Ed Money Watch

In his fiscal year 2011 budget request released on Monday, President Obama proposed some major changes to programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The proposal would take 38 existing K-12 programs, many with very narrow focuses, and combine them into nine new programs. The new programs would direct more funding to states and local education agencies (LEAs) through competitive grants than the current structure, which operates mostly through formula grants. The Obama Administration believes this will give school districts greater flexibility in how they use the funds and make them more accountable for student achievement. But moving to competitive grants adds uncertainty and may create a number of unintended consequences.

The 38 existing programs would be consolidated into nine different programs under five headings: Excellent Instructional Teams, Effective Teaching and Learning for a Complete Education, Expanding Educational Options, College Pathways and Accelerated Learning, and Supporting Student Success. Each of these reflects the priorities of the Obama Administration for education.

The president’s 2011 budget request includes $5.9 billion for the new programs, while the combined 2010 funding for the programs slated for consolidation is $5.3 billion, a difference of $568 million. A table of the funding levels for the existing programs to be consolidated and the proposed programs that would replace them can be downloaded here.

Excellent Instructional Teams
The president’s budget proposal would create three programs under the Excellent Instructional Teams umbrella: Effective Teachers and Leaders; Teacher and Leader Innovation Fund; and Teacher and Leader Pathways. Nine programs funded under current law would be folded into these new consolidated programs.

Two of the programs that would be folded into this area are the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) and Improving Teacher Quality State Grants. Both of these programs aim to improve the quality of teachers in schools around the country. TIF uses competitive grants to help states, LEAs, and partnerships to develop and implement performance-based compensation systems for teachers and administrators in high-need areas. Improving Teacher Quality State Grants are formula driven grants that states and school districts can use to improve teacher effectiveness. Much of this money is used to help teachers pay for the education they need to become “highly qualified.”

The administration feels that a broader program enveloping all of the federal investments in improving teaching and learning would eliminate overlap and inefficiencies in existing programs. It is clear that programs like TIF and Improving Teacher Quality State Grants share similar goals; the major difference between them is the way money is distributed (competitive vs. formula grants). The president and his advisers believe that the goal of improving the quality of teachers and administrators, especially in high need subjects and schools, can be better carried out through this new structure where investments will be focused on what is found to work best, rather than what the law mandates.

In addition to TIF and Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, existing programs that would be folded into the Excellent Instructional Teams proposal include: Ready to Teach, Advanced Credentialing, Transition to Teaching, Teacher Quality Enhancement, Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow, Teach for America, and School Leadership.

Effective Teaching and Learning for a Complete Education
The Obama Administration proposes consolidating 15 existing programs under Effective Teaching and Learning for a Complete Education. This proposal aims to improve the quality and rigor of academic standards and instruction in all schools in various subject areas. Federal efforts will fall into three competitive grant programs: Effective Teaching and Learning: Literacy; Effective Teaching and Learning: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM); and Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education.

Programs that would be consolidated under Effective Teaching and Learning for a Complete Education include: Striving Readers, Even Start, Literacy through School Libraries, National Writing Project, Reading is Fundamental, Ready-to-Learn Television, Mathematics and Science Partnerships, Excellence in Economic Education, Teaching American History, Arts in Education, Foreign Language Assistance, Academies for American History and Civics, Close-Up Fellowships, Civic Education, and Educational Technology State Grants.

Expanding Educational Options
Under President Obama’s consolidation proposal, five existing programs would be wrapped into the Expanding Educational Options program. This program would aim to increase the number of high-quality educational options available to students in low-performing schools. It would invest in creating and expanding effective charter schools and other effective and accountable schools, and would implement comprehensive school choice programs.

The president’s proposal would consolidate five programs into the Expanding Educational Options program: Charter Schools Grants, Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities, Voluntary Public School Choice, Parental Assistance Information Centers, and Smaller Learning Communities.

