Senate Education Committee: "No" to New MFP!

The Senate Education Committee deferred action on approving the new Minimum Foundation Program, (MFP, House Concurrent Resolution 18)  at its meeting on Thursday, June 4. This could be a serious problem for all public schools this fall because mandated cost increases may cause many school systems serious budget shortfalls.

This blog has repeatedly pointed out that local school systems have been required to take on most of the burden of the Unfunded Accrued Liability (UAL) of the teacher and school employees retirement systems in recent years. This is a problem that has been caused by the legislature, not by school boards. The legislature in past years has often approved benefits to groups and individuals that were not properly funded by the legislature. This practice has caused the growth of the unfunded accrued liability. That is the future cost that must be paid out to retirees that was not fully funded by the contributions that have been made to the retirement systems. To resolve the problem, the legislature has mandated that local school boards must each year pay a portion of the cost to erase this unfunded liability by the year 2029. To make matters worse, the legislature has exempted charter schools (which are also supposed to be public schools) from participating in the retirement systems and making their share of the payments to retire the UAL. This puts a greater and greater burden on our elected school boards, but gives the charters a free ride. Last year, the payments to the unfunded accrued liability amounted to more than 25% of payroll. Since payroll is more than 80% of each school board budget, you can see what a big chunk is being taken out the real public school budgets.

In addition to the UAL, school boards have been hit with increased costs of group insurance, and more mandated costs in special education services. As part of preparation for the PARCC testing school boards have been forced to add computers and upgraded internet access. The new tests were supposed to eventually be administered totally online. Special education is another service often not fully provided by charter schools. Often parents of students with disabilities have been counseled by charter school administrators to send their children to the real public schools that cannot refuse to serve such students. This again has placed a bigger burden on the real public schools. A lawsuit was recently decided in favor of parents in the 100% charter operated RSD that claimed that the children of that system were not being provided adequate special education services.

The new MFP approved by BESE would have added 36 million dollars to help pay the extra costs that have been mandated to local school boards over recent years. Another portion of the growth of the MFP was dedicated to projected increases in student enrollments.

At some point, within the next week, the entire Senate will be voting on the state budget which should include the MFP. If the new MFP is not approved, the funding will remain the same as last year. This will unfairly place all these increases in mandated costs on our local school boards.

PLEASE SEND EMAILS OR MAKE PHONE CALLS TO YOUR SENATOR AND URGE HIM/HER TO VOTE FOR FULL FUNDING OF THE NEW MFP. THIS IS VITAL TO THE PROPER FUNDING OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THERE IS NO BETTER INVESTMENT WE CAN MAKE FOR THE FUTURE OF LOUISIANA THAN TO PROPERLY FUND OUR SCHOOLS.

Great Facebook Page on how to "flip BESE"

OK readers, it's time to stop complaining about the harmful actions of BESE and start doing something about it!

I am asking all my readers who live in Louisiana to please go to the Flip BESE Facebook page and "like" this page so that you can be kept informed about important challenges to the present majority on BESE as we get closer to the BESE elections. The BESE elections of all 8 elected members occur on the same date as the elections for governor and members of the legislature. This effort is absolutely critical to the future of our public education system, to democratic control of our public education dollars, and to the future of a strong and productive teaching profession in Louisiana!

A terrific graphic for the Flip BESE site was developed by highly talented Amy Lemoine, a public school parent in the Lafayette area. Here is what motivated Amy to launch the web site:

"After watching the behavior of the current BESE members over the last few years, it became apparent that BESE would have to be turned upside down (flipped) in order to shake free from the current voting trends that have been very negative to our public education system. Louisiana needs BESE members who represent all parents, teachers, and students. We feel that the majority represent special interests and the reform movement, rather than the majority of their constituents."

Ms Lemoine envisions the following efforts: "Come October, the members who occupy the eight elected BESE seats will be decided on in voting booths across the state. The candidates that we should avoid like the plague will likely have the high dollar supporters who will see to it that an abundance of commercials and signs are bought. The good guys need any help they can get to help get their name out there. My hope is that Flip BESE can be some of that needed help. We will share facts about current BESE members and the candidates that will be, in our opinion, the best hope to turn things around."

