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Civil rights violations? You want to talk about civil rights violations?
By adamg on Tue, 03/10/2015 - 7:39am
Jamaicaplainiac ponders the news that some high-priced lawyers are looking at a civil-rights lawsuit to force the state to end its cap on charter schools, decides to look at some enrollment and test numbers in Boston and comes to somewhat different conclusions:
If the contention of the potential lawsuit is that charter schools are so much better than district schools that it’s a civil rights violation to cap the number of charters, well, I just don’t see it.
Indeed, some of those ELL and students with disabilities numbers are so suspiciously low that if I were running one of these schools, I would get pretty nervous when people start bringing up civil rights violations.
And I have to wonder not only why they’re fighting to expand charter schools, but why some of these schools haven’t been closed down.
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Comments
Really interesting numbers
Some really interesting numbers in there. Of particular interest: City on a Hill suspends HALF its students. How on earth is that sustainable?
And the comments section has it dead on: why doesn't this ever get mentioned in debates among lawmakers, or even in news stories about charters? The data's right there, and we have to wait for BMG to dig it out? (Thanks for reporting this, BTW, Adam)
If you don't like charter
If you don't like charter schools, don't send your kids there.
If parents are not happy with the charter school, parents will stop sending their kids there and they will cease to exist.
Don't limit people everyone else's choice. It's that simple.
Don't take public funds away
Don't take public funds away from cash-strapped public schools and give them to restrictive charter schools that don't play by the same rules. It's that simple.
BPS spends more money per
BPS spends more money per student than most school districts in the state. It by no means is cash strapped. The issue is the money gets wasted overpaying for things and frivolous administrators rather than getting to the essential staff and facility upkeep that matters to students.
Financial 'Necessity'
The reason BPS is giving for closing five schools is financial 'necessity'
Over the last two years BPS total operating budget has been cut by about $50-$100 million each year, net of Mayor Walsh's 3% increase.
BPS Parents studied how funding from city and state sources works and determined that good boston schools lose programs when district charter spending exceeds 17% of budget.
The state senate decided not to raise the cap on charter schools last June (beyond 18% in 2017 which is current law) until they decide where charter expansion is going and how it makes any sense to develop two parallel school systems, the second one which, after a point, cannibalizes the first.
Tell that to the
BTA! For to long BPS has acted as an employment agency for unionized teacher and has placed children second.
BTU, actually
Maybe I'm lucky, but our daughter is getting a good education in BPS. Yes, she's at an exam school, but this isn't the 1980s anymore and there are good non-exam programs in BPS now.
This is from 2014 FY
FY2014 Gen. Fund: $934,360,000 (+6.9% from FY13)
Salaries $ 590,115,681 63%
Benefits $ 131,431,947 14%
Transportation $ 93,202,150 10%
Purchased Services $ 53,518,737 6%
Property Services $ 38,718,337 4%
Supplies $ 7,093,846 1%
Equipment $ 2,514,371 <1%
Miscellaneous $ 2,317,935 <1%
Reserve $ 15,446,996 <2%
Like i said its an employment agency. Look long and hard at those numbers, its disgusting!
I know, right?
Those bus drivers cost $93m and they still went on strike!
It's not just charters
Boston's exam schools have the lowest percentages of students with disabilities and ELLs. Shall we close or defund those too? File civil rights charges?
Take funds away?
You do realize that BPS is one of the best funded systems in the country? The charters get the cost of the average regular-ed kids I believe. They have to pay their own rent and most do substantial fundraising to make ends meet.
Note - charters by definition - and legislation - do not play by the same rules. They aren't unionized for one and the kids have to sign a "contract" basically saying they will behave a certain way (often meaning they have uniforms among other things).
This is not an apples to apples comparison. It's not supposed to be. They don't get funding for ELL and special ed (unless they can apply for a stipend - but I haven't heard of that).
These kids are thriving - that's why the schools are oversubscribed - no matter how exaggerated the wait lists - that's a fact.
If I had a kid with special needs - HIGHLY unlikely I'd send them to a charter - BPS has much better resources for that. As for ELL - I know of at least one charter group that's been reaching out and trying to recruit these kids - but my guess is the parents being immigrants have a tough time figuring out the system - and maybe the parents just conclude BPS again has better resources.
Nothing's perfect - but there are THOUSANDS of kids doing better in charters than they'd ever do in BPS - and if it's about the kids I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone but a teacher whose job is threatened gives a crap. And the argument they "take money away from BPS" is a positive. BPS is already overfunded.
