The thing that our critics never understand about Delaware Liberal is that none of our ten contributors agree with each other all the time, and we never speak in one voice. We speak in ten voices. At times they are unified, but more often than not they are varying and sometimes they are dissenting.
I am about to dissent a little bit from one of my colleagues, but I hope this starts a good discussion about education.
My colleague Nemski criticized the Markell Administration last week over its focus on education and what he interpreted as Markell spending money to attract new businesses to the state (and hence new jobs to the state) at the expense of funding our local school districts.
Markell is asking for a replenishment of the Strategic Fund — which has virtually been wiped out in bringing Fisker Automotive and PBF Energy to Delaware —, an investment in transportation and another investment in small capital projects. All of this is due to a $100 million dollar projected increase in revenue for Delaware in 2011.
While Markell kowtows to the business community, education in Delaware is getting short-changed. Specifically, let’s look at Brandywine School District, which is losing $2.7 million in monies from the state, an increase of 25% of the transportation costs and $5 million less in stimulus funds. What does this mean to Brandywine School District after many cost-cutting measures already implemented by the school district? Layoffs. Sixty-seven educators will be losing their jobs.
So while Markell pumps money into the coffers of the rich to “create” jobs, have we seen one Fisker Automotive job in Delaware yet? No, but what we have seen is $14 million dollars coming from the US government to pay for cleanup of the GM Plant. For all the hoopla concerning creating jobs in Delaware, losing 67 jobs seems to be a much bigger deal.
Later, Nemski totaled up the layoffs of administrative staff and teachers from other school districts from up and down the state, and found that 220 (after excluding Indian River) were facing the ax, which he blamed on Governor Markell due to the perception that Markell is spending too much time, focus and money on attracting new business and private sector jobs to the state rather than taking care of education. Indeed, the titles of his posts left no doubt as to his interpretation of these events: “Markell Expands Corporate Welfare, Says No to Education,” and “Delaware Teacher Layoffs: More than You Think.”
But, as was discussed last week in the comments to those posts, that isn’t the whole story.
[May 15] was the contractual deadline for districts to notify teachers if they will be needed for the following school year. Typically, many of those who receive layoff notices are rehired in the summer. But several district and union leaders contacted by The News Journal said layoff notices increased this year — and there is growing concern that more educators won’t be hired back.
In Christina, the state’s largest school district, 184 teachers and teacher aides received layoff notices. Only 13 did last year, and five were rehired. Indian River officials delivered layoff notices to 68 educators this year. Last year, they brought back all of the 60 educators who initially received notices. […]
Brandywine gave notice to 23 teachers and 43 paraprofessionals. Cape Henlopen notified 12 teachers and is considering laying off up to six support staff. Red Clay notified 38.But several districts — including Colonial, Delmar, Polytech and Smyrna — said they won’t lay off any educators. A handful of others laid off one or two.
No state agency tracks how many educators are laid off each year and districts report reductions differently, so knowing how many jobs could be lost is difficult. Statewide, superintendents told the state Office of Management and Budget that they expect to cut about 225 education-related jobs but plan to have 1,000 new hires to replace workers who retire or resign and to fill new positions.
We at Delaware Liberal received complaints from the Governor’s office about Nemski’s implication that Markell himself or his administration were cutting teacher jobs directly in favor of courting big business, and specifically on the issue of the Superintendents stating that while 225 jobs are being cut now, 1,000 are being added in the fall. We are seeking to confirm that figure with the individual school districts and with the DSEA, but that since the figure was reported in the News Journal article by Dobo, it seems reasonable to assume that the Superintendents themselves did report that to the OMB.
But, regardless of that, don’t you see what is going on here? It is the oldest trick in the books of budget negotiation. We saw it take place last year, albeit with the shoe being on the other foot, when Governor Markell proposed the 8% paycut for all state employees, which, after the outrage of state workers and through the budget negotiation process, turned out to be a furloughs amounting to a 2.5% paycut.
