In my last post, I wrote about the fiscal tricks that Pawlenty and the DFL used in the last budget to allow the State to spend 34.5 billion dollars with only about 30 billion dollars in taxes. They used 2.3 billion in federal stimulus money -- which was the purpose of that stimulus in the first place, to avoid the layoff of state employees and especially teachers in the midst of the massive recession that began in 2007. Then, they forced school districts to borrow about 1.8 billion dollars so that the state could shift aid payments for the current year into the next year. These numbers are widely discussed. The 1.8 billion dollar figure is a one-time shift, and each year, the folks in St. Paul can avoid reckoning with the Pawlenty budget shift, by just shifting the 1.8 billion on to the next year again. That's what Dayton and the Republican legislative majorities are proposing to do -- the shift isn't even in dispute. In fact, the discussions just before the shutdown contemplated an even bigger shift.
But there's a much larger shift in the education budget that neither party talks about, but its used year after year, and that's the special education aid shift that shifts the State's special education mandate onto local districts, forcing them to raise local property taxes. For 8 years governor Pawlenty and the legislature shifted larger and larger special education costs onto local districts, and the total of these shifts make the 1.8 billion shift that everyone talks about look like spare change. Every biennium, the governor and legislature wink at each other, give a shout out to the Federal government, and intentionally underfund special education by at least 600 million dollars for the biennium, but unlike the smaller shift that we talk about, the State never reimburses local districts for the special education shift. They just keep larding the deficit onto local districts year after year.
This biennium, the legislature and Governor have served up the largest special education deficit in history, just about 1.3 billion for the biennium. If this practice continues, the total deficit for the next decade will exceed 7 billion dollars. Local district have no revenue source to cover this deficit, and the size of the deficit varies greatly from district to district. The special education deficit, along with unrestrained labor cost increases, represents the major cause of class size increases, of teacher layoffs and of other program cuts, but our policy makers in St. Paul refuse to address the problem. They are making the problem worse.
The folks in St. Paul love to blame the federal government for this problem, but that is a prevarication. Minnesota has a higher special education requirement than the Federal Government. If the Federal Government repealed the special education law tomorrow, we'd still have the same special ed spending in Minnesota. A few legislators proposed a bill to reduce our special education cost mandate down to the federal level, and the bill couldn't even get a committee hearing in the Republican legislature. Republicans are big fans of the special education deficit, just like their DFL colleagues.
How do local districts cover this gigantic deficit. They have to go to the voters and get an operating referendum. In the vast majority of school districts in Minnesota, excepting some of the wealthy suburban districts, the special education deficit for the district is larger than the voter passed operating referendum. That's right, in many districts, if the state fully funded special education, the districts could function without an operating referendum.
When you hear a Republican or Democrat rail against unfunded mandates, its time to chuckle. They're just pretending. The 700 million unfunded mandate, the great special education deficit shift, is passed every biennium by both parties with a wink and a nod, and nary a concern for by far the most significant unfunded mandate ever conceived in education.
Showing posts with label Unfunded mandates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unfunded mandates. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Who should foot the multi-million dollar bill for increased public pension contributions?
This year, the legislature increased the rate of local school districts' contributions for public employee pension plans by one-half percent of compensation for each of the next four years. In our district, that represents an increase of $250,000, each year, until in four years, our new unfunded pension contribution costs will reach $1,000,000. Where should this money come from? When I discuss this issue, I'm amazed that almost everyone has a visceral answer to this question, as if it were simple. The state increased the rate of the District's contribution, so logically, the District should pay the contribution, right?
The problem is that the District doesn't have a printing press for money. So, saying that the District should pay, doesn't really help at all. When the State of Minnesota increases a mandated spending level for the District, there are several choices:
I have to begin by saying that my view is that it makes absolutely no sense for the cost of a state pension plan to be carried by children in schools. This question, as unpleasant as it may be, is going to repeat itself over and over again, in the next quarter century. Our current pension obligations, especially in the public arena, haven't taken the change in the dependency ratio into account. As more and more of us retire, in comparison to the number of productive workers, we are going to have to decide again and again, whether we pay the cost of increased dependency by reducing our investment in children. This is something I touched on in a prior post.
