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4401-A
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Tel: (202) 244-7535, Fax: (202) 244-7584
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Education Exchange
Volume 2, Issue 6 -- June
1998
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Focusing on
Education Reforms at Your School, in Your State
Legislature, and in Congress
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Edison
Project Grows Exponentially
The Edison Project, America's largest for-profit manager
of K-12 public schools, announced in late May that it plans
to nearly double the size of its school network this fall.
Having begun with just four schools in 1995, the company
grew to 12, then 25 schools in succeeding years. Next fall,
48 Edison schools will be in operation across the country.
Thirteen will be added to cities that already have existing
Edison schools. Twelve more will be started in cities from
Trenton, New Jersey to Denver, Colorado and Napa Valley,
California.
Total enrollment will jump from 12,500 students in the
1997-98 school year to approximately 23,000 students next
year.
Increasing along with enrollments are company revenues.
They are expected to grow from $68 million to $126 million,
with another $35 million coming through philanthropic
support. In late May, the owners of The Gap clothing chain
announced a $25 million grant to school districts in the San
Francisco Bay area to enable them to bring in an Edison
school.
In a cost saving decision, Edison opted to take over and
renovate existing public school facilities rather than open
a large network of new private schools, as it had earlier
planned to do. The company recently secured $20 million in
financing to renovate facilities for its new charter
schools.
Since its founding in 1991 by media entrepreneur Chris
Whittle, Edison has charted a unique course in the area of
for-profit education.
It has invested $40 million in curriculum research and
development. As a result, Edison schools follow a rigorous
curriculum including:
- pervasive use of technology, including a computer on
every teacher's desk and in the home of every student in
grade three and up;
- class days extended by 90 minutes over most public
schools;
- school years extended by nearly a month over public
schools; and
- a commitment to substantial continuing professional
training for its teachers.
According to Edison Chairman and CEO Benno Schmidt, "The
key driver of our growth has been the outstanding
performance of Edison students and teachers." The teacher
unions, however, are disputing Edison's claims concerning
student performance.
In a recent American Federation of Teachers report on
Edison schools' student achievement, the union determined
that the quality has been "mixed and inconclusive." The AFT
Research Department claims to have conducted this study
because there has been little oversight thus far of Edison
schools.
Edison concedes some rough patches in staffing, but says
its student test scores have been rising at nearly all of
its schools. As the project continues to grow, there has
been no attrition of previously signed school partners.
Supreme
Court Decision Deals Blow to Unions
In a 7-2 decision on May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt
a defeat to organized labor, especially to the teacher
unions, in a case involving service (agency shop or "fair
share") fees for nonunion employees.
The ruling in Air Line Pilots Association v. Miller (Case
No. 97-428) was a victory for the nonunion pilots who argued
that nonunion employees need not comply with a union
sponsored arbitration process before filing any lawsuits in
federal court challenging the service fees. In states which
permit agency-shop fees, the unions charge a service or
agency fee to workers who do not join the union. The fees
are to cover the employee's pro-rata share of the union's
collective bargaining costs, but may not include costs for
political expenditures such as lobbying.
The NEA, in a friend of the court brief filed on behalf
of the airline pilots' union, argued that it is "expensive
and burdensome" to deal with some nonmember objections in
arbitration while responding separately to those who take
their cases to court. The NEA brief asserts that about
13,000 out of 44,000 nonmember service-fee payers objected
to the amount of their $200 - $500 annual service fees in a
recent year.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation,
which often represents teachers required to pay service
fees, successfully argued that nonmembers of a union need
not first submit to arbitration before initiating legal
action to uphold their constitutional rights. The fact is
that when objectors take their cases to federal court, the
unions are much less successful in settling the amount of
their service fees. Arbitration was an economical way for
the unions to settle service-fee objections, but it was
often unsatisfactory for the objectors.
Stefan Gleason, the director of legal information for the
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said, "The
NEA is probably the most frequent user of these
compulsory-arbitration schemes. They want to keep people out
of their books."
Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit,
based in San Francisco, ruled that nonunion teachers who
were challenging their service fees did not have to go
through the union-sponsored arbitration process. The Supreme
Court decision in May was a union appeal from that decision,
and the decision in Air Line Pilots v. Miller is likely to
weaken union ability to extract service fees from
nonmembers.
Does
Dollars to the Classroom Make Sense?
The Dollars to the Classroom Act (H.R. 3248) was referred
to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on
Feb. 24, 1998. Since then, it has been referred to the
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families, where
hearings were held on May 5.
H.R. 3248, and its related Senate version (S. 1589),
require direct awarding to the states of all federal funds
specified under provisions of:
- the Goals 2000: Educate America Act;
- the Educational Research, Development,
Disseminations, and Improvement Act of 1994;
- the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994;
- the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965;
and
- the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act.
The bill further provides a "formula for determination of
such award amounts, based on relative numbers of such
students in each state." It prescribes "requirements for the
use of such funds, earmarking not less than 95 percent for
distribution to local educational agencies (LEAs) for the
costs of activities or services provided in the classroom
that LEAs determine appropriate."
Section four of the bill stipulates that each LEA that
receives funds under the Act provide for the participation
of private and home schooled students.
In the House Subcommittee Hearing, sponsoring Congressman
Joseph Pitts (R-PA) said the bill would block grant 35 K-12
federal education programs to Governors.
Opposition to H.R. 3248 included Congressman John
Tierney's (D-MA) argument that accountability would be
eliminated and that it could provide no assurance to
Congress that student performance would improve. Additional
objections were raised by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
about the sole manner in which funds are to be distributed
-- by student population. This, she said, would not take
into consideration circumstances of poverty or previously
demonstrated success.
While proponents claim the Dollars to the Classroom Act
would ensure that more funds would reach the classroom,
placing less administrative burden on teachers and
administrators, loopholes are built into the bill. As it
stands, smaller districts which may have far greater need
than larger districts, could not receive equal or greater
funding due to the funding formula based on student
population. Also, the requirement that 95 percent of the
funds reach the classroom through local education agencies
in no way assures that this money would be used for student
supplies such as tablets, books, pencils, and the like.
The door is left open for teacher unions to ratchet up
the call for vastly increased teacher compensation, with the
claim that only this will make "classroom" conditions better
for all students.
On June 2, California citizens voted down a similar
initiative, Proposition 223 which was known as 95/5, because
it would have ostensibly allocated 95 percent of school
district revenues to classroom operations. In fact, the
largest, most vocal proponent of the California initiative
was United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA).
The California initiative was not identical to the
federal legislation, but the main features of each should
not go unnoticed.
National PTA
Gears Up for Annual Convention
From June 27-30, approximately 2,000 delegates
representing over six million members will meet in Nashville
for the National PTA convention. In keeping with the theme
of her administration "PTA Doing More for ALL CHILDREN,"
President Lois Jean White will welcome Dr. James P. Comer,
professor of child psychiatry at Yale Child Study Center, as
the keynote speaker. Comer is the author of School Power,
Implications of an Intervention Project. The book discusses
how a community of teachers and parents, a private
university (Yale) child study center, and a school
(Baldwin), teamed up to restore academic achievement in a
dismal and failing inner city school in New Haven,
Connecticut.
Out of this experiment in the late 1960s, Comer created
the School Development Program, a reform strategy that is
being replicated in over 80 school districts.
Also at one of the four general sessions, Oliver Thomas,
a noted religious liberty attorney, and Dr. Charles C.
Haynes, both from the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center
at Vanderbilt University, will participate in a
point-counterpoint "debate" over religious liberty in
schools.
In addition to the business meetings, delegates can
choose from among 50 workshop sessions including:
- "Investing in America's Future: Why Federal Funding
for Education is so Important";
- "Building PTA Image";
- "Implementation Strategies for the National Standards
for Parent/Family Involvement Programs"; and
- "What's Happening in Washington," a discussion of
PTA's lobbying efforts.
