May | 2012 | AMPS

In last week’s debate and elsewhere, Scott Walker has displayed less then total recall on many things. Among these are the role of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) and the 2009 repeal of the QEO in shaping teacher compensation in Wisconsin. He doesn’t want to remember and he doesn’t want you to remember because it undermines key parts of the case he has made for (all but) eliminating collective bargaining for public employees, especially those parts related to health insurance costs. According to Walker one of the main reasons Act 10 was necessary was that collective bargaining allowed teacher unions to force taxpayers to pay inflated rates to WEA-Trust. From start to finish, this story is full of holes.

For me the start is 1993 and the bi-partisan creation of the QEO under Republican Tommy Thompson. The QEO was one third of the “three legged stool” of school finance (the other two were 2/3 state funding and revenue caps…only the last remains). It was the leg designed to hold down costs by establishing a 3.8% total teacher compensation package floor and ceiling for districts wishing to avoid arbitration. Very few districts imposed the QEO, but it defined the playing field for contract negotiations.

The key part the Walker forgets is that between 1993 and 2009, under the QEO health insurance rates had little or no impact on contract costs and therefore taxpayers. In effect, the QEO gave teachers the 3.8% increases and allowed them to choose the proportion that would go to salaries, and the proportion that would go to benefits. In the years the QEO was in place, health insurance costs (via WEA Trust and everyone else) rose considerably and as a consequence much of the total package increases went there and not to salaries. That was the choice unions made via collective bargaining under the QEO. So the first thing Walker wants forgotten is that for the majority of the last two decades savings from teacher health insurance would have had little or no impact on costs or taxes.

The second thing he wants you to forget is that under the QEO unions did have the incentive to limit health care costs. According to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, a majority of unions sought some health insurance savings under the QEO:

Q: Does the QEO law prevent school boards and teachers unions from negotiating lower cost health insurance packages?

A: No. School boards and teachers’ union can voluntarily bargain changes to their health insurance coverage and frequently do. In fact, having the QEO law on the books has sparked serious negotiations on health insurance. Over 80 school districts have changed health insurance carriers and a majority of school districts have changed deductibles, medical provider co-payments and prescription drug co-payments.

Guess what Scott Walker, teachers — like everyone else — don’t want to pay too much for their insurance.

The repeal of the QEO, under Jim Doyle by Democratic controlled Senate and Assembly (for the record, I’ve always thought repealing the QEO in the absence of comprehensive school finance reform was bad crazy), combined with general economic conditions, smaller than usual revenue limit increases and the (at that time unprecedented) cuts to state school aid, led to even more unions agreeing to changes in health insurance. As Matt DeFour reported at the time, at 3.75%, “compensation contracts” were “on track to be the lowest in more than a decade” resulting in new pressures to find insurance savings. Where unions were not amenable to changes, the lack of a QEO put arbitration back in play for some districts. Citing changes won through post-QEO arbitration in Milton. Walker cheerleader Patrick McIlheran crowed that this “could mean the end to the costly market dominance of WEA Trust, the health insurer owned by the Wisconsin Education Association Council.” A strategy memo on post-QEO bargaining from the law firm Boardman and Clark backs this up, noting that due to rising health insurance costs arbitrators were moving away from quid pro quo in this area and recommending consideration of seeking changes in “Health Insurance / Carriers.” So there were tools in place well before Scott Walker took his knife to collective bargaining. Scott Walker also wants you to forget that without the QEO there was no floor either, unions could no longer count on 3.8% increases and that increases in both salary and benefit costs were trending down when he took office.

Last, Scott Walker wants you to forget that he campaigned on restoring the QEO. Forgetting this aids the big lie that we all should have expected the bomb that was ACT 10. His 2010 education packet stated:

The Qualified Economic Offer (QEO), which helped hold down local school costs for more than 15 years, will be restored and tied to revenue caps to align each district’s expenses with their revenues. Mediation and arbitration changes will also be needed to ensure that local economic factors are considered along with other common sense factors when arbitrating teacher contracts.

