Committees
Funding for Success Committee
March 22, 2004 Minutes
In attendance were Chairman Matthew Filipic, Vice Chairman Richard Maxwell, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Eric Burkland, Paolo DeMaria, Russ Harris, Representative Jim Hoops, Senator Jeff Jacobson, Senator C. J. Prentiss, Susan Tavakolian (for Susan Zelman) and Scott Williams. Other Task Force members in attendance included Chairman William W. Wilkins, John Brandt, Dan Navin and Barbara Shaner.
Chairman Filipic called the meeting to order at approximately 10:15 a. m. He asked Task Force staff to give the committee an update on what they have learned through their research into Gap Aid districts and Schools of Promise.
Task Force Staff Research Update
Mr. Marshall summarized the responses of the five Schools of Promise questionnaires received up to this point. He noted that information included in the responses to the questionnaires was consistent with what the committee has heard from many committee presenters regarding what inputs are important in achieving student success. Mr. Marshall cautioned that, given the small sample size, the responses should be viewed as illustrative, not definitive.
Mr. Marshall observed that the Schools of Promise tended to have veteran teaching staffs, ranging from 11. 5 to 15 years of experience, on average. Examples of parental involvement include intervention-based assistance teams and parent advisory councils.
One superintendent of a very small district (fewer than 400 students) noted that his district had 75 to 80 parent volunteers. Another superintendent described a parent/teacher/student compact that all sign at the beginning of the school year.
Other practices of the Schools of Promise include using data to make decisions, having a strong emphasis on professional development, including study sessions on books that describe best practices, and offering release time to teachers so that they can observe other teachers and model their behavior.
Schools of Promise recognize the value of technology, using it to afford students the opportunity to use self-paced instructional software. Schools of Promise use computers to make it easier for teachers to communicate with parents and to allow administrators to communicate more quickly with teachers.
Teachers in Schools of Promise are part of policy making. Some schools noted that teachers participate in the hiring process and serve on building advisory committees. Teachers are also responsible for assisting in the development of curricula.
Examples of intervention in Schools of Promise include summer school, late summer school for entering kindergartners, one-on-one and small group instruction, and after-school programs. The OhioReads program was specifically mentioned by two respondents. Also, students in the Schools of Promise had all participated in preschool, all-day kindergarten, or both.
All of the respondents indicated that grant funds were necessary to support intervention services. Examples of revenue sources for these activities included such federal grants as Title I, 21st Century Schools, and Class-Size Reduction. State revenue sources cited included Venture Capital (no longer in existence), OhioReads and Reading Intervention. Private foundation grants were another source of funds for student intervention.
Mr. Marshall referred to the comments of one superintendent who indicated that a caring staff was critically important for the success of his schools. The superintendent added that the level of parental involvement was so high because the parents feel that the teachers care about their children.
In closing, Mr. Marshall noted that staff needs to follow up with districts that have not responded to the questionnaire and begin attaching cost estimates to various inputs. He also indicated the need to expand the number of school buildings to be examined by including high-poverty buildings that have improved their Performance Indices by at least 10 percentage points from the 2001-2002 to 2002-2003 school year. Mr. Marshall noted that more than two-thirds of Cleveland's buildings met the 10 percentage point improvement threshold and that more than 36% of Youngstown's did.
Senator Prentiss opined that at least some of the Schools of Promise appeared to be magnet schools for gifted and talented students or otherwise not typical schools. She agreed with the addition of more schools into the analysis. Mr. Filipic observed that, since so many of Cleveland's schools would be included in the analysis, it would give the committee better information from which they could generalize.
Mr. Harris requested that when staff conducts its analysis that they include the value of all of the resources that teachers donate to their classrooms, as well as in-kind resources that are donated by the community. Mr. Filipic suggested that donated resources would not appear in a school district's financial records. Dr. Byrd-Bennett agreed that they would not. Mr. Harris noted that surveys have been conducted that show how much teachers spend from personal funds on their classrooms.
