4 Reasons Why You Will Mostly See New Custodians in the Ann Arbor Schools Next Year

With the rapid privatization and outsourcing of custodial services in the Ann Arbor schools to GCA (assuming that goes through), you can expect that most of us will not see the same custodians in our schools in the fall.

Here are 4 reasons why.

1. Some of them will retire.

2. Some of them are very angry at the way they have been treated by the school system, particularly given the fact that they have taken pay cuts over the last few years, and they were given very very little notice that this would happen. Some of them would therefore prefer to take unemployment and look for other jobs.

I spoke to someone in that situation. She said to me, "I bought a house in Ann Arbor, I pay Ann Arbor school taxes, and now I'm treated this way?"

3. Most custodians would have their pay cut if they go to GCA Services--not to mention that they will lose their retirement benefits in any case.

4. It is not in GCA's interest to hire the majority of the custodians back. One person told me--I have not verified this yet--that if they hired more than 50% of the custodians back they would need to recognize the AFSCME union. (Even if this is not true, though, it is obviously true that if the custodians were happy with their union, the more custodians they hire from the union shop the more likely the custodians are to try and organize. GCA is recognized as fairly negative to unions, so that is not something they will want to do.)

[See, for instance:  GCA Services Enters Federal Consent Decree to Remedy Wide Ranging Accusations of Labor Law Violations]

Wednesday, June 25th, 2014, some of the labor groups held a press conference before the school board meeting. You can listen to what custodian Toni Lemons had to say here.

[I think you will have to download it. This was my first try at embedding an audio file but I am not yet wholly successful.]

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Why Play Nice, Play Fair? No Need In Right-to-Work (For Less) Michigan

Last week, a lot of bad stuff happened at the Ann Arbor school board meeting.

The two most disturbing actions?

1. The school board voted to outsource the custodians' positions to GCA Services (owned by the private equity firm Blackstone) effective July 1, 2014. Yup, that's a fortnight from now. (Trustees Lightfoot and Baskett voted against this.)

2. The school board voted that if the teachers didn't accept a salary freeze through a Memorandum of Agreement (union/board) by July 23, 2014 (that's Monday), the school board would terminate the union contract. This would have the effect of freezing the current wages and at the same time, when the contract was (presumably) renegotiated, many of the terms and conditions in the would not be allowed under the new work rules in Michigan--in particular, tenure and seniority rules. This measure was approved unanimously.

Welcome to the brave new world of school funding cuts and more cuts.
Welcome to the brave new world of a right-to-work state and union busting.
Welcome to the brave new world of taking our tax dollars and using them to fund for-profit, private firms.

State Funding

In better news: at the board meeting, Christine Stead did a nice job of explaining the vagaries of state funding (the conference committee budget basically hobbles Ann Arbor, Dexter, Saline, Ypsilanti Community Schools, and some others) and helps a few local school districts (the lowest-funded districts, like Milan, Whitmore Lake, and I believe Manchester). The state budget also sends a lot of money to for-profit charters and virtual schools, which get $175 in additional funding per pupil vs. $50 for Ann Arbor. [On Stead's blog, you can read about the AAPS presentation this week to the State Board of Education as well as some proposals for ways to improve school funding.] Their ideas--good ideas--are to have charter schools also have to pay state retirement, and to allow local school districts to ask for local tax levies for operations--currently that is not allowed under state law. And the district did join the superintendents of other districts in a press conference that day. Ann Arbor is a huge donor district (most of the taxes we raise go to support other districts) and yet we are getting the lowest increases in funding.

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Anyway--back to the custodians.

In 2010, during another round of privatization discussions (we've been through this with food service and transportation, remember) I posted this on this blog:

At the budget meeting that I went to, several people at my table raised concerns about privatization. They wondered what the actual (not projected) savings were when the food service was privatized (the facilitator didn't know). They talked about how satisfaction (on the part of people who eat the lunches) had gone down. And they wondered about the effects on the "lunch ladies."
"Well," our facilitator said, "I believe that the new company hired everyone who wanted to be hired, for the same wages, and the only thing they lost was retirement benefits."

It's more than a little bit troubling to hear someone who makes more than $100,000/year (the facilitator referred to above is an AAPS administrator) talk about someone who is living on $25,000/year and say "they only lost retirement benefits." I'm pretty sure if I talked about yanking her retirement, she would be pretty upset, and she's not living near the poverty level.

Retirement costs, in fact, are the main reason for privatizing (since the custodians already gave major concessions a couple of years ago). Basically, if somebody is an AAPS employee, AAPS has to pay their retirement costs (state law)--and if they are not, they don't.

I found Jeanice Swift's letter to Ann Arbor parents about the custodian privatization to be disingenuous. [Read it here--with my comments.] I'm still not clear why she felt she needed to respond to the emails she and the board were getting about custodians losing their jobs and face pay cuts with "everyone gets an interview" and "pay cuts will not be as significant as perceived." An interview is not a job, and if you only make $25,000 a year and you get a 10% pay cut plus lose your retirement? I think that's pretty significant. Saying, "all the other districts are doing it too?" My parents didn't take that as a good reason to do or not do something. Speaking for myself, I'd prefer the honesty of  a letter that said simply, "this sucks and it's because of the state legislature's decisions, and we are trying to keep the cuts away from the classroom."

The other very disturbing piece of this has to do with the timing. The outsourcing was approved by the board as a special briefing. Any time you see the words "special briefing" you know that means that they are not following their own approved process. They are rushing things through. While I feel O.K. about that for ordering the Huron High School band uniforms, which would be done anyway and for which the money was already set aside (another item on the agenda), I'm not O.K. with that for decisions like outsourcing custodians. [I've written about this before in the Ann Arbor Chronicle. I'm starting to see a pattern here.]

