, I'm going to argue that we don't need to speculate; we already have at least one example, right here in New Jersey, of what will happen if a community largely abandons its public schools. <br /><br />Welcome to <a href="https://www.app.com/story/news/education/in-our-schools/2021/03/04/lakewood-schools-not-efficient-nj-education-commissioner-review-recommend-fixes/6903837002/" target="_blank">Lakewood</a>*:<div><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></p><blockquote><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">An administrative law judge has determined the public school district cannot fulfill its constitutional mandate to provide students a "thorough and efficient education," but stopped short of determining that the state funding formula is unconstitutional. </p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In a non-binding decision Judge Susan Scarola recommended that the New Jersey Commissioner of Education conduct a needs assessment of the school district's ability to meet its obligations and make "appropriate recommendations to the district."</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The decision scarcely binds the Acting Education Commissioner Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan to do anything; the recommendation may be adopted, modified or rejected by Allen-McMillan. But the harsh assessment — that the school district cannot meet its constitutional mandate — puts fresh focus on the troubled school district and pressure on the state's top education official to intervene.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><b>The 6,000-student district faces chronic budget gaps, owing in part to a state school-funding formula that fails to account for the fact the district must also pay transportation costs for 37,000 Lakewood students attending private schools.</b></p></blockquote><p>Yes, that's right: only a small fraction of Lakewood's students attend the public schools. And, yes, that is <i>very</i> unusual -- especially for a state like New Jersey.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCK0ZNij-D7OScJ4do7Q8915ZSqpF3oVXOau3EY7HEncoM9FPsDNpeb69zRFz2CjwKWSY1Q1XAwkvWyIOe3ws5R46zzYEeZ1gArR_VL67tmdN2Kuac-UZx0pnWJ-jWy_NYRuMHNHkwVEp_/s2048/Lakewood01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="2048" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCK0ZNij-D7OScJ4do7Q8915ZSqpF3oVXOau3EY7HEncoM9FPsDNpeb69zRFz2CjwKWSY1Q1XAwkvWyIOe3ws5R46zzYEeZ1gArR_VL67tmdN2Kuac-UZx0pnWJ-jWy_NYRuMHNHkwVEp_/w640-h402/Lakewood01.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>Private school data in the United States is at the mercy of survey methodology; in other words, it's very easy to make an incomplete count of private schools students in a community, because it's hard to get to every school, especially the small ones. The <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/">Private School Survey</a> from the National Center for Education Statistics is, however, the best data source we have on private schools. When combined with state data, it shows a remarkable story about private schooling in Lakewood. Across the state, a little under 10 percent of students attend private schools. But four in five Lakewood students are in a private school, way more than the state and way, <i>way</i> more than any other town in Ocean County.</p><p>A few years ago, the <i>Star-Ledger</i> did an <a href="https://www.nj.com/news/2017/08/window_on_lakewood_inside_the_fastest-growing_comm.html">extensive series of reports</a> on Lakewood, dubbing it "N.J.'s most controversial town." The <a href="https://www.nj.com/news/2017/08/lakewood_inside_the_turmoil_in_njs_most_controvers.html">first report</a> gives some background:</p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">Lakewood is booming. Thanks to an influx of Orthodox Jews, it has been New Jersey's fastest-growing town over the last 20 years. It has one of the highest birth rates in the world. Housing is going up at an unprecedented pace.<br /><br /><i>Why are there so many Orthodox Jews in Lakewood?</i><br /><br />Lakewood had long been a popular resort for Jewish vacationers when <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/how_lakewood_became_a_worldwide_destination_for_or.html">a refugee rabbi fleeing Nazis in Lithuania arrived in the 1940s</a> to start Beth Medrash Govoha, a higher education institution where men could study the Talmud, one of the religion's sacred text.<br /><br />The yeshiva, known as BMG, grew over the years into one of the largest schools of its kind in the nation, with more than 6,500 students. A thriving Orthodox Jewish community grew around the yeshiva, which included many Jews from Brooklyn's Orthodox community looking for less costly housing and a more suburban setting to raise their families.<br /><br /><i>Who else lives in Lakewood?</i><br /><br />The population exploded from 45,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 now, making it New Jersey's fifth-largest city.<br /><br /><b>The town is 84 percent white, 17 percent Hispanic and 4 percent black</b>, according to the U.S. Census. There is a growing Mexican immigrant community and a large community of seniors in sprawling retirement communities, including Leisure Village. The <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/06/as_lakewood_grows_african-american_population_decl.html">African-American community has been shrinking</a> in recent years.<br /></span></blockquote><p>This last paragraph is perhaps the key to understanding Lakewood's schools: while there is a large and growing Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, it is not the entirety of the town's population. The Hispanic and Black students in Lakewood are not being served by the town's large network of yeshivas; instead, they are enrolled in the public school district.</p><p>Now, it's clear that very few communities in the United States are exactly like Lakewood. But that doesn't mean there aren't lessons about school privatization to be learned. I have three:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>When a large part of a community abandons its public schools, chaos ensues and accountability dissolves.</li><li>Segregation is the inevitable consequence of school privatization.</li><li>Educators will be disrespected in a community that does not support its public schools. </li></ol><div>It's going to take several posts to tell this story, because it's big and complex. Fortunately, there has been some excellent reporting on Lakewood's schools, particularly from the <i>Asbury Park Press</i>; I'm going to lean heavily on them as I work through this series.</div><div><br /></div><div>But in spite of the story's many twists and turns, I think it's an important one to tell it. Lakewood is a cautionary tale, and the ethnicity of the characters in it really doesn't matter much. What's important is that we understand what happens when public schools are left to whither in a community that has largely abandoned them.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll dig into the data next.</div><div><br /></div><p></p><p>* <i>All emphases in this post are mine. </i></p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p" style="caret-color: rgb(48, 48, 48); color: #303030; font-family: "Georgia Pro", Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 14px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></p></div></div></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-51992405550032479252021-02-22T18:36:00.012-08:002021-02-22T19:12:51.899-08:00We Don't Need Standardized Testing In a Pandemic<p>UPDATE: Just as I was finishing this post, I caught a glimpse of <a href="https://www.ajc.com/education/get-schooled-blog/feds-states-must-test-students-but-can-shorten-exams-give-them-remotely-and-in-summer-or-fall/7EDKULMPNZDMNA6FYPYNDSLGG4/">this news</a>:</p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">The U.S. Department of Education extended flexibility to states today in how and when they administer mandated end-of-the-year assessments, including allowing shorter tests that can be given remotely and, in the summer, or even in the fall. The federal agency advised states to blunt the impact of the tests, suggesting the scores not be used in final grades and grade promotion decisions.<br /><br /><b>However, despite the disruption to schools from the pandemic, the federal agency did not liberate states from administering standardized tests;</b> it will continue to require statewide assessments. Some states, including Georgia, requested waivers that would allow them to forgo standardized testing altogether this year.</span></blockquote>As I argue below, this is a bad idea. I really hope the Biden administration can be persuaded to reconsider.<div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><p>A notable bit of education policy news in New Jersey <a href="https://www.nj.com/education/2021/02/nj-school-standardized-testing-should-be-waived-this-year-due-to-covid-state-tells-feds.html" target="_blank">last week</a>:</p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;">New Jersey will apply to the federal government to waive standardized testing for the current school year as districts across the state continue to cope with the constraints of the <a href="https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/">coronavirus</a> pandemic, Gov. <a href="https://www.nj.com/topic/phil-murphy/">Phil Murphy</a> announced Friday.<br /><br />Murphy said the state has not yet received word from President <a href="https://www.nj.com/topic/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>’s administration as to whether it will accept its application to waive the federal testing requirements.<br /><br />“We also recognize the importance of statewide assessments to gauge where our students’ learning,” the governor said during his latest COVID-19 briefing in Trenton. “But given the need to ensure our students’ instructional time is maximized and the levels of stress on them, our educators, our school administrators, and our families are minimized, we are putting forward this waiver request.” </span></blockquote><p>The state is hardly alone, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/01/29/standardized-tests-waiver-states-biden/">several others</a> have also applied for waivers from the federal mandate for testing. But there's plenty of pushback, as it's become an article of faith among <a href="https://newark.chalkbeat.org/2021/2/12/22279917/new-jersey-delay-state-tests-2021" target="_blank">certain education reformers</a> that we must have tests, and that in a time of crisis testing is more important than ever. In <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-ne-florida-fsa-virtual-students-20210217-66uwsv46nnhzzaw5ubv3cm3w44-story.html">Florida</a>, for example, students will be required to show up to take their tests in person, even if their parents have been keeping them home during the pandemic. Why?</p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">State Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran signed an order this week requiring the tests. The order said the tests are more important than ever because many struggling students are learning at home <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/schools/fl-ne-students-return-school-ss-prem-20210102-gyunpvkmqjdshpmg44d7ubfw34-story.html">and falling behind</a>.<br /><br />Test results will “ensure that each student is given the services and supports they need to succeed in life,” the order says.</span></blockquote><p>If you take Commissioner Corcoran at his word, he's going to use the tests to make sure students get what they need. But that's coming from a state that <a href="http://schoolfinancedata.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/profiles18_FL.pdf" target="_blank">chronically underfunds its schools</a>. If students weren't getting the supports they needed before the pandemic, what would make anyone think they'll get them now -- but only if they take a test?</p><p>Corcoran is engaging in the typically facile thinking that has become the hallmark of many who espouse the virtues of standardized testing. I have a set of questions I like to ask whenever anyone says students <i>must</i> take a standardized test:</p><p><b>- What are you going to do with the test results?</b> </p><p>A core concept of assessment is that tests must be shown to be valid for the purposes in which they will be used. In other words: you should make a <i>separate</i> argument for every proposed use of a test. A test that may be valid to use for, say, determining whether there are enough overall resources in the education system isn't necessarily valid for the purpose of determining whether a student should pass to the next grade.</p><p>Psyshometricians often speak of making a <i><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jedm.12000">validity argument</a></i> in favor of the use of a test for a particular purpose. That argument should touch upon the relevancy of the outcomes to a specific use, the consequences of making decisions based on these outcomes, the opportunity to learn the content in the test, and other factors.</p><p>One of the biggest failings in our current testing system is that we use statewide standardized tests for many purposes -- even if no one has presented an argument for those uses. Some lawmakers have argued that these tests should be used as a <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2019/02/thoughts-on-graduation-exam-mess-in-new.html">graduation exam</a> or to determine grade promotion, even though most have never put forward an argument that the test is valid for that purpose. Some say test outcomes run through a statistical model should be used to evaluate teachers, again without making an argument against the many reasons <a href="https://www.umass.edu/remp/pdf/CEAResearchBrief-16-1_WhyWeShouldAbandonSGPs.pdf" target="_blank">that's a bad idea</a>.</p><p>That's especially true this year. The fact is that too much of what is happening in schools is out of the control of teachers, administrators, or students. Students have had wildly uneven opportunities to learn during the pandemic, and it's not fair to visit consequences on them or their teachers based on outcomes in this year's tests.</p><p>One implication those who argue for standardized testing make is that teachers need the data to help students make up for the learning they've lost over the past year. But these tests provide little meaningful information for teachers. First, the results take a long time to come back, so they aren't useful in real time. Second, teachers aren't allowed to see the questions, which makes them mostly useless in informing instruction. Third, there usually aren't <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/11/njdoe-cant-get-its-story-straight-on.html" target="_blank">enough items</a> in each area of content knowledge to provide reliable data. Teachers need to assess their students and get to work quickly; these tests weren't designed to help with that task.</p><p>So, if the tests aren't going to be used for teacher evaluation, or promotion/graduation, or allocating resources, or informing instruction... why do we need to give them? For what purpose, exactly, should they be used? No one should advocate for administering tests unless they can give a specific answer to this question.</p><p><b>- What is the cost of administering the tests?</b></p><p>I'm not just talking about dollar costs, although those can be significant. But the truth is that we have known for a good long while that administering standardized tests in math and English has extracted a price on students, educators, and the K-12 education system aside from mere dollars. </p><p>Testing has <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189X07306523">narrowed the curriculum</a>, especially in districts with high levels of student poverty and, consequently, relatively low average test scores. The <a href="https://www.weareteachers.com/test-anxiety/">pressure on students</a> to perform on these tests has been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01443410020019867">well documented</a>. Several major cheating scandals highlight the pressure adults also feel, leading to moral compromises that would likely be absent in an environment without such high-stakes attached to the tests. </p><p>Add this to the current worries about contracting COVID-19 in school and it becomes clear that the cost of administering these tests this spring will be very, very high. Which leads me to ask...</p><p><b>- Is the cost of testing worth it?</b></p><p>What, exactly, will statewide standardized test outcomes tell us that we didn't already know, or that we couldn't find out some other way? That students didn't gain as much learning as they would have without the pandemic? We already know this; and again, it's not like the tests will give educators data they couldn't get other ways that are much faster and more detailed.</p><p>Will we learn that students who are economically disadvantaged need more resources to equalize their educational opportunity? We already knew that <i>before</i> the pandemic. And does anyone really think that otherwise reluctant politicians will be persuaded to dole out more funds when they see this year's test scores? Really?</p><p>It's worth noting that all tests are subject to <i>construct irrelevant variation</i>, a fancy term that means the outcomes can vary based on things other than a student's knowledge. Students who take tests in less-than-optimal conditions, for example, are more likely to do poorly than they would if they were in better circumstances. </p><p>This year, the differences in the testing environments will be more stark than ever. Students in districts that remain fully remote will take their tests in widely-ranging home environments. Students who take their tests in school may be in smaller cohorts, or crammed together in full classes. The COVID mitigations they face during the tests varies widely, as does the technology available to take the tests. </p><p>Variations in test-taking conditions has always been great, but now those conditions will very even more than before. How, then, can we trust that the test is measuring what it's supposed to actually measure?</p><p><br /></p><p>Normally, I believe that test data can be useful for research and policymaking purposes -- although I think we could get data just as good as we have now for a lot less cost and bother by cutting back the amount of testing and removing unvalidated attachments to high-stakes decisions. </p><p>But the more I think about it, I the more I come to the conclusion that the data this year isn't going to be of much use. Why, then, go through the bother of testing kids when the cost is so high and the value of the results is so low?</p><p>The tests can wait a year. Give everyone a break.</p><p><br /></p><p>ADDING: Honestly, <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/2/22/22296173/biden-administration-state-tests">this</a> makes no sense to me:</p><blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px;">“To be successful once schools have re-opened, we need to understand the impact COVID-19 has had on learning and identify what resources and supports students need,” Ian Rosenblum, acting assistant education secretary, </span><a href="https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/stateletters/dcl-assessments-and-acct-022221.pdf?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(23, 130, 135); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: inherit; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; vertical-align: inherit;">wrote in a letter to state education leaders</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(57, 57, 57); color: #393939; font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px;">.</span></p></blockquote><p>What decisions <i>exactly</i> are you going to make based on those scores? If you can't answer that, you don't need the data.</p><p>Identifying the resources and supports students need is the job of schools. The government's job is to get schools the <a href="https://kappanonline.org/school-funding-covid-19-baker-weber-atchison/">extra money</a> they're going to need so schools can provide resources and supports. Go work on that and leave the educational decisions to educators.</p><p><br /></p></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-68880142673913022082021-02-16T13:38:00.007-08:002021-02-22T13:16:19.689-08:00The Fiscal Impact Of Charter Schools on School Districts: Thoughts on My New ReportIf you follow me on Twitter, you probably noticed a few comments about a new report I have out with the Fordham Institute: <i><a href="https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/robbers-or-victims-charter-schools-and-district-finances" target="_blank">Robbers or Victims? Charter Schools and District Finances</a>. </i>I'm putting my thoughts here so you know they are mine and mine alone. Hopefully, I can shed light on what the report finds and what I believe that means.<div><br /></div><div>Let me start by saying I don't think a have a false sense of my place in the ongoing debate about education policy: I'm a teacher and blogger who went and got a PhD in the field, who continues to teach K12 (but also teaches grad students in education policy part-time), and has a bit of following on social media (although not nearly as large as others). My blog is full of posts that call out what I believe is bad research in support of education "reform" -- especially charter schools. I also put out reports now and then for a variety of groups that have cast doubt on charter school "success" stories.</div><div><br /></div><div>Given this, it was a surprise to me when I got an email last year from Fordham, asking about a <a href="https://scholarship.libraries.rutgers.edu/discovery/delivery?vid=01RUT_INST:ResearchRepository&repId=12643443100004646#13643534290004646">working paper</a> based on my dissertation. Fordham is well known as a supporter of charter schools, and regularly produces research supporting their expansion. Why would they want to work with me? Did they know who I am and what I've done?</div><div><br /></div><div>It turns out they did. They were considering doing a study very similar to what I had done in my dissertation, assessing the impact of charter school growth on the finances of "hosting" public school districts. In other words: what happens to district finances when charter schools start proliferating within a district's boundaries?</div><div><br /></div><div>What I had found – and what I still found in this latest report – is that as charter schools grow, per pupil spending in school districts <i>increases.</i> This is in contradiction to what some charter critics have suggested: that spending in host districts schools goes down as charters grow. To be honest, it was contrary to what I thought I was going to find,,, until I started digging further into the data.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll go into that in a minute; first, let me explain why I took the gig.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Working With Fordham</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>We are obviously in a time of intense polarization along ideological lines -- and that includes education policy. For myself, I draw a distinction between those who I think are arguing in good faith, and those who aren't. I'll admit it's not always a bright, clear line; however, I am trying to be open to the possibility that people can disagree on things like charter schools but still have meaningful and productive dialogue. </div><div><br /></div><div>Before I agreed to working on the report, I did take a second look at Fordham's body of work. Some I think is just wrong -- not so much in its methods as in the conclusions they come to based on their findings. But some I think is valid and worthwhile. I disagree with Fordham's president, Michael Petrilli, about any numbers of questions around education policy. But I also acknowledge he's been one of the few charter school supporters who's willing to concede that "no excuses" charters do not enroll similar populations as public district schools (a point I find so obvious that I don't believe I can have a good faith discussion with anyone who doesn't agree).</div><div><br /></div><div>I also knew that if I turned down the gig, someone else would do it, and I wouldn't get a chance to further my work in this field. Yes, I got paid... but it's hardly a fortune, especially considering the amount of time I've put in (and I understand my fee was substantially less than many other better-known researchers who have written reports for them).</div><div><br /></div><div>There was always the agreement that there would be an introduction that would not be under my name. So long as everything else met my approval, I thought that was fair. I suppose I could have asked for a "rebuttal," but I didn't want it subjected to their editorial review; hence, this post.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let me say one other thing that readers can take or leave depending on whether they want to trust my word: this was one of the most rigorous review processes I've been involved with. That's not to say the work couldn't be improved; as I say below, rereading after getting reactions this week, I do wish we had made some revisions.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I was allowed to suggest my own reviewers, and considered myself lucky to have two of the best researchers working in this field, Paul Bruno and Charisse Gulosino, agree. David Griffith at Fordham was also quite demanding, and insisted on having me spell out in great detail nearly every decision I made in creating both the dataset and the models.</div><div><br /></div><div>Again: this report is hardly the last word on whether and how charter school growth affects school district finances. There are several very big limitations on what I found, and the approach I took does not at all lead us to a definitive answer as to whether charter growth is helpful, harmful, or neutral to district finances. That said, I hope, at the very least, the report helps frame the question in a way that is useful. Because, until now, I don't think many charter supporters (like Fordham) or skeptics (like myself) have been viewing the problem the right way.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Fixed Costs and Charter School Growth</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Let's set up an example with numbers that are easy to work with. Imagine a school district with 5,000 students in 10 schools, each with 500 students. Each of those schools has 20 classes of 25 students each. That means 20 classroom teachers –– but it also means one principal, one librarian, one guidance counselor, one nurse, etc.