May 2009 Archives

With the charter school bill on its way to the state Senate any day now, the Kennebec journal has jumped into the fray with shotgun blast of an editorial, aimed right at the charter-opposing educational establishment and their dutiful water-carriers in the legislature:

Supporters of the status quo are on the verge of winning the battle against innovation at the Statehouse, where the umpteenth attempt to bring charter schools to Maine is just about dead.

The bill in question, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Dennis Damon of Trenton, would have finally allowed charter schools to be opened in the state. Maine is one of only 10 states that still bar the independently run public schools.

But such schools are apparently a threat to life as it should be. That's at least what a range of interests representing -- tellingly -- superintendents, teachers, principals and school boards told lawmakers in public hearings and work sessions. Charter schools, in their view, will siphon money from public schools, drain away good students and the state funding that goes with them, they're elitist and their establishment will lead to the closing of rural schools.

Despite testimony from teachers, educational specialists and parents endorsing charter schools, lawmakers were cowed into submission by the powerful institutional interests and voted down the bill in committee."

Cowed into submission is precisely the phrase for it.

Anyone interested in why Maine trails the nation in meaningful educational innovation - why we are one of the few states without charter schools, why we continue to argue about high school diploma requirements years after most states have settled the issue, why we stumble from one assessment system to another - need only spend a few hours in the Education Committee room.

Don't bother studying the legislators, look rather at who is sitting in the audience. No matter the bill being debated or the subject being discussed, the "three musketeers" of the education status quo will always be there: Sandy MacArthur from the Maine School Management Association, representing the school boards and school superintendents, Steve Crouse from the Maine Education Association, representing the teachers' union, and Dick Durost from the Maine Principals' Association.

Together they form a solid wall of opposition to any kind of innovation that threatens their unrelenting grip on Maine's schools.  Against school choice. Against charter schools. Against new pay models for teachers and administrators. Against alternative teacher certification programs. Against the school budget validation process. Against tough standards and greater accountability.

From the KJ:

We challenge the Legislature: If you don't have the courage to stand up and beat off the prophets of doom who are so scared of charter schools, then just reject the bill.

Alternatively, do the right thing and vote for a robust experiment in charter schools, as the bill originally proposed. Maine's children deserve the best teaching we can give them and, lest we forget, that's why we have schools -- for our children.

For the forces of the status quo, though, it isn't about the children. It never is. It is about the adults in the system and what is best for them.

Not a single parent spoke out against public charter schools at the public hearing. Not one. Rumor has it that new polling data, soon to be released, shows that 70% of Mainers support public charter schools. Charter schools are in place already in 40 other states, and the Obama Administration is calling on states to create even more charter schools.

Yet, despite all this, the charter school bill is likely headed to defeat.

The KJ knows why, and now, so do you.

The result of two divisive work sessions on the charter school bill was a 8-5 divided report against the bill, which now goes to the Senate, and then on to the House.  With both of the Senate Democrats on the Education Committee against the bill, it is safe to say that it will be a miracle if the bill even makes it out of the Senate, much less passes the House.

Some history may be in order.

In 2006, the 122nd Legislature debated, and ultimately defeated, a bill to authorize charter schools, LD 1640. Only one Democrat who was in the Senate during the 122nd legislature and is still there today, Dennis Damon, voted in favor of LD 1640.

Current Senate Democrats Lawrence Bliss, Joe Brannigan, Margaret Craven, Stan Gerzofsky, Troy Jackson, Lisa Marrache and Deborah Simpson were all in the House in 2006 and all voted against LD 1640, as did then-House Republicans Gerry Davis, Earle McCormick, Roger Sherman, and David Trahan, all of whom are also in the Senate today. Senator Kevin Raye, who is now the Senate Republican Leader, voted against LD 1640 as well.

This adds up to 19 of 20 Senate Democrats likely to vote against this year's charter school bill, and 5 of 15 Republicans.  Even if one or two of the Senators who opposed charter schools in the past changes his or her vote, the bill is almost certainly doomed.

So, yet another triumph for the status quo. Today's Portland Press Herald hits it right on the head:

So far, opponents [of charter schools] continue to offer the same stale complaints. The most common is the claim that charter schools divert money from public schools. But charter schools are public schools. They are created by contract with a school district or an institution of higher learning and use the same mix of state and local tax dollars on a per-pupil basis to teach the same kids.

It is reasonable to expect, especially at first, that charter schools will start small and attract relatively few students, which should not have major impact on the sending school's budget. But, as Rep. Alan Casavant, D-Biddeford, pointed out this week, if large numbers of students are fleeing a local school, "that would tell you that something's wrong" with the school and not with the charter school option.

Rep. Casavant, by the way, should be regarded as a hero to the cause of charter schools. He worked extraordinarily hard, even after the bill had been voted on by the committee, to get some kind of charter school bill passed. He is to be commended for his efforts.

