The comparability provision of Title I (the part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that provides Federal money for poor students) is a little into the wonky weeds and has lots of moving parts, but it's important. Essentially, school districts are supposed to spend state and local resources equally among their schools before Title I dollars are added to provide additional services to poor students. But individual teacher salaries are not used to compare schools, so a school with more experienced (and so higher paid) teachers may actually be getting thousands of dollars more funding than a school with less experienced (and so lower paid) teachers. Experienced teachers are concentrated in wealthier schools, making the problem worse. For more detailed explanations, see CAP's 4 part series or anything from Marguerite Roza.
Groups like Center for American Progress, Education Trust and New America have targeted the problem for the reauthorization of ESEA (aka NCLB). Chairman George Miller of the House Education and Labor Committee supports a change, but felt a lot of push back when the idea was included in his 2007 reauthorization discussion draft.
There are lots of problems with implementing the use of actual teacher salaries for budgeting (Oakland, CA is the only school district currently doing it), but one of the big ones is that districts don't have accurate school-level per-pupil funding figures. Resources are allocated centrally or are based on staffing formulas, making getting accurate per-pupil spending information harder than it sounds.
New America recently held an panel discussion on the issue, and Roberto Rodriguez (now at the Domestic Policy Council, formerly of the Senate HELP committee) indicated that the stimulus bill would provide per-pupil spending numbers, but refused to talk specifics. That sounded to me like the White House was paving the way for comparability to have a chance during reauthorization, but I looked through the stimulus guidance in vain trying to figure out what he was talking about. Fortunately, Ed Week's Steven Sawchuk is in the know. First, before the guidance came out:
But I'm hearing that it's possible the guidance Education Department plans to release next week could require accounting of actual salaries. That would create a big reporting challenge for districts. And it would also likely signal the Obama administration's longer-term plans for Title I comparability.
Now, after the guidance is out:
And you can see the footprints in the recent stimulus legislation, which requires districts to report school-by-school expenditures of stimulus funds. (The Education Department was supposed to release additional guidance on this topic, but hasn't done so...yet.)
No wonder Mr. Rodriguez was so secretive. I'll keep an eye peeled for more on this wonky, but significant topic.
