Free Charters Are Not Free

The Heritage Charter Academy of Cape Coral, Florida plugs itself as a "free public charter school," but that turns out to be not entirely true.

As reported earlier this week, the charter schools of Cape Coral are in deep financial trouble. The charters run by Oasis Charter Schools can't afford their lease. So they are facing some serious deficit spending issues, as described by a city official:

“If everything stays the way it is today right now … their fund balance would actually be depleted by 2024,” Assistant City Manager Connie Barron said.

Cape Coral is a city in southwest Florida of around 200,000 people, which is impressive given it was launched as a real estate development in 1957. The city actual incorporated in 1970. Now it's the eighth largest city in Florida, built not so much on swampland as around a network of canals.

The charters come under the City of Cape Coral Charter School Authority and fall within the Lee County School District, which earned its spot in history back after Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregation was illegal, Lee County handled that new reality by simply ignoring it. This led to some civic strife and a set of court orders, some of which are still in place. Charter School providers include infamous charter chain Charter Schools USA (which is pretty busy in Lee County). 

Bottom line: Cape Coral can't afford its current charter school set-up, and in fact is already making some iffy choices to keep the charters afloat:

“We only receive $1.5 million,” [Oasis Superintendent Jacqueline] Collins explained. “Our lease is $3.2 million every year, so to pay that that, we had to take from our [Florida Education Finance Program] funding, which really is designated for students and instruction.”

So they're already short-changing students in order to meet lease costs. That FEFP pulls money out of two piles--sales tax money and a state-mandated cut of local real estate taxes-- and gives it to charter schools because the money that "follows the student" isn't enough. 

The report initially says that the city has only two choices--let the charters fail, or bail them out-- but then a few paragraphs later, there's this:

Cape Coral City Council is on record wanting to help the city’s four charter schools by allocating $2 million a year starting in fiscal year 2022 and reducing the lease to $1.5 million a year. But nothing has been approved yet.

Which Collins characterizes as "them helping us with this lease payment." So there's plenty about this remarkably under-reported story that is not entirely clear (what do they lease, and from whom). What is abundantly clear is that the taxpayers of Cape Coral and Lee County are paying more to have duplicate school systems.

That's totally fine. I've always argued that I would have far fewer objections to charter schools if we were just honest about the cost, but oddly enough, as yet no politician has stood up to say, "We want a select few students to have the benefit of a private school, and we think that's so important that we are going to raise your taxes to do it." The city government of Cape Coral might be getting close to doing just that, and if so, God bless them. In the meanwhile, let's just stop pretending that we can add multiple extra schools to a system at no extra cost.

I've Got A New Blogging Job

For many years, Diane Ravitch has taken on the task of maintaining a sort of town square for folks who care about the health and future of public education. Most of us who are part of this blogosphere owe her a heap of thanks for helping us find our audiences and for amplifying our voices. 

But right now, Diane is scaling back (so, only 50 posts a week instead of 600) by concentrating on her own original content. The new blog will be a sort of spin-off, a place to keep making available a cross-section of the many, many, many voices lifted in concern about and support for public education. It's fitting that the Network for Public Education do the hosting and managing of the keep-the-lights-on portion of the work; I will be taking on the task of curating the content. 

The goal is to provide a steady, daily sampling of the best of what's out there in the blogging world (which I loosely define to include substacks and op-eds). The pieces will appear here either in their entirety or with a brief excerpt and a link to the full piece. Which format will be up to the original creator. For me, it's a chance to extend the work I've done with the weekly ICYMI collection. 

I have some things to learn about the tech side of wordpress sites, and advice is always welcome. When I first started this blog years ago, I thought it would be cool to use white lettering on a black background--thank God some readers disabused me of that notion. 

If you have content you want to submit for use here, the email address to use is

npeblog@outlook.com

I can't promise that I'll get to each and every thing sent to me, but I expect to be deeply indebted to people who try to keep me supplied with material. 

