Tag Archive for: education reform

Taking Back California – Part Two, Fixing Education

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Convincing California’s affluent white liberals to vote Republican is not worth the effort. As noted in part one, these voters don’t feel the consequences of the policies that are killing California the way everyone else does. California’s white Democrats tend to live in higher-income neighborhoods with better schools and lower crime rates. Often, they live in their parents’ or grandparents’ house, which means they have no mortgage and minimal property taxes. The policies that are killing everyone else in California—failing education, rising crime, and a punitive cost of living—are merely theoretical to most white liberal Democrats.

Before continuing, it’s important to state what should be obvious: If a candidate engages on social issues and makes them their campaign priority in a California election, they are operating in enemy territory. When Democratic candidates attempt to stereotype Republicans as wishing to impose a regime whereby “a woman can’t even take a pill to terminate a pregnancy at six weeks,” the response should be the fact that in California it is legal to abort a fully formed, sentient 24-week-old fetus for no other reason than because the baby is unwanted. Candidates can make that the focus of the discussion, but even if they hold the moral high ground, they’re outgunned. Make the point, then return to winning issues: education, crime, and the cost of living.

There are at least three ways to fix public education in California. Let’s begin with charter schools. They are not necessarily the ultimate solution but there are hundreds of successful examples of charter schools in California. The laws are currently rigged to make it hard to open charter schools.  There are caps on how many charter schools and how many charter school students are allowed in the state. Those caps have to be lifted.

Opponents have also come up with very contrived alleged financial costs that harm districts when they have charter schools. These allegations can be easily debunked. An application for a new charter school should never be denied based on the alleged financial impact. Moreover, denied charter school applications should get an automatic appeal and there should be multiple entities capable of approving charter schools.

Here are policy recommendations that candidates who aim to protect and grow charter schools in California should advocate:

1 – Charter schools can be approved by the following entities: the state board of education, any county board of education, any school district school board, and any public or private accredited university.

2 – Charter school permits shall be granted for 10 years—this is in order to make it easier for charter schools to secure financing to build or remodel school facilities.

3 – There shall be no cap established by the state or any public agency on the number of charter schools or the number of charter school students.

4 – Virtual charter schools that support pod schooling or micro-schools shall not have their applications denied on that basis.

5 – Renewal applications for charter schools that are denied by school districts shall have the right to appeal to any county, state, or university-based authorizing entity.

6 – No charter school application or renewal shall be denied on the basis of the financial impact it will have on the school district in which it is located.

It should be noted that almost every organization that’s fighting the good fight to restore quality education, along with reducing crime and lowering the cost of living—all the big trade associations—are fighting incremental defensive battles because they can’t take the risk of really fighting for what they need. We see that in water, energy, education, construction, and almost every issue where there’s a trade association involved. They’re fighting incremental defensive battles, which means it’s up to new candidates to go on offense, come up with big solutions and promote them.

With that in mind, here’s another way to restore quality education: universally available Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). This solution preserves public funding for education but puts the choice of what school to attend in the hands of parents. ESAs are viewed by opponents as a radical solution, which is true for one overwhelmingly good reason—it will break the monopoly that traditional public schools currently wield over public education in California.

Here are policy recommendations that candidates who want to break the unionized public school monopoly in California should advocate:

1 – An education savings account shall be created for every K-12 student.

2 – These accounts shall be credited annually with each student’s pro rata share of K-12 education funding.

3 – The parents of K-12 students shall be able to direct that money to a participating school, whether it’s a public, charter, or accredited private or parochial school.

4 – The money, if unspent, shall accumulate to be used for college, vocational, or any other accredited educational expense.

The problem advocates for universal ESAs had a couple of years ago in California was that there were two versions being proposed as ballot initiatives. One was going to have means testing as a condition of participation that would phase out after a few years and the other group didn’t want that. It’s a long and sad story because there were two competing initiatives that went forward and that scared the donors away because it split the grassroots and generated controversy. As a result, nothing happened.

One of the things that conservatives in California need to accept is that they absolutely must work together. It is possible to accomplish an awful lot without considering it a compromise. Imagine how dramatic the transition would be if there had actually been a universal ESA ballot initiative for Californians to vote on and they had approved it. So what if it does or doesn’t have means testing for the first couple of years? It would have given parents more options for their children. It would have been a vast improvement in helping California students get a better education.

