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State of Ohio | Governor's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Financing Student Success

Committees

Funding for Success Committee

August 25, 2004 Minutes

In attendance were Chairman Matt Filipic, Vice Chairman Dick Maxwell, Eric Burkland, Paolo DeMaria, Representative William Hartnett, Russ Harris, Representative Jim Hoops, Senator Jeff Jacobson, Senator C.J. Prentiss, and Susan Tave Zelman. Other Task Force members in attendance were Task Force Chairman William W. Wilkins, Vice Chairman Jim Hyre, Susan Bodary, John Brandt, David Locke, Dan Navin, Barbara Shaner and David Varda.

Presentations:

Mr. Maxwell called the meeting to order at approximately 10:40 a.m.

Three staff from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) (Amy Andres, Jill Abbott and Michele Evans-Gardell) gave a presentation to the committee on data-driven decision making. Ms. Andres spoke first, noting that ODE is moving the Education Management Information System (EMIS) from a data-collection tool to a more useful data-exchange tool. The new system will collect more data than is collected currently.

Mr. DeMaria asked how these tools are used currently. Dr. Zelman responded that ODE has collected information from school district superintendents that answers Mr. DeMaria's question. She offered to share the survey data with the committee.

Representative Hartnett asked whether the Ohio Department of Education was attempting to create a common sequence for school districts' curricula. Ms. Abbott replied that sequences for curricula are still determined by local school districts. Dr. Zelman agreed that these decisions are ultimately local, but added that the state's assessments do drive the content and sequence of curricula.

Mr. DeMaria asked if teachers have access to this kind of functionality at this time. Ms. Abbott answered that it depends on the school district or building whether teachers have access to this information.

Ms. Evans-Gardell demonstrated a pilot program that allows teachers in participating school districts to use personal digital assistants to assess children in real time. The pilot program is currently being used by a total of 82 school buildings in 18 districts. Senator Jacobson asked if these assessments can be done by non-teachers. Ms. Evans-Gardell responded that non-teachers can be trained to perform the assessments. She added that, most of the time, teachers are doing this because they are easy to do and they get the information right away and there is intangible information that can be learned by doing the assessment.

Mr. DeMaria inquired about the availability of the DIBELS assessment tool. Ms. Evans-Gardell stated that this software is free to download, but it costs one dollar per student annually if the district is not using Palm Pilots, or if the district wants more analytical power. The TPRI and Terra Nova programs are more expensive, but Ms. Evans-Gardell will need to get back to the committee with cost estimates. She noted that some school districts were funding this pilot with federal Reading First dollars.

Mr. Maxwell asked what types of school districts are eligible for the Reading First grants. Ms. Evans-Gardell replied that this program is targeted to districts that have high poverty and low performance. Mr. Maxwell asked if there is continuing professional development in this program. Ms. Evans-Gardell said yes, that in the second year of the program the data collected during the first year is analyzed and professional development is tailored to the problems identified in the first year.

Mr. Harris asked how much professional development is provided to teachers in the 82 participating school buildings. Ms. Evans-Gardell responded that teachers receive three hours of professional development monthly throughout the year. Mr. Harris asked what changes had to be made to provide teachers access to the technology that is necessary for this pilot program. Ms. Evans-Gardell replied that the participants were given specifications for the hardware, which was purchased with federal Title I money. All participants already had internet access.

Mr. Filipic requested that at the committee's next meeting staff present information on the relationship between the material presented in the morning's presentation by the Ohio Department of Education, what it would cost, and how that compares to the amounts that have so far been recommended. Mr. Filipic turned to Mr. Marshall for a discussion of the Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA) proposal.

Mr. Marshall described for committee members the DPIA proposal that has been previously discussed and how the proposal would affect various types of school districts.

In response to a question from Senator Jacobson, Mr. Marshall noted that the intent of the proposal was to provide the committee a starting point for discussion. Staff examined what other states are doing with poverty students, and on what basis the states developed their subsidy allocation. Staff could find no examples of states that based their subsidy allocation on solid research.