Mr. Harris also expressed concern that analyzing only 28 buildings within 17 districts is too small of a sample. Mr. Marshall agreed, noting that this is why staff expanded the group of buildings for analysis to include those that had high poverty and had improved at least 10 percentage points. He noted that making this change of criteria would increase the number of buildings to more than 100.
Dr. Tavakolian asked how staff would account for open enrollment students. Ms Weir responded that these students will be counted where they are educated. Dr. Tavakolian asked how staff would account for services purchased through an educational service center. Ms. Weir stated that this information may be available through financial statements but staff would have to check on how districts code such expenditures.
Mr. Filipic suggested that staff were really attempting to identify practices that schools use to educate their students successfully. Mr. Marshall agreed and added that staff would also provide ranges of cost estimates to the committee for these various input practices.
Mr. Maxwell stated that, at some point, the committee has to make an interpretation about a base cost and develop a way to arrive at this element. He expressed concern about using building data to build a model where the funds are distributed on a district level. He did note that Cleveland is a district realizing success overall rather than in just one building.
Senator Jacobson explained that the analysis of Gap Aid districts is to identify what inputs can be bought with the current base cost amount. Once these inputs are known there can be discussion on whether these inputs are reasonable. With an input-based model policy decisions can be made with regard to which inputs are having a positive impact academically.
Dr. Byrd-Bennett stated that Cleveland is very prescriptive in how its schools spend money. Mr. Maxwell said that committee members have been very impressed with her presentation on how Cleveland deploys its resources. He noted that her help will be needed in developing cost estimates.
There was a general discussion about how school districts use data in making decisions. Dr. Byrd-Bennett opined that effective data-based decision making is a combination of getting the data and making it useful. Cleveland has to massage its data to make it useful. In response to a question from Mr. Maxwell, Dr. Byrd-Bennett replied that Cleveland is a participant in the Battelle for Kids pilot project.
Senator Prentiss stated that Cleveland has a large budget deficit projected for next school year. She asked Dr. Byrd-Bennett to explain how this will impact her district. Dr. Byrd-Bennett replied that Cleveland needs an additional $80 million next year just to continue doing what is already in place. She would be forced to cut her central office staff, reduce security and terminate hundreds of teachers.
Mr. Burkland asked Dr. Byrd-Bennett what the principal drivers were behind the projected $80 million deficit. Dr. Byrd-Bennett responded that $47 million is lost due to Cleveland students going to community schools, $10 million is attributable to a devaluation in property and an additional $10 million is due to a decline in property tax collections. She added that Cleveland's average family income is $27,000 annually and that the public does not understand how the district could suddenly have such a large deficit.
Mr. Harris noted that Columbus has the same problem as Cleveland. He suggested that the five-year forecasts show that hundreds of school districts face deficits within the next few years. Mr. Filipic said that more information could be requested from ODE on this issue but stated that part of the reason so many school districts are projecting deficits is because of the way the five-year forecasts are constructed. Since districts cannot anticipate the passage of new or replacement levies within the bottom line used by the state to analyze projected deficits, the number of districts showing deficits is very large.
Mr. Schaller then presented his analysis of Gap Aid districts. He explained that the sheet entitled "Comparisons of Expenditure Flow Model Data" was developed in part from comments made by the subcommittee at the last meeting. He said he had originally hoped that comparing Gap Aid districts to statewide averages and comparing academically successful Gap Aid districts to other Gap Aid Districts would indicate some fairly clear indications of where spending differed between various types of schools.
Mr. Schaller noted that the first three pages of the handout show the three types of revenues that the school districts receive: local, state, and federal. In general, this information seems to reinforce what is generally believed, that the more urban and/or poor a district is, the more it depends on state and federal monies to operate.
Mr. Schaller explained that the next five pages cover five different expenditure areas that the Ohio Department of Education has developed:administrative, building operations, staff support, pupil support, and instructional support. While there are some minor differences in administrative and building operations expenditures, they are minor and probably not all that significant.
