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Accountability: The Taxpayers’ Return on Investment

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Democratic accountability is achieved through the electoral process by enabling the local taxpayers to elect their local board of education and to vote whether to accept or reject the local school annual operating budget.  This electoral process enables taxpayers to control the stewards of their local schools, the members of the board of education, and through this process the level of property taxes levied and how these tax revenues are allocated.  It helps to assure taxpayers that their duly elected representatives, the members of the board of education, will allocate their school district’s financial and human resources according to local priorities.  The locally elected board of education, in turn, makes sure that the local schools meet or exceed local needs and priorities.

 

Accountability is the means by which taxpayers can determine whether they are getting a proper return on investment from their investment in public education, their property taxes, by exercising local control.  Taxpayers benefit from having input into determining those educational programs and services on which their money is spent.  They are more strongly committed to and involved with their neighborhood schools because their children as well as those of potential buyers of their homes can also attend the local school within the district.  The process of enabling taxpayers to control local school funding, governance and educational content increases their willingness to fund their local schools because they can see and influence how their money is spent.  Based on these concepts, home rule or local control was established and has thrived.

 

The tradition of local control not only is rooted in our democratic principles but also symbolizes our democracy in action.  Local control enables our schools to be self-governing instead of being controlled remotely by a governmental entity that imposes its political agenda rather than supporting local priorities and needs.  Remote governing bodies, therefore, are not accountable to the standards necessary for local schools to provide quality education.

 

A top-down, state dominated educational system is contrary to our democratic principles.  Increased control by the state whether directly or indirectly through state politically appointed county departments of education such as in New Jersey means less local control because control is a zero sum game.  As such, every increase in state power can only result from a corresponding loss at the local level. 

 

A governance model based on state control results in a traditional military-type command-and-control decision-making process.  This is contrary to a true democratic process that supports local school districts and fosters the active participation of parents with their willingness to fund public education.  In a command-and-control model, state level policy makers develop the strategy for policy implementation and combine this strategy with their political directives to determine the priorities and budgetary process for each school district. 

 

The typical one-size-fits-all approach removes decision making authority from those most affected by educational policy decisions:  the students, parents, taxpayers, administrators, teachers, school and district.  It also concentrates policy formulation and decision making at a centralized level where special interest groups have greater leverage over the policy makers and, as a result, greater control over legislation affecting education including school budgets and funding as well as programs and services.  A school’s annual operating budget is the financial representation of the school’s educational plan.  State control of the local school budgetary process, particularly the allocation of financial and human resources, means that the state can impose its own agenda and prevent local districts from acting according to local educational needs.

 

In a typical centralized state model local taxpayers lose control over how their money is allocated because decisions are made remotely and without local input.  In addition, local boards of education even though they serve as unpaid volunteers are often abolished or rendered virtual rubber stamps of the state department of education under the guise of saving money and increasing accountability.  Special interest groups have a disproportionate say in the local allocation of educational funds distributed by the state.  Indeed, the allocation process seems to be based more on special interest group political calculus than on local educational needs.  Because the approval and allocation process at the state level tends to be much more convoluted than those at the local level and more powerful special interests are involved, significant amounts of aid authorized for education seemingly do not make it ultimately to the local level.

 

Concentrating decision-making power at the local district level rather than at the state level enables more resources to be focused on those most affected by education and enables those most involved in providing education to provide better instruction.  State control causes local school districts to spend less time on students as well as parents because more time is required to be spent on state imposed bureaucratic obligations and requirements.  As a result, parental engagement decreases which harms student achievement because parental involvement is a key component supporting student performance.  The local school district not only is closest to the students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers but also has the necessary expertise to most effectively decide how to provide a quality education and to generate the necessary local taxpayer support for the public funding of public education.

 

 

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CEIFA’s Impact

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

The rising power of state government (Fusarelli and Cooper, 2009) has grown from the states’ increasing domination of school finance and, therefore, policy making because of the strings the states attached to funding.  Legal challenges to funding inequities and disparities led to court decisions such as Serrano v. Priest establishing financial neutrality as the basis for school funding.  States remedied the disparities among districts with the infusion of incremental state funds and regulation.  Subsequent rulings focused on adequacy and required state governments to provide resources to disadvantaged districts such that the provision of education adequately met their constitutional requirements.  New Jersey’s state constitution was deemed to go even further because of its provisions guaranteeing a thorough and efficient education especially in the Abbott v. Burke court decision. 

 

Although the state’s flawed approach to education is exemplified by the new funding formula contained in the New Jersey School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008, it is manifested in its predecessor, the Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act of 1996 (CEIFA.)  Dr. Reock studied the financial impact on school districts of the state’s failure not only to not fully enact CEIFA but also to freeze most CEIFA funding beginning with the 2002-03 school year (Reock, 2007.)  Based on his study (Sciarra, 2008), Dr. Reock found that “the state aid freeze caused massive under-funding of many school districts throughout the state, especially poor non-Abbott districts, and contributed to the property tax problem in the state.” 

 

Instead of fully funding CEIFA’s school funding formula as required by law, the state froze financial aid to schools at their 2001-02 school year levels regardless of any increases in enrollment, rising costs as well as state and federal unfunded mandates.  The shortfall was hardest on those districts that were most dependent upon state aid.  During the 2005-06 school year the statewide shortfall amounted to $846 million which translated into per pupil shortfalls of $1,627 in non-Abbott DFG A and B districts, $758 in DFG C through H districts, $386 DFG I and J districts and $188 in Abbott districts.  

 

The impact of the CEIFA funding shortfall was minimized on the Abbott districts largely due to their “parity-plus” court mandated protection.  State law forbids the budget of an Abbott district from falling below its level of the prior school year (Hu, 2006.)  Furthermore, under state law, if an Abbott district increases local property taxes without a state directive to do so, it will lose a similar amount of state aid. 

 

The CEIFA funding shortfall caused serious imbalances between local school districts.  During the 2005-06 school year, Abbott districts received approximately 58% of all state financial aid while educating only 23% of New Jersey’s K to 12 student enrollment.  This meant non-Abbott districts were educating 77% of New Jersey’s students with only 42% of state aid.  This imbalance has continued to widen under SFRA with Abbott aid increasing to approximately 60% of all state aid or $4.64 billion.  State aid reductions and the ever increasing unfunded state mandates force non-Abbott districts to balance their budgets by raising property taxes, increasing class sizes as well as cutting regular education programs and services.   

 

As part of his statement of New Jersey Supreme Court certification in support of the Plaintiffs’ opposition to the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008, Dr. Reock concluded (Sciarra, 2008) that “the State’s failure to fund CEIFA for the past six years directly resulted in an enormous shortfall of funding in districts across New Jersey.”  He went further to state, “By 2007-08, the sixth year of the CEIFA “freeze,” the total under-funding of state aid had reached $1.326 billion annually, despite the introduction of several new, smaller aid programs.”  The result was a state-driven increase in local property taxes within non-Abbott districts to make up for the shortfall. 

 

By passing through the majority of the cost of state mandates to local school districts, the State of New Jersey forces local schools to divert resources to bureaucratic regulatory compliance.  As a result, disproportionate amounts of a typical school district’s scarce financial and human resources are not invested in the classroom where they are needed most.  Local school districts would be able to operate more cost-effectively, earn a higher rate of return on their educational investment and provide greater accountability if they were free to concentrate on improving every student’s performance with the maximum possible level of local public support for the public funding of its public schools.

 

 

References

 

Fusarelli, B. C., & Cooper, B. S., Editors.  (2009) The Rising State: How State Power is Transforming our Nation’s Schools, Albany, New York: SUNY Press. 

Hu, W. (2008) In New Jersey, System to help Poorest Schools Faces Criticism, New York Times, October 30, 2006. 

