Report Shows Higher Ed Spending Up, Despite Budget Issues (1/11/2008)

Last year proved to be a difficult year for states regarding budget concerns. As of now, 2008 is not looking any better. Many states of various sizes and locations are facing budget shortfalls and fiscal crises, forcing them to either keep education funding at current levels, or possibly consider serious education cuts. However, despite this disturbing trend, a report released by the Illinois State University Center for the Study of Education Policy shows that state spending on higher education is rising. Public college and university officials and employees are experiencing a good year, but other forecasts show that this could be very short lived.

State appropriations for higher education are up 7.5% for the 2008 fiscal year. This is the largest percentage increase for colleges and universities in a decade, according to the report. Total state support for higher education this year is currently projected to be over $77.5 billion. That number is based on state operating support, but it does not include funds for facilities or funds that are provided by students through tuition. Over the last decade, the percentage change in total state support has fallen as low as a 2.1% annual decrease, but has rebounded recently. However, other studies released in the last month, as well as grim budget forecasts in many states, suggest that this may be a peak year, with some troubled times ahead.

The recent increases in funding mirrors national concerns regarding both the increasing cost of higher education, and a focus on keeping American students competitive globally. However, as budget constraints become tighter, education is often one of the first areas to suffer stagnation and cuts. Unfortunately, current trends indicate that tighter times are ahead. A study by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers warns of “significant deterioration” of state budgets. The National Conference of State Legislatures also warns that there are rough fiscal waters ahead, so institutions of higher education may want to enjoy the good times now, while they still can.

Resources:
Scott Jaschik, “State Appropriations Are Up ... for Now,” Inside Higher Ed, January 11, 2008.
Author: SAS

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Report Shows States Circumventing NCLB Policies

The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will not happen this year. Senator Kennedy (D-MA), The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pension (HELP), removed the matter from the Senate’s overbooked 2007 end of the year agenda. This allows advocates and Congressional staff to take time to consider the law’s next reiteration, so the advocacy that happens from now until the beginning of next year will likely play an important role in informing that deliberation.

One of the first reports to fill that space comes from Kevin Carey of the Education Sector, the Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act. The report, named after the character in Voltaire’s Candide who insisted that we live in the best of all possible worlds, is a damming chronology of how, according to Carey, the Alabama Department of Education, with illustrative examples from Birmingham City Schools, was able to secure waivers from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that eviscerated the law’s intent. The report takes the reader from 2001 to 2007 and details the waivers granted by ED.

These waivers, claims Carey, allowed Alabama to demonstrate academic progress under NCLB, but the reality was very different. Despite the well-publicized statements of progress made by the state superintendent and the Birmingham City School Board, their test scores were not praise worthy. The state was not truly improving in its academic achievement and Birmingham City Schools’ population continued to decline because parents sought better schools for their children. Alabama was merely successfully gaming the system, and ED was a conspirator because it granted the waivers.

In response, Carey recommends that Congress require ED to grant less waivers and make the process more manageable, that the reauthorized law be more specific about acceptable statistical behavior, and that the reauthorized law promote shared standards in order to reduce the profusion of state by state accountability gaming. The report argues that the law’s mechanisms and approach are correct -- but that it runs counter to the sentiment now emerging in Washington.

The more fashionable opinion, a judgment based on unscientific and personal discussions, is that the law has been trying to do too much all at once and that it is a Rube Goldberg structure that combined the political civil rights moralism of the 60s with unrealistic goals and ineffective behavior modification tools. As such, it is not working and, if it is to succeed, Congress will have to restructure the law completely. Small tweaks, the kind argued for by Carey, will not do. Yet, this debate, between tweaking and fundamental revision, rages on and it gives Members of Congress and their staff plenty to think about over Thanksgiving and well into the next year(s).

Resources:
Kevin Carey, The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left behind Act (Education Sector: November 2007), http://www.educationsector.org.
Author: DAD

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Achievement Gap Receives Attention This Week

This week, the National Center for Education Statistics released The Nation’s Report Card: 2007 Trial Urban District Assessment in Mathematics. The report presents school-district-level results of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Mathematics 2003, 2005, and 2007 assessments at grades 4 and 8 for 10 urban public-school districts, and it is a treasure trove of data. Among the data, unfortunately, is evidence that the achievement gap between white and minority students (particularly black and Latino) remains a significant challenge for educators.

If there is any fortunate news in this, it is that the data fueled discussion at the two-day Achievement Gap Summit in California. Hosted by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, the national event drew over 4,000 California educators (some from across the country) who gathered to hear from more than 125 leading education experts on ways to address and eliminate the racial and economic achievement gaps.

