SDP Collapsing Faster than Expected

[annie]

School closing recommendations will be out by mid-November | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

The timeline for the announcement keeps getting pushed farther and farther back. The SRC is going to have to vote on the closures by April, I think. Leaves very little time for this year's Stanton and Sheppard to get organized. And high school admissions are going to be a MESS this year.

[annie]

Philly district suspends school rating system, seeks fix

District leaders are now seeking outside help to fix the complicated formula that converts a dozen factors into a single score given to every public school in the city, including charters.

For the past two years, SPI scores have been used to help guide a wide range of major decisions, including which schools should be closed down or converted into charters. It has also been used to evaluate charters' bids for renewal or expansion.

Leaders of several of the city's charter schools have long taken issue with the index.

"We are at this point confident that there were some mistakes made," said new district Deputy Superintendent Paul Kihn. "We honestly don't know how extensive the problem is."

Kihn said the issues with SPI stem from human error in how the accountability measure was calculated – not from faulty data resulting from cheating on state standardized tests.

There a reasons to you don't let an employee's Phd dissertation plaything lead district policy. I was there when they were presenting SPI to the SRC and the only questions the SRC asked was about whether similar districts are using a similar metric.

[govtstatistic]

maybe they will suspend it till they finish the other investigations that are ongoing
PHA
HOUSING
UNIV OF Penn
dont we always take second fiddle ?

[annie]

A distorted reality: An ex-principal says inflated test scores skewed decision-making and hurt students. The problem isn’t fixed. | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Devastating window into just how much Philadelphia and its students were hurt by the years spent celebrating statistically improbable gains and dismissing incremental ones. And to think, there are people who don't think those responsible should lose their certifications. Every time I walk into the new West Philly High building, I wonder what could have been...

[JakeL]

Charter schools blast SRC's move to limit enrollment
In the article, it is said:

Charter growth is costly, and officials have said the district cannot afford uncontrolled costs.

Can someone please explain this to me? I am not trying to be snarky, but trying to understand how charter growth is costly for the district. Is it because a percentage of each students tuition goes to overhead, such as administration, which hasn't scaled down at the same rate as students?

As I have understood it, the district gets a cut of each student's funding that goes to a charter school. Is the issue that this isn't enough of a percentage for the district overhead?

I'm not really understanding how less students = geater budget concerns.

[billy ross]

The district pays charter operators per student. More charter students = more expenditures. if the district doesn't reduce it's overhead commensurately it's in trouble. It's like brewer a contracting with another brewery to brew beer for brewery a. When brewery a's plant is operating at less than capacity and workers are being not used efficiently, this could be disastrous. The school district is having a hard time shrinking because customers are fleeing, just like Peugeot, Renault, Opel, and Fiat are facing now. Who wouldn't try to prevent people from opting out in this situation? It's difficult to shrink any operation. Growth is always easier to manage. Just ask the charters.

Charter schools blast SRC's move to limit enrollment
In the article, it is said:


Can someone please explain this to me? I am not trying to be snarky, but trying to understand how charter growth is costly for the district. Is it because a percentage of each students tuition goes to overhead, such as administration, which hasn't scaled down at the same rate as students?

As I have understood it, the district gets a cut of each student's funding that goes to a charter school. Is the issue that this isn't enough of a percentage for the district overhead?

I'm not really understanding how less students = geater budget concerns.

[JakeL]

The district pays charter operators per student. More students = more expenditures. if the district doesn't reduce it's overhead commensurately it's in trouble. It's like brewer a contracting with another brewery to brew beer for brewery a. When brewery a's plant is operating at less than capacity and workers are being not used efficiently, this could be disastrous. The school district is having a hard time shrinking because customers are fleeing, just like Peugeot, Renault, Opel, and Fiat are facing now. Who wouldn't try to prevent people from opting out in this situation? It's difficult to shrink any operation.

Gotcha, so the issue at hand is that the school district is inelastic in relation to the pace of students leaving the district. Fixed fees, such as tenured teachers, school buildings, and administration overhead are not keeping pace with decreasing revenue.

[JakeL]

Is there any information for enrollment numbers for charters and SDP schools for 2012? The last information I see provided by the school district was provided in 2011: About Us - School District of Philadelphia

[annie]

Did you read all of the article you linked to? Because it's in there:

Ramos said that this school year, 30 percent or approximately 61,000 of 203,240 public school students are in charter schools in the city. "Despite unprecedented financial crises, the district has continued to make high-quality seats a priority," Ramos said.