Honest question with no snark
Honest question with no snark intended: why are charters usually not situated in communities like Wellesley and Newton?
Because they have public schools with
Smaller enrollment numbers, involved parents, no unions and less bureaucratic bull.
Of course they have unions
The Wellesley and Newton Teachers Associations, respectively.
No snark answer
Why would you need one? You have generously funded schools with generally excellent students and ample resources for special needs. There simply isn't demand for an alternative. Here in Boston there's tremendous demand for alternatives. Obviously the Boston parents are finding something they like about the charters - they aren't for everyone as discussed -but for the average to above average kid without the option of decamping to the burbs - they are a godsend.
This is not an apples to
And part of the problem is that people like Scot Lehigh act as if it is an apples-to-apples comparison though, as one prominent example, in order to promote charters as good and BPS as bad.
The supposedly "liberal" Globe's anti-public school...
... and anti-union (all unions, not just government worker ones) stance is as unflagging as its pro-Olympics shilling.
I'm a charter supporter
But I recognize that BPS has a very important role - and though I bash the amount of money spent, I recognize based on comments out here and elsewhere that there is A LOT of very good work being done in BPS (my main beef is I think it can be done much more efficiently).
The point is BPS is just not working for a lot of kids - especially regular ed. It may be that the solution for the vast majority of kids is in fact a charter. BPS may end up being the special needs/ELL choice - they have enormous resources to throw at problems like that. The charters would get crushed if asked to educate those kids. It's not a matter of comparison. It's a matter of finding a system that works for the kids.
The enduring comment in Waiting for Superman for me was the former DC Superintendent sitting in the back of a car saying - if anyone thinks this is about the kids, it's not - it's about the adults.
And that's my beef. It should be ALL about the kids. Give them the program that lets them thrive as individuals (an enduring strength of the American school system). The parents and kids are smart enough to figure that out for themselves as long as there is sufficient capacity among the relevant choices. Right now there isn't. And even for me - I'm happy to spend the money if you can show me it's being spent wisely ON THE CHILDREN!
my spouse used to teach at a Boston charter and in BPS
and I have a lot of family in education...
Boston charters are focused primarily on discipline and MCAS - which is fine for some families but generally not appealing to white and educated families. The thing about if kids don't fall in line they get the "we don't have services to provide for their needs" is definitely true - they can and will kick disruptive kids out. regular schools don't have this luxury - the kid has to do something really serious to get kicked out. There is some good stuff happening at charters, but it's rare to find teachers at these schools who have more than a few years experience teaching - so while there may be innovation simply because teachers are much closer to current pedagogical trends, often the level of professionalism isn't there - and there's high burn-out among teachers due to long hours and low pay. If you're thinking about sustaining a career in teaching, too many charters would be a bad thing - almost everyone bolts to a more secure union gig after a few years slumming at the charters. teachers have families too.
on the flip side - BPS has a serious problem with their administration and school leadership - principal is a tough job, but the way evaluations are currently structured it protects incompetent principals and can screw over experienced and effective teachers. "excessing" is a way to signal to other principals that this teacher is a "trouble maker" - it has absolutely nothing to do with their effectiveness. yeah - it would be great to build a strong team, but the superintendent's office really needs to figure out how to effectively evaluate principals and better support teaching. Testing is a really bad way of going about it. I also have criticisms of BTU, but that's another issue...
A few other things - charters use the EXACT SAME CURRICULA as BPS - and teachers at regular BPS schools are allowed to be innovative with the curricula. regular BPS schools there's often a lot less parent involvement, which you can see reflected in student work and behavior. charters there are less kids who have some serious home issues.
what works for some kids doesn't work well for others - some kids need teachers to be engaged, some kids work well if they're allowed to explore on their own - if classroom size is small enough, teachers are better able to accommodate different learning styles - but if BPS continues to lose money and grow class size, it's going to become all about classroom management and less about teaching.
Finally - kids with serious behavioral issues can be incredibly disruptive to other students' learning. IMO - if there were a couple charters focused on these kids I think it would dramatically help regular schools. They probably won't have good MCAS scores and it would cost way more to educate them, but at least then they'll get the help they need.
Great comment
One note - at the most basic level, I don't care if a teacher is old or young, just that they are competent.
