Washington State's budget deficit and the current recession forces the Legislature to examine every department and program for savings including a major cost center, K-12 education. It should provide the impetus to overcome teacher's unions and the lobbyist for all manner of education sacred cows. The budget is a golden opportunity to adopt reforms that save money and provide more value for the investment.
The Washington Policy Council recently published an education reform program that addresses eight proposed improvements: 1 ) Put the principal in charge. 2 ) Give parents choice among public schools. 3 ) Let teachers teach. 4 ) Double teacher pay. 5 ) Replace the WASL. 6 ) Create no-excuses schools. 7 ) Transparency - put school budgets and teacher qualifications online. 8 ) Make the Superintendent of Public Instruction an appointed office. Their recommendations do not necessarily cost more money and are largely common sense reforms. Implementaion, however, would require courage on the part of legislators especially Democrats who would have to face the wrath of one of their major sources of campaign funds, the education lobby. The WPC plan is a must read for every legislator and citizen.
Even liberal groups like the League of Education Voters are beginning to see the light. While they still push for higher Pre K-12 spending, they support high standards, improved math and science programs, accountability and accept some form of performance-based pay. Unfortunately, you have to give your name and address to get a copy of their 2009 Citizen's Report Card on Washington State Education but it is worth the pain of being on another mailing list.
About four years ago, I published my own list of reforms. I updated it recently adding two more suggestions. (See Education Reform)
If this is the year of "Change", then education is a great place to start.
Posted by warrenpeterson at January 25, 2009 08:37 PM | Email ThisGreat post. I particularly like doubling teacher pay. Because to find that money, it means firing a lot of the useless bureaucrats. And then the money would go to where the rubber meets the road. It would create a competitive market for teaching much like we have now in high tech and bio, etc. And it would be the first step in abolishing the unions. If teachers viewed themselves more like high tech workers do, as valuable knowledge workers, then they would see that they don't need a union to fend for them. Instead, they view themselves more like factory workers. And as such, the product they turn out, is a lot more like assembly line junk, and a lot less like the creative and unique intelligence product of the today's well paid private knowledge workers in software, high tech, etc..
Right now, a large bulk of the money goes towards bureaucrats that are more worried with the various politically correct indoctrination programs that they hand down at district, city and state levels, and a lot less goes towards teaching the basics. That's what matters. In the better public schools like in Tacoma, where there is more parent choice, and very strong (read, the parents call the shots, no matter what the fool administrators think) the schools are excellent. In the less affluent areas, where the culture is such that the parents don't give a damn, the administrators are out in force, stuffing kids full of their garbage. The customer is the parent and the student and not the state.
The solutions are simple, and we have a wealth of evidence to know what works.
The only problem is the progressives that are holding back real progress.
so, when our state takes over 50% of the taxes and gives it to education, how much more do they possibly need? i never hear of the reasons for always needing more money. do we have millions of students fleeing into this state every year?
i say get rid of the WEA and the union once and for all and we will see a huge surge in funds for teachers and students.
problem solved.
Posted by: Ann on January 26, 2009 07:32 AMIf teacher salaries are doubled, combined with the elimination of the barriers teachers live with to educating children, then let's lose these unions that place their power above the education of children, and let's eliminate the system's inability to improve through competition by making the lousy teacher subject to removal at any time. Our children require schools to have the ability to retain the best teachers they have even if they are the lower in seniority. And more importantly, the ability to fire teachers who are coasting since acquiring the tenure.
Certain union-represented workforces in Washington have abandoned the seniority protections of employees, such as Boeing's Engineering and Technical workers union. They use retention classifications to retain the best and rate the least valuable as the first to go when times are tough. Such a system should be applied to education "professionals" before any other reform if we really want to turn public education around and build strong and proficient teacher workforces. It is insane that schools are forced to keep the dead wood while letting go the more motivated and often times harder working teachers.
But we also know that the biggest opposition to any real reform of schools will come from the teachers union, and the control this union has over state Democrats makes any real reform a near impossibility with the current Legislature and Governor. Reform of schools will not be possible until reform of state government happens first. And all the trends would suggest that there are too many ignorant voters out there right now to elect a real reform-minded government.
Despite a $7.5 billion a year increase in state outlays since Gregoire was elected, education is being targeted now for cuts that could cost the state thousands of teachers, including cuts to voter-approved initiatives that Democrats clearly don't intend to respect. That is exactly the opposite direction we should be headed, but Democrats would rather cut education than their giveaways that buy votes. But it does demonstrate where education really is in priority to our state Democrats that cuts to education would even be considered.