That doesn’t sound much like Act 10. Walker wants you to forget that he campaigned on very different things than he enacted.

For more information on related things:

David Wahlberg, “Walker’s claim on health insurance savings for public schools questioned.”

Dave Umhoefer, “”Act 10’s effect on school districts a mixed bag.”

WEA Trust, “Response to Governor Walker’s Statements.”

Tom Kertscher, “Behind the rhetoric: The WEA Trust and school health care costs.”

WEAC, “Do the facts matter to the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute?”

Thomas J. Mertz, “Where is the QEO?” and “Where’s the QEO? (again).”

Now the real important stuff.

HOW TO HELP RECALL WALKER

Six days and counting…

If you have money to donate, there are many good places to give, but I’d recommend Students for Wisconsin, a PAC formed by Madison West High School students. You can donate here, read about them here and here, and definitely should watch (and share) their video:

To volunteer check in with We Are Wisconsin or United Wisconsin.

DO SOMETHING! There can be no regrets on June 6.

Thomas J. Mertz

Photograph by AP/Worldwide Photos

As Jim Anchower says, “I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya…” Sometimes you need a break; expect more soon.

Paul Vallas will be featured at a “school reform town hall meeting” this Saturday, May 26, 1:00 PM at LaFollette High School. The announcements feature “Madison Metropolitan School District, Verona Area School District, United Way of Dane County, Urban League of Greater Madison & Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County” as “collaborating” hosts, but as reported by Matt DeFour the United Way “has requested that our name be removed from all upcoming communications related to the event, but will attend to hear the conversation from all those involved.”

Attempts to clarify MMSD’s role have not yielded a response. You can try yourself: Board of Education: board@madison.k12.wi.us, Supt. Dan Nerad: dnerad@madison.k12.wi.us. I’ve been told unofficially that MMSD is donating the space, which would mean that your tax dollars and mine are being used (see the district facilities rental policy here). It would really be a shame if our district collaborated in bringing Vallas here, there is very little in his version of school reform that our community, or any community will benefit from.

I can’t answer why he is coming to Madison. I presume that those who are bringing him would like to see Madison adopt the policies Vallas favors.

I can and will say some things about who Vallas is. As is common with these things, it depends on who you ask. The Koch and Bradley funded Manhattan Institute anointed Vallas with their Urban Innovator Award for 2006 (other recipients include Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and somewhat inexplicably Jerry Brown). The (also Bradley funded) Heartland Institute has had consistently good things to say about Vallas. You might recall that they are the ones with the secret “Operation Angry Badger” plan to “help defend and secure” the rule by the FitzWalker gang. On the other side, at the Daily Censored, Danny Weil called Vallas “”vassal and executioner of public schools.”

The Wikipedia entry provides a fair if spotty overview of his career. Here’s a short version. When Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was given control of the Chicago schools in 1995, he appointed then City Budget director Vallas as CEO. Vallas served till 2002, when disappointing progress the defeat of a Vallas friendly slate in the teacher union election led to his resignation (and here). He ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for Governor losing to Rod Blagojevich. From there it was to Philadelphia, where he served under the State appointed School Reform Commission from 2002 to 2007 and oversaw (among other things) what was then “the nation’s largest experiment in privatized management of schools.” He flirted with other Illinois Gubernatorial runs in 2005 and 2008, and the Cook County Board President in 2009 as a Republican (prompting the question, what kind of person became a Republican between 2008 and 2009). Vallas then became head of the State administered and Charter dominated Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD), where he served from 2007 until 2011. The RSD is now unquestionably the largest school privatization effort in US history (see this great video of a parent complaining that when Charters are the only choice, there is no choice, more here). More recently he was tapped by an illegally appointed Board as interim Superintendent in Bridgeport CN. His $228,000 salary is being paid for by the private Bridgeport Education Reform Fund. Not surprisingly, Vallas’ plan for Bridgeport includes extensive blurring of the line between public and private. It should probably be mentioned that Vallas’ resume also includes well compensated activities in Chile (leading to mass protests against the reforms he brought) and Haiti on behalf of the Inter-American Development Bank.

