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California Teachers Association

Tough-minded approach needed for Obama’s pre-K expansion

Peter H. Hanley February 25, 2013

Peter H. Hanley

I am more politically incorrect than your average guy, so when I heard President Obama call for universal pre-K for 4-year olds in the State of the Union, I cringed. With all the raucous enthusiasm ringing around this issue since the speech, adapting Warren Buffet’s investment approach to public policy might be wise: when everyone is bold, it’s time to be cautious.

In 2006, when I was with California Parents for Educational Choice, we were part of a coalition of organizations that defeated Rob Reiner’s ballot initiative to bring universal pre-K to the state. It was introduced to widespread public approval, but by Election Day garnered only 39 percent of the vote. The electorate came to understand three major elements they did not like:

* Expanding pre-K to everyone, including middle class and upper income families, is hugely expensive and precious little, if any evidence, supports much educational value added for the middle class and wealthy.

* The initiative vastly expanded the existing public school monopoly, which hardly has a resounding record of educational success, especially with poor and minority students. It also mandated collective bargaining, swelling the ranks and economic power of the California Teachers Association, an organization that systematically stands in the way of innovation and reform.

* The academic outcomes were questionable. A Reason Foundation analysis found from 1965 to 2005, 4-year old participation in preschool programs had grown nationwide from 16 percent to 66 percent, but we had virtually no evidence of increased student learning on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) by fourth grade. Oklahoma, with a universal program since 1998, finished dead last on the 2005 NAEP, actually losing four points.

But that was close to seven years ago and admittedly, I haven’t followed the pre-K issue regularly. So I spent the last few days reviewing some studies and data. The key word in the Obama proposal is quality.

We likely can justify a highly targeted effort on kids in failed families or families that simply have no resources – financial, social, emotional, or cultural – to allow their children to mature and develop normally. But when Obama declares, “We know this works,” he overstates and simplifies our experience.

February 25, 2013 0 comment

Blog Administration Charter Schools School Choice Unionism

Parents and charter schools have shaken up the old order

Special to redefinED October 31, 2012

Special to redefinED

“It is this parents movement that has shifted the tectonic plates of education reform.”

by Gloria Romero

Even while Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Teachers Association barnstormed the state, urging voters to raise taxes with Proposition 30 to support public education and predicting doomsday if the measure fails, a fascinating report from the California Charter Schools Association was released on the growth of charter schools in the Golden State.

Data from the report clearly reveal that change has come to California’s public education system.

Charter schools are public schools. They are publicly funded but operate with greater independence, autonomy and flexibility from the burdensome state Education Code which micromanages even the minutia of education practices. Charter schools are typically nonunion, although they can be unionized if teachers vote for a union.

Charter schools were first established in the nation two decades ago, with California becoming the second state to authorize them. Hailed as opportunities for innovation and reform, charter schools began to grow.

Even beyond becoming recognized as “petri dishes for educational reform,” the underlying philosophy of parental choice in public education began to take root. In a system where ZIP code is the sole criteria of school assignment, charters began to become a sort of “promised land” for high-poverty, minority families whose children were too often assigned to chronically under performing schools.

One-hundred nine new charters opened in California just this academic year, bringing the number of charter schools to 1,065, the most in the nation. Still, there are still 70,000 pupils on waiting lists.

October 31, 2012 0 comment

Blog Administration Education and Public Policy Funding Parental Choice School Choice

California’s toe in the water on school “vouchers”?

Peter H. Hanley May 14, 2012

Peter H. Hanley

Editor’s note: Progress in the parental school choice movement is measured not only by big gains in states like Indiana and Louisiana, but by the flurry of incremental developments in more states every year. Peter Hanley, executive director of the California-based American Center for School Choice, offers a look at encouraging developments in his home state.

California has the nation’s largest charter school program, with 982 charter schools serving 412,000 students. But with nearly a two-thirds Democratic legislature heavily influenced by the California Teachers Association, tax credit scholarships or vouchers have been entirely off the table. In fact, charter schools’ flexibility is under near constant attack. Now, though, two legislators have introduced innovative approaches that address a unique feature in California’s constitution and attempt to bring educational tax credits to the state.

