The Education Gadfly Weekly

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One of the most hotly debated issues in American education today revolves around low-performing schools and districts: how to define “low-performing,” what to do about them, and who gets to decide. That’s at the heart of the deliberations—and arguments—over the No Child Left Behind reauthorization now moving through Congress.

But there’s another species of “failing” schools and districts that doesn’t attract the same controversy, even though it should: institutions that are financially insolvent, or headed toward that status. For example, as of the 2014–15 school year, the School District of Philadelphia had massive deficits—to the tune of $320 million. In Michigan, nearly 7 percent of all traditional school districts and charter school districts (57 of 843) were operating at a deficit at the end of the 2013–14 fiscal year. Over 25 percent of New Mexico districts (23 of 89) required emergency state aid in 2013–14. And there are similar problems in Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere.

Districts go insolvent primarily because there are insufficient counter-pressures on their leaders to stay fiscally solvent. Existing leaders are often rewarded—through elections, appointments, or re-appointments—when they make promises that obligate monies down the road. Employees of the system often push for higher salaries, expanded benefits, retirement sweeteners, and other advantages that districts simply can’t afford, but that union-friendly boards agree to anyway. Such long-term obligations are largely what put districts in the hole.

Yet feckless leadership is not the sole culprit. Communities rarely embrace tough trade-offs and would rather play kick the can with education officials. These suggestions, then, should be seen in part as ways to lean on school boards and superintendents to take their fiduciary responsibilities seriously, and to counteract the pressures of unhelpful local politics.

So what’s the solution? Who should be in control? What supports and sanctions should be put into place? And under what circumstances should districts be subject to state takeover?

Most state policies for assisting school districts in financial trouble are uneven and complex. Interventions are often haphazard, occur arbitrarily, and routinely place politics over sound economics. States would be wise to consider instead a three-tiered sequence of interventions that minimize disruption for students and maximize financial (and intellectual) resources.

The first tier comprises collaborative supports. District leaders receive assistance from state officials or appointees in understanding their current and future financial situation and managing their finances. The goal is to work with leaders to recognize and rectify the causes of distress.

The second tier is financial management. At this stage, external experts are no longer advisory but oversee and manage a district’s financial matters. The goal is to improve district finances so as to avert costly bailouts down the line, while building the capacity of district leaders to manage once the external managers leave.

The third tier is administrative control—otherwise known as “state takeover.” A state-appointed administrator and/or governing commission replaces or supersedes the superintendent and board and operates, with enhanced powers, the entire district—not just its finances. The goal is to remove ineffective leaders and prevent district bankruptcy and closure.

As you can see, these recommendations are not rocket science, but common sense—which is all too seldom practiced within dysfunctional organizations.

Be aware, however, that this advice is for those districts that have a decent chance of turning themselves around for the benefit of their pupils, citizens, and taxpayers. It’s not for places that are already too far gone. Some districts aren’t worth saving. They are too bankrupt, financially and/or academically, to invest in further. For them, the time for more supports and more cash is over. They need real governance change in the form of state takeover, outsourcing of their schools (perhaps to a “recovery” district), and maybe even closing the district.

Yes, that’s blasphemy in most education circles. But it is entirely possible that state policies could be thoughtfully designed that would shut down a district’s central office and transfer leadership, operations, and funding in ways that could lessen the sting. It would be traumatic in the short run for families, students, and staff. And no, it doesn’t make sense everywhere. Closing an existing district would require the right conditions, including having new providers and top-flight teachers at the ready. It would take courageous state and local leaders with a break-the-mold mentality. In the long run, however, it could be better for kids in the same way that the recovery school district administered by the Louisiana Department of Education in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been largely positive for the children of New Orleans.

Better, though, would be to not allow districts to get in this mess in the first place. As one of us has observed (Roza), the best state policies would prevent districts both from “deficit spending” (which occurs due to pensions and retirement health care) and from obligating out-year expenditures—such as when they sign a five-year labor contract although there’s ample uncertainty as to what revenues will look like in five years.

