From the BCCT.
Schools face huge pension hikes
The increases needed to make up for the poor performing teacher retirement fund will cost districts and their taxpayers millions of dollars.
By GARY WECKSELBLATT
STAFF WRITER
If stock market returns in 2009 replicate those from 2008, school districts will be forced to increase their contribution to the Public School Employees’ Retirement System from next year’s 4.78 percent to 30.22 percent in 2012-13.
That year will begin a decade-long string of pension payments of at least 30 percent of teacher salaries followed by another decade where the numbers range from 23 percent to 29 percent.
And that’s the good news. Property taxpayers will have to dig even deeper if the retirement system doesn’t earn a return of at least 8 percent. “I hesitate to even think what the tax increase might be,” said Jeffrey B. Clay, executive director of the system. He’s not alone. “These numbers aren’t manageable,” said Robert Reinhart, business manager at Pennridge. “It could cost us $6.6 million more” in 2012-13, said Reinhart. If the market turns around and the system earns an 8.25 percent return this year, that 30.22 percent would drop to 20.16 percent in 2012-13 and the next two decades would mean contributions in the teens. Still a difficult scenario for districts and their property taxpayers.
Clay gave a 57-page presentation Monday night to about 40 school administrators and school board members at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit in Doylestown.
“Horrible, just horrible,” Linda Palsky, of the Pennsbury School Board, said of the numbers.
Chuck Baker, a school board member in Central Bucks, said, “People in the community can’t even pay their taxes now. It’s really a shame.”
The retirement system, which has more than 547,000 members, is the 12th largest defined benefit pension fund in the country. Working members contribute between 5.25 percent to 7.5 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement.
PSERS lost 29.68 percent during the 2008 calendar year compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-34 percent, the third worst year in its history), S&P 500 (-39) and NASDAQ (-41). From a high of $70.1 billion in October 2007, the fund had $43.3 billion “as of Friday,” Clay said, essentially the same amount it had in 1998.
During the market turbulence in October, he said, the fund had days it lost $1 billion.
For parts of his presentation, Clay spoke of changes to funding formulas through state legislation that lowered the employer contribution, an actuarially determined rate that is the percentage of payroll the school employers are required to pay into the state’s pension fund so it has enough money to pay retirees. The commonwealth reimburses the school districts for a little more than half of the employer contribution rate.
Clay said for 12 years the “employer normal cost” has been lower than it should have been because of legislation that “pushed off liability to the future to provide fiscal relief to both the commonwealth and school employers.”
That relief is long gone, if it was ever felt.
“It burns me that we have to put it back into the fund to make up for their losses and we have people who have lost plenty and nobody is helping,” Baker said. “This has got people upset.”
David Matyas, business manager for Central Bucks, said, “Reducing staff is the only alternative to manage this. The numbers are higher now (because of the stock market losses) but we knew this was going to be a problem. There’s no way out, that’s what’s so sobering about it.”
According to a chart displayed by Clay, if the pension fund gained 35 percent a year for the next three years, a nearly impossible feat, contributions would be below 5 percent.
“You’re not going to earn your way out of this,” Clay said. “There is no silver bullet, no copper bullet, no lead bullet. Additional funds are needed for this system.”
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Merit Pay for Teachers
From the Inquirer.
Second look at merit pay for teachers
President Obama, Phila. schools chief on board.
By Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted on Mon, Mar. 30, 2009
President Obama is on board. So is Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman:
Changing the way teachers are paid is an idea whose time has come, one key to fixing a broken education system, both have declared publicly.
Though the subject is historically thorny - teachers unions staunchly oppose most merit-pay plans - advocates say that because teacher quality is crucial to student learning, it's time to take another stab.
"It's a new day, and it's time for us to look at performance. Adults have to be accountable for results," Ackerman said in a recent interview, echoing a theme that has become familiar in her nine-month superintendency.
