PCE wants pro voucher State School Board candidates by Thursday for flawed elections, and UEA "monopolizes" the caucus??

Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) appealed to supporters today to file and run for the State School Board. They realize informed advocates of public education on the board often intelligently oppose PCE initiatives to weaken public education and want a majority of sympathetic votes.

The Parents for Choice in Education PAC operates on extremely large out-of-state donations from anti-public ed. organizations and individuals. They literally have no grassroots financial support in Utah. They reported over $209,000 dollars sitting in their PAC account on their August 2011 report, which is the most recent posted at the Lt. Governor's website. This money came from large donations in the election years of 2010 and 2008. (The state switched systems in 2008, and the reports showing the millions of out-of-state money received during the voucher fight in 2007 and the systematic support of pro-voucher candidates in 2004 and 2006 do not show up. I know there's some way to link to the old system. I would be grateful if anyone could post a link in the comments.)

The PCE PAC received $179,000 in 2010. $4000 was from the Conservative Caucus of Utah politicians; the other $175,000 came from two national anti-public education organzations: All Children Matter, founded by the DeVos and Walton families, and The American Federation for Children, a new group (with the same founding board as the National Alliance for school Choice) founded by the same people apparently to avoid the bad publicity from All Children Matter being fined $5.2 million for hidden illegal campaign contributions in Ohio. (It looks like PCE was one of the final recipients of All Children Matter funds before it became defunct) The AFC is apparently also closely affiliated with ALEC and its proscriptive model bills to weaken public education. In 2008, the PAC received just over $342,000. $175,000 came from All Children Matter; $164,000 came from Patrick Bryne, the Overstock.com CEO who contributed millions in 2007 to the voucher campaign and continues as one of the only 3 sponsors of Howard Stephenson's Red Meat Radio program; the other $3424 was donated by the Board Members of PCE.

PCE has poured tens of thousands into State School Board elections before, and appears to be ready to enter the fray this year again. They are looking for candidates in all districts having an election this year: 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15. Here is part of PCE's plea:

Dear School Choice Supporter,

If we want to empower parents with quality school choice options, both public and private, we absolutely must recruit like-minded candidates for the State Board of Education. The innovation and reform necessary to improve our public school system will require a majority of supportive board members - something we currently do not have. This upcoming election provides us with a rare opportunity to change this!

We urge you to please consider becoming a candidate for fthe Utah State Board of Education. If, we ask you to help us recruit good candidates to run for the 9 spots up for election this year.

We need committed individuals to serve who understand how critical it is that we find solutions for an outdated public school system that will better meet the diverse learning needs of our students. 21st century innovation has the power to transform our one-size-fits-all system. The State Board of Education and the legislature have the most direct influence on our state's K-12 education. We can't expect change unless we are willing to get involved!

The whole process for State School Board elections is literally run by special interests, as a committee of industry lobbyists and then the governor get to select which candidates the public gets to vote on in this non-partisan election. This is detailed here, here (with more links to the 2008 vote), and here. (Gov. Herbert has expressed his desire for an open election, but the latest in many attempts to un-rig the elections, HB 331, appears to have had a weird provision for the primary date, increasing costs, and was killed by the House Education Committee without a hearing)

In 2008, there were shenanigans in my State School Board district 13, where the election winner resigned the day the election was certified because he suddenly "discovered" that he didn't live in the district, ensuring that the BYU Education professor who would have otherwise been eligible to contest the seat had no opportunity. The erstwhile winner, C. Mark Openshaw refused to answer opinion surveys and emails while campaigning, literally putting up no signs and making no campaign appearances. His family's blog said he didn't even want to win!

It appears Mr. Openshaw is running again from the state candidate website (Scroll to the bottom), and unopposed, though his paperwork is not linked like the others as of this moment. What kind of school board member was he the last 4 years? I have no idea. Maybe I would actually love his representation on the board, but I have no easy way of knowing. I saw his name mentioned one time in the paper with a lukewarm comment about the upcoming school grading system. The State School Board needs to get some sort of public vote display up on their website showing official votes of each individual on proposals. That would be positive all around and give voters better information on which to base their votes.

Two of the districts, 10 and 12, have no candidates filed today, two days before the deadline. The positive thing is that if only two candidates file for a district race, they get to completely avoid the flawed lobbyist selection board and governor narrowing. The scary thought is that some of these candidates might run unopposed. Who will sign up for an automatic State School Board seat on Thursday afternoon? We'll see how it shakes out.

