Educating Ourselves on Education

I've been wondering: is discernment possible without examining evidence?

When we repeat unfounded, unfactual ideas, who pays the price?

A few weeks ago I helped buy back-to-school supplies for some children I know who live in one of Pennsylvania’s poorest neighborhoods.

The supply list sent home included the obvious school items: pens, pencils, paper, but also paper towels and Kleenex. 

Can more money fix America's schools? NPR, April 25, 2016

Weird, right?

Unless you know that in some schools even simple necessities like those are not available if teachers or parents don't supply them. 

A day or two later I had dinner with an acquaintance who spoke with passion about the money wasted by the Philadelphia schools.

“We keep pouring money into that system and it just disappears.”

Sometimes I bite my tongue.

But if votes are decided and policy put in place on the basis of generalized nonsense, inequity continues.

And grows.

And swallows whole communities.

Per pupil spending in Philadelphia is far less than in the school district my acquaintance’s children attended.

About half as much, in fact.

Apparently high-end wireless microphones for school plays for wealthy children are justifiable expenses, while school libraries and computers for poor children are not.

I’ve written before about Pennsylvania’s inadequate and inequitable school funding.

But the narrative of school failure continues, fed by politicians eager to privatize education. According to a video on Donald Trump’s Issues Page:  

We are rated 28 in the world, the United States, think of it – 28 in the world, and frankly we spend far more per pupil than any other country in the world by far it’s not even a close second.   So here we are, we spend more money and we are rated 28. Third world countries are ahead of us.   We spend far more per pupil than any other country in the world. By far. And if you look at education. Out of thirty countries. We’re last. We’re like 30th. We’re last. So we’re last in education.

Aside from the general incoherence of his statements, there's also a question of fact.

No, we’re not 28. Or 30. Or "last." 

And we don’t spend far more per pupil than any other country.

By one international standard, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), American kids rank 7th out of 42 countries.

On the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, America’s public school students rank 6^th out of 53 systems tested.

On the most widely used, the Program for International Student Assessment, (PISA) 15-year-olds in 65 countries are tested in math, science, and reading. In 2012, the last available year, the US ranked 35th in math, 27th in science, and 24th in reading.

 

PISA Scores 2012, OECD, focus added by Business Insider, June 6 2015

So, it’s true that American students are not doing as well as we might like. 

But it’s not true that we spend far more than other nations. On per-student spending, the US average was $11,732 per full-time student in 2012 – behind Switzerland ($15,512), Norway ($13,611) and Austria ($12,164).  

Given differences in cost of living, a better comparison might be percent of GDP invested in education. By that measure, the U.S., at 3.6%, doesn’t make it onto the list of top 25 countries.

Trump’s conclusion that school choice would improve scores is contradicted by the statistics: nations with top results have strong, centrally-administered public school systems; consistent, equitable funding; focused attention on pre-K preparation for low-income, at-risk students; high public respect for teachers and schools.

For anyone really interested in understanding the numbers, it’s a complicated story.  But the question of which school systems waste money is far simpler to address for anyone who has even a small interest in the truth. The Commonwealth Foundation offers a website that allows comparison of districts on per pupil spending, money allocated for classroom attendance, special education and more. Here's how Philadelphia and neighboring Lower Merion compare. I've added Reading - one of the most underfunded districts in the country.

A quick interpretation: Lower Merion spends more than twice as much on its students, but a smaller percentage is spent on instruction. In other word, Philly and Reading are putting a higher share of their dollars into the classroom and doing their best to educate high needs children with less than half the funds. 

  

To put that spending in context: Philadelphia has the highest number of people living in “deep poverty” of any large city in the U.S. In 2015, the threshold for deep poverty was an annual cash income of less than $5,885 for an individual, $7,965 for a single-parent with one child, or $12,125 for a married couple with two kids. Nationally, one in ten children is now living in deep poverty. In Philly, that number is closer to one in four.  

People in deep poverty tend to be transient, living with friends, sometimes sleeping on the floor in a relative’s apartment. They frequently struggle with mental illness. Illiteracy is often a factor. Add in food insecurity. Inadequate child care.

Children in poverty, in addition to unstable home arrangements, often experience trauma from exposure to violence and crime. They are less likely to attend preschool, less likely to be exposed to books, games and enriching experiences in the home or local community. They start school less prepared than their wealthier peers, in systems less able to offer extra help or support.

