Howard Fleeter and HB 1 Strike Again

Howard Fleeter, who's had a long, storied history as one of Ohio's most respected and persistent education finance experts, has mined yet another nugget from the state's vast data lode.

As reported in today's Columbus Dispatch (though disturbingly listed under its Politics banner online), Fleeter was able to comb through a set of little known data called a District Benchmark Report -- a requirement made of districts in House Bill 1 in conjunction with the Evidence Based Model.

When we set up this fiscal accountability system, it was intended to provide information about how districts were spending money in order to see whether those expenditures matched the latest research about how best to spend money to improve student outcomes. Here's a contemporaneous explanation of the report.

What Howard did was dig into these reports (whose post-EBM utility was probably considered minimal) and discover what has been known for a while -- that comparing per pupil expenditures across districts is fraught with issues.

Namely, many districts that spend lots of raw dollars per pupil only have discretion over a relatively small portion of those dollars because they are earmarked for poverty aid, special ed, etc. What Howard did was look at how districts spend their dollars on "typical" kids in their districts -- in other words, once you correct for high numbers of at-risk kids in some districts, they're actually spending less per pupil than high-performing districts.

As the Dispatch notes:

For example, in 2011, the most recent data available, Columbus spent $1,905 more per pupil than Dublin. But when spending on poverty and other factors are calculated, Dublin actually spends $1,618 more per pupil to educate a typical student than Columbus.  

In fact, Fleeter’s study said, eight Franklin County districts spend more than Columbus to educate a typical student. 

But the fascinating information doesn't stop there. For instance, Cleveland, which is always castigated for spending so much per pupil, ends up spending barely $8,000 per pupil when adjusted for their non-discretionary spending, not the more than $14,000 the raw data indicate.

I have linked to Howard's spreadsheet so you can see just how profound an impact non-discretionary spending has on a school district's budget.

The report has huge implications for education funding in Ohio. Does this now mean that we base the basic aid amount on the discretionary amount? Does this mean that urban school performance is related to lack of discretionary money being spent there? I don't know yet.

But it does mean that we can't look at $10,000 per pupil being spent in one district that's doing great and $10,000 being spent in one that's struggling and simply assume that the one that's struggling is being inefficient or something. What it means is education finance is complicated and, right now, inaccurate.

Howard's work is groundbreaking for it gets us thinking more about the true cost of educating children and ensuring their success.

And one more thing. (Sorry, but I can't let this go.) The impetus for the Fiscal Benchmark Report, upon which Howard based his work, was House Bill 1 -- the legislation I spent so much time and energy developing in 2009. It won the Frank Newman Award from the Education Commission of the States, created the first instance on record that Ohio's state funds exceeded its local property taxes to pay for schools, and now has resulted in a calculus that can more accurately determine the cost of education at the district level.

I struggle to understand the policy reasons behind why Gov. John Kasich and his legislative allies decided to undo nearly everything contained in House Bill 1. I sure do understand the political reasons.

And that's why Ohio's school funding system has been so hamstrung for so many years -- explaining why an analysis of a data report released by the Ohio Department of Education is listed under the politics page at the Columbus Dispatch. And it's why so many are so cynical that the political parties can ever work together to solve the big issues we face today.

Politics and education simply have not mixed well here. And that has really hurt our children.

Sen. Widener's Insult

I know state Sen. Chris Widener, R-Springfield, a little bit. We served together in the legislature. I didn't know him well, but I always found him to be maddeningly meticulous about the state budget I saw him shepherd through the House in 2007.

So it floored me when I read recently that he thought using the now $400 million Medicaid expansion surplus on education would have a "minimal impact."

Someone with Sen. Widener's experience has to know that there are only four education funding components that cost more than $400 million -- the basic aid amount, parity aid, special education and Charter Schools. Does Sen. Widener seriously think that he $369 million the state is spending on economically disadvantaged aid is of "minimal impact"? How about the $64.5 million the state's spending on the Third Grade Reading Guarantee? Or the $17.8 million spent on English Language Learners? Or the $69.3 million spent on Gifted Education? Or the $357 million spent on busing? Or the $43.5 million spent on Career Tech Education?

