FAQs about Charter Districts in California

Based on research by Cindy Wilcox.  Please contact me at with questions or corrections.

This information is based on the resources available at the California Charter School Association web site; phone conversations with Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents in two California charter districts; and training from the Pacific Research Institute and the California School Board Association; and other resources.  All answers need to be vetted by an attorney specializing in charter schools and districts.

Quick summary:
The idea here is that La Cañada should study the question of whether to “go charter”.  If that decision were made by the School Board, then a vote of the teachers of LCUSD could, by simple majority, allow this process to go forward.  While some teachers might be concerned that this would allow the district to greatly streamline the process for discharging problem teachers, the reason they might vote for it would be that the good teachers would not be limited to the current “step and column” pay schedule based on seniority and college units.  The 98% of teachers who are competent and dedicated would no longer be embarrassed defending the few percent who are lazy, incompetent, or worse.  The following FAQs attempt to address the most common concerns.

What is wrong with the current system?
The California Education Code provides restrictions on how public school districts can hire, evaluate, lay-off and compensate credentialed teachers.  How has this impacted the La Cañada Unified School District?  Here are three concrete examples of how the Education Code has negatively impacted La Cañada public schools.

First example is seniority:
Teachers must be granted permanent status (a.k.a. “tenure”) under certain conditions – usually after 1 year and 8 months, or in the case where a teacher is first hired as temporary teachers, after about 3 years.  In times of declining enrollment or reduced funding, if the district decides to lay-off teachers, the District has to lay-off according to seniority.  The result may be that some great teachers with less seniority are laid off while some poor teachers keep their jobs.   This is not good for students.

Second example has to do with the compensation schedules:
All teachers with the same level of education and longevity are paid on the same on the salary schedule.  Great teachers with less time-in-service and fewer extra college units are paid less than a lazy or incompetent teacher in the classroom next door.

Another aspect of the strict salary schedule is that during strong economic periods, it can be difficult to hire teachers with certain credentials such as higher math, chemistry, physics and special education.  Teachers with these credentials cannot be paid more than any other teacher on the “step and column” in the salary schedule even though competitive salaries would help attract and retain qualified teachers in these “hard to hire” areas.  In my experience, during the last economic upswing ~ 2004-2007, LCUSD had trouble hiring chemistry and physics teachers.  One of our administrators at the time begged a teacher to come out of retirement so the district could continue to offer Honors and AP Physics.  We also hired a Ph.D. student to teach some sections of Chemistry.  During a prior period, we had hired an elementary teacher to teach chemistry on the basis that she could read the book ahead of the students and get coaching from credentialed Chemistry teachers.   These recruited teachers had big hearts, but were not effective.  And one of them was unmitigated disaster for learning.  At the time, the District was desperate.  This can be very frustrating for the students and parents.  The District has recently been able to hire qualified teachers (in part because of the economic downturn) but we don’t want to live through a repeat of that experience.

Third example is the dismissal process for a problem teacher:
When LCUSD recently dismissed a problem teacher, the District ended up paying the problem teacher $215,000 to leave.  I agreed with that decision, because it was better than fighting through the union-supported dismissal process.

When community members expressed concern, LCUSD Board President Scott Tracy pointed out that the District has no choice.  It’s true that, under the current organization, the District is stuck, but, please keep reading.  The School Board and community have a choice for the future.

(In the meantime, the Board is asking the community to lobby State Senator Carol Liu.  I’m fine with that, but it’s not just Carol Liu.  The education committees in both houses need to be lobbied, and then the entire State Senate and Assembly need to hear from us to get majority votes.  We would need to rally the entire State.  I don’t want to wait for the majority of the State Senate and Assembly to reach agreement on new Education Code and suspect that many La Cañada voters would agree with me.)

Do we have to continue to use our current model to manage our public schools or is there another option?
Yes, there is another option.  We can opt for local control.

To gain more local control, a school or school district can follow steps to operate under the charter regulations.  In 1992, the State of California passed a charter law that exempts charter schools and districts from major sections of highly-restrictive education code. From the California Charter Schools web site:

Under what is commonly referred to as the “Charter mega-waiver,” with a few exceptions, charters are bound by only by ed code section 47605 which covers the required elements of a charter school petition as well as the submission and appeals process. [1]

California charter schools must still hire credentialed teachers for core subjects and classes.  Also, charter schools are required to provide services to all students including special education students, English language learners, and gifted students.

Who gets to decide if the District becomes a charter district?
We have existing public schools.  If they become “conversion” charter schools, these are the main steps.  Stay with me, it’s a three part answer.  (Note, this is not the same as “parent trigger.”  Many of those steps would not apply to us.)

1.  The La Cañada Unified School Board
Typically, the school board would form a committee and decide if charter would be a benefit to the District.  If yes, the Board needs to work with the teachers to formulate a contract that would replace the old contract.  The Board also needs to communicate pros and cons with the community and collect feedback.  Note, parents and voters do not get a direct vote.  The Board is empowered to vote on our behalf.

2.    The current teachers
If the Board decides to move ahead, the current teachers vote.  It takes 50% plus one (a simple majority) to implement the new contract.  Say the District has 180 teachers, then 91 need to vote in favor of the new contract.  What exactly are the teachers voting on?  A no vote means the individual teacher wants to keep the current contract and structure.  A yes vote means the individual teacher wants to adopt and work under the new contract and charter structure.

3.  The charter authorizer
The District then takes the charter petition to the charter authorizer.   For a school district, the authorizer is the State Board of Education.  The charter petition consists of 16 required items that must be addressed adequately before the State Board will approve the petition.  (Realistically, there are ~22 items that must be addressed.)[2] Three items address the education program, measurable pupil outcomes, and methods for measuring outcomes.  The rest are about school management.  Historically, charters are formed by educator/idealists who don’t necessarily understand the business side.  The authorizers don’t want to approve a charter petition and then see the school go bankrupt in short order.  The good news is that LCUSD knows how to manage schools and budgets.  So most of the petition involves documenting what we already know how to do.  (I will address some quick questions first and come back to the petition later.)