Reock, E. C. Jr., (2007) Paper, Estimated Financial Impact of the ‘Freeze’ of State Aid on New Jersey School Districts, 2002-03 to 2005-06, Institute on Education Law and Policy, Rutgers University, Newark, http:// ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/CEIFA_Reock_Final.pdf.  

Sciarra, D. G., (2008) Certification of Dr. Ernest C. Reock, Jr. for the Supreme Court of New Jersey in support of the Plaintiffs’ opposition to the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, Education Law Center, Newark New Jersey, http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/elcnews_080521_ReockCertification.pdf  

 

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Posted in accountability, autonomy of schools, bigger is not better, board of education, Bruce Baker, Bruce Cooper, Capitalization of property taxes, Capitalization of school district quality, Charles Tiebout, data-based decision making, decision making, education, educational leadership, federal financial aid, home rule, local property taxes, local schools, mandates, New Jersey, New Jersey Property taxes, property taxes, property values, public education, public finance, school finance, school funding, school governance, school law, self-funding school districts, self-governance | No Comments »

Self-governance

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Locality is crucial for accountability.  Because the greater is the distance between the policy maker or the policy making body and those most affected by the policy, the students, teachers and schools, the more adverse is the policy’s impact on a public school district’s finances and ultimately upon the quality of education it provides.  Our public schools, therefore, must be given the choice of becoming self-governing, self-funding, autonomous, local public school districts free from state and federal mandates so that they can be liberated to provide a top quality education while held being accountable to this standard by those who are the most capable of doing so, the local school district’s taxpayers.

 

A self-governing public school district would be free of state and federal mandates but would abide by all other state and federal laws.  It would remain a public school district rather than become a charter school.  It would continue to serve the same local community with the same regular and special education students.  While public school districts could elect to stay within the state system and continue to abide by all mandates, all districts would be given the opportunity to legally opt out. 

 

Self-governance is the alternative to a state dominated educational system that could provide public schools with the authority necessary to improve educational accountability consistent with the priorities of their local school communities.  It would also provide school districts with the flexibility to innovate rather than be forced to march in lock step to the state’s one-size-fits-all mandates which fit no district.  Because decisions guiding the operations of self-governing schools would no longer be determined at the state level, parents, teachers, school administrators, boards of education and local taxpayers would be better able to shape the quality of education which students receive in their local schools. 

 

Self-governance would eliminate the excessive financial and administrative burdens imposed by state mandates.  The ever increasing cost of the state’s unfunded and under funded mandates is forcing school districts not only to cut non-mandate protected education programs but also to increase property taxes.  For example, New Jersey’s public school districts can no longer afford to pay for these unfunded and under funded mandates because most school districts are forced to spend disproportionately more to meet the requirements of these mandates than these districts receive in total state and federal financial aid.  Self-governance would increase the financial resources available for the classroom because the funds that are currently used for compliance with state mandates could be redirected to improving student learning and achievement, which after all is the real mission of our schools.

 

How do we restructure our educational system such that we not only enable our schools to increase the property taxpayers’ return on their investment but also greatly improve the quality of education while holding schools accountable to this standard?  The answer is to give our public schools the choice of becoming self-governing, self-funding, autonomous local public school districts free from state and federal mandates.  This would empower public schools to improve the quality of education consistent with the priorities of their local communities as well as the flexibility to innovate.  Legally opting out of the state system through a state-wide voter approved referendum would restore decision-making to the local school district level.  Because decisions guiding the operations of self-governing schools would no longer be made largely at the state level, parents, teachers, school administrators, boards of education and local taxpayers would be better able not only to shape the quality of education provided in their local schools but also to hold their local schools accountable for this outcome.

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Posted in decision making, deregulation of schools, disaggregation, education, educational leadership, home rule, local schools, New Jersey, property taxes, property values, public education, public finance, school finance, school funding, school governance, school law, school reform, self-funding school districts, self-governance, state financial aid, state mandates | No Comments »

The Charter School Advantage: Operating as a Deregulated Autonomous Public School

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

The proponents of charter schools (Newman, 1998) purport that charter schools are the answer to what ails our public school system.  The rationale supporting how charter schools can provide an education that is superior in quality to that offered by conventional public schools is that they are deregulated autonomous public schools that are granted extreme freedom in how they choose to innovate, experiment, manage operations, “respond to their customers”, govern themselves and enroll as well as educate their students (Sugarman, 2002).  “In return for this autonomy, charter schools usually are asked to demonstrate academic outcome results for their children, but that too is supposed to be measured without too much interference with the school’s independence” (Kemerer, 1999, cited in Sugarman, 2002).  The core elements of a charter school’s success are its ability to function with autonomy and deregulation, both of which are regularly denied to conventional public schools.  The solution to what ails our public school system, therefore, is to enable our traditional public schools to operate with the same degree of autonomy and deregulation as that granted to charter schools.   

 

Charter schools are public schools that are funded primarily by local property taxes but are granted freedom from many state and federal mandates and restrictions so that they can provide innovative and cutting-edge teaching and learning.  As a result, charter schools function independently from their host district’s board of education under a charter granted by the state (New Jersey Department of Education, 2001).  According to the New Jersey Department of Education, as soon as the charter is approved by the Commissioner of Education, the school is governed by a board of trustees authorized by the State Board of Education and the charter school is thereby granted all the necessary powers to execute and implement its charter. 

 

By agreeing to the contract with the state, a charter school receives public funding with significantly less regulation but it is also expected to provide a quality of education that exceeds that of a conventional public school.  But despite their public school charter and property tax funding, charter schools operate independently of their local taxpayers’ input, feedback and control.  “While charter schools emphasize that they are a new form of public schools, they are increasingly appearing and behaving like private schools” (Horn and Miron, 2000, cited in Bracey, 2002). 

 

According to the New Jersey Department of Education, however, a charter school “must outline how the school will meet the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards” and “Cross-Content Workplace Readiness Skills” plus all “teachers, administrators, and professional staff must have New Jersey State certification” (New Jersey Department of Education, 2005, cited in Bredehoft, 2005).  While charter schools operate independently, the local board of education “must also provide transportation for charter school students residing in its district under the same terms and conditions for district students attending public schools” (Bredehoft, 2005).  Also, “a charter school may operate within a ‘region of residence’, comprised of a district or multiple districts identified in the charter school’s application, and must have a physical residence in one of those districts” (New Jersey Department of Education, 2005, cited in Bredehoft, 2005). 

 

A charter school is funded based on its enrollment primarily by the revenues it receives through its local board of education.  According to the New Jersey Department of Education, the host district’s board of education must pay the charter school ninety percent of its average per pupil share of the annual operating budget for the specific grade level of each student (Bredehoft, 2005).  Although charter schools can not charge tuition, they are eligible to receive federal and state funds.  As a result, it seems as if funding is siphoned from the host public school district to the charter school without the direct or indirect approval of local taxpayers. 

 

Because local property taxes as well as state and federal financial aid abide by a zero-sum process, all funds transferred from a conventional public school to a charter school result in a cut in funding that can not be recouped.  A conventional public school must cut non-mandate protected programs and services such as regular education in order to make up for the lost revenues.  In addition, because state and federal governments either under fund or do not fund their mandates, conventional public schools are forced to pay for these shortfalls while charter schools are often not subject to the same regulations or to the same extent as their host district. 

 

Charter schools enjoy many other advantages over their conventional counterparts.  Charter schools can limit their enrollment which enables them to have lower student-teacher ratios and forces conventional public schools to educate the majority of students in comparatively larger class sizes.  Charter schools do not have to enroll students after the beginning of the school year which enables them to have much more stable enrollments than conventional public schools.  The scarcity of unions and tenure in charter schools also represents another set of cost advantages. 