The link to share is 

https://networkforpubliceducation.org/best-posts/

This morning Diane called me "estimable and tireless." I'll do my best to live up to that. 

In the meantime, life will continue as usual here at the Mother Ship, though my productivity here may take a dip or two while I'm working out a new rhythm for my own work. As I used to tell my students, "It'll be an adventure."

Donors Choose Monday: Out of the Ordinary

One of the harder things about retirement has been sitting on the bench while friends, old colleagues, and family are in there doing the work. I deal with that partly by making contributions where and how I can, and that includes poking through Donors Choose for classrooms to help.

Yes, so much of what is there is stuff that the school districts ought to be taking care of themselves, but I'm going to help a little bit anyway, because I can. And every so often on Monday, I've been sharing with you what I'm contributing to so that you can A) also chip in, B) search Donors Choose for something that speaks to you or C) reach out locally to see what help you can offer there.

This week we're a little out of the box.

Mrs. Brandt at Lawnton Elementary in Harrisburg is looking to get a new audiometer. Many of their students have no regular health care provider, and depend on the school for basic screenings (because there is anything that does not eventually become the school's problem). LES has many low-income students, and an audiometer that is over thirty years old and "at the end of its functional life." So that's something we can help with (and it requires a whole lot of help).

Curwensville PA is high poverty and rural, and those are the schools where the arts are a helpful lifeline, even as they don't necessarily get a big slice of the budget pie. Mrs. Lemmo has art students who are already working with Cricut Maker (you crafty types know what I mean) and are trying to branch out into t-shirt making, which is yet another one of those cool DIY take-it-for-granted things that some students only ever encounter if their school has the tools. So we can help Mrs. Lemmo get the tool she needs.

Kick off the new month by lending some teacher, somewhere, a hand. 

FL: College Is For Meat Widgets, Not That Learnin' Stuff

Oh, Florida.

GOP State Senator Dennis Baxley wants only some students to have Bright Futures. Under his bill SB 86, the scholarship program would be targeted only for those students who are pursuing majors that lead "directly to employment."

Baxley offers a folksy justification for this, saying his own sociology degree was very nice and all, but wouldn't buy him a cup of coffee, and not until he got that associate degree that he was able to make a buck opening his funeral parlor. As God is my witness, I am not making this up.

This "refocus" comes with an endorsement from Senate President Wilton Simpson, who points out that "All too often the debate surrounding higher education focuses on the cost to the student, in terms of tuition and fees, but never the cost to the taxpayer or the actual value to the student." 

More from Baxley:

We want all of our students to succeed in meaningful careers that provide for their families and serve our communities. As taxpayers we should all be concerned about subsidizing degrees that just lead to debt, instead of the jobs our students want and need. We encourage all students to pursue their passions, but when it comes to taxpayer subsidized education, there needs to be a link to our economy, and that is the goal of this legislation,

Yeah, pursuing your passion is swell and all, but the taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill unless you're going to be a useful meat widget. 

In other words, pursuing your passion is just for rich folks.

There are really two awful parts to this awful idea. Not just the "education is only to make you a useful meat widget" part, but the part where some government board is going to decide each year which majors are going to lead to employment and which are not. There are several things wrong with this. One is that it assumes that the Board of Governors and State Board of Education would actually have that information (via, one supposes, a crystal ball in Tallahassee). 

But the other is that this makes education planning for students a hugely uncertain crap shoot. Are you a high school junior who wants to pick her major and is hoping for a state scholarship? Well, you'd better just wait for the annual Florida Acceptable Majors report to come out. And I am wondering what exactly happens if, after steering a truckload of entering freshmen into a Widgetry major, the Boards decide two years later that the Widgetry major field is now clogged and therefor the major no longer leads "directly to employment."

You can bet that Florida high school students are talking about this:

“I felt personally attacked because my degree would most-likely not fall under that,” said [high school senior Jocelyn] Meyer.

Meyer said she wants to major in geography or international studies. Then continue on to graduate school.