A couple of things stand out in his career. One is that he’s never worked with a locally elected education authority (ie an elected School Board); the other is that privatization is prominent in his toolbox. He explained the former to New York Times reporter Paul Tough:

When I asked Paul Vallas what made New Orleans such a promising place for educational reform, he told me that it was because he had no “institutional obstacles” — no school board, no collective bargaining agreement, a teachers’ union with very little power. “No one tells me how long my school day should be or my school year should be,” he said. “Nobody tells me who to hire or who not to hire. I can hire the most talented people. I can promote people based on merit and based on performance. I can dismiss people if they’re chronically nonattending or if they’re simply not performing.”

On the latter, a quote from an article Vallas wrote for the aforementioned Manhattan Institute:

We also have flexibility when it comes to work rules, which are decided by the board rather than the state. This has allowed us to do a lot of privatization. Our alternative schools are private schools, as are many of our special-ed schools. Our vocational education programs are also privately run to some extent. And we have contracted out for custodians, lunchroom attendants and the trades. In our system, schools have a choice. If they are not happy with their in-house services, they can privatize them. There’s competition.

It should be added that privatization also includes extensive pinstripe patronage contracts, something Vallas himself is now taking advantage of via his consulting company, winning a $1 million dollar contract that brings him back to the Chicago scene and raising some questions of transparency and conflicts of interest in Rockford).

From these quotes, it is also clear that Vallas would prefer not to have to deal with unions either. In Chicago and Philadelphia, Charter School expansion helped limit the union presence and Vallas also moved to replace other union workers — such as custodians and food service employees — by contracting with private companies, resulting in lost benefits. Like many of the market-based school reformers, Vallas talks a good game about addressing the impacts of poverty via education while making it harder for the working poor in his employ to provide for their families.

Vallas also likes tests, a lot. As in Philadelphia, One of the first things Vallas did in Bridgeport was to institute an extra round of standardized tests and the reason given was that “Traditionally, instruction wanes after the administration of the state tests. Unfortunately, this “lull” in teaching and learning deprives our students of much-needed academic support.” This echoes what Vallas said about test-based accountability in Chicago:

Vallas does not see fear as a negative. “My first reaction is that we went for decades of no fear, and where was the creativity then?” he asks, irritation rising in his voice. “Fear is a consequence of poor performance.

“People who are afraid may not have the makeup to move schools forward,” he adds. “A majority of teachers and principals have a lot of confidence in what we are doing and are delighted that we are focusing on raising student achievement.”

The use of fear was part of the picture in Philadelphia for educators and for students. Vallas is also a fan of test (and fear) based evaluations as a basis for teacher employment.

Fear, tests and transparency all came together in Vallas $1.4 million lawsuit against Chicago teacher and Substance reporter George Schmidt, who had published flawed test items from the Vallas initiated Chicago Academic Standards Exams. Well before Pinapplegate, Schmidt was blowing the whistle on bad tests. As he details here, his reward from Vallas was the loss of his job and years spent fighting the suit (and to keep Substance going), but was ultimately vindicated when the monetary damages claim was reduced to $0. Substance is still going strong.

Discussion of testing inevitably leads to discussions of test scores and much of Vallas reputation rests on his reported gains in this area. Leaving aside the limited utility of standardized teats as a measure of learning or teacher or school or district (or CEO) quality a closer look at Vallas’ record in Chicago does not indicate marked improvement and it is likely that a similar analysis for Philadelphia would also deflate the grandiose claims. The Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) report “Trends in Chicago’s Schools Across Three Eras of Reform” This report”addressed the problems in the public statistics by carefully constructing measures and methods to make valid year-over-year comparisons…to create an accurate account of the progress made by CPS since the early 1990s.” Some of the problems addressed had to do with changes in tests and cut scores, others “not only other changes to the test format, testing conditions, and scoring methods, but also changes in school policies—grade promotion standards, testing policies, and eligibility around bilingual and special education services—and shifts in the types of students being served by the schools.”