Why would La Cañada property owners ever be willing to put their kids in a lottery for a seat at a charter school?

Short answer:  all district residents are guaranteed a seat and never enter the lottery.

Because our existing public schools would be classed as conversion schools, all current and future residents in La Cañada Unified are guaranteed seats for their children in a district school — same rule as applies now.  Other groups can also be given priority enrollment including children of district staff and children of city employees.

These priorities must be written into the charter petition and approved by the charter authorizer.If there is space, the remaining seats may be filled through lottery.

Also, I spoke to a charter school attorney Paul Minney about preferential enrollment, such as Sagebrush.  He said the main concern by the State Board is that conversion charter schools not change the racial/ethnic ratios of the existing schools (as they were prior to becoming charters and in a way that would impact current minority enrollment).  A proposal that give Sagebrush some priority needs more work but may be within reach.An important comment:  charters often mirror the experience La Cañada is having with our current permit students.  Parents who make the effort to get their kids enrolled and are willing to drive every day are usually parents who care about education and follow-up on homework and projects.  Their children generally do well in school.  This has sometimes been referred to informally as the “charter school effect.”

What about student enrollment from outside the District?
The district committee needs to talk with a charter school attorney, Paul Minney or someone like him.  My understanding is that we can arrange a charter that has enrollment priorities very similar to our current priorities.  Yes, a charter district would take in permit kids (not called permits anymore) if there is space available, but it would be in similar ratios to permit student enrollment now.  And similar to our current system, as our in-district enrollment improves, we would have less and less space for out-of-district kids, and the numbers would diminish.

Can a unified distinct go charter all at once?
Yes.  See page 4 of the referenced document on conversion charter schools which says:

“It is also possible for entire school districts to convert into charter school districts, thereby converting all schools within their boundaries into charter schools, if at least 50% of district teachers sign on.”[3]

If a simple majority of teachers in the district vote yes, does that meet the requirement?  Yes. This isn’t too surprising since the current union takes a new contract to a vote district-wide.  They don’t have to get a majority vote at each school.

Are parent petitions required?  No.  If the La Cañada School Board provides leadership for the charter petitions, the process is based on conversion of existing schools.  Parent petitions are not required.  (If you have read about controversial parent petitions in the newspapers, you may have been reading about a process called “parent trigger,” which is an approach parents can use to change management at under-performing schools.  No one is suggesting we invoke parent-trigger for this process.)

If the District files a charter petition, who is the authorizer?  The authorizer is the State Board of Education.  Back in 2009, I talked to superintendents and assistant superintendents at two K-8 Districts about their experience as charter districts.  They had been authorized by the State Board.

Hickman Charter District, http://www.hickman.k12.ca.us/
Kingsburg Elementary Charter, http://www.kingsburg-elem.k12.ca.us/

What is the difference between going charter versus trying to get the same result through incremental steps?
Community members have asked, what can we accomplish through incremental steps versus the big leap of going charter?

One of the most appealing things about going charter is that a charter district is exempt from a great deal of California Education Code.  This exemption is referred to as the charter mega-waiver.

For example, can a unified school district negotiate with the union:

• to end the use of step and column, and instead pay teachers based on individual performance using administrator evaluations, value-added test scores, contributions to professional learning communities, etc.  I attended a training session where the implication was that Step and Column is in State Ed Code/Case law.  That’s part of what makes it difficult to implement merit pay or give signing bonuses for hard-to-staff positions.
• to end the use of seniority for lay-offs?  No.  This appears in our contract and also in Education Code.  Changing our local contract isn’t enough.  We also have to get the Ed Code changed or go charter to invoke the mega-waiver mentioned above.

Going charter to get the mega-waiver from restrictive Education Code — that’s more like a light switch.  It is either on or off.  There are no incremental steps in between. 

Some people have heard about free-form, alternative charter schools and some of those charter schools are not doing an adequate job educating kids.  Is charter synonymous with alternative forms of education?
No, charter is not synonymous with free-form education.  Charter schools often look very much like our current La Cañada schools.  After all, most charter schools are striving to offer a world-class education so their goal is to educate students and see outcomes similar to La Cañada.  It’s not too surprising that their delivery of education resembles our system.

(And yes, there have been crazy education models implemented under charter including a snow-boarding charter school in Tahoe, which apparently spent too little time on core academics and lots of time on other activities.  No one is proposing we follow that model.  The snow-boarding charter school I know about was shut down by its authorizer.)

If the La Cañada public schools become charter schools, does the District have to hire an outside management agency for each school or for the District?
No.   Conversion charters are not required to hire an outside agency to run anything.  I spoke with Superintendents and Assistant Superintendents at two current charter districts with multiple schools (Hickman and Kingsburg).  Neither has outside agencies running anything.  If you didn’t know they were charter, you wouldn’t be able to tell by the administrative structure.

By the way, we already have School Site Councils.  As part of the charter petition, those Site Councils can be further empowered to review detailed programs and data for their school and advise administration and the School Board.  (Unless Illuminate data has been made available to them recently, they have had scant information to available.    Under Site Council rules, the parents are already elected by parents.  Teacher members are already elected by teachers.  The classified rep is elected by classified staff.  The site principal is a member.  Anyone can attend and observe.  We already have a working model for an advisory group at each school.)  Back to the original question, some charters are managed by outside agencies, but there is no requirement to hire an outside manager.

Why would 50% plus 1 teachers vote to go charter?
The teachers need to be surveyed to find out their priorities.  For example, they may prefer to be compensated according to their own efforts, rather than be paid as a group according to a formula independent of their performance.  Right now, individual teachers hit a cap on pay and must wait until the union negotiates a pay raise for an entire group before getting an individual raise.  The teachers may prefer a contract that gets rid of the schedule that pays groups — a schedule that is weighed down by community reluctance to pay lazy teachers any more than they are already receiving.  That begs the question, how do we pay hard-to-staff positions the amount needed to recruit and retain? (See discussion above on the history of hiring Chemistry and Physics teachers.)