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3_a4DTryi_6Xc_TzvGrxnUKnB4Ul8k2Lnb0_rj62fYOKohXf5xwVvyBACDeMrkYR_IJcyGgvIqJeOFLaNZ8L7ReP0tKadsijNLlmmqKVeGGiad7l0eGvA-M5djZEmOafLMGZYgo3dBBIx/s720/Slide2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3_a4DTryi_6Xc_TzvGrxnUKnB4Ul8k2Lnb0_rj62fYOKohXf5xwVvyBACDeMrkYR_IJcyGgvIqJeOFLaNZ8L7ReP0tKadsijNLlmmqKVeGGiad7l0eGvA-M5djZEmOafLMGZYgo3dBBIx/w640-h360/Slide2.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The salaries and benefits paid to the classroom teachers in this example are <i>instructional</i> spending: spending that goes directly to the instruction of students. The principal, librarian, counselor, etc. salaries are <i>support</i> spending: spending that is for the support of students but not directly related to instruction. This is an important distinction to keep in mind.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Next, a charter school comes to town and begins drawing students away from the district. Let's say it takes away five percent of the enrollment, or one classroom's worth of kids.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSi_UVoiH_1F9RNAXyKT4gTdrh2oMQYl106h759-MCU0P92tVJwB9FtqQx5irGDvl53h1brKAm4dnVL8NLkfhzwk8ZaRFPIHMA9nqWL1bhzYACwzJJY1mfo56B1MhGCOCtlGAWMbIYcAmz/s720/Slide3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSi_UVoiH_1F9RNAXyKT4gTdrh2oMQYl106h759-MCU0P92tVJwB9FtqQx5irGDvl53h1brKAm4dnVL8NLkfhzwk8ZaRFPIHMA9nqWL1bhzYACwzJJY1mfo56B1MhGCOCtlGAWMbIYcAmz/w640-h360/Slide3.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We'll assume this happens across the district: every school loses 25 students to the charter.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp34WcWbOcojBYc9IPSIwczD3ofXSmBRs5kivbtFuwjGSthWMbc58CfGFVAteVOUJy1MicorSiH0O3ZIdbjsRjZhreA9ifp9o3JDotG4rIH_6uvwTZl2YNPBz1hDsgf_kz2tPR7Lpduhh0/s720/Slide4.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp34WcWbOcojBYc9IPSIwczD3ofXSmBRs5kivbtFuwjGSthWMbc58CfGFVAteVOUJy1MicorSiH0O3ZIdbjsRjZhreA9ifp9o3JDotG4rIH_6uvwTZl2YNPBz1hDsgf_kz2tPR7Lpduhh0/w640-h360/Slide4.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What happens across the district? Well, each school now has the equivalent of 19 classrooms, not 20. To maintain the same instructional cost per pupil, the district will have to let one teacher go at each school. This might be through retirement and hiring freezes, or through outright firing of teachers. Obviously, the district will have the ability to shuffle teachers around as needed between buildings, so the teacher reductions can play out in various ways.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But the support personnel are another story: it's unlikely, especially in the early stages of charter growth, that the district can or will get rid of support personnel in a way that parallels enrollment losses as easily as it can shed instructional personnel. A principal, for example, is needed for every building: it isn't likely the district will close a building and get rid of a principal when it's only lost a few students in each building.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8_b2AZf39RAk_xmgGtGbW5-2LSElBW0VCfLR5SnSb94z1mFH8sRtL5DkvGdCjlYqQn8LfESJU5aJuGyaKfXf4YGw_7cVY2OqZy1AEVPEe41PWorocUIY92GjLHxSvfMpzm5mvwTTDzVi/s720/Slide5.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8_b2AZf39RAk_xmgGtGbW5-2LSElBW0VCfLR5SnSb94z1mFH8sRtL5DkvGdCjlYqQn8LfESJU5aJuGyaKfXf4YGw_7cVY2OqZy1AEVPEe41PWorocUIY92GjLHxSvfMpzm5mvwTTDzVi/w640-h360/Slide5.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>In this scenario, after enrollment losses to charter schools, instructional personnel (teachers) to students remains 25-to-1. But support staff to pupil goes from 500-to-1 to 475-to-1. This is an <i>increase</i> in spending per pupil: fewer pupils per staff member will <i>raise</i> the cost per pupil of that staff member.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is an example of what we'll call a <i>fixed cost</i>. Scholars of school finance have, in fact, noted this for decades: some spending in schools is easier to adjust than other spending when enrollment falls. The question I tried to ask in this report is: does the data reflect this trend?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Spending, Revenues, and Charter Growth</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It turns out that, in many states, we see what I'm showing above. Here's the graph from the report showing how charter growth correlates with instructional spending:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHeTqgp2eT1wwQI1z2cYNymKeS5Lr7Cjlky4jZ1IOBzB5ZjpXYaD9356xrL-ZCxf92CdmdKZky__Mf0iGclq8tc9V9h81E9tHiE_slsgMX25VBiiWGHgePm7AJG5KlLZrQ3lIJAT6agrZc/s722/InstSpend.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="722" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHeTqgp2eT1wwQI1z2cYNymKeS5Lr7Cjlky4jZ1IOBzB5ZjpXYaD9356xrL-ZCxf92CdmdKZky__Mf0iGclq8tc9V9h81E9tHiE_slsgMX25VBiiWGHgePm7AJG5KlLZrQ3lIJAT6agrZc/w640-h336/InstSpend.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>And here's the graph for support spending:<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_y1yRIJkJn9qHFh4Rd-veLQHLVZo49ywtCOXm5TPjoGAJBzY3CUbKUgXN9uXVYvCCy7boHu1lFL_Myjc82-s-OvLArioCj5Q8wJ96bmF0-nzHBDOJGD1Jh_xAvnv1hJrgdaYvP2nqe6kl/s722/SupSpend.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="722" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_y1yRIJkJn9qHFh4Rd-veLQHLVZo49ywtCOXm5TPjoGAJBzY3CUbKUgXN9uXVYvCCy7boHu1lFL_Myjc82-s-OvLArioCj5Q8wJ96bmF0-nzHBDOJGD1Jh_xAvnv1hJrgdaYvP2nqe6kl/w640-h336/SupSpend.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The correlation for support spending is significant in many more states than instructional spending; further, the effect measured is larger for support than for instruction spending. I believe this is fairly solid evidence that there are differences in the ways different types of spending respond to charter growth, something economists refer to as <i>elasticity</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now, an important question is why the spending is allowed to rise. Don't school districts have a limited amount of funds available to them? Wouldn't they just have to deal with the enrollment losses and fixed costs by adjusting their spending as best as they could?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not necessarily. First, it could be that other areas of spending are being cut, possibly to the detriment of the district, that don't show up in the data. The spending I'm tracking is <i>current spending</i>, which excludes things like debt service and capital outlays. It could be that districts are holding off on facilities spending, or other types of spending not included in my dataset.*</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But there's another possibility: that more per pupil revenue is actually being put into the system to help address those fixed costs. It could, in fact, be the same amount of revenue but spread out over fewer students. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My analysis shows evidence that's happening -- but the type of revenue, like the type of spending, seems to differ. School districts get revenues from three main sources: the federal government, the state, and localities. Federal revenues average less than 10 percent of the total, although that varies from district to district. The rest is some combination of state and local revenues.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The report shows a significant difference in how state and local revenues correlate with charter growth. Here, for example, is the correlation between charter share and state revenues:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6fI2av33Sp8pm4bEfO2m-nvLehhwfCQUdJ2MKTn4Coc4s2vfOGKT74Cht0kQ6M1Zb585s3jlokvPJWxhFqveKiHHftxIHOC33PknPbqrzYIZxim2b8VpmDNi2Pd-qde8S0tvPO1P5yU1/s722/StateRev.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="722" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6fI2av33Sp8pm4bEfO2m-nvLehhwfCQUdJ2MKTn4Coc4s2vfOGKT74Cht0kQ6M1Zb585s3jlokvPJWxhFqveKiHHftxIHOC33PknPbqrzYIZxim2b8VpmDNi2Pd-qde8S0tvPO1P5yU1/w640-h336/StateRev.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">And here it is with local revenues:</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD6ZCKjp5aRPKedKz9E0MuDesldMmNes3fMP7-YY0fNGGiePDXcQ2paaliJYGgKZvdoyFbRbtULxLcQAD0bjn_3L2eRkUJpkRtqzJ4JP32pttwmSnVcWqRMjByToa99uQF2KIhmHkJsmNx/s722/LocalRev.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="722" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD6ZCKjp5aRPKedKz9E0MuDesldMmNes3fMP7-YY0fNGGiePDXcQ2paaliJYGgKZvdoyFbRbtULxLcQAD0bjn_3L2eRkUJpkRtqzJ4JP32pttwmSnVcWqRMjByToa99uQF2KIhmHkJsmNx/w640-h336/LocalRev.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div>In many states, local revenue increases correlate more significantly with charter school growth. Why would that be? Part of the reason may be that, in states where charter schools receive funding directly from the state, local revenues don't decline when students leave local districts. The local school taxes, in other words, don't necessarily go down as enrollment declines. The same amount of revenue spread out over fewer students will lead to higher revenues per pupil. But if that same state is giving state funding based on a per pupil formula, per pupil revenues from the state won't increase. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, a charter supporter may look at this and say: "<i>Great! In many states, there's no fiscal harm to local districts as charters come in! This proves charter schools don't harm district budgets!</i>"</div><div><br /></div><div>Not so fast...</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Cost vs. Spending</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the worst errors people make in trying to understand school finance is conflating cost with spending. <i>Spending</i> is easy to understand: it's simply the monies you put out toward educating students. OK, it can get a bit more complicated, especially when trying to categorize different types of spending... but it's important to understand that spending is not cost.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Cost</i> is the amount of spending you need to get a student to meet a particular educational outcome: a test score, a graduation rate, etc. You'll often hear critics of public schools bemoan what they say are the out-of-control spending amounts in public versus private schools, claiming this proves public schools are wasting money. What they don't understand (or do, but won't admit) is that different schools with different contexts having different students have different <i>costs</i>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A school that is located in a more competitive labor market has higher costs. So does a school enrolling more children with a special education need, or who don't speak English at home, or is located in an area with a higher concentration of poverty. Getting to a place where these children have equal educational opportunity requires more resources and, therefore, indicates a higher cost.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Charter school supporters will often point out that charters educate their students at a lower level of per pupil spending than district schools. But that misses the point: charters often have a lower per pupil <i>cost</i>. Charters enroll fewer students with costly special education needs than district schools. In many jurisdictions, charters enroll smaller proportions of English language learners, or students in economic disadvantage. In these cases, their cost is less than a school district's; simply comparing per pupil spending figures misses this critical point. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It also ignores the fact that most school districts have distinctly different responsibilities than their charter school neighbors. Public school districts have to be ready to find a seat for any child who comes into their boundaries at any time of year. They have to enroll students in all grade levels, and not just the ones they choose to offer. They have to offer curricular choices and extracurriculars to their students that those in charters may elect to forego when enrolling. And in many cases, school districts have to provide services for both district and charter students, such as transportation.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So it may be that districts need additional monies because their costs are higher. But it's also true that spending isn't always going to improve an educational outcome. It could be that more money put into a school doesn't increase student learning or opportunity: that spending would be <i>inefficient</i>. The term often carries a pejorative sense with it, as if anything inefficient can simply be addressed by better choices. But sometimes those choices aren't clear, and sometimes we expect greater efficiency from those who haven't had the power to make those choices -- like whether charter schools should proliferate.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It is, to my mind, very likely that the additional spending that accompanies charter growth is inefficient, because that additional spending is mostly for fixed costs. For that reason, it is also very likely that school districts <i>can't</i> improve their practices to make themselves more efficient; in other words, so that their additional spending could improve student outcomes. It may well be that the increased per pupil spending simply reflects the reality that districts need to do the same job as always, but for fewer students. For this reason, it's impractical to ask a district to perfectly reduce its administrative, support, and facilities spending in alignment with their enrollment losses to charters.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, no, this report is not a finding that charters don't harm school district finances; neither is it a finding that they do. It is, instead, a description of what seems to be happening to school districts as charters come in -- although that description comes with many caveats attached...</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Limitations</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I'll be doing a wonky post about the problems with modeling spending and revenue changes when charters grow at some point in the next few weeks. But I want to address some questions I've received about the limitations on this study.</div><div><br /></div><div>- A note on my analysis: what I'm using is known as a <i>fixed-effects</i> model. The basic idea is that every school district has unique characteristics, and we should account for those characteristics when estimating the effects of charter growth on district finances. We also need to account for changes that affect all districts year-to-year. A fixed-effects model allows for that, and for other varying factors that may also affect spending, such as different student populations, density, labor market effects, etc.</div><div><br /></div><div>But a fixed-effects model cannot say with certainty that changes in charter growth <i>caused</i> the correlated changes in financial measures. It could be that there are other factors involved that account for the changes -- we just don't know. That said, the estimates in the report provide enough evidence that the relationship may exist that it's worth investigating further.</div><div><br /></div><div>- My measure of charter school penetration assumes that all students in a charter school would otherwise attend public school in the district where the charters is located. There is no federal data available that directly ties a charter school student to their "home" district, so this is really the best I can do with the given data. </div><div><br /></div><div>We know, however, that charter school students can and do cross school district boundaries, so the percentages of charter penetration are not exact. There are also quirks in some state's charter regulations (California is a good example) where distant districts can authorize charters, making the figures even more imprecise.</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, there is previous research that uses the same methods I do and compares it to actual district-level data that gives precise measures of charter penetration. That research generally shows the measures lead to similar estimates. So, yes, I'm using a proxy measure -- but there's reason to believe it's a pretty good proxy,.</div><div><br /></div><div>- There is one aspect to this last point that requires more caution when approaching the estimates: virtual charter schools. While the overall percentage of students in these schools is low, there is more penetration in some states and districts than others. Tying virtual charter enrollments to district boundaries is obviously not going to work, and that will bias the estimates, although it's impossible to say how much.</div><div><br /></div><div>I did some work to try to mitigate against this, and continue to work to solve the problem. The biggest issue is the data, which is not very good. That said, I should have been more clear in the report about this issue -- and that's entirely on me.</div><div><br /></div><div>- One of the biggest issues we came across is dealing with the problem of <i>scale</i>. We could, for example, ask this as the research question: "<i>How do charter schools affect district finances <u>not including the effects of enrollment losses</u>?</i>" That would allow us to control for those losses in the model... but what if we think (as I do) that enrollment losses are the primary mechanism through which charters change district finances? If we included a scale measure in the model, it would "eat up" the charter effect, because detangling charter effects and enrollment losses is impossible.</div><div><br /></div><div>The problem is further complicated because other scale effects unrelated to charter growth are very likely impacting district finances. So we have to account for scale, but <i>not</i> scale changes due to charters. This was tricky, and, as the appendix on this in the report suggests, the solution is definitely up for debate. I'll discuss this more in the next post.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let me just add this: if anyone thinks <i>one</i> report using <i>one</i> method and <i>one</i> set of data by <i>one</i> guy settles any question of public policy... then you really don't understand how social science works. Which brings me to...</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>My Takeaways On All This</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I've said on this blog and elsewhere many times: I am not for abolishing charter schools. I started my K-12 teaching career in a charter, run by good people who were committed to their students and their school. I have seen repeatedly in my teaching career that some students are not well suited to the "typical" public district school, and would benefit from an alternative that better suits their needs. I have no problem with charters being proud of their students and their schools, and I have never and would never criticize a parent for making the choice to enroll their child in a charter.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What I am against are the facile, often lazy, and sometimes outright mendacious arguments made in favor of charter schools by some -- <i>some</i> -- of their most ardent supporters.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is no question that there are <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/08/charter-schools-few-bad-apples-or-whole.html">bad actors</a> in the charter sector, and that they have caused unnecessary <a href="https://networkforpubliceducation.org/stillasleepatthewheel/">waste, fraud, and abuse</a> against the taxpayers and families they are supposed to serve. There is no question that the current charter authorization and oversight system is completely inadequate to the task and <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/charter-school-reform-pennsylvania-tom-wolf-budget-20200203.html">needs to be reformed</a>; consequently, many charters act in ways that are not in the <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/08/charter-schools-few-bad-apples-or-whole.html">best interest of citizens</a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I am also deeply concerned that charters, particularly of the "no excuses" variety, are imposing a type of education on students of color that would <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-myth-of-heroic-charter-school-part-i.html">never be tolerated</a> by white parents in affluent school districts. The stories of students being denigrated and subject to carceral educational practices are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-academy-charter-school-singling-out-pupils-who-have-got-to-go.html">well-known</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/08/29/some-no-excuses-charter-schools-say-they-are-changing-are-they-can-they/">far too common</a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Some argue the gains these schools show are worth it. I first want to point out that the <i>overall</i> effect of charters on student outcomes has been little to nothing; at best, the positive effects are confined to "no excuses" urban charters. The peer-reviewed literature on charter schools of this type often shows a positive effect; what usually gets missed, however, is <i>why</i> those effects occur. I've seen no evidence that these charters have pedagogical or organizational advantages that lead to better student outcomes. What seems to be happening instead is that certain self-selected students benefit from longer days, longer years, and one-on-one tutoring.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">These things cost money, which begs a question: If we can find additional funds for <i>some</i> students in charters to have more resources, why can't we find it for<i> all</i> students, including those in public schools?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My point in reiterating all this is that the debate about charter schools has to move to a new level; the old tropes weren't accurate and we have to get past them. So I have little patience at this point with those in the pro-charter camp who dismiss the many, many problems charter schools are creating for public education. And no, I don't think there is equivalent bad-faith argument on "both sides."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But neither do I think the charter-skeptics, of which I count myself, have had the issue of charter school growth's effect on district finances completely right. There are mechanisms and compensatory policies that, in many states, appear to <i>increase</i> per pupil spending and revenues at school districts as charters move in. This doesn't mean that districts don't suffer fiscal harm; rather, the simple story of "charters taking money away from districts" is more subtle and complex than what some have understood.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One last, completely self-indulgent thought: the more I do this kind of work, the more humble I've become about it. It is far too easy to screw up a dataset, or make a mistake when coding a model, or make a conceptual error, or overlook some critical factor. I tend to get obsessive about triple checking things, but my biggest fear remains putting something out that is just flat out wrong.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yes, some research is more rigorous than others. Sometimes people come to conclusions their analysis doesn't warrant. Some people are clearly hacks. But if you're transparent, and you're open about your limitations, and you're willing to have a good faith discussion about your findings, I'm not going to fault you, no matter what you believe or what you find. Because I know this stuff isn't easy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I didn't always take that view; I try to now. More to come.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>* I did do some modeling on this, but I grew suspicious of the data, as it's not clear states report capital spending consistently. More later.</div><div><br /></div></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-58971974156427096022021-02-07T09:52:00.001-08:002021-02-07T09:53:20.618-08:00January, 2021 Update on NJ COVID School Opening Plans: Still Racially Biased, Still Inadequately Funded For Many<p>The estimable <a href="https://twitter.com/colleenodea" target="_blank">Colleen O'Dea</a> from <i>NJ Spotlight News</i> continues to do New Jersey a service by updating the data on school instructional models during the pandemic. I've been collecting her updates, including the <a href="https://www.njspotlight.com/2021/01/the-latest-plans-by-your-school-district-for-remote-in-person-or-hybrid-learning/" target="_blank">latest one from late in January</a>, and matching it to enrollment and funding data from the NJDOE.</p><p>I did my first report on this for the New Jersey Policy Perspective back in <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/blog-category/new-jerseys-school-re-openings-are-racially-unequal/" target="_blank">October</a>, and have updated my findings here several times since (<a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2020/12/new-jerseys-school-covid-19-operating.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2020/09/racial-and-class-bias-in-new-jerseys.html" target="_blank">here</a>). Let me be clear: these are <i>not</i> reports about how many students and families are electing to participate in remote, hybrid, or in-person learning. Rather, I'm showing what the <i>options</i> are for students in their school districts. </p><p>A school district, for example, may offer hybrid learning (a combination of limited classroom time and virtual learning at home) to its students; however, those students may choose to stay home full-time. But a student in a "remote" district won't have that option: they never get to decide whether they want to come to school at least part-time.</p><p>There are four categories of instructional models in the data</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>In-person</i>, where all instruction takes place in school (again, NJ law says students could still elect to learn from home).</li><li><i>Remote</i>, where there is no in-person learning available.</li><li><i>Hybrid</i>, where there is a mix of in-person and remote learning for the district's students.</li><li><i>Combination</i> (<i>combo</i>), where different schools within the district have different models.