There are now three new announced candidates for BESE that would help to "Flip BESE" to give the parents, voters and educators excellent representation in making decisions that strengthen our public schools and support teaching as a profession. They are Lee Barrios for District 1, Jason France for District 6, and Michael Kreamer for District 7. If you are not sure about your voting BESE district, the Flip BESE web site gives you a map that would allow you to find your district. As a very accurate alternative just go to the legilative web site here and fill in your address to get a precise ID of your BESE district as well as your Representative and Senatorial districts.

The candidates that have announced so far in the effort to flip BESE are:

Jason France, of Baton Rouge was the first to announce that he is running in District 6 against Chas Roemer. Jason is a former Department of Education employee who is extremely well informed about the management of education in Louisiana. Jason launched the Crazy Crawfish blog a couple of years ago which he has used effectively to expose some of the unethical actions of Superintendent John White in dealing with the often corrupt voucher schools and in showing favoritism in enforcing the VAM teacher evaluation system. Jason has also blogged in his role as a parent, demonstrating the serious flaws in the new Common Core standards. Jason was the first to announce his candidacy in an effort to change the emphasis of BESE from representing only the rich and powerful who want to privatize our education system for the benefit of corrupt "entrepreneurs" to representing the real stakeholders in public education: students, parents and taxpayers.

Lee Barrios, of St. Tammany Parish is a retired board certified teacher with experience in teaching gifted and talented is running in BESE District 1 against incumbent James Garvey . Ms Barrios is an activist who regularly attends BESE meeting and speaks in opposition to predatory charters and against the serious flaws in the Common Core standards. Lee is extremely well informed about the major issues facing BESE.

Michael Kreamer, of Lafayette is the principal at St. Martinville High School. He is challenging Holly Boffy who has been a complete disappointment to the educators and parents of the 7th BESE district. Kreamer who is a top notch professional educator submitted this excellent guest post on predatory charters for this blog a few months ago. Michael would also be great addition to BESE.
(Note: I originally incorrectely stated that Mr. Kreamer had recently retired. I am happy to report that he plans to remain an active educator even if he is elected to BESE)

There are three currently elected members of BESE that have an excellent record of supporting public education and our professional educators. They are Mary Harris of District 1, Lottie Beebe of District 3, and Carolyn Hill of District 8.  I am asking our readers to consider supporting these highly dedicated members of BESE who have remained steadfast in their support of public schools and professional educators. 

There are three other members of BESE that will be appointed by the new governor. You can only influence the selection of those members by choosing wisely in the election of Governor. (Note: I do want to make special mention of Jane Smith of Bossier, an appointee of Governor Jindal, who has been a refreshing voice of reason on BESE. Ms Smith has worked effectively with all factions for the good of public education) 

Please visit the Flip BESE website often to keep yourself and other voters informed about the efforts to restore BESE to the citizens and students of Louisiana!

New Orleans RSD Compared to Traditional Schools

The national news media has been reporting for several years now that the "portfolio" of charter schools created to run the state takeover schools in New Orleans have produced an amazing turnaround of those schools in the ten years since hurricane Katrina demolished the public schools in New Orleans. We see claims that most of the takeover schools are no longer failing and that the graduation rate has improved dramatically, and that the improved performance of the RSD students has greatly exceeded that of more traditional schools across Louisiana and across the nation. The charter school proponents believe, or would have us believe, that the New Orleans RSD has found the secret to closing the achievement gap between impoverished, at-risk minority students and more advantaged middle class students.

This report is an attempt to simply examine the relevant data that can be used to measure academic success of the New Orleans Recovery District. It will attempt to measure how the RSD compares to traditional public schools. What does the data tell us? Is it Reform Success or Reform Hype?

Is the Comparison Really Complicated?

Some education researchers on this topic have agonized over the fact that the Louisiana school rating system has changed so much in recent years that it is difficult to compare apples to apples.  Also, the RSD has closed and renamed so many schools in New Orleans that it is almost impossible to trace the progress of any particular school.  The test scores of RSD students on the Louisiana LEAP and iLEAP tests seem to have significantly improved, but so have the scores for the students in traditional schools throughout Louisiana. So, is there a still a method that will really compare the RSD schools to the traditional schools in Louisiana and possibly to other schools across the nation?