Posted by: Reality on January 26, 2009 07:46 AMOn top of that, we have tens of thousands of teachers currently employed that the supply/demand equation has them working at half your price. Let's just give them a raise, double their salary. How intelligent is that?
Double their salary? That would get more intelligent college students taking up a teaching profession, but randomly picking a 100% increase is a stupid way to pick a salary at which we hope supply/demand would yield quality teachers 15 years down the road. (it would take that long to get rid of the current teachers who would remarkably decide to stay in the profession)
Posted by: Doug on January 26, 2009 08:18 AMSo as a result, he's leaves work by 3 pm every day, and most teacher planning days are half days of work. He takes the full 2.5 months off every summer, plus the Christmas break and spring break, plus vacation/PTO. That's over 3 months of the year which he does not work. He's national board certified, and his salary is in the $60's, plus benefits. No other profession can you get paid like that, work hours like that, and get that amount of time off.
Double teacher pay? Two words. Hell and NO.
Posted by: Palouse on January 26, 2009 08:48 AMThe unions, like Democrats, require a helpless victim mentality amongst their constituents. The good teachers know this is a joke and only serves to prop up those teachers who have long since "retired" within a system that protects their incompetence.
Given a new plan where teachers had to compete on merit ... BUT ... for the prize of much higher pay, would change everything.
And there would also have to be corresponding cuts in the bureacracy of people that sit back in the giant public schools headquaters buildings, pushing around paper, and adding little to the product.
Get more done with less. That's how we do it in the private sector. And the public sector is going to learn that whether they like it or not, because there won't be much tax revenue left, given their deficits and recession.
Before we even talk about doubling teacher to get to the level that "private high tech workers" receive, let's figure out just what amount of work that would entail.
First off 50 Hours+ a week is not all that uncommon for the private sector folks earning that money. 12 months a year of work is not also that uncommon for those folks (minus some vacation time). When the average teacher in this state is on a 180-day (give or take a day) contract for 7 3/4 hours, along with 12 paid leave days (that's not counting additional paid leave days for jury duty and the like), then what you are looking at is about 1300 hours of work.
If you want to give them 9 hour work days for 240 days (which would leave 20 non-work weekdays during the year), then they are looking at 2160 hours. Now, and only now, can we start talking about doubling their salary to make them on par with private high tech workers.
Posted by: Doug on January 26, 2009 09:25 AMBut let's just look at the numbers. Number don't like. A K-12 teacher today, averaging 30 kids in a classroom, is supporting $225k+ worth of funding at ~$7.5k per kid to K-12 schools in Washington. If the average salary and benefits is $70k per teacher, then where is the other $155k going per teacher? If average class size is 25 kids, then where is the ~$120k going per teacher and classroom?
This state could easily double base salaries and retain benefits if we could cut the waste and cost of bloated education administration and bureaucracy. On average, it would cost less than $50k per teacher.
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could see a detailed audit of Washington State spending on K-12 education? I bet there would be a revolt if people could see where their money is being spent, and why parents seem to have to foot the bill for even the most basic classroom supplies today.
Palouse, I know a teacher who leaves the house at 6:00 AM and doesn't get home by 5:00 PM or later daily. Then she spends another 2-3 hours every night, including weekends, preparing and grading papers for the 150 students she instructs daily. Then there are the calls from the irate and clueless parents who don't understand why Mary or Bobby is failing. Parents who want to blame teachers for their kid's refusal to do their homework or study for a test. She can't afford to be lazy, unprepared, or fail her students, because her job is dependent on her performing. What makes her different than too many teachers in our system today? She doesn't have the benefit of the status that allows her to be a lousy teacher and keep her job. But why do we only demand performance for the first couple years of employment? Name any other critical job in America where you can't be fired after a couple years of employment?
Her effort and outstanding ratings will likely be rewarded in June with a loss of that job as a result of budget cuts and a unionized system that protects people like your friend at the expense of better and highly motivated teachers unprotected with tenure. Not to mention the damage occurring every day to our society as the direct result of a failing public education system that benefits politicians and unions at the expense of our kids.
Posted by: Reality on January 26, 2009 09:30 AMA K-12 teacher today, averaging 30 kids in a classroom, is supporting $225k+ worth of funding at ~$7.5k per kid to K-12 schools in Washington. If the average salary and benefits is $70k per teacher, then where is the other $155k going per teacher? If average class size is 25 kids, then where is the ~$120k going per teacher and classroom?
