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Boston Public Schools as corporation: Getting new models ready for the marketplace
By adamg on Mon, 10/24/2011 - 11:58pm
Unhappy BCLA student.
BPS officials tonight offered a different take on a proposed reorganization that would shift schools around town, add 700 more seats to high-performance high schools and create two new "innovative" schools: It will help BPS better compete in a marketplace in which parents have a choice.
School Superintendent Carol Johnson said eight new non-BPS charter schools are expected to open in Boston next fall, at a time when half the school-age kids in Roxbury already go to non-BPS schools.
"There is a huge opportunity at this junction to enhance our competitive standing" and create a system that appeals to more Boston parents - and brings in more revenue for public schools, Chief Financial Officer John McDonough said at a School Committee meeting.
Under Johnson's plan, BPS would create a new bilingual high school that would share the currently shuttered Agassiz School in Jamaica Plain with the Mission Hill K-8 School. Also planned: A charter-like K-5 school on Dudley Street in Roxbury.
New Mission High School and Boston Community Leadership Academy would move into the shuttered Hyde Park High School and accept new students, while Another Course to College High School would have more room in Brighton. The Kennedy Health Careers Academy would keep some of its students at its current Northeastern University home, but also expand into the Farragut School on Mission Hill. Fenway High School would move into the vacated New Mission Building, while the Boston Arts Academy, which now shares space with Fenway, would stay put but expand.
Part of the discussion on making BPS more competitive came when School Committee member Mary Tamer said she didn't quite get why officials were proposing new schools and classes a year after they closed entire schools because BPS had too many vacant classrooms.
Johnson and McDonough said the expanded high schools would relieve some pent-up demand - more than 2,000 kids are now on waiting lists for the schools. Committee member Michael O'Neill said the schools are "shining stars" and that parents need to stop thinking "it's the exam schools or nothing."
Not everybody agreed with the proposals, however. A number of Boston Community Leadership students, some in tears, pleaded with school officials not to force them to the large Hyde Park complex or break up the small school community that was the reason they chose the school - and thrived at it.
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Comments
Half right
It's all true. The system as is (with the exception of the exam schools and a handful of elementary schools) doesn't appeal to most middle-class parents. And appealing to middle-class parents would bring in more revenue to the schools that would receive their donations.
What remains to be seen is whether the BPS can offer anything that appeals to them. A bilingual high school in a notoriously unhealthy building may not be it. Perpetual school roulette certainly doesn't. Anybody want to put odds the school will still be there in four years? Parents don't.
One of the problems with the marketplace model is that consuming schools is different from consuming commercial products. If Post stopped making shredded wheat, I'd be sad but get over it quickly. Parents and students have much more of an investment in their schools than they do in their appliances or their breakfast cereals. Once you add to the problematic uncertainty of the lottery the additional uncertainty of the schools themselves opening, closing, and moving all the time, you get a strong comparative disadvantage vis-a-vis private schools and burb schools just on the basis of stability. "Wanna know where your kid will be in two years? Don't pick the BPS." is not a good slogan.
Stuffing a high school into the Agassiz
If I were a former Agassiz parent, I'd be pretty pissed right about now - they'd complained about the mold for years (as did John Tobin in his City Council days) and nothing ever got done. And now?
Somebody associated with the planned new high school (the principal, I think) actually said the small classrooms at the school would work out pretty well because the new school will have a lot of attention on the arts (and maybe music, by that point in the meeting, I was busy concentrating on my notes about the other stuff, alas), which was interesting given how the city's about to spend a ton of money upgrading the upper Quincy School because it's an old elementary school (granted, built like 100 years ago) not really well suited to high school students.
More revenue?
The middle class parents who opt out of the BPS are still paying taxes which contribute to the schools. A school with an active parent community probably gets some more money through fund-raisers, etc..., but in the larger picture the parent contributions are a very, very small part of the school budget. Parent involvement is hugely important, just not financially.
Depends
I guess it depends what you consider revenue. It's true that parents aren't going to give extra money to the principal's salary. But in terms of resources for the school and the children, the impact can be substantial. I'm not talking about flogging candy bars money. I'm talking incorporating 501c3 with an endowment money.