Generally charter contracts include due process.  The District is likely to want final say over dismissals rather than having to go through hearing boards that are outside of district control.  How many teachers object to that?  We need to find out — it would have saved us $215,000 in the recent dismissal.  That’s equivalent to 86 families giving $2,500 a year.  The $215,000 would more than pay the compensation for two teachers for a year.  We are left to wonder, what’s preventing us from doing in-depth research on charters now?

Under the charter district model, do the voters still get to vote for the School Board and what is the role of the Board if the District goes charter?
Registered voters who are residents of the La Cañada School District still vote for school board members, just as we do now.  The Boards of Hickman and Kingsburg are still elected by district voters.  The School Boards still have all the same responsibilities we recognize today.  I asked about some specific issues.  For example, the Charter District Boards still hire, evaluate and, if needed, fire their superintendents.    They still approve budgets and make governing policy.  The Boards can run elections for bonds and parcel taxes.

As a charter district, would we expect test score to go up or down?
In general, when a high performing school converts, the school maintains its high scores and status over time.  Based on the research, I would expect test scores to continue on their current pace of improvement.  Test scores are influenced by teacher and student effort, with support from staff and parents.  The charter organization doesn’t change that in the short term.  If LCUSD converts to charter, our schools would meet the definition of non-autonomous conversions.

Some people say La Canada schools don’t have much room to improve.  On certain standardized test scores, that’s correct, but let’s do a reality check.  When my kids attended La Cañada High School, parents tutored their kids or paid for tutoring.  In some subjects, tutoring was practically epidemic.   And expensive!  From my interactions with parents around town, that is still true and it needs to change.  Empowered teachers and staff can make a difference.

From a study conducted by the California Charter School Association.

Non-autonomous conversions had high levels of academic performance prior to conversion and generally maintained this status over time. As a group, they achieved the highest levels of performance across multiple metrics, including the API, proficiency rates in English Language Arts, and proficiency rates in math in the 2010-11 school year. The majority of these schools did not grow their enrollments of underserved student populations compared to traditional schools. They also served less diverse student populations than autonomous conversions did in 2010-11.[4]

Will La Cañada Unified receive more or less State funding as a charter district?
LCUSD would receive more funding per student from the State as a charter district.  (When I was on the Board, I asked the District staff to take a look at that.  The district financial consultant, Steve Hodgson, confirmed that the answer was yes.  See Los Angeles County Bulletin #174, February 9, 2012, page 10 of 27, note page numbers are not sequential so page 10 this is the actual page in the total 27 page packet.)[5]

Estimated Charter School Block Grant Rates

2011-12

Grade Level     General Purpose       Categorical

K-3                        $  5,077                      $410
4-6                         $  5,153                     $410
7-8                         $  5,306                    $410
9-12                       $  6,148                     $410

For reference, LCUSD expects to receive $5,181.43 per student for all grade levels.[6] The funding for K-6 is similar, but the LCUSD funding is lower than 9-12 charter funding.  The net would be a gain in total district funding.  (Will this change if the funding model switches to weighted-student funding?  There is likely to be some change in both funding models.  If the State reduces LCUSD per pupil funding by $370 in 2012-13, I would expect the charter funding levels to take a similar hit.  Charter funding is not exempt from the State budget crisis, so a District would probably not go charter just for the money.)

Do current tenured teachers have to take a position in a charter district?
No.  We may need to organize employment for any reluctant teachers.  (Attorney Paul Minney told me that there are conversion charters where one grade level is not charter pending retirement or acceptance by a few teachers.  His point: there are work-arounds available.)

We do have a need for a continuation school.  Right now we have students leaving to attend private school during the school day, splitting their school day between our school and a private school.  Sometimes parents pull their kids out of the District completely and place them in private school.  Can we formulate a school or system that meets these students’ needs?  That could be two small schools, not charter, and would give us a place to employ reluctant teachers for the duration of their employment or until they realized the benefits of charters, get “homesick” for the dynamic schools they have left, and perhaps change their minds.  (If possible, I’d like those teachers to be stuck with the current significant union dues and step & column, until they adopt the charter contract.    If they are too timid to go charter, then they should expect to live with the limitations of the current system!)

Do La Cañada students have to attend a charter school?
No.  The District can arrange for students to attend a nearby school in Glendale or Pasadena.  The District is not required to provide transportation.  I asked both the Kingsburg and Hickman Districts about their experience.  None of their students opted out.

Back to the charter petition — what are the topics that need to be covered in a charter petition?
From the California Charter School Association web site[7], the elements of the charter petition are:

California Education Code 47605 requires developers to provide a “reasonably comprehensive description” of the following:

Most districts and the State Board of Education require additional information, including:

The important thing is that La Cañada Unified School District currently runs a nationally recognized school district.  The District knows how to do everything needed in this petition.

Do charter schools have unions?
Some do and some don’t.  My understanding is that, whether a charter has a union or not, most have an agreement that guides due process and evaluation.

Once a school or district is charter, can the teachers unionize?
Yes, employees always have the right to organize.  The question is, why should teachers pay $600 a year to a union if the charter district is dynamic, professional, fair and honorable work place?  Right now, LCUSD teachers are paying something like $600 to their union every year.  Some teachers benefit, some don’t. (OK, in my opinion, most don’t benefit.)  If they vote to go charter and leave the union, they may form a local association that collects a small amount, say $50 a year, to monitor due process and to go to breakfast as a group at the end of the year (nice event they do now).  The difference would be $550 available in their paychecks.  That’s significant on a teacher salary.

Over the years, a number of teachers have told me they don’t value tenure.  They know they are excellent teachers.  Some of them resent that their profession has become tainted by the tenure tradition/burden.  (Think of a brother or sister-in-law at Thanksgiving who never fails to insert, “Oh yeah, you aren’t worried about your job – you’re tenured.”  For many teachers who put heart and soul into their job, that would get tiresome.)