PCE also encouraged supporters to run for delegates at the caucus with this comment:

The teacher's union works hard to monopolize the caucus system, ensuring their powerful stronghold and dominance over our taxpayer-funded, public school system. YOU can make sure this doesn't happen! Get involved in the legislative process and become a Delegate.

After years of barely fighting off destructive voucher proposals and other bad policy, I only wish public education supporters had more "dominance" PCE. I only wish. If more teachers would run and become delegates, maybe we could get support for more legislators in Utah Valley who value public education like the silent majority does. Our "taxpayer-funded, public school system" needs to continue to serve the public, not the whims of out-of-state multi-millionaires.

.

The education related items the legislature resolved to study before the 2013 session

SJR 13 is the Master Study bill for the interim. There were 155 items to study before a last minute bunch of at least 19 additions. They are all under line 431 with letters in the current draft of the bill to explain how it will look when I list some below.

There is not even a miniscule iota of a chance that all of these items will get looked at by the legislature and their staff during the entire next year, let alone in the 8 or 9 interim meetings the legislators will have.

I am going to list below the study items that have to do with education. Who decided which ones will they actually study? I'm betting Stephenson's priorities won't be skimped on, such as items 25, 30, 32, 34, and 431w.

The elections will be over, and it will be the year to push more strident anti-public ed. stuff in the off year. He's already stated his intention of pushing in 2013 Sen, Reid's destructive constitutional amendment to eliminate the State Board of Education, replacing them with the Governor and an appointed Secretary of Education. After the best year I can remember for public ed. (thanks to the House stopping some bad Senate bills), I predict 2013 will be rocky.

Education Related Study Items

23. Academic Achievement Gaps - to study high quality preschool impacts on academic achievement gaps for at risk students.
24. Alternatives to GED - to study whether to issue high school diplomas to adults and those who do not graduate with the class instead of awarding a GED, to study the relative value between a high school diploma and a GED in the employment marketplace, and to study how to eliminate the GED in Utah and give diplomas instead, to give these students a higher value.
25. Charter School Local Replacement Funding - to study whether school districts should contribute an amount equal to per pupil district property tax revenues for each resident student enrolled in a charter school.
26. Charter School Mission and Online Education - to study whether a charter school student should be denied permission to take an online course through the Statewide Online Education Program because the charter school's mission is inconsistent with the online course.
27. Concurrent Enrollment - to study the current program structure, cost, delivery, and coordination of public education and higher education.
28. Credit for Teacher Professional Development in Technology - to study options for giving credit on the pay scale for teacher professional development in technology unrelated to college credit.
29. Education Interim Committee Reports - to study whether one or more reports required to be submitted to the Education Interim Committee should be discontinued.
30. Enhanced School Calendar Incentives - to study how to encourage school districts and charter schools to utilize their buildings year round to extend calendars, and how to offer teachers a 50% pay raise with no additional costs to taxpayers, with added benefits like paid vacations, holidays, and class room aids.
31. Financial Literacy - to study ways to promote financial literacy.
32. K-3 Class Size Reduction - to study caps on K-3 class sizes and class size reduction line item accountability (S.B. 31).
33. Necessarily Existent Small Schools - to study the current distribution formula, review cost differentials between small and isolated schools and other schools, and determine the best funding mechanism.
34. Pay for Performance Impact on Student Achievement - to study the impact of teacher pay for performance on student achievement and performance gains.
35. Professional Development Classes - to study the impact of enabling professional development classes or tracks under "lanes compensation" schedules.
36. Public Education Funding - to study and carefully review the formulas currently in use and determine if they are meeting the needs of the current education environment.
37. Public School Funding Criteria - to study how money is distributed to public schools based on prior year enrollment, and whether public schools could receive funding based on current year enrollment instead.
38. Quality Teacher Incentive - to study an incentive program to retain quality teachers in the public schools.
39. School District and Charter School Postemployment Benefits - to study how school districts and charter schools are addressing any continuing liability to provide postemployment benefits to employees (H.B. 460).
40. School Funding - to study long term funding options for public education.
41. Sex Education Through Online Video Components - to study in collaboration with the State Board of Education the delivery of online sex education through video components in lieu of in-class instruction, with each component to be approved by the parents before the student has access to the materials.
42. Specialized Student Counseling - to study ways to provide specialized career college counseling, focusing on admissions and scholarships, for high school students (H.B. 65).
43. Student-based Budgeting - to study whether to require a school district to distribute certain revenues to schools in accordance with a weighted student formula and to require a principal to determine how to use revenues available to the school to meet student needs (H.B. 158).