Look at the Hurley. Why does it have a soccer field? Parent organization and contributions. Why does it have a library? Parent organization and contributions. Parent involvement has been hugely important financially to this school.
Middle class parents could be paying 25K a year for private school. If they can make their local public school work, donating a fraction of that in cash or skilled work to make it better isn't a big deal. That can add up.
The Hurley is somewhat of an anomaly
because there are actually well-to-do and well connected parents there who pull their rich friends in to donate great auction or raffle items. Most schools don't have the ability to pull off the large sums the Hurley raises (except in other suburbs). Public schools often lose some of their federal fund allocations when middle class students start attending the school in larger numbers. The funds that are specified as Title 1 (for families receiving free lunch or under the poverty line) go down as family income rises in the student populations. Sometimes the staff or principals don't want to lose that Title 1 money. The fundraising monies can't always replace those funds or have to be put towards other costs.
Catch-22
I think you're right about this. Only a few schools in the BPS have achieved the impact from parent financing the Hurley has. It's not quite an anomaly - other BPS schools have seen a middle-class takeover - but it isn't entirely common either. And, right now, I don't think we're likely to see more schools like this. I believe you have put your finger on why.
Schools get more money for kids who are poor or learning disabled. They don't spend it all on those kids. Some of it goes into paras or extra classes, some into the playground or supplies, and probably some goes into the principal's pocket. Middle class kids are less likely to bring in this extra money.
This places schools in a catch-22: they'd love to have more middle class families raise funds for them and drive their scores up. But they'd hate to have them bring their income down. Some schools seem comfortable putting their eggs in the middle-class improvement basket. But others avoid middle-class kids like the plague. Each school is like its own little business, and the best revenue model out there is milking the funding differential.
Begs the question
Why on earth would BPS need more money to accomplish their mission? They already spend about $22,000 per student (operating funds, external funds, pensions, retiree health and capital budget) and that doesn't include real estate. Throw in the cost of real estate and you are pretty close to a private school tuition if not above it. The numbers above do not reflect the donations of which SP speaks.
Hahahah
First, I'll assume that you are not talking about private school tuition for a high schooler, as $22K a year will not come close to paying your tuition. Second, lets assume for the sake of argument that you are paying $22K/yr for your K-8th grader to attend private school. The cost that a private school incurs in educating your child is not covered by that tuition. Tuition covers between 50-75% of a private school operating budget. The other part comes from annual fundraising from parents and alumni and earnings on endowment. Third, the students that private schools are teaching with their $35-45K (using your hypothetical $22K tuition) are given admission to the school and tend to come from a self-selected group of motivated parents. Simply put, private schools have the luxury of not having to educate the kids that are very hard to educate. Although I will agree that there are parts of the BPS budget that I think could be used better than they are (e.g. significant portions of the bussing budget), the idea that we are spending too MUCH on public schools is utterly laughable. If anything, we should be spending about twice as much per student as we do. As a prior commenter pointed out, what we also need to do is make it predictable for parents where there kids will be going to school by elimenating the school lottery and the recent games of the school building shuffle. Your child's education is not something that you take a "chance" on. Middle class parents who have the means to avoid having to take that chance will do so.
BPS is already spending more
I think his point is that BPS already spends a huge amt compared to other school districts and gets subpar results now.
No - all grades
I was looking at an average across all grades - not just HS. We can argue about how much private school costs etc. and get nowhere (I use about 12k for kindergarten, 15k for elementary, 22.5k for middle and 30k for HS- a lot less for religious or parochial). Here's a simple number - again excluding real estate:
BPS spends an average of $22,000 per student. That's $440,000 per class of 20 kids. It costs $110k to put a teacher in a classroom with pension and benefits, but with an average student teacher ration of 12-13 we have about 2 teachers per classroom - that's $220k. Most of the rest is overhead, again excluding real estate except for maintenance. You can legitimately reduce for special needs which I believe is only about 1.5% of the student population. Special ed upcharges are actually quite nominal - about 20% I believe and it only applies to about 1/3 of the student population.
