Governor Christie's inconsistent policy on salary caps lets charters use public funds to pay high salaries.

How is it fair that charter schools are exempt from Governor Christie's cap on superintendent salaries? If he truly wants to walk the walk and really believes that no one who runs a school district should make more than the governor, then how does he justify the exemption for charter schools? If he truly believes that what he calls high salaries are a misuse of public funds, how are charter schools -- also funded by public money -- allowed to pay their leaders more than the governor?

According to the story in today's Bergen Record:

The director of a Teaneck charter school with about 300 students was paid more than $200,000 last year. In Englewood, the head of an even smaller charter school, with 200 students, earned $152,000 in public money for working part time.

Governor Christie has moved to cap the salaries of superintendents at much larger traditional public school districts, but has proposed no such ceiling on tax-supported charters.

To some, the exemption shows how charters — publicly funded but independently operated — are given a pass when it comes to state regulations meant to ensure fiscal accountability.

"It's patently inequitable," said Bruce Baker, a Rutgers professor who has studied charter school financing.

Read the rest of the article here.

Only in New Jersey...

Should funds be taken from Ridgewood schools to pay for charters?

Today the New Jersey Left Behind blog questioned whether charter schools can serve a purpose in successful school districts. The writer was bothered by testimony at the charter school hearings in Trenton, at the Assembly Education Committee, where the school board president from Princeton argued that “regulations should require charter applicants to prove there was a true educational need for their new school, rather than just a desire for it among a select group of parents. She cautioned against the spread of “boutique” charters for studying Hebrew, Mandarin and “the extensive recycling of plastics.” Others made similar arguments.

The NJ Left Behind blogger commented, “In some ways this is a choice between philosophical inconsistency -- limiting school choice for some and not for others -- or the targeting of ed reform resources to those truly in need.”

I will not deny that having a choice of charter schools can be (although not always) a positive thing – in districts where the existing public schools are failing. But of course ed reform resources should be targeted “to those truly in need.” How could it be otherwise? That seems to make basic sense. The fear of high-performing districts is well-founded. If a charter wants to come into Ridgewood, why should our public school students have to give up successful programs in order to support it? Our district is high-performing. Our budget is stretched beyond the limit. We get $0 in state funding, and the 2% tax levy cap means we have to cut just to balance the budget. Our community already sends plenty of income tax dollars to Trenton, where it is redistributed to other districts. It simply would not be fair to siphon additional funds out of our schools, thereby affecting the quality, so that parents could set-up a “boutique” school, for something like Mandarin immersion. NJ Left Behind makes a good point with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “"a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." That sounds about right, especially when the “consistency” is at a level our community is not willing to accept.

Fact-checking Waiting for Superman

Check out this well-researched blog by New York Public School Parents, which bills itself as the "independent voice of NYC public school parents." Just a little fact-checking on some of the statistics thrown about in the film, Waiting for Superman.

Public schools have to fail: the corporate takeover of our education system?

Make no mistake: education is big business. Scary big. It’s got a perpetually renewing crop of “customers” in every community big and small. Fear of other countries passing us by. Plus emotion, poor little children, and nothing less than the fate of all (American) mankind at stake. Here in Ridgewood, we know education is expensive. Look at that big budget we’re asked to vote for every year. New Jersey property taxes are the highest in the country. The economy sucks, our paychecks are shrinking. Our houses are worth less. Somebody must be to blame. And somebody must have the simple solution.

No wonder it’s so easy for people like Governor Christie to dangle the magic of charter schools in front of the state. Never mind the fact that overall, charter schools have been proven in study after study to achieve no better results than public schools. Let’s just never mind that for today. Instead, let’s focus on what’s really going on in the oh-so-trendy, brave new world of “education reform.”

I was referred to an interesting article, titled Waiting for SuperFraud, by Michael T. Martin. In it, Mr. Martin made some good points that I haven’t really been considering. He wrote,

Public schools have to fail. There is no alternative. So give up trying to argue otherwise with facts and logic.

