Georgia's ERC Expanding an Unproven Solution

As Georgia's Education Reform Commission nears its deadline for recommendations, we are seeing more specific proposals emerge, including plans to create a new Student Scholarship Organization--one with somewhat greater accountability for academic performance with means testing to assure that funds benefit Georgians with the greatest needs. [A draft of their recommendations is posted here].

The reaction to these proposals has been...predictable:

Jason Bedrick of the CATO Institute calls the ERC proposals "A Solution in Search of a Problem." His blog post assails the ERC recommendations as unnecessary because the current program works just dandy as is. His arguments are worth noting as examples of what passes as support for a program that is essentially without evidence of its effectiveness.

Bedrick asserts, "According to the most recent data, three-quarters of scholarships statewide were awarded to students from families earning less than $62,202 annually."  This statement is not as definitive as it might seem. Looking at what is actually the most recent data, the Calendar Year 2014 Qualified Education Expense Credit Report, the numbers seem to bear out what Bedrick asserts. If one sums all the numbers for quartiles 1, 2, and 3 and divides by the total for all four quartiles, you do arrive at 73.18%.  The problem is 73.8% of what?  Georgia counts the number of scholarships but reports only the number of families receiving scholarships by quartile.

Why does this even matter? Glance at the yellow highlighted cells in this sheet. Each of those cells represents a mismatch between the total number of scholarships awarded and the sum of the number of families presented in each quartile. Georgia GOAL's number match up exactly, but Georgia Student Scholarship Programs's reporting doesn't account for some 495 individual awards--30% of their total.  There is absolutely no public accounting that accurately represents to what extent low-income Georgia students benefit from the current SSO program. As noted by the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies,

Regarding income, SSOs currently report the number of families receiving scholarships, but not the total number or amount of scholarships, by quartile of Georgia adjusted gross income. This reporting provides little detail regarding the income distribution of scholarship recipients and no information on the distribution of scholarship dollars. Georgia’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program (Buschman & Sjoquist, 26)

Bedrick holds up the Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program as an exemplar of how SSOs serve the most needy Georgians without the burden of specific income requirements. Unarguably, GOAL is the most noble implementation of what is a flawed program. But if anything, it is an outlier. Four SSO awarded more than 1000 schlarships for calendar year 2014: Georgia GOAL(4314), A Pay It Forward (2114), Apogee Georgia (1832), and Georgia Student Scholarship (1500). Bearing in mind that the quartile distributions are by family and not scholarship recipient, we still see striking disparities in which income groups benefit from each SSO:

[Click to enlarge]

Georgia GOAL is not representative of how SSOs distribute student scholarships. Also, a review of the 2014 Qualified Education Expense Report reveals some smaller SSO that award 84%, 94%, 100% of their scholarships to families earning over $61,953.00.

Contrary to how they have been presented by some, Georgia SSOs do not consistently provide support to Georgia students requiring the greatest assistance. Current law in Georgia provides that SSO
1021 In awarding scholarships or tuition grants, shall consider financial needs of students
1022 based on all sources, including the federal adjusted gross income from the federal income
1023 tax return most recently filed by the parents or guardians of such students, as adjusted for
1024 family size.
While they might consider income, the current law provides no requirement that SSOs actually relate scholarship awards to lower income students, and as noted by the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, the reporting requirements provide "no information on the distribution of scholarship dollars."

The tax credit scholarships have been sold as a ticket out of low-performing school for low-income students, but the history of the program creates serious doubt as to whether we have met that expectation. [For that record, check these sources: "Millions of Tax Dollars Diverted to Private Schools," "What a Scam: Poor Kids' Money Snatched by Private Schools!" and "A Failed Experiment: Georgia's Tax Credit Scholarships for Private Schools."]

The Expanding Educational Options and School Choice Subcommittee has also stirred a hornet's nest by having the temerity to suggest that scholarship recipients be tested to measure the quality of the private schools cashing the checks. The subcommittee includes among its recommendations:

Require each SSO to ensure that participating schools that accept its scholarship shall: annually administer either state achievement tests or nationally norm-referenced tests that measure learning gains in math and language arts to all participating students in 3rd, 5th and 8th grades;

Similarly, the Andrw Young School of Policy, notes a dearth of evidence about the current SSO program:
The data that would be necessary, or at least very useful, to conduct an evaluation include:

• The public schools attended by scholarship recipients prior to award of the scholarship. These data would be used to estimate the switching rate and to evaluate the quality of the public schools the students are leaving.
• To explore the improvement in student performance, it would be useful to have scores on comparable standardized tests for the private and previously attended public schools. Private schools are not required to use the same standardized tests that public schools use, but available performance information could be used to judge the benefits in terms of quality of the private schools relative to the public schools the scholarship students had been attending.
• The characteristics of scholarship recipients is an important aspect of any evaluation of the program. Thus, the distribution by race, gender, family income, and age (grade) of the scholarship recipients would be important data to report.
  Georgia’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program (Buschman & Sjoquist, 25).

