►Previous
reporting in 4LAKids/6.14 : LCFF Report:
LAUSD’S SHORT-CHANGED DISADVANTAGED SCHOOLS+STUDENTS/LAUSD FALLS SHORT OF GOALS
+ smf’s 2¢ | http://bit.ly/1LbqmoG | copy
follows
►Report:
Report:
IMPLEMENTING THE LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA: Steps Taken by LAUSD in Year
Two, 2014-15
L.A. UNIFIED FUNDING FOR HIGH-NEED STUDENTS OFF TARGET,
STUDY SAYS
By Teresa Watanabe | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1FiSO2Q
6.15.2015 :: In the first full year of a significant state
funding boost, Los Angeles Unified administrators failed to consistently funnel
the dollars to the high-need students they were meant for, a new study found.
The report by UC Berkeley found that L.A. Unified officials
spent more than half of the $820 million received for the 2014-15 school year
on special education, library aides and assistant principals – although the
money was specifically meant for students who are low-income, learning English
and in foster care, under the state’s new school funding system.
In addition, the report found that school administrators
lack a “coherent strategy” for linking their funding choices to specific
improvements for those particular students, said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley
education professor and the study’s lead author.
The report, conducted on behalf of United Way of Greater Los
Angeles and funded by the California Endowment, is scheduled to be released
Monday as the L.A. Board of Education prepares to debate on the 2015-16 budget
this week.
“They’ve funded a smattering of new positions and they’re
sprinkling new dollars on the schools, but there’s been no conversation with
principals about how the various threads of new funding can be woven together
into a school-wide reform strategy to lift low-achieving kids,” Fuller said.
Edgar Zazueta, L.A. Unified’s chief lobbyist and point
person on the new funding system (●●smf:
?!), said the district’s efforts were “still very much a work in progress” and
started at a time that state rules on using the dollars had not yet been
finalized. But he defended the spending choices as an appropriate use of the
money.
Among other things, he said, the money has paid for new
instructional aides for students learning English, counselors for foster youth
and coordinators to shift school discipline practices from punitive to more
therapeutic approaches, known as restorative justice.
Zazueta said that about 86% of L.A. Unified students are
low-income, learning English or in foster care, so state rules allow the use of
funds targeted for them for district-wide programs, such as the restoration of
library aides and assistant principals at most elementary schools.
Officials made those spending choices in a deliberate effort
to offset some of the massive cuts at the district’s hardest-hit campuses –
cuts that totaled about $2.7 billion between 2009 and 2013, the report noted.
“We would argue we did have a strategic vision: Let’s
restore funding to schools hit hardest by the economic recession,” Zazueta
said.
He added that the district stood by its decision to spend
$400 million of the funds on special-education students, 80% of whom fall into
the state’s targeted categories.
Maria Brenes, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, an
East L.A. advocacy organization, praised district investments for foster youth,
students learning English and more effective discipline practices. But she and
Fuller said they were disappointed that L.A. Unified officials had not fully
followed the school board’s 2014 directive to allocate dollars to schools with
the highest needs based on the number of targeted students and other factors,
such as suspensions, dropout rates and neighborhood violence.
The district appears to have fully applied that needs test
only to high schools, Brenes and Fuller said.
All sides agreed that a key priority was to train principals
and staff on how to effectively use the state dollars to boost achievement for
their neediest students. The report found “confusion and dismay” among many
principals, who said they received little if any district guidance on how to
achieve those goals.
Fuller said, however, that district officials had been
exceedingly cooperative and open in supplying data and engaging in
conversations about the process. “There is abundant goodwill,” he said.
For his part, Zazueta said district officials would “take
very much to heart” the feedback as they move forward to finalize the 2015-16
budget, which includes $1.1 billion in targeted funding for needy students.
●●smf’s
2¢: In reading the Times story
above and the Daily News one following I note that Pedro Salcido and Edgar Zazueta
are the named frontmen in LAUSD’s Local Control Funding Formula/Local Control Accountability
Plan efforts.
Both are from the LAUSD Office
of Government Relations; they are lobbyists.
