Poverty, language and disability: Trends in CMS

While no one would say CMS educators have it easy,  some of the most challenging student populations have leveled off or dwindled in recent years,  according to data in the 2014-15 budget plan.

The number of students with disabilities or limited English proficiency has dropped since 2008,  even as overall enrollment has risen  (see charts on pages 88-91 of the 310-page budget book).

In 2008-09,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools had 14,743 students classified as  "special needs,"  or 11 percent of enrollment.  This year there are 13,532 special needs students,  or 9.5 percent.  The Exceptional Children Services budget, however, seems to be growing,  from about $105 million in 2008-09 to more than $122 million this year,  with another increase proposed for 2014-15.

I'm not sure what that means;  I've asked CMS officials but haven't yet gotten a reply.  The district's budget books used to include descriptions of significant changes with every departmental budget.  The last couple of years,  those numbers have come with no written explanation.

Students classified as having limited English proficiency have gone from 18,407 in 2008-09  (13.7 percent)  to 15,176  (10.6 percent).  The budget for that department appears to be holding fairly steady.

Poverty,  as measured by students who qualify for federal lunch subsidies, has held level at just over 54 percent for the last three years,  after four years of steady increases before that.

My quest to get racial demographics has almost become a standing joke;  we're heading into end-of-year exam time and CMS has yet to provide those numbers.  The budget book may or may not provide a clue,  on a confusing p. 90.  Parts of it appear to have been cut and pasted from last year's book,  with racial breakdowns from 2012-13.  But the bar chart includes 13-14,  and if you look at the color key you'll find percentages that don't exactly match the previous year:  41.1 percent African American,  30.8 percent white,  19.5 percent Latino and 5.5 percent Asian.  Are those the elusive current-year numbers,  long delayed by PowerSchool problems?  We'll see.  I've got that question in, too.

Update: Student placement director Scott McCully confirms that those are the current districtwide demographics.  The school-by-school numbers can be found here,  but they're just that:  Raw numbers.  He's going to get me a spreadsheet and I'll try to generate some percentages soon.

County education money: Whose is it?

A sign of the changing education landscape:  For the first time in 13 budget cycles I've covered,  Mecklenburg County commissioners sat down to talk about charter schools.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  which briefed the commissioners,  has posted that report online. It includes a lot of interesting items for anyone who cares about the issue,  including a map of where Mecklenburg's charter students live,  a list of which schools they attend and a demographic comparison between CMS and the students attending Mecklenburg's charter schools.

The presentation got me thinking about the way I've always reported on county funding as an allocation for CMS.  There's good reason for that.  The superintendent,  top administrators and school board spend weeks crafting a request,  which commissioners scrutinize and vote on.  While everyone knows that there's a pass-through to charters,  it's CMS that gets the scrutiny, praise and heat.

Given the work that CMS puts into getting that allocation,  it's easy to understand why officials and supporters might resent about being forced to give up some of their money  --  especially when that pass-along is expected to top $30 million next year.

But if you look at is as the county's allocation for public education,  it makes more sense.  If CMS projections materialize,  about 157,000 Mecklenburg students will enroll in public schools next year.  CMS will get about 91 percent of them, and 91 percent of the county money.  The charters that serve the other 9 percent will divvy up that portion.

The big question is whether that's a smart way to spend local money. CMS board member Eric Davis took issue with my recent post critiquing his comparison of CMS and charter spending projections.  I said it was a false premise to assume that the per-pupil share passed along to charters meant anything about the actual cost of operating those charters.  Davis said I missed his point:

Davis

While there are many charter schools that are well performing, my comments were solely based on financial efficiency of charter schools versus CMS.

CMS is better positioned to absorb another 2300 students within our existing network of 160 schools than opening 10 charter schools, each of which will need a new principal and other support staff. That staff already exists in CMS.

Moreover, CMS per pupil funding continues to go down, dropping over the past 5 years by 7.2% in state funding and 5.4% in county funding. Since charter schools receive the same per pupil funding as CMS, they offer no possibility of reducing per pupil expenditure when another charter school opens. Hence, charter schools are a less efficient way to educate an expanding student population than the existing system.

In a time when we hear that our state does not have money for public education due to other issues such as increased health costs, it would seem that our decisions would be guided by how to improve the efficiency of the existing system. Charter schools, while they provide choice, do so in a more expensive way than increasing choice within the existing system.

Davis might be right  --  if CMS were,  in fact,  planning to absorb all the new students into its existing schools.  But CMS is doing exactly what Davis and Superintendent Heath Morrison have criticized charters for doing:  Creating small schools.  They're counting on the state to approve $922,000 in the 2014-15 budget to launch the UNCC Early College High  (100 students),  Levine Middle College High and Harper Middle College High (69 students who have so far applied for next year's debut on a combined campus).  That's in addition to the local and state money CMS would normally spend for those students,  and the county money to set up mobile classrooms.

CMS is also creating Hawthorne Health Sciences, a magnet high school with 87 students enrolled so far,  and a new Montessori magnet in Huntersville with 92 enrolled so far.

The state requires a minimum of 65 students in each charter school.  Even the small charters generally try to open with more than that.  And most plan to add grades and build enrollment in coming years,  exactly as CMS plans to do with its small start-ups.

Bottom line:  Large schools generally have lower per-pupil costs than small ones,  whether they're charters or CMS.  Schools with low poverty and few kids with special needs are cheaper than those at the other end of the spectrum,  regardless of who's running them.