Dr. Zelman added that the study being conducted by the Center for Reinventing Public Education in the state of Washington is currently conducting research in this area. When their work is completed they might be able to assist us in this area. Mr. Burkland asked how staff generated the numbers used in the draft proposal. Ms. Weir responded that the proposal was based on the research staff did with the six high-poverty school districts. All of these districts seemed to be providing around 520 hours of intervention, which led to different levels of money needed for different children.

Mr. Marshall continued his review of the materials before the committee. The tables provide more detailed information on the impact of the draft DPIA proposal on the large urban districts and on poor rural school districts. He added that some of the apparent shifts in funding among districts are not due to the draft DPIA proposal, but are caused by the new poverty indicator. Mr. Marshall reminded the committee that the number of DPIA-eligible children had dropped over the past several years from more than 280,000 to slightly over 100,000 as a result of the reform of public assistance in the 1990s.

Mr. Filipic noted that committee members have seen that there is a relationship between poverty and the level of success that school districts have. He added that, based on an analysis conducted by staff, the new poverty indicator developed by the Legislative Office of Education Oversight provides a slightly stronger correlation between poverty and student performance than did the old poverty indicator.

Mr. Harris opined that the committee should talk about tiers of intervention needs and then determine how many children are in each tier. Do we know how many children need what kinds of intervention? If we know this, how should the state direct funding towards them? What are we talking about in terms of the challenge that school districts are facing?

Senator Jacobson responded that this approach rewards failure and punishes success. As a school district improved, they would receive less state assistance. If you assess that a child needs help, they should be getting it and getting better. Senator Jacobson expressed his opposition to a system where, if a school district is successful, it receives less money. He believes that it makes more sense to construct a funding approach that looks at the situations, such as high concentrations of poverty, that make it more difficult to educate children.

Mr. Marshall described for the committee the impact on the number of students identified using the new poverty indicator. While all types of school districts gained students using the new poverty indicator, the large urban school districts gained less than other types of districts. Type 1 (high poverty and rural) school districts show the largest gains in economically disadvantaged students using the new poverty indicator.

Mr. Marshall next reviewed for the committee the components of the staff's Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA) proposal. The all-day kindergarten and class-size reduction elements of DPIA are unchanged, except that the class-size reduction program assumes that the starting point for the reduction is a class size of 20 instead of 23, as is currently assumed. Mr. Marshall noted that using the new poverty indicator made several more Urban 21 school districts eligible for all-day kindergarten funding. He added that the big increase in DPIA funding for the Urban 21 school districts is for intervention, which is by design. This segment of the DPIA proposal targets money at the school districts with the highest levels of poverty. Finally, Mr. Marshall observed that most of the proposed funding for limited-English proficient (LEP) students would go to Cleveland and Columbus because these districts have the highest concentrations of LEP children.

Senator Jacobson noted that the morning's presentation on data-based decision making was based just on professional development for elementary teachers. He asked whether middle and high school teachers were also receiving training in the use of data.

Dr. Zelman replied that the Department of Education is developing a system that will soon be in place that would allow for training all these teachers. There is a timeline in place for this. Senator Jacobson opined that professional development in the use of data should be phased in to allow time to build capacity. Mr. Filipic agreed, stating that it would be a mistake to send teachers through a program that is not ready for them. Senator Jacobson added that it was his recollection that the committee's intention was to require school districts to engage in data-based decision making, rather than simply give them the resources and hope that they do.

Dr. Zelman suggested that the committee needs to be careful about this. The role of the state should be to encourage the use of best practices. The state would set the standards and only give money to school districts if they are meeting those standards. Mr. Maxwell added that the committee has answered the question of whether data-based decision making should be part of the foundation program, and the answer is no. We want this item to be separate.

Dr. Zelman opined that it is important to think about prevention. We need to make sure that economically disadvantaged children have a high-quality preschool experience to level the playing field. That should be considered in base cost. Mr. Maxwell stated that the committee has discussed putting as many proven inputs into the base cost as possible, but data-based decision making does not seem to fit in that category.

Mr. Harris stated that there is a legal requirement for intervention for children who do not meet state standards. We may be creating a problem if we recommend funding intervention through a block grant. If a school district has a significant number of children who need intervention, yet the district does not receive a grant, what do they do?