Most of our teachers are fabulous and would keep their jobs under any structure.  Under a charter system, we can give our teachers the dignity of working as professionals.  Teachers would no longer be laid-off by seniority or yoked to an insulting step and column pay system.  Instead, they could be compensated for their individual efforts on behalf of our children and our schools.

I have heard that, in some charter districts, one school went charter at a time.  What are the pros and cons?
In some districts a few schools went charter and then they all followed.   I don’t think that is a good process for LCUSD.  Say Palm Crest goes charter first.  The reluctant teachers can then move to another District elementary school.  Maybe PCY goes charter second.  Now all reluctant teachers are concentrated at LCE.  How will LCE ever get the majority needed to go charter?  Why would we set up one elementary school to be stuck indefinitely with seniority lay-offs, step and column, etc?  That seems unfair to both students and teachers.    By the way, if LCUSD becomes a charter district, we make sure that all new hires understand that they are agreeing to work under the charter system.  (Similar to the Hickman and Kingsburg hiring process after they went charter.)

Has a unified district or high school district in California tried to convert?
On page 25 of the document “Conversion Charter Schools:  A Closer Look”, Spring 2012, all 8 districts are elementary (K-8) districts.  We need to find out if unified districts have tried to convert and what the obstacles were.

When I hear about charters, they are mostly low performing schools.  Do high performing schools become charters?
The Hickman and Kingsburg charter districts are strong performing school districts.  You can look them up.
Hickman Charter District, http://www.hickman.k12.ca.us/
Kingsburg Elementary Charter, http://www.kingsburg-elem.k12.ca.us/

In addition, the LA Times ran an article on May 2, 2012.  The article talked about 24 high performing schools that are applying to become charter.  LA Unified is encouraging them.  Part of the motivation is more State funding for the schools.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charters-20120502,0,3927421.story

What if La Cañada Unified goes charter but for some reason it doesn’t work out?
The District can revert back to traditional status.  This is true for all conversion charter schools and school districts.

Back in 2009, the School Board claims to have done in-depth research and voted not to form a committee.  What happened?
The school district hired an attorney who patiently walked the Board through the requirements of the charter petition — the sixteen items.  Remarkably, when asked, she didn’t know what education code the district would be exempt from if the district became a charter district.  She didn’t mention the mega-waiver.  She didn’t know how the funding model would change, but put up a slide from another district that turned out to be wrong.  Her presentation was a phenomenal waste of time.  It was about process and a few obstacles, but barely touched on the benefits.  That didn’t seem to matter to the majority of the La Cañada School Board.  The Board voted against putting together a committee to do the next level research, but still claimed to have done an in-depth study in spite of the anemic presentation.   (Wilcox in favor of forming a research committee, Boyd, Broberg, Peterson, Tracy voted against)

Quick re-cap, why does charter deserve more research?
Recently (April 2012) some community members expressed dismay that a documented problem teacher will be paid $215,000 as part of a dismissal package for documented misconduct.  In response, some School Board members encouraged community members to lobby our State Senator regarding possible changes in the Ed Code.  OK, nothing wrong with lobbying our representatives.   The problem is that we all need to encourage all communities to lobby their representatives so that a majority of both houses in Sacramento vote for change.  And we will be lobbying against one of the two most powerful unions in the State (the other is the prison guard union).  The charter legislation was passed 20 years ago.  Why spend many years and lots of private money on the lobbying effort?

We don’t have to wait for the State.  We can regain local control of our stellar public schools.  If you want to start the process, please join me in encouraging the School Board to form an appropriate committee and interview knowledgeable attorneys.  We can start the research today.

http://www.calcharters.org/starting/landscape/

[2]California Charter School Association web site, April 25, 2012,

http://www.calcharters.org/starting/petition/

[3] California Charter School Association web site, April 25, 2012,
http://www.calcharters.org/CCSA_Conversions_Brief_2012.pdf, page 4, which references California Education Code 47605 (a) (2). Visit http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=47001-48000&file=47605-47608 for the full text.

[4]California Charter School Association web site, April 26, 2012,
http://www.calcharters.org/CCSA_Conversions_Brief_2012.pdf, page 3

[5]LA County Office of Education, Bulletin dated February 9, 2012,

http://www.lacoe.edu/Bulletins/20120221024244_IB%20174%20POSTED.pdf

[6] LCUSD approved Second Interim budget report dated March 6, 2012.

[7] California Charter School Association web site, May 9, 2012,

http://www.calcharters.org/starting/petition/

The teacher evaluation process — is it working?

The California Legislature may change the rules for teacher lay-offs this year. In order for the La Cañada School District to do lay-offs according to district need and teacher evaluation, the Board needs to act as a check and balance — to make sure the evaluation process is up-to-date and handled in a manner that is complete and will withstand scrutiny.

When we reviewed the Evaluation process a few months ago:

• We learned the number of teachers evaluated in a given year was half of what we were expecting. Why was that? Most teachers had been put on schedule to be evaluated every four years, instead of every two years.

• The Board and staff discussed how to modify the current evaluation process to make sure teachers are being evaluated on a two year schedule, rather than defaulting to a four year evaluation cycle.

(The four year cycle was meant for Master Teachers, but it turns out all tenured teachers that had been with the District for ten years and had a prior satisfactory evaluation were put on the four-year evaluation track. What is the impact? Some of the teachers that cause the deepest concerns among students and parents were on being evaluated every four years, instead of every two years. The District has a relatively new evaluation system that is impressive, but if the Administration is formally evaluating teachers every four years, it makes it difficult for the new evaluation system to have the intended positive impact.)

To continue this process of checks and balances, we now need a review of how observations and issues are added to teacher files outside of the regular evaluation process. This is another important piece of evaluation process.

One thing we could do,
• we could, as a School Board, ask to review the contents of teacher files. There is a process available for this.

Or, as an alternative,
• we could request a list of documentation in various teacher files that tells us the nature and results of the documentation and improvement strategies.

Teacher files have not been done in the 7 years I have been on the Board so this is a timely request.

