US Senators Introduce Bill to Bolster Secure Rural Schools Program

ICYMI: Just before adjourning for the Memorial Day weekend, a group of Senators introduced legislation designed to bring stability to the critical Secure Rural Schools Program.

This blog post is an excerpt from the legislation's press release: 

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, today reintroduced legislation to provide much-needed financial certainty for rural counties to ensure they have the long-term funding needed for schools, road maintenance, law enforcement and other essential services. The bipartisan Forest Management for Rural Stability Act, which the senators first introduced in December 2018, makes the Secure Rural Schools program—which expired at the end of FY 2018—permanent by creating an endowment fund to provide stable, increasing and reliable funding for county services. 

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS)—originally co-authored by Wyden—was enacted in 2000 to financially assist counties with public, tax-exempt forestlands. Since then, Wyden, Crapo, Merkley and Risch have worked to give SRS a more permanent role in assisting rural counties with large tracts of federal lands.

Critical services at the county level have historically been funded in part with a 25 percent share of timber receipts from federal U.S. Forest Service lands and a 50 percent share of timber receipts from federal Oregon and California Grant Lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. As those revenues have fallen or fluctuated due to reduced timber harvest and market forces, SRS payments helped bridge the gap to keep rural schools open, provide road maintenance, support search and rescue efforts and other essential county services. Since enacted in 2000, SRS has provided a total of $7 billion in payments to more than 700 counties and 4,400 school districts in more than 40 states to fund schools and essential services like roads and public safety.

In recent years, however, Congress has allowed SRS funding to lapse and decrease, creating massive uncertainty for counties as they budget for basic county services. The senators’ Forest Management for Rural Stability Act ends the uncertainty and provides rural counties financial security.

Legislative text can be found here. A one-page summary of the bill can be found here and a longer summary of the bill can be found here.

NEW PEP Talk Episode: Edu-nomics Professor Bruce Baker!

Our numbers aren't mighty (yet!) but we think the content packs a punch. Here's the latest AASA PEP Talk podcast episode, all about school finance formulas and a great new report running a detailed comparison across all 50 states. This was a fun one! Listen today.

AASA's Noelle Ellerson Ng chats with Professor Bruce Baker, the dynamo behind @SchlFinance101 and one of the AASA advocacy team's favorite people to talk to when it comes to school finance and education funding formulas. In this episode, we focus on his most recent paper, one that takes a fresh--and also understandable and approachable--analysis of all 50 state funding formulas. Professor Baker works at Rutgers University specializing in school finance, education policy & quantitative analysis. Listen to the episode today.

The paper referenced in the episode is The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems, written by Bruce Baker for the Shaker Institute.

NWEA Launches Educators for Equity Grant Program for Equity in Pre-K - 12 Learning Opportunities

NWEA’s Inaugural Program will Award $10,000 Grants to School Districts and Organizations to Support Academic Growth of Underserved Students

The Educators for Equity Grant Program aims to help schools and teachers foster student growth for preK-12 students who face systemic barriers to academic opportunities. The program, from not for profit NWEA,  will award grants of up to $10,000 to eligible schools, districts, and non-profit organizations to help fund initiatives and programs designed to support the academic development of underserved students. 

“Our goal with this program is to help foster equity in educational opportunity and outcomes, so all students leave secondary education prepared to successfully fulfill their postsecondary education, training, and workforce aspirations. We look forward to working collaboratively with these schools and organizations to support student growth and learning.” said Chris Minnich, CEO, NWEA.

To be eligible for a grant, applicants must be a U.S. school serving students from pre-K through 12th grade and either a public school or not-for-profit organization.  Applicants will be evaluated on evidence base; equity mission; cultural relevance; and academic focus. Use of NWEA products and services is not required for eligibility. 

For more information on the NWEA Educators for Equity program or to apply, please visit https://www.nwea.org/our-mission/educators-for-equity/. The application deadline is June 30, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Special Invitation: Free Student Privacy Bootcamp, July 8 in DC!

AASA, The School Superintendents Association and the Future of Privacy Forum are thrilled to invite you or your designee to attend an exclusive free Student Privacy Bootcamp for School Superintendents and Policymakers on Monday, July 8th, at FPF's office in Washington, DC (1400 I st NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC). 

The goal of the training program is to gather superintendents and other policymakers to help them understand the regulatory requirements and best practices to properly handle student data in a complex and rapidly changing environment. This event is grant supported. The full event is from 8:30 - 11:30am ET. You can see the agenda and register for the event here. 

Please contact Noelle Ellerson Ng (nellerson@aasa.org) if you have any questions. I hope you can join us!

