President Trump is proposing a massive change
in the federal government’s role in education: the diversion of $10
billion from a host of student-friendly programs into federal programs
to expand corporate charter schools and vouchers for private schools. As
the Washington Post reports:
“Funding
for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service
loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that
public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and
other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut
$10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, according to budget
documents obtained by The Washington Post.”
The
budget proposal calls for a net $9.2 billion cut to department spending,
or 13.6 percent of the spending level Congress approved last month. It
is likely to meet resistance on Capitol Hill because of strong
constituencies seeking to protect current funding, ideological
opposition to vouchers and criticism of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
DeVos, a billionaire Republican donor, became a household name during a bruising Senate confirmation battle. With no experience in teaching or school administration, she has had a rocky start to her first government job.
Video
What’s in Trump’s proposed education budget
In January, she was chased away from the first public school in Washington, D.C., that she visited (as seen in the photo above).
Last week she was booed by graduating students while giving a commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University.
DeVos’ Priorities The
Trump budget proposal calls for the creation of a new $1 billion
federal grant program under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary
School Act (or ESSA, which has been rebranded as the Every Student
Succeeds Act), which will allow students to take federal, state and
local dollars to their public school of choice. That money would be
added to the $15.9 billion that the Title I program will receive under
the 2017 budget. Current funding is not “portable” to public schools of choice, according to Education Week.
Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, told Education Week that
Congress rejected the idea of allowing Title I funds to follow students
to the school of their choice when lawmakers passed the Every Student
Succeeds Act in 2015. In general, she said she was deeply concerned
about the ssage the budget proposal sends.
“This is the first
direct threat on ESSA opportunity and ESSA success,” she said.
“President Trump is completely undermining federal funding to support
key elements of the law that Congress passed less than two years ago.”
While
DeVos champions a school “choice” agenda, her proposal would actually
create a federal program that would supersede state and local control of
charter schools and voucher programs.
Colorado Rep. Jared Polis,
the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee for K-12, told Education
Week the proposal clashed with the intent of Congress in reauthorizing
ESSA. “We never set it up in a way so that those funds could be diverted
to support private schools,” he said.
Polis also slammed the
budget proposal for shifting money away from schools with high levels of
poverty to wealthier schools. And he said it would damage prospects for
poor students and their families.
“I hope that it is dead on
arrival in the House,” Polis said. “Traditionally, presidents haven’t
had their way [with the budget]. I hope we keep with that tradition.”
Sen.
Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Senate
education committee, issued a statement saying, “This budget would
weaken communities by eliminating funding
for after-school programs, grant aid for struggling college students
and teacher and principal training programs, and so much more—even
Special Olympics education programs.”
I was invited to join Tom Shelton and Brent McKim for a conversation on
charter schools in Kentucky during a recent edition of Eastern Standard,
hosted by WEKU's John Hingsbergen.
Here's the station promo:
Kentucky Charter Schools on Eastern Standard
ByJohn Hingsbergen•May 8, 2017
Host John Hingsbergen sat down with Drs. Richard Day and Tom Shelton in
our studio to talk about Charter schools in Kentucky. We also heard from
Brent Mckim out of Lousiville and Tiffany Williams from a Cincinnati
Charter school via phone.
Photo by Marisa Hempel.
Kentucky’s General Assembly has passed legislation that will allow Charter schools to open as early as next year.
On this week’s EST, we’ll learn more about Charter schools
and where they’re most likely to first appear in the Commonwealth.
Guests on this week's program include:
Richard Day: EKU's Faculty Regent, and Professor at Eastern Kentucky University's School of Clinical Educator Preparation.
Brent
Mckim: President of Jefferson County Teacher’s Association: Brent was a
high school physics teacher for fifteen years, and has been president
of JCTA since 2001. He also lobbies the state legislature on behalf of
members and is the chair of the representative council. Brent also
serves on the National Education Association’s Committee on Legislation.
Dr.
Tom Shelton: formerly Fayette County Superintendent and Executive
director of The Kentucky Association of School Superintendents (KASS).
Dr. Shelton is also assistant professor of education leadership at
Eastern Kentucky University.
We will also be hearing from Tiffany
Williams, Principal of the K-6 school at Cincinnati College Preparatory
Academy in Ohio, a K-12 Charter school to tell us of the successes of
their Charter, which has been educating students since 1999.