College Pathways and Accelerated Learning
The College Pathways and Accelerated Learning program represents the Obama Administration’s investment in bringing high quality educational opportunities to students in all schools. It would provide accelerated courses and instruction in schools that enroll large concentrations of students from low-income families. This program would consolidate three existing programs: High School Graduation Initiative, Advanced Placement, and Javits Gifted and Talented.

Supporting Student Success
Finally, the Obama Administration’s proposal would create the Supporting Student Success program. This proposal centers around creating learning environments that are safe and drug-free. This would consolidate six existing programs into one new program, Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students. Funding for the existing Promise Neighborhoods and 21^st Century Community Learning Centers programs would also fall under Supporting Student Services, but these existing programs would continue to be funded under their current names and purposes.

Existing programs that would be consolidated are: Safe and Drug Free Schools National Program Activities, Elementary and Secondary School Counseling, Physical Education, Foundations for Learning, Mental Health Integration in Schools, and Alcohol Abuse Reduction.

Conclusion
Eliminating overlapping or inefficient programs in favor of a streamlined approach to federal funding may achieve the Obama Administration’s goals – more accountability for federal money going to states and school districts, greater flexibility at the state and school district level, and more use of evidence in decision making.

But the proposal raises several interesting questions which Ed Money Watch will be monitoring: Without dedicated funding streams that require states and school districts to make certain investments, will some priorities embodied in the old programs fall by the wayside? Will states and school districts with limited administrative capacity be able to pull together applications for grants? Will the uncertainty of competitive grants make it impossible for states and school districts to plan ahead and spend money wisely?

Of course, all of these changes are just the president’s request; they need congressional action to become law. At Ed Money Watch, we’re curious to see if these proposed changes make it into law. We’ll be watching closely as Congress considers the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which optimistic forecasters believe could happen this year. Check back with us for updates as the process continues.

President Barack Obama submitted his second budget request to Congress on February 1st, 2010. The detailed budget request includes proposed funding levels for all federal programs and agencies in aggregate for the upcoming five to ten fiscal years, and specific fiscal year 2011 funding levels for programs subject to the annual appropriations process. It is important to remember that the president's 2011 budget request is a policy and budget proposal, but not legislation or law. Actual fiscal year 2011 funding levels for nearly all federal education programs will be determined through the Congressional appropriations process that Congress aims to complete by the start of the new fiscal year, which begins October 1st, 2010. Policy changes and funding levels that the president proposes for education programs not funded through the appropriations process (i.e. mandatory programs) are also subject to Congressional approval.

In an effort to heighten the quality of debate on federal education policy, the New America Foundation's Federal Education Budget Project has reviewed the president's proposals and generated a list of key questions policymakers, the media, stakeholder groups, and the public should ask about the proposals. A PDF of this document can be accessed here.

Early Education

1)     The president’s request includes $450 million for literacy programs under a new Effective Teaching and Learning program. The program would fold several current literacy programs – including Striving Readers and Reading is Fundamental – into one program. How will that pot of $450 million be divided among children’s ages and stages of development? Research shows that the birth-to-8 years provide the critical foundation for learning how to read. Will this new literacy program allocate funds to that age range in a proportion equal to its importance in reading and language development?

2)    The request expands Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation – two competitive grant programs to encourage innovation and reform in states and school districts that are currently funded with one-time economic stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Will the administration ensure that early education programs (including publicly funded pre-K) are explicitly included in these grant programs? Could the incentives within these programs be designed to support alignment and coordination with the Early Learning Challenge Fund, the birth-to-5 grant competition that is currently awaiting movement in Congress?

K-12 Education

3)     The president’s budget request states that the administration will seek an additional $1 billion in funding for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) programs such as Title I Part A if Congress reauthorizes ESEA in keeping with the president’s request. If Congress includes the $1 billion increase in the fiscal year 2011 appropriations bill without reauthorizing the legislation, will the administration oppose it?

4)    The president’s budget proposes renaming Title I “College- and Career-Ready Students” and would require states to adopt college and career ready standards and assessments. Will this align with the effort states are already undertaking through the current Common Core of Standards movement headed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA)? Additionally, it mentions that states will be required to link student achievement information to teachers and establish a definition of “effective teacher.” Has the administration identified potential methods of doing so? If not, will the administration provide guidance when states undertake this process?

