We think Councilwoman Chan’s weekly email to district residents offers a timely briefing on the Brainpower Initiative, Mayor Julián Castro’s early childhood development proposal that will be on the Nov. 6 ballot. Chan’s email gives a good overview of the numbers. Elsewhere on this page you can read the thoughtful perspective of pre-K teacher Erin Carroll on the importance of the initiative.
Dear District 9 Residents & Friends,
Over the past few weeks, many of you have been asking about the Mayor’s Brainpower Initiative, which would be funded by increasing the City’s sales tax rate by 1/8th-cent. This proposition will be on the November 6th, 2012 ballot and must be approved by the voters to take effect. As promised, I am sending you what I know thus far and I will continue to update you as more information becomes available.
Background
As far back as March 19th, 2011, during the unveiling of the SA 2020 report, Mayor Castro has been publicly discussing the need for improving the learning conditions of the youth in San Antonio. During the unveiling that day, the mayor announced the formation of the Brainpower Initiative Task Force. The job asked of them by the mayor was to search the educational landscape for proven programs that demonstrate results based success in at least one of the following areas: kindergarten readiness, dropout prevention and college matriculation.
Also, during the SA 2020 announcement, the mayor named USAA President and CEO Joe Robles Jr. and H-E-B CEO Charles Butt as chairman and honorary chairman to identify a potential sales-tax proposal to take to voters in November 2012.
With the Brainpower Initiative Chairman and honorary chairman in place, the Brainpower Initiative Task Force began working to find what would be the best fit for our city as it relates to the learning conditions of our youth.
During the City Council B Session of June 20th, 2012, the task force reported that the most gains we could experience in education would happen at the pre-kindergarten level and presented the preliminary plan for the initiative. City Manager Sheryl Sculley is now working on the details of an implementation plan, which she will present at a second B session on August 1st, 2012.
Target Audience
As the program was explained during the original B Session, it assumes an approximate population of 20,000 4 year-olds in San Antonio where 16,000 of them are annually eligible for half-day pre-kindergarten under state and federal provisions and guidelines. Of the 16,000 eligible students, 12,000 of them are currently served through the Federal Head Start program and the state-funded pre-kindergarten program.
The Brainpower Initiative will aim to provide full-day pre-kindergarten opportunities to the 4,000 4-year olds who either receive no pre-kindergarten services at all or are only served by a half-day program. The program would be funded through a 1/8th-cent City sales tax in an effort to make these children “Kinder Ready.” Once the tax is collected and ready for implementation, 700 students out of the 4,000 will participate in Year 1 pre-kindergarten programming after having been selected through a lottery system.
Strategy
If approved by the voters in November, this initiative will invest in a three-part strategy to serve 4,500 children annually, with a focus on those who are at risk of not being prepared to hit the ground running in kindergarten. It will serve an estimated 19,275 children over 5 years. The strategy includes:
Establish two world-class early learning centers that serve 700 children and model best practices. In subsequent years, develop additional exemplary centers to serve an additional 800 children. Participating students will be chosen through a lottery.
Raise student achievement in existing Pre-K classes through citywide capacity-building and support for all Pre-K teachers to create a highly capable Pre-K workforce that consistently demonstrates effective teaching of young children.
Serve an additional 3,300 4-year-olds who are eligible under state and federal guidelines but not currently enrolled in full-day Pre-K, and incentivize providers to serve an additional 500 children through a sliding scale. (800 of those 3,300 will be served in model centers in later years.)
Governing Structure
This initiative will employ an executive director, who will be responsible to a board of directors appointed by the City Council and reporting to the City Manager. The executive director will be in charge of overseeing the two learning centers and will be in charge of recruiting and hiring qualified people to work at the centers to ensure that they are run as planned.
Funding & Proposed Budgets
The sales tax revenues are projected at $146.6 million over the course of the five years of the sales tax. In order to be appropriately conservative – and to account for some additional costs that have not yet been fully totaled (such as transportation to the model centers), the Brainpower Task Force’s recommended budget is for $140.1 million. This provides a buffer of $4.5 million.
2013
2014
2015, 2016 & 2017
Performance Measurement
The annual assessment tool for the Brainpower Initiative is still in the developmental stage. According to the mayor’s task force report, the performance measure component will be addressed primarily in two ways: 1) performance measures will be used as an assessment for both overall program efficiencies and classroom techniques that spawn academic growth and improving and 2) the third grade 2012 STAAR exam will serve as an external measure. The results of the 2012 exam will serve as the baseline score and will be compared to the scores of the STAAR exam derived from the first pre-kindergarten Brainpower Initiative cohort. The results of the 2012 STAAR exam have yet to be made available to the City from the Texas Education Agency.
What Comes Next?
On Wednesday, August 1st, there will be a City Council “B” Session meeting that will serve as a follow up to the “B” Session from last month where the City Manager and her team will be addressing answers to the questions, budget implications, and a business plan for implementation of the proposed initiative.
That being said, Ms. Sculley and her team are developing a proposed action plan for the next 12 months, should this measure be passed by the voters in November, and is divided into three phases:
Objectives that should and can be accomplished between now and the August 1st B session on the Brainpower Initiative.
The work plan between August 1st and November 6th,
Subject to the outcome of the November 6th election, the work plan between November 7th and July 31st, 2013 to construct or renovate the centers, select the children to be served, teachers, the Brainpower CEO and execute any necessary contracts with the 15 school districts.