I think its worth pausing, before we answer the question "who should pay," to look at the genesis of public pension plans for educators and other public employees.
Public pension programs in Minnesota are close to a century old, and they thus predate federal social security. You can find a history of the teachers retirement fund on the web by clicking here. TRA history you will find at this link begins with this entry:
When the social security act was first passed, it did not include State or local employees. Social security is a form of modified "defined benefit" plan which is designed to pay a benefit that is based on earnings history. (Social security differs from a true defined benefit plan, because the promise to pay the defined benefit is not based upon a contract with the government, but rather upon a legislative promise.) Social security imposes a tax on the employer and on the employee: the funds, however, go into the government treasury, with a separate accounting, called a trust fund, but is not really a trust fund. The money is not held in trust; it is not separately invested; there is no lock-box filled with bonds and treasury bills representing the social security trust.
Because social security is funded by taxes on employer and employee, the authors of the social security act were, at first, reluctant to require that state and local employees would be subject to mandatory coverage: one primary reason was a constitutional concern, that the federal government might not have the power to impose taxes on governmental employers, and that concern has raised special issues as to federal taxation of the State itself, as opposed to local entities. If school district and local government employees were going to have a retirement fund, then, states or local districts would have to take the responsibility. Back in the days when social security was first founded, teachers salaries were pretty minimal, and without State pensions, it would have been pretty difficult to attract qualified people into the profession.
However, eventually, states and the federal government came to an accommodation which would allow states to put their employees into social security program with consent of the State itself. But the existing state programs had significantly different benefits rules, and so they had to find some way to get the two programs to work together. The result in Minnesota was a coordination of benefits agreement which put teachers in social security and in TRA, but created a complex set of offsets to prevent duplication of benefits.
The Social Security Administration's website says:
Now TRA is a defined benefit plan, but the contributions are place in a real trust fund, and the money held by the fund is invested in bonds or other market instruments by the State Board of Investment. For some detailed information about the system, you can click here.
Now when I talk to business folks about TRA, one of the first things they want to tell me is that the business world has moved away from defined benefit plans. Most of us in the private sector, they say, have pensions that promise only to pay the actual return on the funds that have actually been invested in our 401(k), IRA, or other account. But that is not entirely correct, is it, because folks in the private employment system have social security, which is, after all, a defined benefit plan. The real difference is the supplemental part--the part beyond social security, and there we have a substantial difference, for sure. When your 401(K) takes a loss, you take the loss, not the government or your employer. If your funds were invested unwisely, you can be wiped out, even.
The advantage of a defined benefit plan like the TRA or PERA is the definite security of a promised benefit, but that security is also its biggest problem from a public policy standpoint. With a defined benefit plan it is really impossible to predict that the money invested in the trust fund will produce a rate of return sufficient to produce the promised benefits. If the funds are invested aggressively, they can realize an excellent return in good times, but the fund can take a huge loss in really bad times. So the essence of a State defined benefit retirement fund is that the State makes a promise to pay a fixed pension on retirement, provided that the employee earns enough years of service. That means that it is possible that the earnings of the investments in the trust fund may be insufficient to cover the total of the promised benefits accruing in a particular year.
After the huge market declines that occurred in 2007-2008, the State's defined benefit plans were adjudged actuarially insufficient to provide the benefits that were to accrue in the future. We can grouse and sputter and complain about that fact, but its a fact nonetheless. After a great deal of controversy, the governor and legislature responded last year by increasing the rate of contribution at the rate of 1/2 percent of compensation each year for both employers and employees. But, as usual, the State made no provision in funding for local districts to cover the increased cost.
Hence my question--who should have to pay the shortfall?
The answer, in my view, is that the State of Minnesota created the obligation--the State of Minnesota should have either solved the problem with reduced benefits (for non-vested participants) or it should have met its obligations out of the general fund. The decision to pass the problem along to local school districts was irresponsible, because it represented a significant new unfunded mandate. School districts don't have an extra pot of money, or extra revenue source,s to cover these increased contributions. And, the legislature provided no increased revenues to school districts in the general fund formula, and it created a larger deficit in special education. In my view, as difficult as it may be in these tough times, the legislature should step up to the plate and assume the increased costs, because it is the State of Minnesota's obligation.
