SB 271 is a sneaky, last minute revision--of an already bad policy--literally written by Parents for Choice in Education with only one purpose: label schools as "failing" as an excuse for vouchers

The many topics this post touches on are all worthy of lengthy pieces that I don't have time for.  However, the links are excellent and the cut-and-pasting will be informative.

 1.  An overview of SB 271 and how it was purposefully held back until the end of the session in order to avoid most public scrutiny, especially the House Education Committee.  (A familiar tactic used with HB 477)

2.  The whole philosophy underlying the law--that lazy or bad teachers and administrators are the unique cause of public school problems, and that pressuring them through simplistic public "accountability" measures will make them work harder--is flawed.  Teachers are the most important school based factor in education, but school based factors are only 20% of the factors behind "student achievement."  The explicit message of laws like this is that the 60% of achievement explained by student and family background characteristics are only "excuses," and the low grades of poorer schools just show that those teachers and administrators are poor.

3.  The origins of school grading spring from Jeb Bush in Florida.  He then used his "non-profit organization" and ALEC to spread the practice as far as possible.  This has been touted as a great success by reform advocates.  To the surprise of no one, emails have been unearthed further demonstrating that Jeb Bush has been manipulating laws to funnel education money to connected companies (See Stephenson, Howard: Utah), including the absolute dependence on expensive standardized tests for school, teacher, and student data.  The proposals all have different details, but the school grades have not been successful in improving education in other states, including the original, Florida-- 1 and 2. See also Indiana...and note that the flawed grades there were leading to 22% D and F ratings of schools.  (Florida rated fewer than 10% of their schools as D or F.)  The PCE proposal in SB 271 would rate over 50% of Utah schools as D or F.  Does anyone not trying to make money off of miracle schools or software believe that?

4.  The statistical basis of comparison in both the current and proposed versions of school grading (see lines 52-56 & 89-112 of SB 271) is the Student Growth Percentile or SGP.  This has become a common measure to rate schools and teachers, but the creator of the measurement has declared that it is a measurement of student achievement not meant to make any determination of cause...such as what factors of the school or teacher caused that growth.  Here's the technical explanation of why that is (the context is rating teachers based on SGP's, and every problem exists equally at a school level ranking which is really an amalgation of teacher rankings according to SGP) as well as the source of that quote about the measurement.  And another by the same author, Rutgers professor and statistician, Bruce Baker.  Here's an illustrated version by another excellent education blogger.  The New Jersey evaluation in question has some differing details, but the core critique here is the same: that the compared sets of students matched by score independent of context actually condemn many excellent teachers working with difficult students and likely obscure some poorer teachers working with more advantaged students.

5.  It will be statistically impossible to compare scores for two years because of our new curriculum and testing, yet both plans will ram numbers into a formula and do it anyway.  Almost all schools have transitioned into teaching the new English and math cores this year, despite the fact we will still take the old CRT end-of-year tests this year.  That could be bad in English, but it is ridiculously bad for math.  The students have been sorted into Math 7, Math 8, and Math 9 classes independent of math skill, and they study parts of pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry each year.  Secondary math teachers have been working like first-year teachers again trying to keep up.  However, there are no tests to match what they are learning, so they will be given tests from the old classes.  An 8th grade class may have to take an algebra test, even though they may have only devoted 30% of their time to that subject. 

Comparing the scores of these tests to last year when the students were actually in those classes and taught that content to this year when they will NOT be able to study all of the same things is "educational malpractice" to quote Senator Stephenson.

Students will take the new computer-adaptive tests based on the new core in the spring of 2014.  These scores from a completely different test, with different questions and types of questions, and based on a different core will be compared to this year's tests based on the old core, but taken by students being taught the new core.

The comparisons and thus school grades will be invalid and actually misleading, but "educational malpractice" is only bad if it prevents legislative pet projects, not enables them.

6.  The "old formula" actually has never been used--it has been in the planning and working-out-kinks phase for two years--with frequent communication between the Utah State Office of Education and Senator Niederhauser.  The school grading was delayed last year specifically so the formula (as crappy as I think it is) could be further refined, as specifically stated by Senator Niederhauser.

7.  Parents for Choice in Education and Senator Adams are lying.   They claim that SB 271 is somehow a natural extension of the original school grades as understood and implemented over the last two years.  I hope Senator Niederhauser isn't fudging the truth too, but he may be.  I am very suspicious of his original intentions in passing the bill in 2011. 

Testimony at the March 8 meeting of the State School Board, along with Senator Niederhauser's quote above, explained that the formula had been worked on collaboratively for two years.

It seems to me that Senator Adams admitted that his bill is a new concept when he said, "This bill actually sets criteria that is more reflective of what school grading should be."

In two Urgent Action email action blasts sent two hours apart yesterday afternoon, PCE claimed very different facts about both the intentions of Niederhauser and the legislature and how the school grades about to take effect are "vague" and do not provide "accurate accountability."

Senator Adams, on behalf of President Niederhauser, is sponsoring SB271 - School Grading Amendments - making final technical changes to solidify the positive work the legislature has done to provide parents and citizens with clear accountability and transparency for the performance of all public schools.

 

The opposition is working hard to strip the standards of measurement out of the existing law, leaving it vague and creating a moving target on what signifies student growth from year to year. This would not provide accurate accountability for how our students are actually performing. 

President Niederhauser and Senator Adams believe that every child is capable of making a years worth of growth in a years worth of time. The original School Grading law and SB271 both recognize this and reward schools for both the number of students who are proficient as well as those who achieve a full year's growth! We cannot allow this principle to be undermined. The opposition favors a system that equally distributes how many schools get each letter grade, establishing a false measure of accountability that predetermines winners and losers rather than setting a standard whereby all schools can strive to achieve success!

.. 

We need School Grading to move forward as the legislature intended. The Senate has already passed SB271. We need the House of Representatives to approve this amendment! 

 

Please take a few minutes to contact your Representative right now! Tell them you support SB271 and ask them to fully support Senator Adams and President Niederhauser in bringing clear accountability and transparency to our public schools through School Grading.