Send your questions or comments before the show to wekueasternstandard@gmail.com
, or call 859-622-1657 and leave a message, or call in when you tune in
for EST Thursday morning at 11:00 on 88-9 WEKU. You can also post a
comment or question for our guests regarding charter schools in Kentucky
to our Facebook page, or tweet @WEKUEST.
Although he hasn’t set a
date, Bevin has indicated he will call a special session on tax reform
sometime in the fall. He has asked law firms to bid on writing a new tax
code for Kentucky, with a deadline of late September to deliver that
document.
But legislators can’t wait
until late September to take on something as big, complex, important and
politically volatile as overhauling the tax code. And they can’t rely
on an outside contractor to write a code that will be fair to citizens
and generate enough money to provide government services they need and
demand.
Bevin and other Republicans
seem taken with the idea of lowering income taxes and increasing sales
taxes, which they call consumption taxes.
It’s an approach that has been disastrous in Kansas,
where legislators this week are debating a $1 billion tax increase to
fill their budget gap, and there’s no reason to believe it could be
successful here.
Income taxes account for 43
percent of Kentucky’s revenue. Taking a chunk out could dig a deep hole
that would be hard to fill by increasing sales taxes, which now
contribute 33 percent of the state’s revenue.
Cutting the top income tax
rate from 6 percent to 5 percent, she said, would cut taxes for the
wealthiest 1 percent of Kentucky taxpayers by $7,000 a year, while
adding another penny to the 5 percent sales tax would increase the total
tax burden on 60 percent of Kentucky taxpayers at the lower end of the
income scale. And as that lower income majority becomes poorer from that
burden tax collections will decline.
Bevin has promised to look
at Kentucky’s hundreds of generous tax exemptions (we exempt more taxes
than it we collect), claiming “there are no sacred cows.” We agree with
the critical exception of the tax exemptions on food and medicine.
Kentucky is a poor state; people struggling to survive should not face
higher bills at the grocery or drug store. But there is every reason to
look at taxing the rapidly growing service sector.
In January, well before he knew there would be a revenue shortfall, Bevin, in his state of the commonwealth address, promised tax reform, including raising more tax revenue. His fellow Republicans didn’t react well then to tax increases and they don’t seem to have warmed up to the idea since.
Rep. Steven Rudy, R-Paducah,
chair of the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee, said on the
KET panel that if he wants to increase taxes, “it’s imperative the
governor sells this to the people of Kentucky and to members of the
Kentucky General Assembly.”
Even more imperative, the
governor needs to have a tax plan that funds the state adequately
without impoverishing even more of its citizens.
ad more here: http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/editorials/article150061282.html#storylink=cpy
Chances are really good that if you’ve covered education — local
primary or secondary schools, or school board meetings — over the last
24 years, you’ve dealt with Brad Hughes.
Now after 24 years as director of Member
Support/Communications Services for the Kentucky School Boards
Association, Brad has announced his retirement effective June 30.
Whenever a newspaper reporter called me asking a question related to
schools, school boards or about the policy on taking pictures of school
children while on school property, Brad was the person I always turned
to. I knew I was going to get an answer, an explanation of the policy
and an invitation to have the reporter contact him if there were further
questions. And it was going to be in a true professional manner.
Brad has been the consummate media relations person to deal with,
probably all tied to his background as a reporter himself. He knew what
reporters sometime faced in doing their jobs and he was more than
willing to help them as much as possible.
His 24 years with KSBA followed 10 years in a similar capacity with
the Cabinet for Human Resources (today, the Cabinet for Health and
Family Services) where he averaged 250 media interviews a week.
He got his experience on the media side of the fence from 1973 to 1983 when he was an announcer/reporter
WFKN Radio in Franklin (trained by Tom Caudill, Henry Stone and Stan
Portman); announcer/reporter WHOP Radio in Hopkinsville; news
director/reporter WKCT Radio in Bowling Green; reporter WBKO-TV in
Bowling Green.
You can see he got started back in the “Dark(room) Ages” because in
talking about some of the changes he has seen over his career, he
mentions having to develop film and using a manual typewriter. (For
those younger journalists out there, manual typewriters had no
electricity.)
OST: I asked Brad about changes he has noticed in the media, and the way the news about school boards and education in general has been handled?
