Committees
Funding for Success Committee
November 10, 2003 Minutes
The meeting of the Funding for Success Committee began at 11:10 a.m. In attendance were Matt Filipic, Dick Maxwell, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Eric Burkland, Paolo DeMaria, Russ Harris, Jim Hoops, Jeff Jacobson, C.J. Prentiss, Scott Williams, and Susan Zelman. Other Task Force members present included Jim Mahoney, Dan Navin and William Wilkins.
Presentations:
- Early Childhood and K-12 Education Funding Models (PDF*, 35 KB)
-Dr. Richard N. Brandon, University of Washington - Student Progress and Achievement (PDF*, 216 KB)
-Jim Mahoney, Battelle for Kids
Chairman Filipic began the meeting by outlining the agenda and introducing Dr. Richard Brandon from the University of Washington. Dr. Brandon presented on Financing Access to High Quality Early Care and Education for Ohio's Children: Analysis of Options. Dr. Brandon explained that the focus of his research was to look at early childcare and early education from a private sector approach. He said that price dynamics and market choice have a much greater impact in this area than in K-12 education.
Dr. Brandon explained the goal of his work is to help state policy makers understand alternative costs and impacts of financing a system of high-quality early childcare education Some elements of high-quality early childcare education include hourly costs, budgetary costs, affordability for families, and targeting funds to the most vulnerable children.
Some of the background research conducted prior to his study included looking at K-12 and higher education benefit services. His group developed some starting point recommendations from experts in early childcare education. His team then started an interactive simulation where Ohio was given a set of recommendations from a panel of experts. These recommendations were used as a starting point to begin putting Ohio's considerations into context.
Some of the components for the simulation specified by the Ohio team were hourly costs of staffing, qualifications of staff, child-to-adult ratios, infrastructure, financing mechanisms, and eligibility standards. Dr. Brandon noted that if standards are raised, there would have to be ways to pay for it because early childcare is already too expensive for many parents in Ohio.
Dr. Brandon's model produced hourly and annual budget costs and distribution of benefits by income, age, and settings. He explained that the model is unique because it started with a survey of 2,000 Ohio households with children. The surveys were used to identify the type of care parents were using and why they were using it, what they were paying for it, and how much money the family was making. This gave Dr. Brandon's group a baseline from which to work.
Finally, the group took all the input factors and criteria identified and calculated child by child, family by family what it would cost to provide different levels of quality childcare. The group looked at how much would have to be subsidized based upon the family information. This was compared to the status quo and the net cost of improved programs was calculated. It was also assumed that if more people used childcare, more non-working individuals would work and working individuals would work longer. This would lead to additional taxes in the state treasury.
Dr. Brandon explained various specifications affecting the hourly cost of early childcare education for each type of childcare (e.g. center type care, family child care, and informal neighbor care). These specifications included staff qualifications and compensations, child-to- adult ratios, professional development costs, and regulation and governance costs. For qualifications, the desire is to have higher levels of qualifications for practitioners and salaries should be linked to K-12 education salaries.
One of the group's key findings is that there is a great racial disparity between teachers and students in K-12 in that there are too few minority teachers. This disparity is not as prevalent in early childcare education. There is a concern that if qualifications were raised in early childcare this disparity between teachers and children would grow.
Dr. Brandon then discussed the hourly costs of early childcare education for Ohio. He explained that there are average reimbursement rates, published market rates, and the new high-quality-costs rates. For infants, the new high-quality cost is above the market rate by $1.55/hour. The new high-quality rate is $0.36 less than the market rate for toddlers and $0.47 less than the market rate for preschoolers. The current rate structure pays everyone nearly the same, but true costs for services are much higher for younger children. It was determined that childcare centers have to overcharge older children to subsidize the costs of teaching younger children. This is problematic because if older children leave, early childcare education would no longer be subsidized.