They are blatantly lying that the punitive changes and last minute unveiling of SB 271 are just "technical changes" to move school grading forward "as the legislature intended."  But they may be telling the truth that they convinced Adams and Neiderhauser to run the bill this way in order for Niederhauser to avoid being the bad guy.  Niederhauser spoke in favor of the bill and said it just needed "tweaks" if the House was concerned.  He didn't mention working with any educators and their concerns.  I think the State Board of Education may have just been speaking diplomatically when they said they felt supported by Senator Niederhauser last week.

8.  The newly proposed formula in SB 271, intentionally held until the last 10 days of the session to avoid public comment and rush the bill through hurried votes, sets up a system with bars so high that almost all Utah schools will rank as "D" or "F schools."  (It also sets up two separate grading systems because of legal requirements and makes Utah the only state of those adopting school grades to put the exact measurements into law, making them extremely difficult to revise, even during the once-a-year legislative session. ) This negative labeling is intentional in PCE's bill because of their intense antagonism toward the public schools that educate the vast majority of Utah children.

9.  In the interim education committee meetings in 2011 after the original school grading bill passed, Senator Stephenson went public with his desire to identify and punish "F schools" by privatizing them, whether the measurements were accurate or not.  Senator Niederhauser certainly knew Senator Stephenson's intentions and that school grading had been used for this purpose in New York.  (They support schools with low grades in Florida with millions of dollars of assistance, while they just close down "bad schools" in New York and cross their fingers.  Guess which model Utah's law follows.)

10.  The intentionally impossible-to-reach standards for a school grade of "A,"  based completely on test scores set by SB 271, are meant to strengthen the propaganda that Utah schools are failing, and then give cover for school closings and transfers to private parties.  Senator Niederhauser voted for SB 271 as it now stands yesterday.  If he starts out his Senate Presidency with this underhanded betrayal of the collaborative work of two years with educators, he will confirm his true opposition to public ed in Utah and support of privatization and vouchers. 

Urquhart's SB 279: Help me identify what company stands to benefit from $5,000,000 more taken from general education funds

My last three posts all deal with custom-made RFP's (Referrals to Friends of stePhenson) where legislators write the requirements of a public bid process so that only one company may win.  They even let the companies themselves help write the bill, especially if that company has made campaign donations.  If we're mad about Swallow, why aren't we furious about this??

Here's a new bill I just saw over the weekend via a legislator's update. The legislator spoke of SB 279 as if it were a done deal and going to pass.  This despite the fact the bill was kept secret until last week (the way we can't follow "boxcar bills" and just have to constantly check to see if they become active is a blow to transparency and maybe something I'll have to go into in a post-session complaint.) and rushed through a non-education Senate Committee with Stephenson on it.  It allocates $5,000,000 to an interactive math program with very specific requirements. 

There are 3 big problems I see:

1.  This seems written for a specific company AGAIN.  Why is Urquhart joining the likes of Stephenson, Stevenson, and Adams in this unethical practice?  Can anyone help me figure out what company this is intended for?  Does Imagine Learning have a new math program being unveiled?

2.  We are going to guarantee $5,000,000 to a company, but schools cannot "require" students to use this program, only provide it?

3a.  We are then going to measure "learning gains" from a weird subset of students using it in totally different ways and amounts and report that as accountability?  It is flat-out impossible to get good data from that.  I think Sen. Urquhart would know that.  Did the vendor write this bill too?

3b.This (non-)accountability report will likely be written by the vendor themselves if recent trends continue.  This seems to me like doubling down on a destructive practice. First, we give vendors custom written bills because they have curried the favor of only one or two legislators.   The vendor then self-reports learning gains, and the legislature uses that report to justify more money.  It worked for Imagine Learning.  I've been to various vendor sales pitches, and every one proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that their product would drastically raise student achievement.  I've never heard any claims of "mediocre learning gains" or "so-so achievement."  These practices are unethical even if the program ends up being great for the students.  That's very fortunate for the students, and may even be true of Imagine Learning, but it does not justify cronyism, political favors, pay-to-play, or not reporting useful data.

Here'e the language cut and pasted from the bill.


http://le.utah.gov/~2013/htmdoc/sbillhtm/SB0279.htm

Custom RFP.  What company already knows this is coming?

 (3) In selecting a program, the board shall consider the following criteria:
             44          (a) the program contains a strong instructional component focused on problem solving,
             45      number sense, and basic skills;
             46          (b) the program provides explicit instruction with a strong focus on highly effective
             47      and evidence-based strategies and comprehensive resources to address learners in need of both
             48      strategic and intensive supports, including English language learners;
             49          (c) the program is self-adapting to respond to the needs and progress of the learner,
             50      including allowing for increasingly intense instruction and additional practice opportunities
             51      based on individual student needs;
             52          (d) the program provides opportunities for frequent, quick, and informal assessments
             53      and includes an embedded progress monitoring tool and mechanisms for regular feedback to
             54      students and teachers; and
             55          (e) the program is self-paced.

 Can't require??

 (4) The board shall make the program available to school districts and charter schools
             57      that apply for the program based on the number of students in kindergarten through grade 6.
             58          (5) A school district or charter school may:

---

             59          (a) provide the program to a student by scheduling additional instructional hours or
             60      other means; and
             61          (b) may not require a student to participate in the program.

But will report learning gains??  How?  Compared to what? 

62          (6) On or before November 1, 2013, and on or before November 1 each year thereafter,
             63      the board shall report final testing data regarding a program provided under this section,
             64      including student learning gains as a result of the program, to:
             65          (a) the Education Interim Committee; and
             66          (b) the governor.

Connect the dots: Stephenson & Adams want to give away public ed. money to connected companies…and enable a national database of Utah students to be mined for profit??

                                      (UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST 3-9-13)
I’ve got a lot to say about custom RFP’s (Referrals to Friends of stePhenson) this session and in the past (Imagine Learning, iSchool, Waterford, etc.), but I’ll have to limit my focus tonight. Senator Stuart Adams had become PCE’s admitted newest waterboy over the last couple of sessions, and I’m fairly certain they coordinate and spread around which of their legislator friends will carry certain bills.

