Taking the teeth out of teacher reform

Mike Rosen, a popular Denver Post writer, says, "Crying wolf over tenure reform." If you aren't familiar with it, the law that just passed in Colorado (SB 10-191) was originally designed to make tenure more difficult as well as change the way teachers are evaluated to make sure that bad teachers can be fired. Of course, there is still no reward for good teachers, another subject that I've written about here.

Rosen notes that the Colorado Education Association finally dropped its opposition to the bill once a few amendments were made. It's not unusual for bills to be amended before they finally pass, but check these out.

Teachers who receive a poor evaluation two years in a row can be fired, but also have the right to appeal. Teachers who are fired receive two years of severance pay. That's right--two years. I was laid off once even though I was a high performing employee. My recollection is that I got two or three weeks of pay. When I fire someone in a real job, they get NO severance pay. Why are we rewarding poor performance and not high performance? Can you imagine the conversation between a principal and a teacher?

PRINCIPAL: "Hey, if you do a great job, we'll let you keep your job. If you screw up and get fired, we'll pay you for two years for doing nothing."

TEACHER: "Gosh, if that's the choice, I think I'll screw up and get fired."

I'm not criticizing teachers as a group here. It's human nature to want something for nothing. If you told me that I could either do a great job running the finances for a school and work my behind off or get fired and get full salary (and benefits and inflation increases) for two years while I "look" for a new job (nod and wink here), I know which one I'd take. Sure, I'll go look for a job as soon as I get back from my three month vacation in Tahiti.

Of course, there is a catch. Bad teachers may have to wait to enjoy their two year paid vacation. The law won't actually go into effect until a 15 member committee defines what an effective and ineffective teacher is. That means a bad teacher may have to wait another three years to be fired, then get his or her two year vacation. Not bad. Three years of pay for doing a lousy job, then a paid two year vacation. Where else can you get that deal? And this is teacher reform?

The flow of money in schools

It's a question that's been around since charter schools started. Whose money is it?

One Georgia school district says, "It is taking $400,000 away from our children. ... Over ten years, this is $4 million.” Two Georgia district (and more may follow) are fighting the decision that declared that the Georgia Charter School Commission has the ability to set up schools within district and that the schools can be funded with money from those districts.

It still makes sense to me that if a district is serving fewer kids, then it should get less money. Holding the money for educating kids ransom is really just another way of saying that we don't want parents to have the freedom to choose something other than what we provide.

Monopolies are illegal in almost every sector, but schools want to have monopolies because they don't want to have to be creative with budgets or recognize that people are disappointed in them. It's well documented in business that a loyal customer is hard to lose. Perhaps if schools spent more time trying to satisfy parents and students rather their internal constituents, the demand for charter schools would go away.

Imagine Schools continues to draw fire because of its real estate practices

In a recent The Answer Sheet column in the Washington Post, Imagine's real estate practices are questioned. The for profit management company also runs a real estate arm that sells buildings to charter schools and leases them back.

This is common practice among charter school who have their own building corporations, but then there is a vested interest in saving money and putting as little money into the building corporation as is necessary.

The claim against Imagine is that as it is a for profit business, there is no incentive to save the school money on the building or lease rates.

It does bring up an interesting question about how much of an arm's length transaction there can be, especially when the school is funded with tax payer money. It's one thing if there is a competitive bid for services, but in this case Imagine operates as a single source provider, which can be convenient, but at what cost?

Until a formal review of Imagine's business strategy and practices is given a formal review this debate will continue to rage on.

Imagine there's no...

With apologies to John Lennon and The Beatles, but sometimes I need to imagine when I read stories like this.

Imagine there's no corruption
It's easy if you try
No greedy leaders
In the public eye
Imagine honest people
Leading schools today...

Imagine there's integrity
It isn't hard to do
Only students to live for
And funds are not for you
Imagine honest people
Leading charter schools...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And ed reform will be one.

Imagine no mis-possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or plunder
of the education plan
Imagine honest people
Spending on the kids...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the charter world will be a better place.

Charter Insights presents...

Here are links to presentations we gave at the Arizona Charter School Business Conference at the end of April. The conference was put on by the Arizona Charter School Association.

We appreciate the invitation to speak there again.

How not to Bankrupt your school
http://prezi.com/ciuhjpxwippd/

Life Cycles and Financial Strategies
http://prezi.com/treqjb_a1d3n/

Arizona makes a bold move for hybrids

No, not fuel efficient cars. Hybrid classes. A new Arizona law will allow all schools to offer online courses K-12.

Arizona is looking at both the needs of current students who need flexibility as well as future students. Demand for online courses is expected to balloon over the next decade.

It's tough to say what this will do to existing virtual only schools in Arizona. It's possible that this law will cause those programs to lose students. On the other hand, it's possible that existing schools and districts, as well as new schools seeking to use online in innovative ways, can use this law to maintain their current enrollment and community.

For example, there seem to be three real possibilities. One is a program in which students take courses formatted for part classroom interaction and part online interaction. This is similar to what is being done at The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs. (Note this is a shameless advertisement for my co-blogger's College Pathways program.) The other is a program that allows students to pick and choose between a combination of classroom based and online courses. Yet a third model would be for the instructional leaders at a school or district to determine which courses might best be structured as online and which might best be structured as classroom based. This would mean that students would be required to experience learning in both modes.

Of course, those are only three ideas of mine. There are many possible ways that leaders could take this opening to design new schools or new programs. For now, Arizona seems to be taking the lead to promote what seems to be the future.