“Potentially work for the Peace Corps. That would get me the experience to work for a non-governmental health organization like the World Health Organization or Centers for Disease Control,” said Meyer.

Meyer is afraid the track she planned for college won’t be paid for, even though she worked hard to meet all the criteria for a full-ride Bright Futures Scholarship. Funding she is depending on to get through college.

Florida's GOP apparently wants to cut back on spending, though the Bright Futures program is funded by the Florida lottery.

It's a strange choice for (at least) two reasons. I know we no longer pretend that the GOP actually believes in small government, but it's still odd to see the party of small government now deciding to tell students what they have to major in if they want to go to college. And the notion that they don't want taxpayers to have to spend a bunch of money sending students off to study at some private school if they hadn't set up an entire K-12 system to require taxpayers to spend a bunch of money to send students off to study at some private school. 

ICYMI: Unsurprised But Disappointed Edition (2/28)

 Well, it didn't take long for Biden to return to his corporate ed reform roots. Not a surprise, but even when hope is a very tiny thing with very small feathers, it's a bummer when a big cat chomps it up. Time to move on. Here's some reading from the week.

America prefers teachers who offer themselves as tribute. And that needs to stop.

Myriam Gurba at lulzcollective with a hardhitting piece looking at that damned hero teacher myth.

"When I'm gone..."

Accountabaloney looks at the issues of missing students, and the dominoes that are going to fall because of them.

Learn To Earn

At Have You Heard, Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire talk to Cristina Groeger about a topic that is often on my mind--why the whole "educate the poors and they will become not-poors" doesn't, and can't, work

Teachers Unions aren't the obstacle to reopening schools  

At the New Yorker, Sarah Jones takes a more balanced look at what thee real problems are (hint: years of infrastructure neglect aren't helpful)

US Ed Department Promotes Putting Student Records on Blockchain

Cointelegraph caught this grant from the department of creepy developments.

We Don't Need Standardized Testing in a Pandemic

I wrote about this Jersey Jazzman piece this week, and if you still haven't read it, here I am telling you again to go read it.

The Most Important "Skill" In A Post-Covid World

Joshua Hatala blogs about schools, the pandemic, and the new post-modern demand that students "figure it out" as they contemplate life and the world.

Education Development Center and Urban Collaborative

Thomas Ultican takes another deep dive into another group of education disruptors.

A History of Technological Hype

At the Kappan, Victoria Cain and Adam Laats take a look at the long, sad history of technological baloney. A good swift overview.

Standardized Testing during the Pandemic is Corporate Welfare Not Student Equity

Steven Singer lays it out.

Teachers, Testing and Why We Might Just Chill

Nancy Flanagan on why we could maybe just take a breath about the whole testing thing. 

Why Aren't There More Black Teachers?

Rann Miller at The Progressive addresses what should be one of our major concerns in education these days.

Philly-based group launches $3.12 million initiative to develop Black teachers

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, a look at a group that has a plan  for expanding the Black teaching force. Their allies aren't necessarily friends of public education, but this is work that needs to be done.

My Complete, Unedited Review of Doug Harris's Book, Charter School City

It's been a long journey, but here te indispensable Mercedes Schneider finally publishes her full review of Harris's book about New Orleans and its charter conversion. In the process, she provides some useful on-the-ground insights into the gutting of public education in NOLA

Who's assessing the assessment?

At the Kappan, a detailed look at just how very bad edTPA really is, and how Pearson fights back, again, against any criticism.

Instead of surveillance, try an ethic of care

John Warner at Inside Higher Ed looks at student surveillance and sees a better way, including radical notions like "an easy way to judge whether or not something violates an ethic of care for students is whether or not I would agree to be subjected to the same requirement as a condition of doing my work."

Schools face a substitute teacher crisis

NBC news picked up this piece from Hechinger Report which is somehow mystified that terrible pay and conditions have exacerbated the long-stewing sub crisis. A little infuriating, but still worth the read.

