CAPSO Midweek E-Mailer

Another team of veteran consultants hailing from Independent School Management, based in Wilmington, Delaware, will offer the following set of sessions:

21st Century Schools - Not a Marketing Slogan!
21st Century Success Predictors
Creating and Maintaining a Healthy/High Performance Faculty Culture
Your Faculty's Role in Marketing
California Financial Aid is Different. Maximize it!
Make Your Schedule Good for Children

These are but a few of the timely, on-point workshops that make CAPSO's Triennial Convention such a special opportunity. You can glance at our complete line up of session listings, and read a bit about our presenters, here. (Just click the blue links titled Session "A" through Session "F," or select "About Our Presenters.") And online registration is a snap.

One more thing to keep in mind... At a CAPSO Convention, you'll meet and interact with colleagues from across the private school spectrum. You'll be surprised and gratified by how much your school shares in common with schools embracing other philosophical and religious orientations and/or governance structures, and how much there is to learn from one another. And you'll expand your network in the process.

It only happens once every three years! Don't miss CAPSO 2011.

Private School Affidavit: It's Almost Time to File!

California Education Code Section 33190 requires every private school in the state to file an annual affidavit with the Superintendent of Public Instruction. If your school fulfilled the requirement last year, your administration should have received an e-mail advisory from the California Department of Education containing filing instructions for the current year, along with the password needed to access the CDE's online filing interface. (The e-mail was sent on 9/22/11.) The law states that affidavits must be filed between October 1 and October 15.

It is crucial for every California private school to file the affidavit in a timely manner. Beyond upholding the law, failure to file exposes a school to potentially serious consequences. Filing the affidavit is necessary if private school students are to fulfill the state's compulsory school attendance laws. With no current affidavit on record, a private school does not exist in the eyes of the state. This means that a School Attendance Review Board can declare students attending a non-filing school truant.

Additionally, failure to file the affidavit makes a school's students, faculty and parents ineligible for receipt of various benefits provided by federally funded programs provided under terms of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Even if your school chooses not to participate in these programs and services, failure to file the affidavit reduces the amount of funding available to provide services to children in other private schools in your area that do choose to participate.

Affidavit data provides the single most important source of information about private school enrollment, both state-wide and locally. Comparing data on a year-to-year basis enables the identification of tendencies and trends, and facilitates forecasting, needs-assessment and planning. The data also serve an important political purpose by letting elected officials know how many private schools exist, both state-wide and within individual districts, how many children they educate, and the number of teachers and administrators they employ.

As you complete your affidavit, please devote special attention to the questions asking whether your school is established on a for-profit, or nonprofit basis. If your school enjoyed a particularly strong fundraising campaign and happened to finish its most recent fiscal year "in the black," it does not necessarily make your school a for-profit entity! A school that has been granted 501(c)(3) status by the Internal Revenue Service is a nonprofit entity, regardless of the size of its endowment, or the "bottom line" on its end-of-year balance sheet.

Information concerning the filing of the private school affidavit can be found on the California Department of Education's website, here. If yours is a new school, or should you have questions concerning the filing of the affidavit, please contact Laura Nelson, Associate Governmental Program Analyst, Title II Leadership Office, by phone at 916-319-0229 or by e-mail at privateschools@cde.ca.gov

USDE Offers ESEA Waivers

Late last week, the U.S. Department of Education issued a set of documents that open the door to the issuance of waivers that can effectively release states from the most contentious testing and accountability provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). A press release announcing the availability of the waivers can be found, here.

To become eligible for the granting of the waivers, states must commit to pursuing a series of reforms that are specified in this document. The waivers will enable states to:

Create new annual measurable objectives to be used as a referent for the determination of adequate yearly progress;
Forego the identification of Title I schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years and the imposition of corrective action upon such schools. The same exemption would apply to public school districts;
Expand the number of Title I schools eligible to initiate schoolwide programs;
Target funds to districts serving schools determined by the state to be most in need of additional support;
Provide financial rewards to schools meeting certain criteria;
Forego the creation of improvement plans for districts that fail to meet Highly Qualified Teacher benchmarks;
Exercise increased flexibility in the allocation of certain funds, and,
Enjoy additional flexibility in the allocation of School Improvement Grant funds to assist priority schools.

