Record $244,000 in grants to 400 Berkeley teachers

November 22, 2011 7:00 am by Lance Knobel

A BPEF grant of $44,000 will help complete the establishment of over 160 K-5 classroom libraries with consistent collections of titles. Photo: BPEF

The Berkeley Public Education Foundation (BPEF) announced this week a record total of $244,000 in grants funding over 400 teachers in Berkeley public schools.

“We’re counted on by teachers who are now looking under every rock for funding,” said Molly Fraker, executive director of BPEF. “There’s not any public funding left for this kind of thing.”

The largest award is a single $44,000 grant to complete a two-year effort to build permanent book collections in every classroom throughout Berkeley’s 11 elementary schools, done in conjunction with the school district. But awards range widely, with most being for a few hundred dollars for projects like teaching nutrition while making smoothies for preschoolers at Hopkins, to purchasing a color printer for visual materials at the Arts Magnet, to plants and supplies for the school garden and chickens at John Muir Elementary. The complete list can be downloaded as a spreadsheet.

The awards include 40 grants for field trips as far-ranging as Yosemite and as near as UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances; 58 grants for technology equipment or educational software purchases; and more than 65 grants that fund dance, theater, music and visual arts projects.

In addition to the extraordinary book collection grant, other large awards include $8,900 for a full classroom set of 17 compound microscopes for Bret Wallen’s class at King Middle School, $5,135 for a workshop and tour at Lawrence Berkeley Lab for every fifth grader in the district, and $2,600 for the BHS Jazz Ensemble trip to Cuba.

According to Fraker, there was “a real uptick” this year in both applications and grants for math and science. The foundation was able to fund the vast majority of the 270 applications received, she said, thanks to strong support from donors.

“We hit our goals and eked a little past this year,” Fraker said. “Our hope is people will dig a little deeper for their local schools. All the cuts [at state level] are going to ripple through and hit our district.”

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  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Some — not all — of these grants are in areas that are supposed to be served by BSEP funds collected from Measure A parcel taxes.  That’s certainly the story told on the BSEP web site, where voters are told that funds go to (for example) “Kindergarten readiness program, books, instructional materials & software, document cameras & other equipment,” a list that overlaps with some of these projects.  Other BSEP monies go to “The Arts:  Music, Drama & Art classes, field trips to performances, assemblies, Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) program, Drummer for Afro-Haitian Dance class” and to “science kits, equipment, and lab supplies.”  
    Full story here: http://www.berkeleyschools.net/departments/bsep/

    If you look at the BUSD Board’s strategies and actions document, you’ll see that BSEP monies are being aligned with a different objective: the achievement gap.  In the strategy section that says the districts’ goal is to “Provide the best possible education for all students by effectively utilizing local parcel tax and bond revenues,” there are only two actions:  1) report on how much money was collected and is projected to be collected; and 2) “Schedule time with parcel tax committees to discuss the District priorities to address the achievement gap and how resources can support that effort.”  

    That’s a bait and switch: BSEP money was sold to voters as a way to achieve class size reductions and provide enrichment, but that’s not what the district is measuring.  And now we’re hoping that “people will dig a little deeper” to cover the projects that BSEP is for.  More on the bait-and-switch here: http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/blog/2011/10/12/bsep-bait-and-switch/

    Here’s the thing:  BSEP and Measure BB monies are a function of parcel taxes.  The schools get the same amount regardless of the size of the student population.  If the District allows over a thousand students from other cities to enroll fraudulently in BUSD, the money gets spread thinner.  If it keeps the district focused on serving Berkeley residents and legal transfers, there’d be another two thousand dollars per student.

    I’m all for fundraising, don’t get me wrong, especially since a good sized chunk of BPEF’s money comes from the philanthropic arms of the same financial services companies Berkeley is currently bashing.  But I also think the voters deserve a fair accounting of why these programming shortfalls continue to happen despite our generous support for parcel taxes.  

  • Kevin Jude

    Two thirds of BSEP money is dedicated to class size reduction, leaving about one third for more discretionary spending.  Of this, about one third is earmarked for school site plans, which is effectively required by No Child Left Behind to reduce the achievement gap by achieving 100% proficiency.  This was all laid out in the 2006 ballot measure.

    I support your goal of transparency, but I hardly think this counts as a bait and switch.

  • Anonymous

    I’m with Kevin…you’re doing great work but there are bigger fish to fry here.  Personally, having spent about $600 out of pocket so far this year for things for my son’s class and school I’m grateful that other people are contributing money.

  • Rachel A.

    I’m a BUSD parent and I’m interested in your work but I can’t and won’t join something where the leadership is hidden.  I wish that your organization would be more transparent. 

