A Principal Describes How More Resources Can Make A Difference(2)

In the past several posts, we've been pursuing a Strib opinion piece by former Minneapolis superintendent Peter Hutchinson, in which he argues that the we must fix our urban public schools by going big financially.  (See "Minneapolis schools must go big or go home") His thesis is that we keep providing school districts with mere inflationary increases, which merely make it possible to keep doing pretty much what has been done in the past, maintaining the status quo, which leaves tens of thousands of students permanently behind.  A common response is that since past inflationary increases don't seem to make a difference, surely that proves that "more money doesn't make a difference."   In dialog, it has become clear that too many of us simply can't imagine what money could do, if if schools received enough money to "go big," and if that money was provided only on condition that it bought big change.

So, in the last post, we began to provide some actual testimony from experienced educators on what they could do, if the state gave them enough money to go big.  This post is part (2) of that series.  Our principal is a highly experienced urban school educational leader.  Her views on this topic are more worthy of note, than say, a paid political pundit for an advocacy group. 

We pick up where we left off in part 1.  The principal tells us that with a significant influx of resources, her elementary school was able over several years time to nearly double the reading proficiency rate of black (non ELL) students in her school, students who were almost exclusively free and reduced lunch eligible.  During that time period, proficiency rates rose from lower than Minneapolis and St. Paul to more than ten points higher.  She continues:

Using the added resources, we implemented a model of co-teaching that provides a second teacher to provide reading in the classroom and provide additional support and intervention for the students who were behind. We implemented a number of other changes involving more planning time, more professional development to increase teachers tool- box in meeting the needs of their diverse student population. Over the next several years, the reading proficiency rates for those students increased to nearly 50%.

The co-teaching model is one strategy that intervenes immediately to make sure that kids who are behind get the help that they need it, right when they need it.  There are other approaches to this problem, but all of them recognize that learning is a pyramid of knowledge and skills, and when there are missing blocks in the foundation of that pyramid, it becomes increasingly difficult for students to construct on that shaky and incomplete base.  Every sound strategy must address this problem: if we allow kids to fall behind, they fall further and further behind, until they begin to believe that school is a failure zone.  

In that same classroom, our principal explains, students are falling behind in math, but the district lacked the funding to apply the same successful strategy for math.

We could not replicate these improvements for math, because the district lacked the resources to provide us with co-teaching and other similar supports for mathematics. And while we increased scores for English Language Learners as well, the District lacked the resources to provide the robust English Language learning support that we needed to move our English Language Learners to the point where they would meet state standards.

As a result of the reading success, her district moved her to a second school to implement the same reading strategy:  

At my current school, we are making an effort to use similar strategies with our students who are behind. The District is providing us with extra support for co-teachers in reading, but there is no money for co-teaching support in mathematics.  If we are going to meet state standards for the children who are persistently behind we need significantly more resources, and we need to use those resources significantly to add to what we are doing.

What would she do, with significantly more resources, we asked? She answered.  "Resources are needed to provide:

• More co-teaching and other intervention support staff, and provide significantly more intervention resources based on the needs of these students instead of providing those resources based on what we can spare out of the current budget. 
• Significantly more onboarding training for our new teachers before they start to work. Newly certified teachers are not coming out of schools of education with the training, experience and skills that they need. Currently the district is unable to afford the amount of onboarding training that these new teachers need to be effective. 
• More EL support from EL specialists who can help us implement EL best practices.
• More professional development time for our new and experienced teachers. That must be accomplished either by providing substitute teachers when teachers are out of the classroom for development, or preferably, providing in the collective bargaining agreement for more time after the instructional day is over.
  • Time for observation and use of that observation for instructional improvement.
  • More instructional coaches and time for instructional coaches to translate coaching into better practice.
  • More support, including additional qualified staff, for student who have social and emotional challenges.
  • Develop and implement specialized curriculum that targets these students particular challenges, so that individual teachers don’t have to develop their own curriculum on the fly.
  • High quality early childhood education that closes some of the gaps so that when students arrive in our school, their educational deficit is smaller and they are more likely to be ready for a classroom environment.
  • Resources to build links to parents and other caregivers to leverage our educational work in the home"
  

These strategies are being used successfully here and there in some schools, many of them extraordinary charter schools with extra foundation funding.  But in Minnesota, we lack the imagination to fund and implement these important changes, because our funding system is not based on funding the cost of what works, but rather it is based on funding just enough to keep on doing what we've been doing.   In the next post, we'll hear a bit more from this witness, and then we'll hear from other experienced educators who would like to have the state's support to assure the success of their students. 

