This afternoon, the Fair Student Funding and School-Based Budgeting Amendment Act of 2013 will be considered by the Council’s Committee on Education. This will bring the city one step closer to targeting local funds to at-risk students in both DCPS and public charter schools in the next school year.
The legislation, which reflects a number of changes in response to public input, also takes important steps to improve the transparency of school funding. For these reasons. DCFPI strongly supports this bill and urges you to get involved and voice your support to your Councilmembers.
New Funding Targeted on At-Risk Students
A main feature of this bill is a proposed change to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, the main local funding source for all DC public schools. It would provide additional funds to schools serving large numbers of at-risk students, through a new supplemental weight for at-risk students in the per-student funding formula. The specific amount of the weight will be left up to the mayor through the Budget Support Act.
The bill defines at-risk students in a way that ensures schools will be able to add services for vulnerable students. The new definition includes students who are homeless, in the foster care system, qualify for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), and over-age high school students. This broad definition will allow many low-income DC students to be considered at-risk and eligible for supplemental school funding.
For DCPS schools, the bill requires that 90 percent of the new at-risk funds follow the student to the school level, leaving 10 percent for DCPS central office to use for system-wide investments. School principals will be given control over how these funds are spent, but must submit a plan to the Chancellor detailing how they will use these funds to support at-risk students. This gives school leaders more budget autonomy, but it will still be important for parents to get involved in their school budget process to ensure these new resources are spent in a way that best meet the needs of their school’s at-risk students.
Additional Safeguards for Budget Process
The original bill included a 20 percent cap on the amount of local funds that DCPS central office could spend, which many community members, including DCFPI, felt was too rigid and could lead to unwanted cuts in centrally funded services that directly benefit local schools, like literacy interventions. The new bill drops the “80-20 rule” for local funds and replaces it with a 5 percent limit on all gross DCPS central office spending, not just local funds. Note that this is what DCPS currently spends on central office functions and follows the definition of central office provided in the DCPS Facts and Figures Guide.
The bill ties individual school funding more closely to its enrollment than the current DCPS budget allocation method, but the bill also includes a school funding stabilization feature. This safeguard would not allow any school to lose more than 5 percent of its local funding from the prior year, in most circumstances.
The bill would also require DCPS to submit its budget in a more detailed fashion, including school-level funding data by revenue source and narrative descriptions of central office, school support, and direct school funding. Though this will not show us how DCPS actually spends its money, it can show us how funds are proposed to be spent across the system in a more transparent way.
Technical Working Group to Review School Formula
Many community members testified at public hearings this summer that there is a need for regular review of the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. The bill reflects this recommendation by requiring the mayor to submit a report with recommended revisions to the formula to the Council every two years, starting in 2016. The bill also calls for the reconvening of a technical working group under the Office of the State Superintendent for Education; this group would include members of the public and could play a key role in influencing the recommendations for changes to the formula’s base level and supplemental weights.
While there is always more work to be done to improve budget transparency and fully support our schools, DCFPI thinks the Fair Student Funding bill is a significant step in the right direction. We urge you to support this bill when it comes to the full Council.
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