Friday Report – March 10, 2017

Lottery proceeds would be set aside for school construction and principal raises under a proposal state Senate budget and finance leaders announced Thursday.

The bill proposes to change the way school principals are paid, part of an intricate new compensation system. Principal salary schedules would be eliminated, and pay decisions would be in the hands of superintendents. No principal would get a pay cut, but their bosses would decide on their raises.

The bill proposes setting aside $75 million for 80 counties to use for school building construction and repair. The counties eligible for the money are in the bottom two tiers of the three-tier state system that measures economic distress. The county designations change each year.

The poorest counties would have to give a dollar of their own money for every $2 from the building fund. Counties in the middle tier would provide a dollar-for-dollar match. No county would get more than $10 million a year, and no more than $100 million would come out of the fund each year.

Many schools in poor counties are old and falling apart, the senators said. The counties cannot afford to raise money on their own to fix them, and their condition hurts business recruitment, they said.

“They are in desperate need for repair and replacement,” said Sen. Harry Brown, a Jacksonville Republican and budget writer. “That’s the main piece of this, to try to help these counties.” A portion of lottery revenue is already set aside for school construction in all counties, but Brown said the rural counties don’t get much of it.

The bill would put in a place a vastly changed plan for paying school leaders. Under the proposal, the state would add $13.7 million to a pot to pay principal salaries, the equivalent of 7 percent raises. Lump sums would be handed to the districts, with the superintendents deciding how much to give each principal.

All principals would receive $2,600 bonuses. In addition, principals in low-wealth counties would be eligible for up to $5,000 in bonus money, earned in $1,000 increments and based on five criteria such as exhibiting strong leadership and leading a school where student academic growth exceeded expectations.

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Excerpt from:

Bonner, L. “Superintendents would decide principal raises, poorer counties would get construction money under NC Senate bill.” The News & Observer. 3/9/17.

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Excerpt from:

Bell, L. “Cooper introduces teacher salary schedule at middle school educator conference. EducationNC. 3/8/17.

A researcher from Duke University’s Children’s Law Clinic reviewed the first three years of North Carolina’s new school voucher program and found that the program’s accountability measures are among the weakest in the country.

“The schools need not be accredited, adhere to state curricular or graduation standards, employ licensed teachers, or administer state End-of-Grade tests,” according to the report “School Vouchers in North Carolina: The First Three Years.”

Other key findings, as stated in the report’s executive summary:

• Based on limited and early data, more than half the students using vouchers are performing below average on nationally-standardized reading, language, and math tests. In contrast, similar public school students in NC are scoring above the national average.
• Approximately 93% of the vouchers have been used to pay tuition at religious schools.
• The North Carolina voucher program is well designed to promote parental choice, especially for parents who prefer religious education for their children. It is poorly designed, however, to promote better academic outcomes for children and is unlikely to do so.

The report provides a comprehensive look at the mechanics and history of the young school voucher program, which lawmakers enacted in 2013 to ostensibly provide families greater access to more educational choices outside of the traditional public school arena.

The school voucher program has been assailed for failing to implement guardrails against waste, fraud and abuse of tax dollars as well as failing to adopt basic curricular standards that ensure students are accessing high quality educational opportunities.

The Duke research, authored by the Children’s Law Clinic director and education researcher Jane Wettach, comes on the heels of a spate of national reports that conclude that school vouchers don’t boost students’ academic outcomes—and may even harm students. [For more on that, click here and here.]

Download Wettach’s report on North Carolina’s school voucher program here. 

School systems across North Carolina say they will have to scramble to create hundreds of extra classrooms if a state requirement to reduce class sizes in grades K-3 takes effect next school year.

Where space is limited, some classes could be forced to meet in cafeterias or gyms, on school stages with the curtains pulled, or in teachers’ lounges. Schools could also add on to their buildings or truck in mobile classrooms, but with a tight timeframe and limited state funds to help with school construction costs, school leaders say those may not be viable options before next school year.

