Call to Action and a Little More

Jimmy James: Dave, a budget is a budget is a budget, to paraphrase...
Dave Nelson: Gertrude Stein.
Jimmy James: Who?
Dave Nelson: You know, a rose is a rose is a rose.
Jimmy James: Dave, that is very poetic, but we have a budget to discuss.

--NewsRadio, "Massage Chair" (10/2/96)

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Last week, Baltimore City Schools CEO Andres Alonso sent a letter to schools staff and beyond. This is the letter: 

January 22, 2009

Dear Principals, Staff, Partners and Friends,

In the next few days and weeks, you will be hearing a lot about the proposed changes in funding for education and its impact on the Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools). The impact is devastating: City Schools is estimating a reduction in state revenues next year of at least $21 million when compared to this year. This translates into an actual shortfall of at least $85 million.

This is the story as I see it:

From 2003 to 2008, funding for City Schools grew by 65.5%, an extraordinary investment in education mandated by the Thornton Commission’s response to The Bradford Litigation (Bradford) decision’s call for constitutionally mandated adequate funding for education. However, the threshold for adequacy mandated by Bradford was never met. One of the guiding principles of the Thornton Commission was that of equity. That principle extended throughout almost all of the state’s Bridge to Excellence funding formulas, which employed the concept of “wealth-equalization,” whereby school systems with relatively lower wealth received greater state aid on a per-pupil basis than districts with relatively greater wealth. City Schools naturally benefited greatly from the state’s commitment to fund education, though funding for education was never sufficient to meet the needs of the students in City Schools.

In fall 2007, it became clear at the Maryland Legislative Special Session (Special Session) that the state would recommend changes to the funding formula for education. Brian Morris, Chair of the Board of School Commissioners, and I testified in Annapolis that the impact would be dire for City Schools. I do not have to outline for you how we at City Schools have to respond to the needs of our students in ways that transcend the traditional mandate of public schools, how for us schools’ needs go beyond teaching and learning to become building blocks for too many of our communities, families and children. We were concerned that the state would abandon a formula for funding public education that took into account the differences among school systems across the state.

We understood from the fall 2007 Special Session that the state would maintain its commitment to the neediest districts by phasing in a Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) that would be fully implemented in 2011; by creating a supplemental grant that would bring all jurisdictions to one percent above their previous year’s allocation. We then set about reducing costs in the district and addressing a budget shortfall of more than $50 million by cutting $40 million from our central office, reducing the central office workforce by over 300 employees and devolving almost $90 million previously controlled by the central office to the schools, allowing those closest to the students to make decisions about what is best for kids. Altogether, staffing in the district declined by almost 600 positions, even though City Schools’ enrollment increased by over 1000 students for Fiscal Year 2010.

While doing this work of right-sizing the district, over the summer and early fall we were able to celebrate with you the highest outcomes and gains for the City Schools in every grade level, the highest graduation rate and lowest dropout rate on record and the first increase in enrollment in nearly four decades. We thank you for your support in making these achievements possible.

As we prepared for this school year, we again planned for smaller revenue increases than in the past, but we were surprised when we received initial revenue projections estimating an increase of only $4 million coming to the City Schools, despite our growth in enrollment, over 600 of them eligible for per pupil funding. That meant, given normal cost increases in the operation of the schools, a projected shortfall of over $64 million. We identified over $30 million in proposed central cuts, including another reduction in central staffing of more than 150 employees (pending board approval) and put in place cost-saving measures to help us cushion the impact of the cuts for FY 2010. We tried to safeguard school budgets and were struggling with presenting a budget that could do so while also including new initiatives such as expanding prekindergarten to more children and increasing vocational options for students.

We now face a different and more difficult task, which is trying to hold on to programs and teachers. Just yesterday, I received the news that the proposed changes to education funding for FY 2010 may result in cuts to our revenues ranging from $21 to $27 million to the City Schools’ revenues – projecting our revenue shortfall to at least $85 million.

This impact stems from three possible changes in the funding formulas:

a. A shift in the funding of nonpublic placements for children with disabilities that would now make local districts responsible for 50% rather than 20% of the total costs.

b. A reduction in the phased-in amount of the GCEI to 30% of its total amount for 2011.

c. A change in the supplemental grant formula so that instead of guaranteeing a one percent increase in funding, it helps to hold districts harmless, but it now includes the full cost of increases in retirement costs (as opposed to the current inclusion of only half the cost of increases).