"Opponents of charter schools," the paper concludes, "tend to be those who have a vested interest in the system the way it is - teachers' unions and superintendents."  This is unquestionably true.  Not a single parent spoke out against the charter school bill.  Its only opponents were, as I described earlier, the forces of the status quo - the various associations representing the teachers, principals, superintendents, and school boards.

They have, it would appear, triumphed once again, meaning Maine will likely remain one of only 10 states in the nation that will not even experiment, even in a limited and highly regulated way, with an approach to education reform that has transformed schools across the nation.

As one disheartened charter supporter told be yesterday, "Dirigo means what again? 'I Lead?'"

Not this time.

Will Maine join the 40 other states which allow the creation of public charter schools?

What happens at today's work session on LD 1438 will tell us a great deal about the answer to that question. A strong "Ought to Pass" recommendation from the Education Committee would virtually guarantee passage of the bill, while a divided report, especially one divided along party lines, would likely mean prolonged battles over the bill in the House and Senate.

Based on last week's debate over the bill, a strict "party line" split on the bill is unlikely.  Rep. Alan Casavant, a Democrat from Biddeford, made a motion to pass the bill last week, so at least one Democrat from the committee is likely to join the Republicans and vote to support the bill. 

That the bill is sponsored by high-ranking Democrats such as Sen. Dennis Damon (D-Hancock) and Rep. John Piotti (D-Unity), the House Majority Leader, will likely mean additonal support from Democrats.

And why not?

A new study out this week shows support for charter schools slowly shifting from the political right to the political left.  The study, conducted by researchers from Brown University and the University of Chicago, found that the more respondents knew about how charter schools actually operate, the more likely liberals were to support them, with conservative support  becoming less likely:

"Forty-nine percent of conservatives and 36 percent of liberals who were not provided information supported charter schools. But when they were told that charter schools are tuition-free and secular, support dropped among conservatives by 6 percentage points and increased among liberals by 11 percentage points. Indeed, when provided information, liberals were 4 percent more likely to support charter schools than were conservatives." the authors reported.

"These findings," they added, "portend a major shift in the political landscape of school choice. Traditionally, charter schools have been viewed as falling primarily within the province of conservatives' preferred education reforms. Yet our results show that basic facts about the design of charter schools appeal more to liberals. It is quite possible, then, that as the public becomes more informed about these public schools, core support for them may shift from the right to the left of the political spectrum. Indeed, the recent election of a liberal (and presumably well-informed) president who professes strong support of charter schools may be a sign that this process is under way." 

Will this shift in thinking carry itself all the way to the Education Committee, which is dominated by liberals?

We'll find out this afternoon. The work session on the charter school bill is at 1pm today. The audio broadcast of the committee's deliberations can be heard here.

Last week the U.S. Census Bureau released new "age, race and sex" demographic data for all 50 states for the year ending July 1, 2008.  Unfortunately, the data brings more bad news for Maine.  Between July 1, 2007 and July 1, 2008, Maine lost another 4,543 people under the age of 18--bringing the cumulative loss since July 1, 2000 to 26,346 (click "continue reading" to view table).

Perhaps more disturbingly, between July 1, 2007 and July 1, 2008, Maine lost another 5,843 people 25 to 44 years old--bringing the cumulative loss since July 1, 2000 to 37,900.  This is strong, indirect evidence that Maine is losing its families to out-migration.

On the flip side, between July 1, 2007 and July 1, 2008, Maine gained another 6,405 people 45 to 64 years old--bringing the cumulative gain since July 1, 2000 to 79,944.  This is strong, indirect evidence that Maine has seen in-migration from empty-nesters.

Clearly this imbalance in Maine's age structure cannot continue without serious repercussions to Maine's economy.  Maine is losing its most productive population (25 to 44) and its next generation (under 18) while a growing proportion of the population rapidly nears retirement (45 to 64).  This begs the question--will there be enough productive people left in Maine to support the retired in 5, 10 or 15 years hence?

I recently came across this website that should be of particular interest to all Mainers--The Institute fro Truth in Accounting.  In a nutshell, they have discovered that current budgeting practices by the federal government, as well as in the 50 states, has lead to a massive understatement in actual government liabilities.  For example, the federal debt that we are all most familiar with is around $11.3 trillion.  However, when you add in other debt such as government employee pensions, Social Security and Medicare then the real debt is more like a staggering $61.2 trillion.  Their overall study can be found here.  For a review of Maine's budgetary practices, go here.

My hope had been that I would able, by now, to report that the Legislature's Education Committee had voted the charter school bill out and sent it on to the full House and Senate for a vote. Instead, after a couple of hours of debate on Thursday, the committee voted to table the bill until some time next week.