That makes Wonderlandian sense
if the 24th floor of Beaudry is the definition of “local” …rather than
the LCFF Parent Advisory Committee and the individual school site councils – which 4LAKids believes was the legislative+gubernatorial
intent (…and the specific intent of LAUSD Bulletin 6332.0 [http://bit.ly/1MWzbDY]
which established the Parent Advisory
Committee [PAC] as the District-wide committee to advise on the LCFF Local
Control and Accountability Plan [LCAP]) …and what seems to be happening
elsewhere in California.
The underlying complaint of the
study seems to be that the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and CLASS (of which Inner City Struggle is a component)
were not engaged – I’m pretty sure that
was not what the lege and gov had in mind!
_______________________
From 4LAKids/6.14: LCFF Report: LAUSD’S SHORT-CHANGED
DISADVANTAGED SCHOOLS+STUDENTS/LAUSD FALLS SHORT OF GOALS + smf’s 2¢
▼LAUSD’S SHORT-CHANGED DISADVANTAGED SCHOOLS, STUDENTS
By Thomas Himes, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1SdwEbF
6/12/15, 7:33 PM PDT :: Schools in poverty-stricken neighborhoods have not been receiving their fair share of state funding from Los Angeles Unified School District, according to a new report from the University of California, Berkeley and United Way of Greater Los Angeles.
Out of $820 million in extra funding sent to LAUSD this year, Gov. Jerry Brown intended for $145 million to be spent on kids who live in poverty or foster care or are struggling to learn the English language.
The school board then adopted a plan to ensure the dollars reached those students, ranking campuses based on the number of kids in those categories and other factors such as violence and financial hardship in surrounding neighborhoods.
But the yearlong review by UC Berkeley and United Way found LAUSD officials decided against proportioning the funds in accordance with the state statutes and district rankings at elementary and middle schools.
“It certainly helped the more middle-class portions of the district, but it doesn’t isolate those students for the proportionality requirements in the state statute,” said UC Berkeley Professor Bruce Fuller.
Over the past year, LA Unified officials instead spread the funding around, rehiring librarians, nurses and other staff at all middle and elementary schools rather than targeting those in need, said Elmer Roldan, United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ director of education programs.
“Without distributing the money in an equitable manner, you continue this history of real injustice in the way we fund education,” Roldan said.
The report has been sent to board members, who will vote Tuesday on the district’s $8.09 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
In the third year of Brown’s funding plan, an additional $161 million has been earmarked to help the same three groups of disadvantaged students.
LAUSD Legislative Liaison Pedro Salcido said the district plans to do a better job of funneling the money to the students for whom it’s intended.
“As we move forward for ’15-16, the resources are starting to be built in a way where you see a greater benefit to elementary and middle schools,” Salcido said.
In ’14-15, Salcido said LAUSD was primarily focused on high schools, which suffered the steepest budget cuts in the recession. According to the report, the district did a decent job of allocating resources to high schools with high numbers of those disadvantaged student groups.
He noted that the district will also address another key finding of the report, which criticized its failure to create a “coherent strategy” for spending to spur improvement.
The report found LAUSD “has no way of determining which of the many strategies it’s mounting are working, or not,” Fuller said in a written statement.
Supt. Ramon Cortines, who started his third stint in October — after the current budget was already drafted — has stressed the importance of accountability in the upcoming year, Salcido said.
There will now be quarterly reports on whether schools are meeting academic goals and a mid-year evaluation of other measures, including attendance and suspension, he said. “The superintendent is very, very, adamant that our school sites must be held accountable to how they expend their dollars and the outcomes.”
But Roldan remains concerned by the district’s proposed budget, which doesn’t provide for the academic counselors needed to ensure students find success. “It’s really difficult for us to see how you can get a student through school and into college without academic counselors supporting them all the way,” he said.
Last week, district officials made an 11th-hour move to revive a decade-old plan that requires students in the class of 2016 to pass college-prep classes as a condition of graduation.
A majority of the class is currently in jeopardy of being denied diplomas because they have not passed those classes.