Senator Jacobson suggested that the committee is talking about two different things. Professional Development for data-based decision making would be a block grant, while intervention funding would be formula driven. He added that there is probably going to be a start-up level of professional development and then a move down to a maintenance level for this particular item.

Senator Prentiss asked Senator Jacobson if he was saying that the state cannot put those guidelines in law, and still have it in the foundation. Senator Jacobson responded that he was. Mr. DeMaria suggested that the professional development could be tied to the foundation level but not distributed to school districts as unrestricted state aid. The state already does something similar to this with the Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plan (CCIP) grants. If we think this should be in the foundation, we can get it in there with controls.

The committee then resumed its discussion of the staff's proposal on funding student intervention. Senator Jacobson asked whether it was worth discussing why staff is recommending that districts eligible for Tier III intervention funding receive support based on the total student population, not just for economically disadvantaged children.

Mr. Marshall noted that, in response to input from committee members, staff's DPIA proposal now extends student intervention funding to all school districts at minimal levels (0.25% of the per-pupil foundation amount for all students). That does not mean that the lowest level of student intervention funding needs to stay within DPIA, however.

Senator Jacobson expressed discomfort with the notion of all districts receiving funding for student intervention through the DPIA program. He would like to see what intervention can actually be purchased at various levels of funding. He is not convinced that every district needs intervention funding for all students.

Senator Prentiss interjected that state law requires intervention for all children who have not passed the state's proficiency tests. How does this proposal address that requirement? It does not appear to meet what the law requires. Senator Jacobson replied that Ohio does not want a system that ties funding to non-performance, while it penalizes school districts for their children's success.

Senator Prentiss opined that we need to do more for children who need help than just give money to economically disadvantaged children who may or may not need the assistance. Senator Jacobson replied that the state gives a lot of money to all school districts, even though they do not have the same levels of needs. You cannot build a funding formula based upon the needs of individual students, rather than on concentrations of children who need help. With any system, Senator Jacobson wants to know what the state is actually buying with its investment. That would make the conversation that follows much more informative. Then we would be discussing something that might advance our knowledge.

Senator Prentiss stated that the committee should not recommend intervention funding for school districts that do not need it. Mr. Harris agreed with Senator Prentiss. We need to know what we should buy. We need some measure of how many children are at what levels and need what kinds of intervention. Mr. Harris believes that we do not know that right now. We do not tie proficiency test data to how much funding school districts receive.

Dr. Zelman noted that some state money for intervention goes to those school districts that have low proficiency scores. Senator Prentiss stated that this is the state line item 513 Student Intervention Services, which is different from the DPIA line item. She added that approximately 99% of all school districts in Ohio receive some funding through this line item. Why would we allocate DPIA funds to all school districts if we are already providing intervention assistance through line 513?

Mr. Filipic suggested that there are two questions. Do we want to have additional funding for all school districts, or focus on those with high concentrations of poverty? If the committee wants to flow additional dollars to all school districts, using the amounts included in Tier I of the staff's DPIA proposal would be a way of doing it. The second question is how best to translate dollars into levels of service. Senator Jacobson interjected that the committee will not be able to argue that any level chosen will be effective, but the committee can at least have the policy discussion.

Dr. Zelman informed the committee that the state will soon have assessments on kindergarteners, which will show us where they are academically. What do we do with our resources when we know that children are entering school two to three years behind? We will have state-level data on every grade, school district and school, and the school will have it for every child. Dr. Zelman suggested that we may need to change our unit of analysis from the school district to the child. This change would not reward failure. We would tie it to an accountability measure. We can construct a system that is data driven.

Senator Jacobson opined that the committee is making things too complex. There is no perfect way to assess an individual child. He believes that assessments can be accomplished by proxy, which would be better. If we start with poverty, that gives us a good proxy. The money would go to districts based on poverty levels. We can write the law to say that the money is to be used for the benefit of children who require intervention, whether they are poor or not. Using poverty as a proxy is simply our best guess at how many children need intervention.

Mr. Burkland stated that it seems clear that a high concentration of poverty is predictive of need for intervention. He suggested that the committee focus on the things we agree on and build from there. We should invest in districts that have high concentrations of poverty, but not be so prescriptive that we cause problems with our rules.