In Wake County, school leaders estimate they would have to hire another 460 teachers and create 400 new classrooms, totaling $320 million in personnel, capital, and operating expenses.

“How do we create 400 classrooms between now and Aug. 20? I don’t know how we do that,” said Bill Fletcher, a member of the Wake County Board of Education and chair of the facilities committee. “It takes a year to do mobile classrooms. It’s not an easy thing to do to add a mobile classroom.”

The Wake County Public School System has the greatest need in the state for school construction, according to the 2015-16 Statewide Facility Needs Survey. The report also found that public elementary schools in North Carolina are the grades most in need of classroom additions.

Seventy miles east in Greene County, school leaders say they are facing a similar dilemma. Two of their schools will be affected if class sizes are reduced. Superintendent Patrick Miller said he does not know how much it would cost to add more classrooms, but he estimates it would be somewhere between $800,000 and $1 million.

“We are one of the poorest counties in the state, according to any metric you look at,” Miller said.

Greene County is one of the least affluent districts in the state when it comes to local finances, according to a 2016 local school finance study by the Public School Forum of North Carolina. The study shows Greene County is in the bottom quartile of all districts — third from last for adjusted property values per student.

While the space issues faced by rural districts like Greene County might not be as great as those in metropolitan areas like Wake County, rural schools often have fewer resources to create facilities.

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Excerpt from:

Granados, A. and Hinchcliffe, K. “‘How do we create 400 classrooms?’ NC schools say class size cap will cause scramble for space.” EducationNC. 3/7/17.

A Senate committee on Tuesday began to close a loophole that could keep many teachers from receiving bonuses.

The state’s 2016 budget included a two-year pilot program that gives third-grade, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate teachers bonuses if they meet certain student achievement targets and continue teaching at the same school and grade at which they previously taught.

In several cases, some teachers met those achievement targets but were reassigned to different grades or out of AP/IB classes, technically disqualifying them from the bonus.

“In the legislation that was [originally] passed, we found that teachers that were able to qualify for a bonus really, on no part of their own, were transferred or reassigned … then they wouldn’t receive their bonus,” Sen. Trudy Wade, R-Guilford, said.

Kim Leake, principal of Peck Elementary School in Greensboro, said she moved a teacher from a third- to a fourth-grade class and then later found out that move cost the teacher her bonus. “This year, she’s doing an outstanding job again, but she deserves that bonus. It was not that she asked to move. It was that I had to move her,” Leake told lawmakers.

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Excerpt from:

Nunn, S. “Senators move to close teacher bonus loophole.” WRAL. 3/7/17.

The U.S. Senate voted 59 to 40 on Wednesday to overturn regulations governing teacher-preparation programs that were approved by the Obama administration late last year.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., introduced the measure blocking the rules late last week. Senate Joint Resolution 26 had nine other Republican co-sponsors, including Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate education committee. The House also voted last month to block the rules, approving a resolution introduced by Kentucky Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie, and President Donald Trump is widely expected to back the move.

“This regulation actually makes the assumption that bureaucrats in Washington are competent to micromanage teacher-training programs in America. That’s what this regulation ultimately does, and it’s absurd,” Sasse said on the Senate floor before the vote.

However, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the education committee, said the rules would ensure that prospective teachers have more and better information about teacher-training programs. She also said the rules would protect teacher preparation from the as-yet unknown approach that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would take. (Murray led the opposition to DeVos in the Senate before DeVos was confirmed.)

“It helps to improve teacher-preparation program accountability,” Murray said on the floor about the rules.

The Education Department finalized the rules after a lengthy process, and changed how colleges and universities must judge the effectiveness of their programs that prepare teachers for classrooms. Among other things, these rules would require programs to include data on how many of their graduates get jobs in high-needs schools, how long their graduates stay in the teaching profession, and their impact on student-learning outcomes.