The custodians had come to the school board with a proposal for a worker-owned co-op, and the board--with straight faces--tried to tell them that if they had only proposed that a little earlier...oh gee they really wished they could do it but their counsel told them that since the RFP had closed they couldn't...

Since it's a special briefing item, though, you know the board was working on a ridiculously short timeline. The union was told about the RFP and the agenda item less than a week before the RFP made it on the agenda.  The RFP was posted for only a week. How long do you think the top 3 companies knew that the RFP was coming? A different timeline could have led to a different result.

[By the way, teacher Chloe Root has started a petition out asking the board to reconsider. Sign it here.]

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How about those teachers? 

We might describe the resolution passed by the school board as a Faustian bargain--on the part of the district.

Last year, with Superintendent Pat Green, the AAEA (teachers' union) agreed to a salary freeze, advertised as "one year only." At the time, I wondered about that--figuring that the state's school aid fund probably wasn't going to look better next year, so why make a one-year only plan? But Pat Green was on her way out, and I believe she only cared about getting the budget out the door, whatever it looked like. I don't know what the teachers' union was thinking.

In any case, Jeanice Swift walked into a situation where now she had to ask the teachers to again take a salary freeze, and my guess is that the teachers' union was not too happy about that. There is, really, an alternative to a salary freeze though--and it's having larger class sizes. Parents wouldn't be too happy about that, we already know it is one reason people have left the school district, but it exists.

Apparently, the teachers' union has not been all that willing to concede the salary freeze again. And yes, it's true that the teachers have had many types of cutbacks for many years. So after going into executive session, the school board came out and voted--unanimously--to terminate the teacher contract unless the teachers agree to having a total wage freeze, as agreed to by a Memorandum of Agreement by this Monday, June 23d. Under termination, teachers still get the a wage freeze, but lose some of the items in the contract.

And here's where Faust comes in--maybe. Several things have changed in state law in the past couple of years, including right-to-work and some changes in the teacher tenure law. There are items in the contract that cannot be retained if the teachers' union loses this contract and starts a new contract--primarily around tenure, seniority, and right to work/union dues.

So the school board--and the Superintendent--are essentially bullying the teachers and forcing the teachers to say "uncle." But that's at the risk of having much worse relations with the teachers in the future. Could this have been avoided?

Maybe it's not such a risk. I have a perception that the teachers' union is dispirited and disorganized. Expect the number of retirements to rise...

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Let's Privatize the Teachers

Now if you are wondering: why don't they just privatize the teachers? Could they privatize the teachers? That's what the charter schools do. Retirement costs are the main driver of the reason to privatize, right? The districts  have already outsourced the substitute teachers, the food service workers, the school bus drivers... Everybody knows the "first they came for the Socialists" passage by Pastor Martin Niemoller, right?

They would, probably, if they could--and maybe soon they will be able to.

But for now, they can't. I had to ask Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools about this--and it turns out that he had been wondering too, and had looked it up (thank you Steve for being an education policy wonk!!). This is an excerpt from his email, and my takeaway is that "the devil is in the details."

Under current law, school districts must hire teachers directly - i.e., teachers must be direct employees of the school district. The language is a consequence of this part of the revised school code:
380.1231 Hiring of teachers; teachers' contracts generally.Sec. 1231.
(1) The board of a school district shall hire and contract with qualified teachers....
Unlike other sections that cover background checks, etc, this section does not mention or include public school academies (charters). In the sections that create charters, they are given explicit permission to hire outside individuals or firms to provide comprehensive services to and operate the charter. Thus, outside management companies may be hired by charters to run the schools, including hiring teachers. 

In an attorney general opinion from 1997 (? I think), the AG determined that direct employees of any school board, including the boards of charter schools, MUST participate in MPSERS. However, contract employees MAY NOT participate in MPSERS. 

Since charters are allowed to contract out instructional services, they can avoid paying into MPSERS on those employees. Local school districts are not allowed to do that, and so they must therefore pay into MPSERS for teachers and all direct employees. 

This is the reason that even "self-managed" charters like Ann Arbor Learning Community technically "lease" their employees from a private firm, which allows them to classify teachers as contract employees and thus avoid paying into MPSERS on their behalf. Very, very, few charters participate in MPSERS. 

By the way, the original version of the charter uncapping bill, SB 618 of 2011, included a new section (section 1231A), which would have allowed local school districts to contract out for teachers. That provision was not removed until the bill got to the Senate floor, as part of a compromise to get it passed. (Emphasis added.)

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Dreaming

I dream a world, where those same cuts need to happen, but the district shares the possibility with the custodians that this might happen three months in advance. Then the custodians have time to organize the employee-owned co-op. They lose their retirement, but they get to maintain their dignity. We get to keep our money from going to fund yet another for-profit business. That requires the timing to be different, and I believe it could have been different.

I dream a world, where the district asks the teachers' union to find those same cuts as a salary freeze or in some other way, and gives the union time to figure that out.

I dream a world where the district's timelines for working with employees are more reasonable, and where the district doesn't try to hide things from the public, or push important items through on special briefings...

Wait--that's not my REAL dream.

In my REAL dreams, all schools are adequately funded, Michigan is not a right-to-work-for-less state, AND the school board uses reasonable timelines.

That first set of dreams? They could be a reality, if the school board and the superintendent would decide to treat their employees with respect, and not as commodities.

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Lingering Question

Was this a conscious choice on Jeanice Swift's part, to shorten timelines in order to keep the public and the employees out of the process? Or did everything take longer than she thought it would and with a new finance person and her first budget, everything got done at the last possible minute?