Failing that, then we are left with the choice between taking the million dollars from children, through reduced programs or increased class size, or we can subtract it from the funds that we have available to compensate staff. Generally, when we calculate the revenues that we have available for staff compensation, we add salary plus the cost of benefits (including social security, health insurance and retirement costs). We charge all of those costs against total compensation. If we follow that course, then the increased TRA and PERA costs would indirectly result in reduction in the funds available for other forms of compensation. That's a painful solution, and its painful to discuss. But the other course, taking the money out of programs for children in school seems all the more painful.
The problem is that the District doesn't have a printing press for money. So, saying that the District should pay, doesn't really help at all. When the State of Minnesota increases a mandated spending level for the District, there are several choices:
- (a) the increased cost could be paid by the children of parents who send them to public school, in the form of reduced programs--increased class sizes, lower textbook budgets, or other reductions,
- (b) the increased cost could be factored into our compensation budget: the District could say, look, we only have so much money for compensation costs, if we have to raise our spending here, we have to lower it there, so the employees indirectly pay the cost of their pensions. This is generally how we handle all compensation costs. In times when TRA contribution costs go down, it frees up more money for other forms of compensation; in times when they go up, it reduces our ability to pay other compensation costs;
- (c) the increased cost could be paid by a local levy (if the State were to give us one), and absorbed by the local taxpayers in a locally imposed property tax, and
- (d) the State could provide increased revenues out of the State general fund, on the theory that, by golly, if the State is going to make us spend more for a State managed retirement program, then the payments are a state obligation, and should be paid out of state revenues.
I have to begin by saying that my view is that it makes absolutely no sense for the cost of a state pension plan to be carried by children in schools. This question, as unpleasant as it may be, is going to repeat itself over and over again, in the next quarter century. Our current pension obligations, especially in the public arena, haven't taken the change in the dependency ratio into account. As more and more of us retire, in comparison to the number of productive workers, we are going to have to decide again and again, whether we pay the cost of increased dependency by reducing our investment in children. This is something I touched on in a prior post.
I think its worth pausing, before we answer the question "who should pay," to look at the genesis of public pension plans for educators and other public employees.
Public pension programs in Minnesota are close to a century old, and they thus predate federal social security. You can find a history of the teachers retirement fund on the web by clicking here. TRA history you will find at this link begins with this entry:
A precursor to TRA was established in 1915, as the first statewide plan providing retirement benefits for Minnesota public school teachers. Both St Paul and Minneapolis had established City teacher retirement funds in 1909. Contributions to the 1915 fund were $5 to $10 per year, with benefits of around $100 paid per month. The minimum vesting requirement for a monthly benefit was 20 years, with no minimum age requirement. The 1915 Fund, also referred to as the Pioneer Teachers Retirement Fund, was liquidated during the Great Depression but payment of prorated benefits continued from the State General Fund.Several of the employee retirement funds were locally created, by cities or local school districts. But the largest of our retirement funds were created by the State: the payment rules are set by the state; the investments are managed by the State; the rates of contributions are managed by the State, and the State takes responsibility to monitor and audit the investments and payments to make sure that the payments and contributions are managed effectively. The obligation--the actual legal responsibility to pay lies with the State of Minnesota. The St. Cloud School District has not promised to pay its employees a pension: the promise is made, and the benefits set, by the State of Minnesota.
When the social security act was first passed, it did not include State or local employees. Social security is a form of modified "defined benefit" plan which is designed to pay a benefit that is based on earnings history. (Social security differs from a true defined benefit plan, because the promise to pay the defined benefit is not based upon a contract with the government, but rather upon a legislative promise.) Social security imposes a tax on the employer and on the employee: the funds, however, go into the government treasury, with a separate accounting, called a trust fund, but is not really a trust fund. The money is not held in trust; it is not separately invested; there is no lock-box filled with bonds and treasury bills representing the social security trust.
Because social security is funded by taxes on employer and employee, the authors of the social security act were, at first, reluctant to require that state and local employees would be subject to mandatory coverage: one primary reason was a constitutional concern, that the federal government might not have the power to impose taxes on governmental employers, and that concern has raised special issues as to federal taxation of the State itself, as opposed to local entities. If school district and local government employees were going to have a retirement fund, then, states or local districts would have to take the responsibility. Back in the days when social security was first founded, teachers salaries were pretty minimal, and without State pensions, it would have been pretty difficult to attract qualified people into the profession.
