Scrooge haunts Denver Public Schools

Charter schools, contractors under the state department of education or a school district, are accustomed to poor-cousin treatment.Charter schools must jump through more hoops, have longer school years, and pay for their facilities out of their operating budget.

District schools have less discretionary budget, but need not worry about balancing, rent or a mortgage against salaries, utilities, curriculum or copy toner like a charter school. It is all decided for them. Each budget is planned for them based on projected student population, which is also decided for them. There are some areas with a little discretion: biology teachers versus language arts teachers, social worker versus nurse, number of security personnel and facility maintenance (janitors, landscaping personnel, etc).

Most district schools, as well as charter schools develop a budget in January based on building needs, student needs, salaries, and the school’s mission based on projected enrollment, projected fundraising, and the school’s improvement plan. In a charter school, the individual school’s budget is approved by the school’s board of directors. In a regular district school, the individual school’s budget is approved by the superintendent then the board of education. Now the schools have an expenditure plan. Although very similar in product produced, charter schools are truly managed more like a small business than a government bureaucracy.

For the most part, student enrollment projections are fairly accurate, so most budgets are accurate as well. Recently, however, one of Colorado’s premier districts discovered its five year student enrollment projections were off and cuts were made in all areas, rather than adding facilities and personnel as was planned, cuts and tabling improvements were made. Scrambling to make cuts is not an easy thing to do for a school district or an individual school. So what does this have to do with giving DPS the nickname, Scrooge?

My employer, Colorado High School Charter, is a small alternative high school chartered through Denver Public Schools. It is a second chance for students 16 and above to develop positive academic habits and earn a diploma. Our board of directors, after looking at our budget, granted us the opportunity to have a part-time educator for the second half of the school year. We had just enough in our budget to cover the salary for someone working with students a few hours a week. We decided to look for an experienced special educator.

We could be flexible with the teacher‘s area of strength since our special educator (me) is AC/DC, able to teach remedial reading, writing, mathematics and other content areas. This will allow us to provide more remediation in mathematics when so many of our 16+ year olds are performing between the fourth and sixth grade level, products of urban school districts and their own poor choices, and we would have been able to give more support in literacy. Again, many of our students read and write at the elementary or early middle school level.

But in the first week of December, DPS placed a big chunk of coal in our stocking! The powers that be insisted on raising the rates that charter schools spend in retirement allocations for DSPRS. They raised it with no notice and wanted it NOW (within 10 days). That's barely more notice than investors get on a margin call.

“Bah humbug!” the central administration roared. So it's no additional teacher for our enterprising little charter. No additional help for students who have been left behind or fallen through the cracks at the hands of large, impersonal district schools. Again, student needs are trumped by district policy. The needs of the adults (read employees) are more important than the needs of the students (read customer) and whenever possible, make sure charter schools cannot serve the needs of the students that the district schools failed to serve. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Beware the preschool bandwagon

Common sense tells you the world is flat. Science says otherwise, of course, but it was only after two centuries and a whole lot of scientists that the world's leaders were finally convinced. Truth is sometimes counterintuitive. We’d like to think we're more enlightened in 2008, but many of our leaders today are just as likely to dismiss scientific evidence as those six centuries ago. Consider the case for government preschool programs. Such programs seem to be the solution to the problem of low academic achievement among poor children. Since these kids typically enter school behind their more advantaged peers, it seems reasonable to enroll them in school a year or two earlier to give them a head start. Unfortunately, what seems to be a perfectly sensible solution is not one at all.

The vast majority of research over the past four decades shows that the benefits children gain from preschool fade out by the end of elementary school. Taxpayers are spending $6.8 billion a year on the federal Head Start program, more than $3 billion on state-based prekindergarten programs, and billions more on various other federal daycare programs, subsidies and tax credits on the false premise that children are somehow benefiting.

In Colorado, taxpayers spend $29 million a year on state preschool programs. Denver voters passed a sales tax in 2006 to subsidize preschool. According to a Denver Post article by Jeremy P. Meyer, 3,650 students receive subsidies. James Mejia, director of the Denver Preschool Program, told Meyer that “Studies show that for every dollar you spend on early childhood education, you will get back $10 to $12 in services you would otherwise be spending on social services, incarceration, remediation.”