Eligibility for receipt of such waivers is contingent upon a state's commitment to (among others) the following principles:

Developing college- and career-ready standards in at least reading/language arts and mathematics, transitioning to and implementing such standards statewide for all students and schools, and developing and administering annual, statewide, aligned, high-quality assessments, and corresponding academic achievement standards, that measure student growth in at least grades 3-8 and at least once in high school;
Developing and implementing a system of differentiated recognition, accountability, and support for all public school districts in the State and for all Title I schools in these districts. The system must continue to assess (but is not limited to) reading/language arts and mathematics, and the achievement demonstrated by various groups must continue to be reported in a disaggregated manner;
Effecting dramatic, systemic change in the lowest-performing schools by publicly identifying "priority schools," and working to close achievement gaps by publicly identifying Title I schools with the greatest achievement gaps, or in which subgroups are furthest behind, as "focus schools;"
Developing, adopting, piloting, and implementing, with the involvement of teachers and principals, teacher and principal evaluation and support systems. In so doing, both the state and all school districts must commit to using "multiple valid measures in determining performance levels, including as a significant factor data on student growth for all students (including English Learners and students with disabilities), and other measures of professional practice (which may be gathered through multiple formats and sources, such as observations based on rigorous teacher performance standards, teacher portfolios, and student and parent surveys)," and,
Engaging diverse stakeholders and communities in the development of the state's request, and providing a description of how the state department of education meaningfully engaged and solicited input on its request from teachers and their representatives.

The last item clearly empowers the teachers unions to help fashion states' waiver applications. Moreover, the principles provide for the explicit participation of teachers in the development of teacher evaluation frameworks that employ measures of student achievement as a "significant factor."

The deadline for the submission of early requests is November 14, 2011. It is difficult to imagine that California can organize a proposal within such a short window. The next opportunity to submit a request will come in mid-February. Unless and until waivers are granted, both the state and local school districts remain obligated by the terms of the current law.

The waivers should not have an impact upon equitability requirements governing federally funded services to private school children, teachers, and other education personnel. Funding levels for relevant federal programs have yet to be finalized for the coming year, though currently proposed legislation would maintain relatively flat funding for Title I.

Quick Takes

Proposed Initiative Takes Aim at Pensions

With California facing unfunded public employee pension liability to the tune of roughly half a trillion dollars, the political heirs of those responsible for the creation of Proposition 13 plan to introduce a new ballot initiative designed to place limits on the computation of future pension benefits. The plan's main feature, as described by Capitol Weekly, here, would cap public employee salaries at $100,000 for purposes of calculating pension benefits. Such a practice would prevent employees from securing increases to their pension payments by using bonuses, overtime, and other types of job-related supplemental income to boost the calculation of benefits. Details of the proposed "Pension Solvency Act," can be found in the initiative application filed by People's Advocate, Inc.

The initiative also proposes the creation of a state-administered retirement system for private sector employees to be called the California Separate Private Employees System, or CalSPERS. CalSPERS would be administered by CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Funds from the two accounts would not be intermingled.

2011 "Blue Ribbon Schools" Named

CAPSO extends its congratulations to the administration, faculty, parents and student body of Santa Fe Christian Lower School in Solana Beach for having been designated a 2011 Blue Ribbon School by the United States Department of Education. According to the USDE, "the Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors public and private elementary, middle, and high schools that are either high performing or have improved student achievement to high levels, especially among disadvantaged students." Santa Fe Christian Lower School is affiliated with CAPSO-member organization the Association of Christian Schools International.