Guest Blog Post: Letter to Education Policymakers re: Title IX

Today's guest blog post is reposted, with permission, from the National Women's Law Center.

Background: NWLC recently learned that some educational institutions and policymakers are confused about the status of Title IX enforcement in schools and have moved to change polices to conform with proposed rules, as though they are final and in effect. In response to these concerning actions, NWLC has drafted a letter reminding education policymakers and leaders that Title IX has not changed and that they still have obligations – above and beyond the proposed Title IX rules – to students and school employees who have experienced sexual harassment.  The letter urges schools and policymakers to follow existing Title IX rules and Department of Education guidance that has been in place since 2001.

Blog Post: Today, we sent a letter to educational policy makers in every state to remind them that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 has not changed, despite all of the actions taken by Betsy DeVos to try to weaken Title IX protections for survivors and all students.   

As we’ve written about before and told the Department of Education, DeVos is trying to make unlawful, cruel, and impractical changes to Title IX that are at odds with the very purpose of the statute.  These rules, if they go into effect, would discourage reporting of sexual harassment, protect schools from liability for failing to respond to known sexual harassment, and mandate unfair investigations. And we’re not alone in thinking this – more than 100,000 individuals, organizations, and education institutions submitted comments to the Department telling them this.   

Unfortunately, we’ve recently learned that some educational institutions and policymakers are confused about the status of Title IX enforcement in schools and have moved to change polices to conform with proposed rules, as though they are final and in effect. This is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. 

Our letter reminds education policymakers that Title IX has not changed and that they still have obligations – above and beyond the proposed Title IX rules – to students and school employees who have experienced sexual harassment.  Our letter urges schools and policymakers to follow existing Title IX rules and Department of Education guidance that has been in place since 2001. And it also mentions that these rules, like many other regulatory actions by this Administration, are likely to face challenges in court.  So it’s not only unnecessary to make changes to policy as though these proposed rules are final, but also probably not the smartest decision.  

If you’re concerned your or your loved one’s school or university is prematurely changing their rules, please share this letter with them. You can also use our toolkit to learn more about survivors’ rights under Title IX.  

Blog post written by Shiwali Patel, Senior Counsel for Education

DQC Guest Blog Post: Infographic on the power of spending data

Our newest guest blog post comes from our friends at Data Quality Campaign and relates to the ESSA fiscal transparency requirement. They’re talking about the important opportunity this data represents, and more immediately useful, link to a very helpful infographic on the power behind this unprecedented collection and reporting of school spending data.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to publish school-level spending data on report cards starting next year. While your state may already publish some version of per-pupil expenditures on its school and district report cards, those numbers are usually a district average—in other words, the total expenditures of the entire district, divided by the number of students in the whole district. The new per-pupil expenditure data will include the expenditures at each school, like programs, special courses or interventions, and the actual salaries of the teachers in that building, which is likely to show different per-pupil expenditure amounts at each school. You and your team may have already been in conversations with your state about how to collect this information.

While transparency about school spending is important for policymakers and communities, it is most valuable in the hands of leaders like you who can use it to make sure that every student is getting the resources they need. As you work with the state to collect school-level spending data, you and your team need to view this data side by side with information about the students in your schools, including their academic outcomes. Looking at school-spending data alongside student success data can prompt conversations within your district about how many resources schools have in comparison to one another, and whether the way resources are allocated is helping you meet the goals you have for your students. Now that school spending data is available statewide, you can also take a look at similar school districts’ spending and student outcomes and have conversations with your peers in other districts. Local leaders, including principals, school boards, and district leaders like you have the most important role in both acting on and communicating about school-level spending. 

Brennan McMahon Parton is Director, Policy and Advocacy for Data Quality Campaign

 

New PEP Talk Podcast: #Census2020 and Schools

In the latest episode of Public Education Policy (PEP) Talk, we hear from Georgetown University's Nora Gordon. We talk about what I think is the sleeper issue of 2019 for education: understanding the importance of robust and accurate Census participation for schools. I promise, it's way more engaging than it sounds. Plus, accurate census data is the backbone of what helps allocate federal, state and local dollars to communities for the next ten years....an accurate count matters! Give it a listen here.

AASA Proud to Support National Day of Action for Title II, Part A

On May 15, AASA, along with a group of national education organizations (listed below), will be hosting a day of action supporting the $500 million increase the House Appropriations Committee appropriated for Title II, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Title II, Part A is a necessary program that can be used to recruit, retain and train teachers, principals and other school support personnel. We invite your organization to participate and hope you can mobilize your members to contact their congressional representatives notifying them about their support of the recently proposed increase.

