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Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Governor should elevate school-building over his future aspirations
A 2021 tour of the construction of the new Highland Springs High School in Henrico, estimated to cost about $80 million. (Photo courtesy of Henrico County Public Schools) Legislation heading to Gov. Glenn Youngkin's desk will unambiguously tell Virginians what he values most: sufficient funding for school construction in the commonwealth, or snappy slogans for his next campaign. I wish he'd choose the former. As an ambitious, ladder-climbing politico, though, the governor has so far shown he'll opt for the latter – with some version of 'I didn't raise taxes' leading his media blitz for a U.S. Senate or presidential quest. Some of Youngkin's stance can be attributed to Virginia's antiquated rule that governors cannot serve two terms consecutively. We're the only state with that prohibition, after Kentucky changed its law in 1992. More on that later. Both the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate passed Senate Bill 1307, allowing all cities and counties across Virginia the opportunity to add a 1% sales tax for new school construction if voters approve it in a local referendum. Right now, only nine localities have that option. Youngkin has vetoed similar versions of the bill previously. It's odd the counties of Charlotte, Gloucester, Halifax, Henry, Mecklenburg, Northampton, Patrick and Pittsylvania and the city of Danville were blessed with this ability, while the rest of the state now must beg for the same source of revenue. Those nine localities, however, gained permission for the tax before Youngkin became the state's chief executive. Timing is everything, I guess. Both chambers passed the current bill by wide margins. Those votes showed strong bipartisanship at a time when that can be rare on major issues. The General Assembly already proved that enormous amounts of money were needed for construction and major renovations. In 2021, its own Commission on School Construction and Modernization placed the tab at $25 billion for public K-12 buildings that are at least a half-century old. More than 1,000 public schools are in that category in Virginia. Localities can raise their real estate tax rates on their own, but other tax increases need the Assembly's blessing in this Dillon Rule state. The problem? The real estate tax usually covers basic services, and it's difficult to extend that source of money to pay for expensive capital projects. 'There's nothing more popular (among residents) than rebuilding some of these crumbling schools,' Del. Shelly Simonds, D-Newport News and a member of the modernization panel, told me. Many communities, though, bump up against bonding limits if they raise the real estate rate too high. 'The real challenge is that localities have a hard time building more than one capital project' at the same time, said Simonds, who voted for SB 1307. 'We want to make sure our schools are highly functional, have the latest safety standards, and are energy efficient.' Pulaski County is among the localities seeking help. As my colleague Nathaniel Cline recently reported, the county is battling inflation, high interest rates and rising construction costs. The county administrator said Pulaski has hit its real estate tax ceiling. I couldn't reach Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William and the bill's sponsor, for an interview. He has said the current pools of state money for school construction isn't enough 'to deal with the large backlog that's faced by so many different school divisions.' He's right about that. I wrote previously that aging school buildings have deficiencies that include leaky roofs, faulty HVAC systems, pests, radon and asbestos. When I interviewed McPike in December 2023 about similar legislation, he said many localities represented by Democrats and Republicans alike craved the sales tax option. 'They want a new tool in the toolbox,' said McPike, who's another member of the modernization panel. Which brings me back to Gov. Youngkin, who's been mentioned repeatedly as a Republican candidate for other posts after his upset win in November 2021. Speculation even placed him as a potential vice-presidential selection for Donald Trump last year before he picked JD Vance. It's a truism in Virginia that a newly elected governor maps out his next gig almost as soon as takes the oath of office. He – or she, given this year's possible party nominees – also might not confront the effects of policy decisions since the tenure is only four years. So it's tempting for a governor to kick the can down the road when troublesome problems arise. Why fix something that can cost political capital when you, instead, can leave it for your successor? Youngkin, who campaigned in 2021 promising tax cuts, has been more than eager to oversee billions of dollars of them when the state budget allowed it. Less so about approving tax hikes when localities and Virginians need them. (He had proposed a digital tax in 2024 before berating the Democratic-controlled Assembly for the version it sent him. The tax eventually was struck from the budget.) 'In the Trump Republican Party, raising taxes of any sort is a scarlet letter,' Larry Sabato, director and founder of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told me by email. 'Even though the tax here is relatively minor and only goes into effect if the people in the locality approve it, Youngkin's future opponents will say, 'He raised taxes!' 'Think of the TV ads.' Youngkin's spokesman didn't reply to repeated requests for comment on whether the governor plans to sign the bill. When he vetoed similar legislation last year, Youngkin said the proposed surcharge would amount to a nearly $1.5 billion tax increase to Virginians. But as the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted, that's what the total would be if every locality imposed the surcharge. So his explanation was deceptive. Last year, Youngkin noted the proposed state budget had increases for loans and grants for school construction. Those raises, though, were woefully short of the overall need. He should approve the proposed tax increase for school construction. Forget the platitudes and party dogma. It's time for the governor to elevate Virginia over his next political campaign. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tutoring Giant's Sudden Demise Linked To End of Federal Relief Funds