 Unfortunately for comparison of student performance, the state test results in Louisiana have been manipulated so that they no longer measure the same level of proficiency as they did ten years ago. There appears to have been significant grade inflation of test results over the past ten years that have nothing to do with improvement in student achievement.  Some of the grade inflation has come from familiarity of educators and students with the state test, so that students can score higher without significantly improving their math and reading skills.  The rest of the grade inflation comes from a general lowering of the raw cut scores documented in this blog for the rating of “Basic” which in Louisiana is considered to be grade level performance. Not only have the state test results been manipulated by lowering many of the raw cut scores, the ratio of difficult to easy questions on the test can be changed from year to year also changing apparent performance.

So how much inflation has occurred in the state testing? The testing inflation can be estimated by comparing the average test results of Louisiana students as measured by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) with the results of the state designed LEAP and iLEAP tests. In the last ten years, analysis shows that according to state tests, approximately 11 percent more students statewide were deemed to be on grade level (scored basic or above) than ten years ago. But at the same time, the NAEP test shows that only 3 percent more students advanced to basic. That difference and the simultaneous softening in the Louisiana formula for assigning grades to schools (bonus points for subgroups) have resulted in more and more schools appearing to have made dramatic progress in the last ten years. That dramatic “faux progress” includes the New Orleans RSD charter schools.

Graduation rates have improved statewide, and ACT scores are up slightly across the state. So how can we use these statistics to compare the RSD to the rest of the state and to schools nationwide?

There are three simple criteria that may be used to compare student performance between the RSD, state traditional schools, and schools in other states.

The answer to comparison of student performance in Louisiana is really quite simple and does not require complex calculations.  First a little history:

The narrative by the charter school proponents is that prior to Hurricane Katrina, the school system in New Orleans was failing miserably. There was graft and corruption by school managers, and most students were getting such a substandard education that the schools deserved to be taken over and drastically overhauled. Some of that narrative is correct, but in the few years leading up to Katrina, the school system in New Orleans, just like all other systems in the state, was in the process of improving its student test scores. Even so, the destruction of Katrina was used as an opportunity for the State to take over schools and put them under new management. Independent charter management organizations were invited to come in and set up new schools chartered by the RSD and operated independently of the Orleans Parish School Board.

As some schools were taken over and some were closed, it became more difficult to trace the progress of individual schools. There is however, one very important statistic on student performance that we will use as a basis for our most critical comparison: Just prior to 2005, there was a special law (Act 35) passed by the Louisiana Legislature that allowed all public schools in New Orleans that had received a state calculated school performance score below the state average to be taken over by the state. This means that every school in Orleans rated below the 50^th percentile in the ranking of schools across the state was taken over. So that’s the starting point for our comparison with student performance today.

It would require complex formulas and analysis to trace and compare individual school performance scores of the schools in New Orleans with the rest of the state because the formula for rating schools has changed and the tests and the grading system have changed. Also, the Orleans Parish school board has retained the management of a significant number of schools, which are operated as a separate school system from the RSD.  But there is one simple statistic that can compare the takeover schools to the original schools that were taken over in 2005. That is the percentile ranking of the composite RSD student performance on the state tests compared to all the other students in the state.  With the reopening of schools in New Orleans following Katrina, the special law applying only to New Orleans required that all schools ranked below the 50^th percentile in New Orleans compared to all schools in the state, would be taken over by the RSD. Therefore it can be roughly concluded that the new district started with school performance on average ranking near the 25^th percentile.  Since school performance scores are based primarily on student test performance, the schools taken over and managed by the New Orleans Recovery District were producing student-testing results in the bottom quartile of all school systems in Louisiana at the time of takeover.

The Latest Academic Ranking Based on State Testing Places the New Orleans RSD at the 17^th percentile

The fairest and most accurate academic comparison of the New Orleans Recovery District with all other districts in the state is the percentile ranking of student performance. The Louisiana Department of Education calculated this ranking at the end of the 2013-14 school year and listed all school system rankings in a table on the LDOE website. The latest calculated percentile ranking of the New Orleans RSD district is at the 17^th percentile (see item #3 under State + District reports) compared to all other districts in the state based upon the percentage of students in the district achieving the rating of “Basic” on state testing. This means that at the present time, 83 percent of the school districts in the state outperform the New Orleans RSD in educating students to the level of “Basic”.