First off, for 2007-8, there were an average of less than 19 students per classroom certified teacher - not 30. So, your $225k is closer to $143,000. Subtract out about 70K and you get $73,000 so the question is where is that going?
There is an average of one certified administrator per 13 teachers and they get about 50% more pay. Off the top of my head that would be about $8000 of the $73,000 leaving $65,000.
There are classified employees getting paid about 2/7 of what the teachers get paid. These could be teacher's aides, bus drivers, food service, custodians, secretaries, etc. In my experience less than half are teachers' aides or para professionals. The ratio is close to about 75% of the teaching staff are classified. Off the top of my head that would mean that $15,000 of the $65,000 is spent there, leaving $50,000.
Librarians, counselors, occupational therapists, etc. account for about 1/6 of what the number of teachers are and they get paid equivalantly as they are certificated as well so that is about $12000 of the remaining $50,000 leaving $38,000.
I just ran out of time so the rest is likely Construction costs, transportation costs (minus bus drivers as they were already calculated), supplies, maintenance (minus workers), curriculum books, insurance, etc. etc. If I had an hour, I could probably get a very good breakdown of the remaining costs for you, that would be fairly approxiamate.
Posted by: Doug on January 26, 2009 09:56 AMHe's a teacher because he likes it, and no other profession can you get out of work at 3 pm on most days and get that kind of time off. That's incentive enough for teaching - they are not underpaid.
Posted by: Palouse on January 26, 2009 10:10 AMRight after they "double" academic outcomes.
Posted by: Hinton on January 26, 2009 10:29 AMI agree, getting paid more, would also mean working more. That's another reason to fire the administrators. And then teachers could do the work of the administrators, developing curricula that actually work based on their merit and experience, and even doing some basic maintenance of their classrooms, to get rid of another union cleaner or two. That would help them occupy another two months or so, and maybe a benefit would be a month of vaca in July. It could be worked out.
This is how it happens in the private sector. Often, employees wear more than one hat, and are expected to handle a broader set of responsibilities, in return for that high pay. And there would be no shortage of people lined up to teach for that high pay, and even work the longer hours. Because they do that now in other jobs that they might find less rewarding that they would teaching.
Teaching is less of an option now, because the whole structure has abhorred change for decades. The concept of a 9 month school year and union involvement is long outdated. To keep pace with our modern evolving knowledge workforce, our schools should as well. And that means getting rid of the entrenched status quo on all levels.
The point is not to debate the vagaries of the exact numbers of the teachers benefits which have to be worked out, but merely to show that there is more than enough money going towards education, if it actually got to the education part of the antiquated system.
I had a discussion last year with a recently retired Tacoma public schools administrator. She had been in the system for about 20 years. She was incensed that educated parents in certain districts resisted the closure of their school, and felt that they knew better how to get results from their school. As it was, the same school is one of the top performing schools in Tacoma. Most of the parents with kids in that school work in private, or otherwise high paying professional jobs. They understand rigor, detail, assessment, and effective process to get anything done, let alone schooling. They work tirelessly in the classrooms along side teachers, and in many programs after school, etc. to make sure that the school succeeds. And yet this former administrator and her colleagues, all union, with giant pensions, viewed these top performing schools as the "problem" schools because they can't control them as well, or hand down their policies from on high without resistance.
All of this old world schooling model has to go in order to turn around WA schools, and make them successful. Not that I think that is going to happen, but the lack of appropriate use of the existing resources, the same old union entrenched thinking, and a tightening of the state's belt due to Gregoire's deficit, will not be a recipe for success.
Successful organizations try something new when the old way is not working. But more importantly, they first admit that the old way is not working. And they always do so within budget.
Posted by: Jeff B. on January 26, 2009 10:49 AMMy boys attend online school (Washington Virtual Academy) and I am very happy with the flexibility and quality of the education. It allows us to basically home school while ensuring that we meet all of the state guidelines for progress. On top of this, think about the savings of online schools: no building maintenance or transportation issues, no worries about violence or drugs, and larger class sizes are possible. Please contact your legislators and weigh in on this bill. Keep online public schooling as an available option for our kids!
Posted by: PeggyU on January 26, 2009 10:50 AMThe real issue with online public schools is this: school districts lose money when kids opt for online public school. The funds are transferred to the district that runs the online school. I know of a couple of quality online programs (WAVA being one of them) that have seen rapid growth in enrollment. I think the traditional schools are worried over the continued loss of students and are trying to limit their losses by forcing restrictions on distance learning programs.
