May 2011 Archives

Wisconsin's controversial collective bargaining law had its day in the state legislature, and its day in the streets. Now it's being heard in the courts.

The state's Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments June 6 on the law, which was approved by Wisconsin's Republican-controlled legislature in March after a prolonged fight—and raucous if respectable street protests—and signed by Gov. Scott Walker shortly thereafter.

The hearing will come less than two weeks after Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi voided the law, saying the GOP lawmakers violated the state's open meetings statutes through manuevers used to push it through the legislature before Democrats could block it.

"This case is the exemplar of values protected by the Open Meetings Law: transparency in government, the right of citizens to participate in their government, and respect for the the rule of law," Sumi wrote in her decision, issued last week.

"It is not the court's business to determine whether [the collective bargaining law] is good public policy or bad policy; that is the business of the legislature. It is this court's responsibilty, however, to apply the rule of law to the facts before it."

(The state's Department of Justice, in turn, has asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take over the case and vacate Sumi's decision.)

In February, Walker thrust his Midwestern state into a maelstrom by introducing a measure that dramatically reduced the collective bargaining powers of most public employees, including teachers, and mandated that they pay more for benefits. Walker argued that the bill would save local governments around his state money, by freeing them from having to accept costly terms under contracts negotiated with teachers unions.

The case quickly emerged as a proxy fight among those, particularly conservatives, who saw it as an historic opportunity to curb what they saw as excessive union powers, versus others who saw it as an attack on workers' rights and an effort by Walker and other Republicans to undermine unions' political might. School districts, as we've reported, face nervous prospects, as they attempt to gauge the financial and emotional impact on their communities of a law that now hangs in the balance.

The case heads to Wisconsin's highest court, which has just been the subject of what was surely one of the most closely watched state-level elections in the nation's history. The race pitted an incumbent justice, David Prosser, against challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, who he eventually defeated after a close race that drew unusually high turnout—and the interest of partisans across the country.

Kloppenburg was supported by liberals, who saw the election as a chance to vent their dissatisfaction with the governor's collective bargaining law—and potentially block the law from taking effect.

Conservatives, meanwhile, raillied around Prosser. On Tuesday, Kloppenburg conceded the race, following a statewide recount, and Prosser will begin a new, 10-year term on the court in August. So while his political fate has been decided, that of the collective bargaining law will have to wait a while.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Politics makes for terrific spectator sport, and from that standpoint, political and education junkies couldn't have been happy with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' recent decision not to run for president next year. After all, his no-go announcement curtailed the possibility of tussles with President Barack Obama over some of the great education issues of our time, most notably the role of private school vouchers.

But all is not lost. The 2012 race may still give us Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Few high-profile Republicans offer as stark a contrast with Obama on education issues as Perry, who was re-elected to a third full term in November but who was bashing White House policies well before then. The governor said last week that he's contemplating a bid for his party's nomination.

This isn't meant to disparage the newsmaking potential or education policy acumen of other GOP contenders, like Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. But Perry's dogged criticism of the White House on education stands out, particularly because it comes at a time when many Republicans—Daniels, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to name a few—have voiced praise for Obama's school policies, in particular the federal Race to the Top program, and the president's perceived willingness to challenge teachers' unions.

Perry is less kind.

States across the country approved laws to pay and evaluate teachers on classroom performance, overhaul data systems and retool their academic standards, partly in an effort to secure federal funds through the $4 billion Race to the Top competition. But Perry has lambasted the program as an effort "bait states into adopting national standards," and "undermine states' authority to determine how their students are educated." He has refused to allow his state to apply for the program, making it one of only a handful of states not to do so.

He has rejected the Obama administration's support for states' efforts to craft common academic standards, saying that Texas "would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children's future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington, virtually eliminating parents' participation in their children's education." All but six states have adopted those standards, according to the most recent count.

Overall, the governor has been a major critic of federal stimulus spending, though his state has accepted billions in that aid. More recently, he feuded with congressional Democrats over $830 million in emergency federal jobs money, after Democrats attached provisions to the funds meant to ensure that the money was spent on K-12, and not diverted to other sources in Texas, which faces a major budget shortfall. (Federal lawmakers recently freed up that money to flow to the state's schools.)

Perry would also appear to diverge from the Obama administration in his overall view of school spending—as in, how much money K-12 should receive. Texas lawmakers are currently debating a budget that would cut $4 billion from the state's schools—reductions that district officials say would result in the loss of thousands of jobs and cuts to valuable programs. Perry has said he wouldn't raise taxes or dig into the state's reserve fund to add more money to the upcoming budget, as some Democrats had requested.

That's a pretty sharp contrast with Obama. While U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said schools face a "new normal," and will need to do more with less during the years ahead, the administration also backed the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund, meant to prevent layoffs in districts around the country. The administration also has argued that Congress should seek to protect K-12 and other programs that promote economic growth and innovation, as lawmakers prepare to carve money out of the federal budget.

Moving from the financial to cultural, probably no state has hosted as many battles over what should be taught in schools as Texas, where the the board of education has angered scientists by adopting standards criticized as anti-evolution. Others have accused the board of attempting to put a conservative slant on social studies standards. Perry, as governor, appoints the chair of the panel, who has a strong sway in guiding those discussions.

Obama-the-candidate in 2008 warned against efforts to "cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don't hold up to scientific inquiry." He's largely avoided controversies over the teaching of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, who frustrated scientists by suggesting that evolution and creationism could be taught side-by-side in schools.

Of course, a Perry campaign for the White House would be partly defined by the issues he plays up on the stump. But should the Texan jump into the race, it seems likely that debates over the federal government's role in education will be filling up paid advertisements, speeches, and policy statements before long.

