News of Governor Rick Snyder’s “Borderless Schools” proposal, or what I have termed his Forced Choice proposal, surfaced again this week when Michigan State Sentaor Phil Pavlov (R – St. Clair) reported that he hopes to have bills introduced into the senate this August and September. Said Pavlov, “There’s going to be a lot of work,” he said. “We need to first of all identify what choice is and what cross-district means. We also have to be able to identify what capacity means. Capacity’s going to be the big question here.”
Indeed it is. At the recent community forum on the topic, graciously hosted by local state Representative Tim Bledsoe (D – Grosse Pointe), while the attendees were appreciative of the dialog, frustration mounted when all parties acknowledged that until “capacity” was defined, it would be very difficult to quantify the potential effect of Forced Choice.
Why is capacity the central question? As I shared in my role at the local forum, we must remember that School of Choice has been an option for Michigan public schools since Proposal A was adopted by voters in 1994. Since school operating revenues are predicated on student enrollment, many schools – indeed 71% of all Wayne, Oakland and Macomb County schools, participate in Schools of Choice to some degree or another. The vast majority of those 71% do so on a limited basis, often opening only a predefined number of seats and often at the lower elementary level.
But they do so because they view they have “capacity” to serve the students and therefore can increase their enrollment (or revenue) by doing so. Their motive is to increase revenue and therefore they have motive to scope what they deem as their excess “capacity.” Schools that do not participate in School of Choice basically acknowledge that they are not interested in this revenue option and therefore have no driver to define excess “capacity”.
Sen. Pavlov appears to have a different view when he says, “When you have nearly 70 to 80 percent of all school districts in this state that are facing declining enrollment, you would think that capacity wouldn’t be a big issue. You would think the ability to take new students would be there. That’s not the message we’re getting back.”
Here’s why, Senator Pavlov. When those same 70 to 80 percent of districts in declining enrollment lose those students, they also lose the revenue they once brought. As revenue declines and other expenses increase (e.g. healthcare, retirement) school districts realize they must scale back staff as, logically, with fewer students fewer teachers are therefore required. Classroom space therefore doesn’t define capacity, but rather the level of teaching staff does.
In the Grosse Pointe Public School System, the cornerstone of the budgeting process is our projection of average class size. Once we project enrollment at all levels, we then determine what our average class size at all levels should be, and THEN we project how many teachers we need. We do not over staff and therefore we don’t have excess “capacity.” Frankly, it is quite disturbing to me that Lansing policy makers do not understand this budget dynamic; however, it speaks volumes.
Can we really believe they don’t get that? Or is their another agenda in motion. Senator Pavlov may be providing a glimpse of that when, in his interview with the Gongwer News Service:
Mr. Pavlov said he wants a more expansive charter school proposal than Mr. Snyder’s. “If a charter school option works for that is failing, it should also work for a district that is successful,” Pavlov said.
Asked if that could mean eliminating the cap on universities, which can sponsor no more than 150 charter schools, or some other type of more general relaxing of the cap, Mr. Pavlov said, “What we want to be looking at is quality over quantity. If we can land on a method that gets us quality charters across the state, that’s where the people of Michigan would benefit most.”
With a clear agenda to expand charters beyond their traditional urban market centers, of what concern to Senator Pavlov is the collateral damage wrought on the big “name brands” of the suburban public schools by the Forced Choice proposal? Or is that the intent? Before being accused of Oliver Stone levels of conspiracy theory, consider this. A Fordham Institute study of charter schools across the country showed a small minority opt into their state’s school employee retirement system (in Michigan, MPSERS). In fact in Michigan, it’s only 28%. Read more here.
For frequent readers of this blog, you know where I’m headed. I’ve written extensively about how MPSERS costs are crippling school budgets. MPSERS is our second largest expense behind salaries, and growing by leaps and bounds. How enticing to policy makers and others to opt out of that expense. I’m not here to defend teacher and other school employee pensions, but rather state the stark reality that we are on the hook for this liability that is woefully underfunded. Expanding charter schools, which will inevitably decrease the revenue flowing into the retirement system will only exacerbate the unfunded liability.
This has been a frequent ploy in Lansing, to bind different pieces of legislation. So here we have yet another example. In this case, my opposition to Forced Choice is primarily on the basis that communities are losing almost all influence on policy and economic decisions for their local public schools.
I hope those of you who are concerned about this consider dropping a note to Sen. Pavlov or visiting him during his office hours, conveniently listed on his web page.