These changes result in a decrease of over $21 million in our expected funding. If we add a rumored mid-year cut of half of this year’s GCEI allocation, the decrease in next year’s funding amounts to over $27 million.

This should not be acceptable to anyone invested in the future of our students. We will depend on you to ensure it doesn’t happen and strongly encourage you to voice your concern to elected officials, friends, the media and anyone who cares about our kids. We will keep you updated as this budget situation unfolds.

I do like the way he outlined everything and I think that this last paragraph makes sense. It's important to make a public noise with regard to the funding of our schools, and I hope that you'll take some time to contact your elected officials and let them know how important this is. 

However, I also think it's important to contact Dr. Alonso and the Board of Education and urge them to look at some of the structures within the City Schools system and make some smart choices there as well. At present we're sending far too many special education students into nonpublic settings, which cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, there are some students who genuinely need that level of support, but there are others whom we could easily service here in the city but choose not to for spurious (in my opinion) reasons. A small investment today could save us a bundle tomorrow. For example:

The school system has a specialized classroom setting for students with autism, called PAL. Now, autism is defined practically everywhere as a spectrum of disability, meaning that some youngsters will be minimally affected (and may not need special education at all), while others will be more severely involved, and may need a lot of intervention. PAL programs have devolved into a place where the more severe students have been placed. As a result, the "high functioning" students with autism are more or less out of place in the PAL classroom, although it's clear that they require more intervention than a typical classroom can provide, and less intervention than that afforded by your average self-contained classroom. 

So what happens? The student is placed in a PAL classroom, and the parents balk at the placement because the other children in the classroom are so much lower-functioning. Now the parents want a new meeting and a new placement, and the city winds up putting them in Gateway, or Kennedy Krieger, or somewhere else. 

Fair Student Funding for a child in BCPSS: about $5000. 

Tuition for a kid going to a nonpublic school: in the range of $50,000. 

Do you see what happened there? Because the city doesn't provide an autism program for higher-functioning kids, the cost of educating that student jumped by ten times. 

I've actually tried talking to someone related to the autism programs in Central Office, and they pretty much spouted a party line at me about how the PAL classrooms need to adapt themselves to a broader spectrum of students. But it doesn't happen, and we blow a lot of money to send these children out, rather than create the classroom to keep them with us. 

Dr. Alonso, if this comes to your attention (I know some people at the Puzzle Palace read this), I hope you take note that the idea of spending money on students wisely isn't strictly attached to who gets what kind of salary. 

Comments

[A BCPSS Parent]

Here's an even more radical idea for special needs kids - inclusion. And I mean true inclusion, with staff and fellow students receiving all the appropriate training that they need to work with special needs student. And an attitude that adapting the school (including the curriculum) to meet the needs of the student is an opportunity for growth and learning on everybody's part - teacher, special needs kid, typical kids, administrators, resource teachers, cafeteria works and anybody else you can think of in the school. As long as requests for modifications and training are met with bad attitudes and stonewalling a non-public placement where the special needs kid is valued is going to seem like the only acceptable outcome for a parent who cares about their kid.

I'd like to make it clear that this comment has to do with experiences of many different parents I have talked to and is not a reflection of the current placement of my special needs child.

[Claude]

This certainly depends on the individual building, but there are plenty of schools in the city which do a very good job of keeping the SpEd students as included as possible. The two schools I work in are especially good at this, and not just because I work there--I lucked out in getting to work with these folks.

However, you are sadly right in that there are still plenty of places which will give you the bad attitudes, etc., and this is precisely why these children wind up in the nonpublic placement, or in a more restrictive setting than they really need, anyway. Unfortunately, the people who are supposedly supposed to be helping the schools with this are the Ed Specialists, and you can look back a few posts to see how that's working out.

[rachel]

Some really interesting stuff here -- we included this post in our weekly link roundup, hope you don't mind!

http://urbandiscoveriesblog.com/2009/02/02/monday-morning-links-round-up-%e2%80%94-groundhog-day-edition/

[a teacher]

Isn't that the letter principals were told to "recall" and NOT send home???