Expenditures on staff support probably show the greatest difference between districts. Some of this is probably because of the varying spending levels that districts have for this category, which includes professional development. Some of the difference, however, is probably due to the varying way that school districts code information into the system.
Dr. Tavakolian noted that some of the variance in this category may be due to the role that educational service centers (ESCs) have in the professional development in school districts. Again, staff was not sure how districts code ESC expenditures.
Mr. Schaller continued to explain that pupil support expenditures do show some interesting results. He indicated that there are small differences between the different types of school districts, with the biggest difference being that more urban districts seem to spend less than their more rural counterparts. Again, the Gap Aid districts are shown to spend less per pupil than the statewide average but the percentage of their total dollars spent on pupil support seems to be somewhat less than the statewide average.
Mr. Schaller explained that there are significant differences in how much money is spent on instruction between the various categories but it is not clear what the differences mean. The model Gap Aid districts show less money spent, though the percentage of their total budget they spend on this category is not that different from the statewide average, or from the averages of their respective typologies.
Because of the lack of clear differences, Mr. Schaller said he decided to try looking at the data in a different way. He isolated the top and bottom ten school districts in the entire state for each spending category, both by a per pupil amount and as a percentage of their total budget. For the districts identified he compared how they were performing academically. Mr. Schaller explained that he was hoping that by looking at the extremes of each category, he would be able to see where spending made the biggest impact on the students academically.
The data indicated that the amount that school districts spend differs greatly across Ohio, both in terms of per-pupil expenditures and as a percentage of total spending. This is a trend throughout all categories of spending.
Mr. Schaller observed that pupil support shows a stronger correlation between spending and academic results than the other categories. The districts with the highest spending in this area are at least "continuous improvement" or better. Of course, several of the ten lowest spending districts in this category rank as "effective" with the majority ranking in "continuous improvement. "
Mr. Schaller said that instructional support probably shows the biggest stratification of academic results, though still not completely clear. With the raw per-pupil amounts spent on instructional expenditures, all but the two urban districts rank as excellent or effective. The ten districts spending the least on instruction rank as continuous improvement and half of them rank as effective.
Mr. Harris opined that the data presented do not show a statistical relationship and, therefore, no conclusions can be made about the Gap Aid districts. Mr. Burkland indicated that the central issue again is not so much about how much money is spent but how it is deployed. Mr. Schaller added that, in the end, he thought that this data did not indicate any particular expenditure area which showed particular promise in improving academic results.
Ms. Weir then briefly explained some observations on expenditure patterns in districts containing Schools of Promise. She shared a spreadsheet showing per-pupil spending in the five ODE expenditure categories for all buildings in the 17 districts that have Schools of Promise. Each category of spending was shown as a percentage of total spending for each building and the district as a whole. Both total spending and spending as a percentage of the total were compared to statewide averages. Ms. Weir explained that the data are from the 2001-2002 school year because 2002-2003 expenditure data are not yet available at the building level.
Ms. Weir made a few observations regarding the comparisons made. First, these districts containing Schools of Promise spend less in total expenditures than statewide averages. This is not surprising since these are poorer districts. What is surprising, however, is that some Schools of Promise districts spend more in absolute dollars on instruction as compared to statewide averages even though they spend less in total expenditures than statewide averages. Only Cleveland and Lockland Schools spend more in total than the state on average. Ms. Weir also noted that Cleveland Municipal School District spends 96. 5% more on staff support than the state spends on average in this area.
The second comparison made was how each category of expenditures was spent as a percentage of the total. Ms. Weir noted that on average Schools of Promise districts spend a greater percentage of their total dollars on instruction than the state does in this area. She observed that since teacher salaries in these districts are lower than the average teacher salary statewide seems to indicate higher instructional spending is not because of higher teacher salaries. It may be that such school districts have more teachers for intervention or smaller class sizes.
