Committees
Funding for Success Committee
August 2, 2004 Minutes
In attendance were Chairman Matt Filipic, Vice Chairman Dick Maxwell, Eric Burkland, Paolo DeMaria, Russ Harris, Representative William Hartnett, Representative Jim Hoops, Scott Williams and Dennis Woods. Other Task Force members in attendance were Task Force Chairman William W. Wilkins, Vice Chairman Jim Hyre, Dan Navin and Walt Davis.
Mr. Filipic called the meeting to order at approximately 10:05 a.m.
Presentation:
Mr. Marshall reviewed for committee members handouts that had been prepared in response to requests from previous meetings. These four documents were:
- An analysis prepared by the Legislative Office of Education Oversight that listed school buildings that have above-average poverty rates that are within school districts that have moderate levels of poverty.
- A table that listed proficiency test results for 2002-2003 for the 4th, 6th and 9th grade proficiency tests, as well as 10th grade results on the 9th grade test.
- A scatter diagram that compared poverty and proficiency test results.
- The final handout listed the number of school districts, students and Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA) payments per pupil by districts' poverty percentage (the document is entitled Bands of Poverty).
Mr. Hyre had a question regarding the bands of poverty handout. He asked why the per-pupil distributions for the higher-poverty districts can be lower than districts with less poverty. Mr. Marshall responded that staff had noticed this as well, and suggested that part of the reason has to do with the allocation of students among the grades. For example, since much of the DPIA funding is for the early primary grades, school districts that have proportionately fewer students in these grades might receive less funding that might be assumed. Staff will review the data further. Mr. Marshall noted that using the new poverty index for allocating DPIA funds makes an additional 77 districts eligible for this funding. Staff's proposal for allocating DPIA funds in the future would make another 44 school districts eligible for DPIA funding.
Mr. Marshall then reviewed for the committee the base cost recommendations. He noted that staff attempted to capture on the first page the current sense of the committee relative to base cost. Mr. Marshall suggested that the question of inflationary factors probably should be discussed in combination with the Revenue and Taxation Committee, as it impacts their work as well. He stated that the committee will also need to determine what issues they will be able to address and what might need to be considered by a subsequent group. Mr. Marshall added that, in the near future, the Funding for Success Committee needs to start looking at what its recommendations will do in conjunction with those of the Revenue and Taxation Committee.
Mr. Harris noted that there was no mention of the Gap Aid school districts in the cover page. He asked whether the staff's work was still based on these 26 excellent or effective Gap Aid districts. Mr. Marshall responded that it was.
Mr. Maxwell observed that the question in part 4A of the base cost recommendations was misleading. He stated that it might be true that there is a state component to the Revenue and Taxation Committee's proposal to address phantom revenue, but the statement is misleading. The proposed phantom revenue solution is mostly a local revenue issue.
Representative Hoops asked Mr. Navin if the Revenue and Taxation Committee had considered changing the current agricultural use value (CAUV), where farmland is valued for tax purposes based on soil types rather than its "highest and best use." Mr. Navin replied that the Revenue and Taxation Committee has not dealt with this issue.
Data-Based Decision Making
Next, Mr. Marshall summarized the enhancement recommendations. Regarding data-based decision making, he noted that the SchoolNet Commission and the Department of Education are working on broader initiatives in this area and the committee might want to hear from these agencies. Mr. Marshall noted that it is unknown how many teachers have their own classroom computers that could be used for data-based decision making, the committee might recommend allowing any funding to be used for either software or hardware.
Mr. Filipic stated that many school districts are already using data to make decisions. He observed that the committee's recommendation is to fund this activity for all school districts, so that those already engaged in data-based decision making are not penalized for taking the initiative to do this.
Mr. Marshall reminded the committee that the estimated cost of $5.50 per pupil for data-based decision making is based on the combined costs of Battelle for Kids and data-assisted student learning. The former provides a higher-level view of a school district's or building's academic performance, and the latter provides a student-specific level of information.
Professional Development
The second input is professional development. Mr. Marshall noted that the Department of Education is currently working on their professional development standards, which should be done in about a year. Staff has given the committee information in the past regarding how much it might cost for three additional days of professional development. During the year is more expensive than in the summer since substitutes need to be hired. The cost of three days during the school year (not counting substitute costs) would be about $90 million. Three days of professional development in the summer would cost about $60 million.