A Principal Discusses Educational Consequences of Inadequate Resources (Part 1)

In a recent post, we quoted extensively a Strib opinion piece by former Minneapolis superintendent Peter Hutchinson, in which he argues that the we must fix our urban public schools by going big financially.  (See "Minneapolis schools must go big or go home")  He urged that Minneapolis needs $100 million per year more to buy big change.  Hutchinson explained that we need to "go big" because tiny funding increments only result in tiny minimalist increments:  more of the same, but at a slightly increased price.  We need to go big with funding, but only if big increase buy big change. In response, some have wondered aloud whether money is the problem; what, we are asked, can money really do!

To provide a partial answer to that question, today's post, and in several posts following, we'll provide segments of testimony taken from a school finance litigation pending in Stearns County District Court.  The testimony explores the consequences of inadequate funding for students who are being left behind and discusses what educators could do, if they were free to apply the significant new resources  needed to buy the big change Hutchinson was calling for.  Much of that testimony focuses our need to intervene systematically to prevent children who are behind from falling further and further behind. 

This first testimony comes from a distinguished elementary principal with long experience in urban elementary schools.  In her testimony, the principal compares the stark difference in performance of students, some from advantaged backgrounds and others from less advantaged backgrounds while attending the same school. She explains that statistically the less advantaged students are coming to school two or three years behind the advantaged.  After several years of elementary school:

typically half of these [less advantaged] students, or more, are not scoring proficient in reading or math. Many of them have come to us two or three years behind their advantaged peers, and although growth is happening it is not at a rate that is sufficient to close the achievement gap, due to the limited resources to meet the diverse needs of our students

Strong measures Required:  "To overcome the challenges of students who come to us behind," she testifies,  "we need to take strong measures."

These measures require us to work smarter, with more intentionality, with more planning time, more professional development, more support staff, and curriculum and resources adapted to the students we are serving. Our at-risk students statistically need more targeted and individualized supports in both academic and social and emotional domains.

Need for tier 2 and tier 3 supports.  She continues:  "Our task is challenging because of the significant number of our at-risk students who need so-called tier 2 and tier 3 supports to close the achievement gap, [and] the lack of resources needed to provide these tier supports to meet students’ needs." She continues:

Again, our at-risk students are significantly behind where the standards call for them to be in comparison to their peers, and in order to “catch them up” we need resources in order to make this happen.

Resources.  "Lacking the resources to provide sufficient differentiated instruction to meet the needs of our students who are behind", she testifies, "it is critical in order to get our school dependent students up to state standards for their age and grade."

When students are behind in literacy, math, science and other critical areas, it limits their ability to take advantage of the core classroom instruction. When children are persistently behind, year after year, it can be demoralizing and make them feel that school is a place where they fail, instead of a place where they are on the road to success.

Multiple Consequences of Students Remaining Behind. The principal's testimony continues by describing multiple aspects of the insidious problems arising when students who start out behind are allowed to stay behind:  

"This issue has multiple aspects.

• First, students who are behind still need access to the core instruction for their age and grade, even though they aren’t fully ready to master it.
• Second, our students who are behind need interventions by qualified staff to work with them to master the educational building blocks that they must master to be able to function effectively in the core classroom instructional environment.
• Third, the teacher and supporting staff need curriculum materials and access to teaching strategies that work for students who are behind.
• Fourth, all of our teachers need significantly more professional development, more collaborative planning time, and more support from master teachers and instructional coaches to accommodate their teaching to diverse challenges in the classroom.
• Fifth, it is clear that most children who are significantly behind need more learning time, more learning time in the instructional day and a longer instructional year.  Their ability to catch up is a function of both the quality of what we bring to them during the currently available instructional day, and the quantity of time that we have to help them master state standards. 