There are a lot of things wrong in BPS - there is NO lack of money. It is by far one of the wealthiests school districts in the state, the country and the world. BPS is Donald Trump compared to other urban school systems. The real question is where does all the money go and is it being used wisely?
Stevil
You forgot transportation costs.
But 110K per teacher? That is a little high.
Why is it high?
Each teacher is now required to have a master's degree.
Then there is pension and benefits.
Consider as well that the teaching population in the Northeast and in Boston is fairly advanced in age and career - which means higher healthcare costs and higher salaries due to a relatively higher starting pay compounded with annual adjustments over 20 years.
Consider as well that private schools often cram their classrooms, pay their teachers quite meagerly (and demand fewer credentials), and don't have to take on the most expensive kinds of special needs kids (like the kid with severe cerebral palsy who has to have an attendent for bodily needs and an elevator in the building).
You are talking about deserved compensation, not actual
I was on the School Site Council for my kids' school a couple years back. One of our jobs is passing the school budget, which includes compensation (and not much else). I don't know whether the $22,000 per kid is accurate, or how that gets spent, but the average teacher compensation was listed as $80,000 when we built the budget. That figure came from the district.
Now, it's quite possible, maybe even likely, that we were only dealing with salary, that taxes and benefits are not part of the local school budget, but a district line item. That being the case, 37.5% is pretty high for payroll taxes and benefits.
Maybe Stevil can shed some light on where the $110,000 figure comes from. And while he's doing that, I'd like to know why he believes that SPED accounts for no more than 1.5%.
Just noticed your questions
See below for the $110k - about $80-85k is salary - health care (city's portion) is about 15k. I'm not 100% sure how the pension syestem works - I believe the teachers donate a portion of their own and the city matches (they don't contribute to or get social security -although many work part time private jobs evenings and summers and pay into and qualify for SS through those jobs) - I'm estimating about $10k per teacher for city's pension contribution - but again not sure that's accurate. On top of that they get a number of other benefits - dental, life insurance, accumulated sick/personal days etc. Hard to extract all this from the city docs - but at a minimum it's $105k - max about $120k average total comp for teachers. As swirly notes, it's actually going down a bit because a) an older cohort of teachers is retiring and b) the city is adding more and more Pre K and K classes and those teachers get much lower salaries - so it brings the averages down.
As for SPED - I am talking specifically very special needs - kids that have to go to special schools - that's 1% or probably on par with every other school district in the state. Special ed is actually about 20% of students (not 1/3) but it costs more than I thought (my original number was ELL). This is further broken down into moderate and severe - Eeka or Swirly can probably tell us what the dividing line is there. Some of these overlap - for example many ELL students may also be special ed.
Note that while this adds costs - the city receives tens of millions in grants, aid etc. to pay for much of these additional costs. Per EM's comment, there is an economic incentive to classify students as special Ed - it brings in more outside dollars in the "external funds" budgets.
I'm not saying BPS is spending say twice what they should - and actually I think the budget is probably in the range of what it should be or at most 10-15% high - but when you spend this kind of money and you claim poverty to the point you can't fix the schools, provide textbooks and computers or outfit your sports teams without private funds - you have a spending problem - not a revenue problem.
Just noticed your questions
See below for the $110k - about $80-85k is salary - health care (city's portion) is about 15k. I'm not 100% sure how the pension syestem works - I believe the teachers donate a portion of their own and the city matches (they don't contribute to or get social security -although many work part time private jobs evenings and summers and pay into and qualify for SS through those jobs) - I'm estimating about $10k per teacher for city's pension contribution - but again not sure that's accurate. On top of that they get a number of other benefits - dental, life insurance, accumulated sick/personal days etc. Hard to extract all this from the city docs - but at a minimum it's $105k - max about $120k average total comp for teachers. As swirly notes, it's actually going down a bit because a) an older cohort of teachers is retiring and b) the city is adding more and more Pre K and K classes and those teachers get much lower salaries - so it brings the averages down.
As for SPED - I am talking specifically very special needs - kids that have to go to special schools - that's 1% or probably on par with every other school district in the state. Special ed is actually about 20% of students (not 1/3) but it costs more than I thought (my original number was ELL). This is further broken down into moderate and severe - Eeka or Swirly can probably tell us what the dividing line is there. Some of these overlap - for example many ELL students may also be special ed.