City staff plans to prepare a one page list of basic statistics & data including San Antonio demographics related to poverty, pre-K children served and under-served and how the Brainpower Initiative compares and contrasts with Head Start.
City staff intends to analyze the operating budget for the Brainpower Initiative developed by the consultant and will analyze the capital investment necessary to accommodate the 700 children at the two proposed centers. They will also be outlining the working relationships and reporting responsibilities among staff that they recommend to ensure success of this initiative going forward.
I will do my best to continue to provide you with as much information as possible so that you can make an informed decision when you cast your vote on this issue in November.
As always, please contact me with any questions or comments.
Respectfully,
W. Elisa Chan
I have owned and operated a Tx Rising Star child care center in central San Antonio, and have continually had to fight against “free” head-start,charter schools, public school for Pre-k children…it is a if this age group is a new found commodity…now all of a sudden San Antonio Youth.org chaired by Nelson Wolfe has taken up all of our after-schoolers…child care centers are falling in the west/southsides not because parents dont want our services, but because “free” services has replaced the limited CCDS/CCS funding…we have always been told the law in place allows for a parent’s choice when it come to caring/teaching their child, but lately it seems bigger government has taken the parent’s right and choices from them…further more the for the last 18 years the city had always preached that CCDS/CCS was not a hand out but a hand up for our parents, they were expected to work and/or go to school to receive services…most of the people who are informing themselves on some of the rapidly expanding programs parents are required not to do much of anything to receive child care until 7pm at night….this is what the tax payers/and private donors need to be made aware of…our city should work with those centers who exceed standards and not keep trying to close us all down, we are tax payers too…We received a $23k award for our TX Rising Star record of service by AWD and I commented that the makeover to our facility was welcomed but the money should of been spent on enrolling children back into our program to keep my ladies working …one last thought the bigger government also threw out working moms for not having their childrens dad on child support…the free programs tend to turn a blind eye to all the requirement CCDS/CCS programs stood for…as a tax payer I would of supported and funded an accoutability program not a free ride program with no attachments or requirements on the parents part. Please wake up city coucil and if this is a done deal then dont exclude those of us who took a chance on the westside by throwing one more sledge hammer our way…include the private sector that makes the grade and is willing to teach children…by the way we use to teach my Pre-k children A-Beka, a Christian curclm. that I was told was not appropriate by TX Rising Star standards because of the “ditto” workbooks…guess what all the public pre-k head start children show up with from school…”ditto sheets”
This is the best summary of the Brainpower Initiative I have seen. Councilwomen Chan is to be congratulated on asking the tough questions and pushing for quantitative performance-based accountability for this investment. While most people applaud the emphasis on early childhood readiness, without clear metrics it will be impossible to establish whether this particular model works. In the end we will be left with political rhetoric and declarations of success without proof.
In addition, while early childhood education is critical, without continuity of support from kindergarten through 12th grade the probability of graduation and subsequent college attendance is severly diminished. The cause of much of the dropout crisis is not lack of capability but issues of poverty, drug abuse and disfunctional families. Other programs, such as Communities and Schools, need solid financial support to provide at-risk students the one-on-one attention needed to make sure they are ready to learn during the critical 12 years between pre K to graduation from high school.
councilwoman Chan is a flaming bigot. she touts first amendment rights to her bigoted statements but will deny basic freedoms to others. Yes, you can say those hateful things Ms Chan, but we can also see that you are fired and shunned for your hateful rhetoric
Ms Chan you’re a fighter and a Champ. Thank you for all you’re trying so hard to accomplish as a Council member.
My comment has to do with the current skirmish with homosexuals here in the State. I use the word ‘skirmish’ advisedly. It isn’t a war – yet – but the same sex marriage individuals make it difficult to try to be on their side even when most of us would like that to be the case. With their strident bullying over how they are treated I doubt they realize they are causing their own problems and shoving most of us far away from any reaching out we might be able to do just as human beings.
Homosexuals are our neighbors, brothers and sisters in the Lord and we must do our best to resist too much bile in our words even as it rises in us as we speak. Having said these words, Ms Chan, I want to say you have most of us agreeing with you in what you said the other day in Council. The acting out of homosexuals is what’s digusting……..and I believe that is what you meant by the word ‘disgusting.’ No, they aren’t disgusting as people but when they cross the bridge too far and push agendas such as not only wanting acceptance of gay marriage (an oxymoron: 2 males can’t possibly marry neither can 2 females…just can’t be done …to ‘marry’ connotes physical fleshly co joining which they can’t do with natural body parts – they need to ‘make do’ as we all know)……but asking us to ‘pretend’ they are straight can’t happen either. If a group of people is blind and they keep insisting they be treated as be able to see and insist on their ‘rights’ to drive a car we can see parallel with homosexuals……that also would be an oxymoron. Can’t be done.
Finally, I’m flabberghasted……..though not too surprised……that what you said was actually taped in the chambers of the council. I mean, what kind of cowardly thing was that and by who and who put them up to such a contemptible thing! I’m am livid about that! This is what’s done in totalitarian countries when an opponent refuses to cave on their human rights! And that’s what happened to you. I would hope there would be some kind of push back from you on this…..maybe a lawsuit maybe just putting the jerk in the clink for his sniveling act……whether he himself is a homosexual or not…..he surely is a flaming case of perversion of freedom…
Thank you for this opportunity to express my feelings and again……my thanks for all you’re trying to do! May you go with God!