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. 

From the horses' mouths: SB 110 moves toward vouchers; SB 133, SB 82, and SB 257 are designed to gather all Utah students' data in one place and allow national vendors free access

SB 110 School-Based Budgeting

During the Senate Education Committee hearing, Stephenson says, "I believe we could empower school communities to actually take charge of their budgets."

Lisa Snell of the libertarian think tank, the Reason Foundation, says "This is not a new program. It’s not a crazy idea,"

Later, Stephenson says, "I’m fighting disinformation – they’re saying this is some kind of voucher bill, and it’s got nothing to do with vouchers.”

Then Lisa Snell, co-author of Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report,  says on March 5th "student-based budgeting or backpack funding is both all about vouchers AND part of a movement toward a totally new public education system.

"The growth of student-based budgeting in school districts and a few states mirrors a national trend toward more decentralized school funding where the money follows the child. In the United States, we are in a transition period, moving from funding institutions to funding students. K-12 education funding is moving closer to the funding model for higher education, where the money follows students to the public, private or nonprofit school of their choice."  (Underline and bold text mine)

SB 82 Student Achievement Backpack and SB 257 Personalized Educator Evaluation Technology with SB 133 School Performance Report Amendments as an enabler making sure all of the data, every student's test score in every classroom of more than 10 students, is legally accessible.

In the Senate Education Committee, Jerry Stevenson says about SB 82 ""It adds transparency to what our education system is doing,"

Judi Park of the State Office of Education says, ""It's going to be much more costly than what the fiscal note would suggest."

Howard Stephenson says, ""I just support this bill 100 percent, and I think what we're hearing in opposition to it are excuses for not wanting parents to receive this information," he said. "Parents have a right to all the information in the most easily accessible way."  So it's all about the parents and their rights.

I say, "Every parent in every district in the state can log into a website and see their student's grades, test scores, records, etc.  This unnecessary bill,SB 82, is a transparent ploy for some other goal."

Just before the South by Southwest (SXWE) educational technology conference this week, educational technology salesman and advocate, and friend and presenter at Parents For Choice in Education conferences, Tom Vander Ark, says,

The Ed-Fi solution extracts student information from a variety of educational data systems, and then standardizes, integrates and communicates it to educators and other parties through Web-based dashboards, reports and other applications.  Ten states license the Ed-Fi solution directly and four additional states benefit from partnerships with inBloom, which uses Ed-Fi XML interchanges to support states’ and districts’ adoption of personalized learning tools....

Digital Learning Now! created a 10 element state policy framework that embraces the potential of digital learning–all 10 elements rely on a great longitudinal data system.  DLN is releasing a Smart Series paper every month on critical digital learning topics.  The second paper Data Backpacks: Portable Records & Learner Profiles detailed next steps for states. 

 States should:
Adopt the Ed-Fi standards and join the Ed-Fi Alliance.

District and school leaders should:
 Encourage your state to adopt the Ed-Fi solution to ease transfer of gradebook data and use of common dashboards and reporting tools.
Work with a vendor on a super gradebook and expanded learner profile.

 (underlining mine)
So Ed-Fi = inBloom = massive database of student data for vendors.
SB 82 = "super gradebook" necessary to "ease transfer of gradebook data" to Ed-Fi/inBloom

During SXSW, Tom Vander Ark says,

Data is Beautiful.  inBloom is everywhere at SXSW with briefings, receptions, and parties. Along with the subtler Ed-Fi Alliance launch, data plumbing, policies and tools are all the rage in Austin.

 Marketing as education policy...

The paper mentioned above, Data Backpacks: Portable Records & Learner Profiles, outlines the goals and connected programs of this "Big Data" (their words) push.

To paraphrase the paper: It's hard to see your student's records with fees and forms.  [Is this true anywhere in the US in 2013?] Data is in a "patchwork" of systems. [That's an obvious buzzword of the paper. Turn it around and say "States and districts have insisted on autonomy when choosing data and grading programs.]

To quote from pgs 5-6:

"This expanded Learner Profile

must represent a holistic view of the

student’s unique learning preferences,

such as his or her best learning modality

(such as, “does the student learn best

through visual representations in some

cases and with hands-on learning in

others?”) and learning environment

(such as, “does the student perform

better in small-group or whole-class

settings?”)