Posted by: PeggyU on January 26, 2009 11:10 AMIn my neck of the woods, 30 is closer to reality. So maybe we can save a ton of money by closing those schools that are clearly teacher heavy and student light. Of reduce those staffs first until those schools reach the classroom sizes of the schools with higher classroom sizes?
Would you please provide data to back-up your 19 students per teacher ratio? There seems to be some disagreement on methodology to perform what might seem like simple calculations. This from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation:
"Of further interest is the fact that the pupils per total instructional staff ratio is dramatically different from the pupil-per-teacher ratio.
Washington's official pupil-per-teacher ratio is about 20.32 pupils per certified teacher; 16 students per certified staff member. Yet, according to the National Education Association, the actual average class size in Washington state is more than 28 pupils per teacher. This is because pupil-teacher ratio is not necessarily the same as actual class size. The truth of the matter is, data for actual class size is not kept."
If the data is kept, and if our educational system is transparent, where is the data?
Here is EFF's report here.
Posted by: Reality on January 26, 2009 01:12 PMYour friend is probably the greatest teacher in the state, but if he is it is because he makes the effort to be so without the benefit of extra incentives, a need to compete, or concern that he may lose his job. I don't believe that is the norm. It defies common sense to expect personal standards so high from people who work so hard dealing with other peoples' kids and their problems.
My friend is an LASS teacher who believes that writing is essential to learning, and unlike multiple choice or simple answer tests (that she also does plenty of), grading essays, especially 7th graders, is a long process. Yes, she is working to build a new curriculum too, but her job will never be an 8-5 job, until she achieves tenure AND decides that it's not worth the effort.
And no one can claim it won't happen or be all that critical of those who give up. The lack of performance-based employment is what simply allows the mediocrity to grow and be insulated from correction.
Posted by: Realty on January 26, 2009 01:30 PMIt appears that you do not understand the importance of proper management. First off, paying teachers to work more hours in order to reduce the hours you pay for administrative staff does not save money. All you are doing is shifting the revenue to the teachers' union. Secondly, it is a different set of skills to manage budgets, to manage operations and to make other managerial decisions, skills that teachers don't have.
I've been in this business long enough to know that good administrators are rare - only because too often we take senior teaching staff and 'train' them to take over principal roles. The result over 90% of the time is disaster. Usually the first few years they are absolutely horrible - - this from first hand experience.
Thirdly, the ratio of administration/managerial positions in K-12 is far less than it is in the private sector - nearly 50% less, mainly because they are so efficient relative to other commercial enterprises.
Therefore quit being a WEA pawn and fawning for less administration - look at other ways to make the schools more efficient.
Reality,
Where is your neck of the woods? I bet you that if you go to your district office and get a breakdown of all of the classes at every hour of the day, you will find that the average is about 19 - my numbers came from the OSPI website.
Granted you will find some classes, in our school it is 5th and 6th grade and Jr./Sr. High PE classes where we have 26+ students. We also have a handful of classes where there are less than 9 students. K-4 we are looking at 20 and less. But the average is the average.
Do not ever believe what the Unions say about class size. For example, we have a teacher that teaches 28 kids one period, 7 another, 16, 24, and 12. That teacher and the union insists that her classload is 28 kids per FTE, and the union attempts to report it's class size as such.
Before you go offering suggestions on what optimum class size is, be aware that what we have found to be best at the elementary level is to make sure that during math and reading we have 12 kids or less per teacher while during PE, Band, Art, etc. we have 30+ per teacher. There is no reason on earth that school districts cannot get class size down to 12 or less during math and reading (with almost the same amount of funding) as long as they are willing to increase class sizes at other times of the day.
Posted by: Doug on January 26, 2009 02:33 PMI just read a report from the US Census Bureau that helps put an estimate on construction for each of those classrooms. Of the $38,000 left to account for about $19,000 is capital outlays, that leaves $19,000 for tech, books, maintenance, transportation costs, insurance, utilities (which at our school comes out to about $5800 of that $19,000 dropping it to $13,200), supplies, sports programs, etc.
Posted by: Doug on January 26, 2009 03:47 PMWell, this exercise it teaching me something. That is always a good thing, right?
Lake Washington School District
2007-08 school year:
23,722 kids
1,477 classroom teachers
That works out to a ratio of 16.1 teachers per pupil. So where in the heck are all the teachers?