The mockumentary Waiting For Superman made this clear. Funded by millionaires, the movie told the story of some privatized schools in Harlem portrayed as saviors of children otherwise condemned to public schools. Privatized schools mostly funded by hedge fund millionaires on Wall Street. They spent two million dollars to promote the film nationally. Another major film titled “The Lottery” told a similar tale: children in Harlem desperate to escape public schools. Funded by more millionaires.

Mr. Martin goes on to tell about a 1999 Merrill Lynch in-depth report titled “The Book of Knowledge, Investing in the Growing Education and Training Industry.” The report notes: “The K-12 market is the largest segment of the education industry with approximately $360 billion spent annually or over $6,500 per year per child. Despite the size, the K-12 market is the most problematic to invest in today.”

In other words, there’s a $360 billion (today more like $700 billion) market – full of desperate taxpayers and scared parents – up for grabs, and private enterprise is being invited in to take over – as an investment strategy, not for educational outcomes.

Big business doesn’t make decisions out of the goodness of its heart, or for the betterment of society, but rather with an eye on huge profits and a captive audience. It’s just something to think about. “Follow the money” as they said in my favorite movie. And evaluate potential "supermen" accordingly.

Charter schools: the secret is out.

The US Department of Education released a report, "The Evaluation of
Charter School Impacts," in June 2010.

According to the report, the evaluation was conducted in 36 charter middle schools across 15 states and compares outcomes of students who applied and were admitted to these schools through randomized admissions lotteries (lottery winners) with the outcomes of students who also applied to these schools and participated in the lotteries but were not admitted (lottery losers).

The key findings, as stated in the Executive Summary (italics are mine):

• On average, study charter schools did not have a statistically significant impact on student achievement.

• Study charter schools positively affected parent and student satisfaction with and perceptions of school.

Oh, I get it. This must be what all the fuss is about...students don't actually do any better in charter schools. They just feel better about their schools. Wow. No wonder Governor Christie, President Obama, Arne Duncan and the rest are so excited.

Realizing the mistake that was NCLB.

Interview in US News & World Report with Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education under George W. Bush. Ms. Ravitch has gone from a conservative advocate of school choice, vouchers and high-stakes testing to being critical of same. Change of heart? Her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, is reportedly a strong indictment of No Child Left Behind and other Bush-era policies she helped create.

In the interview, Ms. Ravitch answers the question, What should parents do to ensure that their children are getting the best education? She answers:

There are two different questions. One is what should parents do, and the other is what should policymakers do. If policy makers simply say, "It's every family for itself," we're going back to the early 19th century, before we had public education. Some people had private tutors, and some people sent their kids to religious schools, and some people got together and had little schools that they created. Then at a certain point, there was an awareness that the public had a responsibility to educate the children of the community. If we're doing a bad job of that, we really should develop public policy that looks to improving the quality of those schools and not just close them down and hand them over to private entrepreneurs. Because then we're creating a marketplace, and markets have failures. Markets do not succeed in providing equal opportunity. They succeed in creating winners and losers. We saw that in the [economic collapse] of the fall of 2008, and that could happen to our schools as well.

Interesting and sure to incite protests from pro-school marketplace folks. I have to admit, the winners vs losers point is a good one...because when there are losers they will be children, and that's not acceptable.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visiting NJ tomorrow

I received a press release that said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is visiting New Jersey tomorrow following the release of new statistics showing that New Jersey's public schools are among the best in the nation. That's cool. Unfortunately, he's only visiting a charter school -- the North Star Academy Charter School in Newark. There is some talk of trying to get him to visit a traditional public school as well, considering that the vast majority of NJ students are in regular public schools -- I vote for Ridgewood!

(FYI -- A recent study by the Rand Corporation showed that charter schools do not perform better than traditional public schools. The report found that in the school systems studied, charter attendance had either no significant impact on students' reading and math performance, or actually had a small negative effect. That being said, the point of this post was not to bash charter schools -- if you want to read the full study, click here -- but since the Education Secretary is visiting one, I thought I'd point it out.)

Hey, Mr. Duncam, come to Ridgewood! We'll show you some great NJ public schools!