Remember too that district's estimate for the cost for the negotiated charter enrollment increases they approved over the summer was off by $100 million.

Billy's perspective is one take on it. And it is true that the district over the last decade did not respond appropriately to charter growth and take some necessary steps. For that, we can all together flog endlessly the administration and the state takeover that was supposed to be guiding it .

Charters get payments for their students a couple months into the school year after it has already started. Their payments also lag one year behind in terms of budget cuts. (i.e. Corbett cut the budget in 2011-2012 but charter per pupil payments didn't get adjusted until this year) If there's unregulated charter enrollment growth, that means the district can't properly plan financially. You know, that thing we're all flogging them endlessly for not doing before? Yeah, that. Unexpected charter growth means painful mid-year budget cuts for the rest of the district. The district is already in a dire enough financial situation that it is risking serious liability on essential services to students.

If charters want to co-exist with the district, that's one thing and I do understand the frustration that they can't grow as fast as they or their bills would like. But to say "hell with it," and take actions that would take the district down entirely, including many students the charters can't and/or won't serve, is not a mature reaction.

[billy ross]

Gotcha, so the issue at hand is that the school district is inelastic in relation to the pace of students leaving the district. Fixed fees, such as tenured teachers, school buildings, and administration overhead are not keeping pace with decreasing revenue.

Ironically, over the long run the solution to the district's financial woes is to move more kids over to charters as you shrink the size of the district, and to do this as quickly as possible. That's why they love handing over entire schools to charters. It does both in one fell swoop. Let's do some math. I'm going to use numbers off of the top of my head. I welcome help in tightening these numbers up. There are 200,000 students in the entire system, of which 30% are charter. The budget is $3 billion, of which $300 million is unsustainably borrowed. That means that the district spends $15k per student per year. However, the district pays charter schools about $10k per student per year, and the district spends about $17k per student per year in-house. Since they're losing money on kids that they 'educate', and they need to cut costs by 10% anyway, moving schools and/or students wholesale over to charter operators (the low cost providers) is a neat trick to getting their books in balance. The fly in the ointment is shrinking the district's operations commensurately with its duties. I think that Camden spends $20k per student per year, with bubkus to show for it, so in my opinion Philly's hit upon a great solution to their seemingly intractible problems. Now it's just a matter of seeing it to the end, which the SRC seems to be in the process of doing, even threatening to suspend contracts to facilitate getting from here to there.

[annie]

Budget in Brief

Found it. The 61,000 is just a projection from the budget in brief. Last year was estimated at 51,000. 2010-2011 is the last year with an actual count of 43,000. I guess these are minor details to the chairman of the School Reform Commission.

Billy, the Commonwealth Foundation had to do the same calculations after a representative totally got it wrong during a WHYY interview and got called out on it by a founder of The Notebook.

Commonwealth Foundation Regrets the Error

Total Expenditures Fall Enrollment* Spending Per Student
Philadelphia SD Total $2,901,754,978 206,989 $14,018.88
Philadelphia Charter Schools $520,935,819 40,717 $12,794.06
Philadelphia District-run Schools$2,380,819,159 166,272 $14,318.82
*PDE Financial Data show Average Daily Membership of 205,331.7 district-wide, for a spending per ADM of $14,132.

It's difficult to suss out charters cost and "savings" since their per-pupil spending doesn't include the ever increasing cost of transportation which the district has to foot the bill for even as it considers service cuts to district schools. Also does not take into account the lower rates of ELL students and severe disabilities in charter enrollment. And something like a third of new charter students come from outside the district and so cannot be thought of as a "savings." BCG's own report refers to increases in charter enrollment increasing district costs by $7,000, not as a savings.

Anyway, in more clear cut news, the Feds spanked Tomalis and deservedly so:
Feds overrule PA on charter school AYP - mcall.com

The federal government has shot down state Education Secretary Ron Tomalis' unilateral PSSA rule change that made it easier for charter schools to meet federal testing benchmarks than traditional public schools.

Tomalis had said the state could treat charter schools the same way it treats school districts in calculating student test scores to come up with so-called Adequate Yearly Progress grades.