Photo of Rick Perry from AP.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

From guest blogger Catherine Gewertz:

Yes, we know Sean told you that State EdWatch is on hiatus. But even in his absence, we felt the need to let you know about a significant piece of state news: The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the state will have to pony up another $500 million to the state's poorest urban districts to make up for cuts it made last year.

Equally significant, the state's high court did not order similar restorations for the state's other 500-plus school districts, even though the plaintiffs had argued that by not fully funding its 2008 school-finance formula, the state had violated its constitutional guarantee of a "thorough and efficient" education.

Read more coverage of the ruling here, here and here, and the decision itself here.

The lawsuit is just the latest in a decades-long series of legal arguments over how to equalize funding in New Jersey. You can start here for a major development in the case: when the high court decided that the new funding formula was constitutional, essentially rendering the old way of calculating aid—one method for poor, urban districts and another for the rest of the districts—unnecessary in key areas.

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State EdWatch will be taking a break from today, May 20, through the end of next Friday, May 27. I'll be looking forward to catching up on your ideas and comments when I return. Thanks for reading, and for your input.

Sean Cavanagh

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The American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers' union, is calling for an end to pension "spiking" and "double-dipping," while arguing that the vast majority of public retirement benefits are modest, not excessive, as critics claim.

The executive committee of union, which has 1.5 million members, approved the policy and released a report with recommendations today. Those policies are the product of a special committee the union formed to study pension issues.

Retirement benefits have received a ton of attention from state officials in recent months, particularly Republicans, who have argued that teachers' and other public workers' pensions systems are overly generous and too costly for taxpayers.

The AFT policy document, "Strengthening Retirement Security and Building a Better America," pushes back against those claims. It says that a recent estimate of the yearly retirement benefits for state and local government workers was about $23,600, despite reports of much higher payouts.

The union also contends that despite some public officials' desires to switch teachers and other public employees away from defined-benefit retirement plans, the alternative, 401(k)-style systems, have a mixed record of providing workers with retirement security. When states have fallen into trouble with high unfunded liabilities in their pension systems, it's often because states skimped on their obligations, not because the benefits were too generous, the AFT says.

Even so, the union acknowledges that some pension practices inflate costs, and it calls for an end to them. One such practice is the spiking, or increasing compensation near the end of a worker's career in a way that is designed to sweeten benefits payouts.

The AFT also recommends doing away with double-dipping, which the union defines as an employee who retires, then is rehired by the same employer, receiving both a pension and a salary. In addition, it says policymakers should establish a "maximum benefit ceiling" to guard against excessive defined-benefits payments. Numerous state and local policymakers have called for ending those practices.

"Pensions need to be well-funded and well-managed because they help retain people who provide services that taxpayers depend on," AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. "But practices like end-of-career spiking and double-dipping have to be addressed."

The document also notes that many teachers do not collect Social Security benefits, and says it's time to have an "open discussion to consider the inclusion of public employees in the program." The union plans to convene a summit of public employee unions to discuss the idea.

The document also states that retirement security should be the "shared responsibility of employers, employees, and the government," and that both employers and employees should contribute to retirement benefits. That would appear to be a significant recommendation. In at least one state, Florida, teachers and other public employees were not required to contribute anything, until lawmakers required them to chip in this year. Some states appear to have similar practices.

Whether the document gives the AFT more of a say in shaping state efforts to curb pension costs remains to be seen. Many state lawmakers seem to have a very different view of the generosity of teachers' benefits than educators do. The union seems intent on shaping the views of policymakers—and the public—on the charged issue.

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Idaho's state schools chief Tom Luna has warned teachers and other school employees not to engage in political activity on school grounds, amid efforts by his opponents to overturn controversial legislation he supported—and a push to recall him from office.

In a memo issued this week, Luna said that his department has heard concerns from parents and others about alleged instances of politicking during the school day on school property.

Luna, in a May 16 memo, says he has heard of school employees staging political actions that violate the state's code of ethics for educators. Those who break the rules can be reprimanded, or have their professional licenses suspended or revoked, he said.

Idaho's Republican-controlled legislature approved one of the most sweeping education policy overhauls in the country this year. The package included restrictions on collective bargaining for teachers, limits on teachers contracts, the phasing out of tenure, and the implementation of a pay-for-performance plan. Those measures drew heated opposition from critics around the state, including the Idaho Education Association, which is backing efforts to gather signatures to have the laws put on the ballot and overturned by popular vote. Opponents of the plan are also attempting to recall Luna, a Republican who was re-elected last fall and who was a strong backer of the laws.

Without identifying the exact topic of the alleged political activity in schools, Luna said in his memo that his department has heard complaints about school district e-mail systems being used to coordinate political activities, and school resources being used to create and print political materials. He said there have also been reports of "political proselytizing" to students, including "urging 18-year old students to vote a particular way in an election." Additionally, he cited reports of students being used to ferry political materials, and of schools being used to "further political agendas in conjunction with any school activity or event, including after-school events."

The Idaho teachers' union blasted the memo, accusing Luna in a statement of trying to pressure educators into backing down in their opposition to the laws.

The union instructed its members not to collect referenda signatures on school time and not to use students to promote the effort, while defending their right to "free speech and assembly in the public right of way during non-school hours."

The teachers' organization also issued its own guidance with its views on the propriety of gathering signatures on school grounds. It says that school employees can collect signatures during off-duty non-instructional time in areas of school district property set aside for faculty use, such as break rooms and lounges, and at after-school events where the district has given access to other groups not affiliated with the school.

