Mayor Ed Lee and the San Francisco Unified School District announced Wednesday they plan to build a 100-unit housing complex solely for public school teachers and paraprofessionals, and invest up to $44 million over the next five years to help them purchase homes.

 

The proposals seek to help the many teachers and teaching assistants in San Francisco who say untenable housing prices have made it impossible for them to live in the city.

 

“Providing this housing opportunity for our teachers is one of the most important things we can do as a city,” Board of Supervisors President London Breed said in the mayor’s office Wednesday. She added that she was “really a bad kid in school” and the teachers who helped children like her “deserve an opportunity to live in this great city.”

 

The plan for a teachers-only housing complex is in its nascent stages. City and school officials said it will be constructed on property already owned by the school district, although they wouldn’t identify what sites are under consideration. They also haven’t determined who would qualify for the housing.

In May, Los Angeles Unified announced similar plans. This is from the LA Weekly:

The Los Angeles Unified School District [has a] 66-unit, four-story Selma Community Workforce Housing Project under construction at North Cherokee and Selma avenues in Hollywood and is scheduled to open in fall of 2016, the district says. It’s “intended for L.A. Unified employees who fall into a designated economic category. The complex is part of the District’s ambitious effort to attract and retain staff who want to live near work but can’t afford to pay for housing costs.”

Gov. Davis won tax break for teachers

This isn’t the first time that teachers in California have been singled out for special treatment. In 200o, Gov. Gray Davis sought to exempt teachers from the state income tax, a proposal that quickly faced strong opposition. He ended up signing a far more modest measure that gave teachers a tax credit of up to $1,500 for out-of-pocket classroom expenses.

Given that the average teacher pay in California is nearly $70,000, it seems possible that opposition could build to singling out a group with middle-class pay for special treatment in a state in which 23 percent of residents are in poverty. But San Francisco officials sought to blunt such concerns by framing the policy as being crucial to attract and retain teachers.

But a counter narrative is emerging that suggests the real problem is that all school districts are being unfairly tarred with skepticism over their bonds because of high-profile problems that Los Angeles Unified has had with its use of $1.3 billion in bond funds to buy iPads and laptops. George Skelton’s latest column — headlined “Don’t punish other districts for L.A. Unified’s problems” — makes this case.

However, those who pay attention to education issues (and/or Cal Watchdog) know that there are a wide range of scandals involving school bonds that go far beyond the controversial practice of using borrowed money to purchase short-lived technology. Here’s a short list:

Capital appreciation bonds

This is from a 2013 L.A. Times story:

When very generous health benefits and good pension benefits are factored in, that doesn’t look to be true in the state’s second largest county. Here are some of the findings about San Diego County, as reported by the U-T:

More than 7,500 school district employees in San Diego County received six-figure compensation packages last year, including 4,600 teachers. …

More than 1,300 San Diego Unified teachers also received six-figure compensation packages.

About 570 Sweetwater [Union High School District] teachers received more than $100,000 in compensation.

About 390 Oceanside [Unified] teachers received $100,000 or more, data shows.

The data shows that 359 teachers in the Poway district also received six-figure compensation in 2013.

Poway’s highest paid teacher … has her masters degree and teaches regular and A.P. U.S. History at Rancho Bernardo High, as well as civics and U.S. History for Poway’s online school. After 24 years in the district, [her] total compensation topped $132,130, including $22,106 in benefits, according to the data.

Negative correlation between $100k employees, district quality?

What’s particularly striking about the data is how the best school system isn’t remotely the one with the most high earners. Poway Unified — which has 35,000 students in a mostly upper-middle class district ranging from 4S Ranch in San Diego County to the city Poway to San Diego communities Rancho Bernardo, Poway, Scripps Ranch and Rancho Penasquitos — is widely considered one of the best medium-sized school districts in the nation.

But Poway has fewer $100,000 earners than Oceanside, which is much smaller with an enrollment of 21,200, and far fewer than Sweetwater, which is slightly bigger with a 40,900 students. Neither Oceanside or Sweetwater has a reputation even close to Poway’s.

There may be no conclusion to be drawn from this. But from talking to active parents in Poway Unified, one theory is quite plausible: a school that’s well-run on the academic side is likely to be well-run on the finance side, because they’re so interconnected. Poway Unified pays enough to avoid faculty turnover and resists pressure for unnecessary raises.

The budget figures back this up. In 2013, compensation for Poway Unified employees took up 84 percent of the operating budget. In San Diego Unified, compensation costs were a stunning 92 percent of the operating budget.

That’s a pretty intriguing theory to contemplate: that there is a negative correlation between percentage of teachers earning $100,000 in compensation and a school district’s quality.

