Teachers with advanced degrees: good for elite schools, bad for the rest of us?

Gov. Mitch Daniels recently recalled his Indianapolis childhood and teen-age years in a sweet and nostalgic “My Indiana” essay for the Indianapolis Star.

“I was lucky to attend a tremendous public school system,” he wrote, referring to Washington Township schools and North Central High School. “During my senior year in high school, at least three of my teachers had Ph.Ds. The next fall when, naïve and a little scared, I showed up on a far-away college campus full of prep-school types, I found myself better prepared than most of them.”

Is it maybe a little ironic that Daniels and Superintendent Tony Bennett pushed through the legislature a teacher compensation law that devalues the advanced degrees that Daniels’ teachers possessed?

The law, adopted in 2011, says no more than 33 percent of a teacher’s pay calculation can be based on advanced education and years of experience. Until now, it’s typically been 100 percent. According to the Indiana Department of Education, the law remedies the fact that teacher salaries were based on education and experience “despite data that shows these components have little or no relationship with teacher performance.”

Yet Daniels believes he was lucky to have learned from teachers with Ph.Ds. And today, exclusive Park Tudor High School in Indianapolis, where 100 percent of graduates are admitted to college, boasts on its website that its teachers have an average of 20 years of experience and one in five have doctorates.

Maybe education and experience count for students whose parents can afford nearly $20,000 a year in Park Tudor tuition – just not for the rest of us.

What to do with Indiana’s budget surplus – if it’s real

The words “structural surplus” should raise a red flag for anyone who has followed the history of Indiana state government finances. But more on that later.

Let’s assume that Gov. Mitch Daniels knew what he was talking about when he said Indiana is running a structural surplus of more than $500 million – in other words, the budget is structured so that the state takes in at least a half-billion dollars more than it spends per year.

As a result of the state’s having spent less than it took in for several years, Indiana’s budget reserves reached $2.155 billion at the end of the 2011-12 fiscal year, state Auditor Tim Berry said this week.

Under a law approved by Indiana’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed by the governor, some of the excess will go to taxpayers in the form of a tax refund of about $100 per individual or $200 per couple, to be handed out next year. But there could be alternatives.

First, Daniels claims that implementing the federal Affordable Care Act could cost the state $50 million to $65 million a year to set up health insurance exchanges and another $200 million a year to expand Medicaid to cover the working poor. Those figures are likely to be worst-case estimates. But even if they’re accurate, implementing the law would take only half the structural surplus.

But this is an education blog, so let’s suggest a couple more options:

// Create a state-funded pre-kindergarten program at least for poor and at-risk children, something that 39 other states have already done.

Recapping the legislative session – sometimes inaction is OK

When it comes to education, the 2012 session of the Indiana General Assembly may be best remembered for the bills that died, not for the ones that passed.

Lawmakers did accomplish one notable deed, boosting state funding for full-day kindergarten to where parents will no longer have to pay for the privilege. To which we say: It’s about time.

As for what lawmakers didn’t do, the following measures were apparently given serious consideration but died a merciful death:

– Allowing school boards to mandate the teaching of “creation science”
– Prescribing standards for the singing of the National Anthem at school events
– Barring schools from starting fall classes before Labor Day
– Ordering a return to a single-class high school basketball tournament
– Requiring schools to teach cursive writing as part of the curriculum

You have to think that some legislators must have too much time on their hands to come up with such ideas.

Full-day kindergarten was part of House Enrolled Act 1376, which passed right before lawmakers adjourned early Saturday morning. It increased the state grant for full-day kindergarten to $2,400 per child – up from $1,190.60. Schools should no longer have to charge full-day kindergarten fees, which in some districts have exceeded $1,000. In fact, the bill prohibits such fees starting this fall.

Gov. Mitch Daniels identified full-day kindergarten as a priority six years ago, but it got sidetracked by economic difficulties and, some would argue, other priorities.

On saving education reform from the reformers (and from abandonment)

“How to Rescue Education Reform,” a guest column in the New York Times written by Rick Hess and Linda Darling-Hammond, should be required reading for anyone who thinks top-down reforms will be the salvation of American schools, and also for those who think schools don’t merit national attention.

Writing from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Hess and Darling-Hammond decry the current gridlock between Republicans who reject any federal role in education and Democrats who think effective policy can be dictated from Washington.

“We sorely need a smarter, more coherent vision of the federal role in K-12 education,” they write. “Yet both parties find themselves hemmed in. Republicans are stuck debating whether, rather than how, the federal government ought to be involved in education, while Democrats are squeezed between superintendents, school boards and teachers’ unions that want money with no strings, and activists with little patience for concerns about federal overreach.”

They argue the federal government should focus on what it can do well:

– Encourage transparency in state-level measurement and reporting of educational effectiveness.
– Ensure students’ constitutional rights, enforce civil rights regulations and make certain that funds for low-income and special-needs students are spent appropriately.
– Support basic research.
– Use competitive grants to leverage innovation. (The Obama administration’s Race to the Top program tried to do this, they write, but it became overly prescriptive and stifled original thinking).