Over at Innovation Ohio, we broke down just how much that money would mean for districts -- essentially increasing their state aid by about 6%. And we showed how $400 million is more than what the state spends on the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee, Gifted Education, Career Tech Education, Limited English Proficiency Education and half of the state's six Special Education categories combined.

Look, I know that the $400 million isn't all going to education. But Sen. Widener's idea to give middle income Ohioans a $40 tax cut, while giving millionaires huge tax cuts is, I would argue, of far less beneficial impact than, say, providing universal pre-school in Ohio's 8 major urban districts, or providing property tax relief in rural, poor districts, or providing the technology upgrades districts so desperately need to comply with the new, tough Common Core standards.

But if Sen. Widener really believes that $400 million is of "minimal impact" to districts, I fear that the state will really fail to deliver any meaningful benefit to Ohio's children with their new found surplus. And that would be a crippling shame.

ODE Happy More Public Money Going to Private Schools

I have to admit that I was a bit shocked to see that the Ohio Department of Education was so excited about the explosion in Voucher programs this year, as Innovation Ohio had predicted.

"The Ohio Department of Education is pleased with the growth of the EdChoice program and the increased opportunities for children to receive a quality education," ODE spokesman John Charlton said."

So the fact that the expansion of Vouchers in the most recent state budget saw the number of private schools taking Vouchers jump from 331 to 444, or that the amount of money going from public schools to private schools as of the year's first October payment increased from $86.6 million last year to $133 million this year -- a 54% increase -- is good for public education in the eyes of the chief overseers of Ohio's public education system.

One complicating factor is this: New research indicates that kids in public schools, when controlling for demographics, perform better than kids in private schools on national assessments. This supports what we have known in Ohio for years -- that kids in voucher schools do no better and many times perform worse than kids in the public schools do.

So is ODE really excited that more kids can go to schools that generally do not perform as well as the schools they are leaving? This mentality reveals why Ohio so desperately needs to have a serious discussion about school choice quality. 

Because choice for choice's sake does not ensure a better educational experience for kids. School Choice proponents should be fighting for quality educational opportunities for kids. Worse options provide scant opportunity for kids, though it does permit private schools to fill dwindling enrollment on the backs of Ohio taxpayers.

So there's that.

The Artful Dodger

If anyone wants to learn how to avoid answering tough questions, take a look at Ohio Office of Budget and Management spokesman Jim Lynch in today's Gongwer. He is responding to the report I authored for Innovation Ohio that showed school districts have had to go for far more levies and far more additional operating money since Gov. John Kasich took office than the during the similar time frame under Gov. Ted Strickland:

" Office of Budget and Management spokesman Jim Lynch, said, however, data and news reports reviewed by the office indicates the total number of school levies this fall is below the historical average, which holds the same for earlier election cycles. 

'It's easy to be innovative with statistics, to slice and dice data in ways that yield the particular conclusion that serves your agenda,' he said. 'Before you're satisfied with these agenda-oriented reports, ask if the sources have looked across a longer period of time - say 10 years - for some historical perspective.' 

Mr. Lynch said Gov. Kasich has made education a key priority to help improve results in Ohio's classrooms. 

'His Achievement Everywhere Plan, signed in late June, allocates $1.6 billion in new state funds for the next two fiscal years, putting more dollars into Ohio classrooms so that FY 2015 funding levels will exceed FY 2011 actual state spending by $1.39 billion,' he said.

Mr. Lynch simply dismissed what we did without disputing a single thing we did. He actually didn't look at the data at all, citing simply some media reports and nebulous "data" his office had reviewed (from where, he doesn't say). I do give him credit for the "innovative with statistics" line. Get it? Innovation Ohio. Innovative with statistics.

Yup. He went there.