Note that while this adds costs - the city receives tens of millions in grants, aid etc. to pay for much of these additional costs. Per EM's comment, there is an economic incentive to classify students as special Ed - it brings in more outside dollars in the "external funds" budgets.
I'm not saying BPS is spending say twice what they should - and actually I think the budget is probably in the range of what it should be or at most 10-15% high - but when you spend this kind of money and you claim poverty to the point you can't fix the schools, provide textbooks and computers or outfit your sports teams without private funds - you have a spending problem - not a revenue problem.
Still high though.
Boston teachers work on 9 steps and the masters degree pay isn't that significant (5K difference between bachelors and masters and about 11K if you have a masters +75). Benefits and Pensions are expensive, but not as bad as you might think. Boston teachers do get the best plans though.
And private schools cramming their classrooms? Catholic Schools maybe, but not the prep privates.
Actually I was low
Again - total comp - per state web site AVERAGE salary alone is $84k (4th in state behind Sherborn, Dover and Concord/Carlisle). Add on $15k for health care, $10k for pension, and $10k for "other" - dental, life, cumulative sick pay etc. and you get about $110k-$120k total comp with over 3 months vacation.
I'm not knocking it - per swirrly's comments - teachers deserve it. However, when they tell you we're adding 30 minutes to the school day and the union comes back and says pay us more you have to say, which stone would you like that blood to come from. And the system is still way too top heavy.
Per the comment earlier - we could save $40 million a year if we got rid of busing - 5% of the budget (about half the transport budget - not the whole thing - you'll still have transportation) If all given to teachers that gets you to about $95k per teacher - maybe a bit less in salary but a slight bump in pension.
I don't think the City pays 25K for pension and benefits
for each teacher per year.
We still don't know if that 84K per year is base salary or with extra duties (many Boston teachers get extra $ for coaching, detention, lunch duty, clubs, etc).
Maybe you are right I don't know. But I would bet that if you multiplied the amount of full time teachers by 120K it would be more than what the actual budget is.
Structure of the workforce
Older teachers have longer tenure and tend to make more money. If most of the teachers are in their 50s and 60s, that's a pretty solid chunk of top earners pushing up the averages.
There are also gender distributions to consider: insurers charge a lot more for women in general, and for older women in particular. (why they get to charge more because younger women get pregnant ... don't get me started ... must be a high level of parthenogenesis going on ... right).
Anyway, then there is continuing education support - and a minimum amount of that required and paid for ...
It all adds up.
False
Most classes do not have two teachers. Many have para-professionals who float between several classes, but of course they don't make teacher money.
Second, there are way more special needs qualified kids than 1.5% as that can encompass everything from severe developmental issues to mild autism. This also convenient ignores that large segment of kids who require additional services due to ELA issue, family support issues, etc...
That there are legit reasons why it costs more to educate the population of Boston vs. say Newton. That's not to say reform isn't needed, but your picture is simplistic.
And what is the point again?
All great numbers about how much it costs to put teachers in classrooms etc., but you still miss the point in terms of trying to compare the cost of private school education to BPS. Even assuming your tuition numbers are right, and they aren't too far off even for the elite private schools, it doesn't change the fact that private schools spend more than their tuition income to educate each student. So take your $22.5K private school tuition for middle school. A private middle school is spending 25-50% MORE than that per student. If you want to find out if money is the difference between a public and private school education, you have to start spending more money per public school student right off the bat. You also miss the point on a private school's ability to turn away kids. I'm not even talking about special needs kids, like those with autism or other serious dissabilities, which the public schools are required to educate. I'm just talking about the kids who don't pass the private school entrance exams. Its quite a bit easier to come off as the "good" school when you can select from among the smartest students to begin with. Public schools don't get to do that, and rightly so, as the point of public education is education for everyone. If you wanted to run that experiment, you would have to let BPS create a school through some sort of test and create a whole school out of them and then see whether that school was a "good" school. Oh, wait! That's called Boston Latin and, guess what, it IS considered a "good" school. I'll await someone with data on how much they spend on BLS students. If its the $22K, maybe we can just narrow the issue down to student selectivity and not money. The tired argument that we should judge whether public schools are spending their money efficiently by comparing them to private schools is just nonsense. They aren't the same thing.