“We know every child has the ability to succeed academically, yet so many of our students are struggling in school,” said O'Connell. “As public school classrooms in California and across the nation become increasingly diverse, the most pernicious and challenging education issue of our time is the academic achievement gap. During this Summit, I am asking participants to speak out openly and courageously, to take an honest look at the reasons why this gap exists and to explore solutions for removing barriers to student success.”

The presentations and conversations were, indeed, very open and courageous because they tackled the issue of race head on – not socio-economic gaps, not trend line data and policy wonkery, but race as an element to address alone. According to state test score results, poor white students are still doing better than affluent Latino and black students, and that prompted Superintendent O'Connell into action. “We do have to look internally at our own philosophies, our own expectations and make sure we're challenging all students. We cannot have low expectations for any student or certainly for any group of students,” said O’Connell. The event sparked more questions than answers, no doubt, but the frank and open discussion was an important step in the right direction, a step that most public officials have not dared to take.

Resources:

The Nation’s Report Card: 2007 Trial Urban District Assessment in Mathematics (IES: NCES, November 2007), http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008452.
The California Department of Education, http://www.cde.ca.gov/.
Ana Tintocalis, “Education Officials Say Racism Sets Students up for Failure,” KPBS [CA], November 15, 2007, http://www.kpbs.org/news/local;id=10217
Author: DAD

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Audit Report Questioning Fiscal Flexibility in Schoolwide Programs

On June 20, 2007, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a blockbuster audit report questioning long-standing guidance on the way states and school districts should document financial information in schoolwide programs. The audit is available on the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) website at: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/a05g0031.pdf

OIG audited a school district to determine if the district complied with financial accountability requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) programs. The objective of the audit was to determine if costs were allowable under the program, necessary, reasonable, allocable and spent in accordance with approved budgets. During the audit, OIG concluded the district did not provide appropriate time and effort records showing how much time employees spent on various cost objectives. Some of these employees worked on schoolwide activities in schoolwide programs.
The State (which is ultimately responsible for audit resolution in state-administered programs) objected, noting that funds lose their character as state or federal funds in schoolwide programs. Therefore, it would not make sense to require schoolwide employees to maintain documentation of their time and effort. The state pointed to ED’s Non-Regulatory Guidance on Designing Schoolwide Programs (March 2006), which states:
Schoolwide program schools use Title I funds to meet the needs of all students in the school, as determined through a comprehensive needs assessment. Individual students are not identified as eligible to participate. No distinctions are made between staff paid with Title I funds and staff who are not.
The State argued that if there is no distinction between staff supported with federal funds and staff that are not, it does not make sense to require employees to keep documentation of which programs they work on.
OIG rejected this argument, noting the schoolwide schools did not actually consolidate their funding in their accounting systems. The OIG states that “funds were accounted for in the same way whether or not the individual was employed by a schoolwide or non-schoolwide school.” Without evidence that the school district used an accounting method to consolidate schoolwide program funds at its schoolwide schools, OIG found no basis to distinguish between schoolwide and non-schoolwide costs.
OIG questioned $210,000, but estimated the total amount of unsupported costs might be as high as $2,360,000. OIG recommended that ED’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education determine the full amount of unsupported costs and require the State to repay that amount.
This audit report highlights longstanding confusion over the extent of fiscal flexibility available in a schoolwide school. Although ED has encouraged schoolwide schools to “consolidate” their funding (and, in fact, NCLB requires states to lift all barriers to the consolidation of schoolwide funds and to encourage school districts to consolidate schoolwide funding), it has never provided clearly written guidance on what consolidation means. In May 2006, ED released Non-Regulatory Guidance on Title I Fiscal Issues attempting to clarify the consolidation requirement by introducing the notion of a “single account.” The guidance provides:
A school operating a schoolwide program that consolidates in a single account and uses, in a schoolwide program, funds from other Federal education programs administered by the Secretary (except Reading First) is not required to maintain separate fiscal accounting records, by program, that identify the specific activities supported by those program funds. The school must, however, maintain records that demonstrate that the schoolwide program, considered as a whole, addresses the intent and purposes of each of the Federal education programs whose funds were consolidated to support it.
From the start, however, this guidance raised more questions than it answered because it never explained what a “single account” is, or what steps a school must take in order to consolidate funds into a single account.
ED has been particularly inconsistent in how it treats time distribution in schoolwide programs. In guidance issued under the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, the predecessor to NCLB, ED stated that employees working exclusively on schoolwide activities do not need to maintain any time and effort records. This guidance was written by ED’s Office of Elementary and Secondary and Education. Yet, ED’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) later advised that a schoolwide program represents a single cost objective; accordingly, semi-annual certifications must be kept. The OCFO’s position was also reflected in the OMB Circular A-133 Compliance Supplement. This conflict was supposed to be clarified by ED’s May 2006 fiscal guidance, in which ED stated that schoolwide schools consolidating their funds into a single account are not required to maintain any time and effort records, while schools not consolidating their funds into a single account must follow the rules of time distribution set out in OMB Circular A-87. Without an explanation of what a “single account” is, it is difficult to understand the practical implications of this guidance. Further, it remains unclear whether a schoolwide program constitutes a “single cost objective” if a school does not consolidate its funds into a single account.
This audit finding may finally force a confrontation over what it means to consolidate funds in a schoolwide program and what practical implications that has for financial operations. Although the finding only specifically addresses time and effort certification, this issue impacts the documentation of any costs associated with a schoolwide program, as well as other financial management issues such as procurement, inventory management, cash management and record keeping. Ultimately, it is up to ED’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to determine whether to sustain the audit findings.
This audit also underscores ED’s overall focus on fiscal issues. It is our understanding that OIG is performing a number of financial accountability audits around the country.
Our firm has contacted the OIG and OCFO to get clarification on the policy interpretations underlying this audit report. We plan to address the issue of consolidated funding in a schoolwide program in great detail at trainings this fall, including AEFFA in October and our Forum in November. We will keep you posted on any additional information we receive from ED on this very important issue.
Author: SLK