1. Senator Howard Stephenson wants to make sure all legal obstacles to accessing and publishing teacher data—student scores grouped by teacher—are removed with his SB 133. He claims the public will benefit from teachers being ranked and compared by standardized test scores. All questions of population and demographics, and the inevitable screwing over of special ed., ELL, and other poor students, are waved off: “There will be plenty of context.” (The simple fiscal note also took a month to be returned, resulting in this bill being slightly hurried in the second half of the session.)

As a separate caveat that will be important further down, remember that all of this supposed “teacher data” is more accurately a bunch of individual student test scores. The scores of actual Utah students attached to records containing names, grades, and social security numbers.

(The whole concept is wrong because of important technical and practical considerations, as well as questionably moral. Here is a one link to the posts on VAM (Value-Added Measurement) by an educational statistician at Rutgers, with a large focus on New York where this has already happened and been demonstrated inaccurate and harmful to teachers AND thus students. )

2. Senator Jerry Stevenson is now running SB 82, Student Achievement Backpack.  This bill’s original non-public drafting was requested by Howard Stephenson, and the numbered bill was listed under his name until a few days ago. Somehow the bill got switched to another senator; I suspect this was in order to diffuse the concentration of educational software bills being promoted by Stephenson. (This bill was not revealed to the public until late February and then was held in committee for two more weeks, ensuring that it will not have to go through the House Education Committee and face more testimony from the public. It will instead be rushed right to the House Floor Calendar if it passes the Senate. The public may not comment on the floor, unless they have the legislators’ personal cell numbers to text like the lobbyists do.)

I believe every school district in Utah has an online portal where parents can access their student’s records, seeing their current grades and past test performance. I could be wrong about some rural district, but I doubt it. All parents have to do is log in. In keeping with local control and budget priorities, the contracts for providing these online services are handled by the individual districts. When students switch schools, the records with grades and test scores are sent on with the student, with a slight delay while the new school requests the record from the old one.

So the bill really is pointless. Half a million dollars this year and $110K a year to duplicate what already exists, but centralized and controlled by the state. However Stephenson was vehement in his support for the concept and criticism of the educators who were explaining this to the Senate Education committee. All of the concerns about duplication and wasting scarce education fund money were only “excuses for not wanting parents to receive this information.”  It’s all about the children you selfish teachers! (Notice that the sponsor has chosen not to make the fiscal note public. Does it contain any concerns that the claimed costs are too low?) PCE’s spokesperson perpetuated the misconception that having access to your student’s records was some new innovation.

3. Stephenson certainly has a specific company, who may or may not be one of the Utah Taxpayers Association’s secret clients, in mind to design and administer this database. He has demonstrated in the past that he has no qualms about tailoring RFP’s (Requests For Proposals) in order to ensure that a favored contractor wins the government contract.

4. There’s a larger playing field of educational philosophy these bills are being positioned on. Both bills are based on and tacitly strengthen the assumption that teachers are the only variable that matters in education, and that their interests are opposed to students. There are many horrible teachers lazing around, and if we only pressure them more by centralizing this newly available data on teachers and students, we’ll quickly and innovatively find magic silver bullets to educate poor students that are cheap AND effective! (One of those assumptions is actually true, and leads to substantial profits for those involved…)

Both also lay the ground for a largely privatized system of “backpack” funding, the euphemistic term for vouchers, where students are constantly switching schools or “voting with their feet” in a competitive arena of variously priced schools. Of course, continually jumping back and forth between schools and losing most neighborhood schools, except those still educating the very poorest and most disabled students, won’t harm the students academically or socially.

4. Having all Utah students’ data in one expensive, redundant database at the state would I guess allow for slightly easier transfers in such a scenario. Charters often struggle a little bit more sending information in a timely fashion as they don’t always have the same staff and experience with the paperwork as the districts, but it still seems a bit weird to be pushing this so hard.

5. So now look at Senator Adam’s other seemingly unconnected bill which was the most out-of-the-blue bolt of technological wonder in a session full of software that will save education, SB 257, Personalized Education Evaluation Technology.  (This bill wasn’t revealed to the public until the last day of February. It too will skip public comment in the House Education Committee.)

Wow. What a concept! We’ll push the total dismantling of district economies of scale and teacher contracts with SB 110, mandating a huge increase in principals’ budgeting and HR responsibilities, but then pilot a way to have a computer program replace their evaluations of teachers. Maybe it makes a strange kind of sense. If you plan on making the principal do what a staff of accountants and HR people previously handled at the district level, he or she will not have time for the unimportant work of observing and mentoring teachers. It’s a great way to spend $70,000 this year before expanding the program next year and claiming that this isn’t taking away local control. “21st Century local control” means you get to turn the computer on yourself.

I don’t for a second believe Senator Adams (or even Senator Stephenson) came up with this chestnut alone. Who in the world is pushing this solution searching desperately for a problem?

6. While my head was spinning from the ridiculousness of this newest way to claim technology can replace teachers and principals (ridiculousness that passed the Senate Education Committee on a 5-1 vote earlier today), I saw a bunch of tweets from some national education people I follow about the Gates Foundation’s national student database. I continue to be very “meh” on the Common Core, but have largely dismissed the conspiracy theorists claiming the national takeover. It was hard for me to swallow their hypocritical denunciations of the Gates Foundation funding and backing, when they accepted their money and theories, as well as other out-of-state millions from Walmart channeled through Parents for Choice in Education, when they backed their pet proposals for merit pay or vouchers.

But this new information about what the Gates foundation is doing along with Fox New’s educational software company, Amplify, and others, is something that may unite varied groups in Utah against national student databases. It’s not the government gathering student data into one place to exploit our children; it’s educational software companies...

A few excerpts from a Reuters article from the SXSWedu technology conference going on right now in Texas:

But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.

Entrepreneurs can't wait.

…

The database is a joint project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided most of the funding, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and school officials from several states. Amplify Education, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, built the infrastructure over the past 18 months. When it was ready, the Gates Foundation turned the database over to a newly created nonprofit, inBloom Inc, which will run it.

…

Schools do not need parental consent to share student records with any "school official" who has a "legitimate educational interest," according to the Department of Education. The department defines "school official" to include private companies hired by the school, so long as they use the data only for the purposes spelled out in their contracts. 