 

The extent to which charter schools can limit the number of students who qualify for special education, are from low-income or poverty level families, or are English language learners (Levay, 2009) would force traditional public schools to educate a disproportionate number of these needy and at-risk students who are much more expensive to educate.  Such a practice would minimize costs for the charter school in the district while it would correspondingly increase the public school district’s expenses.  In discussing his study of Michigan’s charter schools Bracey (2002) concludes “And, perhaps most significant, the student bodies look more and more like private schools: Fewer minority and special needs students are enrolled.”  

 

Unlike charter schools that can cap or otherwise more effectively limit their enrollment and, thereby, limit the cost of their raw materials, traditional public schools have to enroll all of the students in the district who wish to attend and, therefore, can not control the cost of their raw materials.  This cost advantage in favor of charter schools is highlighted below in the “blueberry epiphany” (Cuban, 2004) experienced by former CEO, Mr. Jamie Vollmer, because as the woman from the audience responds to Mr. Vollmer “… we can never send back our blueberries. We take them all!” and, thus, traditional public schools can not control the quality of their raw materials. 

 

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”  I stood before an audience filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute.  My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in-service training.  Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation.  You could cut the hostility with a knife.

 

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools.  I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the 1980’s when People magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the “Best Ice Cream in America.” 

 

I was convinced of two things.  First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.”  Second, educators were a major part of the problem:  they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly.  They needed to look to business.  We knew how to produce quality.  Zero defects!  Total quality management!  Continuous improvement! 

 

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance.  As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up … She began quietly.  “We are told sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”  I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, ma’am.”  “How nice,” she said.  “Is it rich and smooth?”  “Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.  “Premium ingredients?” she inquired.  “Super premium!  Nothing but triple-A.”  I was on a roll.  I never saw the next line coming.

 

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”  In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap.  I knew I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.  “I send them back.” 

 

“That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries.  We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant.  We take them with attention deficit disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language.  We take them all!  Every one!  And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business, it’s a school!”  In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aids, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah!  Blueberries!  Blueberries!”

 

And so began my long transformation.  Since then, I have learned that a school is not a business.  Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, completing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night” (pp. 3-4). 

 

Charter schools enroll students who would otherwise attend the local public schools thereby forcing traditional public school districts to cut educational programs and services correspondingly.  But if a traditional school district lost a disproportionate number of students and terminated a proportionate number of teachers and aids, it would not be able to make up many of the operating expenses associated with those students who left to attend the local charter school.  Charter schools, therefore, may seem to provide a higher quality of education than conventional public schools but only as a result of the revenue and cost advantages built into their charters. 

 

Because the majority of state and federal financial aid is in some way related to enrollment levels, a public school district would stand to lose aid in direct proportion to the reduction in its enrollment caused by charter schools.  This would force cuts to non-mandate protected programs such as regular education.  The double whammy of reduced state and federal financial aid as well as forced cuts to regular education would be especially distressful for public school districts.  Therefore, having local property taxes finance charter schools siphons away crucial revenues from traditional public schools.   

 

The proponents of charter schools espouse their competition with traditional public schools as helping to improve the quality of public education.  But charter schools serve only a fraction of the school community while diverting scarce funds from their host local school districts that educate the overwhelming majority of students.  This unequal playing field levels down the quality of public education. 

 

To date, the general public largely seems to have not fully understood that charter schools are neither traditional public schools nor the extent to which charter schools are publicly funded but without local taxpayer control.  While such a misunderstanding might have resulted from the lack of resonance of charter schools on the general public’s radar screen, surely it will evaporate rapidly as President Obama and U. S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, actively promote the development and expansion of charter schools nationwide (Maxwell, 2009).  Once the public becomes more aware of the real definition of charter schools and the extent to which they are funded with local property taxes, there will most likely be many questions raised.     

 

 

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References

Bracey, G. W. (2002).  The War Against America’s Public Schools: Privatizing Schools, Commercializing Education, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 

Bredehoft, J. M. (2005).  New Jersey Charter Schools: History and Information, New Jersey Community Capital, 1(1), Retrieved from http://www.newjerseycommunitycapital.org. 

Cuban, L. (2004).  The Blackboard and the Bottom Line:  Why Schools Can’t Be Businesses, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press. 

Horn, J. and Miron, G. (2000).  An Evaluation of the Michigan Charter School Initiative: Performance, Accountability, and Impact, Kalamazoo: The Evaluation Center, Western Michigan University. 

Kemerer, F. R. (1999) School Choice Accountability in School Choice and Social Controversy, Sugarman, S. D. and Kemerer, F. R. (Editors), (174-211).  Washington, D.C.:  Brookings Institution Press. 

Levay, W. J. (2009). Put the Public Back in “Public Charter School”, Edwise, Retrieved from http://www.edwize.org.  

Maxwell, L. A. (2009). Obama’s Team Advocacy Boosts Charter Movement, Education Week, 28(35), 1, 24-25. 

New Jersey Department of Education (2001).  Charter School Evaluation Report, Retrieved from http://www.state.nj.us. 

New Jersey Department of Education (2005).  New Jersey Charter School Application 2005, Retrieved from http://www.nj.gov.

Newman, M. (1998).  New Jersey Rejects Challenge to Charter School Program, The New York Times, April 2, 1998.

Sugarman, S. D. (2002).  Charter School Funding Issues, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(34).  Retrieved from http://www.epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n34.  

 

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Local School Districts mean Better Education

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Is bigger really better?  This is the crucial question facing New Jersey’s schools as the state moves toward a consolidated county-wide school district framework.  The proposed consolidation would eliminate local school district administrative personnel and centralize the operation of each of the county’s schools within one county-wide district such as the model used in Maryland (Enlighten-New Jersey, 2006).  As a result, all decisions concerning local school functions would be made at the county level with little local recourse. 

 

While consolidation may sound tempting, because it is based on a presumption of economies-of-scale leading to assumed lower operating costs as well as improved administrative efficiencies which, in turn, are expected to result in lower property taxes plus greater parental engagement, the reality is much different, however.  It has been shown that county-wide districts often result in increased costs, increased bureaucracy, students being so remote that parents are less engaged, and increased special interest group control of the agenda, curriculum as well as the distribution of funds (Wenders, 2005).  

 

County-wide school districts tend to expand the county departments of education into unwieldy bureaucracies (Wenders, 2005).  These bureaucracies often become so large that their administrative costs exceed the combined cost of the local administrative personnel, including but not limited to superintendents, business administrators and directors of special education, they are supposed to replace.  Moreover, because these county departments of education are staffed largely by political appointees, they tend to operate without the essential public feedback that is the backbone of local boards of education. 

 

At the outset, New Jersey’s legislators used Maryland’s experience (School Board Notes, 2006) as a benchmark for the expected savings and efficiencies for New Jersey’s consolidation.  However, during her testimony to a panel of New Jersey state senators, Ms. Marie S. Bilik (2008), Executive Director of the New Jersey School Boards Association, demonstrated that the total state-wide administrative costs of the Maryland school system exceed those of New Jersey’s.  While testifying in front of the New Jersey Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on March 20, 2008, Ms. Bilik referenced an U.S. Department of Education report (2006), “A recent report by the U.S. Department of Education ranks New Jersey 38th among the states and District of Columbia in the percentage of current expenditures devoted to administration.  That means 37 other states – including Maryland and Pennsylvania – spend more on administration than New Jersey.”  In addition, enrollment in New Jersey’s public schools was over fifty percent greater than that of Maryland during the same period and continues to exceed Maryland’s enrollment by similar margins.  Thus, rather than removing administrative costs, the Maryland model has actually added costs and administrative overhead (Bilik, 2008). 

