Several laws passed by the Legislature require towns to have conversations about voluntarily merging into larger school districts to deal with a significant loss of students across the state. Act 46 requires towns to meet and consider merging into larger school districts. Unification plans must be submitted to the state board and then must be approved by voters.
After an enrollment dip earlier this decade, however, UMUC has begun a process of unbundling, paring the institution down to what President Javier Miyares calls its “academic core” to monetize its own services, grow its endowment and keep tuition rates low.
UW Flex established a different revenue model: instead of charging by the credit hour, the program charges a set price for all students, based on a subscription period, during which students have “all-you-can-learn” access to the curriculum. This means that for those students who work through the online program quickly, a UW Flex degree will end up being substantially cheaper. For others, the cost may end up being equivalent to a traditional program.
The Trump administration’s budget blueprint would include $1.4 billion in new money for school choice, but it would get rid of Title II, the $2.3 billion main federal program for improving teacher quality, and the 21st Century Community Learning Center program, a $1.1 billion program which helps finance afterschool and extended-day programs. Private and charter schools receive funding, or at least services, from both programs, explained Sheara Krvaric, an attorney with the Fed Ed Group, a law firm that specializes in K-12 programs.
The Trump administration is seeking to cut $9.2 billion — or 13.5 percent — from the Education Department’s budget, a dramatic downsizing that would reduce or eliminate grants for teacher training, after-school programs and aid to low-income and first-generation college students. Along with the cuts, the administration is also proposing to shift $1.4 billion toward one of President Trump’s key priorities: Expanding charter schools, private-school vouchers and other alternatives to traditional public schools.
A system of managed competition, with varying designs in different types of locations, can provide the accountability, accessibility, transparency, coordination, and enforcement necessary to make this very unusual market work for all children.
In “The Equity Problem in Teacher Pensions,” released in January, Edunomics Lab took a preliminary look at the scope of variation in how pension funds are applied across schools in order to shed light on meaningful patterns that have largely remained in the dark. Our initial analysis of patterns in Delaware and three districts in Wisconsin, California, and Pennsylvania suggests that the current pension wealth accrual structure results in an inequitable deployment of these key education resources.
Here’s a math problem even the brightest school districts struggle to solve: getting hordes of elementary, middle and high school students onto buses and to school on time every day. In such problems, improving operational efficiency even a little could result in great advantages.
The Special Education Predictable Cost Cooperative (the Co-op) is a special education finance system that allows the state and local governments to share in special education costs. Our organization, the Connecticut School Finance Project, in partnership with the University of Connecticut’s Goldenson Center for Actuarial Research and Neag School of Education, developed the model to help increase stability and predictability in special education funding for school districts, while ensuring decisions in service delivery and identification remain local.
When charter schools expand, and more kids leave classrooms run by the School District of Philadelphia, it’s not as costly as previously estimated, although the total remains significant. That’s according to a much-anticipated report commissioned by the district in 2015, completed by the consultancy Afton Partners. Uri Monson, Chief Financial Officer for The School District of Philadelphia says in the district’s press release, “Some of the constraints that lead to stranded costs are partially controllable and can be mitigated with action by SDP, albeit via difficult actions such as layoffs and school closures. Continuing to grow and improve District-managed schools, and attracting students back to great schools near where they live, would also mitigate these fiscal challenges for the District.”