The reason Mr. Lynch won't dispute our report is because it is right. I looked at each levy on the ballot for the two time periods to determine which levy was an ask for new money to fund operations and which was not. I used both the Ohio School Boards Association database and the Ohio Secretary of State's office for the data. I did not include Bond issues, nor did I include renewal or replacement levies. If there were combination levies, I only included the money for operations. Why did I do it this way? Because cuts to the state's operating budget would most directly impact the operational portion of a district's budget. As Ohio School Boards Association President Charles Wilson put it: 

"‘….if you are trying to measure the impact of state funding cuts on the (schools’) main operating budget, Innovation Ohio’s measurement is better because it effectively measures the local operational impact of cuts made in the state’s operating budget.’

Mr. Lynch knows this. Which is why he didn't really dispute our methodology, just impugned the reasons we did it. He said we should look at a 10-year time frame for comparison. Sounds reasonable, except that would tell us nothing about the question we were looking at, which was whether there has been any impact on new money asks for operations as a result of the historically huge cuts Gov. Kasich made in his first budget ($1.8 billion), and only partially replaced in his second (now $515 million cut). 

By the way, three out of four districts still receive less over the next two years than they did in the last budget under Strickland, which, coincidentally, was the first time on record that a larger share of the education funding pie came from the state (as is required under the Ohio Constitution) than local property taxpayers. 

And Kasich's Achievement Everywhere plan that Mr. Lynch cites was so universally panned that the Ohio Legislature, run by his own party, ditched it this spring for one of their own.

It is true that overall numbers of new levies are about the same between the two governors. However, that number alone is misleading. Which is why you have to "slice and dice the data" (as Mr. Lynch suggests) to determine which levies are increasing and decreasing. What you find is that the only reason the amount of levies are similar is because there were about the same number of additional bond issues under Strickland as there are additional operational issues under Kasich. Why would that be? Because in 2007, Strickland securitized about $5 billion in tobacco settlement money that he put into the Ohio School Facilities Commission. So districts took a run at incredible financing opportunities for new facilities. 

The only reason there are more bond issues under Strickland is because he put $5 billion more into school facilities. The reason there are more operational levies under Kasich is because he has provided hundreds of millions dollars less for public education.

Look, I don't mind Mr. Lynch coming after me or my organization. Because I know it's all he has, and that's his job. When you can't argue the facts, attack the one making the argument. Or Artfully Dodge the question. Whatever works.

But the data demonstrate pretty clearly that state funding cuts have forced School Districts to go for more new operating money more often. And for that, Mr. Lynch apparently has no real answer.

In Ohio, Quality Should Be Job 1

In a recent post by the Fordham Institute, Aaron Churchill takes Bill Phillis -- the legendary public education defender who ran the campaign that ended up having the state's school funding declared unconstitutional four times -- and Join the Future to task for daring to compare Charter School with School District performance.

Note: All calculations in this post come from the new State Report Card, located here.

The rest of Churchill's column makes cogent points about focusing on what works and eliminating what does not. And on that, I completely agree with Churchill. That is the argument I have been making ever since I first spoke about this issue on the floor of the Ohio House.

Unfortunately, though, I have to disagree with a couple of his arguments.

1) "Both authors make spurious comparisons that ought to be dismissed. Both make the mistake of comparing the performance index scores of charter schools to school districts." 

This argument is often made by Charter School advocates. And, frankly, I understand what they're saying: Charter Schools are typically small, one-building operations. Comparing their performance with much larger, diverse districts is unfair, right? Well, except that eSchools like ECOT and the Ohio Virtual Academy -- Charter Schools both -- are bigger than all but about a dozen Ohio School Districts. And there are 161 Ohio School Districts that didn't have 1,000 kids in them last year. So not all School Districts are hulking leviathans.

Most importantly, though, is that Ohio law treats Charters as if they are School Districts for funding and accountability purposes. They are paid like School Districts. They are considered Local Education Agencies for federal funding purposes, just as School Districts are. They are required to have Superintendents and Treasurers, just like School Districts. They have boards that oversee them, just like School Districts. They are, under law, School Districts.

