PreK-8s, Bright Beginnings top CMS research plan

Measuring the impact of Bright Beginnings prekindergarten and figuring out whether the recent switch to preK-8 schools benefits students are among top research goals for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Chief Accountability Officer Frank Barnes told the school board Tuesday.

Barnes

Several board members said they're eager to see that data.

The 2010 decision to close three struggling middle schools and add grades 6-8 to eight elementaries raised questions in the affected neighborhoods.  Some parents still believe the combined elementary/middle schools endanger the young children and give older students fewer academic options than they'd get in larger middle schools.  Proponents say students benefit from the more personalized setting and avoid the academic slump that often comes with the switch to middle school.

In September,  Morrison presented a preliminary study of the first year of pre-K-8s that found mixed academic results. Barnes said Tuesday a follow-up is expected in late fall or winter,  after results of 2013 state exams are in.

Barnes said CMS is also working with researchers from UNC Charlotte to study the district's prekindergarten:  "Is it working, where is it working best and are there challenges?"  Most school board members say they support public prekindergarten,  but many have voiced frustration that CMS failed to deliver on early promises to monitor how Bright Beginnings students do as they move through school.  Former Superintendent Eric Smith created the program in 1998.  Tracking of student results vanished during ensuing leadership changes,  even as the program's cost has risen.

Other research plans include identifying signs that students are at risk of dropping out and studying the "instructional culture" of CMS schools, part of a research project with TNTP.  Barnes said CMS hopes to refine the district's annual surveys of principals,  teachers,  students and parents.  Results of those surveys used to be posted online;  Barnes said the 2012-13 results haven't been released yet but should be posted later this summer.

Barnes told the board that he and his staff are still working on a reliable way to report on school success.  In 2012,  CMS withdrew its school progress reports after the Observer uncovered errors in the data.  A subsequent CMS review found even more problems.

Board member Ericka Ellis-Stewart asked Barnes how he plans to restore community confidence that CMS can get the numbers right.  Barnes said he's working on a system that uses data verified by the state,  but new state exams and uncertainties about a proposed letter-grade system are delaying that effort.

"Part of what I recognize is that trust is earned,"  Barnes said.  "I think what we will have to do is season by season,  year by year re-earn that trust."

Cheaper way to do pre-K?

Is Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools spending too much for administration of its Bright Beginnings prekindergarten centers? School board member Rhonda Lennon raised the question last night, as the board discussed asking county commissioners for millions more to preserve the program.

Lennon noted that centers with fewer than 300 children had administrative payrolls of $200,000 or more. A look at the latest payroll data shows she's right. Tryon Hills Preschool, with about 250 students, is paying about $210,000 for a principal, assistant principal, senior administrative secretary and secretary. Amay James, which is about the same size, pays about $246,000 a year for the same staffing combination.

The board already voted last fall to close Amay James at the end of this school year, merging its students into new preK-8 schools. Superintendent Peter Gorman's budget proposal would close the remaining four centers as the federal stimulus money that kept the program at its current size, with about 3,100 4-year-olds, dries up. Under his plan, the remaining 90 Bright Beginnings classrooms would be located in high-poverty elementary schools that qualify for federal Title I aid.

Seven of the nine board members said last night they support asking county commissioners for about $10 million to cover the stimulus gap and keep the program intact (the county had been footing a bigger share of the preK bill before the economy crashed). Lennon said she'd support maintaining the same number of classes, "but not in the current format."

Lennon made no motion, and agreed to cancel a budget meeting scheduled for today, saying she didn't think it was realistic to ask Gorman to draft a new pre-K plan in less than 24 hours. So it remains to be seen whether he'll find a way to save classes while streamlining costs before the board's May 10 vote, or whether the majority of the board expects him to do so.

Online petition for Bright Beginnings

Will e-mails from around the country crank up pressure for Mecklenburg County commissioners to save Bright Beginnings prekindergarten seats next year?