The legislature could add flexibility to the lay-off process this year. We can’t wait for that to happen and then find out our evaluation system needs more documentation. That would be embarrassingly late.

This way, we can confirm, on behalf of the community, that the evaluation and documentation process is appropriately implemented.

This is a very relevant and appropriate request. We are the elected representatives of the owner of the District and we need to follow-up on the evaluation and documentation process.

My request, we add an agenda item to the next agenda to discuss how to review documentation in teacher files. (I had already asked to have this put on an agenda through the regular agenda-planning process. Request was denied. Susan Boyd, newly elected Board President has said she will be following up.)

This topic was discussed at the recent School Board Meeting on December 7, 2010. The Valley Sun published an article by Andrew Shortall about it and this post provides more background. http://www.lacanadaonline.com/Andew Shortall, title: Wilcox says teachers escape evaluations.

Quick follow-up:
Comment from one of my friends, “I have voted for you twice in ten years, why has it taken so [expletive deleted] long to get to this point?”

Answer:

I couldn’t get two more votes from my fellow board members to review the evaluation process for many years.  As some of you may recall, I tried to make this a campaign issue, but the candidates I supported lost the last school board election.   We have an extra-cautious and slow-moving board.  That can be a good thing sometimes, but when the slow process sacrifices quality education — well that just holds up progress.

Value-added tests scores

I have received several questions about value-added test scores and the La Cañada Unified School District (LCUSD).  I spoke with an Assistant Superintendent at the District Office.  To the best of my knowledge, the following is correct.

LCUSD has no policy prohibiting the publication of test scores related to individual teachers.

The contract with the teachers union does not prohibit the publishing of test scores related to individual teachers.  (There has been a misunderstanding about this.  Please help stamp-out emerging urban myths!)

In the past, scores by teacher have been occasionally published due to the teaching situation.  For example, when my children attended La Cañada Elementary School years ago, the sixth graders rotated classes and teachers.  All sixth graders had the same math teacher.  All sixth graders had the same English teacher.  When the math and English Language Arts scores were published, they related to one teacher at LCE for sixth grade.  I remember teachers nodding and laughing about this situation at a back-to-school night session with parents.

I can’t think of an example at La Cañada High School where this might have occurred with standardize test scores.  Usually more than one teacher teaches a tested subject in a given year.

However, test data is available to the public for the Advanced Placement classes, and many of those classes are taught by a single teacher.  For example, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Bio, AP Environmental Sciences … you get the idea.  In contrast, the AP English courses are taught by several teachers, so the reported test scores would combine results from those teachers.

As I get better information on this topic, I will post updates.

If you are new to the concept of value-added test scores, please see the LA Times articles on this topic.  There are several articles at the following site which explain value-added and the reasons that educators, parents and the community are interested.

(as of August 25, 2010)

If you are not familiar, La Cañada Unified School District is located in Los Angeles County, California.  Our students, grades 2 – 11, take the California standardized tests every year in math and English.  Tests are also given in science and social science, but not every year.  These tests are sometimes collectively referred to as the STAR tests.  The data is published by school and school district.

Charter Districts, my comments & questions

The following file was sent to District Staff on October 15, 2009, so they have advance notice on my areas of interest.  Staff encourages School Board members to send questions and comments in advance.  Please note that I understand this is a one hour session and we will not have time to cover every detail.  I am looking for insight into the options available.

My notes and questions are divided into six sections:

A.  Education
B.  Enrollment and Attendance
C.  Relationships with teachers and unions
D.  Finances
E.  Conversion process
F.  Governance

I refer to these charter elementary districts in the following notes.

Hickman Charter School District

http://www.hickman.k12.ca.us/index.php

Kingsburg Elementary Charter School District

http://www.kingsburg-elem.k12.ca.us/

A.  Education

Benefit
What is the benefit of converting to a charter district for a high achieving district? 

Charter Districts offer new educational opportunities
My general impression is that LCUSD can offer many opportunities without going charter.  However, we can’t go charter without an educational improvement proposal, so we would need to think about this carefully and determine the other possible benefits and limitations of going charter.  Is this basically true – the success of a conversion charter district application mostly depends on the education flexibility or improvement proposed?

B. Enrollment and Attendance

Enrollment
My understanding, if we have space available as a unified charter, we can open enrollment according to priorities.  This would be similar to what we do now, except we disclose the priority to the State in our Charter application.

For example, we might decide that:

• first open spaces will be available to the children of LCUSD full time employees
• next, children of employees who work full time in the District footprint
• next, determine another area, such as western La Cañada (aka Sagebrush)
• finally, open enrollment for any remaining space.

My understanding, the difference between our Unified District and a Unified Charter District, for a Charter District, the home districts of the incoming students don’t have the opportunity to release.  The parents notify the home district that their students will be attending a charter district and that’s it, no denials from the home district, so no appeals needed to the County.  Is this correct?

Attendance
I have also heard that Charter Districts can use the old rules for collecting attendance dollars.  If a family will be pulling their child from school and knows in advance (example, family wedding on the east coast during a school week), the parents can complete paperwork for their student to do self-study and the district will get paid by the State, starting with the first day of the absence.  This is similar (maybe the same) as the attendance rules that were in effect for many years prior to the current seat time ruling.  As I understand it, this is not a reason to become a charter, but it could be a side benefit.  The reasons to become charter are educational.  Is this attendance rule available to us if we decide to become a conversion charter?

Citizenship agreement to enroll from out-of-district
Both Hickman and Kingsburg have agreements for parents to sign before enrolling children in the charter district from out-of-district.  The agreement is mostly a behavior/supervision/citizenship contract, as far as I can tell.  Students agree to follow the rules.  The parents agree to do their part to help the District enforce rules and for things like homework supervision.  Hickman in particular strikes me as a place that wants parents to take the parent supervision seriously, teaching a child is viewed as a true partnership.  I suspect we have a similar document for our out-of-district kids, but want to make sure that, as a Charter District, we have the right to have this document signed before enrollment, and can enforce it if families don’t follow up on their part.  Eventually, we probably want to be able to send out-of-district students back to the home district if they don’t follow the rules.