In addition, only one School District did not lose money or students to Charters last year. And 47% of all kids in Charters last year did not come from a Big 8 Urban School District. If Charters take kids and money from every School District, why should they only be compared with 8 of them, especially when 47% of the kids do not come from there?

When you compare Charter with School District performance, the comparison is really not very good for Charters. As Churchill himself points out:

Recent blogs by William Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding (posted on Diane Ravitch’s website) and Join the Future highlight the academic woes of some of Ohio’s charter schools. Phillis writes: “The Department of Education’s ranking of schools and districts reveals that 83 out of the bottom 84 schools are charter schools.” Join the Future exclaims “Out of the bottom 200 districts, just 21 are traditional public schools, the remaining 179 are charter schools!”

2) "At a school building level, 139 of the bottom 200 schools were district schools. Both district and charter schools are therefore guilty of weak results on the state’s “performance index” score."

Well, sort of. I agree that the bottom 200 buildings in the state on Performance Index are populated by both District and Charter buildings. However, Churchill misses the point. Of course there are more District Buildings in the bottom 200, assuming you use Building rather than District-level data to make the comparison. There are, after all, 3,050 Traditional School Buildings in the state that receive the Performance Index rating. There are only 262 Charter Schools that receive a Performance Index Score. There are nearly 12 times as many District Buildings as Charters. Math, as much as performance, dictates that many of the lowest performing Buildings would be District Buildings.

Why do I mention this? Well, because the 61 Charter Schools that do rate in the bottom 200 represent a little more than 23% of all Charter Schools rated by the Performance Index. That means nearly one out of every 4 Charter Schools in Ohio rate in the bottom 200 of the more than 3,300 District and Charter buildings that receive the Performance Index score. Put another way, one in 4 Charter Schools rate in the bottom 6% of all Ohio School Buildings -- Charter and Traditional -- on the Performance Index.

One more thing: The average Performance Index score of the bottom 23% of School Buildings (710 total) is 79.54. The average Performance Index score of the bottom 23% of Charter Schools (the 61 in Churchill's calculation) is 62.57.

Again, this is not to say Charter Schools should be eliminated. What I am saying is that Churchill has a point; it's time to talk about the quality of these things. We have far, far too many unsuccessful Charter Schools in Ohio, especially given that we're going to be spending upwards of $1 billion a year on these schools over the next couple years.

Yes, we must ensure that quality Charters are able to thrive in this state. Unfortunately, though, the average school run by the Breakthrough Schools in Cleveland -- routinely the highest-rated Charter group in the state -- was cut by about $200 in the most recent budget.

I welcome Churchill's call for a new approach to Charter policy in Ohio. However, we must confront how Ohio's Charters have, for the most part, failed so frighteningly frequently. This phenomenon helps explain why the high fliers have been so stifled. And it also explains why some School Districts have struggled. For when kids in Districts like Columbus and Cincinnati who don't attend Charters lose about 25% of their state revenue to the Charter School funding system, isn't that as important an impediment to their success as anything else?

Harmon Strikes Again

I have to admit that I felt extreme pride this morning when I read in my Akron Beacon Journal that Harmon Middle School -- my alma mater -- earned a National Blue Ribbon from the U.S. Department of Education for excellence -- one of 286 schools so honored around the country.

According to the USDOE,

"Founded in 1982, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle, and high schools where students perform at very high levels or where significant improvements are being made in students' academic achievement. A National Blue Ribbon Schools flag overhead has become a mark of excellence in education recognized by everyone from parents to policy-makers in thousands of communities. Since the program's founding, the U. S. Department of Education has bestowed this coveted award on more than 7,000 of America's schools."

I have to admit I also smiled with more than a smirk of irony upon learning this. During the 2009 budget bill that I helped develop in the Ohio House of Representatives (House Bill 1), I created a commission that was designed to evaluate and distribute grants to schools that demonstrated creativity in their instruction and environments. I named it the Harmon Commission because of my formative experiences in that remarkable building -- where teachers and administrators were unafraid to try anything, opening up their students' own greatness.