Hank Williams, Jr. sings a well-known ditty, “Family Tradition,” in which he blames his own bad behavior on his wayward ancestors. But that’s akin to saying that we spend money we don’t have because that’s how it’s always been done. This is no way to run American schools.

Marguerite Roza is Research Professor and Director of Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli are Senior VP for Research and President, respectively, of the Fordham Institute.

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Last week, Bellwether Education Partners analyst (and Obama administration alumnus) Chad Aldeman pointed out that I’ve changed my views on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since 2011. He’s absolutely right. What’s perplexing is why he would find this surprising. I assume that many foreign policy analysts reexamined their positions after 9/11, and that housing policy experts did the same after the Great Recession. Does Chad not understand that the unprecedented, autocratic, and quite possibly illegal actions of the president’s Department of Education have changed things a bit?

Yes, four long years ago, Checker Finn and I were still wedded to the “tight-loose” formula of federalism in education: Uncle Sam should be tighter on the outcomes expected from our schools but much looser on how states and districts achieve those ends. What we meant by “tight” was that Washington should require states to adopt “college- and career-ready standards,” either developed with other states (i.e., the Common Core) or unique to themselves. This was in part a response to the perverse incentives of No Child Left Behind—namely the mandate for states to attain near-universal proficiency while getting to define “proficiency” as they saw fit.

Well, we know how that went over. The backlash to the Common Core (on the right at least) was driven overwhelmingly by the concern that Uncle Sam was wading into issues that he has no business in. We were naïve to think that we could thread the federalism needle—that because the standards had been developed by the governors and state superintendents, and because there was no federal mandate to adopt them, and because there was an escape valve (states could develop their own college- and career-ready standards), we would avoid the political problems that sunk previous attempts at “national standards.” We were wrong. Mea culpa. (Or is it “wea culpa”?)

So the “tight” part of our tight-loose formulation has run aground on the rocky shores of political reality. But what about the “loose” half of the equation? Here, Arne Duncan and company have made a mockery of an approach they once swore allegiance to. Of course I’m referring to their “waiver” policy, as well as the ill-considered decision to demand conditions from states in return from flexibility. As Senator Lamar Alexander said back then, Duncan had states “over a barrel.” Did the folks at 400 Maryland Avenue really not expect an uprising on Capitol Hill?

It’s not just that the Department of Education usurped power from Congress and the states; it’s that they used that power to push bad policy. Nobody today can creditably argue that mandating statewide teacher evaluations as a condition of ESEA flexibility was a good idea. Nobody can say that the teacher evaluation efforts are going well. This was an unforced error of enormous magnitude—one that has sparked a significant backlash to accountability policies writ large and also destroyed whatever credibility the feds may have had.

But that’s not all of it. Duncan’s assistant secretaries for civil rights have also been busy bossing states and districts around with a shocking degree of arrogance and an assumption of power—especially on school discipline and school funding. What exactly has been “loose” about the Duncan years?

So yes, both the Senate and House versions of ESEA reauthorization are “looser” than No Child Left Behind, or than the Fordham proposal from 2011. If this renewal processes gets across the finish line (and I think it will), the federal government will have much less power than it does today. Folks like Chad who don’t like that will only have Arne Duncan to blame.

