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Wonky but Revealing: Cutting Class, a report from MassBudget on the problems--visible and hidden--with the public education funding formula here in the great state of Massachusetts.


The Executive Summary gets the main points, but there are many nuggets throughout the whole text.  Key takeaways: There are some structural and some situational issues with the "foundation budget" for school systems--what  schools spend on their system, minimum, which differs from district to district depending on number of low-income students, distribution of elementary vs. middle vs. high school students, and so forth.

Structural: the formula was set based on 1993 figures, which weren't adjusted once it was signed into law in 1994, thus always lowballing district needs.

Situational: health care costs and special-ed costs are higher than what you might expect.  Many reasons for both, mostly understandable.  The result: districts pull money that could be used for regular ed teachers and other services to fund their legal obligations to special-ed and employee benefits.

Circumlocutionary: By "the great state of Massachusetts," I actually mean, "the Bay State," "the citizens of the great state I governed," or "home," depending on which version you prefer from what Romney used in his victory parity speech tonight.  By my count he did mention the state's name twice, but it was listening to him get around having to say "great" and "Massachusetts" in the same sound-bite-bound sentence was almost as painful as, well, as listening to him speak in general.

By "home," he expanded by way of saying, "It's nice to be home for the first time in two months."  Hmmm.  Hasn't been in Massachusetts in a while?  As my mother might say, that's sort of how he governed.

Policy Takeaway for the Week: It's likely the only major legislation to get through the Massachusetts Statehouse before summer is the budget, and a bill to contain health-care costs.

First reaction: man, that's slow.  Why doesn't anything ever get accomplished in politics?

Second reaction: considering how much health care eats up the state budget, a health-care bill is an education bill, a transportation bill, a community-development bill.  In theory--the devil will be in the details, of course.

Limits

This week, a plunge into something new.  I'm interning at the Statehouse working on education policy. Firsts: first time working in a government building, first time walking through a metal detector to get to the office.  We all deal with policy--ramifications, fallouts--on a daily basis.  But--first time dealing with it from the inside-out.

My first day my supervisor handed me a three-inch-thick binder.  Instructions: learn everything you can about English Language Learners.  I put my head in the binder and emerged a few hours later swimming in Whereas this and Ch. that. 

The inherent limits of policy strike me right off the bat.  I'm not in an ELL classroom, and most of the briefs and reports I've read don't make me feel like I am.  I'd love to read some organized testimony of teachers: what's it like to do this work?  What do you think the law should say?  I'm sure it's out there for the finding.

Even if policy is informed by the grassroots, how much of current, or amended, policy can reach back to the classroom?  Should reach that deep?

**

It's an interesting way to learn.  Before Wednesday, I knew almost nothing about ELLs.  I know something more about language acquisition.  This is perhaps the most transactual learning I've ever done.  Learning for the purpose of tweaking a bill that has already been written.  Learning just enough, in compressed time, to suggest those tweaks.  Borrowing ideas already in use in other states.  Writing to the constraints of four-page policy memos.  Will it feel liberating, having so specific an outcome?  Will it feel limiting?

**

It was a hard decision to drop my fifth class.  I was already feeling overwhelmed by the workload.  I found myself stringing together 14-hour days, yet still not fully engaging with the work in some courses.  I pulled the plug on an extra quantitative class, in favor of being able to dive more deeply into projects I'm passionate about in other classes.  I think it's the right tradeoff.

The limit to the one-year program is always having to make these trade-offs. 

I already feel better.  I can follow through on having a discussion group for a class.  Talking through readings solidifies learning for me.  I'm excited all over again for this last semester.

**

An observation this year: I miss the grassroots.  I miss my students, my class.  I miss the crafting of lessons, the buzz of carrying them out, the lightbulbs when folks make connections.  The new recruits for the next course.  I loved--love--working with adults to help them overcome the limits of not speaking English.  I miss pushing the limits of practice.