</li></ul><p></p><p>The reports I've been doing, based on O'Dea's data, have been getting a fair bit of attention for two reasons. First, there is a clear racial bias in the instructional models being offered. Students of color are much more likely to be in districts where only remote learning is offered. </p><p>Some have suggested this is because Black parents are especially wary of sending their children to school, and districts are responding to their wishes. But that brings up the second finding of my reports: the remote-only districts are far more likely to be underfunded, as measured by <i>the state's own law</i> on school funding.</p><p>This makes sense, because a district that offers hybrid learning very likely needs more resources (per student) than a district that doesn't. Most hybrid districts are cohorting their students: dividing them into groups and then rotating them so class sizes are small and social distancing can be maintained. To do this, there have too be enough staff to deliver remote and in-person instruction simultaneously, even as fixed costs like transportation and facilities management remain the same. That's going to cost money.</p><p>Now that we've got the background, let's see where New Jersey stands as of now on its pandemic instructional plans. We'll start by looking at how things have changed since the fall.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzqibiaNfwt_ZdOSAs5YyrUR-RgpoK0exQL7voHFLvPdXpgl6v9F8BMXDIq0ojwOAEetQ2TjwEeftiuScLgxGLoEZ5j-6PFHJpWJdvFG8oCmO8adNzXos3BuG7FTEIPdso8F4hJNTPX8B/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1422" data-original-width="2048" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzqibiaNfwt_ZdOSAs5YyrUR-RgpoK0exQL7voHFLvPdXpgl6v9F8BMXDIq0ojwOAEetQ2TjwEeftiuScLgxGLoEZ5j-6PFHJpWJdvFG8oCmO8adNzXos3BuG7FTEIPdso8F4hJNTPX8B/w640-h444/NJCOVID_2_2_21_01.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A couple of weeks ago <a href="https://www.nj.com/education/2021/01/more-nj-schools-returning-to-in-person-hybrid-classes-as-covid-cases-decline-murphy-says.html" target="_blank">Governor Murphy</a> said more schools were opening for in-person instruction. But my data-crunching shows we actually have more students in remote learning than we did back in September. Granted, we had more students in districts with unknown plans at the start of the year; still, the numbers of in-person, hybrid, and combo students haven't changed much.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What's interesting is that it appears that there were districts who tried to move to hybrid in the fall, but then stopped and went back to remote going into the winter. Was this a reaction to the wave of new cases that started when the weather got cold?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let's next look at the racial/ethnic profile of students attending districts with different instructional models.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNocqjWNuLwbZlCmeusCGPBTEGjwMzX4lfpL3NcjV-BZtSEgXVU_SD-71eijTbxs6OZAd4kLQKD6cmPM42E26yjJeaIVvaGbRBbgtSBjICMT5Zgg6MnqxV4kxhigvfrYVKAqLbiF9Ekkcx/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_06.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="2048" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNocqjWNuLwbZlCmeusCGPBTEGjwMzX4lfpL3NcjV-BZtSEgXVU_SD-71eijTbxs6OZAd4kLQKD6cmPM42E26yjJeaIVvaGbRBbgtSBjICMT5Zgg6MnqxV4kxhigvfrYVKAqLbiF9Ekkcx/w640-h470/NJCOVID_2_2_21_06.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As I pointed out in October, Black students were more likely to be in remote districts, as opposed to hybrid or combo districts. <b>That hasn't changed; if you're a Black student in New Jersey, you're still more likely to be in a district with fully-remote instruction than a district with at least some in-person learning.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Same thing for Hispanic students:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5x9R4DI4kFfg28hA3qCme5SLDEc8I8nlX3MyhFaHhz3rnwXcKR0aPzEG6YiFpSHuz5uaZ5hVfBtwcVmisdhTtCbFsqVqbbkh4lyamaPxU53m2awNoG83YpLyRrBeWgRCBOh_0BFkef56A/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_07.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1305" data-original-width="2048" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5x9R4DI4kFfg28hA3qCme5SLDEc8I8nlX3MyhFaHhz3rnwXcKR0aPzEG6YiFpSHuz5uaZ5hVfBtwcVmisdhTtCbFsqVqbbkh4lyamaPxU53m2awNoG83YpLyRrBeWgRCBOh_0BFkef56A/w640-h408/NJCOVID_2_2_21_07.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm not quite sure about the dip in combo districts' Hispanic percentage, although the number of districts using that model is small enough that only a few would have to change to see a significant shift. That said, there is a clear and persistent difference in the ethnic profile of hybrid and remote districts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is naturally reflected in the percentages of white students:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uPR0InzXfn-tZ4aM50rvSeKEXI_6r-02TyEOhQ_6Gmuwlabevs-DrAH9STgJDqYvcE3boBiKwidpaaFyJlUY0O8HTiUzeMk_48jfAYUFY4aPb1HiR1Tl-M9F6WMNm0PBAWQi5CZKgUau/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_08.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1411" data-original-width="2048" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uPR0InzXfn-tZ4aM50rvSeKEXI_6r-02TyEOhQ_6Gmuwlabevs-DrAH9STgJDqYvcE3boBiKwidpaaFyJlUY0O8HTiUzeMk_48jfAYUFY4aPb1HiR1Tl-M9F6WMNm0PBAWQi5CZKgUau/w640-h440/NJCOVID_2_2_21_08.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>In New Jersey, white students are more likely to have the option of attending school in-person at least part of the time compared to Black or Hispanic students.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's worth noting that there are also differences between students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a proxy measure of student economic disadvantage:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6rLzR0__ZBKuOPXamfcgIUY7-Yqk_A-TNVwa7e2-Re6n5qDeQoDoi8PFCa0AR9b7DVshxtYRagZYEejDO3l0tJzV5OG3KGKbxy7y478clLSFahjfD2115Rdgl6l4mBkC1sp78jYNT16-/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_05.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1310" data-original-width="2048" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge6rLzR0__ZBKuOPXamfcgIUY7-Yqk_A-TNVwa7e2-Re6n5qDeQoDoi8PFCa0AR9b7DVshxtYRagZYEejDO3l0tJzV5OG3KGKbxy7y478clLSFahjfD2115Rdgl6l4mBkC1sp78jYNT16-/w640-h410/NJCOVID_2_2_21_05.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So why is this? Well, as Bruce Baker and I have pointed out many times (here's <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/report/school-funding-in-new-jersey-a-fair-future-for-all/" target="_blank">the latest</a>), Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be in school districts that <i>the state's own law</i> says are underfunded. <b>And it turns out the districts most likely to be fully remote are those that are underfunded—a condition that has remained the same throughout the pandemic.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">You can see my figures from October in the <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/blog-category/new-jerseys-school-re-openings-are-racially-unequal/" target="_blank">NJPP report</a>. Let's jump ahead a bit to November; the situation remained the same.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCkKlHmpnMvebc0LL_9l_gC5IHbLzIjEV8chBF4kHpbAR_KtQtWTg2YCmbmizR1bjgk6oa5sFnVCtBtWR28Y0TcoL_DjOQiLYXAIZz1zvhARADgyn_zEQoAFWITKF1Vql9vAPgOhVWIP-/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1540" data-original-width="2048" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCkKlHmpnMvebc0LL_9l_gC5IHbLzIjEV8chBF4kHpbAR_KtQtWTg2YCmbmizR1bjgk6oa5sFnVCtBtWR28Y0TcoL_DjOQiLYXAIZz1zvhARADgyn_zEQoAFWITKF1Vql9vAPgOhVWIP-/w640-h482/NJCOVID_2_2_21_02.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Almost all school districts that are deeply underfunded—more than $5,000 per student—were offering only remote learning back in the fall. That changed little in December...</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCTT27ZfKSK-jDWGuk1NGIQ1UUMcpTvCwQF-ih6HGEOB190qp-Jwy02x_JLEV8wQ-WZimGXOhvjuiwtQBkPSrIsX1bI40lmijnD4PTCWwIH6yydGXUnmQDmivPc7AK3y4EhqEi0RnKH13D/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_03.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="2048" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCTT27ZfKSK-jDWGuk1NGIQ1UUMcpTvCwQF-ih6HGEOB190qp-Jwy02x_JLEV8wQ-WZimGXOhvjuiwtQBkPSrIsX1bI40lmijnD4PTCWwIH6yydGXUnmQDmivPc7AK3y4EhqEi0RnKH13D/w640-h462/NJCOVID_2_2_21_03.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>And even less in January:<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Eej6W8kF0TlCM6GCj-vIUpa3XpkDRZseC08DgxhEBItFmIIDKS7sLvlC83BUwy0risd6e21Le7pIzVdM1k5vSZB5ujOrywDQDgOvxwal4F4KkQayAa3y3QtJmgZNpBP467FJRUMRCSJn/s2048/NJCOVID_2_2_21_04.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1530" data-original-width="2048" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Eej6W8kF0TlCM6GCj-vIUpa3XpkDRZseC08DgxhEBItFmIIDKS7sLvlC83BUwy0risd6e21Le7pIzVdM1k5vSZB5ujOrywDQDgOvxwal4F4KkQayAa3y3QtJmgZNpBP467FJRUMRCSJn/w640-h478/NJCOVID_2_2_21_04.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I don't see how anyone can argue that school funding has nothing to do with pandemic schooling: <b>Consistently, the students in the most underfunded New Jersey school districts have been denied any opportunity for at least some in-person instruction.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">With vaccines around the corner, the school year halfway over, and the new state budget season coming up, I don't know if we can fix this in the short term. <b>But we have got to acknowledge that long-term, structural deficiencies in school funding are creating unequal education opportunities for New Jersey's students. </b>The pandemic didn't create these inequalities, but it did make it impossible to argue that they don't matter. Addressing this problem has got to be at the top of the state's policy agenda.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'll keep updating my findings as new data becomes available. Until then, we've got some other important things to discuss—stand by...</div><p><br /></p></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-45518376555489714412020-12-03T19:11:00.009-08:002020-12-03T19:43:51.290-08:00New Jersey's School COVID-19 Operating Plans: Still Racially Biased, Still Inadequately Funded For Many Students<a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2020/09/racial-and-class-bias-in-new-jerseys.html" target="_blank">Earlier this year</a>, I posted about the racial inequities in New Jersey's school reopening plans, which were all affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Following that blog post, I used some updated data, refined my analysis a bit, and wrote about it over at the <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/blog-category/new-jerseys-school-re-openings-are-racially-unequal/" target="_blank">NJPP website</a>. In both of these analyses I relied on data published at <i><a href="https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/09/nj-schools-reopen-plan-list/" target="_blank">NJ Spotlight</a> (</i>an invaluable source for news about education policy in the Garden State).<div><br /></div><div><div>Turns out <i>NJ Spotlight</i> just <a href="https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/11/nj-school-districts-latest-plans-for-remote-in-person-or-hybrid-learning-approved/" target="_blank">updated their list</a> of NJ school districts and their COVID-19 operating plans. Let's first give props to <i>Spotlight's</i> Colleen O'Dea for keeping on top of these data updates.</div><div><br /></div><div>With a few tweaks of my statistical program's code, it's not too hard to see how things have changed over the last few months. But let's review what I found back in September:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>About half of the state's students were in districts that only offered fully remote classes, while one-third were in districts that offered a hybrid of remote and in-person learning.</li><li>White students were more likely to have the option to receive in-person instruction than Black or Hispanic students.</li><li>The districts that offered only remote instruction were more likely to be underfunded -- according to <i>the state's own law</i> -- than districts offering hybrid instruction.</li></ul><div>Before I get to the update, let me be clear about what I'm presenting. The analysis here is <i>not</i> what students are actually doing; it's what their districts offer. Governor Murphy has required all districts to offer fully remote instruction during the pandemic. But some districts also offer students the option of at least some in-person learning. What I'm presenting here are the options districts offer their students and their families -- it's not what those families actual decide to do.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>That said, let's see what's changed:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzs2o_VsynonNUB8RWuCEAishuk73zbFdlR1izPcCOeXMMoexcRE9WVme12tzNhTVubAv8bKmWxGEigYw97aXyhH9y8nv8pJdLtMWWPEgilKCMEFlew3V25SDcsjFVvXjca0J1xX4-nJsY/s1577/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="1577" height="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzs2o_VsynonNUB8RWuCEAishuk73zbFdlR1izPcCOeXMMoexcRE9WVme12tzNhTVubAv8bKmWxGEigYw97aXyhH9y8nv8pJdLtMWWPEgilKCMEFlew3V25SDcsjFVvXjca0J1xX4-nJsY/w640-h538/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_01.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Back in September, about one-half of New Jersey's students were in fully remote districts. That's changed a bit: somewhat fewer students are now in districts where remote is their only option. A bigger change is that the districts whose plans weren't in the data back in September are now being tracked. The upshot is that <u>more students are now in hybrid districts than back in September</u>: where 3 in 10 students had the hybrid option in September, now 4 in 10 do.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's see if that's changed the racial disparities in whether in-person schooling is offered:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhJIQ-YZUO9unA7H-Bh67b4eHNOGwjiHWSODrSYzMkyV_vCVIw1ZKeM7TFwXM5DTJMDMRIZEqd4r2gNO7zEvmEr1F_Fth_Y9yqpLNdogjk7L-XhKUY1dlrndwA-ikQrGVuD7NRh8YpQPu/s1772/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="1772" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhJIQ-YZUO9unA7H-Bh67b4eHNOGwjiHWSODrSYzMkyV_vCVIw1ZKeM7TFwXM5DTJMDMRIZEqd4r2gNO7zEvmEr1F_Fth_Y9yqpLNdogjk7L-XhKUY1dlrndwA-ikQrGVuD7NRh8YpQPu/w640-h310/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_02.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So far as Black students are concerned, there's been little change. 7.3 percent of students in hybrid districts were Black back in September; now it's 7.8 percent. The remote districts were 20 percent Black; now they're 21 percent.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWoW0pbDf3ZOKytaVMQLmqF9Sd_kKFAcfDGPA8703IVCv6AF6PTyeGecaaK6cwJzf8DoIqgy5b-876c3anU2RSGucXcrmWh6lAzfSaRv5DuxHN3zVmrI8c3uM1VVsHLqwgqsdVue7NCeHL/s1847/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_03.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1847" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWoW0pbDf3ZOKytaVMQLmqF9Sd_kKFAcfDGPA8703IVCv6AF6PTyeGecaaK6cwJzf8DoIqgy5b-876c3anU2RSGucXcrmWh6lAzfSaRv5DuxHN3zVmrI8c3uM1VVsHLqwgqsdVue7NCeHL/w640-h298/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_03.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The graph above shows a distinct change in the percentage of Hispanic students in combination districts -- districts that offer hybrid in some grades and remote in others. But remember: these districts enroll less than ten percent of all students -- they're not a big factor. There's actually very little change for Hispanic students in their options. Like Black students, they are more likely to be enrolled in remote districts than hybrids.</div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2hvRtqGAX6qwRrm9jmtWS_zIv0JxHm8S_0nOzJaizFfJ0VGgAMM9loDMXCHac-JcWvurDIXHwAGa674LA7sBipA2cHz0m3ANvox_rL4ULfDBbbR9BNoGJZt08Z9Q_eQjOZnOadYIpd0hI/s1956/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_04.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="1956" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2hvRtqGAX6qwRrm9jmtWS_zIv0JxHm8S_0nOzJaizFfJ0VGgAMM9loDMXCHac-JcWvurDIXHwAGa674LA7sBipA2cHz0m3ANvox_rL4ULfDBbbR9BNoGJZt08Z9Q_eQjOZnOadYIpd0hI/w640-h302/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_04.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In September, hybrid districts had more white students than remote districts. Again, little has changed: if you're a white student in New Jersey, you're more likely to be in a hybrid district than a remote one.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>So there was a clear racial bias in COVID-19 school operating plans back in September... and that bias has not gone away.</b> Why is that?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As I noted back in September, whether a district offered in-person learning was clearly correlated with whether that district is adequately funded:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg80npLYwQWi3RRDuEo5rQLEYRYNTdyd5GKN1pWpZibz0nkC2TUSC7NxpF9GjFmMQihHTqqpDg44jdRJ1APDyghEuw5WxMDq4QdQKmZneKBJCFA1VsF9GR8Fs1Zym-FR7DtyDYedSpN6jSQ/s1381/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_05.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1381" height="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg80npLYwQWi3RRDuEo5rQLEYRYNTdyd5GKN1pWpZibz0nkC2TUSC7NxpF9GjFmMQihHTqqpDg44jdRJ1APDyghEuw5WxMDq4QdQKmZneKBJCFA1VsF9GR8Fs1Zym-FR7DtyDYedSpN6jSQ/w640-h580/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_05.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">New Jersey's school funding law, the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), sets an "adequacy budget" per pupil. This is the amount <i>the state's own law</i> says a district needs to provide an adequate education for its students. SFRA recognizes that schools serving students in economic disadvantage, or who are limited English proficient, or who have a special education need, need more resources to equalize educational opportunity. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Unfortunately, New Jersey has not followed <i>the state's own law</i> when it comes to school funding. There are many districts that are inadequately funded -- some by more than $5,000 per pupil. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There are several different ways to calculate the adequacy gap. What I do here is slightly different than what Bruce Baker and I did for our <a href="https://www.njpp.org/publications/report/school-funding-in-new-jersey-a-fair-future-for-all/" target="_blank">latest report on SFRA</a>, but by either method, there are about 130,000 students in these severely underfunded districts. In September, I found that just about all of these students were in school districts that <i>only</i> offered remote learning.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Well, in December we now have more children in hybrid programs. But guess what? <b>Nearly all of the students in severely underfunded districts are <i>still</i> in schools that only offer remote learning.</b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg24DzzZ2kE8bfrIc4Qzzjv8Tw00MIvio1DKBAhN0itdxThWhfhNCszwlAGKoq12RnNEgdKi1GOB9ILAYrMarjXRePIV3d2_F8UAt67CLlFfjqMslDfyMzlz0n8QjuI_KEv2BfvBi_tuPug/s1462/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_06.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1262" data-original-width="1462" height="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg24DzzZ2kE8bfrIc4Qzzjv8Tw00MIvio1DKBAhN0itdxThWhfhNCszwlAGKoq12RnNEgdKi1GOB9ILAYrMarjXRePIV3d2_F8UAt67CLlFfjqMslDfyMzlz0n8QjuI_KEv2BfvBi_tuPug/w640-h552/NJ_COVID_Dec2020_06.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Put another way: <b>In September, nearly all of the students in underfunded districts were only offered remote learning. Today, in December, these students <i>still</i> can only access remote learning.</b><div><b><br /></b></div><div>School districts that do not have adequate funding don't have the same access to revenues to maintain their facilities, including their HVAC systems. <a href="https://www.njpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NJPP-School-Funding-in-New-Jersey-A-Fair-Future-for-All-Part-3.pdf" target="_blank">As Bruce and I show</a>, these districts have fewer staff per pupil; it's much harder to offer both remote and in-person learning when you don't have enough staff to divide up the responsibilities for two modes of teaching. Underfunded districts are hard-pressed to provide their students and staff with PPE and other necessary supplies to make in-person schooling safe. They won't have the custodial staff necessary to increase work hours for extra cleaning, or the technology to implement instruction that allows for students who are in-person and on-line to learn together.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>There is no question that funding adequacy is a major factor in determining whether a school district is able to offer in-person instruction.</b> If funding didn't matter, why haven't at least some of the state's inadequately funded districts started offering in-person instruction? They've had the time to plan -- what they haven't had are the resources.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I said back in September: the pandemic has surfaced the consequences of inadequate and inequitable school funding. More recent data confirms this basic truth. I know we're all waiting for the vaccine, and for a return to some semblance of normality -- but we can't go back to normal. The pandemic is a wake-up call. It is wrong to continue to deny schools what <i>the state's own law</i> says they need to do their jobs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Much more to come on what it will take to equalize educational opportunity here in New Jersey, and elsewhere. Stand by...</div><div><br /></div><div><div><div><br /></div></div></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-21814978796319131282020-09-30T13:31:00.005-07:002020-09-30T13:38:00.904-07:00Trump and Christie: Everything Teachers Stand Against <p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Most of what needs to be said about Donald Trump’s appalling performance last night has been said. But I want to quickly add two thoughts.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, as an educator, I want to make sure we acknowledge that the massive damage Trump has done to our country includes his corrupting influence on American children. Every day, teachers go into our schools and try to instill important values in our students: respect, honesty, integrity, civility, modesty, empathy. Donald Trump’s whole life, however, has been a wholesale rejection of every personal characteristic a citizen in a democracy should strive to embody.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;">Donald<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Trump can't even </span>lift<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>himself<span style="font-family: inherit;"> to the level of behavior expected in an elementary school. His preening, whining, blustering foolishness would never be tolerated in a second grader. His inability to accept responsibility for his actions would earn him a conference in the principal’s office with his parents. His casual disregard for the truth would result in a string of Ns ("Needs Improvement") on his report card.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’ve had many bad presidents in my lifetime; not one, however, has been so craven, so boorish, so full of contempt for others that they didn't have some positive attribute that a teacher could point to. But not this man -- there isn’t a single quality in the leader of our nation that an American student should emulate. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The fact that a man of such low character holds high office makes it that much more difficult for teachers to convince their students that the hard work of making yourself into a better person is worth the effort. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kids need role models; foremost among those role models should be the president. Yet every time he opens his mouth, he demonstrates to our children how not to behave.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Second: for eight long, exhausting years, I watched as Chris Christie drove my beloved state into the ground. He was nearly as repulsive as Trump: he <a href="Most of what needs to be said about Donald Trump’s appalling performance last night has been said. But I want to quickly add two thoughts. First, as an educator, I want to make sure we take a minute to acknowledge that included the massive amount of damage Trump has done to our country is his corrupting influence on American children. Every day, teachers go into our schools and try to instill important values in our students: respect, honesty, integrity, civility, modesty, empathy. Donald Trump’s whole life, however, has been nothing less than a wholesale rejection of every personal characteristic a citizen in a democracy should strive to embody. His preening, whining, blustering foolishness would never be tolerated in a student in the second grade. His inability to accept responsibility for his actions would earn him a conference in the principal’s office with his parents. His casual disregard for the truth would result in a string of academic failures. We’ve had many bad presidents in my lifetime. But none has been so craven, so boorish, and so full of contempt for others that there wasn’t some positive attribute that a teacher could point to. Not this man. There isn’t a single positive quality in the leader of our nation that an American student should emulate. The fact that a man of such low character holds high office makes it that much more difficult for teachers to convince their students that the hard work of making yourself into a better person is worth the effort. Kids need role models. Foremost among those role models should be the president. Yet every time he opens his mouth, he demonstrates to our children how not to behave. Second: for eight long, exhausting years, I watched as Chris Christie drove my beloved state into the ground. He was nearly as repulsive as Trump: he mocked women, denigrated teachers, presented policies that were demonstrably harmful, indulged himself while others suffered, and just generally acted like a horse’s ass. Christie was the most unpopular governor in American when he finally left office. Amazingly, someone thought that was the perfect guy to put on TV. And, true to form, last night he came to Donald Trump’s defense. Donald Trump could not speak out forcefully against racism and violence… and Chris Christie made excuses for him. Why? Who knows? Maybe it’s because, like all bullies, he’s intimidated by a bigger bully.">mocked women</a>, <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2017/01/chris-christie-bashes-teachers-but-now.html">denigrated teachers</a>, pushed policies that were <a href="https://njedpolicy.