Rash thoughts

 Rash Thoughts

Maryland spending on public education has climbed 48% since 2017, eight years ago.  In 2017, Maryland spent $7.7 billion on public education.   By 2024 that number had spiked to $11.4 billion- a 48% increase.

What have kids and the taxpayer received for that investment.   Not so much.  By 2024, Maryland’s average SAT score had dropped to 1000, below the national average of 1024.   Maryland’s other test scores have also fallen.  The Maryland legislature approved money to increase planning time for teachers but cut the money the MSDE requested for professional development in math and reading even though folks are excited about training plans for teachers to improve learning.

Where has that money gone and why hasn’t it helped improve education.   First of all, a huge chunk if it has gone to increase teachers’ salaries, now starting at 60K.   But because the system does not differentiate between weak teachers and great ones or even average ones, the increase has lifted all boats and the weak teachers are still weak.   We have been told that an important element of the Blueprint is to give teacher 40% of their time for planning instead of the current 20%.  There is NO research to indicate that this would improve instruction, but it would require 5000 new teachers at a time when we can’t fill current positions.  Of course, the unions love this because more teachers mean more money in their coffers.

But wait, instead of just raising salaries, why not spend the money on mentor teachers who would work hand over hand with weak teachers to help them improve.   Teachers have said that of all the professional development this is the most helpful.  And if those weak teachers don’t improve, let them move on to some less important job.

Here's another rash thought!  Kids only learn if they come to school.  So how about providing funds to transport Baltimore City high school kids to school???   Some students are spending well over an hour on public transportation to get to and from school often in unsafe conditions.   The other school districts in Maryland send school busses for high school kids, not the City.

 

Another rash and shocking idea!  How about teaching kids to read the way they learn best rather than buying into the latest and greatest “no fail” way to teach reading.   Over a lifetime in education (63 years), there have been multiple “new and better ways” to teach reading.  Everyone jumps on the band wagon only to discover there is still a caboose to that train, just different kids are riding it.  When will we ever learn?

Somewhere along the line we really need to stop doing the same thing- throwing more and more money into the same things- and think this time it will be different.

Rash thoughts I know

 

 All are welcome here

 

A teacher in Boise, Idaho had a poster with that message in her classroom.  At the bottom of the poster was a series of raised hands going from deep brown to white as the hands were display left to right.  The poster had been up for several years. A second poster said, “Everyone in this room is welcome, important, accepted, respected, valued, and equal”.  Recently, the teacher was asked to remove the two posters.  At first, she complied.   Then channeling her inner Nancy Reagan, she just said no! 

Administrators told her the sign reflected her personal opinion and that personal opinions could not be displayed in the classroom.  She put the poster back up saying that it was not her personal opinion but a fundamental principle of public education. The district has given her until the end of the school year to remove it.  And then what?   No one says.

An all-staff memo was sent specifying which kinds of things could be displayed in a classroom and which could be displayed “temporarily” without the definition of how long “temporary” is.  The memo also says “At West Ada, we proudly welcome all students into our buildings and classrooms- not through posters, but through genuine connections that we foster every day.”  There is also an Idaho state policy supporting diversity.  And there is a lawsuit from an African American family whose child was called derogatory names within the school and there was no response from the system.

A local entrepreneur has printed t-shirts with the All Are Welcome message and the multiple shades of skin raised hands.   He is selling them at cost and in the first few days has sold 800.  Interestingly, the district has posters as part of its “Explore your way” campaign that encourages students to “welcome others and explore diversity”.  State law also prohibits inflaming divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion color, or national origin”.  That sounds like an “opinion” similar to the poster.

  The administration continues to argue that the teacher’s posters are her personal opinion.  These posters are in a public school.  Protesters have asked, if you think this is an opinion, “what type of child don’t you want at your school”.  One protestor has suggested that the teacher add a disclaimer to her poster that says, “it’s not the official policy of our school system that all children are welcome” and see how that sits with the administration.  Other protestors have said if not everyone believes all children are welcome, what are they doing in a public school.  

By some surveys, Idaho is ranked #48 in quality education.  Maybe they are fighting their way to be  #50.  I wonder if all are welcome to vote.

Promises Made, Debt not Paid

 Promises Made, Debt not paid

In 1975, about 50 years ago, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EHA).  This law later morphed into the Individuals for Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).   