Next-generation digital

tools, services, platforms, and systems

now give us the opportunity to collect

and classify information down to the

individual keystrokes of comparable

students in parallel situations.
(Underline mine)

Pg. 2 and 12: Make a new official transcript called the student backpack, specifically to enable the data (the uncomfortably specific data detailed above) to be shared with the inBloom database and mined by vendors.

Pg. 11 sidebar: BloomBoard is the designated "personal teacher professional development plan" program  SB 257 designed to be compatible with the new super gradebook SB 82.

The dots have been connected.  I half apologize to Common core conspiracy theorists.  You got part of the scheme right; you just missed who was perpetrating it.  Bill Gates and a bunch of unethical education technology profiteers want to eliminate student privacy and destroy neighborhood schools in order to enable a voucher system that funnels money to the best advertisers. 

Howard Stephenson, Stuart Adams, and Parents for Choice in Education shill for legislation in behalf of these national organizations who do not care what the majority of Utah parents want for our children.  Their words talk about "students, not systems," but their actions show that their motive is just to force students into a different system meant to exploit them for the profits of connected individuals and companies.

Has EVERY educational technology company that made political donations in Utah gotten a state contract? Open question, but I think the answer is yes.

How do you win a statewide contract to provide educational software for schools in Utah?  You could spend time pitching your wares to individual schools and districts--I've sat through a number of demonstrations myself.  "If you use whatever program for a whole bunch of minutes each week, it will drastically improve an important skill x in the students.  We will then print reports showing that they improved."

But why waste your time thinking small?  Only 1 or 2 of our state legislators taught public school, and they hold the purse strings to much larger sums of money than the districts with much wider latitude on how to spend it.  Convince them that your product is a silver bullet--but making sure to repeat "I'm not saying this is a silver bullet"--as you hand them "research-based" reports showing your program drastically improved test scores in that one district in that one state.

Those legislators can then write a bill with a Request For Proposals (RFP's).  Those requests can be for "personalized teacher professional development plans," "special education specific reading software,"  "handheld reading devices to give reading tests,"  "reading software for preschoolers on a laptop with a dashboard," or whatever.  These open Requests for Proposals are supposed to open up a competitive bidding process that ensures the taxpayer-funded school system has the latitude to purchase the best product at the best price.  However, just Imagine the potential power in helping determine the specific wording and feature requests for one of these "open" proposals...  I've taken to calling them Referrals to Friends of stePhenson.

I was put back on this horse when I was contacted by a blogger in Arizona, a retired high school English teacher, who had read my posts on Imagine Learning and Waterford's political spending and custom RFP's.  A state senator there is running a bill opening up a $30 million RFP for reading software with a suspiciously specific list of requirements.  This teacher and his commenters tracked down the company posed to benefit from this custom bill, Utah's Imagine Learning.  He broke down the specific language of this year's bill and a past proposal to show how it was specifically crafted for Imagine Learning.  Then he posted about the fact that Imagine Learning is a paying member of ALEC and then linked to my posts about Imagine Learning's political donations in Utah that of course had nothing to do with their statewide contract.

Statewide funding to Imagine Learning was first authorized in 2008.  I obviously suspect it was in SB 2, the omnibus, but I can't find it.  Here is my post about Imagine Learning's political donations in 2009.  The system has been updated since I first wrote that, and the political donations actually started in 2008, including money given to Becky Lockhart, Carl Wimmer, Aaron Tilton, and a candidate for the Canyons School Board. 

Imagine Learning has kept up the pattern of political donations in 2010, 2011, and 2012, only with a larger net.  They have spent over $57,000 (Is part of the return on that advocacy at the ALEC conferences from the Utah legislators?) over 3 years, donating principally to powerful Republicans (Herbert most of all, Jenkins, Hughes, Urquhart, Bramble, Osmond, many others), but plenty of Democrats too, especially strong education advocates. (Carol Moss, Marie Poulson, Karen Morgan)  None of the legislators were even up for election in 2011 when Imagine Learning cheerfully donated $18,000 to various campaigns.  They also donate money to groups that are code for donations to legislators, but they don't have to put their name on the forms.  Donating to the Utah County Legislative PAC is giving money to Speaker Lockhart's control. Donations to the Utah Taxpayers Association are a donation to Howard Stephenson that he doesn't have to report either.