In "Imagine 2014," her newly released strategic plan, Ackerman calls for financial and nonfinancial incentives for teachers and for a system that gives bigger paychecks to specialists in hard-to-staff subjects and schools.
And in his first education-policy speech, Obama earlier this month said: "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom." Money will be available for incentive programs, the president said.
In Philadelphia, the new money could come in handy to close a deal at the bargaining table. Negotiations are under way for a new teachers' contract to replace the pact that expires Aug. 31.
So far, union reaction is tepid. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said he would be willing to examine extra pay for specialists and incentives in some form, "but I don't want to give the idea that I'm throwing seniority out the window."
Merit-pay systems are tough to design in a fair, clear way, Jordan said, adding that he worries they encourage unhealthy competition and discourage teacher collaboration. Rather than individual rewards, incentives should be given to a whole school for improvement, he said.
Jordan also rejected the suggestion that "teachers aren't working hard enough. It's a fallacy that if we put this money out there, they're going to work harder."
Ackerman said she would be willing to start with whole-school incentives and would also include teacher training.
"If I had my way, I would love to see us raise the base pay for all teachers and begin to pay teachers based on not only their certification, but the use of that in high-need areas," Ackerman said. For instance, if a teacher were bilingual, taught science, and worked in a hard-to-staff school, they would get three steps of extra pay.
Merit pay is not new in Philadelphia. The 2000 teachers' contract awarded some bonuses for teachers who worked in hard-to-staff schools. And in 2006, the district received a $20.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop and implement a teacher-incentive program.
At the time, the federal grant was announced with much fanfare - the union would be the district's partner, officials said, ensuring the plan would succeed where others failed.
But the deal fell apart.
"We worked with the union on the proposal, but the PFT ultimately decided not to support the program," said Tim Field, a Philadelphia School District administrator.
Jordan says that the district's surprise $180 million budget deficit that year caused classroom conditions to deteriorate and that the district did not make good on promises to include union suggestions in a merit-pay scheme.
"The conditions were just not conducive for asking teachers to become involved in a program like this," Jordan said.
The district kept the money, and today, 11 charter schools have tapped into the fund, awarding their teachers incentives for student growth and "effective practices."
Though incentives for teachers have been around for decades, there's a lack of solid research around whether merit pay boosts student performance, said Matthew Springer, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, which has federal funding to study whether incentives work.
"It's a movement that's gaining traction," said Springer, "but we really don't know if it's an effective reform or not."
Merit pay has been tried with varying degrees of success around the country. Locally, the Colonial School District adopted incentives in 1999, but found that its initial formula was flawed and unfair. The union even struck, in large part because of merit pay, in 2001.
Now, the Montgomery County district pays "master teachers" extra and gives incentives to schools that raise student achievement.
Some states, including Texas and Florida, have adopted incentive programs, and New York City is piloting a pay-for-performance program. In Washington, maverick superintendent Michelle Rhee has floated a proposal for teachers to give up tenure entirely for performance-based pay.
Denver's merit-pay system has been around since 1999 and has shown student gains in an internal evaluation.
It is called ProComp, and under the plan - mandatory for new teachers and optional for veterans - teachers start at higher salaries and can move up the pay scale quicker than they could under the traditional system, said Phil Gonring, an official with Denver's Rose Community Foundation, a nonprofit group that helped design the system.
Applications, both for the district and its hard-to-staff schools, are up, Gonring said, and a number of surrounding districts are also considering adopting similar pay structures. He said he expected the movement to grow nationally.
"Eventually, we're going to get to a point - maybe under the Obama administration - where enough districts adopt performance-pay plans that we'll get to a tipping point," Gonring said.
Traditionally, high-poverty schools across the country have had a disproportionate share of inexperienced teachers, but merit pay would make it more attractive for veterans to pick those schools, Gonring said.
And because a teacher can rapidly jump from making $35,000 to $60,000, sharp young people who might otherwise shy away from classroom jobs are thinking twice about teaching, he said.
"You can suddenly compete with the other professions with which you're not currently competing," Gonring said.