The best BPS teacher my kid had is no longer in the BPS due to administrative nonsense, even though her principal was a decent guy. The worst BPS teacher my kid had was an old school holdover just punching the clock until she could retire. The charter school teachers have been enthusiastic and effective. Yes, they might burn out and move to Wellesley in 5 years but then my kid has a different teacher every year so will I see a difference? I think administrator and teacher turnover isn't a challenge facing BPS. In fact a lack of turnover leads to entrenched interests and people who keep their jobs because no-one wants to fire poor incompetent Doris who's super nice but ineffective. That helps the adults with the jobs, not the kids who need the education.
not that simple
have you been through the BPS lottery process? people will hold off on sending their kid to K1 if they don't get into the first choices (I know several families were weren't even placed that round) - then for K2 people put charters on their list as a hedge in case they don't get into their top choices. If they get into a charter, they'll weigh against private, parochial or moving out of the city altogether. the families that typically end up in charters are parents who are mostly worried about their child's safety, but cannot afford the other options - it's the last resort if you end up in one of the dumping grounds.
If these guys were actually looking at what people in Boston want they'd discover most families would prefer getting into a good - and safe - neighborhood school.
The Globe editorial board is
The Globe editorial board is mostly composed of suburban people from well-off communities with highly funded public school systems and few charters who never miss a chance to tell Boston and other cities how great charters are. Not coincidentally, the attorneys backing this suit come from those same communities. I'm not unilaterally against all charters, but those statistics show why comparing them to BPS schools is a false comparison. And the Globe's agenda is transparent to anyone paying attention.
High funded public schools systems
So $40k a year per pupil isn't "high funded?" Its a question of how we spend our money, not how we get more!
Can you cite your source for
Can you cite your source for the fact that BPS spends $40,000 per student, or do we all get to make up facts in debates.
That's probably some special ed programs
The average systemwide is about $17k in operating costs. Then you have external funds - another 2k, capital expenses - another $1-2k annually depending on what they are undertaking in any given year. Then you have pensions and retirement benefits - probably in the range of 3k per kid. If you want to get picky - you should probably add in "imputed" rent for the school buildings because that space isn't really free - there is an opportunity cost. So it costs about $23-25k per kid in BPS -excluding rent - maybe 5-10% more with the imputed rent.
While
BC High only cost $18K, i wonder whose spending their money better!
That is
tuition. No indication that 18K is what it costs to educate a student there. Remember, priests and brothers aren't well paid.
Well thats
irrelevant seeing that most teachers at Catholic Schools are no longer members of the cloak, welcome to 2015. Shit i graduated from a Catholic School in the early 2000's and only a one teacher who was a Nun!
The demonstrated behavior of
The demonstrated behavior of many BPS students makes it reasonable that a charter would need to suspend half of the student body at some point to bring them into line with civilized expectations of behavior.
The lower number of special ed students has more to do with BPS labeling every kid under the sun as special needs to grab more funding or disguise the number of downright violent kids (without clinically defined mental problems, just thuglets) which need to be isolated from other students.
It's also been shown that
It's also been shown that charters suspend kids for ticky-tack violations like dress code offenses on purpose to weed out anyone but the most disciplined and highest performing students. Many of those students fall behind academically and end up dropping out. That's one way charters ensure that their student population is only composed of the highest-performing students, while BPS is stuck with the less-disciplined kids who have nowhere else to go There's no way that half a school's population engages in behavior legitimately meriting suspension, that defies logic.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/19/report-cites-high-suspension...
This whole topic suffers from a lack of good data
There are charter schools which are terrible. There are charter schools which are good. There are BPS schools which are terrible (Boston English) and there are BPS schools are good. We're all falling into the easy pitfall of lumping them together. The issue is kind of the same on both sides - how do you get rid of underperforming schools and replace them with schools that work. There is a charter cap, so the good charters can't expand.
My limited personal experience is that I think 1-3 kids have left my kid's grade (3 strands, @ 65 kids) in the past three years at a charter school due to academic or behavior issues. I'd be willing to bet that's what would have happened at a similar sized K-8 in the BPS.
Really?
Really?
50%?
Clearly you've never
Clearly you've never experienced Ashmont, Forest Hills, or Dudley stations when all the kids get out in the afternoon. There's a reason why extra police are brought in to keep an eye on the little angels.
Clearly you've never
Raised teenagers, hosted large groups of them after school or for parties, or spent substantial amounts of time with them.
And, yes, I have experienced the out-of-school crowd at the T stations and trains, sometimes on a regular basis. I get that they are loud and physical ... and that it scares you.
Note that there are extra details at rush hour to keep an eye on the little commuter darlings spilling out of work as well?
You raised teenagers IN
You raised teenagers IN MEDFORD
I raised teenagers IN BOSTON
Big difference!
Yes, suburban people never see things on the T
Only problem with the theory is that I'm raising a teenager in Boston, but happen to agree with her.
