Funding task force, changing dynamics . . .

texastribune.org

In a Partnership for Learning update I learned about the progress that may or may not have been made in last week's meeting of the Joint Task Force on Education Funding.  This is the group with the responsibility to make recommendations by Dec. 31st on options and a preferred alternative for meeting the state's obligation to adequately fund education under the McCleary decision.  The committee is made up of four members of the state house and state senate, two from each party and three governor appointees.  The actual members can be found on page 6 of this presentation outlining the work of the task force.

As I shared in this recent post, the decisions made by the task force will influence what emerges from the upcoming session and the November 20 meeting may be an indicator of what is to come.  In this Crosscut article we learn that what up to now has been a collaborative effort took a different turn.

For the first time, the realities of partisanship became clear at the November 20 meeting of the Joint Task Force on Education Funding. Halfway through the meeting, the four Democratic legislative members of the body called for a private caucus. Heretofore,meetings have been conducted in a non-partisan fashion.

After a 30 minute break, they returned with a number of suggested changes to the three “strawman” budget proposals for basic education enhancements and funding sources that had been developed by task force chair Jeff Vincent and vice-chair Susan Enfield. Vincent, CEO of Laird Norton Company, and Enfield, Highline School’s Superintendent, are gubernatorial appointees to the task force.

The "strawman" proposals being referred to were presented at the meeting by the joint chairs of the task force.  They proposed three options as a starting point for the committee's consideration.  Each is a combination of savings, changes to or increasing property taxes, continuing some temporary taxes and the possibility of a new state tax.

One of the first issues that needs to be resolved is how much money is needed to meet the state's funding obligations.  In the "strawman" proposals that can be found here the chairs begin with a chart projecting the need over the next three bienniums.  Their proposal includes compensation increases something that all may not agree with as we see in this Tacoma News Tribune article.  The proposals are weighted to new revenue sources, not cuts to other budget areas.


The panel's first challenge is to put a dollar figure on what's needed. There's broad agreement that that must include extra money for school busing, facilities, all-day kindergarten and reduction of class sizes in lower grades, but other areas don't have consensus, including pay for educators.

Depending on those decisions, the sum could be $1.1 billion, $1.6 billion or even higher in the two-year budget period starting in July, ramping up through 2018. That's on top of an existing $900 million budget shortfall.

Below is the proposal for funding need presented at the meeting.  It includes compensation increases to classified and certificated staff that pushes it to the $1.6 billion range in the next biennium.  The numbers for "Outlook balance" are the projected budget shortfall that will greet legislators in each the bienniums.  The remaining lines identify the areas where additional revenue is needed.

Below is Straw Man #1 found here.

We can see that it will take billions over these years to meet the funding obligations and that at some point in time, partisanship will more than likely eclipse collaboration as the favored road to closure.  So many twists and turns and so much that will be determined outside the public's view are part of our future.  A reliance on tax increases will create a divide in the legislature and with some of the tax increases being proposed requiring a two thirds vote of the legislators, it is unlikely that they will become part of the solution.  After all of this, we may see the legislators punt by giving us another chance to vote on possible tax increases, something that I believe we elect representatives, senators, and governors to do.

Next meeting of the Task Force is on December 5th.  I'll watch for an update.

Learning more about future national assessments . . .

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, of which our state is a member, released today their definition of college-readiness and the descriptors of achievement that will influence the assessments our students will take beginning in 2015.  You can read about their release on the consortium's web page or read a summary in this Education Week article.  The work of this group and the other consortium, PARCC, will drive testing at the national level.


Reshaping Tests, College Coursework

These steps by both groups are important, because they will shape the design of the tests that nearly all students in the country will take in mathematics and English/language arts, define what students should know how to do at key points in their education, and carry powerful signals about whether they can skip remedial work in college and enroll in entry-level, credit-bearing courses. 