Theodore Hershberg, a University of Pennsylvania professor and executive director of Operation Public Education there, said he believed that merit pay was a start, but that systemic change was necessary. His group has designed new ways to follow student learning over time. Teachers' pay would be based in part on that growth.
Hershberg says it is time to change the old model that paid teachers on experience as a way to avoid race and sex bias.
Peer review, a career ladder teachers can move up quickly, and strong teacher training are all part of his model, which Hershberg said he hoped Philadelphia would consider.
"The whole society is based on merit," Hershberg said. "Why is public education the only place where we don't give a damn if you're any good?"
Second look at merit pay for teachers
President Obama, Phila. schools chief on board.
By Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted on Mon, Mar. 30, 2009
President Obama is on board. So is Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman:
Changing the way teachers are paid is an idea whose time has come, one key to fixing a broken education system, both have declared publicly.
Though the subject is historically thorny - teachers unions staunchly oppose most merit-pay plans - advocates say that because teacher quality is crucial to student learning, it's time to take another stab.
"It's a new day, and it's time for us to look at performance. Adults have to be accountable for results," Ackerman said in a recent interview, echoing a theme that has become familiar in her nine-month superintendency.
In "Imagine 2014," her newly released strategic plan, Ackerman calls for financial and nonfinancial incentives for teachers and for a system that gives bigger paychecks to specialists in hard-to-staff subjects and schools.
And in his first education-policy speech, Obama earlier this month said: "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom." Money will be available for incentive programs, the president said.
In Philadelphia, the new money could come in handy to close a deal at the bargaining table. Negotiations are under way for a new teachers' contract to replace the pact that expires Aug. 31.
So far, union reaction is tepid. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said he would be willing to examine extra pay for specialists and incentives in some form, "but I don't want to give the idea that I'm throwing seniority out the window."
Merit-pay systems are tough to design in a fair, clear way, Jordan said, adding that he worries they encourage unhealthy competition and discourage teacher collaboration. Rather than individual rewards, incentives should be given to a whole school for improvement, he said.
Jordan also rejected the suggestion that "teachers aren't working hard enough. It's a fallacy that if we put this money out there, they're going to work harder."
Ackerman said she would be willing to start with whole-school incentives and would also include teacher training.
"If I had my way, I would love to see us raise the base pay for all teachers and begin to pay teachers based on not only their certification, but the use of that in high-need areas," Ackerman said. For instance, if a teacher were bilingual, taught science, and worked in a hard-to-staff school, they would get three steps of extra pay.
Merit pay is not new in Philadelphia. The 2000 teachers' contract awarded some bonuses for teachers who worked in hard-to-staff schools. And in 2006, the district received a $20.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop and implement a teacher-incentive program.
At the time, the federal grant was announced with much fanfare - the union would be the district's partner, officials said, ensuring the plan would succeed where others failed.
But the deal fell apart.
"We worked with the union on the proposal, but the PFT ultimately decided not to support the program," said Tim Field, a Philadelphia School District administrator.
Jordan says that the district's surprise $180 million budget deficit that year caused classroom conditions to deteriorate and that the district did not make good on promises to include union suggestions in a merit-pay scheme.
"The conditions were just not conducive for asking teachers to become involved in a program like this," Jordan said.
The district kept the money, and today, 11 charter schools have tapped into the fund, awarding their teachers incentives for student growth and "effective practices."
Though incentives for teachers have been around for decades, there's a lack of solid research around whether merit pay boosts student performance, said Matthew Springer, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, which has federal funding to study whether incentives work.
"It's a movement that's gaining traction," said Springer, "but we really don't know if it's an effective reform or not."
Merit pay has been tried with varying degrees of success around the country. Locally, the Colonial School District adopted incentives in 1999, but found that its initial formula was flawed and unfair. The union even struck, in large part because of merit pay, in 2001.
Now, the Montgomery County district pays "master teachers" extra and gives incentives to schools that raise student achievement.