“Since decades of research make it clear that what matters for evaluating employees or turning around schools is how well you do it — rather than whether you do it a certain way — it’s not surprising that well-intentioned demands for ‘bold’ federal action on school improvement have a history of misfiring,” they write. Arguably the same could be said of some “bold” state actions: e.g., Indiana’s prescriptions for how schools are to evaluate, retain and compensate teachers.

Indiana’s missing millions

The news that Indiana state government misplaced $300 million over the past five years because of a computer software error would be comical if the effects weren’t so serious. That’s almost exactly the amount of money, after all, that Gov. Mitch Daniels cut from state funding for public schools in 2010.

While state Senate Democratic Leader Vi Simpson called for an investigation, Daniels brushed off the mistake, according to the Indianapolis Star, joking that “Christmas came early” and the state’s finances are in better shape than anyone realized. “Governor: Indiana in stronger fiscal condition” was the headline on the state news release announcing the discovery.

Sorry, Governor, but the state treasury isn’t your private bank account. And your humor may be lost on the teachers and other school employees who lost their jobs as a result of state budget cuts, along with the parents whose children are attending schools with fewer programs and larger classes.

Indiana kindergarten funding still falls short of costs

Full-day kindergarten funding for Indiana schools is expected to be $1,190.60 per student for the 2011-12 school year, the Indiana Department of Education announced this month.

That’s a little more than the $1,030 per student that schools received last year. But it’s nowhere near enough to cover the difference between half-day kindergarten, which the state funds, and a full-day program.

That means many parents can expect to again pay fees if they enroll their children in full-day kindergarten, just as they have in the past.

When Gov. Mitch Daniels announced increased funding for full-day kindergarten in April, the headline over his news release said, “Governor calls for increased education funding, completion of full day kindergarten.” The Republican-controlled legislature boosted annual funding for full-day kindergarten to $81.9 million from $58.5 million.

Some people thought that meant the program would be “fully funded” – but no. The increase enabled some school districts that hadn’t offered FDK in the past to provide it. But per-student funding increased by only about 15 percent.

Most Indiana schools spend around $6,000 per student to fund their operations. At that rate, you could argue the cost difference between half-day and full-day kindergarten is about $3,000 per student. The state grant covers less than half of that.

Some districts have used grants and federal funds to provide free full-day kindergarten in high-poverty schools and for low-income parents. But many have charged fees for parents who can afford it, and they’re likely to continue to do so. (In the Monroe County Community School Corp., the fee last year was $1,300).

The Indiana Constitution calls for a “general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” Nothing says the state has to fund kindergarten. But as the constitution suggests, free public education for all is an ideal that’s worth trying to accomplish. For young children, we’ve still got a way to go.

Education researchers: Current ‘reforms’ will produce few gains in achievement

Indiana University education professors Jonathan Plucker and David Rutkowski offer up some hard truths about current education “reforms” in a recent Education Week column.

While supporters tout the reforms as silver bullets, they say, the “dirty little secret” among researchers is that the changes almost certainly will have little effect on student performance.

“Volumes of nonpartisan research over the past 20 years suggest that most reforms (e.g., vouchers, charters, merit pay) have marginal effects on student achievement,” they write. “Reforms that show benefits usually produce effects that are so small they call into question the enormous resource and opportunity costs of the interventions. Put simply, most education reforms are not effective, and those that show even a sliver of potential are very inefficient.”

The point about resource and opportunity costs is significant. In Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels and state Superintendent Tony Bennett spent political capital pushing through an education agenda that lacked broad public support.

Lawsuit challenges Indiana voucher law

Judges have already blocked the implementation of anti-abortion and anti-immigrant laws approved this spring by the Indiana legislature. Will the school voucher law be next? We could find out soon.

Twelve Indiana citizens sued Friday in Marion County to challenge the voucher law, which Gov. Mitch Daniels, state Superintendent Tony Bennett and Republican legislators rammed through the legislative process despite no evidence of broad support. The complaint may be spearheaded by the Indiana State Teachers Association, but the plaintiffs are a diverse group: three clergymen, a couple of college professors, a school superintendent, a principal, teachers and parents whose kids attend both public and parochial schools.

They argue that the voucher program, which provides taxpayer funding for parents to transfer their children from public to private schools, including religious schools, violates three sections of the state constitution:

– Article 8, Section 1, which says the state must provide “a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”
– Article 1, Section 4, which says that “no person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support, any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent.”
– Article 1, Section 6, which adds that “no money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.”

“This use of taxpayer funds is incompatible with the provisions of the Indiana Constitution to safeguard Indiana citizens’ freedom of conscience by ensuring that they are not compelled, through the taxes they pay, to support religious institutions, ministries, and places of worship against their consent,” the lawsuit states. “And it is contrary to the Constitution’s directive that the General Assembly provide for the education of Indiana children through ‘a general and uniform system of Common Schools.’”

A 40-page legal brief, filed with the lawsuit, fleshes out the argument and seeks a preliminary injunction to bar the voucher law from taking effect.

On the surface, the second and third arguments would seem almost a slam dunk.

