Monday, December 27, 2010

Costs of reform

So I ask the question to all the great minds out there, what are the possible funding implications for public schools to the proposed reforms being "accelerated" by Dr. Bennett and Governor Daniels? Post your insight under comments.  You must hit preview to post. 
Text from Indiana's 2011 Legislative Agenda: Putting Students First.

"Identify and Reward Great Teachers and Principals: Give Local Leaders Flexibility to Promote Excellence.... Promote excellence by identifying and rewarding great teachers and school principals based on their performance rather than seniority or degrees held...

Reliable, fair, accurate evaluations, which are informed by student achievement or growth data, should be used each year to assess teachers and administrators, recognize our best educators and identify those who need support for improvement. Administrators must use these evaluations to inform decisions about hiring, firing, professional development, compensation, placement, transfers and reductions in force.

Collective bargaining agreements between school corporations and teachers’ unions should focus on salary and wage-related benefits and should be innovative in recognizing performance through compensation.

Tenure should be awarded to teachers based on performance instead of seniority.

Real Accountability and Flexibility: Empower School Leaders. Bring Success to Failing Schools.
Hold all schools accountable for achieving results for students. We must demand swift and dramatic improvement from all chronically failing schools and provide the state all the necessary tools to intervene when local leadership has failed to offer a quality education to children. ..... We must free school leaders in our lowest-performing schools from restrictive collective bargaining agreements between school corporations and teachers’ unions that prevent schools from making staffing decisions in the best interest of students.

We must give all turnaround managers adequate time to demonstrate improvement, but we must also set rigorous annual performance goals and replace ineffective managers as quickly as possible. Once schools successfully improve student performance, we must act with care to be sure the school community has the autonomy and freedom to maintain success. The State Board of Education will appoint the first school board to successful turnaround schools and allow the community to decide how best to operate the school once state control is relinquished. Create a ―Parent Trigger‖ – if 51 percent of parents in a school sign a petition, the state can step in early to turn around a failing school.

High Quality Options for Families: Offer Equal Educational Opportunities to All Children. Give Parents a Voice. ....Allow students to graduate early and offer them a college scholarship equal to the amount the state would have spent on the last year of high school. Ensure state education dollars follow the needs of students so parents can select the best possible educational options for their children.

Create an Indiana Charter School Board to authorize new charters across the state. Allow private higher education institutions to apply to the State Board of Education to authorize new charters. Increase accountability for all charter authorizers. Only let the best open, and close poor performing charters. Expand virtual charter schools to reach underserved students and to fill gaps in the traditional system. Eliminate caps on charters and help them access safe and appropriate public facilities. Grant schools and communities more authority to convert failing schools to charters."

5 comments:

  1. The first question I have is from the funding side. Doesn't the push for school consolidation and increasing charter school start ups seem contrary to each other. Small school districts are too expensive we need to consolidate them for all of these cost savings, but let's start lots of small charter schools. There would be some savings with less Central Office personnel, but you are increasing the number of building level administrators.

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  2. Ted from Terre HauteDecember 28, 2010 at 6:10 PM

    It seems to be harder for Charters to effective in rural areas. Most of Indiana has rural schools. Sometimes it seems as though the reforms forget some schools are too far apart to compete. I do think there will be cost savings in allowing schools to rid themselves of ineffective older staff higher on the pay scale. This might motivate some school boards to act agressively in personnel issues. In the past some boards have not wanted to move to quickly on termination of below average staff. Now failure to act may result in state takeover of the board.

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  3. Does this mean the compensation would be greater for those teachers who are evaluated by test scores. Lower pay for art, music, and PE who are not subject to growth model or testing evaluations?

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  4. Whether compensation would be equal for all staff is a great question. Obviously there will be some courses in schools which will not have any "growth" or student test scores to monitor. I have not read yet how these teachers will be evaluated. I have an early copy of the state proposed instrument and I will try to read it in detail to see if it addresses this issue. Anyone else know?

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  5. Did you notice the line about supporting charter schools in their need for a facility? Does that mean local taxpayer supported funds like cpf. being transferred to a charter?

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