C.  Relationships with teachers and unions

Unions, tenure
In my research, some charter schools and districts have unions, some do not.  Some charter schools and districts grant tenure, some do not.  I am interested in hearing from the attorney about her various experiences with charter districts, unions, tenure and related.  For example, if we convert to charter and have a few teachers who are not sustaining improvement, how does our situation change?

State education code and PERB rulings
Apparently, some California ed code applies to charter districts, some ed code does not.  Also, I gather some PERB (Public Employee Relations Board) rulings apply to charter schools and districts, some rulings do not.  How do we figure out which ed code and rulings would apply to a charter district we might form?  For example, I gather that some charters agree to lay off the newest teachers first, by hire date, similar to what we would need to do if lay-offs were looming.  Some charters have more flexibility, keeping the needed subjects/credentials and teachers with better evaluations.  Please ask the attorney to help us understand what would apply to us, the flexibility, benefits, and limitations.  I realize this is a limited workshop, but what is the range of options?  Some examples would be helpful.

Step and Column
Some charters appear to use step & column for salaries, but it is not clear that they all follow this model.  Charter schools appear to have more flexibility in hiring teachers with credentials in hard-to-hire subjects such as high-level math and science.  Considering a conversion charter, could we organize with flexibility in these areas?

D.  Finances
As I understand it, we would have two choices on state funding.  Are the following statements correct if we become a unified charter school district?

• Accept the charter block grant funding, but then can’t go back to revenue limit formula
• Stay with the revenue limit funding formula, similar to what we have now (Hickman & Kingsburg have both stayed with revenue limit, but note they monitor block grant amounts in case they want to change their minds.  They can go from revenue limit funding to the block grant funding, but not the other way.)

What funding is picked up with charter status and what funding is lost?

E.  Conversion process
In addition to the charter application which must be approved by the State (SBE & SPI), I have read about two votes needed to become a Charter District.These are the two votes I have read about.  Is this correct?

These are the two votes I have read about.  Is this correct? 

• a majority of the school board, three out of five
• a simple majority by the teachers’ union to either:
• agree to retain the current contract, but work under a charter district
• or, to agree to a new agreement or contract.

  In the charter school cases I have read about, all new contracts include due process.  Some conversion charter districts have a union, others appear to have a teachers’ association or similar.

  Does CSEA vote?
  Are there other votes we need to be aware of?

Traditional schools for families who elect that option
In completing the conversion charter application for a charter district, we would need to have non-charter schools ready to accept some of our students if the parents want the children educated in a traditional school setting.  I gather Kingsburg and Hickman don’t have a problem with this.  Their nearby Districts have declining enrollment and are happy to accept students.  Does the attorney see any major hurdles for us in placing students in nearby districts?

Traditional schools for current teachers who elect that option
In completing the conversion charter application for a charter district, we would need to have a traditional school (or several) ready to hire teachers should some teachers want to continuing working in a traditional school.  If we decide to move ahead with charter district research, I hope we would involve our teachers in the process.  And further, I hope they would all see great potential, and would want to stay with us.  In case some teachers don’t want to stay, does the attorney have a creative suggestion on how to arrange for placement of a teacher in a traditional school outside the district?

Conversion cost and grants for the conversion cost?
How much does it cost to convert to a charter district?  I understand there are grants available to help start-up and conversion charter schools.  Are there grants available to help districts converting to charter districts?

How many charter districts are there in California?  (Last list I saw had no date.  There were nine charter districts on that list.  None were unified school districts.)

F.  Governance
Kingsburg and Hickman have retained their school boards with the same authority and powers as before.  The board members are elected.  They hire and evaluate Superintendents, approve budgets, run bond elections.  (I don’t think either has run a parcel tax election.)  As a unified district, can we write a charter application that maintains the locally elected school board with its current role?  Are there ways the State can over rule the local board that would not happen under the traditional unified organization?

Both Kingsburg and Hickman have the option to revert back to standard elementary districts in the event it is no longer beneficial to be a charter district.  Given that we are a unified district, if we become a charter district; can we revert back to a standard unified district if the laws change?  In the area of Governance, are there additional ramifications we should consider?

Workshop on Charter Districts, 10/20/09

The School District has announced a workshop on
Charter Districts.
This information appears on the District web site, as noted below.

Workshop on Charter Districts
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
6pm
4490 Cornishon Ave, that’s the round building at the corner of Cornishon and Foothill.
Additional Parking across the street at Lanterman Auditorium.
The regular Board meeting is scheduled to begin at 7pm.

District web site navigation to this announcement:
www.lcusd.net
click Board of Education, found on top bar
click Meetings & Workshops, found in the list on the left
Scroll to the end of Meetings & Workshops

Goals in Closed Session

Released to the Valley Sun, October 7, 2009
Letter to the editor, for immediate release

I am a member of the La Cañada School Board, speaking for myself.

Question asked at the Candidate Forum, Tuesday, October 7:  The [La Cañada] School District has a goal to report out to the community on major Board-Superintendent goals.  Why are Superintendent goals discussed in closed session and is this in keeping with the open meeting laws?

Answers from incumbents:  The superintendent evaluation and personnel issues are discussed in closed session, but not Superintendent goals.  The goals discussed are similar to the public version called District goals, with the implication that closed session then does not matter.

Why is this issue important to voters?  There are no minutes in closed session and critical agreements/disagreements are not reported out.  I can’t say if board members have hidden unpopular votes – that would be a breach of closed session.

Where are we now?  The Board finished the Superintendent annual evaluation this summer.  Since then, the board has met with the Superintendent on his goals, for about ninety minutes, in closed session starting at 5pm, September 29.  We now have about twenty proposed goals, which is too many.  (Joel Peterson was absent, but this follows the pattern of prior years when Joel has participated.)  The Board and Superintendent have another closed session meeting scheduled on Superintendent goals,  4:30pm, Wednesday, October 14.

