The $ lure of charter partnerships; Patrick and teacher pay
Superintendents are increasingly like moths drawn to a flame in partnerships for in-district charter schools, and now some are even talking in ‘charterspeak’
The Dallas Morning News published an intriguing piece Thursday examining plans in Fort Worth and Dallas ISDs for partnering with nonprofit entities to utilize SB 1882. That law incentivizes district partnerships with charters and nonprofits by providing an additional $1,800 per student enrolled in the campuses being operated by these entities. And for schools facing five years of “Improvement Required” (IR) ratings, it allows a two-year reprieve from another law that mandates that TEA either close the IR schools or appoint a board of managers to run the entire district.
Reporter Eva Marie-Ayala has an interesting way of summarizing the intent of the law:
The law was aimed at giving charter operators access to traditional districts’ facilities while the districts receive more state money for those enrolled at such a campus. The additional amount is $1,800 per student.
That was our thought too at the time — that lawmakers were offering districts a lot of money to let charter operators take over their facilities, as if charters weren’t proliferating enough on their own. The rules written by TEA for SB 1882 make it quite clear that these partners need to have complete autonomy in managing the schools, including hiring and firing of personnel.
For Dallas ISD, the district initially put the brakes on moving forward with partnerships, even though the superintendent pledged that none would be with what he viewed as competitors — actual charter school networks taking funding away from his district with each new enrollee in their schools. Now Dallas ISD is exploring collaboration with nonprofits to run Pre-K centers, but parents are still expressing concern over the idea, fearing it will lead to future takeover of other campuses.
Fort Worth ISD’s position is more disturbing, and not because of the partner it’s negotiating with — Texas Wesleyan University. Quite frankly, I don’t know much about the university or its capabilities in effectively keeping five elementary campuses on the path to success; however, Superintendent Kent Scribner’s remarks are a dizzying display of red flags.
Fort Worth Superintendent Kent Scribner expressed interest in such partnerships shortly after the new law went into effect in 2017. He previously oversaw a district in the Phoenix area that had similar charter-district partnerships. FWISD spent a year exploring options.
“Charters are here, and they’re not going away,” he said. “The best strategy for us is to partner with them so that we have one system of great schools where any student in any corner of Fort Worth ISD has choice. If we’re allowed to play on a level playing field, we can out charter the charter schools.”
If you’re not familiar with “system of great schools” it’s both a buzzword and an actual program launched by TEA to promote charter school collaboration with districts. We’ll let their own educrat speech describe it:
….identify high-capacity educators and partner organizations to incubate new, replicate successful, and restart struggling schools with a focus on autonomous networks…..Increase access to school choice options and helps families identify and attend their best fit schools.
It’s kind of like TEA’s marketing program for school-choice lite and SB 1882. When Scribner says “one system” and “choice” he is giving a thumbs up to a new trend in charter school expansion — the “portfolio” model that seeks to centralize enrollment for both charters and true public schools all in one “system.”
Scribner seems to be intent on succumbing to “if you can’t beat them, join them.” The problem is that charter networks are being funded in the hundreds of millions of dollars by folks like the Walton Foundation to aggressively expand and market themselves in urban districts, regardless of whether some districts piddle around with “partnerships.” Not only does this rapid expansion drain millions of dollars from true public schools, but it creates a segregated system of schools, with charters not having to deal with the “burdens” of, oh, democratically-elected boards, certified teachers, kids with serious discipline problems, protections like teacher contract rights, class-size limits, high-cost special education programs, or much of the transparency required of true public schools.
You can expect to hear a lot more on SB 1882, both as districts are lured like moths to a flame with more money, and with possible changes to the law ahead in the legislative session. (And you can read more about San Antonio’s newest partnership plans in a Wednesday Express-News story.)
Dan Patrick Watch: Gov. Lite still calling for teacher pay raises, but there’s no real legislation yet to back him up
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick continues to call for a $5,000 teacher pay raise for all teachers in his opinion pieces, this one in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times (and the Star-Telegram). Patrick is perennially with his finger to the wind, and the November election made it quite clear on which way it was blowing, so he’s abandoned his role as the roadblock to public education funding. We get it, but if only he could do so without repeating his malarkey about previously championing raises.
I first proposed a $10,000 raise for all teachers during the special session in 2017. The bill did not pass. In my inauguration speech two weeks ago, I announced that Senator Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, had filed Senate Bill 3, to give all teachers a $5,000 raise. This a big down payment on my goal of a $10,000 across-the-board raise.
As I’ve written about exhaustively, Patrick’s claim is phony. It wasn’t $10,000, there was no bill, and he never had any money proposed for it. The real problem, though, is two-fold…actually it’s got a lot of folds. But for starters, SB 3 isn’t clear at all on how the raise will be implemented and there are questions about how it would be made permanent. Casting aside technicalities on bill language, several other pieces of overall public education funding also are swirling in uncertainty — namely how much (if any) new money will go to public education, changes to the school finance system, and pushes by some lawmakers for merit pay for a small number of teachers based on student test scores. Patrick, by the way, says he can do both forms of compensation:
I intend to include funding for incentive programs in the Senate budget as well, but we still need to significantly increase the base pay for all Texas teachers now.
Forgotten by Patrick in his proposal, of course, are hundreds of thousands of other school employees — professionals like librarians, counselors, and specialists, as well as what we at Texas AFT call “support professionals”: teacher and special education aides, secretaries, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, maintenance workers, and everyone who works as a team each day to teach our kids and run their schools. It’s our job to remind Patrick and the entire Legislature that it’s time for a raise for all school employees.
Also worth a read:
Teacher merit pay is a bad idea (Forbes, February 9, 2019)
Denver Teacher Strike Revealed US Divide Over Bonus Pay: A Denver teacher strike challenged one of the nation’s oldest incentive pay systems (U.S. News & World Report, February 14, 2019, features quote from Texas AFT President Louis Malfaro.)