(I would go further to state that these students shall take the same tests as would their counterparts in the public schools they left to best assess if they are achieving gains in learning.) The focus of education reform in Georgia has been on CCRPI and performance on state assessments as the sole measure of effective schools. The state has defined a successful school as one that produces growth in student learning. Yet the state has enabled millions of dollars in SSO funds--tax credits that reduce state revenue--to flow into private schools without any accounting for whether the students actually benefit. 

Bedrick states that imposing a test on these students would restrict parent's choice: "A testing mandate would force schools and parents that are ideologically opposed to standardized testing to choose between their principles and their pocketbooks." And to that I would have to say, "yep." If state dollars flow to a school, then that school should demonstrate effective practice and instruction through the same measure imposed on public schools.

Louisana provides an excellent case in point: the state requires state assessments for students using state vouchers to attend private schools. And what did Bobby Jindal learn?

The academic performance of Louisiana's voucher students remained low in 2013-14, according to Education Department data released Monday. Of 126 private schools accepting the publicly funded tuition subsidies, 23 posted scores low enough to prevent them from accepting new voucher students next fall.

Less than half the voucher students who took the LEAP and iLEAP exams passed: 44 percent. In public schools, 69 percent of students passed. If the voucher students were a school system, they would be tied for fifth-worst in the state, with Bogalusa and Baker.

The data shed new light on the performance of the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Gov. Bobby Jindal has advocated vouchers as ways to give parents more education choices and to rescue students from failing public schools.
Louisiana voucher students perform poorly in 2013-14; proponents praise gains (Nov 13, 2014).

And in this one respect, Georgia could learn a lesson from Louisana. It is the same thing principals tell new teachers: "If you are going to expect it, you better inspect it." In Georgia, we have to this point chosen not to gather information on the effectiveness of the schools to which these students transfer.

Without a common assessment, the state, SSO donors, and parents do not have an objective evaluation of the quality of the instructional program benefiting from SSO funds. Without lifting the legislated prohibition on gathering and reporting specific information on student race, gender, and family income, we will continue to lack visibility into who actually benefits from this program. What is  most evident about Georgia's tax credit scholarship program is that we know very little about how effective it is or even who benefits from it. Bedrick contends that the new program proposal is "a solution in search of a problem." The new proposal is even worse than that: it is an expansion of a program that has gone far too long without critical evaluation.

Education Reform Commission Plays Odd Game on School Funding

When you were growing up, did you ever play the game "Guess Who?"?

Image by Bethany Khan

The premise is simple: each person starts with a collection of different characters, and then through a series of questions ("Is this person wearing a hat?" Does she have glasses?") the players race to narrow down to a pre-selected character card.

Martha Ann Todd, Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, must have been a formidable "Guess Who?" player in her day. PAGE reports that she led off the latest meeting of the Funding Committee of the Georgia Education Reform Commission with "a presentation of data comparing Georgia's proposed new education funding formula with the formula implemented in the states of Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee." What's interesting is the criteria for selecting those states:

1. The state’s average 2013 NAEP scale score must be higher than Georgia’s in at least one of the following areas: 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, 4th grade math, or 8th grade math. This difference must be statistically significant.

2. The state’s average 2013 NAEP scale score is not lower (statistically significant) than Georgia’s in at least any of the following areas: 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, 4th grade math, or 8th grade math.

3. The state’s percent of students performing at Proficient or higher on the 2013 NAEP must be greater than Georgia’s in at least two of the following areas: 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, 4th grade math, or 8th grade math. [NOTE: But not necessarily statistically significant].

4. The state must be similar to Georgia in terms of the percentage of NAEP test takers who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

And then there are the asterisks: Texas didn't quite meet the set criteria, scoring lower than Georgia on 4th grade reading, and, heck, Tennessee is not statistically superior to Georgia on any NAEP measure, but they are improving.  Basically, GOSA can choose to pick any state that fits the narrative.

That narrative would be something like this: to quell the rebellion on the funding committee that has argued that they should consider the adequacy of funding, not just the distribution of the funds, GOSA needs to establish through engineered comparisons that funding is adequate for the performance desired--through comparison to lesser funded states.

Hence, GOSA chooses to ignore statistical significance when comparing NAEP test proficiency rates, yielding a table that shows Georgia faltering behind these "comparison" states:

Percent Proficient or above relative to Georgia (statistical significance be damned!)
	GA	FL	KY	NC	TX	TN
4th grade reading	34	39	36	35	28	34
8th grade reading	32	33	36	35	31	33
4th grade math	39	41	41	45	41	40
8th grade math	29	31	30	36	38	28

However, NAEP clearly indicates through maps and charts which differences meet the test of statistical significance. With their guidance, the GOSA chart looks more like this:

Statistically significant Percent Proficient or above relative to Georgia
	GA	FL	KY	NC	TX	TN
4th grade reading	34	39	36	35	28	34
8th grade reading	32	33	36	35	31	33
4th grade math	39	41	41	45	41	40
8th grade math	29	31	30	36	38	28

Georgia performs very nearly the same as these states, despite having a greater percentage of children in poverty (27%).