  • lagartijito

    I would not consider joining an organization that posts an article on their site stating that “Berkeley’s tolerance of gangsta culture leaves even its best and brightest graduates unprepared to succeed in the real world” because a BHS graduate decides to quit Harvard to pursue a music career and is later held for attempted rape.  Your connections are bizarre and scream of intolerance.  You should stick to your cause and not try to make bold statements that diminish your supposed agenda of stopping fraudulent school enrollments.

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Hi Kevin,

    was offline for a while, so replying tardily.

    You’re correct about the 2/3 allocation to class size reductions, which fund about a third of the faculty.  However, BUSD admits so many out-of-district students (other than legal transfers) that the promised class size reductions aren’t achieved.  The pro-con exchange in a recent issue of the BHS Jacket was telling on this point:  both authors started from the assumption that overcrowding is a given at BHS.  If you look at the Board’s strategies and goals for this part of the BSEP money, you will not see an action that requires accountability for this.  

    Parts of Measure A specifically talking about providing services to “Berkeley’s public school students” — not Oakland’s, Richmond’s, Kensington’s, or Concord’s.  But there are no metrics in sight to ensure that Berkeley students are served and that any excess funds are rolled over — the discretion part — into other BSEP-designated programs.  Berkeley voters did not agree to provide parent outreach programs for the entire East Bay.

    The remainder of BSEP goes into two buckets: site programs (25%) and professional development, program assessment, and technology (9%).  

    From the first bucket, 41% is allocated per pupil for tutoring, counseling, sports, and other programs.  Again, I believe Berkeley voters intended this money be used for Berkeley students and legal transfers.  If there were not widespread enrollment fraud at BUSD due to substandard residency verification procedures and enforcement, the amounts available per pupil would go up and fundraising would not be needed quite so much to fill gaps.  To put this in perspective, take a look at the following story that the parent of a legal transfer sent.  Children of affluent Rockridge residents are taking full advantage of the tutoring programs that BSEP funds at BHS and the district appears uninterested in investigating this parent’s report of enrollment fraud: http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/blog/2011/11/22/affluent-out-of-district-students-soak-up-busd-resources/  Again, there are no accountability measures in the Board’s strategies/goals/actions document for this part of BSEP.

    The only part of BSEP that has an accountability check concerns the achievement gap, a phrase that appears nowhere in the text of measure A.  The third bucket — the 9% bucket — does permit spending to “assess the effectiveness of the District’s educational programs for improving student achievement,” but you only get that if you are willing to read the full ballot measure:  it didn’t make the summary text and it definitely was not the focal point of any news coverage at the time.  Just about everything I could find was about class size reductions.

    This section also permits spending on technology, but I don’t see an accountability item for that.  I do see several fundraising grants for technology, however, and my assertion is that BSEP monies ought to be able to cover some portion of that for Berkeley’s public school population.

    I’m glad we agree that more transparency on this would help and I hope I’ve made it at least a little clearer why I think the two goals/strategies/actions for BSEP — addressing revenue flow and the achievement gap only — represent a departure from the class size reduction and enrichment drums there were beaten loudly during 2006.  Finally, I am most emphatically not saying that we shouldn’t tackle the achievement gap head on — obviously we must.  I am saying that the District is spreading itself very thin by trying to serve a large population from outside of Berkeley and that BSEP was specifically sold to support Berkeley’s students.  Here, by the way is the stated purpose of BSEP, from the title section of the measure: “The revenues raised by this Measure are to be used to improve the educational achievement of Berkeley’s public school students by providing quality educational programs.”  

    To the extent that Berkeley’s public school students have an achievement gap, let’s close it.  And let’s also use BSEP money to shrink classes, buy books, and support art and science for Berkeley public school students.  Other East Bay cities should do likewise — and many of them do.

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Hi, 

    I replied to Kevin belatedly (see below).  There will always be gaps to fill and as I wrote above, a feature of fundraising is that you can tap corporate donations too.  So more power to you.  I will just add, however, that one PTA parent let me know that the District had a practice of coming to her (acting as treasurer for a fundraising group) with requests to reimburse “forgotten” expenses many months after the fact.  That’s a little disconcerting, but really I’m a lot more concerned by the dilution of BSEP funds that arise from enrollment fraud.  So you’re right about there being bigger fish to fry….

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Hi lagartijito,

    Fact check: he didn’t “decide to quit” — he was told to leave after the two arrests for illegal drugs and then lewd and lascivious behavior while at Harvard.  As for intolerance, Simmons brought plenty of that all on his own:  ethnic slurs against Jews, ridiculing a black roommate with homosexual innuendo, and now the alleged violence against a woman.