By my count, only three of the proposed goals are personnel issues.  In my opinion, the community is better served when the remaining goals are discussed, prioritized and voted on in public.

At the open session board meeting, March 3, 2009, (three-quarters through the audio recording, www.lcusd.net), I proposed a District goal to conduct Superintendent goal-setting in public and couldn’t get the two other votes needed.  The compromise was the goal on reporting out.  This pattern of evaluation and goal setting is not an oversight.

I am discussing two other topics on my website that were, in my opinion, mis-represented at the candidate forum.  See the top bar for a summary of election issues, http://cindywilcox.net

I encourage you to become an informed voter,
Cindy Wilcox

Teacher Salaries, Administrator Salaries

Once again, let me start by digressing.
Many years ago, some for-profit companies realized they were losing great engineers.  Where were the engineers going?  To the management track.  Why?  They needed to earn better salaries and the management track paid significantly more.  Some of these engineers became great managers and that was a benefit.  Some of them became mediocre or poor managers.  In the meantime, the company lost the talent of some excellent engineers.  Some of the great engineers truly wanted to stay in engineering but could not afford it.  Eventually many companies adjusted.  They made sure that great engineers could earn a competitive salary on the engineering track.  Great engineers did not have to become managers to increase their pay.

You can probably see the next paragraph coming …

At some point, many great teachers decide to become administrators to increase their pay.  Schools need talented administrators; so if a great teacher becomes a great administrator, well, that is valued and needed.  However, great teachers are in short supply.  If a great teacher wants to continue teaching and stay in the classroom, the gains in the salary schedule come slowly and then top out.  The world of education needs to come to grips with this challenge and find a way to pay and retain great teachers in the classroom.  Great teachers should not have to become administrators to increase their pay significantly.

By the way, why would anyone want to be a principal today?
It pays more, but consider the challenges.  Principals have tremendous responsibility for student outcomes.  They can hire teachers when there are openings, but it is almost impossible to release under performing tenured teachers when it becomes clear that the problem teacher is not improving or sustaining the improvement.  (Yes, we need due process, but it has to end at some reasonable point.)

If the restrictions on salary schedules and tenure were removed, principals would have the opportunity to pay deserving teachers more and motivate the rest.  In my opinion, that time has come.

We need to give administrators the tools they need to motivate improvement.  This is an important mandate for a school board, but one that is difficult to implement.  The union contract seriously restricts the types of options that are commonly available in other fields.

Would a charter district face these same limitations?  That would depend on the type of charter.   Is a charter district a possibility for La Cañada Unified?  That needs research.

Communities and school boards need to put the kids first.  We should not be a permanent employment agency for tenured teachers.  Great teachers and competent teachers will have jobs, with or without tenure.  These great teachers make a tremendous difference in the education and future for our children!

If you are talking to incumbents school board candidates, ask them if they are in favor of structural reform.  If they say yes, ask them why they haven’t voted for customer satisfaction surveys?  What took them so long to vote for teacher evaluation data?  Can they point to open session votes that show us that they are interested in systematic data collection and reform?

Teacher Salaries, Pay-for-Performance

Let me start by digressing.
Are great teachers paid enough?
In my opinion, no!  Great teachers deserve a much higher salary.

Are mediocre teachers paid enough?
In my opinion, mediocre teachers need to seek out coaching, raise their performance, and then should be eligible for a salary increase.

Are under performing teachers paid enough?  In my opinion, yes!
They are paid way too much.  If they don’t improve and sustain the improvement, they should be ushered out of the profession.

Teachers are currently paid according to a combination of two factors:  the number of years worked as teachers (steps or rows) and the number of qualified units of education (columns).  The actual “step and column” chart looks like a spreadsheet and is a public document.

Based on the old LCUSD web site, the step and column schedule for 2007-2008 can be found at:

(I don’t know how long this site will be available on-line.)

The “step and column” salary schedule has no adjustment for great teachers, mediocre teachers or under performing teachers.  Pay is based on years worked and units earned.

If you are wondering:
On the 2007-08 Professional Employee Salary Schedule, the first step, first column pays $42,991 per year.  The last step, last column pays $82,231 per year.  That does not include benefits, such as the District share of health benefits or the District contribution to the retirement plan.

The challenge is that a high performing teacher with ten years of service may earn a salary of $57,757.  In the classroom next door, there may be a mediocre teacher with fifteen years of service and more units earning $68,504.

Under the current system, there is no way for an administrator to increase the salary of a higher performing teacher.  This system is remarkably inefficient.  It under pays some stellar teachers and over pays a few notably poor teachers.

There are several arguments against pay-for-performance.  One is that teachers will stop cooperating.  They will take all their good ideas, use them in their own classroom and refuse to share them with their peers.  Another argument against pay-for-performance is that it only works if the school has a highly qualified principal who recognizes and rewards great teaching.  It is true that qualified principals are very important to strong schools.

A great teacher deserves a higher salary without regard to years in service or units earned.  A great teacher that takes the time to share ideas and work with peers deserves an even higher salary.

Qualified principals are capable of knowing who is working with peers and who is not.  (Although there are exceptions in every field, for-profit organizations also reward top performers and often reward those who work with peers and coach junior staff.)

There are ways for teachers to add to their earnings.  They can take on extra responsibilities.  The District pays a modest stipend to a teacher that becomes a coach, a sponsor of a major student organization, or similar position.  These are small amounts of money for a major increase in time and responsibility.  This is not the same as paying higher salaries or bonuses to great teachers.

The La Cañada Unified School District is prevented from implementing a performance-based salary schedule by the teacher contract.

Is there a way to change this?  In theory, changes in the salary system can be negotiated.  Do charter schools suffer from this restriction?  I think that depends on the type of charter.  In my opinion, it would be well-worth the time to research the options.

Blogging and Property Values

I’ve been told that discussing the tough topics can damage reputations.

While it would be difficult to document, I would suggest that school districts and communities that take on the crucial conversations are more likely to improve over time.

In my opinion, we need to discuss the problems and work to resolve them.  The reputation will follow.

