Education Week - January 15, 2014 - 15

GOVERNMENT& POLITICS
Some Waiver States Struggle in Key Areas, Ed. Dept. Says
Cautions raised for 6 states
receiving NCLB flexibility
By Michele McNeil
More than a year after the U.S. Department
of Education awarded the first No Child Left
Behind Act waivers, some states are struggling
to intervene in schools with the biggest
achievement gaps and ensure that the worst
schools implement the right improvement
strategies.
That's according to new, intensive monitor-
ing reports Education Department officials
released last week for six states. The reports
likely foreshadow implementation challenges
facing the 45 states plus the District
of Columbia that are remaking their school
accountability systems as part of new flexibility
offered by the department.
Federal officials found success, but also
raised red flags, in each of the states: Colo-
rado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi,
and New York.
But by far the biggest problems, based on
the reports, are found in Mississippi and
Idaho, which seem to be struggling most with
how to help the 15 percent of their schools
with the lowest test scores and the largest
achievement gaps.
And across states, fixing low-performing
schools is an area of great challenge, many
education policy experts say.
"That's the area of most focus right now.
It's hard to move that quickly" to turn
around the lowest-performing schools, said
Carissa Miller, the deputy executive director
of the Council of Chief State School Officers,
in Washington. "I think states know
that there are things they need to do better.
They're working on it."
However, education policy experts also
point out that these reports are limited and
don't-nor can they-paint a complete picture
of education-improvement efforts going
on in states.
"Policy is very difficult, if not impossible, to
capture on a piece of paper," said Daria Hall,
the director of K-12 policy development at the
Education Trust, a Washington group that
advocates on behalf of low-income and minority
students. "We're not responding to actual
results for kids."
'Not Meeting Expectations'
The monitoring reports detail whether
states are making good on the promises
they made in their waiver applications-
from implementing all the federally required
turnaround principles in the lowest-performing
schools to supporting teachers who
are helping students meet new, common
standards.
In some cases, states were criticized for
seemingly inconsequential transgressions.
For example, New York is cited for
"not meeting expectations" on its reward
schools-those that are excelling under
their new accountability system-because
the state did not put out a press release announcing
them and only posted the list of
schools on its website.
The findings and any next steps for states
are important because in order to get another
year of flexibility, states must remain in good
standing with the federal agency, Education
Department officials said.
The remaining states' reports should be
out over the next four to six weeks. Federal
officials visited 12 of the 35 states that were
monitored in this round; the rest of the states
were queried by phone.
The monitoring reports released Jan. 6 are
part of the second-round "Part B" oversight
by the federal department, which is designed
to look more intensively into how states are
implementing their waiver plans and closely
examine any issues federal officials are worried
about.
The first-round, Part A monitoring done in
2012, was fairly basic, involving phone calls
and a checklist of questions. Those included
PAGE 18 >
Calif. Rolls Toward Implementation
On Overhauled K-12 Funding Formula
By Andrew Ujifusa
New rules governing California's
dramatic overhaul of K-12 finance
are up for a vote by the state board
of education later this month, as
officials weigh questions about the
appropriate balance of power between
Sacramento and local agencies
on how the money is spent, as
well as transparency and accountability.