Oh, wait, but I wasn't born here, never mind ...
You dont live in Boston do you?
Hosting a large group of BPS kids isnt the same as a group of snobby suburban kids.
And to your point about extra police detail (this how i know you dont live here), i dont think iv EVER seen the Youth Violence Task Force or Gang Unit at S. Station. However at Forest Hills around 2pm, ya them and probation officers from surrounding court houses.
You just moved here last week, didn't you?
Otherwise, you wouldn't be calling Medford a "snobby suburb", LOL.
Speaking of labeling
...."thuglets"? Do you really think the BPS Special Ed dept is manufacturing diagnoses? There's also all the kids who are ELL (English Language Learners) and charters do not serve them in the numbers that public schools do.
Neither do all BPS schools
shall we close the exam schools too Kathode, or are those OK in your book? Their numbers on are far worse than the charters, so where's the outrage?
Why outrage?
The exam schools are part of BPS, which has programs into which such kids can go, unlike charters, which simply dump them back on BPS.
If you do want to get into a good argument, discuss why BPS has not "mainstreamed" special-ed kids as intensively as it might.
Interesting view???
Adam, so you think it;s ok for exam schools to not serve ELLs and kids with disabilities because the other BPS schools do that instead, so your kid can basically have the type of segregated experience that the charters are being accused of? Come again, my progressive friend?
Oh my goodness
I only wrote two sentences. Please go spend the extra 10 seconds it would take to read the second one.
I did NOT say exam schools have no responsibility to teach special-ed students. What I said is that BPS needs to do a better job at mainstreaming special-ed kids - and that includes helping the ones with the inclination to gain the skills they need to get into and do well in the exam schools. It can be done: I know BLS has a SPED program (I'm going to assume the other two do as well).
What my first sentence meant: If you look at BPS as a system, it has SPED programs (in fact, BPS is the system of last resort - by law it HAS to provide such services). By contrast, charter schools can just make up all sorts of infractions to dump these kids - who then wind up back in BPS.
sure...
but to my point (and Stevils), shouldn't we just view this as one big pool of money (charter and BPS) which is being used to educate a population of kids overall? If so, why not just accept that different schools meet different kids' needs like AWC/BLS do for advanced learners (or whatever PC spin is currently used for the top tier of academically successful kids)?
We're not deciding whether or not we're paying to educate these kids, just what the money flow from us to them is and if it works.
Have you ever been in a charter school?
I have, including one that has higher than district percentages of SWDs and ELLs. You can jump on board with the "dumping" line, or you could find out more via first-hand information. And yes, BLS has a program for SWDs, all 24 of them (out of 2,400).
You're just spoiling for a fight, aren't you?
I'm not disagreeing that BPS could do better to mainstream special-ed kids, no matter how many times you say I am.
Neither am I criticizing all charter schools. But let's not pretend all charter schools are excellent, any more than we should pretend that all BPS schools suck.
Care to tell us barbarians....
... what SWDs and ELLs are. Why use jargon or acronyms that ordinary folk are not likely to understand (unless you are employed by an entity that like to use such things).
Meanings
English Language Learner
Students with disabilities (I think)
Thanks
FWIW, one of my children was the very first autistic spectrum student to enter BLS with real support (a para-teacher aide), after having been in an excellent program based at the Irving Middle School. And, accordingly, he was the first to graduate from there. When Cornelia Kelley grumbled about the inconveniences of dealing with special ed students (several more following in his wake), he pointed out (correctly) that he helped raise the school's MCAS average score.
Well
At the end of the day, these kids are getting their school paid for by the tax payers. So is there a big diff between a kid getting bounced out of AWC or BLS into the gen pop. vs. a charter school expelling someone back into BPS?
If there weren't all kinds of secondary aspects (union busting, union supporting, community employment) associated with this issue, the basic overview is that it shouldn't matter. We're paying a certain amount of money to educate these kids somewhere.
Other side
My kid went to a BPS school where class was always late getting to lunch, recess, etc... because all of the kids had to sit at their desks while the teacher dealt with disruptive kids. The kid is now at a charter school where kids are expected and required to behave in an orderly manner. It's a much better learning environment. It sounds draconian, but the kids who want to learn are allowed to learn vs. staring out the window while student X runs amok and the teacher has to spend 80% of their time on 10% of the class.