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Annual Report Shows Gains in AP Coursework

Yesterday, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released their annual report, The Condition of Education. The Congressionally-mandated report showcases statistics from multiple aspects of the U.S. education system.


The 48 indicators included in the report cover topics from student achievement to school environment and from early childhood through postsecondary education. General statistics show that U.S. public school enrollment is becoming increasingly diverse. In addition, more individuals are enrolling in postsecondary education, and people are earning more bachelor’s degrees than in the past. The special focus of this year’s report is on the coursework of American high school students.
The report shows that the number of students taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses in high schools is rising. Specifically, more black and Hispanic students in public and private high schools are taking AP exams. The report shows a 213% jump over the nine years of the study (1997-2005) in the number of Hispanic students taking the college-level AP tests, and a 177% increase over the same period for African-American students. However, the numbers do not highlight the fact that there were a low number of African-American and Hispanic students taking the AP exams to begin with and that they still lag behind other racial groups.
Nationally, among all racial groups, the number of students taking the AP tests more than doubled over the same period, growing from 567,000 in 1997 to 1.2 million two years ago. The large increase in test-takers caused only small decreases in overall AP test scores. The report shows that the proportion of students who earned a 3 or better on the college-level exams fell from 65% to 59% over the nine-year study period.
More students are also taking advanced mathematics; presently 50% of high school graduates have taken courses more advanced than Algebra II, up from 26% in 1982. Females are more likely to have completed advanced coursework, although the gender difference disappears at the calculus level. There was a similar gain, and a similar gap, in advanced science coursework. Despite these gains in the number of credits taken overall in various subjects, and especially in more advanced courses, National Assessment of Educational Progress scores were virtually flat for 17-year-olds in both reading and math since the early 1970s. Still, there were gains in NAEP scores for 9- and 13-year-olds in both subject areas.
The special analysis in the report also presents data from the other side of the high school achievement spectrum, by looking into the trajectory of those students who dropped out of high school. According to that report, the 9th graders who eventually became dropouts had earned an average of 5.1 credits during the 2000-01 school year. In comparison, the 9th graders who went on to graduate on time earned 6.6 credits that year. The gaps widened in 10th grade, with dropouts earning an average of 4.6 credits, compared with the average 6.7 credits earned by their on-track peers.
Other statistics from the annual report include:
• At least at the high school level, the “narrowing” of the curricula that some critics predicted would result from the federal No Child Left Behind Act had yet to materialize by 2004. In both public and private high schools, 2004 high school graduates took more social studies, foreign language, and arts classes—as well as the core English, mathematics, and science classes on which the law focuses—during their high school years than did the graduates of 1982.
• Public school enrollment in prekindergarten-12th grade is projected to set new records each year from 2007 to 2016, when an estimated 53.3 million children are expected to be in public schools.
• The number of children ages 5 to 17 who spoke a language other than English at home more than doubled between 1979 and 2005.
• Minority students accounted for more than half of the growth in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded between the 1976-77 school year and 2004-05.
Resources:
Andy Guess, “The Yearly Report Card,” Inside Higher Ed, June 1, 2007.
Debra Viadero, “Condition of Education Finds Surge in Minorities’ AP Test-Taking,” Education Week, May 31. 2007.
Author: SAS

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