Checking up on Mitch Daniels at AEI

Gov. Mitch Daniels got several things right in his closely watched May 4 speech on education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

He acknowledged that, for all the hoopla over Indiana’s expansive new private-school voucher program, the vast majority of students will continue to attend public schools. And he made the key point that the success or failure of Indiana’s education reforms will depend on how they are implemented.

Daniels kept down the bombast, generally refrained from demonizing teachers’ unions, and even had a kind word for President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, praising their focus on teacher effectiveness and charter schools.

You can watch video of the speech and a follow-up interview at the AEI website. You’ll see that, while some in the audience were looking for Daniels to signal his intention to run for president, he kept it low-key – more like a guest lecture for a college class than a tryout for the national political stage.

But some of what he said calls for scrutiny:

Teacher effectiveness — Daniels said teacher quality is “the dominant variable” in determining student success. “Some have quantified it as 20 times … the importance of whatever’s in second place,” he said. Previously, he has said teacher quality is 20 times as important as any other factor, including poverty, a bogus claim. If he had said teacher quality was the most important school-based factor, we wouldn’t argue.

Indiana test scores – Decrying evaluations that rate 99 percent of Indiana teachers effective,

For Indiana schools, freedom from union restrictions, but not from regulation

The Indiana General Assembly gave Gov. Mitch Daniels almost everything he asked for in the way of education reforms – almost.

More charter schools, vouchers, merit pay for teachers, limits on collective bargaining, even a “Mitch Daniels early graduation scholarship” for students who complete high school early. The solid Republican majority in the House and Senate managed to bull all those measures through the legislative process.

But when Daniels gave his State of the State address back in January, he also called on lawmakers to get rid of rules that have been piled on schools – for example, that they teach about organ donation, self-examinations for breast and testicular cancer and the spread of disease by rats, flies and mosquitoes.

“We are asking this Assembly to repeal … mandates that, whatever their good intentions, ought to be left to local control. I am a supporter of organ donation, and cancer awareness, and preventing mosquito-borne disease, but if a local superintendent or school board thinks time spent on these mandated courses interferes with the teaching of math, or English, or science, it should be their right to eliminate them from a crowded school day.”

As far as we can tell, none of these sorts of mandates were repealed. Nor were requirements that schools display the American flag in every classroom, provide a daily moment of silence and recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and maintain 15 specific “protected writings, documents, and records of American history or heritage.” In fact, the patriotic requirements were extended to private schools that receive state-funded tuition vouchers under House Bill 1003.

Legislators are a lot better at making up new rules and regulations than at getting rid of old ones.

The Indiana Department of Education’s legislative agenda called for providing schools with greater flexibility and freedom. You might think that would mean getting rid of unnecessary regulations. But it turns out to have meant freeing schools from restrictions imposed by collective bargaining agreements.

Part of Daniels’ successful agenda, SB 575, limits collective bargaining for teachers to salaries, insurance benefits, and paid-time-off policies.

Of course, those were essentially the only factors that were required to be included in bargaining under the old law. School boards could also choose to bargain over the length of the school day, student-teacher ratios and working conditions. Many did. But no one was holding a gun to their heads.

Full-day kindergarten funding: Good news, not nirvana

No question, let’s give credit to Gov. Mitch Daniels and Republican legislators for proposing to use some of a projected bump in state revenue to increase education funding and expand access to full-day kindergarten.

But let’s stop short of canonizing the governor just yet. Remember that:

– The proposed increase in full-day kindergarten funding – from $58.5 million a year to $81.9 million a year — doesn’t mean the state will cover the entire cost of the program. In some districts, parents will still pay fees.

– The governor and Republican leaders propose increasing total K-12 spending by $150 million over two years. But that’s less than one-fourth of the more than $300 million per year that the governor cut from education spending in December 2009.

– Indiana school corporations will lose tens of millions of dollars as a result of legislation to expand charter schools and implement private-school vouchers. Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, told the New York Times that that the voucher bill alone will cost public schools $92 million.

– Changes being made in the school funding formula mean that growing school districts will see modest increases in state funding, but schools that are losing students may see additional cuts.

Daniels made full-day kindergarten a priority back in 2006, but budget problems kept him from following through. Now, he says, the current proposal will “complete the extension of full day kindergarten (FDK) to every school district in the state.” State Superintendent Tony Bennett says the money will expand FDK to the 25 percent of kindergartners who now don’t have access to it.

But if the task is being completed, that suggests Daniels never intended to fully fund the program.

This year, the state provides $1,030 per student to support full-day kindergarten. Next year that will increase to $1,050 per student, according to an analysis by the Indiana Association of School Business Officials of the proposed Senate budget – which includes the increased full-day kindergarten funding.

That doesn’t come close to covering the difference in cost between half-day and full-day kindergarten – which is why the Monroe County Community School Corp., for example, charges a $1,300 fee for full-day kindergarten to parents who are not low-income.

Finally, even with broadened access to full-day kindergarten, Indiana will remain one of eight states that don’t provide funding for public pre-kindergarten programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.