Imagine Learning has also partnered with the Utah State Office of Education to sponsor teams to a popular road race run in teams, Ragnar, in both 2012 and 2013.  There's nothing inherently bad about helping teachers run in a race, but any connection to learning or K-3 Reading is tenuous at best (healthy teachers is a good goal...except any teachers participating in this long race already run anyway...). I believe the firm is just cultivating influence wherever it can.  Does buttering up the USOE decrease criticism of the political nature of their contract?  I have to say the answer is possibly, "Yes."

The program was reauthorized in 2010 in HB 2.  The language is for reading software, but it apparently just continues the existing Imagine Learning contract.   Imagine Learning received $8,400,000 over 2010, 2011, and 2012, which is really a nice return on investment for their $57,000 in contributions. The amount the legislature gave the company detailed in their "accountability" report which I will discuss more in a moment.

I searched the entire list of corporate donors in Utah, and only one additional education company has donated any money since 2008.  (The big national virtual school company, K-12, had a folder, but appears to have not donated since at least 2008.) 

That one other company out of thousands of educational technology companies, iSchool Campus, spent almost $10,000, all donated to Republicans, in 2012, and...wait for it...they won a state wide contract too!  It was even publicly acknowledged that they got to help write the bill, and several representatives from iSchool accompanied the sponsor to the legislative committee presentation.  No, I am not making this up.  The bill sponsor, Sen. Jerry Stevenson, insisted the process was "fair". Sure they helped write it; sure I had them with me when I advocated for the bill; but they beat out three other vendors for an RFP they wrote, "fair" and square.

So the only two companies listed as making political donations, Imagine Learning and iSchool, got what are essentially no-bid contracts despite proposals from other companies. And Waterford paid an unknown amount of money to a contract lobbying firm headed by an ex-state senate president which in turn spent an unknown amount on gifts, meals, and other methods of lobbying the legislature via various loopholes, leading to Waterford's software being bought for individual preschoolers around the state, via last minute inclusion in an omnibus education bill.


All three companies, Imagine Learning, Waterford, and iSchool arrange for "news" articles that basically serve as free advertising with no investigation of their claims:
Imagine Learning
iSchool
Waterford

However, NO data has been released publicly on the performance of Imagine Learning or Waterford.  (iSchool just started last fall)   There have been some hyperbolic statements made by school choice people and legislators about how great they are, or anecdotal fluff like the articles above, but no proof of the software's quality or worth. There have been reports made to the legislature, but you probably haven't heard anything about them.  Howard Stephenson doesn't insist that letter grades about his expensive pet programs be mailed to every home like he does for those lazy teachers.

Here is Stephenson's Utah Taxpayers Association Newsletter from Sep. 2012.

Stephenson opines on technology in schools on pages 2 and 3.  You can see his disdain for backward teachers who don't realize that iPads are smarter than them.  The 3rd to last paragraph features his specific references to Imagine Learning and Waterford, just not by name, and his claim that they "improved student performance."  But no evidence.  That's just for socialistic reading teachers and the PTA.

The next paragraph details the "best new" iSchool pilot program.  He literally claims ALL students are on task ALL the time as they rotate on and off of the iPads.  It's magic!  And make sure you realize he had to have written this at the end of August/very beginning of September when school had been in for at most a couple of weeks in the first year of this pilot program. 

He has been finding tangentially related reasons to repeat how wonderful these schools are in every committee or floor hearing he can during the entire session. I would love to hear in the comments or via email from any teachers or staff at the three iSchool pilot schools. I listened to Stephenson during one of the first education appropriations committee meetings of the session, and on the radio, wax on about how these students were ALL glued to the screen with no disruptions all the time.  He made it sound like he was a frequent observer, while I bet he went to one of the schools one time in August.