Some states, including Texas and Florida, have adopted incentive programs, and New York City is piloting a pay-for-performance program. In Washington, maverick superintendent Michelle Rhee has floated a proposal for teachers to give up tenure entirely for performance-based pay.
Denver's merit-pay system has been around since 1999 and has shown student gains in an internal evaluation.
It is called ProComp, and under the plan - mandatory for new teachers and optional for veterans - teachers start at higher salaries and can move up the pay scale quicker than they could under the traditional system, said Phil Gonring, an official with Denver's Rose Community Foundation, a nonprofit group that helped design the system.
Applications, both for the district and its hard-to-staff schools, are up, Gonring said, and a number of surrounding districts are also considering adopting similar pay structures. He said he expected the movement to grow nationally.
"Eventually, we're going to get to a point - maybe under the Obama administration - where enough districts adopt performance-pay plans that we'll get to a tipping point," Gonring said.
Traditionally, high-poverty schools across the country have had a disproportionate share of inexperienced teachers, but merit pay would make it more attractive for veterans to pick those schools, Gonring said.
And because a teacher can rapidly jump from making $35,000 to $60,000, sharp young people who might otherwise shy away from classroom jobs are thinking twice about teaching, he said.
"You can suddenly compete with the other professions with which you're not currently competing," Gonring said.
Theodore Hershberg, a University of Pennsylvania professor and executive director of Operation Public Education there, said he believed that merit pay was a start, but that systemic change was necessary. His group has designed new ways to follow student learning over time. Teachers' pay would be based in part on that growth.
Hershberg says it is time to change the old model that paid teachers on experience as a way to avoid race and sex bias.
Peer review, a career ladder teachers can move up quickly, and strong teacher training are all part of his model, which Hershberg said he hoped Philadelphia would consider.
"The whole society is based on merit," Hershberg said. "Why is public education the only place where we don't give a damn if you're any good?"
Is Your School Board Simply a Rules Making Board?
From "Reflections of the TZST Teacher" at edublog.org
Is Your School Board Simply a Rule Board? Mine Isn’t!
On Saturday, I got a wikimail from one of my students with his homework attached. (His was one of 4 students out of 5 assigned that I received over the weekend.) Here’s what he said about going to present (as a 9 year old) to our School Board.
“My experience at the school board meeting was phenomenal. We got to use technology that I have never even heard of, like Dell Minis. My presentation was cut short because of tech problems, but I still felt like it was the experience of a lifetime. Because of that meeting, my math class got five ipod touches to use! I would like to be able to go to the next school board meeting if I can. Thanks for letting me go and I hope that the third graders that came were able to show you that we use a lot of technology in school.”
Why does he want to go back? Because he learned, because he was honored, and because he got to show some of his work to people who matter. He had an authentic audience and he also knew he had something to offer that audience–our elected School Board members.
On Thursday, March 26, 2009, as part of a technology innovator group, I took three third graders to our school board work session to share how they have been using wikis in our math class.(You can see specifically what my students shared here.)
Several years ago, our board members realized that while they were making decisions that affected the future of education in our schools, they often did not feel they knew enough about those issues to make truly informed decisions. Thus, our School Board work sessions were created.
In these sessions, our School Board becomes a Learning Board. That means that for an hour, our leadership team sets up break out sessions that teach the board about a particular topic, in this case, technology. On Thursday, we had 3 break out sessions for 7 school board members, and they chose which session to attend. After the hour, the board typically comes back together and shares out from each session so that they learn from the group’s collective experiences.
The brilliance of our leadership team shone through that night, as they had arranged the 3 sessions to also highlight other important facets of learning as well-the “three R’s” of Rigor, Relevance and Relationships. My students and I were in the “Relationships” strand.
Before that night, the people involved in my section of the session had pre-planned on this wiki:http://tech-relationships.wikispaces.com/ where you can see the kinds of things we were sharing. The idea was to begin with the youngest elementary sample (my 3rd grade wiki) and work up through the grades.