I don't know what the solution is because there is an undeniable filter mechanism in that parents have to care about their kids enough to fill out an application. However, I'd be willing to be lots of people who are anti-charter also have kids who follow the AWC-BLS path, which is an even better filter mechanism to keep their kids out of classes with disruptive classmates where their kids can get plenty of teacher attention. And yet these parents can still pat themselves on the back for staying in the BPS.
That all being said, I find the sudden interest of these lawyers in the BPS to be odd at best. I think this is a political agenda item, not something being done for the specific gain of the Boston school aged kid population.
This is the crux of the matter!
Charter schools can and do rid themselves of disruptive students, sending them back to BPS. BPS is then stuck with them as every child has a right to an education. There are kids in the BPS who, for better or for worse, in another time and place, would have been institutionalized. The stresses on the schools who house these kids are enormous. The specialized staff who work with them are doing yeoman's work. But, it isn't cheap and it is disruptive to the education of the other students in the building.
I fear the closings of Middle School and Community Academies. These are the current alternative placements for some of the most disruptive and troubled students in the BPS.
Impossible!
Privatization always improves service. I'll meet you in Boston to explain how, as soon as I get off of this Keolis run commuter rail train. If I'm not in town by Thursday, consider the meeting cancelled.
The commuter rail isn't
The commuter rail isn't privatized. The management is contracted out to Keolis. It would be like claiming BPS is privatized because the janitors are outsourced to a cleaning company.
Just The Profits Are Privatized
Hun?
Ya their privately owned, but they employee workers from 14 unions. Yes 14 unions!
The civil rights violation is
The civil rights violation is denying parents a schooling choice by limiting the number of alternative schools. If the cap were lifted the number of charter schools would expand to the level of demand. The current cap affects poorer families only; wealthy families have all sorts of choice in school selection.
Based on the waiting list for charter schools and Metco openings it seems that many parents of BPS students would like more options.
BS
How does income play into ones acceptance into a publicly funded school?
If you're talking about Boston residents who pay taxes towards BPS but send their kids to private institutions, well BPS would be screwed if they lost that income (people move) or those parents all of a sudden enrolled into BPS.
I want fewer school choices
Every time you see a yellow school bus in this city, it is a demonstration of the system's failure. Forty years after busing was instituted, there are no longer more than a few white kids to be "integrated," and the minority kids who make up the entire demographic are being bused willy-nilly back and forth, at an exorbitant cost. Divide the transportation budget by the number of students and it's more than $1,400.00 per student. You could buy every single parent and student a monthly T pass for less. Per rider, the yellow school bus is more expensive than the T, and for what? An endless shell game of openings, closings consolidations, and divisions. Charter schools are just the latest empty shell in this game.
If the only choice kids had was to go their neighborhood school, they'd have to stop the shell game and actually fix them. I want fewer school choices, the abolition of the school bus, and a school in every neighborhood.
Impossible, part two.
As for the behavior of public school kids versus charter schools, keep drinking the Kool-aid if you buy into that anti-public school propaganda. I went to catholic school 30 years ago, and you wouldn't have wanted to be on a train with us THEN. For every would be choirboy or girl there was 10 that were being sent there to be "straightened out" and "taught discipline." Not only wasn't the lesson sinking in, but most kids rebelled with a vengeance.
Last night on the T
A Red Line train heading to Alewife had to be taken out of service because a kid from Braintree kicked out a window as he and his pals were on the way to the Garden. Damn troublemakers!
They kicked out a window
meanwhile at Forest Hills kids are shooting out windows (and people).
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20150126/gunfire-forest-hills-t-stop-w...
The commuter rail isn't?
Talk about splitting hairs. If the janitorial service MANAGED the schools, you might have a point. My point is that Keolis runs/manages the commuter rail, and, they do a pretty horrible job of it.
civil rights violation
METCO is a bigger civil rights violation than the charter cap. The US Supreme Court has already decided that you can't have such programs based on race.
The problem is that no white parent has stepped up to sue to get their kid into the program.
MA courts love declaring
MA courts love declaring people have no standing even if its painfully obvious they do.
Frightening Thought
After all my years of looking at municipal finance - something just occurred to me. The first thing they teach you in management school is people respond to incentives. Obviously we'd all like to make more for doing less work. If you look at BPS the entire system has a huge incentive to drive kids out. Think about it. After all the hand wringing, the schools always get 34% of the city's budget - plus or minus some noise, that's the case going back to at least 2003 which are the oldest figures on the city's website. The total budget goes up like clockwork 3-5% every year which means the school budget goes up by that amount every year. The staffing is about the same today as it was in 2003, but there are about 15% fewer kids in the system. So everybody is making about 50% more money for about 15% less work over the past dozen years. I like to think people are inherently good, but if you believe people respond to incentives, the incentive at BPS is to get kids to leave the system (hand wringing and teeth gnashing notwithstanding). They never cut the budget and they seem to refill positions or shuffle them around. What incentive does BPS - as a system - have for being "excellent" and attracting more kids? In fact, since there is no accountability to justify the budget increases every year, they have the exact opposite incentive.
