Parcel tax measure in Menlo Park City School District moves toward board approval

The district has been very clear about the causes of its structural deficit. Anyone can go to its website (below) and access the “MPCSD Structural Deficit FAQ” (Announcements provides the speediest link at the moment) where it outlines three causes: the expiry of the current parcel tax, the growth in headcount, and the $3M increase in pension contributions to reduce the unfunded pension liability.

In the absence of headcount growth — if, for example, the district were shrinking like Redwood City, Portola Valley, Ravenswood, or Woodside — covering some or all of the dramatic pension increase with increased property taxes would be an option. In the absence of the pension hit, covering the expiration of the parcel tax with property tax would be an option. As it is, however, it’s a trifecta.

district.mpcsd.org

Menlo Voter,
In the draft parcel tax documents that the Board will begin word-smithing tomorrow, there are two major statements regarding pensions. Perhaps you’d like to publish the wording that would be compelling to you here and in an email to board@mpcsd.org — thus obviating the need to appear in person?

First, in the Resolution calling for a Parcel Tax election (which admittedly will only be read by about ten people):
“WHEREAS, the State has imposed on the District an increased burden of contribution to the state-administered staff retirement programs for which the District must now budget in perpetuity; and …”

Second, in FINDINGS, for the Voter Guide,
“Complicating the District’s financial planning, the State of California has forced all public school districts to double the rate of pension contribution paid for by the local district. By the year 2020, the District will be required to pay $3 million more per year than it paid in 2015. This increase is a result of the state’s move to extend the solvency of the state-controlled pension system. Neither the district staff, nor the Board, has the ability to control this requirement. The District must now budget in perpetuity for the increase in its pension contribution.

Personally, I would say, “more than double the rate — as it went from 8.25% to 19.1%” And I’m uncertain that “perpetuity” is accurate, certainly until 2046, however.

Let’s do some basic math, Jack. Currently, there are 3000 students who attend our district schools. A similar number attend private schools. So, $1,000 of “financial support” (via voucher I assume), now strips $1,000 of education out of each child in the public schools, and passes it to children whose parents have already chosen to put them in private schooling. ($1000 x 3000 = $3,000,000)

Possibly $1000 is enough to motivate parents to move a child to a private school, bearing the remainder of the ten(s of) thousand(s) of dollars of tuition themselves. But, unless the number of such children is greater than 230 kids, we’re not getting anywhere. ($3M + $1K per child who moves, divided by the remaining kids, just gets us back to the current $14,000 per child.) And, of course, parents need to be guaranteed that the money will continue, since pulling young children in and out of schools can be extremely damaging to their educations.

And, of course, private schools could simply choose to jack their tuition up $1,000 — why let the lucky parents of the existing students reap this windfall?

For those who are wondering, a $2,000 voucher would require 500 (a full sixth of the student body) to leave. At $4,000, 1200 would need to go. At $5,000, well over half (1,665) … and so forth up to $7,000, where everyone’s been reduced to the voucher. At that point, of course, the 50% whose parents were paying in the first place are truly golden, because the rest have been left with half the education they had before.

Jack, we really feel badly that you’re so engaged over here that you missed the parcel tax election that was, literally, in your own backyard. What’s that saying about the “speck in your neighbor’s eye and the beam in your own?”

Playing with the truth does have tragic consequences.

Often I feel that six of us are here, in a dark room, with an elephant. Most of us are very worried. Each of us is also touching a different part of the elephant. One is feeling a tusk — and frantic about the risk of being gored. Another is touching the trunk, distraught lest we be strangled. A third is keeping out of the way of a heavy foot, in fear of being trampled. Yet another is being smacked by the tail, and one just got pooped on. (Another fellow is blithely exploring the elephant’s ear, puzzled at everyone else’s evident agitation.)

Increasingly, however, we’re freaking out — trying to convince each other that, in fact, we alone grasp the salient issue. It’s the pensions, stupid! It’s the kids! It’s the salaries! It’s Prop 13!!

The ensuing screaming is also freaking out the elephant.