However, eventually, states and the federal government came to an accommodation which would allow states to put their employees into social security program with consent of the State itself. But the existing state programs had significantly different benefits rules, and so they had to find some way to get the two programs to work together. The result in Minnesota was a coordination of benefits agreement which put teachers in social security and in TRA, but created a complex set of offsets to prevent duplication of benefits.
The Social Security Administration's website says:
Most employees have Social Security protection because their states and the Social Security Administration entered into special agreements called “Section 218 agreements.” Others are covered by a federal law passed in July 1991 when Social Security was extended to state and local employees who were not covered by an agreement and were not members of their agency’s public pension system.The result of these changes in social security were to make coverage available to state and local public employees, as I have said. Minnesota eventually entered into the coordinated system which makes teachers part of the social security system and the TRA or PERA retirement systems, with the benefits and contributions "coordinated" in a way that is designed to prevent double coverage. The way in which the two systems work together, in terms of contributions, benefits, and retirement or disability eligibility is a topic I'm not at all qualified to explain.
Now TRA is a defined benefit plan, but the contributions are place in a real trust fund, and the money held by the fund is invested in bonds or other market instruments by the State Board of Investment. For some detailed information about the system, you can click here.
Now when I talk to business folks about TRA, one of the first things they want to tell me is that the business world has moved away from defined benefit plans. Most of us in the private sector, they say, have pensions that promise only to pay the actual return on the funds that have actually been invested in our 401(k), IRA, or other account. But that is not entirely correct, is it, because folks in the private employment system have social security, which is, after all, a defined benefit plan. The real difference is the supplemental part--the part beyond social security, and there we have a substantial difference, for sure. When your 401(K) takes a loss, you take the loss, not the government or your employer. If your funds were invested unwisely, you can be wiped out, even.
The advantage of a defined benefit plan like the TRA or PERA is the definite security of a promised benefit, but that security is also its biggest problem from a public policy standpoint. With a defined benefit plan it is really impossible to predict that the money invested in the trust fund will produce a rate of return sufficient to produce the promised benefits. If the funds are invested aggressively, they can realize an excellent return in good times, but the fund can take a huge loss in really bad times. So the essence of a State defined benefit retirement fund is that the State makes a promise to pay a fixed pension on retirement, provided that the employee earns enough years of service. That means that it is possible that the earnings of the investments in the trust fund may be insufficient to cover the total of the promised benefits accruing in a particular year.
After the huge market declines that occurred in 2007-2008, the State's defined benefit plans were adjudged actuarially insufficient to provide the benefits that were to accrue in the future. We can grouse and sputter and complain about that fact, but its a fact nonetheless. After a great deal of controversy, the governor and legislature responded last year by increasing the rate of contribution at the rate of 1/2 percent of compensation each year for both employers and employees. But, as usual, the State made no provision in funding for local districts to cover the increased cost.
Hence my question--who should have to pay the shortfall?
The answer, in my view, is that the State of Minnesota created the obligation--the State of Minnesota should have either solved the problem with reduced benefits (for non-vested participants) or it should have met its obligations out of the general fund. The decision to pass the problem along to local school districts was irresponsible, because it represented a significant new unfunded mandate. School districts don't have an extra pot of money, or extra revenue source,s to cover these increased contributions. And, the legislature provided no increased revenues to school districts in the general fund formula, and it created a larger deficit in special education. In my view, as difficult as it may be in these tough times, the legislature should step up to the plate and assume the increased costs, because it is the State of Minnesota's obligation.
Failing that, then we are left with the choice between taking the million dollars from children, through reduced programs or increased class size, or we can subtract it from the funds that we have available to compensate staff. Generally, when we calculate the revenues that we have available for staff compensation, we add salary plus the cost of benefits (including social security, health insurance and retirement costs). We charge all of those costs against total compensation. If we follow that course, then the increased TRA and PERA costs would indirectly result in reduction in the funds available for other forms of compensation. That's a painful solution, and its painful to discuss. But the other course, taking the money out of programs for children in school seems all the more painful.