Mr. DeMaria said that he would like to see data for the 2002-2003 school year. Ms. Weir said she would check on the availability of this data at the building level. It was also noted that to the extent that a critical mass of buildings within a district are successful, district-wide expenditures would be sufficient.
Ms. Weir also noted that finding an indicator that is a good proxy for poverty has been a challenge. There are advantages and disadvantages to using each one. Staff will continue to analyze which is the best indicator.
Committee Preparation for April 1 Full Task Force Meeting
Mr. Filipic explained that he would like to spend the rest of the day on discussing the "Inputs, Guiding Principles and Supplements to Guiding Principles" document. This document would serve as the basis of what will be reported by this committee to the full Task Force on April 1. He asked Mr. Marshall to walk the committee through the document.
Mr. Marshall explained that the draft document of the inputs and principles will be used by the committee as it develops school funding recommendations. Ms. Weir added that, while the committee has discussed these inputs and principles at prior meetings, staff felt that there was not yet consensus on all items.
Mr. Marshall explained that the document first outlined the inputs that the committee identified should be key drivers in a new funding model. He said that Task Force staff added some commentary under each input explaining what has been learned about each input from various speakers heard at past meetings.
Regarding the first input, teacher numbers and characteristics, Dr. Byrd-Bennett asked that it be expanded to say that research indicates that smaller class sizes in 9th through 11th grades result in improvements in academic performance.
The second input was funds available for instruction. Dr. Byrd-Bennett asked that it be clarified that time on task is referring to the school level, not at home. She also challenged the assertion that research shows that after-school programs based on childcare rather than on instruction do not improve academic results.
Senator Prentiss indicated that H. B. 3 indicated that cultural competency is an important component for professional development and should be added to the input, professional development and preparation. Senator Prentiss also suggested that verbiage be added with regard to teachers being trained to analyze data and intervention being based on such data driven analysis.
Intervention was another key input listed. There were some questions with regard to the statement indicated in the document that remediation is not inexpensive but is not a budget buster. It was suggested that this be removed since there are various types of effective intervention with varying costs.
Senator Prentiss wondered where all day kindergarten and preschool would be addressed. She said she feels this is a key driver in student success particularly in areas where students are behind academically. She said, however, she was not sure this was the consensus of the entire committee.
The last input listed was monitoring, assessment, regular feedback regarding student and staff performance. Concern was expressed with regard to the comment that there is not a lot of definitive research on how assessment impacts student performance. It was suggested that this comment be removed and that a statement be included about the importance of short-cycle diagnostic testing in enhancing student performance.
Mr. Burkland wondered which information for each input was research-based. He suggested that research be indicated where applicable. Mr. Harris suggested that a bibliography of research be compiled.
The committee then moved on to discuss the principles listed in the document. Mr. Marshall said that the first set of principles was previously discussed by the committee. Based on the last discussion of principles, staff made changes they felt the committee desired. There was no final approval of these changes, however. The supplements to the principles were added by staff based on committee conversation where it was believed that consensus had been reached.
Mr. Filipic indicated that he likes that staff highlighted that the committee is focusing on practices that have resulted in successful outcomes and thought that maybe this could be highlighted even more.
There was a lengthy discussion of whether the committee should commission an adequacy study by an outside consultant. Most members feel that such a study is not necessary as long as critical inputs are costed out. The hope is that the research being conducted by Task Force staff will indicate such costs.
Mr. Filipic stated that one of the main focuses of this committee is on what the state needs to do to help economically disadvantaged children improve their academic achievement. He noted that he has not heard any disagreement from any committee members relative to this priority. Mr. Burkland agreed and stated that the data are clear that the achievement gap is real. He also indicated that this population of students is critical to the success of businesses.
Mr. Filipic stated that the committee will not meet again until later in April to give staff the opportunity to conduct analyses that can be shared with the committee. He adjourned the meeting at 3:00 p. m.