I'm trying to heed the voices of my passions as I answer the $39,500 question: What Comes Next?  I came to grad school because I wanted to touch more than a dozen or two lives at a time.  I came because I saw my students confronting the realities of living poor in Boston and wanted to be part of a movement that could holistically address, upend, change those realities.

Should I go back to a classroom?  I don't think having a foot (heart, head) back in the grassroots need be seen as a limit.  I'd love to do good work on the ground and connect to good work at the 10, 20, 30,000 foot level.  Not sure how.  Still working on the roadmap.

I Used to Think ...

"We need a course where we can pull together what we're learning in our three other courses." --classmate Z.


That course wasn't there for me to take, but as much as often this semester I've tried to pull together what I've learned.  In September, facing readings flush with theory that felt far removed from the classrooms I'd taught in and the immigrant parents I'd worked with, I felt like I was being asked to predict weather patterns at 40,000 feet based on how I felt the wind blowing over my face.  As time went on, I sensed progress, most notably when I opened my mouth in class, started, "In another class I'm taking, we've been studying X ..." and could make the link back.  Taking a reading from class A to integrate into an essay in class B: another good sign.  I can't completely make the jump from ground to cruising altitude yet (I leave that for the basketball court; oh, wait).  But I'm gaining hops.

I learned a lot about a lot of stuff, from the mundane to the pointy-headed: parent-engagement techniques in districts and charters, Common Core, methods to improve child protective services, promotive and protective factors in child development, how foundations affect school reform, an eye-opening amount of management theory, an eye-crossing amount of stats.  On a personal front, I've worked on communication, from how to use hand gestures to voicing dissent in a way that informs new consensus.  I've learned how to manage time much better (and only been made fun of for my 15-minute increments ... 200 times plus/minus 100 times by T.).  On a professional front, I've had many conversations with folks in numerous fields, to the point that I got an email back confirming an informational interview a couple weeks ago and found myself staring at the subject line thinking: Catie who?  Works where? (It was in the email; all's well).

I'm one stats project (speaking of that), two final papers, and three class evaluations away from being done.  But taking a moment to glimpse the light ahead, some changes in my thinking.  Warning: these are (a) a Sample, (b) Broad, (c) General, and (d) Obvious in some cases.  The more nitty-gritty stuff ... well, I'll leave that for my posts on ESOL techniques.


I used to think ... in terms what I saw right in front of my eyes; now I think, not only that way, but also in frameworks, strategies, concepts.

I used to think that business practices were cold; now I think they can inform many types of management.


I used to think of cradle-to-career work in terms of starting programs, a la the Harlem Children's Zone; now I think collective impact might work better in many places.


I used to think of consulting as outside my interests; now I think that consulting assistance has helped spur great initiatives that I'm very much interested in (see here and here).


I used to think about poverty in terms of the experiences of the students in my class; now I most definitely still think about them, but also about funding issues, building support to sustain policy changes, strengths-based interventions, targeting vs. universal, and more.

I used to think that early parenting classes were mainly site-based, or classroom-based; now I think that home-visiting may be the key to making them productive.

I used to think that national foundations were too aggressive in promoting school reform; now I think they have a role in advancing knowledge in the field and, yes, putting their money out there to spur innovation (insert many caveats here).

I used to think a mission statement was crucial to keeping an organization focused on what matters; now I think that's still important, but should also be accompanied by strategic action steps, a theory of change, a theory of action, and criteria for ways to measure those actions.  

Oh god, the profs have gotten in my blood.  Back to that stats.

Starting Line Item

Announcement from the Obama Administration today that Head Start funding will be subject to competition.  Shuttering centers if they don't show academic progress, directing funds to successful programs.

The changes will require all lower-performing Head Start programs to compete for funds instead of receiving the money automatically. The new benchmarks to determine eligibility will mean some programs that fail to show children are making academic program will lose funding. Grants will be reviewed every five years.

In general, I support the President's move toward competitive bidding, especially in energy and transportation, usually havens of earmark lard, cough cough.  Besides creating some motivation for lackluster centers to work better--and it's not at all clear to me that Head Start's mixed outcomes have to do with lack of staff motivation rather than inability to attract and support great staff--I'm  not sure how this helps increase the supply of high-quality childcare for kids from tough backgrounds.