Friday, January 7, 2011
2011 Budgets: 2010 legislature and governor imposes brand new unfunded pension mandate
On Wednesday of next week, our Board of Education will conduct a workshop to begin the budgeting process for budget year running from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012. The administration is going to tell us that in the coming budget, Governor Pawlenty and the legislature passed along to us an additional $1.2 million in new unfunded mandate costs in the last legislative session. We will be told that unless we rescind them in the coming collective bargaining agreements, we will absorb $ 1 million for in additional compensation costs before we even begin bargaining. The Board of Education is going to have to do some really hard thinking about what sustainable finances mean.
We face the following financial challenges:
The deficiency in contributions--or if you prefer, the excess in TRA payouts in the pension plans--amounted to about 3.3 percent of payroll. To put that in perspective, that would be about $1.6 million per year for licensed teachers for our school district alone. To address this problem, Governor Pawlenty and the legislature agreed to impose a brand new unfunded mandate on school districts. Under legislation passed last year employing unit contribution rates for school districts will increase 0.5% a year for each of the four years beginning July 1, 2011. All of our employee plans taken together will experience employer contribution increases totaling more than $250,000 each year. By the end of four years, our total pension costs will have increased by $1,000,000 per year without any funding increase by the legislature to take care of these increases.
Who will absorb the costs of these mandates? Should the cost increases associated with providing increased pension benefits to teachers and other employees (albeit retroactively) be absorbed by parents and students through cuts in their local school districts across the state? Should they be absorbed by increased taxes at the State level? Should they be absorbed by funding reductions in other state programs--health, environment, state public employee pay reductions? Should they be absorbed by increased taxes at the local level? Should they be absorbed by local employee pay reductions? Governor Pawlenty signed this unfunded mandate without answering this question. In doing so, he was joining hands with the DFL dominated legislature in just one more act of increasing mandates on local school districts without answering the painful question: where is the money going to come from to fund this new cost.
Under the rules operating in last year's legislature, when the governor and legislature increased local school districts obligations, providing additional funds to meet these obligations was, well, off the table. It was part of the basic operating principle that has existed in our State recently that affords a higher priority to public employees and taxpayers than children in school. And so, here is a new unfunded mandate passed along to school districts in a legislative year when the entire legislature, Republicans and Democrats alike, were telling us that they were committed to reducing unfunded mandates.
Now don't be yelling at me, please. These plans are not run by local school districts. We don't set the amount of benefits. We didn't decide to increase benefits permanently when the stock market went up temporarily. We don't manage TRA or PERA investment policies. Both plans are funded, like social security, by a combination of employer and employee contributions. When eventually the State recognized that something had to be done to make these plans solvent, the legislature decided to make school districts (and employees), as well as municipal and county government (PERA) pay more into the plans. However, the legislature provided no new revenues to school districts to fund these contributions, as I have said. You can find more about the reasons for and operation of these increases at the following websites: Click Here. Click Here.
If we were in an ordinary year, we'd say, look, this is no big deal. If we received, say, a 3 percent increase in funding, we could allocate the proportionate share of the 3 percent to employees, and then deduct the TRA costs from compensation increases. But in the last two years, we've had no increases from the State. And so, we have only two choices, really, to make things come out even. One, is to pass the increased pension plan costs on to kids, by cutting programs. Or, we could take it out of employment compensation through collective bargaining, but that would require us to implement actual pay cuts, because we don't expect to receive additional revenues from the State.
The other solution would be for the new State legislature, now under the control of Republicans most of whom campaigned on no unfunded mandates, to fund this mandate. A member of the Republican legislative leadership said that this legislative session we're going to "put children first." What does that mean in this context? First before public employees? First before no-new taxes pledge? What would it mean for our board of education to put children first? Should we be passing the cuts passed along to us by Governor Pawlenty and the Democrats in ways that make children and parents pay the costs?
We face the following financial challenges:
- Unfunded cost increase in TRA and PERA retirement fund contributions will rise $250,000 per year each of the next four years. (I explained this cost in the prior post)
- Annual cost of special education pro-ration revenue reductions will increase $350,000 per year, each year until the legislature fixes this problem. (I'll explain this cost in my next post)
- Total state special education unfunded mandate deficit in our district is about $8.5 million.