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/how-fair-is-the-fairness-formula-for-new-jersey-school-children-taxpayers/">demonstrably harmful</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/03/new-jersey-beach-shut-for-everyone-bar-chris-christie-and-family">indulged himself </a>while others suffered, and just generally acted like a <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/the-chris-christie-story">horse’s ass</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Christie was the most <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/12/06/chris-christies-approval-rating-is-the-lowest-for-a-new-jersey-governor-in-over-20-years/">unpopular governor</a> in American when he finally left office. Amazingly, someone thought that was the perfect guy to put on TV. And, true to form, last night he came to Donald Trump’s defense.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p dir="ltr" lang="en"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And there it is! Christie explains away Trump refusing to condemn White Supremacy tonight by:<br /><br />A) lying and saying Trump actually spoke against it<br /><br />AND <br /><br />B) claiming Christie himself didn’t hear the answer <br /><br />AND<br /><br />C) saying Trump was being sarcastic (?) <a href="https://t.co/CHE9YQhcS5">pic.twitter.com/CHE9YQhcS5</a></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;">— Matt Katz (@mattkatz00) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattkatz00/status/1311144063731748864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2020</a></span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Donald Trump could not speak out forcefully against racism and violence… and Chris Christie made excuses for him. Why? Who knows? Maybe it’s because, like all bullies, he’s intimidated by the bigger bully.</span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxF8Y0fM0pXwKF-nZDAV8Poc_LgoQGqHG93zJJ_32cpdzrm1Swp19_FNq4hn4PzoeVE_nDbJl4OFLvjzSWvgG6vkTze7_M-tbOAfxqiJSqH8R80bGF3YxQ4MyOtoNms1l0GAMLww6KaFpa/s1920/trumpchristie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxF8Y0fM0pXwKF-nZDAV8Poc_LgoQGqHG93zJJ_32cpdzrm1Swp19_FNq4hn4PzoeVE_nDbJl4OFLvjzSWvgG6vkTze7_M-tbOAfxqiJSqH8R80bGF3YxQ4MyOtoNms1l0GAMLww6KaFpa/w400-h225/trumpchristie.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p>Maybe it’s because he thinks getting a tax break is more important than saving democracy. Maybe he has deluded himself into thinking he has a chance at reentering politics at some point, and he doesn’t want to alienate Trump’s small but vocal base. </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ultimately, all that matters is that we see Republicans like Chris Christie for what they are: Donald Trump’s enablers, devoid of any honor or sense of shame. They should be shunned and mocked by decent people everywhere -- as much as Trump is.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-11409918036313188552020-09-19T12:14:00.009-07:002020-09-19T18:55:22.594-07:00Correcting the Hacks on NJ Taxes<p>Nothing makes me crazier than hacky discussions of tax and fiscal policy. And if you want the hackiest hacking about New Jersey's taxes, there's only one place to go: the <i>Star-Ledger's </i>opinion pages, where you'll find conservative Mike DuHaime and "liberal" (<i>snort</i>) Julie Roginsky hacking out the hackiest fiscal hacking <a href="https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/09/friendly-fire-saturday-julie-mike-joust-on-taxes-because-they-can.html">imaginable</a>:</p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Mike</b>: Trenton Democrats will never let a good crisis go to waste. They are using COVID to raise income taxes, raise business taxes, raise taxes on healthcare and borrow billions. I am surprised Sweeney and Coughlin are supporting an income tax increase. The top 1% of earners in New Jersey are paying 40% of New Jersey’s income taxes. The top 10% pay 70% of the taxes. Wealthy people are leaving New Jersey, and as they leave, it is the middle class who keep getting more and more of the tax burden.<br /><br /><b>Julie</b>: This deal fell into place because Speaker Coughlin was committed to provide real relief to working middle-class families and was finally able to spearhead an agreement that does just that by providing families with children with the money to pay for back-to-school expenses and other bills next year.<br /><br /><b>Mike</b>: This is less than one-half of 1% of a tax credit for the average New Jersey household. Taxpayers deserve structural reforms that lower the cost of government and lower our heavy tax burden.<br /><br /><b>Julie</b>: I agree, Mike. But in all the years a Republican governor was at the helm, he never lowered the income tax rate for the middle class. This is the first real tax break middle class workers are getting in a generation. </span></blockquote>Some debate: the Democrat <i>agrees</i> that New Jersey needs "<i>...structural reforms that lower the cost of government and lower our heavy tax burden.</i>" The assumption by both, of course, is informed by received wisdom in Trenton: New Jersey is a heavily taxed state with out of control spending.<div><br /></div><div>You'll also note Roginsky doesn't push back on DuHaime's claim that the state's top earners are paying an inordinately high share of the taxes. What a real debater would have noted is that simply focusing on income taxes is wrong when the state raises revenues through a mix of taxes, including gas, sales, transfer, corporate, and so on. Further, state taxes should be considered in combination with local taxes, as various states divide up responsibilities for providing services differently.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since DuHaim is implying that New Jersey residents are leaving the state due to high taxes and high spending, let's take a moment to cut through the hackery and look at some basic facts.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>1) New Jersey collects higher taxes than the US average, but is not a huge outlier in tax collections.</b> We're number 8 in state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, according to federal data collected from the <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org">Tax Policy Center</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRQmJVxl_4gsO2FFZhoD1K3K4kXcBCWd3JimuLXSQWJ74qUnhY-_DTW8VOYCBkNrYz_Ha_WyM_CCF-CfjCWEpj-JTWfAp79PbEk27IMxRY3HQEWGyDkWthAUyIFCqmUvWJyI-n4tGa5MN/s572/NJTaxes2017PctPersonalInc.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="572" height="578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRQmJVxl_4gsO2FFZhoD1K3K4kXcBCWd3JimuLXSQWJ74qUnhY-_DTW8VOYCBkNrYz_Ha_WyM_CCF-CfjCWEpj-JTWfAp79PbEk27IMxRY3HQEWGyDkWthAUyIFCqmUvWJyI-n4tGa5MN/w640-h578/NJTaxes2017PctPersonalInc.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div>But remember that taxes are not the only sources of revenue for a state; across the nation, taxes only accounted for about one-half of all general state revenue in 2017.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>2) When calculating own source state and local revenue as a percentage of personal income, New Jersey is <i>below</i> the national average.</b> We're ranked number 31, well below the national average. </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirKXVIJgunYPOqmlyQAVptzeQ15ph7K8EehPTITC-qqfUTP6fW5lBPi2fDUSaG0hirvS-RKzq8M6E8XojQrCOf1Q9ESSmA40IbPhyr4tWM2cFgz84hFhZp6gDKuNK5nJxFbPtzSDuN_AN1/s597/NJTaxes2017OwnSourecRevenue.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="597" height="514" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirKXVIJgunYPOqmlyQAVptzeQ15ph7K8EehPTITC-qqfUTP6fW5lBPi2fDUSaG0hirvS-RKzq8M6E8XojQrCOf1Q9ESSmA40IbPhyr4tWM2cFgz84hFhZp6gDKuNK5nJxFbPtzSDuN_AN1/w640-h514/NJTaxes2017OwnSourecRevenue.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>3) New Jersey's state and local governments spend less of its citizens' personal income than most other states. </b>On average state and local governments in the U.S. spend 18.3 percent of personal income on direct general expenditures; New Jersey, in contrast, spends 16.0 percent.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvGPV3UqJliOoSi9aQDTS12Wp_ffPT6WgzY0GaEkMhhLC380lZIAdmnicFiKu46xCkT8rvY4ggXuS6scXiSiP_i2a6n59LcI_aYL0nFFFtHaRbU4ndBGxvNzUWqHjrve0EftZCwhiZKNWQ/s1638/NJExpenditures2017PctPersonalInc.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1638" data-original-width="1084" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvGPV3UqJliOoSi9aQDTS12Wp_ffPT6WgzY0GaEkMhhLC380lZIAdmnicFiKu46xCkT8rvY4ggXuS6scXiSiP_i2a6n59LcI_aYL0nFFFtHaRbU4ndBGxvNzUWqHjrve0EftZCwhiZKNWQ/w424-h640/NJExpenditures2017PctPersonalInc.png" width="424" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>4) New Jersey is better than most of its neighboring states, and the U.S. as a whole, in tax progressiveness; however, the top 1 percent in the state still pay <i>less</i> in overall state and local taxes, as a percentage of income, than the middle class. </b>In many states, the bottom 20 percent pay more of their income in state and local taxes than the top 1 percent. Thankfully, that isn't true in New Jersey; however, the top 1 percent still pay less overall than the middle 20 percent.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2xxM1Jo1fozPvMSiuJwuCCB8jxD-4jEDM3zChyZCNLfVrI5cnXilKx76KxrZWBiyMM0_4LoC1jc6hqi9042mpfnceCoB-6Di2AdahCnrVZLGi79m5oo2T03d7VOCs0FssfX9xscXj5PSr/s801/ITEP_NJvNeighbors2018.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="801" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2xxM1Jo1fozPvMSiuJwuCCB8jxD-4jEDM3zChyZCNLfVrI5cnXilKx76KxrZWBiyMM0_4LoC1jc6hqi9042mpfnceCoB-6Di2AdahCnrVZLGi79m5oo2T03d7VOCs0FssfX9xscXj5PSr/w640-h432/ITEP_NJvNeighbors2018.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><b>5) Tax flight of the wealthy from New Jersey is a myth that has been debunked for years.</b> Let's have Sheila Reynertson of NJPP explain it:</div><div><br /></div><div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yWwbbiHPLIc" width="480"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>As NJPP points out <a href="https://www.njpp.org/budget/millionaires-tax-is-the-right-policy-at-the-right-time">here</a>, the number of wealthy taxpayers in the state has been growing, despite all the talk of this being a high-tax state.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZJOJJozSTW_k_0146kEw5KEuYnwcNVhl595v21-bAtif0Fwse_BDbaGo2RWZS-tvixJU2P8EEcoFYuxuaTAkKpPVRnxjVkRWxD3IasRkBtRKyFCzY6tzRRXTz9sFhJ5HKBFQjbguRwgl/s1945/CAFR-high-income-households-2019-copy-1-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1945" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZJOJJozSTW_k_0146kEw5KEuYnwcNVhl595v21-bAtif0Fwse_BDbaGo2RWZS-tvixJU2P8EEcoFYuxuaTAkKpPVRnxjVkRWxD3IasRkBtRKyFCzY6tzRRXTz9sFhJ5HKBFQjbguRwgl/w640-h412/CAFR-high-income-households-2019-copy-1-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>To recap:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>New Jersey isn't an inordinately high-tax state.</li><li>New Jersey is a relatively low spending state.</li><li>New Jersey's wealthiest residents pay less in state and local taxes than its least affluent residents.</li><li>The number of wealthy taxpayers has been steadily growing in New Jersey for years.</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><div>So please don't listen to the political hacks when they tell you we desperately need massive spending cuts. What we need is smart, targeted revenue growth that asks the wealthiest residents to pay their fair share. The millionaire's tax is a meaningful step in the right direction.</div><div><br /></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-27572108322548868012020-09-08T13:00:00.000-07:002020-09-08T13:00:13.550-07:00Racial and Class Bias In New Jersey's School Reopening Plans<p>Most New Jersey school districts are starting the 2020-21 school year this week -- although the way they are starting varies quite a bit. This year, some districts are fully remote, while others are offering a limited form of in-person instruction known as a "hybrid" model. Many of the districts offering the hybrid are rotating students in cohorts that switch between in-person and remote instruction; this way, students get at least some time in their school buildings.</p><p><a href="https://www.nj.com/education/2020/09/heres-how-many-nj-school-districts-are-opening-all-remote-hybrid-or-in-person.html" target="_blank">The Murphy administration</a> initially wanted all districts to offer some form of in-person instruction; however, many pushed back, saying they were not prepared. A large part of the problem is staffing: many districts are having trouble finding replacements for the wave of teachers who retired early or took leaves of absence rather than return during a pandemic. Governor Murphy has since allowed districts to apply to start the year remotely.</p><p><i><a href="https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/09/nj-schools-reopen-plan-list/" target="_blank">NJ Spotlight</a> </i>published a list late last week of which school districts -- including charter schools and private schools approved for special education -- would be implementing which model to start the year. I thought it was worth taking some time to crunch the numbers, even if many plans are, as of this writing, still under review. The list I'm using omits almost 200 districts, including every one in Hudson County. Still, it's instructive to see where we are as of now.</p><p>I should note before I start that a hybrid program does not <i>require</i> a student to attend in person. Murphy made clear months ago that if a family wants their student to attend schools fully remotely, they can. A hybrid program, then, is actually the <i>possibility</i> of attending school part-time, if parents so choose.</p><p>Let's start by looking at how many students are enrolled in schools implementing different types of plans. I'm omitting students in private schools, but including charter school students.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVLklZ62qRyDPWBipEhDm532HZc9RDnNIzwlAku70leZtidMTxs_y2iJoNsGMAp5bGnoxqXclxV4lECh4vi1CXMbDFUxQ_xUQCetIr8KSw5OrQGCKxTgEUgYb0X48uCgPDsL-0B7pKdOph/s1434/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="1434" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVLklZ62qRyDPWBipEhDm532HZc9RDnNIzwlAku70leZtidMTxs_y2iJoNsGMAp5bGnoxqXclxV4lECh4vi1CXMbDFUxQ_xUQCetIr8KSw5OrQGCKxTgEUgYb0X48uCgPDsL-0B7pKdOph/w640-h498/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_01.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">About one-quarter of students are in schools where the data on their reopening is not yet available. Of the remaining districts and charter schools, only one percent are in fully in-person schools. "Combination" districts are those where some schools are remote and some are in-person or hybrid; only six percent of students are in these schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The remainder of students are split nearly in half: part going to fully remote schools, part going to hybrid schools. I'm going to leave out fully in-person and combination schools for clarity's sake in the rest of my charts because the numbers are relatively small. Let's take a look at what types of students are attending what types of schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8CZM1FONA0pSRhXJ5Y6ZpU3ed5JqngZy4G5tHL4OPv_LfLngB8cetI4Zk-ltNGb0Ho9CdZqGIoXsRzhnmlkxHMLTipIVIYvao9vp78dOLpbAyaY-WTmIFbSJbQOImBB_lCz8UKFh5Jo6/s1688/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_03.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1688" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8CZM1FONA0pSRhXJ5Y6ZpU3ed5JqngZy4G5tHL4OPv_LfLngB8cetI4Zk-ltNGb0Ho9CdZqGIoXsRzhnmlkxHMLTipIVIYvao9vp78dOLpbAyaY-WTmIFbSJbQOImBB_lCz8UKFh5Jo6/w640-h400/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_03.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of all the students who are attending a hybrid program, 62 percent are white. Compare that to remote programs, where only 30 percent of students are white. That percentage is close to the percentage of unknown programs. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvX1WIWe3FA-N0Cw2MComVHZumugdqvgKJcO4ZtFRX-rv5XwBIEB9MHU2LI1eeVePyiLQwYCg_965EOkir-sbdNOiTLhNsuUhKJpSI9vt57Ib27NgBvZUHpNQ_io0QfQaSEBjjFtq-NXj/s1688/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1688" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvX1WIWe3FA-N0Cw2MComVHZumugdqvgKJcO4ZtFRX-rv5XwBIEB9MHU2LI1eeVePyiLQwYCg_965EOkir-sbdNOiTLhNsuUhKJpSI9vt57Ib27NgBvZUHpNQ_io0QfQaSEBjjFtq-NXj/w640-h400/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_02.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When considering white and Asian students together, the differences are just as pronounced. <b>New Jersey schools using a hybrid plan are more likely to enroll white and Asian students than schools that are fully remote. </b>Here's the data in reverse: enrollment of Black and Hispanic students by plan type.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3UJqa2YVk3iqOnG4I2hLIqbll2XuKzCaHX47eMUoKwmN2NUjWUs6mU5QQavDe-9hfaZQSwhhAcpZ8644ut_tlEQHmXpHW72XFcqYQ0AVycG9UpGhe0REtyJeWpRW2B1ftKZ56oyncYfzr/s1578/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_05.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1118" data-original-width="1578" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3UJqa2YVk3iqOnG4I2hLIqbll2XuKzCaHX47eMUoKwmN2NUjWUs6mU5QQavDe-9hfaZQSwhhAcpZ8644ut_tlEQHmXpHW72XFcqYQ0AVycG9UpGhe0REtyJeWpRW2B1ftKZ56oyncYfzr/w640-h454/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_05.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Hybrid schools have, in the aggregate, a 24 percent enrollment of Black and Hispanic students. In contrast, remote schools have a weighted average student population that is 56 percent Black and Hispanic.</div><p>Similar differences are found when comparing schools on the enrollments of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a proxy measure of student economic disadvantage.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Vfl53P3jrXZlpEwDXHdznaPCc7ggalpAWOs5Nm13ioVGkHhtoOyv3ZRWPU3CUGs0pm0HWzeSk0XgxI5Auh88op_Glj6-yckPxuqh9I3kBZqehyoqQfc_q4lsm4TfHN7tK_rys0KXszLd/s1688/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_04.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1688" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Vfl53P3jrXZlpEwDXHdznaPCc7ggalpAWOs5Nm13ioVGkHhtoOyv3ZRWPU3CUGs0pm0HWzeSk0XgxI5Auh88op_Glj6-yckPxuqh9I3kBZqehyoqQfc_q4lsm4TfHN7tK_rys0KXszLd/w640-h400/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_04.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Proportionally, hybrid schools enroll substantially fewer students who are in economic disadvantage compared to fully remote schools.</b> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now, as <a href="https://www.njpp.org/reports/school-funding-in-new-jersey-preparing-now-for-the-2020-21-school-year" target="_blank">Bruce Baker and I</a> have pointed out before, school districts that enroll larger proportions of Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be underfunded, relative to the target set by the state's funding law, SFRA. These districts should be receiving more money, either through local revenues or state aid; however, their actual revenues are under what they should be to provide what the state says is an "adequate" education.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So how does school funding align with reopening plans?*</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_lviHPRAMjyOwAP-1y5svoaLc7nQVvsMgu4pqJSr9Nw_dY2ZkFfHNZvGrPlRiY91t1ov3-ji4Ui00nMigDEQoDoyBjDz2C-2uxDaS082T3i-xh2LE-FpOiVEfYdgonVSWjPvrGdNVnPo7/s1604/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_06.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1604" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_lviHPRAMjyOwAP-1y5svoaLc7nQVvsMgu4pqJSr9Nw_dY2ZkFfHNZvGrPlRiY91t1ov3-ji4Ui00nMigDEQoDoyBjDz2C-2uxDaS082T3i-xh2LE-FpOiVEfYdgonVSWjPvrGdNVnPo7/w640-h430/COVIDPlans_9_4_20_06.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>School districts going fully remote are more likely to be underfunded compared to districts that offer a hybrid model.</b> About three-quarters of the students attending a school with a hybrid model also attend a school that is funded over its adequacy target. But that's true for only 40 percent of students attending a remote district. And over 10 percent of those students are in a district that is severely underfunded -- more than $5,000 per pupil.<p></p><p>There are several possibilities as to why this is. It could be that more underfunded districts are responding to parents' desires to keep their children home. Perhaps parents feel this way because they don't believe the schools have the resources needed to keep students safe. Or it could be that parents would like a hybrid option, but districts can't make it work because of space restrictions or a lack of resources.</p><p>It's also possible this is all a coincidence... but I doubt it. Schools <a href="https://kappanonline.org/school-funding-covid-19-baker-weber-atchison/" target="_blank">need more funding</a> than they normally would to open safely in a pandemic. What we are likely seeing now is the logical consequence of years of inequitable funding -- even in a state that <a href="http://www.njpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NJPP-Bruce-Baker-School-Funding-Reform-Act-at-10-Years-Full-Report.pdf" target="_blank">used to be one of the leaders</a> in school funding reform.</p><p>I'm keeping an eye on all this and will update the data as soon as it's available.</p><p><br /><br /><br />* I omitted charter school students from this graph. The issue is tricky: some charter students attend schools in districts different from where they live, so we can't know if their resident district, which sends revenues to their charter, is underfunded or not. If and when we get final numbers, I'll try to dig into the issue further.<br /><br /></p>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-76785966223057675632020-09-03T13:00:00.002-07:002020-09-03T13:08:25.160-07:00The School Reopening GambleIn the next week or so, schools districts all over the country will reopen their buildings as their new year begins. During our pre-service training, a teacher colleague of mine described the process as a “grand experiment.”<br /><br />But he’s wrong; it’s not an experiment. It’s a gamble.<br /><br />An experiment, by definition, is a controlled, scientific procedure designed to gain knowledge. When a researcher conducts an experiment, they try, as much as possible, to control for outside factors that may affect an outcome. The goal is to see relationships between causes and effects, and better understand how the world works.<br /><br />A gamble, on the other hand, is a risky action taken with the hopes of getting a favorable result. A gambler isn’t trying to learn anything – all they want is a win. <br /><br />America’s school reopening plans aren’t experiments; we aren’t trying to learn more about how COVID-19 spreads, or its effects. We are, instead, making a huge bet: we’re hoping that we’ll get the benefits of sending children into school buildings without making the pandemic worse.<br /><br />The problem, however, is that a good gambler always knows the odds. Before placing a bet, a gambler weighs the risks of losing against the rewards of winning. Las Vegas is full of stories of sad, self-deluded gamblers who never took the time to calculate exactly what they were putting at risk before they rolled the dice.<br /><br />It appears to this teacher that America, true to form, is acting like those reckless high-rollers: we’re putting all of our chips on schools reopening without ever stopping to calculate the odds. We should, instead, take a moment, before placing our bets, to weigh the rewards and the risks of reopening schools<br /><br />The rewards are actually more meager than what many policymakers appear to think they will be. At best, reopening buildings means only a partial return to school for many students. While some school districts have gone all in and are opening five days a week for a full day, many are opting for a “hybrid” model, like the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">latest proposal for New York City</a>.<br /><br />In this model, students are divided into two, or even three, cohorts that rotate in-person schooling with remote instruction. At most, these students will attend school a dozen times a month; more likely it will be less, thanks to holidays.<br /><br />Obviously, this does nothing to solve the child care crisis many pundits and politicians have cited as the reason to return to school buildings. And even if schools went back to full-time, in-person instruction, working parents would still need childcare solutions for the other hours when they are at work, because school hours almost never cover a parent’s work hours.<br /><br />Some proponents of school reopening have argued that schools serve other functions besides education: they screen students for abuse, provide free meals to disadvantaged students, and deliver instruction to students with special needs. Unquestionably, that’s true – but must school buildings be open to provide these services? School districts were working to solve many of these issues last spring, when instruction was completely remote; for example, many districts started <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">providing school meals</a> through delivery or pickup. <br /><br />Furthermore, states like New Jersey are allowing parents to opt their children out of in-person schooling altogether. So schools are going to have to check on students’ welfare and provide free meals remotely anyway.<br /><br />The issue of special education is more difficult: some students have needs that are so profound they can’t be served by on-line learning. It is, admittedly, not always easy to determine which students fall into this category -- but it’s not all students. Why not open up the schools, then, just for those students with those needs? Why crowd students whose needs could be met on line into classrooms?