• Are you passionate about education reform?
• Are you a rigorous analytic thinker?
• Do you have a strong quantitative background?
• Do you have a track record of accomplishment?

ERS looking for people to join our team. We are a small organization with a strong professional learning community. We place teamwork, initiative, flexibility, and desire to grow at a premium. Our mission is to work with large urban public school systems to organize time, talent, and money to create great schools at scale.

Please get in touch if you think you could contribute to our work. We are currently seeking passionate and motivated candidates for the following positions based in Watertown, Massachusetts:

Principal Associate

The ideal ERS Principal Associate has strong and proven analytic skills, strategic consulting experience, project management skills, and a passion for improving urban education. Download full job description here.

Associate

The ideal ERS Associate has strong and proven analytical skills, including proficiency in supporting tools such as Excel and SQL, enjoys the interpretation of information and data and thinks strategically. Associates are expected to execute and communicate well defined analyses with moderate supervision and collaborate with their teams in the development of client presentations and reports. ERS’ inclusive and collaborative approach ensures that Associates have the unique opportunity to participate in meetings with Superintendents and other district leaders. Download full job description here.

Business Analyst/ Accountant

The ideal ERS business analyst/accountant has strong accounting or data management experience in a complex tracking environment (small organizations, $5-10M, non-profits, professional services, or manufacturing). This is a newly created position to meet increasing demand, and requires an understanding of cost accounting principles and the ability to balance initiative and follow through in a team based work environment. Download full job description here.

Contact: For any questions or additional information regarding the hiring process, please contact Julie Derderian:

Posted by Justin Burniske

In 2012, let’s make smart trade-offs that will produce better results, allowing us to create and build inspiring systems.

Posted by Justin Burniske

ERS recently delved into the topic of Next Generation Learning at our monthly lunch with guest Eleanor Laurens from The Parthenon Group and co-author of Next Generation Learning: Defining the Opportunity and Next Generation Learning - Scaling the Opportunity. Lauren’s presentation on Next Generation Learning (NGL), simply defined as the use of technology to enable personalization in the classroom, inspired lively discussion on this cutting-edge topic and the implications for our district partners.
                                                 
The recent adoption of Common Core Standards and the ongoing rise of information technology have made NGL one of the leading issues in education today. Misconceptions about NGL models include the over-emphasis on technology (it is actually an enabler, not an end in itself), and the perceived threat to the teaching profession (it actually has the potential to elevate the teaching profession by leveraging time, assessments, and grouping assignments). As Ms. Laurens’ papers point out, NGL models will need to be judged according to two fundamental criteria: whether they facilitate sustained breakthrough learning gains by all students and whether they create efficiencies that make them at least cost neutral to deliver compared to traditional models. 

Our discussion explored the vision for what the future might hold, and raised interesting questions about how we get there. We reflected on the potential of NGL models based on our knowledge of our district partners, our experiences as classroom teachers, our concerns as parents, and our own K-12 educational upbringing. We discussed the barriers such as district capacity for change, state policies, and union contracts. There was consensus that NGL expansion will ultimately require system-level policy, practice, and structure change, including adjustments to seat time requirements and resource use flexibility.

The discussion about NGL and innovative school design reinforced the important work ERS is doing to help support systems in organizing talent, time, and money to create great schools at scale. There are only a handful of schools currently implementing NGL models. The concepts are very much in experimentation, however if the pilots can prove results with the same investment, NGL has potential to take off.

ERS staff gathers each month to discuss our work and current issues in education. At ERS we see conversations like these—with each other and with our partners—key to building knowledge and ultimately impacting the educational experience for all children.

Posted by Julie Derderian

Karen Baroody, Managing Director at ERS, along with Texas Representative Scott Hochberg, and Chester Finn, president of Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, participated in the 2011 Fall Forum held by the National Council of State Legislators (NCSL) in Tampa, Florida.  During the session, the three panelists discussed how the current budget crisis provides an opportunity for state legislatures to achieve better student performance by reshaping education policy and focusing on new strategies for reallocating and maximizing resources.
In her presentation, Tough Times as Opportunity, Karen Baroody talked about the gloomy fiscal forecast facing states over the next decade, and how these tough times provide a real opportunity for transformational change in resource allocation.  She then discussed four of the highest priorities for K-12 restructuring state legislators should consider:

• Restructure one-size fits all job structure and compensation
• Optimize existing time to meet student and teacher needs and extend where necessary
• Rethink standardized class size model to target individual attention
• Shift special education spending toward early intervention and targeted individual attention

The panel continued with a discussion about the actionable steps legislators can take to steer education finance systems to be more output-driven as well as to encourage districts to be more innovative and creative. They also discussed the role that digital learning and technology can play in reform efforts and the impact of the federal stimulus. Highlights from this discussion include:

• With federal stimulus funds going away, states are facing a funding cliff, emphasizing the need for fundamental change now.
• Legislators should work to break down barriers and remove restrictions (e.g., categorical funding restrictions, class size mandates) so districts can optimize resource allocations.
• A lively debate around standardized testing – Mr. Hochberg suggested that states should examine the costs associated with standardized testing and consider whether or not every student should be tested every year.  Others disagreed with this approach citing the inability of districts to implement compensation systems that would seek to tie teacher pay to performance.
• Technology can and will play a larger role in education service delivery.  Most districts have a hard time freeing up operating expenses to invest in technology so it will be important for states to provide support.  However, districts must be willing to take some of the costs out of the system (e.g., more digital learning may mean fewer teachers) to realize the additional efficiencies that come with improved technology.

Posted by Keri Munkwitz

National Journal Education Experts discuss “The Comparability Question”

From ERS Executive Director Karen Hawley Miles

At Education Resource Strategies (ERS), our work with urban school districts targets how to allocate and organize resources in ways that lead to excellence for all students and schools, equitably and efficiently. The Department of Education (DOE) report shines a light on the critical need to insure resource equity. It also highlights the need to improve data and the understanding of the reasons for spending differences as well as the strategies for addressing the differences- which do not always include equalizing spending. Those responding to the report should understand that:

1. Tracking of school-level spending is typically bad. Most districts don’t do a good job tracking spending to the school level—-so a key next step is to do this more consistently. We find that districts range from reporting 40% of spending to the school level to around 80%, making it hard to be sure whether DOE calculations reflect reality. When districts do take care to allocate all of the resources down to each school, many will find that they DO spend more in high poverty schools because they track coaches and some itinerant staff that work in high poverty schools as central spending. (Other districts will find that they keep magnet school and advanced program spending like International Baccalaureate centrally which would typically add dollars to lower poverty schools and thus exacerbate inequity).
2. School size has the biggest influence on inequity. Even if they do track spending, the largest driver of differences in general education spending across schools is usually not teacher salaries but school size (by a large factor). In some districts, the high poverty schools are the smallest and most under-enrolled leading to significantly higher costs and in other districts the reverse is true. The point is this driver is unrelated to opportunities to learn.
3. Teacher salaries are the second biggest influence. The second biggest driver is usually teacher salary. But, since teacher salary levels don’t currently link to teacher effectiveness, a straight equalization of dollars- even with a 10% leeway- isn’t necessarily the right policy solution. Instead, extra support for novice teachers might be a short term solution and revamping teacher compensation certainly is the long term answer.

Strict mandates on expenditure levels without regard to the reasons for them, will not improve equity and excellence, but improved transparency in financial and human resource reporting and problem solving around the reasons for the differences in spending will.

To learn more about school funding systems and how to better calculate spending in a district see the ERS guide, School Funding Systems: Equity, Transparency, Flexibility.

Also, as a quick response to Checker Finn’s point on weighted student funding, ERS has a series of resources that evolved from a summit that brought together districts that have moved to this system. Weighted Student Funding systems do indeed usually result in Federal dollars being more equitably distributed. In addition, districts and state funding is more flexibly allocated which further improves efforts to meet student needs. See Annenberg Institutes for School Reform’s Special issue of VUE, as well as our summit report.

Visit the National Journal to read other experts’ commentaries.

Posted by Karen Hawley Miles

At the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Moving Forward Conference on November 16th, 2011, in Phoenix, AZ, ERS Executive Director Karen Hawley Miles said that state action is necessary to support districts’ transformation of their resources to meet the rapidly changing demands of educating our youth, especially in these tough economic times. During her presentation to representatives from 17 states, she focused on how states can effectively work with districts on teacher compensation, job structure, and professional development. Instead of dictating inputs, which often cripple the ability of school district to address the unique needs of their students, states should take a more supportive role that allows them to influence outcomes while allowing districts the flexibility to achieve success within the specific needs of their district.  Afterwards, ERS Director Regis Shields led breakout sessions where the state representatives shared practices and brainstormed state actions that could affect the teaching effectiveness in their states.  State representatives had a lively discussion of their current projects, and agreed that a combination of state roles was needed to drive successful outcomes. Those actions fell in to six groups of state roles that are defined below.

State Roles to Influence District Policy:

1. Barrier Breaker - The State removes internal regulations and rules that constrain district flexibility and/or force investment misalignments
2. Capacity Builder - The State builds the capacity of districts to improve teaching effectiveness thru PD, tools, access to data, models of best practice
3. Service Broker - The State identifies providers of services that meet high standards and structures access and networks
4. Incentive Provider - The State establishes structures, including innovation grants, that encourage certain behaviors or practices
5. Influencer - The State works with other stakeholders (unions, legislature) to increase understanding of barriers to improving teaching effectiveness
6. Mandate Maker - The State mandates certain practices, processes or investments that have a compelling State priority.  This option should be a last resort.