The Commission on Teaching Success recommended the development of "grow-your-own" strategies for filling hard-to-staff teaching positions. Research shows that individuals tend to return to areas that are similar to where they grew up. Colleges of education are still dominated by white females from suburban areas. To fill teaching vacancies in urban and rural areas colleges of education need to produce more graduates from these areas.
Mr. Harris asked whether the committee should recommend some mechanism for securing teachers for hard-to-staff school districts and buildings and hard-to-staff subject areas. Mr. Marshall responded that staff did not have a specific recommendation on teacher staffing right now.
Mr. Harris opined that recruiting teachers for hard-to-staff districts, buildings and subject areas should be one of the committee's priorities. It is not as high a priority as funding for professional development, but it should be on the list.
Representative Hartnett added that there was considerable discussion of this problem on the teaching success committee. He believes that the committee should strongly encourage that colleges of education look at this problem. If the people are not there you cannot recruit them.
Representative Hoops suggested that the committee might need to look at paying higher rates for mathematics and science teachers since they have more lucrative options available to them outside of teaching. Mr. Marshall noted that this type of differential pay does happen in higher education. Mr. Harris added that the problem will not be solved easily. We need to address the issue of hard-to-staff buildings and academic areas earlier in the education of future teachers. Some states have cadres of teachers in hard-to-staff areas that travel the state and help school districts that have problems in those areas.
Mr. Woods opined that colleges of education need to do a better job of communicating to future teachers where the needs are. There is a glut of early primary grade teachers, but shortages in other areas. Students should have this information. Mr. Burkland stated that Advance Ohio is intended to align Ohio's workforce development program to the needs of the state's businesses. If we look at the hard-to-staff problem in a similar way, we could probably make some improvements in this area. He added that the teaching success commission's recommendations in this area make a lot of sense.
Mr. Filipic asked if there was a sense among committee members that this issue should be identified as a separate item. Mr. Burkland responded that Advance Ohio could probably handle this problem, since they are looking at workforce development sector by sector. It is a workforce issue, not simply an education issue.
Student Intervention
Mr. Filipic suggested that the number of children who need intervention is not fixed at birth. Our system is designed to reduce the need for intervention and if we focus our funds on the districts with the largest problems, eventually that money should be freed up. Mr. Harris opined that intervention funds should be targeted at low-performing schools as well as districts that have high concentrations of poverty. Mr. Filipic disagreed. His concern is that simply giving money to districts because of their students' poor academic performance sends the wrong message. Also, doing this would take money away from school districts like Cleveland that have improved their performance. Mr. Harris would retain the poverty emphasis but also target low-performing school districts.
Mr. DeMaria stated that, given school districts with similar rates of poverty, the state should give funding priority to the school district that has the most potential for improvement. This needs to be coupled with deployment tools to make sure that the funds are used correctly. Focusing our attention on the worst-performing students makes sense. Perhaps this should be accompanied by restrictions on use of the funds. Mr. Woods noted that the law requires intervention for all children who require it. He opined that this burden will get larger over time, with local school districts forced to bear more of the burden.
Mr. Maxwell asked whether intervention should be targeted to children who require it or to children in poverty. There seems to be a gap for the school districts that have need but do not have much poverty. He suggested that perhaps the lower-poverty school districts should receive a smaller amount per student than the higher-poverty school districts, but the lower-poverty school districts should get some money.
Mr. Filipic replied that he does not want to focus just on children of poverty. We need to consider all underachieving school districts. However, he does not want to reward failure and punish success. That is his big issue.
Representative Hartnett observed that there is a continuing problem identifying which children need intervention and how much they require. Intervention needs are very different for a student that missed the proficient level by a few points and one that is not close to proficiency. Without accounting for this disparity we might be spending money on the wrong children.
Parental Engagement
Mr. Marshall noted that funding for this input would, initially at least, be confined to the 21 urban school districts. This could be done through the Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid program, which will be discussed in the afternoon session.
Preschool Education
Mr. Marshall noted that Ohio funds less than six percent of the 95,000 children who are eligible for public preschool. Even with Head Start, which funds about 56% of all Head Start-eligible children, there is still a significant gap between the number of preschool children who are eligible for either of these programs and those who participate. Mr. Marshall added that funding preschool for all eligible children would be expensive. He asked what the committee would like to do with preschool.
