The Other F Words
Not to mention 'Stupid Pet Tricks'
A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words
Bella was channeling me as I read the clips this week. Day after day, I felt like I was reading something akin to those “stupid pet trick” shows that used to be on TV.
“City School District of New Rochelle, NY Unanimously Opposes Charter School” as if the long-declining public schools in that beautiful little city were the best anyone could offer. No other ideas or competent leaders need apply.
Then there’s some guy with a Ph.D. who calls himself an expert spouting off in the Philly Inquirer about PA’s efforts to enact choice and vouchers taking money from public schools. The irony is, as you’ll see below, that there’s no shortage of money in public schools even as enrollment declines.
And from a Democrat colleague, more about “Covid Denial” and how Democrats Just Won’t Admit They Blew It by Supporting Lengthy COVID School Closures, published by The Daily Beast.
Says he, the ever-transparent Whitney Tilson who shared the piece with his weekly email list:
“As I repeatedly warned, in large part because the party remains largely beholden to the teachers’ unions, Democrat-led states kept schools closed for far too long, resulting in horrific learning losses and political setbacks…”
And this one is enough to make Dino, the ever-mellow brown lab next to Bella, get riled up:
“Another Boom Year For School Staffing…
…Even as fiscal cliff looms.”
Let’s process that headline - from The 74 - for a moment: It means that Districts, fearful that the billions more they received since Covid will go away, but they keep spending it, in hopes that the states will match what was spent the prior year, as systems and governments have historically done, regardless of enrollment. That’s the essence of bureaucracy and its pernicious impact on education - the throngs of people working grows despite an often decreasing customer base. And even as technology is replacing the need for administrative functions, public education operates as if it’s still 1965.
The data suggests some systems are in fact increasing the number of students they enroll and this may be true. More people are leaving high taxes and urban communities to go to states that are friendlier to people’s pocketbooks and values. But the “increase” being reported ignores a reality that normally surfaces long after these numbers have been released: That a state or district’s public school student increases are probably directly equivalent to another’s decreases, but just have yet to be reported.
If you look at most state enrollment reporting, it usually reflects the reality of two or more years ago, as does their spending. To find current data you have to have either a very competent and transparent Department of Education website - the case in only a handful of states our crack team of researchers at CER have found - OR you have to look at scores of zip files in districts that have yet to be reported to the state, which are normally also behind a year or two.
Texas and Florida’s gains are New York and Pennsylvania’s losses. As the article points out, Philly has “lost 16,000 students but employed 200 more teachers.” They also added twice that in administrators and we found an increased spending per student. That’s a rule in most cities, not an exception.
Another trick is the districts that authorize charter schools which are increasing in size and scope, but report those increases as if they are their own where the funds flow through districts. Every charter school law is different, and most still require districts to do charter reporting where there is a contractual relationship.
The bottom line is that we continue to spend billions - as enrollment in systems that get the lion’s share of funding drops.
Meanwhile, the new schools, the innovative education providers, the expanded private, public, charter, microschool, home school and various and sundry blended, on-ground, in-air and whatever novel 2024 kinds of approaches are out there get a fraction of what the public is spending.
And as opportunity and innovation increase, the same old arguments surface. It’s not okay. Funding is for education, not for structures.
The Other F Words: Freedom, Flexibility And Funding
These are the core pillars of what makes education work for kids. We’ll be surfacing them all and setting a course for the future at the second annual Yass Summit. Sign up for your invitation here. If you are action-oriented and have something to contribute we will want you there!
Thanks for reading! As millions embark on the Holiest of days, I wish you joy, peace and a break…especially from stupid pet tricks!
Happy Easter! Jeanne