DECEMBER 2004: NEW SCHOOLS, RULES, and TOOLS
Three charter public
schools open January 2005 in Dover, Exeter, and Concord (see
complete listing of New Hampshire chartered public schools).
Each meets goals of
New Hampshire’s 2004 charter school pilot program. Every charter
school approved to date is unique in our state and from each other.
See our
complete listing.
The State Board’s
proposed revised standards for public school approval will be heard
December 15th (calendar).
Revisions address standards for curriculum K-12, instruction,
personnel, and related board policy, and give more emphasis to
achievement, flexibility, and accountability for results. See
our list
of significant proposed changes.
Legislation filed this
year will force discussion of charter schools, school reform and
school funding
(see our listing of bills and
topics). Our newsletter will keep you informed.
Representatives John Hunt and Lars Christiansen have bills filed to
correct charter school funding concerns. Other bills address
statewide school funding—special education, facilities, overall
funding, and more.
New tools from NH Center
for School Reform include a simplified newsletter format for
speedier downloading, regulation adds to information, news, and
local & national resources. And… we are going ON AIR with an
Education Forum for New Hampshire. Stay tuned.
Susan Hollins
2005 EDUCATION LEGISLATION
Special education,
charter schools, school funding, and more are topics for the this
year’s legislative agenda. Our
complete listing divides
bills into 4 categories: Charter School & Choice, Funding, General,
and Bills of Potential Interest. The NH Center for School Reform
web site
will keep you abreast of action and hearings on various bills
striving to become law.
CHARTER SCHOOL FUNDING
In 2002-2003, per pupil
costs for elementary, middle, and high school students in New
Hampshire ranged from a low of $5,323 per student in Litchfield to a
high of $19,030 per student in Waterville Valley. Statewide per
pupil costs averaged $7,000 to $8,000 two years ago. Then and now,
actual costs are higher than amounts posted since computations do
not include expenditures for facility financing, transportation, or
food service.
Take a look.
NH charter school
funding is STRESSFUL to folks wanting the pilot project and
these schools’ to thrive and survive a fair review. The 1995 NH
charter law set reduced per pupil funding at a no-less-than 80%
level. However, the weighted formula for state adequacy funding was
dismissed last May without considering state-authorized charter
schools. Charter school students were left with a per pupil
allocation of $3400—and this $3400 must also cover expenditures for
facility financing and transportation. Until the formula is
corrected and without their sending town’s voluntary support, new
chartered public school students receive the equivalent of 30% of
funding provided to all other public school students in New
Hampshire (more
information about NH funding of charter schools).
Not every school has the
same financial needs or requirements. Some charter schools are
meeting a need for unmet services and have strong potential for
district allocations at fair and equitable levels. Other schools are
operating within one SAU just for that one SAU’s current students
and can mostly redistribute existing funding (e.g. take 10% of
current students and 10% of current funding and redeploy resources
to serve students differently).
Open enrollment charter
schools serving multiple districts need a solution: 1) an
appropriation or transfer to assure state-authorized, statewide
charter school students have a reasonable amount of state-authorized
funding, 2) weighting the state’s adequacy aid for charter school
students, and 3) providing a facility allowance per student (seems
to have many benefits besides being fair). The arts high school in
Dover will need operational funds within 2-3 weeks to open in
January, as planned.
TEACHER SELECTION & COMPENSATION: WHY AND HOW WE SPEND MONEY
The single greatest
school expenditure is faculty. Salary schedules based on degrees and
years of experience are standard. But a
newly-released
2004 report (National Council on Teacher Quality) challenges
this pay-schedule approach, offering persuasive information that
school should pay for those teacher features that most likely
related to higher student achievement. The
report
reviews salary schedule factors and the impact of each on increased
student achievement.
The
report
questions increased pay based on such standards as teacher
certification, an education degree, earning a master’s degree, or
more than 5 years teaching experience suggesting that teacher
factors we should reward with increased salary are strong academic
backgrounds from rigorous colleges, advanced training in a subject
specialty, and specific personal qualities. Teachers who generate
high achievement apparently are high achieving academically
themselves, responsible, critical thinkers, organized, motivated,
respectful, and share goals of the organization.
New Hampshire’s first
charter schools are attracting and hiring teacher applicants with
qualities and backgrounds consistent with this new report. The
challenge, however, is holding on to non-education-trained folks
with factorial-analyzed qualities. The
report
suggests that high-achieving college grads with strong academic
backgrounds may have higher turnover because their backgrounds may
give them more employment options. Ergo, staying in teaching if the
situation isn’t satisfying may be less likely. A very interesting
read.
GOING ON AIR
Sophisticated School
Talk with Sue Hollins will air at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesdays
beginning December 15th. Tune in to
WKXL AM 1450 for this new
education forum. The first shows will interview Commissioner Nominee
John Graziano, current education leaders, as well as
faculty/directors of new charter schools. The show will profile
upcoming legislation and outstanding programs and people in all New
Hampshire schools. Education issues will soon be on air. We’ll post
show times on our calendar and interviews.
RIGHT TO KNOW
Current laws safeguard
the public’s right to know what its government is doing and these
apply to every public school board. School boards carry out a
government function—public education. The
Attorney General’s Office
posts an excellent document explaining Right to Know statutory
provisions for the State of New Hampshire. In the near future, we
will be posting a brief compliance checklist on
our website. Check back soon.
EVALUATION OF
PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL PROGRAM
Buried and confused by
dozens of national good school-bad school charter school reports? No
wonder news readers are confused by dozens of conflicting good
school/bad school reports about charter schools. It’s fairly
impossible to use the same measures to assess and compare a
heterogeneous group of 300 students coming from one feeder school
system with a homogeneous group of 300 highly at-risk students from
30 different feeder school districts. This is why comparative
studies of student achievement (charter public schools vs.
non-charter public schools) are usually so unreliable. Assessment
measures are needed to report academic gains of charter school
students from point of school entry and that look at other measures
of accomplishment than just the state’s once yearly annual
average-all-the-kids-together assessment.
The
US Office of Education has issued a final report and study
evaluating the nation-wide phenomena of the independent chartered
public schools. And the report suggests, as many careful studies
have suggested: mission achieved.
Final report 2004
By the US Office of
Education
PARENT
NETWORK FOR PARENTS IN CHARTER SCHOOLS
Nowhere is parent
support more essential than in new-start public chartered schools.
Many of the schools request 100% parent participation. Schools
measure their success based on parent satisfaction and
participation. And parents have many questions about these new
schools their children attend: what is a charter school? Why does my
child get 30% funding and my neighbor’s child have full funding? How
do parents help the school succeed?
To meet parent needs, NH
Center for School Reform has initiated a
Parent Network, bringing information from all over the country
on best ideas for parent support and involvement. Visiting Seacoast
Charter School in Stratham, NH (grades ¾), we learned this school
already has 100% parent participation…vital parent contributions
from physics lessons to Boston museum excursions.