The Citizen’s Advisory Group report on School Cost Structure (draft, January 20th 2009) is a comprehensive, well thought out and well presented document which every stakeholder in the Newton Public Schools should review.  The document, while lengthy at 191 pages, contains excellent shorter summaries supported by five detailed reports and associated appendices.
 
I know that many syntheses of the report will be forthcoming, including the formal presentation by the CAG next week (Tuesday March 24th at 7:00 pm presented by the League of Women Voters at the Longyear Musueum in Chestnut Hill).  I will not duplicate those efforts here, but I did want to note some highlights that warrant extra attention and consideration in advance of the formal presentation of the final report.
 
Due to the length, I will create two separate posts to follow.  One focused on the financial challenges and one on the issue of trust, accountability and transparency.

I look forward to the discussion that the CAG release of the final report will certainly generate and I hope that by sharing these thoughts I have inspired you to follow that discussion more closely than you might otherwise have!

The existing financial structure of the Newton Public Schools is not sustainable over the long term.  This is starkly illustrated by the statistic that over FY 03-07 a 5.9% compound annual increase in cost has been required to maintain level services while only 4.3% compound annual revenue increase has been available.  The CAG projects a compound deficit in school funding of $60M in the next six years.

As if that is not enough, two other factors make the situation even more dire.  In recent years the allocation of overall City revenue to the schools has been increasing as approximately 70% of new revenues go to the schools.  Even with the municipal side sacrificing in this way (which cannot continue indefinitely) we have had to shift costs within the school budget to maintain the most visible aspects of our educational programs at the expense of longer term less visible – but often no less important – cost centers such as facilities maintenance, teacher support and technology.

Taken in total, the overwhelming weight of evidence is that our school’s financial structure is in crisis and we will be unable to sustain the excellence we aspire to without fundamental and structural change.

The table above taken from the CAG report illustrates the key opportunities to moderate cost growth.  Clearly there are two overwhelming problems – benefits and SPED.  The specific report on SPED is quite thorough and unfortunately does not identify any silver bullets.  However, one item that stands out is the overall increase in compensation for aides in the current contract.  This will certainly need to be addressed in the upcoming negotiations.

A potentially controversial thought (not present in the CAG report) is to examine how NPS can turn its reputation for SPED excellence into a profit center by capturing out of district placements from other communities thus leveraging our expertise, infrastructure and fixed cost.  A nod in this direction has been discussed in relation to the proposal to create an alternative high school and generated initial positive response.  Is further exploration warranted?

Benefits are an area that requires a lot more analysis.  I have been dismayed at the “our hands are tied” attitude from the administration and school committee to date on this topic.  Yes – there are real issues within municipal collective bargaining regulations that need to be taken into account.  However, this cannot be an excuse to abdicate the responsibility to thoroughly investigate and propose alternatives.  At least we will know what is being left on the table!

One alternative that has been frequently raised is to join the GIC.  I will tee up another one here and go into detail in a future post.  We could shift from the traditional plans we offer now to a high-deductible consumer driven health plan (HDCDHP).

Other specific items of note:

o  The existing contract makes it very costly to have teachers take on extra administrative or management duties (for which they would be compensated).  This dramatically limits the flexibility of school principals, especially at the elementary level, from leveraging the skills of experienced teachers to provide a better support structure for the rest of their staff.  This restriction should be eliminated from future contracts.


o  The bulk of our professional development funding appears to be going to creating central roles of curriculum coordinators, math coaches, and others who provide indirect support to the teachers rather than directly to the teachers to fund continuing education and skill building.  Has this model been proved to be more effective?  Do the teachers agree?  Have we asked them?

The CAG report highlights multiple important issues, some “hard”, such as the financial picture and some “soft”.  Key among the soft is a recognition that there has been a loss of trust in the administration and school committee due to lack of transparency and inconsistency in both message and outcomes.  I believe that the current school committee has slowly begun to understand this issue, but one of the fundamental tenets of my campaign is that this trust must be restored before we will be able to make substantive forward progress on the urgent challenges facing our schools, thus this must be made an absolute priority.  I am proud to note many similarities between the CAG recommendations and my own thoughts that I have previously written and spoken about.

Specific suggestions that the CAG makes to help restore this trust are:

o Clearly differentiate between the essential vs the desirable in our goals and mission as well as our programs and services.  Document the relationship between fixed costs and programs.  The rationale behind tradeoffs made year to year in the current budgeting practice can appear opaque to the general public.  We need clearer and more concrete prioritization.  A key element in this is also to establish metrics to measure our effectiveness over time at achieving our essential and desirable objectives.


o Program area budgeting where the budget is presented not only by type of cost (salary, etc.) and by general cost center (elementary school, middle school, etc.) but aligned with overall programs across the system against program areas such as mathematics, arts and music, etc.  This will aid in the evaluation of each program area’s cost / benefit analysis.  This will required the allocation of fixed costs equitably across program areas.  Note that the intent is not to identify items to eliminate, but rather to improve transparency of how resources are allocated across the broad range of educational goals.


o An open and honest discussion of the METCO program and its objectives and financing.  There is great confusion about this program within the community at large.  Is it funded by the state?  Are we paying for it?  How much does it cost?  The CAG report goes into depth in analyzing the cost and financing of Metco from two perspectives (incremental and full cost).  Which is right?  The truth probably lies somewhere between the two.  The key here is to have the discussion.  (For the record, I am a supporter of the METCO program.  I attended NPS and experienced what our participation means from the student’s perspective.  I believe that the social benefits outweigh the costs, but I too have many unanswered questions about the program, how it is financed, what it truly costs us and how we measure the results).
 

Many other suggestions that the CAG has made will also contribute to restoring trust, but those items resonated the most for me.