BH:
There are so few education beat reporters today in Kentucky. Combine
that with the turnover of reporters who cover schools in many
communities, and you have young journalists who are trying to explain
extremely complicated education issues, sometimes with – but sadly too
often without – the collaboration of local educators. Clearly there are
many more media outlets that are no longer bound by a publication or
broadcast deadline to post their stories online. A small number of media
outlets are doing instant reporting from school board meetings, which I
think is great in the cases when the reporters understand what they are
hearing and tweeting/posting without the time to ask “What does that
mean?” Unfortunately, it’s very easy when listening to a complex
presentation on an education matter, not fully understanding what was
said, what was meant, and then putting the information out. I’m a big
promoter of social media use by schools and government agencies. I wish
every school board member use social media to communicate with
constituents – as long as they don’t see that as an alternative to
working with mainstream reporters and their readers, viewers and
listeners.
OST:
Since he deals with school board members, local education officials and
at the same time professional journalists, I asked Brad if there’s a
common theme or complaint from those education officials about the news
media.
BH:
Well, there are multiple themes. There is a huge lack of understanding
how media outlets really work, why this makes “news” and that doesn’t.
Everyone loves positive coverage, but many people – school leaders
included – tend to remember the negative stories. Turnover – both in
terms of school leaders and reporters – works against building trusting
relationships. School officials in communities with multiple public
school systems and a single newspaper are constantly doing a comparison
of coverage – perceived positive versus negative, features, news release
pickups, sports stories, standalone photos. And not enough public
school systems have dedicated communications.
I’m blessed to be able to teach a lot of
classes on media relations to public officials and agency staff around
Kentucky and several times a year in other states. I often wear a
t-shirt from the Newseum in Washington, D.C. imprinted with the message,
“Trust me. I’m a reporter.” And I try to use those 44 years as a
journalist – 10 as a mainstream journalist and 34 in what I call ‘public
affairs journalism’ – to increase understanding about how news is
gathered, about professionalism and credibility needing to be earned by
both sides of an official/journalist relationship, and how to deal with
mistakes on both sides. Errors happen but can be reduced when a
superintendent or board member or district spokesperson makes it known
that they are willing to take a call anytime to clarify. I hope I can
continue to do this kind of training for many years to come with KSBA
and other groups. On a really good day, a superintendent, board member
or principal mentions remembering my training about creating a message
or avoiding “No comment,” and I’m on top of the world.
All that said, I see about 200 education
stories a week, and sometimes I just stare at the computer screen,
wondering “What?” The vast majority of stories in Kentucky newspapers
are well-written. But I find too many that leave me wondering who failed
to ask a question or to offer an explanation. I’ve come to learn that a
story that’s either flat out wrong, partially in error or just
confusing can be just as much to blame on the side of the information
provider as on that of the story writer.
I do wish I could have educated Kentucky
newspaper reporters and editors that it’s the Kentucky School BoardS
Association, not the Kentucky School Board (no ‘s’) Association. If I
had a dollar for every time I’ve had to correct that (and I do know
sometimes the information comes wrong from school folks), well, I could
have retired many years ago. And that’s no joke.
OST:When
Brad took the position with KSBA, he was the perfect choice. Can you
imagine putting an educator in a position of dealing with the media on a
daily basis? That’s why one of Brad’s observations (2) is so on point:
BH:
1)Relationships – not friendships – are crucial between local officials and local journalists. There always will be another story.
2) The best public affairs people
have been reporters. Having met a deadline, got a clarification, wrote a
correction, told a story in limited seconds or copy inches makes all
the difference.
3)Some
of the nicest comments I’ve heard since my retirement became public
came from reporters and editors I’ve worked with for years – even a few
for decades. It proves point No. 1.
4)Being
married to one of the best newspaper reporters I ever competed against
and hands down the finest copy editor I’ve ever worked makes me a debtor
to journalism for the rest of my life.
OST:
And 4) led to the obvious question: Has Judy (his wife) given you a
list of “Honey Do” jobs now that you’re getting close to retirement?
BH:
When Judy isn’t helping University of Louisville researchers and
reporters who need an expert on this topic or that issue, she’s an
incredible basket weaver. Two-time Grand Champion of the Kentucky State
Fair. She hasn’t created a Honey Do list, but mine includes being her
“Reed Roady” for weaving classes around the country.
I’ve appreciated the working relationship with Brad, going
back to the days he was communications director for the state cabinet.
Whatever we were discussing, whatever question I needed to ask him to
help a newspaper reporter, Brad was always the same. Mild-mannered,
professional and understanding.