Dr. Brandon then talked about the budgetary cost of high-quality early childcare education. This was accomplished by 1) estimating the current utilization based on the Ohio household survey, 2) applying the hourly costs of high-quality early childcare education by age and type of service, 3) assuming shifts in consumer usage based on new services available, 4) estimating the changes in paid employment resulting in increases in state and federal revenue, and 5) estimating the amount of federal or other sources of subsidy funds. The gross and net subsidy costs of alternative policies were then aggregated.
The cost of each alternative model was compared as a percent of Ohio K-12 spending. The various options specified would increase state and local education childcare spending to 12-20% of K-12 education spending. Ohio currently spends 4% of K-12 spending on early childcare education. Dr. Brandon noted that his research group would like to take away the work requirement now in place so that non-working parents could take advantage of this high-quality care. Dr. Brandon also compared the various models on whether parents would participate. He found a free-for-all model would have the greatest rate of participation. Finally, his research group looked at what income groups would benefit under the various models. He noted that Ohio's system currently targets the lowest-wealth population.
Dr. Brandon concluded by indicating that high-quality early learning for children birth to five could be added in Ohio with a 15 – 20% increase in public school spending. This high-quality care could be phased in and he feels universal access is doable.
Chairman Filipic explained that, due to time constraints of the next speaker, the Committee would first hear from Jim Mahoney from Battelle for Kids and then take questions on Dr. Brandon's presentation.
Mr. Mahoney first explained how Battelle for Kids came into existence and outlined this entity's mission and major beliefs. Its mission is to support, accelerate, and maintain standards-based education in Ohio. The four primary beliefs are:
- Educators have no control over the prior achievement level of students who enter their classroom.
- At a minimum each student should progress one academic year in one year's time.
- The most effective way to improve student achievement is to "ratchet up" the individual progress of all students.
- Measuring the value added by a school is an important metric for judging school effectiveness.
The project being implemented by Battelle for Kids is called Project SOAR. (Schools Online Achievement Reports). The project started with 41 districts and now includes 64. The districts vary in their levels of academic success and are located throughout the state.
Mr. Mahoney explained that we need to look at students as individuals and expect progress from all students. He explained that right now a student who is above proficient but does not make adequate progress is viewed as a success while a student who is below proficient but makes tremendous progress is viewed as a failure.
Chairman Filipic asked whether progress is associated with strong family support. Mr. Mahoney said the model is trying to factor this out by focusing on progress rather than beginning levels of achievement. The primary purpose is to look at progress and then encourage school personnel in districts to think through the reasons for their successes and failures. Mr. Mahoney went on to say that the data they have will be more useful when standardized statewide data can be compared. Right now the comparison pools are changing (based on the school's choice of standardized tests in the grades that do not have a state test). This might mean that variances in results are due to changes with the pool rather than actual differences in the ability of schools to help their students progress.
Mr. Mahoney noted that a benefit of this information is that schools can look at their own data and compare against other schools that meet similar criteria (e.g. percentage of disability students, number of students receiving free/reduced lunch). This gives schools a starting place from which to work on improving the way they do things. Being able to view data in this way also allows you to target your resources.
One research opportunity mentioned included the Ohio Partnership for Accountability which involves all institutions that prepare teachers. The data are being used to discover what provides us with teachers who bring high levels of progress to students. Another opportunity mentioned was the ability to identify best practices so that those schools that use best practices can be studied. Finally, these data will give us the opportunity to evaluate programs more effectively. Barbara Byrd-Bennett noted that proper evaluation allows for the redirection of resources.
After Mr. Mahoney's presentation, the Committee returned to Dr. Brandon for questioning.
Dr. Brandon began the question and answer session by explaining that his research group did some long-term studies to differentiate between those who had high-quality early education and those who did not. These studies have demonstrated that high-quality early childcare education has an effect on students' success and provides good value for dollars invested.
Committee members asked about the elements of a high-quality early childcare system. Dr. Brandon explained that he started with 30 or so inputs with a focus on those that make significant differences.