Some centers will get better, and maybe get more money, but short-run it implies shuttering more centers.  And justifying one's own existence based on potentially hard-to-measure academic outcomes could certainly be a recipe for book-cooking.  It looks like sanctions rather than support.  I'd love to be proven wrong.

Finally, thank-you-thank-you Business Week for this graf:

Before making his remarks, Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius toured a classroom at the Yeadon Head Start Center. He played with 16 3-to-5-year-olds gathered around smaller circular tables. One group worked on putting together a puzzle, another played with blocks.

Now if that isn't a metaphor for working with Congress, what is?

What's My Story?

A guest from a DC-based advocacy org came to very briefly present to a class of mine the other day.  She started this way:

I'm an alumnus of this class, and I'd like to make connections among other alums.  My work in DC is in health insurance.  Here's the issue: there are 8 million uninsured children in America.  But 6 million of them are eligible for health insurance, just not enrolled.  Some states have added a question to school registration forms about health insurance, and quickly been able to identify who needs to be signed up.

Wow.  In four to five sentences, she introduced herself.  She put her purpose out there.  She used two very simple numbers to paint a vivid picture in ways anybody could grasp.  And she suggested policy solutions.

Pretty complete picture.  One of my goals for the next year (-plus) is to be a better communicator.  What's my story, and how do I tell it?

How Much, or How?

Ooh boy, Nicholas Kristof writing about all the things I care about! 

He gets right to the point about how little public funding goes to children under age 5.  And to how early investments in children actually have documented cost-benefit pay-offs.

Kristof's also refreshingly frank in taking on Head Start questions.  He admits what we've long known, that some gains (e.g. IQ) for kids who go through HS wear off quickly.  But he points out that "the former Head Start participants are significantly less likely than siblings to repeat grades, to be diagnosed with a learning disability, or to suffer the kind of poor health associated with poverty."  Those are really important measures, especially when you consider how repeating grades sets kids up to drop out.

His closing point is: we can't afford not to fund early childhood.  But it's not just a question of how much funding early-childhood gets.  It's a question of how programs are run.

Problem is, quality of day-care varies a lot.  And overall, the picture isn't pretty--some programs are excellent, others terrible, most in-between.  That variation happens even within a government-funded program like Head Start, not to mention in the ever-growing area of private day-care.  Are play areas safe?  Are teachers well-trained?  Are adult-child interactions engaging?  These are not side questions, they are the main questions.

Dumping a whole lot of money into early-childhood without ways of ensuring programs are actually well-run won't do much for the disadvantaged kids Kristof cares about.  Kids from tough backgrounds need great programs, not just more programs.

The Weakened Links

Trying to fund linkages is impossible, because it we'd have to deal with too many funding streams--federal, state, and local.

That's what staff members from a foundation that fights poverty in a large U.S. city told me when I asked them if they provide funding to help programs link together with other ones--not just drive funding to single organizations. 


Research shows that helping poor people through interventions works best if one intervention leads to another.  Nonprofits are notorious for protecting their turf and avoiding collaboration.  We're never gonna solve tough problems unless we solve them together.  And we're never gonna work together unless we can line up our dollars.

By the way, this was a major foundation with a lot of pull.  If they step back from linkage-funding with their hands in the air, that says something.

Eight Is the Loneliest Number

Every once in a while, a statistic just comes out of nowhere and knocks me down.  The share of GED recipients who actually complete college once they've started (now, there's a conversation for another day).  The Red Sox' abysmal September record (now, there's a conversation for ... oh wait, there might not be another day).

Yesterday's stunner?  A number (from the 90s) showing that only 8 percent of public investment in education is spent on children birth-to-5.   

Everything we know says that kids cognitive, emotional, linguistic development has a huge, lifelong impact.  Why don't we fund 0-5 better?

