Strategic School Funding for Results
SSFR Features Archive
Research Paper Highlights Need for District Budget Transparency
October
2012
Ed Trust-West
has released a report (Tipping the Scales Towards Equity) calling
for changes to Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed school finance reform package.
While voicing support for the reform’s employment of a Weighted Student
formula, the report questions whether the Governor’s proposal contains
sufficient provisions to ensure that funds designated for high need students
are subsequently passed on to these students by district offices. As a
potential solution, the report calls for reform that (a) places a burden on
districts to justify their flexible use of categorical funds and (b) imposes
mechanisms that would make district accounting practices more transparent
to the public.
More
than the Math: Realities of a Weighted Student Formula in Twin
Rivers
March 2012
SSFR team member, Cristin Quealy,
recently shared her perspective on the development and implementation of a
school-level weighted student funding formula in the Silicon Valley Community
Foundation blog, Thoughts on Public Education (Op-Ed). Drawing on
her first-hand experiences and insight from working with Twin Rivers to
implement SSFR, Cristin describes how the district is moving toward greater
equity, transparency, autonomy, and accountability.
KQED’s
Forum Highlights SSFR in Twin Rivers USD
January 2012
Mahala Archer (SSFR project
manager in Twin Rivers USD) was interviewed on KQED’s Forum along with
Michael Kirst, President of the State Board of Education and Eric Heins, Vice
President of the California Teachers Association. The segment focused on
Governor Brown’s proposal to shift much of the control over education funds
from the state to districts. Rather than allocating money to districts through
categorical programs, Brown is proposing a weighted pupil funding system
through which the state would allocate money based on districts’ populations of
low-income and English Learner students.
Archer discussed how the SSFR
initiative in Twin Rivers USD is applying a similar weighted pupil funding
system at the district level. The district aims to increase efficiency,
transparency, and equity in the use of funds by giving principals greater
discretion over how to allocate resources in the manner best for their schools.
According to Archer, nearly eighty percent of resources are now managed on site
in SSFR pilot schools, compared to thirty five percent of resources they
managed before the initiative was implemented. In accordance with this increase
in autonomy, Archer emphasized that SSFR will strengthen school accountability
for student outcomes.
The additional flexibility
offered under the Governor’s proposal will make it easier for districts to
implement and extend such needs-based funding approaches down to the school
level, providing schools with more autonomy in how they meet the needs of the
students they serve.
Listen to the
program
LAUSD
Superintendent Discusses Labor Reforms
July
2011
In an op-ed for the Los Angeles
Times, Superintendent John Deasy outlines what he believes are vital changes
that need to be made in the district’s labor contract, currently under
negotiation. He discusses changes to teacher hiring, evaluation, tenure,
compensation and dismissal policies, with the goal of retaining and rewarding
excellent teachers and giving more flexibility and power to teachers and
administrators to decide how to best serve their students. Deasy’s proposals to
reform human resource management and increase school autonomy promote
conditions under which the district could fully leverage the potential gains in
equity and efficiency that SSFR aims to bring to school resource
allocation.
Read the article
Twin
Rivers USD Featured on The California Report
June
2011
The school finance reform effort
currently underway in Twin Rivers USD – one of the SSFR partner districts – was
recently covered in the Governing California series of The
California Report. The reporter describes the frustrations and limitations
faced by schools and districts due to the complex web of regulations that make
up California’s education finance system. In the Twin Rivers pilot program,
principals, teachers, and parents have significant power to decide how to
allocate school resources, allowing them the freedom to build more coherent and
effective programs for their students.*
While SSFR is directed at
reforming the way school districts allocate resources internally, Assembly Bill
18 (AB18), sponsored by Assemblywoman Brownley, has been proposed to reform the
state school finance system – the way the state allocates and distributes
funds to schools. AB18 is designed to consolidate many categorical programs and
simplify the way schools are being funded in California, and it is very
consistent with the approach taken by SSFR on funding schools within local
education agencies.
Listen to the story
Read about the story
*You may note that the story incorrectly refers to Twin Rivers as “a guinea pig in education finance reform under a state pilot project.” The “state pilot project” mentioned is in fact the SSFR project, which is being funded by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Institutes of Education Sciences, and the Ford Foundation.
SSFR
Attends Equity and Excellence Commission
April 2011
Jason Willis (CFO, Stockton
Unified School District), a consultant to the SSFR project testified at a town
hall meeting in San Jose, CA hosted by the U.S. Department of Education’s
Equity and Excellence Commission . Members of the SSFR team were
in attendance.
Established in August 2010, the
Equity and Excellence Commission is charged with collecting public input and
analyzing information about inequality of educational opportunities with an
emphasis on finance systems. The commission will make recommendations for ways
that school finance systems can be restructured and Federal policies can be
made to reduce disparities in meaningful educational opportunity. The 27
commission members come from a variety of backgrounds, including education,
civil rights, law, media, tax, nonprofit, government, and
business.
Watch a video of the
event.
SSFR
in the Media
December
2010
In Thoughts on Public Education,
a blog sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, John Fensterwald
recently
reported on SSFR. Numerous questions and comments from readers followed the
post. Fensterwald subsequently invited Steve Jubb (Director of Innovation &
District Redesign at Pivot Learning Partners) to
further explain the initiative and to address some of the comments and
questions posed by readers.
The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A100630 to the American Institutes of Research, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The Ford Foundation. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the U.S. Department of Education, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, or The Ford Foundation.