<br /><br />Which brings up what reopening proponents appear to believe is their strongest case for reopening: remote, on-line learning is never as good as in-person learning. As a teacher, I’d usually agree… except these proponents are making the wrong comparison. What we should be asking is whether remote learning <i>now</i> is better than part-time, in-person learning in a pandemic.<br /><br />When teachers were thrown into on-line learning last spring, they were forced to make up remote-based lesson plans on the spot, with little training or preparation. Things are different now: many teachers (myself included) gained experience and feel more comfortable on a digital platform. Of course, internet access remains a serious problem, one that isn’t going away any time soon. And most teachers would agree that good in-person instruction could never be replaced by remote learning.<br /><br />But in-person learning in a pandemic is also highly problematic. Forcing young children to wear masks for hours, policing social distancing guidelines, teaching some children in person while others are remote… this is hardly an ideal teaching environment. How much positive social development will children experience in conditions like these? How much real learning is going to get done?<br /><br />Those are the rewards, such as they are. What about the risks?<br /><br />We must start by acknowledging that we still have much to learn about COVID-19’s long-term effects. What we do know is troubling: in addition to the risk of death, some patients show a range of serious symptoms <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">months after initial exposure</a>. Children appear to be <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">susceptible</a> to these effects. It is true that the health risks for children appear smaller than those for the adult population; however, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">there is still substantial risk</a>, especially for children of color.<br /><br />Further, we know that children are <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">carriers</a> of the coronavirus, and have the potential to be spreaders. Which means that even if they do not suffer severe symptoms after exposure, their families and their teachers may.<br /><br />Some have suggested the fears of American children spreading COVID-19 are overblown, as other countries have managed to open schools without seeing large outbreaks. I’d first point out that many of these other countries’ students spend <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">less time in school</a> than American children, which may decrease the chances of transmission. <br /><br />In addition, American schools are not like those in other countries. Our <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">chronic underinvestment</a> in school facilities has left us with many schools that are crowded and have <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">inadequate HVAC systems</a>. One-fifth of our schools have <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">no nursing care</a>; another one-fifth only have part-time nurses. Neither of these issues are being addressed, as Washington has not allocated any additional funds to make schools safer or cleaner during the pandemic.<br /><br />And again: many of the children who return to school buildings will do so only for a few days a week. If they spend the other days in childcare, they may be exposed to two different sets of peers and two different sets of adults overseeing them. The current plans for schooling are therefore likely increasing the number of possible vectors for transmission.<br /><br />So that’s the gamble. If we win the bet, the payoff is, at best, a highly stunted in-school experience -- in many cases for only a few days a week -- with, perhaps, marginally better delivery of non-academic services. But if we lose, we’ll expose many more children and educational staff to the virus, with immediate and devastating consequences for many, and potentially severe repercussions in the future.<br /><br />I know children need to get back to school as soon as possible. I know that, for many, school is the one safe place in their lives. I know this generation will suffer harm the longer they are out of school. I know parents have to get back to work -- and I know they really need a break.<br /><br />But we have to be honest with ourselves: when we reopen schools, we are gambling with lives. Is it really worth it?<br /> <div><br /></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-50766135999212947272020-08-31T12:33:00.002-07:002020-08-31T12:33:54.677-07:00State Aid Is School Aid<p>Here in the Northeast, schools are getting ready to reopen in what can only be called a gigantic experiment in the middle of pandemic with a virus we barely understand. I'm going to say a few more things about this soon... but I first want to discuss something that's been pushed to the back burner over the last few weeks.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/08/27/stimulus-plan-stimulus-checks/#634b797421b5">Senate's complete abdication</a> to do anything serious about the economy might lead you to believe that Republicans don't believe that public schools are facing a fiscal crisis. But that's not entirely true. Even though the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-coronavirus-stimulus-package-ties-two-thirds-school-funding-reopening-2020-7">GOP school aid proposal</a> is incredibly weak, the very fact that Republicans are proposing aid to schools is a tacit acknowledgement that they are in financial trouble.</p><p>But, as usual, Republicans are proposing an inadequate solution to a very real problem. Part of this inadequacy is due to the insistence of ideologues on <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/08/judge-devos-coronavirus-rule-injunction.html">privileging private schools</a> when coming up with an aid package. Part of it is simply the lowball amounts the Republicans seem set on sticking with, contrary to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-06-09/new-estimate-to-reopen-schools-after-coronavirus-1165-billion">estimates</a> about <a href="https://kappanonline.org/school-funding-covid-19-baker-weber-atchison/">what's needed</a>.</p><p>But a big part is due to a fundamental misunderstanding -- likely, a <i>deliberate</i> misunderstanding -- of how schools get their revenue. Schools rely heavily on their states for funding -- but the Republicans are refusing to provide <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/republicans-covid-stimulus-negotiations-fiscal-aid-states.html">fiscal relief for the states</a>.</p><p>Let me put this as clearly as I can: <b>Fiscal relief for states is fiscal relief for schools.</b> Any plan to get fiscal relief to schools is not serious if it does not also include fiscal relief for states. And right now, they need relief <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/projected-state-shortfalls-grow-as-economic-forecasts-worsen">badly</a>.</p><p>Let's start getting into this a bit more by charting out the flow of revenues to schools.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNuFImMAClpBzd0QCvMVd0Cyt3ipXDZ9j6chkId8Y-3tWKkDA-XSJZ609iCD0_nHl14Cgv8ruwpNGnGzPXJ30GLEVxAitQkIwcTDws04eZd9TK0ntUbSgq7uN55LYlIkZoRq5ijvZXQvsJ/s853/How+Education+Money+Flows01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="853" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNuFImMAClpBzd0QCvMVd0Cyt3ipXDZ9j6chkId8Y-3tWKkDA-XSJZ609iCD0_nHl14Cgv8ruwpNGnGzPXJ30GLEVxAitQkIwcTDws04eZd9TK0ntUbSgq7uN55LYlIkZoRq5ijvZXQvsJ/s640/How+Education+Money+Flows01.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Let me point out something I think sometimes gets lost: the school <i>district</i> is the fundamental unit of school finance, not the school. How districts allocate finances to their schools can be important, especially in very large districts. But generally, districts are the ones who strike collective bargaining agreements, design and operate special education programs, allocate staff, receive revenues from higher levels of government, and so on.</p><p>There are three main sources of revenues for schools: the federal government, the states, and local schools districts. Most federal funding comes from the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/post/a-look-at-how-title-i-funds-are-allocated-in-the-u-s">Title I program</a>, designed to provide funds to higher-poverty schools, or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (<a href="https://sites.ed.gov/idea/state-formula-grants/">IDEA</a>). This funding does not, in general*, go directly to school districts; instead, it passes through states on to districts. The calculations for how these funds are to be distributed <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/titlei/">are complex</a>, and states actually have <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=158#:~:text=Federal%20Title%20I%20funds%20are,districts%20than%20the%20federal%20allocation.">some wiggle room</a> to change how they allocate funds.</p><p>But while federal funding is important, especially for higher-poverty districts, it is not, in total, the largest part of funding for the K-12 system.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg92TLfcAgmvteMOchrDaq-qpQw80u2dM_hGBKQG9rAoUh4WHpdUR9jkcaJgELHHthW4apvteHNIctRAgWCV3lafkXuh6_fgxo4P-cQmjCozKpI4h5eH19EC0YsqWZBsDuHbNZVGpfwngM8/s1888/RevenueSourcesLongNCES2017.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1220" data-original-width="1888" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg92TLfcAgmvteMOchrDaq-qpQw80u2dM_hGBKQG9rAoUh4WHpdUR9jkcaJgELHHthW4apvteHNIctRAgWCV3lafkXuh6_fgxo4P-cQmjCozKpI4h5eH19EC0YsqWZBsDuHbNZVGpfwngM8/s640/RevenueSourcesLongNCES2017.png" width="640" /></a></div><a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cma.asp">Historically</a>, federal revenues accounted for between 7 to 13 percent of total K-12 funding over the past couple of decades. The percentage rose during the last recession due to the federal stimulus in 2009, but has gone down since. <div><br /></div><div>The biggest sources of funding for K-12 schools have been state and local revenue. In the aggregate, each accounts for about half of the remainder after separating out federal funding. Of course, that varies considerably from state to state.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ZCE1uFpd1K7w-lwM_ZIsrCKKiFazpBsfeuL2Fo2292uR3EcLeMZCSzbShHrgR7eO0GPlGwh4x-TeQauIydMXqLQwTsjqcHIXBx2POGAQrNsRO9hvQ5xpArlj8i-S1tduO4bRX80mzDyI/s1878/StateRevenuesMap2017NCES.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1592" data-original-width="1878" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ZCE1uFpd1K7w-lwM_ZIsrCKKiFazpBsfeuL2Fo2292uR3EcLeMZCSzbShHrgR7eO0GPlGwh4x-TeQauIydMXqLQwTsjqcHIXBx2POGAQrNsRO9hvQ5xpArlj8i-S1tduO4bRX80mzDyI/s640/StateRevenuesMap2017NCES.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>States like Vermont and Hawaii rely heavily of state funding (Hawaii only has one school district, though, so the distinction is largely meaningless). But even in the states where districts rely the least on state funding -- Missouri, Nebraska and New Hampshire -- state funding still counts for a third of revenues. In the majority of states, half or more of all revenues for schools come from the states themselves.</div><div><br /></div><div>Funding schools is actually one of the primary fiscal activities of the states.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8zyiVghPdkH00aY5rq9LYRy8_t6pMGon8hWdilodZDiwlwwnpaQ1_ayP3d7W4P-Rzz06sLVUHQTSIhCwOeA9b0ZNbK8GzyTXfrU3W6yGSEp7zPbsU95tbNfbXCLk2lNtpxClR6LLlTxN/s1048/NASBO2017_Expenditures.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1048" data-original-width="896" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB8zyiVghPdkH00aY5rq9LYRy8_t6pMGon8hWdilodZDiwlwwnpaQ1_ayP3d7W4P-Rzz06sLVUHQTSIhCwOeA9b0ZNbK8GzyTXfrU3W6yGSEp7zPbsU95tbNfbXCLk2lNtpxClR6LLlTxN/s640/NASBO2017_Expenditures.png" /></a></div><br /><div>This pie chart is from the <a href="https://www.nasbo.org/reports-data/state-expenditure-report">National Assn. of State Budget Officers</a> latest report on state expenditures. Again, there's considerable variation from state to state, but on average elementary and secondary education takes up one-fifth of the states' budgets. Only Medicaid consumes more of the spending total.</div><div><br /></div><div>States spent north of about $300 billion out of their general funds last year (estimated by NASBO) on K-12 schooling. It's an enormous amount of the total spending on schools. Given this reality, it's pointless to talk about school aid at the federal level unless you also talk about state aid. No one seriously believes the federal government could step in and provide <i>direct</i> aid to districts. Again, the vast majority of federal aid already flows through the states to districts; what possible benefit would there be to bypassing a system already in place?</div><div><br /></div><div><b>If the federal government wants to help schools, it has to help states.</b> Any Republican who tells you they want to help schools, but state aid is not on the table, is ignorant, disingenuous, or both.</div><div><br /><br /><br />* In fact, I'm unaware of any major federal government source of education aid that goes directly to school districts and bypasses states, exempting Department of Defense, tribal, or similar districts. If I'm wrong, let me know, I'd be curious to find out.<br /><br /></div>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-56743995314514574982020-07-29T13:44:00.000-07:002020-07-29T13:45:14.386-07:00How To Stop Magical Thinking In School Reopening PlansIn the past few weeks, a new literary genre has emerged in America's media outlets: the school reopening op-ed. Almost always written by someone who has little to no experience in actually working in a school, these op-eds tend to follow the same form:<br />
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<li>Why it's so important to reopen schools. </li>
<li>Evidence in support of the idea that COVID-19 prevalence is low in children, as is transmission attributable to children.</li>
<li>Grudging admission that adults work in schools and this may be a problem.</li>
<li>Finger-wagging at said adults, telling them that life is full of risk and they shouldn't indulge in fear mongering. </li>
<li>A set of ideas to reopen schools. Many times, the tone of the presentation suggests the author believes no one who leads or works in schools actually could have thought of any of their plans before they did.</li>
<li>An optimistic call for "creativity" in school reopening plans.</li>
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It's always interesting to look at the comments section following these pieces, or to see them debated on Twitter. Skeptics -- often actual educators, but also parents, students, and other stakeholders -- will point out many factors that the authors did not address in their op-ed that make it difficult, if not impossible, to implement their ideas.</div>
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Given the severity of this pandemic and the importance of reopening schools, it is not at all appropriate to dismiss these objections out of hand. If some of the most prominent spaces in the media are being reserved for "experts" to offer their ideas for school reopening, the least they should have to endure is a thorough critique of their ideas from the people who will be the most affected by them. </div>
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A serious assessment of school reopening plans isn't simply negative thinking; it's a brake on magical thinking. It's an acknowledgement that yes, we do have to get schools reopened as quickly as possible, but we must do so in a way that respects the safety of students and educators. Setting policies for school reopening isn't an intellectual exercise; it's serious business that literally puts people's lives at risk. We must think carefully about the proposals that are being floated before we decide to use them and go back to school.</div>
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To that end, I offer here a framework for assessing the viability of school reopening policies. If you really believe you have figured out how to get schools up and running again, you shouldn't mind having to answer these questions:</div>
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<b>- Is your plan practical?</b> One popular idea out now is to repurpose spaces that are currently empty and reuse them for instruction; that way, we can reduce class sizes and/or spread students out so they can maintain distancing guidelines. On the surface, it seems like a good idea, until you begin to ask questions like...</div>
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Are these spaces secure? Can teachers monitor students in them? Do they have adequate bathroom facilities? Are they accessible to disabled children and staff? Will the property owners be liable for student/staff injuries? If not, how will they be protected? How will we transport students to these spaces? What supplies and equipment are needed so instruction can be delivered? Will those be transported from schools? Will we have to get more? Will they be secure after hours? What emergency response plans are needed in the new facility? Will the facilitates be used after school hours? If so, what precautions will be taken to clean them? </div>
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Questions like these aren't negative thinking, and they aren't nit-picking. They are the everyday work of educators; they are the same questions school leaders and teachers ask constantly when working within their own buildings. People who propose repurposing buildings, or any other school reopening policy, should not be allowed dismiss them.</div>
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<b>- Can your plan be brought to scale?</b> Another popular idea is moving classes outside, as it's generally believed the virus does not fare well in the open air. To shelter students and staff, proponents suggest we set up tents, which would offer some protection from the elements.</div>
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Again, we have to ask whether, and to what extent, this is practical: who's setting up the tents? Do schools have enough level, accessible space to set them up? How are we moving and securing furniture and supplies? What happens when it gets really cold/hot? And so on...</div>
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But even if we could address all of these concerns, what would it take to set up an adequate number of outdoor spaces with shelters across the US? There are nearly <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_105.50.asp">100,000 K-12 public schools</a> in America, enrolling more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372">50 million students</a>. Let's be extremely conservative and say we need one large tent for every 25 students; that's about 2 million tents.</div>
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Do we have the capacity to procure these shelters, set them up, maintain them in all kinds of weather, secure them when not being used, and store them when needed?</div>
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Yes, it's conceivable that we wouldn't need so many. But unless you can tell me how many we need, you're making my point: you haven't thought this all the way through. Any viable reopening plan must consider the scale on which it operates.</div>
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<b>- Is your plan affordable?</b> It's generally agreed that adequate air exchange is necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19. Some op-ed writers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/27/we-can-must-reopen-schools-heres-how/#click=https://t.co/49KMvdOjVU">have suggested</a> that we need to invest in air purifiers and HVAC upgrades to make classrooms more safe. You'll certainly get no argument from me... but where are we going to get the money?</div>
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Even before the pandemic -- and this is <a href="https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/School%20Districts%20Frequently%20Identified%20Multiple%20Building%20Systems%20Needing%20Updates%20or%20Replacement1.pdf">just an estimate</a>, the problem could be much worse -- around 40 percent of US school districts needed to upgrade or replace the HVAC systems on at least half of their schools. Which means simply buying better air filters and installing them in current systems isn't going to solve the problem. </div>
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In the op-ed above, the authors suggests getting portable air purifiers for every classroom. They way lowball the estimate of how many we'd need -- but even their estimated number is, they admit, greater than the entire annual production of purifiers for the United States. But let's say their conservative estimate of $1 billion is correct; again, where is the money going to come from?</div>
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This country has been living penny-wise and pound-foolish for years when it comes to its school facilities. Upgrading them to acceptable standards in a pandemic is going to cost a lot of money. If you propose a school reopening plan, you have an obligation to explain how you're going to fund it.</div>
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<b>- Is your plan developmentally appropriate for children?</b> I taught primary school children for decades, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they cannot and will not wear masks for seven or more hours a day, even with breaks. I can also tell you they will not adhere to social distancing guidelines without constant intervention. That is just the way it is.</div>
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I've also taught adolescents. Many of them (like many adults in the US) believe in their own invincibility and will downplay the risks of transmitting the virus to others. Yet some of the best evidence we have on COVID-19 suggests teenagers transmit the virus <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.html">just as well as adults</a>.</div>
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We can't assume that children -- even older children -- will follow all the protocols we expect from adults to stop viral transmission. Because they're children. </div>
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<b>- Does your plan make unreasonable demands on educators?</b> Because of the South Korea study and other evidence, some have begun floating the idea of reopening elementary schools, but keeping secondary schools closed. I think there's merit in this (and I say this as an elementary schoolteacher). But asking some teachers to take a risk with their lives while others do not without making big changes in work conditions is unreasonable.</div>
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Take personal protective equipment (PPE). If a school district is going to demand an elementary teacher show up to work, but not provide adequate PPE, that's simply unfair. And the PPE should be protective of the teachers, not just the students. Cloth masks may keep teachers from spreading the virus, but N95s and surgical masks are better at keeping them from getting it. Where, then, is the plan to provide these better masks to teachers who are forced to come to school?</div>
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It's also unreasonable to ask a teacher to develop two sets of instructional plans: one for students whose families opt to go fully on-line, and another for students who come to school in person. These are not the same modes of instruction; delivering them both requires considerably more preparation. How will schools deal with this?</div>
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And will teachers who contract COVID-19 at school have to drain their sick day banks during their recovery? How is that fair to a teacher who was forced to show up at school while a colleague under the same collective bargaining agreement was not?</div>
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Again, I'm not dismissing the idea of opening only elementary schools out of hand. But the teachers who are subject to working with students in person deserve much more than facile assurances that they will be protected, and their workload will remain manageable. </div>
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<b>- Are the examples you use to support your plan relevant?</b> Pundits who support reopening schools often cite other countries' experiences as evidence that we can reopen schools safely. At this point, I will dismiss anyone's argument outright if they talk about Scandinavian countries but neglect to mention South Korea, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains">Israel</a>, or others places that have had problems with reopening schools.</div>
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In addition: any comparison to the United States must account for differences in how schooling is delivered in different countries. There is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/02/school-days-how-the-u-s-compares-with-other-countries/">evidence</a>, for example, that elementary students in the US spend <a href="http://www.oecd.org/education/EAG2014-Indicator%20D1%20(eng).pdf">more time</a> in school than in other countries (admittedly, it's difficult to make these comparisons). Certainly, the case rates outside of school are vastly different in countries that have reopened school "successfully."</div>
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Education varies widely across different countries, as does the scope of the pandemic; therefore, the lessons learned from them are, at best, limited when applied to the United States. If you're going to tell us your school reopening plan will work because another nation did the same thing, you have an obligation to acknowledge the differences between that country and ours.</div>
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<b>- Will your plan work given the current state of American politics?</b> We have to face a few uncomfortable truths in the United States: there isn't going to be a lot of additional money available for school reopening, schools are going to take a huge fiscal hit regardless, COVID-19 prevention has become hopelessly politicized, and many Americans have been duped into thinking the pandemic is a hoax.</div>