 

While New Jersey has not yet moved to a complete county-wide model, its recent school consolidation legislation has significantly increased the power of the politically appointed Executive County Superintendent.  Among these expanded powers is the ability to compel the creation or expansion of regional school districts with the ultimate goal of consolidating the regionalized districts into one county-wide school district in every county.  New Jersey’s county-wide school districts would be run by Executive County Superintendents, political appointees, who would not be accountable to the voters but rather would serve at the discretion of partisan political forces. 

 

But consolidation of local school districts into county level districts also tends to result in more of a traditional military-type command-and-control decision making process rather than a process controlled by local school districts with the active participation of local constituencies most notably local parents.  In a command-and-control model, while the state and federal policy makers develop the overall strategy for policy implementation (Fusarelli and Cooper, 2009), it is the county-wide school districts that combine these policies with their political directives to determine the curriculum, priorities and budget for each school.  However, because the county level is too distant from where education actually takes place and is more easily influenced by special interest groups, the result is often less parental engagement. 

 

Concentrating the school system at the local district level rather than at the county level will not only enable more resources to be focused on those most affected by education, the students, but also enable those most intimately involved in providing education, the teachers, to provide better instruction.  But the rise of county departments of education will also cause the local school districts to spend less time on students as well as parents because more time will be required to be spent on bureaucratic obligations thereby decreasing parental engagement which is a key component in improving student performance.  It is the local districts that not only are closest to the students but also have the necessary local expertise to most effectively decide how to provide a quality education. 

 

Indeed, it seems as if the reason for preventing or eliminating county-wide school districts is embodied in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.  In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court not only ruled against school racial segregation by striking down the practice of separate but equal but also established the right of all students to attend their neighborhood school.  Consistent with this ruling, it is essential that every child be able to attend their neighborhood school within a local school district free from the burden of county level bureaucracies so that the schools are better able to concentrate on improving every student’s performance. 

 

Consolidating local school districts into larger county-wide districts removes decision making authority from those most affected by educational policy decisions:  the individual student as well as his/her parents, school and district.  It also concentrates policy formulation and decision making at a centralized level where special interest groups have greater leverage on the policy makers and, as a result, greater control of the policy outcomes including local school budgets.  Moreover, consolidation of local school districts into county level districts while fewer in number tends to result in higher state-wide total administrative costs due to the lack of accountability, more political patronage and reduced local parental input. 

 

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References

Bilik, M. S. (2008).  Testimony: FY09 State Budget, Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, Senate Annex, Committee Room 4, Trenton, New Jersey, March 20, 2008.   

Enlighten-New Jersey, (2006).  Is School Consolidation The Answer To New Jersey’s Property Tax Crisis?  August 9, 2006, Retrieved from http://www.enlightennj.com. 

Fusarelli, B. C. and Cooper, B. S., (2009).  The Rising State: How State Power Is Transforming Our Nation’s Schools, State University of New York Press, Albany.   

School Board Notes, (2006)  New Jersey vs. Maryland: The Facts,  September 14, 2006, Retrieved from http://www.njsba.org Trenton, New Jersey: New Jersey School Boards Association. 

U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2006).  Common Core of Data, August, 2006.  

Wenders, J. T., (2005)  Deconsolidate Oregon’s School Districts  March 21, 2005, Retrieved from http://www.cascadepolicyinstitute.org. 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in bigger is not better, county government, county run school districts, county wide school districts, education, enrollment, executive county superintendent, home rule, independent schools, Local Education Authority (LEA), local schools, mandates, Maryland county run school districts model, New Jersey, Pennsylvania schools, property taxes, regional schools, regionalization of schools, school district consolidations, school district mergers, school finance, school funding, school governance, school law, school reform, small is beautiful, special education, state mandates | No Comments »

Smaller is Better when it comes to Running Our Schools

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Since the publication of A Nation at Risk, there have been numerous efforts to try to find the right mixture of ways to improve student achievement while lowering the cost of education involving five major policy making levels (i.e., federal, state, district, school and classroom/student.)  Many of these efforts have looked at the decision making process and how politics impacts that process in terms of the educational policies that result.  Using test scores as a measure of student achievement and local property taxes as a measure of the cost of education, a number of states as well as the federal government have advocated through various means for larger class sizes as well as for school consolidations.  Federal and many state governments have also advocated for the centralization of policy making at their respective levels as ways in which not only to improve student achievement but also to lower the cost of providing education. 

 

These federal and state level stakeholders whose motto might conceivably be described as “bigger is better” seem to base their belief on presumed economies-of-scale that will lead to lower operating costs and thereby lower property taxes as well as to perhaps improving test scores through the application of nationally determined standards at the state level.  One of their arguments seems to be based on the belief that having larger class sizes requires fewer teachers which in turn lowers operating costs.  In addition, larger class sizes mean fewer class rooms would be used thereby minimizing the demand for new or expanded school facilities.  Another argument advocates for school district consolidation as a way in which to achieve improved operating efficiency primarily through presumed lower administrative costs. 

 

National standards such as those imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) with its mandated tests are also seen as a way in which to drive the formulation of educational policy at the federal and state levels while the federal level includes an aggregation of state data.  Such national educational policy is believed to help “raise the bar” for student performance.  While NCLB is mandated by the federal government, the states force their school districts to comply with its regulations.  The NCLB test scores are used to determine adequate yearly progress (AYP) for students, schools and districts alike. 

 

But the combination of federally-determined educational policy implemented through state governments and departments of education has often resulted in decisions seemingly made more in favor of special interest groups than local schools as well as in higher costs.  Consolidating local school districts into countywide or extremely large regional districts removes decision making authority from those levels most affected by educational policy decisions:  the individual student, school and district.  It also concentrates policy formulation and decision making at centralized levels where special interests have greater leverage on the policy makers and, as a result, greater control of the policy outcomes.  Moreover, consolidation of local school districts into county level districts while fewer in number with supposedly less combined administrative expense has often resulted in higher state-wide total administrative costs due to the lack of accountability, excessive political patronage hiring at the county level and reduced local taxpayer input. 

 

Because the federal and state levels are too distant from where education actually takes place and are more easily influenced by special interest groups, accountability declines at these levels where it is needed most.  Consolidation of local school districts into county level districts also tends to result in more of a traditional military-type command-and-control decision making model.  In this Theory X model the federal level develops the strategy for policy implementation, the state governments and their departments of education translate the strategy into tactics for deployment, and the school districts are responsible for making sure that the federal and state mandates are implemented accordingly at the individual school and student level. 

 

Because countywide or regional school district consolidations lead to increased education costs, lower student achievement especially as measured by test scores and less accountability such combinations should be prevented.  Eliminating units of consolidation such as county level departments of education will not only remove an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and cut administrative costs but also improve accountability particularly to local taxpayers as well as to parents.  Moreover, without county level departments of education or large regionalized school districts overburdening our educational systems, our schools will be better able to provide quality instruction. 

 

The majority of research on class size has demonstrated that when qualified teachers teach students in smaller class sizes, the students not only learn more but also these students retain this advantage over other students who attend larger classes.  One leading study is the longitudinal class size reduction initiative conducted over a number of years in Tennessee called the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project.  The STAR project demonstrated that students, who were enrolled in small classes beginning with kindergarten and continuing through third grade, were significantly more likely than their counterparts who attended larger classes, to: 

  • Demonstrate better reading and mathematics skills
  • Complete more advanced mathematics, science and English courses
  • Complete high school 
  • Graduate high school on time 
  • Graduate with honors. 

 

The STAR project also found that even after the students returned to larger classes in the fourth through eighth grades those students who attended smaller class sizes for their first three or four years maintained an advantage over students who had attended the larger classes from kindergarten through third grade.  The findings of the STAR project are echoed by other projects such as Wisconsin’s Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) project, which was a statewide initiative in Wisconsin that increased student achievement, and Indiana’s Project Prime Time.  In addition, the research demonstrates that having a smaller class size not only increases student achievement but also helps to minimize the achievement gap among different groups of students particularly among majority and minority students.  