• The notion of character education is pretty well understood by now. If successfully imparted to disadvantaged children, advocates claim, personal qualities like grit, gratitude, and optimism can steer them to beneficial habits and help them catch up with their more well-to-do classmates. “No-excuses” charter networks like KIPP have energetically publicized their commitment to the philosophy, monitoring students’ progress in the development of such traits. But a piece in the New Republic takes a more dubious stance. The author, whose initial interest in KIPP’s approach cooled after taking part in program founder Dave Levin’s online class, writes that his newfound reservations about character education are threefold: Nobody actually knows how to teach character; it’s being taught in a morality-neutral way; and it narrows the scope of education. Some of the article’s assertions are downright goofy (“While it takes grit and self-control to be a successful heart surgeon, the same could be said about a suicide bomber.” Dude, what?), but he’s right that there’s still too little evidence of positive character maturation driven by initiatives like KIPP’s. And our obsession with “performance character” should be matched with equal concern for “moral character.” Clearly the subject is ripe for more investigation.
• According to the New York Times, big urban districts like Louisville, Oklahoma City, and Providence are rushing to fill hundreds of job openings before the new academic year starts. The dearth of qualified professionals (twenty-one thousand vacancies remain in California alone) is pinned on the 2008 recession and the end of President Obama’s stimulus program, which forced states and municipalities to carry out mass layoffs; the subsequent recovery, meanwhile, has reportedly fostered a job market attractive enough to draw prospective recruits out of the field.  Undermanned schools have responded by hiring trainees who are still finishing up their teaching degrees, which isn’t always helpful. As others have pointed out, though, the supposedly diminished talent pool has still vastly expanded over the course of the last decade. Whether our 2015 quantity actually represents a surfeit or a shortage, it’s clear that we need to focus on improving the quality of our educators—and getting more out of the best ones.
• You may already be following the tangled case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a lawsuit that was added to the Supreme Court docket several few months ago. In brief, Orange County public school teacher Rebecca Friedrichs, joined by several other teachers and the Christian Educators Association, filed suit against the powerful union in an effort to end the levying of “agency fees” for non-members. The fees are permitted under state law so long as they are earmarked for apolitical operations. The case against them, laid out eloquently by Friedrichs and a co-plaintiff in an interview with the Washington Post, is that unions’ revenues are fungible, and their organizing efforts can’t possibly be extricated from politics. “Collective bargaining is being used to push for things that I would never agree to,” Friedrichs says, such as generous pension plans, anti-voucher drives, and same-sex marriage. The case has the potential to transform the country into a right-to-work nation from coast to coast. Sounds good to us.

READ "How School Districts Can Stretch the School Dollar"

Despite some signs of economic recovery, school districts nationwide continue to struggle mightily. Nobody expects economic growth—or education spending—to rebound to 2008 levels over the next five years, and the long-term outlook isn't much brighter.

In short, the "new normal" of tougher budget times is here to stay for American K-12 education. So how can local officials cope?

In my new policy brief, I argue that the current crunch may actually present an opportunity to increase the efficiency and productivity of our education system if decision makers keep a few things in mind:

First and foremost, solving our budget crisis shouldn't come at the expense of children. Nor can if come from teachers' sacrifice alone. Depressing teachers' salaries forever isn't a recipe for recruiting bright young people into education—or retaining the excellent teachers we have. Finally, quick fixes aren't a good answer; we need fundamental changes that enhance productivity.

So how can school districts dramatically increase productivity and stretch the school dollar?

One, we should aim for a leaner, more productive, better paid workforce. Let's ask classroom teachers to take on additional responsibility in return for greater pay, eliminate some ancillary positions, and redesign our approach to special education.

Two, we should pay for productivity. A redesigned compensation system would include a more aggressive salary schedule, more pay for more work and better results, and prioritization of salaries over benefits.

Three, we must integrate technology thoughtfully. Online and "blended" school models are coming to K-12 education. They can be catalysts for greater pupil engagement, individualization, and achievement and, if organized right, they can also be opportunities for cost-cutting.

Many districts continue to face budget challenges of historic proportions. Rather than slashing budgets in ways that erode schooling, let's rethink who we hire, what they do, how we pay them, and how to incorporate technology—that's where the big payoff is.

There are two basic arguments for charter schools’ existence, note Michael McShane and Jenn Hatfield: First, by taking advantage of flexibility not afforded traditional public schools, they can raise student achievement. Second, they can use that freedom and deregulation to create a more diverse set of schools than might otherwise come into being. There is an increasingly robust body of evidence on charter schools’ academic performance. Far less is known about the second aspect. So how diverse is the nation’s charter sector?