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So How Are Those Emergency Manager School Districts Doing?!

I took this from the Save Michigan's Public Schools facebook page (a good page to join if you are interested), and it kind of boggles the mind.

Under the management of EFM Don Witherspoon, Muskegon Heights, the first fully privatized Michigan school district, has just borrowed $3.5 million from the State of Michigan. From Gongwer:

"Two of the school districts currently under emergency financial management were approved Friday for a total $6.5 million in emergency loans from the state.

The Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board found that both Highland Park Public Schools and Muskegon Heights Public Schools would run deficits for the current school year and needed the loans to cover those shortfalls.

Highland Park will borrow $3 million and Muskegon Heights $3.5 million. Under the loan agreements, Treasurer Andy Dillon would have to approve use of the funds, which are only to pay vendors.

The districts are alone in having their operations passed to a charter school management company as part of the effort to repair their finances. Managers in both districts found they would not be able to balance their budgets under their prior management structures."

Well, I guess they couldn't balance their budgets under the new management structures, either, and. . . oh, yeah. . . with the new management structures there is no public representation. . . 

Despair. Hope. Chanukah.

It has been a rough week in the political arena. The push for privatization of public education. . . the ramming through of the freedom to freeload (a.k.a. right to work) legislation. . . and some other bills that have gotten less attention around reproductive rights (see the ACLU of Michigan letter), foster care/adoption, and the removal of benefits for people caring for disabled relatives (see the Michigan League for Human Services blog), well. . . it's a bit much.

Last night was the first night of Chanukah. And you might know that we Jews light a menorah that has eight candles or oil lamps (well, nine, actually--one is a "helper" candle), each one representing one of the nights.  As with most Jewish rituals, there are rabbinic arguments that have defined the rituals. In the case of the Chanukah lights, two famous rabbis disagreed. Shammai said that you should start on night #1 by lighting all of the lights, and each night subtract a light. Hillel  said that you should start on night #1 with one light, and each night add a light.

If you have ever heard of Hillel and Shammai, then you probably already know that they had many arguments. These are recorded in the compendium of Jewish law and stories called the Talmud. Nearly all of the time, Hillel won. (Shammai only won twice.) Hillel won in the case of the Chanukah lights--we start with one light and add one each day. And his reasoning makes sense to me, too--that we should always strive to increase light in the world.

If you were to read some of the other Hillel/Shammai discussions, what would probably strike you is that Hillel was very much a creative problem-solver; and ultimately, his decisions carried the day.

This week, I'm trying not to despair. I'm trying to be hopeful. I'm trying to believe that in the long run, the people who believe in the value of public education and in the value of democracy will win. Just like Hillel.

If you need inspiration, I've got Peter Paul and Mary's "Light One Candle" at the end for inspiration. (The version I found on youtube is rather sappy. I'm just warning you :). As they say, "Light one candle for the strength that we need, to never become our own foe. . . Light one candle for all we believe in, that anger not tear us apart. . . don't let the lights go out!"

If you support workers' rights, you're being asked to wear red on Monday.

If you are able to attend the rallies in Lansing on Tuesday about the workers' rights, reproductive rights, and the legislative process, I've received several facebook event invitations. You can drive directly to Lansing or you can get on the bus with other like-minded people. 

Leave from the Ann Arbor Education Association offices at 7:30 in the morning (get there at 7:15).
https://www.facebook.com/events/298623080257089/

Start at 8 a.m. at Lansing Center and march to the Capitol to be there at 9:30 a.m..
https://www.facebook.com/events/121775524650254/

Join Planned Parenthood Advocates at the Capitol at 9:30 a.m.
https://www.facebook.com/events/412328062173786


Oh, and one more thing. If you would like to strategize with Ann Arbor school board member Andy Thomas, he's got an open "coffee hour," also on Tuesday, December 11th, from 7-8 p.m. at Sweetwaters Cafe, 123 W. Washington St. in Ann Arbor.

Opposition Rising and More

Let's start out with some good news. These terrible education bills have not passed (yet), so let us keep the pressure on! One friend wrote me, "The world is falling apart!" OK, that might be a little hyperbolic, but there is definitely cause for concern.
How to keep the pressure on? Write; call; sign the signon.org petition to "Stop the Takeover of Public Education in Michigan." (No--that's not the "Stop Overtesting Our Kids" petition, although you can sign that one too! I've been temporarily diverted from stopping overtesting to keeping public education public.)

There is a new facebook page, "Save Michigan's Public Schools." What is really nice about this page is that there are lots and lots of superintendent and school board letters and statements of opposition. You can get some really good ideas of what to say if you want to personalize things. Or just get inspired, remember that you are not alone, don't despair, and give a "like" to some of the statements!

It's nice to see opposition from superintendents and school board members from all parts of the state, including some Republican strongholds. I noticed letters from Tuscola County (the Thumb); Calhoun County; Genesee County; Macomb County; Oakland County (Bloomfield Hills' Superintendent Rob Glass's letter to parents and taxpayers is terrific): Washtenaw County (Chelsea, Milan, Dexter, Ypsilanti, Whitmore Lake, Lincoln Consolidated and Ann Arbor for sure--there may have been others); the State Board of Education; and more.

A Michigan coalition is also opposing the fact that the EAA (which has only been around for three months!) is the only Michigan "school district" that is a finalist in the "Race to the Top" (which, as I've said before, is truly a race to the bottom, but unfortunately it is one that comes with funding).