Personally, I would love to highlight the Prop 13, Prop 58, and allocation issues that I believe are at the core of the dilemma. (That would have made such an interesting 75-word ballot proposition!) Other folks want the $3M increase in pensions front and center. It’s not headcount, they say, yet, had headcount fallen about 250 kids since 2010, wouldn’t they have said the pension increase should have been absorbed? But, OK, pensions are a burning issue throughout California and they’d like it highlighted.

Yet those are just two elements in the equation. Others are looking at the equation programatically. Is art or music expendable? Should mini-courses that match students’ real-world interests with underlying math/science/lanugage be dropped? Is 24 about the same as 22 students per class? If so, isn’t 22 the same as 20, and 20 the same as 18? Is there some reason that the national average is about 16? Forty states average under 18 children per teacher, across the entire state, yet we think 22 to 24 won’t affect education? For forty years, California has led the nation in average class size AND average teacher salary — and we’re the flea on the tip of the tail of that … elephant.

We are all trying to figure it out from our own perspective and with the tools at our command. And we’re trying to figure it out fast, before good teachers leave the district, before students’ education suffers, before the real-estate industry flips the sign on MPCSD from “BUY” to “SELL”. We’re trying to figure out how much we should be willing to take out of our pockets and hand to the school board — and I will remind you that I have no children in the schools, so it is coming out of my pocket, too.

Then we’ll need to convince the voters. We’ll need to convince them that, no, what they read eight months ago in the Voter Guide about a fiscally irresponsible school district treating taxpayers like ATMs, pleading flat revenue in the face of a 17% increase … was playing with the truth. Before the elephant tramples students, property owners, and teachers alike. Onward.

Train Fan,

I may have misjudged you. For months it seemed to me that you were doing exactly what you accused the District of doing: cherrypicking data to prove a preconceived point. But yesterday it struck me that, perhaps, you were someone who uses numbers to understand the world. Since I’m that kind of person, I can appreciate the need for measurable, objective evidence that builds to a conclusion. Random data points are even more frustrating than subjective claims. (At least, “cooler,” “nicer,” “smarter” don’t pretend to be objectively verifiable.)

So here’s a wacky offer. Would you like to work on evaluating “comparables” together? Here’s my idea: you pick 4 – 5 districts that seem to you to be “comparable” to MPCSD. I pick 4 – 5 districts that seem to me to be “comparable” to MPCSD. We each use our own criteria to pick the districts. Then we analyze all ten districts (including MPCSD) together.

If I’m right that you are a true numbers wonk, you’ll understand that I mean Analyze. None of this consolidated API stuff. We’ll go to the new information that’s coming out of the CAASPP Smarter Balanced Assessments (2016 is the second year, so hopefully some of the kinks got worked out) and, if necessary, back to the old CST information. We’ll look at whatever cuts of that data (race, parental education, etc.) we discover are significant. We’ll look beyond averages like teacher salary and into the underlying salary schedules, to allow for the possibility that a district is weighted heavily towards more or less experienced teachers. We’ll compare teacher salaries for the district with other touchstones (police and fire are available statewide — these are actuals, so they may be skewed, but we’ll LOOK.) We’ll push beyond the easy numbers (test scores, salaries) and into the Board presentations and school websites to try to figure out the intangibles — music, art, theater, foreign languages, PE, library. I don’t know how yet, but it’s amazing how, if you’re curious about something, there often turns out to be a direct or indirect way of finding it. Finally, we’ll dig into Special Ed. (Hang on for that ride. I’ve never been there before.)

OK, I bet you’re suspicious. Why am I suddenly willing to let you pick any districts you like?
1.) Because we’re going to a level of granularity that should get us past racial and (hopefully) socioeconomic differences. (You always get mad when MPCSD lists Las Lomitas, Woodside, Portola Valley and Palo Alto as comparables. But they are the other court-ordered Tinsley Program districts. Each is affected by a similar percentage of kids being bused in from East Menlo Park and East Palo Alto. This matters at an aggregate level. Disaggregate to race or parental education and test performance gets comparable again. Not necessarily equivalent, but able to be intelligently compared. IMO.)
2.) Because we are going to (try to) get to the bottom of Special Education. Why am I invariably twitchy when anyone insists on Los Gatos/Saratoga as a comparable? Because it’s in Santa Clara SELPA III, one of the twelve highest funded SELPAs in the state (over the 90th percentile). If 4+% of Saratoga’s children are either pulled out for Special Ed or more heavily subsidized off Saratoga’s books, compared with less than 1% in MPCSD, well, we need to get down to a granularity that will allow us to equalize for that.
3.) We’ll look at anything else that might skew the data. When you hear about my districts, you’ll realize that we’ll need to consider fixed costs, for example.