What's the holdup?

It was clear from Thursday's debate that the committee was not particularly familiar with the bill. This was due in part, no doubt, to a hurry-up public hearing a week ago in which the committee limited testimony to two minutes and asked few, if any questions.

There were plenty of questions at the work session, though. The major issues?

• There were several finance questions to lead off, though I don't know that the right questions ended up being asked. The charter school bill requires that the EPS-calculated per-pupil amount, state and local, follow the child to the charter school. This was characterized as draining resources from the existing schools, but since 88% of districts are spending over EPS, having a student go to a charter school at that rate is a cost savings, isn't it?  The State Planning Office says that if all school districts spent their EPS amount, we'd save $220 million statewide. Charter schools would be paid the EPS amount.

The same could be said in response to concerns raised by committee members that opening new schools would cost taxpayers more. The opposite is true, though. The Portland school system is currently spending $10 million more than EPS says it should. If it sent ALL its kids to charter schools for the EPS rate, it would SAVE taxpayers $10 million, no matter how many schools were built.

• There were questions about certified teachers. The bill requires that only 50% of a charter school's teachers be certified, which concerned some committee members. Meanwhile, none of Maine's Town Academies, which also educate publicly funded students (and, incidentally, do it for less than the EPS rate, in most cases), are required to employ certified teachers, and they seem to do just fine. Study after study shows no correlation between certification and teacher excellence anyway. This should not be an issue.
  

• There were questions, lots of them, about whether we should cap the number of charter schools. The bill allows public school systems to create any number of charters, but limits colleges and universities, which also have the power to authorize charter schools, to authorize only 20. This was seen by some as not being enough of a cap, with the committee's Senate chair, Sen. Alfond, suggesting a cap of ten charter schools total, statewide, for the next ten years. 
  

Data from other states shows that adopting so stringent a charter cap would place us among the least charter-friendly states in the nation that actually has charters. The data below is from the Education Commission of the States, which maintains a charter school database.

Data on Charter school caps.xls

It is important to point out that Education Secretary Duncan, in a recent Chicago Tribune article, criticized Illinois for having charter school caps that were too strict. It sent the message, he said, that Illinois was not ready to innovate. Illinois has a cap of 60 charter schools statewide.

There were other issues as well, but these seemed to be ones that generated the most concern. One hopes that committee members take the weekend to do a thorough review of the materials from the public hearing (the Maine Association for Charter Schools provided them with a huge folder full of material), and come into work next week ready to make Maine a leader on charter schools, not the follower it has been for years.

Click here for a list of Education Committee members, with links to their contact information





 

My hope had been that I would able, by now, to report that the Legislature's Education Committee had voted the charter school bill out and sent it on to the full House and Senate for a vote. Instead, after a couple of hours of debate on Thursday, the committee voted to table the bill until some time next week.

What's the holdup?

It was clear from Thursday's debate that the committee was not familiar with the bill.  This was due in part, no doubt, to a hurry-up public hearing a week ago in which the committee limited testimony from charter supporters to two minutes and asked few, if any questions.

There were plenty of questions at the work session, though.  The major issues?

• There were plenty of finance questions to lead off, though I don't know that the right questions ended up being asked.  The charter school bill requires that the EPS-calculated per-pupil amount
  

 

For those of you who missed our event announcement, we have a great event coming up on Maine's Town Academies and independent schools.  Doug Cummings, who is the executive director of the Independent Schools Association of Northern New England, will be speaking in Bangor on the subject of Maine's Town Academies.

The Town Academies, for those of you who are not familiar with them, are private high schools whose student populations are predominately publicly-funded. Towns that do not operate their own high schools often "tuition" their students to the Academies in lieu of building their own high schools. Some of the Academies have been around since before Maine was a state and today most of them serve as the de facto public high school for their areas.

That they are independent, though, gives them far more freedom, a freedom many of them have used to become some of the finest high schools in Maine.  As Maine looks to adopting public charter schools, the time is right to look at the ways these independent schools have operated and the success they've had.

Doug will be giving his talk on the past, present, and future of Maine's independent schools at noon on Thursday, May 14, at the Sea Dog Brewery in Bangor.

Please see our event notice for information on registration.

Officially it is 8.1 percent for March 2009 according to the Maine Department of Labor. However, since January 2009, Maine's labor force has been shrinking. This means that people are "no longer looking for employment" thus no longer part of the workforce. Yet, this is a definitional fine line. If they were looking for work, they would be immediately counted as "unemployed."

As such, declines in the labor force could be called "shadow unemployment." Yet, the economic effects are the same whether one is officially "unemployed" or part of "shadow unemployment." Maine's economy still suffers under lower incomes, lower consumption, lower tax revenue--well, you get the ugly picture.

