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1) Fewer Students, More Teachers,
and, Finally, More Attention. It has never been
unusual to read news stories about hiring, retention and enrollment in the
public school system. But it is rare to find accounts that question the
relationship among the three.
I have beaten that drum for a long time,
and EIA's
district spending tables highlight those numbers. The recent report by
the Empire Center for New York State Policy
demonstrated how this played out in New York and last week the center
did the same for New Jersey. This morning the Wall Street Journal
editorial page
gave the issue national attention:
"When hires are
determined by the money available instead of the staff needed, school
districts become bloated in the good times. Yet when tax revenue falls in a
recession, union pressure makes it next to impossible to cut teacher rolls.
States raise taxes instead of re-examining enrollment and student needs,
which creates a hiring ratchet that leaves states with an ever higher number
of teachers, regardless of enrollment."
How is this possible?
Don't schools create budgets based on enrollment and student needs?
Marguerite Roza of the
Center on Reinventing Public Education explains how it really
works in
her new book:
"Roza's
Educational Economics uncovers an education-finance system in
which district after district does not know or does not effectively
calculate how resources are allocated among its schools. School leaders who
try to track dollars and services from the district to each school often use
district averages to estimate per-school spending. But averages, writes Roza,
mask wide variations in the actual distribution of experienced teachers,
enrichment programs, and social services among schools in the same district.
"More than an accounting problem, the
current practices make it nearly impossible for education leaders to align
spending with goals. In fact, Roza finds districts whose objectives and
resources are not just weakly linked, but contradictory."
We spend more than
eighty cents of every education dollar on personnel costs. So it stands to
reason that a major portion of every additional education dollar will go to
hiring new personnel, increasing compensation of existing personnel, or some
combination of the two. Whether that education spending is justified by
student numbers or necessities appears to be, well, academic.
2) Scheduling Note.
The next communiqué will appear on Tuesday, April 20.
3) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from April 5-12:
* Fox
& Friends. Decepticon.
*
April Fool. What would a monumentally overfunded system look like?
*
Teacher Shortage Becomes Teacher Job Shortage. Riding the seesaw.
*
Enjoy Your Weekend While I Undo a WordPress Hack. The black hats were
here...
* Blog
Is Clean; Back to Work. ...and now they're gone.
4) Quote of the Week #1.
"The Buffalo United members have spoken out quite clearly that they want a
voice on the job. They deserve to be heard." - Richard Iannuzzi, president
of the New York State United Teachers, commenting on the travails of the
teachers at the Buffalo United Charter School who are fighting for
recognition of their union. (April 12
New York Teacher)
Quote of the Week #2.
"Last year, the UFT and its parent, New York State United
Teachers, lobbied for charter funding to be slashed. Indeed, charters would
up being cut even as spending for other public schools went up. By
supporting an extended freeze this year, the UFT is tacitly supporting even
deeper cuts. And it's doing so in the face of protests by its own unionized
charter-school members.... But rather than hold up our school as an example
of how unionizing schools is good for charter schools and students, our
union is at best indifferent to our fate - and, at worst, bent on destroying
us." - Maura Malarcher and Stacey Gauthier. Malarcher is a teacher and union
member at The Renaissance Charter School in Queens. Gauthier is the school's
co-principal. (April 8
New York Post) |