Mr. Maxwell stated that school districts are required to provide services to preschool children who have disabilities that are in compliance with these children's individualized education plans. He would like to see funding for these children included in the foundation formula. These children are now being funded by units. Mr. Woods opined that school districts should also be eligible for the state's catastrophic special education aid program for preschool special education students, since some of them can be very expensive to serve. He added that all preschool programs should have an academic focus. Many programs currently lack an academic focus.
Class-Size Reduction
Mr. Marshall said that staff does not have a specific proposal relative to class-size reduction, other than the class-size reduction component of the Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid program, which will be reviewed during the afternoon session.
Mr. Harris opined that children who have disabilities should bring their additional weights with them into the classroom. The class-size reduction amounts should reflect the weights associated with children who have disabilities. It will take additional time to deal with that student, so it should be counted in the class-size reduction calculation.
Mr. DeMaria observed that class-size reduction funds are not necessarily used to reduce the size of classes. These funds are used for shortcomings throughout the system. He struggles with the implications of supporting class-size reduction funding for the wide array of school districts that we have, especially with all the other funding sources that they have for this purpose. Mr. Marshall agreed that the current allowable uses for these funds are broad. They are to be used for "increased instructional attention." School districts can meet the requirements of the law without actually decreasing class sizes. He noted that Senator Prentiss has expressed concern that this language is too loose.
Mr. DeMaria suggested that the state should not be prescriptive with school districts that are meeting expectations. The state could allow effective school districts more latitude in how they use their class-size reduction funds. Mr. Hyre added that there is potential for a carrot and a stick. The state should not give resources to school districts so that they can continue to do a poor or mediocre job. The state could offer incentives to school districts to improve.
Mr. Filipic opined that it would be wonderful if we could change the system so that we can equate more funding with more success. He added that the committee seems to be going in that direction. Mr. Woods noted that a building in East Cleveland had made tremendous improvement in its academic performance. However, because the entire district did not make adequate progress, some of the resources that had been given to this building were diverted to the other buildings that were not performing as well. In addition, the successful building had a huge influx of students from other buildings in the district because this building had been successful. As a result of these two things, this building did not remain successful. We should think about how to keep this from happening.
Limited English Proficiency
Columbus and Cleveland would receive most of the funding proposed by staff because that is where most of the limited-English proficient (LEP) students are. Staff suggested that districts that have a DPIA index of at least 1.0 and an LEP student population of at least 2% be eligible for additional state support.
Representative Hartnett stated that he had attended a conference recently where LEP students were discussed. In some western states that have large numbers of LEP students the funding drivers are the number of children and the number of languages that are spoken in a school district. For example, a district with 1,000 LEP students who all speak the same language might get less money than a district with 100 LEP students who speak 10 different languages.
Mr. Filipic observed that Ohio has a good history working with this problem. His father had to go through this as a new immigrant in a Cleveland neighborhood that had immigrants from many nations. Cleveland schools did a remarkable job with them.
Mr. Maxwell would like to have LEP support tied to the formula rather than be funded as a separate grant program. He added that Houston uses a weight of 10%, and Seattle uses 27%. Mr. DeMaria suggested that the state might limit funding to two years. Mr. Filipic noted that there was general agreement that the committee should include support for LEP students in the funding model, but there is not yet agreement on the funding method.
Mr. Burkland added that he hears the same thing where he works. Integrating diversity is a problem that he struggles with. It is a function of the schools, but it is not limited to schools. There needs to be more than just the school component. Representative Hartnett observed that, from a development point of view, there is more to the issue than language. There are social views as well. There are some things that various cultures seem to require that go beyond language.
Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid
Mr. Marshall stated that the reform in federal public assistance programs that occurred during the 1990s made it necessary for the state to develop a new indicator of poverty, since the reforms allowed individuals limited time to receive certain public benefits. He added that the General Assembly directed the Legislative Office of Education Oversight (LOEO) to develop a new poverty indicator to replace the old definition. This new definition is now in law.
When this change is implemented, urban school districts will receive more money than they do currently. However, their share of the total amount will decline as more poverty in non-urban areas is recognized. The new definition of poverty adds 77 school districts to the number of currently eligible school districts. The staff's proposal for a new DPIA allocation adds 44 more to that amount, for a total of 121 additional school districts. The cost of the staff's proposal is $240 million more than current levels of spending.
Mr. Maxwell observed that making more school districts eligible for DPIA is not as a result of the committee, it is current law. He opined that there really is no option to change this impact or lessen it in any way.