What Todd glosses over is that the carefully-selected comparison states (with two gimmes), represent the aft end of national funding for schools.

	Total PPE	Rank Total PPE	State PPE	Rank State PPE
Georgia	$10370	38	$4503	40
Florida	$9207	44	$3528	48
Kentucky	$10533	37	$5782	24
North Carolina	$8670	48	$5375	32
Tennessee	$8953	46	$4129	44
Texas	$10191	40	$3928	47
US	$12380		$5650
PPE=per pupil expenditure. Source US Census Bureau: Public Education Finance 2013 Table 11.

Georgia is ranked 38th in total per pupil expenditures, but when you look at the state's share of this funding, Georgia's rank drops to 40th in the nation.

And here is the most stunning bit of clever omission in this entire charade:
Of these five comparison states, all three with state per pupil expenditures less than Georgia's have pending suits or have lost suits over the adequacy of education funding in their states (National Conference of State Legislatures).

• Texas Texas Taxpayer & Student Fairness Coalition (TTSFC) v. Scott. Trial court has ruled that the state's education funding system in inequitable, inadequate, and unconstitutional. Currently on appeal. Education Law Center.
• Florida. CSS v. Florida State Bd. of Educ. argues that "the state’s funding system fails to 'make adequate provision for education,' as the state constitution requires, because it relies too heavily on local funding and provides insufficient funding." Stalled since 2009 by state action, the Florida Supreme Court upheld a trial court decision against the state's motion to dismiss.  The case will go to trial in 2016. Education Law Center.
• Tennessee. Hamilton County Bd. of Educ. v. Haslam. Filed in March 2015, seven county school districts contend that the state “breached its duty under the Tennessee Constitution to provide a system of free public education for the children of this state.” Education Law Center.

 The Funding Committee of the Georgia Education Reform Commission must continue to maintain their skepticism of these funding plans being presented on behalf of Governor Deal. This latest contrived presentation by the Governor's Office seeks to baffle the committee rather than provide clarity on the adequacy of Georgia's K-12 education funding. If Georgia truly seeks to be a educational leader, we do not need to be seeking comparisons to states whose own citizens are contesting the adequacy of the funding of their schools.

A little context for Governor Deal's rant on education funding

I can't say I was surprised by the tenor and the content of Governor Nathan Deal's recent defense of his plan to disrupt the education funding formula for Georgia. The good governor is obviously miffed that his hand-picked commission would defy him on one central tenet: that the commission should not consider what it costs to educate a child in Georgia.   That's where the funding express train derailed,

Commission chair Charles Knapp was forced to tell the governor that the commission could not meet the unreasonably ambitious deadline of remaking the Georgia education system in six months. Commission members spoke heresy: "It all starts with what does it cost. You’ve got to know that (Rep. Tom Dickson, R-Cohutta)” and [in reference to changing the formulation for teacher salaries] "There’s no way not to have a huge impact, and in some cases, a crippling impact, on individuals and school districts if we don’t" (Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn). Governor Deal's Education Reform Commission Pushes Back on School Funding, AJC).

Governor Deal's letter to the AJC relied on one standby argument of the disruptive reform crowd--that since 1970 education spending has increased 170% with no corresponding gain in student achievement. This is a well-worn argument put forth by the Cato Institute that tracks inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending over time. What Cato does not admit nor control for is that society and our schools have changed radically in forty years.

Any comparison that starts pre-1975 is suspect as schools were substantially transformed in 1975 with the passage of PL94-142, the Education for all Handicapped Children Act. Signed by President Ford, this Act provided that students with mental and physical disabilities would no longer be kept at home or shuffled off to institutions.  Instead they would attend classes and receive service in the least restrictive environment possible. This was a case where as a society we finally recognized that it was time to do the right thing by our students with disabilities. Any district finance officer can tell you providing these services is not cheap, and the federal government has never fully funded its share.  But no one would suggest we should return to the way we treated these students pre-1975.

Obviously, compliance with 94-142 alone does not explain the increase in the cost to educate children. Anyone who has darkened the door of a school building realizes that schools today require many more resources to meet the expectations placed upon them, from the technology to produce 21st century learners (and to take state-mandated assessments) to the career labs that enable our graduates to leave school with industry certifications, and to the counseling and even psychological services we provide our students. Most importantly, education is still an enterprise that depends heavily upon highly-qualified individuals to guide and educate a population of students with greater needs and challenges. The costs to employ these persons and to retain the best personnel requires funding.

And to provide one extra bit of context for the governor's assertion, the esteemed CATO institute notes that Georgia's education funding has decreased sharply in recent years and now represents substantially less than the 170% increase the Governor suggested was true for Georgia:

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/state-education-trends#/GA


Looking specifically at Georgia, we can track changes in funding per FTE using school system finance reports (revenues) maintained by the Business Services division of the Georgia Department of Education. Information is available for 1996-2014. Adjusting those combined local, state, and federal funds for inflation and dividing by the number of FTE (students) served each year, it is immediately evident that Georgia schools for the past two decades have not enjoyed a surge in funding.