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It's clear we <a href="https://kappanonline.org/school-funding-covid-19-baker-weber-atchison/">need more resources</a> to operate schools safely in a pandemic. It's clear people should be wearing masks and social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus. But what happens to all these carefully laid plans for school reopening when politicians refuse to fund them, and some parents and students refuse to follow them? Are the authors of these plans prepared to abandon them if it becomes clear they cannot be implemented in the current political environment? </div>
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<b>- Does your plan address class and race inequities?</b> This pandemic has exposed -- or rather, further exposed -- some hard realities about inequity in America. Some people have jobs that allow them to work from home; some don't. Some parents can get paid time off to care for their sick child; some can't. Some communities can raise enough local funds to retrofit their HVAC systems or expand transportation so students can socially distance; some can't.</div>
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It makes sense to declare that symptomatic children shouldn't be admitted to school during a pandemic. But what do we say to a parent who works a job with no paid leave for time off to care for an ill child?</div>
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If you propose a school reopening idea, you should have to acknowledge how that idea may be subject to limits because of systemic inequities. And you should demand those inequities be addressed.</div>
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<b>- Can your plan be implemented in time to reopen school? </b>Many agree that having more personnel in schools would help; we could potentially cut down class sizes, have more personnel available in case staff fall ill, excuse staff who are medically at risk, etc. Some say we should be tapping retirees or recent graduates to work in schools. I think, given the pay for current teachers and substitutes, and the risk now involved, that the <a href="https://www.njpp.org/reports/new-jerseys-shrinking-pool-of-teacher-candidates">availability of suitable workers</a> is highly overstated.</div>
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But let's suppose it's not; what then? School starts in a few weeks. Can we really recruit, conduct background checks on, train, and deploy these folks by then? Will we have the necessary administration in place to properly oversee an influx of new staff? Will we have enough PPE to protect them? Will they be subject to current bargaining agreements? Will they receive health insurance? And, as always: where's the money?</div>
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It would be nice to believe that somehow we could snap our fingers and reopening plans -- even ones that are feasible -- will be implemented at warp speed. But that's not how actual life works. This stuff takes time -- and we are woefully short on it. If your school reopening plan doesn't come with a reasonable timetable, it's not useful.</div>
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<b>- Have you clearly defined the alternative to your plan, and is it actually worse than what you propose?</b> No one likes on-line learning. But no one is going to like in-person schooling under a pandemic. I've seen enough first days of Kindergarten to know school can already be intimidating to a young child, let alone an awkward teen. Now let's add masks, and social distancing, and limited activities, and potential classes in the freezing cold or blazing heat. Let's take away <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e6.htm">choir</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/28/coronavirus-outbreaks-baseball-schools/">sports</a> and <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/6/23/21300529/school-lunch-as-we-know-it-is-over-coronavirus-school-nutrition-directors">lunchrooms</a> with friends. Let's include a higher risk of beloved teachers and staff succumbing to COVID-19.</div>
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Let's also take a moment to acknowledge that schools were building the plane as they were flying it this past spring. On-line learning will never be as good as in-person learning without a pandemic -- but that doesn't mean we couldn't improve it greatly, and in a relatively short time. Personally, I can honestly say I got much better at teaching remotely the more I did it.</div>
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The question before us now is not whether in-person schooling before the pandemic is better than remote learning was this spring: that answer is obvious. The question is whether in-person schooling this fall -- not an idealized version, but what it will actually be -- is better than what remote learning will be. And if it is better, will it be by much? And is that worth the risk?</div>
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I can only speak for myself: I am not yet ready to abandon the idea that we can go back to school safely this year. I think it's going to take a lot of work and more resources than we're currently talking about at the national level. I also think we are going to be very hard pressed to make this work by Labor Day. But if we can get the virus under control outside of school, get together the necessary resources, and make an honest assessment of the risks and rewards... OK.</div>
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But we're not going to get that honest assessment unless and until we stop thinking that magical plans will allow us to reopen schools in a few weeks. I know this will come as a shock to many pundits, but people who actually work in schools have almost certainly already thought of your "creative" solution to the problem. The likely reason they aren't implementing it is because they don't have the luxury of <i>not</i> questioning the very real issues you didn't address in your op-ed.</div>
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If that sounds harsh, I'm sorry -- but lives are literally at stake. </div>
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Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-56925210315969504272020-07-15T14:33:00.001-07:002020-07-22T12:49:13.879-07:00A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ Teachers<div>
Earlier this week, the <strike>Sunshine</strike> Sunlight Policy Center put out a critique of <a href="https://www.njpp.org/reports/new-jerseys-shrinking-pool-of-teacher-candidates">my report</a>, published by the New Jersey Policy Perspective, on the shrinking numbers of teacher candidates in preparation programs in New Jersey. That report references an <a href="https://www.njpp.org/reports/in-brief-new-jerseys-teacher-workforce-2019-diversity-lags-and-wage-gap-persists">earlier report</a> I wrote for NJPP on the NJ teacher workforce; that report looked at, among many other things, teacher compensation. SPC has also criticized that report, focusing on the sections on teacher wages. </div>
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There's a small echo chamber for this sort of stuff here in New Jersey: a couple of bloggers will pump it up and add their thoughts, "reform" groups will pass it around social media, etc. What's curious about this last round of criticism, however, is that several people contacted me to say they had received news of SPC's report through email, even though they never signed up to receive messages. People receiving unsolicited copies of criticisms of my work is a new one for me -- I can only assume I really touched a nerve.</div>
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I don't have a problem with anyone critiquing my work; in fact, I regularly write reviews of research from think tanks for the <a href="https://nepc.colorado.edu/author/weber-mark">National Education Policy Center</a>. But it's a rigorous process, with a clear format and several layers of editorial review. That keeps a reviewer from just flinging anything they think of on the wall and hoping something sticks.</div>
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I'm not going to go through and do a point-by-point rebuttal of SPC's criticisms. Many are, to be frank, silly: arguing, for example, that I made a point about a limitation of the data in an appendix as opposed to the main text is nit-picking of the highest order.</div>
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But let me quickly get to the main issues:</div>
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<b>- Teacher wage modeling.</b> SPC makes no objection to the functional form or the covariates included in my wage models. They do object that my data does not disaggregate private and public school teachers -- <i>a fact I point out and write about in my report.</i> I have to wonder if SPC would have even made its objection on this point had I not brought it up.</div>
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SPC tries to use a graph I included, which shows the difference in reported teacher wages between two different data sources, to determine the gap between private and public school teacher wages. But the graph is <i>not </i>showing this; it's showing the difference between two data sources: the NJ Department of Education's salary data, and the IPUMS data I used for the report.</div>
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SPC suggests substituting the NJDOE salary data for the IPUMS data would narrow the wage gap I show for teachers. But substituting one data source for another, just for teachers, is wholly invalid. The IPUMS data are survey data; the NJDOE data are salaries reported from all school districts. The reported salaries from a survey could be easily biased downward for <i>all</i> respondents (some people reporting take-home pay instead of before-tax earnings, for example). And there is no way to know just how many private school teachers are included the survey.</div>
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When you do an analysis like this, you go with the best data you've got, use it uniformly, and note the limitations and possible biases. I've done that. Trying to ding me for it is petty.</div>
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<b>- Other research.</b> SPC makes a big deal about how other research comes to conclusions that are different than mine. Again: <i>I'm the one who brought up all the other research and compared it to my own.</i> I admit in my report that the latest iteration of the Economic Policy Institute's teacher wage gap model shows a significant change for New Jersey teachers, with a much smaller wage gap than they found the year before. How can I be "burying" it when I'm the one who brings it up?</div>
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It is odd to see such a large swing in one year, so, yes, I consider the latest EPI report an "outlier." We'll see what their future research shows. This is what social science is: looking at a problem from various angles with different data and comparing the results. What is not valid is what SPC does when it tries to prove a teacher wage <i>advantage</i>: pulling out results from various reports that align closest with its predilections, then combining them even though they use different methods and different data. That's an undergraduate mistake and a bad indulgence in confirmation bias.</div>
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<b>- Teacher benefits.</b> Central to the issue of teacher compensation are whether and to what extent benefits, such a health insurance and pensions, make up for the wage gap. I am very clear in my report: I make no attempt to determine whether this is the case. I cite other work that has made the attempt, and I cite research on the generosity of NJ teacher pensions and benefits relative to other states. SPC says: "<i>Citing irrelevant research obfuscates rather than illuminates.</i>" I choose not to underestimate the intelligence of my readers and include these citations; I have faith that they are perfectly capable of putting these references into the proper context.</div>
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<b>- "Underpaid" teachers.</b> The issue of estimating the worth of benefits brings up a larger point: how can we model all of the aspects of teaching as a career -- pay, benefits, personal satisfaction, etc. -- to determine whether teachers are underpaid? The answer is that we can't. I have known teachers who have told me they would work for free if they had to because they love the job so much. If New Jersey could find enough of these people, it could slash taxes and our schools would still thrive.</div>
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Obviously, however, that's not how the real world works. The relevant policy question is whether teacher compensation is high enough to continue to attract enough qualified workers into the profession. It is wholly germane to that discussion to note that teachers make less in wages, on average*, than similarly educated workers, even when holding other factors constant. It's especially relevant when some NJ policymakers constantly talk about reducing teacher benefits, as those benefits are helping to close this wage gap.<br />
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<b>- Teacher candidates.</b> SPC admits there is "<i>...a real and worrisome decline in the number of teacher candidates, and that New Jersey’s education system needs a large pool of qualified teacher candidates.</i>" Yet that is the primary conclusion of my report.<br />
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I'll say it again: <i>SPC agrees with the primary conclusion of my report.</i><br />
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Their objection, then, isn't with my data or analysis-- it's with my contention that this decline is <i>likely</i> linked to teacher compensation and working conditions. Is it so far fetched to assume that compensation might be involved here? I include several citations in my first report that show that compensation does, in fact, influence workers' decisions to go into teaching. Is SPC really trying to deny this? Are they arguing that compensation <i>doesn't</i> affect people's career choices?<br />
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SPC argues that I have not shown a direct causal link between teacher policies in New Jersey and the decline in candidates. It's an odd argument to make when SPC also contends that millennials' attitudes toward work are affecting teacher recruitment, but offers no causal evidence to support their contention; apparently, only my arguments have to withstand their dictated level of scrutiny.<br />
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Here is what we know: we have fewer teacher prep enrollees and candidates per 1000 students than in the last ten years. During that time, teacher benefits degraded (thanks to Chapter 78). There's strong evidence teachers were already behind on wages compared to similarly educated workers. Research shows teacher compensation affects decisions to enter the profession.<br />
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SPC can dance around all they want, but those are the facts; if they find them inconvenient, that's on them.<br />
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<b>- What about the rest of it?</b> If you only read SPC's criticisms you would think all I've reported on was teacher compensation and the decline in teacher candidates. In fact, that was only a part of these reports. I actually consider other sections to be more important.<br />
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<li>The teaching workforce does not look like the student population. The majority of teachers are white females, yet that's not the case for NJ's student population. We've got to get more people of color into teaching, and yet the number of Black and Latinx teacher candidates is falling.</li>
<li>Teacher wages are not similar across districts of different socio-economic status. It appears that the most affluent districts are willing to pay a wage premium to experienced teachers with advanced degrees. This is a question of equity that needs to be addressed.</li>
<li>SPC says I don't talk about barriers to entry into the teaching profession. In fact, I discuss it specifically with regards to racial bias, which is a serious problem. I also reference recent work by Drew Gitomer on EdTPA, a problematic hurdle for student teachers.</li>
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SPC doesn't address these issues of race and class as related to teacher compensation and recruitment. I would urge them to leverage some of what appear to be their substantial resources toward these topics; perhaps SPC's staff could convince their funders that they are important.</div>
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* One of the bloggers who joined in on criticizing my work has made a big deal about comparing "mean" and "median" wages between teachers and other workers. If anyone wants to get into a whole discussion of the validity of using a quantile regression method in teacher wage modeling, be my guest. <strike>I'd just note the data is censored at $250K, so it's really not that big of a deal. (Yes, I should have noted that in the report.)</strike><br />
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<i><b>UPDATE: This is incorrect: the data is censured in the aggregate when reported, but not the micro data I use.</b> So yes, non-teacher data skews upward; I regret the error. However, my point in the next paragraph stands. (Also, after checking again, I can report there are no 7-figure income figures in the data; highest observation is $720K.)</i></div>
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It's also odd to argue that I'm overestimating the teacher wage gap because the top of the pay distribution for other workers is much higher than it is for teachers. The fact that a teacher in the highest pay quantile will never make what a similarly positioned lawyer makes doesn't much help the argument that teachers don't suffer from a wage gap.</div>
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Key and Peele explain it better than I can:</div>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dkHqPFbxmOU" width="560"></iframe></div>
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Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-1909811691470677212020-07-02T06:51:00.001-07:002020-07-02T06:56:10.040-07:00How Schools Work: A Practical Guide for Policymakers During a PandemicThis post, unlike most of the others on this blog, does not rely on data analysis or research reviews. It is, instead, the observations of someone who has spent decades working in PreK-12 schools.<br />
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I'm offering it because I've read and heard a lot of commentary from a lot of people who seem to think we can quickly prepare for reopening schools in the fall, as long as we have some flexibility and maybe some extra resources. I'll be the first to say (<a href="https://kappanonline.org/school-funding-covid-19-baker-weber-atchison/" target="_blank">along with others</a>) that more funding is absolutely required if we're going to have any chance of reopening schools.</div>
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But even if schools get all of the money they need, and staff show remarkable ingenuity and creativity, there are some basic, inconvenient truths we need to face about how schools work before we claim we can reopen safely this fall. So, in no particular order:<br />
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- Children, especially young children, cannot be expected to stay six feet away from everyone else during an entire school day.</b> Sorry, even if a school has the room, it's just not going to happen. One adult can't keep eyes on a couple/few dozen children every second of every hour of every day to ensure they don't drift into each others' spaces. You certainly can't do that <i>and</i> teach. And you can't expect children to self-police. Young children are simply not developmentally able to remind themselves over seven hours not to get near each other.<br />
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- Children cannot be expected to wear masks of any kind for the duration of a school day.</b> At some point, the mask has to come off; even adult medical professionals take breaks. And anyone who's worked with young children knows they will play with their masks and not even realize they're doing it. It's simply unrealistic to expect otherwise.<br />
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- The typical American school cannot accommodate social distancing of their student population for the duration of the school day.</b> Schools were designed for efficiency, which means crowded hallways and tight classrooms. Schools are expected to foster student and teacher interactions, which means close quarters. Expecting every students and staff member to maintain a 3 foot bubble* around themselves is not realistic given the way most school buildings are laid out.<br />
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- School staff do not generally have isolated spaces in their workplaces where they can stay when not working with children.</b> I don't have an office; I have a classroom. I'm only by myself when the kids leave... but everything they breathed on and touched and coughed on stays. I'm not an epidemiologist so I don't know exactly what the consequences of this are, but I suspect it matters.</div>
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- School buses cannot easily accommodate social distancing, nor can they easily adjust to accommodate staggered school sessions.</b> School buses aren't as big as you remember (when's the last time you were on one?). Social distancing is the last thing school bus engineers had in mind when designing the things. In addition: school districts often stagger the times of bus routes, usually by grade level, to get all the kids to school (this is why high school often starts much earlier than elementary school). If you go to split shifts, you are conceivably expanding a bus's routes from, say, 6 to 12.** Unless you greatly expand the school day and pay a lot more for busing staff, it's not going to work.</div>
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- Like every other workforce, school staff have many people who have preconditions that make them susceptible to becoming critically ill when exposed to Covid-19.</b> The big worry I keep reading about is age -- but that's just the start. Three-fourths of the school workforce are women, and many are in their childbearing years; are we prepared to have pregnant teachers working? What about teachers who think they might be pregnant? And then all the pre-existing conditions...</div>
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- Schools are only one part of the childcare system in this country.</b> The big worry seems to be that if we don't get kids to school, parents can't get back to work. But for many (most?) parents, the school day only covers part of the work day. Before- and after-school programs are a big part of the childcare system. Are we going to be able to enforce all the same restrictions on children during these hours that we will during the school day?<br />
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- Unsupervised adolescents cannot be expected to socially distance outside of the school day if schools are reopened.</b> If we've got adults showing up at bars without masks in the middle of a frightening peak in Covid-19 cases, what do you think teenagers are going to do when school's done for the day? Especially if we leave them at home, unsupervised, learning remotely while their parents work?<br />
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<b>- Teachers are trained and experienced within an area of certification; moving them out of that area will lead to less effective instruction.</b> When you become a teacher, you get a certification -- maybe even two or three -- in a particular area. Each certification requires coursework, and often a placement as a student teacher, in that area. A secondary math teacher, for example, has to study math at a certain level, and then learn how to teach it. You can't expect a kindergartner teacher who's been trained in early childhood education to do that job -- and vice versa.***</div>
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-<b> Even within an area of certification, moving teachers on short notice to a new subject or grade will lead to less effective instruction.</b> How hard can it be to move from teaching 4th Grade to 3rd? More than you'd think. Every grade has its own curriculum, materials, assessments, etc. Teachers spend years developing lessons that often can't be transferred to another grade level or subject; a choir teacher, for example, can't just take her lessons over to the school band, even if she is a great music teacher. Expecting teachers to move quickly between grades or within areas and not face a learning curve defies common sense.</div>
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<b>- Moving a teacher to another school building is often difficult.</b> First, there's the stuff: the materials, the equipment, and so on. Then there are the relationships, often built over years. These things <i>matter; </i>they are the foundation that builds a school into a community of learning. Breaking them apart has real consequences.</div>
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<b>- Many schools had a hard time getting qualified people to become substitute teachers before the pandemic.</b> It doesn't pay particularly well, has little to no job security, and requires at least some college credit (in many states). Now districts have to find workers who are willing to do the job in a school full of potential virus transmitters.</div>
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I'm leaving out a lot, but this should be enough to at least give everyone pause. Operating schools during a pandemic will not be easy. I'm not at the point yet where I'm saying we shouldn't try, but we have got to think carefully and challenge assumptions before we open the schoolhouse doors this fall.</div>
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And we shouldn't even consider opening without substantially more money. More on that in a bit.</div>
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* It's already become a source of confusion: if each kid has a 3 foot bubble, and two bubbles bump against each other, the kids are 6 feet away from each other. Right?</div>