On Tuesday, our state Supreme Court will hear a two-year-old lawsuit about school funding inequities. Six school districts, seven parents, and two advocacy organizations will again call attention to the vast disparities in resources among Pennsylvania’s schools. The suit describes Pennsylvania educational system as “the nation’s most inequitable and irrational,” with “’gross disparities’ in per-student funding”: 

the Commonwealth’s total investment in a child’s education can range from as little as $9,800 per student in low-wealth school districts to more than $28,400 per student in high-wealth districts. Those disparities exist not because highwealth districts have chosen to invest more in education; low-wealth districts often have property tax rates far higher than wealthier districts.

Nor are those disparities the result of differences in student need; students in lowwealth districts have needs that warrant more, not less, funding. Rather, the disparities exist because the structure of Pennsylvania’s funding scheme prevents low-wealth districts from ever closing the funding gap. 

I’ve heard, more times than I can count, that “throwing money at it” won’t solve the education problem.

There’s a difference between throwing money and investing wisely.  “Investing” is what we call it when we’re thinking of the future. “Throwing money” is what we call it when we simply don’t care.

Does money make a difference?

When you really consider, it seems a ridiculous question. 

Put it another way: 

Should low income children be provided high quality preschool? 

Yes.

Certainly affluent parents who invest in preschool for their children must see some benefit. The benefit is even greater for children who grow up in households without books, games, educational toys, without educated adults with time and ability to to read and play and teach.

Are smaller classrooms and better-trained teachers helpful?

Yes.

Small class sizes allow more individual attention, more help to students who need it. Put thirty already-behind kindergarteners kids in a room with no aides and no parent volunteers and they’ll be further behind by the end of the year. Every time.

And the more difficult the neighborhood, the more essential that teachers are experienced and well-trained. Too often the schools where excellent teachers are needed most are the schools that can least afford them.

What about money for school libraries? 

Yes. How will kids with little access to books develop a love of reading?

School nurses and therapists? Of course. Have you ever watched a child in pain, emotional or physical, struggle to focus or stay on task? 

When I dig into numbers, looking for evidence of waste, I see two things:

A pension problem primarily caused by legislators who undercut investment and now are reaping the fruit of that decision: “[i]n reality, based on actuarial need, the state continually hasn't kicked in enough money to cover its growing debt, the single biggest reason for the dire straits the state now faces.” 

The other major money drain is one Donald Trump has promised to expand: funds shifted from public schools to for-profit corporations through loosely regulated charter school schemes. The school where he chose to speak about education last week was a publicly funded, for-profit charter school that received an F on recent evaluations, compared to the surrounding school district, which received a C.

While public schools on average spend more money on instruction, charter schools spend more on administrative costs: high executive salaries and undisclosed profits.

This is true in Ohio, where Trump made his "school choice" speech. And in Pennsylvania, where 

inadequate oversight and a lax law have allowed a significant number of bad players to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars into their pockets, at the expense of Pennsylvania’s public school children.• Nick Trombetta, founder of the state’s largest cyber charter school (PA Cyber) has been indicted on multiple charges and is accused of siphoning more than $8 million from the school.• June Brown went on trial for allegedly defrauding the 4 Philadelphia charter schools that she founded of $6.7 million.• Recently the eighth Philadelphia charter school official pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges. 

Charter management organizations are permitted to spend unlimited taxpayer dollars on advertising, political lobbying, 7-figure CEO salaries and other expenses that are unrelated to educating children. 

I would love to see every child in our state and in our country attend a clean, safe, well-resourced school.

I can’ t make it happen.

What I can do:

• Refuse to vote for legislators who villainize teachers and public education or who offer privatized “choice” as a solution to “wasted money.”
• Push back – gently and politely – when people I know suggest we’re “pouring money away” in funding urban schools.
• Applaud organizations working to inform voters and advocate for adequate, equitable funding. 
• Pray for sight for the politically blind, wisdom for the willfully foolish and justice for those who without it will never reach their potential or find a way to flourish.