Posted by David Bloom

Other authors in the issue include Michael Rebell, Allan Odden, Anthony Rolle, James Guthrie, Chris Gabrieli, Doug Johnson and Nathan Levenson.

Posted by Justin Burniske

Posted by Allison Daskal Hausman

“We know how much districts are struggling, but they simply can’t decide that their only option is to do less with less,” says Karen Hawley Miles, Executive Director of ERS. “School Budget Hold’em is about being clear about the system vision, the spending patterns, practices and structures that need to change and then determining priorities for investing in reform and making difficult trade-offs to get there. ”

School Budget Hold ‘em evolved out of ERS’s experience working with large urban districts around the country. The goal was to create an engaging, interactive way for administrators to think differently about how they allocate resources. The budget impacts associated with various “card” choices are estimates based on real districts—specific district circumstances may vary.

ERS has seen firsthand how district and school leaders often deal with the budget process. They make minor adjustments to the previous year’s budget, hoping to preserve existing positions and perhaps purchase some new materials. They often separate budgeting from school planning. These routine efforts are typically made against the backdrop of looming deadlines, with little time spent reflecting on or rethinking current practice to improve outcomes.

“The game shows a way out of feeling like our hands are tied,” says ERS Managing Director Karen Baroody. “Players learn to consider options they might usually overlook or realize the value of choices that typically seem too difficult. Given that cuts are inevitable, districts can take this time to cut deeper in some areas in order to invest in areas that are crucial for significant improvement. It’s not easy, but it’s the only way.”

The game is both online and a physical card game ERS has been using with districts around the country. “I love the game!” reported an early test-user. “I think this site can make a major contribution to K-12 districts as we struggle with decreasing revenue streams and increased expectations for performance.”

To play School Budget Hold’em go to Holdem.ERStools.org.

But before you start, watch the following video to get a quick introduction to how the tool works.

Posted by Allison Daskal Hausman

During the panel for Weighted Student Funding as a Path to Equity at the Council for Great City Schools Conference, held in Boston on October 28th, John McDonough, the Chief Financial Officer of Boston Public Schools (BPS), made the following statement: “Boston Public Schools is no longer funding adults, buildings, schools, or programs – BPS funds students and student needs.”  While seeming simple and logical, this statement represents a significant shift in thinking around funding education.

For years BPS funded schools by allocating positions; maintaining school staffing levels from prior years with little regard for changes in student needs.  With the new weighted student funding formula, BPS students with similar characteristics receive the same level of resources regardless of where they live or which school they attend.  Along with helping to ensure resources are allocated equitably, this transition to weighted student funding has also dramatically increased transparency.  Under the new model, any parent, student, or community member can calculate the level of resources at any BPS school based on the enrollment and BPS’ weighted student funding formula.  This is a significant shift for the district away from that paradigm which funded people and infrastructure and perpetuated inequity and lacked transparency. 

While we realize implementing an equitable funding system is no easy task – there are numerous barriers and obstacles – it is time to change the conversation from whether districts can implement equitable funding systems, to how they can implement them.  By funding student needs instead of fixed assets such as people, programs, and buildings, we are allocating our shrinking pool of resources more equitably and efficiently, both of which are good for our bottom line…student achievement. 

Posted by Sam Hurwitz

“At a time when many Americans are worried about how they’re going to pay next month’s bills, Washington is stuck in political gridlock that is doing nothing to relieve these fears,” said Kevin Jennings, CEO of Be the Change, Inc., the parent organization behind Opportunity Nation.  “Today we start a dialogue to change all of that.  Next year is going to be a time when the nation takes a long, hard look at itself and asks what kind of future we want for our country. Opportunity Nation has a plan for ensuring that every American has access to the American Dream now and into the future, and we’re going to be asking every elected official and candidate for office, What’s Your Plan for Restoring Opportunity to Americans?”

Over the coming months, Opportunity Nation will leverage the collective support from its cross-partisan coalition and work to engage elected officials at all levels of government, as well as the candidates running for president in 2012.

Check out their “Opportunity Index” and see how states in the nation rank based on their economic, education and community resources. Also, you can watch the Summit stream live online, which you can see below.

Posted by Justin Burniske

I read and reread (and reread) Fernanda Santos’ article in Friday’s New York Times (Oct. 28) trying to understand the point.  The article’s title “Office to Hallways, A Day with a Principal: Inside a Big, High-Performing School” accurately portrays the substance – a day in the life of a principal, Musa Ali Shama. 

