A Teacher Testifies in Opposition to House Bill 2426, the Charter School Bill

Eric Muhs, a teacher in the Seattle Public School district, braved the ice and snow on Friday, January 20th, with several other brave souls to provide testimony regarding House Bill 2426, the charter school bill. To follow is what he stated:

Hello. My name is Eric Muhs. I teach physics & astronomy at Ballard High School in Seattle. I’ve been teaching for 25 years, and achieved National Board Certification 5 years ago. I work 70 hours a week, and was in the news last year for leading a group of students in placing an experiment aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. I teach with a great science department, all of whom work harder than I do.

First of all, my thanks to the committee for the most excellent series of snow days. I know the budget is tight, but if you can throw a few more our way this winter, my students and & I solemnly promise to use the time wisely.

But I have to say I am beyond disappointed to spend my day off testifying about charter legislation. Again. 3 times rejected by voters is, what, not enough? Folks, charter schools were cool 20 years ago. Research, most famously the Stanford Credo study, has not been kind to charter schools in the interim. This is a futuristic express train from the 1990’s that you’re trying to buy a ticket on.

I remind you that you haven’t actually funded public education fully. That’s not just me saying that, is it? You have not backed us, you have starved us. Now, you want to bring another mouth to this table, to share this too-small bowl of thin soup?

Charter school selling point: smaller class sizes, individual attention. Well, I’ve got 12% more students than a year ago. That’s not just me: we’ve seen our resources cut deeper each of the last 3 years.

I work in a building with a leaking roof. I’m scared to go in on Monday and see what the damage is. Plus, I’ve been off so long, I’ve forgotten my computer login.

My district, Seattle Public Schools, has over a half billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance. That you would consider diverting even a nickel toward charter schools, a nationwide enterprise where we have two decades of overall very middling, unimpressive, C- results, fills my little heart with dirty, filthy, wet, slushy slush.

You want to see us do better? Get us some real, bona-fide, State constitution-mandated resources.

Smaller classes, of course.

Better trained and experienced teachers, of course. With time for collaboration. With time for kids with special needs.

Graduation specialists, that establish relationships with struggling kids and see them through.

College, career, internship, & employment specialists, that help students transition to the world beyond high school.

Attendance specialists, that help get kids in school and keep them there.

Teaching specialists that run math tutorial centers outside of class time, and that keep school libraries open.

Trained Instructional assistants that can help students transition from their 80 native languages to English.

Full day kindergarten, and early childhood specialists.

Thank-you

Post Script:

Mr. Muhs will be part of a grade-in on Wednesday, February 1st, at the Westlake mall food court. You can check out what teachers do in their “spare time”.

Serious Substantive Flaws With Charter School Bill HB 2428

A Parents Across America-Tacoma member provided this information on House Bill 2426 regarding charter schools. After reading this, please contact your legislators today and let them know that charter schools in our state are not a good idea. The list of education committee members in both the Washington State House and Senate are  listed at the end of this post

To follow is the post:

We have all heard the arguments for and against charter schools. Whatever your feelings on this hot button issue, there are substantial deficiencies in this particular piece of charter school legislation. If you support charter schools generally, I hope that you will set these feelings aside and look critically at HB 2428. We cannot afford to enact this extremely problematic bill.

My criticisms of this legislation, outlined below, deal with particular, substantive issues within the legislation itself. I would like to discuss the bill itself without engaging in an abstract debate on the merits and disadvantages of charters.

HB 2428 is really two almost entirely separate bills: one that addresses the establishment of voluntary charter schools, and another that creates an involuntary “Transformation Zone District” for persistently low performing schools. Because the standards and rules for these two sections are very different, I will deal with them separately.

VOLUNTARY CHARTERS

Charter schools can be “authorized” under this bill by any one of three types of entities: 1) school districts 2) colleges and universities, or 3) a (to be created) charter school commission, appointed by the legislature. Although schools do have to show some evidence of community support for a charter, there is no requirement that a school district approve a charter within its boundaries.