In fact after almost two decades, the amount being spent per FTE in 2014, $5653.29 is only 12% higher (in constant 1996 dollars) than the amount being spent per student in 1996, $5062.85. Spreadsheet of this data can be accessed here.

But what about results?  The chart above also shows Georgia's performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Despite uneven funding, Georgia students continue to make progress on this national assessment. [The Georgia Department of Education provides an excellent analysis of Georgia's performance on the NAEP]. In fact, Georgia's 4th grade students NAEP reading scores surpassed the national average score in 2013 ("New NAEP Scores Released: Georgia Shows Progress"). In 2012, Ga DOE celebrated a singular distinction for the state:

Georgia leads the country when looking at year-to-year growth on the most recent national tests. One-year growth on the SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement (AP), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Math, Reading and Science shows Georgia is the only state in the country to make gains on the most recent administration of each test. GADOE

Kudos to those legislators with the backbone to stand up to the Governor and insist that the state must consider the costs to achieve the results needed to move our state forward.

Will the Georgia Education Reform Commission Shortchange Students with Disabilities?

As the Georgia Education Reform Commission subcommittee on funding meets today, one topic on the unposted agenda is determining weights for special categories of students--those in poverty, English language learners, and "exceptional" students.

As a Georgia educator I have taught my fair share of gifted classes, and I have deep reservations about the financial impact of the commission's proposal to merge all categories of special education students with gifted students into one funding category, "exceptional." [Furthermore, the subcommittee is opening the door to replacing the specifically-defined category of "gifted" with a more encompassing students "participating in advanced coursework."]

The proposed changes could result in more funding being steered to systems who have proportionally more "gifted" students (and students taking advanced coursework) than they have students with disabilities.

Working from data available from the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, I calculated the ratio of gifted students to students with disabilities for each system in the state. For example, Decatur City has 2.45 gifted students for each student with disabilities, while Dougherty County proportionally has fewer than half (.426) the number of gifted students compared to the number of students with disabilities on their rosters.  I then plotted this ratio of Gifted/SWD against the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in each system.

Want to view an interactive version of this chart?

The obvious trend is that schools with higher portions of economically disadvantaged students have more students with disabilities and fewer students identified as gifted. A significant change in how the state funds the newly conflated category of "exceptional" students could adversely impact districts with higher levels of economically disadvantaged students. Also, the funding proposal does little to ensure adequate funding for the most profoundly disabled students.

 The current QBE model provides different funding weights for students depending upon the degree of their impairment. Students with profound disabilities earn more funds for a school system to offset the cost for the teachers and paraprofessionals who serve them. Students with less limiting learning disabilities qualify for less funding.

Under the current funding rules, a non-exceptional grades 9-12 student earns 1.0 FTE as a funding weight.  A gifted students earns 1.6597 FTE, while a student receiving special education services earns between 2.3810 FTE and 5.7555 FTE. [Those funding formulas are explained in detail at the Georgia DOE website].

The funding subcommittee's discussion of "Weighting Considerations" indicate the commission is looking to replace this existing needs-based reimbursement with funding weighted only by the portion of the day a student receives "exceptional" services--gifted, advanced courses (?), or special education.

To this point, nothing has been published with real data to show the true impact of the funding change on SWD students and systems. Indeed, the subcommittee is still wrestling with the ramifications of this proposal, including (apparently) how funding for students with autism or specific  learning disabilities could affect the funds distribution. Their meeting materials indicate this concern: "Including students with those two primary disabilities [autism and specific learning disability] in a weighting category defined by disability would effectively skew the funding to be either an overpayment or an underpayment."

After the funding subcommittee cancelled its April meeting, Governor Deal extended to December 18 his August 1 deadline for the full commission to ratify his "student-based" funding proposal. The plan is now for a special joint legislative committee to review and act on the completed funding scheme in 2016.

While the commission members suggest there will be a "hold harmless" period to give systems time to adjust to reductions in funding levels, this commission and the special joint legislative committee must publish the precise result of the new funding formulas on districts and clearly indicate the impact on the funds available to serve our students with disabilities.

This education reform commission must not become a vehicle for redistributing funds away from schools serving the most challenged students.

Students in poverty a critical test for Knapp and ed reform commission

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's hand-picked Education Reform Commission faces an August 1 deadline to present a proposal for a new school funding model and curiously cancelled its funding subcommittee meeting May 28.

Commission chair Charles Knapp, UGA President Emeritus had described the meeting as a "critical time":

"We've been talking thus far conceptually, and now we're really starting to work the numbers," ("School funding question top task for Deal's education panel" Online Athens).

Dr. Knapp is in a difficult position: he's charged not with determining an appropriate amount of funding for Georgia students but with devising a new way of redistributing whatever portion the General Assembly decides to appropriate for public education. 