Kentucky’s budget director is predicting the state will suffer a $113
million revenue shortfall when the state’s fiscal year ends June 30.
The
new projection by state Budget Director John Chilton means the state's
precarious budget outlook is a bit worse than expected and will likely
bolster Gov. Matt Bevin's push for a special legislative session to
reform the state tax code and pension system.
If the projection
proves accurate, it will require Bevin to direct budget moves to assure
that - as required by the Kentucky Constitution - the fiscal year ends
with a balanced budget. However, a $113 million shortfall from $10.6
billion is not so deep as to require drastic spending cuts -
particularly because the state "rainy-day" fund will provide some
protection.
Chilton made his projection late Monday in a quarterly
economic and revenue report posted on the budget office’s website. The
report said tax receipts to the state General Fund fell 3.2 percent
during the third quarter of this fiscal year compared to the third
quarter of the prior fiscal year. And through the first nine months of
the fiscal year, revenues have grown at just 1.2 percent compared to
last year, although the state budget requires a growth rate of 2.7
percent, Chilton reported.
Though some recovery is expected in the
final quarter, Chilton's report projects “a current-year revenue
shortfall of $113.2 million" on June 30.
The
General Fund collects revenues from most state taxes and pays for most
state programs including education. The report blames the projected
shortfall on weaker-than-expected performance so far this year of the
two biggest taxes: the individual income tax revenue grew at 2.4 percent
through the first three quarters, and the sales tax grew by just 0.6
percent.
The
General Assembly sets rules for Bevin to follow in taking steps to
balance the budget. And in such situations, governors can tap the
state’s reserve "rainy-day" fund, which currently has a balance of about
$235 million. However, one rule lawmakers put into the state budget is a
provision that no more than 25 percent of the balance of that reserve
fund be used to help balance the state budget at the end of this fiscal
year.
While a $113 million shortfall can likely be met without
much immediate pain, it adds urgency to concerns over the state's
revenue outlook and strengthens Bevin's case for the need for tax
reform.
The
governor has said he will call a special legislative session for later
this year to address both tax reform and pension reform. Bevin has said
the unfunded liabilities of state pension funds (officially reported
$38.7 billion, but Bevin says the outlook is much worse) present a major
financial crisis and both the tax system and pension system must be
reformed to address it. Bevin has not specified when he plans to call
the session later this year.
Monday's quarterly report had better
news for the state Road Fund. This fund, which collects revenues from
the gas tax and sales tax on vehicles and spends it on road maintenance
and other transportation needs, is projected to take in $1.5 billion
this fiscal year, about 1.2 percent more than the current-year budget
requires.
You don’t need a Ph.D. to understand the
math that spells trouble for public higher education in many states.
Typically, the number of high-school graduates is projected to decline
by X percent in the coming decade, and state support has dropped by Y
million dollars since the recession with little sign of ever rising
again. Meanwhile, the number of four-year regional comprehensive
universities remains constant, an inflexible
denominator.
The
numbers are plain, but solutions remain elusive. Comprehensives are the
workhorses of a public higher-education system, awarding the bulk of
bachelor’s degrees and providing educational opportunities in all
corners of a state. But certain corners of many states are home to
institutions that have been hemorrhaging students and struggling to
balance their budgets.
Pennsylvania is one of those states. Nine
of the 14 institutions in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher
Education, known as Passhe, have suffered double-digit percentage drops
in fall enrollment since 2009. (Only one, West Chester University, in a
Philadelphia suburb, has seen steady annual increases during that
period.)
Enrollment at Clarion U. of Pennsylvania has dropped nearly 29 percent since 2009.
In January, the system announced the first ever full-scale review
of its universities and the system over all, which Frank T. Brogan, the
chancellor, says is unsustainable in its current form. "The Board of
Governors pretty quickly made the case that everything should be on the
table. What got most of the attention was the word ‘closure,’" he says.
But neither he nor the board want to take that route: "Sustainability is
a more complicated approach, and I think a more powerful approach." A
State Senate committee will also conduct its own independent review of
the system later this year. Passhe’s is slated to be completed this
summer.
What can be done, in Pennsylvania and in the growing
number of states that are being forced to reckon with their
comprehensive-university systems? Universities, even wobbly ones, are
complex and substantial organizations sunk into the bedrock of their
communities, their regions, their states. It may be nearly impossible to
close one. And so some leaders are looking for ways to keep colleges
alive, by carving out niches for them in the marketplace or by merging
and consolidating, as has happened in Maine and Georgia.