Technology doesn't magically "personalize" and accelerate learning.  It's often handy, and students do like using iPads, but it is not a silver bullet for better reading, writing, and thinking, especially not higher level skills.  The "personalization" consists of ranking the students on a scale according to how many multiple choice questions they answer correctly, and then giving them a different ranking after the next test according to whatever unique and proprietary system of measurement that particular program develops. 

Senator Urquhart, although I frequently disagree with him, is usually someone I find willing to talk and reason with those in opposition to his bills.  But he came down hard on education officials during another educational appropriations officials, saying something to the effect that "All the elementary reading gains in Utah are due to Imagine Learning."  Really?  Based on what evidence?

Yes, Imagine Learning donated  a relatively small amount of money to his campaign.  And yes, Sen. Urquhart is also running a bill, SB 260 First Substitute, giving more money to Imagine Learning based on their claims of results. In fact, the bill allocates just over $5,000,000 to Imagine Learning for 2013-2014, which is $2,000,000 more than they've ever received in a past year.  Please look at the two-page accountability report given to the legislature which is apparently the basis of Senator Urquhart's and Stephenson's claims of increased student achievement. 

The Imagine Learning report is basically useless.  It is not an independent report generated by the users of the product, the schools or Utah State Office of Education.  It is two pages provided by the vendor detailing how they fulfilled their contract and their claims of student achievement.  They report that they fulfilled their contract by having friendly customer service, installing the program, and delivering headphones.  Then they provide a table of student skill mastery data as measured by themselves.  There is no context to understand it.  80% mastery of those concepts as defined by Imagine Learning in an unknown number of exercises would correspond with what CRT, DIBEL, or anything?   The 4th column reports much higher percentages of students with skills mastered than I get from dividing the second column of total students by the first column reporting how many students mastered at least 80% of the skills per area.  What numbers and context are missing?   This is data by the vendor to show that the vendor's program worked.  What was the chance of those numbers showing low achievement?  0%?  The data just seems cherry-picked to appear high with further results available "on request."  Take a guess how many legislators requested any more specific data... Or take a guess how many times Howard Stephenson ranted about "funding inputs" in relation to Imagine Learning's intrepid providing of headphones.

I have only done a cursory read through the extensive Waterford 3-year evaluation data.  This at least gives the appearance of rigorous comparison with the state's scores, but I have not put the necessary time in to dig through this all and see if it's valid.  This was presented by a Waterford Rep. and the first page is another mini-sales pitch. There is a claim that a test given halfway through kindergarten shows that children who used the Waterford software program score higher on a reading test than those students who did not take the test.  There are still many questions about that test, whether the difference is meaningful and will still be there in first grade, and whether the degree of any positive effects justify the cost.

Or put differently, could we accomplish the same and more by spending that money somewhere besides to one well-connected company? And why didn't Stephenson or the legislature talk publicly about this or past reports they assumably received about the Waterford UPSTART program?  There is often no real attempt to negotiate with educators about the best use of funds when Stephenson determines a software vendor can do something better than teachers. 

I was surprised, though maybe I shouldn't have been, that both "accountability" documents were written up by the vendor themselves.  The claims to "increased student achievement," merited or not, were apparently carried through the ALEC network to Arizona as well, where Imagine Learning is trying to repeat the same pattern by winning education contracts from politicians rather than educators. 

Howard Stephenson has a record believing marvelous "21st century" claims of vendors and then shilling for specific companies. (That last link has so many revealing underlined quotes.  Read and see Stephenson's numerous comments.)  A Utah district got suckered by a vendor I have had some experience with, Plato Learning, into spending over $75,000 on worthless learning "games," that last I heard are boxed up and ignored after less than a year of use.  I've attended various sales pitches in our district and a lot of them are solutions looking for problems...and really broad problems like "reading" where they can claim "It's only one piece of the process" if scores do not go up, but claim to be the definitive cause of any improvement.

Software can be an important tool, but programs are receiving state contracts via custom RFP's because they can convince or donate to one or two key legislators, or just based on the ideology that technology can more cheaply accomplish something as complex as educate a child. 

Howard Stephenson and his buddies, along with Parents for Choice in Education, are running vendor specific bills cloaked in language of open RFP's.  We know those who have openly donated in the past; we will find out more in months to come when 2013 political donation reports are due; and we may never learn if some companies are members of ALEC or the Utah Taxpayer's Association, where their payments are merely a "private transaction" rather than a bribe.  It's an open secret that is just as bad as anything John Swallow did.