Therefore if schools in the RSD are compared using student test performance, there is no indication of improvement compared to all the public schools in the state. The ranking of takeover schools started in the bottom quartile compared to all schools in the state, and remains in the bottom quartile.

So if at the time of takeover, the New Orleans RSD ranked near the 25^th percentile in student performance, then the present ranking of 17^th percentile shows no improvement in relation to other school systems.  

Also based on the NAEP tests, the Louisiana ranking compared to the 50 states and the District of Columbia stands at approximately 48^th. That's approximately the same ranking Louisiana had right before Katrina.  So the New Orleans RSD ranks near the bottom of a state that still ranks near the bottom nationwide in student performance. Since schools in Louisiana today are rated primarily on their student performance on state tests, the RSD is far from achieving parity with the more traditionally operated school systems. The new all charter school system is unique both in its structure and also in its extremely low performance.

What About the Graduation Rate?

Another way to measure school success is the use the high school graduation rate. The latest official graduation rate for the New Orleans RSD now stands at 61.1%, which is dead last compared to all other Louisiana school districts. In addition, enrollment figures indicate that there are a huge number of students in the RSD that drop out before they ever get to high school. Students who drop out before they reach 9th grade are never figured into the graduation rate. There is a huge difference in 6^th grade student enrollment (2495) compared to 9^th grade (1685) in the New Orleans RSD. If we were to calculate the RSD graduation rate starting with 7^th grade, it would be significantly less than 50%. That’s an awful lot of students walking the streets in New Orleans without a diploma. This early loss of students does not exist in two other school systems (St Bernard and Plaquemines) that were also similarly affected by hurricane Katrina.

What About Preparing Students for College?

Most of the schools in the New Orleans RSD are designed and advertised as college prep schools. There is a major emphasis on preparing and motivating students to enroll in four-year universities. Again there is one simple extremely relevant statistic that can be used to measure potential success in this area.  All students in Louisiana are now required by the state to take the ACT test. The average ACT scores for RSD New Orleans students is now at 16.6 which is at the 6th percentile ranking in comparison to all other school districts in the state. Most graduates from the RSD score too low on the ACT to be accepted to most state colleges without remediation. The average ACT score would be even lower if all students in the RSD were taking the ACT as is mandated by the State Department of education. The enrollment of students in the 12^th grade for the RSD in the 2013-2014 school year was 1380, according to the February student count. But the number of students with an ACT score for that year was only 1178.  That’s only 85% of the 12^th grade students enrolled. The two other school systems closest to the New Orleans RSD are the Orleans Parish School Board and the Jefferson Parish systems. They had a testing rate of 98% and 99% respectively. Removing 15% of the seniors from the testing can significantly raise the average score. But even with that advantage, the RSD still scores near the bottom compared to all other public school systems.

Expansion of the RSD System

Since the formation of the New Orleans RSD, there has been an attempt to extend the takeover concept to low performing schools in other parts of the state also using the charter “portfolio” method. There is now an RSD Baton Rouge and an RSD Louisiana. These schools have been in operation for 8 years. Using the same method of ranking based on percentage of students achieving “Basic” on state tests, these districts are now at the 2nd and 0 percentiles respectively. That is third to last and dead last.  The graduation rates and the ACT scores for these takeover schools are also at the bottom of the state rankings. These simple statistics demonstrate that there has been absolutely no progress in Louisiana in improving student performance by taking over and converting schools to charters.

As several other independent investigators (Mercedes Schneider and Research on Reforms) have demonstrated, the so-called New Orleans Miracle is simply a hoax perpetrated upon a gullible and trusting public and news media by the charter promoters. Just like the rainmakers and con men of long ago, charter promoters have preyed upon a new group of willing rubes.

And now unfortunately, the false propaganda of the faux success of the Louisiana Recovery District is being used to justify the creation of similar takeover districts in many other states.  All the data available so far for those new recovery districts shows a similarly disastrous result.