This is a report to the members of the Minesota Association of School Administrators (MASA) by Charlie Kyte, Executive Director.
On the Road with Charlie - July 8, 2011 from MASA on Vimeo.
The video and audio podcast above are each about 6 minutes long.
DISGUSTED ON AT LEAST TWO LEVELS:
I’m disgusted with the whole situation at the state level and more specifically about the use of school funds that will most likely be used to settle the whole matter.
1) What a black eye for our state when our elected officials can’t negotiate the best deal for their side as possible, but yet make the compromises necessary to keep our government functioning.
2) Using more school aid shifts as a one-time solution to balance the budget only puts the problem off for a couple of more years. We have had a change of parties in both the Governors Office and in the legislative majorities and yet they are using the same old failed tricks to pretend to come to a solution.
Disgusting!!!!!!
STATE SHUTDOWN MAY BE PROLONGED:
Although any difficult negotiation could end on almost a moments notice, the standoff on the Minnesota state budget looks like it could continue for some time to come. In the short term (2-3 weeks) the greatest harm may be to the states reputation. We are moving from ‘the state that works’ to ‘the state that can’t get its act together’.
In the longer term the shutdown of government will cause some real problems both in the public and in the private sectors. Many of the functions of government are what I might characterize as ‘back office’ functions. The media reports on things like the closure of parks. The real problems are loss of credit ratings, delay of a wide variety of permits required to build our economy and the loss of the productivity of the state employees.
FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS:
The Judge presiding over the decisions about essential state services during a shutdown initially said that the basic state aid to school districts must continue. This week the order was amended to include special education aids. We say ‘thanks’ to MSBA for bringing forward the petitions to the judge on these matters.
STATE AID SHIFTING:
For the last several biennium’s our elected leaders have pretended to solve the states budget problem with the one time fix of shifting state aid for schools so that schools receive less of their aid in the current year and the rest is provided in a delayed payment a year later. This is classic ‘kick the can down the road’ behavior.
Now we have supposedly a more responsible legislative majority and Governor, and you what they are considering? Another ‘kick down the road’! Both sides in the state budget dispute are talking about shifting the school aids further to the 60-40 levels.
As the shift is increased, schools will see less money in the current year causing increased borrowing for cash flow purposes. Eventually if the state ever undoes the shift the politicians will strut around in their local parades claiming to have provided new money for schools when in fact they are simply paying the shift back. The result will be no new money for schools, continued ‘layoffs’ of staff and a slow deterioration of opportunities for the education of our children.
A shift from the present 70-30 split to a 60-40 split will lift about $400 million away from schools this year. One observer said that shifting is the equivalent of hitting children in places where the bruises don’t show. It allows politicians to pretend they aren’t hurting the education of children when they are actually doing so.
SCHOOL LEADERS WANT MANDATE RELIEF:
Almost lost in the budget debate is the desire on the part of school leaders to see some relief from the onerous mandates that are placed upon our schools. Most of these mandate changes did make their way through the legislative process and we hope they won’t be abandoned in a final deal.
Specifically, school leaders want relief from the maintenance of effort requirement on school counselors, modest changes in PELRA such as a waiver of the January 15th negotiation penalty on school districts and elimination of the 2% set aside requirements for staff development.
Further school leaders want to see some modest changes in the Tenure Law so that schools have a bit more time prior to making tenure decisions, minor changes to the Seniority Law so that we can retain ‘key’ employees as necessary and finally some changes to the Teacher Dismissal Laws so that we schools can remove the occasional non-performing teacher in a cost and time efficient way.
All of these changes will help schools to operate more efficiently and will help to ensure that students be taught by the best teachers possible. This is really not too much to ask from our elected and appointed leaders!
50+ SUPERINTENDENT VACANCIES THIS YEAR:
Once again the turnover of Superintendents and Central Office Administrators is significant. We have had over 50 vacancies for Superintendents caused by retirements and people moving to new positions. This is about 1 in every 7 of the Superintendents in the state.
Principals that are moving to superintendent positions have filled many vacancies. Existing Superintendents are moving from one position to another fill others. We still have a few positions to fill and a few more vacancies will be posted soon.
NECROLOGY—JOHN B. DAVIS:
As younger Superintendents, Greg Vandal and I were asked to make the rebuttal to then Governor Arne Carlson at a joint meeting of the Senate and House Education Committees in about 1991 when the Governor proposed that we use vouchers as the way to fund our public schools. I think Greg and I did a good job that day and afterwards John B. Davis, by then retired put a hand on my shoulder and said “young man, you did a good job for public education today!”
John B. Davis was Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, President of Macalester College and later rescued the MN Children’s Theater from the depths of a terrible scandal. He was one of my heroes. John died this week at age 89 after a long and fruitful life. He will be missed.