More Resources Needed.  The principal's testimony repeats a point one hears over and over from about the need to "go big" as Peter Hutchinson called it. When educators are asked to plan for change with too little, they can't think big enough to design the change that actually will get the job done.  Why propose the major reforms necessary to do the job, when the central office is allocating a tiny portion of those resources, and maybe even asking you to make cuts in what you are already doing! :

While my District tries to stretch its budget for schools like ours, we don’t have anywhere near the resources we need to implement a program that achieves the objectives that state standards set for us. Our ability even to conceive of a fully effective program to meet state standards for at-risk children is limited by the fact that we know that there is simply not enough resources – staff, training, instructional time, professional development time, curriculum development time, mentoring, observation and reflection time to put together a system that actually does what we need to do. Instead, we are reduced to asking, what incremental changes can we make within the inadequate budget available to us.

 When school-leaders are asked to make change with minimal additional resources, they are forced to think small to solve big problems.    In the next post, we'll continue to draw on a principal's testimony on the kinds of "go big" improvements that can, and should be, implemented when adequate funds are used to advance effective programs, to buy big effective change. 

Intermission: Let's Talk about Actually Fixing our Broken System

Jvonkorff on Education has been writing about education reform for the last weeks.  Its the 15th anniversary of the Governor's Task Force report which called for major reforms in the financing and delivery of education.   After over a decade of Minnesota's failure to make meaningful inroads in the achievement gap, after stagnating proficiency results in Minnesota's urban public schools, three different constitutional suits have sought judicial relief to force change.   On these blogs, we've been advancing the idea that Minnesota must dramatically increase its funding for the students we've been leaving behind, but also that this new funding must buy big change.  

As we discuss these issues, we ought to avoid the temptation to solve this problem by figuring out who is to blame.   We are really  good in Minnesota at responding to intractable problems by trying to identify fault and cast blame   Minnesota's public education system is not working for way too many children.   We recently quoted Peter Hutchinson's description of the magnitude of the problem in Minneapolis, and its worth quoting again, because what he describes could just as well apply to all of Minnesota's achievement gap:

The facts are pretty dismal. Only about 20 percent of Minneapolis students are college- or career-ready by the end of high school, while 40 percent of students don’t graduate. Another 20 percent don’t go on to get further education that is essential for success. And of the 40 percent who do go on to college or university, nearly half have to take remedial courses when they get there. In other words, they have to take high school over again. We are failing way too many kids, some outright and as many more even when we give them a diploma.

Who or what is to blame:  unions, Republicans, Democrats, the legislature, school principals and superintendents, education schools, school boards, parents or the students themselves.  The surest way to evade the hard work necessary to make progress is to engage in a debate about fault.  The continuous progress approach begins with avoiding fault, avoiding blame, and focusing instead on what we are going to do in the future.

Our system, the one we have right now, is not working for too many kids.  When a system is failing the solution begins with developing a plan to fix that system, not with fighting about who broke it.   We have to get out of our comfort zone; we must agree that the opportunity to provide an outstanding education to the children we are now leaving behind is so great, the rewards for success so attractive, and the consequences of failure so great, that we must get behind a shared transformative vision with a reasonable prospect of success. 

In the last two decades, one and only one genuine proposal has offered the prospect of a major Minnesota transformation in our public education system.  That proposal was issued by Governor Pawlenty's school finance task force of 2004. The task force's mission was not completed, because perhaps the forces working against change were so great.  That report wasn't perfect, but it called for funding the full dollar cost of providing an education that meets all state standards, which in fact is the Supreme Court's own constitutional test. 

Our children and their parents are asking that we fix the system.  So far, Minnesota's response has been to tell our children why we can't do that. Unions, legislators, white privilege, poverty, "the system."   Our children deserve a plan, and in our democracy, it is generally the obligation of the Governor to take leadership in developing that plan.  The Governor can't fix our system by himself.  It's not the Governor's fault, and this isn't a blame casting blog post.   Our Governor needs to take a page out of Governor Pawlenty's original plan to fix the system, but he should have the courage to finish the job. 