The article interviews several software executives who will use this database to “personalize” programs for students as they sell them. Then it interestingly moves on to professional development for teachers.

Companies with access to the database will also be able to identify struggling teachers and pinpoint which concepts their students are failing to master. One startup that could benefit: BloomBoard, which sells schools professional development plans customized to each teacher.

The new database "is a godsend for us," said Jason Lange, the chief executive of BloomBoard. "It allows us to collect more data faster, quicker and cheaper." 

What a fortunate coincidence! Read the “open” RFP for software in SB 257 lines 55-76.  This program must contain “personalized professional development plans” with a “reporting dashboard,” a “free observation tool,” and a “free online library of professional development. ” Now go to Bloomboard’s website and see what three features are offered on the front page:

• Free observation & evaluation tools for districts

• Individualized learning plans & personalized support recommendations for teachers

• An open marketplace of workshops and resources for professional development

Next, scroll down one page to watch the handy video, remembering that lines 64-66 of the bill require the program to tell you the most effective resources according to “data on the implementation of professional development activities.” Another lucky break! This program happens to claim that exact function. (1:13-1:26 in video.)


Very convincing.  Evaluations are hard!

One page below, the sample dashboard with three tabs is even more convincing. The very non-generic evaluation and goals under the “Coach” tab are powerful, and the “Connect” tab shows an “online library of professional development” complete with articles and videos of classroom games, all apparently categorized on Levels 1 to 4. You just plug in a teacher’s test scores and a video, and this program, based on a proprietary collection of data that is 100% trustworthy, will give us personalized weblinks to other peoples’ educational training that we never could have googled ourselves. The program will pay for itself because now we can stop paying teachers to meet together for professional development. They will just go home and on their own time read a few links of “online resources” that are “more personalized” than face-to-face training. It’s brilliant!

7. And the key to making this marvelous miracle of 21st Century education work…a database with all of the students’ scores, identified by teacher and class, gathered to one central location.

This would normally seem an insurmountable obstacle in a state devoted to protecting its children.  However, in *another* fortunate coincidence, SB 133 allows the necessary data to be made available, and SB 82 unnecessarily gathers it into one central database. SB 257’s coincidental match with Bloomboard’s specifications will then not be in vain, and BOTH school choice AND school profits will be enabled. And all for the children.

Life is just full of surprises.

UPDATE:  Well, I found some smoking guns of a sort.  There is no more need to only infer what is happening from the non-coincidental program links.  I have quotes from those organizing the massive database, inBloom or Ed-Fi. The dots have been connected.  They make a cute picture of a dollar sign: $ :which is now hanging on Bill Gates' refrigerator. 

Why do we allow Howard Stephenson to drive Utah's education agenda? 2012 Edition - "Intent Language" to circumvent public process

I asked the question a few months before the 2011 legislative session, and I ask it now again halfway through the 2012 session. Before I discuss Stephenson's claims about the Feb. 15 Public Education Appropriations Committee that spent 2 hours on a 10-minute agenda item titled "Other Business," I want to review his actions over only the last few years. He has been in office since 1992 -- imagine what else he has pulled in those 15 years before I was paying attention. (If we're getting rid of Hatch and Bennett, why not this deadwood in 2014??)

Much of what I wrote in 2010 still applies:
"Howard Stephenson thinks public education is socialism (Very end of post). He runs public education bills to benefit specific companies, hypocritically overriding local control and increasing the costs of public education when it's one of his pet projects. He constantly misrepresents his bills and abuses the legislative process in order to pass controversial provisions with little or no scrutiny: 2008 (plus an ongoing $190,000 annual expenditure of education funds just to spite an employee of the State Office of Education who ran against Greg Hughes at the county Republican convention. Seriously.), 2009, 2010. He is unabashedly conflicted as a paid corporate lobbyist--he is the only legislator whose entire livelihood depends on the issues he supports and how he votes on those issues. Combining his last two issues--he literally ran a bill in 2010 authorizing conflicts of interest for charter school board members as a sneaky provision in a larger charter school bill.

Senator Stephenson is on all public education interim and Senate committees in the state of Utah and is literally the sponsor of half of the education bills for 2011..."

It's hard to believe the stuff Stephenson gets away with. He brings that US Congress ethic to Utah. Stephenson constant refrain when others question his tactics is to claim they are just sore losers when policy they don't like passes. The links above detail a variety of legislative abuses designed to pass his agenda with little scrutiny, even as he hammers Public Ed. about "transparency."

2008 -- Lumping failed personal bills together with teacher raises and other bills about to pass in an unconstitutional "omnibus" bill modeled after the pork bills we all hate from the national congress, one of which added $190,000 in unnecessary administration costs to route around a specific employee who ran for office.

2008 and 2009 -- Presenting bills in committee as one thing, then making last minute switches harmful to public education and trying to pass them without debate. In addition, the link about specific companies details Stephenson going off about how the State Office of Education is hurting kids because they disagree with him, especially about which specific companies to give large contracts to. (Extra articles)

2009 and 2010 -- Sneaking "minor" provisions into larger funding bills and hoping no one notices. Stephenson was ultimately unsuccesshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifful in forcing districts to further help fund charter schools in the Public Education budget bill in 2009 and 2010, the same dishonest policy he only partially forced through his 2008 omnibus and the same one he is trying to sneak around legislative process with his meeting this year. He did however succeed in specifically authorizing charter school board members to have financial conflicts of interest as part of a larger charter school funding bill, as detailed above. Seriously.

2012 Let's now discuss the Public Education Appropriations Committee last Wednesday. Stephenson, who thinks Public Ed. is socialism and that the USOE and USBE "hurt kids," is of course the Chair of this crucial committee and controls the agenda. This meeting was scheduled from 5:00 to 7:00 as part of their required-by-the-Open-Meeting-Act public agenda. 99.9% of the public has no idea what this committee does, what it was doing that night, or what is the history of practice in this committee. I listened to about 45-50 min of this meeting in 3 different intervals, but I am a nerd. They were basically going through a list of requests, whether from legislators' bills or from the USOE, and prioritizing which of the long list of items should receive the limited amount of funding available. The first list of items is available publicly as a link on that agenda. There was apparently a new list available for those in attendance that differed slightly from the linked one. Tyler Slack posted pictures of the 3 pages on Twitter, @tslack, scroll back to Feb 15.