Wild Applause
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Begging your pardon
"Begging the question does not mean to bring up the question. It means to present as true a premise that requires proof--i.e., taking a conclusion for granted before it is proved or assuming in the premises of your argument what is supposed to be proved in the conclusion. (This fallacy is related to the circular argument.)"
from http://grammartips.homestead.com/begging.html
Don't bother - this is
Don't bother - this is fighting a lost battle.
real estate/schools model for Boston
In the burbs, if your town has good schools, your home values go up and your services are better funded. But Boston already has high real estate values, I don't see how it helps anybody for them to get higher.
Does the city get more money when it educates more students? Maybe from the state? I don't think there's much there.
There's also a small but extremely vocal minority that is against having kids or families in Boston. Right now, I see their point, if you look at results and living standards maybe people in Boston should just stop having kids (although half the city budget is education.)
Maybe the real competition McDonagh is talking about is between the union-serving BPS and the charters. Even if all the BPS students went to charters, what is the endgame here for the city?
Nail meet hammer
On the nose EM. It's all politics (and of course politics=money).
The city gets more when kids transfer to charters - and pay less. consider:
For every kid that goes to a charter the state pays the city about $20k over 3 years - this doesn't go to the schools - only about 1/3 does. The rest goes into the balance of the general budget.
For every kid that goes to a charter the city only has to pay the $11k regular ed fee as an assessment to the state - which reimburses the charters who cover the rest of their budgets with private fundraising. Plus with fewer kids the city can close schools saving even more in capital costs etc. Charters are under pressure to take on more special ed/ELL kids and they are starting to take on the challenge. That saves the city an incremental $2k-$10k per ELL or sped student.
The city has HUGE incentive to a) discourage kids from coming into the city (which is why we build very little moderate priced housing which tends to attract families) and b) encourage kids to leave BPS for privates and charters.
Small amount? - not really - with about 5000 kids transferred to charters that's about $100 million incremental the city has received over the years. With 2500-5000 more expected to leave soon that's another $50 million to $100 million.
Imagine what BPS could have if the city actually spent all this on the schools as they should? (one corollary - the city receives this money -but when the cash flow stops they cry poverty because they lost a 3 year revenue stream they knew would end and then use that as another excuse for new taxes like meals and hotel taxes).
The endgame - BPS shrinks about 1% in perpetuity until there is nothing left but the worst of the worst - but a) you'll almost never see the BPS budget shrink and b) the savings will be distributed to cover collective bargaining and OT for the rest of the city workers. This is what has been going on for at least the past 10 years and there is no reason to expect it to stop.
Somebody needs to call BS on the council, the mayor and the local papers for not exposing this financial shell game.
Schools need stability
The thing BPS needs more than anything else is a sense of stability and predictability for parents so those parents willing to contribute and engage in their child's education will not "lose" a lottery for a place in a neighborhood school or have some administrator yank the rug out from under them once they do engage in a community. There is no "innovation bullet" that will magically cure the problem of parent disengagement, disinterest, and apathy.
BPS seems bent on creating more and more options and choices for parents. But parents have to discount those choices and options with the probability that they will not actually get what they want.
Dead right - stability is the key
Well stated, and if I had to very quickly sum up a major reason why I chose to buy a condo in Brookline versus a house that I loved in Boston, this would roughly be it. While I have little doubt that my children would get a good education if they got in to the schools in Boston that I wanted, I was simply not willing to take that chance.
You might think this immoral, or something else (I don't really understand why, but others have reacted that way), but I'm telling it like it is. From friends who made the opposite choice, all I hear about now are lotteries and such. Their stress is palpable, and accented by "what are we going to do if..." questions.
I chose less space and shared walls over extra stress - While I don't particularly love condo life, I do like the fact that my kids will walk to school from K-8 and then take the Green Line 3 stops for high school.