That's cute
Ask a teacher if they think their workload is 15% less since 2003 or not.
Pro tip: duck quickly.
Drumroll...
And the numbers say:
2003 - 4436 teachers for 61,552 students - or 13.88 students per teacher
2015 - 4366 teachers for 54312 students - or 12.44 students per teacher
12.44 / 13.88 = 89.62
So OK - over that time period a fraction over 10% not 15% - you have to go back a few more years to get to 15% (- and that's with no adjustments for the 1600 Pre-K students we've added - not exactly apples to apples with say what it takes to educate a middle or high school student.)
The point is - beyond personal pride - what's the system's incentive to excel - there is none. In fact, the more they fail, the better off they are financially as long as we keep giving them an extra 3-5% extra money no matter the outcome. Then they come back and say they need more money after another year of failure.
Many more kindergarten and pre-k students....
... and the student-teacher ratio for such students is considerably higher than for older students.
You're not getting it
You think it's a numbers racket. Like if they just pump and dump students that is the only sign of accomplishment. That they get paid per pupil. You are either intentionally obtuse or just raving stupid.
The requirements put on teachers to meet stupid federal standards and state standards while continuously teaching to the test or being required to justify every little choice they make in planning has ratcheted annually.
And that 3-5% annual increase in budget...you act like it's going into their pockets! That doesn't even keep pace with the increase in their healthcare costs over that same period!
Absolutely nothing about your hypothesis is grounded in reality.
But you're talking about teachers?
The whole increase is across the system- administrators especially, but also maintenance, transportation, facilities, etc... We can't just sweep all the costs under the rug of 'teachers work hard and overloaded'. That removes any accountability from the people running BPS.
It IS a numbers racket
Like it or not - that's what budgets are all about - and the school system deals with the same world the rest of us live in - the one where salaries haven't increased and we are asked to contribute more and more to our own health care (to be fair - I think the city workers gave back a little a few years ago because it was the only way to balance the budget).
I'm looking at their world through the real world numbers I see in the rest of the world. It's the world of government is increasingly separated from reality.
Those numbers are slightly off
If you're looking at teachers paid out of the general fund, in 2003 there were 4,779 teachers, not 4,436 (that's the number for 2006).
So, for the general fund:
2003: 12.9 students per teacher
2015: 12.4 students per teacher
Now, for the total number of teachers, including those paid out of the external fund. Yes, I know you consider these to be "bonus" teachers, but presumably they are actually doing work while they are there - if your point is that teachers are being paid the same for less work you need to take them into account.
2003: 5,112 teachers, 12.0 students per teacher
2015: 4,418 teachers, 12.3 students per teacher
This hints at something that's really frustrating to me: whether you look at just the general fund or at the total budget, BPS is cutting teachers much faster than it is cutting its overall employment numbers. Looking just at the general fund, there are about 1.8% more employees in FY15 than FY03, but about 8.6% fewer teachers. If you look at the total budget, employment is down 2.6%, and the number of teachers is down 13.6% (as you can see above, BPS is actually losing teachers faster than it is losing enrollment). As much as it's easy to pile on the BTU when it comes to BPS's inability to manage its payroll, the teaching staff is actually one of the few places in the budget where the employment trends roughly follow enrollment trends.
You are correct
On both counts Chris - I grabbed the wrong number - looked at the right column instead of the left - and I don't recognize the external fund numbers.
Back to my core point - as you bring up - staffing, which is the number I usually look at, is bigger now than in 2003. There is no incentive for efficiency. In fact - the incentive is to be mediocre year after year so you can always claim you need more money. You don't want to be better - because that would attract more kids and with no more money than what the city allots - you would have to do more work for the same pay. And THAT we know from recent experience is anathema to the system.
I give up..you're right
Teachers are only in it for the money and they only strive to do less and get paid more. They've suckled at the teat long enough. Time to FINALLY underpay them and see if they stick around for all the intrinsic reasons that educating the youth provides that they've been ignoring all this time.
I didn't say that either
First of all - like any job - if you don't like your compensation - there's the door. If we can't get competent people, we'll have to raise the pay.