Now you’re wondering if I’m going to cherrypick my districts. Well, before you agree, they are: Palo Alto, Las Lomitas, Redwood City, and Portola Valley — and Los Altos, if you haven’t already picked it. (You’d said San Carlos, Belmont, Los Altos, and Burlingame — plus Hillsborough? — but you can change these, if you like.) Before you get upset that mine are TOO big, TOO small, TOO incomparable, please understand why I picked them:

When we went house hunting, we looked in Palo Alto, Atherton, Menlo Park, Los Altos, and Portola Valley. We looked at equivalent houses ($800K in 1990!) in all these districts. So we made trade-offs (nicer, plainer, smaller, grander) within a context of spending the same 1% property tax levy ($8K at the time) … plus whatever parcel taxes and bond service. So I’m interested in comparing the school districts that, for a comparable amount of property tax (but a somewhat nicer or less nice house), my son could have attended. Fair enough?

You, in turn, can go back (or forward) to whatever districts answer the question in your mind.

That said, the questions in our minds are the ones we should make explicit. I think you laid it out somewhere as, “Are the children in this school district educationally disadvantaged relative to MPCSD?” (For those districts spending less. We could also ask whether children are educationally advantaged in those that spend more.) And we probably want to figure out if there are other questions to ask relative to other advantages/disadvantages in other districts compared with MPCSD.

Let me know if you’re interested. We can do this completely anonymously, if you’d like — I mean, maybe we can get the Almanac to give us our own little online blog space to interact … or we can set up a free Tumblr blog. If you’re willing to call me (the 328- number) or email me (my name at yahoo . com), we can do it that way.

And, if you’re wondering why I’m willing to do this, it’s because this is where the insight lies. Six years ago, I seem to have startled people by analyzing MPCSD’s property tax revenue from the parcel up. Prop 13 had always been discussed from the state level down. But the devil was in the details. Then, as a volunteer in Ravenswood school libraries, I realized that redevelopment and an arcane financial transaction, the VLF Swap, had bled all the property tax out of that district (and Redwood City and Daly City and …). All of it. Leaving them 100% dependent on state funding — half of which arrived after the end of the school year in 2011-12. It was only by looking at the little stuff and working upwards that I discovered the big stuff. I hate spending my time knee deep in pivot tables (fair warning: be prepared to do LOTS of pivot tables unless you are good with Access or another database tool), but that’s the level where it’s actionable information rather than interesting data. Fair ’nuff? LMK.

But, NMT, my child didn’t start in 1991. He started kindergarten in 2004 — just as your kids graduated from high school. How we would have loved to start Oak Knoll in 1991! When my son entered, there were already 647 children at Oak Knoll — far more than in 1991. (The district as a whole was cramming 2089 students into campuses that held just 1716 when your kids were there — and grew to 2799 the year my son entered eighth grade.

“People asking for more money should look back at the campuses back then,” you say. Believe me. We did. With envy.

The space your kids had! Playing fields. A tennis court. Space to run. An Oak Knoll library that hadn’t had a third chopped off for a computer lab. You and I have paid about $6,000 each in total facilities debt service for MPCSD and Sequoia to each improve and expand facilities — trying to make up in buildings for what today’s kids don’t have in space. But believe me, the campuses “then” make the campuses “now” look like nothing more than handsome sardine cans.

But you got yours. I get it.

I also know from personal experience that those couples moving in, Stanford professionals and Facebook recruits and regular people, are nesting here. And in the spring, a new crop of chicks will emerge. And those chicks will start school in 2022 … when you’re welcome to take that senior exemption.