President Donald Trump walks on stage upon his arrival aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford on March 2 in Newport, Va. Trump’s plan to boost defense spending by $54 billion and make corresponding domestic cuts may put a new squeeze on U.S. Department of Education funding. Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press.

President Donald Trump’s push to drastically reduce domestic spending as a way to boost defense spending could have a significant impact on programs at the U.S. Department of Education, where the biggest streams of funding go toward low-income students and those with special needs. But its precise effect on overall federal K-12 aid remains unclear, as do the prospects for Trump’s budget plan in Congress.

Early last week, Trump announced a proposal to increase defense-related spending by $54 billion in fiscal 2018, which begins in October, and to cut non-defense discretionary spending by a corresponding figure. That amounts to a 10 percent across-the-board cut for domestic agencies like the Education Department. The Trump administration is expected to release more details about its spending priorities later this month, but it’s not certain how the cuts in discretionary spending would affect each agency.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chairman of the House subcommittee that appropriates money for the Education Department, last week referenced the possibility of $18 billion to $20 billion in cuts to the portion of the budget that funds the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. “There’s no part of this budget that can escape unscathed” if the cuts are on that scale, Cole said in a subcommittee hearing.

But Congress may be unwilling to go along with Trump’s budget plan and make that deep a cut to domestic spending to fund defense-related activities. Among other things, passing Trump’s budget would require lawmakers to alter or toss out the Budget Control Act of 2011, which sets caps on federal discretionary spending.

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Excerpt from:

Ujifusa, A. “Federal Budget Knife Could Slash Into K-12 Programs.” Education Week. 3/7/17.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday returned the major case on transgender rights in schools to a lower court for fresh consideration of the Trump administration’s withdrawal of Obama-era guidance that federal anti-discrimination law protected gender identity.

In a one-sentence order without recorded dissent in Gloucester County School Board v. G.G. (Case No. 16-273), the justices vacated the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in Richmond, Va., that had deferred to the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX.

The action is a defeat in the short term for Gavin Grimm, the female-born student who now identifies as male, who was barred by a Gloucester County, Va., school district policy from using the restroom that aligns with his gender identity. “It’s disappointing,” Grimm said in a conference call with reporters. “It’s going to keep trans kids in school, and those just coming into school, in limbo for an extended period of time.”

The court’s action also means the justices won’t be resolving in the near term a debate over transgender rights that has roiled the nation’s schools. But the issue could return to the high court within a year or two as other cases address whether Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars gender discrimination in federally funded schools, may be interpreted today to cover gender identity.

After the Trump administration last month withdrew the Obama-era guidance on transgender rights, both parties urged the court to proceed with the case and decide the underlying question of whether Title IX covers gender identity, although the school board urged a delay to allow the Trump administration to fully formulate its position and express its views in the case.

The court opted instead to send the case back to the 4th Circuit.

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Excerpt from:

Walsh, M. “U.S. Supreme Court Returns Transgender Student’s Case to Appeals Court.” Education Week. 3/6/17.

• Improve underrepresented students’ competence in science and mathematics
• Nurture underrepresented students’ enthusiasm for science and mathematics
• Interest students in pursuing careers in research or other science-related areas

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund has opened its application for the 2017 Student Science Enrichment Program (SSEP) grant awards. SSEP supports diverse programs with a common goal: to enable primary and secondary students to participate in creative, hands-on scientific activities for K-12 students and pursue inquiry-based exploration in BWF’s home state of North Carolina. These awards provide up to $60,000 per year for three years. The application deadline is April 18, 2017.

For more information or to access the application, visit https://www.bwfund.org/grant-programs/science-education/student-science-enrichment-program.

The UNC Chapel Hill School of Education (SOE) seeks an experienced professional to serve as the first Program Director of the Master of Arts in Educational Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (MEITE; www.meite.info), at the rank of Clinical Assistant or Associate Professor. The position begins July 1, 2017. The appointment is for a one-year term, with potential to renew for additional terms.

Additional details can be found online at https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/115437. Applications are due by March 24, 2017.