June 4, 2009
           

State’s budget problems spill into classrooms 

Sooner or later, every budget crisis at the General Assembly becomes a local crisis for the 100 counties of North Carolina. That time appears to be now.

Wake County school leaders, who count on the state to fund more than 60 percent of the local school budget, are bluntly telling employees the 5 percent cut the district built into next year’s proposed budget is too small. Depending on how lawmakers close the state gap of about $4.2 billion, the system could find itself cutting 10 percent or more.

Superintendent Del Burns no longer hedges his remarks when he says classes will be larger, services will be reduced and some school activities will be eliminated. Most of the district’s budget is spent on personnel and each cut of 5 percent cut translates into roughly 800 jobs. Teaching jobs dominate the payroll.

The current gap at the state level – a revenue shortfall of roughly 20 percent – is so large that it isn’t realistic to think any level of education can wiggle off the hook.

That is why dozens of groups, as well as the CEO of the State Board of Education, started lobbying lawmakers this week to consider tax increases.

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s proposed budget – offered in March when the budget hole was a mere $3.4 billion –illustrates the problem in the chart to the right. Most of the K-12 education dollars and many involving human services are administered by county agencies.  

So by default, a state crisis is now a local crisis – and public school classrooms are looking rather exposed.

TIF for TAP?

In the world of education, acronyms are to conversation what air is to breathing. That makes it easy – but a bad idea – to tune out a debate that is just beginning about whether federal Teacher Incentive Funds (or TIF) should be used to expand something called the Teacher Advancement Program (known as TAP).

In laymen’s terms, the question boils down to this: Should Wake County pass up the chance to get $10 million in federal money if that money must be used to pay teachers extra in higher-poverty schools?

When school board members and administrators dug into the question this week, they quickly realized the answer wasn’t as simple as they hoped. On one side of the question is the fact that $10 million is a lot of money. And TAP is already up and running in one elementary school –Wilburn Elementary in Raleigh. School board members Ron Margiotta and Lori Millberg, in particular, wanted to know what the harm was in making a pitch for the federal TIF money.

But the five-year grant requires the Wake school system provide matching money – covering 75 percent of the extra teacher pay by the last year – and the feds say the point of the program is to make sure it continues after the TIF grant goes away. David Neter, the district’s chief business officer, urged the board to seriously consider where the additional money could be found.

Besides, Neter, pointed out, the district isn’t recruiting teachers in the current recession and the ones that are here aren’t inclined to leave. When it comes to improving student achievement, TAP has a mixed track since its national debut in 1999.

Unspoken was whether the Wake school board wants to pay teachers more in higher-poverty schools at the same time it defines a “healthy school” as one where fewer than 40 percent of the students are considered low-income. About one-third of the system’s 156 schools exceed that goal.

After the meeting, Milberg said she believes the board’s goals for healthy schools and programs like TAP can co-exist because it is no longer possible to hold enrollments of low-income students below 40 percent at every school. The school board has never formally addressed that issue, but this might force that debate PDQ.

Charlotte teachers shun mostly black schools
 

A study released this week by an associate professor of labor economics at Cornell University shows better teachers in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system were quick to request transfers in 2002 when they realized a new student assignment plan would resegregate many schools.

The study by C. Kirabo Jackson looked at teacher movement between the spring of 2002 and the fall of 2003 when Charlotte stopped considering a student’s race in school assignments in favor of a plan that more closely reflected neighborhood schools.

Because the switch happened suddenly and without a corresponding change in neighborhood demographics, Jackson claims it is “the first compelling evidence” to show the direct relationship between the racial makeup of a school and teacher-quality without the distraction of other variables that can cloud an analysis.

Jackson’s report, found here, said both black and white teachers who were considered good tended to leave in anticipation of schools becoming mostly black. The departures were not wholesale, however, and African-American teachers were somewhat more likely to stay. He defined quality teachers based on experience and the test score gains of students assigned to that teacher. He did not attempt to separate race from income.

According to research cited in Education Week, there is a growing body of research showing students in high-poverty schools and students from minority groups tend to have teachers who are considered, on average, to be of lower quality than those in wealthier suburban schools.

Charlotte began paying its teachers additional money to work in higher-poverty schools after it changed its reassignment plan. The recession has put that money in jeopardy, however, and test scores in most of those schools still lag significantly.

Noteworthy…

… If there is a silver lining to the current budget problems, it could be this: The recession has slowed enrollment growth and building needs in Wake County to the point where the new three-year student assignment plan could last four or even five years, according to Superintendent Del Burns. A key phrase there is “slowed enrollment growth” as the district still expects 2,400 additional students next year.

… Forty-six states — representing 80 percent of the nation’s K-12 student population—have formally agreed to join forces to create common academic standards in math and English. The effort, led by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, is considered a key piece in increasing standards for all public schools. North Carolina’s effort to redefine its curriculum and standards can be found here.

… Silver linings, Take II:  Proposed budgets from both the governor and the Senate would cut about a half dozen standardized tests next year. With dozens of tests still required and a general consensus that there is far too much testing in the schools, it seems unlikely that House leaders will champion the cause when they release their proposed budget next week.

…. The longest 5 percent of bus rides for Wake County students average 64 minutes one way and most are used by students who choose to attend magnet programs, school board members were told last week. Looking at bus time differs from studies that measure distances between homes and schools – a sensitive topic for neighborhood school supporters. The review offered last week was less complete than the distance studies, but it suggests the same conclusion: While some students are on the bus much longer than anyone wants, the vast majority of students already live close to school.