Comparability

We've previously written about both presidential candidates' unwillingness to talk about No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  That's changed a bit - especially since the Teacher's College debate between Obama spokesperson Linda Darling-Hammond and McCain advisor Lisa Graham Keegan brought it back into the public eye.  Regardless, it's impossible to deny that whoever wins the election will have to tackle NCLB head-on.  It's not going to be an easy battle.

Reauthorizing NCLB will likely be a long process that demands the next President's leadership and guidance.  The list of topics that is likely to make or break the reauthorization process is extensive and overwhelming.  But in honor of this Election Day, we have selected a few that are near and dear to our hearts for the future President-elect to look forward to.

The Washington Post reports that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is taking steps to end teacher seniority preferences in the District's teachers union contract, as part of ongoing contract negotiations with the Washington Teachers' Union. This is an important, and contentious, teacher pay reform that holds promise for reversing inequitable teacher distribution patterns between low- and high-poverty schools in the district.

Within-District Teacher Disparities

Seniority preferences allow teachers with the most experience to transfer to any open teaching position in a district, which means the most experienced teachers tend to gravitate to the lowest-poverty schools and those with with the most ideal teaching conditions. This leaves the highest poverty schools, with the neediest students, with teaching staffs composed largely of rookie teachers.

Poor states, communities, and children persistently get the short end of the stick in school funding. Education spending policies at all levels-federal, state, and local-layer on inequities that disproportionately benefit high-wealth school districts and lead to large funding disparities between high- and low-poverty communities. A new report from Education Sector and the Center on Reinventing Public Education seeks to quantify the cumulative impacts of these inequities on local schools. The results are striking. Addressing these inequities should be a key priority for federal and state policymakers.

The Education Sector/Center on Reinventing Public Education report examines two elementary schools in neighboring states that serve similar populations but receive very different levels of federal, state, and local funding. Cameron Elementary in Fairfax County, Va., receives more than twice the per pupil funding Ponderosa Elementary in Cumberland County, N.C., receives even though both schools serve predominantly low-income populations in poorer sections of their respective counties. These funding disparities are the result of funding distribution structures that disproportionately benefit wealthier states, districts, and schools over poorer states, districts, and schools.

In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Committee on Education Excellence released its long-overdue final report last week with recommendations for reforming the state's K-12 education system in four areas: governance, finance, teacher recruitment and retention, and administrator preparation and retention. The finance section, titled "Ensure Fair Funding that Rewards Results," offers a number of good, detailed ideas for making state funding more flexible and student-centered, and better tied to incentives to improve learning.

One specific proposal in the report caught Ed Money Watch's eye: Recommendation 2.1.8—make school budgets more understandable. We believe that changing school district budgeting practices is a key first step in school finance reform. Education advocacy groups in California have been talking about this for a long time, and it's encouraging to see a state committee acknowledge the need for change. We hope that other states will take note.

Specifically, school districts need to report how funding is allocated—using the actual cost of resources—across all of their schools. Currently, districts do not report school-level funding figures, instead using district averages to calculate budgets. As the California report recommends, districts should "clearly delineat[e] the total resources (i.e., the financial value of the personnel, supplies, and services) that reach each school."

When the federal government started distributing compensatory education (i.e. Title I) funding in 1965, it wanted to ensure that federal money was supplementing, not supplanting, support to schools educating disadvantaged children. Thus, the government added fiscal requirements to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that require communities to establish an even state and local school finance playing field within district — before supplemental Title I money is given to the highest-poverty schools.

For a school district to be eligible for federal funds under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it has to fulfill three fiscal requirements: