Schools: Plus Ça Change Plus C'est la Même Chose*

*The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Last week I wrote about Freedom Schools and the Freedom School curriculum, and I was looking for an Ann Arbor connection.

Didn't find a direct one (although if I had actually visited the Ann Arbor library I am sure I would have). I did find this interesting article in the aadl.org "Old News" section at oldnews.aadl.org.

I was looking for information on Freedom Summer Schools and I found that in 1971 Ann Arbor had a Black Liberation School.

"Members of the Black Liberation School staff requested permission to use the facilities of Northside school this summer without paying rent," arguing that they were serving the Northside school district.

[Was anyone who read this a part of that? Please post some information about the Black Liberation School in the comments!]

But also, there were many things that sound like the themes of the Ann Arbor school board meetings today: budget cuts, layoffs and resignations. When more people resigned than expected, Superintendent Westerman (who still lives in Ann Arbor and is on the Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel) told the school board, "We now have some freedom not anticipated to extend invitations to more of the probationary staff that were sent termination notices."

A citizen argued for transportation services to low-income students. "It is inhumane for the board to not at least give some assistance to these students." 

Last, but not least, the board recognized the retirements of custodians Clifford Bryant and Mikkel Thomsen, "for serving 'our school system with great loyalty and distinction.'"

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Screen shot of a June 17, 1971 Ann Arbor News story.
Found online at: http://oldnews.aadl.org/taxonomy/term/48518

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I would be remiss, I think, if I didn't mention that the Ann Arbor District Library has a wonderful summer game, which you can play both off-line and on-line, and can be found at: play.aadl.org.





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Michigan School Finance Primer: Part II, An Interview & More!

A few months ago, I sat down with Michigan Parents for Schools Executive Director Steven Norton for an interview. I had the best intentions of publishing a finished interview all at once, but--what can I say--that didn't happen, and I've decided to use the interview in several pieces. Today's piece provides some more context, information, and background for school finance discussions. You can find Michigan Parents for Schools on the web at mipfs.org, and on facebook as well.

Me: Looking at more recent history, how did we get into this fix, with school districts continually being in a position where they need to cut more and more?

Courtesy of Michigan Parents for Schools, mipfs.org

To be honest, people didn’t see this coming. Almost everything was being driven by the economy. People saw a cliff coming, but most people expected an economic recovery to give breathing room. That we would at least recover some of what we’d lost. Instead, in Gov. Snyder’s very first budget, not only did he make big tax cuts on individuals to balance the budget, but he also eliminated the Michigan Business Tax and replaced it with a much much smaller corporate income tax. The direct impact was the removal of $800 million dollars from the School Aid Fund. He also took money from the School Aid Fund, $400 million, for higher education. So that in a year where the economic projections would have said that more money would have come into the School Aid Fund, in fact there were huge cuts to K-12.  [Ed. Note: Funding for K-12 schools from the School Aid Fund was cut by more than 10%.]

Me: I thought they fixed the pension system, but the school districts keep pointing to retirement costs. 

Although they ‘fixed’ the pension system, they did so by pushing all of the adjustment costs onto schools and current employees. The existence of a pension for school employees is written into the constitution, and districts do not control the amount the school district needs to donate. 

Current employees are paying a lot more [into the retirement system] (effective pay cut of 4%) and the other money is coming directly out of the School Aid Fund. They also really downgraded the benefits of future employees. And for the next five years, all of the projected revenue to the School Aid Fund will be eaten up by higher contributions to the pension system.”

Me: Where do teachers fit in all of this? 

People say, “We should cut the teachers [salaries] more.” Well, these are the people who take care of our children. How do we want to treat our employees? When we have the opportunity to make smart policy for state employees, shouldn’t we do that? We have to look at the long term. And this is happening in every community. This is a conversation that we need to have.”

 [Bold=Emphasis added.]

Steve's bottom line: 

“There is a lot of work to be done changing the discourse around public education.  It’s easy to get lost in the specifics but there is an underlying misapprehension of some of the key issues. There’s a lot of work to be done with people talking to people. You need to talk to your neighbors, educate them about the facts.”

By the way, you can read more about the issues around retirement in this May 2013 report from the Citizens Research Council--Funding for Public Education: The Recent Impact of Increased MPSERS Contributions.

Budget Tales (of Woe)

It's not the most scintillating reading, but as Christine Stead notes, Michigan's Children has a decent overview of the budget proposals for education coming from the governor, the state House, and the Senate. None of it is good news. The only "slightly good" news is that the school districts are likely to know the final details before the school fiscal years begin, rather than after they start (which was the pattern for many years).

Find the Michigan Children's summary here. Christine says, "You may have to get past a pop-up blocker, but it is worth downloading the file for a good comparison."

Christine also notes two other things. The first is applicable to all public schools:

• Funds from the lottery are being proposed to fund improvements to roads and infrastructure.  Recall that this was part of the ‘deal’ in moving to Proposal A; that these funds would support the SAF.  There could be more reductions yet to come in K12 education when we see a final state budget in May.

THAT is clearly not good news, and it also infuriates me.

The other is applicable only to Ann Arbor:

• In AAPS, there were incremental expenses of $1.2 M that need to be added to our target general operating budget reductions; we are now looking at reductions of $17.8 M for next year.

Holy Smokes! And that is even with the "found" Medicaid money included. I wonder if that has been true most years--that we ended up spending more than budgeted? I believe it was true last year as well. The purported savings--from the transportation consolidation, for example--end up not yielding as much, or any, savings; while the expenses continue, or increase.