In 1979, the U.S. Congress established the US Department of Education.   Yes, you got that right.   The US Department of Education that Trump and Congress are talking about eliminating wasn’t established until Four Years after EHA.  In the beginning, EHA was administered by the Department of Health and Human Services currently led by Robert Kennedy Jr.   After the creation of the US Department of Education, EHA was moved to that department.

So why all the fuss now about moving the provisions of IDEA to Health and Human Services?   

There are a couple of issues.   When EHA was signed into law, President Ford famously said he doubted we could ever educate all children with handicaps (Kids had handicaps then, not disabilities).   While there are notable exceptions, we are doing that.   BUT the law also recognized that it would cost more to educate a child with a disability than it would to educate a plain child.  So, the Congress agreed to “authorize” up to 40% of the cost of implementing EHA.  Laws authorize; budget bills appropriate and that amount of money, although promised has never been appropriated.  Today the federal government provides roughly 5% of the cost of education a child with a disability.  A far cry from the initial promise.

Mostly states are doing a decent job of meeting the requirements of the law.  But what if they don’t?  Approximately 5,800 families had filed complaints against their local public school district prior to Trump taking office.  With huge cuts in personnel in the Office of Civil Rights and the US Office of Education, what are the chances these complaints will be heard at all, let alone in a manner fair to families. Presently, 30 states are out of full compliance with IDEA.   The Secretary of Education has indicated that she would offload the enforcement of IDEA back to the states.  Is this not a perfect storm for the fox watching the henhouse?  State departments of education will now determine if they are violating the law they are accused by families of violating.  

Promises have been made to our children with disabilities.  When do we think the debt might be paid?

 

Find the new, and keep the old

 Find the new and keep the old

 

There are over 2000 vacant teacher positions in Maryland schools as of the middle of this past January.   Of the positions that are filled, 6000 of the individuals are not professionally licensed to do their jobs.  Maybe that explains why Baltimore City hired a man with a felony conviction for carrying an unlicensed loaded gun.  Times are tough.

There are lots of ways to work this problem besides hiring folks with a felony conviction.   Credit to the City, they said if he had a record of sexual abuse they would not have hired him.  Probably because that is against Maryland law.

If an individual has a bachelor’s degree and he/she wants to become a teacher, there are lots and lots of hoops to jump through and tests to take.  And the process is time limited.  People with a degree that is not an education degree, have three years to get a beginning professional license.   They must also pass 4-6 tests depending on what they want to teach.  There are also lots of courses they need to take.  And there are NO exceptions.   If you let the three years run out without completing everything, you are out of a job and cannot reapply until you have met all of the requirements.

It's an old business adage that it costs more to recruit a new employee than it does to train/fix a current employee.   The same rule applies to customers.   So, one might ask why doesn’t it apply to teachers?  During those three years of training, schools get a chance to see if the individual has the makings of a good teacher or not. And besides just taking coursework, why isn't there a mentoring program to really teach folks to teach in the real world.  Oh and what better way to assess their future abilities.  Why not bend the rules for the folks who will become stars and fast track them?  Why not council out the duds rather than just keep pushing them through?  We should specifiy competencies for what we think our teachers should be able to do and once they can do those things, let’s move them along.

The problem is that the teaching profession is regulated by politicians and bureaucrats who have never spent a day in a classroom so they have no idea what it takes to be a good teacher let alone a great one.   Other professions have professional associations (AMA, ABA, APA) that regulate who can come into the profession.    But long ago, teachers gave up both control of their profession and their professional association to replace it with the NEA, a union that only promotes higher salaries and more benefits.   They have left a void that the non-professionals have been only too happy to fill.  

Teachers have only themselves to blame for the current situation.   And politicians and bureaucrats are left with trying to recruit more bodies to fill that 2000 person hole without any understanding of what it takes to make and keep a good teacher.  It’s fine to recruit the new, but let’s hang onto the old.

Nice of you to stop by

 Nice of you to stop by

Absences are high in public schools.   Achievement is low.  The State Superintendent of Schools in Maryland has a couple of miracle programs that she is sure will fix the latter.   So far, politicians have defaulted to that age-old cure all, appoint a committee to study the problem to fix the former.

It’s not clear what needs to be studied.  Of course, it will be surprising if “blame it on the pandemic” doesn’t show up as a cause.  Five years out that is our still go to reason for problems.