England's catch-up tutors ae being short-changed by private employers

Somebody's making a bunch of money from the covid make-up tutoring business in England, but it's not the teachers who are doing the actual work.

New Morehouse College Program Encourages Black men to complete unfinished degrees

From NPR, a good idea being developed.

Representative Jamaal Bowman educating an uninformed mom on BLM won late night

It has been pretty damn cool to see teacher Bowman make his mark in DC, and this week he also appeared on Stephen Colbert's show, winning the attention of the folks at Vulture. 

Big Standardized Test Test

Supporters of testing, testocrats, and all other folks insisting that the Biden administration made the right call because the 2021 (including all these reformy groups that sent a thank you note)-- can we take a moment to assess your own test-related ideas?

For the "Parents Need To Know How Their Kids Are Doing" folks: 

Create a short video in which you display a real individual student result printout and describe, in detail, the information that a parent can glean from it. Offer specific advice--exactly what should the student be tutored in. And by specific, I don't mean "Pat needs to strengthen reading comprehension of non-fiction writing." Which particular reading strategies is Pat weak in? Which sorts of specific questions does Pat tend to flub? 

Be sure to factor in how Pat has spent the months since the test was taken. And be certain to highlight all of the specific information that Pat's adults could not have acquired by calling Pat's teacher.

For the "Locating Schools That Had Trouble During the Pandemic So We Can Target Resources" crowd:

Present any and all of the bills that have been crafted to distribute additional school support and resources based on test results. Be sure to include the formula that is going to be used, as well as the specific dollar amounts that will be distributed and the methods that will be proposed for funding, Note: no version of "public-private partnerships will be explored to fund and administer this initiative" will be considered an acceptable answer.

For the "We Have To Know How Far Students Are Behind" crowd:

Outline the testing benchmarks that you believe students should be reaching at this point in their education. Provide the research and evidence that establishes the validity of these benchmarks, showing how the selected test scores predict better life outcomes for the students who reach those scores on schedule (and the worse life outcomes for the students who don't). 

Additionally, provide an evidence-based program for how learning can be accelerated in order to get students to achieve those benchmarks.

For the "Teachers Need This Information To Better Address Student Needs" crowd:

You would think that test results given to teachers might, for instance, show how students performed on each of the common core college and career ready state standards being tested, but in many states you'd be wrong. Explain how ELA teachers can strengthen their teaching based on results that report scores only for fiction reading, non-fiction reading, and open ended questions. Describe also how history, phys ed, music, science, art, and theater teachers can use test results to better meet student needs. 

I look forward to your answers to any or all of these questions. 

Mark Weber's Three Critical Testing Questions

This is not the first time I've piggy-backed on a post from Mark "Jersey Jazzman" Weber, but sometimes what he posts just sets a bright blazing lightbulb off in my head. Weber is a certified PhD-carrying academic of data crunching, and he is an absolute master of rendering complicated ideas comprehensible to civilians, and that's what he's done with his post  about why "We Don't Need Standardized Testing In A Pandemic."  

I encourage you very much to go read the whole post. But sometimes saying, "This! This! This!" isn't enough for me. So. What I'm going to center on is his three-question response to anyone who says that students must take a standardized test.

1) What are you going to do with the results?

This question is hugely powerful and by far the least answered. Here's Weber:

A core concept of assessment is that tests must be shown to be valid for the purposes in which they will be used. In other words: you should make a separate argument for every proposed use of a test. A test that may be valid to use for, say, determining whether there are enough overall resources in the education system isn't necessarily valid for the purpose of determining whether a student should pass to the next grade.

Psyshometricians often speak of making a validity argument in favor of the use of a test for a particular purpose. That argument should touch upon the relevancy of the outcomes to a specific use, the consequences of making decisions based on these outcomes, the opportunity to learn the content in the test, and other factors.