If approved in their current form
by the state board on Jan. 16, the
regulations governing the Local
Control Funding Formula, which
was approved by California lawmakers
and signed by Gov. Jerry
Brown last year, will require schools
to detail how their increased or improved
services are proportionate
to their increased funds from the
state, for example.
A template for new Local Control
and Accountability Plans, which
local education agencies will use in
conjunction with the new formula
and which put a significant emphasis
on community engagement in the
budget process, will also be up for
consideration by the board.
"This is not something that's just
stand-alone regulations. I think it's
a much more fundamental change
than just a state plan," said Michael
W. Kirst, the chairman of the California
school board.
Lingering Questions
The new funding formula elimi-
nates many of the state's traditional
categorical funding programs, while
providing additional state aid for
districts with certain percentages of
students who are English-language
learners, from low-income families,
or living in foster care. The funding
scheme, which the state will gradually
phase in until 2020, also gradually
increases overall state funding
for K-12.
When he signed the legislation,
Gov. Brown, a Democrat, said in
a statement that the new funding
system would direct state money to
"where the need and the challenge is
greatest." But the details about how
schools can or must use the money
remained unclear.
Late last year, the state board
"
MAKING THE MOST OF NEW CASH
We're going to be
modifying this a lot as
we learn more from
the field."
SAMANTHA TRAN
Senior Director of Education Policy
Children Now
received preliminary regulations
governing the system that were developed
in conjunction with WestEd,
a San Francisco-based education
research and consulting firm. Public
testimony before the board in November
about this initial effort, and
the subsequent revised rules, were
published Jan. 3.
"There's been a significant shift in
what's there, in response to really
good comments and public interest,"
said Jannelle Kubinec, the director of
the comprehensive school assistance
program at WestEd.
Under the regulations up for a
vote, local educational agencies will
be required to show that their higher
funding under the formula is leading
to proportionally higher services for
needy students, such as low-income
children and English-learners.
Under the proposed spending
and accountability plan template,
districts also will have to link their
spending priorities and annual goals
to eight state priorities (county education
offices will have 10 such priorities).
These include parental involvement,
appropriate assignment
of teachers, and student achievement.
Those plans must be passed
by local agencies by July 1 and are
effective for three years, but include
annual updates.
Obligations Vary
Different types of districts have
different obligations under the latest
proposed regulations.
Local K-12 agencies whose enrollments
consist of at least 55 percent
of needy students would have to
identify in their plans exactly how
additional services are meeting district
goals in the eight or 10 "priority"
areas. However, the local agencies
would be able to expend those
funds broadly, such as on a districtor
county-wide basis.
At the individual school level, a
school that has over 40 percent of
its students falling into those demographic
categories would be able
to expend those targeted funds on a
schoolwide basis.
Both sets of agencies would have
to identify those services in their
spending plans and how they are
meeting state goals for needy
students through these additional
efforts.
Regulations before the California State Board of Education
are aimed at governing the state's Local Control Funding
Formula, a significant change to K-12 finance that was
approved last year and focuses on "needy" students, largely
low-income children and English-language learners. The
board also sets rules on the template that will govern how
local budgets must account for certain state policy goals,
known as the Local Control and Accountability Plan, or LCAP.
Among the proposals up for approval as early as this week:
n Districts and other local education agencies, in order to meet the new
regulations, could "spend more" (demonstrate increased expenditures
on needy students) or "provide more" (reduce class sizes or offer
expanded-learning-time programs).
nLocal education agencies will have to calculate and compare the
services that were provided to needy students to those provided to all
their enrolled students.
nIn their Local Control and Accountability Plans, school districts would have
to show how services they are providing meet with up to 10 state policy
priorities, including parental involvement and student achievement.
SOURCE: California State Board of Education
Sergo/iStockphoto
Districts below the 55 percent
threshold of needy students, and
schools below the 40 percent threshold,
would have an additional requirement
for spending additional
dollars system-wide and school-wide.
They would have to say why their efforts
as laid out in their plans are
"the most effective use of the funds"
for needy students.
The combination of thresholds and
requirements under the plans combine
flexibility and accountability in
a smart way, said Samantha Tran,
the senior director of education
policy at Children Now, an Oakland,
Calif.-based advocacy group. But
critical questions remain regarding
just how much districts will be
obligated to target toward needy
students with the money they say is
being directed to them, she said.
"We're going to be modifying this a
lot as we learn more from the field,"
Ms. Tran said.
One controversial portion of the
previous draft regulations from two
months ago-which would have
allowed districts to demonstrate
"increased or improved services"
required under the state funding
formula by showing student
achievement growth over two years
using state or local data-has been
removed. Opponents, including the
American Civil Liberties Union's
California affiliates and the NaPAGE
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Education Week - January 15, 2014

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