Still, I was confused.  Was this a soft story attempting to describe a principal’s typical day in a high performing school?  Or was Santos attempting to make a more important point? Never were any activities portrayed indicating the role of the principal as the instructional leader of the school. In fact, the words “ teacher” “teaching”, and “instruction” didn’t appear…not even once.  I learned of the principal’s role as official greeter, custodian, hall monitor, and head of a student governance board. Shockingly, about 10% of the article and 20 minutes of the principal’s day was spent tracking down the whereabouts of a dropout, not with the intention of bringing the student back to school but with the specific intention of trying to boost the school’s progress report grade by eliminating one dropout from its statistics.

I’m certain that this isn’t how principals of a high performing school in NYC typically spend their days so I am going to give the principal and the reporter the benefit of the doubt.  I have to assume that some of the principal’s time that day went unreported – the time the principal spent observing teaching practice in classrooms; working with teams of teachers in collaborative planning time; interacting with counselors, students, parents and teachers to assure students are receiving appropriate academic and social interventions; and reviewing student performance data to monitor and inform the school’s progress.  This is what we see principals in high performing schools doing and we see how powerful their leadership can be in improving teaching effectiveness and helping children succeed. It is just too depressing to think that the call-out activity of the day for the principal of a high performing school is “spotting blobs of chewing gum.” And in the majority of cases, it’s just not true. To get a different portrait of principals in action see our video Turnaround in Action.

Posted by Regis Shields

Watch out! A dinosaur is loose in the office! Fortunately, he was a well behaved dinosaur who was only looking for candy.

Only on Halloween can a pirate high-fiving a dinosaur be so cute!

A police officer and a storm trooper walk into their father’s office…

Book’em! Finally, the cupcake thief has been brought to justice.

Finally, the newest member of the ERS family experience his very first Halloween. Years from now he’ll look back and wonder, “Who ate all my candy?”

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Posted by Justin Burniske

In his opening remarks at last week’s Extending Learning Time Conference, Chris Gabrieli, the cofounder and Chairman of the National Center for Time and Learning, indicated that there were currently 1,000 schools in the US that have extended learning time beyond the length of the traditional school day.  He correctly put the number in context by saying this was only the beginning and there was still significant work left to do as a nation.  While 1,000 schools is indeed a great accomplishment, I was struck that the measure of progress was in units of schools rather than school districts. We, the entire educational community, are only willing to make small exceptions to the rules that govern our structures, processes and practices.  This approach results in small incremental changes. If we are truly going to change our educational system, we can no longer approach reform one school at a time. We need to tackle reform more systemically. It is time for the exception to be the rule. 

With respect to Extended Learning Time (ELT) across the country, ERS is not seeing systemic district-wide changes.  ELT is generally being implemented in (a) Turnaround (SIG) schools supported by extra federal dollars and imposed flexibilities to teacher contract provisions and state laws or (b) one-off district sponsored “innovation” schools that are granted more flexibility over their resources.  So if the evidence is clear that ELT improves student achievement and closes the achievement gap, why do we not see it happening as a district-side strategy?  Answer—without changing the rules of the game, ELT is just too expensive. 

What rules need to be revised to facilitate systemic implementation of ELT? Here is just a sample:

• Teacher compensation. The single salary schedule inhibits the reallocation of compensation dollars to reflect new instructional delivery models.
• Teacher and staff work rules. Specific provisions that govern the length of day, the length of year, and the length of class period impose constraints on district’s ability to use time flexibly to meet student needs.
• Certification Requirements.  ELT often becomes extra time rather than integrated into the school day because state certification rules and contract provisions inhibit districts from leveraging community agencies and other experts to support teachers in providing instruction and enrichment services.

If we believe that a longer school day is required to improve achievement for our most needy children, then we need to rethink the rules so that all students can benefit rather than the lucky few who are able to take advantage of the exceptions. It would be great at the next Extended Learning conference if the opening speaker begins with the pronouncement that 1,000 districts have extended their day beyond the traditional length. Or better yet, it would be great not to need another conference.

Posted by Regis Shields

This exciting piece, with a positive and constructive tone and the intimation of a guiding hand on one’s shoulder, urges leaders in the education world to stretch their thinking to the next level. But how? The parallels between what we are asking of our educational leaders, and they in turn are asking of their teachers, and they in turn are asking of their students – to take the risks necessary to learn – is striking. A skilled classroom teacher knows what it takes to create a safe environment, one in which students venture from the security of what they know to the possibility of what they might learn. Indeed this is the first order of business at the start of every school year: get a baseline reading on the students, establish a structure in the classroom, with appropriate flexibility; set clear expectations, use consistent language, model desired outcomes and reward positive behaviors—essentially to put in place the indicators that foster trust.