 

“Smaller is better” and it should not be surprising that research supports this.  Having fewer students in the classroom enables the teacher to dedicate more time to each child.  Consequently, students pay more attention to class work and participate more in academics.  Because the students are more involved with their studies they learn more and behave better.  Is it any wonder then that test scores are significantly higher for students who attend small classes?   Based upon the findings of the STAR project and other studies there seems to be little doubt that students taught in small classes enjoy significant and lasting educational advantages. 

 

The greater is the shift to larger class sizes nationwide, the more teachers will probably be let go.  However, larger class sizes often lead to lower test scores and make it more difficult for students, schools and districts to achieve adequate yearly progress (AYP) as required by NCLB.  As a result, school districts are likely to be subjected to many of the more stringent penalties of NCLB.  This will further reduce the financial resources available to support quality education and contribute to a downward spiral of education nationwide.    

 

Concentrating decision making at the district level rather than at the county, state or federal level will increase accountability not only by focusing more resources on those most affected by education policy, the students, but also by enabling those who are the most intimately involved in providing education, the school districts, to provide improved instruction.  It is the districts that not only are closest to the school systems and students but also have the necessary expertise to most effectively decide how best to provide a quality education. 

 

But the greatest reduction of our state’s property tax burden would be to eliminate the unnecessary and overly expensive layer of county government (i.e., Freeholders) as the majority of states have already done.  For example, Connecticut had a system similar to the one in New Jersey in which Connecticut not only had the Freeholder level of government but also had the counties involved in the running of local schools as New Jersey does through such legislation as A4S which created the Office of the Executive County Superintendent.  Because those associated with both levels of county government, Freeholder government as well as the County Department of Education, were not only too far removed from local taxpayers but also too expensive, Connecticut’s solution to cutting property taxes while improving the resources available for education was to eliminate county government. 

 

However, there is perhaps an even greater irony within debate over how best to improve student achievement while minimizing property taxes.  The dilemma facing our schools is that while districts must comply with the requirements of unfunded and under funded county, state and federal mandates, too many school districts are forced to spend much more to meet these requirements than they receive in combined financial aid from all county, state and federal governmental sources.  

 

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Posted in class size, county government, education, executive county superintendent, home rule, IDEA, independent schools, mandates, New Jersey, No Child Left Behind Act, property taxes, ratables, SAGE, SAT, school finance, school funding, school governance, school law, school reform, special education, STAR, state mandates, student teacher ratios, tax base | No Comments »

Creating Self-Governing Independent Public Schools

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Our public schools must be given the choice of becoming self-governing so that they can be free to provide a top quality educational system.  A self-governing public school district is free of state control as well as federal intervention.  Therefore, it would be independent of the state system but remain a public school district serving the same local community rather than a charter school or a private school or a school run in full or in part by a private company.  While public school districts could elect to stay within the state system and continue to abide by all mandates, all districts should be given the opportunity to legally opt out.  The ability to opt for self-governance would be supported by legislation.  

 

Self-governance would provide public schools with the authority to improve education consistent with the priorities of their local school communities as well as the flexibility to innovate rather than be forced to march in lock-step to the state’s one size fits all mandates.  Public schools choosing to opt out would be independent public schools free of all state mandates except for perhaps reporting test results but they would also forgo all state aid.  Opting out of the state system would restore decision-making to the local school district level.  Because decisions guiding the operations of self-governing schools would no longer be made largely at the county or state level, parents, teachers, school administrators, boards of education, and local taxpayers would be better able to shape the quality of education which their students receive in their local schools. 

 

A public school district would become self-governing when a simple majority of the registered district voters who voted in a district-wide vote approved of the change.  While these votes would comply with the laws governing ballot procedures, campaigns and elections, they would be held in April so as to provide sufficient lead time to convert to self-governance by July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.  Once the district community voted to authorize the school district to become self-governing, it would be governed solely by its board of education.  Board of education members would be chosen from among the registered voters in the school district.  Municipal, county, state and federal governments would no longer play any role in the governance or management of self-governing school districts.  Therefore, boards of school estimate would no longer have any role vis-à-vis appointed boards of education. 

 

Local property tax levies rather than tuition would continue to be the primary source of funding for self-governing public school districts.  Still, these districts would be eligible to receive appropriate state or federal grants.  The annual operating budget and debt authorizations for a self-governing public school district would be decided by its board of education rather than be subject to district-wide public votes.  Indeed, this would be consistent with the fact that the annual operating budgets of municipal, county, state and federal governments are not subject to approval through a vote of their respective electorates.   

 

Becoming self-governing would enable a school district to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively through the exercise of many new choices.  A self-governing school district would be free to choose whether to have unions.  If it chooses to be union-free, it would be no longer subject to such legislative restrictions as the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act which is commonly referred to as the “PERC law” (Strassman, Vogt and Wary, 1991.)  If the district elected not to have unions, then all union contracts such as those with its teachers would be dissolved and renegotiated once the district became self-governing. 

 

Free of outside governmental intrusion such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the district also would be free to determine its teacher licensing requirements including training, education and experience.  Because the district would no longer be subject to the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS,) it would be free to develop and determine its own curriculum.  The district also would be free to determine whether or not to offer special education because the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) and state special education requirements would no longer apply.  If the district chooses to provide special education, then it would have sole discretion over what level and kinds of special education it offered.  

 

A self-governing public school district would be held harmless from frivolous lawsuits through its enabling legislation.  This would help to greatly minimize escalating legal expenses.  Law suits filed against the district would be heard first by one of several newly created arbitration panels.  Arbitration panel members would be appointed by a newly created state-wide association of self-governing public school districts. 

 

By changing to self-governance, a school district would be able to cut unnecessary expenses through the elimination of special education-based lawsuits with the ever increasing costs arising from such litigation.  As parents have become more knowledgeable about what constitutes special education programs and services, they have increased their demands to have their children receive not only more intensive services as well as increasing their children’s classification but also more placements in private schools which have resulted in more parents suing school districts for these additional benefits.  New Jersey’s legal system, however, operates according to a fee shifting principle in which a school district losing in an administrative court not only must pay all of the judgment costs but also all of the plaintiff’s legal costs including those for their attorneys and expert witnesses regardless of the length of the trial. 

 

Litigation for special education proceedings often takes longer than civil law suits which increase legal fees and court costs.  In addition, there is the cost resulting from the amount of time required of teachers, child study teams and administrators to appear in court rather than in school.  While school districts do settle a number of cases rather than run the risk of potentially more expensive outcomes, these settlements fuel the cost of providing special education.  Holding New Jersey school districts harmless from such law suits would be another way in which to enable school districts to allocate more of their scarce resources to student instruction.

 

The ever increasing cost of unfunded and under funded mandates is not only forcing school districts to cut regular education programs and, therefore, leveling down student achievement but also increasing property taxes.  But New Jersey’s public school districts can no longer afford to pay for these unfunded and under funded mandates because most school districts are forced to spend disproportionately more to meet the requirements of these mandates than these districts receive in total state and federal financial aid.  If local school districts opted for self-governance, therefore, they would eliminate the excessive financial and administrative burdens imposed by the county, state and federal governments. 

 

Opting for self-governance would increase the financial resources available for the classroom because it would be much more cost effective for local school districts to provide educational programs and services without the administrative burden of state requirements.  The funds that are currently used for regulatory compliance with state mandates could be redirected to improving student learning and achievement, which after all is the real mission of our schools.  Changing our state’s educational system in this way would not only improve the quality of education but also increase property taxpayers’ return on investment.  But Trenton continues to blame school districts for property tax increases rather than take responsibility for their role in keeping property taxes high.  Instead of fully funding their mandates to reduce the property tax burden which drives up the cost of public education, Trenton focuses largely on constricting school district funding, budgets, operations and the independence of local school districts.   