Fair pay for a job is what it takes to get competent people not "4% more than what they made last year".
Again - that's not the point - we can argue that until the angels on the head of the pin dance. The point before we got distracted was what is the incentive in the system to do any better other than personal pride? Hell - we wanted the teachers to work an extra 30-40 minutes and the first thing they said wasn't - good idea - let's cut some of the other crap you make us do. It was PAY US MORE. Everything comes down to pay us more and nobody says OK but:
How much "more"?
What will you accomplish with "more"?
What is the penalty for failure to achieve goals?
The answers, in order, are simply: more, stuff and nothing.
What "crap"....
... that public school teachers do at present can be cut out to allow them to tach another hour or so a day (with no extra pay)? Planning classes, grading papers, helping with extra-curricular activities/after school requests for help from students, meetings with parents, helping do IEP assessments? Which of these do you consider dispenable?
Don't know
Kaz said in the past 10 years there's all this extra stuff that they've been asked to do that has little to do with teaching and more to do with reporting. Ask him. If we got rid of that - sounds like there would be an extra 30-40 minutes in the day for classroom time. That should have been the first part of the negotiation - not "pay us more". There are only so many hours in a day. And to the point of this overall post - how is it that the charter schools manage to have people working longer, for less pay, and getting equal or better results?
I'm not in the field - and we can only see the "topline" through budgets and ratios. But there are a lot of claims that get made about BPS that don't seem to fit with the reality all of us see around us.
In other words ...
You have no clue and you know it.
No
None of us know - unless you work in court street
Incentive?
Their incentive is seeing kids go off and grow their imagination and knowledge. I've known a lot of teachers and they all say pretty much the same thing "the benefits are ok, the administration is awful, but I'm really here because seeing the kids learn and grow makes it all worth it". And these days, they no longer get to develop plans that let kids grow. They have plans handed to them with awkward methods that force the kids to pass a test. They're told that they aren't getting new supplies and they have to get creative. They are required to fill out checklists and agendas for submission to a system that doesn't read them but just fills its own checklists that their submissions were received. They have no feedback on the quality of education they are providing except through whatever score their class receives. The disincentive in the system IS this new test-based system of education we've allowed to develop. Its added overhead and administration is chewing up dollars and teacher time and so when you want them to do more, they're going to expect to be paid more to do it...especially when you've added to the part of the job that sucks while simultaneously degrading the enjoyable part (teaching to their own style and honing their skills and watching the kids grow) and for no valid reason.
Why do charter schools do so well? Because they are built purely to satisfy the new system. Dump the low scorers, churn through new (cheaper) teachers willing to teach the latest system because they don't know anything other than the latest scoring tactics, and do whatever it takes to return great scores. They aren't applying the new systems and scoring to an old system as an upgrade. They're the latest hardware modeled specifically to run the newest software...even though that newest software sucks.
What is that huge sucking sound?
It ain't teacher's unions - it is ... Charters!
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/charter_schools_are_cheating_your_kids_n...
Do you read your own links?
They only cite one problem school in Mass - and it was in Gloucester - and it was closed.
So what you are saying is that if charters didn't "suck" money out of Boston - the budget would be even larger than one of the largest per capita budgets in the state (which actually isn't true because if we shut all the charters and put the kids back in BPS - the amount available per capita would go down because charters are run on very short dollars per student).
And you say above I don't have a clue?
Short dollars?
Can you elaborate? As I understand it, charter funding in Massachusetts is determined by taking each charter school's foundation budget (calculated using the same formula used for any other school district) and increasing it by the same percentage as the sending district spends above its foundation budget. In other words, whatever bloat there may be in Boston's budget gets passed right along to charter schools. They may or may not spend that money more wisely, and they do have some different expenses from BPS, but I'm not under the impression that they're actually operating on less total money (when taking student need into account).
What is that number?
If it's less than we spend per capita now - then if you take all the kids out of charters and they get $15k per kid (for example) and we spend $17k in Boston, then adding those kids back to the mix brings the average down. What does adjusting for student need do? - impossible for anyone outside of Court Street to make that determination.
You're right, it's hard to say
Argh, I started writing up a longer response, but given that this is a purely hypothetical scenario with a lot of unknowns I'm pretty sure this conversation is well past the point of diminishing returns. Suffice it to say that I think the pieces are in place for BPS to correctly reduce per-pupil costs in that scenario, but who knows if they'd actually get it right.
I was mostly just curious if you had some detailed information about charters running on short budgets. I'm always trying to understand school finance better, and it seems that there is a lot of confusion/misinformation about charter school funding in particular.