Effective school leaders follow the same basic rules as teachers. Your Charlotte-Mecklenburg video brilliantly highlights two schools whose principals’ adherence to these basic rules is leading a quiet revolution in the face of daunting facts. In those examples, the principals took the time to get to know their school communities and issues, they implemented a framework for planning and collaboration among staff, they convey overall direction, strategies and goals yet empower the teachers to make their own decisions and own them. School leaders with the will and the way to engender the trust of their staff by putting in place the elements that contribute to a safe learning environment for them have it all figured out. Theirs are the faculties who are safe to take the risks required to reach new heights and develop a road map tailored to the needs of their individual communities.

And so on for the other stakeholders: parents, school boards, superintendents, civic leaders, thought leaders and think tankers. When these constituencies take a page out of the school teacher’s plan book and allow school leaders to take risks, make mistakes and trust that they will go back to the drawing board better for the knowledge that comes from experience, change comes and progress follows.

So yes…we are in the midst of the perfect confluence, and the prospect of converting it into a new educational order for school children is exciting indeed. Many of the challenges have been well researched, analyzed and documented, by ERS and others, providing educators with a treasure-trove of data to supplement their own findings in designing the learning environments that work best for their communities. The next order of business is to hire qualified professionals and then create the circumstances, at every level, where they can do what they were hired to do – in essence, to trust them to do their best work.

Posted by Justin Burniske

Last week we brought together some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the area of school turnaround at the ERS summit, Sustaining Turnaround at Scale.  Included in this group were almost a dozen principals who are succeeding in turning around chronically low performing schools, and are boosting the achievement of their districts’ highest need students.

These principals come from different districts.  They lead elementary, middle, k-8 and high schools.  They work for districts, Charter Management Organizations and Education Management Organizations.  Some schools are federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools, and others are not.  But they are all serving urban students, and have high proportions of students in poverty, English language learners, and special education students.  While this certainly isn’t a statistically significant sample, there are some common themes across these schools that I think are important as we think about bringing school turnaround to scale.

• Leadership teams:  All of these principals are impressive.  They are charismatic, visionary, passionate and highly competent.  But when I asked them if they were nervous about leaving their school for two days so early in the year, to a person they responded that no, they were confident in their team.  Things would run fine without them.  Certainly we need to find MORE great principals to lead MORE turnaround schools.  But what these schools are showing us is how important the other people in the building are to their success.
• Turnaround, not transformation:  74% of the SIG-Awarded Tier I/II schools in cohort one chose a transformation model, where the principal was replaced but the teaching staff remained.  However, I believe that only one of the schools in our group did not replace any teachers in year one (and in that school, a number of teachers left after the first year).  Some of the schools were restarts, where all of the staff was let go (and then some rehired), others were turnarounds, where 50% or more of the staff turned over, and still others replaced only a few “toxic” teachers. 
• Reliance on data:  Each of the principals, and their supervisors, talked about how they relied on the regular use of data to continuously improve their school.  This ranged from teams of teachers using data on their students to target interventions for each student, every day, to weekly or monthly reviews between area superintendents and principals where data on student performance, attendance and behavior are analyzed and tracked to identify areas that culture, discipline or instruction need to be adjusted.

There is good news and bad news here for federal, state and district policy as we try to sustain and scale the successes to date in turnaround.  On the plus side, the federal focus on data, and on teacher and leader capacity development seem to be well-placed.  In the schools at our summit, those were key elements of success. 

But the other key element for turnaround success that was evident at our summit – replacing staff that did not have the necessary skills or did not share the school’s turnaround vision – is much less common.  The least disruptive federal model, ironically named “transformation”, is by far the most popular.  If the schools at our summit are any indication, disruption is not only not a bad thing for turnaround, it’s a necessary piece of the puzzle.

Certainly there are real constraints for many schools in choosing a more radical approach.  Rural and even urban schools may have difficulty finding better teachers and other staff to replace those that are ill-suited to turnaround.  But what this summit illustrated for me is that until we can find the courage and the means to make these changes, we will continue to be disappointed with our progress. 