A charter can be revoked by a school’s authorizer if it fails to meet the performance framework set out in this bill, however I do not see any provision for closure based on budgetary constraints or changing neighborhood demographics. Many of our urban school districts have made painful school closure decisions in the past few years. Those of us who have experienced this in our own districts know how damaging school closures can be to a community. Under this legislation, a school district (especially if not the authorizer) would no longer have the authority to consider a charter for financially-motivated closure. The effect: If a charter school moves in to a neighborhood with an existing public school and changing budgets and demographics cannot support two schools, the existing public school will be the one to close, regardless of performance factors.

Under 2428, charter schools would have a right of first refusal to purchase any unused school buildings a district is selling off. Because school buildings are sold due to low enrollment, a charter would actually be more likely to be established in a neighborhood that cannot support additional students. Although students would be permitted to attend a charter regardless of their geographical proximity, there is no provision for additional transportation for out of neighborhood students.

Closing a charter school for inadequate performance would also be no easy task. HB 2428 establishes a right to counsel and legal process for charter schools, including the right to call witnesses. School districts, public universities and state commissions all have very tight budgets with little room for such a process. We have all heard the assertion that school districts do not want to fire inadequate teachers because of union due process requirements, I cannot imagine that this process would not be considerably more cumbersome and expensive.

An additional concern: although the bill does require that charters be managed by not for profit organizations, they are explicitly granted the right to contract with any entity for goods and services. Perhaps I missed it, but I do not see any provision requiring that only not for profit organizations can provide educational services.

INVOLUNTARY CHARTERS (Transformation Zone District Schools)

HB 2428 would establish a state-wide district, the “Transformation Zone.” Each year, a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 schools would be identified for transformation, from the annual list of persistently lowest achieving schools. Currently, this list only consists of 57 schools, but schools currently receiving School Improvement Grant money will be eligible for it again as this funding ends. The legislation does not specify what happens after all or substantially all schools on the list have been identified for transformation.

“Transformed” schools are plucked out of their home districts and taken over by the state, under the management of a Learning Management Organization. (Essentially, a charter) As part of this process, all existing teacher contracts are non-renewed. School districts cannot appeal the decision to transform a school, except to attempt to prove that a school does not meet the basic criteria.

For an example of why this doesn’t make sense, consider the example of “Persistently Lowest Achieving School” Rowena Chess Elementary, in Pasco. At Rowena Chess, 97.3% of students are low-income, 68.2% are transitional bilingual, and 17.3% of students are from migrant families. In other words, were Rowena Chess to be transformed, its teachers would find themselves displaced due to the test scores of students who do not speak the language of the test and in many cases have not lived in the district (and possibly the country) for more than a few months. In their place, the state will establish a new school with new teachers who will face the same challenges with an ever-shifting population of kids. A teacher in this situation may do an excellent job making a difference for individual students in the time she has with them, but our accountability system is not designed to make that determination.

“Transformation Zone” schools can be returned to their home district after three continuous years of improvement. Take some time to look at the state report card for your local schools, and you will note that scores generally oscillate quite a bit from year to year, even in very high-achieving schools. In reality, a school is likely to take quite a bit longer than three years to show three continuous years of performance improvements, even if the general trend is positive.

If the general trend is negative, there is no provision for returning a school to its home district. An individual learning management organization may lose its contract, but another will take its place. In other words, if Transformation Zone schools do not turn out to be better than their traditional public school predecessors, there is nothing a local community can do about it.

Transformation Zone schools have to hold meetings with parent advisory groups, but there is no locally elected school board or other mechanism to give these meetings any teeth.

After 5 years, there will be a minimum of 50 schools in the transformation zone district, or the equivalent of one district the size of Tacoma. (The third largest in the state) Most schools will likely stay there for quite some time.

There are many things that I find alarming about this piece of legislation, but the above are the highlights. I hope you will take the time to read the bill yourself and come to your own decisions about it, independent of your general feelings about charter schools.