Save Michigan's Public Schools has also posted the 302 page Michigan Public Education Finance Act Draft Legislation (and I'm linking to it) in case you are looking for some light reading [joke!]. This would replace our current school aid legislation, but it would make things much worse, not better.

Here is why:

"In a nutshell, the proposed Michigan Public Education Finance Act (which would replace the existing School Aid Act of 1979) erases school attendance boundaries, allowing students to take their assigned chunk of funding and use it anywhere

they like (if the receiving school agrees), including taking courses in multiple locations. The legislation also throws a big, juicy bone to the Wild West of on-line education, reinforces test-based 'performance,' and gives students $2500 per semester for early graduation." (Nancy Flanagan in EdWeek, in a blog post titled, "What's the Matter with Michigan?"

Dr. Vickie Markavitch, Superintendent of the Oakland Schools (I think of the Oakland Intermediate School District) has an excellent video on the subject of the pending legislation, and I encourage you to: a) watch it and b) share it.




UPDATE:  Also, there is this--

Michigan for Quality Schools
Supporting proven education reform

What: A news conference unveiling new coalition of education, parent and business leaders opposed to continued experiments on Michigan children and supporting proven education reform.

When: 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 3
Where: Room 424, Michigan Capitol

Who: Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools, Michigan Association of School Boards Executive Director Kathy Hayes, State Board of Education President John Austin, Michigan Association of School Administrators Executive Director William Mayes and others.

Why: To reject efforts to experiment with Michigan children by ending locally controlled school systems and introduce a for-profit education system in Michigan.
To support proven quality reforms by examining policies of states with a track record of success in Gov. Snyder’s education dashboard metrics.To call for public hearings across Michigan to expose these issues to the parents of Michigan, not shove them through the lame duck session of the Legislature with minimal debate.
A wide coalition of varied interests have been galvanized by campaigns to pass major education experiments in the lame duck legislature, including bills to allow for-profit education companies to cherry pick students and to give the still-unproven Education Achievement Authority the ability to create an unlimited number of schools without regard to quality. The organization also opposes the Oxford Foundations’ plan to gamble with Michigan students, which would end locally controlled school districts.
For more information contact David Waymire at Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications, 517-485-6600

Calling All (Education Committee) Legislators

A Favorite Quote

"It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it."
(Rabbi Tarfon, Sayings of the Fathers)

Did You Already Write Your Legislators and the Governor?

[If not: Step 1 is to go to the Michigan Parents for Schools web site and use their nifty action alert system to contact them. Here is the link. It takes just a minute.]

If yes, then you may have already gotten a response from the Governor. A response that, as a friend of mine wrote to me, "didn't really answer any of the concerns I expressed about maintaining local input into schools and the possibility of profit motives undermining charter and other school 'reform.'" The letter just blathered on about wanting schools to be good (yes, we all want that) without making any note of the fact that the "Education Achievement Authority" (EAA) has absolutely no track record and may turn out to be a terrible program. (Sure--it could be great. That's what pilot programs are for--to prove that a program is worthy. However, according to MIPFS, "The EAA Chancellor, Dr. John Covington, argues that his system was tried successfully in his former district, Kansas City public schools. After his abrupt departure last year, the Kansas City schools lost their state accreditation, which gives us pause about the quality of the EAA's program.) [link]"

Bottom line: Taxpayers have the right to have input into schools. The Governor's children go to a very fine school in our fair county--Greenhills--but it is a) a private school with small class sizes; b) a not-for-profit school with a board of directors, and yes, parents have lots of input; and c) tuition is nearly $20,000, more than twice what the Ann Arbor schools get per pupil, and nearly three times what some other districts get. All I want is what he's got.

But I digress.

Here's the thing. No votes were taken today (even though both the Senate and House Education Committees met), but potentially votes may be taken tomorrow. We need to keep the pressure on.

Therefore, Let's Make Some Phone Calls

Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools put out this email alert today, and it's useful because it has phone numbers. I don't think any of these legislators are in our county, but they are all on the House Education Committee and they will be voting on bills that affect us!

Action Alert To Public School Supporters!!! Please Forward!!!!

House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358 must be stopped, and we need your help to stop them!!!! The bills would create a Governor-controlled Education Achievement Authority (EAA) that would usurp our local control and kill public education as we know it. We should be focusing on proven quality education reform, not setting up a system of "haves" and "have nots" that will make all of our state's children one large experiment. The following representatives sit on the House Education Committee, and your phone call could sway them to oppose the EAA--please call and tell them to stop the experiment and VOTE NO ON HB 6004:
Rep. Thomas Hooker (Maj. VC) (517) 373-2277
Rep. Jon Bumstead (517) 373-7317
Rep. Hugh Crawford (517) 373-0827
Rep. Ray Franz (517) 373-0825
Rep. Kurt Heise (517) 373-3816
Rep. Aric Nesbitt (517) 373-0839
Rep. Margaret O'Brien (517) 373-1774
Rep. Amanda Price (517) 373-0838
Rep. Deb Shaughnessy (517) 373-0853
Rep. Ken Yonker (517) 373-0840

High-Stakes Testing; Wisconsin; Muskegon Heights

(Update: I changed the headline to something that actually describes what is in this blog post, rather than "things you might want to read this week.")

High Stakes Testing Protests are Escalating. The Schools Matter blog has an interesting article with lots of links, including a national petition. Those of you who are interested in opting out of testing for the MEAP, NWEA, and other tests (and I have heard from several of you!) should not only read this article, but be sure to explore the links as well.

