The Effects of School Closure
Read a good article in the Seattle Times today on the effect of the MLK closure on other Central area schools: Closure affects nearby schools.
"The district says it's taking the opportunity to learn from its enrollment-planning mistakes before attempting next year's challenge." I sure hope so.
"The district says it's taking the opportunity to learn from its enrollment-planning mistakes before attempting next year's challenge." I sure hope so.
Comments
The more interesting part of the article was that several nearby schools, Montlake, McGilvra and Stevens, had to take in more students. This is because both Madrona and Gatzert are on the NCLB list and parents are offered new schools if the school their child is in is on the list. So several parents took advantage of this offer to get their kids into those smaller schools with smaller classes. Parents at Montlake and McGilvra are angry over raising money for lower class sizes (basically buying a teacher) and seeing class sizes go up (somewhat) anyway. The article does mention that McGilvra has some sort of contract with the district guaranteeing its raised monies go to lower class size. I'm guessing that's because the PTSA money can be used for any non-teacher thing but once you get into teacher contracts you have to deal with the district.
Finally! The Times writes a good article on schools rather than spouting unfounded accusations and advocating for a takeover.
Isn't there some way that the Times can blame the Board for the increased class sizes while making it appear that Mr. Manhas, who controlled the outcomes, did something noble and heroic?
How did McGilvra get such a contract? How is that legal or ethical?
How much of the class size issue is school closing and how much is NCLB?
And 30 kids triggers benfits, eh? Perhaps it is actually better for the kids to have 30 in the classroom and funds for instructional assistants than 28 and just one teacher?
How did McGilvra get such a contract? How is that legal or ethical?
How much of the class size issue is school closing and how much is NCLB?
And 30 kids triggers benfits, eh? Perhaps it is actually better for the kids to have 30 in the classroom and funds for instructional assistants than 28 and just one teacher?
The District needs to establish policies regarding private, non-competitive grants, whether they are from The New School Foundation, TAF, the Alliance for Education or the local PTA. The District needs a policy that determines the limits on how this money can be spent and the limits on the authority for donors. Whatever those limits are determined to be, the District needs to decide on them in advance and apply them equally across the board.
Can an elementary school with 12 regular education classrooms (2 per grade) decide that their capacity is only 240 instead of the contract maximum 312? Can they only do so if they pay for two teachers? Do they have to pay for two portables also? Where is the price list? Can the PTA be contractually obligated to raise the money each year? How would that contract be enforced? Who signed the contract with the PTA? If it is Mr. Manhas, is the contract void upon his resignation? Does the Board have a role in this decision or not? Lots of questions, not many answers.
My daughter attends one of those small class size schools and I know for a fact that taking that away would result in losing a large number of families to private. I know this because I hear the parents talking - the small class size is what they sign up for and why they donate the money and time to the school.
I agree it's "not fair" but we should be looking at ways to bring up funding at the other schools rather than taking things away from good schools which also have very high WASL scores which very well may be related to the class size.
the only reputable study I know of that measures the effect of class size on performance (including long-term), randomizing teachers and kids (so controlling for teacher abilities and the kids' backgrounds) showed that there is a effect, however it is only statistically significant when the small class size = 16 kids.
_Children_as_Pawns_, Timothy A. Hacsi. when I read this, the Seattle Public Library didn't own a copy, however interlibrary loan was very fast. I highly recommend the book.
I'd be curious if his findings on class size was broken down by age groups. I can where a class size of 20 vs 28 would make a much bigger difference for kids learning the basics of how to read and write, pay attention and follow directions, etc etc in the early ages K - 3rd than older kids. I'm no expert but my hunch is there has to be a difference there - the amount of times my daughter is "assessed", broken down into smaller reading groups, etc. etc. I would have to think having 7 less kids in her class would make a significant difference.