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** Say a bus does an elementary, middle and high school route every day; that's 6 trips, because there's pick up and drop off. Now double that.</div>
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*** In fact -- and I say this as someone who has taught at all grade levels from Pre-K to 12 -- it is, in my opinion, more difficult for a secondary teacher to learn how to teach young children than the other way around.</div>
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Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-38929493039590649162020-06-26T09:02:00.002-07:002020-06-26T09:12:23.640-07:00What an Actual School Reopening Plan Looks LikeSeveral states, particularly in the Northeast, have begun releasing their plans to reopen K-12 schools. Connecticut, for example, just <a href="https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2020/06-2020/Governor-Lamont-Announces-Plans-for-the-2020-21-School-Year-Amid-the-Ongoing-COVID19-Pandemic">released a plan</a> yesterday; New Jersey is scheduled to release one today.<br />
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I'm going to hold off commenting on any individual state's plans for now. Instead, I'm going to sketch out what I think a statewide plan for reopening schools should look like. I won't pretend this is comprehensive, and I'm happy to accept any comments or criticisms. But I do think we need to set some standards for what states need to do to help school districts get ready for reopening in the fall.<br />
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And so, here are the features <u>at a minimum</u> that I believe a real statewide school reopening plan must have:<br />
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- Minimal requirements for staff and student personal protective equipment (PPE), as provided by school districts (as a matter of equity, no plan should require staff and students to supply their own PPE).<br />
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- Clear guidelines and minimal standards for implementing social distancing, mask wearing, and other actions to mitigate Covid-19 spread. In other words, if there is social distancing in the plan, there has to be a minimal distance that must be maintained at all times. If masks are required, the plan should spell out the type of mask (N95, surgical, cloth, etc.).<br />
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- A separate set of guidelines and standards for students with disabilities, including medically fragile students and students with profound cognitive impairments. Obviously there has to be some flexibility here as there is great variation in student needs, but minimal standards have to be included.<br />
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- Clearly outlined PPE requirements and best practices for staff working with these students. Many times these staff have to deal with things like toileting; I would argue the standards for safety here should be on par with those for medical personnel.<br />
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- Guidelines and minimal standards for transportation to and from school.<br />
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- Guidelines and minimal standards for before- and after-school childcare providers that work on school grounds and/or in cooperation with districts.</div>
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- Same guidelines for extra-curriculars, including specific rules for various sports practices and competitions, and performing arts rehearsals & performances.<br />
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- A clear set of guidelines for when schools must close due to the threat of Covid-19 spread, including minimal standards to be met before schools can reopen. For example: must a school close if a case of non-symptomatic Covid-19 is confirmed? For how long?</div>
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- Standards for district plans for fully-online instruction in case of school closure; this must include minimal standards for student and staff access to devices and broadband internet.</div>
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- A plan to centralize procurement of PPE and other necessary materials so as to avoid bidding wars between states and school districts.</div>
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<b>- An estimated per district budget for implementing all of the above.</b><br />
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<b>- A PLAN TO RAISE REVENUES TO MEET THAT BUDGET.</b></div>
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Some might argue that school districts need flexibility to implement plans to reopen their schools. That may be, but that doesn't diminish the need for districts to adhere to standards for reopening. States require districts to meet certain standards when developing curriculum or hiring staff; they should also have to meet standards for student and staff safety during a pandemic. </div>
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Further, <b>setting standards for safely operating in a pandemic allows states and districts to develop budgets, and then develop plans to fund those budgets.</b> This is precisely what should be happening <i>now</i>, during the summer months: states should be estimating the costs of reopening safely, and implementing plans to raise the funds to do so. </div>
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This can't wait -- it has to happen <i>now</i>. Districts need to know what they are expected to do. They can't set different standards; if they do, they run the risk of fostering inequity in student safety across different districts. This will only make it more difficult to contain and manage the spread of the pandemic. And districts do not have the capacities to make public health decisions unilaterally; they need guidance and support from public health officials who are experienced and knowledgeable in these areas of public policy.</div>
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Setting standards and budgets in state plans <i>now</i> would also have the benefit of forcing the issue on to the national stage. As Bruce Baker, Drew Atchison and I <a href="https://kappanonline.org/school-funding-covid-19-baker-weber-atchison/">have noted</a>, only the federal government has the capacity to raise revenues on the scale needed to safely operate schools over the next several years. Congress should be addressing this issue right <i>now</i> -- not in a couple of months, when it's too late.</div>
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Again, this is preliminary; I'm happy to hear what I've missed. But we've got to start moving the policymaking on this issue <i>now</i>.<br />
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ADDING: Can't believe I forgot this: states have to make decisions now regarding statewide assessments and graduation requirements. I know there are federal requirements that have to be followed, but to the extent states can make changes they should do so. My vote would be to suspend all exit exams for at least the next year, and to apply for federal waivers for all mandated testing.</div><div><br /></div>Speaking of testing: <a href="https://twitter.com/JenAnsbach">@JenAnsbach</a> points out funding for Covid-19 testing should be included in budgets, and guidelines should be set for when districts test staff and students.<br />
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Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-89193316265740556492020-06-17T07:27:00.004-07:002020-06-26T09:43:38.501-07:00On Comparing Education Spending Across Time<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ve noticed a lot of back-and-forth recently on social media about education spending – specifically, on how spending has changed over the years in the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The usual context is someone complaining about how spending in K-12 schooling has soared over the past few decades, but outcomes haven’t improved. I and others have repeatedly pointed out just how dumb such claims are, so no need to rehash it. Let’s instead set aside outcomes for the moment and focus instead on inputs: how much more has the U.S. spent on schools, across the years?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I see people sling around the numbers, I find they tend to break down into measures that range from valid and useful to completely worthless (and probably deliberately deceptive). Let’s arrange these from worst to better, with the goal of producing the most reasonable estimation of how much K-12 school spending has changed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Total spending per year.</b> This is simply the total amount spent on schooling in any one year. Anyone who tries to use this measure is either hopelessly inept or a con artist. The most obvious flaw is that the number of students changes in any year; total spending makes no attempt to account for this. Any time you see this measure being used, ignore it.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Per pupil spending per year.</b> This is barely an improvement on above, because there is no adjustment for changes in costs over time. The cost of a textbook or a gallon of gas or an hour of a teacher’s work is different in 1970 than it is in 2020. Again, ignore anyone who cites this figure.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Per pupil spending per year in “real” dollars.</b> This is probably the figure you’ll see referred to most often by folks making the claim that we spend so much more than in the past but still suck. Spending is given in a per pupil figure, and the figure is adjusted over time for the changes in the price for goods, usually consumer goods. This means the figures are in “real” or “constant” dollars. Because this measure does account for changes in student populations and in the prices of goods across time, it <i>seems</i> to be a valid measure…<br /><br />Until you start digging in.<br /><br />First, and less important: while “real” dollars are calculated by estimating changes in costs across <i>time</i>, they rarely account for changes across <i>space</i>. A plate of pasta at a nice restaurant in New York City, for example, tends to cost a different amount than that same meal in Omaha. This problem is that populations can migrate, with proportionally more or fewer people living in less or more expensive areas of the country year-to-year. Constant dollars, in the aggregate, almost never account for these changes.<br /><br />Second, and more important: changes in the prices of consumer goods, such as those reflected in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), do not necessarily reflect changes in the costs of schooling. K-12 education is a labor-intensive endeavor, and labor costs do not shift perfectly in sync with energy or food or other consumer costs. In other words: a big-screen TV may cost less this year than last, but that isn’t an accurate reflection of the change in cost of a well-qualified teacher, which may well cost more.<br /><br />“Real” dollar spending per pupil is, therefore, highly problematic as a measure of K-12 spending. In general, education policy stakeholders should avoid using it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Share of total or new spending.</b> This measure has the advantage of having a built-in adjustment for inflation and population growth over time. We can measure the changes either for all spending, or just increases in spending from a designated starting point. The first question we need to address, however, is: <i>Total spending on what?</i> Total governmental spending? Total spending on all goods and services?<br /><br />Simply asking the question reveals the problem: we’re still not accounting for differences in the relative costs of things across whatever total spending we’re measuring. If we limit the measure to governmental spending, we have to assume the relative costs of different services of the government never change. This is a very big assumption: information technology advances, for example, have made some parts of the government more efficient than others. So education spending may rise relative to, say, administrative costs for Social Security, simply because computers can replace clerical workers but not teachers.<br /><br /><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Share of the economy/GDP. </b>In my work with Bruce Baker and others on <a href="http://schoolfinancedata.org/">school finance</a>, we refer to this as <i>effort</i>. It’s a useful way to compare different jurisdictions, although it has its limits. States with wealthier economies don’t have to put forth as much effort as states with less wealthy economies to generate the same amount of revenue for schools. So a state may look to be making less effort than another, but the amounts raised for schools are equivalent.<br /><br />This measure also has the same problem as measuring shares of spending across time: differences in costs across different sectors of the economy can’t be accounted for. There’s also the issue of how the overall economy can shrink and grow, but spending on education could remain the same. This would mean that effort would also rise and fall without any change in how much is actually spent on schools.<br /><br /><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b>Wage adjusted per pupil spending.</b> Somewhat complex, this measure is one of the better ways to deal with the problem of differences in education costs across time and space. The premise is this: because education is labor intensive, we should try to determine how labor costs vary over time. However, we don’t want to simply look at educator wages: if we do, we won’t see how changes in the <i>relative</i> compensation of educators might vary in ways that also change the quality of people entering the profession. In other words: spending on teachers may go down compared to other workers, but so might the quality of people who choose to become teachers.<br /><br />The solution is to look at the changes in wages of other workers who are similarly educated (and have other similarities, such as age). If it costs less to employ a college-educated worker in one place and/or year than another, we can fairly assume it will cost just as much less to employ an educator, without having to expect their quality will be different.<br /><br />There are, of course, many assumptions and limitations built into this type of measure. Educators wages may fall or rise relative to other wages due to things like job satisfaction, which means relative wages might change but teacher quality does not. And while about four-fifths of K-12 spending is on <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_236.20.asp?current=yes">staff salaries and benefits</a>, that still leaves one-fifth of expenditures that will not necessarily track with labor costs. I would argue, however, that this is still better than trying to adjust costs through the CPI or some other consumer price adjustment.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All of this highlights an important point: the <i>cost</i> of an education is not the same as the <i>spending</i> on education. Spending is simply the funding shelled out for schooling. Cost, however, is how much must be shelled out to meet a certain standard. We can easily cut spending for schools, but we can’t then expect schools to meet the standards they were meeting before (unless we think they were inefficient to begin with – we’ll save that discussion for later…).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over the past several decades, we’ve expected schools to do more – much more. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed in 1975, requires a “free appropriate public education” for students with disabilities. State and federal laws passed in the last several decades have required schools to set more stringent curricular standards, accompanied by tests that have grown more rigorous over the years. School shootings have raised the bar for school safety. Parents have demanded more programs and a wider curriculum. Now the pandemic puts new demands on schools for health and safety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is it any wonder school spending has increased? And the spending would not necessarily lead to commensurate gains in things like test scores; the outcome measures we use aren’t going to pick up things like expanded arts programming or more inclusive environments for children with special learning needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When it comes to changes in school spending, we have to take all of these things into account. Simple spending measures with inflation adjustments are not going to cut it. If people are interested in a serious conversation about public school finance – and they should be – they’re going to have to do better than throwing out flawed measures of school spending with no discussion of their inherent limitations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ADDING: The economist Richard Rothstein has a nice explanation of the problems with using CPI in school spending measures here: <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/books_wheremoneygone/"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.epi.org/publication/books_wheremoneygone/</span></a> (p.9) </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Included is a discussion of “Baumol’s disease,” the phenomenon of uneven productivity gains across the economy.</span></span></div>
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--></span>Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-12403665101782947592020-04-05T07:23:00.000-07:002020-04-05T07:23:36.378-07:00Can NJ Afford To Continue Subsidizing Private Schools?Regardless of what happens next with Covid-19, it's clear that the budgets of states like New Jersey are in for a very, very tough time over the next few years. Governors and legislatures are going to have to make some hard choices about what states can and cannot afford in the days ahead.<br />
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Given this reality, New Jersey has to ask itself: <b>Can we afford to continue to give large sums of money to private K-12 schools?</b><br />
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"<i>Wait</i>," some of you are saying: "<i>I thought New Jersey didn't have a school voucher program</i>." You're correct, we don't -- but the state still gives a lot of money to private schools.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tPNs6mDoj9RiatYaIaHmIp7g7TFBZNN9GH9hTpgFocI_9PCQfca5Am-vtioeZmE6qGLa1WELRRuE8HlQ5VSUDOuKx2hhdleQaUJyeSQ8rZ8w8eJM616QVjOOWeDlNMkyOHiUsgU8dQc7/s1600/privateschoolfunds01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1308" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tPNs6mDoj9RiatYaIaHmIp7g7TFBZNN9GH9hTpgFocI_9PCQfca5Am-vtioeZmE6qGLa1WELRRuE8HlQ5VSUDOuKx2hhdleQaUJyeSQ8rZ8w8eJM616QVjOOWeDlNMkyOHiUsgU8dQc7/s640/privateschoolfunds01.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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According to <a href="https://www.state.nj.us/education/nonpublic/">New Jersey law</a>, nonpublic schools are eligible for all kinds of services that must be paid for by resident public school districts. <b>In 2017-18, the payments to New Jersey's nonpublic schools for these services, excluding transportation, added up to more than $115 million.</b> </div>
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New Jersey is actually the nation's historical leader in subsidizing nonpublic schools. <i><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/330us1">Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing</a> </i>is the landmark 1947 case that established the constitutionality of "non-instructional" support for private schools (notably, and like many other cases regarding public support for religious schools, the ruling in <i>Everson</i> was a split decision). Later, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1967/660">in 1968</a>, the Supreme Court ruled that these subsidies could be expanded to instructional items. </div>
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Maybe you agree with the jurisprudence behind these decisions; maybe you don't. Regardless, the result has been a larger and larger share of New Jersey's school spending has gone toward supporting private schools.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKujmRVH_FVvUrcmaqUj1IsaPIy-IG6G0osbM4ysPPpgs6d1mxIgFFW3c-COh1VBbkwUuoGdyFQ_ACGlbSmTZlvJu5KBKvYi2JPoqymHcX4wfnjNP3OM1u1c_pHP8z2FJZwnQoZkyp2tTU/s1600/PrivateSchoolFunds03.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1308" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKujmRVH_FVvUrcmaqUj1IsaPIy-IG6G0osbM4ysPPpgs6d1mxIgFFW3c-COh1VBbkwUuoGdyFQ_ACGlbSmTZlvJu5KBKvYi2JPoqymHcX4wfnjNP3OM1u1c_pHP8z2FJZwnQoZkyp2tTU/s640/PrivateSchoolFunds03.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Excluding transportation, nonpublic school support now takes up 0.4 percent of the total school spending in New Jersey. I can hear the rebuttal now: "<i>That's a tiny amount!</i>" Notice, however, the amount has been <i>increasing</i> over the past several years -- not only in absolute dollars, but as a proportion of the total. As the old joke says: a few hundred million here and there... pretty soon, you're talking about real money.</div>
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And we're not including transportation. I'm unaware of data that breaks down how transportation expenses are divided between public and nonpublic students, but common sense suggests the amount must be significant.</div>
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How do the expenses other than transportation break down?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHhgQ1u2l0KAP8431LzUTHyzzH9KJUKkk-mB1iKDZ6SfcS1QZM8qdZn2TQfVMs8kxbK-haJYDXhLdqyhrO-qCRMMBXJcC3SQkGHhmzKS4EGsrMkFUwd6WyQyPpQv0zlvwqAFVvZVrQLmEO/s1600/PrivateSchoolFunds02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1483" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHhgQ1u2l0KAP8431LzUTHyzzH9KJUKkk-mB1iKDZ6SfcS1QZM8qdZn2TQfVMs8kxbK-haJYDXhLdqyhrO-qCRMMBXJcC3SQkGHhmzKS4EGsrMkFUwd6WyQyPpQv0zlvwqAFVvZVrQLmEO/s640/PrivateSchoolFunds02.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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You can visit the <a href="https://www.state.nj.us/education/nonpublic/">NJDOE</a>'s website for a description of each of these. Let me be the first to say that services for students with special needs or who are English language learners -- listed under Auxiliary and Handicapped Services -- are critically important.* The question, however, is whether these services are best provided under the direct supervision of a school district or through a nonpublic school, which is <a href="https://www.nj.com/news/2017/08/why_is_lakewood_spending_32_million_to_send_kids_t.html">subject to much less strict oversight</a>. </div>
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As for other services: obviously, nurses, technology, security and textbooks are necessary for any school. But the state constitution calls for the "...<i>maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools..</i>." It does <i>not</i> require the state to provide private schools with the funds they need to operate. Why, then, is the state requiring districts to fund services that nonpublic schools could be paying for through tuition increases?</div>
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Again, I can hear the rebuttal: "<i>You want to keep students in failing public schools!</i>" No, I want all public schools to succeed -- but they can't do that without adequate funding. <b>When you take funds that could be going toward constitutionally mandated "<i>free public schools</i>" and give them to private schools, you decrease the chances of those public schools meeting the needs of their students.</b> In addition: many of the districts that send money to private schools would not be considered "failing" under any reasonable standard.</div>
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No one is saying parents can't send their kids to a private school if that's what they want. But in a time of looming fiscal crisis, policymakers have to think carefully about this state can afford. Public schools are open to everyone, do not require adherence to any particular religious dogma, and are required by law to adhere to federal guidelines for students with special needs. Private schools, in contrast, are only open to those students they wish to admit, and who agree to adhere to the tenets of that school's creed.</div>
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Every dollar that goes to nonpublic schools is a dollar that could be put back into public schools. Can we afford to keep giving those dollars away when students in constitutionally mandated public schools need them?</div>
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* There are private schools in New Jersey that are specifically set up to enroll students with special education needs. But tuition paid to these schools is <a href="https://www.nj.gov/education/finance/fp/dwb/guidelines/">reported separately</a> from the figures above. </div>
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Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-71746261198819820422020-03-31T05:44:00.001-07:002020-03-31T05:44:40.536-07:00Ten Years of Jersey JazzmanI'll keep this short, I promise...<br />
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Ten years ago, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the nonsense I kept reading and hearing about schools, teaching, and public finance.<br />
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Here in New Jersey, a newly elected Republican governor began what was to become an eight year war against my profession, the union that represented me, and public education in general. This governor had run on an explicit promise he made to the state's teachers: "<i>I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor.</i>"<br />
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That, of course, turned out to be the first in a string of betrayals against public workers -- and, specifically, teachers -- by Chris Christie, a governor who would go on to become, at the end of his term, the least popular in America.<br />
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Ten years ago, Christie was just beginning his crusade against those of us who chose to pursue a career that would never make us rich, but would at least command some level of respect among the public and politicians. A few months into his first term, it was increasingly obvious that Christie's casual relationship with the truth, massive self-regard, and belligerent rhetoric (remind you of anyone else these days?) would plunge teacher morale to uncharted depths in the Garden State.<br />