There is a fierce political battle going on in Wisconsin. Tomorrow is the day for Wisconsites to choose between the current governor, Scott Walker--who has been recalled over his anti-public worker and union-busting tactics and more--and Tom Barrett, the Milwaukee mayor. You may recall that I wrote about the Wisconsin protests when I was there over a year ago--read my blog post here. Read about the current election here courtesy of the Progressive/Isthmus partnership (two Wisconsin publications), and please--tell your Wisconsin friends to get out and vote against Walker.

The Schools Matter blog is also reporting on the reporting around the privatization scheme for Philadelphia schools. You might want to read this article and visit some of the links. I know, you're wondering--well who cares what is happening in Philadelphia. . . or New Orleans. . . or New York? Well you should, because it is all part of a national movement to take a public good--PUBLIC schools--and try and squeeze money out of them for private companies to make money.

What's more, this scenario is coming soon to a school district near you--to wit, Muskegon Heights.

Muskegon Heights is a small, urban school district that is surrounded by other cities. By all "hard" measures (graduation rates, test scores, enrollment numbers) it has been a (very) poorly-performing district for a long, long time. Most recently,  its school board requested--requested!--an emergency manager. And the emergency manager, Don Weatherspoon, came in and found: failing schools; very poor prior financial management for years and years; a boatload of debt; and enrollment that has been dropping for years. You might remember that Emergency Managers have powers that the rest of us mortals (local school boards) don't have, and he said, in essence, "We're going to close this district down and re-open it under charter school management." As far as I can tell, this is not a choice that a local school district could make if they wanted to.

He also told the school district parents that he can guarantee that there will be school in the fall, but he can't guarantee there will be any extras, like band or sports. Would you want to send your child there? You can read the Michigan Education Association press release here. Not surprisingly, the MEA is incensed. Teachers lose their jobs. Union contracts are ended. Will the company that comes in as a charter school operator be a for-profit? That remains to be seen but since the majority of charter schools are run by for-profit companies, my guess would be that it will be a for-profit. As if all of that was not outrageous enough, here is the kicker (as a taxpayer)--taken from the MEA press release:

Under the plan, the district would no longer be in the practice of educating children. However, the district would keep its projected $14.48 million debt, and the new charter company will start out debt-free and receive state aid payments.
As EM, Weatherspoon has the authority to act as the charter authorizer and appoint the board for the new charter system. He will also decide what building and materials could be offered to the charter company. He says the rest will be “put on the market and gotten rid of.”

In other words--Muskegon Heights will now have a school board that they didn't elect and cannot remove. Yet the taxpayers will still be on the hook for the debt. I believe there is no bankruptcy for school districts (if there were, that might have solved this problem a while ago), and I'm not sure how the debt gets paid off or what it means. I do know this though--Muskegon Heights fits every definition of a failing district. Nonetheless, this is not a good solution for public education.

Transportation Lessons: 2010-2012

Preface

In ninth grade, I had an algebra teacher who always wore cowboy boots (I grew up in New York! That was not usual). About mistakes, he had this to say, "It's okay to mistakes. But it's preferable to make a different mistake every time."

That story is meant to say: I know that hindsight is perfect, and foresight is imperfect. So the point of this lesson is to use that knowledge to improve decision-making in the future.


Transportation Lessons: What Can We Learn? (Or: More Proof of the Importance of Evalutation)

Our object lesson is the transportation consolidation that took place over the past two years. You may recall that back in 2009-2010, the Ann Arbor schools (and Ypsilanti and Willow Run) each had their own buses and bus drivers. And all of the county's districts were looking for ways to save money--including on transportation. After much thought, Dexter went to a "one-tier" bus system (all schools start and end at the same time of day, so they can do one run through a neighborhood instead of two or three). Lincoln bus drivers took major pay cuts in order to avert consolidation.

Ann Arbor bus drivers also offered major concessions as an alternative to consolidation. But remember--Ann Arbor is the biggest district in the county, and it is right in the middle of the county. I think the school board felt that if Ann Arbor didn't choose consolidation, then consolidation couldn't work. That, by itself, brought some additional pressure to the Ann Arbor schools.

However--the biggest incentive, by far, was the money savings that were promised. As described by deputy superintendent Robert Allen in April of 2010, in an annarbor.com article that David Jesse wrote,

Hiring a private company to run the district’s busing operations would cost $7,019,214, said Robert Allen, the district’s deputy superintendent for operations. Joining with five of the county’s other traditional districts to form a consolidated busing system would cost the district $6,578,274.

Both those options are cheaper than the district’s current busing system, which costs $8,718,669, Allen said.

In other words, the savings were estimated to be over two million dollars! [I think it was understood that the savings would be a little bit less if fewer districts joined in--which was, in fact, what happened--and in a later article (October 2011, Ann Arbor Chronicle) Robert Allen says the final savings were estimated to be closer to $1.5 million. Still, that is nothing to sneeze at.] It was understood that the bulk of savings would come from reduced staffing costs, despite the fact that the estimates were based on the idea that service levels would remain the same. The reduced pay for bus drivers was ostensibly based on a market rate study.

So on the one hand, I don't blame the school board officials and the school administrators for getting a little bit starry-eyed at the thought of saving all that money!

On the other hand, there were some warning signs that promises from privatization and consolidation don't always turn out all that well. 

Somebody Evaluated Food Service Privatization, But Did We Pay Attention?