Since many PTA delegates will be shopping for the best
fund raising ideas, the exhibit hall will feature nearly 200
booths of fund-raising ideas, and other resources. The
National PTA convention generates nearly $500,000 from
registration fees and exhibit space fees for the
organization.
In her acceptance speech last year, Lois Jean White
pledged to "reach out to all children," especially those in
inner cities where there are few PTA affiliates. White also
intends to "make PTA more inclusive." Inclusive does not
mean all encompassing, however, because PTA's policies are
critical of all forms of school choice which may benefit
students but pose a threat to unionized school employees.
Peer Review
Addressed in
Teachers Evaluating Teachers
EPI's Chairman, Dr. Myron Lieberman, has written a new
book on peer review. Titled Teachers Evaluating Teachers:
Peer Review and the New Unionism, the book provides an
in-depth analysis of peer review in two prominent school
districts, Toledo and Columbus, Ohio.
Although peer review programs are established to improve
teacher performance and terminate the services of teachers
whose performance is deemed unsatisfactory, Lieberman shows
that peer review leads to union control over teacher
evaluation and retention, exorbitant costs, erosion of
school board authority, and a diminished role for
principals.
As they prepare to merge, the NEA and AFT claim to be
"reinventing the union" to give student achievement the
highest priority. In fact, they have placed peer review at
the heart of "the new unionism."
With this in mind, Lieberman points out that peer review
is utilized for three different purposes:
- It is a procedure culminating in decisions to renew
or not renew the contracts of first year teachers.
- It is also a procedure leading up to decisions about
tenured teachers who are not performing adequately for
one reason or another.
- It provides assistance to teachers without any
implication of adverse action.
Lieberman concludes that peer review's potential is
vastly overrated and that it is likely to create a host of
problems in the unions and school districts that establish
such programs.
This book is now available through the Education Policy
Institute. Please visit EPI's web site for full details.
EPI's
Education Quick Facts
- Members of academic student employee (ASE) unions
throughout the University of California voted by a margin
of 87 percent to authorize a strike next fall if the
administration does not recognize the unions and agree to
begin collective bargaining. The state Public Employee
Relations Board has certified that a majority of the ASEs
-- tutors, readers, and teaching assistants -- chose
representation by the UAW. UC administration has refused
to meet with the union. (Source: Work In
Progress, June 8, 1998, a weekly publication of
the AFL-CIO)
- The 1997-98 National Survey of Salaries and Wages in
Public Schools, reports $64,653 as the mean of the
average salaries paid elementary school principals and
$68,740 paid middle school principals in the school
systems reporting. High school principals averaged
$74,380 according to the survey. (Source: Educational
Research Service)
- A recent National Catholic Education Association
study reports that 92 percent of Catholic school staff
members are lay personnel. The average salary for a lay
elementary school principal is $37,403, and $21,882 for a
lay teacher. (Source: Education Week, June
10, 1998)
- Teacher union state NEA affiliates have given thumbs
up or down in the following manner on NEA/AFT merger
which requires a two-thirds vote of union delegates at
the NEA July 1-7 convention in New Orleans:
Pro-merger -- CA, WI, WA, FL, MN, NY, OR, GA, MO, NE, NV,
MT, MS, RI, NM, WY. Total=32.3%
Anti-merger -- NJ, MI, IL, MA, VA, IN, IA, CT, ME, LA,
WV, NH. Total=31.5%
No position -- PA, OH, AL, NC, TX, TN, MD, KY, CO, AZ,
OK, KS, UT, AK, DE, VT, SD. Total=33.0%
Unknown -- AR, HI, SC, ID, ND. Total=3.1% (Source:
Education Intelligence Agency Communique,
June 15, 1998)
Copyright 1998
Education Policy Institute, PMB 294, 4401-A Connecticut
Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008-2322 202/244-7535, Fax
202/244-7584 http://www.educationpolicy.org
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