[And it should be noted here that replacing the current QBE funding formula with anything will kill those nagging, specific charges about exactly how much the Governor underfunds the state's public schools in each budget].

One specific concern for the funding subcommittee as they careen toward their deadline is how to weight the needs of certain student groups, particularly students in poverty.

The funding committee did post a weighting report that included one striking chart showing the correlation of high poverty and student performance on state tests:

The chart reinforces the relationship between student poverty and academic performance. Poverty increases as the scale moves to the right and test performance decreases as the vertical scale increases.  The notes indicate that the four outliers--schools with very high levels of students not meeting standards--are the state schools (serving the deaf and blind) and a state charter virtual school. 

The chart makes clear what should be painfully obvious: students raised in poverty face distinct academic challenges that require greater support. What has Governor Deal's response been for these students? To label their schools as failing and to petulantly disparage these schools for having the audacity to spend more to address the needs of these children in poverty. (Politifact Georgia)

Dr. Knapp is no stranger to the challenges involved with educating disadvantaged students. As chair of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (2007) he oversaw the creation of a plan for recreating education set out in Tough Choices or Tough Times (executive summary). Here is that commission's vision for supporting schools serving the disadvantaged:

The additional funds for schools serving high concentrations of disadvantaged students will make it possible for those schools to stay open from early in the morning until late at night, offering a wide range of supportive services to the students and their families. They will have the funds needed to screen and diagnose their students, and to make sure that they get the eyeglasses they need or the hearing aids or the therapy for dyslexia or any of the many other things that have prevented these children from learning as well as their wealthier peers. These schools will be able to afford the tutors they need, the counselors and mentors that are the birthright of richer children elsewhere. And they will have the staff needed to reach out to the community and to find the community leaders in the private sector who will develop campaigns to raise the aspirations of these young people, so they come to believe that they too can reach the top if they work hard enough. (Tough Choices or Tough Times, executive summary, 18)

This vision of positioning disadvantaged students for success was predicated on using funding to "level-up" these schools. Under Governor Deal's restrictive charge to the commission, they can recommend additional funding weights for students in poverty, but those tweaks seem unlikely to institute the comprehensive intervention envisioned by the previous reform group led by Dr. Knapp.

With one meeting cancelled and one funding subcommittee meeting remaining, Dr Knapp and the commission faces some distinct challenges, least of these would be what does one do when the numbers don't "work out"?

---

[Hat tip to Claire Suggs and GBPI for the reference to Dr. Charles Knapp's work on Tough Choices or Tough Times in Education Reform Commission – Can We Talk About the Cost? ]

An intersection of science, love, and faith - In the Penumbra

I read today of a lunar eclipse (and resultant "blood moon") to be visible on the West Coast this Saturday. That news on this Good Friday prompted a recollection of a poem I had written many years ago. After submitting to a few journals without success I filed it away, until now.  Happy Easter Weekend.


In the Penumbra

The last oblique rays of the setting sun—
cooled from white to red—
extended  our shadows eastward to the horizon
where the moon would rise full in Earth’s shade,
shrouded in cloud from behind a stand of pines.

We waited.

At a moment indistinct, dim luminescence
emerged from mist in deepening darkness,
cloaked in red, refracted light.
Despite rational explanations
pronounced by agents of calculating science,
we watched enthralled,
as when desire colors love
and makes sense all in all.

The moon maintained her precise celestial ascent,
our astronomer remarking casually how
this same obscuring alignment illuminated
Jerusalem incarnadine in the last year of our Lord.
How then souls trembled
 (while others slept)
until white light crept across the airless seas
and, reflected, reclaimed the vacant streets.

Our moon, too, recaptured her brilliance
and leered unphased upon our departure,
knowing that faith will be shaken
and covenant vows broken
in our confusion of the sterile and the pure.

As darkness and light, love and passion
remain inextricably and eternally linked
in the penumbra.

Georgia: Getting more than it pays for in K-12 Education

As part of the sideshow that is Governor Deal's proposal for an "Opportunity School District," I was struck by a post by Charlie Harper, "Income Inequality Begins with Education Inequality." Students deserve every opportunity for success, but it is painfully obvious that--Mr Harper's opinion notwithstanding--not all schools are equal.

Jarod Apperson on his Grading Atlanta blog provides an excellent analysis of the relationship between higher poverty and lower performance. In "Bending the Curve: Why CCRPI Mislead Educators and Parents,"  Jarod's point is not to excuse low performance due to poverty; rather, he uses his analysis to reveal outliers, those schools that outperform the trendline, despite the challenges facing their students. Those are the Georgia schools we should be seeking to emulate  Likewise, and as importantly, he shows where schools that are not "failing" are still underperforming their peers. But these schools get a free pass under the OSD proposal. It is this kind of keen analysis that is missing from Governor's Deal's appropriation of a 10-year-old Recovery School district model and its absolute 60-point failure demarcation.