This last legislative session represented the eighth budget in a row that failed utterly to implement the 2004 task force's recommendation, or even to attempt to place on the table the questions that it asked.  For 15 years, Minnesota has looked the other way when this question is posed: what are we going to do to fix one of the largest achievement gaps in the country?  In that sense the 2019 Governor's budget and the 2019 final budget utterly failed to exhibit the necessary leadership, vision and courage.   We are headed around the merry-go-round of mediocrity for one more biennium.  

Let's all resolve to refocus the next two years on developing a and implementing a plan that promises to transform.  

Going Big and Doing it Well --A strategy for School Finance Reform-1

In his Strib Article, "Minneapolis schools must go big or go home" Peter Hutchinson, former Minneapolis superintendent warns against trying to fix our school finance system in tiny increments.  Jvonkorff on education tried to illustrate an aspect of this same idea in our last post describing St. Paul's budgetary challenges.  In summary, St. Paul received about 2 percent in formula increases, and $17 million new referendum revenue.  However those increases were virtually wiped out by enrollment decreases, compensation and other cost increases.   The net result is that St. Paul's strategic improvements, while well-conceived, are tiny compared to the need.  And, we argued, future cost increases will soon wipe out even the small increments installed this year. 

This is the point that Peter Hutchinson was making in the above referenced article.  Hutchinson served as Minneapolis superintendent in the 1990's, and he actively follows their progress.  He began by reminding us that we are failing too many kids.

The facts are pretty dismal. Only about 20 percent of Minneapolis students are college- or career-ready by the end of high school, while 40 percent of students don’t graduate. Another 20 percent don’t go on to get further education that is essential for success. And of the 40 percent who do go on to college or university, nearly half have to take remedial courses when they get there. In other words, they have to take high school over again. We are failing way too many kids, some outright and as many more even when we give them a diploma.

The thirty million per year referendum, he argued, was simply not enough.  It is equivalent to the district's persistent operating deficit.  In other words it would merely keep the district afloat, so that it could maintain existing levels of service without running a deficit:

So now they are coming to us. They are planning to ask us for $30 million more a year for the next 10 years. That amounts to about $850 per student on top of the $24,000 we are already spending. A 3.5 percent increase. What will we get for that? We will get to pay more for what we already have — but in a couple of years, after inflation eats it all up, we will be right back where we are today. It’s the wrong amount for the wrong reason.

(Parenthetically, we note that the figure $24,000 apparently includes all spending--for buildings and other indirect costs--the number that actually matters, total general fund spending that pays for for educational operations is about $16,000 per student.)  Hutchinson argues that Minneapolis's financial strategy is driven by the state's strategy, to go small; to leave things comfortably alone, and that strategy is bound to fail.    Hutchinson continues:

The Minneapolis Public Schools don’t need a little to keep things as they are — they need a lot to transform education and our city. We need schools that attract and hold families. That’s how we build strong, stable communities with rising property values. We need schools designed for the success of each student — not just 20 percent. We need teachers to guide students with a curriculum that is diverse enough to both challenge and support high achievement for each, and every, student. We need fewer but better school buildings, with 21st-century technology that connects students, teachers and families to the best educational opportunities in the world. Our students, families and teachers deserve these schools. Our city needs these schools.

Since 2004, when the Governor's task force warned that Minnesota must pay the full cost of delivering an education that meets state standards, one Governor after another has looked the other way-- avoiding the discomfort that arises from the truth:  we are never going to close the achievement gap by going small and staying comfortable.  When we add small increments, as just happened in St. Paul and Minneapolis, when we fail to both fund and demand transformative changes, we are perpetuating failure and contributing to the maintenance of a Minnesota underclass.  

Peter Hutchinson advocates for the strategy that we are advocating in St. Cloud, to address the needs of urban school districts we must go big and buy change. In Minneapolis, he argues:

We should take $100 million a year for the next five years and use it to buy (not just pay for) the changes we need — in buildings, technology, curriculum and teaching. “Buying” change means that no dollar is spent unless it produces at least a dollar’s worth of the change we need. No change — no money. Everyone should have the chance to be part of the change, but no one should be entitled to be paid for their good intentions alone. Being part of this change is only earned by delivering results.

In our next post, part 2 of "Going Big and Doing it well" jvonkorff on education will describe the strategy being pursued by St. Cloud advocates for school finance reform  in the courts.