Dr. Nancy Zajano, LOEO director, stated that the number of children identified by the new poverty indicator looks like a huge increase, but what has been happening over the past several years is that there has been a huge decrease in the number of economically disadvantaged children as families have dropped off the public assistance rolls. She added that the new indicator really returns the numbers of economically disadvantaged children to levels that are similar to those before the impact of welfare reform was felt.
Mr. Marshall noted that the intention of the staff's proposal is to send proportionally more money through the upper tiers to those school districts that have the highest concentrations of economically disadvantaged children.
Mr. Filipic suggested that an analysis of data included in the Bands of Poverty table might have some interesting information if staff examined total funding per pupil, as opposed to funding for only poverty pupils.
Mr. Marshall continued to summarize the staff's proposal for the allocation of DPIA funding. The staff's proposal does not change the current all-day kindergarten component, where funding is available to school districts' whose DPIA index equals or exceeds the state's average. An additional 49 districts would be eligible for all-day kindergarten funding due to the impact of the new poverty indicator
Staff recommends amending the class-size reduction component of DPIA to the 100 school districts that have a DPIA index of 1.25 or greater. This proposal would give these districts sufficient resources to have class sizes of 15 in grades kindergarten through three. Since research shows that there is much less benefit to reducing class sizes to levels that are above 15, staff recommended more targeted funding for the neediest districts to allow them to reach the class sizes of 15. Mr. Marshall noted that districts with DPIA indices of less than 1.25 would receive no funding under this proposal, which is a weakness that probably needs to be addressed. The cost was determined by looking at average salary costs for the 26 excellent or effective Gap Aid districts. Mr. Maxwell would prefer that funding for this proposal be done through weights that are tied to the foundation formula.
Mr. Filipic expressed his discomfort with the "cliff," where school districts that are below 1.25 receive no funding. He understands that incremental changes in class size do not have the desired effect. However, it seems that we could add small amounts of money that could be targeted to specific buildings or classrooms and have a great effect.
Mr. Filipic stated that the committee is pursuing class-size reduction because we know that children in poverty are not doing as well as other children. He asked Dr. Zajano whether using the new poverty indicator would show more relationship to success or less.
Dr. Zajano responded that LOEO has not conducted that analysis. Mr. Filipic observed that it would be interesting to compare the old and new poverty measures against student performance to see if there is a difference.
Mr. Harris expressed concern relative to class sizes actually being reduced to 15 students. Current law provides so many ways to "reduce classes" that he is not sure that any class will ever have only 15 students. He asked whether the current class-size reduction program has been effective in actually reducing class sizes. Mr. Marshall replied that he is unaware of any audits of the uses of these funds. Many schools have space constraints that make it difficult to achieve class sizes of 15.
Mr. Filipic noted that the committee has, in prior meetings, favored not to be so controlling for districts that are successful. Representative Hartnett agreed with the idea of giving school districts discretion. School districts should have the ability to place children that need help in smaller classes and assign children who do not need additional assistance in larger classes
Mr. Maxwell would like to pursue Mr. Harris's suggestion of adding weights to the class-size reduction calculations for students who have disabilities. Mr. Filipic responded that, if the issue is getting resources to school districts, and class-size reduction money is in addition to money given to the weights provided for children with disabilities, that means that school districts are receiving additional funding for both class-size reduction and disabilities; it is not funding for one in place of the other.
Dr. Zajano told the committee that LOEO examined class-size reduction practices of school districts. She noted that school districts had a difficult time finding teachers and space to implement the class-size reduction program as initially planned. They had to use alternatives to actually reduce class sizes because the other options were just not possible. Academic emergency schools are the most difficult to staff. She opined that it is going to be very difficult to get to a class size of 15.
Mr. Filipic suggested that school districts perceive DPIA funding as relatively unstable and so are spending the money differently than they spend formula money. They are not as willing to spend DPIA money on another teacher since that money does not seem permanent.
Mr. Marshall next reviewed the intervention component of the staff's DPIA proposal. More than 70% of all school districts would receive intervention funding under the proposal, with funding weighted heavily toward districts with the highest concentrations of economically disadvantaged children. This component has four tiers that are additive:
- Tier 1 - Any district with a DPIA index of 0.25 or greater (436 districts) would receive 0.5% of the foundation amount (about $25) for all of their students;
- Tier 2 - Districts with DPIA indices of 0.25 or greater receive a sliding scale of additional funding ranging from 0.25% (about $13) of the foundation level to 2% (about $101) of the foundation amount, with districts at or above a 1.25 DPIA index receiving 2%;
- Tier 3 - Districts with DPIA indices between 1.25 and 2.0 (100 districts) would receive a sliding-scale amount of from 0.25% (about $13) of the foundation amount to 8% (about $405), with all districts at or greater than a 2.0 DPIA index receiving 8%;
- Tier 4 - This support would go only to the Urban 21 school districts to fund parental engagement programs and to help fund the challenges these districts face due to diversity, mobility and size.