"Luna is trying to shut down a process in which he has a clear political interest," said Sherri Wood, the president of the union. "This is a blatant attempt to intimidate educators and the majority of the public who oppose the new education laws and want to vote on them," Wood said.

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An improving economy has brought a surge of tax revenue into the state coffers in cash-strapped California, which could mean that K-12 schools stand a better chance of avoiding deep budget cuts.

Gov. Jerry Brown released a revised budget proposal this week for his state, which includes more optimistic revenue projections. (Others states, such as Michigan and New Jersey, also have seen their cash flow increase recently.) California, which has a total budget of about $85 billion, is expected to have $6.6 billion more to work with than anticipated.

The Democratic governor has been locked in a standoff with state Republicans over how to close the state's budget shortfall, which earlier this year was estimated at $26 billion.

Both sides agreed to cuts that would have shaved about $11 billion from that total, leaving $15 billion. The governor has proposed allowing Californians to vote on a series of tax increases and extensions to close the remaining gap—essentially, allowing them to decide whether they wanted to pay more in taxes or see the state make other, deeper cuts, which would fall heavily on K-12, given its share of the budget.

Brown, working with the new revenue projections, says they would allow him to channel an addition $3 billion to the state's schools, which have seen their per-pupil funding fall from 2007-2008 through today.

The new projections would leave the state with an estimated $10-billion budget gap, he says. Brown says tax measures should still go before voters, to erase what he calls the state's "structural deficit and wall of debt." (Though he's modifying his tax plan in a way that would cost taxpayers $2 billion less.) He argues that doing so is necessary to create a lasting solution to the state's perpetual budget imbalances.

Brown's spending plan "reflects the governor's belief that a budget full of gimmicks or one embracing 'all cuts' is damaging to California," his budget document states. "The preferred—and responsible—alternative is to invest in California's future by reducing state government, protecting education and public safety through tax extensions, paying down the state's debt, and adopting powerful economic incentives."

So while more money is good news, it's also likely to complicate the debates in many states about how deep the cuts should go, in K-12 in other areas.

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John King, a former teacher and charter school leader, has been named New York state's next commissioner of education.

King is young—just 36. But he's juggled a lot of important duties to this point in his job as deputy commisioner for P-12 Education at the New York State Education Department. He coordinated the state's winning, $700 million Race to the Top application, and he has played a major role in areas that include aligning the state's standards, teacher development, and creating strategies to turn around failing schools, according to the department.

The new commissioner, who was voted into the position by New York state's Board of Regents, is a Brooklyn native who attended New York City schools. His parents were educators. King, who will be the first African-American and Puerto Rican to hold the commissioner's job, is replacing David Steiner, who announced last month that he was returning to his former post as dean of the Hunter College School of Education, in New York.

King has made productive use of his 36 years, to say the least. He has a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard, a master's in teaching from Teachers College at Columbia University, a law degree from Yale, and a doctorate in educational administrative practice from Teachers College.

Before serving as senior deputy commissioner, he served as a managing director with Uncommon Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization that operates schools in New York and New Jersey. He was also a co-founder of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School, in Massachusetts. King taught high school history in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in Boston.

King might have won some slack from budget hawks with a decision he's made coming out of the gate. He will start his job on June 15 with a salary of $212,500, after requesting that his pay be reduced from the current $250,000. He did so "in recognition of the challenging fiscal environment facing" facing the state and the agency he will run, according to his hiring statement.

He's one of many former charter school officials to have moved into a key role in state education departments in recent years. Earlier this month, Chris Barbic, the founder and former chief executive officer of YES Prep Public Schools, a charter school network in Houston, was named as superintendent of Tennessee's Achievement School District.

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States and school districts around the country are coping with what are probably the worst budget conditions they've faced in decades, a predicament that is pushing them toward what has always been a politically unpopular policy option: raising class sizes.

Research has generally shown that keeping class sizes low has a positive effect on students' academic achievement at early grades, and among disadvantaged students. The effects at higher grades tend to be less impressive. As state legislatures and school boards play the class-size game, a new paper from the Brookings Institution tries to lay out what research says about class-size reductions—and perhaps just as important, what research hasn't told us yet.

One of the challenges for elected officials and educators is that there is no research in the United States that directly compares class-size reductions to alternative investments, note the authors, Grover J. Whitehurst and Matthew M. Chingos. That means, for example, that comparing the benefits of $20 billion worth of spending on keeping class sizes small, versus $20 billion in spending on paying teachers more, involves a lot more guesswork than science.

But given current budget pressures, the authors say, if states want to keep class sizes low, they should consider doing it where research shows it's most likely to make an impact—with disadvantaged students in early grades.

As is often the case in policymaking, elected officials today are making huge decisions about class size with imperfect information. How huge? By the authors' rough calculation, a one-student increase in the pupil-to-teacher ratio would save U.S. schools $12 billion per year—and would decrease the teaching workforce by 7 percent.

The success of changes of that magnitude are likely to depend on how they're implemented. It stands to reason, the authors say, if large numbers of teachers are laid off without regard to their effectiveness (such as through so-called "last-in-first-out" policies), then it could have a negative impact on student achievement.

Whitehurst, the former director of the federal Institute of Education Sciences, and co-author Chingos, also caution against cherry-picking class-size data, and taking research out of context. For instance, the authors note that according to a number of well-designed studies, student achievement actually increased when class sizes rose in the United States prior to World War II. But the relevance of that research is limited, they say, because way that schools are organized, the nature of the teaching profession, and other factors have changed so much since then.