Food services had been privatized in Ann Arbor a few years earlier. Had the savings from that approached the promised savings? Not according to University of Michigan researcher Roland Zullo, who is also an Ann Arbor Public Schools parent. Prompted in part by the specter of privatization of Ann Arbor schools custodial and transportation staff, he undertook an evaluation of the food services privatization. (Earlier he had done a larger study of food service privatization.) According to this (very interesting) New York Times article (12/3/2011),

Roland Zullo, a researcher at the University of Michigan, found in 2008 that Michigan schools that hired private food-service management firms spent less on labor and food but more on fees and supplies, yielding “no substantive economic savings.” Alarmingly, he even found that privatization was associated with lower test scores, hypothesizing that the high-fat and high-sugar foods served by the companies might be the cause. In a later study, in 2010, Dr. Zullo found that Chartwells was able to trim costs by cutting benefits for workers in Ann Arbor schools, but that the schools didn’t end up realizing any savings.

[An aside: this, by the way, is consistent with the findings of the AAPS Privatization History blog post that I wrote in March 2010.]

In Zullo's March 2010 review of Ann Arbor food service (read the full report here), he reported that there were initial savings the first year, but the savings evaporated after that. And he says,

By losing their AAPS employment status, food service workers lost their state pension benefits, had their health insurance co-pays skyrocket by 500%, and lost union representation. New employees are offered wages at about $9.00 per hour.

 
It Was Consolidation, Not Privatization

But wait--the Ann Arbor school board did not choose privatization. They chose consolidation with another public entity, the Washtenaw Intermediate School District.  Employees who chose to apply for jobs with the WISD would--if rehired--be able to keep their state pension benefits, and they would be able to unionize if they wanted (in fact, they have voted to affiliate with the Michigan Education Association, or MEA).  In fact, one thing that the board appears to have taken away from the food services privatization discussion is that many people lost their pensions, and that was a bad thing. I know from conversations with board members that they saw consolidation as different from privatization, although I'm not sure that the bus drivers saw it very differently. Just read, for instance, my interview with Andy Thomas when he was a school board candidate earlier this year.

So How Has Consolidation Worked So Far?

The first problem was that only three districts agreed to consolidate.
There were quite a few service problems in the beginning, and in fact Ypsilanti ended up giving a private bus company, Trinity, a $180,000 contract in the first year, because the WISD couldn't keep up. (I still see a lot of Trinity buses in Ypsilanti, so I assume that they still have some kind of contract.)
I have heard alleged--in other words, nothing that I have substantiated--that bus drivers who were active in their unions were not re-hired.
And the WISD reported to the Ann Arbor school board, in October 2011, that turnover rates were astoundingly high--over 40%.
Most of us know that even with lower staffing costs, high turnover is going to increase costs and probably reduce service quality. High turnover requires increased training and recruiting, makes it more likely that drivers will make mistakes on routes (because they are new), and means that students are always seeing new drivers and/or substitute drivers.

Partly because of the complaints, the Ann Arbor school board asked the WISD for an evaluation of the first year (2010-2011), and it took the WISD several months into the 2011-2012 school year to provide it. If you want, you can read the full report here.

But here is the summary:
Total savings were not quite $619,000--just over 40% of the expected savings.

According to the WISD, unemployment compensation costs; higher than expected gas prices; workers' compensation claims; and a retirement rate increase were the primary reasons that the savings were so low. Aren't those things that should have been expected and included in the initial budgeting plan? It looks like we got the "pie in the sky" budget (hence the starry eyes) when we should have gotten the plain pie budget.

The report also makes clear that whereas before, many people were school bus drivers as a primary job, that has changed. For most people, these are secondary jobs now--and when they find a better job, with more hours/no-split shift/more pay, they take it and leave the school buses behind. Remember--the bus drivers did offer concessions to the district. They simply were not deemed to be enough.

The projected savings for the Ann Arbor schools for 2011-2012, according to Robert Allen, are about $1 million. But those savings are largely a function of all of the cuts that they made to busing schedules at the beginning of this year, and not of consolidation.

More recently, Ypsilanti and Willow Run have said they may completely pull out of the WISD consortium, leaving Ann Arbor as the only district in the consortium, making it not a consortium at all. I assume that is because they are not getting the savings that they expected. Should this be a shock? No.

So I was glad to see the Ann Arbor Chronicle report that in light of these changes, on January 25, 2012 the school board directed the administration to

...examine and make a recommendation on the following transportation options: improving busing within the current framework of the WISD; consolidating busing with Ypsilanti and Willow Run outside the WISD consolidation; bringing busing back into the AAPS budget with bus drivers remaining public employees; bringing busing back into the AAPS budget but privatizing bus drivers; eliminating busing entirely; or collaborating with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) to transport AAPS students.

Hindsight is Perfect

If we go back to the preface--hindsight is perfect.
Looking back, do I think it was a good idea to privatize? No. I think we could have gotten those same savings with salary concessions from the bus drivers and revamping the bus schedules--with much less disruption to both the school district and to the employees' lives.  (I admit it--I was always skeptical, and I wrote about that here.)
 
In fact, on June 24, 2010, I wrote that:

Regarding the teacher contract, kudos to the negotiators. It really is a creative collaboration. However--the teacher contract makes the vote to consolidate bussing--which means that workers lose their jobs with no guarantee of re-hire, or even of seniority preference in hiring--all the more disappointing. . . It is disappointing because it is clear--based on the teacher contract--that the district has the capacity to develop creative agreements that serve workers well. Yet in the case of the transportation workers, they chose not to do so.

As I read back over my notes though, I think I know why they chose not to do so. It's not simply because transportation is not considered a "core service." I think it's because transportation departments have a reputation for being difficult to run. They've got all those buses with maintenance; lots of parts, supplies, and gas; and difficulty scheduling multiple routes, special education needs, and staffing. Maybe they thought the WISD could actually do a better job--even though that turned out not to be true!


It's Better to Make a Different Mistake Every Time

And since it's better to make a different mistake every time, as we look forward to another round of budget cuts, what should be done differently?

