The Why Report - Recommendation #8
NSBA RECOMMENDATION #8
Aligned Sanctions with Needs – School choice and supplemental educational services (SES) should be limited to those students who belong to a subgroup that failed to make AYP and were themselves unable to score proficient or above.
STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE
When a school is identified for improvement all of its students are eligible for school choice and all of its low-income students are eligible for SES regardless of their performance. This policy is overly broad and does not target resources for students who need help most. It is counter productive because 1) low performing students have not benefited from school choice since students who have transferred tend to be high performing; 2) since students don’t have to be low achieving to be eligible for SES, Title I funds are being diverted away from students who are low achieving and need these resources most; and 3) the sheer volume of SES eligible students creates tremendous administrative burdens on districts and takes away local resources from other low performing students.
Under the current law districts must reserve 20 percent of their Title I funds for SES and transportation for students who transfer under choice, as well as spend local funds to administer these programs. Five years after NCLB’s passage, Congress is only able to fund Title I at about 50 percent of its authorized level. Not only is Title I underfunded, the reserved amounts for choice and SES are not well spent under the current eligibility policy because these resources do not target low-achieving students who might not meet the low income requirement. Choice and SES should be offered only to students for whom their schools are failing to raise their achievement.
LEGISLATIVE REMEDY
NSBA recommends that school choice and SES will be available only to those students that belonged to a subgroup that failed to meet AYP targets and were themselves unsuccessful in scoring proficient or above. For example, if a school’s limited English proficiency and economically disadvantaged subgroups failed AYP, choice and SES will be targeted for those students within the two subgroups who also scored below proficient.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION
While parents have shown little interest in school choice under NCLB, SES has sparked a wide range of criticism from eligibility to program administration. In a November 2006 report, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General criticized the current SES eligibility for not targeting students who need help most. OIG recommended the following alternative approaches to identify students eligible for services: limited to only low-achieving students from low-income families; or to all low- achieving students in Title I schools in need of improvement. These proposals recognize the problems but are not as targeted as NSBA’s recommendations.
The reality is that if the current criteria do not improve, many districts will spend the reserved Title I funds on students who are not necessarily low performing, therefore reducing available in-school funds for other low performing students who need it most.
Since the SES policy creates a large number of students eligible for services; districts are only able to serve relative small percentages of these students. Urban districts in particular are struggling to accommodate the increasing number of SES eligible students each year. Chicago Public Schools have 231,000 students who are eligible for SES for the 2006-07 school year, but was able to provide services to only 52,000 with the 20 percent reserved Title I funds. However, district officials said these 52,000 students are not all low achieving because all low-income students who attended Title I schools in need of improvement were eligible to sign up regardless of their performance.
The sheer volume of eligible students is also driving up the administrative costs for choice and SES. Since the 20 percent reserved funds cannot be used for administering the programs, districts must spend local funds to pay for mailings and other outreach efforts to inform parents of every eligible student for choice and SES. Officials from the Milwaukee Public Schools said they had to borrow funds from the summer school programs for SES overhead expenses. As a result, the summer school budget has shrunk from $8 million to $3 million.
Under NSBA’s recommendation, the eligibility for choice and SES will focus on students who truly need the services, freeing up local funds for other programs to help struggling students. It also will make administration of the program much more manageable and efficient. More students will become eligible for choice and SES as more schools and districts fail to meet the increasingly high AYP targets. Congress must refocus eligibility for choice and SES on students who need them most if these programs are to fulfill NCLB’s goals of improving academic performance and closing achievement gaps.
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This Why Report addresses 1 of 40 provisions contained in NSBA’s bill, No Child Left Behind Improvements
Act. To review other Why Reports on key provisions, go here.