During the 2008 General Assembly session, elected officials will work on the next two year budget for the Commonwealth, and already estimates are that “rebenchmarking the SOQs” will cost Virginians at least $1.5 billion in addition spending. Frankly, the only way for Virginia to continue paying for this biannual increase is through a massive, statewide tax increase. No politician wants to tell you that, but it is the only way for the current system to work.
Instead of basing funding on inputs (the archaic, pay off the teachers unions system), it would base funding on outcomes. The money is student driven instead of staff driven. One example Tuttle gives is of a school district that saw enrollment reduced by 425, but the number of staff increase by 470! Can anyone honestly say that is an efficient way to spend taxpayer dollars (other than the educrats and their unions)?
It’s good to see that the VFF is interested in public policy not name calling…Oops, I nearly missed the author’s reference to “educrats and their unions”. Please keep trying. Practice makes perfect. Blogging is “hard work”. You’ll get there, …eventually.
Johnathan–
Maybe you should try to bringing something constructive to the discussion of education policies in the Commonwealth rather than simply toss out snarky comments. It’s been moderately entertaining to watch you and David troll around the FF blog but at some point you’re going to have to offer up substance and not just attitude (clearly rooted in your anger with the FF’s strong stand against the redefinition of marriage and the same-sex lifestyle [and no need to launch into your tirade against the the accurate term "lifestyle"... I've heard that wishy washy argument plenty times already]).
Basing education funding on results is something the General Assembly really should consider, and as a new father I for one found Lil’s proposal interesting and worth a closer look as I begin thinking more about Virginia’s education system and how it will (or won’t) meet the needs of my child. If you disagree, fine… but try to express that disagreement with a rational critique of Lil’s concept rather than what you’ve offered on this blog to date.
In the 24th Senate District race, Arin Sime does challenge the status quo more than most politicians. He’s come out in favor of School Choice and generally is throwing out ideas about keeping government growth in check. At least his campaign is raising some good issues. I hope he gets a lot of media coverage in the days ahead.
Brian Mazanec,
I’d like to help the VFF to become a reputable blog. At this point, it’s not. Making up names or campaign slogans like “educatrats and their unions” is a slur against teachers when you think about it. If you have another explanation, we’d like to hear it.
The numbers cited in this post are also disreputable. Let’s run a simple hypothetical calculation. Suppose a school district has 100,000 students and the teacher to student ratio is set to 20:1. The system should employ 5000 teachers. If the ratio ran a 10% deficit and they employed 4500 teachers, the hiring of 500 additional should be seen as an accomplishment. If the number of students dropped from 100,000 to 99,530, that’s only a 0.5% decrease in students, and the student drop would account for a reduction in teachers of 24. The system could easily hire 476 teachers while enrollment dropped by 470. The numbers, as stated in the post “bear false witness” to the story being reported. If the author doesn’t want to be perceived as disreputable, a clarification is in order.
It apparently takes a lot of money to teach the lie of evolution. Creation by design is so simple. Anyone can ‘get it’in a short period of time because it is the truth. Stop wasting our money before you incur a taxpayer’s evolt. “Survival of the fittest” is no way to teach or to govern for we are to love and show compassion for one another and we do not need the government to intervene in that. Our legislators seem to have been taught well to deceive and cover the truth.
All we know in this math problem is that enrollment was reduced by 425 while the number of staff increase by 470. We are not told that they are all teachers, nor are we told what the ratios are.
In the business world this would raise some auditor’s eyebrows.
Ms. Tuttle’s argument still stands, Outcomes need to be used as a basis for understanding the true state of this school system.
Bob K,
Hopefully, the pseudonymous author of this post knows the background of the 425/470 numbers posted and will fill in the details. Readers interested in educational Outcomes appreciate evidence.
Marie Watson,
Thank you for the comment. You made my day.
On the VEA’s own website it is clear that what makes a legislator effective is committment to their funding goals and Opposition to School Choice.
Clearly we are within our rights to ask some questions.
What if government were to adopt the novel idea that it’s our money? It is a portion of Our earnings that is taken, after all, to provide basic government services and such functions as education and retirement benefits.
In the case of education, School Choice and Outcome Accountability make a lot of sense from this perspective.
In the case of programs like Social Security, why not have Private Accounts? The money is then yours. You are free to direct it’s distribution and name your own beneficiary.
Is Educrat a legitimate term? This piece by Debra Saunders may help clarify the issue.
How are these outcomes to be measured? Children’s tests? Then you will have teachers teaching to test not allowing our children to develop analytical skills. Is it graduation that is measured? Well, we’ve done that before and children were pushed through that couldn’t read. What are you suggesting with measurement?
Also the additional personnel need to be identified. Schools employ not only teachers but psychologists, janitors, grounds keepers etc.
Could we have some validation please?
Not bring an educrat, I probably wouldn’t know, but it seems to me that the data could be a combination of statistics already kept by the school such as:
1. Performance on conventional standardized tests.
2. Rate of passage to next grade
3. Graduation rates
4. Acceptance data on graduating students to colleges from guidance office
Bob K,
Three questions for you.
1. Is there a relationship between educational process and outcome?
2. Do you find the author’s context-free post of the 425/470 statistic to be methodologically problematic? (Author, we’d like some background on this. Where did you get this statistic – which school district/year? Please provide a background link).
3. Should the school system teach self-esteem as measured by the ability to stand up to peer pressure, bullying and immoral cultural norms and the authorities that promote those norms?
Jonathan:
Since you asked…
1. Yes. That’s why you should use a combination of statistics to measure outcome effectively.
2. More information would certainly validate the discussion.
3. Parents should be the primary teachers of values. The school should underscore parental involvement and provide a community where mutual respect is maintained and a curriculum of Core Knowledge is taught. I would refer you to the works of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. for a more detailed look at what schools should actually teach.
“Between fiscal year 1997 and fiscal year 2004, more than half (74) of Virginia’s school districts posted a net decline in student enrollment, yet they continued to increase staff. — Lil Tuttle
I’m sure the Mountain of Data maintained by the Department of Education bears out the trend cited above. I too would like to see the more detailed analysis.
Bob K,
Don’t you think it would be appropriate for the author to provide a more detailed analysis? Either the author didn’t do his homework and shouldn’t be talking about outcomes, or he did do his homework, and the data did not support the anti-public education rhetoric, so the data was suppressed.
The author obviously looked at trends seen in 74 of Virginia’s school districts. She obviously has a decent sampling to report a trend. It’s an Op Ed Piece, not a scientific report. I don’t see how utilizing outcome data that the schools keep anyway to improve efficiency is <anti-public education… OOPs, I forgot that the rules for pro-education legislators is: “Shut up and pay!”
That said, I’d really like to see the hard data too. Indeed, it is quite possible that the district in question hired heavy on first year teachers to cover anticipated retirement the next year. But that does not negate a legitimate plea for measuring performance. It does advise looking at a lot of factors in measuring outcome rather than a select few.
This Just In…
Lil Tuttle has compiled This Report on Staffing [pdf] and you can find more of her work at This Site.
Lil Tuttle has compiled This Report on Staffing [pdf].
Here you can find More Articles and Papers by Ms. Tuttle.
So, using Ms. Tuttle’s figures and percentages, we learn that Virginia Beach City had about 70,830 students and lost 425 to leave them with 70,405. They had 6,438 employees [and I don't know the percentage that are instructors] and gained 470 to make 6,908.
That is about 11 students to every staff person and gets closer to 10 for every staff person.
Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that about half of the staff positions are teachers. The rest are bus drivers, administrators, psychologists, educrats and custodians. That gives us a class size in the low twenties.