But The U.S. Department of Education said because charter schools are individual school buildings, they must have their own separate AYP grades under the No Child Left Behind Act. The federal order, dated Nov. 19, was released by the state Wednesday.

The state is now giving charters TWO AYP scores - one as a school and one as a district. Some charters will make AYP under the latter but not the former. Parents trying to navigate the education landscape will have Tomalis to thank for the added confusion.

[billy ross]

Budget in Brief

Found it. The 61,000 is just a projection from the budget in brief. Last year was estimated at 51,000. 2010-2011 is the last year with an actual count of 43,000. I guess these are minor details to the chairman of the School Reform Commission.

Billy, the Commonwealth Foundation had to do the same calculations after a representative totally got it wrong during a WHYY interview and got called out on it by a founder of The Notebook.

Commonwealth Foundation Regrets the Error



It's difficult to suss out charters cost and "savings" since their per-pupil spending doesn't include the ever increasing cost of transportation which the district has to foot the bill for even as it considers service cuts to district schools. Also does not take into account the lower rates of ELL students and severe disabilities in charter enrollment. And something like a third of new charter students come from outside the district and so cannot be thought of as a "savings." BCG's own report refers to increases in charter enrollment increasing district costs by $7,000, not as a savings.

Anyway, in more clear cut news, the Feds spanked Tomalis and deservedly so:
Feds overrule PA on charter school AYP - mcall.com



The state is now giving charters TWO AYP scores - one as a school and one as a district. Some charters will make AYP under the latter but not the former. Parents trying to navigate the education landscape will have Tomalis to thank for the added confusion.

What does the state law say about districts providing transportation for charter school students if the same districts don't provide transportation for students educated in-house? I'm thinking about Jenkintown, which is only one mile square and so does not have a school bus system. Do they need to provide transportation to students in their district who opt for charters? How much money total does the SDP spend on its transportation system? I'm wondering whether Philly can eliminate its busses entirely and thus escape the charter transportation rule. If we are able to fix our local grammar schools it may be reasonable to expect kids to walk to their local school, and for us to further expect the ones who opt out to provide their own transportation.

Thanks for the info about the budgeting. I'm surprised at how little is spent in Philly. I'm guessing that that number will go down as things are rationalized, also.

You raise an interesting point - the conversion of private/parochial school parents or parents who would have headed to the burbs into charter school parents, and what that does to the district's overall population. Do you have any stats on the SDP's historical population and trends WRT that number? I'm going to guess that there's a bifurcated pattern. The disenfranchised historical population of Philly schools seems to be experiencing smaller family sizes, and this should lead to a lower census. However, a new population which was a very small minority of Philly public school parents previously - people with choices - seems to be growing dramatically; witness the changes at Meredith, Penn Alexander, Cook-Wissahickon, and numerous other schools in Philly, plus the arrival of quality charters. Thus I would expect that there'd be more economic diversity as more wealthy families opt in, but I'm not sure which population trend would win out, the trend which shows a declining enrollment, like Detroit has, or the trend which shows an increasing enrollment, like New York City has.

[raider.adam]

Charter schools blast SRC's move to limit enrollment
In the article, it is said:


Can someone please explain this to me? I am not trying to be snarky, but trying to understand how charter growth is costly for the district. Is it because a percentage of each students tuition goes to overhead, such as administration, which hasn't scaled down at the same rate as students?

As I have understood it, the district gets a cut of each student's funding that goes to a charter school. Is the issue that this isn't enough of a percentage for the district overhead?

I'm not really understanding how less students = geater budget concerns.

Yes, the problem is, you can't "scale down" at a large rate on a one year notice. For instance, say you had a 1,000 seat school that 20% of the kids go to a charter. It isn't like you move the remaining kids into a "right sized" facility. You are still maintaining a structure with now 20% vacancy. That means same amount of electricity, heat, maintenance, security, etc. Same amount of teachers also if you can't combine classes.

As it is little surprise to people, I am pro-charter schools (and other choices), but there needs to be better coordination and oversight. Basically what has been taking place is charters taking x% of the school district revenue in a way that the SDP doesn't have time to right size to coincide with the lower enrollment.

