FOCUS DC News Wire 1/25/12

Charter Schools Say They Can't Compete with DCPS Teacher Pay [FOCUS, KIPP, Washington Latin, Howard University Middle School of Math and Science, and Septima Clark PCS are mentioned]

The Washington Examiner

By Lisa Gartner

January 24, 2012

 

Leaders of the District's top-performing charter schools told the D.C. Council on Tuesday that they can't compete with the bonus-laden pay scale of D.C. Public Schools when it comes to attracting and retaining top teachers.

The outcry was prompted by a $21.4 million funding bonus Mayor Vincent Gray has proposed for DCPS, with no extra money being allocated for the city's charter schools, where 40 percent of public school students enroll.

 

DCPS asked for $25.2 million at a hearing Tuesday, and charter leaders told the D.C. Council that 40 percent of those dollars -- or $10.1 million -- should be earmarked for charters.

 

David Endom, director of financial planning for KIPP DC, said his high-performing charter network has offered an 8 percent raise to teachers, but because per-pupil funding from the city for charter schools has increased only once since 2009, "our pay scale is not even on par with DCPS, which obviously has implications for teacher recruitment and retention."

 

That sentiment was echoed by leaders from seven other charters, including Washington Latin Public Charter School and the Howard University Middle School of Math and Science.

 

Jenny DuFresne, head of all-male charter Septima Clark, said she was upset the school could not afford mental health services for a suicidal student, and said she was at a loss to explain why his favorite teacher had left, needing more money.

 

Under Impact, the teacher evaluation tool introduced by former Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, DCPS's top teachers can receive annual bonuses of up to $25,000, in addition to annual pay raises.

 

A recent report commissioned by the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools and Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, found that DCPS receives between $72 million and $127 million a year from the city that charters don't.

 

D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan shut down the groups' legal challenge, saying the D.C. School Reform Act of 1995 only requires the city to fund all public schools at the minimum $8,943 per student -- essentially, any other funding is extra and does not need to be spread evenly.

 

The council has not decided if it will grant Gray's request. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, who has admonished the administration for what he called a "tax and spend" mentality, said the city should be building up its savings again.

 

 

 

 

Council Rips Henderson on Budget Overruns

The Washington Post

By Bill Turque

January 24, 2012

 

Chancellor Kaya Henderson received a rare beat-down from the D.C. Council Tuesday, administered by members unhappy with what one called “reckless” budget practices that contributed to $21 million in projected DCPS cost overruns.

 

The $21 million is about half of the $42 million that surfaced last month on the District’s revised revenue forecast. Mayor Vincent C. Gray says DCPS needs the money to relieve “spending pressures” in food service ($12 million) after-school programs ($3.4 million) and non-instructional personnel costs ($5.3 million).

 

Henderson took full responsibility for the latter two. She said that DCPS has historically underfunded certain budget items, confident that it could make up the balance by finding extra money from other accounts as the fiscal year progressed.

 

“We knew we had [spending] pressure” on the after-school budget, she said. “We thought it would be manageable. We allowed it to happen.”

 

Same for about 100 non-instructional employees, which she described as “janitors and all kinds of other folks.” They were part of about 300 staff who were “excessed” -- meaning their jobs were eliminated at the end of the last school year — but were kept on the central office payroll until they could find other spots in the system. Henderson said she was informed by Natwar Gandhi’s office that the cost of all 300 could likely be absorbed by normal attrition and retirement, but by last fall 102 still remained. Henderson did not want to lay them off.

 

“This was my mistake,” she said. “I didn’t want to open the school year with a RIF [reduction in force].”

 

Henderson said the food service spending was more complicated. The school system was expecting $30 million in federal reimbursement this year, so it budgeted just $1.4 million in local funds after spending $15 million in FY 2011. But Henderson said DCPS learned just a few weeks ago from OSSE that the $30 million was contingent on serving both after-school snacks and supper. DCPS was serving only supper, and lost about $9 million in anticipated funding.

 

“It seems to me it was reckless, in view of what had gone on before,” Cheh said of budgeting just $1.4 million in local dollars.

 

Henderson disagreed. “I would own it if I thought we were reckless. But we had every indication we were going to get the full thirty [million].”

 

Council member Tommy Wells called it a “major budgeting error,” and questioned why Gandhi’s office managed to let it get by. He also wondered whether the system should get more money--especially in light of protests from public charter schools that they have been cut out of the extra largesse entirely.

 

“Why should DCPS not have to find the $9 million somewhere within DCPS?” Wells asked.

 

The council took no action Tuesday, but in the end it’s likely to give DCPS what it wants. D.C. budget and finance director Eric Goulet said that the city would be at risk of violating its anti-deficiency law, which places strict limits on agency overspending. He said anti-deficiency issues could negatively impact the city’s financial standing.

 

 

 

 

My View: Education Reform Based on School Choice

CNN

By Andrew Campanella 

January 25, 2012

 

For a moment, try to envision an America where, regardless of how much money you make or where you live, the government empowered you - even encouraged you - to send your children to better schools.

 

I’m talking about schools that inspire your children, challenge them to excel, and encourage them to dream big and plan for their futures, all while teaching them to love learning.

 

Sounds impossible. Sounds impractical. Sounds expensive.

 

But it isn’t.

 

It’s called school choice, and it’s the notion that across the country, families should be empowered to choose the best educational environments for their children - public schools, public charter schools, private schools, virtual schools and even home schooling.

 

Millions of Americans now agree that we must abandon archaic central planning that told us that if you live in one ZIP code, you can choose only one public school. Choice has become a centerpiece of American life, so why shouldn’t it extend to education?

 

States across the country are experimenting with the philosophy of open access for parents and kids to different educational environments, and the successes are stunning. In Washington, D.C., students participating in a private scholarship program are graduating at a rate that is at least 20 points higher than their public school peers. In Milwaukee, students participating in the nation’s longest-running voucher program are graduating at a rate that is 18% higher than children in traditional public schools. And in New Orleans, parental satisfaction with a new school choice program is over 90%.

 

People love school choice - and children benefit from it - because it brings together parents, students, community leaders and teachers in a common purpose. Teachers, especially, are the unsung heroes of the school choice movement. Without tens of thousands of teachers creating public charter schools, opening new private schools, promoting the benefits of virtual schooling and blended learning, and demanding reforms to traditional public schools, school choice wouldn’t exist.

 

In short: School choice, in all of its many forms, works. And during National School Choice Week (January 22-28, 2012), tens of thousands of citizens from across the country will celebrate these successes. Hundreds of events, planned by hundreds of different organizations, will kick off, collectively forming the largest celebration of education reform in American history.

 

It’s something you owe to yourself, your kids and your community to check out.

 

Why? Because in addition to the celebration, citizens from across political and ideological spectrums will also demand access to better educational options for their families. That’s the point of National School Choice Week: to celebrate the success of the roughly 4 million children who benefit from different forms of school choice while acknowledging that 4 million children is just a small fraction of school-aged kids in our nation who need better options, right now.

 

Why? Because an American child drops out of school every 26 seconds. That’s 1.2 million dropouts every year. When it comes to comparing the performance of American children with their peers in other countries, American students are outpaced by kids in 24 countries in math and are ranked 14th in reading.

 

School choice isn’t just an ideal. It’s essential to the future of American competitiveness. It’s key to the growth and redevelopment of underserved communities. And it’s the path to long-term economic growth and job creation.

 

Everyone who participates in National School Choice Week understands this and knows that the stakes are high. School choice offers a bright, inspirational ray of hope, one that America cannot pass up at this pivotal point in our history.