Reform 2.0: Dead End The Department of Education

In the grand scheme of things, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) is about as important to us as the Lieutenant Governor's office.  I understand it employs about 450 people, no doubt very expensive people.  We know they set standards, organize statewide testing and disburse the billions of dollars in the state budget.  They also pass judgment on various local district actions, like building and remodels.

As you may know, I've been following the exploits of the Robbinsdale School District for some years now.  And I can't remember any action or position or function that the District handled that MDE did or could have improved.  As such, we should abolish it.

But we have to have standards MDE would say, meaning local districts couldn't be trusted.  As recent events in Atlanta showed, there is no guarantee of enforcement regardless.  And every time the locals protest that the standards and testing are too hard, the bar is lowered.  Every time.  In other words, the State cannot be counted on to uphold any standards truly worth upholding.  We may as well leave it up to the local districts.

The current absurdly complex funding formulas should also be scrapped.  A one or two page form should be enough, filed like an Income Tax return by the districts to get their state money per student.  Audits are already being done by the State Auditor's office.  So again I say, let's eliminate this long obsolete agency and concept.  The taxpayers win and in fact the schools win, not having to waste time pleasing mere second guessers.

Comments

[Hiram]

The Department of Education is pretty limited in what it can do. The one page solution to school funding is superficially appealing but kids and districts have different needs, and they can't be funded the same.

[Hiram]

"we have to have standards MDE would say, meaning local districts couldn't be trusted."

The state constitution says education in Minnesota must be uniform. That can't happen if each district sets it's own standards. We must also recognize that every kid in Minnesota has the same right to a good education, regardless of which school he goes to, or which district he lives. The fact is, it's more expensive to education kids in some areas of the state than it is in others. But in every case, the responsible governing unit, the one whose obligations are set down in the state's constitution is the state.

My understanding of the Atlanta school situation is that the fraud was committed on the local level. Whenever we use high stakes tests, we are establishing incentives for fraud. But it's also the case that high stakes tests inevitably influence how our children are taught even when fraud isn't present. It's the social science application of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: The act of measuring something affects the thing measured. In Minnesota, with it's 450 employees, the MDE could not possibly monitor the more than 300 school districts who do testing. That simply isn't a part of their job description.

[J. Ewing]

How about a different approach? I think the MDE performs two valuable services that I do not want eliminated but strengthened. The more important is tracking the budgets and the test results of all the districts in Minnesota. These can then (with a lot of digging around in the data) be translated to a chart of expenditures versus student performance. I shouldn't have to do that, and the MDE has people smart enough to do this and publish it.

The second thing they do, as hiram suggests, is to monitor the "uniform schools" requirement by measuring all public schools to the same standard (and making the standard). Now I think some of the state standards are pretty good and some are exercises in political correctness or dumbing down, which are a lot alike, actually. I don't see the need for Minnesota to have its own standard and the test that goes with it, but Iowa and Wisconsin both do, so I suppose the "laboratory of the states" idea-- federalism-- suggests no harm in MN having a unique one. It just needs surgery to remove the extra left arms.

The more important reforms would be done by the MDE, but would have to be imposed upon it by the legislature. The first, I agree, is to get rid of the stupid funding formula and replace it with one that says 1 kid gets 1 kid's worth of funding. Distinguishing between elementary, middle and high school could continue as at present, though. (This would have to be phased in, it's a radical change, but it IS "uniform.") THEN, individual districts could appeal to the legislature and request an additional block grant, if they had specific and credible plans for using the money to improve student achievement (and achieved it!) The basic education funding could then be tied to inflation rather than the union's ridiculous demands. Or maybe not, since some schools are more efficient and don't "need" the extra money of being brought to state average per-pupil aid.

The aecond thing (and done prior to and well would make the first much easier) the legislature should require is that MDE create a program-based budget that all districts are required to use and report with (they are required now to report on a standard budget chart of accounts). Rather than an exercise for MDE, the budget would become a document for managing the district, pointing out quickly which things were too expensive to continue doing. [Example: chess club costs us $20 per student, girls gymnastics over $1100 per student. Cut girls gymnastics or find a cheaper way.] Especially when the MDE compares these budgets at year end, additional glaring "extravagances" will come to light, as we see one district teaching the foreign language requirement for, maybe, 25% of what it costs our district. How are they doing that? Or comparing results on the tests, we find them outdoing us 2:1 while spending the same.

Sure, you would save a little, maybe a half million bucks (450*$100,000/year) by eliminating MDE, but the big money in education is in getting better student achievement with less money. There's billions there.

[Hiram]

What's the point of tracking the budgets if you can't do anything about them? The problem is that different kids cost different amounts to educate. And remember, the constitution says the education must be uniform, not the amount of spending per kid.