Sounds great, but upon closer examination, this just isn't true. The cost-benefit analyses routinely bandied about by advocates come up short. The analysis is laregely based on exaggerated claims from a tiny subset of studies misrepresented as the whole. When the vast majority of research is considered, it becomes clear that preschool does not reap the amazing benefits touted by advocates.

Four decades of legitimate research actually shows that the majority of low-income children experience only short-term positive impacts and there is little long-term impact from preschool participation. Research also shows that preschool participation has no positive impact on children from middle or high income families, another ill-supported claim by advocates. Worse, preschool can have negative effects. Researchers at the National Institutes for Health and various universities have found adverse effects on children’s behavior resulting from early childhood education programs.

So why don’t we ever hear about this research? Why is it kept buried?

In public policy, the real question is not why but who, as in who benefits? That’s the billion dollar question. When government preschool programs are established, public and private preschools acquire taxpayer funding. Advocacy groups reap millions of dollars from foundation donors to continue expanding programs. Politicians feel good about “doing something” to help kids. Families like free or subsidized day care that supposedly helps their children. And the media gets to do puff pieces. Everyone wins, except perhaps the heretic who suggests otherwise. That isn’t to say those who benefit don’t sincerely believe the claims. I’m sure they do.

Common sense and conscience can be fooled. When money and reputations are on the line, it can take centuries to bring the truth to light.

Krista Kafer is a Denver-based education consultant, frequent cohost on Backbone Radio, and regular columnist for Face the State.com, from which this is reprinted by permission.

Merrifield bedevils parental hopes

Writing from a special place in Hell where I rent a small office, I’d like to congratulate state Rep. Mike Merrifield on his reappointment to chair the House Education Committee. Why the soon-to-be-Speaker of the House, Rep. Terrance Carroll, himself a school choice advocate, would allow Merrifield to remain in this powerful position is a good question. Carroll has been critical of Merrifield’s attempts to weaken the Charter School Institute and his notorious email claiming “There must be a special place in Hell for these Privatizers, Charterizers, and Voucherizers! They deserve it!”

Perhaps Carroll thinks the Manitou Springs Democrat has reformed his ways. After all, he has managed to stay out of the papers. After Face The State exposed the infamous email in March 2007, Merrifield stepped down from the chairmanship. He resumed his leadership position in the 2008 session and the year went by quietly. I guess Merrifield learned a lesson; if you want to condemn your opponents to the fires of Hell, don't do it over email.

Fellow proponents of school choice, us denizens of brimstone acres, have reason to be concerned about Merrifield’s continued leadership. Emboldened by the last election, liberal politicians have no reason to feign moderation. Last year’s attacks on charter schools will be nothing compared to this year’s. As long as Merrifield is at the helm, we can expect anti-school choice legislation to pass through the committee while pro-school choice legislation languishes.

As both a charterizer and a voucherizer (no doubt doomed to the inferno’s ninth circle), I feel compelled to define the terms of parental choice in education for the reader who may not know what’s at stake. When I was a kid, parents had one choice—send their kids to a designated neighborhood school or pony up for a private school. Parents who could not afford a home in a desirable neighborhood or private school tuition simply had no other options. Thanks to untiring grassroots advocates and a courageous bipartisan group of leaders, today’s parents have a few more options than we had growing up.

Colorado parents can choose any public school that has seats available. They can educate their children at home. Families can also choose from over 140 public charter schools. Like other public schools, charter schools are free public schools open to all students. Unlike other public schools, charter schools have their own governing boards and may adopt their own curriculum and personnel procedures. No two charter schools are the same. There are college preparatory schools, schools that emphasize the arts, on-line schools, schools that encourage hands-on learning, and back-to-basics schools, to name but a few. Charter schools can be authorized by school districts or by the Charter School Institute, a statewide public authorizer.

