Cyber school expansion bill heads to House floor
In a sometimes contentious session, the House Education committee today passed legislation that would remove most limits on the number and size of online charter schools — called “cyber schools” in Michigan. The bill, Senate Bill 619, removes the restrictions set on the number and enrollment of cyber schools when they were first allowed in legislation passed two years ago. The bill, passed by the Senate last fall, faces an uncertain future in the House.
A surplus for schools? Don't hold your breath
The latest projections show that revenue to the state School Aid Fund, which supports K-12 education in Michigan, will increase 2.7% next year, compared to a 4.3% drop this year. But will local public schools get a funding increase? There will be a lot of politics at work between now and the start of school next fall, and little can be taken for granted. While Governor Snyder is likely to use any school aid surplus to make one-time “pay for performance” payments, there is significantly less money available to do that this year.
Historical Amnesia: Schools don't need that money, do they?
Talk of an ever-growing flow of money to schools is, like many such things, wildly exaggerated. But it does serve to frame the debate about school funding in such a way that cutting schools seems only “fair.”
We started to hear it during the debate over next year’s state budget. Lawmakers backing the governor’s budget responded to constituents worried about cuts to K-12 schools with two, oddly contradictory, palliatives: that money for schools continued to “pour in” even though there were fewer students; and that “getting spending in line with reality means understanding our lack of revenue.” Sometimes these earnest-sounding claims were in the same paragraph.
The most recent example of this effort to depict schools as awash in cash comes in an interview of State Budget Director John Nixon by the AP’s Kathy Barks Hoffman.
Close look: Teacher evaluation provisions
Among the least discussed, and arguably most important, aspects of the “tenure bills” which recently became law are the provisions mandating new teacher evaluation systems and creating a process to identify a model which most districts in Michigan will have to use.
This article provides an in-depth look at the teacher and administrator evaluation provisions in the law, highlighting some of the choices legislators made which reflect their views of teachers and educators in general. Attached to the article is a table comparing provisions in the final legislation with a separate bill on evaluation systems from which it derived.
MIPFS believes that it’s critically important for parent activists and others to be aware of these changes and the impact they are likely to have on our schools.
Legislative alert: "charter school package" could dramatically undermine our schools
Dear supporters of public education,
Much-anticipated legislation was introduced today that would dramatically reshape the public school landscape in Michigan. We cannot afford to wait and see how the legislative process works itself out - we must start making our voices heard now. Use the Michigan Parents for Schools advocacy system to contact your Senator!
The four-bill package, driven by co-sponsor Sen. Phil Pavlov (R-St. Claire), was just made available to the public today - coinciding with the start of hearings on these bills in the Senate Education committee.
The bills can only be described as an assault on traditional public schools in this state.
Legislative Update: Tenure Bills’ Solution Worse than the Problem
6/27: See our update in the comment section about the bills as reported from committee. The full Senate will be voting soon: take action here today!
Last week, the state House of Representatives approved a package of bills that would remake the teacher tenure process, change the rules regarding seniority, and enforce a state-wide teacher evaluation framework that would guide promotion and firing decisions. While the bills individually appear to address reasonable concerns about the difficulty of disciplining tenured staff and the “last-in-first-out” system used for layoffs, taken together they have the potential to do tremendous damage to our public schools.
School districts would have to move quickly to institute a comprehensive evaluation system which relies primarily on standardized tests – tests which do not yet exist for most grades or subject areas. The burden on administration would increase exponentially, with no added resources to make sure the evaluations are performed effectively. Teachers would have no guaranteed voice in the construction of evaluation systems, since the bills would prohibit collective bargaining on those issues. Finally, the changes would, in our view, create a powerful incentive for principals and administrators – who face unrelenting budget pressures – to bias performance evaluations so that it would be easier to remove senior, more expensive teachers regardless of their actual performance. As a result, Michigan Parents for Schools cannot support this legislation and calls on the state Senate to defeat the bills.
Budget update: Let's make a deal [with update]
Updated Wed. 5/25/11
The school aid budget was reported out of conference committee today, and sailed rapidly through the Senate. The “compromise” bill reduces the cut to K-12, but does not plow the funds into the foundation allowance.
Last week, the Governor and majority leaders of the Legislature announced a budget agreement that reduced cuts to public schools. They were able to do this because of the projected $430 million increase in State revenues for the current year. These are considered “one-time” funds, however, because a potential surplus for next year will be eaten up by the business tax cut recently passed by the Legislature.
Money, Money, Money: K-12 budget bills move to conference
House and Senate conferees will be able to negotiate virtually the entire K-12 budget from scratch, while passage of the Governor’s tax package narrows options and the revenue conference offers limited hope.
Over the next days, the members of the House and Senate conference committee on their respective versions of the School Aid budget will be hammering out a compromise, with virtually everything on the table – at least in theory. At the same time, passage last week of the Governor’s tax package – which eliminated the Michigan Business Tax and replaced it with the much smaller Corporate income tax and also increased personal income taxes on many filers – has effectively closed, for now, any options of increasing the revenue stream to school aid.
Finally, the May revenue estimation conference offered a glimmer of hope, indicating that revenues for the current fiscal year (2011) would be $132.4 million higher in the school aid fund and nearly $429 million higher in the SAF and General Fund combined. However, a potential $500 million overall surplus for next fiscal year largely evaporates with the tax package just passed, hitting the school aid fund especially hard.
Budget Brief: Snyder’s education budget proposal
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder presented his first budget proposals to the state legislature on 17 February. While it wasn’t quite the “atomic bomb” Lt. Governor Brian Calley had promised, it produced shock waves nonetheless. By scrapping the Michigan Business Tax and replacing it with a much narrower corporate income tax, the proposed budget cuts business taxes by over $1 billion in 2011-12 and by $1.7 billion in the year after. To pay for this and still balance the budget, the governor wants to cut overall education spending by nearly $1.1 billion next year; his proposal also makes changes to the income tax that will increase revenues in large part by requiring retirees and low-income families to pay more in taxes. School districts may face overall reductions of $715 per pupil. Evidently, this is Gov. Snyder’s vision for “reinventing Michigan.”
Brief: Budget hangups
Negotiations on a school aid budget for FY2011 ground to a halt as House and Senate conferees split on what to do with the projected School Aid Fund surplus.
After months of uncertainty, closure appeared near on the school aid budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year. A deal in principle was reached among House and Senate members on the conference committee reconciling the differences in the two chambers’ versions of the budget bill, SB 1163. The Senate version, passed before the optimistic news from the May revenue estimation conference, had included further cuts of $118 per pupil plus larger transfers from the cash-strapped general fund.
The revenue conference projections, however, allowed lawmakers to consider making no cuts at all for fiscal 2011. The news was good enough, in fact, that the School Aid Fund might emerge with a surplus when all was said and done. And that is where the trouble began.