5)     The president’s budget request includes a significant increase for School Improvement Grants, a program that funds restructuring and support for struggling schools, which would be renamed School Turnaround grants. In the past, such large increases have been accompanied by requirements that a certain amount of the funds be spent on improving or turning around failing high schools. Will the proposed legislation include any such requirements? Will failing high schools continue to be a significant focus for the administration?

6)    In fiscal year 2010 appropriations, Congress eliminated the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities State Grants program and rolled a portion of that funding into the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities National Activities program. This action was largely consistent with the president’s 2010 budget request. The president’s 2011 budget request now includes a proposed program called Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students to support state and local activities that appear similar to the state grant program eliminated just a few months ago. How will this new program be different from the previous Safe and Drug Free programs and what will happen to the National Activities programs?

7)     In the Program Terminations and Reductions document released with the 2011 budget request, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act consolidations are listed with a net change in cost of $0. However, when the new consolidated programs are added together, a net increase of $568 million is shown. What is the source of this discrepancy? Additionally, the majority of these new consolidated programs provide competitive grants to states and local education agencies, rather than formula grants. Has the administration considered whether this new focus on competitive grants will favor states and local education agencies that have the administrative capacity to complete several grant applications over those that do not?

Higher Education

8)    The campus-based aid programs—Federal Work Study, Perkins Loans, and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG)—are intended to assist low-income students with college expenses. The federal government provides campus-based aid funds to postsecondary institutions, which then award them to their students. However, the formula the government uses to distribute the aid overwhelmingly benefits elite public and private colleges and universities, even though these institutions serve a relatively small proportion of low-income students. The administration has criticized this formula and proposes changing it for the Perkins Loan program. However, the president's 2011 budget request would leave the formula unchanged for the SEOG and work study programs. Does the administration plan to address this discrepancy in the future?¹

9)    The president’s 2011 budget request includes $64 million for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), a program that awards competitive grants to support innovative reform and improvements in higher education. As the Obama Administration knows, FIPSE is a favorite place for Members of Congress to fund earmarks for colleges and universities in their home states and districts. In fiscal year 2010, Congress included over $100 million in special projects under FIPSE. The president’s 2011 budget proposal does not include any funding for earmarks under FIPSE, and the president has generally taken a strong stand against Congressional earmarks. Will President Obama take any special action to ensure Congress honors his FIPSE budget request for 2011? Or is the FIPSE program an exception to the administration’s opposition to Congressional earmarks?

10)    Legislation is pending in Congress to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan program and move all new federal student loans to the Direct Loan program. Under the House-passed proposal (H.R. 3221), the savings from this change would be spent on a number of new and existing education programs, including Pell Grants, school construction, and community college reform grants. The president’s 2011 budget states that the administration “supports mandatory funding for priority education programs that are included in this legislation.” Which education programs in the pending bill does the administration consider a “priority”? Given that the House-passed bill creates $77.4 billion in new education spending over ten years, but the president’s 2011 budget request shows that changes to student loan programs in the bill will save only $45.6 billion over that time, are there any programs in H.R. 3221 that the administration would oppose? Or does the administration support the additional deficit spending that would occur under H.R. 3221 according to its own estimates?

11)      Last year, the president’s 2010 budget request proposed to use all savings from eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan program to make the Pell Grant program an entitlement, removing it from the annual appropriations process. The 2011 request includes this proposal again. However, legislation pending in Congress would use only some of the savings to increase Pell Grant funding without making it an entitlement, and would spend the remaining savings on school construction funding and other programs. The president’s 2011 budget states that the administration supports the pending bill (H.R. 3221). Can the administration support both the House-passed legislation and a Pell Grant entitlement?

Notes

1 This question was included in last year’s “Key Questions on the Obama Administration’s 2010 Education Budget” publication.

