McKay Scholarship

The McKay Scholarship allows parents to take a child who has an IEP or a 504 Plan for the last year and to go to either another public school or to a McKay Private School.

The Miami Times did a piece last year on the financial challenges of McKay Schools -- I will not comment on this since I have no knowledge.

My concern is with the need for academic accountability.

Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education is a leading organization on school choice. In a page they created they promote:

Measurement: To provide an accurate depiction of where our students are, annual standardized testing must be continued and expanded in all 50 states. Measuring whether students are learning a year’s worth of knowledge in a year’s time is essential for building on progress, rewarding success and correcting failures. To accurately measure progress, modern data and information systems should be utilized, and there must be maximum transparency across the board.

Data-Driven Accountability: Holding schools accountable for student achievement – measured objectively with data such as annual standardized tests and graduation rates – improves the quality of an education system. Success and learning gains no longer go unnoticed and problems are no longer ignored, resulting in efforts to effectively narrow achievement gaps.

Teacher Quality: Study after study show the quality of teaching is paramount to student achievement. It is past time for America to move away from a union-dominated system that places tenure before the needs of students. Financially rewarding educators for their expertise and their excellence will attract and retain the best and brightest to the teaching profession as well as to the greatest challenges in providing a quality education, including teaching in high-poverty and low-performing schools. Educators should be licensed, measured and compensated in diverse and flexible ways that put a premium on raising student achievement.

My concern is there is no academic measurement, no data driven system and no requirements for teacher quality at McKay Schools.

I hear comments like, "There are very few schools with problems", "these are private schools, so we have no right to regulate them", and "the parents can make an informed choice".

I see students come from McKay Schools who are far below grade level in their reading and math, and the parents were not fully aware of their child's present performance. The challenges appear to be widespread and it is difficult for educators to determine which programs are academically the best, how could a parent be expected to sort it out.

I believe all private schools have the right to be private, but once they take public funds, that should change - McKay Schools presently get close to $150 million a year. I do not favor FCAT testing, but if the McKay students were required to take a nationally normed test, for example the SAT 10s, it would give parents insight into how students are performing and hold McKay Schools to a fair and reasonable standard.

Note -- when former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was asked if she would support a voucher program without academic accountability her answer was a simple, "No".

Let's get Academic Accountability into the McKay Scholarship Program, let the schools who do well shine, and the schools that do not pay the price for poor performance.

The Privatization Express (TM) -- Is The Parent Trigger The Decoy and Charter School Funding The Reformers Real Target?

Patricia Levesque orchestrated a very professional presentation at a house meeting in Tallahassee promoting a Parent Trigger Bill -- allowing parents in a failing school to have a choice on management of the school if it has been failing for 3 years. Not a bill I like -- if Parent Empowerment and Involvement was the goal and not Privatization, there are far better things that could be done far easier and far sooner -- like getting parents involved today or at the latest when the school is deemed a failing school.

HB903, that says districts must either give Charter Schools a pro rata share of local money for construction, is a big issue.

It could move
- Over $100 million into the Charter School coffers
- Reduce bonding capacity for public schools

Three things that do not make sense:
1- Public school districts own public schools -- so when the state funds the new buildings, the public gets the benefit and keeps the asset -- with charter schools the assets belong to a private corporation and they charge the charter schools rent. Consider the following

Responding to this week's cover story about the charter school chain he runs, Frank Biden continues to insist Mavericks in Education Florida is not profiting from its schools. He says it's just the school buildings that bring in the dough.

Why should the public fund construction when the private enterprise makes money on the rent, they get the asset and there is no benefit to the public

2- In a Ball State study they found that charter schools get $2700 less per student, and $2000 of that is the local districts not allocating local taxes. Take that $2000 per student multiply it by the 200,000 students in Florida Charter Schools and that would be a $400 million swing -- more money for charter schools and $400 million less for public schools. If HB903 is passed, expect to see the same logic used with operating funding. What's worse -- is this could grow to $600 million or a Billion.

3- HB903 is saying that local government must spend their money the way Tallahassee wants it to and not have a choice -- if a local government refused to allocate the money to the charter schools the bill says the state will deduct this from their allocation to the districts

These actions could significantly reduce public school funding for building and in the near term even more significantly reduce school operating budgets.

Bad for public school students, bad for public school teachers, and very bad for local governments

Charter Schools Do Not Make Money on Charter Schools

Frank Biden, President of Maverick Charter Schools, says that Charter School Companies do not make money on the Charter Schools -- they make money on the real estate.

That is insulting.

Charter schools exist in large part because public schools are set in their ways, they have some great teachers, many good teachers, and some bad teachers. To make matters worse, public schools are too often run like a monopoly. For a long time parents had a challenge, "Take it or leave it".

Now parents are leaving in droves -- often for charter schools that invest even less money in education than the cash strapped public schools, because so much money is paid to the Charter School companies for management fees and rent.