Mr. Maxwell added that representatives of various schools were asked what they wanted, and they responded that they wanted discretion over how they spend state money. We are discussing how money is allocated, not so much how it would be used. Mr. Maxwell continued that the committee has been talking about poverty as a proxy of need. We have considered giving all school districts some level of funding so that, while they might not have poverty, they surely have needs that these funds can go towards.

Senator Prentiss observed that there are two state pots that are used for student intervention. She opined that it does not make sense to use DPIA intervention dollars for all school districts. Mr. Filipic answered that whether intervention funding should flow through DPIA is a separate question. There is an undercurrent of opinion on the committee that all school districts should get something for data-based decision making, professional development and, perhaps, some small amount of state support for student intervention.

Mr. Burkland opined that, if we want to create a principled system, we need to be able to explain the principles. He would not want to use DPIA as the mechanism to get more funding to all schools. He would reserve DPIA funding for economically disadvantaged pupils. The committee should recommend another method to allocate intervention funding to all school districts.

Senator Jacobson suggested that a way to accomplish this goal is to require school districts to report how they spent their intervention money and their results. We can assume that there is a differential need for intervention between poverty and non-poverty students. However, we do not know which children are going to need how much intervention. We can work on this challenge as we get more data.

Senator Prentiss asked Senator Jacobson to restate his proposal. Senator Jacobson stated that he would remove the intervention assistance for districts that are not eligible for DPIA and fund it separately. He added that the committee could recommend removing intervention funding for all districts and appropriate it separately. Senator Prentiss asked if the state would be providing assistance to Beachwood for intervention, given that this district is spending about $17,000 per child. Senator Jacobson stated that Beachwood would still be on the guarantee, so they would not receive any more money.

Mr. Maxwell cautioned that not all non-poverty school districts are like Beachwood. There are plenty of average or below-average-wealth districts that fall into that category as well. Senator Jacobson responded that, perhaps the minimal level of intervention funding for all students should be considered "experimental," knowing that the state will receive reports on how many children were served, how many hours of intervention each child received and other useful information. Once we review this information we could re-examine the level of state support.

Mr. Hyre opined that the committee should stick to the idea that has consensus. Some seem to be confusing DPIA and intervention as two different tracks. All school districts have some children that need intervention. The school districts that need the most help are the ones with the highest concentrations of poverty. Funding for limited-English proficient students will eventually spread out to more than the two school districts that would receive most of the funding initially under the staff's proposal.

Senator Jacobson suggested that the committee think of the different intervention funding levels in terms of what services could be purchased. At the lowest level of state support, school districts could use state funds for large group intervention. At the next level, districts could conduct small group interventions. At the highest level of state support, districts could perhaps provide one-on-one intervention. If we can recast state intervention funding in those terms, we can do a better job applying a number to it. Describing state funding in this way helps us describe what we are buying.

Mr. Filipic noted that Senator Jacobson's approach offers consistency. Describing intervention funding in terms of what can be purchased gives the committee a common language. Senator Jacobson added that the committee could tie intervention funding to teachers' salaries, which could be inflated over time. The number of children receiving intervention and the hours provided will vary between districts, but they will all get additional money to pay for it.

Mr. Filipic stated that the advantage of tying DPIA funding levels to base funding is that, as base funding increases, DPIA support also rises without separate action. Does that say anything about whether we should be funding a subset of students (poverty children) or all children? Are they separate issues? Senator Jacobson expressed his opinion that they are separate issues. He believes that all elements of the formula that are affected by inflation should have an inflation factor. Other items, such as class sizes, should be changed because of policy decisions. Senator Jacobson added that the foundation amount might be broken into different areas that are affected by different inflationary amounts. Everything should be tied together so that when teacher salaries increase, the amount it costs for an hour of intervention by a teacher should go up by the same amount. We should no longer think of DPIA and intervention as different things. We should just have intervention.

Mr. Marshall referred the committee to the staff's revised class-size reduction proposal. There had been some concern that there was a cliff with the first proposal - school districts with DPIA indices below 1.25 received no funding. The revised proposal phases out class-size reduction support between DPIA indices of 1.0 and 1.25.