Our session had 2 SB members in it–Mr. Ronnie Price, who currently has children in our schools, and Mr. Steve Kolezar, who does not. Both asked great questions, listened intently and made connections to their own experiences in the context of our sharing. Mr. Price spoke to the fact that he has begun a wiki at his work at UVA and the adults there don’t participate on it as well as my students. He also spoke to the fact that his own middle school student goes to school and unplugs from the technology he uses outside of school. Mr. Kolezar, later, in the sharing, spoke not only to the engagement of the students, their knowledge and their expertise but also the importance they felt in the connections with both other students and the teacher through the wiki work.
My co-presenting teachers are astounding educators and the collective sharing of our group was simply riveting. As teachers listening to our colleagues, we all learned much as well! The passion for learning, using technology as a tool and especially for helping our students succeed showed openly in each person who spoke. We clearly develop those relationships through our teaching (both with and without technology), and that was noticeably recognized.
Social networking was one of our topics, as we talked not only about wikis, but also Twitter, texting, nings, blogs, social bookmarking and Google Docs. That led Mr. Price to ask questions about students bringing personal devices into our system, and gave us an opportunity to speak to both the potential advantages and disadvantages of that practice. He then later brought that up to the entire board as something to consider, so the groundwork was laid for future discussions and possibilities.
The sharing out from the board members was absolutely amazing to hear. Mr. Price spoke eloquently about the fact that we can provide all the rigor and relevance we want, but if the students do not feel involved in worthwhile relationships, the rigor and relevance probably won’t engage them. The social networking piece was basically addressed in each break out group, so while each member heard about it from a slightly different perspective, the socialness of learning was clearly a theme underlying all the presentations, and the board recognized that.
The members took turns sharing what they had learned, fielding questions from one another and clarifying their understandings with one another. They actually complained a bit because, in listening to one another, they wished they could attend EACH session for themselves! (We should think about recording each session in the future, I know!)
About 2/3rds of the way into the sharing, my Superintendent, who I follow and who follows me on Twitter, said to the board that the meeting was being Twittered as they spoke, and she turned to me. (I had been tweeting the comments from the board and my astonishment and pride at the whole experience.) Dr. Moran, our Sup’t, asked the board if they’d like to see the tweets, and they said yes, so I literally got up from the audience, hooked a computer back up to the LCD projector and shared some of my tweets as well as responses from all over the world live to the board. Talk about demonstrating the power of Twitter! (Feel free to follow me. I’m @paulawhite.)
The words of another student, in his homework, (also turned in over the weekend) says what I feel in the last sentence!
“My experience at the School Board meeting was fun. I loved seeing all kinds of cool technology (iPod touchs, Dell minis and Dell laditudes.) I It was fun skyping with Dr. Brown. It was cool knowing that you are talking to the people who decide what the schools do.”
It IS cool knowing you are talking to a LEARNING BOARD, and that they use that learning to help make decisions!
Is Your School Board Simply a Rule Board? Mine Isn’t!
On Saturday, I got a wikimail from one of my students with his homework attached. (His was one of 4 students out of 5 assigned that I received over the weekend.) Here’s what he said about going to present (as a 9 year old) to our School Board.
“My experience at the school board meeting was phenomenal. We got to use technology that I have never even heard of, like Dell Minis. My presentation was cut short because of tech problems, but I still felt like it was the experience of a lifetime. Because of that meeting, my math class got five ipod touches to use! I would like to be able to go to the next school board meeting if I can. Thanks for letting me go and I hope that the third graders that came were able to show you that we use a lot of technology in school.”
Why does he want to go back? Because he learned, because he was honored, and because he got to show some of his work to people who matter. He had an authentic audience and he also knew he had something to offer that audience–our elected School Board members.
On Thursday, March 26, 2009, as part of a technology innovator group, I took three third graders to our school board work session to share how they have been using wikis in our math class.(You can see specifically what my students shared here.)