But Torlakson’s specific reaction to the finalizing of the ruling was less predictable. Remember the context here: From President Barack Obama on down, many Democrats have said tenure laws are unfair to minorities and need to be changed. They may not call them unconstitutional and compare modern schools to those seen in segregated black America of the Jim Crow era. But they don’t like them.

Torlakson, however, didn’t even acknowledge this sentiment. Instead, he offered this comment:

“We do not fault doctors when emergency rooms are full. We do not criticize the firefighters whose supply of water runs dry. Yet while we crowd our classrooms and fail to properly equip them with adequate resources, those who filed and support this case shamelessly seek to blame teachers who step forward every day to make a difference for our children.”

So the real problem, you see, is that taxes are too low!

Teacher is most important classroom ‘resource’

There are two huge problems with this argument. The first is that the most important “resource,” so far as a student is concerned, is the teacher. And kids in minority schools are far more likely to have teachers who barely make the grade or who don’t even teach in the subject they were trained to teach. The second is that it’s pretty galling for a teachers union supporter to complain about adequate resources which the overwhelming majority of the operating budgets in most California school districts goes to compensation, primarily for teachers. In San Diego Unified, the state’s second largest school district, 92 percent of the operating budget goes to compensation.

So Torlakson’s reaction to the problems outlined during the Vergara trial amounts to saying the real problem is that teachers aren’t paid enough!

As for the CTA and the CFT, the real issue here isn’t about all the poor teachers that are foisted on the students who most need good teachers. Instead, it’s about a right wing plot to shut down discussion of topics important to well-meaning Californians:

A law firm representing the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers asserted that without tenure and other protections, teachers “may not teach topics such as Islam or global warming that might be considered controversial.”

Oh, my.

Establishment: Teachers matter, students don’t

I am skeptical the Vergara case will stand up on the appeal filed by the state. The bad laws Treu wants banned are effectively anti-minority, but not explicitly, and I think that point will rescue the CTA and CFT at some point.

Nevertheless, this has been a very worthy lawsuit. It underlines how horrible the California education status quo has become, and how relentlessly it sides with the needs of teachers over those of students.

By Chris Reed

For decades, it’s been common in K-12 public education to award raises to teachers for accumulating graduate school credits — even if the coursework has nothing to do with the subject that the teacher teaches. There has never been any evidence that this practice helps teacher performance in any way, but the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers have always fought to keep it, especially as a way for veteran teachers to boost their pay after their 20th year, when they normally are no longer eligible for the step raises they get most of their first 20 years just for showing up. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is among many reformers who thinks this is a nutty way to determine teacher pay.

Now a big California school district agrees. This is from the San Jose Mercury-News:

“SAN JOSE — In a groundbreaking contract, the San Jose Unified School District and its teachers union have agreed to peg pay increases to teaching skill rather than college credits, create a career ladder for outstanding teachers and slow the advancement of ineffective teachers — or ultimately fire them.

“The school board last week approved a three-year contract, effective July 1, after 72 percent of teachers ratified the contract in an election with a 76 percent turnout.

“‘I’m definitely excited about the direction and the opportunity that this contract presents,’ said Superintendent Vincent Matthews.”

A smart reform — but does contract violate spirit of state law?

But there’s a peculiar twist to this story. Thanks to a 2012 Los Angeles Superior Court ruling, school districts in California are on notice that the 1971 Stull Act is still a binding state law. And among the law’s many provisions is a specific requirement that student performance be part of teacher evaluations.

Yet the way the Merc-News story reads, student performance can only be considered if it is positive — not if it is poor. Huh?

“But though dubbed revolutionary by some, the new contract omits some elements once discussed but deemed too controversial, such as paying teachers to teach at high-poverty, low-achieving schools, and pegging teacher evaluations to student test scores.

“‘There is no reliable study showing that increase so-called accountability by making student test scores a significant part of evaluation improves outcomes for students or teacher performance,’ [Jennifer Thomas, president of the San Jose Teachers Association] said.

“While student performance will be part of the discussion on evaluations, teachers won’t be penalized if students don’t meet expectations.”

A strange Silicon Valley version of Lake Woebegon

In Lake Woebegon, all the students are famously above average. In San Jose, strangely enough, all the students who are below average don’t exist — at least when it’s time to consider how good a job teachers are doing.

Weird.

By Chris Reed

It’s not just money from Proposition 30’s sales-tax and income-tax hikes that is being used to provide for teacher pay raises and to allow continuation of “step” pay policies that give teachers raises most years just for time on the job and to maintain “column” pay policies that give teachers raises for meaningless accumulation of graduation school credits.