If you are looking to buy a home in a superior public school district, I highly recommend the La Cañada Unified School District in La Cañada Flintridge, California.  (Note, city and school district boundaries are not the same.  For boundaries, check with a local realtor.)

This is a wonderful community with fabulous schools.  Our property values reflect that.

Most importantly, this community is not afraid of open, candid discussion about challenges.

We have many volunteer organizations in this City and region.  Join us in volunteering for a favorite project or cause.

And, please join the conversation.

School Board Election Issues

Collect feedback from parents and students,
especially at the High School level
The goal: Implement and refine an annual system for administrators to gather anonymous student and parent feedback, by teacher and course, on classroom instruction, homework assignments, assessment preparation and graded assessment review.

This is a goal I have proposed for many years.  It still has not received enough votes to be adopted.  The survey would be run by administrators, collected annually, and ask questions by teacher, and by course.

If you support this and are speaking with an incumbent candidate, ask why they haven’t voted to support this?  If a challenger, how would they vote?  An incumbent might say we do many surveys.  The District has done STEP surveys (new High School schedule) and assessment surveys recently.  None of these are annual surveys, by teacher, and by course.  These surveys don’t meet the routine need for data.

Or, an incumbent might say this has to be negotiated with the union.  No, we do not need to ask the union for permission to run a survey and must not start down that road.  When negotiating, school board trainers tell us to negotiate only those items which must be negotiated.  Other management issues need to be prioritized and handled by the District.  The District administrators can always ask for suggestions, but do not need to negotiate or delegate the tasks.

Checks and balances
Goal:  Implement legally appropriate processes to address under performing staff members and provide an annual summary to Governing Board of evaluation data (including numbers falling into each of the three overall evaluation categories) and an analysis of effectiveness.

I’m looking for data on the number of total evaluations, the number of satisfactory, needs improvement and unsatisfactory.  If all teachers receive satisfactory evaluations year after year, I would say the system is not working.

This goal has taken years to pass, but did pass about three months ago, just in time for the election.  I don’t expect to see the data until next year.  All five board members voted Yes with almost no discussion.  Ask incumbents why it took them so long to vote Yes.  Ask challengers if they would support receiving this data on an annual basis.

Standardized test data as part of teacher evaluation
It appears from the standardized test data that students in certain subjects, such as Geometry and Algebra II, are falling behind prior year test scores.  (If students scored advanced or proficient in math in the prior year, then we see they are falling behind when the overall scoring is lower in the following years.)  The decline in math scores at the High School has been going on for years.  Although the Board does not receive data by teacher, this data appears to include classes taught by tenured teachers.  What goals or policies would the candidate support to help the District improve student outcomes?

Possible answers include:

• We have a new High School principal with a background in teaching and coaching math.  Important follow-on question: have we given her the tools to motivate tenured teachers?
• We need to negotiate the teacher contract to remove the restriction on the use of test data for evaluation purposes.  That way the changes in student test data can be used as part of the evaluation process.
• Most charter schools don’t have the restriction on the use of test data for evaluation purposes.  We need to research the charter option.

Tenure protects under performing teachers
Tenure protects under performing K-12 teachers.  Ask candidates how the Board can support the District in firing under performing tenured teachers that refuse to improve, or are unable to sustain improvement?

Considerations:

• Some teachers need coaching to improve.  When they receive the coaching, but don’t improve, or don’t sustain the improvement, we need to release them.
• The Board needs to be diligent in requiring documentation be put in teacher files so that the District builds a history.  A long-term under performing teacher may have little or nothing in the file under the current system.  One of challenges to authentic evaluation:  most under performing teachers are on their best behavior when an administrator is in the room.
• When the District has “encouraged” tenure teachers into retirement or caused them to leave the District, it is usually because parents have documented the problems and given the administration the information needed.
• When the District has encouraged teachers out of the system, the cost has been ridiculously high.  Due process is crucial, but this is unacceptable.After five years on the School Board, my opinion is the due process is difficult to implement.  It depends heavily on parents and students to document and follow through on the paperwork.  While these parents may be thanked, they also risk being labeled “problem parents.”  If Charter schools have more flexibility, we need to research the options.

Seniority clause for new assignments
The current contract says that, all things being equal, when there is desirable opening for a teaching position, the senior teacher in the District with the correct credential will have first priority.  Does the school board candidate agree that is the best approach, and if not, what should be done about it?  (There is no good answers to this other than negotiate to change the contract or go to a charter format without this type of restriction.)

Seniority clause for lay-offs
When the District is forced to do lay-offs due to budget cuts or declining enrollment, the most junior teachers are laid off first.  The result is that some great teachers may be let go while some mediocre or poor teachers are retained.  What is the solution?  (Once again, no easy answers to this.)

Teacher contract requires that parents contact the teacher first
The LCUSD teacher contract requires parents to meet with the teacher first before going to the principal.  If the parent goes to the principal first, the principal must tell the parent to go talk to the teacher.  (Depending on the issue, the principal may check with the teacher on the issue.)  I agree that if a parent needs a child moved to the front third of the class to improve concentration, extra help with material, etc., the parent needs to see the teacher first.

I disagree that the parent needs to see the teacher first when there is a class-wide issue.  Why should I, as a parent, go in and talk to the teacher about the fact that the tests don’t match the current textbook/curriculum.  (Yes we have an assessment policy, but who is enforcing it and what is the enforcement process?  As a board member, I have had multiple reports of a few teachers with tests that do not match current textbook or curriculum.  The assessment policy has had a positive impact and there has been significant progress, but it has not solved all the problems.)

How can a board member improve this “requirement to see the teacher first for class-wide issues?”  (The District can negotiate to change the contract or go to a charter organization without this type of restriction.)

Wrap up comment:
If incumbents say they are in favor of serious reform, go back to the data collection mentioned in the first two items.  Why has it taken them so long to vote for evaluation data?  Why haven’t they voted for customer satisfaction data?  Are there other votes that convince us these candidates are serious about reform?