Kitsap Education

Washington was not named a finalist in the competition for the $3.4 billion in Race to the Top funds. According to an AP story, the state’s chances were hurt by the lack of charter schools.

This press release from the League of Education Voters arrived today:

Education advocates urge leaders to develop a robust plan to help all students succeed

SEATTLE – Parents and education advocates were disappointed to learn today that Washington State was not selected as a finalist in the second round of Race to the Top. In June, the state submitted an application to win $250 million in federal funding for education reform and innovation with the support of 265 school districts.

“While we’ve made progress, today’s announcement underscores the fact that Washington still has a lot of work to do to be competitive in the U.S.—let alone the rest of the world,” said Chris Korsmo, executive director of the League of Education Voters.

“Our kids need and deserve a world class education to be competitive in today’s global marketplace,” Korsmo said. “Right now, we’re coming up short. We need a robust plan to ensure our kids receive the rigor and support they need to get into and through college, and to help catch up the students who are behind.”

“Despite the disappointing news, this Race to the Top competition has leveraged more change than we would have thought possible,” said Lisa Macfarlane, co-founder of the League of Education Voters. “We passed important education reforms this year, but that’s just the first step. Now, our state’s leaders must work together with the districts and unions to achieve real changes that will transform our schools and help all of our students succeed.”

In 2010, state lawmakers approved legislation to improve Washington’s ability to win a portion of President Obama’s $4.3 billion federal Race to the Top fund for education reform and innovation, such as:

· Authority to intervene in our lowest performing schools;

· A new teacher and principal evaluation system;

· Additional pathways for professionals to become teachers; and

· Extending teacher tenure from two years to three.

Here’s a bit more (from a South Caroline TV station blog) about the states that did make the cut:

South Carolina is a finalist in the second round of national competition for federal Race to the Top grants, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Tuesday.

National observers had been predicting South Carolina’s selection because of the state’s strong showing in Round 1, which saw only two winners: Delaware and Tennessee. South Carolina finished sixth in Round 1 voting.

Duncan named 19 Round 2 finalists during a speech at the National Press Club, saying that judges selected them as having “the boldest plans” for reform. They are Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. They earned the highest scores from reviewers who rated their commitments to improve teacher effectiveness, data systems, academic standards, and low-performing schools. Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia submitted applications.

The list of finalists is supposed to reflect Duncan’s promise that he would set high standards for the federal education-reform competition, which has become one of the Obama administration’s most high-profile policy levers.

At stake is $3.4 billion from the economic stimulus package approved by Congress last year, not to mention bragging rights. South Carolina’s application is for about $175 million.

“It’s gratifying but not surprising,” State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex said of today’s announcement. “Our performance in Round 1 was a pretty strong hint that we would be a factor in Round 2. Today’s announcement validates, once again, that South Carolina is viewed as being on the cutting edge of making the changes that will make schools stronger.”

Finalists will send teams to Washington the week of August 9 to make presentations to judges, who will then adjust states’ final grades based on how well they answer detailed questions about their applications.

Winners will be announced in late August or September.

Applications will be scored on a 500-point scale, with more than half of those points assigned to initiatives already in place. The remaining points go to states’ plans for the future. Rex said South Carolina has a number of programs that should earn it points, such as a statewide system for evaluating teachers, high academic standards for students, a system to roll those out to teachers and a pilot project that links teacher effectiveness to their college alma maters.

“Ultimately, the goal is to create a seamless system that gives students the knowledge and skills they need to succeed after high school – whether that means going on to higher education or directly to good jobs,” Rex said.

Betsy Carpentier is the Deputy State Superintendent of Education who oversaw South Carolina’s 1,700-page Round 2 application. She said the biggest change the state would see, if it were to receive the money, would be a tighter focus on the impact of individual educators on their students’ achievement. Under the South Carolina Education Accountability Act of 1998, improvements in student achievement have been tracked at the state, district, and school levels. Some federal money would be used to create a system that measures how much students grow in a year, she said. An effective teacher would be one who moves a student one grade level and a highly effective teacher would move students more than that, she said. Teachers would be evaluated on their students’ performance, and training and pay would be based on that review.