Additional information about the program can be found, here. A complete list of 2011 Blue Ribbon School designates can be viewed, here. The Council for American Private Education administers the private school component of the Blue Ribbon Schools program.

Two New Issue Briefs from EdSource

EdSource, an independent and nonpartisan California-based organization that endeavors to clarify complex education issues has produced two new issue briefs that focus on "California's Math Pipeline." The Grade 7 Pivot Point "delves into the issues and research around how student math achievement by the end of 7th grade relates to later success in the subject." Success Begins Early, "identifies key policies that could ensure that more California students have the necessary early foundations to move into the advanced math curriculum that begins with algebra."

The Most Important Subject

While conventional wisdom may dictate that one refrain from discussing politics or religion in polite company, each succeeding national election cycle seems to make their intersection consistent with the crosshairs of public consciousness. In truth, considerations of religion are nothing new to American politics, past or present. Even in post World War II America, John Kennedy's Catholicism was an issue in 1960, as was Joe Lieberman's Jewishness, in 2000, and Mitt Romney and John Huntsman's Mormonism is today. The public clamor over then-candidate Barack Obama's church affiliation and personal relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright occasioned a major address, and subsequent renunciation by the future president. At present, questions regarding Dominionism swirl around the campaigns of Republican presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry.

What does any of this have to do with private, K-12 education? Considering that roughly 80 percent of all private school students, both in California, and nationally, receive their education in religiously affiliated schools, plenty. Beyond producing many of the religious leaders of today and tomorrow, private religious schools treat the nexus of religion and society as an explicit curricular issue. Those who harbor fears of inchoate attempts to recast America's secular public education system into so many networks of religious schools might do well to examine (and take comfort from) the realities attendant to our nation's private religious schools. (So, too, is it the responsibility of private school leaders to keep the public mindful of such realities.) During the course of my ten years as CAPSO's executive director, I've learned the following about the landscape of private religious schools:

Though they share a great deal in common, private religious schools present a diverse range of understandings and views. Not only does diversity exist between various faith orientations; it is frequently found within respective religion traditions. Intra-faith relations are often more contentious than inter-faith relations, with controversy often arising over the same issues: female clergy, the posture of religious institutions toward homosexuality, the relationship between faith and science. outreach vs. inreach, and others. In fact, if there is one issue about which there is near uniform agreement among private schools of diverse religious orientations, it is the desire to remain free of excessive governmental regulation. If the public knew how committed our schools are to steering clear of government interference, folks might be far less inclined to accord credence to any purported widespread interest of communities of faith to effect a takeover of the public education system.

Private religious schools produce graduates who become Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and members of other political parties. A student may be taught that it is his/her religious obligation to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the widow, orphan and stranger, but our religious schools do not engage in political party recruitment. Individual students will arrive at differing conclusions about the preferred means, instrumentalities and structures they regard as best suited to bring healing, help, and hope to a broken world filled with needy and downtrodden individuals.

Finally, any serious observer of private schools would come to the conclusion that such institutions are, at their very core, values based institutions. (This is true not only of private religious schools, but of the vast majority of CAPSO-affiliated secularly oriented schools as well. In these schools, respect for persons, community service, equity and justice, and other core values are both apparent and pervasive.) Beyond providing students with knowledge and skills in core academic and elective subject matter areas, private religious schools address existential questions about life's meaning and purpose. Young people are afforded a world view and grounded in a community of shared values - values that speak to every aspect of human behavior and social welfare. That being the case, it is inconceivable that religion and politics become bifurcated. At the same time, politics and governance are not one in the same, and I know of no private school leader who wishes to see excessive entaglement of government and religion.

At the end of the proverbial day, values constitute the most important subject taught, modeled and lived in our schools. I believe a strong case can be made that it is the provision of an explicitly identifiable values-based education that serves as the single most important point of educational (as opposed to structural) differentiation between public and private schools. Vive la différence

Ron Reynolds

Publication Note

The next edition of the CAPSO Midweek E-Mailer will be published on September 12, 2011.