St. Paul Illustrates Budget Challenges in an Underfunded System

We've been advocating that to fix its broken funding system so that Minnesota public education works for the children that Minnesota has been leaving behind, that Minnesota needs faithfully to implement the Skeen/Cruz Guzman constitutional mandate--that is, to provide districts enough funding to provide all students with an education that meets state standards.  The St. Paul District's budget challenges illustrate the difficulties encountered by urban districts when they strive to address the needs of students with higher and costlier educational needs.  This year's budget shows that, despite good intentions, metropolitan school districts like St. Paul operate within a state created financial straight jacket that makes it virtually impossible to implement systemic changes that can make our public schools work for the students we now leave behind.  St. Paul just passed a $17 million referendum, among other things to attack the achievement gap.  But this year's budget demonstrates how pathetically small that referendum is, compared to what must be done.

Until the state, led by the Governor, Commissioner and legislature makes fundamental changes, St. Paul will not make needed transformations.  This year's budget appears to be designed to prevent a catastrophic teacher's strike and to prevent a major fiscal catastrophe.   There is nothing in the budget that is up to the transformation that will be required to deliver an education that meets state standards for its students.
Let's look at how Minnesota's fiscal straitjacket hamstrings St. Paul.  It should be obvious that St. Paul is faced with the need to make major strategic changes if it hopes to meet the needs of the students who are costlier to educate.  Its free and reduced lunch eligible enrollment is a whopping 66%, its English language learner enrollment is a state-high 30%, and its nonwhite enrollment 79%.   It is losing enrollment to charter schools, and its budgetary increases are wiped out by compensation increases and enrollment declines. St. Paul's reading and math proficiency rates for non ELL students of color are persistently low.  Big changes are surely necessary. 

The District's next year total operating budget will be $579 million.  Last year, the district's budget amounted to about $15,500 per "adjusted daily membership."  As of last year, the district was saddled with a special education deficit of $40 million, or $1000 plus per student.  AMSD figures tell us that the District's English Language deficit has been running at $19 million.  Both these are mandate deficits, totalling $60 million, or about $1300 plus per student (that is the SPED and ELL mandate deficit divided across all students) 

Faced with severe financial pressure, and the need to implement major reforms to attack the achievement gap, the district went to the voters to obtain an operating referendum levy increase of $17.3 million. That's about $500 per student.   The District's operating referendum increase is less than 1/3 of the combined special education and ELL deficit.   At the time of the referendum, the district hoped to use the new revenue to implement major initiatives to address the students it has been leaving behind.

St. Paul FY 20 General fund revenue experienced a $17.8 million increase . That increase arises from a netting of increases and decreases.    Its general education revenue increased by 2% ($5.2 million), pre-kindergarten revenues by $2.2 million and special education revenue by $2.2 million.  In addition, the district received a $17.3 million revenue influx as a result of increases in the operating referendum approved by voters.  All of those increases, however, were diminished by decreases resulting from enrollment declines so that the net increase in general fund revenue was just a half million more than the referendum increase.  

In order to meet contractual obligations, mostly compensation increases, the district will have to allocate over $10 million of the $17 million referendum increase to keep doing mostly what it is now doing but at a higher price, leaving about $6 million to fund strategic initiatives -- about $150 per student.  The superintendent's proposal for spending this $6 million involves the very kind of things that a district needs to do, but its a 1 percent increase in a district that needs ten times or more than that, and a big bold plan to use that money for transformation. 

Don't blame the superintendent; don't blame the board of education; don't blame the teachers or their union.   They are working in a system designed to yield systemic failure.  

This year's small budgetary increase for strategic initiatives becomes the base budget for the following year.  In that following year, our system demands that this year's compensation becomes the base against which another round of compensation increases are required.  Decreasing enrollment will take its toll, unless and until the public sees major improvements, and one percent isn't going to the job, although Jvonkorff on Education hopes that it is wrong. 

The fault for all of this results from a failure of leadership in the Governor's office -- Pawlenty, Dayton and now Walz, in the Commissioner's office -- now occupied by a person who knows St. Paul and should know that 1 percent won't do the job, and in the legislature.   In our next post, we'll describe a big bold solution to this problem, one that will take courage in those quarters, or a kick in the behind from the judiciary.