And CMS is opening small schools for exactly the same reason the state is authorizing charters:  They believe it's the right thing for students.

When I pressed Morrison about the per-pupil cost of his small schools,  he noted the success of existing ones such as Cato Middle College High.  "How do you put a price tag on the overall quality?"  he asked.

That's a question that bears thoughtful exploration,  for charter and district schools alike. 

Charters, tenure, testing and Project LIFT

It's a good week to learn more about education, with an array of public meetings and forums taking place.

At 3 p.m. Tuesday,  Mecklenburg County commissioners will hear a presentation from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools about the county money that's passed along to charter schools.  Some commissioners want to know more about how that money is being spent and whether they can exercise any control.  As required by law,  CMS is passing along about $25 million from this year's $356.5 million allocation to cover costs for almost 11,000 Mecklenburg students enrolled in charters.  With 11 new charters opening in the Charlotte area in 2014-15,  CMS projects it will take another $7.5 million to cover almost 2,300 more charter students.

Pine Lake Prep in Iredell County serves Mecklenburg students

The special commissioners' meeting,  in room CH-14 of the Government Center,  is open to the public.

At 6 p.m. Tuesday,  the CMS board will vote on its version of the controversial  "25 percent plan" to phase out tenure (details of the CMS plan have not yet been released)  and the district's 2014 legislative agenda.  The agenda also includes a report on academic achievement at the Project LIFT schools. That meeting,  in Room 267 of the Government Center, is also open and streamed online.

Cobitz

At noon Wednesday,  Wingate University Ballantyne kicks off a "lunch and learn"  series with assistant professor Chris Cobitz talking about  "What's all this testing in schools about?"  Cobitz is a former testing official with CMS and N.C. Department of Public Instruction.  Bring your own lunch and attend the session at Suite 150 in the Harris Building, 13024 Ballantyne Corporate Place.  (It'll be like Throwback Wednesday if I can make it; I worked extensively with Cobitz and Lloyd Wimberley,  director of the graduate school of education, when they were with CMS.)

Stuckenberg

As they say in the late-night infomercials ... but wait!  There's more!  You can cap off this education marathon by hoisting a mug at  6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Heist Brewery in NoDa,  where there's a  "Policy and Pints"  session scheduled.  Just keeping up with new education advocacy groups these days is a challenge:  This one is sponsored by N.C. Policy Bridge,  a  "grassroots and top roots"  organization trying to get teachers more engaged in public policy discussion.  Kayti Stuckenberg,  a CMS middle school teacher,  is one of the organizers.  Adam Rhew of MeckEd,  which is helping promote the meetings,  says the core group is young teachers associated with Teach For America.  To attend,  RSVP here.

Update: Just found out CMS lawyer Jonathan Sink and CMS administrators will also be at the Tuesday Breakfast Forum this week  (8:30 a.m. at the West Charlotte Rec Center) speaking about the state's charter school law and the district's desire to have similar flexibility.

CMS survey shows enthusiasm for technology

Most parents who responded to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools online budget survey are willing to send their kids' digital devices to school and want to lease a computer for home and school use,  according to a presentation to the school board.

The survey,  which got about 12,100 responses,  is intended as a starting point for budget talks and a means of getting the public engaged.  Like most numbers,  the results pose as many questions as they answer.

One Laptop Per Child project

Eighty-three percent of responders said they want the county to invest more in school technology,  the most popular option for increasing revenue.  All the other options had to do with bringing in money from other sources,  such as ad revenue,  cell tower leases and rental fees,  so it's not clear why a  "more county spending" item was on that list.

Seventy percent of parents said their child has  "a mobile device,  such as an iPhone or an iPad,"  and 72 percent said they support letting their kids bring such devices for classroom use.  Two-thirds said they'd be willing to pay $30 to $50 a year to lease a computer from CMS for classroom and home use.

And 98 percent said they already have home Internet access.

So what does this all mean,  beyond the fact that people were clicking  "yes"  to a lot of technology questions?  Do people really want more spending for classroom technology and continuing use of  "bring your own technology"  and school laptops for kids to lease?  And they want all this even though they're already wired at home?

The first question,  of course,  is who took the online survey.  Two weeks ago board member Tom Tate pressed Chief Communication Officer Kathryn Block on how the district is reaching people who don't have Internet access.  There were some stifled chuckles when she replied that community partners were getting the word out  ...  through web sites and social media.

Board member Thelma Byers-Bailey brought up the issue again Tuesday.  "That's 98 percent of people who have Internet who say they have Internet,"  she said.

Block said some people used school and public library computers to respond to the survey,  but the high degree of Internet access in homes is  "consistent with what we see"  from other sources.

Project LIFT Zone Superintendent Denise Watts had left the meeting before that presentation.  I was curious to hear her take on that,  given that the public-private partnership is channeling significant private money into giving low-income families and students digital access.  Is it true that most already have it?

Watts says there's no way 98 percent of CMS families have Internet at home,  especially in impoverished neighborhoods.  "I would almost bet my next paycheck on that.  I would love to see the data source."  She agrees that many students have smartphones,  but  "that's not a work/education device."

Superintendent Heath Morrison told the board that in addition to the online survey,  members of the public have had a chance to speak in person at three town hall meetings on budget planning  (two more are coming up in April).  The board will hold a two-hour budget work session next week,  and Morrison will present his 2014-15 budget proposal April 8.

Here's the one prediction I feel confident making:  Technology will be a big item in that budget.