The last item on the agenda from 6:50 to 7:00 was Other Business. I came home from some other commitments after 8:00 and was shocked to find that the committee meeting was still going in the window I had open on my computer. New lists of "philosophical items" were apparently provided to the committee, but not the public attending. The committee then debated these items for almost 2 more hours. One of them was the very controversial proposal to divert local funds, specifically voted and approved for local districts, to charter schools statewide, which was rammed 25% through in the 2008 omnibus, but defeated in 2009 and 2010 when Stephenson tried to latch them onto the larger education budget bills. This plan was put in as "intent language" for how the money in the budget should be spent. I missed all this and returned to hear the committee discussing what they had done. I heard Aaron Osmond say he was "taken back" and uncomfortable that he hadn't known of these important discussion items before the meeting and thought it wrong that those affected entities (school board, etc.) could not offer input. A couple others said they hadn't known about the items either. Stephenson replied "Yea, we should have probably made the sheet available before the meeting." If the members of the committee didn't know, and I'm betting most didn't though they won't publicly speak against Stephenson, how could the public know? And how could that conceivably not be a violation of the Open Meetings Act?

I would love to know what other philosophical items were debated. The articles about the meeting all only mention the district funds proposal. I think the document should be posted online when the minutes of the meeting are posted online, which apparently will not be for another couple weeks. How about some member of the committee stepping up before then?

I listened to about 20 min of the State School Board meeting the next day during my lunch, and heard them discuss what had happened the night before. They were angry and of the opinion that the unannounced discussion of "major policy items" violated the Open Meetings Act. I specifically heard a man state for the record that he had never seen the Public Education Appropriations Committee debate major policy items at the end under "Other business." They asked State Superintendent, Larry Shumway, to write a letter to the legislature asking them to disregard the intent language as it was not advertised on the public agenda beforehand. Schenker's account from the Trib and the USBE's blog post quoting parts of the letter. I thought this was very well-stated.

Stephenson's replied in the Trib:
“I think Superintendent Shumway is playing to the crowd knowing that the Legislature, when somebody charges ethics, is always at a disadvantage in the court of public opinion and knowing that he is unfairly using this claim even though he knows very well this is the same process that has been used for decades and is currently being used by other committees this session.”

Then to KSL (buried in the middle of this longer article):
Subcommittee co-chairman Sen. Howard Stephenson called Shumway's letter a "cheap shot" at the legislative process. "He realizes that in the court of public opinion, issues tend to stick whether they have merit or not," the Draper Republican said.

Stephenson, R-Draper, said the subcommittee conducted business like it has every other year without complaint. Furthermore, he said it only makes recommendations to the Executive Appropriations Committee, which vets and screens budget priority lists.

"Nothing that was passed will be law," he said. "There must be one or two things they didn't like that elicited the complaining this year."

Senate President Waddoups echoed Stephenson in the Trib article above:
“We wrote that law,” Waddoups said, noting the committee’s actions were nothing more than recommendations. “It’s not like we don’t know it and have legal counsel to advise us on it.”

He called the school board’s request that the recommendations be set aside “totally out of line.”

“I think what they’re doing is making an argument that they are against what the committee did and because they disagree with it and the results of what came out of there, they’re looking to change it without getting the committee itself to do it,” Waddoups said.

So it's just sore losers whining about a "normal" process that the person in the state School Board meeting said he hadn't seen in years of attending and Senator Osmond had not been advised about. I know who I believe. Read the USBE link, and if you're feeling really brave, try and listen to the 3:37 audio recording of the meeting itself. With his track record and documented efforts to subvert the process on this exact issue of diverting local funds, why should we listen to Howard Stephenson?

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SB 151 Stephenson's "anti-voucher" voucher bill. Quick education funding points to consider while listening to committee.

UPDATE: Stephenson canceled the committee meeting this morning because he wanted to work on changes to the bill. He still threw out his claim this bill is not a voucher. See my budget explanation below to see what you think. Also stay tuned for when the bill comes back up for a committee hearing in the next week or so. Will it be scheduled on a Monday morning at 8:00 to make it harder for the public to attend?

SB 151, Student Opportunity Scholarships, by Howard Stephenson, will be debated in the Senate Education Committee today, Tuesday, Feb. 4,at 4:00 pm. Click on the legislature's website, scroll down to the Upcoming Events section, and you should be able to click on the Live Now option at 4:00 to listen live to the committee hearing. (The committees often start a few minutes late--keep refreshing the page if it's not up right at 4:00. If you can't find it, post a cry for help on Twitter with the hashtag #uted, and the State School Board's account, @UTPublicEd will usually reply with a direct link. I expect both the live committee room and the online following will be packed, so I have some worries about something going wrong with the feed, but the front page links have been working for me after a bad first week of the new website.)

This is a new voucher bill "limited" to only some students. A lot of well-off families can get a $5500 school voucher if their kid scored below proficient on even one of four state tests, if their school has gotten an F grade for two years under Utah's new law (I had some info wrong about this provision in some tweets Saturday), or if a young student is behind in reading at all.

Some quick (for me) and important points to think about:

1. All voucher proposals are framed disingenuously by misrepresenting school funding. OK, this point ended up not quick. But it's the most important. I'll be posting further on this. I think many people could benefit from this hopefully easy-to-understand explanation of school funding. Consider forwarding this to others and asking questions about this to your legislators or in committee meetings.

Here is a very long and chewy document detailing the education funding for the state of Utah for last school year and the current school year. I'll refer to some specific pages shortly. The state spends most of our state income tax on K-12 public education. (A very significant portion of income tax funds is also spent on our higher ed. system) The legislature designates a "WPU" or Weighted Pupil Unit amount each year. The districts receive that amount of funding from state income taxes per student, with extra WPU's for special ed. students, administration, extra transportation money for small, rural schools, and some other programs. This is NOT some specific amount of money it takes to educate one child or a "marginal cost" per student coming and going from the school. It is a blunt, fair way to evenly distribute money to the state's districts on a per student basis. These distributed WPU's to each district are called "Above the line" funding and are summarized on page 8 of the document.