South Carolina’s proposal also would help train teachers to implement newly approved “common core” standards in reading and math; enhance the use of data to improve instruction, including the ability to deliver student data directly to teachers’ desktops; add pilot programs aimed at recruiting and retaining teachers, especially in hard-to-staff rural areas and in academically struggling schools; develop more extensive alternative certification paths for principals and teachers, with a focus on high-poverty schools; and assist struggling middle and high schools by providing more intensive help to their “feeder” schools.

In addition to the $3.4 billion in Round 2 grant funds, the USDE also will distribute $350 million to groups of states participating in a separate competition to create new college and career-ready assessments. South Carolina is working with two of those groups. One group is looking at on-line but traditional assessments; the other is considering online assessments in which individual students’ tests are modified as they take place in order to create a more precise picture of student performance.

South Carolina’s efforts also will receive a boost from a recently announced $15 million federal grant to help the state develop a statewide longitudinal data system – creating the foundation for integrating K-12 data systems with early childhood data systems, other human service systems, postsecondary data systems and workforce data systems. The expanded data system will meet federal requirements for collaboration with institutions and agencies of higher education. It will include new data sources and quality control and will create a statewide system for teachers and principals who need information to make immediate decisions about student learning.

Rex said that even if South Carolina wins a Round 2 award, the grant funds would be directed at specific initiatives detailed in the state’s application and could not be used to blunt the impact of more than $750 million in state budget cuts to public schools over the past two years.

Nope. I just wrote that so you would click on it and have to read on. Read about CK’s layoffs here.

Layoffs (known as reductions-in-force or RIFs in education speak) will occur in Bainbridge schools. Bainbridge leaders voted last night to RIF 9.5 teachers. Read the story here. Bainbridge planned to layoff 15.7 teachers last year. But after community fundraising, retirements and resignations, the real RIF number became 1.7. The schools foundation alone raised enough money to save 8 positions.

It’s not clear yet if there wil be a RIF in North Kitsap schools. Superintendent Rick Jones said leaders are “in the throes” of making that decision. The drop-dead date for that decision is May 7. The school board gave NK leaders the authority to RIF  at its meeting last week but Jones is really hoping it won’t happen. NK has about another $700,000 to cut out of its operating budget. That amounts to the cost (approximately) of 13 teachers, though Jones was quick to point out that those cuts won’t be placed only on teachers. If a RIF is necessary, the final number will be announced at the May 13 board meeting.

Bremerton and North Mason RIF’d last year, so they won’t be doing so this year. South Kitsap did not RIF last year, and has no plans to do so this year either. I’ve pasted a letter below that Superintendent Dave LaRose sent to staff earlier this month. It’s a pretty good explanation of where SK (and lots of other districts) are in this process.
SKSD Budget Cuts Letter April 2010

I’ve been thinking about and writing about over the past few days the potential that some teachers in our region will be laid off this year. In that process, teachers can become abstract. I’ve talked with administrators and union reps about numbers and salaries and figures and budget cuts etc. But of course these are people. A couple things brought me back to that today, thank goodness.

This email came from the sister of a Central Kitsap teacher. It read:

I am writing this as my brother (Brandon Brown) just found out today after teaching for 10 years at Olympic High school that his job is more than likely going to be RIF’d for next school year. Brandon teaches all the technology and computer related classes at the school and is very well respected by current and present students as well as all staff members. I thought I submit this in hopes that you guys at the Sun could do some sort of article to bring awareness to this issue. This is a direct result of lack of state funding and budget shortfalls felt throughout the state right now in education.
As of right now only a miracle can save his job or if he can get enough students to register for his classes next year would it be saved.

Jennifer Valencia

And then today I read a column by Kathleen Parker, who just won a Pulitzer Prize. This column is not be missed, especially if you recall a special teacher in your life.

The League of Women Voters of Kitsap will host a public forum on Tuesday to discuss the problems with education funding in Washington state.

The forum will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria of Central Kitsap High School at the corner of Bucklin Hill and Anderson Hill Road in Silverdale.