The idea behind the Harmon Commission was to de-emphasize the standardized test and emphasize things not easily quantified. If districts could earn additional revenue by encouraging creativity in the classroom, then perhaps more experiences would be available to more children like those that went on in Harmon. For instance, one year a biology teacher brought a cow to school and raised it on the school grounds, making it a key part of the biology curriculum for 6th grade.

Anyone who was around me during the HB 1 debates is probably sick of the cow story, but I thought it really drove home the message that not all learning is strictly measurable or less valuable because it is not measurable. In many ways, we value non-measurables over measurables. Take football, for instance. This last weekend the Cleveland Browns won a game behind a quarterback who threw three interceptions. That's not unusual for Browns quarterbacks. But all I heard after the game was how "lights out" Brian Hoyer was because of the intangibles he brought to the team, despite the 3 picks.

Why don't we recognize educators and buildings that do the same thing? Who knows. However, I find it ironic that the recognition Harmon has so long deserved only came because they scored so well on the measurables -- test scores. Its greatness has always been its non-measurables. Test scores were the reason my dad left that wonderful building. And I'm sure it drove away other remarkable teachers from Harmon as well.

But I prefer to think of this award as a lifetime achievement award for all the things that made Harmon such a remarkable place for me and so many other graduates. Everything from the plays my dad directed to Mr. Luckay's Ohio Trip to the fact that the building had no walls to Mr. Kmetz's endless energy. It all made the place hum like few others I have experienced since.

So congratulations to Harmon. Part of me wants to think that Deb Delisle, who is the top K-12 Assistant Secretary at USDOE, perhaps remembered something of our endless talks about creativity and Harmon from the time we spent together working on HB 1 while she was State Superintendent here. But as much as I'd like to think that, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

As for the Harmon Commission?

Even though it was the only thing about HB 1 that Paul Hill of the Center on Reinventing Public Education -- the opposition's chief expert -- agreed was a good idea about the plan, my former colleagues scrapped it. Because apparently the last thing we want to spend money on is a teacher who thinks that bringing a cow to school is a good idea.

And don't forget that the rest of HB 1 was essentially scrapped too, even though the second year of that budget represented the first time on record that the state provided a greater share of education funding than local property taxpayers. Oh well.

Ohio Race to the Top Challenges

A recent report outlined the problems with implementing Race to the Top goals in Ohio and other states. The Economic Policy Institute put out the report, which essentially concluded that failure of states, including Ohio, to provide funding to support the Race to the Top initiatives will likely mean that its best promises will fall short.

The report's author included an interview with me during her discussion of Ohio's challenges. Despite our ability to include educators in the drafting of a new evaluation system, the fact that Ohio's on its fourth state superintendent of public instruction since 2010 has hindered implementation, according to the report.

Here is what I consider to be the nut graf of my comments:

“Without money, it’s going to be hard to see any of this work. My guess is the state will not fund a meaningful evaluation system, that it will put in so many loopholes that districts that can’t fund support won’t do it. And the districts that can afford to won’t need it much”

My great concern during this whole process on Race to the Top was I didn't trust this state's willingness to follow through on the program's promise. And to be sure, the program is not perfect and is in many ways flawed. However, a state that is unwilling to fix its school funding system despite four Supreme Court rulings to do so, is not exactly trustworthy on educational investment.

I held out hope that the $400 million we won would fund enough good initiatives that the state wouldn't be able to fail to fund them beyond the life of the RttT grant.

However, given that the state has significantly cut its investment in K-12 education the last two budget cycles, while pouring more money into educational efforts that have failed our kids, my fears have been realized.

It's still possible that some of the positives of RttT can be fulfilled, but it's going to require the state to do a 180. How confident am I they will do this? About as confident as I would be to invade Russia in winter.