115. Trust Lands Issues - to study and receive a report on school and institutional trust lands issues from the Children's Land Alliance.
116. Utah Land and School Trust Funds - to study the protection of Utah lands and school trust funds (1st Sub. H.B. 209 and amendment #2).

118. Allocations to Schools - to study school allocations measured by property tax (H.B. 507).
119. Computer Software Exemption - to study whether to provide a sales and use tax exemption for certain computer software.

137. School District and Charter School Postemployment Benefits - to study how school districts and charter schools are addressing any continuing liability to provide postemployment benefits to employees.

431o. Comprehensive overview of the WPU in public education

431w. School funding - study of the statewide equalization of school funding.

Senator Morgan's SB 31 is a "runaway bill" that doesn't help with classroom size, but we're fighting about it anyway?

Senator Karen Morgan proposed a bill, SB 31, that mandated certain small class sizes for grades K-3. The bill started out as a mandate to the legislature, to allocate the money necessary to add more teachers or paraeducators as necessary to meet these classroom size caps. The limits started out as 18 for Kindergarten, 20 for 1st grade, 22 for 2nd grade, and 24 for 3rd grade. In a very reasonable compromise, Senator Morgan later amended two of these caps to 20 for kindergarten and 22 for 1st grade.

I heard her interviewed on KSL the day I was in Salt Lake for the Utah Taxpayers Association's pre-legislative sales pitch. She explained at length about the money allocated. It would range from $12 million to $22 million if only para-educators were hired, and up to $40 something million if new teachers were hired. I believe the fiscal note on the bill originally explained this also, though it does not in its current form. Here's one article explaining this initial version of the bill and how the Utah Taxpayer's Association was against the bill.

As the article explains, the expensive bill passed the stacked Senate Education Committee, which was really the first sign that mischief was afoot. Senator Stephenson revealed his strategy in the hearing:

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, said he supports the bill and would like to see it integrated even if funding for it isn't available this year.

"If we're not able to get this fiscal note funded, we ought to push the bill forward anyway and begin to impose a standard for these grades that you have identified," Stephenson said. He suggested that since districts already receive state dollars for class-size reduction, there ought to be a standard in place to ensure they actually do it.

By the time the bill passed the 2nd Senate vote (it has to pass a committee vote, and then two votes in the Senate), it was gutted by Howard Stephenson's amendment. This article about the vote features Sen. Jerry Stevenson commenting that he wanted to make absolutely sure that the mandate didn't apply to the legislature or funding. The article also explains that the money allocated had been reduced to $3.6 million and delves into the legislators' false premises for Stephenson's amendment:

Before lawmakers approved the bill, Morgan amended it to raise the caps slightly, reducing its cost to $3.6 million. Lawmakers also amended the bill to specify that in order to continue to receive state money that’s long been distributed for class size reductions, schools would have to meet the new caps....

...Several said they liked the idea of holding schools accountable for the money they’re already getting to reduce class sizes.

A 2007 legislative audit showed that $460 million meant to make class sizes smaller in Utah over seven years hadn’t led to any change, though some have said class sizes would have been even larger if not for that money.

In an important sidenote, Ms. Schencker got a little lazy with her background info here. Her assertion about the 2007 classroom size reduction audit is apparently her summary of info given her by Senator Stephenson when she interviewed him about this same bill the month before. She just pasted in the exact same paragraph here with no explanation that this spin of the 2007 audit came from Howard Stephenson.

Let's look at what the report actually says. The 2007 audit is available online. (Hat tip to Cameron who first commented on this audit and sent me the link.) It explained that not all districts were accounting specifically for the classroom size reduction money before mixing it with their general funds. This was because the legislature specifically released them from tracking and reporting that to in part reduce the amount of reports to the legislative interim education committee, pg 14. Pgs 7-9 show that the districts specifically tracking the money used 100% on teachers to reduce classroom sizes and supplemented beyond that because the CSR money had not kept up with inflation. The next few pages explain other measures taken that indicate that it is a reasonable conclusion that the districts not tracking the money specifically still used 99%+ of the money on classroom size reduction.

The biggest reason that classroom sizes did not go down is detailed on pg 23. The legislature never once funded enough reduction money to match enrollment growth from 2001 to 2007, contrary to the language in their own statute allocating the money. Pgs 24 and 25 also explain that charter schools, many with charters already committing them to small class sizes, are also diluting the available CSR money for those districts with the largest classes.