In this month’s issue of the Title I Monitor (subscription needed), former Congressional Research Service analyst Wayne Riddle describes the effect new 2008 Census poverty data will have on Title I State Grants in 2010.[1] He finds that though some states experienced significant changes in the number of school-age children living in poverty from 2007 to 2008, the impact of these changes on actual Title I allocations will be small. This occurs because Title I formulas take into account how a state’s share of the impoverished population changes relative to other states’ shares, not how a state’s impoverished population changed independently.

Federal Title I funding is subject to the annual appropriations process. As a result, state allocations are based on shares of a fixed level of funding set each year that does not adjust to the number of eligible children. This means that if a state experiences a 5 percent increase in the impoverished population from 2007 to 2008, its Title I allocation may actually drop because the overall increase in the impoverished population was 7 percent across the country.

The actual changes in school age poverty counts are somewhat more complicated. Some states, such as Florida, Arizona, Illinois, and California, experienced increases of 6 percent or more in their impoverished populations from 2007 to 2008. However, the percentage change in each state’s share of the overall number of impoverished students was smaller than the actual growth. For example, even though Florida’s impoverished population grew 7.4 percent, its share of the total impoverished population only increased by 6.6 percent. This means that the increase in Florida’s Title I allocation for 2010 will not be as large as its increase in poor students.

Conversely, states whose impoverished populations shrunk significantly, such as Alabama, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Wyoming, experienced an even larger drop in their share of the country’s total impoverished population. For example, Massachusetts saw a 10.4 percent decrease in the number of students living in poverty. However, it saw an 11.4 percent decrease in its total share of the impoverished population. As a result, Massachusetts will experience a decrease in its Title I allocation for 2010 that is larger than the drop in the number of poor students.

These changes, while complicated on the surface, could spell trouble for states with rapidly growing poor populations. If the growth in Title I allocations does not keep pace with the growth in the number of poor students, schools may be unable to provide some services for these needy populations over time. Additionally, the lag in Census poverty data – two years at this point – means that the allocation of federal funds cannot be immediately responsive to economic disruptions like the current fiscal crisis.

These issues, as well as other pressing problems with the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, should be tackled during the reauthorization process. Now, more than ever, we need flexible and responsive federal education programs.

The Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP), Ed Money Watch’s parent initiative, recently made available updated state and district-level student demographic data on its website http://www.edbudgetproject.org. FEBP maintains an extensive database of state and school district level funding, demographic, and achievement data that is continuously updated as new information becomes available.

Now users can view, download, and compare student demographics including enrollment, race, poverty, and participation in special programs in 2008 for all 50 states and nearly 14,000 school districts in the country. The race, program participation, and enrollment data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data while student poverty comes from the Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program.

These new data can help users understand how federal funds for various programs are distributed among states and school districts. For example, a user can tell an interesting story about the distribution of Title I funds in 2008 using the new demographic data and the custom comparison function available on the website.

The custom comparison function allows a user to select a particular school district of interest and then compare it to similar school districts within the state or other states. In one such case, we selected Cheektowaga-Maryvale Union Free School District in New York state and compared it to other districts in New York with student enrollment within 10 percent of Cheektowaga-Maryvale. Additionally, we asked the comparison tool to display each district’s 2008 student poverty rate, free and reduced price lunch enrollment rate, and Title I funding. See display below:

We found that districts with similar student poverty rates did not always receive similar amounts of Title I funding. For example, Cheetowaga-Maryvale received slightly less than $345,000 in Title I funds in 2008 while Phoenix Central School District received more than $514,000. This disparity is surprising because both districts are similarly sized (2,354 versus 2,329) and have similar poverty rates (12.2 percent versus 12.8 percent). As we have explained in the past (see complete post here), these variations are due to complexities in the Title I formulas that blur the relationship between poverty and Title I funding.

We hope that these new data, and the funding, demographic, and achievement data we will continue to add to the Federal Education Budget Project website, are helpful as Congress begins to discuss reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and other education-related programs. Check out the new data here.