- Annual cost of compensation increases under continuing contract agreements (health benefits and lanes) $500,000 per year. Of the costs listed above, this is the only one that we can do something about through bargaining.
The deficiency in contributions--or if you prefer, the excess in TRA payouts in the pension plans--amounted to about 3.3 percent of payroll. To put that in perspective, that would be about $1.6 million per year for licensed teachers for our school district alone. To address this problem, Governor Pawlenty and the legislature agreed to impose a brand new unfunded mandate on school districts. Under legislation passed last year employing unit contribution rates for school districts will increase 0.5% a year for each of the four years beginning July 1, 2011. All of our employee plans taken together will experience employer contribution increases totaling more than $250,000 each year. By the end of four years, our total pension costs will have increased by $1,000,000 per year without any funding increase by the legislature to take care of these increases.
Who will absorb the costs of these mandates? Should the cost increases associated with providing increased pension benefits to teachers and other employees (albeit retroactively) be absorbed by parents and students through cuts in their local school districts across the state? Should they be absorbed by increased taxes at the State level? Should they be absorbed by funding reductions in other state programs--health, environment, state public employee pay reductions? Should they be absorbed by increased taxes at the local level? Should they be absorbed by local employee pay reductions? Governor Pawlenty signed this unfunded mandate without answering this question. In doing so, he was joining hands with the DFL dominated legislature in just one more act of increasing mandates on local school districts without answering the painful question: where is the money going to come from to fund this new cost.
Under the rules operating in last year's legislature, when the governor and legislature increased local school districts obligations, providing additional funds to meet these obligations was, well, off the table. It was part of the basic operating principle that has existed in our State recently that affords a higher priority to public employees and taxpayers than children in school. And so, here is a new unfunded mandate passed along to school districts in a legislative year when the entire legislature, Republicans and Democrats alike, were telling us that they were committed to reducing unfunded mandates.
Now don't be yelling at me, please. These plans are not run by local school districts. We don't set the amount of benefits. We didn't decide to increase benefits permanently when the stock market went up temporarily. We don't manage TRA or PERA investment policies. Both plans are funded, like social security, by a combination of employer and employee contributions. When eventually the State recognized that something had to be done to make these plans solvent, the legislature decided to make school districts (and employees), as well as municipal and county government (PERA) pay more into the plans. However, the legislature provided no new revenues to school districts to fund these contributions, as I have said. You can find more about the reasons for and operation of these increases at the following websites: Click Here. Click Here.
If we were in an ordinary year, we'd say, look, this is no big deal. If we received, say, a 3 percent increase in funding, we could allocate the proportionate share of the 3 percent to employees, and then deduct the TRA costs from compensation increases. But in the last two years, we've had no increases from the State. And so, we have only two choices, really, to make things come out even. One, is to pass the increased pension plan costs on to kids, by cutting programs. Or, we could take it out of employment compensation through collective bargaining, but that would require us to implement actual pay cuts, because we don't expect to receive additional revenues from the State.
The other solution would be for the new State legislature, now under the control of Republicans most of whom campaigned on no unfunded mandates, to fund this mandate. A member of the Republican legislative leadership said that this legislative session we're going to "put children first." What does that mean in this context? First before public employees? First before no-new taxes pledge? What would it mean for our board of education to put children first? Should we be passing the cuts passed along to us by Governor Pawlenty and the Democrats in ways that make children and parents pay the costs?
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Reform agenda for divided government
School board members across the state are facing next year's legislative session with a great sense of anticipation and apprehension. Once again, we face divided government. The voters have handed the legislature to the Republicans and the Governor's mansion to Democrat Mark Dayton. (The chances that a recount can overturn a nearly 9000 vote margin are slim to none). Republicans have promised significant reforms in education, but what does that mean? Dayton arrives at the Governor's mansion independent of traditional constraints, because he was not the party-candidate. The sense of anticipation arises from the hope that Dayton and the Republicans might join forces and develop an agenda of proven reforms--reforms that have actually worked in the real world. The sense of apprehension is that partisan gridlock and partisan ideology might bring us gridlock, and worse, a few scatterbrained faddish reforms designed to help each party run against the other in the next elections.