    My interest in the story, very simply, is this:  why didn’t Berkeley prepare him to cope more effectively with the stresses he encountered at Harvard?  Maybe this guy’s life would have taken a different course if Berkeley weren’t quite so tolerant of the drug using, misogynistic gangsta subculture that proved so attractive to this guy.

    At any rate, we don’t have to agree about everything, including the sad trajectory of Nathan Simmons or my agenda of stopping enrollment fraud.  I’m ultimately interested in accountability in Berkeley schools and while enrollment fraud is a huge gap, it’s not the only one.  With the Simmons story I am asking for an honest accounting — how could Berkeley have prepared this guy to make better choices?

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Hi Rachel,  I understand the concern.  I added an FAQ entry to the site (http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/index.php?cID=94) that says what I’m willing to say.  It may not ultimately satisfy you, but as you’ll learn from reading it, you can reproduce my work if you wish to.  You can also decide to launch your own effort under different terms.  If the goals are compatible, I might join it!  I did, by the way, sign the petition under my own name.  

    There are at least a few people who’ve been essential resources in my efforts to come to grips with these issues and some of them are not anonymous.  If you’re sincerely interested, perhaps we can persuade one of them to assuage your concerns.  Let me know.

    Separately, I met with a Berkeleyside reporter about a week or so ago, and he was working on a story about the Project and its findings.  I’m sure I’ll have a few cringeworthy moments in there.  No idea if or when he’ll publish.

  • Kevin Jude

    Berkeley-
    I hope you’ll excuse me since we’re relatively new to the district, and I may know less about the workings than others, and I wasn’t here in 2006 so all my information comes from official documents.  In any event, I don’t get your claim that BHS is not meeting class size reduction targets – the class size report presented at the BSEP Planning and Oversight committee this month (in the Nov 15th packet at http://www.berkeleyschools.net/departments/bsep/planning-and-oversight-committee/) shows that BHS is meeting class size goals in all the small schools.  Looking at subject areas, only the PE classes are in excess of the 28 student goal.  Things may look different on the ground; I don’t know, I’m not a BHS parent.

    As far as accountabilty goes, it seems to me that a more useful document to reference is the BSEP annual plan (at http://www.berkeleyschools.net/departments/bsep/).  Much of the accountability is devolved from the district to the Planning and Oversight committee

    I have seen repeated claims from you on Berkleeyside that fraudulent enrollment is rampant, and I read in your blog post linked above the anecdotal evidence that there are some Oakland students at BHS – who may or may not have gotten legal transfers.  Maybe you’ve posted more concrete evidence that I’ve missed, or maybe your statement above, “If the District allows over a thousand students from other cities to enroll fraudulently in BUSD. . .” is meant as a hypothetical, but it doesn’t seem to be a large enough problem to keep the district from achieving its class size goals.  To be clear, I agree that *if* there is a large number of fraudulently enrolled students in BUSD, that money would be better spent serving Berkeley students, bu would you mind pointing me to your calculations of this “over a thousand” number, if that is what you’re asserting?

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Hi Kevin,

    Start here: http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ and visit the link that reads “Get the facts.”  You can use my FAQ entries to get the source data and crunch it yourself.  I measured the numbers for Berkeley High only: you could do the district as a whole if you wish.  For me, the most alarming figure on that page is the last one, where Berkeley has a way-out-of-the-norm enrollment spike at the 8th to 9th grade transition.

    You can also read the blog entries with confirmation from BUSD DIrectors Daniels and Wilson, both acknowledging that something is amiss.  You can also read the Jacket pro-con piece (link to it on the blog), where the overcrowding assertion is made by both sides.  Bear in mind too that last year, when BHS had multiple gun incidents and had to take a hard look at security, some options recommended by the BPD were off the table because of the size of the student body.  So, there are other consequences for the school of excess enrollment besides just class size.  Also there is apparently quite a wide distribution around the 28 student average — Ben Johnson’s essay describes it swinging out as high as 35.

    I’ll say outright that the exact count is not terribly important for my purposes: the number of fraudulently enrolled students at BHS could be 800, 1,000, 1,200, or 1,500 — it’s still a problem and it has both costs and consequences.  

  • Kevin Jude

    Berkeley-
    I can’t reply down below, so I’m replying to my reply.

    Thanks for the source info, I’ll check it out.  I agree that the exact count is not important, I just want to see your numbers because if there are 800 or 1500 fraudulently enrolled students, it clearly has costs and consequences.  If there are 50 or 100, it’s a different story.