Biden's comments are insulting. It is like a razor company saying they do not make money on the razor, but what is not said is they make a ton on the razor blades.

Shedding light on their practices helps, but what is really needed is for public schools to improve and take away the shine from the charter schools. If this were to happen, public school attendance would increase, the could add back services, and charter schools would no longer be a cash cow to their management companies.

Award For Biggest Step Backwards in Florida Public Schools

Florida public schools have been going through a systematic effort to defund them and to make charter schools, voucher programs and virtual schools more attractive

In trying to identify the worst move for public schools, there were three in the running:
1- Cutting funding by 8% in addition to the decrease in funding from the stimulus money going away

2- Expanding the McKay Voucher Scholarship Program to include students with 504 Plans -- often a child with ADHD. This made little sense because private schools do not have to provide the protection that public schools do, but with Response to Intervention decreasing the number of Special Education Students, the private schools were going to see a decrease in students, unless the change was made

3- Making it much easier for Charter Schools to expand, even though there is little proof the students get a better education, and there is mounting proof of heavy duty lobbying for people close to the legislators

What the public schools needed least of all was a Christmas Present from the new Commissioner of Education who overrode a group of 300 who had recommended a more balanced approach to FCAT passing scores -- their suggestions included smoothing out the scores so that students did not do well in 7th, 8th and 9th grades only to fail the 10th grade Reading or 10th Grade Math FCATs that are required to earn a high school degree.

The commissioner made three significant changes:
- He made it more difficult to pass to pass the all important 10th grade FCAT in reading and math-- the projections are that 48% of the students will now fail the 10th grade reading FCAT

- The changes at 3rd grade were more subtle. Passing the 3rd Grade FCAT is required for promotion and the new scores are only projected to increase the failing rate from 16 to 18%. The subtle change was that there would be a sharp increase in the students needing remediation -- from 12% to 25%. They doubled the number of students who would now be classified as reading below grade level. Similar changes were made in other grades.

- Then, they made these changes effective immediately. When governments usually make changes, they give industry 1, 2 or 3 years to prepare. In this case the changes will take effective with the 2012 FCATs to be given in April 2012

This is in the face of sharp cutbacks in resources for at-risk students.

We really do need to raise the standards, and it will take an innovate approach, real teamwork and more resources to make it happen

The people of Florida will need to apply pressure on the legislature to invest in public education, or the changes will result in the students, teachers and schools being rated as "failing", when it is the Governor and the Legislature who will have failed our students, teachers and schools.

Let's hope the Governor and the Legislature are open to the challenge

School Choice, Vouchers, Charter Schools and Follow The Money

Governor Rick Scott appears to like all private options -- vouchers, charter schools, virtual schools and the results can be good or very bad.

Read about this one -- there are more examples that will make you cry.

One wonders if we put the same amount of time, money and effort into imprhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifoving public schools, wouldn't we help the whole country.

I believe charters and/or vouchers are necessary to wake up the public school world -- Houston, we have a problem.

Public schools are failing our students, and not until parents, committed citizens and our leaders reject the status quo will we be able to refocus on one of the top priorities of State Government -- transforming public schools into the schools we need them to be

There are some who argue we need to abandon public schools and others who argue all is fine -- I would reject both as fundamentally flawed strategies. The Gates Foundations investment in places like Sarasota, Zuckerberg's investments in Newark Schools, are the beginning of what could be a real change in public schools.

When considering the two choices of privatization and the status quo, I hope prevailing wisdom shifts towards reinventing public schools

Public School Are Addressing The Issues

Cara Fitzpatrick from the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale recently wrote an article on Parents Finding Schools Unfriendly.

The great thing was that the Broward Public Schools were hosting a forum to listen to what parents have to say.

The first two steps in addressing the problem with public schools are to acknowledge the problem and then listen.

Parents then responded by saying positive things about their schools, which is awesome.

Kudos to Cara Fitzpatrick, the Broward County School Board and the parents who speak up -- about their schools strengths and challenges

Re-inventing public schools will require a massive effort, and this is a great start. I will be at the forum and hope to see many others there too.

Jay Greene on Global Report Card -- Test Mania Fails Our Best Students

Re-inventing public schools is necessary for our at-risk population. It is just as necessary for our Gifted and Talented Students.

Jay Greene, an outspoken critic of public education, discussed in The Global Report, that our suburban students are just average when compared to students in the countries at the top of the International Rankings.

This follows three calls from parents of Gifted and Talented students here in Florida complaining that their children were challenged and motivated by school until ...

the orders came down to focus on the test. Now there is precious little time for critical thinking and experiments, as they devote their time to worksheets and test prep.

I understand it is necessary to get our most at-risk students focused on reading and writing, but we need to engage and motivate our Gifted and Talented students with work that allows them to be as strong if not stronger than their international peers.

or, we will pay the consequences

The time to Re-invent public schools is now -- and we must balance our focus on the most at-risk students, the average students, and the Gifted and Talented Students