There are all sorts of "reform" ideas that the Dayton crowd and the republican legislative crowd might advance that would be red-meat to their MSNBC and FOX watching zealots. Many of these reforms actually have very little basis in proven results. Few of them show up in the growing literature on what actually works in transforming schools. Many of them are veto bait that, whatever their merits, promise to head us down the path toward gridlock.
In the next few weeks, as time permits, I'm going to advance some reform ideas that should be passed and signed by the legislature in bipartisan fashion. I'm going to suggest that they are ideas that will make governance and operations of school districts vastly easier to operate, and which will translate into real benefits in the classroom for kids. And, from time to time, I'm going to attack some reform ideas that have been advanced as magic bullets, but which really have no sound research basis to support them, and I'm going to argue that its time for the Dayton people and the Republican legislative leadership to roll up their sleeves and work together to pass a courageous package of reforms that actually work for schools. Those of you who think that we should can tenure completely, for example, are going to find me skeptical that this would result in significant improvements that warrant deadlocking the legislature and Governor, which would most certainly be the result.
Here are some of the reforms that I think should pass, and can pass, that would make a significant positive difference for education:
There are all sorts of "reform" ideas that the Dayton crowd and the republican legislative crowd might advance that would be red-meat to their MSNBC and FOX watching zealots. Many of these reforms actually have very little basis in proven results. Few of them show up in the growing literature on what actually works in transforming schools. Many of them are veto bait that, whatever their merits, promise to head us down the path toward gridlock.
In the next few weeks, as time permits, I'm going to advance some reform ideas that should be passed and signed by the legislature in bipartisan fashion. I'm going to suggest that they are ideas that will make governance and operations of school districts vastly easier to operate, and which will translate into real benefits in the classroom for kids. And, from time to time, I'm going to attack some reform ideas that have been advanced as magic bullets, but which really have no sound research basis to support them, and I'm going to argue that its time for the Dayton people and the Republican legislative leadership to roll up their sleeves and work together to pass a courageous package of reforms that actually work for schools. Those of you who think that we should can tenure completely, for example, are going to find me skeptical that this would result in significant improvements that warrant deadlocking the legislature and Governor, which would most certainly be the result.
Here are some of the reforms that I think should pass, and can pass, that would make a significant positive difference for education:
- Eliminate the additional state mandates for special education that force local districts to spend significantly more on special education than required by federal law. In our District, that would reduce our expenses by about one million of unfunded dollars per year. Listen: the Republicans have campaigned on eliminating unfunded mandates. If they can't enact this reform early in the session, then they didn't mean what they said.
- Fully fund the balance of the unfunded special education mandate. It is fundamentally unfair, and I believe unconstitutional, for the legislature to force some school districts to spend vastly more to carry a statewide responsibility, than other school districts. Combine this initiative with a rigorous program of scrutiny to assure that local districts are spending their special education funds appropriately. Until now, the State Department has exerted supervision of local districts with largely push them to spend more, rather than spend efficiently.
- Eliminate the bargaining penalty.
- Prohibit collective bargaining contracts from containing automatic compensation increases that occur beyond the expiration of the duration of the contract. This feature in many school district contracts, places management in the position of having agreed, before bargaining, to increases significantly beyond the amount of funding increases coming from the legislature.
- Grant management the power to implement the Pawlenty quality compensation reforms in return for the additional funding. I've said in the past, and I'll say again, in my opinion, the compensation part of quality compensation is the least important of the reforms found in quality compensation.
- Prohibit strikes designed to force school boards to increase compensation at a rate faster than reimbursed by state funding. Public education will not be viable if school districts are forced to increase class size and cut programs in order to fund compensation increases. In tandem with this, develop a coherent legislative strategy to provide school districts with sufficient funds to attract and retain quality professional teachers.
- Develop financial incentives to promote strategies that are proven to work in closing the achievement gap.
- Transform professional staff development for teachers away from the existing program of university or quasi-university seminar education, toward internal professional staff development that is focused on implementing school and district improvement plans. Stop granting lane advancement for taking a course at the local community college, and grant lane credit for becoming a teacher leader who implements a great science program, a great math program with proven results in a local school.
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