Something that did particularly strike me was the statement that Georgia spends a far greater portion of its budget on K-12 education (24%) than any of the neighboring states, with the distinct implication that we are not seeing "a positive return on this sizable investment." But after a decade of K-12 education "austerity cuts," how could this possibly be? I did my own analysis using FY2013 budget numbers from the National Association of State Budget Officers [NASBO], and damn... Georgia is right there behind North Carolina in share of budget dedicated to K-12 education:

State	K-12 Share
North Carolina	24.8%
Georgia	24.1%
Alabama	20.4%
Kentucky	19.6%
Florida	19.3%
Louisiana	19.3%
Tennessee	17.8%
South Carolina	17.6%
Mississippi	16.4%
Arkansas	15.6%
Virginia	15.1%
West Virginia	10.5%

Still something didn't quite seem right, but then it struck me. I had just read this brilliant post on transportation spending: "Georgia's Budget Fat More Myth than Reality." Georgia's spending per capita is "downright lean" compared to most of our neighbors. So looking at total state expenditures and dividing by the state populations shows a uniquely different picture:

State	Per Cap State Expend
West Virginia	$12,062.74
Arkansas	$ 7,229.38
Mississippi	$ 6,182.87
Louisiana	$ 5,875.03
Kentucky	$ 5,816.98
Virginia	$ 5,493.08
Alabama	$ 5,056.32
Tennessee	$ 4,655.58
South Carolina	$ 4,595.57
North Carolina	$ 4,334.79
Georgia	$ 4,203.48
Florida	$ 3,215.71

But that then raises the question: if each state has a different population of students in K-12 education, how does Georgia's 24% of a lean state budget compare with these other states on  a per student basis?

State	State per student exp
West Virginia	$8,376.07
Louisiana	$7,386.24
Kentucky	$7,358.93
North Carolina	$7,020.79
Arkansas	$6,858.20
Alabama	$6,780.74
Mississippi	$6,211.69
Georgia	$6,003.75
Virginia	$5,458.99
Tennessee	$5,346.63
South Carolina	$5,282.89
Florida	$4,541.57

Georgia ranks 8th among 12 southeastern states in the amount of funding provided from the state.  Also note that Governor Deal's poster child for the Opportunity/Recovery School District, Louisiana, spends substantially more in state dollars per student.

Now if there was any way to quantify the outcomes.....  Of course there are many ways to assess academic achievement, but the Ed Week Quality Counts annual report does provide a rating for K-12 Achievement on its 2015 grading summary. (The Achievement Index "assesses the performance of a state’s public schools against a broad set of 18 indicators capturing: current achievement levels, improvements over time, and poverty-based disparities or gaps.") The Achievement Index scores range from Massachusetts (83.7) to Mississippi (57,1), with Georgia above the national average and third in the southeast.

State	Quality Counts-ACH	State per student exp
Florida	75.8	$4,541.57
Virginia	74.2	$5,458.99
Georgia	70.7	$6,003.75
Kentucky	70.3	$7,358.93
North Carolina	69.8	$7,020.79
Tennessee	68.8	$5,346.63
Arkansas	66.7	$6,858.20
South Carolina	62.6	$5,282.89
Alabama	62.2	$6,780.74
West Virginia	60.8	$8,376.07
Louisiana	59.8	$7,386.24
Mississippi	57.1	$6,211.69

So what is the takeaway from all this? First, citing education spending as a percentage of a very slim budget might advance a narrative, but it does very little to illustrate the reality of funding for Georgia's schools. Second, not only have Georgia's schools exceeded at doing more with less, they have continually improved overall, and rank third among 12 southeastern states in an objective, third-party measure of achievement.  Do we still have a long way to go--absolutely.  Do we have pockets where schools struggle to meet the needs of their student? No doubt.

Most importantly--the Representatives of the Georgia General Assembly should carefully consider why they would implement an Opportunity School District based on a model of Louisiana's Recovery School District when that state--after ten years of the RSD--spends the second highest amount per student for the second worst result in the southeast.

Georgia GOP doubles down on diversion of public education funds

Time is running out on Republican plans to create a voucher system in Georgia. HB 243, the "Education Savings Account Act," had poor prospects of being recommended out of the Education Committee, so yesterday leadership recommitted it to the Ways and Means Committee in an attempt to slip it through this session. That action is appropriate, as this bill is less about education than it is about steering money to a select constituency.

Not surprisingly, the bill is cribbed almost verbatim from model legislation from ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The act would allow students "enrolled and attending" a public school--or of age to start kindergarten or first grade--to redirect the funds that would been allocated for their education in the public schools into "savings accounts" to be used for private school tuition, tutoring, or possible post-secondary education. The Georgia Policy and Budget institute has predicted that this subsidy for private schools would balloon to $223 million by 2028.

