Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
The (overblown?) power of teachers’ unions
This week’s Carnival of Education is being hosted at the Education in Texas blog. (Usually you’ll find it at The Education Wonks blog.)
The carnival includes one of my posts from last week that discussed race, tests and intelligence.
One of the entries in the carnival is from the American Federation of Teachers, which runs a blog about No Child Left Behind. In this post, AFT argues against one of the prime complaints about teachers unions, that the seniority rights in labor contracts create more transfers, making it harder for schools to provide a consistent program year-to-year.
For those that aren’t familiar, seniority rights work like this. When a teacher leaves the district, the job in the school she left is posted for any teacher in the district who wants to apply. Then the applicant with the most years of service is selected from among the applicants. This allows teachers to improve their working conditions by moving to a school where they are more comfortable — perhaps because the new school is closer to their homes or they like the principal, or even if they just feel the new school is a better teaching environment.
Critics say this leads bad schools to get worse and allows good schools to horde the best teachers at the expense of every other school, especially in high-poverty areas where good teachers are needed most.
But is that charge true?
The AFT, which has pretty good reputation for the quality of its research, says its study shows districts with labor contracts have fewer transfers. Here’s a quote from the study:
In high-poverty schools where teachers do not have a collectively bargaining agreement, the transfer rate to another school is 11.3 percent compared to only 7.5 percent when teachers worked under a collectively bargained agreement.
So is this criticism of unions overblown?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: The Carnival of Education, Urban School Issues
Charters, money and new taxes in Dayton
Ohio’s complex system for funding schools, and especially charter schools, has once again left Dayton Public Schools with an unexpected financial bite.
This time, the district and the state disagree on how many kids are enrolled in the districts vs. charter schools. The discrepancy, about 675 kids, equals $6 million in state funds school officials say they will not get next school year. And school board President Gail Littlejohn said that shortfall will force the district to seek a levy in the spring of 2007, a year ahead of schedule.
“We were hoping to delay that levy until 2008,” she said. “That was the original plan. But if the discrepancy over final student head count is not resolved, we’ll have to go for it earlier.”
Charter schools are paid based on their enrollment. For every child who attends a charter, money is routed from the school district tot he charter school.
But how that money arrives at the charter schools is extremely complicated. Charter students are included in the district’s state aid calculation and then subtracted out later, a process school districts, charter schools and the state education department have said should be changed.
And counting students, who sometimes move back and fourth between the district and one or more charters, has become a high stakes game.
As students began flooding to charter schools in Dayton beginning in 1998, the district chronically underestimated charter enrollment, leading to frequent end-of-the-school-year financial crunches. But two years ago, school officials hired a consultant to help track each student on the district and charter school rolls to nail down where students belonged.
But state officials, who say charter and school district kids are counted using two distinct methods, sided with the charter schools’ figure on enrollment.
“We think it represents a more reality-based look at the enrollment levels on the community schools side of the situation,” said Paulo DeMaria, the associate state superintendent for school finance.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Dayton Public Schools
Teaching kids about money
Earlier this month, I wrote about how parents are the most important influence on a child’s future attitudes about money.
Over the weekend, my colleague Kristin McAllister wrote some tips for teaching kids about money.
Kristin also has a new personal finance blog called Making Cents, where she’s got links to more advice on this topic. Check it out.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