On pages 9 and 10 of the document, it summarizes further state income tax funds sent out as "below the line" funding for a variety of purposes such as transportation, ELL students, gifted students, students in custody, library books and equipment, school nurses, dual immersion language programs, classroom supplies, and the Beverly Taylor Sorenson Arts Program. Notice these are not sent out on a per student basis. They are lump sums. That nurse, art instructor, or amount of money for classroom supplies has to stretch to cover however many students show up. (Different programs are divided differently, some to pilot schools, some proportionally. And the legislature changes the total amount of "below the line" funding every year as they debate specific programs.)

Therefore, neither type of funding, "above the line" or "below the line," represents a marginal savings for an individual school. If a student switches to a private school, the state will still send the same amount of "below the line" funding that year to the districts. The state will keep one WPU (designated as $2816 this year) in the general education fund for that student. So the total savings for a student moving out or switching to a private school = Near $0 for a local school or district. One WPU of $2816 for the state education fund from income tax. If that student is a special education student, some complicated formula will save the state some more of that money. The local school wouldn't cut concrete costs much, but would save in faculty and staff time with the various meetings and paperwork. The vast majority of students who were Below Proficient on one test or attend what will be labeled as "F" schools are not special ed. and will only save one WPU.

This is because almost every cost at a school or district is a fixed cost. If one student enrolls or moves out of a school, the only cost difference for that school is some paper. The teachers, computers, library books, copy machines, training sessions, utilities, buses, bond payments, etc. do not change. When a school loses 30-40 students, depending on the district and whether it's an elementary or secondary school, they lose a teacher. 30 * $2,816 = $84,480. 40 * $2816 = $112,640. That more than covers the cost to pay that teacher and there is no net gain to the district from these changes.

Your child's district and school get funded from various other sources as well. Local district funds via property taxes are voted on and approved by the residents of that district in LUMP SUM amounts for school programs, including maintenance and upkeep. No local district funds are collected or spent on a per student basis.The funds serve hundreds of students simultaneously in large fixed costs. Your student does not receive a pro-rated portion of the janitor's time. See Heading II Local Revenue on pg. 11 of the funding document. The state also collects some property tax and distributes it in lump sums in that orange box about leeways. (This fact is also important in understanding the claims that districts are funding "phantom students" and should give up this locally collected money to charter schools with no publicly elected governing bodies.) Federal funds largely pay for lunches at all schools and for lots of extra help in Title I schools.

Therefore, representing a $5,500 voucher as a savings to schools is fundamentally dishonest. The schools and districts basically save nothing, and the state fund saves one WPU of less than $3,000 dollars. Via the tax-credit-converted-to-scholarship-in-order-to-claim-it's-not-a-voucher, the private school actually receives substantially more public money than a public school for enrolling the same student.

1B. Many articles comparing states will lump all of that income tax money together, above the line and below the line, the property tax whether voted on and collected by the state or district, and then divide that total by the number of students in the state. That gives a number of just under $5400 the state spends per student. That raw number is semi-useful for blunt comparisons with other states when comparing funding effort, but it doesn't represent a marginal cost for educating each individual student as I've shown. And it gets worse. Senator Stephenson and his lobbying organization, the Utah Taxpayer's Association, take that larger total and add the small amount of state income tax spent as capital funds to build new facilities, the huge construction bonds voted on by constituents of local districts specifically for building new schools (such as the $200 million dollar bond approved by Alpine District voters recently), and even sometimes count the federal funds specifically earmarked to meals and specific Title I schools, and count that as total funding as well because "it's all taxes." Dividing that larger total by the number of students gives them a per student funding number of $7,000 or $8,000 per student. They then claim this shows that a $5,500 voucher actually saves the state money.

Think about what they're doing. The argument boils down to claiming that if a student in St. George leave public school and takes a $5,500 voucher to attend private school, money is incrementally saved on WPU's statewide, construction of elementary schools in Eagle Mountain, and school lunches in Logan. It willfully misrepresents that number as actual savings to schools. In this case, the state saves one $2,816 WPU from the general education fund that they don't send to Washington School District for that student, while giving out a tax credit of $5,500 from that same fund. Stephenson will use this false representation of total taxes spent on schools today in committee. Listen and understand. Post questions here if you have any, and I will do my best to answer them within a day or two.

I think most members of the public have not researched the annoying intricacies of public education funding and are largely at the mercy of the claims of others about the impacts of vouchers and other funding proposals. So save that 99-page document and study up. I don't understand much of it still and probably flubbed a detail in my explanation, but my main point about the allocation of education funds is verifiably true.

I know Senator Stephenson and other members of the legislature understand very well the reality of how these funds are collected and distributed. I feel they purposely frame their arguments with misleading statistics in order to advance their ideological goals rather than help the public make informed decisions or represent their constituents. These misrepresentations of school districts wasting thousands of dollars per student are a large part of the lack of trust most educators feel toward the legislature as they struggle with 30+ students in their classrooms.

2. The program would allow up to $5,000,000 to be taken each year out of the general education fund via credits for donations to private school scholarship organizations.

3. Senator Stephenson admitted at the Utah Taxpayer's Association's pre-legislative conference (my notes: they're tough to read sometimes. Scroll down to Stephenson's comments about 2/3 of the way down) that most private schools will not accept a student who scores below grade level or is not proficient in English. He claims that the Catholic schools are eager to take these students. I would love to hear someone from that system confirm that sentiment. He also doesn't say how much capacity remains in those schools statewide. I think I'm right in saying there is a waiting list to enroll in both Judge Memorial and Juan Diego high schools. I am not familiar with the amount of Catholic elementary and middle schools in the state. Would a generous estimate be that 200-300 additional voucher students could enroll?

Stephenson says these vouchers would create a market for private schools focused on low-achieving students, so new quality schools would quickly spring up to better serve those students. (At $5500 a pop with no mandated programs, he's right that some schools would take that money.)