Keep a close eye on how states and school districts choose to raise class size—for specific grade levels, or for specific populations of students—as they finish crafting budgets for next year.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Diane Ravitch is a former assistant U.S. secretary of education and one of the country's leading historians of education. Deborah Gist is the education commissioner in Rhode Island and a nationally watched leader for her aggressive efforts to improve schools in her state.

But a meeting this month between the two became the source of unusual controversy, after Ravitch wrote a online item accusing Gist of cutting her off repeatedly during the discussion—an account that the Rhode Island official disputed.

As of late Friday, both sides indicated they wanted to move on. Gist had sent a conciliatory letter to Ravitch, who received it favorably.

The original disagreement arose from a meeting that Ravitch and Gist had with Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee at the state Capitol in Providence. Ravitch, who co-authors the Bridging Differences blog for Education Week, was in Rhode Island to speak at a teachers' college, on a trip sponsored by the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers. She says she was under the impression that the May 3 meeting with Chafee was going to be a private one, but later learned that it would be attended by Gist.

Ravitch had a brief, private meeting with Chafee, and then sat in on a longer meeting that included the governor, the schools chief, a top aide to the governor, leaders of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, and a videographer who a state department of education official said is making a film on school issues Rhode Island.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the changes in school policy being debated in Rhode Island and nationwide, the meeting touched on some contentious topics, including how teachers should be evaluated and the proper uses of testing. Little attention was paid to the discussion after that, until a week later, when Ravitch posted an item on her blog accusing Gist of cutting her off repeatedly and attempting to take over the discussion.

"Gist is clearly a very smart, articulate woman," Ravitch wrote on May 10. "But she dominated the conversation, interrupted me whenever I spoke, and filibustered to use up the limited time. Whenever I raised an issue, she would interrupt to say, 'That isn't happening here.' ... In many years of meeting with public officials, I have never encountered such rudeness and incivility. I am waiting for an apology."

Gist remembers things differently. In an interview with me Friday afternoon, she described the session, which lasted 50 minutes, as a "productive meeting and a good conversation."

Ravitch has emerged as a prominent critic of what she sees as an overemphasis on high-stakes testing, and misconceived plans for paying and evaluating teachers based on student test scores. In an email, Ravitch said that during the meeting, she talked about the potential misuse of value-added testing measures and similar strategies. Gist said that in a few of those instances, she sought to point out that many of policies Ravitch was concerned about are not being used in Rhode Island.

"I certainly didn't feel like I'd been disrespected, and I didn't feel that I'd disrespected her," Gist told me. "I feel like it's unfortunate that any of us are spending time on it, because we all have more important things to work on."

One prominent meeting attendee, Gov. Chafee, agreed with Gist's account.

"We enjoyed a lively discussion about many aspects of education reform," the governor said in a May 11 statement. "From my perspective, Commissioner Gist comported herself in an appropriate and respectful way at all times during this discussion."

Gist, in fact, said she left the meeting on a sufficiently positive note to ask Ravitch to autograph a copy of her recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

Stephen R. Hourahan, the senior adviser to Chafee who also took part in the session, said the governor's office asked Gist to attend the meeting. Hourahan said the discussion was cordial.

"She's the commissioner of education," Hourahan said of Gist. "When we have a meeting on education, we want her to be there."

By late Friday, the controversy appeared to have cooled significantly. Gist had written a conciliatory letter to Ravitch. Gist's spokesman, Elliot Krieger, said the letter was not meant as an apology but rather as an effort to get past any ill feelings.

"I enjoyed our lively discussion, and I am saddened that you left our state with the sense that you were disrespected during our meeting," Gist wrote in the letter, which Ravitch provided to me. "I would never want that to happen. ... I welcome the opportunity for a dialogue with you at any time, and I hope that we can speak again sometime soon about how to transform public education and improve the lives of our students in Rhode Island and around the nation."

Ravitch, in an email, told me she considered the letter "gracious" in its tone and message.

"I look forward to meeting her again and having time to talk at length," Ravitch said. "I believe we will have an excellent conversation."

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Three top-tier students, at three different high schools, from three different parts of the country—with three very different experiences as they fight to pursue their academic dreams.

This Sunday at 8 p.m. eastern time, CNN will broadcast the documentary, "Don't Fail Me: Education in America." Reported and narrated by Soledad O'Brien, it follows three high schoolers—in Arizona, Tennessee, and New Jersey—as they take part in preparations for for the FIRST Robotics Competition, a nationwide student contest of applied math and science skill.

The students' experiences in the competition, which draws teams from all over the country, is only one part of the CNN's overall story, which delves into their lives at school, and at home.

All three students are among the elite in their schools, but that's where their similarities end.

One of the students, who attends a top-tier school in an affluent community, gets all of the advanced high school coursework he can handle (and he can handle a lot). The academic standards in his school are high, and he aims to meet them, most likely on his way to gettting admitted to one of the nation's best colleges.

Another of the high schoolers excels in his classes, and he aced his ACT test, earning him recruiting letters from colleges he hadn't even thought about. But it's a struggle for him to find courses that challenge him, and parents in his sports-crazed Tennessee community don't seem to be demanding that those kinds of demanding classes get added to the school's curriculum.

The third student, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, attends an inner-city school in Phoenix, Ariz., and she faces the toughest challenges of them all. She dreams of attending Stanford University, but she isn't sure that she will be able to take the high school classes necessary to get in. Her family has worked hard to provide for her, though they aren't always certain how to encourage her to reach new academic heights.

It's compelling stuff.