Now some school districts, faced with budget shortfalls resulting from reduced incoming federal stimulus money and a proposed state cut in student transportation funding, are making large and increased “reductions in force” (RIF) of teachers and administrative staff now and announcing it to the parents in their districts, and of course, to those actually being laid off. Keep in mind however, that RIF notices on May 15 are commonplace, with most of those receiving such notices being rehired for the next school year. Indeed, as shown above, these same superintendents apparently expect to hire 1,000 new staff next year, as they have reported to the OMB, so it is a net positive of 775 education related jobs (teachers and staff) that are expected to be created based on the proposed budget. So, in affect, using the logic Nemski used in his posts, Markell is saying YES to education!!!! (A little dig at my friend). But, you see, it is not even Markell that is involved in the RIFs or the later retentions, rehires or new hires. It is the school districts themselves.
What Governor Markell is responsible for is the 25% cut in state transportation funding, which we will get to in later in this post.
But what Nemski and others reacted to is the gamemanship that is part and parcel of the budget process. A superintendent of a school district describes the process:
The state’s budget time line is partly to blame, said Dan Curry, Lake Forest School District superintendent. Schools must estimate how many educators they can afford by May 15, but the state doesn’t finish its budget until June 30. Without firm numbers on state funding, district leaders are left to guess how many people they can afford in the coming year.
“If we’re going to do this right, we need time after the Legislature acts to do a proper budget,” Curry said.
And the school districts have played their hand in making increased RIFs now, moreso than they have in some time, in the hopes that outrage from parents and those who care about education will scream loud enough for education funding to be protected in the budget that is voted on on June 30. In fact, the reality is the budget is not finalized yet and definitely has not been voted on yet, and won’t be until June 30, so in fact there are no real layoffs yet. Just anticipated layoffs that will probably not actually exist when all is said and done. Indeed, if the superintendents are to be believed, they anticipate hiring 775 new employees, even if the proposed 25% cut in state transportation funding.
So what Nemski is reacting to is the opening salvo in a budget negotiation. That is fine and he is playing his part in the annual ritual in the push and pull over the budget.
What is really eating at Nemski, and which he has a point on, are 1) perception and priorities, and 2) the proposed state cuts in transportation funding.
Let’s take the first one….well, first.
Governor Markell states that his priorities for his term are better jobs, stronger schools and more cost-effective government. I can argue that if you don’t do well on getting new and better jobs into the state, it means you do not replace the lost revenue from the jobs we have lost from the Great Recession, which in turn means there is no way, save from raising taxes on a dwindling tax base, to maintain or increase funding for our schools. So attracting new business and new jobs is an essential first step. But seeing so much focus on new private sector jobs, combined with a perceived lack of focus on education, coupled with these layoff announcements and a 25% cut in transportation funding, Nemski can be forgiven for thinking that Markell is not focusing on education.
But the truth is opposite that perception. At the National Governors Association, he is the co-chair, along with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels of the Common Core Standards effort, which is explained in further detail here. His Facebook page has three education-related posts in the last month. People quickly forget Delaware was the top scorer in the country in the Race to the Top, a remarkable achievement that is the result of the hard work of his administration and the school districts across this state.
Remember, the RTTT competition was and is designed by the Obama Administration to reward states that have developed plans for comprehensive statewide education reform to adopt standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace; that build data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals how to improve instruction; that develop, recruit and retain effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and turning around their lowest-performing schools. And Delaware won $100 million over the next four years to implement those reforms. Detractors of the RTTP do not like uniform standards dictated to the local school boards from either the federal or state government, and they see it as a loss of local control of education decision making.
And that is a perfectly legitimate opinion to have, and we can argue volumes on the policy aspects of national standards versus local control in education policy, as Kilroy does daily. But I digress.
Lets not also forget the reforms in education enacted last year:
Surrounded by leading education advocates, Gov. Jack Markell signed three major education reforms into law [in August 2009].