Another Committee member said it could be argued that quality early childcare education results in social savings in the long run such as lower costs in criminal justice and social service savings. Dr. Brandon cautioned that you must identify savings that can be captured. Another member expressed concern that because people do not see immediate impacts, they label programs as failures and cut them. People must invest in programs such as early childcare education realizing the benefit is long term.
Representative Hoops asked about private/public partnerships. Dr. Brandon said he did not look at this in his particular research but noted an issue found in a Georgia study. Georgia implemented a specific set of high standards in its public early childcare system but evidence did not show that the public system did better than the private system.
Chairman Filipic asked where Ohio stands with early childcare education compared to other states. Dr. Brandon said that Ohio is one of the leading states for state investment of Head Start and other matching federal contributions. There are, however, a small group of states that have moved to universal preschool (Georgia, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and California).
Barbara Byrd-Bennett asked how Ohio aligns with high-quality Dr. Brandon said there is some very good professional development but that Ohio does not have broad-scale programs.
Russ Harris asked about the possibility of screening three-and-four-year olds universally and then placing those who could benefit most into early childcare education programs. Dr. Brandon said that there are some trade-offs and some negatives to note. First, a universal assessment system would be necessary. Secondly, children develop at very different rates and it is hard to determine what makes for an effective assessment of this population. Finally, he cautioned against economic segregation where only the richest have to pay a lot for the program.
Chairman Filipic then moved to the next item on the agenda and began a discussion on significant inputs. He distributed a list of inputs expressed in prior meetings. He explained that the list was comprehensive and was meant to be used as a tool for prioritization to help the Department of Education focus its presentation on November 24.
Dr. Zelman noted that she could provide some compelling evidence on early childhood. She said she could also talk about investments in other states and the effects of those investments.
The Committee then returned to a discussion on providing high-quality early childcare education. One member expressed concern about start-up costs because of not having teachers qualified at new higher standards. Dr. Brandon said that the state could slowly ramp up teacher qualifications. He also noted that it is best to use a mix of strategies. He cautioned against focusing all resources in one area and then creating unintended consequences in other areas.
Senator Prentiss said that the Department of Job and Family Services (JFS) should be at the table in discussions on early childcare. She also expressed that the whole social service community that provides services to children before they reach the age of formal education should be part of the discussion. She said a system of education is needed that takes into consideration that money should be flowing from several different sources. Dr. Brandon replied that a combination of social and health care services and education is necessary for children to succeed.
Representative Hoops expressed concern that that government would be taking responsibility away from the family in a universal preschool system Addressing this comment, Dr. Zelman pointed out that such a program would be voluntary and parents would pay on a sliding scale.
Referring to the list of inputs distributed by Chairman Filipic, Senator Prentiss asked whether the Department of Education would be costing out various inputs on the list. Chairman Filipic said there are some elements that could be costed out but should not necessarily be used to build a funding formula.
Chairman Filipic also suggested a focus be placed on helping poor children succeed. He asked which factors are important for student success. Dr. Zelman said that Dr. Brandon could work on a model. Another member specified that the Department of Education should show the Committee areas that have proven to help students succeed After that the Committee can debate on formulating a model.
Eric Burkland said he would not find it useful to cost out best practices. Rather, he said he would find it more useful to look at deployment of resources at the building, district, and state level. He said it important to look at how resources are managed. Dr. Brandon noted that one study showed that spending and deployment both make a difference. It was decided that at the next meeting Barbara Byrd-Bennett will present on how resources are deployed in her district and what protocol she uses to determine that resources are being used effectively.
Dick Maxwell said that the Committee has not yet defined success but that everyone is talking as if we know what success is. We must know what we mean by success to understand the state's responsibility.
Chairman Filipic announced that the next meeting would be held on November 24. It will begin at 8:30 a.m. with an optional presentation on meeting the mathematic standards He said the official meeting would start at 9:00 a.m. and would be extended an extra hour to 2:00 p.m. to allow additional time for discussion.
Chairman Filipic adjourned the meeting at 2:15 p.m.
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