Education savings accounts are implemented by granting an annual credit to parents based on the amount of funding that goes into public schools. These parents can use the credit to pay tuition to the school of their choice. In 2021, this amount was about fourteen thousand dollars per student. The average cost of K-12 private school tuition in California is much less than that, barely over ten thousand dollars. There are private schools that charge a lot more but there are also much less expensive parochial schools and other types of private schools. There are now online options as well as in-person/online hybrids. There are a lot of ways to deliver quality education in California.

Finally, to restore quality education in California, candidates can propose ways to rescue public schools. They’re still going to be around, even if they’re forced to compete. Public school reform may be the first place where we see some positive changes. Here are three reforms that would go a long way towards improving the quality of teachers that California’s K-12 public school students are depending on to prepare them for adulthood. These three reforms were argued in the Vergara case, brought by nine public school students who argued that current statutes denied them their right to a quality education as guaranteed by California’s state constitution. The Vergara plaintiffs lost their case on what amounted to technicalities in appellate court in 2016. But the reforms they proposed are still needed.

Here are three reforms for candidates to promote if they want to rescue public education in California:

1 – The period necessary before tenure can be granted to a new teacher is extended from two years to five years.

2 – Criteria for layoffs shall prioritize retaining the best-performing teachers without regard to seniority.

3 – Teachers shall be hired on an “at will” basis, with the school principal granted full authority to terminate their employment at any time.

Nothing matters more in a student’s development than the quality of the teacher. Not money. Not new buildings. Not creative new curricula. If the teacher is good at their job, the students learn. These three reforms will immediately improve the quality of teachers in California’s public schools.

There are other public school reforms that candidates and activists can promote that have universal, bipartisan urgency. We have to eliminate so-called woke curricula and replace it with fundamentals. For example, we should restore classical education. Those teaching methods are working and they work with students of all abilities and incomes.

We need to reestablish classroom discipline. “Restorative justice,” which typically does not remove disruptive students from the classroom, just disrupts and intimidates the students who do want to learn. Restorative justice in California’s public schools, without necessary balance in the form of the ability to suspend or expel incorrigible students, is a recipe for anarchy. Sometimes the only way to instill respect for authority is to exercise authority. Restorative justice that isn’t ultimately backed up with tough consequences for the tough cases is the carrot without the stick.

We also need to bring back standardized aptitude tests. They are the best way to tell if our schools are working or not.

It is necessary to reemphasize that most of the organizations that support education reform in California are playing very conservative baseball. In general, they’re not willing to aggressively promote these big solutions because it’s too much of a risk. They’re worried about being targeted by the teachers’ union and that is a rational concern. So it’s up to new candidates and reenergized grassroots activists to advocate these big solutions and bring them to the voters.

California’s voters know their education system is failing. And the way the system is set up today, these failures are disproportionately affecting schools and students in low-income neighborhoods. When it comes to fixing education, Republican candidates don’t have to get dragged into polarizing battles over social issues. Their message can stick to topics that will resonate with every parent in the state. California’s public schools need competition because they’re not providing a quality education to the students who need it the most. All they have to say is, “Here are the policies that will solve the problem.”

That is a winning message.

Pension Costs Are Not the Reason California’s Schools Fail the Disadvantaged

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A recent guest editorial published by Bakersfield.com entitled “California’s defunding of public education” makes the case that a “pension contribution maneuver” has left school districts up and down the state with shrinking budgets.

The author, Shaohua Yang, gets many of his facts right. For example, he writes that “California 2019 per-capita income tax ranks the fifth highest in the U.S., and we also have high property, sales and business taxes. The lack of public school spending is not due to short revenue.” Yang is also right to observe that pension costs cannibalize funding for public services. But he’s only telling half the story.

The pension “maneuver” Yang refers to is the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013, known as “PEPRA,” and pushed through the state legislature by Democratic Governor Brown. PEPRA was a last ditch attempt to rescue California’s public employee pension systems from insolvency. It was a compromise, balancing necessary increases to employer contributions with modest reductions in pension benefits, reductions that only affected new hires.

The result of PEPRA was a plan that, if CalSTRS investments can earn on average 7 percent per year, will finally achieve full funding by 2046, over 30 years later. Meanwhile, CalSTRS is on thin ice. Its still most recent available actuarial valuation, scandalously out-of-date, shows that as of 6/30/2018 the “amount of assets on hand to pay for obligations” stood at 64 percent. But did PEPRA reduce pension benefits or increase the member contribution rates? Not much.