_________
▼LA UNIFIED FALLS SHORT OF LCFF GOALS, ACCORDING TO STUDY
Posted on LA School Report by Vanessa Romo | http://bit.ly/1dDPXvs
June 12, 2015 4:52 pm :: California’s new education budgeting process, known as Local Control Funding Formula, was designed to shrink the achievement gap among students by funneling more money to schools’ neediest pupils, but a year-long study of LA Unified shows the district has so far failed to fulfill that mission.
The report by UC Berkeley and Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) coalition is slated for release on Monday and found that “the bulk of LCFF dollars has seeped into the district’s base budget with… little apparent regard to the students who generate the new dollars.”
Under the state formula foster care youth, students living poverty and those requiring special education programs earn the district additional funding to supplement their education.
While the board made commitments to distribute those funds — $700 million in 2013-14 and another $145 million in 2014-15 —to an array of initiatives targeting this student population, the money was largely invested in special education efforts as well as restoring staff positions. According to the study, few of those re-hires were directly tied to instruction, especially at the elementary school level.
Research for the study was gathered through student surveys, focus groups with pupils, teachers and principals, and analyzed school-by-school budgets.
Several improvements were made over the current school year. Spending on new instructional aides for English learners is up; programs benefiting foster care youth were launched; and funding for restorative restorative justice programs got a boost.
Other key findings included:
• LCFF “investment dollars” equaled less than 3% of LAUSD’s total budget in 2014-15
• The majority of LCFF investment dollars — $145 million — went to high schools in 2014-15
• Distribution of LCFF investment dollars to elementary schools did not follow the equity formula established by the district
The analysis concludes that the district has no coherent strategy for how new positions and program dollars supposed to spur discrete improvements at the school level. Further, district officials have no method of tracking which endeavors are successful and which need modifications.
●●smf’s 2¢: Short changing? Falling Short? It isn’t how you play the game, it’s who keeps score that counts! If Al Capone says Bugsy Siegel is a bad man, does that make Bugsy a good man?
The report:
▼LAUSD’S SHORT-CHANGED DISADVANTAGED SCHOOLS, STUDENTS
By Thomas Himes, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1SdwEbF
6/12/15, 7:33 PM PDT :: Schools in poverty-stricken neighborhoods have not been receiving their fair share of state funding from Los Angeles Unified School District, according to a new report from the University of California, Berkeley and United Way of Greater Los Angeles.
Out of $820 million in extra funding sent to LAUSD this year, Gov. Jerry Brown intended for $145 million to be spent on kids who live in poverty or foster care or are struggling to learn the English language.
The school board then adopted a plan to ensure the dollars reached those students, ranking campuses based on the number of kids in those categories and other factors such as violence and financial hardship in surrounding neighborhoods.
But the yearlong review by UC Berkeley and United Way found LAUSD officials decided against proportioning the funds in accordance with the state statutes and district rankings at elementary and middle schools.
“It certainly helped the more middle-class portions of the district, but it doesn’t isolate those students for the proportionality requirements in the state statute,” said UC Berkeley Professor Bruce Fuller.
Over the past year, LA Unified officials instead spread the funding around, rehiring librarians, nurses and other staff at all middle and elementary schools rather than targeting those in need, said Elmer Roldan, United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ director of education programs.
“Without distributing the money in an equitable manner, you continue this history of real injustice in the way we fund education,” Roldan said.
The report has been sent to board members, who will vote Tuesday on the district’s $8.09 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
In the third year of Brown’s funding plan, an additional $161 million has been earmarked to help the same three groups of disadvantaged students.
LAUSD Legislative Liaison Pedro Salcido said the district plans to do a better job of funneling the money to the students for whom it’s intended.
“As we move forward for ’15-16, the resources are starting to be built in a way where you see a greater benefit to elementary and middle schools,” Salcido said.
In ’14-15, Salcido said LAUSD was primarily focused on high schools, which suffered the steepest budget cuts in the recession. According to the report, the district did a decent job of allocating resources to high schools with high numbers of those disadvantaged student groups.
He noted that the district will also address another key finding of the report, which criticized its failure to create a “coherent strategy” for spending to spur improvement.
The report found LAUSD “has no way of determining which of the many strategies it’s mounting are working, or not,” Fuller said in a written statement.