This post is part of a series on What's Your Platform 

Beyond the Party Platform July 24, 2016

A Different Way July 31, 2016 

Election Fraud and Rigged Elections, August 10, 2016 

How Long Will the Land Lie Parched? August 21, 2016 

Walls, Welcome, Mercy, Law August 28, 2016

Workers and Their Wages, Sep 3, 2016 

Privatization and Elementary Math

I’ve been watching the push toward privatization in the new “prison industry,” “education industry,” and more, with both perplexity and alarm.

And wondering when and how the theology of free market salvation gained so many devoted believers.

I didn’t major in business, but even I know that rule number one for any for-profit business is maximize profits, minimize costs.

So, for instance, in the push to privatize prisons, preservation of inmate contact with families has been sacrificed to maximizing profit from phone calls (more than $1.13 a minute until a federal cap was putin effect in February 2014)  Profits are  maximized through “insourcing” work to inmates, some paid as little as $0.25 an hour.   And intensive lobbying shapes legislation to keep prisons full As I discussed in more detail in an earlier post, privatization of prisons incentivizes incarceration; a net result is that many states now spend more on prisons than education, and one out of four inmates – globally – is held in a US prison. 

Maximize profits, minimize costs. 

from The For Profit Prison Boom in
One Worrying Infographic,
 Business Insider, January 27, 2014

Prison industry profits are high, and CEO salaries are higher. Damon Hininger, president of CorrectionsCorporation of America (CCA), the oldest and largest private prison company in the US, earned $2,772,435 in 2012. The company has given over $5,200,000 in campaigncontributions (three fifths of that to state campaigns), has spent over $20,700,000 in lobbying on crime, detention, and immigration issues, and has contributed generously in the past to ALEC the American Legislative Exchange Council) which has written and promoted many of the laws responsible for increased sentencing and overcrowded prisons. Ever penny spent, every dollar of the more than $300,000,000 in profit last year, came from state and federal taxes. 

Maximize profits, minimize costs.

Even in obvious for-profit industries, that simple equation leaves out other important values: worker safety, employee satisfaction, truth in advertising, safeguarding of air and water, robust local economies.

Free-market principles too often reward short-term behaviors, externalizing costs to communities, workers, consumers and pushing long-term consequences onto unsuspecting others.

Setting that aside - are there arenas that should be outside the reach of for-profit motivation?

Medicine? What happens when a doctor will profit form a particular diagnosis, or prescription of a particular drug? Which diseases receive attention when profit shapes practice? Which low-cost solutions are ignored? What happens when marketing models stall low-cost sharing of essential vaccines or medications, costing human lives?

Roads? Ports? Airports? Does competition make them safer, more accessible?

Mail and package delivery? Internet access? Phone service? What happens when providers choose the most lucrative markets, and leave remote areas with no suppliers at all?

Education?

Advocates of “small government” often describe privatization as a way to shrink government expense.

It’s an interesting theory that ignores some elementary math. 

In practice, it works if the government abandons the enterprise completely, or ignores the quality of services given. Otherwise privatization adds a costly layer of oversight, regulation, and administration.

Not to mention the money spent in political influence, the corporate salaries, the shareholder profits.

Privatized education works if we agree some kids are just not worth educating.

Or convince ourselves that for-profit corporations will put kids before profit without extensive regulation and costly oversight.

Or buy the idea that teachers should be paid less, trained less, treated as hourly workers in an industry with high turnover and little job satisfaction.

The economic challenges of local school districts I posted about last week are compounded by the push to expand for-profit charter and cyber schools, funded with public money.  

Advocates of “school reform,” “school choice” and “smaller government through privatization” need to spend some time on basic math.

The numbers don’t add up.

According Senate Bill 123 passed in 1997:

A charter school is an independent public school established and operated under a charter from the local board of school directors. Charter schools must be established as public nonprofit, nonsectarian entities by teachers, parents, institutions of higher education or museums.

Some excellent charter schools formed by parents and non-profit widened access to excellent education, and opened doors of opportunity to students who struggled in larger, over-burdened public schools.  

But despite the “nonprofit, nonsectarian” definition, Pennsylvania has allowed for-profit firms to provide teachers, curriculum, administrative support, or complete on and off-site management,

blurring completely the definition of “nonprofit.”

It has also allowed for-profit firms to create and manage publicly funded cyber schools.

And it has allowed those schools to collect per-pupil fees equivalent to those of each student’s local district, without regard for the real cost of teaching that student, and without any public scrutiny of profit, expenses, or relationship between advertised claims and student results.