Tom Ahearne, the attorney for the NEWS education funding lawsuit, and Isabel Munoz-Colo, a senior budget analyst for the Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction, will speak.

Included in the discussion will be information about planned funding cuts, local levies and the ruling in the NEWS lawsuit. For information, call (360) 697-7924.

The cuts to K-12 education are more clear now that the special session has almost come to a close. Funding remains for more teachers in grades kindergarten through third. Fourth grade “enhancement” (or more teachers) is gone. That means bigger classes at the fourth-grade level and a $30 million savings for the state. This will mean teacher layoffs. How many locally remains to be seen.

Read more about funding for K-12 and other parts of the budget here at Dan Steele’s daily legislative update. He works for the Washington State School Directors Association.

Education’s man in Olympia, Dan Steele of the Washington State School Directors Association, just sent out his daily update and is reporting that legislators are finally near a deal on a tax package. It could be over by the weekend.

Read all about it here.

Leaders in the House and Senate have now agreed to raise the levy lid for school districts from 24 to 28 percent. Gov. Gregoire is expected to sign this measure into law. Read more about the move here. Sounds like a way to make up for some money lost to state cuts in education, right?

Four local school districts (NK, CK, Bremerton and BI) just passed new school support levies in February. Last spring it was North Mason. So local voters right now seem inclined to support schools with local tax dollars, despite the sagging economy. But will this measure push voters just that much too far? And will local school districts take advantage of it? I wrote about this issue back in February when voters approved those four levies.  At that time, school leaders seem disinclined to think they would ask voters to raise their levy lids.

School district leaders pointed out that the raising the levy lid will simply mean that more of the school funding burden is shifted back to local tax dollars. That, in turn, creates more disparity across the state between property-rich and property-poor districts.

It sort of reminds me of what happened back in the 1970s when state funding ebbed, local dollars had to flow. At one point, local levy dollars made up an average of 25 percent of school budgets. In Seattle, voters failed two local levies in a row, causing a 37 percent dip in funding for Seattle Public Schools. Follow this timeline and you can see how education funding has changed over the years. After several state Supreme Court rulings recalibrated the funding forumlas, local levies dollar contributions to school budgets fell to just 5 percent in the early 1980s.

Looks like to me we’re on our way back to the future.

I’ve been watching how state leaders are working through all the negotiations, machinations, imaginations … lots of ‘nations … on the state budget. I guess the one consistent is that schools will have less money for the 2010-11 school year. The Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction has a cool pivot table on its website that can tell you how much each budget proposal (governor, Senate and House) will affect local school districts. From the looks of the table, the governor’s takes the most away, with the Senate proposal taking the second highest and the House last. For example, South Kitsap’s state allocation is about $62 million. The governor’s budget cuts $3.8 million while the Senate takes $2.5 million. The House version cuts $1.3 million. The biggest cuts come from what’s called  “K-4 enhancement,” which means money that pays for more teachers to make class sizes in kindergarten through fourth grades smaller. The second biggest cut is money for I-728. This voter-approved measure provided money for smaller class sizes and a myriad of other programs, including tutoring, summer school etc.

Check out the link here.

Not many days left in the session, so hopefull we’ll know soon what to expect.

Senate bill 6466 proposes allowing school districts to place advertising on school buses. Read all about the bill here.

Of course this brings up the commercialization of schools. Good thing? Bad thing? Depends on who you ask. Advertising can be pernicious, especially with regard to children. Remember the Joe Camel controversy?

Then again the money provided to the schools from the advertising could help fill the gap between what the state provides for school transportation and what it actually costs. So that’s a good thing, right? Or maybe not as folks who are critical of state education funding would say it’s one more way for the state to abdicate its responsibility for proper school funding.

As usual, there are no easy answers ….

A consortium of school districts from across the state filed suit alleging that Washington does not appropriately or fully fund public schools. Read more about the specifics of the lawsuit and the group, known as NEWS (Network for Excellence in Washington Schools,) here.
Now a decision in the case will be given by Judge John Erlick on Thursday, Feb. 4, in his courtroom at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. Stay tuned for the next segment in the saga of funding for public schools ….