So the audit concludes that 99% to 100% of the hundreds of millions allocated were spent appropriately to reduce class sizes, and that money still didn't keep up with student growth. This shows that the faulty Stephenson/Schencker summary of the audit should really be stated as "Of course class sizes would have been even larger if not for that money." Stephenson, Waddoups, and other legislators claiming that the large amount of classroom size reduction money "hadn’t led to any change," implying that the districts are diverting money to administration and other "fat," are purposefully misrepresenting the content of their own audit knowing that most people will never read the audit and find them out. It also shows the absolutely false premise of the current SB 31 as amended, that the districts have to be "held accountable" because they are misusing funds.

Stephenson's amendment made it so the school districts has to achieve these very small class sizes with $3.6 million or lose the $100+ million that had already been proven to be insufficient to keep up with growth. Meet a moving target with insufficient resources, or we'll take way those insufficient resources until you do. I've said it before--the legislature's mandates could make great Dilbert punchlines.

SB 31 was amended again before passing its 3rd Senate vote and moving to the House, taking out all of the money allocated. The only thing left in the bill is a mandate for districts to restrict K-3 class sizes to the prescriptive levels or lose the $100+ million that the audit has already proven to be insufficient to keep up with growth. Sen. Morgan's new comments about the bill are troubling and very different than her initial excitement to increase funding in order to reduce class sizes.

Morgan's bill would add penalties to the existing law, which could mean school districts losing class-size reduction funding if they don't meet state standards.

"I have no problem with that," Morgan said of the change. "I believe in fiscal responsibility."

"We can only do one piece at a time," she said.

"The districts can implement this with the money we're giving them," she said.

"The money we're giving them" refers to the fact that the legislature plans to increase the WPU (general funding for all public ed.) by $3 million rather than specifically allocating additional monies to the classroom size reduction mandates. Putting the money in the WPU is a very different thing. WPU changes almost every single year. WPU has gone down significantly over the last few years, with no new money for even new students. It is completely different than what Senator Morgan originally proposed. It just seems unlike her to put in a penalty as the first piece without the resources to meet the standard. She's parroting Senator Stephenson so much that I jokingly wonder about what incriminating pictures he has of her.

That last link also explains how the State School Board discussed the new state of the bill in one of their meetings and were concerned about the unfunded mandate. They discussed various options, took a vote, and ultimately left their official position as "supporting the bill in concept" just as they had before the changes. Senator Morgan heard of this or read the article, and reacted very strongly to the word "problematic" in a post to the Senate Democrats' Blog, saying that "Their lack of understanding of the state public education budget is what’s problematic." She roundly criticized the State School Board, implying that they don't care about kids if they don't support her bill--another Stephenson move--and herself supporting the false premise that the districts have not been "accountable" for the current classroom size reduction money.

I was flabbergasted when I saw her comments. It seems to me that she's staked so much of her pride on getting something...anything...passed with the words "classroom size" in the title, that she's compromised her principles and reverted to hostile anti-public ed. talking points about the State School Board. What next?

The evidence is clear Senator Morgan and the premise of your borrowed criticisms is demonstrably false. Read the audit again and evaluate the claims. I have a daughter in a 1st grade class of 30 and know how hard that is for her. That doesn't make these draconian mandates right. Your bill has been subverted from an intended aid to K-3 children and public education into a hostile bill with severe penalties for not reaching impossibly high standards. The consequences for not meeting the caps are enormous, and the nice, but not drastic benefits of a paraeducator in a classroom of 30 kids do not equal that risk. Howard Stephenson wants these classroom size caps as a way to spin the removal of existing classroom size reduction funds while also discrediting public education. Why pretend it's the school board's fault when the politicians and PCE spokeswoman quoted in these same articles are very open about their goals for "more dynamic reform?" Is your bill making those negative policies more likely to be enacted?

Please reconsider what you really wanted to accomplish and what SB 31 does now. Would a January 2012 Senator Morgan even recognize the bill? Your original called for $22 million in a dedicated revenue stream just to put a paraeducator in K-3 classrooms. You also openly hoped funding could be found to make the increased personnel actual teachers, which is a much superior option to just paraeducators. Now your bill punishes districts for not adding a paraeducator in every K-3 classroom with $3.6 million lumped into the general operating funds needed to meet other increased mandates from the legislature as well. You have empirical evidence from the audit that the districts will be unable to meet this mandate, despite being 100% responsible with the previous money. SB 31 will likely lead to *larger* classes as schools inevitably start losing the current, but insufficent, classroom size reduction assistance. You are on the verge of pushing through one of the most damaging bills in the session.