The Smarter Balanced tests will have four achievement levels as measured by this Grade 11 Policy Framework for College Readiness.  You can find the details on college content readiness and the English language arts/literacy descriptors here.

Below is an example for Grade 6 of the Mathematics Target; Understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems.  You can find the mathematics document here.

It is important to note that these are draft documents with much work yet to be done.  Smarter Balanced is seeking public feedback through January 15th.  If you have the time to peruse the work and would like to provide feedback, you can complete the survey here.  These are important documents because they provide additional information and guidance on what students will need to know and be able to do on the Common Core assessments.  Please share with us what you are learning from the documents in this important release.

State fiscal cliff . . .

There were two interesting education pieces in the last two issues of the Seattle Times on topics I have posted on before.  In this Saturday piece, Donna Gordon Blankenship talks about the $1 billion that legislators must come up with in this biennium to meet the State Supreme Court's order in the McCleary case to pay for basic education reform by 2018.  This is a big issue that they face considering budget projections in the same biennium project a shortfall of $900.  How will  they meet this goal under these very difficult conditions?


A committee of lawmakers has been meeting since summer to discuss their options for responding to the ruling. The Joint Task Force on Education Funding basically has two choices: cut state spending or raise taxes or fees.

The long list of possible cuts include some options that are controversial. Those include cuts to the state higher education system, supervision of all parolees or preschool or health insurance for poor children.

"Most of this stuff is not going to happen. It just doesn't make sense," says Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina and the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.


Can they meet the court's requirement without raising taxes?  Will Governor-elect Inslee back off of his election promise to not raise taxes?  Another twist to this huge issue is found in today's editorial questioning the capacity of the House and Senate education chairs capacity to provide leadership for education reform given their performance in the last session.


The education committees must function without the drag of recalcitrant leaders.
McAuliffe and Tomiko Santos have been passed up by the circumstances of the McCleary decision and voters’ embrace of charter schools — and the will of their colleagues who have been successful in working around them. 
Expect more of that if legislative leaders keep them in their seats.

There is no time to waste.

Though not as ominous as the national fiscal cliff, our state is also facing a fiscal cliff.  The court has made their decision and the focus now shifts to Olympia in January.  I believe that we will see proposals calling for major cuts to other state services, some so deep that there will be major push back and aggressive lobbying. It will take more than leadership to find solutions to these major budget issues.  It will take collaboration and adaptive solutions, things that have not been the norm in state politics.  The tentative nature of the democrat's control of the senate may make these adaptive solutions possible or it may make it more difficult.  This cliff will have a greater influence on public education in our state than the one capturing headlines at the national level.

Family, food, and . . .

followthebible.com

I'm sitting in my chair watching my Grandson play with the dog after a day of family, food, and football.  We went to our Daughters for a wonderful dinner where I carved the turkey, cut the prime rib, and filled plate after plate while watching a not so good football game.  Listened to old family stories and saw some new ones being made as the grand kids wrestled around with their uncle.  My Grandson believes he finally won as he recounted the story multiple times on the way home.

So much to be thankful for in my life with family and food high on the list.  Football comes in a bit lower, certainly after the gift of being part of our school system.  For one evening, I feel fully content and so thankful.  Hope your day was also one filled with family, friends, food, and . . .  Sorry about those Cowboys Scott.  

A story about our teachers . . .

Thank you to Katherine for commenting on my post requesting readers to share stories and insights into our school system and the cultures that we have created.  Her comments are from someone new to our system who grew up and went to school in a neighboring district.  Her answer to what makes us different can be found in the following words.

I attended a neighboring district in the 90's and early 2000's and the vibe there was completely different. At the high school I attended I felt like everything was about the WASL - and I graduated in 2007, before passing was a requirement for graduation - once we passed it didn't seem like they cared about us anymore. I don't get that feeling here. From what I've seen the teachers here are passionate and invested in their students and I think the students feel that. 