“For our state to have the future we all want it to have, we need to make our strong education system even stronger,” Markell said. “We have the ability to make our state’s education system one of the best in the world, but that kind of progress demands that we think differently about how we measure and achieve success. It demands that we do more with the limited resources we have and encourage innovation. These reforms will help deliver the kind of change our system needs to prepare students to become active citizens and succeed in an increasingly competitive economy.”
The reforms, which were co-sponsored by a large bipartisan group of lawmakers, will:• Eliminate the Delaware Student Testing Program and replace it with a testing program that measures student progress over the course of a school year (Senate Bill 68).
“I think the sky’s really the limit for using this as a tool to help our students do better. We’re going to have a comprehensive assessment system that will give teachers quick results – typically the next day,” said Senate Education Committee Chairman David Sokola, D-Newark North, who drafted the law instituting the new test. “That means teachers and schools will have meaningful data in hand enabling them to both provide on-the-spot help to students as well as to look at areas where a curriculum might need work.”
• Reward high-performing schools with additional funding. The pilot program to offer incentives to schools closing the achievement gap will be launched using money from the federal economic recovery package (Senate Bill 151).
“Governor Markell’s reform agenda gets all the big things right and is willing to listen to make sure the small things get done right, too,” said Representative Terry Schooley, chair of the House Education Committee. “It takes seriously problems like the achievement gap that have plagued our state for too long,” Schooley said. “Education is the straightest path out of child poverty, which the KIDS Count data shows is a major hurdle to the next generation’s success.”
• Provide local schools and districts with substantially more discretion to make financial and other decisions that make sense for the kids they serve, while simultaneously holding them more accountable for spending their funds responsibly. Districts will be required to post their check registers on their Web sites by Sept. 1 and update them quarterly. (House Bill 119).
“House Bill 119 frees districts in many ways to use their resources to improve student achievement,” said Diane Donohue, president of the Delaware State Education Association. “By requiring full transparency of district finances, there will surely be more public involvement in schools, which can have benefits we can’t even imagine.”
So it seems like the Governor has been focused on education, and has enacted reforms, perceptions notwithstanding. Perhaps the Governor needs to take some press to his visits to schools, and change that perception, because if an intelligent and involved parent like Nemski can buy into the perception, so can a lot of other people.
The last of the three reforms above leads us into Nemski’s second concern: the 25% cut in state transportation funding, and while I disagreed with Nemski over his posts blaming Markell for the proposed RIFs and over the perception that Markell is ignoring education in favor of attracting new business and new private sector jobs to the state, I will not disagree with him on this one. The 25% cut is what it is. It is a cut in funding, and I do not like it, especially where we can explore other ways to bridge the gap in the state budget, such as increasing revenues.
To play devil’s advocate, I will offer the administration’s defense: It wants to cut costs in every aspect of the state government and it wants to promote efficiency, one of the three goals that Governor Markell laid out. Cutting costs and promoting efficiency should occur in the local school districts where inefficiency can often occur, especially concerning transportation costs. Thus, to spur on cost cutting, such as employing new bus routes that do not result in half empty buses and which save on fuel costs, the Markell Administration proposes cutting the transportation budget by 25%. As a result of the last of the three reforms passed last year discussed above, the local school districts will have discretion in figuring out how to appropriate their funds. So it is up to the local school districts to figure out how to cut costs in their transportation budget to make up for the 25% cut from the state.
The problem is, being devil’s advocate on the part of the administration, and it brings us full circle to the what we discussed at the beginning of this post, in that the local school districts are not making the necessary cost cutting steps to account for the 25% cut, and instead are increasing the number of RIFs as of May 15, as well as cutting other school programs, all leading to outrage on the part of parents and students and Nemski that will benefit the negotiating stance of the local school districts and the DSEA over the next two months. In other words, we are back in the budget negotiation process again.
Now, I do not know one way or the other if the above argument in favor of the Markell Administration is true. I do not know if the local school districts have cut their transportation costs and are still coming up short, and I will look forward to being enlightened on that front. But I will tell you what, that scenario does make sense to me as part of a budget negotiation.
I see it every year.