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State and Local Education News
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NVCC To Unveil New Higher Ed Center
Leesburg Today
September 15, 2015
Northern Virginia Community College’s Loudoun Campus will formally open the first phase of its new three-story Higher Education Center with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 24.
The $11.7 million, 42,000-square-foot building includes a state-of-the-art music recording studio, high-tech collaborative classrooms, specialized lab for communication classes, several computer labs, faculty suites, lounge areas and a glass cantilever that extends over the campus pond to serve as a 250-person events center.
W&M School of Education receives $5.6M gift from an alumnus
College of William & Mary
September 15, 2015
William & Mary’s School of Education has received a $5.6 million commitment, the largest gift from an alumnus in the school’s history, to support the study of teaching, teacher preparation and special education. The donor, who asked to remain anonymous, hopes the philanthropic commitment will inspire others to support the School of Education.
“It’s pretty simple: Without properly trained teachers, our country would not have an educated population. Teachers are critical if we want a strong and vibrant society,” said the donor. "I believe the School of Education is essential because it prepares teachers to make a difference in the lives of children both in and out of the classroom.”
Virginia education funding down 7 percent from 2005
NBC 10 (WSLS)
September 15, 2015
Virginia state spending on K-12 public education dropped 7 percent since 2005, according to a new report issued by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
Monday’s report shows that the decreased funding comes amid fewer support services for schools that are facing increases in the number of students with extra needs, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
“There are a lot of canaries in the coal mine in this report,” said Secretary of Education Anne Holton following the report’s release.
SAT score averages vary widely across Hampton Roads
Daily Press
September 9, 2015
A comparison of the average SAT scores at local area high schools show wide variations throughout the region, with suburban schools tending to outpace more urban ones.
Jamestown High School, in James City County, had the highest average SAT score for public high schools on the Peninsula for at least three years in a row, according to Virginia Department of Education numbers.
Six high schools in the Daily Press' coverage area were among the top 100 public high schools in Virginia ranked by their average SAT scores for 2015 graduates. The list, created by the Daily Press with scores from 323 schools statewide, was dominated by schools in Northern Virginia, in the wealthy suburbs near Washington, D.C.
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National Education News Articles
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The New College Scorecard
Inside Higher Ed
September 14, 2015
The Obama administration over the weekend unveiled the revamped college information website it created instead of its original plan to rate colleges, releasing a trove of new federal data about the nation’s colleges and universities.
These new data show publicly, for the first time, the share of a college’s former students who make some progress in paying down their federal loans within the first three years after leaving college. And they provide the first comprehensive look at how much students who receive federal loans and Pell Grants end up earning after they leave a specific college, both in the short term and long term.
Technology in Classrooms Doesn’t Always Boost Education Results, OECD Says
Wall Street Journal
September 15, 2015
Beefing up technology in the classroom doesn’t always lead to better education for children, according to a new study from an international consortium presented Tuesday.
The report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, tracked educational outcome among students based on their use of technology at home and in the classroom. While student performance improves when they use technology in moderation, the group found, overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop.
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What happened to spending on K-12 education in Virginia in the last decade?
A
new Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report released Monday
made news this week as it showed inflation adjusted spending per pupil declining 7% from 2005 - 2014. The report also found that the number of students living in poverty increased by 45% and the number of students with limited English proficiency (LEP) increased by 69%.
Virginia usually thinks fairly highly of itself in terms of investments in education. The map below, based on 2012 fiscal year expenditures shows that Virginia is closer in per pupil investment to the northeast than to the southeastern counterparts that are usually seen as regional peers. (JLARC points out that declining spending is a reality shared with neighboring states of West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, while Kentucky and Maryland have increased per pupil spending).
The challenge of educating students with less resources per pupil is made steeper by the fact mentioned above that the number of students living in poverty and the number of LEP students have both increased in most school systems in the commonwealth. The map below makes this particularly clear.
There is significant insight in the visualization above, but we were also intrigued by the system by system breakdown that JLARC compiled in Table E-1 of the report. Below is an image of 2014 per pupil spending -
our visualization also has a map showing the percent change in per pupil spending (adjusted for inflation) for each county. Please note that several localities are excluded because figures from 2005 are not directly comparable to 2014 (West Point, Colonial Beach, Greensville and Williamsburg-James City County).
Our
Poll Snapshot this week looks at information from the
our 2015 Commonwealth Education Poll that examined several school funding questions. Read below for more detail, but here's the headline - a slight majority would be willing to pay more in taxes to have higher K-12 education funding. The JLARC report may spur additional attention to increasing school funding heading into the 2016 legislative session.
We also include an excerpt from
Dr. Vacca's recent newsletter looking at teacher contracts - one of the largest chunks in any school system's budget.
Sincerely,
CEPI
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Poll Snapshot: School Funding
The public is likely pleased with the ability of the state and localities to increase teacher pay and other funding for education. Virginians remain strongly supportive of funding for the public schools and see it as having a direct impact on school quality. In early 2015, more than two-thirds of Virginians (68%) said that Virginia schools do not have enough funds to meet their needs, while only 26% felt schools have enough funding now.