It turns out that the other tax-hiking measure that won approval in 2012 — Proposition 39 — is also a vehicle to that end. The measure blocked multistate corporations from getting to pick where they paid their taxes on revenue generated in California. It is expected to yield about an extra $1 billion a year to the state treasury. It’s long been anticipated that some of the money would be used to increase energy efficiency in school districts.

But instead of distributing the money to schools with the most needs, Gov. Jerry Brown is instead proposing to base its distribution on “Average Daily Attendance,” the same basic method that is used to determine how much money the state gives school districts — and to do so with relatively little oversight. Districts, which stand to get $2.6 billion over the next five years, would basically self-report on their compliance.

This has already triggered complaints from early sponsors of Proposition 39 and criticism from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Both say that spending should be targeted.

A clandestine way to divert money to teacher compensation

But this is even more of a scam than is understood. The problem isn’t just that the spending isn’t prioritized to get the money to where energy efficiency is the biggest concern. It’s that the language of Brown’s proposal appears to allow districts to spend their Prop. 39 funding on energy-related items in their operating budgets. This would free up more funds for employee compensation, which consume more than 90 percent of the regular budget in many districts.

School districts have been caught lying about attendance, stealing school lunch money, and misusing billions in bond funds — all so as to free up money to keep the automatic raises going to teachers. Diverting Prop. 39 funds would be a relatively minor sin on this front.

All of which brings me back to Reed’s Law, which I wrote about here last month. That law: Whether in the Legislature or in local school districts, the top priority is always freeing up or increasing revenue to allow tenured teachers to receive the automatic “step” raises that typically are provided for 15 of their first 20 years on the job — just for showing up.

Understand this, and California politics becomes demystified and uncomplicated.

Understand this, and it’s no surprise that a ballot measure that’s ostensibly about ending a tax loophole and promoting energy efficiency ends up being one more stealth measure to preserve automatic teacher raises.

The conventional wisdom about the California Teachers Association being a powerful player in Sacramento doesn’t come close to describing the truth. The CTA’s push to protect the pay and tenure of veteran teachers is so powerful, intense and unrelenting that it distorts policies in areas that seem to have little overlap with education.

I look forward to the day that “investigative journalist” Evan Halper points this out.

By Chris Reed

On the California revenue front, whether times are good or bad, happy or sad, the Democrats who control Sacramento are far more likely to help out the middle-class teachers who are the key force in their political coalition than the poor or needy.

That was hammered home again this week in the 2013-14 budget offered by Gov. Jerry Brown. While it does have a whiff of “social justice” about it in that the governor wants troubled schools to get disproportionately more money than the upscale schools where veteran teachers are concentrated, similar efforts have failed in the past. If that happens again this budget cycle, that will mean that schools were the primary beneficiaries of the billions in new revenue coming from Proposition 30’s higher taxes. And when I say schools, I mean teachers. Here in San Diego, without anything approaching a real debate, the city’s giant school district has committed to restoring a 7 percent raise for all teachers that had been put on hold because of state budget woes.

Meanwhile, advocates of social services for the needy and infirm are grousing, and asking when the deep cuts forced through by Gov. Brown will be restored. The answers from the governor amount to “not soon” and “tough luck.” Here’s KQED’s report. Here’s Dan Walters’ column on the same topic.

Revenue swell didn’t lift all ships

None of this is remotely surprising. Consider what happened during the state’s economic boom from 2002-2007, when state revenue surged 26 percent, from $80.6 billion to $101.3 billion.

The state Department of Social Services, which is responsible for child and family welfare, food stamp administration, help for the deaf and blind, and much more, saw its budget go from $8.15 billion to $9 billion. That’s 10 percent increase doesn’t even keep up with inflation over the same span.

In immense contrast, education spending went up 42 percent, from $26.85 billion to $38 billion.

To frame it another way, education spending went up by more than the entire Department of Social Services annual budget in any of the years from 2002-2007.

The poor and the needy, it seems, need to form a union to get some love from the party that says it’s all about protecting the vulnerable.

Here’s what I wrote about the implication of these budget stats when I first compiled them in August 2007:

Progressives should consider these numbers and realize the obvious: By the same logic with which you see Republican lawmakers as corporate stooges, you should see Dem lawmakers as union stooges.

This has become even more obvious in the 64 months since. Back in 2007, it would have struck me as far-fetched that Democrats would block efforts to quickly fire classroom sexual predators after a horrific scandal in which Los Angeles Unified had to pay off a teacher who fed kids semen to separate him from the school district. Little did I know.