This legislation represents another recurrence in a pattern of diverting funds from the public schools. When the Georgia Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit Program was passed in 2008, Georgia GOP Rep David Casas bragged that the wording of the legislation was deliberately twisted so that students could qualify by enrolling while not attending public schools. It took a very public shaming from the New York Times, the Southern Education Foundation, and even Rolling Stone magazine before the legislation was amended to actually require that recipients had actually attended public schools before they were "rescued." [Props to Rolling Stone for best title: "What a Scam: Poor Kids' Money Snatched by Private Schools!"]

What is most telling are the deviations that Rep Hamilton et.al. have made from the corporatist ALEC template.

The "model" ALEC legislation at least purports to consider the needs of impoverished students.  The ALEC bill suggests a full subsidy equal to what the public school would have expended IF a child qualifies for the free/reduced lunch program, dropping to 75% for a family earning 1.5 times the free/reduced qualifying income, ultimately scaling to 25% of public school funding amount if earning 2 to 2.5 times the free/reduced qualifying income. Earn three times the free/reduced qualifying income? No subsidy for you!

ALEC even includes an explanatory footnote that Rep Hamilton takes to heart:

iv] This particular set of proportions represent a framework for one approach to means-testing the scholarship amount.  Legislators should develop a formula that makes sense for their state.

Rep Hamilton neatly removes any reference to qualifying incomes or sliding scales. What "makes sense for Georgia" in Rep Hamilton's  estimation is to provide the same benefit to the offspring of millionaires as to the children of the poor.  No worries though.  The bill still includes language that the state should  "ensure that low-income families are made aware of the program and their options." More troubling is that I see nothing in the bill to indicate how recipients for this largesse will be selected.

At least there is a measure for accountability, right?  Looking back again at the Georgia GOP's record with the Opportunity Scholarship Program, Jay Bookman observed "Ga.’s private-school scholarship program is a mess," lacking any accountability measures for student learning.

ALEC included limited accountability measures to make their raid on public school funding taste less bitter: "Each year [PARENTS shall ensure that ]their eligible student takes either the state achievement tests or nationally norm-referenced tests that measure learning gains in math and language arts, and provide for value-added assessment." So how does that translate into HB 243? Like this:

The parent of a participating student shall:
Ensure that such student participates in all math and English/language arts nationally norm-referenced assessments administered by the participating school. 

While I hate to disagree with GBPI, there is NO requirement that these ESA students will take a state assessment. As the Georgia Milestones assessment is a state, not a nationally norm-referenced test, there can be NO comparison with performance in the public schools. Particpating private schools can shop around for the most favorable test while ensuring there will be no apples-to-apples comparison with public schools. And that growth model that is imposed on public schools for their evaluation?  Well, evidently growth models and value-added measurement are for suckers, not for the elite.

Incredibly, if a school taking these "scholarship" students performs poorly, there is no mechanism for eliminating them from participation in this funding bonanza due to poor academic performance.

The citizens of Georgia should recognize HB 243 for what it is, an absolutely shameless charade intended to divert funds from public school students to create a new entitlement for a very select constituency with very limited to no accountability.

Governor Deal's bandaid for hemorrhaging rural hospitals

After acknowledging the failure of Governor Deal's plan to convert rural hospitals to stand-alone emergency departments, the Rural Hospitalization Stabilization Committee has announced this year's new bandaid: a $3 million telemedicine pilot to link school nurses and EMTs to 4 locations that can still afford to have physicians and hospitals.

The RHSC report proposes that little to nothing be done to ensure lifesaving medical access for rural Georgians served by hospitals teetering on financial collapse.

The committee did acknowledge that rural hospitals are in a precarious state:

The Committee heard testimony that four rural hospitals have closed in recent months with total of eight having closed or attempted to reconfigure in last two to three years. Additionally, fifteen rural hospitals are considered financially fragile, with six operating on a day-to-day basis.

Governor Deal and the Georgia GOP refuse to consider a federally-funded expansion of Medicaid, while Georgia hospitals--particularly those in rural Georgia--are facing huge costs for reimbursed care:

• Phoebe Putney Health System of Albany-Dougherty County reported "$76 million in charges foregone and $28 million in estimated unreimbursed costs in 2014."
• In FY2014 Floyd Medical Center provided $64.9 million in unreimbursed care: $28.1 million of indigent charity care, $12.4 million in unreimbursed Medicaid, and $24.4 million in unreimbursed Medicare,
• South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta reported $52 million in indigent and unreimbursed costs for 2013--up substantially from $44 million in 2012.

What is the result of the obstinacy of the governor and the Georgia GOP? A February 2015 Gallup poll marks Georgia with the second highest uninsured rate in the nation at 19.1%. Arkansas and Kentucky expanded Medicaid and led the nation in reduction of uninsured, with Arkansas dropping from 22.5% to 11.4% uninsured and Kentucky from 20.4 to 9.8% uninsured (Largely rural states that didn't expand Medicaid have highest number of uninsured residents).