More than three-quarters of respondents (78%) also said that the amount of funding affects the quality of schools a great deal or quite a lot. School employees/retirees (at 60%) and parents of public school students (at 59%) were more likely to say funding mattered a great deal when compared to non-employee/retiree (50%) and non-parent respondents (49%). Likewise, 58% of minorities said funding mattered a great deal compared to 48% of whites.
Most Virginians are willing to pay more in taxes to support school funding levels. Seven-in-ten respondents (70%) said they would be willing to pay more in taxes to keep public schools funded at the current level and 53% are willing to pay more so that school funding can be increased. Of those willing to pay more to increase funding for public schools, 44% favored a sales tax as the best vehicle for a tax increase while 22% preferred an increased income tax.
Larger proportions of Virginians are willing to pay more in taxes to protect funding for public schools (70%) and mental health services (72%) than would do so to keep programs for aid to low-income families (56%), funding for higher education (48%) and transportation (46%) at current levels. Only about a quarter of state residents (27%) are willing to pay more to keep funding for prisons at current levels.
To read the full results of the poll, visit our
website.
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Education Law Newsletter - Teacher Contracts
Excerpted from Dr. Vacca's
February 2015 Newsletter
"As communities across this country continue to expect and insist that their local school boards do infinite things with a finite (in some cases even shrinking) budget, and as local community demographics rapidly change and student enrollments become more culturally diverse, being creative and flexible regarding personnel (including full-time teachers) is needed. Past solutions for past problems might not work in solving the emerging problems found in today’s rapidly changing, data-driven, social and fiscal environments. One area of close scrutiny by local school boards in dealing with today’s changing scene, where long term fiscal commitments are risky, involves classroom teacher contracts.
Emerging Fiscal Issues and Contractual Flexibility. In today’s public school systems, while the recruitment, selection, and hiring of new classroom teachers remains a critical part of the task, assigning and reassigning existing teachers (including those possessing tenure status), and shifting fiscal resources from one school to another (especially from “high performing schools” to “struggling schools”), and from one subject area to another, are of critical importance and have a direct impact on policy. As local school boards work to bolster student academic progress and performance is it necessary to eliminate extra-curricular activities including sports teams, or reduce the emphasis on some academic areas while building up others? As a need to expand mathematics and computer science courses grows, what is the future of art, drama, music, physical education, culinary arts? Will it be necessary to increase school system budgets to support growing numbers of immigrant and English language learning children entering the schools? How do we continue to adequately fund special education?
Should local school boards pay teachers and other employees strictly on a “pay for performance” model? In an effort to save money on such matters as health care and retirement is it necessary to fill vacant positions with temporary and part-time workers and reduce the number of full-time employees (including classroom teachers)? In a local public school system in the area where I live the superintendent has proposed to his board that to improve student academic performance classroom teacher pay be tied to days worked—i.e., paying teachers for their work. (B2, Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 4, 2015)
Policy Implications
In today’s tight fiscal environment, as local public school boards deal with rapid political, cultural, and social change; work to diligently carry out federal and state legal mandates; and continue to meet the rising expectations of their communities, coming up with creative solutions to budgetary issues has become a daily fact of life. Because of escalating costs (e.g., health care) and limited fiscal (property tax dependent) resources, state-wide student academic requirements, and shifting student enrollments, the one area of school system operation that has and continues to receive the most attention and scrutiny is personnel—the largest single category in the total school system maintenance and operation budget where flexibility, creativity, and change are often trumped by collective bargaining agreements and traditional notions of tenure and seniority.
While recognizing that Mirabilio v Regional School District 16 (2nd Cir 2014) is but one court decision from one jurisdiction, my intent in presenting the case is twofold. First, to offer an example of how one local school board tried to limit the working hours and reduce the salary within a new full-time contract issued to a returning tenured teacher, while not being in violation of the state tenure law. Second, to present the factual analysis and rationale of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as the Court dealt with issues of “termination” and procedural due process. Especially informative in clarifying the potential legal and policy issues in the case is the dissenting opinion written by Judge Calabresi. Potential policy implications gleaned from the Second Circuit Court’s majority and dissenting opinions are as follows:
In matters of teacher employment contracts, local school board policies must make it clear that:
- The intent of the Board is to honor and implement the substantive and procedural mandates of all collective bargaining agreements, where they exist, and state teacher tenure statutes in jurisdictions where they exist and in situations where they are applicable.
- Where the Board decides to terminate the contract of a teacher all procedural requirements specified in state law and Board policy will be followed.
- The Board is vested with discretionary authority to assign and reassign all teachers (full-time and part-time) to schools, teaching positions, combinations of positions, and school-related extra-curricular activities for which they are qualified and where the needs of the school system require such assignments and re-assignments.
- All contract changes will be communicated to employees as soon as practicable.
- Teachers (full-time and part-time) are expected to: (a) fulfill all work-related duties and tasks associated with their teaching position, (b) work within the official hourly schedule and (c) carry out all contractual obligations at a salary set by the Board—as specified in the employment contract."
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