This district spent $201 million in 2007-08, with ~80% going to direct classroom support. That's teachers, instructional assistants;
teaching supplies, materials and textbooks; counselors and librarians; special education and related services; staff development/curriculum development; and the costs of maintaining, cleaning, insuring, and providing technology support to school buildings.
The other ~20% includes 14.2% of the total that pays for building administrators, school support costs (secretaries, office supplies), transportation, food services, student activities and athletics. Another 4.5% of the total funds the superintendent and central office; business and human resources; administrative buildings' utilities, maintenance and technology support. That is a big chunk, or $9 million right there, at the cost equivalent to ~125 teachers. The last 1% of this district's budget supports the community services programs, or another ~25 teachers worth of funding. Are those community services worth more than teachers?
That works out to just under $8,500 per student, and not the assumed $7,500 I used earlier, with $6,800 direct classroom support.
Unfortunately, the annual budget neglects to spell out specific teacher compensation expenditures, or break down the budget beyond "Regular Education" versus everything else. Regular Education accounts for just 58% of the total, with 42% of the district spending on things like Special Ed ($21 million - part of what pays my friend's salary), vocational programs ($4 million), Student Achievement ($10.2 million - part of what also pays my friend's salary), Support Services ($22.4 million), Food Services ($6 million), and Transportation ($7.1 million).
If a teacher typically does 5/6 of a full day, and if classes are filled with 30 kids, I'd not expect a teacher to pupil ratio to be lower than a teacher for every 25 pupils. What do I base classroom size on?
My two kids in High School don't have a class that is much less than 30 kids. My third child in Junior High is in the same situation. All three have Math classes of ~30, and their K-6 was always in the range of 25+ a full day with the same teacher. And back to my friend who teaches the LASS; teaches 2 1/2 blocks (5 classes - 5/6 of the school day) with just under 90 total kids, or roughly ~29 a class.
So I figure there are about 9 pupil/teachers unaccounted for, or about 36% of the teacher labor force that I can't get a handle on. Where are they?
I do know that special needs kids invoke a huge effort and cost on the part of schools and classrooms. And perhaps the ratios are being blown apart by the extra teachers hired to address special programs that have them out of the classrooms. But I also know that my friend teaches that ~29 kids that includes 10% of the total kids she has who have to be given special assignments, tests, and extra support at the expense of the rest of the class. No extra teachers or aids are there to help whatsoever.
Finally, I also know that one of the threats to my friend's job are "teachers" that are out of the classroom today that would be forced back if all these cuts are made to special programs. So if they're out of the classroom now, then they really shouldn't be counted in teacher to pupil ratios, should they? But I still have to ask what are these teachers doing if they're not teaching?
What do you think the $55k for Native American Consortium does for the cost of a teacher? Or the Promoting Academic Success for the cost of another 4 teachers? Head Start preschool costs 8 teachers, with 30 teachers worth of funding spent on Community Services. Huh?
Posted by: Realty on January 26, 2009 04:40 PMI just have a few minutes then I have to go coach some kids so just a couple points for now:
Your school's budget is actually extremely detailed - it's hundreds of pages and if you knew how to read it (takes a few hours to get the gist of it), it will tell you exactly what is spent and why for each teacher and program.
If the high school you refer to is on block scheduling you could be experiencing another issue. Many schools went to a block schedule that actually decreased the amount of time teachers spent in the class and increased the amount of prep-time they have. This would tend to greatly increase the number of students per class because it would make less teachers available per period. That's a school board mistake if it's happening there.
It's a shame that your kids in the secondary are in math classes around 30 kids, here we call that bassackwards - no doubt your school has art and drama classes with just a dozen in them. Classroom teachers don't include librarians, counselors, etc. though they are certificated. you will find that librarians especially will actually teach a couple classes a day - at the elementary providing get away time for the class teachers.
Student teacher ratios only count teachers by FTE, meaning full time equivilent, thus a teacher has to teach a full day (minus prep time) to be in the count. If a teacher only teaches half a day, then they only count as 1/2 a FTE for the ratio purpose. Same thing with the students, at any time your school likely has a thousand half-time students - they only count has half students in the student count.
Your last paragraph refers to Grants. Many private organizations or the Federal govt. write these grants and good school administration will try to get as much of that money as they can. If you didn't have that, then your school would just have less money and some other school would be getting those funds.
Posted by: Doug on January 26, 2009 05:00 PM