But are
such efforts transformational enough, or are they just a way of
rearranging the deck chairs? And what will public comprehensive
universities look like on the other side?
Whatever happens, it’s
probably high time, says Karen M. Whitney, president of Clarion
University, a Passhe institution. "We are," she says, "in a moment of
reformation."
Some Passhe
institutions are not waiting for the results of the two reviews to try
to improve their fortunes, and they’re using a strategy being employed
by colleges everywhere: finding a distinctive competitive niche. It’s a
remarkable shift for institutions designed to be "comprehensive."
But
significant transformation is not unknown at an institution like
Clarion, according to Ms. Whitney. Since its founding in 1867 in the
small Western Pennsylvania hilltop town from which it takes its name,
Clarion has been a private Methodist seminary, a commonwealth normal
school, an independent public university, and, since 1983, a Passhe
institution. "Each of those reformations came with a shift of
development in our mission and why we exist," she says.
The latest shift has been sparked by a serious enrollment decline.
Clarion’s fall enrollment dropped from 7,346 students in 2009 to about
5,224 students last year, a decrease of nearly 29 percent.
For
Clarion to rebound, it must focus on what its students want, Ms.
Whitney says. And those preferences are clear: About 80 percent of
Clarion’s students enroll in its business, health-care, or education
programs. "I am not going to ignore 80 percent of our students," she
says. "We’re moving from a broad-based approach to being all things to
all people to what I’m going to call a distinctive mission."
The
university recently expanded its health-care offerings with a nursing
B.S.N. program, and she says she’s encouraged by the trends in
applications and admissions for next fall. Ms. Whitney adds that in five
years, if all goes well, she expects the share of its students enrolled
in professional degree programs will have topped 90 percent.
Meanwhile,
fall enrollment at Mansfield University, in rural north-central
Pennsylvania, dropped from 3,569 to 2,198 since 2009, a decrease of 38
percent. It is planning to increase its appeal to students by shifting
its role away from a straightforward comprehensive university toward a
liberal-arts institution at a public-education price point, including
ambitions to suffuse its existing professional and pre-professional
programs with "liberal-arts-type tenets," says Brig. Gen. Francis L.
Hendricks, the president. Mansfield isn’t making a left turn from its
mission, he says, "it’s just a matter of playing to our strengths."
Edinboro
University, in the commonwealth’s northwest corner, is responding to
losing about 28 percent of its fall enrollment between 2010 and 2016 by
identifying four academic program areas on which to refocus its
resources, including its arts and digital entertainment program, among
other pre-professional tracks.
Emphasizing certain things leads
to de-emphasizing others. As Clarion’s nursing offerings have grown,
disciplines such as philosophy and history have dwindled to a handful of
faculty of each. At Edinboro, programs that are less in demand by
students may have to be cut, says H. Fred Walker, the president. "What
we’re being asked to do right now is become responsive to the changing
economy," he says. "That’s a healthy thing."
While leaders at some Passhe institutions may be setting a new course
for their universities, those courses may be reversed by the
recommendations of the looming system reviews. Five years from now,
Clarion might have staked out its niche funneling students into careers
in hospitals, small businesses, and schools. Or the system might have
steered it in an entirely new direction. Or it might be shuttered.
But
Ms. Whitney and other Passhe presidents agree that something must be
done. Whatever happens, she says, "the worst thing that can happen is
that nothing happens."
In the abstract, closing faltering institutions makes some sense. In reality, it’s all but impossible.
"Devastating"
is a common response to questions about the possible effects of a
closure. Clarion University, for example, is the largest employer in
Clarion County. It is an economic and cultural driver in a poor region
where the population and the manufacturing base that once employed it
have both trailed off in recent decades. If Clarion closes, "you just
basically say, ‘We’re shutting down Clarion County,’" says Jamie L.
Phillips, a professor of philosophy and chair of the Faculty Senate at
Clarion.
If the region is to rebound, it needs Clarion more than
ever, says Mr. Phillips, who has worked there for 18 years. About 86
percent of the university’s students come from within 200 miles of the
campus, and Clarion represents one of the few options for higher
education in the immediate region. "Take that away from them, and what’s
left?" Mr. Phillips says. "There’s nothing."