If privatization comes up again (and I will bet that it will), what questions should the school board and administrators be asking that they didn't ask last time? Let's articulate those questions now. 

Coda
One good thing that did come out of this--although the Ann Arbor schools did not ever have a major problem with buses passing state safety inspections, the Ypsilanti and Willow Run schools sometimes did, and their pass rates have improved dramatically, as I note here. They sold the buses to the WISD for $1, and the agreement is that they will be sold back to the districts for $1 if they leave the consortium.

Thank Goodness?

No, don't thank goodness. Instead, thank the bargainers on both sides of the table.
And also thank the parents and taxpayers who repeatedly said, at every budget meeting, that they didn't want to pursue privatization.
According to this annarbor.com article, there will be what equates to a 10% reduction in salary and benefits, but at least the AAPS custodians and maintenance jobs will remain in house, and won't be privatized.

And 10% is a BIG sacrifice for the amount of money these staff are making.

Also from annarbor.com: When the schools consolidate transportation, the average bus driver's salary will go down from $16.55/hour to $14.70 per hour, so they too will see a significant reduction in income.

Next up: teachers' and principals' unions.

Around the County

Manchester has a school board election May 4th...so does Chelsea, which is also working on budget cuts...
Superintendent Robert Glass is leaving Dexter for greener pastures...(or at least, pastures closer to his Oakland County home)... yes, that is, he's going to the Bloomfield Hills school district, one of the premier districts in the state. There is also a lot of controversy over the Dexter student newspaper (I would love it if some of the students would comment about what is going on there.)
Doris Hope-Jackson did not get hired as superintendent in Harvey, Illinois...and Willow Run began an administrative hearing around Laconda Hicks...
Former Ypsilanti Superintendent James Hawkins is getting a Distinguished Service Award from the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Chamber of Commerce... Current Superintendent Dedrick Martin is terminating the contracts of all contract employees. That includes terminating the Ypsilanti High School principal and, I believe, the East Middle School principal. On the surface that makes sense (in that there will be layoffs of teachers, too, and these are former staff who retired and came back in contract positions) but on the other hand, there is some implication in this article that Martin might be hiring an old friend--technically not nepotism, but there is the appearance of something funky going on--perhaps because the annarbor.com article says that they have narrowed the Ypsilanti principal hiring choice down to two people but the person that Martin knows has already quit his job...and no, all I know is what I read in the "papers." It sure is confusing though!
Saline's got layoffs...Ann Arbor's got layoffs...
There's a great article about the last AAPS board meeting from Jennifer Coffman in the Ann Arbor Chronicle. Considering the number of new board members on the AAPS school board (yes, you can apply for the open position now), I thought it was funny that the most recently-appointed board member--who has been on the board for all of one month--felt she needed to reassure the public that “While we’ve had a lot of change, this board works well together.” Hmmm.

Keep opposing privatization, please. I haven't gotten a single email back from my note to the Board of Education, but I hope you are having more luck! Write: boe@aaps.k12.mi.us

Search question (someone was looking for the answer to this) that I don't know the answer to: Why Manchester has decided not to join the consolidated bus transportation program. Actually, I don't even know if that is true, and I certainly don't know why. Do you?

Tails, You Lose: Custodians and Maintenance Workers

I was happy when I left the Transportation breakout meeting last night. On the other hand, I was very unhappy when I left the AAPS Budget Meeting breakout session on Custodial and Maintenance. It seemed very clear upon leaving that the administration is focused on privatizing, and/or squeezing a huge amount of savings out of the maintenance and custodial staff in some other way. And this feeling that I got was confirmed by David Jesse's article today, Ann Arbor school administrators to recommend privatizing services.

Many years ago, in an environmental studies class, I tried to argue in a paper that organic agriculture could, would, and should win over conventional agriculture for moral and environmental reasons. My professor didn't like that. "No," he commented, "It's all about economics."

It's Not Just About Economics
And I fear that in this case, too, I'm not going to have success in arguing that what the administration wants to do is immoral. I may not be successful, but I will try anyway. The issue of privatizing custodial and maintenance work--an idea that has been pursued over and over by AAPS administration for at least 30 years--is being presented as if it is all about economics, but it shouldn't be, and--as it happens--I don't really believe that it is all about economics.
When we look at the big picture, it's very clear that a) a small group of workers is getting the very short end of the stick and that b) it doesn't have to be that way--even to end up with the same economic results.

Right now, there are fewer than 175 custodial staff, and on their backs we are trying to save $2,000,000. That comes down to trying to save over $11,000 per employee. Bear in mind that we are not talking about the highest paid employees in the district. I think we are talking about some of the lowest-paid employees in the district. Oh, and they "get" to lose their retirement.

Of course there are alternatives. There are 1200 teachers, and only 175 custodial staff. Instead of asking teachers and administrators to take a 4% cut, AAPS could ask everybody to take a 5% cut. Would that really be so terrible? Why should custodial and maintenance workers have to take cuts that are closer to 20% of their renumeration? Would the administration like to give up their retirement? That would be a modest proposal.

It's Not Just About Prevailing Wages and Benefits
(Superintendent) Todd Roberts tried to say to me that the "prevailing wages and benefits" for custodial work are lower than what AAPS pays. Well, first of all, who negotiated those wages and benefits? It does take two to tango, and unions don't make up their own compensation packages.
Second, maybe custodial staff chose to stay with the district because of the benefits--in other words, they may have chosen a (supposedly) secure job with retirement rather than take a different job with better wages but no retirement.
Third, AAPS teachers are also at the top of the county's teacher wage scale, so I guess the "prevailing wages and benefits" for teachers are also lower. That doesn't mean that they deserve less either.
AAPS has per-pupil funding that is also higher than all of the other local districts--by quite a lot. That doesn't mean that we deserve less per-pupil funding. It might mean that other districts deserve more.