To help your organization, state affiliate or district participate, the sponsoring organizations have developed a toolkit with draft social media posts and outreach for your members and affiliates. Access the toolkit here. Please note that graphics to accompany the social media posts will be added to the toolkit soon as well. 

If you have any questions regarding the day of action, please feel free to contact Zach Scott at scottz@nassp.org. Thank you for your time, and we hope your organization is able to join us in supporting this important program.  

Sponsoring Organizations

 

• AASA, The School Superintendents Association
• American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
• American Federation of School Administrators
• American Federation of Teachers
• ASCD
• Association of Educational Service Agencies
• Association of School Business Officials
• Learning Forward
• National Association of Elementary School Principals
• National Association of School Psychologists
• National Association of Secondary School Principals
• National Rural Education Association
• National Rural Education Consortium
• New Leaders

 

AASA Advocacy: Rapid Round Up

It was a busy week here in DC, and the most efficient way to share that information is a rapid-fire round up in a blog post. Here's what we have for you: 

CEF FY20 Budget Book: This week, AASA was happy to have David Young, Superintendent of South Burlington Schools (VT) on Capitol Hill to talk about the importance of federal investment in education, focusing on head start and early ed. Superintendent Young was here as part of the annual Budget Briefing day by the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition of 115+ national organizations and institutions committed to increasing federal investment in education. AASA is a long time member and serves on the board of CEF. AS part of the hill event, CEF released its FY20 Budget Response, a detailed analysis of what the president proposed for all education programs and what it means for our nation’s school, students and communities. Access the report here. 

Voucher Victory on the Hill: The SECURE Act is a bill that moved out of the House Ways and Means committee last week, and included a very problematic provision that would allow expansion of 529 plans, giving wealthy families a tax break for enrolling—or keeping their children enrolled—in private schools and homeschools. This tax break decreases available funding for public education budgets, hurting the 90 percent of students served by our nation’s public schools. While the bill passed out of committee with the bad language, education groups (including AASA) were successful in negotiating its removal before the bill goes to the floor in the next week or so. We will remain diligent, in case Republicans consider introducing the provision as a stand alone amendment during the full vote. For now, though, a good advocacy effort resulted in stronger policy that supports public education. 

Title I Formula Report, Finally!: You’ll recall that as part of our push for ESSA reauthorization, AASA was out in front in highlighting how the current Title I formulas include unintended consequences that result in less poor districts receiving more money per pupil compared to poorer districts. While the formula wasn’t rewritten in law, the final ESSA did require USED to complete a study evaluation the Title I formula and a series of specified analysis and scenarios. The report was due in June of 2017 and was finally released this week (just one month shy of being two years late). The report stops short of making any specific recommendations about improving the accuracy and allocation of the formulas, provide a great synopsis of each of the formulae and related implementation provisions. You can read the report here. Moving forward, the real question is “How will Congress use this report to inform how they structure the next Title I formula? Will Congress use this information to decide how to allocate their federal Title I dollars among the four formula elements of Title I? How will Congress and states react to what we learned about the impact of hold harmless, state minimums, and state set asides in skewing full intended allocation of federal dollars?” Read the report (all 250 pages!) here.

House Passes FY20 LHHS Bill: On Wednesday the House appropriations committee approved legislation that would provide significant increases for grants aimed at disadvantaged students, after-school programming, and social-emotional learning. The bill provides more than $4 billion in additional funding for USED in FY20, a stark contrast to the President’s proposal, which would cut USED by more than $8 billion. The bill has yet to pass the full House, and is likely much higher than what would pass the Senate and well above anything the president would sign. The path forward for USED funding is anything but certain, with real threats of shutdown, continuing resolution and sequester all at play. We will continue to monitor the process. Check out a detailed write up of the House appropriations committee bill. 

• AASA was pleased to sign the CEF letter of support for the House FY20 proposal. Give the letter a read. 

District Revenues and Expenditures Ticked up Between 2015 and 2016: A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) examined information about revenues and expenditures in the nation’s public school districts. The national median of total revenues per pupil and expenditures per pupil increased across all public school districts between budget years 2015 and 2016. To view the full report, please visit http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2019303 

May Advocate

After the 2018 tragedy in Parkland, Fla., AASA heard from countless school leaders that Congress needed to “do something” to make it easier and more affordable for districts to meet the increasing mental healthcare needs of children. We took this concern seriously and throughout the past year connected with experts and policymakers in the healthcare and education fields to try and understand what, if anything, could be done at the federal level to improve access to and the delivery of healthcare services—particularly mental healthcare services for children.