Dig even a little and the evidence is overwhelming: while investors and CEOs of these firms enjoy large profits, students, teachers, and school districts pay the price.

Just a small sampling:

1. A 2009 national study by CREDO, (Center for Research on Education Outcomes),a research unit at Stanford University,  found that 

Compared to the educational gains the charter students would have had in their traditional public schools, the analysis shows that students in Pennsylvania charter schools on average make smaller learning gains.  

2. No PA cyber charter schools made adequate yearly progress in 2011-2012 (the most recent year available). According to an April 2014 report by the Democratic House Education Committee: 

For 2010-11, while 94% of school districts met AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress), 75% of public schools met AYP. In contrast, only 61% of charter schools met AYP and only two of the 12 cyber charter schools met AYP. . .
 For 2011-12, while 61% of school districts met AYP, 50% of public schools met AYP. In stark contrast, only 29% of charter schools met AYP and none of the 12 cyber charter schools met AYP (9)

3. Charter schools and siphon off students with mild, easily addressed special education needs, leaving more expensive-to-teach students in local schools. In Pennsylvania, charter schools have no limit on how many special education students they claim, while local schools are held to a percentage. A detailed evaluation by The Center for Rural Education found: 

A single payment amount for all types of special education students does not reflect the wide variation in the costs of different types and intensities of services that various students need. Under the current funding formula for special education tuition payments, the charter schools received substantially more in tuition payments for special education students than they reported spending for special education. As reported on the Pennsylvania Department of Education website, in 2012-13, charter schools received $351 million in tuition payments from school districts for special education students and had $151 million in special education instruction and related expenditures, an excess of
$200 million. In 2011-12, the reported data were $295 million in special education tuition payments received from school districts for special education students and $134 million spent for special education, a difference of $161 million.

There is no provision for review of excesses, and no mechanism to have that money refunded to school systems that were forced to pay excessive amounts.    

4. Several of Pennsylvania’s cyber schools have been involved in fraud investigations:

PA Cyber . . .  has been receiving well over $100 million in public money annually, a portion of which prosecutors allege that Trombetta was using to fund businesses that functioned as his "personal ATM machine" and "personal retirement account. 

Page 1 of a 4 page chart from Charter and Charter
Cyber School Reform Update (pp 9-12)

In March 2013, the Democratic House Education Committee study offered an extensive “fraud chart,” listing a long list of abuses against a long list of charter corporations. Many had multiple offenses, including multiple salaries, unsubstantiated expenses, incomplete or inaccurate financial disclosures, conflicts of interest, use of public funds for personal expenses.

In 2010, Attorney General Jack Wagner  asked for a moratium on creation of new charter and cyber schools until the legislature addressed the flawed funding system. That moratorium didn’t happen. Charter school reform bills have been introduced, killed in committee, watered down until they reform nothing.

Public funds pay the CEO salaries of these for-profit firms (those numbers are not publicly available) and public funds are used to fatten the campaign funds of compliant legislators on both sides of the aisle.) A major contributor to Governor Tom Corbett in 2010, Vahan Gureghian, is one of the top political contributors in Pennsylvania, and in the last few years has built multi-million dollar mansions in both Gladwyne and Palm Beach.   

Those dollars all came from Pennsylvania’s education budget – a budget stretched too thin to provide counselors and librarians for urban kids, or after school sports in cash-strapped rural towns.  

Next time you hear someone talking about “school reform” ask yourself: what does “reform” mean?

Who is paying to publicize that message?

Who will profit if that “reform” takes place?

And does privatization really make government smaller, or just shift public dollars for common goals to private pockets?

Take some time to do the math.

Next steps?

The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania education page offers links to organizations involved in education, and descriptions of current legislation.  

Education Voter of Pennsylvania offers more detailed information, and link for contacting local representatives. 

Next on my reading list is Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error: TheHoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.

And two League of Women voter tools can help voters find out more about local candidates positions. In many states, Vote 411, and in others, (including Pennsylvania and California) Smart Voter provide sample ballots by zip code, and links to candidates own websites. 

This is the third in a series looking at specific issues of importance in state and local elections, as an extension of my 2012 series "What's Your Platform?"

Earlier posts:

What are Workers Worth, September 1, 2014Back to School Lament, September 7, 2014  

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Just click on   __comments below to see the comment option.