 

The state’s flawed approach is demonstrated in the new funding formula as contained in the New Jersey School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008 as well as its predecessor the Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act of 1996 (CEIFA,) which caused higher property taxes and cuts in regular education.  Dr. Reock, Rutgers University Professor Emeritus, studied the financial impact on school districts of the state’s failure not only to not fully enact CEIFA but also to freeze most CEIFA funding beginning with the 2002-03 school year and reached a profound conclusion (Reock, 2007.) 

 

Based on his study (Sciarra, 2008), Dr. Reock found that “the state aid freeze caused massive under-funding of many school districts throughout the state, especially poor non-Abbott districts, and contributed to the property tax problem in the state.”  Instead of fully funding the CEIFA school funding formula as required by law, the state froze financial aid to schools at their 2001-02 school year levels regardless of any increases in enrollment, rising costs as well as state and federal unfunded mandates.  The shortfall was hardest on those districts that were most dependent upon state aid.  During the 2005-06 school year the statewide shortfall amounted to $846 million which translated into per pupil shortfalls of $1,627 in non-Abbott DFG A and B districts, $758 in DFG C through H districts, $386 DFG I and J districts, and $188 in Abbott districts. 

 

The impact of the CEIFA funding shortfall was minimized on the Abbott districts largely due to their “parity-plus” court mandated protection.  State law forbids the budget of an Abbott district from falling below its level of the prior school year (Hu, 2006.)  Furthermore, under state law, if an Abbott district increases local property taxes without a state directive to do so, it will lose a similar amount of state aid. 

 

The CEIFA funding shortfall also caused serious imbalances between local school districts.  During the 2005-06 school year Abbott districts received approximately 58% of all state financial aid while educating only 23% of New Jersey’s K to 12 student enrollment.  This meant non-Abbott districts were educating 77% of New Jersey’s students with only 42% of state aid.  This imbalance has continued to widen under SFRA with Abbott aid increasing to approximately 60% of all state aid or $4.64 billion.  State aid reductions and the ever increasing unfunded state mandates force non-Abbott districts to balance their budgets by raising property taxes, increasing class sizes as well as cutting regular education programs and services.   

 

As part of his statement of New Jersey Supreme Court certification in support of the Plaintiffs’ opposition to the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008, Dr. Reock concluded (Sciarra, 2008) that “the State’s failure to fund CEIFA for the past six years directly resulted in an enormous shortfall of funding in districts across New Jersey.”  He went further to state, “By 2007-08, the sixth year of the CEIFA “freeze,” the total under-funding of state aid had reached $1.326 billion annually, despite the introduction of several new, smaller aid programs.”  The result was a state-driven increase in local property taxes within non-Abbott districts to make up for the shortfall. 

 

Creating state-wide self-governing public school districts free of state control is the solution that will lead to a top quality, cost-effective educational system while Trenton continues to force local school districts to pay for its under-funded and unfunded mandates that unnecessarily increase the cost of providing education and drive up property taxes.  By forcing school districts to divert necessary resources to paying for the escalating costs of the State of New Jersey’s mandates rather than investing these scarce resources in the classroom where they are needed most, the State of New Jersey harms the quality of education.  Local school districts, therefore, would be able to operate more cost-effectively with lower property taxes and earn a higher rate of return on their educational investment if they became self-governing by opting out of the state system. 

 

 _______________________________

References

Hu, W., (2008) In New Jersey, System to help Poorest Schools Faces Criticism, New York Times, October 30, 2006. 

Reock, E. C. Jr., (2007) Paper, Estimated Financial Impact of the ‘Freeze’ of State Aid on New Jersey School Districts, 2002-03 to 2005-06,” Institute on Education Law and Policy, Rutgers University, Newark, http:// ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/CEIFA_Reock_Final.pdf  

Sciarra, D. G., (2008) Certification of Dr. Ernest C. Reock, Jr. for the Supreme Court of New Jersey in support of the Plaintiffs’ opposition to the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, Education Law Center, Newark New Jersey, http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/elcnews_080521_ReockCertification.pdf

Strassman, E. R., Vogt, K. R., and Wary, C. S., (1991). The Public Employment Relations Law, Trenton, New Jersey: New Jersey School Boards Association.    

 

 

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Posted in assessment of property, county government, education, executive county superintendent, home rule, IDEA, independent schools, mandates, New Jersey, No Child Left Behind Act, property taxes, S1701, school finance, school funding, school governance, school law, school reform, special education, state mandates, tax base | 1 Comment »

Sauce for the “Goose” Should be Sauce for the “Gander”

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Sauce for the “Goose” Should be Sauce for the “Gander”

When Trenton is Cooking Property Tax Legislation

 

Shouldn’t the sauce for goose be the same sauce for gander especially when Trenton is cooking legislation to reduce property taxes?  But if Trenton is truly intent upon lowering property taxes, then why does it continue to impose one set of rules for our schools while ignoring if not condoning those actions it opposes when they are performed by local and county governments?  Is it because the county political bosses of both parties have undue influence over who runs for office, how campaigns are financed, and, therefore, who gets elected as well as legislation once the politicians are in office?  Trenton scapegoats our schools through this hypocritical treatment.  The result is disproportionately higher municipal and county property taxes. 

 

Among the many ways the Governor and the State Legislature help to increase property taxes include ignoring municipal golden parachutes, forcing school district rather than municipal mergers, exempting local as well as county governments from S1701’s two percent surplus cap, and creating another layer of bureaucracy called the office of the Executive County Superintendent rather than eliminating county government.  Through its actions, Trenton enables municipal and county property taxes to increase disproportionately by allowing these levels of government to continue unnecessary spending. 

 

A recent example of Trenton’s apparent hypocritical treatment of our schools vis-à-vis municipal government is contained in an article written by Ms. Clark (2008) for The Jersey Journal which focuses on the payment of an $350,000 municipal golden parachute at local property taxpayers’ expense.  Hoboken‘s former police chief, Mr. Carmen LaBruno, retired on July 1, 2008, and received an $350,000 golden parachute from the city.  Mr. LaBruno’s golden parachute was (Clark, 2008) “in addition to his annual pension payment of $147,000” and included “terminal leave pay of five days per year for each of his 37 years with the department, and 156 days of unused vacation and compensatory time.”  Taxpayers, therefore, paid Mr. LaBruno $497,000 for his first year of retirement. 

 

However, as an Abbott district, Hoboken’s schools are funded primarily by the State of New Jersey.  Hoboken is one of the 31 school districts which the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in its Abbott v. Burke decision that could not properly provide a thorough and efficient education while funding their schools through their local property taxes.  This means that the City of Hoboken’s payment of a golden parachute was essentially subsidized by taxpayers statewide. 

 

The deafening silence with which Governor Corzine, Education Commissioner Davy, and the New Jersey State Legislature have greeted Hoboken’s granting of an $350,000 municipal golden parachute stands in stark contrast to their vociferous attacks on similar retirement packages for school officials just a few months ago.  It was their combined outrage at payouts to retiring school officials such as the one given former Keansburg superintendent, Mrs. Barbara Trzeszkowski, who retired on July 1, 2008, that led Department of Education Commissioner Lucille Davy to issue new fiscal accountability regulations on July 3, 2008.  These regulations severely limited payments to school officials for unused sick days and vacation time.  In addition, the State Senate quickly passed bills to limit severance payments to school district officials (Hester, 2008) “to maximum of $15,000 for unused sick days and accrued vacation time.” 