Several years ago, our board members realized that while they were making decisions that affected the future of education in our schools, they often did not feel they knew enough about those issues to make truly informed decisions. Thus, our School Board work sessions were created.
In these sessions, our School Board becomes a Learning Board. That means that for an hour, our leadership team sets up break out sessions that teach the board about a particular topic, in this case, technology. On Thursday, we had 3 break out sessions for 7 school board members, and they chose which session to attend. After the hour, the board typically comes back together and shares out from each session so that they learn from the group’s collective experiences.
The brilliance of our leadership team shone through that night, as they had arranged the 3 sessions to also highlight other important facets of learning as well-the “three R’s” of Rigor, Relevance and Relationships. My students and I were in the “Relationships” strand.
Before that night, the people involved in my section of the session had pre-planned on this wiki:http://tech-relationships.wikispaces.com/ where you can see the kinds of things we were sharing. The idea was to begin with the youngest elementary sample (my 3rd grade wiki) and work up through the grades.
Our session had 2 SB members in it–Mr. Ronnie Price, who currently has children in our schools, and Mr. Steve Kolezar, who does not. Both asked great questions, listened intently and made connections to their own experiences in the context of our sharing. Mr. Price spoke to the fact that he has begun a wiki at his work at UVA and the adults there don’t participate on it as well as my students. He also spoke to the fact that his own middle school student goes to school and unplugs from the technology he uses outside of school. Mr. Kolezar, later, in the sharing, spoke not only to the engagement of the students, their knowledge and their expertise but also the importance they felt in the connections with both other students and the teacher through the wiki work.
My co-presenting teachers are astounding educators and the collective sharing of our group was simply riveting. As teachers listening to our colleagues, we all learned much as well! The passion for learning, using technology as a tool and especially for helping our students succeed showed openly in each person who spoke. We clearly develop those relationships through our teaching (both with and without technology), and that was noticeably recognized.
Social networking was one of our topics, as we talked not only about wikis, but also Twitter, texting, nings, blogs, social bookmarking and Google Docs. That led Mr. Price to ask questions about students bringing personal devices into our system, and gave us an opportunity to speak to both the potential advantages and disadvantages of that practice. He then later brought that up to the entire board as something to consider, so the groundwork was laid for future discussions and possibilities.
The sharing out from the board members was absolutely amazing to hear. Mr. Price spoke eloquently about the fact that we can provide all the rigor and relevance we want, but if the students do not feel involved in worthwhile relationships, the rigor and relevance probably won’t engage them. The social networking piece was basically addressed in each break out group, so while each member heard about it from a slightly different perspective, the socialness of learning was clearly a theme underlying all the presentations, and the board recognized that.
The members took turns sharing what they had learned, fielding questions from one another and clarifying their understandings with one another. They actually complained a bit because, in listening to one another, they wished they could attend EACH session for themselves! (We should think about recording each session in the future, I know!)
About 2/3rds of the way into the sharing, my Superintendent, who I follow and who follows me on Twitter, said to the board that the meeting was being Twittered as they spoke, and she turned to me. (I had been tweeting the comments from the board and my astonishment and pride at the whole experience.) Dr. Moran, our Sup’t, asked the board if they’d like to see the tweets, and they said yes, so I literally got up from the audience, hooked a computer back up to the LCD projector and shared some of my tweets as well as responses from all over the world live to the board. Talk about demonstrating the power of Twitter! (Feel free to follow me. I’m @paulawhite.)
The words of another student, in his homework, (also turned in over the weekend) says what I feel in the last sentence!
“My experience at the School Board meeting was fun. I loved seeing all kinds of cool technology (iPod touchs, Dell minis and Dell laditudes.) I It was fun skyping with Dr. Brown. It was cool knowing that you are talking to the people who decide what the schools do.”
It IS cool knowing you are talking to a LEARNING BOARD, and that they use that learning to help make decisions!