Sorry to be late back to this party
Always appreciate your well thought out responses Chris.
Here's an interesting link that highlights the differences - FY 11 numbers - but points out that charter kids on average in Boston get 18.5% less funding - and the number would be closer to 30% if you take out the "other" category (I'm guessing a big chunk of that is fundraising - but I don't know if that's detailed in the report):
http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/charter-funding-inequi...
Have to go through it in more detail and maybe this is something we can talk about over our previous discussion of sharing a cup of coffee one evening in Rozzie?
Cheers -
Read my other posts
I explained how in my personal experience in a charter school, there hasn't been clear dumping of low scorers over three years. This might happen at some charter schools, but I haven't seen it at the Brooke.
So again, maybe the real issue not charters in general but that not enough is done to filter out good charters from bad and to close down the bad ones.
Which charter schools are you familiar with specifically? Which BPS schools are you familiar with specifically?
And now you've come to my conclusion
It's not about the teachers or the pay - it comes down to the system.
If you have a better solution than testing - have at it. But that's what we have to work with and changing that is a larger debate by many orders of magnitude. It might not appeal to your sensibilities, but apparently paying a bunch of really smart recent college grads peanuts to work grueling hours and adhere to really high standards works - at least for the average/above average BPS student. I don't care if the teachers burn out and move on. It's not about the teachers - it's about the kids. Maybe teaching isn't meant to be a career for most. Maybe it's more like the military - do your service and move on.
So what you've identified is a solution that if we implemented a charter-like solution for probably the majority of BPS students - it should work. Then focus the resources saved on the other 20% or 30% or 40% of the students. My guess is that if you did this, you'd save the city hundreds of millions of dollars and while I don't expect BPS to compete with Wellesley, Weston and Winchester - but they'd probably be pretty close to "average" and certainly a lot better than they are today.
But it's not about the kids. It's about the adults. While I'm focused on making sure the kids can prove they can read and do basic arithmetic, you are worried about how much the teachers get paid and that they don't have to work too hard.
just narcistic attorneys looking for some attention
Nice just to crunch numbers. God forbid you think about the child. It is nice to have an option where your child can go to school and agree to the discipline policy (discipline - something that should exist without question but hard if not impossible to find in BPS). Uniforms put the child in the same playing field ( every school should have them including high schools, sick of the public school kids saying it is a violation of my rights, I can wear whatever I want, I roll my eyes every time I hear that. That talk doesn't roll over into a required uniform in a low paying job because you couldn't learn in an environment that put everyone on the same equal level with clothing). Even the BPS that has uniform policy can't enforce it and then many parents don't enforce it with their child so it is a losing game. Put those two things in place and you create an environment for LEARNING. As a parent with a child I want my child to be in an environment where he is pushed to learn, has to abide by very strict rules and is recognized for when he does over the top great work and is punished when he does something he is not supposed to. The sad fact is that the BPS just does not have it. I am probably going to be lambasted here by saying this but the kids in the BPS that are losing out are the kids that come to school and are good students. I am not saying the smartest but good students. They lose out because they are never challenged etc. since the teacher's hands are tied by not being able to put strict routines into place for all to follow. They are forgotten students. It is too bad. Other countries push their students and get results. Mediocre is acceptable here. That's to bad when the next few generations are not going function in society and the whole country loses out because of it. It is too bad that Boston parents have to work so hard to find a decent school for a good student ( I didn't say smartest). If the meager options that exist (charter) in Boston then the City of Boston will become a city for the very poor and very wealthy. The middle class will be gone. An easy way to make parents step up to the plate more is that your child is assigned the school near their residence. No other choice. Parents will meet parents. Parents may be more prone to keep their child in because they will be a part of a community. And the child that is neglected will be notice more by other parents and instead of going home to an empty house might see a few more dinners at a classmates house before heading home. However, this is BPS we are talking about. And have been talking about since FOREVER. I firmly believe it cannot be fixed at all. The teachers are great but they are up against to much. The teachers have no "rights. It's really sad that the charter schools can put basic routines into place that need to be followed but the BPS cannot. Hail to the charter schools!!!!!
Needs more context
I would also like to see a comparison on the numbers on the schools that became charter schools after being regular BPS public, in some cases you will see improvements, which sadly tells you just how bad the school had been performing under BPS.
By the same token, you may find that, yes some schools have to go.
So much information is available on the DESE site, for those who actually care to see the long term outcomes.
And please understand that not all charters, pilot and innovation schools are the same, because the specific autonomies that may have been granted by the districts.