Compared to her personal high school experience our teachers care about their students and the work they do.  I believe this is true in all of our buildings.  It is why no matter how old the building or how many students we put into crowded spaces, parents are supportive of THEIR school and THEIR teachers.  I hear this in our PTA Roundtable meetings and in the community.

Katherine identifies an attribute of the culture that we are creating for our young people.  Why is what she sees and hears in our schools different from her experience in what she describes as a good school district?  What mental models result in these teacher behaviors and what are we doing systemically that influences these mental models?  Perhaps Katherine's sharing will influence others to share their stories.  There certainly are many more out there and I have the patience and persistence to continue trying to pull them out as long as I get a comment every so often.

News from NEWS . . .

I'm on the Network for Excellence in Washington Schools (NEWS) e-mail list.  This is the organization behind the McCleary lawsuit that is forcing the state legislators to meet their constitutional requirement to fund schools under the ESHB 2261 vision.  In a recent e-mail from the organization they shared some data and charts showing the gap between current funding and the funding required under the lawsuit.  The gap is very large as can be seen in the chart below from the e-mail.  The remaining charts can be found here.

The red line is the funding level when the legislation was enacted and the bars are the targets to move to fully funded by the 2017-18 school year.  The data shows the huge gap and the lack of progress on meeting targets thus far.  How will legislators and the newly elected governor close this gap and meet targets in the biennium that begins in January?  That task has become even more difficult based on the information in this Seattle Times editorial.  Facing a $900 million shortfall makes closing the gap much more difficult especially given the governor-elects no new tax promise.  We are approaching a point where public school funding must change.  The State Supreme Court and organizations like NEWS have made it clear that the current reality will not be possible to maintain, it must be replaced by "steady progress" towards the legislator's own vision for schools of the future.  It will be interesting to view how they meet these competing commitments from a distance.

Well, still no comments to my last post when I asked for readers to share stories and experiences about our journey as a school system.  This was actually the second request.  Perhaps I should let it go, but I am going to try and prime the pump by sharing what for me is a decision that has had a lasting influence on who we are.  Who knows, maybe the faucet will open and readers will share stories of their own.  My request continues by again asking you to consider responding to the following.

Which of these initiatives, interactions, and decisions have had a significant and lasting impact on the culture of our school system? Many of us believe that Tahoma is a great place for kids and for the adults that work with and for them. Why do we believe that? What do we do or not do that may be different than other systems? What story can you tell that helps define who we are, what drives our behavior, and who we aspire to be? 

There are many stories I could tell related to our work with the leadership of both TEA and PSE, but I believe that the decision to align our stated belief in collaboration with contract language was one of those times.  Many of us talk about the importance of collaboration in our work and the need for staff to have the opportunity to influence critical decisions at the building and department level, but it often does not result in consistent behavior that demonstrates this belief over time.

I can remember many years ago deciding that to move forward we must find ways for staff to see that collaboration is more than just words, it is a core belief, the foundation of our work.  When I first began to work with district bargainers and the administrative team on consensus decision making and then made the decision to embed this process into both negotiated agreements, it was not supported by all administrators.  The parking lot conversations were not positive and some were wondering if I was crazy.  I can imagine there were those thinking he isn't ready or doesn't have what it takes to be a superintendent.  Principals and department supervisors were forced to give up much autonomy and power and found themselves needing to facilitate the very conversations that resulted in the need to share.  The language below changed their world in a short period of time.

I don't believe that there are many bargaining units that have had the experience of district bargainers recommending an article on consensus and the subsequent language where our shared values are articulated. Is it working?  How do principals and supervisors feel today, especially those that were here when the language was first negotiated?  How is it working for teachers and classified staff?  I  believe that the decision to negotiate this language was a critical fork in the road on our journey, one that continues to influence who we are and how we respond to the issues that emerge as we move forward on this sometimes rocky path.

Does this example help you think of others at the system, building , or department level that contribute to the cultures in our system?  If not, I'll live by the three strikes rule and let this be my last request on this topic.