Category Archives: School Finance

Okay, the year is almost over. And you won’t see me writing anything here between now and 2009. So I thought it a good idea to close out 2008 with a post that has some good news. In yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News, Berny Morson reported on a Colorado court decision that almost got completely overlooked. But it definitely is good news: School districts must apply the same funding rules to charter schools as they do other schools, the Colorado Court of Appeals has held in a Fort Collins case. At issue is a provision inserted by the Poudre R-1 school board in the contract that governs the Ridgeview Classical Schools, a charter school. The provision allowed the district to reduce financial support to Ridgeview when students transfer out. [link added] Basic and simple fairness, right? Students should benefit from the same funding rules whether they are in a traditional public school or a public charter school. Either it’s a good idea to take funds away from a school when a student transfers after the fall attendance count, or it’s not. It shouldn’t be a good idea for charters and a bad idea for others, or vice versa.

I’m pretty smart for a 5-year-old. But sometimes I wander into a topic that’s just over my head. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it’s probably just best if I let the big people talk about it themselves. My friends in the Education Policy Center released a new Issue Paper today, called Deferred Retirement Compensation for Career K-12 Employees: Understanding the Need for Reform (PDF). It was researched and written by Dr. Michael Mannino from the University of Colorado Denver. Rather than try to explain the paper myself, here’s the summary from the Independence Institute website: To improve understanding of public K-12 retirement compensation, this Issue Paper provides historical estimates using a substantial sample of retiree characteristics and salary histories. Deferred retirement compensation from a hybrid defined benefit plan is defined as the difference between an employee’s estimated retirement account balance and the greater pension value she expects to receive. When accounting for K-12 employee compensation, large amounts of deferred compensation should be included. For the 846 Denver Public Schools retirees in the sample, average lump sum deferred compensation is $627,570. Wow, it would take a lot of piggy banks to put that much money in. But I think […]

Do you live in Colorado? Does your school district or charter school have a compensation system that rewards successful teachers? If not, could you come up with a plan in the next 45 days? There may be state money in it to help your cause. Led by Senator Nancy Spence (R-Centennial), the Colorado state legislature earlier this year allotted some money for local education agencies that want to develop their own alternative teacher compensation systems. Now the chance has come to put this piece of legislation into action. The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) released an important reminder today: The program will allow districts to develop their own individual plans to alternatively compensate educators. A result of the passage of House Bill 08-1388, CDE’s Office of Professional Services will manage the program, with money appropriated from the Colorado Education Fund. A total of $980,000 is available for distribution. There is no maximum that any applicant may request. However, a strong justification for the amount being requested is required…. Applications are due Friday, Jan. 30, 2009 and can be found at https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeprof/ALTCOMP.htm. Applicants will be notified of awards by Friday, Feb. 6. Awarded school districts will be required to submit a […]

There’s a neat new site you ought to see if you care about public schools: Utah Education Facts. The highlight of the site is a video where they interview average Utahns and ask them questions about the financing and spending of their state’s education system: For those who aren’t from Utah, what if somebody asked you these same sort of questions about your state? How prepared would you be? Of course, the point isn’t to pick on individuals for their knowledge or lack thereof. Instead it highlights the misinformation on which poll-based demands for more education funding largely are based. Ultimately, such a project should aim to arm the populace with more knowledge and information. And isn’t that a major part of what education should be about? Does anyone doubt a similar “man-on-the-street” interview video project here in Colorado would be a good idea? I hope somebody out there is paying attention.

With her column published yesterday, Independence Institute senior fellow and Face The State columnist Krista Kafer drops a fly or two into the early childhood education debate soup: In Colorado, taxpayers spend $29 million a year on state preschool programs. Denver voters passed a sales tax in 2006 to subsidize preschool. According to a Denver Post article by Jeremy P. Meyer, 3,650 students receive subsidies. James Mejia, director of the Denver Preschool Program, told Meyer that “Studies show that for every dollar you spend on early childhood education, you will get back $10 to $12 in services you would otherwise be spending on social services, incarceration, remediation.” Sounds great, but upon closer examination, this just isn’t true. The cost-benefit analyses routinely bandied about by advocates come up short. The analysis is largely based on exaggerated claims from a tiny subset of studies misrepresented as the whole. When the vast majority of research is considered, it becomes clear that preschool does not reap the amazing benefits touted by advocates. Four decades of legitimate research actually shows that the majority of low-income children experience only short-term positive impacts and there is little long-term impact from preschool participation. Research also shows that preschool […]