Elected officials and educators talk constantly about closing the woeful "achievement gap" in this country. Most of the time they're talking about the vast disparities in academic performance between whites and minorites, rich and poor. The need to close the gap seems more urgent than ever, given the competition the United States faces from foreign nations, which have cheap labor and an increasingsly skilled workforce.

"Don't Fail Me" comes at the issue from a distinct angle, by focusing on how students who could very well be our future innovators and leaders aren't being given the same opportunities to nurture their talents—with potentially grave implications for our country.

[UPDATE: (May 13): I took part in a panel discussion for an early screening of the show, led by O'Brien, which brought together diverse set of contributors with expertise in math, science, and engaging students. If you're a teacher, student, or policymaker, maybe you'll arrange your own discussion after watching the film.]

So tune in this weekend. Here's a preview from "Don't Fail Me":

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Tim Pawlenty has turned to a familiar source for advice as he makes his bid for the Republican presidential nomination: longtime Florida political and education insider Phil Handy.

Handy served as chairman of the state's board of education under former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—who has ruled out a 2012 White House bid—and thus had a role in shaping that state's ambitious and influential policies on school choice, charters, and testing and grading schools.

He brings high-level campaign experience to Pawlenty's team. Handy served as a top adviser on school issues during Sen. John McCain's unsuccessful 2008 bid for the White House.

Handy, who has owned and operated many businesses, is now the CEO of Strategic Industries, a portfolio of companies focused on services and manufacturing. He also served on the National Board of Education Sciences, after being appointed by President George W. Bush.

I recently interviewed Handy to get his thoughts for an EdWeek story about the 2012 presidential campaign, the possibility that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels might run, and how the two major parties might frame the issue of private school vouchers in that race.

Handy is a supporter of vouchers. While he thinks the economy, not education, will be the top issue in the campaign, he also said the issues are interrelated.

"Businesses will not come to your state unless your schools are working," he said.

Since leaving the Florida state board of education, Handy has remained involved in education issues. He serves on the board of one of Jeb Bush's two education-focused foundations, the Foundation for Florida's Future. He's also been invited and agreed to serve on the board of the second organization, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which works with policymakers in states around the country, a spokeswoman for the group said.

Other Republican contenders for the White House will no doubt be choosing their own counsel on education issues in the months ahead—if they haven't already.

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Paul Pastorek has made it official, announcing that that he is stepping down as Louisiana's superintendent of education to take a job with a major aerospace and defense corporation.

The schools chief, who had served in the post since 2007, has won praise in his state and around the country for setting new and more demanding academic expectations for schools in the traditionally low-performing state. Under his leadership, the state also played a major role in rebuilding schools in New Orleans as the city attempted to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

But Pastorek, 57, also drew criticism from teachers' unions, local school board officials, and lawmakers during his tenure, who said the school leader was often unwilling to hear their concerns about sweeping changes in education policy.

Pastorek, who previously worked as a lawyer in private practice, said that he will become chief counsel and corporate secretary for EADS North America.

Also see my previous post on Pastorek.

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Paul Pastorek is reportedly set to resign as Louisiana's state superintendent of education, concluding a tenure marked by aggressive policy changes and occasional controversy.

Pastorek, who formerly worked as a lawyer in private practice, has served as schools chief since 2007, when he was appointed to the post by the state board of education.

The Associated Press cites a number of state sources as saying Pastorek is on his way out the door.

Pastorek had previously served on the state board from 1996 to 2004. After stepping down from the panel in 2004, he launched Next Horizon, a nonprofit that sought to rally Louisiana leaders in education, government, business, and community, behind efforts to improve schools. He later was tapped by President George W. Bush to serve as general counsel to NASA, and left the space agency two and half years later to return to the legal profession.

As state superintendent, Pastorek won praise in many circles for bring changes to the state's schools and pushing for higher academic expectations.

He also shepherded the state-led efforts to rebuild the New Orleans schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city in 2005. Charter schools have played a major role in the new education landscape in the city.

But he also frustrated some education organizations, including teachers, local school board officials, and state lawmakers, who complained of being left out of the state's decision-making process.

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Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has been the focus of considerable hubbub in recent weeks because of his state's approval of a sweeping, and controversial education agenda—and, oh yes, because all that business about him flirting with a presidential bid.

But lost in the clamor about Daniels' backing of new laws on school vouchers, charter schools, and collective bargaining was his support for a measure to make major changes to school board elections around his state.

The Republican governor signed into law a measure, House Bill 1074, that will require that elections for those boards be held in the fall, rather than the spring.

The Indiana governor says spring elections lead to anemic voter turnout, and make it easier for interest groups to sway an election and stack a school board with candidates it likes. Daniels touted the new law in under-the-radar remarks at an otherwise high-profile speech that he gave last week at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington.

"Spring is when we have primaries," the governor said, and "nobody votes. ... It's a lot easier to dominate...the outcome and elect a school board, a friendly school board, in the sparsely attended primary elections."

With the change,"we'll have more of the public at least eligible, or at least on hand, to take part in these elections," he added. "We'll see if it makes a difference."

Daniels did not name the interest groups he was most concerned about. But teachers' unions have been highly critical of his agenda, particularly on vouchers and reducing teachers' collective bargaining powers. Scott Jenkins, the education policy director for Daniels, told me that the new law is not targeting any one group, but that it's instead meant to bring more public involvement and scrutiny to school board elections.

Consolidation of elections will also save taxpayers money, the governor's office argues.

"[S]pring elections are notorious for very low turnout," Jenkins said in an email. "General elections are much more representative of the community as a whole and not a particular group."