The RHSC telemedicine pilot is a diversion--not a solution. It will not preserve access to healthcare for rural Georgians. Accepting the expansion of Medicaid would provide essential medical coverage for 288,000 Georgians, vastly improve the viability of rural hospitals, and provide $33 billion in increased federal funding to the state over the next 10 years (at a cost to the state of $35 million per year, according to GBPI). The grim reality is that hundreds of Georgians will die prematurely and needlessly if our state continues to adhere to this governor's failed vision for healthcare in Georgia.

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Final note, as I worked on this post I found Jay Bookman's excellent post, Georgia Abandons its Rural Hospitals.  Jay makes a superb case for expansion in his post.

SB89: A Constrained Vision for the Digital Classroom in Georgia

Leave it up to the Georgia General Assembly to take a promising concept, "The Digital Classroom Act," and ruin it with a purely reductive concept of digital learning coupled with a blatant disregard of what Georgia has been achieving with digital resources. The massive unfunded mandate contained in this bill further shows how out of touch our legislators are with the fiscal realities facing our schools.

The legislative approach is that of the middle school child who has discovered the "replace" command in Word. Let's just take out "textbook" and replace it with "digital materials and content"--because what the hey, it's the same thing, right? Replace all, tweak a little, and BAM, we have reshaped instruction in our state for a generation. Except we haven't.  If the intent is to replace textbooks with just electronic forms of textbooks, with linear, packaged materials that "constitute the principal source of study" for a course, then we are missing the pedagogical boat. The digital classroom our students deserve is one in which the teacher can connect students with a broad variety of digital content, selecting for each student the most appropriate resource for each individual's need.

Georgia has been working to that end to establish the Learning Object Repository with thousands of digital resources. Thanks to the hard work of Dr Christina Clayton and the staff of Georgia Virtual School, Georgia developed a massive repository of vetted digital resources. [Their work was accomplished on a shoestring at GaDOE, and it's a damn shame that GaDOE has since lost Dr Clayton's leadership in these endeavors]. Oblivious of this accomplishment, SB89 proposes to create an adoption process with committees of no more than 5 "educators actually engaged in public school work in this state."  And in their spare time, these five individuals are to chart the course for a statewide digital classroom?

Which brings us to "THE UNBELIEVABLY SWEET ALPACAS!"

Let's say a teacher of economics discovers the WetheEconomy series of 20 short films on economics--edgy enough to spark conversation in a high school econ class but founded in economic principles. Do the authors of SB89 intend for a teacher to wait for a resource to be approved by this committee of five educators?  Or that this same teacher be obligated to lobby for 20 or more teachers from 20 or more different school systems to request (in writing) for the resource to be added to the "approved list?"

From Curriki's repository of teacher-created resources to CK12's "roll-your-own" FlexBooks, open educational resources are the future for education. SB89 represents an unimaginative attempt to apply the moribund textbook adoption process to the dynamic explosion of digital resources. That tired and futile approach will fail Georgia's teachers and students.  

The state would be better served if the state hosted a platform on which teachers, students, and community members could recommend resources, tag them to a standard, and then the community of educators could vote resources up and down to collectively discover the best digital resources for our students. The state could build on what it already has in place with its Teacher Resource Link.  It's a rather radical idea, but let's just try trusting teachers this time--allow them to propose materials, to determine what is best for their respective students, and for the state to provide a framework to enable this to happen.

NOW ABOUT THAT UNFUNDED MANDATE

My school system--like most across the state who have endured years of austerity cuts--has made compromises to keep our budgets balanced. Computer hardware purchases were put off, as were network projects. The federal eRate program is promising some serious dollars for wireless networks, but that funding could take five years, with the out years still not yet funded.  On top of that, we are scrambling to build the infrastructure to support a statewide online testing program.

It takes tremendous gall for our legislators, who have provided barely any funds for technology in a decade to REQUIRE local boards of education to provide a device for every student by 2020. The Governor's Office of Student Achievement this past year asked school systems to estimate the cost to provide each student a device.  Let's have the legislature ask GOSA how many hundreds of millions of dollars this statewide mandate would impose on school systems.

I have seen schools that are making great strides toward implementing one-to-one device plans with their students, but those systems are, for now, the exception. Each system should be encouraged to develop a plan for meaningful integration of technology in a manner that best meets the needs of its students on a timetable that is determined by local boards of education--not by legislators.

Senators Albers, Beach, Hufstetler, Black, and Williams should explain this gem too: "All digital

instructional materials and content and any computer hardware, software, and technical equipment necessary to support such digital materials and content purchased by local units of administration with state Quality Basic Education Program funds or any other means of acquisition shall may remain the property of the local unit purchasing or acquiring them." Why strike "shall" and replace with "may"? At least we knew a local system could keep the textbooks it bought.  What is the implication here for devices purchased with state or even local funds?

To say that SB89 is a good faith effort would be to discredit the word "effort." This is an ill-informed, unimaginative proposal that would serve our students poorly and which imposes an enormous unfunded mandate upon local systems who are still struggling fiscally. These senators should venture out into the schools to see how innovative teachers use digital resources on a daily basis, and then they will realize that we need more than a textbook cliché to move forward in our state.