[annie]

What does the state law say about districts providing transportation for charter school students if the same districts don't provide transportation for students educated in-house? I'm thinking about Jenkintown, which is only one mile square and so does not have a school bus system. Do they need to provide transportation to students in their district who opt for charters? How much money total does the SDP spend on its transportation system? I'm wondering whether Philly can eliminate its busses entirely and thus escape the charter transportation rule. If we are able to fix our local grammar schools it may be reasonable to expect kids to walk to their local school, and for us to further expect the ones who opt out to provide their own transportation.

For someone that spends a lot of time tap tap tapping away on this subject and expecting others to be convinced by his arguments you sure don't put much effort into reading up on it, do you? There is no escaping charter busing.

WHEN IS A STUDENT ENTITLED TO FREE TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM SCHOOL?

A school district must provide free transportation to students who live in the district
and attend:
• A charter school located within the district, or
• A regional charter school, if the student’s district is one of the districts that approved
the school’s charter; or
• A charter school that is located within 10 miles of the district’s borders.
This is true even if the district does not transport students attending other district schools. For example, a district has to transport a high school student attending a charter school within the district, even if the district does not transport students to its own high schools. A school district must also transport students to a charter school while the school is in session, whether or not its own schools are in session.

With the exception of Penn Alexander which is the only "catchment only" neighborhood school in the district, the neighborhood schools you listed have a fair amount of out of catchment students in them from voluntary transfers, NCLB transfers, ELL and Special Education programs etc. Ending busing would have disastrous results for them and their enrollment levels. What is the spending on Transportation? Did you not see my link to the Budget In Brief? Argh, that's it. I'm done - I don't know why I'm being your Wikipedia.

Yes, the problem is, you can't "scale down" at a large rate on a one year notice.

Well, they may propose up to 57 schools for closure in December so they may try. They've already suspended the school code so they technically don't need to have the hearings or the three month wait before voting on it. And you've seen how difficult it is to close a charter, Adam.

[raider.adam]

Well, they may propose up to 57 schools for closure in December so they may try. They've already suspended the school code so they technically don't need to have the hearings or the three month wait before voting on it. And you've seen how difficult it is to close a charter, Adam.

Well, what I mean is, those 57 closings are happening in one year, but it is a result of a decade or more of causes. It isn't like they can every year go "ok, we lost 200 more students to charters this year. Let's close down school X and redraw the cachement lines again".

And yeah, from some of the hearings that one day it was like "ok, it is a no brainer that charter should close" and then it is left open to give them another chance.

[Dolemite]

Looks like we need a new model.

[raider.adam]

Looks like we need a new model.

I agree. They should break it up into several regional "districts" under the main SDP umbrella.

[seand]

There are benefits to regional districts but that won't affect the main problem - which is the school district is running a massive deficit (and can't afford raises for anyone) and the rules for charters set by the state don't allow for rational fiscal planning.

All they really need to do is tell the charters you have to set fixed annual expansion projections and if you don't stick with them then you don't get state reimbursement for your screw-up. End of story.

A rational projection for the increasing number of parents picking charters (as opposed to charter by forced reoarganization) should just baked into projecting shifting population (like some areas of the city are seeing a growth in school aged kids and some are losing population kids-and-adults-both fast). Its just the politics at the state level and the confusing of charter-by-force vs. charter-by-choice screws everything up.

[Dolemite]

I agree. They should break it up into several regional "districts" under the main SDP umbrella.

We need something more radical. Vouchers and the SD ends up being a small organization for distribution and oversight/auditing.

[raider.adam]

There are benefits to regional districts but that won't affect the main problem - which is the school district is running a massive deficit (and can't afford raises for anyone) and the rules for charters set by the state don't allow for rational fiscal planning.

All they really need to do is tell the charters you have to set fixed annual expansion projections and if you don't stick with them then you don't get state reimbursement for your screw-up. End of story.

A rational projection for the increasing number of parents picking charters (as opposed to charter by forced reoarganization) should just baked into projecting shifting population (like some areas of the city are seeing a growth in school aged kids and some are losing population kids-and-adults-both fast). Its just the politics at the state level and the confusing of charter-by-force vs. charter-by-choice screws everything up.

I think part of the deficit problem is that the SDP is collapsing under its own administrative weight and they simply don't have the personnel able to handle such a mammoth task. While dealing with the charter growth issues would be a big help, I don't think it inherently solves all of the SDP's problems. It does solve a chunk though.