  • Bruce Love

    Kevin Jude, you wrote:

    Thanks for the source info, I’ll check it out.  I agree that the
    exact count is not important, I just want to see your numbers because
    if there are 800 or 1500 fraudulently enrolled students, it clearly has
    costs and consequences.  If there are 50 or 100, it’s a different
    story.

    I’m someone who’s pretty skeptical of the analysis on the B.A.S. web site.  I’ll tell you in brief my sources of concern:

    1) The site is comparing census counts and enrollment counts without in any meaningful way trying to adjust the numbers to account for differences in how they are measured.   How big are the possible errors here?  Can the census undercount compared to registration counts?

    2) Similarly, the legal definition of a Berkeley resident for census purposes is not the same as the legal definition of a legal, non-transfer enrollee in BUSD.   Nearly every (age appropriate) census resident can be a legal non-transfer student but so also can people who are not necessarily census residents.  Thus, even if both the census and registration counts are perfect on their own individual terms, they are still not commensurate.

    3) The supposed significance of the big enrollment spike in time for high school is equally consistent with BUSD being a desirable district and acquiring perfectly legal students who are moving to town and/or leaving private schools.  Comparisons to neighboring districts with big drop-offs at that age don’t change that.

    I’ve mentioned before and will again that there is an objective way to sort it all out.   Step 1 is to develop community and administrative understanding and agreement about a legally valid “bed check” procedure and criteria.   Step 2 is to take a sufficiently large, random sample of students and (without penalizing people for participating in the study) actually measure the size of the problem.

    Without something like that experiment, and given only the poor use of statistics and anecdotes, all I see here is a nicely formatted re-hash of rumors that go back more than a decade — recently ornamented with criticisms of cultural mixing, hip-hop music, and so forth.

  • EBGuy

    BAS, You know I’m on board with your work and I appreciate all the time you’ve put into the website.  I think the Nathan Simmons piece is a distraction to that work and may alienate some that would buy into the Berkeley ideals that underpin your work — that is, bringing the full resources of the BUSD to bear on the challenges facing Berkeley students and legal transfers.  I’d rather see op-ed material on a third party site like Berkeleyside as a united front (and big tent) is what’s needed to bring about the desired policy changes.   Again, thanks for you service.

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Thanks EBGuy — you’re right, it has largely been a distraction.  I’ll be refocusing on the main objective and appreciate your clear and helpful summary.  I sincerely hope that Simmons and his accuser get to a just resolution for whatever happened that night.

  • http://berkeley.accountableschools.com/ Berkeley Accountable Schools

    Kevin,

    Since you mentioned being new to the District and perhaps this topic, I thought I’d draw your attention to one other source besides myself.  I won’t respond again to Bruce Love’s methodological questions — he and I have had that exchange before and there’s nothing new to say.  

    Back in 2006, the SF Chronicle ran a long story about Oakland families lying their way into other districts.  They talked only about Oakland and the focus was mostly on people acting out of economic desperation.  But Berkeley draws students from all over the East Bay — Richmond figures prominently in a lot of stories, and some come from much further than that.  Moreover, fraudulently enrolled students come from all economic circumstances.  On my blog you’ll see a recent entry about affluent students who attended private K-8 and live in the Rockridge area.  I just don’t think it’s right for those folks to, in effect, get subsidized by Berkeley renters and property owners, many of whom cannot afford to live in that neighborhood of Oakland.  Oliveto anyone?

    The Chron story is here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/27/EDGKKKQ5PV1.DTL&ao=3

    To gloss a couple of other points for you.  The quote from Superintendent Chris Lim, in San Leandro, about the importance of serving “our own population first” is significant.  Lim was an official at BUSD before she left for the San Leandro position.  There was never anything like that clear denunciation of enrollment fraud during her tenure in Berkeley.  People with longer memories than I have tell me that wasn’t her call — it was what BUSD expected of its officials.  

    The second thing is the piece from the Oakland teen who estimates 50% out-of-district enrollment.  I’m as skeptical as then Superintendent Lawrence was about that figure, but the article authors’ conclusion that “it seems like that the number [...] is far higher than those who receive official transfers” certainly rings true.  And the official transfer count is well over the threshold of cost/consequence that you and I agree on.  (Important:  not suggesting that we get rid of legal transfers — to the contrary!  Just using that number as a reference point, as is done in the Chron article).  

    Most Berkeleyans I’ve discussed this topic with have known on some level that this was happening at BUSD.  But none in my acquaintance had a feel for the scale of the problem.  But if you ask current or recent students, they will definitely confirm it for you.  I’d be curious to know how you come out at the other end of your investigations. If you care to, drop me a note and let me know.