 

Through its newly created bureaucracy of the office of the Executive County Superintendent, the State of New Jersey can force the mergers of school districts but the state seems to ignore consolidating inefficient municipal governments which leads to higher property taxes.  While municipal services are generic in that a city clerk’s function in one town replicates that of one in another town and as such these positions are easily consolidated, local educational programs and services are value-added which do not lend themselves to standardization or consolidation with other school districts with different value propositions.  One major result of forced school district consolidations is that one or more of the districts involved usually pays disproportionately more in property taxes due to differences in one or more of the following factors: 

  • The tax base (i.e., total ratables) which is the dollar amount of all property that is taxable within the jurisdiction.
  • The assessment practices that determine the percent of fair market value at which the property is assessed as well as the frequency of assessments.  Although all 21 counties have agreed to use 100% as the assessment percentage of true value, many municipalities especially many large urban cities have not assessed properties within their jurisdiction for as much as 25 to 50 years. 
  • The tax levy or mill rate which is the percentage at which each property’s market value or of assessed value is taxed. 

 

The forced consolidation of Pemberton Borough and Pemberton Township school districts by the Burlington County Executive County Superintendent (Levinsky and Zimmaro, 2008) highlights the problems resulting from school district mergers.  This consolidation would force taxes to decrease for Pemberton Borough property owners but increase for Pemberton Township property owners because the township has disproportionately more ratables.  As a result of the merger, township taxpayers would fund approximately 95% of the property taxes for the consolidated school district and significantly subsidize the borough taxpayers.  The State of New Jersey, however, has taken no action to merge the municipal governments of Pemberton Borough and Pemberton Township. 

 

The state law known as S1701 reflects the State of New Jersey’s actions to scapegoat our schools for property tax issues.  Through S1701, Trenton placed a two percent cap on the surplus of school budgets and mandated that any amount exceeding two percent must be returned to taxpayers.  But the state exempted municipal and county governments!  For example, in 2007 if S1701 had applied to municipal and county governments, then the City of Summit would have had to refund approximately $5.8 million to Summit property taxpayers while it is estimated that Union County would have had to refund tens of millions of dollars.  Moreover, because Summit collectively pays disproportionately more property taxes to Union County than other municipalities, the taxpayers of Summit would have enjoyed a similarly large county property tax refund.  

 

Connecticut is only one among the many states that has eliminated county government and thereby its citizens enjoy significantly lower property taxes than those of us in New Jersey.  Why doesn’t Trenton eliminate the unnecessary and expensive county freeholder layer of government as other states have done?  Is it because of the strangle-grip hold with which county political bosses control Trenton?  Instead the State of New Jersey added the politically appointed Executive County Superintendent with his/her own bureaucracy.  Executive County Superintendents have dramatically increased not only county level authority over local school districts but also the rules and regulations for schools.  But with increased rules and regulations has come greatly increased compliance costs for school districts.  

 

If property taxes are to be significantly reduced, the State of New Jersey must eliminate not only the unnecessary costs which its legislation imposes on local school districts but also excessive municipal government spending and county government.  But New Jersey’s property taxes will remain high as long as the state continues to allow inefficient municipal governments and the unnecessary layer of county freeholder government to operate.  Because the State of New Jersey forces its school districts to spend much more to meet the requirements of its mandates than the districts receive in total state financial aid, school districts statewide will continue to be pressured to cut quality educational programs and services.  Moreover, the state’s obsession with scapegoating our schools underscores its failure to reduce property taxes at the municipal and county levels of government. 

 

_______________

 

References

Clark, A. S., (2008) Ex-chief LaBruno collects $350K after retiring in wake of scandal, Jersey Journal, October 13, 2008.   

Hester, T., (2008) Lawmakers pass bills regulating public educators’ pay, The Star Ledger, October 23, 2008. 

Levinsky, D. and Zimmaro, M., (2008) Merger in Works for Pemberton district, Burlington County Times, September 7, 2008. 

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Posted in assessment of property, county government, executive county superintendent, mandates, New Jersey, ratables, school finance, school funding, school governance, school law, school reform, state mandates, tax base | No Comments »

Our Schools are not Factories

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Public schools are not businesses.  Furthermore, no business could succeed let alone survive if it had to abide by the same rules and restrictions that apply to our schools especially in New Jersey.  The successful processes by which schools educate students and factories manufacture products are as different as they can be.  Because students and schools can vary widely across every dimension, it is harmful to apply business principles that assume the efficiency of a one size fits all mold.  Still, this does not seem to stop those reformers who promote a simple business-based remedy for what they believe are the shortcomings of our schools.  

 

It seems, however, as though our schools are in the middle of a period during which the chorus from the business community and policymakers is calling for reform.  In their view, the educational system is not producing what they believe to be the desired product or outcome.  Not surprisingly, the remedy offered by these reformers is consistent with business models that have worked well in the private sector such as for increasing manufacturing output, but ignores the complexities of improving public education.    

 

The business model proposed for improving education as well as reducing its cost is the application of standard business principles and processes to our schools including mass standardization, assembly line manufacturing methods, cost-benefit analysis, return on investment (ROI), and a for-profit orientation.  It seems as if those who advocate this business model for schools believe that the mission of education is to prepare students for the world of work in ways similar to those required for manufacturing a product ready to be sold in the marketplace.  In this view, the students are the inputs who are manufactured by the teachers, who are supervised in turn by the school administrators according to the rules and regulations as legislated by the county, state and federal governments. 

 

While the use of this kind of business model may have a profitable history of manufacturing production, it falls short when it comes to educating students to become fully functioning members of society.  Therefore, it is essential to understand not only why our schools are not the same as factories but also why business-based remedies will not ultimately lead to the improved performance of our schools.  Once this is understood, perhaps policymakers, legislators, and governmental administrators alike will be better able to make decisions using the proper framework. 

 

In a demonstration of not only why schools can not be businesses but also why attempts to treat them as if they were seem to result in a leveling-down of education, Cuban (2004) concludes that the application of an industrial model would be counterproductive.  Cuban examines the viewpoints of many of those who advocate for trying to transform schools into manufacturing facilities to prove his argument.  He provides some pertinent examples of the industrial model rationale including a quote by Cubberley (1916), “Our schools are in a sense, factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life” (p. 338).  He also quotes a former Secretary of Education (Paige, 2003), “Henry Ford created a world-class company, a leader in its industry.  More important, Ford would not have survived the competition had it not been for an emphasis on results.  We must view education the same way.  Good schools do operate like a business.  They care about outcomes, routinely assess quality, and measure the needs of the children they serve” (p. 12). 

 

The concept of lean manufacturing is also being increasingly promoted for use by public schools.  McClung argues that such an application is neither cost effective nor sound because of the extreme heterogeneity of students in terms of nearly every characteristic.  According to McClung (2008), “Lean manufacturing concentrates on reducing costs by standardizing processes and raw materials.  This minimizes waste, including wasted time.  Any variation in raw materials or processing requires adjustments to achieve the same output at a consistent cost.”  But “lean manufacturing has little tolerance for variation in any aspect of the process, whether it is the skill of workers, the schedule, the tools, or (especially) the raw materials.  In fact, the principles of lean manufacturing call for strong controls over the raw materials that are accepted into the process.  If variations in raw materials are tightly controlled, then the manufacturing processes can be easily optimized to provide consistently high quality outputs—at a price much below the cost of less efficient manufacturing methods.  If we look at raw materials as student background, process as teaching methods, and output as graduates, the analogy would be that every variation in student background or teaching methodology requires adjustments in cost in order to produce consistent graduates” (p. 2). 