Meanwhile, Michigan Parents for Schools has a nice analysis of the Governor's budget proposal--when Steve Norton adds the legislative analyses I will update this post. Steve has some good links in here, but perhaps the most salient point is that the Governor purports to be providing modest increases, when in fact he is proposing reductions. (Of course the reason for that is somewhat complicated, so do read the article.)

There is a big piece of the budget puzzle that is retirement-related, so you might be interested in this Detroit Free Press editorial which discusses retirement. The bulk of the article is spent describing the problem of why retirement costs have gone up so much, and there is a nice graph that captures the essence of the problem. The key points are that:

1. After 1994's Proposal A, retirement funding was shifted to the districts, and was no longer paid for with a state appropriation.
2. Retiree costs rising while foundation grants stay flat or decline.
3. Charter schools that don't participate in the retirement program, and school districts outsourcing employees in food service and transportation (for instance), and/or laying off teachers and other staff, mean there is a smaller "base" to draw on for funding.

In sum:

Although
These are budget tales of woe
They are clearly things
We've got to know!

Six Questions, Fewer Answers

1. Is the Michigan Department of Education completely inept?
First comes the report that Ypsilanti High School has scored in the bottom 5% of all high schools in the state. Based on what I've seen, that didn't make any sense to me--and what about Willow Run? Their graduation rates are terrible. And then, three hours (yes, hours) before a big "transformation" grant is due, they are told that they are not eligible. Why? Um, they are not actually in the bottom 5% of all schools in the state. Generally, that's good news. But three hours? Ineptness, yes.
2. Why didn't more teachers take advantage of the early retirement offer?
(Multiple choice answer.)
A. The deal didn't give teachers a lot of time to decide.
B. The incentive wasn't that great.
C. The incentive came with a really big negative. If you accepted it, you couldn't come back as a part-time teacher (a common practice in several local districts), or as a curriculum adviser, or even as a baseball coach, without losing pension income during the time period you were actually working.
D. All of the above.
3. Will the state legislature take surplus money from the School Aid Fund?
Oh, you thought that money was earmarked for schools? It turns out that it is earmarked for "education." Any education--including community colleges and higher education. I do want us to support higher education, but not from this fund. It may not be a technical misappropriation, but it is truly a violation of people's understanding of the fund. [It's right up there with the fact that the state legislature took money out of the fund for matching political campaigns.] After all, K-12 education is mandatory. College is desirable, but it's not mandated. Short answer: Your guess is as good as mine.
4. Why does a2schools.org get you to the Ann Arbor Public Schools web site; and www.aaps.k12.mi.us gets you to the Ann Arbor Public Schools web site; but aaps.k12.mi.us gets you to "Problem Loading Page?"
Educated guess: because there is a problem with the web site.
5. Will Willow Run finally fire Doris Hope-Jackson, former Superintendent?  And Willow Run High School is in the bottom 5% of high schools in the state. What are they going to do about that?
I don't know, and I don't know.
6. What was my favorite advice to date in the Three Things That Could Improve Michigan on WUOM? (Admittedly, I haven't heard all of them.)
My favorite advice to date came from Josie Parker, Director of the Ann Arbor District Library. "Be curious," she said. I think that's a great idea.

To Retire or Not to Retire, That is the Question

What will the early retirement deal mean? Will the floodgates open? Will huge numbers of teachers retire?
I'm skeptical.
For one thing, many school districts (if not many around here) have already offered early retirement incentives.
For another thing, time is passing quickly. On May 14th, the state's Office of Retirement Services posted this on its web site:

New retirement legislation (SB 1227) has passed and is expected to be signed by the governor early next week. Public school employees who are eligible to retire or may be eligible to retire will be mailed a personalized letter when the governor signs. (Emphasis added.)

In other words--the bill has not been signed yet, the letters have not been sent out yet, and  a teacher I spoke to today told me that he was having trouble getting on the system to even update his address and contact information.
If the state wants people to retire, they had better have their systems ready to receive them! It sounds like the systems are not ready. 
This, by the way, was a teacher who was already planning on retiring this year. When he heard there might be a retirement incentive, he held off on filing--and I'm sure he wasn't alone.
 On the other hand, I know a lot of teachers who are eligible. But if they were planning on teaching another 3-5 years, they are probably still going to be better off financially by sticking with teaching. 
 Generally, the shorter the time period for filing, the less likely it is that people will take advantage of it. The smaller the incentive, the less likely it is that people will take advantage of it.

In sum: I like early retirement incentives. Someday, I would like to be offered one! But I don't think it's going to deliver the savings that the state is counting on; it has a big downside in terms of the "sticks" (as in, carrots and sticks) that ongoing and new teachers will be stuck with; and I don't expect to see a lot of new teachers hired because there are so many layoffs proposed. [There may be some administrative openings--a lot of administrators, I believe, are eligible.]

In addition, now that teachers who stick around (perhaps because they aren't eligible) are going to be required to put an additional 3% of their income into the retirement health benefits system, how do you think those union negotiations--where Ann Arbor, for instance, wants a 4% wage/benefits rollback--are going to go? That would mean that teachers, essentially, would be losing 7% of their compensation next year. I don't think that will go over too well...

Finally--at best this offers short-term relief. With or without a retirement incentive, the state needs to properly fund the School Aid Fund. Say it now, say it out loud.