Meanwhile back in Philadelphia

This is just so awful, I'm not sure where you start.
Budgets are atrocious across Pennsylvania.

The envelope please...

I'm rather behind on my national posting (sorry about that), but it is time again for the annual National Education Policy Center Bunkum Awards.

Quick numbers check

...so we're all on the same page.
The City Council asked that City Manager O'Brien try to find an additional $500,000 for the Worcester Public Schools.
That's about seven teachers.
Superintendent Boone's request for an additional $5 million included $700,000 for elementary teachers.
That's ten teachers.

We currently are projecting 91 classes across the city to be over 26 students next year. To take care of them all--and frankly, we couldn't, because we'd run out of classrooms--would take more like 45 teachers (or $3.1 million).

As of this minute, the administration plans to hold five teachers in reserve for August, to place at the schools with the biggest classes. Any additional teachers,whether from additional city funds or from the School Committee moving money, will also be held in reserve. In Worcester, a class of 26 in May can easily be a class of 30 or of 22 by August.

None of which is meant to be discouraging, because every teacher we can get in those classrooms is another twenty plus kids with a better educational experience.

There's no longer a public school system in Muskegon Heights, Michigan

The so-called "Emergency Manager" has fired the staff, essentially closed the district, and is bidding education in Muskegon Heights out to charter schools.
Note that no one in this scenario answers to anyone locally. At all.
See Ravitch on this here.

It's Groundhog Day!

And for those wondering about the sigh of relief from some in the audience when they heard Superintendent Boone's answer to the question from Councilor Lukes, we bring you this flashback from May 2008.

with apologies to Councilor Germain, whose name I only recently started spelling correctly

Councilors on the WPS budget

O'Brien: where we've come to where we need to go
"closed eight schools, laid off teachers"
federal stimulus aid, continued support from the state
"equally been a challenging time for the city side"
"beginning to stabilize, due to good decisions being made"; cites council, committee, city manager, superintendent, municipal unions
"where do we invest going forward"
"three critical areas...strong economy...public safety...and you need to have great schools"
"we voted with our feet" (well, some of them...) and sent their kids to Worcester Public Schools

Comments on the WPS budget before the Council

Monfredo: suggests a working group of Council and School Committee
mention of Medicaid, grant decision
split of new revenue (it was a 50/50 split in the 90's)
"shape the economic future of our city"
Rob Cohane, co-chair of CPPAC (who's a South High grad, class of 1988)
"over 450 petition signers" asking for 3% over the state mandated foundation requirement
"what we think the priorities of Worcester should be"
"by at least 3% above"
since 1988 the city has consistently contributed less than 1% above the minimum
statewide average is 14%; urban districts is 3% in spending

Worcester Public Schools budget before Council

They're taking the law department first, so not quite yet...will update as we get there...also, note Council just making a quorum of six here this afternoon...now up to seven...eight..nine
Zidelis notes that the increase of 4.2% or $11.4 million from FY12

Boone notes to create greater transparency over the past several years
final document of budget is at press, received by Council June 4
"puts us at Net School Spending and the foundation requirement"
increased enrollment
up to ten councilors...and the City Manager...
Boone notes that the local piece of the increase is $2.8 million (out of a total of $12 million)
runs through how NSS spending works; transportation, rental, and crossing guards don't count
enrollment increasing "pushing at" our operational capacity and our building capacity
rundown of list of grant funding lost, cut, or requiring that we move positions off of them; now in general fund
rundown of savings in utilities, health insurance, special education (at $1 m each)
also saving on unemployment by not laying people off (true!): Total of $5.6 m
91 classrooms between 26-29 students for next year (15 in kindergarten) list follows:

Worcester City Council considers the budget

...tonight at 5. Please come.
I don't plan to blog the presentation ('though I've heard it's a bit different than what we've seen so far), but I will blog the conversation from the Council and any public comment.

Let's not

(let's not even say we did)
Race to the Top! It was such a great, popular successful idea...oh, wait.
Anyway, Secretary Duncan has decided that it was such a great idea that we needed to do it now at the DISTRICT level!
(cue applause)
The claim is that this new competition  "asks districts “to show us how they can personalize and individualize education for a set of students in their schools,”" but as Rick Hess notes:

...the performance metrics reflect a pinched focus on the handful of things we know how to measure. Duncan said he's seeking "personalized learning environments" that focus on "competency-based education" in order to promote "school[s] that meets the unique needs of our children." Yet, ED specifies that performance will be demonstrated via six metrics: summative assessments, decreasing the achievement gaps, graduation rates, college enrollment rates, student attendance, and teacher attendance. These metrics are at odds with Duncan's handsome verbiage. There's no room for applicants to propose documenting performance in advanced science, world languages, the arts, history, student engagement, or much else. This limitation is a much bigger problem at the district than at the state level. State-level levers and measures are necessarily crude, since they're writing rules that must be applied across scores or even hundreds of districts to hundreds or thousands of schools. But those same strictures need not apply at the district level. It's unfortunate to see the feds telling purportedly "leading" districts to nonetheless lend an outsized, compliance-driven import to just these measures.

It also manages to subvert the democratic process (Hess again):

The U.S. Department of Education is now going to get into the business of telling local, elected bodies how to evaluate themselves. By 2014-15, districts will have to promise to implement evaluation systems that take student outcomes into account for school boards (along with every other breathing soul in a district). This is an especially novel innovation in democratic government--school boards are elected or appointed bodies who serve at the pleasure of their voters or an elected official. Perhaps the Department of Transportation will next start requiring city councils to be evaluated based on transit performance But the move is par for the course from a Department that has shown little disregard for pesky Constitutional constraints.