I want to point to the “grade promotion” or retention policies as a particular area of importance. In both Chicago and Philadelphia, Vallas instituted test-based retention policies (an idea so bad that even Scott walker was convinced to abandon it). Retention’s positive impact on test scores is akin to CEO’s concentrating on quarterly profits and not the big picture of long term health. Students in third grade the second time around will post higher third grade scores, but the gains are temporary and they are more likely to drop out and suffer other negative outcomes (you can read about the Chicago Civil Rights action on retention here and here and more from Philadelphia here.).

What the CCSR found in general was that “Many of the findings in this report contradict trends that appear in publicly reported data. For instance, publicly reported statistics indicate that CPS has made tremendous progress in elementary math and reading tests, while this analysis demonstrates only incremental gains in math and almost no growth in reading.” The same pattern is true for the Vallas years, some slight improvement in some reading scores, and slight but more pronounced improvements in math scores. Large racial gaps grew, Chicago continued to lag behaind the state and “Despite progress, the vast majority of CPS students have academic achievement levels that are far below where they need to be to graduate ready for college.” It should also be noted that graduation rate improvements slowed under Vallas. The whole report is worth a read, especially the section on “Changes in School Climate and Organizational Supports,”

No equivalent analysis has been done for Philadelphia, but there is reason to doubt the reported double digit and even 20%+ increases in students meeting standards over Vallas’ tenure. With the latter there is some apples to oranges going on, the 2002 numbers cover grades 5.8 and 11; but by 2007 grades 3,4,6 and 7 have been added. Philadelphia did not participate in NAEP during the Vallas years, but the performance on the Terra Nova were not as impressive as it was on the state tests and even here there were problems. Still, it is likely that scores did rise significantly in real ways under Vallas, but also needs to be noted that when he left only 47.0% of tested students were proficient in math, only 40.7 in reading and that that the schools turned over to outside Educational Management Organizations were below these dismal numbers.

Post Katrina New Orleans is a classic “not the same students, not the same schools” case that makes comparisons over time difficult, but there is reason not to believe the hype there either. The Miracle Schools Wiki has lots of links that raise doubts and more. Of particular concern are allegations made by the Louisiana School Board Association. of “scrubbing” low performers.

There is lots more out there on Vallas, if you are interested I’d suggest clicking the links in the post, the links below and skipping the event. If you care about schools and students, your Saturday would be much better spent working to get Scott Walker out of office (contact United Wisconsin to volunteer). I know mine will be.

For further reading and viewing:

Diane Ravitch, “The Very Rewarding Job of Saving Schools.”

PBS coverage of Vallas (extensive on New Orleans).

Martha Abele Mac Iver and Douglas J. Mac Iver, “WORKING PAPER – Privatizing Education in Philadelphia: Are Educational Management Organizations Improving Student Achievement?”

Edward Hayes, “The man, the myth, the continuing nonsense.”

Debra Vaughan, Laura Mogg, Jill Zimmerman and Tara O’Neill”Transforming Public Education in New Orleans: The Recovery School District.”

Two takes on the fate of the Philadelphia School, now slated for dissolution:

Daniel Denvir, “Who’s Killing Philly Public Schools? Underfunded. Overburdened. About to be sold for scrap.”

Doug Martin, “In the City of Corporate Love and Beyond: The Boston Consulting Group, Gates, and the Filthy Rich.”

and since these were mentioned in the Matt DeFour story

The Washington Times, “Military Schools on the Rise.”

Don Feder, “Book covers breach wall of separation.”