Before PEPRA, teachers contributed 8 percent of payroll to their pension. Today, they contribute up to 10.25 percent. This must be compared to Social Security, to which employees have to contribute 6.2 percent of their earnings, and self-employed people have to contribute 12.4 percent of their earnings. Here’s how that plays out:

In return for 6.2 percent of lifetime earnings (or 12.4 percent, if you’re self-employed), the maximum Social Security benefit a private sector worker can expect, starting at age 62, and presumably after at least 30 years in the workforce, is $27,888 per year.

In return for 10.25 percent of lifetime earnings, after a 30 year career, here is what the average CalSTRS benefit is for retirees from the three “defunded” school districts that Yang mentions in his column:

Oakland Unified  –  $68,200 per year.

Bakersfield City School District – $70,778 per year.

Cupertino Unified – $82,749 per year.

It doesn’t take an actuary to see that something is wrong with this picture. If Yang, or anyone else who thinks public education is being defunded in California, is serious about getting more money to the school districts, they can call for pension reform that gives teachers the same deal as the taxpayers who support them: Social Security. That would save billions per year which could go right back into those “defunded” schools.

Or, to be completely fair, if these teachers, their unions, and the pension fund actuaries whose gospel-like prognostications have been so accurate so far, really think they can invest and earn 7 percent per year – 4.5 percent after adjusting for inflation – they can roll every dime of the $257 billion in CalSTRS assets into 401K plans for the teachers, so they can share in the risks and rewards of investing just like the taxpayers who support them. That too would immediately return billions per year to the public schools, money that taxpayers currently allocate towards paying down CalSTRS unfunded liability.

It’s not the money, though, it’s the management.

In his column, Yang goes on to highlight how “defunding” education has a disproportionate impact on the disadvantaged. This is only half true. Yang’s right that schools that serve low income communities do not perform as well as schools in high income communities. But he’s wrong to suggest more money is the solution. Notwithstanding the obvious fact that in general, higher income parents are more likely to impart higher academic expectations to their children, which inevitably means some disproportionality will always occur between high income and low income schools, it is management, not money, that harms students the most.

This was demonstrated in the Vergara case, an education reform lawsuit launched in 2013 that attempted to reform California’s union negotiated work rules. In his mesmerizing closing arguments, plaintiff attorney Marcellus McRae proved – citing testimony from witnesses called up by the defense – that rules granting early tenure, prioritizing seniority over merit in layoffs, and the near impossibility of firing incompetent teachers leads to a disproportionate negative impact on low income communities. Vergara was dismissed on a technicality, and California’s disadvantaged students are the ongoing victims.

While fixing these management issues would yield important incremental improvements, the solution that would save California’s system of public education is school vouchers. Give parents of K-12 aged children a voucher they can redeem at any school they choose. Public, public charter, private, religious, secular, homeschool, virtual school or micro-school. If the student bodies of these schools can pass the standardized academic achievement tests, they can continue to accept vouchers. It can be that simple.

To truly appreciate how much money California’s union controlled system of public education has been wasting, refer to a California Policy Center analysis published earlier this year that calculated the true, gross amount of per student spending in California in the most recent fiscal year to be over $20,000 per pupil. Shaohua Yang, who is a “system architect in the semiconductor industry in San Jose,” is invited to review the data to verify this figure for himself.

Imagine what a charter school or micro-school could do with all that money. A twenty student class would have a $400,000 per year budget, easily enough to lease a classroom, purchase educational materials, and hire an amazing teacher. Perhaps the voucher could be for $15,000, still more than enough, and the rest could be returned to taxpayers.

What Yang, and every other conscientious Californian who cares about social injustice should be doing is recognizing that the teachers’ union is the primary reason public education is failing the disadvantaged. They have made it almost impossible for principals to hold teachers accountable and terminate the incompetent. They have fought the expansion of charter schools and convinced reformers that so much as a discussion of vouchers is politically impossible. But that’s not the worst of it.

In an amazing inversion of everything they supposedly stand for, the teachers’ union has embraced one of the most reckless capitalist gamblers on earth, the California State Teachers Retirement System, as a full partner. The teachers’ union demands retirement benefits for their members that are literally twice as good as the Social Security benefits available to the taxpayers they serve, blind to the fact that CalSTRS, along with all the rest of these public employee pension funds, are among the biggest players on Wall Street.

If pension costs are indeed crowding out funding for public education, as Yang alleges, then at the least call it what it is: a Wall Street bailout, designed to reward a privileged class, with children as the victims.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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