Michelle O'Reilly of Charlotte hopes so. Early this morning, she created an online petition at change.org asking people to lobby commissioners in favor of the spending plan proposed by Commissioner Vilma Leake. As you may recall, Superintendent Peter Gorman has proposed cutting just over $10 million from the Bright Beginnings budget, which would reduce participation by more than half next year, because of projected budget shortfalls. Leake has proposed a "grant" that would provide county money to cover that gap and specify that it must be used for pre-K.

Commissioner Bill James isn't impressed. He warned his colleagues to expect "e-mails by the bushel full" and put his own spin on things: "Why someone from Boulder, Co or some other place would know the details of BB’s failure I can’t say."

As of 2:30 p.m., the online petition had 17 signatures, including two from Charlotte and others from around the country, including Boulder.

If you're new to this issue, search this blog for previous, more detailed posts about the Bright Beginnings debate. And if you're trying to read the petition, here's a tech tip: I couldn't get change.org to do much on Internet Explorer, but it responded well on Mozilla Firefox.

Politics, data and other CMS updates

Let's see ... CMS has scrapped some of its most cherished data, politics are getting personal and there's more good information popping up online than I can keep up with. Yes, folks, it's time to mop up after another week on the education beat.

On political elbow-throwing ...
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, a Republican, has been e-mailing the suggestion that school board Chair Eric Davis's vote to delay a decision on Bright Beginnings prekindergarten cuts was influenced by his connections to the Babb family. Julie Babb is CMS's director of prekindergarten services. James claims that "her mommy"  is "a big time Democrat and Eric’s campaign manager so instead of taking the heat themselves the School Board wants to punt and throw the heat to the County Commission for the next several weeks."

Actually, Davis's campaign manager in 2007 was Nancy Babb Falls, a Democrat who is Julie Babb's sister. "I'm not ashamed one bit that she helped me run," said Davis, who is an unaffiliated voter. He says his vote was based on following Superintendent Peter Gorman's recommendation.

"I think Mr. James might be feeling the pressure from the community," Davis said. "When you feel the pressure, you reach out and attack through some personal issues."

On data wars ...
Superintendent Pete Gorman says there isn't any Bright Beginnings data good enough to use in decision-making.

Brett Loftis of the Council for Children's Rights says there's more data on BB than 90 percent of what CMS does.

What does Gorman say to that? "He's probably right."

In other words, there's little to no solid data to show that any of CMS's reform efforts, from strategic staffing to teacher effectiveness ratings, makes a difference.

With a research and evaluation staff of 3.5 people, Gorman said this week it's not realistic to expect rigorous academic evaluations of everything the district does (and I'd add that such results never come quickly).

Instead, he says local officials use national research on what works -- for instance, the value of effective teachers -- and figure out strategies they hope will translate to gains for CMS kids.

One of the things that had puzzled me was that Gorman and Chief Accountability Officer Robert Avossa were rejecting an ERS study on Bright Beginnings while continuing to use ERS as a consultant. Turns out they're different ERSs: Virginia-based Educational Research Service did the 2003 BB report; while  Education Resource Strategies of Watertown, Mass., is working with CMS now.

On Web info ...
CMS has posted answers to a long list of budget questions the staff has been getting.

The district has also posted a new batch of School Quality Reviews. These in-depth reports can be a great source of insight into what's working and what's not. Check the dates; some reviews are recent, some older. A few schools still haven't been reviewed, but CMS expects to have them all done by the end of this year.

As one of you noticed, I've taken down the Observer's School House collection of data on CMS schools because I wasn't able to keep it fresh while meeting other demands on my time. CMS keeps a lot of info at its "data dashboard." I've never found that particularly easy to use, but it's probably your best bet for now.

And here's a new one y'all should find interesting: The Center for Education Reform, a group that promotes charters and school choice, has launched The Media Bullpen, an attempt to rate the quality of education coverage across the country. Among education reporters, the early buzz was over how much it would focus on accuracy/fairness/quality vs. simply rating coverage on how well it promotes the center's views. At first very quick glance, I just can't tell. The "bullpen" baseball theme may be more accessible to sports fans; I found it difficult to follow (best I can tell, they haven't "umpired" any Observer articles yet). Some of you may have more time and sports knowledge than I do; if you sort it out, let me know what you think.