Saving teacher jobs tough
From the BCCT.
PROMISES, PROMISES: Saving teacher jobs tough
By: LIBBY QUAID
The Associated Press
President Barack Obama promises his economic stimulus law will save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs, but some states could end up spending the money on playground equipment or wallpaper _ and the president might not have the authority to stop them.
Obama says nearly all of the education money in the Recovery Act, which will start going out to states this week, is designed to retain teachers.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan threatens to "come down like a ton of bricks" on anyone who defies the administration's plans to bring relief to states like California where 26,500 teachers have gotten pink slips. Across the country, 9 percent of teachers _ about 294,000 _ may face layoffs because of budget cuts, according to a University of Washington study.
But plans for the money are pulling in other directions, particularly in states with Republican governors:
_ Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle wants to fill a budget gap.
_ Idaho Gov. Butch Otter wants to hold the money in reserve.
_ South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford wants to pay down debt; he's been turned down by the White House budget office and is threatening to refuse some of the money, as is Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
There are loopholes in the stimulus law for both states and school districts.
Of the $100 billion for education in the stimulus bill, $40 billion comes as part of a fund to stabilize state and local budgets that has fewer strings attached. As the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers decided not to prohibit states from using the stabilization money to replace precious state aid for schools. That means instead of getting extra help to weather tough times, school districts could wind up with the no additional state aid even as local tax revenues plummet.
State lawmakers and governors in Kansas, Rhode Island and Texas are among those seeking to use their federal stimulus dollars to replace state aid, rather than add to it.
In addition, the law was written so broadly that most of the stabilization dollars can be spent on just about anything _ carpet, wallpaper, playground equipment, even new school construction _ which may bother Senate moderates who insisted on dropping a new school construction program before they would vote for the bill.
That's because school districts can spend the money as federal impact aid, a relatively small program for poorly funded districts. By contrast, most federal education dollars are supposed to be spent on teacher salaries or academics.
"Congress opened a Pandora's Box to allow districts to use the funds for impact aid," said Michael Brustein, a Washington attorney who represents several state education agencies. "How you enforce against that is anyone's guess."
Santa Ana, Calif., English teacher Isa de Quesada is waiting to hear whether the stimulus dollars will bring her and 10 other teachers back to their school this fall. If not, class sizes at her school and others could swell, hurting the emphasis on quality education.
"Right now, I have 40 in two of my classes; we could go to 50 to 55 next year," she said in an interview.
Recently, de Quesada had the chance to ask Obama about it in person when the president visited for a town hall meeting: "How are we going to make sure that money comes to our districts?" she said.
Obama replied that "the lion's share" of the money is to keep teachers on the job.
Duncan said he can come down hard on states that don't comply because he is releasing the money in installments, and because he will award billions of dollars in competitive grants later this year.
"And if we see an instance or two, or whatever it might be, where folks are not operating in good faith," he said, "we will both withhold that second set of money, and we will eliminate them from any possible competition to receive these billions of dollars in discretionary money."
Duncan also said last week he is looking for ways to force money to states where governors have said they would refuse it.
The administration could also face intense political pressure from members of Congress if stimulus money for their states is withheld.
"The jury is really still out on how forceful the Obama administration is going to be on this," said Amy Wilkins, a lobbyist for Education Trust, a children's advocacy group.
"We've heard a lot of secretaries of education talk about rigorous enforcement and, `We are really going to hold them accountable,'" she said. "We rarely get that."
The administration lobbied successfully to attach other strings to the money. In their applications, states must show improvement in teacher quality, data systems, academic standards and tests and supporting struggling schools.
Applications for the stabilization dollars will be available this week, and two-thirds of the money for education, $27 billion, will be released within two weeks of an application's approval. K through 12 dollars are another reason why it may be tough to keep teachers from losing their jobs.
That money goes to states through a formula tied to state spending. The less a state spends on education, the less federal money it gets _ and that works against states in the worst financial shape.