 

Many business-based reformers also advocate for the use of cost-benefit analysis despite what seem to be some inherent contradictions.  Viadero (2008) summarizes the challenges associated with applying cost-benefit analysis to education and concludes, “What can make cost-benefit analyses controversial is deciding which costs and benefits to account for and what estimates to use.  The scholars contend their estimates are not out of the ordinary, but concede that no hard-and-fast rules exist in education for determining when an expense is or is not reasonable” (p. 5). 

 

To be sure, not everyone in the private sector argues in favor of treating schools as if they were businesses and some of those who do find themselves switching their stand.  One such example is reflected in the “epiphany” (Cuban, 2004) experienced by former CEO, Jamie Vollmer (2002), who had sought business-type reforms for schools but changed his mindset during a speech to a group of educators. 

 

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”  I stood before an audience filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute.  My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in-service training.  Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation.  You could cut the hostility with a knife.

 

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools.  I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the 1980’s when People magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the “Best Ice Cream in America.” 

 

I was convinced of two things.  First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.”  Second, educators were a major part of the problem:  they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly.  They needed to look to business.  We knew how to produce quality.  Zero defects!  Total quality management!  Continuous improvement! 

 

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance.  As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up … She began quietly.  “We are told sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”  I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, ma’am.”  “How nice,” she said.  “Is it rich and smooth?”  “Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.  “Premium ingredients?” she inquired.  “Super premium!  Nothing but triple-A.”  I was on a roll.  I never saw the next line coming.

 

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”  In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap.  I knew I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.  “I send them back.” 

 

“That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries.  We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant.  We take them with attention deficit disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language.  We take them all!  Every one!  And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business, it’s a school!”  In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aids, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah!  Blueberries!  Blueberries!”

 

And so began my long transformation.  Since then, I have learned that a school is not a business.  Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, completing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night” (p. 42). 

 

 

Policymakers and legislators who seek to apply business principles and practices to schools and then analyze school as well as student performance on the basis of how well business-type goals are achieved, do not understand the complexities of the factors that combine to form a quality education.  In addition, there are a number of important variables for improving school and student performance.  For example, improving Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) involves many of the factors that are essential to quality education including but not limited to differentiated instruction, aligning curriculum with standards, student skill deficiency-based professional development, quality teachers, small class sizes, and engaged parents. 

 

Moreover, a school system’s ability to respond to ever changing conditions and to solve new problems as they arise should be also taken into account when assessing its quality.  Education transforms those who attend our schools so that they are better able to contribute meaningfully to society.  Therefore, in order for policymakers, legislators, and administrators to develop policies that will establish the proper framework for school-based decision making, it is essential to share an understanding of the unique nature of our public schools and why a school should not be treated as another business entity. 

 

 

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References

Cuban, L. (2004).  The Blackboard and the Bottom Line:  Why Schools Can’t Be Businesses, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England:  Harvard University Press. 

Cubberly, E. P. (1916).  Public School Administration.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin. 

McClung, K. (2008). Lean Education. Teacher Magazine,  http://www.TeacherMagazine.org  April 9, 2008. 

Paige, R. (2003) Letter to the editor, New Yorker, October 6, 2003.   

Viadero, D. (2008). New Center Applies Cost-Benefit Analysis to Education Policies.  Education Week,  http://www.Edweek.org  April 8, 2008. 

Vollmer, J. R. (2002).  “The Blueberry Story,” Education Week, March 6, 2002. 

 

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Under-funded Preschool Mandate Drives Up Costs

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

While Trenton’s preschool mandate may seem well intended, it is another under funded mandate whose costly compliance will drive up property taxes and force cuts to regular education programs.  It is rather difficult to fathom how the state can continue to mandate under funded requirements that unnecessarily increase the cost of providing educational services and programs especially considering how our schools likely will be forced to build new classroom capacity.  But this is exactly what the state is doing with the (McNichol, 2008) “state’s biggest expansion of preschool for low-income students since the state Supreme Court’s Abbott v. Burke rulings, which ordered universal pre-kindergarten” in all 31 Abbott districts.  Moreover, the Court’s Abbott preschool decision was by itself a major expansion of the State of New Jersey’s thorough and efficient education clause because the State Constitution only pertains to students five to eighteen years old. 

 

Although every school district is required to ultimately enroll at least 90% of their eligible children by the 2013-2014 school year, the state is setting aside only $350 million to cover the costs of the educating another 30,000 preschool students statewide (Brody, 2008) over the next five years.  But the Corzine administration is already laying the groundwork for a deferral of the      $50 million set aside for the mandate’s first year if not the entire $350 million through its suggestions of spending reductions it may have to make in order to close projected budget deficits of $1.2 billion in the current fiscal year and $5 billion in the upcoming 2009 fiscal year.  Neither Governor Corzine nor Department of Education Commissioner Davy has said a word, however, about deferring the mandate’s costly requirements which will be paid for by local school districts. 

 

The New Jersey School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) of 2008, which is more commonly referred to as the new state school funding formula, included a preschool mandate requiring (Wojcik, 2008) all eligible “at-risk three and four-year-old children be offered high quality preschool program beginning at age three” in every school district statewide.  Eligible children include all those who are eligible for (Brody, 2008) “a free or reduced-price lunch.”  Each school district must begin by enrolling at least 20% of their district’s eligible student population by the 2009-2010 school year and increasing annually to 35% in 2010-2011, 50% in 2011-2012, 65% in 2012-2013, and 90% in 2013-2014.   

 

The mandate requires full day instruction and limits each preschool student class size to no more than 15.  Because these are mandate-protected classes, if a school lacks sufficient classroom capacity it will be forced to consolidate classes or increase class sizes for other grades to make room for the preschoolers in September.  But if a school district builds, acquires or leases additional classroom facilities to accommodate the preschoolers, none of these costs will be funded by the State of New Jersey.

 

Each class must be taught by a preschool certified Master teacher and one Master teacher’s aide.  In addition, each school district is required to have a Master teacher without any other teaching responsibilities plus a preschool intervention and referral team, a child advisory council as well as a community and parental involvement specialist.  However, only as much as 20% of the Master teacher’s compensation will be considered as outside of the state’s administrative cap and as part of the Special Revenue Fund rather than the General Fund.  Therefore, the mandated additional salaries and benefits not only will be paid for by local school districts rather than the state but also virtually all of these expenses will be included within the cap forcing other non-mandate protected programs to be cut. 

 

Making matters even more difficult is the prospect of forced intra-district busing.  Because of New Jersey’s two mile rule, if preschoolers live beyond the two mile radius or if there are too many preschoolers for the available space in their local school, then the school district will be required by New Jersey law not only to provide bus services for these preschoolers but also for all of its other students within the district.  However, the cost of busing students will not be funded by the state. 

 

With the ever increasing number, scope and cost of state under funded mandates, it begs the question of what costly programs will Trenton require next?  Given the mandate for full day preschool classes, can state mandated full day kindergarten be far off?  This preschool mandate seems to lay the foundation for mandated full day kindergarten because it is difficult to believe that Trenton would mandate full day preschool as well as first grade but allow kindergarten to remain as only a half day program. 

 

However, many districts in New Jersey provide only half day kindergarten as a way of saving on facility and faculty costs because one teacher can teach twice as many students.  Because it seems as if the state is reluctant to commit the necessary resources to fully fund its preschool mandate, it seems likely that the state would also under fund a full day kindergarten mandate.  Given Trenton’s track record, it seems reasonable to expect that not only will state education mandates continue to be under funded but also that they will continue to drive up property taxes as a result. 

 

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References

Brody, L., (2008) The Big Picture: Districts grappling with preschool mandate, The Record, September 21, 2008. 

McNichol, D., (2008) Budget troubles endanger $350M preschool plan, The Star Ledger, October 30, 2008. 

Wojcik, S., (2008) Full-day preschool program in the works at Alpha School, The Express-Times, September 24, 2008.   

 

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