This is just so key. As Weber notes, one of the huge problems with the current Big Standardized Test system is that one test is supposed to serve a variety of purposes. Evaluate schools, evaluate teachers, assess curriculum, inform parents, plus serve as a go-to measure of whether Reform Program X is "effective" or not. Plus, now, figuring out how far "behind" students are. And most of the time nobody has made a validity argument for any of it.

The answer to the question also needs to be specific. The announcement that the administration won't waive the test leans on that old standard promise that test results will be used to "target resources and supports to the students with the greatest needs." That's great.

How? 

How do you plan to use the test results to do that targeting? Where is the bill or program proposal that shows how test scores will be linked to the targeting of resources?

Of course there is no such proposal. There never has been. What states have actually done is things like using low scores to target schools for charterization. 

When your doctor wants to perform a biopsy, there's a reason, and it's not "Just thought IK'd chop you open, dig around, see if I can figure out anything about your diet or your blood pressure or maybe check for cancer, and then we'll do, I don't know, something." Your doctor has a specific intent both for the operation and for hat's going to be done with the results.

When we get to specifics of these tests, we are forced to see how useless they are. Are they to help teachers find out how "behind" students are? How will that work-- months from now, when the teachers see the basic test scores (but not the questions that were answered)? What will this one test tell teachers (particularly those who don't teach math or reading) that they can't --and haven't-- already figure out on their own in their own classroom?

And on what planet will we find the parent (because the Biden administration throws them in the test-justification mix, too) saying this-- "I had no idea how my child was doing in school, but now that I can see some very general results on a test she took a few months ago, it's all clear to me." 

If you can't tell me exactly what you want to do with the results of a test, you have no business giving the test. 

2) What is the cost of administering the test?

Testing is, of course, a billion-dollar industry, supported with tax dollars. But as Weber points out, there are other costs. We've had the long-term costs of narrowing the curriculum, and the cost of telling children of poor families that they are academic failures.

But there is also opportunity costs. Time spent t=on test prep and test taking is time not spent on education. I guarantee you that among the first reactions among teachers to the Biden Testing Is On announcement, right after some fiery obscenity, was the thought, "Well, what I'm going to have to cut out now."

For most of my career, my year to year aspiration was to see what else I could add to my class. By becoming more efficient, more focused, and better at understanding where my students were, I could claim some space in the 180 days and fill it with something else. But towards the end, as my school became more "data driven," the question flipped, and year to year I found myself asking, "Now that I'm losing more time to testing, what can I stand to cut." 

This year, time is more valuable and rare than ever. That makes the cost of testing astronomical.

3) Is the cost of testing worth it?

Again, directly from Weber:

What, exactly, will statewide standardized test outcomes tell us that we didn't already know, or that we couldn't find out some other way? That students didn't gain as much learning as they would have without the pandemic? We already know this; and again, it's not like the tests will give educators data they couldn't get other ways that are much faster and more detailed.

Will we learn that students who are economically disadvantaged need more resources to equalize their educational opportunity? We already knew that before the pandemic. And does anyone really think that otherwise reluctant politicians will be persuaded to dole out more funds when they see this year's test scores? Really?

And on top of that, will there be any magical means of determining which part of the score is the result of student knowledge and which will be the result of students taking tests during a chaotic year under lousy circumstances under family stress? There is always reason to doubt that the tests measure what they purport to measure; this year that doubt can be multiplied a hundredfold.

It will be worth it to some folks. Test manufacturers will get their payday. And I'm betting that once test results are out, folks who like to declare that public schools are disastrous failures will have a field day pushing the critical corporate reforms that must be implemented to Save Students. The Big Standardized Test has always been a tool for those who want to break public education down and sell off the parts; these test results should be a disaster capitalist holiday, a national-scale Hurricane Katrina.

Weber's three questions are a useful response to testing in any year, yielding results that can be debated by reasonable people. But this year it's pretty clear that the cost will be high and the results will be mostly worthless. Remember these three questions for the years ahead, but this year, the Biden administration should reverse its bad decision.