Making a choice has become easier thanks to school report cards and parent-friendly Web sites that provide information about schools. Even so there are still too many families in areas without good public schools either traditional or charter. Even though private schools typically operate at a fraction of the public per-pupil funding level, for some families, even modest tuition is still out of their reach. In 14 states and the District of Columbia, parents can choose from among private schools with the help of a scholarship or tax credit/deduction. In Colorado, parents do not have this option. Tenacious school choice proponents in Colorado have tried to try to expand options for parents but as long as politicians like Merrifield remain in leadership, their efforts will be blocked every time.

How can the Speaker-to-Be believe Merrifield will act any differently in 2009? How likely is it that we’ll see a kinder, gentler chairman? About a snowball’s chance, I’d say. According to Colorado Capitol Watch, Merrifield received thousands of dollars from unions and other anti-school choice advocacy groups this past election. He isn’t likely to bite the hand that feeds. This is bad news for families seeking new school options and even those trying to hold on to the ones they have. It is difficult to predict exactly where the school choice movement will go next session, but I’m certain Merrifield has a special place in mind.

Marshall Fritz, RIP

My friend Marshall was that rare combination, a devout Christian and a rigorous libertarian. Heroically he led the Alliance for Separation of School and State, and previously the Advocates for Self-Government. His death on Nov. 4 at 65 is a loss to all of us who remember Jefferson's warning that the natural course of things is for government to advance and liberty to recede.

Tributes are here. Friends are endowing a lecture series in his memory, for which donations may be sent to Fritz Fund, 1071 N. Fulton, Fresno CA 93728.

Schools money-hungry & thin-skinned

Editor: Conservative gadfly Tom Graham of Arvada scored a media coup with his satirical "why vote yes" entry in the Jefferson County election mailer giving arguments for and against a nearly $1 billion education proposal. The kerfuffle was big news in the Denver Post this week, and the Rocky did a similar story. Here is Graham's report on the aftermath. ================================

GULLIVER AMONG THE EDUCRATS By Tom Graham

The campaign supporting 3A and 3B, the big tax and bond package, issued a press release, condemning me for submitting a “pro” statement for the election notice. I was advised that Citizens for Jeffco Schools had already submitted a statement and mine wasn’t needed.

The district feels that the election notice process is their property, not a legal public right, unless someone mirrors their agenda. Districts use strategies such as having staff write both the pro and con sides of an issue. Let someone disagree and a storm breaks loose. Now there’s a movement to change the election notice law to hide their true agenda. I did not imply that I was speaking for the district, and my statements are factual, except for those that are opinion.

The district superintendent stated to the Denver Post, “We did edit out the personal attacks on some of our citizens.” These were called “offensive” in their press release. Evidently they weren’t offensive enough to keep the district from placing them in the Post, with ten times as many readers. These two horrible “attacks,” were a compliment, and a reference to an Obama slogan.

I’ve received 13 media contacts and a number of compliments, some from political leaders, plus one threat. Speaking of attacks, a friend who had no knowledge of the notice, was attacked in a flood of e-mails for merely being with me when I submitted it.

The notice is a forum available to the fixed income folks to oppose repeated tax increases. They have no money for a campaign. One of the district’s political action committees, Citizens for Jeffco Schools, spent hundreds of thousands, contributed by 294 donors. Thirteen donors contributed $5,000 or more each, with three giving a total of $95,000.

These ballots are designed to convince uninformed voters to approve a self-serving agenda. Note the overblown non-teaching segment of their budget, dismal student performance, and teacher union domination. 3A asks for a mill levy override almost double that of the next highest in the state. 3B is slightly less than the state’s highest, Douglas County’s.

A debt service of $754 million, plus a 4.4 mill rate increase, adds up to an additional $103 million looting of the public pocketbook next year, increasing each year, with no sunset provision. Their press release states, “…many Jeffco seniors will actually see a reduction in their school property tax even if 3A passes because of the Homestead Exemption.” This falsely implies a connection between the tax and the exemption.

They state, “A yes vote on 3A/3B will keep our property values strong….” As anyone involved in real estate knows, the opposite is true. Perpetual tax increases price properties and buyers out of the market. Where’s the apology for these misrepresentations?

These ballots are so preposterous that they lend themselves to satire. If anyone over at the district was sophisticated enough to have read Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” they might have been amused, rather than so uptight.

Email Tom Graham at coloradothomas@aol.com.