One of the nation's leading tutoring providers shut down abruptly over the weekend, temporarily leaving thousands of students without the extra support they've depended on since the pandemic. FEV Tutor, a chat-based, virtual tutoring firm with contracts in districts from California to Florida alerted staff on Saturday that efforts to raise more money or find a buyer had failed. CEO Reed Overfelt cited 'worse-than-expected company performance' in his message to employees. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Some districts promptly alerted families about the interruption in services. The Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia referred parents to other tutors, including teachers, 'to minimize the impact of FEV's closure.' The Ector County Independent School District in Texas asked its other provider, Air Tutors, if it could take on the 2,000 students FEV left behind. 'We found this all out on Sunday,' said Ector spokesman Michael Adkins. 'We'll have to work very quickly to change things over, but as of today, we are expecting we will be able to find a virtual tutor for all of our kids.' Related While districts and other tutoring providers might be able to cobble solutions together, FEV's demise is one of the more visible early signs of what school finance experts warned would happen when nearly $190 billion in pandemic relief funds ran out. Districts have less money to spend on vendor contracts, leaving companies that were in high demand a year ago having to rethink their future. Those that expanded at a rapid clip, like FEV Tutor, could be particularly vulnerable. 'We saw what you would expect with large government programs — a lot of folks rushing out with various models,' said Adam Newman, founder and managing partner of Tyton Partners, a consulting firm. 'A lot of those organizations grew too fast, too quickly.' With district contracts in at least 30 states and an estimated value of over $40 million, FEV Tutor was an 'early innovator in providing virtual tutoring services' through an on-demand, chat-based platform, Newman said. With customers including the New York, Baltimore and Dallas school districts, the company gave tutors access to an AI coach and engaged in innovative contracts in which tutors earned higher rates when students showed greater improvement. They were 'massive players' in the industry, and when districts started spending their relief funds , FEV was 'very well-positioned to win all these district [contracts],' added John Failla, founder and CEO of Pearl, a company that helps districts manage tutoring programs. 'They scaled up like crazy.' But while its closing was unexpected, the financial reality that caused it was not. A year ago, one expert noted that investments in ed tech had dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. Even in late 2022, 'rising inflation, interest rates, geopolitical crises and belt-tightening brought an end to the copious amounts of capital that defined the pandemic,' wrote Tony Wan, head of platform at Reach Capital. Districts were already 'preparing the chopping block for tools and services' that were nice to have but no longer necessary. Some districts also just prefer to manage their own tutoring programs. 'If you look at the districts [that] have succeeded in scaling tutoring the most, all of those have owned a lot of the process internally,' said Liz Cohen, policy director at FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank. She cited Baltimore City, Guilford County, North Carolina, and Nashville as examples. 'Districts are increasingly focused on the relational part of tutoring. It can be virtual or in person, but it's someone who has a face and a name and that the kid knows.' The surprise isn't that FEV Tutors is a 'casualty' of the fiscal cliff, she said. 'But certainly, nobody expected them to shut down on a Saturday in the middle of the school year when they have active customers and employees.' FEV Tutors did not respond to an email requesting comment. A red banner at the top of its home page says the company 'ceased operations' on Jan. 25. The news clearly confused some parents. In response to an announcement on Facebook, some families in Harford County, Maryland, blamed the district and wondered if officials knew weeks ago that services would end so suddenly. Another wrote, 'There's clearly a mismanagement of money somewhere.' On the district's website, officials apologized for the disruption, saying they could not guarantee they would be able to 'find or implement a comparable solution at this time.' Marguerite Roza, the director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab, said she hasn't seen other pandemic-era vendors face such a dramatic end, but predicted 'there will be more in the coming months.' Software industry veterans Anirudh Baheti and Ryan Patenaude founded FEV Tutor in 2008, well before the pandemic. According to GovSpend, a data company, annual sales didn't top $1 million until 2018. By 2021, as districts began spending relief funds, sales jumped to over $6.3 million. Related In 2022, Alpine Investors, a private equity firm, acquired the company, and Patenaude said in a press release that he was excited about the 'next stage of FEV's growth.' Jim Tormey, an executive with Alpine, stepped in as CEO until Overfelt took over in 2023. FEV's work in Ector and Duval County, Florida, was also part of an innovative arrangement known as outcomes-based contracting. The company didn't just deliver tutoring; it promised better results for more money, and offered to take a pay cut if students didn't make progress. Such deals piqued the tutoring world's interest in recent years as policymakers increasingly called for evidence that relief funds weren't going to waste. Cohen, who featured FEV's work last year in a FutureEd report on tutoring, wrote in a commentary that the concept could help ensure districts 'get the best return on their investment and help build a culture of performance in public education.' FEV Tutor further evolved last year when it announced a new AI-enhanced platform, Tutor CoPilot. The tool makes tutors more effective by giving them guiding questions to ask students. In a randomized trial, the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University, which studies tutoring models, found that when less-experienced tutors used the AI support, student math scores increased an average of 9 percentage points. Related But that breakthrough apparently wasn't enough to turn business around. In his note to the company, Overfelt said he and the board of directors had 'explored every possible avenue to secure FEV Tutor's future,' but that talks with additional investors had 'reached their end.' Since FEV was on a pay-as-you-go contract, Adkins, in Ector, said the district wasn't worried about losing money. But FEV employees are suddenly out of a job. A customer service manager who once taught in the Las Vegas-area Clark County schools posted on LinkedIn that she was looking for work. And Jen Mendelsohn, CEO of Braintrust Tutors, said she spent Monday interviewing former FEV tutors. Many, she said, 'have long-term district relationships nationwide and are looking for ways to ensure academic continuity for their students.'
