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Weighted Budget: A Path to Equity? Schools Whose Students Need More Aid Would Get More Money

Posted on: Sunday, 12 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Peter Smolowitz, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

Feb. 12--A proposal to give more money to Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools with students who need more help could offer big benefits and big controversy.

It also highlights a growing tension between the school district and the task force pushing it to change.

The task force is calling for what's known as a "weighted student budget" -- the arcane name for a formula designed to help all kids get the same chance at a quality education, otherwise known as equity.

Jargony? Sure. But it could reshape how the district spends up to 70 percent of its nearly $1 billion budget.

Educators agree that the cost of teaching varies from student to student. Kids who are gifted, disabled, poor or still learning English need more help.

CMS now pays for staff based on the number of students at a school.

More than 50 schools collect from a second source of money. That's because they have high enough poverty levels and other challenges to trigger such benefits as smaller class sizes, additional supplies and some teacher pay perks.

Weighted budgets take this approach further. They divide money based on the needs of individual students. Kids who need more help bring more dollars.

Supporters say that shifts power to the schools, and can spur innovation and greater parental involvement.

If principals control more of their money, they may even have more success recruiting higher-paid, veteran teachers. And it gives an added incentive for schools to serve families: Lose a kid, lose some money.

About a dozen districts nationwide set their budgets this way. Former superintendents from two of the cities, Seattle and Cincinnati, now serve as consultants for the Charlotte task force.

In Cincinnati, the consultants say, schools started spending less on administrators and more on teachers. In Seattle, giving a principal more flexibility helped lead to an elementary school teaching math and science in Japanese.

But Seattle, which was the nation's first district to use weighted budgets, may also become the first to throw them out. A school official there says the system has resulted in waste and school rivalries over money.

Both CMS and the task force agree that the current spending plan is flawed. Here's how:

At Ashley Park Elementary in west Charlotte, nearly 90 percent of the students are poor. That's enough for the extra benefits.

Then there's University Meadows Elementary in University City. It has a poverty rate of nearly 60 percent. Because its enrollment is so large, it has more than twice as many poor students as Ashley Park. But it has the same student-teacher ratio as a school serving kids from an affluent suburb.

The task force wants a study led by national experts. But it is urging the school board to endorse a weighted budget.

For now, the district is pursuing a simpler change to help schools such as University Meadows. Though CMS is beginning to study weighted budgets, it makes no promises it will adopt one.

"You need to know what you're getting into," said interim Superintendent Frances Haithcock, who worked with a weighted system in Florida. "As the task force said, they didn't do a lot of the details. The devil is in the details."

Is it broken?

The recommendation on equity carries symbolic weight. Some say it is the task force's only suggestion aimed at helping poor children.Task force leaders say the district's way of divvying money is "inequitable and inadequate."

CMS says its approach isn't that flawed. Spending data requested by the Observer seems to support that notion.

The figures, from the last school year, show that the five high schools with the highest poverty rates got the most money per pupil. The six high schools with the lowest poverty rates got the least.

Even before the task force unveiled its report, Haithcock ordered her staff to make changes on school spending. The main one: finding ways to provide more teachers to schools such as University Meadows.

In a district growing in both enrollment and diversity, task force leaders say the changes won't go far enough.

Stephen Adamowski, the former Cincinnati superintendent working with the task force, says research shows people want something quicker and more radical.

"There is no evidence that shows the community is basically satisfied with incremental change or puttering around the edges."

So how would it work here?

The biggest fight may be over teachers.

True equity, some say, isn't achieved by assigning students different "weights," not when some schools have far more experienced faculty.

That teacher disparity has led some equity advocates to push for an even more radical reform: If schools get a weighted budget, they should have a salary cap.

Today, N.C. schools hire the best teacher candidates and the state foots most of the bill.

But poor schools have more trouble recruiting higher-paid veteran faculty.

A salary cap could improve the balance by limiting the number of veteran teachers that could squeeze into a principal's budget. In theory, that would give all schools a better shot of landing some.

Oakland, Calif., just started a variation of this. No one else has tried it, and the task force won't push for it now, fearing, Adamowski says, a "revolution."

Who is Doing It?

-- Edmonton, Canada (started pilot in 1976; districtwide in 1980) How it works:Principals get money depending in part on which of eight "levels" their students get classified. A conventional elementary student, for example, is considered Level 1 and brings $3,753 to the school. An autistic student would be Level 8, bringing $20,659.

Advantages: Hailed as a pioneer of this method. Three private schools have since decided to join the public system, partly because this allowed them to have the power to keep their distinct cultures.

Obstacles: Some economies of scale are lost, such as when schools buy textbooks.

Quote: "It's just like running a household," says Jamie Pallett, director of budget services and a former elementary school principal. "You get a paycheck, and you meet the needs of your family. I don't think it's a big shift (for principals). In many ways, it's liberating."

-- Houston (started in 2000-01)

How it works: Each student starts with a weight of 1.0, which means they bring at least $2,768 to a school. Some kids then get assigned heavier weights. Each bilingual student just learning English, for example, has a weight of 1.1, worth $3,044.80. Each gifted student comes with a weight of 1.12, worth $3,100.16.

Advantages: Helped increase parent involvement, after they had more access to the decisions, and also boosted graduation rates and the number of kids taking the SAT test, according to district leaders.

Obstacles: Principals faced "a steep learning curve" on the new budgeting responsibility. Small schools complain they receive less money, forcing them to eliminate programs or share specialized teachers with other schools.

Quote: The new formula and the new power for schools isn't "a silver bullet," says Mark Smith, general manager of school administration. "But it's telling the schools, 'Here is what you are responsible for.' "

-- Seattle (started in 1997-98)

How it works: Initial weights are assigned based on a student's age. Students in kindergarten through third grade bring more money than kids in middle and high school, because the class sizes in the younger grades are smaller. Additional money is given to students who are poor, disabled or bilingual.

Advantages: More "entrepreneurship," said Joseph Olchefske, who was the district's chief financial officer at the time and now works with the task force studying CMS. Principals with financial incentives have helped lower the truancy rate by 10 percent and helped persuade more parents of rising kindergartners to choose public schools.

Obstacles: Some school budgets increased by as much as 12 percent; others lost as much as 15 percent. Many suburban parents provided some "very aggressive and very vitriolic feedback" because their kids' schools were losing money, Olchefske said. The district is now debating whether to continue using the formula, partly because it wastes money, said budget manager Linda Sebring.

Quote: "It's the grass is greener, and it's not," Sebring said . "There's a reason no one else in the state of Washington is doing this."

What Needs to Be Fixed?

CMS and the task force say there are problems with how the district divides money. Here's one example:

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

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Source: The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)

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