I'll end with my comments on the blog of another person I respect, Karen of the Utah Moms Care blog. Sen. Morgan apparently handed her the statement from the Senate Democrats Blog above and asked her to urge her readers to call their legislators about SB 31. She said the WPU funding was enough and implored parents to tell their legislators they value smaller classes. I am frustrated with her framing of this issue as any opponent of this mutated SB 31 must not want smaller classes for their children and said so. My young children will all be affected by large K-3 classes, but I have to bear their whole education in mind when evaluating policy.

My comments on this post are only slightly different from above, but I want to link the Utah Moms Care post as comments and conversation might happen at either spot:

I have to strongly disagree that what this bill has become is beneficial to schools. The WPU is a general resource with many competing needs, especially after the cuts of the last three years. They PR'ed it as "not funding growth," but the same amount of money (no increase 2 yrs, small increase last year) got spread over 30,000+ more students, the equivalent of a cut much larger than 1%. (Math help here anyone?...What would be the equivalent %?)

So we are at a huge low point in funding with class sizes increasing all over the state. The existing "classroom size reduction" money wasn't enough to keep up with growth, even in 2007 when funding and WPU were at a high point.

So increasing this current lower WPU amount by 1% is suddenly enough to achieve what we couldn't in 2007? And if we don't drastically rearrange resources to damage 3-6 grade class sizes (both you and Sen. Morgan know there's not all this budget fat lying around to be used "more effectively" as PCE, etc. claim), we agree to lose the much larger amount of previous classroom size reduction money that was never enough either?

Stephenson is laughing his way to the bank, getting Sen. Morgan to carry his water for him. I seriously don't get this. It seemed to me that Sen. Morgan agreed to the punitive trigger for failing to meet a damaging standard in an unwise attempt to preserve the bill when it had dedicated money, and is now holding on to this shell with no money and only the bad "reform" just to make it look like she's actually getting things done.

Then she flies off the handle with such a strident public statement when it is obvious she had neither listened to the actual discussion online or spoken with a State School Board member. The board members were much more diplomatic than me in their discussion, even those who who were concerned with the bill's provisions. And they deadlocked on their vote, leaving the official "supports concept" designation on the bill as Mrs. Ziegler pointed out above.

So instead of working with people she has worked with so well many times in the past, Sen. Morgan hands a note to you asking parents to email in support of her damaging bill? I constantly realize how little I know of the personal dynamics and relationships up there on the Hill, but this whole thing just seems strange. Framing the bill as the State School Board doesn't support small class sizes is something Howard Stephenson would do. The financial realities mean this bill has become only punitive.

Please help me see what I'm missing here...

The supposedly noble fight for Utah education funding by *taking* public lands from the federal government

Jesse Harris posted a short opinion about his support of the legislature's push via lawsuits and eminent domain proceedings to take ownership of the extensive federal lands in Utah. Here are two articles about the coordinated push and claim that it's the federal government's fault Utah doesn't better fund public education.

You'll have to follow the first link and read Jesse's post and two other comments to get some of what I am referring to in my following comment, since I just copied my comment on his post and pasted it here as is. Here are two more links with background on how the legislature reduced the state's public education funding effort over the last two decades.

My comment with one addition I put in italics:
I’m very dubious for all these reasons. I read the Enabling Act http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Utah_Enabling_Act,1894 and I think they’re making up history. I am not an expert in “implicit” promises made upon statehood, but the legislature has demonstrated numerous times that they are not experts either and frequently massage the facts to their liking.

The bills http://le.utah.gov/~2012/bills/hbillint/hb0091s01.htm
http://le.utah.gov/~2012/bills/hbillint/hcr001.htm
http://le.utah.gov/~2012/bills/hbillint/hb0148.htm
depend on their reading of Section 9, and I think they’re blowing smoke. They interpret it to mean the fed gov “shall” sell the lands as in must.

Read Section 3, paragraph labeled Second for this:

“Second. That the people inhabiting said proposed State do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof;”

Then read the one sentence of Section 9:

SEC. 9. That five per centum of the proceeds of the sales of public lands lying within said State, which shall be sold by the United States subsequent to the admission of said State into the Union, after deducting all the expenses incident to the same, shall be paid to the said State, to be used as a permanent fund, the interest of which only shall be expended for the support of the common schools within said State.