March 30, 2009 12:15 PM
PROMISES, PROMISES: Saving teacher jobs tough
By: LIBBY QUAID
The Associated Press
President Barack Obama promises his economic stimulus law will save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs, but some states could end up spending the money on playground equipment or wallpaper _ and the president might not have the authority to stop them.
Obama says nearly all of the education money in the Recovery Act, which will start going out to states this week, is designed to retain teachers.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan threatens to "come down like a ton of bricks" on anyone who defies the administration's plans to bring relief to states like California where 26,500 teachers have gotten pink slips. Across the country, 9 percent of teachers _ about 294,000 _ may face layoffs because of budget cuts, according to a University of Washington study.
But plans for the money are pulling in other directions, particularly in states with Republican governors:
_ Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle wants to fill a budget gap.
_ Idaho Gov. Butch Otter wants to hold the money in reserve.
_ South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford wants to pay down debt; he's been turned down by the White House budget office and is threatening to refuse some of the money, as is Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
There are loopholes in the stimulus law for both states and school districts.
Of the $100 billion for education in the stimulus bill, $40 billion comes as part of a fund to stabilize state and local budgets that has fewer strings attached. As the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers decided not to prohibit states from using the stabilization money to replace precious state aid for schools. That means instead of getting extra help to weather tough times, school districts could wind up with the no additional state aid even as local tax revenues plummet.
State lawmakers and governors in Kansas, Rhode Island and Texas are among those seeking to use their federal stimulus dollars to replace state aid, rather than add to it.
In addition, the law was written so broadly that most of the stabilization dollars can be spent on just about anything _ carpet, wallpaper, playground equipment, even new school construction _ which may bother Senate moderates who insisted on dropping a new school construction program before they would vote for the bill.
That's because school districts can spend the money as federal impact aid, a relatively small program for poorly funded districts. By contrast, most federal education dollars are supposed to be spent on teacher salaries or academics.
"Congress opened a Pandora's Box to allow districts to use the funds for impact aid," said Michael Brustein, a Washington attorney who represents several state education agencies. "How you enforce against that is anyone's guess."
Santa Ana, Calif., English teacher Isa de Quesada is waiting to hear whether the stimulus dollars will bring her and 10 other teachers back to their school this fall. If not, class sizes at her school and others could swell, hurting the emphasis on quality education.
"Right now, I have 40 in two of my classes; we could go to 50 to 55 next year," she said in an interview.
Recently, de Quesada had the chance to ask Obama about it in person when the president visited for a town hall meeting: "How are we going to make sure that money comes to our districts?" she said.
Obama replied that "the lion's share" of the money is to keep teachers on the job.
Duncan said he can come down hard on states that don't comply because he is releasing the money in installments, and because he will award billions of dollars in competitive grants later this year.
"And if we see an instance or two, or whatever it might be, where folks are not operating in good faith," he said, "we will both withhold that second set of money, and we will eliminate them from any possible competition to receive these billions of dollars in discretionary money."
Duncan also said last week he is looking for ways to force money to states where governors have said they would refuse it.
The administration could also face intense political pressure from members of Congress if stimulus money for their states is withheld.
"The jury is really still out on how forceful the Obama administration is going to be on this," said Amy Wilkins, a lobbyist for Education Trust, a children's advocacy group.
"We've heard a lot of secretaries of education talk about rigorous enforcement and, `We are really going to hold them accountable,'" she said. "We rarely get that."
The administration lobbied successfully to attach other strings to the money. In their applications, states must show improvement in teacher quality, data systems, academic standards and tests and supporting struggling schools.
Applications for the stabilization dollars will be available this week, and two-thirds of the money for education, $27 billion, will be released within two weeks of an application's approval. K through 12 dollars are another reason why it may be tough to keep teachers from losing their jobs.
That money goes to states through a formula tied to state spending. The less a state spends on education, the less federal money it gets _ and that works against states in the worst financial shape.
March 30, 2009 12:15 PM
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