By lobbying for an overhaul of tax-and-spending measures in the state constitution, the education establishment groups that came together to form Believe in a Better Colorado are barking up the wrong tree. Or at least they have put the cart before the horse. Pick your favorite overused cliche. Until we fix the way schools are funded, it’s a futile effort. That’s why my friends in the Education Policy Center recommend a careful look at Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools from the Center for Reinventing Public Education. Co-authors include Paul Hill and Marguerite Roza, two of the sharpest minds to study the current school system and what could work better. Here is a key excerpt from the report explaining the problem: Overall, we have a system in which so much is controlled by decisions made in the past, sometimes for reasons and on behalf of people who are no longer in the system, and at such a distance from schools, that educators have scant flexibility to adapt to the needs of here and now. Teachers and principals, the people whose work the whole system is supposed to support, get complexity and constraint rather than help. In the meantime, the costs […]

The Rocky Mountain News today reports on jubilation from some Colorado charter school quarters at the promise of a Barack Obama presidency: So last week, when America elected a president who promises to double federal funding for charter schools, KIPP Denver founder Richard Barrett was among the area educators hoping Barack Obama will follow through on his plan for public education. “We’ve made no excuse about it. We just deal with it,” Barrett said of the school’s facility issues. “But when are we going to have equity for our kids? “If Obama’s plan would help that process, more power to it,” he added. “Fantastic.” No doubt charter school supporters in Colorado and elsewhere would be “buzzing” about the potential of more federal funding to alleviate problems in facilities and other areas caused by unequal state funding. I would be glad to see the new President-elect demonstrate that he’s a true friend to charter schools, but there are limits to his backing of school choice: But if Obama is willing to step across some boundaries, there are others he is not. [Michael] Johnston, his education adviser, said that includes vouchers. This news is, of course, not surprising to anyone who followed […]

On Tuesday, voters in Colorado’s largest school district rejected both a mill levy increase and bond proposal: “When you are a people intense organization those reductions will be people,” [superintendent Cindy] Stevenson said. “That’s teachers, counselors, librarians, um, special education staff. That’s where we’re going to have to look for cuts. And that’s going to be difficult because that will result in increased class size, fewer choices for our kids, less teacher training.” Stevenson said the money from the ballot issues would’ve gone toward teachers, books and significant structural improvements. The first reaction many may have is: Why doesn’t the district threaten to cut the number of administrators rather than classroom staffing? No doubt there are some additional efficiencies that could be found by rearranging these priorities. But no matter how good it makes some people feel to say so, just cutting the size of central administration isn’t the answer.

I know, I know. Yesterday there was this big election, and some things happened that will have an impact on education reform in Colorado. I’m going to let you know more about that a little later. For now, regardless of winners and losers at the ballot box, there are real threats to face – like school officials who won’t give up on using the courts to wrest control and choice from parents: The Charter School Act was passed by the then-Republican controlled General Assembly in 2004 to meet a growing demand for charter schools statewide. The legislation established the Charter School Institute, which provides oversight and funding to state charter schools. Over the last four years, the Boulder Valley School District has consistently tried to tear down the law by challenging its constitutionality. The district says the law takes away its constitutional right to govern schools operating within its boundaries. Provisions in the state constitution allow school districts local control on education policy. This particular complaint was first heard in district court with two other similar cases brought forth by Adams County School District 50 and the Poudre School District. However, when all three complaints were shot down in December […]

Over at the catchy Flypaper blog, education guru Mike Petrilli talks about his local Maryland teachers union’s get-out-the-vote strategy for Election Day: Montgomery County schools are not only closed today (purportedly to protect students from intruders, as most schools are used as polling places) but were also closed yesterday. Which means that MCEA’s 12,000 members could spend a long weekend campaigning for Democratic candidates (most likely, across the Potomac in Virginia), and then volunteer at polling places today, all without taking a single hour off of work. That’s pretty smart politically, but what’s the justification for students to miss two days of school in the middle of the fall semester? A good question. I am pleased to report that there seems to be no evidence of this sort of thing going on along Colorado’s Front Range. A quick search of the eight largest school districts in the Denver metro area – Jefferson County, Denver, Douglas County, Cherry Creek, Aurora, Adams 12, Boulder Valley, and Littleton – show they are all in regular session today on Election Day (as well as yesterday). That’s good news, though I’m already wondering if I should be careful about giving out unsolicited ideas here. While […]