It looks to me in context that it means any lands the fed gov does sell, they must give 5% to Utah schools, not that they “have” to sell them. The emphasis on "which shall be sold" rather than "which shall be sold" seems obvious when viewed in light of Section 3. They're saying the feds have to share proceeds from land sales after statehood, but not before. I don’t think any precedent will support the leg’s reason.

To Ronald Hunt’s concern, I can’t find in the 4 bills I’ve looked at where the $3 million is coming from, but I’m almost sure that when I heard a few minutes of Rep.’s Barrus and Ivory presentation to the State School Board last week that they intend it to be education money with supposed increased return as a result. I find it very unlikely.

I think the concern is largely driven by rightwing ideology as you say Jesse rather than true concern for education funding, as the state’s effort has been in a documented decline since the 90′s. I think they’re trying to shift the blame in a politically popular way.

And finally, I don’t think the Eastern states lack of fed lands that was a natural process is a good analogy to what would happen if suddenly the feds had to sell all or a large percentage of all the land in Utah. There is no precedent. The leg has a record of valuing energy/industry concerns highly while dismissing environmental ones. I think “barren wasteland” is hyperbole, but I would worry about losing one of the best features of Utah–the freedom to explore so much public land, even as I would be happy about the increased education funding. It’s not worth any and all costs, and I don’t have the ideological hatred of the fed gov that is driving this.

I think they should sue for something more realistic like you suggested – sue for better regulations to make leasing quicker and cheaper while still allowing some voice for environmental concerns. The fed gov would have somewhere to compromise with that goal rather than just litigating the claim they ‘have’ to sell. That goal may make a settlement more unlikely…

(Heck, after all that, maybe I’ll just copy this as a post on my blog.)

And so I did.

Online education silver bullets: Big fights today over funding Electronic High School, but really the repeal of SB65 virtual vouchers via HB 147

I try to know everything about everything, but I just don't know a lot about the Electronic High School of Utah. This post will probably be less informative than some, but I'm hoping to get some clarification from comments and/or if I can listen this afternoon to the House Education Committee hearing on two related bills. I did learn as I wrote the post that Rep. Brad Last's HB 147 contains a final section REPEALING Howard Stephenson's SB 65 Statewide Online Education program that falsely divided and diverted education funding into online vouchers. That explanation comes after I explain some background on last year's bill and others this year.

The Electronic High School currently gets funded a lump sum and is available in a non-competitive role as a public school. Students can completely enroll there, take just a few classes, or make up classes they failed. Last year's SB 65, Howard Stephenson's "virtual voucher" bill, authorized payments of a large percentage of student funding to any public online school per class that a student enrolled in. During the committee hearing on the bill, Stephenson said he supported Electronic High School at first, but that it was time for it to transition over to competitive funding and stand on its own. I am not 100% sure what actually happened in the wording of the substituted and amended bill. Lines 79-89 address Electronic High School, and lines 182-190 show that it is eligible one year later than other entities to participate somehow...and that's all my tired brain can do right now. I'm not sure when or if Electronic High School loses its dedicated funding stream.

SB 65 diverted big chunks of per student funding to any online provider (even private as Stephenson envisioned, but he was eventually forced to amend the bill to only address public online classes) under the false paradigm that per student funding statistics are true marginal costs, when student funding is actually pooled and shared hyper-efficiently. (See my recent post on Tuition Tax Credits for a long explanation of the funding pie.) Schools cannot maintain current programs and function when too much money is diverted away to other programs.

This year, Stephenson is running SB 178, which amends his SB 65 from last year. I'm really unsure that I have my head around what this bill and the next two I will discuss actually do. There are moving pieces and multiple ripple effects as funding and enrollment of charter and traditional schools are modified. SB 178 appears to decrease the amount of funding flowing from districts and charter schools to online programs per class. The bill also deals with how much FTE a student can count for (The district subdivides its pooled funding per student further, dictating how many teachers a school can hire, which is just an arbitrary method of distributing funds evenly. This unit used on the district level is called FTE.), but I don't get how it is different than the original SB 65. I doubt it's really too hard on online providers or great for districts, but I could be wrong here. Another sign is that Parents for Choice in Education bill tracker says they "initiated" this bill. (A revealing list. who's carrying PCE's water?) SB 178 passed a Senate Education committee hearing and is on the Senate floor.