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And so, this angry teacher started a blog. At first, I thought its only purpose was to save my marriage ("Would you <i>please</i> stop yelling about editorials in the <i>Star-Ledger</i>?!"). I honestly didn't expect anyone would read anything I had to say about how badly public schools and public school teachers were getting shafted. To this day, it still surprises me a little when I meet someone and they say: "Oh, you're that Jazzman guy..."<br />
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Chris Christie was eventually exposed as the fraud he is. A few years ago, as he sunk into decline, I decided the state didn't need an angry teacher-blogger like it once did. More useful was someone who had a decent command of statistics and first-hand knowledge of how schools actually work. That's been the focus of this blog over the past few years: it's a place where I can debunk myths, present facts, and unashamedly advocate for well-resourced public schools for all children, in New Jersey and across the county.<br />
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I've had a lot of support and encouragement over the years, and if I tried to name you all, I would inevitably omit and offend someone. I don't want to do that, but I do want to give thanks to a few folks and organizations who have been especially encouraging:<br />
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<li>Bruce Baker</li>
<li>Julie Borst</li>
<li>Darcie Cimarusti</li>
<li>Marie Corfield </li>
<li>Diane Ravitch</li>
<li>Save Our Schools New Jersey, especially Julia Sass Rubin</li>
<li>The National Education Policy Center</li>
<li>The Shanker Institute, especially Matt DiCarlo</li>
<li>The New Jersey Policy Perspective</li>
<li>The Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey</li>
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I also want to thank the NJEA, my union, which always let me know that they would defend my right to express myself about important policy issues affected this state.</div>
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Most of all, thanks to Mrs. Jazzman, who decided to stick with me through all the ranting, and the Jazzboys, proud products of New Jersey public schools.</div>
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Every blog anniversary, I take stock and try to figure out what I'll be writing about over the coming year. But I never quite know what to expect -- that's obviously more true than ever. I can only tell you I remain proud to be a New Jersey public school teacher, a union member, and an action researcher who works to improve public education. </div>
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Stand by...<br />
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<i>More to come!</i></div>
<br />Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-2336386415315013552020-03-23T12:34:00.002-07:002020-03-24T05:14:08.531-07:00Education Policies We Should Stop Right Now: An Incomplete ListADDING: Here's another one for the list: I am against school vouchers, especially the way they are (<a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/11/15/there-is-no-oversight-private-school-vouchers-can.html">not</a>) regulated these days. However, in a time of crisis, children need stability. If a family has received a voucher in the past and the school is legitimate, OK, continue the voucher (unless they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-indianas-school-voucher-program-soared-and-what-it-says-about-education-in-the-trump-era/2016/12/26/13d1d3ec-bc97-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html">didn't need it in the first place)</a>. We can revisit this after the crisis is over -- and we're going to need to, because given the upcoming recession (or worse), we're not going to be able to waste money on "choice" policies that are inefficienct and ineffective.<br />
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But as for the immediate future: no voucher program should be expanded this year, and no voucher should be used at a school that does not meet <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/florida-private-schools-teaching-students-humans-dinosaurs-roamed-earth-same-954612">basic educational standards</a> or <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-voucher-schools-lgbtq-discriminate-20200123-s5ue4nvqybcgrbrxov5hcb46a4-htmlstory.html">discriminates against students</a> based on race, gender, or sexual orientation.<br />
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I mentioned <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2020/03/why-scrapping-school-testing-this-year.html">last time</a> that there are no good reasons to have annual, standardized state tests this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But that got me thinking... there are a whole bunch of things in the K-12 sphere we ought to stop immediately. In some cases, they are pointless in the wake of massive school closures; in others, keeping them going this year may cause actual harm to our schools.<br />
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In no particular order, and with the understanding that this list is far from complete:<br />
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<b>- Statewide Standardized Tests.</b> Again, they're just pointless right now: it's impossible to get even a minimal level of "standardization" in the tests' administration, and students' opportunity to learn, already inequitable, is now even worse. Plus, putting pressure on teachers, students, administrators, and families is the last thing we need to be doing. We're not going to learn anything useful from this year's tests -- scrap 'em.<br />
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<b>- Graduation Exams.</b> <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/states-require-exam-to-graduate.html">Most states</a> don't have a graduation exam exit requirement, but some do. I've never understood what good could come of denying a kid a diploma when they've done all the work and passed all their courses but can't pass some noisy standardized test that has <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2019/02/thoughts-on-graduation-exam-mess-in-new.html">dubious validity</a> to begin with. But it makes even less sense now: are policymakers really prepared to make a student jump through all kinds of alternative assessment hoops when they get back to school -- <i>if</i> they get back this year at all? Or do they think it's a good idea, with a looming recession (at least), to make those students pay extra for alternative tests, or to pursue a GED?<br />
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If a kid didn't do the work, no diploma: most people will agree on that. But skip the test, at least this year.<br />
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<b>- Student Growth Percentiles/Value-Added Model Outcomes.</b> I've spent a lot of time on this blog over the years explaining why SGPs and VAMs are <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2019/06/njs-student-growth-measures-sgps-still.html">poor measures</a> of teacher or school quality. In many cases, these measures have <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2018/07/sgps-still-biased-still-inappropriate.html">inherent properties</a> that penalize schools or teachers whose students may show growth but remain low-achieving. And the premise that a teacher or school is solely responsible for a students' growth is <a href="https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/briefly-revisiting-the-central-problem-with-sgps-in-the-creators-own-words/">wrong to begin with</a>.<br />
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But even if you set all that aside: growth measures require a valid and reliable measure of student achievement both before and after the period when growth is being measured. Even if you think the pre-test is valid for use in a growth measure, there's no way the post-test is during a pandemic, given the wild differences in opportunity to learn and test administration -- even within the same classroom-- that are due to our response to Covid-19.<br />
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<a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-exchange-with-jonah-rockoff.html">The whole point</a> of using SGPs/VAMs in teacher evaluation was that teachers are so important to student learning that we need multiple sources of evidence about their effectiveness. Again, growth measures really aren't good sources of evidence -- but even if they were, why would we employ them at a time when student learning is <i>less</i> impacted by teachers than if schools were open?<br />
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<b>- Student Growth Objectives/Student Learning Objectives. </b>These are the "non-tested" growth measures, generally thought up by districts or individual teachers. There is <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/10/another-reformy-practice-not-grounded.html">absolutely no evidence</a> whatsoever that these are <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/10/stupid-sgo-tricks.html">valid and reliable measures</a> of teacher effectiveness. It's clear to me the only reason states use them is to make teacher evaluations that employ growth measures in tested subjects seem more "fair": if the gym teacher has to do an SGO, maybe the math teacher won't complain as much about their SGP...<br />
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We should have ended these a long time ago. Now, they are just a waste of limited time and resources at precisely the time we should be judicious about both.<br />
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<b>- edTPA.</b> Another education policy based mostly on nothing. edTPA is a series of hurdles put in front of student teachers that is supposed to measure their abilities in the classroom. But the program's reliability and validity is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0002831219890608?journalCode=aera">highly questionable</a> (Pearson, of course, <a href="http://edtpa.aacte.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Affirming-Validity-and-Reliability-of-edTPA.pdf">denies this</a>). And it's onerous; I say this having watched, first-hand, student teachers struggle with its detailed requirements.<br />
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Are we really going to insist that student teachers spend their time trying to meet edTPA's demands while simultaneously figuring our how to implement distance learning? Are we going to delay allowing these prospective teachers the opportunity to go into the job market when the need for qualified teachers is growing? (More on this later in the year...)<br />
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Pearson, the company behind edTPA, seems to think <a href="https://www.edtpa.com/PageView.aspx?f=HTML_FRAG/GENRB_AnnounceCOVID-19.html">it's perfectly reasonable</a> to force student teachers to wait up to 18 months to submit their portfolios. When will those prospective teachers know if they passed? Pearson isn't saying...<br />
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This is a no-brainer: suspend edTPA requirements, at least for this year. Afterward, states should take a hard look at whether forcing student teachers to go through this program, even without a pandemic, is worth it.<br />
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<b>- Mandatory Grade-Level Retentions. </b>I know I'm opening up a can of worms here, because there are plenty of folks completely entrenched on either side of this. For what it's worth: in my opinion, there is <a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar08/vol65/num06/Grade-Retention.aspx">little evidence</a> supporting <a href="https://www.gssaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Examining-the-Impact-of-Grade-Retention-1.pdf">mandatory retention</a> policies in <a href="https://www.du.edu/marsicoinstitute/media/documents/Does_Retention_Help_Struggling_Learners_No.pdf">K-12 schools</a>, and recent <i>limited</i> evidence <a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/07/when-kids-are-held-back-gains-can-follow">from one state</a> is not enough to change my mind.<br />
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That said, I've been working in schools long enough to know that some students may benefit from retention. But the decision has to be made on a case-by-case basis, with plenty of evidence collected and analyzed. I'd argue no single year's test outcomes are enough evidence to trigger a mandatory retention -- but that's especially true <i>this year</i>, when there isn't time to create student portfolios or pursue <a href="http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/7539/urlt/readtolearn.pdf">alternative pathways</a> to promotion.<br />
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Individual student retention decisions, with parental consultation and based on multiple sources of evidence -- OK. Mandatory retention based on state test outcomes? Bad idea, especially now.<br />
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<b>- Charter School Expansions/New Charters.</b> Look, I know there are schools that were looking forward to opening and expanding -- but this is the wrong time. The state-level DOEs are going to have their hands full this fall, assuming schools are open; if they aren't, those DOEs will probably be even more busy. Charters should not be opening and/or expanding without <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/08/charter-schools-few-bad-apples-or-whole.html">adequate oversight</a>, and the last thing host districts need is the uncertainty charters bring to their budgeting process.<br />
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You can wait a year.<br />
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<b>- AP/IB Exams. </b>This one is tough and I am very much open to being persuaded I'm wrong. But the inequities in how schooling is being delivered make it very likely some students will be at a relative disadvantage to others when it comes to preparing for and taking these exams. It just strikes me as fundamentally unfair to many students who were studying hard before Covid-19 hit to force them to take these exams when the most important preparation time for these courses has been stripped away.<br />
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I don't know what the answer is here. It's a big hit to a student to have to pay for a college course they could have received AP/IB credit for. Some sort of alternative testing schedule over the summer? Portfolio submissions directly to the colleges that would accept the credits?<br />
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This is a chaotic time for K-12 schools, the students who attend them, and the staff who work in them. Policymakers need to ramp down requirements, especially if those requirements were of questionable value to begin with. Let's make things easier for schools and do away with policies and programs that make things more difficult, at least for the remainder of the school year. It's the least we can do.<br />
<br />Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-39461806728649523122020-03-21T07:54:00.000-07:002020-03-21T07:54:46.731-07:00Why Scrapping School Testing This Year Is a Good IdeaDuring yesterday's (<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/donald-trump-peter-alexander-coronavirus-press-conference">insane</a>) news conference, Donald Tump <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-standardized-tests-canceled-school-closing/2885842001/">made some news</a> on the K-12 education front:<br />
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It’s official: U.S. students won't have to take annual state tests this year.</div>
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The Education Department will waive federal requirements for state testing for K-12 students, due to unprecedented school shutdowns to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Friday.</div>
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Normally, federal law requires schools to administer exams in English and math to students in third through eighth grade, and once in high school. The results are used to examine how students are progressing and how well schools are performing.</div>
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Students usually take state tests in the spring – and school closures are likely to continue through the testing window.</div>
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Now, I've got some serious reservations about giving the <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/03/coronavirus-devos-sweeping-power-waive-education-law.html">SecEd broad powers</a> -- especially when that SecEd is Betsy DeVos, who has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/1/17/14304692/devos-confirmation-hearing-education">repeatedly shown</a> she is not up to the job. But the crisis we're now facing has obviously created a huge problem for the nation's K-12 schools, and we ought to be looking at whether current federal policies are helping or hurting. That starts, to my mind, with canceling our regular springtime battery of state tests.<br />
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It's useful to step back and think about why annual testing was implemented in the first place. <a href="https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/your-childs-rights/basics-about-childs-rights/no-child-left-behind-nclb-what-you-need-to-know">No Child Left Behind</a>, George W. Bush's signature education law, was designed under the premise that testing would hold schools accountable for educating students. If a school was not showing, through test outcomes, that its students were learning, it would face consequences that included closure.<br />
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The problems with NCLB have been well documented over the years. Making schools the unit of accountability -- as opposed to districts or states -- assumes that schools alone can change their policies and practices and improve student outcomes. On its face, that just isn't true: if a school doesn't have the resources it needs to educate its students, for example, it can't unilaterally change its condition.<br />
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In addition, holding schools accountable for the academic progress of their "subgroups" when many schools, due to class and race segregation, don't even <a href="https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/the-subgroup-scam-testing-everyone-every-year/">have the same subgroups </a>also makes little sense. And using standardized tests in two subjects (math and English Language Arts) to measure student achievement was always going to be troublesome, given the <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/05/standardized-tests-symptoms-not-causes.html">nature of the tests</a> themselves and the pressures they put on schools to <a href="http://www.fairtest.org/new-evidence-strengthens-claim-testing-narrows-cur/">narrow the curriculum</a> and "<a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/18/01/testing-charade">teach to the tests</a>."<br />
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NCLB has been revised over the years, but the testing provisions have remained. In my opinion, there is a place for testing in our schools. The problem with federal policy was never the tests themselves*, but how we use them, and the extent to which we administer them.<br />
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The truth is that many of the <a href="http://schoolfunding.info/litigation-map/">school funding lawsuits</a> that have led to meaningful reform could not have occurred if we didn't have some evidence that disadvantaged students were being denied equal educational opportunities compared to their more advantaged peers. This alone is reason enough for the nation to continue to administer tests, even if we should decouple school- and classroom-level consequences from them and administer them less frequently.<br />
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But tests are only able to provide meaningful information to policymakers if they are administered in ways that yield valid outcomes. And there's just no way we can do that now.<br />
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Start with the obvious: a "standardized" test has to be administered in a <i><a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don%27t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx">standard</a></i> way. If some students receive the test in different platforms, or in different environments, the test is no longer standardized. Of course, there were already huge differences between students in these factors... but Covid-19 has made things far worse. There's just no way to even come close to standardizing the conditions for testing in the current environment. Will the students be at home, in school but "social distancing," in regular school, somewhere else... we just can't say.<br />
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Next, we have always had big differences in students' <i><a href="https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/resources/documents/OTL-English.pdf">opportunity to learn</a></i> -- but now the differences are greater than ever. Again, there are huge variations among students in their access to qualified educators, high-quality facilities, adequate instructional materials, well-designed curricula, and so on. The best use of test results was to make the case that the variation in these things was creating unequal educational opportunities, and that public policy should focus on getting resources where they were <a href="https://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/does-money-matter-second-edition">needed the most.</a><br />
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But in a quarantine, we now have to add all sorts of other inequalities into the mix: access to broadband, parents who have the ability to oversee students' instruction, schools' ability to implement distance learning, etc. Why implement these tests when inequities within the same classroom -- let alone between schools -- have grown so large?<br />
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Which gets to the best reason to cancel the tests: we aren't going to learn anything new from them, so why burden students, families, and staff with them during a crisis? As <a href="https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2020/03/secretary_devos_its_time_to_scratch_the_2020_state_tests.html">Rick Hess</a> (yes, we do occasionally agree) puts it:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: ff-dagny-web-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The best reason to scratch the tests? Complying with federal guidelines regarding mandated assessments is </span><i style="font-family: ff-dagny-web-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">the very last thing</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: ff-dagny-web-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> educational leaders should be thinking about right now. They should be focused on the safety of students, educators, and communities; developing alternative instruction; supporting parents; feeding and aiding kids in need; and thinking about what it'll take to reopen schools.</span></blockquote>
Testing is going to be a big burden in the middle of a pandemic; focusing on it takes away from focus on things like student well-being. That trade off could conceivably be worth it if we were going to gain new knowledge...<br />
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But we aren't going to learn anything from this round of testing we didn't already know: primarily, that students in disadvantage and with learning needs will score lower, on average, than other students. Why, then, would we shift the focus away from meeting students' and families' needs and towards a test that isn't going to give us any new information?<br />
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Again: I think there's a place for standardized testing -- even if we're currently using test results in irresponsible and <a href="http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2019/06/njs-student-growth-measures-sgps-still.html">invalid ways</a>. But there's no good reason to administer tests this year. Just scrap it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">* To be clear: that doesn't mean these tests haven't had their own problems -- many times, </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/04/20/151044647/the-pineapple-and-the-hare-can-you-answer-two-bizarre-state-exam-questions" style="font-size: 16px;">they've been crappy</a><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></div>
<br />Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9025948832913694345.post-41684369853328923872020-03-18T12:32:00.000-07:002020-03-18T12:33:22.442-07:00Edu-Blogging In the Age of COVID-19Just a quick note:<br />
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At first, it seems kind of ridiculous to be blogging about education policy at a moment like this. I don't think we've had a national crisis of this magnitude since WWII. Why would we debate school policy now?<br />
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But the more I think about it, the more it seems we should be engaging on K-12 policy at exactly this moment. We have, for all intents and purposes, shut down our nation's schools. That's not the same as shutting down schooling, of course. But we are still being presented with a moment where we can step back and think carefully about what we should expect from our schools, whether we've set them up for success, and what "success" might really mean.<br />
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So I'm going to continue blogging about education, and not always through the lens of COVID-19's consequences. Because this crisis will pass at some point, and we ought to be ready then to go back to school with the goal not of returning to normal, but returning to something better.<br />
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Stand by...<br />
<br />Dukehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16535645107179796099noreply@blogger.com0