It should be illegal.  It certainly isn't ethical.  And in contrast to all of their rhetoric, it is certainly not about helping kids learn.  It's all about directing easy chunks of taxpayer money to political cronies. 

Just a few 2013 vendor bills:

SB 133, SB 82, and SB 257 which are a package deal literally meant to enable a private database of individual, identifiable information of every student in Utah so vendors can use the data to sell us stuff. SB 82 and SB 257 have specific vendors already chosen by the bill sponsors.

SB 260 More money for Imagine Learning as detailed above.

SB 175 requires the state contract with an ACT Prep software company with a strangely specific $150,000 cost, leading me to believe Stephenson already knows a company will make that bid. Even though the official ACT site already has as many free test questions and study materials as I think most students need, the official ACT purchasable online prep program may be the target company here.  Its buzz words match the prewritten RFP in the bill very well. (Lines 229-258) But at $19.95 a pop, that would only cover 7500 students, not nearly enough.  This one even makes it law that districts have to "encourage" the use of the program.  No micro-managing here.

SB 79 Makes an RFP for a "consultant" to guide the state and schools in creating "blended learning models." Money can also be granted with no oversight to buy software or online curriculum material.  Who does Stephenson know who consults and has a handy set of online materials ready for purchase?

HB 343 tried to ban schools from purchasing paper books....Well why don't you try our lovely daily online reading program?

SB 284  More money for iSchool? A 1-to-1 device to student ratio pilot?

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.

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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Parents for Choice in Education hosts luncheon for "education stakeholders"...except for anyone who works at a school

PCE has been sending out email for the last month recruiting a crowd for a luncheon with Jeb Bush and Governor Herbert about public school accountability and Bush's "school grade" project in Florida. They have included a lot of lines like:

As Stakeholders in education, it is imperative that you participate in the discussion on how Utah can and will overcome our unique educational challenges and emerge as a strong leader in a 21st century global economy.

The luncheon would at least be interesting. Whenever Howard Stephenson is full-heartedly behind an education measure, I cast a very cynical eye on the proposal, but I would like to hear how the school grades are measured and who decided on that measurement.

Unfortunately, the luncheon was planned on August 24th, right smack in the middle of the first week of school. Granite, Canyons, and Davis Districts all started classes today; Provo and Nebo Districts start tomorrow (the 24th); and Alpine, Salt Lake, and Jordan Districts all start in the 2 days after that. That means school staff members--teachers, administration, and support staff--are already required to be working at school, often welcoming incoming secondary students a day early.

When PCE talks about inviting stakeholders, they actually mean those ideologically in line with their thinking. (Especially rich ideologues. There are sponsorships available in the emails: Event $5000 Banner $2500 Table $1000.) Teachers and public school employees are regarded as the "enemy" to actually be avoided in education policy debates. It goes along with the rhetoric from many in the legislature. I tuned in to the first hour of Red Meat Radio last Saturday, and Judi Clark from PCE was co-hosting the show with Greg Hughes. I didn't write this down word for word, but Hughes opened up the show saying something close to "We're the good guys. The ones on our side, on the parents side." Then he contrasted his show and PCE to the evil UEA, supposedly not on the parents' side.

The ultra rightwing folks in the legislature and PCE must know teachers in their neighborhoods--the normal people with families and children who far outnumber the legislature's families in their personal stake in the quality of the school system--yet to hear them talk, the union is a bunch of selfish, childless atheists who "control" education and hate students. And I think they actually believe their own false created image which is repeated back to them in their policy echo chambers. They don't comprehend that the general public trusts teachers much more than politicians, but the political apathy of society in general lets them get away with their destructive attitudes.

So to sum, I think you can still attend the luncheon with Jeb Bush tomorrow at the SLC Marriott for 20 bucks if you don't want to pony up the 1000 dollars to be a table sponsor. Check it out, evaluate the information presented, notice who is attending, and listen to the language and underlying assumptions and disdain for teachers and public education in general. These people don't represent us.

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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