Since January, 2009, Maine has lost 5,486 people from its labor force. If we add these folks back to the labor force AND unemployed column, the unemployment rate jumps a whopping 9 percent in March 2009 to 8.8 percent from 8.1 percent as shown in the accompanying chart (click "continue reading" to view the chart). This is why it appears that the increase in Maine's unemployment rate has slowed since January because the base, ie, labor force, has been getting smaller.

Another way to look at this is that it appears Maine has lost only 1,853 jobs since January. But, if you add the 5,486 folks who dropped out of the labor force then Maine has lost 7,339 jobs. Based on all the news reports of business closures, which number do you think better fits reality?

Last night, the Legislature's Education Committee approved an amended version of Sen. Carol Weston's bill to encourage performance-based compensation systems for teachers and school administrators.

As amended, the bill will become a Resolve, calling on the Department of Education to convene a working group to assist interested school districts in accessing federal grant funding to help them develop new pay models.

This is a big win. As I noted in an earlier post, Maine's educational establishment recently called for more study of the performance-pay concept, despite numerous studies showing the positive effects such systems have had on student outcomes.

In the end, though, the availability of federal funding to help districts move in this direction, which a number of them are interested in doing, tipped the scales. The committee earlier voted down, by unanimous vote, a bill to outlaw such pay systems. Now, it has taken a active step toward encouraging the development of such systems here in Maine.

It is rare that Maine finds itself on the forefront of education reform, but this morning, thanks to the Education committee and the good work of Commissioner Gendron, who is supportive of the performance-pay concept, it is.

Yesterday's public hearing on LD 1438, An Act to Permit Charter Schools, went about as well as charter school supporters could have hoped.

The committee began the hearings well behind schedule, so all testimony was limited to two minutes.  This did put a damper on some of the testimony, much of which revolved around personal stories of children struggling in conventional public school settings and/or succeeding in alternative settings of or kind or another.  Still, the fact that charter supporters were able to muster almost two-dozen people to testify on the bill's behalf meant that the public hearing was dominated by charter supporters.  Among the big guns testifying in support of the charter bill were the Maine PTA and the Maine State Board of Education.

I gave a very quick testimony, providing the committee with the two pieces of research we have done on charter schools.  The first was written in 2007 and serves as a quick primer on the concept of charter schools. The second, which we released yesterday, was, as I told the committee, inspired by President Obama's recent praise of charter schools as centers of innovation.  Our review of the literature on charter school innovation shows that Obama was right - charter schools do develop and integrate innovative educational approaches more often and more successfully than conventional public schools.

I told the committee that I anticipated the opponents of charter schools - the Maine Education Association, the Maine School Superintendents Association, and the Maine School Boards Association - would oppose the bill on the grounds that, given the budget crisis the state currently faces, now was not the time to redirect funding away from the conventional public schools.  I argued in response that the budget crisis we face meant that this was actually the perfect time to invest in charter schools, as the need for innovative approaches to controlling rising costs and increasing student achievement is greater now than ever.

As I anticipated, the opponents of the bill did indeed suggest that this was not the time  to experiment with charter schools, arguing for the most part that such schools would drain staff and resources away from existing schools that are underfunded already. How spending a state average of over $10,400 per pupil constitutes a dearth of funding for schools is beyond me, but that was the central argument of the charter opponents as it has been, frankly, for years.

Not a single parent, by the way, testified against the bill.

As for the Department of Education, Commissioner Gendron's testimony "Neither For Nor Against" the bill was somewhat confusing, as she appeared to suggest a need for more study of the idea or more models to investigate or something. She then clarified that a failure to enact some kind of charter school legislation would seriously compromise the state's ability to secure federal education funding available under the recently-passed stimulus bill.

She is not making it up. A Newsweek article published yesterday reported the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan "recently warned that he may withhold federal education stimulus money from states that limit the number of charter schools."

So what was learned yesterday?

We learned that a number of Maine's education reformers want charter schools, a number of parents across Maine want charter schools, the State Board of Education wants charter schools, the state PTA wants charter schools, the state Commissioner of Education wants charter schools as does the governor she works for, Sen. Dennis Damon (D-Hancock), the bill's sponsor and ranking Senate Democrat wants charter schools, Rep. John Pioti (D-Unity), a co-sponsor of the bill and the House Democratic Leader wants charter schools, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants charter schools and President Barack Obama wants charter schools.

And we learned that if we don't enact charter school legislation, we may be ineligible to receive millions in federal education funding for the very schools that charter opponents claim are underfunded already.

We also heard that MEA, MSSA, and MSBA oppose charter schools, but I don't know that we necessarily "learned" that yesterday, as they have opposed every effort to enact charter schools that has come before the legislature in recent memory.

The work session on the bill, at which the committee will vote its recommendations for the bill,  has yet to be scheduled.