The short answer is: more diverse than you might expect, but less than we might hope. McShane and Hatfield ran the numbers on 1,151 schools, which combine to educate nearly half a million students in seventeen different cities. Based on each school’s description of its own mission or model, they were divided into “general” or “specialized” schools. Within the latter category, schools were further divided in thirteen sub-types, including “no-excuses,” STEM schools, progressive, single-sex, etc. There’s an even split between generalized and specialized schools, with the most common types being no-excuses and progressive.

The pair also found significant variation between cities. They contend that these distinctions are driven by demographics, the age and market share of each city’s charter sector, and (most interestingly) the number and type of authorizers. The higher the percentage of black residents living in a city, they found, the more students are enrolled in no-excuses schools. More poor residents tend to correlate with more specialized schools. McShane and Hatfield posit a “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Charter Schools” to explain their findings. “Academic achievement is often the primary concern for low-income communities; thus more no-excuses and STEM schools in poorer communities,” they write. “But in wealthier communities, families have the luxury of looking for specialized options such as international and foreign language schools.” Authorizers also “might be inclined to support established models” over programs that are more innovative but harder to implement (hence more KIPP). Or market diversity could simply be a function of maturity: The older a city’s charter sector—and the greater the number of authorizers—the more diverse the menu of options. “There is no ideal mix of schools for a given community,” McShane and Hatfield conclude, “or at least there is no ideal mix that can be determined by people outside of the community.” It’s not unreasonable, they observe, to make the diversity of charter offerings a “second-order concern behind school quality.” Yet as the authors note (nicely citing Fordham’s What Parents Want report), not every parent is a test score hawk. “If we require all schools to perform well across one set of metrics before we think about allowing for diversity,” McShane and Hatfield conclude, “we will most likely limit the amount of diversity that we will see.”

SOURCE: Michael Q. McShane and Jenn Hatfield, “Measuring diversity in charter school offerings,” American Enterprise Institute (July 2015). 

Recently, ACT disaggregated its 2014 test results and college retention rates in order to get a closer look at the college aspirations and preparation levels of ACT-takers who reported a family income of less than $36,000 (the poorest 24 percent of test-takers). An astonishing 96 percent of these students reported plans to enroll in college. Despite their aspirations, however, only 11 percent met all four of ACT’s college readiness benchmarks, which include English, reading, math, and science. Even more troubling, a whopping 50 percent of low-income students failed to meet a single benchmark.

When broken down by subject, low-income students performed best in English (45 percent met the benchmark, compared to 64 percent of all students). In the three remaining subjects, however, they posted far lower numbers. Twenty-six percent met the reading benchmark (compared to 44 percent of all students), 23 percent were deemed college-ready in math (compared to 43 percent of all students), and only 18 percent were proficient in science (compared to 37 percent of all students). Unsurprisingly, the number of benchmarks attained rose along with family income. Students from families with incomes over $100,000 were twice as likely to meet the benchmark in nearly every subject.

The report also draws attention to two interesting findings. First, low-income students who take a “core or more” high school curriculum (four years of English and three years each of math, science, and social studies) are more likely to meet each of the four benchmarks—and be college- and career-ready—than their low-income peers who opt for a different course pattern. For example, 47 percent of low-income students who took “core or more” met the English benchmark, compared to 24 percent of low-income students who took less than the core but still met the benchmark. In math, 25 percent of “core-or-more” students met the benchmark, while a dismal 4 percent of students who took less than the core were successful. Second, across all benchmark attainment levels, students with higher ACT Engage College scores in areas like academic discipline, commitment to college, and social connection are more likely to remain enrolled in college after their first year than students with lower scores in those areas. This could point to the importance of non-cognitive skills—though education stakeholders have a long way to go before they agree on the best way to teach these skills to students. Overall, though, the implications of the report are clear: If we’re going to get more low-income kids ready for success in college, our K–12 system has to greatly improve at helping students complete a rigorous curriculum and develop non-cognitive skills.

SOURCE: “The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2014: Students from Low-Income Families,” ACT (July 2015).