Mr. Harris observed that the staff's proposal was different than his. The proposal that he made to the committee would base funding on performance and poverty. He believes that all low-performing school districts should receive additional assistance. Mr. Maxwell asked if we should equalize this support. Does the richest school district get the same amount per child as the poorest? Mr. Harris replied that the assistance might be modified based on a district's financial capacity. Mr. Filipic interjected that he still does not agree with Mr. Harris that school districts should receive state support only because they are low performing.
Mr. Burkland stated that providing funds to school districts simply because they are low-performing leads to a solution where the school district sends an invoice to the state which the state pays it. We need to look at the research, learn what works and replicate it. For example, we know that short-cycle assessments are especially important where there is a lot of failure.
Mr. Harris replied that not all school districts are in a position to implement these three levels of intervention. They are going to need professional development and other assistance to do this. Mr. Harris added that Ohio is not sitting on a state surplus; every dollar we need is going to be challenged. We need to target low performance in a way that we have never targeted it before. We are in a day of resource accountability; unless education can prove its case, we are not going to get the money. He agreed that proven practices should be put in place. We need professional development to get them ready to be put in place.
Mr. Woods asked whether staff had any research that shows the way that we have allocated DPIA or what we are proposing will be better than what Mr. Burkland is proposing. Mr. Marshall responded that staff did not. Mr. Woods expressed his opposition to the notion of providing funding for a student who has passed all proficiency tests, while school districts do not receive funding for other students who have not passed their tests but are not poor. Mr. Filipic replied that it is assumed that school districts will spend the money on the students who need the assistance.
Mr. Filipic observed that Mr. Harris's standard of need is the number of students not meeting the proficiency standard. Another possibility is that there is a strong correlation between poverty and the need for intervention. You can pair school districts that are similar in all ways, but one will succeed and the other do poorly. Using Mr. Harris's position, you would take the money from the one successful district and give it to the one doing poorly. That would take money from the school district that can translate resources to success to one who has not.
Mr. Harris replied that we do not need to take money away from anyone if this is funded adequately. We need to think about tighter targeting. We need to measure educational need. Using poverty as a proxy for educational need does not seem right. He opined that we need better measures of educational need. We need to know how many children need intervention. We are required by law to intervene with children who are failing tests. We are not required to do poverty intervention.
Representative Hartnett noted that the toughest thing to do in finance committee is to compare what you are doing this biennium compared to last biennium, because Ohio does not have performance audits. We never know how successful a group has been when we are asked for money. Some sort of audit should be worked into our plan so that we are given options in the future.
Mr. Filipic stated that the committee is in agreement on the need for data-based decision making and professional development to go with it. Over time, with research and these investments, we should see a closer relationship between what is going in and what is coming out of the school districts.
Mr. Woods iterated that all school districts are required to do intervention. There should be some funding for all school districts to do what they are required to do by law. Mr. Filipic agreed that there are intervention needs in this state that go beyond poverty.
Mr. Maxwell noted that committee members knew that this would be complicated. We have agreed that more money should go to school districts with poverty because that is what the research said. Tough as it is, that does not mean that we should not be doing it.
Mr. Burkland asked if there is a way that intervention can be done at a lower cost. Mr. Woods replied that the first level of intervention is in the classroom, which requires professional development. The next level is after-school and similar intervention programs. For those children that need even more assistance it gets really expensive. Mr. Marshall added that identifying and helping children early, before kindergarten, solves some of the problems.
Mr. Filipic asked whether a summary of today's meeting would be a good way to report the committee's progress to the full Task Force at the August 9th meeting. He added that we soon need to begin having joint meetings with the Revenue and Taxation Committee because the Task Force's proposals will be comprehensive. He suggested that there be two more meetings of the Funding for Success Committee before it begins its joint meetings with the Revenue and Taxation Committee.
The next two meetings of the Funding for Success Committee will be August 18th and September 7th. Exact times and locations will be determined later.
Mr. Filipic adjourned the meeting at approximately 2:30 p.m.
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