where we are at on federal grants

 This came out from DESE's grants office this morning. While it is not new information, I thought it was a useful summary: 

On November 12, a “continuing resolution” was passed to reopen the federal government through January 30, 2026. However, most school year 2026-2027 federal education funding levels have not been resolved and are still subject to negotiation (ESSA, IDEA, Perkins, etc.). If Congress cannot come to an agreement on FY27 funding levels by January 30^th, they must either pass another “continuing resolution” or shut down the government yet again. It should be noted that the national school meals program was the one major area of federal education funding that did receive a new full-year appropriation, through September 30, 2026.
 
Early the following week, the U.S. Education Department (USED) informed state education leaders of its intent to transition the management of several major programs to other federal agencies. The announcement stated that the majority of programs currently managed by the federal Office of Elementary and Secondary Education will transition to the U.S. Department of Labor via an inter-agency agreement. These programs will include Title I-A, Title II-A, Title III-A, Title IV-A and B, and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act, among others. 

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs will, for the moment, remain at USED, as will the Office for Civil Rights. USED officials noted that signed agreements with the Department of Labor and other agencies are only a first step and could not provide immediate details on the timing or specifics of the interagency transitions. These details will vary by program. The federal press release includes links to several federal fact sheets, including one on elementary and secondary education. 

To echo the Commissioner's comment on loss of federal funding

which has also been a theme in Worcester finance presentations for as long as I have been paying attention...
You might note this article from EdWeek, which looks at each state's Title I and Title IIA allocations. Massachusetts loses in both columns:

• Title I is a 2.9% drop, of $7M.
• Title IIA is a 4.5% drop, of $1.6M.

I also think it's worth noting that Member West assumed the news was good, because Title I was increased. Much like with the state budget's impact on districts, though: what matters is where it goes.

It's not coming here.

Do also note, however, that Massachusetts overall spends something more than $16B (billion, with a B) on K-12 education, so this isn't a lot in that context. This is more a question of where it goes. It goes to high poverty kids and to teacher professional development.
I'd argue that this makes the Foundation Budget Review Commission implementation MORE urgent, because low income is, yes, one of the recommendations, and we should push that if we're going to be shorted on Title I. And Title IIA is supporting a LOT of professional development that's being underfunded, sometimes to frightening levels, due to the lack of reconsideration of the foundation budget. 

A couple of observations from the WPS budget before Council

I didn't liveblog the consideration of the Worcester Public Schools' budget before City Council on Tuesday, though I did livetweet it (you'll need to scroll back to May 30). There were a few things I wanted to post on here, though, before it all vanishes into the Twitter backlog. I'm not, incidentally, going to waste either my time or my space on issues that we've long since dealt with

• You may have seen this article on some Worcester schools adding washers and dryers next year. This discussion coming up led to what was probably Superintendent Binienda's best moment of the deliberation:

Lukes talking about providing parental services; Binienda "if a kid is hungry, has a hurting tooth, the student isn't going to learn"

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) May 30, 2017

• Rare praise from Councilor Lukes: 

Lukes comments that the @worcesterpublic budget "is very glitzy; I'm impressed."

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) May 30, 2017

• There were a couple of back and forths about charter reimbursement and the foundation budget review commission that made it clear that, while Council does understand what we're missing on charter reimbursement, many don't understand what we're missing on the lack of the review of the foundation budget. Not okay for a city missing as much as Worcester is...somewhere around $100M a year.

• It's dismaying to hear Councilor King's inquiry around better publicizing Worcester student success through social media with "there's an ad." C'mon, Worcester: use that Facebook page and Twitter feed and join us here in the 21st century!

• There was, though, one sequence that really worried me: Councilor Rosen asked a solid question on the impact of the proposed federal budget on the Worcester Public Schools: 

Rosen asks about impact of proposed federal budget on @worcesterpublic; "it would be devastating" says Binienda