4. There will be a very large number of students who qualify for the voucher-- NOT just 2 or 3 difficult students from a class. Off the top of my head, I would estimate at least 100-200 students of the 1200 at my school received at least one state test score below proficient last year. (Schools with more affluent demographics will have fewer students, some Title I schools would have over 50% with at least one score below proficient.) Each of those students who take a voucher represent up to a $2,684 loss to education funding ($5,500 - $2,816 = $2,684.)

5. The school grading bill is brand new and based on those same test scores. Many Title I schools will get F's based on those standards. No fancy program will "solve" the difficulties of educating all struggling students. Senator Stephenson is on the record as wanting to "dismantle" and privatize those schools that the school grading program sets up for F's. This voucher bill would make 100% of the students at those schools eligible for vouchers, thus thousands of potential $2,684 losses. Stephenson is pursuing his stated goal through indirect means.

There's more to say, but it will have to wait.

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Vouchers absolutely are a voting issue... Selective memory and posturing aside

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The relevant summary:

Congressional or legislative incumbents generally tout their experience and “stand by their record,” trying to impress voters with the issues they supported and bills they sponsored. This is common and important. We judge whether the legislator represented us adequately and honestly and decide whether to vote for them or not. The current legislative races are following this pattern except for one thing which many incumbents just want you to forget as a “non-issue”…vouchers.

The polls showed that the public overwhelmingly rejected the concept of private school vouchers before, during, and after the referendum debate. The legislators who sponsored and voted for vouchers knew the public in general disliked the idea and knew who their dependable campaign donors were.

The legislators then strangely formed their own lobbying fund and lobbied the public using slick Utah Taxpayers Association materials, getting reimbursed for their time, mileage, etc. from the funds donated principally by Patrick Byrne.

In fact, due to lack of grassroots support, Patrick Byrne provided almost all of the funding for PCE’s entire pro-voucher campaign.

Many, many voucher supporters of all stripes based their financial arguments on falsehoods.

The public strongly rejected the flawed idea in the referendum vote. Voucher supporters, both within the legislature and from the general public, proceeded to insult 62% of Utah voters who just “didn’t understand” vouchers and were “afraid.”

The point:

But you are supposed to forget all that and just “move forward.” The voucher vote was a year ago and is not relevant to the election today. Punishing legislators would be wrong. Just look at their record…except for vouchers. After years of stagnation, they voted to actually educate the large percentage of new student growth as well as increase school funding during two of the three largest budget surplus years in the history of the state of Utah, so all that other stuff doesn’t matter…especially vouchers. Forget the fact that more moderate legislators would have voted for those same measures AND listened to their constituents by rejecting vouchers. And really, you shouldn’t evaluate many incumbents’ entire anti-public-education attitude continued by the omnibus bill, corporate-handout laptops for preschoolers, $190,000 a year spent on additional bureaucracy just to spite a State Board of Education employee who dared run for public office against Greg Hughes, and successful manipulation of the State School Board election process. Ignore the double standard when candidates rightly disagree with their opponents' records, but expect you to ignore theirs. (That is an affliction common to all politicians of all political parties, but especially prevalent this year in regards to vouchers.) And ignore the extremism dominating much of the public policy discussion in our legislature, such as Senator Stephenson believing public education is "socialism." (The last two paragraphs of the post.)

Speaker of the House Greg Curtis has said vouchers are dead under his watch. Senate President Valentine said he thinks Utah voters would “support vouchers with the right information.” (i.e. bad numbers and propaganda…) Both my House Rep. and my State Senator have told me they would vote for vouchers again if it came up. People in the audience at the Utah County Republican Convention this year agitated for vouchers, and the only organization I remember having a booth in the display room along with the candidates was Parents for Choice in Education. That group continues to pour out-of-state money into legislative races this year to further their agenda. But don’t worry. Just trust your legislator that it will be all right. House Majority Whip, Dave Clark, for example:

"I don't know why folks keep dragging (the issue) up," Clark said. "To waste so much time looking backward when we have so many challenges ahead of us is a poor, poor direction."

Learning from the past is poor judgment. Got it.

Education is a voting issue! It is a cornerstone of our democracy and accounts for over half of the tax money spent in this state. Vouchers are a wealthy subsidy that would erode that funding for public schools. Basing a large part of your voting decisions on the differences between candidates’ positions on education—including vouchers—is prudent morally and financially. Don’t listen to vague name-calling and discussions of “one-issue” voters meant to divert attention from the many dismal legislative records in support of public education.

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Those whiny teachers…Does legitimate criticism depend purely on the eye of the beholder?

I was angry after watching that omnibus bill go through the non-process last week and had (well, still have) more pointed things to say about Speaker Curtis, Senator Stephenson, and others. I decided to let it go for a few days and get other things done. In the last week, I have seen legislators express their frustration with educator criticism and many comments calling teachers “whiny” and “ungrateful.”

After stepping back for a few days, I could see why that perception exists. Teachers got a much-appreciated raise for the second year in a row as well as an increase in WPU. (Sidenote: WPU is the traditional funding mechanism where the state distributes so much per student to each district. It is NOT a measure of how much or little it actually takes to educate each student; the funds are pooled and shared hyper-efficiently in our crowded schools. Distributing money by number of students is just the fairest way the state has come up with to share state funds among districts with vastly different amounts of students and different needs—big/small districts, urban/rural districts, etc.)

Why are they so mad when the legislature gave them substantial raises two years in a row? Why did some educators argue against the raises?

I think the answers have to do with a common assumption about the legislature’s role and the perceived antipathy for teachers and public education from the legislators.

First, the charge of ingratitude relies on the common language I used in the question above—that the legislature “gives” public educators, and other public employees for that matter, their funding. The language bears some resemblance to common practice both nationally and locally, but I don’t think the arrangement should be viewed that way. We are not children, “ungrateful” for the reward doled out by our legislative parents. Public education for all is a morally just innovation of the 20th century, as well as part of the Constitution of the State of Utah. The legislators are constitutionally charged to effectively fund public education. Funding for the basic needs of education should be viewed as a baseline duty for legislators, just above that of showing up for the session.