Mark Shoup, a spokesman for the Indiana State Teachers Association, said his organization stayed neutral on the legislation this time around—partly because it was fighting battles on so many other fronts—though it had opposed similiar measures in the past. He said the union did not believe the governor and lawmakers were targeting the ISTA through the measure.

We'll see if other states see Indiana's school boards bill as something worth replicating.

Photo courtesy of AJ Mast/Associated Press.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

By guest blogger Mary Ann Zehr

At a meeting of school choice advocates yesterday in the nation's capital, three leading financial backers of public and private school choice programs laid out their case for why those efforts are critical to creating more competition in American education.

"The idea of having a monopoly in education is antithetical to everything in America," said Julian Robertson, the chairman and founder of Tiger Management LLC. He said parental choice in education provides competition, adding that "competition is part of the American dream, the American way of life."

And the school choice movement seems to be on a roll these days as Republicans who are newly elected to office are successfully pushing through state legislation to expand school voucher programs, as Sean Cavanagh has reported. But a vocal contingent of Americans also strongly oppose school choice, as a heckler at yesterday's meeting reminded everyone as she called out "you've got to go" before security officers removed her from the room.

The moderator for the panel, John Kirtley, a partner for KLH Capital, said Robertson has invested "countless millions in K-12 reform," including financing of charter schools in Newark, N.J., and the school voucher program in Washington, D.C., which the U.S. Congress just put back into operation. He also said that Robertson has donated money to the American Federation for Children, an organization with 501 (c) 4 status that helps to pay for the campaigns of state-level political candidates who favor school choice and was the sponsor of the "policy summit" on school choice. The organization's web site says it is "a leading national advocacy organization promoting school choice, with a specific focus on advocating for school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs."

Robertson said he gave money to the American Federation for Children because he once spent a day talking with politicians on Capitol Hill and didn't feel he was effective. He said he recognizes that lobbyists have an important role in that they "know who is receptive and who isn't."

By contrast, Albert Ratner, the co-chairman of the board of Forest City Enterprises, Inc., and another panelist, said he hasn't given any money to the American Federation for Children. The real estate investor was introduced as a funder of Roman Catholic schools in Cleveland, Ohio, (though he is not Catholic) and a financier of charter schools in both Cleveland and Denver.

When the moderator asked the panelists why many people who are willing to pay for charter schools aren't willing to give funds to organizations that promote school choice through the political process, Ratner responded that the American Federation for Children's message is too narrow and needs to be broadened. For example, he said, advocates of school choice are misguided if they portray "all charter schools as if they are great and all public schools as if they are not." Both the charter school sector and traditional school sector have schools that are great and not great, he observed.

He said one way to improve American education is to take some of the practices of charter schools and apply them to traditional public schools—an idea long sought by some education advocates.

Robertson held up the KIPP charter school network as a school model that has been "incredibly successful," but he added that "you also have a tremendous number of sorry charter schools."

The third funder of school choice on the panel, Bill Oberndorf, the founding partner of SPO Partners & Co., was credited by the moderator as having financed school choice with "tens of millions" of dollars and having provided "great strategic guidance" to the American Federation for Children. Oberndorf said that charter schools and voucher programs inject "competition into the equation."

Oberndorf and others celebrated the recent success of school choice advocates in state politics. Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, for example, just signed into law legislation that will greatly expand private school choice in his state—and takes the unusual step of offering private school aid to middle-income families. Oberndorf characterized that legislation as "the gold standard for what can be done."

But Robert W. Behning, an Indiana state representative who sponsored that legislation and is a Republican, expressed concern during a Q-and-A session that no Democrats had voted for the legislation. He wondered what can be done "to make sure that when the political winds change, we don't have all of that swept away."

Kirtley assured him that the American Federation for Children will stand ready to defend political candidates who are pro-school choice and help keep them in office.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Amid a nationwide debate over public workers' retirement benefits, a new study concludes that teachers' pensions in California, the country's most populous state, are not out of line with those in the private sector.

The report, issued by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, finds that teachers' pensions are only modestly larger than those offered by a sample of non-public companies.

Other public employees in California, the authors say, have it better: Many of them receive benefits that are "considerably larger"—often two or three times larger—than those offered in the private sector. The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), the main system for the state's teachers, has 852,000 members and beneficiaries—and an unfunded liability of $56 billion.

The same contrast can be seen in public employees' retirement health benefits. The health benefits for many full-time state workers is large and generous, the report says, but for workers in school districts, the value tends to be "less dramatic."

The report was completed by Capitol Matrix Consulting for the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a nonprofit group that describes its role as shedding light on public workers' benefit systems and "developing fiscally responsible solutions that are fair to employees, employers and taxpayers." The group has come under criticism from some organizations which have accused it of overstating the state's pension burdens.

Across the country, governors and lawmakers have taken aim at public workers' pensions, arguing that they are too generous and that taxpayers can no longer afford them. They're also the subject of focus in financially strapped California, where Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican lawmakers are debating how much cutting of pensions—as opposed to general funding for K-12 and other programs—is necessary.

Why are California teachers' retirement benefits less generous than those of other public workers?

The authors cite several factors. Teachers' pension formulas have comparatively steep payment reduction for educators who retire early. Their health care is often determined by districts, which tend to offer less generous benefits than the state does. And teachers have been required, at least in recent years, to make larger pension contributions than other workers. The authors also note that enrollees in the California teachers' retirement system neither participate in, nor receive benefits from Social Security.

Overall, California is facing sharp increases in costs across retirement systems in the years ahead, partly because of rising health costs and pension shortfalls, the authors say.