Posted by Karen Baroody

Time Magazine’s “The Preschool Wars” provides a powerful summary of why we know Pre-K is such a valuable investment and what’s happening—or what’s not happening—to protect it. The story focuses on North Carolina’s recent state battle. Last June the general assembly cut 20% ($32M) from the state’s preschool program and Governor Beverly Perdue started fighting by issuing the state’s first veto ever. “Preschool can totally change the outcome of a child’s entire life,” says Governor Perdue. “It’s rare in public service that you can make such a cost-effective investment.”
                                                                                             
This is the moment that states and districts can make the tough choices to secure this unquestionably vital investment. It’s challenging to continue making investments in tough times.  But, investing in the future is actually more important in tough times because it makes a different outcome possible.  While we’re being forced to make big cuts in every area, why not take the opportunity to cut further in some areas by addressing long neglected needs to restructure costs or offerings and do it in the name of giving all children who need it, the opportunity to attend pre-school.  We know it’s not easy to take dollars from today’s need to support an investment that will pay off in the future, but we really can’t afford not to.

Posted by Allison Daskal Hausman

Friday will feature small group discussions on specific challenges such as building a strong teaching force for turnaround schools, securing a principal “pipeline” or using data effectively. Jason Snyder, Chief of Staff, Office of the Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education will provide keynote speech at lunch discussing the Federal role in turnaround.

Join the Discussion
If these are issues that you’re struggling with, let us know by leaving a comment or send us a tweet @ERStrategies. Follow highlights of the discussion on Twitter by searching the event hashtag #ersta. And be sure to check this blog following the summit, as we will be posting summaries of the panel, pdfs of the posters, and—we hope—video clips.

More soon…

Posted by Justin Burniske

After years dedicated to helping urban school systems organize talent, time and money, Education Resource Strategies, Inc. (ERS) is taking their expertise to the next level, literally…partnering with the Georgia Department of Education (GDOE). While ERS has worked with some of the largest urban school systems in the United States, this project represents the first time we will be working with a cohort of districts in concert with their State Education Agency. The GDOE is conducting an intensive review of resource allocation at the state and district levels. As part of that initiative, and with help from federal Race to the Top grant funding, GDOE has brought on ERS not only to assist districts maximize resources, but also to build the capability within the GDOE to:

• Understand and correct areas where state practice, policies or legislation may currently “get in the way” of effective resource use
• Provide participating districts with guidance to reallocate their resources for dramatically improved student performance by sharing successes and conducting similar reviews in the future
• Rethink the data collected at the state level to reinforce transformational resource use and to make it easier to conduct similar resource allocation reviews at scale, across all Georgia districts

As part of the partnership between ERS and the GDOE, state actors will be incorporated directly into the district analysis, reducing cost and providing better knowledge transfer. The project is expected to last two years.

Posted by Don Hovey

Edweek’s Nirvi Shah reports on the anxiety many Special Education advocates are feeling in response to recent federal efforts to relax funding rules in, Feds Loosen Rules on Cutting Special Ed. Spending. I would urge for advocates to consider that the action could in fact lead to needed improvement delivery of special education.

Previously, federal law seemed to mandate that districts keep special education at a consistent level due to a maintenance-of-effort provision, with a few specific exceptions allowing for the budget to be reduced. Under most interpretations, if a district were to ever overspend one year, they would never be able to drop below that year’s spending unless they wanted to risk the loss of federal funding. Districts could literally end up paying for their mistakes for years without any possible chance of revision to their special education budget.

Now, under the new DOE interpretation, schools are only required to meet their budgetary spending on special education from the previous year. This means districts that believe they are overspending on special education could make a one-time reduction that would cost them their federal funding for a year, and then be eligible to receive funding again the following year without returning to their overspending.

This change by the Department of Education promotes fiscal prudence. Fiscal prudence benefits all students, including special education students, because while it’s important to spend sufficiently to educate students, how well we spend our scarce dollars seems even more important.

Posted by Stephen Frank

We also urge all district leaders to review the Duval story. We expect most will find some familiar challenges presented for the Duval context and should gain insight from the explanations and recommendations provided. For example, the report explores improving teaching effectiveness through implementing a comprehensive evaluation system and building teacher teams. How does a district implement this kind of system and how will it inform teacher placement, professional development, and hiring? In addition there are guidelines for how to increase individual attention for students who need it most and strategies for implementing a successful district strategy for school turnaround.

“Our objective was to show how DCPS, even with its low funding level, can reduce costs, rethink existing resource use, and make limited new investments to improve teaching effectiveness and student performance overall,” says ERS Director Jonathan Travers. The report provides a plethora of findings, including:

• DCPS is one of the lowest funded districts ERS has studied. Compared with peer districts, it spends the lowest share of its budget on central management functions and most on instruction.
• DCPS should focus on improving teacher effectiveness by comprehensively implementing the new evaluation system and bringing together pieces of DCPS’s current >$100 million investment in instructional support to strengthen teaching teams.
• The school district must expand and improve individualized support for highest-need students.
• DCPS must change strategy to attract and develop top talent and better support students’ readiness to learn in turnaround schools.
• Through school consolidation the district can free up some of the $26 million invested in smaller school size to increase the funding it can allocate based on prioritized need.