Legislators are also elected to represent their constituency. This is a moral duty as well as a pragmatic one for those wishing to be re-elected. Polls at the beginning of the last legislative session and for the last few years have consistently shown immense support for increased funding for education, even when the alternative is a tax cut. Wouldn’t further underfunding public education be breaking the public trust?

So I view legislators who increased education funding during the years with the largest (2007) and 3rd largest (2008) budget surpluses ever in the history of the state as doing their duty and enacting the will of the electorate. A solid, admirable job, but not spectacular. That is not the same as fighting for real improvement in education.

The legislature often tacitly defines “gratitude” as unquestioning acceptance of their will, which educators view as insulting and paternalistic. “Look. We “gave” you these raises, so just quit griping about vouchers, top-down merit pay schemes, false accusations, unproven corporate programs, message bills aimed at non-existent educational problems (i.e. flag and Constitution in every classroom), and our removal of local control. You wouldn’t want to make us mad after all we’ve done would you?” That’s not good or “generous” government; that’s ham-handed manipulation.

That line of reasoning frustrates almost all involved with education. And on top of that general condescending attitude, legislators are constantly misrepresenting information and sending negative messages about educators, directly and indirectly. That doesn’t engender trust or gratitude.

Legislators pressured State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to sign off on legislation attacking their right to donate personal funds to the UEA in 2001, which was over-turned in an expensive court battle, just as outside observers and Shurtleff himself originally predicted. [h/t to The Sidetrack for the link to the Trib blog]

They constantly maligned teachers and education officials as being dishonest during and after the voucher debate.

A week before the referendum vote, Rep. Dougall even photo-shopped an image of State School Board Chairman and voucher foe Kim Burningham and the Borg from Star Trek and wrote an insulting little poem on his blog. Here’s a couple lines:

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a hideous creature -- your absolute worst nightmare, With a little old chairman, so lively and slick, I knew in a moment I'd probably be sick

This was the single most childish thing I saw from a non-anonymous figure during the voucher debate, and you know the legislators would throw a self-righteous fit about disrespect for the office if Burningham were to write a similar caricature of one of them. The attack also includes the vast majority of public educators whose views Burningham represented as their state chair and voice in state government.

Senator Stephenson has made repeated comments on the Senate floor and in meetings with education officials that he believes technology (i.e. teaching software from well-connected development companies) is a substitute for class size reduction as well as accusing teachers of not being willing to use technology. He views us as replaceable by programs and disagreeable because we don’t turn all of our lessons over to computers and become skill drill facilitators. He works against the one issue I view as the most pressing need in education, class size reduction, because his business lobby group (Utah Taxpayer’s Association) doesn’t like education taxes. I would bet a higher percentage of teachers can design their own websites and Powerpoint presentations than of legislators.

I heard claims that teachers and school districts waste money in both of the town meetings I have attended in recent months. Teachers were portrayed as obstacles to progress and the legislators tried to pit us against each other by claiming veteran teachers don’t care about new teachers. (I discussed the real differences between teacher views here.) Senator Madsen made similar claims about district funds and then tried to backpedal when proved wrong by actual numbers.

These are my own views, but many teachers feel the same way. We are glad when our salary and other education funding is increased, but feel betrayed when those important improvements desired by the public are then condescendingly used as justification for attacks on public education by our elected representatives. Is that whiny? I view it as principled intellectual honesty.

The Education Omnibus Bill is even worse than I thought. Basically, the legislative leadership thinks you are an idiot.

I'm sad, mad, and feeling kind of powerless at the moment. The Republican leadership is again blatantly pursuing their own agenda for education during the last two days of the legislative session after claiming to want to work with educators. And they apparently really think everyone will believe that an omnibus bill revealed in the last two days of the session by powerful leaders discouraging amendments is a good process that encourages public comment.

A few legislative leaders have selected their own pet education bills for inclusion in a giant omnibus bill that caught even most legislators off-guard when it was announced in a surprise news conference yesterday, two days before the session ends.

President Valentine and Senator Stephenson spent a lot of breath at the news conference trying to convince us that the omnibus bill will better allow us to consider each part and that the previously defeated bills were just "misunderstood." They of course claim they aren't trying to sneak anything through and that this was a "compromise." It was apparently a compromise between the various right-wing Republican leaders of the caucus of just how much they could get away with, but a compromise nonetheless.

"Do you think we could include a bill eliminating whiny teachers in favor of robots?" "No, Senator Stephenson. But we could revive the bill allocating 3.5 million dollars this year and 2.5 million each year afterwards to buy software and laptop computers for pre-schoolers... and 70% of those can go to rich kids!" "Ooooh! Deal! My lobbyists will love this!"

This new omnibus bill, SB 2, contains parts of over 12 other bills (Here is an incomplete list. It is missing at least SB 91 for the $1,000,000 allocated to the American Board program.) and was rushed through the Senate in one day, apparently unamended. The House gets a crack at it tomorrow, the last day of the legislative session. (Edit: It's actually a complete list of the 12 bills in SB2. The ABCTE funding ended up in the SB281 funding, but was cut in an amendment at the last minute. See Mar.5 post.)

And you are supposed to believe that they care what you, the average voter, thinks.

My only reason for optimism is that my House representative sent me back an email saying he didn't like the idea of omnibus bills either and that he didn't believe the previously-defeated HB 278 was fair to Alpine District. But the fact that the bill sailed through the Senate today with no amendments makes me worry.

Listen to the last 30 seconds of the news conference, starting at about 18:00, for Senator Valentine's persuasive powers: "Any one component part may have difficulty passing, but when you look at the total, it says "This is a good plan.""

Both the principle of honesty involved in omnibus bills in general, and several individual bills within the omnibus, say to me "This is a plan to benefit special interests and assert legislative power." Jesse summed it up pretty well over in a comment over at Jeremy's Jeremiad:

It seems that any omnibus bill, state or federal, is a Frankenstein-like monster of competing interests hoping to ride the coattails to passage instead of being forced to stand on their own. It’s legislative laziness to even propose these bills.

Comment by Jesse Harris — March 4, 2008 @ 2:45 pm