"[A]bsent signficant changes to benefit accruals, public employer obligations for retirement benefits will rise sharply over the next decade," the study concludes, "further squeezing governmental budgets that are already facing enormous pressures."

Do you agree with the report's conclusions, or is the analysis off-base?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The nation's capital is not the only site of a high-stakes budget standoff. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown is struggling to rustle up support for his plan to close the state's massive budget shortfall—at one point estimated to be $26 billion.

It's a battle with potentially big implications for the state's 6 million public school students.

The first part of Brown's plan, as I explained in a story this week, was to impose a series of deep cuts across state government, while sparing K-12. And that's what he did, with legislative backing, through a series of moves that will save a projected $11 billion.

But to come up with the next $15 billion, Brown proposed putting a series of tax increases and extensions on the statewide ballot. Essentially, the governor said he wants Californians to decide if they are willing to pay more taxes—or if they want him to continue cutting state government. And because K-12 takes up such a big chunk of state governments, school budgets would be subject to big cuts.

GOP lawmakers, however, have thus far been unwilling to support placing taxes on the ballot. Brown says he's now considering asking voters to gather signatures to do it on their own. California's schools, which have already absorbed cuts over the past few years, aren't sure what to expect. So stay tuned.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Adam Schaeffer, an analyst at the Cato Institute who has questioned the financial implications of Indiana's landmark new voucher law, has followed up with a second essay that argues that the measure could undermine private schools' academic and institutional freedom.

In a piece published by the Huffington Post, Schaeffer says the plan will detract from private schools' curricular diversity and effectively "homogenize" them by requiring that they follow many of the testing, reporting, and academic requirements of public schools.

Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, a potential 2012 presidential contender, signed the voucher bill, as well as a measure to expand charter school access, into law today. As I recently reported, Indiana's sweeping voucher law is one of a bevy of school choice proposals pushed by GOP officials in states around the country this year.

"Indiana is at the forefront of a growing national movement that will ensure our students receive the quality instruction they deserve," said Indiana state schools chief Tony Bennett, a backer of both measures. "By boldly asserting every child's right to attend a great school, the Hoosier state has taken a powerful stand in favor of equal educational opportunities for all children."

Indiana's voucher measure has been widely hailed by school-choice advocates as one of the most expansive private-school voucher efforts in the country. In contrast to the vast majority of school voucher programs, which channel taxpayers funds to targeted populations such as economically disadvantaged students and those with special needs, the Indiana law's eligibility requirements are relatively loose, allowing families that could be considered middle class public money for private school tuition.

Cato is a libertarian think tank that looks favorably on school choice, and Schaeffer makes it clear that he supports expanded private and public school choice, too. But he notes that participating private schools would be required to take part in state tests and the state's A-F school grading system, and follow some basic state academic standards for what can and cannot be taught—some of it related to the study of government and the U.S. Constitution. In his essay, Schaeffer says the Indiana voucher law amounts to "a tactical victory for highly constrained choice won at the price of a broad strategic defeat for educational freedom."

The new law, he says:

"[E]stablishes extensive and detailed new curriculum and pedagogical requirements for participating private schools, including some requirements that are not currently a part of state accreditation. For instance, private schools must 'provide good citizenship instruction that stresses the nature and importance of,' among other items, 'respecting authority,' 'respecting the property of others,' respecting the student's parents and home,' 'respecting the student's self,' and 'respecting the rights of others to have their own views and religious beliefs.' What does this mean for religious private schools teaching that one can only be saved by belief in Jesus Christ? Would a school wherein a teacher discusses the recent federal healthcare legislation violate the provision mandating respect for authority should she criticize the law, or perhaps violate a respect for property if she speaks favorably of the individual insurance mandate in that law?"

In addition, by dangling taxpayer money in front of non-public schools, Schaeffer argues that the plan will put pressure on financially strapped private schools that might have qualms about the measure's requirements to participate.

Will Indiana's measure result in private schools being compelled to follow more of a public school-oriented academic model, as Schaeffer suggests? Or are the state's requirements a fair price to ask of those schools, in exchange for access to public funding?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In the mid-1990s, Michigan lawmakers and voters approved a dramatic overhaul of their school finance system, which increased the flow of money to poor districts and transferred authority over many education funding decisions from local school systems to the state.

Now, a newly published study has found that Michigan's funding system significantly increased the academic performance of students in impoverished districts on a number of measures, but may have had a negative impact on their peers in wealthier school systems.

In addition, the sweeping policy, which reduced districts' reliance on local property taxes, was successful in reducing inequalities between rich and poor districts in Michigan, the study concludes.

Published in the spring issue of the journal Education Finance and Policy, the study has potentially important implications for school policy, writes author Joydeep Roy. It shows that state policymakers, if they so choose, are capable of creating school-finance systems that redistribute state money and create a fairer balance between wealthier and poorer districts.

But the study also suggests that similar funding schemes have the potential to bring unintended academic consequences, the author says—as demonstrated by the apparent, negative impact on students in wealthier districts.

A number of school-finance experts have said that states that are overly reliant on funding education through property taxes create inequitable systems, because impoverished, tax-poor districts struggle to raise revenue, while affluent districts have an easier go of it.

Michigan's school-funding program, crafted by state lawmakers and approved by voters in 1994, took a very different approach. The policy, known as Proposal A, reduced Michigan districts' reliance on property taxes and replaced that money with increases in state sales taxes—a step that boosted the state's share of K-12 spending. The measure had the effect of greatly reducing school districts' authority over school spending, and giving it to the state, explains Roy, a senior economist at the Independent Budget Office of New York City, and an adjunct assistant professor of public policy at New York University.