The contract mentioned in the Times article does not put a cap on class size or limit how funds are spent. The District can bump up class size any time it wants (as it has shown!). The contract simply limits the use of the portables purchased by the PTA. If the District increases class sizes, the PTA could easily decide to stop paying for the extra teachers, but it would be tough to undo the purchase of the portables--that's why the PTA asked for the agreement before buying them.
It's also important to note that McGilvra, Stevens, and Montlake haven't achieved smaller class sizes by turning students away. In fact, since McGilvra's class size reduction started seven years ago, the school's enrollment has increased from 225 to 260. The building, which has a maximum capacity of 250, used to house 9 classrooms. Now the school has 12 classrooms, achieved by clearing out a storage area and the PTA buying two portables. At the same time, test scores have improved (it's true!), the achievement gap has narrowed, and neighborhood market share (vs. private) has increased. Again, the District could choose to undo this by bumping up class sizes, but then we'd be back where we started.
I don't disagree that there are serious equity issues raised by the District's (lack of) policy on private funding. There are too many important points to address them all here; I think Charlie Mas covered them really well in his "Equity" post on the CPPS forum. The bottom line is that all our schools are underfunded, and you can't fault some well-intentioned parents from doing their best to overcome this at specific schools.
It's a central issue to our whole American society. We don't have classes per se (a la England or India) but money is still a great divider. And, it's getting to be a greater and greater division.
My own husband thinks it unfair to buy down class size (or however you want to think of it). He thinks it makes schools quasi-private. I don't agree but I see his point. McGilvra (from my little experience on the CAC) was one of the few schools that offered solutions and not anger or threats. I'm not going to damn any school for what some parents wrote but there was a consistency from some schools.
I have always said bless parents who step up to help their child's school, no matter what they do, big or small. It is doubly hard for parents that don't live in areas where business/community can add support. Parents always think of their child's school first, it's just human nature. I think there's room, as Beth has said, to figure out a way to support schools with little or no PTA and keep faith with those who can do a lot. We need all kinds of parents in our district. We can't lose any more of them and, in fact, need to get back some of those private school parents.
That said, I must make two acknowledgements.
First, I am troubled by the use of PTA money to pay for teachers. That is a basic education expense and we have, as a society, decided that we are going to try to be equitable in the allocation of basic education. Rather than break that rule, I would prefer that we honestly change the rule if it no longer reflects our values and priorities.
Second, I have also advocated revenue sharing whereby a portion of PTA contributions - or any other non-competitive grant dollars - goes into a pot shared by all schools and allocated according to enrollment. I don't think revenue sharing, even at the 70/30 split rate that Beth mentioned, would inhibit gifting.
Per capita budgets are not apples to apples comparisons and shouldn't be made without significant context and disclosure. There are some students who cost more to educate than others, the budgets may or may not include grants and may or may not include compensatory education dollars.
I don't think PTA contributions are bad - they're great! I know that affluent families can and will support their children's schools with money and I'm all for it. I'm all for it even with the knowledge that low-income families don't have the same ability to offer financial support. Some may think that is unfair, but I don't. If you're going to object to that unfairness, then why not object just as strenuously to the millions of others. Is it unfair that I read to my children and help them with their homework? Is every support I give my child unfair because there is some other child out there who isn't getting that support? That's crazy talk.
But I don't think it's crazy to ask those families to share a portion of their contribution with other schools. I don't think its crazy for the District to have a policy about the limits of how this giving can be spent and what authority this giving brings with it. If the PTA is paying for two teachers, can the PTA do the hiring? Can the PTA fire them?
I would certainly prefer it if the state amply funded basic education so that that PTA money could go to other things like field trips, assemblies, visiting artists, music and art, play equipment, and library books.
As for the $$ comparisons between schools, does it include teacher compensation? There used to be information on the district website profiling schools with data on years of teacher experience (how many teachers had 1-5 years, 6-10, etc) but I cannot find it now. Last I saw it, there were striking differences between schools.
This begs the question of why the District couldn't have included some of these elementary schools on the BEX III list, but that's a different kettle of fish...