There are two additional bills dealing with Electronic High School scheduled to be debated in the House Education Committee today at 4:00 pm. (Agenda)

The first is Rep. Sandstrom's HB 336. I definitely don't understand the ramifications of this one. Its summary states:

This bill:
12 . specifies the purpose of the Electronic High School;
13 . provides that the Electronic High School may only offer courses required for high
14 school graduation or that fulfill core curriculum course requirements;
15 . removes the Electronic High School as an online course provider in the Statewide
16 Online Education Program; and
17 . makes technical amendments.

I don't know what removing Electronic High School from the SB 65 program really does to it. I'm not sure what classes are being offered currently that do not fulfill graduation requirements. I also don't know what the intent language in lines 55-64 does as it seems to just repeat the lines that were crossed out, Lines 79-91. But PCE opposes this bill with this complaint:

Allows EHS to continue to operate with line item funding, no accountability for student outcomes, and no accountability for funding with a reported 30% - 50% completion rate

So it appears that this keeps EHS open for all students to attend as it currently functions.

Brad Last's HB 147 has some identical provisions to HB 336, and also seems to share other provisions with SB 178. But PCE is spitting mad about this one and is email blasting its followers with all caps warnings that defeating this bill is its #1 priority. (Emphasis is my representation of theirs). The summary reads:

This bill:
12 . specifies the purpose of the Electronic High School;
13 . provides that the Electronic High School may only offer courses required for high
14 school graduation or that fulfill core curriculum course requirements;
15 . requires a school district or charter school to offer online courses at the grades 9
16 through 12 level and online concurrent enrollment courses to students enrolled in
17 the school district or charter school in grades 11 and 12;
18 . allows a school district or charter school to develop and teach online courses, and to
19 ensure a wide selection of high quality online courses are offered;
20 . requires a school district or charter school to contract with an entity for online
21 course content or online course instruction;
22 . allows a school district or charter school to form a consortium with other school
23 districts or charter schools for the purpose of contracting with an entity for online
24 course content or online course instruction;
25 . allows a student the option to enroll in online courses for a certain number of course
26 credits each year;
27 . provides that online course credit hours are included in daily membership, except a

28 student may not count as more than one FTE, unless the student intends to complete high
29 school graduation requirements and exit high school early;
30 . provides that a student enrolled in an online course may not take more than a full
31 course load unless:
32 . the student intends to complete high school graduation requirements and exit
33 high school early; or
34 . if allowed by local school board or charter school governing board policy;
35 . provides for the administration of statewide assessments to students enrolled in
36 online courses;
37 . repeals provisions relating to the Statewide Online Education Program; and
38 . makes technical amendments.

Which seems very similar to these lines from SB 178:

prescribes procedures for the completion of a course credit acknowledgement;
26 . prohibits a student who enrolls in an online course from being counted in
27 membership for a released-time class, if counting the student in membership for a

28 released-time class would result in the student being counted as more than one FTE;
29 . permits a student taking an online course to take more than a full course load if
30 allowed under local school board or charter school governing board policy;

Both prohibit a student from counting as more than one FTE and allow more than a full course-load to be taken with permission, but the technicalities of the other differences escape me right now. SB 178 has the language about not being able to take released time, which is the current vogue false accusation of PCE and certain charter lobbyists right now, that schools are getting overfunded when students are at seminary or ATC. I don't know if that is the whole issue, or if SB 178 totally cuts dedicated funding to EHS. There's a bunch of stuff about districts workign together to make quality online programs, and I can't see why that would be especially controversial.

2 minute later update - PCE has once again helped me better understand the bill. Their complaint reads:

Repeals the Statewide Online Education Program, strips the student's ability to choose the courses that best meet their academic needs, no longer allows funding to follow the student

Just part of their Email Alert reads:

PCE IS TARGETING HOUSE BILL 147 AS OUR #1 BILL TO DEFEAT this session! This bill would REPEAL our biggest school choice victory last year, the Statewide Online Education Program signed into law last year...PLEASE CALL AND EMAIL EVERY COMMITTEE MEMBER AND ASK THEM TO VOTE NO ON HB147. TELL THEM NOT TO SUPPORT A BILL THAT TAKES AWAY SCHOOL CHOICE!

PLEASE CALL AND EMAIL THE BILL SPONSOR, BRAD LAST, AND ASK HIM WHY HE IS REPEALING A SCHOOL CHOICE BILL!

We can't defeat this without your help!

Call and email all Representatives on the committee.
Please forward this email to friends and family.