Jennifer Boutell

Member, PAA-Tacoma

Post Script:

Please contact your legislators today and let them know about the real issues with this bill. Time is of the essence:

On the house side, the committee on education contact information is:

santos.sharontomiko@leg.wa.gov;

kristine.lytton@leg.wa.gov;

fred.finn@leg.wa.gov;

andy.billig@leg.wa.gov;

sam.hunt@leg.wa.gov;

connie.ladenburg@leg.wa.gov;

maxwell.marcie@leg.wa.gov;

john.mccoy@leg.wa.gov;

probst.tim@leg.wa.gov

And for the Republicans, who do not publish their e-mail addresses, you can call Julia Kwon and leave a message,             360.786.7292

The Washington State Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education:

Chair

Rosemary.McAuliffe@leg.wa.gov;

Vice Chair

Christine.Rolfes@leg.wa.gov;

Committee Members

Steve.Litzow@leg.wa.gov;

Tracey.Eide@leg.wa.gov;

joe.fain@leg.wa.gov;

Nick.Harper@leg.wa.gov;

andy.hill@leg.wa.gov;

Steve.Hobbs@leg.wa.gov;

king.curtis@leg.wa.gov;

sharon.nelson@leg.wa.gov;

Rodney.Tom@leg.wa.gov

Dora

According to NAEP, Our Students Are Improving

One final thought regarding test scores and teacher evaluations before I move back to the  proposed charter school bill in our state.

From the Economic Policy Institute blog,  ‘Reformers’ playbook on failing schools fails a fact check, an excerpt:

Education “reformers” have a common playbook. First, assert without evidence that regular public schools are “failing” and that large numbers of regular (unionized) public school teachers are incompetent. Provide no documentation for this claim other than that the test score gap between minority and white children remains large. Then propose so-called reforms to address the unproven problem – charter schools to escape teacher unionization and the mechanistic use of student scores on low-quality and corrupted tests to identify teachers who should be fired.

The mantra has been endlessly repeated by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and by “reform” leaders like former Washington and New York schools chancellors Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein. Bill Gates’ foundation gives generous grants to school systems and private education advocates who adopt the analysis. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel makes the argument, and in New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has frequently sung the same tune.

And now, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has joined in. On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last week, the governor cast attacks on unionized teachers as a defense of minority students against the adult bureaucracy. “It’s about the children,” Mr. Cuomo said. Because of failing public schools, “the great equalizer that was supposed to be the public education system can now be the great discriminator.”

And now, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has joined in. On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last week, the governor cast attacks on unionized teachers as a defense of minority students against the adult bureaucracy. “It’s about the children,” Mr. Cuomo said. Because of failing public schools, “the great equalizer that was supposed to be the public education system can now be the great discriminator.”

But this applause line about school failure is an “urban myth.” The governor, mayor and other policymakers have neglected to check facts they assume to be true. As a result, they may be obsessed with the wrong challenges, while exacerbating real, but overlooked problems.

Careful examination discloses that disadvantaged students have made spectacular progress in the last generation, in regular public schools, with ordinary teachers. Not only have regular public schools not been “the great discriminator” – they continue to make remarkable gains for minority children at a time when our increasingly unequal social and economic systems seem determined to abandon them.

We have only one accurate performance measure. The government administers periodic reading and math tests to samples of fourth, eighth and 12th graders. Called the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, pronounced “nape”), it is less subject to corruption than standardized tests now legally required of all schoolchildren.

NAEP samples are only large enough to produce reliable national and (for fourth and eighth graders) state estimates, but not for classrooms or schools. Thus, principals or teachers suffer no consequences for poor NAEP scores, giving them no incentive to steal time from instruction to drill on NAEP-type questions.

Not every selected student gets identical NAEP questions. Scores aggregate answers from different students’ booklets, covering different topics from the math and reading curriculums. In contrast, state and city standardized tests change little each year; teachers can predict which of many topics will likely appear, and focus instruction on those.

Here’s what NAEP shows: Average black fourth graders’ math performance in regular public schools has improved so much that it now exceeds average white performance as recently as 1992. The improvement has been greatest for the lowest achievers, those in the bottom 10 percent. Eighth graders show similar, though less dramatic trends. The black-white gap has narrowed little because whites have also improved.

These irrefutable facts characterize both the nation as a whole, and New York State specifically. In fact, New York State’s black children made enormous gains in the 1990′s, and much slower gains once the federal No Child Left Behind, and Mayor Bloomberg’s and Chancellor Klein’s test-based reforms kicked in. From 1992 to 2003, for example, black fourth graders’ math performance jumped 22 scale points (about two-thirds of a standard deviation). From 2003 to 2011, the gain was only 5 scale points.

To read the article in full, go to ‘Reformers’ playbook on failing schools fails a fact check.