So, in sum: Nobody "deserves" less. To ask everybody to sacrifice equally--that seems like the least we could do. 

There Are Other Things to Consider
I have a few other thoughts, too:

• To the extent that some people end up in custodial and maintenance work because they have relatively low literacy--perhaps because they were not taught well (for example, dyslexia not identified), perhaps because they are immigrants--do the schools actually fail them twice?

• To the extent that the people who are custodians and maintenance workers are more likely to be people of color--is this just incidental, or is the privatization discriminatory in practice?

• To the extent that money that is invested locally stays locally (see thinklocalfirst.net), and money that is not invested locally is much less likely to stay locally, why is it that (if we were to privatize) we would sign a multi-million dollar contract with a company from Illinois? 

Last, but not least: Do not tell me that "everybody else is doing it." I don't care. As a parent, that does not sit well with me. There are things I don't allow my kids to do, even if everybody else is doing it.

UPDATED 4/14/10: The proposal the AAPS administration is promoting does not even try to keep wages and benefits somewhat equal, as they originally said they would. [Why? Because that wouldn't save enough money.] This staff would lose between $2 and $6 per hour; and have a doubling of health care costs; and not get paid time off. This according to David Jesse's article here.

To the school board: I'm asking you to vote no on privatization, and to insist that all employee groups share the pain equitably. 

Everyone else: You can email the school board at boe@aaps.k12.mi.us

You can also read my earlier posts on privatization:
Privatization History--all the times it didn't work out
Just Say No to Privatization
Retirement, Privatization Details
The Bids Are In
Cui Bono?

Heads, You Win: Transportation and Consolidation

Last night, at the AAPS budget meeting, I went to a transportation breakout session. According to what I heard, the administration set a budget target of savings from transportation costs of approximately $1.5 million dollars. The privatization bids netted about $800,000 in savings. AAPS then tried negotiating with the transportation workers, who met the $800,000 savings in a tentative agreement--but the union membership voted the tentative agreement down.

Enter Option 2: Consolidate all transportation services countywide through the WISD. Drivers and aides keep their benefits--including retirement, because they will still be public employees--and the savings are still expected to exceed the $1.5 million dollars. The main savings will come from things like buying gasoline in bulk, buying parts in bulk, routing efficiencies, etcetera. There are still a lot of details to be worked out, and my guess is that eventually there will be some cuts in staffing among mechanics and administrators (although that was not clearly said). Right now, it looks like several districts are "in" (enough to make it a go--mostly from the eastern side of the county at this point) and that it will at least partially start up in the fall. The WISD has hired an "expert" consultant to iron out the details.

So that sounds good, right? I'm just left with a nagging question:

If it's not too good to be true, why didn't we do this five years ago? Think of all the millions we could have saved.
Or else--
It is too good to be true, and the savings will not be anywhere near the projections.

I guess time will tell. I'm glad the bus drivers will have their jobs, with retirement benefits.

Privatization History

In the course of looking up information about the 1985 reorganization, I came across some information about the history of privatization, all of which is taken from the earliest User-Friendly Budget on the AAPS website, 2002-2003, to wit:

Out-sourcing has occurred over the years in order to reduce costs, comply with mandated regulations, and to complete projects within short schedules. The effects of using contracted services includes: the reduction of F.T.E.s, benefits, retirement, and other employment costs. While the Board policy does not show preference to local vendors, a substantial number of local contractors do win contracts to provide goods and services to the district.

What follows, then, is a list of contracts that they have tried to, or decided to, outsource over the years. (This is on pp. 37-40 if you are looking for it.) It's actually pretty shocking reading:

Since 1990, district managers have also explored the possibility of privatization in areas such as Custodial, Maintenance, Warehousing, and Transportation. Private companies were given the opportunity to meet with district employees and to review operational practices. Although each of these reviews did not result in proposals that would have reduced costs, we will continue looking at using the best combination of in-house employees and private services. (Emphases added.)

 Here are the listed bids:

1990, Facilities, Service Master
Declined bid invitation
1990, Facilities, Unbar
Declined bid invitation
1990, Facilities, Marriott
Received proposal of $7,184,909 for 90/91
Proposal would have resulted in an increase of costs of $1,650,000 over 3 years
1991, Facilities, Marriott
Declined bid invitation
1992, Transportation, Laidlaw
Not able to provide the same level of service and generate savings
1993, Facilities, Witt, Fiala, Flannery & Assoc.
Received proposal of $6,739,151
Proposal would have resulted in an increase in costs of $239,151
1994/95, Warehousing, U.P.S.
Not able to provide the same level of service at our costs
1995, Transportation, Laidlaw
Not able to provide the same level of service and generate savings
1996, Facilities (Snow Removal), Arbor Building Services
Snow removal pilot program at Pioneer
Increased costs: Cost of pilot program was 50% of total district costs


Do you think I was cherry-picking the worst outcomes from this report? That is not the case. That was the whole list. Which kind of makes you wonder. . . under what conditions does privatization actually work?

And you will wonder even more, if you read this Ann Arbor Chronicle article on the last school board meeting, which quotes Mark Zullo, who has studied the privatization of the AAPS food service workers, and says, that "AAPS is spending less on food service because of increased revenue being sent from the federal government via the school lunch program" and that workers were harmed by the privatization. According to him, "new hires were paid at $9 per hour, and that none of the workers could afford to use the health care offered to them – due to an increase in co-pays to $3,000 annually."