But the truth is
that public colleges almost never die. The only commonly cited example
of a stand-alone quasi-four-year public college that has been shut down
is the University of South Dakota at Springfield, a small technical
college that mostly offered two-year programs until it closed in 1984.
(It was soon converted into a state prison.)
Even killing off a
failing branch campus can be an agonizing process. Partly because of a
$30-million cut to state support, the University of Connecticut system
last year closed its campus in Torrington, where enrollment had dwindled
to about 150 students even as it climbed at all five other UConn
campuses. System officials spent a year in discussions about the
necessity of the move with the Board of Trustees, state and local
elected officials, and students and community members, says Sally M.
Reis, the system’s vice provost for academic affairs.
But still there were objections, which were both practical and quirky.
Torrington residents insisted to the board that it stay open, even
though many of their own children had enrolled at UConn campuses
elsewhere, Ms. Reis says. Community members suggested revitalizing the
campus with a new manufacturing emphasis, even though nearby community
colleges provided such training at a lower price. Some fretted publicly
about the fate of the library’s in-house cat. (It found a new home
before the campus closed last May.)
Suggested closures not
only alarm local communities, they’re political poison. Each endangered
university sits in some representative’s or senator’s district, and
there’s "lots of downside for the people who represent those areas and
not a lot of upside," says Iris Palmer, a senior policy analyst for
education policy at New America, a former Department of Education
official, and an expert on public higher-education policy.
If
states actually wanted to close institutions, Ms. Palmer says, it would
help to have something like the United States military’s Base
Realignment and Closure process, which is designed to make holistic,
impartial decisions about closing defense installations, "to right-size
these systems and do it well."
Since
closing universities often isn’t a realistic option, several systems
have considered campus mergers and other kinds of consolidation. That
can take the form of sharing or pooling some business functions with other institutions, or merging two separate campuses under the same management and leadership.
Some
struggling Passhe institutions are already sharing services with their
peers in order to increase efficiency and reduce their costs. Cheyney
University, a historically black institution outside Philadelphia that
has seen enrollment drop by more than half since 2010, now outsources
most of its business functions to nearby West Chester University.
Mansfield University, which is handing over many of its business
functions to the larger Bloomsburg University, about 90 miles away, will
save the former money "so that we can protect the primary mission,"
says General Hendricks, the president.
Mr. Brogan, the system
chancellor, says he suspects that consolidations could be a part of how
the system moves forward after the reviews "Our system has up until
quite recently been very much an every-man-for-himself operation," he
says, with many of the same basic functions reproduced 14 times over.
"They just don’t have the money to do that. More importantly there is no
longer the necessity to do that."
Other states have taken similar tacks. The University System of
Georgia, for example, has merged 14 institutions over the past six years
in an effort to improve academic opportunities and cut costs.
Maine has also looked to mergers to help adjust the scope of its system
of seven public four-year institutions to serve a shrinking population
of 1.3 million.
The University of Maine system announced in
March that it would merge its coastal Machias campus, which enrolls
fewer than 800 students, with its flagship campus in Orono, about 90
miles away. The Machias campus had been struggling to maintain its
enrollment — fall headcount shrank from 863 in 2011 to 786 in 2015 — and
years of budget shortfalls had led to numerous staff cuts. "It had
really become hollowed out," says James H. Page, chancellor of the
University of Maine system. "That’s a strong term, but it really had."
The
system’s Board of Trustees considered closing the campus, but ruled it
out. "Would you take one of the last anchor institutions out of a region
to save five, six, or seven million dollars, which would probably be a
quick back-of-the-envelope net savings from something like that?" Mr.
Page says. "And the answer is, you would not."
Because of Orono’s
size and relatively good financial health, it can perform back-office
functions far more cheaply than Machias can. The flagship can also offer
the smaller campus services that it hasn’t had money for in several
years, according to Mr. Page, including marketing and enrollment
assistance. There are also academic synergies woven into the merger.
Orono students and faculty will gain better access to Machias’ marine
research facilities and teaching opportunities, while Machias could gain
more students and access to more research funding. If Machias gets back
to more solid footing as part of Orono, Mr. Page says, it might be able
to strengthen itself, and its region, again.
Still, the old
model of individualized universities has presented barriers to
efficiency, and difficult questions. The system has a cybersecurity
program taught on three different campuses. Do students have to enroll
in three different universities? What about the differences in fees from
campus to campus? And then there’s accreditation. The New England
Association of Schools and Colleges accredits individual institutions,
not systems, Mr. Page says.