Now, I understand: the public K-12 system is a 500-billion-dollar gorilla taking up much, much more than 8 percent.  A lot of birth-to-five life happens at home.  The private-public balance for daycare is more on the private end than in K-12.  The "Head Start didn't work" perception is out there--even if it's not entirely true.  But it's still shocking how little our society invests in arguably the most important five years of life.


For society at large, I think it comes to down to this: perception of crisis.  Major foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton zealously fund all stripes of K-12 school reform.  These initiatives are problematic in many ways, but I think they've caught fire among donors because of the obvious crisis of American high schools.  Open the paper and you read about this-or-that failing school.  Turn on the news and you get a steady diet of "kids these days'" troubles with drugs and gangs.  Employers are finding that young adults can't do the job.  Colleges are finding freshman can't do the classwork.

But there's very much a 0-5 "crisis," as well.  Toddlers with health problems, kids who haven't seen letters or heard enough talking at home, and on and on.  But this crisis is much more silent.  It has to do with complicated genetic-environment interactions beyond the grasp or interest of policymakers.  Further, three-year-olds who are falling behind aren't marauding the streets in gangs ... they're just not getting right kind of attention or discipline from Mom or Dad.  And even if kindergarten teachers can already see the negative outcomes, these outcomes aren't blaring over the news or failing in droves out of Stats 101 at Your Local State College.

So we don't intuitively grasp early-childhood issues the way we do with older kids.  Even if we did, where would the political will be to act?  Kids don't vote.  Parents of poor, at-risk kids don't either.

Just yesterday, I heard a former advocacy worker say: You have to kiss serious politico butt to get lawmakers to give money to early childhood.  I don't want to be mired in pessimism, but how do we change this?

NFP, HCZ, QED?

I was born into luck.

I had healthy, well-educated parents, married, and stable parents.  Dad had a good job, Mom was a dedicated and ardent community activist.  My mom wouldn't have even thought of drinking when she was pregnant with me.  They had the means to support having one more kid--my little sister--two years later.  I grew up near parks, not power plants.  There was no lead paint within sight or touch.  From the earliest moments, I was loved, read to, and played with--not just by my folks but by aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. 

Am I thankful?  You bet!  To try to make such positive fetal health behaviors, early parenting, and stable life pathways more prevalent for mothers who didn't have the background of my own, enter the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP).  I've been reading about it a lot recently. 

For someone like me who's very interested in the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) and programs like it, the NFP raises some big questions.

First, the NFP in a nutshell: It was a plan developed in the 70's by a developmental psychologist to make the conditions I benefited from more widespread for kids born to poor, teenage mothers in Elmira, N.Y., and later Memphis and Denver.  The backbone of the program?  Sending nurses into the homes, from early pregnancy to a couple years after birth, to talk, teach, model, counsel, what it took to be a good mother.

The results?  Less abuse and neglect, less use of public assistance by the families, and more involvement from fathers.  Many effects still showed up in kids when they were fifteen years old.  RAND found major cost-savings for the kids whose mothers were most at-risk and felt most helpless.  A flurry of similar programs emerged, and political leaders were quick to find and implement in their own cities and states. 

Teaching parenting is important.  Programs like the Harlem Children’s Zone have taken that cue, and added to it: good early parenting should lead to good pre-school, to good K-12 education, to good social-service supports.  

But there's an issue with this cradle-to-college "conveyor belt" now being replicated nationwide through the Promise Neighborhoods.  The very psychologist who developed NFP, David Olds, found that benefits to his parental supports were only for the at-risk mothers.  Secure families who got the supports didn't need them, and were a cost loss from an investment angle.  Olds's warning: making services universal may cover some families that don’t actually benefit, diluting resources that at-risk families most need.  

By keeping kids on the “conveyor belt” perpetually even if some of them could prosper by graduating out of it—cradle-to-college may threaten to “dilute” services at each level of its continuum.  Most of the families in these program's zones would probably be called "at-risk."  But maybe not all of them.  With scarce resources to fund the kind of childhood I got, that's a reality worth examining.