...and all for remarkably little money (in a district budget sense): districts the size of DC are up for $20 million.
More from Hess on this here.

Items coming out of finance for the City Council

Motions made at last week's City Council budget session are on this coming week's agenda.
Councilor Lukes has two requests for information:

• that the City Manager quantify the services Human Resources provides to the Worcester Public Schools.
• that the City Manager quantify the services the DPW Central Garage division provides to the Worcester Public Schools.

Quick one first: the only way in which WPS interacts with the garage at all is all WPS vehicles get their gas from the DPW Central Garage; we're required to. And we pay the city for the gas. For those interested, it comes out of account 500141-92000, which is vehicle maintenance. For a total of 62 vehicles (of which 42 are special education buses owned and operated by WPS), we last year budgeted $471,659 for all maintenance and fuel for the year. I do not believe that we have transferred funds into or out of this account, so that would be about what we spent. And some of that was payment to the city for gas.

On Human Resources: the city-side HR department (WPS has one, too) provides the civil service list (for those positions requiring it), workers compensation support, and benefits support. Interestingly these services are not, but could be, included in the city's list of in-kind services to count towards net school spending. However, adding these would require reopening that negotiation, which the city is unwilling to do. The WPS HR department fulfills all other HR functions for the over 3000 employees of the Worcester Public Schools.

Councilor Eddy, taking notice of the parents' petition* has requested:

• that the City Manager "provide a sample of what 9.3 million dollars in cuts would look like to the FY2013 budget and what would a 9.3 million dollar increase in taxes would look like if City Council were to increase the Worcester Public School budget as they have requested." 

Aha! First, unless Councilor Eddy is being unclear in his antecedents, he is ascribing the creation of the petition requesting the Worcester Public Schools be funded at 3% over foundation to...the Worcester Public Schools.
I've heard some fine rumors swirling about who created the petition (and there are some doozies!), but I actually know this one: it wasn't administration. It wasn't the School Committee. I was at the meeting where the parents decided to create the petition--it was the last CPPAC meeting, which is a public meeting--and, yes, it was actual parents who generated this. So, sorry, but you can't decide that this is "just the schools" requesting more funds. This time, it's parents--and, from a quick glance at the petition, rank-and-file voters-- you're going to have to answer to.
Requesting "a sample" is always a fun one; speaking as a maker of motions, that's definitely an invitation to use one's imagination. Expect some dire forecasts on this one.
And of course, it's the old "you can't possibly have a safe city AND properly-provided for schools!" argument. Again.

* close to hitting 400

Full Graduation schedule

sorry, I appear not to have posted this

HIGH SCHOOL DATES
Date	Time	School	Location	School Committee
May 25, 2012	11:00 A.M.	St. Casmir Alternative	St. Casmir’s Church
May 25, 2012	10:00 A.M.	The Gerald Creamer Center	Worcester State University	Mayor Petty/Tracy O’Connell Novick
June 4, 2012	6:00 P.M.	Worcester Technical High	DCU Center	Mayor Petty/Brian A. O’Connell
June 5, 2012	6:00 P.M.	South High Community	DCU Center	Mayor Petty/Donna M. Colorio
June 6, 2012	6:00 P.M.	Doherty Memorial High	DCU Center	Mayor Petty/John F. Monfredo
June 7, 2012	6:00 P.M.	North High	DCU Center	Mayor Petty/Tracy O’Connell Novick
June 8, 2012	6:00 P.M.	Burncoat High	DCU Center	Mayor Petty/John L. Foley
June 11, 2012	6:00 P.M.	Claremont Academy	Clark University-Atwood Hall	Mayor Petty/Dianna L. Biancheria
June 12, 2012	6:00 P.M.	University Park Campus	Clark University-Atwood Hall	Mayor Petty/Dianna L. Biancheria
June 13, 2012	7:00 P.M.	Adult Learning Center	Doherty Memorial High School	Mayor Petty/John F. Monfredo
MIDDLE SCHOOL DATES
Date	Time	School	Location	School Committee
June 19, 2012	11:00 A.M.	Claremont Academy (Grade 8)	Claremont Academy	Brian A. O’Connell
June 19, 2012	1:00 P.M.	Burncoat Middle	Burncoat Middle School	Dianna L. Biancheria
June 19, 2012	10:00 A.M.	Dr. Arthur F. Sullivan	Dr. Arthur F. Sullivan Middle	John L. Foley
June 19, 2012	1:00 P.M.	Dr. Arthur F. Sullivan	Dr. Arthur F. Sullivan Middle	John F. Monfredo
June 19, 2012	10:00 A.M.	Forest Grove Middle	Forest Grove Middle School	Mayor Petty/Donna M. Colorio
June 19, 2012	1:00 P.M.	Forest Grove Middle	Forest Grove Middle School	Donna M. Colorio
June 19, 2012	1:00 P.M.	New Citizen Center	New Citizen Center	Brian A. O’Connell
June 19, 2012	1:00 P.M.	University Park Campus (Grade 8)	Clark University – Jefferson 320	John L. Foley
June 19, 2012	11:00 A.M.	Worcester East Middle	Worcester East Middle School	Tracy O’Connell Novick

Huge NY Times report on public givebacks to private education

Here.

“A very small percentage of that money will be set aside for a needs-based scholarship fund,” Wyatt Bozeman, an administrator at the school near Atlanta, said during an informational session. “The rest of the money will be channeled to the family that raised it.”

A handout circulated at the meeting instructed families to donate, qualify for a tax credit and then apply for a scholarship for their own children, many of whom were already attending the school.

Well worth reading.

Where do the additional Senate Ways and Means funds go?

Here's your chart: That's, left to right, lowest to highest quintile of wealth.