Consolidations also may not be the
silver bullet, financially, that many hope they are. While merging
campuses can save money for a system, the savings typically come from
layoffs of employees made redundant. "Saving that money will result in
people losing their jobs, and some legislators are going to fight very
hard to preserve jobs in their district," says Thomas L. Harnisch,
director of state relations and policy analysis at the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities. While closing or
consolidating some offices can result in savings, many merged
institutions still maintain two physical plants, two sets of faculty,
and many administrators. Mergers are increasingly popular options, but
"it’s an open question to how much money will ultimately be saved at the
end of the day through these campus consolidations," Mr. Harnisch says.
(It’s difficult to gauge the extent of savings in Georgia; the
University System of Georgia did not respond to interview requests
before press time.)
Yet, despite the uncertainties, Passhe, the
University of Maine, and other systems may be peering over the lip of a
new era of public higher education, where the autonomy and distinct
identity of individual universities is redirected to a focus on
delivering education to students as efficiently as possible. "The real
question in all of this is, How do you use the collective assets of the
institutions to serve students wherever they are?" says Dennis Jones,
president emeritus of the National Center for Higher Education
Management Systems, or Nchems, a nonprofit organization that advises
colleges and systems on higher-education policy, and which is conducting the review
commissioned by Passhe. Looking at the situation with a student-centric
focus, rather than an institution-centric one, moves the conversation
away from which individual universities might be closed or merged and
toward how those universities operate and collaborate to provide
education to students — which may have to be reconceived, he says.
It’s
possible to imagine a future iteration of Passhe that looks and
operates less like a collection of independent public universities and
more like a system of branch campuses.
Each
state’s political realities shape what’s possible in rethinking, and
possibly reconfiguring, a large public university system. They are
especially daunting in Pennsylvania.
No overarching office or
organization coordinates its higher-education policy. Reforming that
policy is the sort of complex and potentially contentious political task
that’s going to take an official who "wakes up every morning and thinks
that solving Passhe and its issues is my everyday job," says Mr. Jones.
"The problem in Pennsylvania is that nobody does that, because there’s
nobody that’s charged with that."
There are many issues to solve,
some of the stickiest falling well outside the control of Passhe’s
Board of Governors. Penn State University, the flagship research
university, now has 24 campuses located throughout the commonwealth, all
of them vying for many of the same students who might attend Passhe
universities. Thanks to its laissez-faire approach to higher-education
strategy, "this state has created an inherent competition even within
the competition," says Mr. Brogan.
Passhe leaders also say that the system’s union contracts have made it
tough to maintain their institutions’ sometimes shaky bottom lines.
Mansfield University cut its labor force by almost 7 percent last year
to help close a projected $8-million budget gap, says General Hendricks,
the president, only to be hit with increased labor costs from a new
faculty contract: "We watched all that water that we bailed out of the
boat come right back in."
The system’s labor agreement with
faculty also contains limitations on dismissing or reassigning
professors that may make it difficult to substantially shift how its
universities deliver instruction in a revamped Passhe.
But
Passhe’s problems have nothing to do with its unions, according to
Kenneth M. Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State
College and University Faculties, known as Apscuf, which represents the
system’s faculty. The financial straits affecting many of the system’s
institutions stem from crumbling state support (only about 24 percent of
Clarion University’s annual operating budget now comes from the
commonwealth, for example), and from bad choices made by the leaders of
individual institutions, he says. "It’s easy to say that this university
or that university is failing, but is it really failing, or are the
conditions such that it just can’t succeed?" he says. He adds that
union-contract strictures provide an important check on "business
mentality" decisions about the course of Passhe’s universities. System
leaders "should be required to justify why what they’re doing is
necessary," he says.
In the end, resolving these complications —
or even electing to face them — comes down to political will. "You can
do a great review, you can do a great study," Mr. Brogan says. "But if
the powers that be don’t want it to happen, it either won’t get off the
ground or it will crash and burn immediately after takeoff."
The
state’s elected officials are ready to shake up Passhe, according to
David G. Argall, a Republican state senator. The enrollment statistics
for the system convinced him and many of his legislative colleagues that
the status quo can’t endure. Mr. Argall was the lead sponsor of the
measure that called for the Senate Legislative Budget and Finance
Committee to review Passhe. The committee’s review will not be completed
until months after Passhe’s review, but Mr. Argall says he’s "hopeful
that they come up with very similar answers. This way we can say to
everyone we have looked under every rock, we’ve asked every possible
question."