“This study provided the district with valuable insights on how to take existing money and focus on more efficiency to improve the outcomes for our students,” said DCPS’s Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals. “Benchmarking our district against other large urban districts provided a critical analysis of our funding, staffing levels, planning and instructional time.”
You can download a free copy of the report here.

Posted by Allison Daskal Hausman

The Charlotte Observer recently called out Charlotte-Mecklenburg School (CMS) last minute teacher recruiting efforts, saying they “are racing to fill as many as 500 teaching vacancies” (CMS races to hire more teachers). A casual reader might mistakenly think CMS has poor planning; especially given North Carolina’s unemployment rate just hit 10.1% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In reality, the positions only became available in July. The true issue that CMS faces is that after three consecutive years of cuts that have disproportionately focused on central office positions - cuts designed to “protect the classroom” - the reduced central HR team is greatly challenged to execute such an ambitious endeavor in such a short time.

Consider CMS’s choices leading to their current situation as a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. When the revenue decline began three years ago, they could either let go of teachers or of central office staff.  Given that choice, many districts, not just CMS, have decided to spare as many teachers as possible. Unfortunately, the next page in their adventure asked them again to cut budget, and then again. As recently as this past spring they were asked to tighten the belt on already slim resources. That’s when the unexpected twist appeared, as it often does in these adventure stories. CMS found out from the state in July that the district would have as many as 500 additional teaching positions to fill. That, however, is not the twist. The twist is that CMS’s ability to act on the opportunity to hire back the 500 positions is severely compromised from years of reductions to the HR team Budget cuts completed in a manner that was designed to “protect the classroom” have now left several of the classrooms empty instead.

Unlike a “Choose Your Own Adventure”, CMS cannot flip back several pages and hire additional HR people for the summer. That would have been ideal for the new HR chief Dan Habrat, who projects that 350 teachers might not be in classrooms for the start of class. Granted, if the alternative is rushing the application process and hiring teachers without properly vetting them first, then CMS has made the best choice for their situation.

Hopefully CMS’s experience can serve as a cautionary tale for other districts across the country as they prepare for yet another year of reductions in the coming budget cycle. During these tough times, repeatedly slimming central functions in the interests of saving teacher jobs may feel less harmful to student outcomes in the short term, but every choice has a consequence. When do central office cuts impact the classroom and given the multiple years of cuts are many districts at that point now? Instead of just cutting back functions that are already struggling to perform; districts should use the current budgetary constraints to take on the more difficult, least strategic uses of resources that would be politically infeasible to even mention in the absence of crisis.

Posted by Don Hovey

On a recent family trip to Canada, I came across an article in The Globe and Mail about the increasing number of Canadian parents who are choosing “niche” schools for their children. These niche schools are the American equivalent of charter schools – i.e. schools within the public education system that have unique programs aimed at different student demographics and needs, and often require some sort of selection process for admittance. The article caught my interest for two reasons: 1) as a true-blue ERS associate, I can’t help but think about the world’s education issues - even while on vacation, and 2) my family is in the process of deciding which education route we will take with our toddler; either to go for more specialized offerings through private or charter schools or take our “chances” with the public education system by moving to an affluent neighborhood.

I identified with the parents in the article who dearly want their children to succeed academically and desire the choice to decide in which environment that happens. I most particularly identified with the parent, Annie Kidder, who, when she decided to enroll her daughter in a specialized arts school, stated, “I became a self-hating yuppie . . . you look around and everybody is the same, basically. They talk a lot about social justice, but when you look at who’s there, we’re a very exclusive bunch of people.” Ironically, Ms. Kidder’s inner struggles came about because she works for an education advocacy group that wants the Canadian public education system to be a model of social diversity. I, too, desire my children to experience life in environments that exposes them to, and celebrates, the diversity that the world has to offer. I just don’t know if I’m willing to sacrifice their educational potential for those experiences.

As I pondered the article, I came to two conclusions:

1. I am a staunch proponent of school choice. As a parent I want to decide and choose where and how my children are educated without anyone or anything limiting my ability to do so.
2. I will always strongly advocate for and work towards improving the public education system because there are children whose parents do not have the resources to take advantage of the choices available to them. Just because I can send my daughter to private or specialized schools does not mean the mother who cannot do the same has to settle for less in the quality of education her child experiences.

I have a quote by John Dewey and Ron Edmonds on my desk at ERS that says, “What the wisest and brightest parent wants for his/her child, the entire community must want for every child.” Regardless of where you and I are on the school choice debate spectrum and whether the plethora of charter schools is a good or bad thing, we must never forget that there will inevitably be some children left behind in schools that others are exiting. Do they deserve less because their parents can’t get them out? No. Our work here at ERS is about making sure that whatever school environment our children find themselves in, they and their parents are confident that they are getting the best education possible. Want more? Check out some ERS resources.