Full results of the raise-my-taxes-for-CMS poll

With the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board slated to vote this evening on a potential $10.4 million cut from the Bright Beginnings pre-K program, a new poll showing strong support for a tax hike is stirring lots of debate. The poll, commissioned by Child Care Resources and the Council for Children's Rights, showed more than three-fourths of Mecklenburg residents surveyed support raising their taxes to help CMS and to pay for preschool for disadvantaged children.

Readers commenting on our online story joined commissioner Bill James in questioning whether the study was skewed by the sponsors and research firm Public Policy Polling to get the desired "raise-my-taxes" outcome. Officials from the two sponsoring groups say the questions were fair. I'm awaiting a response from Public Policy Polling, and will update with that once I get it.

So, here's a link to the full text of the study. What do you think of it?

Gorman: CMS data on Bright Beginnings is no good

In the 4 1/2 years Peter Gorman has been superintendent, there's been a smoldering debate over the academic benefits of Bright Beginnings prekindergarten. Looming budget cuts fanned it to a blaze.

On Friday evening, with a Tuesday vote slated on major pre-K cuts, Gorman and his research chief, Robert Avossa, sent the school board a memo saying they've looked at the data compiled by CMS predecessors and basically declared it worthless. They outline problems with sample sizes, assumptions and techniques used to compare Bright Beginnings children to a comparison group and calculate the cash value of the progam.

"The results of these studies and their limitations do not provide a definitive picture of whether BB is an effective program based on educational outcomes," the report says. "It is the opinion of most educators that Pre-Kindergarten programs can benefit the social, emotional, behavioral, and educational outcomes of a student. However, at this time, there is not sufficient or valid evidence to support a funding decision on research from CMS."

That's a bit of a bombshell to drop as the board faces a decision on whether to cut more than half the current Bright Beginnings program. Gorman has said he believes pre-K is the right thing to do, regardless of whether there's proof it changes long-term outcomes for kids. But he's also said he can't justify protecting pre-K while cutting K-12 classrooms.

The new report could nudge the board toward pulling the trigger on cuts Tuesday, or it could push members toward another delay. Either way, the debate just got a lot more interesting.

Another peek into the CMS crystal ball

I didn't fall on my face forecasting last month's magnet-busing action, so here are my best guesses on some questions that are floating about the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools budget:

Will the school board delay voting on Bright Beginnings again?

Could be. The two-week postponement had me scratching my head from the start. The folks we've talked to say no one has worked out a good alternative to the $10.4 million in proposed cuts, but there's still a lot of desire in the community and on the board to avoid them.

If the board pulls the trigger, the only advantage seems to be giving about 100 pre-K teachers notice that they should jump into the transfer pool to seek new jobs. Clearly, those teachers already know their jobs are at risk. If the board delays, members will say they're allowing more time for the community to find a solution. Translate that as more pressure on county commissioners to bump up money for CMS.

Will outsourcing non-academic functions save teacher jobs in 2011?

Superintendent Peter Gorman and his staff won't say, but I'm going to place a bet on "no."

At the Jan. 25 meeting, some board members asked about options for outsourcing or "managed competition," which involves letting staff produce a plan that's competitive with private bids. Gorman talked about the process of legal and procedural review that's just cranking up. This is genuinely complicated stuff, given the snarl of state and federal requirements that come with almost anything a school district does. If there were an easy win at hand, I suspect it would be in the current plans. My prediction: This won't be ready for the 2011-12 budget that will be presented in April, but Gorman & Co. will study options for 2012-13.

Will we be able to watch Tuesday's board meeting live on the web?

LaTarzja Henry says yes. So far CMS is 50/50: Live webstreaming worked Jan. 11 and failed Jan. 25. I've got no great technological insight on this; I'm lucky to get my own netbook working from the Gov Center.

Should we read Sunday's paper?

Why, yes!  There are some interesting developments in the Bright Beginnings data wars that you'll want to catch up on.

One-percent solutions

"There's not one big thing. There are one hundred one-percent solutions."

That quote, from a leader of a charter chain that's been successful with urban students, has been sticking in my mind as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools goes into the next round of budget-slicing.