The Maryland State Department of Education has five legal reasons for not coming to school: death of a close family member, illness, religious holiday, unsafe transportation, court appearance.    Family outings, family vacations, family celebrations are not among them.  For some reason, families are unhappy with poor achievement but fail to see the connection between attending school and learning.  Oh, right, blame it on the pandemic when that great oxymoron “virtual learning” became the balm everyone accepted.

One of the legal reasons for school absence is unsafe transportation.   That reason allows school districts to not transport to school and, therefore, schools to close when weather emergencies interfere with safe transportation.   However, if you attend high school in Baltimore City, there is no safe transportation even on a sunny spring day.   Baltimore City is the only school district in Maryland that does not provide safe transportation for its high school students.   These kid use public transportation which is neither good nor safe.   It takes some students almost two hours each way to get to school. Students are routinely harassed on public transportation and some have even been assaulted. No wonder there are too many days when a warm bed looks so much better.   Teachers will tell you that too often the kids are barely awake before 2^nd or 3^rd period.   Baltimore City has zoned schools and all-City schools.   The All-City schools are open to anyone in the city.  Sone of these schools require certain academic standards, others may offer a unique program that isn’t available elsewhere.    The City will tell you that because of these All-City schools, providing district transportation is just impossible.  Surely City administrators could figure this out if they wanted to.   And before we take the usual default, there isn’t money, the State pays a large share of the transportation costs depending on the number of children transported.   Then there is the question, what do all these absences cost the students and the City?

Poor school attendance is a huge problem for the schools in Maryland.  Most folks would worry about this, but we will soon have a committee to investigate that so assuming the committee members will stop by and attend, we can check that off our worry list.

 

Go Away US Dept of Ed

 Who Cares if there is a US Dept of Education

During the campaign Trump promised to end the US Dept of Education.  It’s not entirely clear why he thinks this is important.   Of all the 15 Cabinet level agencies, Education is the smallest.  

The total federal investment in education is about 8%.   But all of that money does not come through the Education Department.  Head Start is funded through the Department of Health and Human Services and school lunches are funded through the Department of Agriculture’s school lunch program.   So, Education is not a significant source of funding to public schools.  Traditionally, education in our country is a state and local affair. 

The GI Bill provides funds for veterans to go on to higher education.  Impact Aid provides funds to school districts that have high concentrations of military installations for which district receives no property taxes, the primary funder of schools.

Perhaps the rub for Trump is that the Department of Education does administer Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.  The Title I program provides funds to schools with high concentrations of poverty.  Student higher ed loans are also processed through the Department.  Perhaps it is these programs that Trump may view as DEI programs that get in his craw.

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) operates as a civil rights act for children with disabilities.   It is funded through Congressional budgets each year.  Other than providing a pass through of funds to state education departments, the US Department of Education also monitors state departments of education to ensure that they remain in compliance with the law.  If the US Department of Education is gone, this function may shift to the Department of Justice where it  probably will slide down the priority scale. 

Do we need a Department of Education?  It has only existed for about 45 years.  It was created by Congress and can only be eliminated by Congress, but Trump can starve it to death cutting staff and fund.  Who will care?

 

What's with DDA Funding?

 What’s With DDA Funding in Maryland?

 

Governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, has recommended $200 million in cuts to the Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) budget for FY 26 as he attempts to come to a balanced State budget facing a nearly 3 billion dollar deficit.  Advocates for the disabled are working desperately to try to put faces to that cut.

Some of the larger reductions would reduce wages for care givers which are already very low for a very demanding job.   Currently, there is a wage differential for areas in which the cost of living is higher than other areas in the State.   That differential would be removed.  Funding for some specific supports for residential clients with higher intensity needs would also be reduced.    DDA also has a program which allows for guardians to be given a sum of money to purchase services for the client.  This program is known as “self-directed” services.   The legislature may choose to reduce those funds that allow people to hire and manage support staff.

There is also the low-intensity support program that provides up to $2000 for things like assistive technology, transportation or other supports.  On the table is suspension of these services but not elimination.  

Advocates say the need for such services is expanding not growing. Supporters of the cut say that DDA administration has been sloppy and there is a lot of waste. People argue that the mistakes that have been made in the administration of DDA funds should not be passed on the disabled.  Advocates say they are struggling to serve the people they should serve.   How can they be expected to meet demands with less.  State officials say the budget proposal preserves much of the progress and previous investments made for DDA services. 

Advocates respond that taking money out of the piggy bank when times get hard is hardly an “investment”    Services for the disabled in Maryland are being cut, plain and simple.