Unlike any other state, California has a voter-initiated constitutional amendment (Prop. 98) that sets a floor on the percent of general fund monies that must be spent on education. Anything that removes money from the general fund will instantly trigger the public education coalition to oppose it. So these legislators, one Democrat and one Republican, have proposed models that benefit both public and private schools.

Senate Bill 1542, introduced by Democratic Sen. Gloria Negrete McCloud, provides individual and corporate tax credits to Local Educational Advancement Program (LEAP) organizations. They will assist K-12 students from families with demonstrated financial needs to receive critical services before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer. SB 1542 precisely aims to ensure academic services – such as diagnostic evaluations, tutoring, summer school, and college and career planning and counseling – that have been heavily damaged by the extraordinary recession California has experienced since 2008. Although many more fortunate families in the state continue to be able to provide such services for their children, those with low and moderate incomes cannot and are disproportionately suffering. Children from public and private schools would be eligible for these services.

The Senate Governance and Finance Committee is expected to hold a hearing on this bill within the next few weeks. The future likely depends on whether it can be fit into the state’s budget, with questions now revolving around whether both individuals and corporations will be eligible for the credit, how large the credit will be, and whether it will be a straight credit or a percentage of a donation. Notably, the committee has not raised any objections about private school participation.

Assembly Bill 2582, sponsored by Republican Assemblyman Brian Nestande, takes a more traditional approach.

May 14, 2012 0 comment

Blog Administration Education and Public Policy School Boards Unionism

The disturbing result from dark of night legislation

Peter H. Hanley July 21, 2011

Peter H. Hanley

Editor’s note: This guest column comes from Peter H. Hanley, the executive director of the American Center for School Choice and a board member of the San Mateo Union High School District outside San Francisco.

When I was first elected to my school board ten years ago and was puzzled about why certain things were the way they were, a veteran board member told me that understanding public education policy is much easier once one realizes the adults within the system, not the kids, are the first priority.

The California legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown reinforced that truth with a stealth law passed late the night of June 30 with no hearings or debate to prohibit school districts from laying off any teachers this year, even if they anticipate reduced funding and a deficit. With nearly 15 percent of all school districts on the California Department of Education’s financial “watch list” as of mid-June, this law also recklessly suspends the legislation requiring county superintendents to certify the current and future financial viability of school districts.

That same day, the state lost $4 billion of revenue when temporary taxes expired. Yet the budget somehow anticipates that $4 billion will magically reappear. If it doesn’t, another $2.5 billion in education funding cuts could automatically kick in around the middle of the school year.

No one questions that teachers are a key to educational success, but they are also around 50 percent of most school districts’ budgets. If you take teachers off the table, your ability and options to manage the organization are significantly reduced.

Unbelievably, the legislature’s and governor’s alternative suggestion is to throw our kids under the bus by cutting the shortest school year in the industrialized world further by seven days. Well over half of the K-12 population qualifies as economically disadvantaged and performs far below other students. Moreover, about 40 percent of all students are below proficient in English and 70 percent are below proficient in high school mathematics. With this situation, incomprehensibly, California public policy now is to preserve, at the cost of children’s educations and the real risk of school district bankruptcies, the jobs of college-educated adults.

July 21, 2011 0 comment

Blog Administration Charter Schools Education and Public Policy Parent Empowerment

California board gives OK to parent trigger rules

Adam Emerson July 13, 2011

Adam Emerson

From the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert:

The State Board of Education today gave tentative approval to rules outlining how parents may petition to dramatically restructure their children’s low-performing schools.

The nine-member board voted unanimously to provide a final 15-day comment period before they vote in September to officially adopt the regulations. But board president Michael Kirst doubted members would make any significant changes to what was approved today.

The rules reflect a give-and-take between the powerful California Teachers Association and the well-funded advocacy group Parent Revolution. The regulations would fill in the gaps of the controversial “parent trigger” law signed last year by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after it squeaked through the Legislature.

The law allows parents to demand one of four school overhauls if a majority of parents at the school or from feeder schools petition for the change.

July 13, 2011 0 comment