It's from "A Chance to Make History" by Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America. She lays out a lot of thought-provoking ideas about what it takes to break the cycle of failure for low-income and minority students. Among them: The best predictor of teacher success may be such personal characteristics as leadership, resilience and high energy, rather than any combination of credentials and skills. One charter chain has given their teachers a battery of psychological tests, "searching for the disposition of teachers who are getting the best results," she writes.

One of her central arguments is to stop searching for "silver bullets and silver scapegoats," instead acknowledging that it takes a lot of small, difficult changes to make a big difference.

At first blush, that clashes with the sense of urgency that she and many others bring to the quest for better urban schools. "Incremental change" is almost a dirty word in such circles. And Kopp is not counseling anyone to be content with a smidgen of improvement each year, in hopes that kids will be doing fine by, say, 2030.

She does warn that no one approach -- not small schools or small classes, not more money or more technology, not charters or vouchers, not even Teach For America -- can turn the tide.

"The achievement gap in America is massive," Kopp writes. "If we think in terms of mapping student performance on a one hundred-point scale, the black-white achievement gap appears to be about thirty-five points. Meanwhile, virtually all of the strategies mentioned in this chapter, even if we accept only the most optimistic research about their impact, might close the gap by only one, two or three points."

That's sobering. New efforts and reform strategies tend to be sold as The Big Answer -- perhaps understandably, since their creators are trying to rally taxpayers, politicians and/or grant makers to invest millions of dollars. And yes, reporters also tend to be more captivated by silver bullets than one-percent solutions.

I'm remembering how back in the 1990s, CMS rolled out Bright Beginnings prekindergarten as something close to an inoculation against failure. Keep the kids from falling behind in kindergarten, the pitch went, and they'd sail through school on par with more advantaged peers, graduating from high school and going on to lives free of poverty and prison.

Now the first Bright Beginnings tots are in high school and hard data is scarce. But it's clear that the pre-K is more like a year of being fed -- it's far better than malnutrition, but it doesn't mean much if many more years of healthy meals don't follow. It may be more than one percent of the solution, but it's far from 100.

Starting this month, Bright Beginnings and a whole lot of other programs face scrutiny and possible cuts. It's sort of like a high-stakes game of Jenga. CMS officials say they've already pulled out all the easy blocks. Now they've got to slide out a lot more pieces -- and hope the tower doesn't collapse.

Newspapers and the view from Amay James

If you get angry when a blog item isn't full of hard-hitting news and analysis, please click away now. I figure I've spent enough time with spreadsheets and officials to bask in an occasional feel-good moment.

And if "community helper day" at Amay James Prekindergarten Center doesn't make you smile, there may be no hope for you. A parade of 4- and 5-year-olds came through dressed as doctors, construction workers, soldiers and scientists (you'd think one kid could have put on a trench coat and a hat with a press card in it, but no). My favorite: A boy in military camouflage who told me he wants to be a veterinarian, but he'd also like to be Spiderman.

My props were pretty feeble next to the uniformed pilot with a model plane, the landscapers who were potting pansies and the police who pulled their squad cars into the parking lot. Just for fun, I brought an American Girl miniature version of a manual typewriter. It brought nostalgic smiles from several teachers, but none of the kids could identify it. A camera? A cash register? A robot?

Several knew what my laptop computer was. The really depressing part? They had a harder time identifying a newspaper. Most gave me blank looks, though a few said they'd seen their parents reading one of those.

"My daddy does," one girl said eagerly. "In the bathroom!"

Any cynics who kept reading may be wondering: With the roughly $22 million Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools spends on Bright Beginnings prekindergarten facing scrutiny in 2011, was this a CMS plot to win me over?

I'll admit to being a sap for cute kids. Further, I'll admit to this bias: I'd like to see every one of those children have the best possible shot at becoming doctors, pilots or Spiderman (by 2023, that may be a better career path than newspaper reporter).

Maybe I've still got my rosy shades on, but I think most of us agree on that. Caring about kids doesn't preclude differences of opinion about the best way to reach them with the money that's available. A robust debate about that is coming, and I'll be right in there trying to tease out the facts.