[J. Ewing]

Ah, but since educational achievement is solely and completely a matter of how much money is spent, then uniform spending must result in uniformly (high) achievement, yes? It is what we are always told by our legislators, unions, and professional educators, so how can it be otherwise?

The problem isn't that different kids cost different amounts to educate, because it all averages out, eventually. The problem is that different schools educate at vastly different rates of cost-effectiveness, at LEAST 4:1. Comparing that cost-effectiveness at the program level within and between schools could rapidly bring up effectiveness while lowering total cost.

[Hiram]

"Comparing that cost-effectiveness at the program level within and between schools could rapidly bring up effectiveness while lowering total cost."

And if pigs had wings, it's possible that they could fly. Comparing apples and Volkswagens won't make them the same, comparing them won't even affect the cost disparity between them. Some kids just cost more to educate than others. In terms of educational impact, they might even be the ones who are most cost effective.

We don't average out students. Each kid is unique and that uniqueness must be recognized. We must educate all of our children, not just those at the 50th percentile.

[J. Ewing]

You are missing the point. Having the MDE create a standardized "program based budget" permits these comparisons to be made within and between school districts, based on the total cost of each of these programs (that is, across all students in that program). The only difference between this and current practice is the form of the budget. Rather than nebulous line items like "total professional instructional staff salaries" (which is NOT teacher pay), the program-based budget has line items like "cost to meet high school foreign language requirement" or "cost of senior high women's volleyball," both total and per "active participant." It becomes immediately obvious which costs are out of whack with others, and then the district can go looking for reasons. You can't manage without information, yet that is exactly what the current budgeting mandates require of our school districts. Few have the expertise or time to maintain two sets of books, one program-based for managing the district well and the other for required state reporting.

Besides, it would cost almost nothing for MDE to create this, and the transition for the districts would be dirt simple if MDE also provided the (available standard) software. Nobody would require the district to actually use budget data to improve cost-performance, but right now they are actually prevented from doing so. No wonder their only solution is mo' money.

[Hiram]

It's easy to make comparisons, it's just hard to make them useful. There are are a lot of kids in Minnesota who can be compared to each other. One could spend all day doing it.

[Hiram]

Something to keep in mind generally, is that the state is much more a conduit of funds, to people and other levels of government, than it is a free standing operating entity itself. State government itself costs about a billion dollars a year. The budget for the current biennium, at the moment, is about 36 billion dollars a year. We could reorganize and reform literally out of existence, and we would save only about a billion bucks.

[J. Ewing]

My point exactly. Rather than eliminate MDE and save a half-MILLION (not billion) dollars, why not make it into something useful that WILL save a billion dollars?

Again, we're not comparing any two students, or any two groups of students. We're comparing the cost of two "competing" school systems, on various specific "products" (like providing women's high school volleyball, for example). Assume, for the moment, that school A and school B both field such a team, and that both hire a coach at, say $48K/year. Further, no other costs (uniforms, travel, equipment, practice space rental, trainer salaries, etc.) count. School A fields one full team-- 6 players, while B fields 2 full varsity squads plus a full freshman squad, 24 players. Cost for A is $8K per active participant, and for B it is $2K per active participant. Now, assume A is so small there aren't 11 boys to play football, and only 8 wanting to play basketball, but the history teacher coaches basketball after school, for $8000/year additional salary, so it's "program based budget is $8k total and $1K per active participant.

Now, here's what the two schools CAN (but are not required to) do: A notices that volleyball is the most expensive sport it has, by 8:1. It looks for ways to reduce the cost or, perhaps, offers something cheaper or more popular or, at last resort, drops it. They could get to the same conclusion by noting that B does it for only $2K/year, and try to do it the way B does.

B, on the other hand, looks at A's cost of football and sees a zero, and decides that their football program is worth more than that. But A's volleyball team routinely beats the socks off of B's, so B wants to know if spending more money would improve their program, or what is A doing "right" that could be taught to B. (Note: this is far more important in academics than in sports.)

Sounds not only useful, but something that the District could and SHOULD spend a lot of time doing, rather than promoting another levy or lobbying for mo' money.

[Hiram]

"We're comparing the cost of two "competing" school systems,"

You are, I am not. And how does a school system in say Lake of the Woods where a kid may spend hours on a bus, compete with Minneapolis where a kid might walk to school?

[J. Ewing]

You're being difficult. The cost of bus transportation per "active participant" in LotW will be higher than in Mpls, and the total amount spent may even be higher. Then LotW says to themselves, "yes, but we have more kids riding and they ride further." End of comparison. But suppose LotW meets the senior high history requirement for a cost per pupil that is 1/4 that of Mpls, while having twice as high a percentage pass the standardized test? Wouldn't Mpls want to know if there is something LotW is doing that Mpls could do to reduce cost and improve performance in their HS history program?