 Through the culmination of our work, AASA released a report in February examining the school-based Medicaid program and the role it plays in enabling districts to meet mandates under IDEA as well as provide enhanced healthcare services to Medicaid eligible children.

Medicaid is actually the third largest funding stream (after Title and IDEA) provided to districts, yet it represents less than 1 percent of Medicaid spending annually. Districts began billing Medicaid in earnest in the early 1990’s for services directly related to a child’s IEP. However, more districts lately have taken advantage of Medicaid to do screenings, provide transportation to children, enroll kids in the Medicaid program and coordinate healthcare services with outside providers.

In 2017, we surveyed school leaders and found they used the reimbursement stream from Medicaid to hire and keep school personnel who can deliver healthcare services to kids. Delivering healthcare services to kids in school, the place they spend most of their time, is the most logical and efficient way of reducing health barriers to learning early and effectively.

Unfortunately, our aforementioned report found that there are major barriers to participate in the school-based Medicaid program and that many small and rural high-poverty districts are totally precluded from pulling down resources via Medicaid that could be critically helpful to meeting the educational and healthcare needs of their students.

Why aren’t school districts participating in the Medicaid program? It has to do with guidance that the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) drafted in 2003 that forced school districts to bill like clinics and other healthcare providers. CMS was concerned by fraud and abuse in the program and thought they needed to crack down on school districts. What wound up happening was total overkill. They created a very duplicative and onerous billing system for districts that did not recognize that schools are different from doctors’ offices in many ways and that Medicaid and schools have a unique financial relationship unlike other healthcare entities.

While some school systems were able to manage the new billing systems and requirements by hiring folks to handle the paperwork in house, many districts were forced to contract with third-party billing companies to manage the paperwork in order to continue participating. Based on our report, the result of this fairly ancient CMS guidance is that there are now real structural inequities in the implementation of the school-based Medicaid program that have permanently shut out smaller, high-need districts from pulling down much needed federal resources.   

Our goal this Congress is to fix these inequitable policies in the school-based Medicaid program. Thankfully, our policy solution doesn’t cost much money and doesn’t even require a change to any statute or regulation, but it does require a bipartisan commitment in the House and Senate to improve the efficiency of the school-based Medicaid program so more districts and kids can access Medicaid reimbursable services.

Specifically, we are asking Congress to place a mandate requiring CMS to issue new guidance that would provide states with the flexibility to utilize a cost-based reimbursement system that would dramatically reduce paperwork that providers need to complete and make it far simpler for districts to bill Medicaid for healthcare services for kids.

This has two major benefits: First, it makes our SISPs, nurses and other healthcare providers happy because they get to spend more time helping kids each day and deal with a lot less paperwork on the back end (which frequently drives them out of working in school-based settings). Second, it allows districts to recoup costs that are currently being spent on a billing agency and utilize those resources to expand healthcare services for children or free up local dollars to support other health or educational initiatives.

What can you do to help? We are hopeful we’ll have bipartisan legislation in the House and Senate this summer that would streamline the Medicaid paperwork for districts and incentivize states and districts to expand healthcare access to kids in schools. When those bills are introduced, please take a moment to reach out to your Representative and Senators and tell them you support any legislative proposals that would address the healthcare issues of your students that get in the way of their academic success.

At a time when we have an uptick in children who lack health insurance coverage and a surge in children coming to school with unaddressed mental health needs, there is an urgency to improve the reimbursement stream for school-based Medicaid programs so schools can deliver more services to more students. This new reimbursement model for schools has the potential to benefit students and families, district personnel and administrators and ensure more efficient and effective delivery of healthcare services to children in schools.  

Two New Education Reports: ESSA Implementation and Teacher Compensation

Last week, the Center on Public Education released two reports that will be of interest to school leaders. AASA was pleased to participate in the conversations supporting the ESSA report, and to connect researchers directly to school superintendents for the deeper interviews. We share the teacher compensation report for its general relevance, given the ongoing policy discussions and strikes at the local level related to teacher pay, and the role of teacher pay in recruit and retention.

The first report, State Leader Interviews: How States are Responding to ESSA’s Evidence Requirements for School Improvement, explores state efforts to assist local educators with selecting evidence-based interventions to improve low-performing schools. The report also contains some recommendations for making research more accessible to educators.

The second report, Are Public School Teachers Adequately Compensated?, provides a context for understanding the issues surrounding teacher pay, including information on how public education is funded and several recent analyses of teacher compensation in each of the 50 states.

Both reports are available on the CEP web site (www.cep-dc.org) and can be downloaded free-of-charge