In her study, Roy examines the Michigan policy's impact on school spending in wealthy and poor districts, and looks at data from state tests and students' participation and performance on the ACT, a college admissions test.

Her study finds that students in the lowest-spending districts she examined improved significantly on state tests—though they not make any significant gains in either ACT scores or participation. Meanwhile, there is "suggestive evidence" that the constraints created by Proposal A had a negative impact on students in the highest-spending districts.

Proposal A is still the law of the land in Michigan today. Martin Ackley, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education, said the policy essentially "took much of the burden off local districts from having to go to their local voters to raise revenues for schools."

Ackley said Michigan students have made overall progress on state tests, though not to the extent state officials have hoped. Overall progress on the ACT has been encouraging, he said.

In responding to the study, Ackley said in an e-mail that the state's goal is to close the gaps between students of various academic-performance and income levels by having all of those groups improve—not for any one group to make progress, while another stagnates.

"We strive for every student in every district achieving at high levels to be career- and college-ready," he said.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The National Education Association has thrown its financial support behind an effort to overturn a series of new Idaho laws that weaken teachers' collective bargaining rights and job protections.

And the union's giving won't stop there.

The 3.2-million member union is likely to provide financial backing to a similar efforts in other states, including Ohio, the NEA's political director, Karen White, told me this week. In Idaho, the union contributed $75,000 to an attempt to gather enough signatures to have items placed on the ballot to overturn three laws recently approved by lawmakers. Those laws, which were backed by the state's Republican governor, C.L. "Butch" Otter and state schools chief Tom Luna, were strongly opposed by NEA's state affiliate. The laws put restrictions on collective bargaining and tenure and created a new merit pay system, among other provisions.

The money is coming from NEA's ballot measure and legislative crisis fund, White told me, a pool of money dedicated to get money out quickly to efforts the union supports in the states. As we've reported, the overwhelming majority of political contributions made by the NEA and American Federation of Teachers typically flow into state elections, where a lot of school policy gets shaped, and to state ballot items, where voters are often asked to decide on tax hikes or caps that affect schools.

"There's a tight deadline for getting signatures" White said of the Idaho measures. "We want to do everything we can do to try to give the people of Idaho a chance to vote on this."

Both NEA and AFT declined to provide estimates of how much they plan to spend on upcoming state ballot efforts.

Luna, for his part, is holding a series of meetings with school officials around Idaho to explain the laws. While it is typical for the department to arrange such meetings on budget issues, this year, given the broad changes brought about by the laws, the department asked districts to bring a team that included the superintendent, a school board member, a teacher, a building administrator and a business manager, said Melissa McGrath, a spokeswoman for the education agency.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich recently signed into a law a measure that angered unions by restricting their ability to collectively bargain. The NEA's state affiliate and other organizations are gathering signatures to try to have the measure overturned on the ballot. The NEA has not yet channeled money from its ballot-and-legislative fund to that effort, but that's likely to change soon, White said.

Across the country, teachers' unions have made a major push to fight back against the tide of laws and proposals targeting their collective bargaining rights and fundraising capabilities, as my colleague Steve Sawchuk has reported. The money flow is just one sign of their determination.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

An Idaho teachers' union has launched a statewide petition drive to try to overturn a package of controversial new education laws approved by the state's Republican governor and lawmakers this year.

That effort is just the latest in a series of legal and political challenges to laws pushed through statehouses that place restrictions on collective bargaining and other teacher job protections. Two of those new laws—in Wisconsin and Ohio—drew major public protests from public workers, including teachers, and they now face challenges in the courtroom, and potentially on the ballot.

The Idaho effort, like those in Wisconsin and Ohio, will no doubt lead some political observers to question the wisdom of leaders moving so quickly to pursue such dramatic overhauls of teachers' bargaining rights—as well as changes to tenure, seniority, pay and evaluation. The governors and legislatures had the votes they needed, and one way or another, they managed to get their measures into law. So from a legislative standpoint, they won. But at what cost?

Before those laws can take effect, it appears they'll have to overcome a succession of legal and political hurdles. And if they do take effect, they'll be implemented in school districts where many teachers, and even some administrators, are skeptical of them and worry that the new measures will sow division in schools, and in the community.

Of course, the counter argument is that opponents of those laws would never have agreed to the kinds of changes sought by governors like Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Ohio's John Kasich, and Idaho's C.L. Otter. Walker and Kasich, for instance, have said that in signing into law those measures, they were making the kinds of changes that voters demanded, and that those changes will bring educational and financial benefits to schools—regardless of whether they're political popular right now.

These competing tensions make the ongoing effort in Illinois—where lawmakers and teachers' unions have touted their ability to work cooperatively in coming up with a proposal to make changes to tenure, seniority and bargaining—all the more intriguing. If the Illiniois measure makes it into law&mdash (it's still moving through the legislature) will the apparent consensus behind it give it more staying power?

This past weekend, the Idaho Education Association announced to teachers that about 45 different events across the state were being held where they could sign petitions to have an item placed on the ballot to overturn the three new laws—Senate bills 1108, 1110, and 1184.

The Idaho Statesman has reported that the union has received a $75,000 contribution from its parent organization, the National Education Association, to support the petition drive. The Idaho Education Association had already challenged the constitutionality of the new laws, as we reported last week.

And so I'll now ask for your forecast.

Three years from now, or five years from now, will new laws in Ohio, Wisconsin, Idaho, and other states have significantly changed the bargaining rights of teachers, and the rules for how they're paid and evaluated? Or will they have been undone by a court ruling, a ballot item, or recall election before they get off the ground?

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