Supt. Ramon Cortines, who started his third stint in October — after the current budget was already drafted — has stressed the importance of accountability in the upcoming year, Salcido said.
There will now be quarterly reports on whether schools are meeting academic goals and a mid-year evaluation of other measures, including attendance and suspension, he said. “The superintendent is very, very, adamant that our school sites must be held accountable to how they expend their dollars and the outcomes.”
But Roldan remains concerned by the district’s proposed budget, which doesn’t provide for the academic counselors needed to ensure students find success. “It’s really difficult for us to see how you can get a student through school and into college without academic counselors supporting them all the way,” he said.
Last week, district officials made an 11th-hour move to revive a decade-old plan that requires students in the class of 2016 to pass college-prep classes as a condition of graduation.
A majority of the class is currently in jeopardy of being denied diplomas because they have not passed those classes.
_________
▼LA UNIFIED FALLS SHORT OF LCFF GOALS, ACCORDING TO STUDY
Posted on LA School Report by Vanessa Romo | http://bit.ly/1dDPXvs
June 12, 2015 4:52 pm :: California’s new education budgeting process, known as Local Control Funding Formula, was designed to shrink the achievement gap among students by funneling more money to schools’ neediest pupils, but a year-long study of LA Unified shows the district has so far failed to fulfill that mission.
The report by UC Berkeley and Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) coalition is slated for release on Monday and found that “the bulk of LCFF dollars has seeped into the district’s base budget with… little apparent regard to the students who generate the new dollars.”
Under the state formula foster care youth, students living poverty and those requiring special education programs earn the district additional funding to supplement their education.
While the board made commitments to distribute those funds — $700 million in 2013-14 and another $145 million in 2014-15 —to an array of initiatives targeting this student population, the money was largely invested in special education efforts as well as restoring staff positions. According to the study, few of those re-hires were directly tied to instruction, especially at the elementary school level.
Research for the study was gathered through student surveys, focus groups with pupils, teachers and principals, and analyzed school-by-school budgets.
Several improvements were made over the current school year. Spending on new instructional aides for English learners is up; programs benefiting foster care youth were launched; and funding for restorative restorative justice programs got a boost.
Other key findings included:
• LCFF “investment dollars” equaled less than 3% of LAUSD’s total budget in 2014-15
• The majority of LCFF investment dollars — $145 million — went to high schools in 2014-15
• Distribution of LCFF investment dollars to elementary schools did not follow the equity formula established by the district
The analysis concludes that the district has no coherent strategy for how new positions and program dollars supposed to spur discrete improvements at the school level. Further, district officials have no method of tracking which endeavors are successful and which need modifications.
●●smf’s 2¢: Short changing? Falling Short? It isn’t how you play the game, it’s who keeps score that counts! If Al Capone says Bugsy Siegel is a bad man, does that make Bugsy a good man?
The report:
IMPLEMENTING THE LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA: Steps Taken by LAUSD in Year Two, 2014-15 | Research Findings from the University of California, Berkeley for the CLASS Coalition and United Way of Greater Los Angeles - June 2015
was commissioned (ie: bought+paid-for) by the United Way of GLA and their politically community organized partners, CLASS. CLASS was behind the great “Save Deasy” movement that perpetuated the regime and prolonged the agony. Once upon a time the United Way was a coalition of charitable organizations that supported do-goodery like the Boy+Girl Scouts, March of Dimes, PTA, Salvation Army, etc. – but Mayor Tony infused them with a political agenda (his) and they are no longer what they once were.
That said LAUSD has done a very poor job of implementing the LCFF and engaging the community in the LCAP process - and I don’t doubt that the UC researchers had much difficulty documenting that fact. My advice is to take the report’s findings with-or-without a grain of salt: I’m sure it’s seasoned to someone’s taste!
This is somewhat surprising given that UWGLA and their anti-public education CLASS "coalition" (read Eli Broad proxy groups) held so much sway over the entire LCFF process in LAUSD. For a while it looked like all the decisions for LCFF were being coined by John Deasy under the direct supervision of Elise Buik and Maria Brenes.
ReplyDelete