Posted by Funmi Haastrup

Much has been written about the Atlanta cheating scandal. The progress of Atlanta Public Schools was a beacon for many reformers of system success with real gains happening for a huge number of students. The cheating scandal rightfully raised questions on every claim of success and practically derailed all their efforts—the bad as well as the good.  Of all that’s been written on the scandal, we recommend Aspen Institute’s Ross Wiener’s op-ed in the Washington Post and Former APS Superintendent Beverly Hall’s EdWeek Commentary. They shine clear light on the real lessons to be learned from Atlanta’s crisis. Hall warns, “As awful as this cheating scandal is, it would be even more awful if we learned the wrong lesson from it. The culprit is not standardized testing or teacher accountability. We need both.”

For us there are four crucial takeaways:

1. Cheating cannot become a reason to shrink away from collecting data on student progress or high standards for all kids. While No Child Left Behind has serious flaws, it has shined a light on the importance of raising the bar for all students and measuring progress against reaching it.  The fact that cheating has resulted doesn’t mean that defining clear standards and measuring whether we reach them is wrong. It means we need to better support and guide schools and teachers towards meeting these learning goals.
2. We need to make sure the standards and tests are “worth teaching to”.  Right now, the rigor and sophistication of learning standards and the tests that measure them vary dramatically across states.  With some states like Massachusetts having standards and resulting outcomes that put them at the top of the heap globally, while others with standards for learning that do not represent our nation’s aspirations for learning.  It makes no sense to design evaluation schemes around measure that don’t insure a high bar and promote the teaching of critical thinking and advanced skills. The new “Common Core” standards that 42 states have committed to implementing along with the new assessments that are being creating at a national level will set a new higher threshold for children in many states.
3. Evaluation requires multiple measures not just one high-stakes test. No single measure of student outcomes tells the whole story of student progress or teaching effectiveness.  Meaningful evaluation tools will include multiple measures of student outcomes, additional information on teaching contexts, and observation based information.
4. Using data with integrity should pave the way towards continuous improvement. For teachers to effectively teach they need to know what their students are and are not learning. Ongoing and end of year assessment of learning makes this possible.
 

As Ross Wiener says, “Abandoning reliance on testing is neither feasible nor advisable. Important considerations of equity, quality and scale make it essential to use tests in strategic, consequential ways. But we need to be honest about unintended consequences and more attuned to the line between healthy and unhealthy pressure.”

Posted by Karen Hawley Miles

In the discussion on class size, the political pendulum appears to be swinging. Previously, the pressure was on for fewer students per class. Now, many leaders and thinkers are arguing for fewer teachers but of a higher quality. This will force class sizes to increase. Yet as teacher Ellie Herman points out in her recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece The myth of the extraordinary teacher, she can be “a whole lot more “extraordinary” in my smallest than in my largest” classes.

Both sides assume a classroom with one teacher and a group of students, the same model that has been in place since the founding of our country. In fact, many states determine funding levels for districts by mandating specific class sizes.  But what if we’ve got the assumptions all wrong? What if instead we challenged the predominant one-teacher classroom paradigm? 

I recently wrote for Education Next about a hypothetical school called “No Max School,” where teachers have more time for the tasks that require their expertise. More time for teachers to jointly review their lesson plans and collaborate with colleagues. More time to re-teach students who have not achieved mastery of the topic presented. Classes are taught by teams of three and more teachers who group and regroup students throughout the day to ensure that all students receive significant amounts of one-on-one or small-group instruction in core subjects. 

These innovations are not free. They would require compromises and tradeoffs that many consider unacceptable given our current mindsets. For instance, No Max School has a schedule where any lessons delivered via lecture were given to at least 60 students, thus requiring only one teacher for the group with a teacher assistant to monitor behavior. When tests are given, all the students take them during one period under supervision of a non-teacher, freeing up teachers for collaboration or small group work. Students might review vocabulary or practice language in a lab with 50 computers so that other students can meet with teachers in groups of eight or less. Admittedly, No Max School is not a silver-bullet solution, nor would it work everywhere. Each school needs a system that bests suits its population of students and staff. This is precisely why staffing one teacher with one group of students in virtually every classroom across the country isn’t working. The current system does not account for the unique needs of each student body.

When we consider only changing what is in front of us, we are wearing blinders that keep us from exploring all possibilities. Today, we understand the limitations of archaic educational models like students silently copying notes from a chalkboard. Perhaps it is also time to retire the one-teacher classroom.

Posted by Stephen Frank