[anonymous]

J, I just can't see how you can say every kid can (or even should) cost the same. By my best guess, the moment a child gets a special ed IEP the cost roughly doubles; a one-on-one para is going to double that figure again. And those extra services are required, but not funded, by the feds.

The child who needs ELL instruction is inherently way more expensve than the native english speaker. Kids who have tons of enrichment over the summer cost less than kids who have to do remedial learning each fall.

It's regrettable, but the costs associated with haves and the have nots are wildly different, and a classroom of Wayzata kids doesn't cost the same as a classroom full of St. Paul kids.

--Annie

[Hiram]

"Wouldn't Mpls want to know if there is something LotW is doing that Mpls could do to reduce cost and improve performance in their HS history program?"

I think the folks in Minneapolis have a pretty good sense of what the problems are.

[J. Ewing]

Annie, I agree with you for the most part. Not all kids cost the same. But when you put them into "programs" like special Ed or ELL, they DO end up costing the same (or should) from one school to the next and, if not, somebody should be asking why. That these programs might cost more in EVERY school would be a reason for the district to ask for extra money from the legislature, on top of the normal, average, per-pupil, but at least that would be right out in the open. Right now, we short-change maybe 10 "normal" kids just to cover the added cost of one SE kid, and that's not right. Transparency!

There may be perfectly sensible reasons why these costs differ between schools, too, but right now the school district budget gives no clues whatsoever about total or per-pupil expenditures in these areas, and thus no possible way to compare them with what other school districts are doing. Isn't that supposed to be the logic for local school boards, anyway, that they each innovate and find better ways? And shouldn't the purpose of the MDE be to provide not only the tools and measurements, but a facility for sharing information on "best practices"? I'm trying to understand why the tremendous resistance to a simple improvement to the way the district's financial books are kept.

hiram, I think you're just flat-up wrong. the folks in Mpls have absolutely no clue why their performance is so abysmal while costs are so bleeping high. If they did, they would have fixed these problems long ago. Of course, one could postulate the old Clinton conundrum, as to whether they were criminal or simply incompetent, but you may recall the Clintons, likewise, chose the incompetency explanation every time.

[Hiram]

"But when you put them into "programs" like special Ed or ELL, they DO end up costing the same (or should) from one school to the next and, if not, somebody should be asking why."

Why should even similarly situated kids cost the same? Every kid is different, and requires different things from the system.

[J. Ewing]

OK, let's take kid #1243372. Call her Emily. She needs some Special Ed because of severe birth defects. She starts out in Robbinsdale schools and her IEP there costs the District $47,000, more than what it costs to educate 5 "normal" kids (although we wouldn't know that without program-based budgeting). NOW, her parents decide to move to Minneapolis, and her IEP-- exactly the same-- costs $92,000. Shouldn't SOMEBODY be asking WHY? Shouldn't the school's budget provide the information needed to prompt such questions? Why do you want to hide vital and important information from the Board, the taxpayers, and the legislature?

I'm not saying that every child costs exactly the same to educate. I am saying that is the place to start, and that we don't change that (particularly upwards) unless we know WHY we are doing it. Right now, the state aid formula says the every kid in a given school district costs exactly the same amount to educate; there is absolutely no distinction made. Yet between school districts there are vast differences in this state aid amount, meaning that every kid in Robbinsdale costs about half as much to educate as does a kid in Minneapolis (any kid). Does that make any sense at all?

[Hiram]

Shouldn't SOMEBODY be asking WHY?

Sure. The answer is, I suppose, beef up the department of education by hiring and paying whose job it is to ask that sort of question, instead of teaching, I suppose.

[Speed Gibson]

We must as a society ask whether the underlying philosophy of mainstreaming, good as it might feel to us the lucky is truly what's best for the unlucky who need special programs. I'd point out that even now, mainstreaming basically ends at the schoolhouse door. Spec. Ed. has their own rooms, teachers, etc. on the inside.

[J. Ewing]

We already pay school boards and administrations in every district to, supposedly, manage the finances of the district for maximum benefit to the students. The general population pays the taxes and casts ballots to elect the school boards, and thus has a deep financial interest in seeing that the money is spent wisely, which the current budget process actively prevents but a program-based budget makes plain. Our legislators supposedly make funding decisions based on clear information about what schools are doing the most with the money they are given, and which state regulations cost the most and/or benefit the least.

In other words, we don't need to pay somebody else to do it, we just need to demand that those already charged with it do their jobs, giving them the simple tools to do so.