Senator Jacobson asked why we assume that schools are uniform in their teaching. Is every class in the state going to have 20 students? Middle and high schools do not need such small classes. We are assuming that we are starting with 20 students and moving to 15, but how did we come to the assumption that we are starting with 20? Senator Jacobson is certain that there is a big range. Should we start with the assumption of a class size of 20 students? Mr. Filipic asked whether we have data that could help address Senator Jacobson's concern. Mr. Marshall replied that staff inferred overall class sizes of 20. Breaking it down by grade gets even more problematic.

Mr. Marshall next reviewed for the committee a "building blocks" approach to looking at school funding. Dr. Zelman asked where the preschool and professional development building blocks were. Senator Jacobson stated that funding for preschool means adding more children to the formula, which is not being considered currently by the committee. Professional development could be a building block and probably should be. He added that foundation funding should be broken into building blocks as well.

Mr. Hyre suggested that the committee invite teachers who have used data to make decisions to speak to the committee. We do not know much about how it works in the trenches and that would be a good thing to hear from practitioners.

Senator Jacobson noted that there is professional development money in the foundation currently. There is also parity aid that could be used for this purpose.

Senator Jacobson expressed concern with the staff's recommendation to fund parental engagement for the Urban 21 school districts. He stated that he would be more comfortable if there were some strings on how these funds were spent. Senator Jacobson feels that the proposed uses of this item are too nebulous.

Mr. Marshall stated that staff structured the parental engagement component on the six school districts that staff examined. Based on what staff learned from these districts, it appears that the larger school districts require a larger infrastructure to manage the size of the parental base. Size of the district seems to have considerable impact on how parents are engaged. Mobility and diversity of the student body are other issues that affect mostly urban school districts.

Senator Jacobson suggested that this item should be reformulated so that it is just for economically disadvantaged children. It would be more helpful to align it that way if that is the goal. Senator Jacobson is not certain that this money could not be used better for some other purpose, such as professional development. He does not have a great deal of confidence that more money for parental involvement would be a better use of resources than some of the other inputs the committee has discussed.

Mr. Navin opined that most of the inputs considered by the committee have a basis in classroom instruction. The parental engagement component does not have that focus. If all of the elements relate to classrooms, it makes it easier to explain and defend as necessary. We would need to know better what this would accomplish before funding it. Also, we would need to understand how it relates to the classroom and phrase it that way.

Mr. Filipic stated that there is a distribution issue here. When Ohio moved to the new poverty indicator, we focused more attention on rural high-poverty school districts. The proposed funding for parental engagement attempted to target funding towards a problem that is more urban in nature. Perhaps parental involvement is not the right hook to hang it on, but we might think of another way to address those challenges that impact urban school districts disproportionately.

Senator Jacobson expressed an interest in setting aside funds annually to support an accessible database of knowledge that would include content that parent could use to assist their children with proficiency tests. Dr. Zelman responded that the Department of Education already has something like this.

Ms. Weir noted that ownership of the educational problems in the community is an important facet of the education system, and that can not be done easily in the larger urban districts. Providing funding for parental engagement was another way to try to help with that problem. Mr. DeMaria agreed that research supports that community ownership is important to the success of schools.

Mr. Filipic then directed the attention of the committee to a document produced by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) association that is relevant to the discussion on what inflation indicator should he used. SHEEO developed an inflation indicator for higher education that is more representative of higher education's cost drivers. Since costs for both higher education and primary and secondary education are driven largely by labor costs, the SHEEO inflator might work for primary and secondary education as well.

The SHEEO inflation indicator is divided into two areas, 75% for labor (since labor costs generally represent about 75% of total higher education costs) and 25% for the Gross National Product deflator for other costs. The inflation indicator for labor is the Employment Cost Index, which is based on salaries and benefits of white-collar private-sector workers.

Senator Jacobson responded that if the committee is breaking down the building blocks as has been discussed, it makes it easy to use different inflationary indexes for different things. We could use a wage index for the salary component and a separate indicator for fringe benefits, such as medical insurance. We could select appropriate inflationary indexes for each building block. The committee will continue to discuss this issue at future meetings.

Mr. Filipic adjourned the meeting at approximately 2:20 p.m.


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THE FINAL REPORT
Governor Taft reading with a student.