Even if there is consensus among decision makers, Mr.
Brogan says he expects that there will be objections, opposition, and
arguments over what happens to Passhe and its institutions. He hopes
that all parties to the discussion can put their own turf concerns aside
and think about the bigger picture. The outcome of this process could
determine not only the fate of 14 universities, their faculties, and
their students, it could set the course for higher education in
Pennsylvania for future generations.
"This thing’s going to long
outlive the chancellor," Mr. Brogan says. "It’s going to outlive any of
the 14 presidents. It’s going to outlive most of the people in the
General Assembly. And therefore it needs to be designed with the best
interests of those to come."
Lee Gardner writes about the
management of colleges and universities, higher-education marketing, and
other topics. Follow him on Twitter @_lee_g, or email him at lee.gardner@chronicle.com.
I recently reviewed the Every Student Succeeds Act plans from the 17
states (including DC) who have submitted their plans for review by the
U.S. Department of Education. Of interest to me were the measures that
states are using to identify college and career readiness. I also
researched the draft plans of the other 33 states and if they did not
have a plan available, I looked at the existing state accountability
model.
What I found is very interesting. During the NCLB era, there were
very few states who utilized a measure in the state accountability model
for college and career readiness. Kentucky and Louisiana were among the
very few states to have actual measures of college and career readiness
included in their models. Based on my quick review, 25 states will have
measures of college and career readiness in their new ESSA state
accountability model. 10 states are continuing to discuss the inclusion
of a measure and 16 states do not have any plans for college- and
career-ready measures.
Why the change in state measures? Some part of the change is due to
the public perception of the “honesty gap.” For years, high school
graduation rates have been improving. The United States currently has
the highest graduation rate in the history of the nation—over 80
percent. However, the postsecondary remediation rate in some states is
over 70 percent of high school graduates. This means that a high school
diploma does not validate that a student is academically prepared for
college credit-bearing courses. Also, the research has been very clear
that many of America’s high school graduates are not prepared for entry
level academic and/or technical programs that lead to jobs that pay a
living wage.
States have been responding to these concerns. Council of Chief State
School Officers and numerous other national and regional organizations
have been responding to the “honesty gap” issue and one of the strongest
policy responses is to include college and career readiness in the
state accountability model.
However, there is a growing concern with the models that I have seen
to this point. Most states have been using a “menu” model for state
accountability. Schools will be held accountable based on the percentage
of students who choose among menu options. The menu of college and
career indicators usually includes student performance on Advance
Placement, dual credit courses, International Baccalaureate exams,
WorkKeys, SAT, ACT, Accuplacer, completion of a CTE course of study,
ASVAB, and industry-recognized certifications. These measures are good
measures, however, there are some potential pitfalls that states should
avoid or we will find that many students are pushed toward measures that
are seen as “lesser than” measures and most of these are aligned with
the career-ready label.
“Career ready” should be a measure that ALL students who graduate
from high school have obtained. Whether a student is preparing to become
a surgeon or obtain a two-year technical credential, ALL students need
to have academic preparation equal to the requirements of entry-level
postsecondary courses. While some students will focus primarily on the
academic measures, many students will already know that they have an
interest in a career area and these students should have an opportunity
to gain the technical skills that will give them advance credit and
preparation for their future studies.
The bottom line is that career readiness needs to be something all
students strive for as a graduation measure and must include measures of
both academic and technical skills. College readiness should be a
subset of career readiness and only ensures a student is academically
prepared to enter postsecondary credit bearing courses. If the
career-ready measures used by our states are a “lesser than” model, then
we will continue to perpetuate the myth that “career-ready courses are
for those other students and not for my students.” Our nation has a
perception problem when it comes to career education in high school and
we have a great opportunity to address that problem with the ESSA
accountability models. If readers want to see a few states that have
good models of career-ready measures, I refer them to the Delaware,
Tennessee and Louisiana plans that can be found at www.ccsso.org/essa.
This guest piece was written
by Terry Holliday, former commissioner of the Kentucky Department of
Education and current board chairman of the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards. Dr. Holliday was also ACTE’s 2016
Champion of the Year, and continues to play an active role in education
at the national level through involvement in projects like New Skills
for Youth. We are pleased to share his insights into ESSA
implementation*!
