Here is the headline this week from the late-great state of Iowa. Governor Reynolds has taken a wrecking ball to the Area Education Agency system and signed into law a bill that aims, ultimately, to privatize the services these agencies provide to local school districts.
The theory is that privatizing these services will improve their quality. I’m going to explain to you why this theory is false.
In the wake of the new “AEA Reorganization Bill” hundreds of AEA staff are now leaving.
Raise your hand if you are surprise! No hands?
The reasons these educators are leaving vary I’m sure. When funding is routed out of the AEA, then you can be sure layoffs are forthcoming so why wait for the pink slip…get out now and find another position during peak hiring season in educational institutions.
This exodus is entirely predictable. These educational professionals can see the handwriting on the wall and know that sooner or later, their jobs will be axed.
There is another reason, however, that I want to explain why these dedicated educational experts are leaving, and it has nothing to do with their salaries or livelihoods. It has to do with their mission.
Educational Service providers are a mission-driven bunch of people. I know because I worked with them for several years during my time in education. AEA folks are some of the most dedicated and hardworking people in the universe along with classroom teachers, because they have one mission…serving the students of Iowa and giving them the best education possible. It is a mission, not a job.
A Cautionary Tale
I want to share a cautionary tale about how these agencies work best, and how they devolve into something else under the guise of competition and privatization. Competition is a good thing in many areas of life such as sports, selling cars, groceries, and gasoline. We count on competition for these types of things to keep prices in check, hopefully. That is how a market system is designed.
But, I want to suggest that competition in the arena of serving schools and children is not a good model for realizing maximum benefits. Providing services to students with disabilities and other needed services to school should never be privatized or given over to competitive forces and here is the reason…
Privatization and Competition Undercut the Mission of Education!
Let me give you some background to this first-hand narrative. I worked for the Iowa AEA system back in the early 2000s. Then in the next decade, I worked for a non-profit organization as a consultant to K -12 schools throughout the United States, and had a special focus on the states of Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas.
My specialty was assessment data consulting so it wasn’t directly serving special education populations. However, the work that I did put me in direct working contact with many special education teachers and special education agency staff. Over 10+ years I have worked with hundreds of educators serving kids in those three states.
In summary for the past 15 years or more, I have had direct experience in working with professionals in Iowa’s Area Education Agencies (AEAs), Nebraska’s Educational Service Units (ESUs), and Kansas’ Educational Service Centers (ESCs). What I am about to share is an insider's look at how these agencies work and how competition undercuts the mission orientation of these agencies in some states.
These agencies go by different names in each state but they all have roughly the same purpose. They serve K-12 schools in their respective states and they provide important services, especially special education services to students and their families. But the models are quite different and boil down to two ways of doing business.
I’ll describe the two models this way. One model is the “Cooperative Model” where education agencies receive funding from the state (100%) and they provide services to the schools in a designated area, usually defined by counties. This model up until now, has been used in Iowa and Nebraska.
The other model is the “Competitive Model.” This model is used in the state of Kansas. In this model, funds are distributed primarily to the schools and schools decide where to spend those funds for educational services. They can “shop” for those services.
This is the model that Governor Reynolds, who has no educational background I might add, wants to impose on the state of Iowa. This will be disastrous.
The Cooperative Model
Here is how the Cooperative Model works in Nebraska (and up to now in Iowa). Service agencies are laser-focused on one thing…helping serve students' educational needs. The professionals in these agencies are driven by a simple mission: improve student learning outcomes.
I often worked with professionals across assigned service agency areas in both states. There was a great deal of cooperation between the service agencies in one part of the state and another. We often held educator conferences for teachers across these imaginary lines to engage the best expertise in each agency to help teachers and students.
One thing I noticed in working with agencies under this model was the lack of jealousy between them. No one was worried about stepping on someone else’s agency toes. Everyone was mission-driven, as was the company I worked with. We were all on the same team, working for a common purpose.
The mission statement of the nonprofit company I worked for as a consultant was “Partnering To Help All Kids Learn.” All the Educational Agencies had a similar mission statement so it was easy to partner together to serve schools. And that’s what we did.
Teachers and principals did not see the staff members of area service agencies as contractors. They were partners also, almost like fellow staff members. Service agency staff were welcomed in most K-12 schools because they brought with them their expertise and passion for helping kids. It was a great coalition of efforts based on mutual trust.
For me, working with teachers and service agency staff in Iowa and Nebraska was one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career. It was rewarding because it was effective. It was based on cooperation and a common mission, not competition.
The Competitive Model
As I describe this model which is used in Kansas, I want to make one disclaimer. What I am about to share bears no judgment on Kansas educators. They are, just like educators in Iowa and Nebraska, dedicated to their students. They work just as hard both during the school day and outside the school day, to support student learning.
However, Kansas educators are working under a competitive system of hiring contracted services from the Educational Service Centers in that state. This changes the whole ball game and subtly shifts the focus of what and why the Service Centers exist.
In Kansas, funds are distributed to the schools for special education services and other education support services. The Educational Service Centers also apply for federal and state grants which are competitive. This is essentially the system that Governor Reynolds wants to impose on Iowa. It is a pay-for-service-as-you-go system.
What this means in practical terms is that Kansas Service Center staff are now contractors for hire, and therefore must go out and market their services to the schools. They have become educational entrepreneurs and compete with one another to get contracts from schools so they can keep their jobs. Guess what ESC staff members do now. They spend a lot of time in marketing.
Another way to put this is they are now salesmen and saleswomen, hawking their services day and night so that they can remain employed. They are still committed to student success, but from my observation and experience, that has become a secondary mission or goal. The goal is to get the contract, or the school might go to some private agency, another ESC, or a private person for those services. Needing to remain relevant, they market and sell themselves. That is a full-time job.
This model works great when you are selling “things” but is a disaster when you are trying to provide learning support for schools and students. Quality control is sacrificed on the altar of competitive bidding. Gone is the feeling of being on the same team working toward a common mission. Now it is education support services as a business to get the dollars to stay in business.
Another practical outcome of this model is that it creates hostility and jealousy. Territories and turf become important. It is another shift in attitude and mentality that doesn’t help kids.
I found working in this environment to be less rewarding because it was less effective. It was also frustrating if you didn’t know who was competing with whom and where the turf boundaries were. I stepped on a few toes in those days just because I was unaware of the competitive lay of the land.
Iowa Doesn’t Need This!
The Iowa Area Education Agency system was established in 1974 to reduce educational inequities between rural and urban school districts by providing outstanding support services to ALL schools.
Here is how it works or used to work before Governor Reynolds invented a problem that didn’t need to be “fixed.” AEA funding is included in a school district budget. However, the school district does not receive AEA-related state aid funding. Rather, funds generated by a school district through the operation of the state school aid formula are set aside for the AEA and then subtracted by the state from what a district would receive from the state and passed through to an AEA. It is called a “pass-through” system.
It sounds complicated but what it means is that AEAs can operate as an extension of the school district. They are partners, not competitors or contractors. And in education, cooperation, partnership, and a laser-like focus on student learning outcomes are what Iowa needs. Not crass business competition.
Governor Reynolds is out to “fix” a non-existent problem and will end up reducing educational quality, especially for students with disabilities.