I see now that Line 37 of the HB 147 summary is a doozy: "repeals provisions relating to the Statewide Online Education Program;..." I thought it was something just related to EHS when I first saw that, but lines 237-262 of the bill appear to repeal most of the language of SB 65.

I don't approve of the method of sticking this on the end of a bill on a very loosely related topic, despite SB 65 damaging EHS, but I fully support this concept. Wow Rep. Last! I REALLY want to hear his committee presentation now to hear his motivations. Does he get the false paradigm based on bad funding numbers that I keep explaining? Or that pitting public schools against each other damages rather than strengthens student achievement and sense of community? I guess we'll find out.

This is a great idea, therefore PCE will stack the committee hearing like always with their highly motivated folks (How many times will they quote the national school choice guy who said Utah is #1 in online ed?), and a LOT of peer legislator pressure will be brought to bear. I predict HB 147 as written fails because legislative leadership is committed to silver bullet technology both as excuse for large class sizes and as their camel's nose in the voucher tent, though I could see some sort of substitute/compromise being worked out where the EHS stays funded as in both HB 147 and HB 336.

HB 336 will be heard right before HB 147, and I don't think both of them can be law simultaneously. They would also seem to conflict with Stephenson's SB 178. If HB 147 passes by some miracle, there will be definite conflict between the bills/agendas.

Sorry for the sort of stream-of-consciousness research here. I have learned more just as I typed this up. I urge you to contact your legislators in support of HB 147, explaining the false assumptions behind SB 65 and the practical problems they are causing. Legislators of the House Education Committee, be aware of the manufactured wave of opposition coming your way. Support public education by opposing efforts to fracture its funding based on purposeful misrepresentation of how education funding works.

More on why Tuition Tax Credits may be more profitable for interested parties than simple vouchers

First, the difference between a private school tuition voucher and a Tuition Tax Credit for donating to a private school tuition scholarship fund is only when the money comes out of the General Education Fund. The money comes out of the exact same place. Do not believe any claim that the two are substantially different in how they affect available funds for public education.

The money depleted from public education funds is the same; there is, however, a major difference in who saves money on the two proposals.

Vouchers - 1. Everyone pays state income tax to the General Education Fund. This money has to be used for public education or higher education. It can be used for no other purposes. 2. The state issues vouchers from that fund to private schools to subsidize up to a certain amount of the tuition of individual students who qualify. (The 2007 voucher amount was $3300 in an attempt to make it more palatable to the public; most proposals try and make it higher.)

Tuition Tax Credits - 1. Everyone pays state income tax to the General Education Fund. This money has to be used for public education or higher education. It can be used for no other purposes. 2. During the year, individuals or corporations make donations to private school tuition scholarship organizations of up to $500 for single filers or $1000 for joint filers. 3. Those organizations issue scholarships to subsidize up to a certain amount of the tuition of individual students who qualify. (Stephenson's 2012 bill, SB 151, set the caps at $5500 for these scholarships.) The difference: 4. Those who donated receive a dollar for dollar tax credit from the General Education Fund when they file, not a tax deduction, for their donations up to those limits.

Think about that. Utah's flat tax is 5%. So the most the donor would have otherwise paid in taxes for that $1000 in income is $50 (or $25 for a $500 donation) before any other deductions. The donor not only saves the $50 they would have paid into the education fund, but gets the $1000 credit free and clear, which is equivalent to the amount of income tax (which goes exclusively into the General Education Fund) they would have paid on income of $20,000. They presumably also receive the normal tax deduction for charitable giving for any donations exceeding those limits, simply not paying taxes on that donated income.

So the money to subsidize private school tuition comes out of the education fund under either mechanism, vouchers or Tuition Tax Credits. But the Tuition Tax Credit plan also allows the relatively small pool of private school scholarship donors, who would also largely overlap with political supporters of Howard Stephenson and/or secret clients of his Utah Taxpayer's Association, to save the equivalent of paying state income tax on $20,000 of income.

My post last year on Tuition Tax Credits, when Carl Wimmer ran the same idea, included a Dilbert comic about a "Dutch Sandwich." The sandwich for the rest of us makes even more sense now as I analyze the financial impact Tuition Tax Credits would have. Stephenson claimed in the pre-legislative session I attended that Tuition Tax Credits would have a positive financial note because it would save money per student. That is a lie as I explained in detail recently. Whatever examples Stephenson cooks up in his interim study of other states, realize who is really profiting from these "reform" schemes based on dollars rather than research or concern with true education of all students.

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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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