Equity Bombs

Members of the Board of Education made the first move to reject a new model of funding schools for next year based on weighting student need.

Darnell Goldson, chair of the board’s Operations and Finance Committee, recommended Monday afternoon telling the full board to go with the traditional model of funding schools instead of a new equity-based model proposed by Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Victor De La Paz.

Goldson recommended the board put together a committee to create a better version of the model to be implemented the following year.

New Haven schools are not funded equitably and no one knows why, according to a controversial report from not-for-profit Education Resource Strategies (ERS), commissioned last year.

The report said central office is relatively ​“lean,” the number of teachers in high schools is relatively high, and more variation in school funding exists compared to peer districts including Denver, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Newark.

With the help of a committee earlier this winter, De La Paz created a funding model to standardize how each school is allocated money from the district, to ensure each has enough resources for the next fiscal year. In his ​“hybrid” model, part of the general fund is set aside to fund staff for each school, and the other part is used to fund students by specific weighted needs.

This week he presented a version to the committee that uses about $66 million of the $226 million operating fund for ​“school support functions,” including transportation, building rentals, and maintenance.

Another $28 million goes to ​“school programs,” including alternative schools, pre‑K supplement, self-contained special education classrooms, adult education. That $28 million also includes $9 million of ​“foundational staff funding,” which pays for a principal, security guard, and custodian in each school. It includes $3 million of supplemental funding for large comprehensive high schools Hillhouse and Cross, which would otherwise lose $3 million over three years, De La Paz said.

The remaining $83 million is then divided among 47 schools, weighted based on student need. Schools with more transient student bodies, more English language learners, more special education students and more low-income students receive more funding, in this model.

The factors used to weight funding are some of those used to comprehensively grade schools through the new state ​“Next Generation” accountability system.

Not all board members agreed with De La Paz’s premise that the district’s school funding is inequitable.

Board member Ed Joyner said schools are already equitably funded, in part because some state and federal grants are earmarked for schools with low-income or low-achieving students. ​“Every school does not get Title I,” he said. ​“Equity is already in the system.”

De La Paz showed the disparity in per pupil funding between schools with similar sizes and student populations. Brennan-Rogers receives $8,169 per pupil, which is $1,070 more than Wexler/Grant receives per pupil — representing a gap of $454,750 for the year.

He presented a chart of each school’s proposed budget next year with the new funding model and with the current model. No school is losing more than 3 percent of its budget in this latest version, he said, as a response to feedback from administrators and other members of the school community.

Joyner called the weighted student formula ​“misleading.” He said officials should instead ensure every school has a base amount of funding and then look at how to institute special programs such as art.

Board member Alicia Caraballo said she has doubts about some of the line items in the budget. The $3.3 million allocated to alternative schools might not be necessary since students at those schools ​“don’t stay the whole day,” instead spending part of their days on job training or other opportunities around the city, she argued.

Kesha Hannans, Celentano School’s principal, said she compared her state accountability results to those of Hill Central, which scored enough to shed its designation as a turnaround school. Hill Central’s budget shows it has four ​“co-teachers” on staff, to join lead teachers in classrooms. She said De La Paz should use student achievement as a factor to determine how to fund schools, instead of focusing only on student need.

“We have models of success in our classrooms,” she said.

Goldson said he did not feel comfortable moving forward with De La Paz’s model. ​“We haven’t had enough time to talk about what equity means,” he said. ​“The formula is flawed from the beginning. We haven’t defined the equity weight we want to use.”

He said adding weights to certain student needs ​“adds more inequity into the system,” instead of equalizing it. Goldson suggested the district push its plan to implement the new model at least one year, and move ahead with the standard budget in the upcoming fiscal year. Joyner proposed they also give give central office the discretion to work with principals to make adjustments over the course of the year based on changes in enrollment.

De La Paz pushed back, arguing that the board has been ​“wrestling with this for years.” He said he sat down with every school leader over the past couple of months to ensure he had thought the plan through.

“Where we are today is very different from where we started,” he said. ​“If we polled the [school funding] committee per person, I don’t think more than 50 percent would disagree with this.”

Caraballo pointed out that Engineering & Science University Magnet School parent Jill Kelly was the only member of the school funding committee who has expressed her opinion on the model at board meetings — and she spoke out against it being adopted.

The current system is flawed, Goldson conceded .“We shouldn’t replace it with another flawed system.”

The budget conversation will continue at the next Board of Ed meeting March 28 at 5:30 p.m. at L.W. Beecher School.

For previous coverage:
Fair-Funding Quest Still Lacks Consensus
• New School-Funding Fix Debated
• Ed Board Seeks Change In How It Funds Schools