While the media is preoccupied with financial and auto bailouts, a budget crunch is headed to a school near you.
In a very unusual sign of the times, school districts around the country are facing midyear budget cuts and negotiating with states that can't make payroll. Next school year will be worse. The 2010-11 school year could very well include another round of cuts for many districts.
School districts are terrible at cost reduction. With most of their costs tied up in long term employment contracts that include byzantine layoff rules, there's very little flexibility. Seniority rules in most districts -- lower cost new teachers are typically first to go.
District administration is sticky too. A district near home has lost 20% of its enrollment to charter schools and they have made no reductions in the bloated central office.
Here's what will happen: energetic young teachers will get fired, classes will get larger, and small schools will be closed. There will be some central office layoffs, reductions in transportation, and more pay-for-play sports. Special needs kids will fare best because they're individualized programs are legally protected. By and large, it means a crummier version of an already struggling public delivery system.
While far from easy, states with courageous governors could use this crisis to make a radical change: cut the budget by 10% and send the money directly to schools. Every school would get a three year performance contract (i.e., charter) and would be required to join a support network (which could include what used to be a school district, a university, a non-profit like New Tech Foundation, a charter management organization like Green Dot, a for-profit like Edison Learning, or a self-organized coop).
Under more favorable circumstances, Tony Blair implemented a slightly less radical version of this proposal that stripped Local Education Authorities in the UK of most of their control and budget authority. It resulted in more money in the classroom, more school choice, and probably contributed to improved outcomes.
Okay, this won't be easy, but a good deal of this proposal could be implemented in September 2009 if a legislature moved fast in the next 60 days. A saner schedule would be to put districts on notice this spring that they will be going out of business after the 2009-10 school year. A smaller version could target districts eligible for reorganization under No Child Left Behind and, like New Orleans, they could be placed in a state sponsored reorganization.
As Paul Hill and Marc Tucker have suggested, community councils (taking the place of school boards) could oversee charter renewal and ask the all important portfolio question, "What kind of schools do the kids of this community need?"
Budget cuts are inevitable. We will end up with a crummier version of mediocre except for in those rare places where leaders take advantage of the crisis and reinvent the system.
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"Special needs kids will fare best because they're individualized programs are legally protected. "
That should read
Special needs kids will fare best because their individualized programs are legally protected."
This problem is not limited to HuffPo nor is it uncommon.
For people who make their living by the word, however, it should never happen.
The second is the century old school model. Schools are the educational equivalent of Henry Ford's production line. They were designed to product factory works with the bare minimum of education at a cheap cost. Well, the business world needs a whole different kind of employee now, so you need to revise the entire structure of WHAT is taught and HOW it is taught. Compartmentalizing curriculum, 1 hour classes, 5 days a week, etc. It ALL needs to be updated.
And don't expect students to be ready for the business world (or college) upon graduation when they're using outdated technology. Businesses switch out their computers every 18 months. Schools use them until they die; 6 years if you're lucky. My school was still using Mac OS9 last year.
If you want to spout about school reform...you're going to have to do your homework.
Everyone that went to a public school thinks they're an expert.
Don't expect a Neiman Marcus education on a Walmart budget. You want to pay Walmart prices, that's what you'll get; 40 kids in a classroom with a green teacher that has no concept of classroom control and only a vague idea on how to multitask the state standards, district standards, reading strategies, NETS technology etc. There's a reason there's such a high turnover in the teaching profession the first 3 years. One is to fire anyone before they get "tenure". (There is no such thing as "tenure" in my state. What we have is "just cause" I.E. you need to have a better reason to fire a competant teacher than to save a buck.)
http://www.aasa.org/publications/saarticledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=5212&snItemNumber=950&tnItemNumber=951
In an era of bailouts, you still think that introducing competition into public schools via school choice will improve quality? Big business has been a great model to emulate. I have yet to see any legitimate longitudinal study that shows an increase in student achievement in areas that have implemented school choice.
School distiricts are terrible at cost cutting because most are already operating on a shoe string. It's true that young teachers cost less, but untrue that they can facilitate higher student achievement. The most critical factor in student achievement is the instructor in the classroom. Until we provide economic incentives for experienced teachers to stay in the classroom and not drift into other careers or school admin, the problem of low school student achievement remains.
CEO-types who advocate market based solutions for education like charter schools miss the point. Charter schools have problems of their own. At least school boards operate in the public and their decisions are subject to media and public scrutiny. What corporation answers to anybody but its majority stock holders or board of directors?
Schools have a much bigger mandate than to produce competitive workers. They also are being asked to socialize students, instill democratic values and offer equal opportunity in a society that hasn't yet been able to completely follow through on that promise.