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) May 30, 2017

...so far so good.
Superintendent Binienda then went on an extended discussion of her longstanding concern over funding of AP tests and the state's proposal that Title IV could be used for that. The Worcester Public Schools, however, don't get Title IV money (and haven't gotten Title IV money for as long as I've been paying attention).
She then added school nutrition, but school nutrition funds aren't threatened by the proposed budget. School-based health centers, she added, which possibly could see some impact if there's a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, but there's no change in their funding under the proposed federal budget.
Finally, she added Title III. Worcester does get Title III, which is funding for ELL students; it's used to fund seven instructional coaches and some summer programs. But Title III also isn't seeing an impact in the proposed federal budget.
(if you're interested in my sources, I read this from EdWeek  and this from the Washington Post when the budget came out, and just double checked that against CNN,)
So what should the answer have been?
The two clearest impacts are to two programs which are cut entirely under the proposed budget: Title IIA is teacher preparation, which in Worcester funds 14 instructional coaches and a Manager of Curriculum (that's $1.8M a year); the 21st Century grant is Community Learning Centers which run after school at Burncoat Middle and at Sullivan Middle (that's $181,000 a year).
It's also worth keeping an eye on Title I. While that's expected to be level-funded, there's no provision in the federal budget for the ESSA language that now funds school turnaround grants out of the Title I line. That could effectively work out to a 7% cut, depending on how states handle it. Worcester gets $11.6M a year in Title I funds, and that covers most of an administrative position, 14 preschool teachers, 12 other teachers, 34 coaches, 7 wraparound positions, 34 IAs, and nearly 15 grant and support positions. That's a big one.

Yes, it's finance, and yes, that's a big thing I follow. But this is a question that any superintendent in the country should have expected to get this year, but most especially one that gets $29M a year in federal grants. And ours didn't expect to get it, wasn't prepared, and didn't answer the question correctly.

NSBA Conference: ESSA update

updating as we go...
Zola runs policy and advocacy in DC for NSBA
all material is on the app
"we're only about 50% done; we have the law. Now we have to implement"
"be careful what you ask for"
got more local control; our responsibility to do right by this new law

ESSA update

Chester: starts with photo of LBJ with his teacher "Miss Kate" signing the first ESEA into law on Palm Sunday (and gives a pop quiz to the Board on who it is; I had not known previously that he'd done this on Palm Sunday)
aside: LBJ even mentioned it in his remarks on signing:

My Attorney General tells me that it is legal and constitutional to sign this act on Sunday, even on Palm Sunday. My minister assured me that the Lord's day will not be violated by making into law a measure which will bring mental and moral benefits to millions of our young people.

Congress in nearly every session since the Civil War took up education in some way

Coordinated Program Review report

• the CPR report with sections on special education, civil rights, and career and vocation education
• the CPR review of English Language Learning in the district
• the Title I review (it looks like the backup on this one got scanned out of order; page 1 is page 2) with NO FINDINGS
• the Title IIA review and more here (that's teacher training), with "Commended" status on two categories of professional development
• the safety inspections of our vocational education areas in the high schools

Rodrigues: I promise this is going to be fast (We got over 200 pages of backup)
"magnitude and intensity" of reviewne with school

happens every six years; last done in 2009
22 schools, 84 classrooms, visited, over 265 interviews with staff, students, parents
hundreds of documents reviewed
families surveyed
district has to create a corrective action plan
Title IIA was only in draft format: down to one item out of eleven
McKinney-Vento: more informal process
"Two items or more constituted a 'partly implemented'"
in civil rights five items were not having "gender identity" in forms (and now has been fixed)
another item was the day the seniors get do
all items under special education should be resolved with PD, process, and also SAGE IEPs
in the safety survey (of the vocational items) only 6 items remain to be addressed; "were a lot of items that were corrected even during the visit" (and for the 6, waiting for the items to arrive)
Title IIA only remaining it is about protocols with private schools
DESE "very impressed with how we use our funding"
were invited to be a speaker and present about our practices in using Title IIA
"complimentary also to folks from the grants office"
Corrective Action Plan is due December 14
statement of assurance to be signed by superintendent and SC chair
must demonstrate resolution as soon as possible, but no more than one year after plan
refer all Corrective Action Plans to TLSS for updates and monitoring

What's in the Every Student Succeeds Act?

Okay, we're going to do this as the act itself actually reads; as always, h/t to EdWeek that keeps up with this all the time.Other than that, the below is entirely my work, page by page. 

Waivers: NCLB waivers expire August 1, 2016, however the plans dealing with lowest performing schools and subgroup achievement gaps are still in play until new plans are submitted for the 2017-18 school year. Those are "needs improvement, corrective action, or restructuring" schools and "priority or focus" schools.

Title I:  (for a numbers rundown, see this from the American Association of School Administrators) Most of the sections of Title I are level funded through FY20, with "the sense of Congress" being that this would revised if discretionary spending levels are adjusted. Note also that School Improvement Grants are no longer a separate program; they are folded into Title I, with the specification that the current 4% of Title I set aside for school improvement is increased to 7% of their Title I funding (of that, 95% of it needs to go to districts directly). As before, such funding may only supplement, not supplant, funding the district is otherwise receiving.

State plans: States are still required to submit plans to the U.S. DoE. There remains a peer review process, and states can appeal a rejection of their plan (but it's to the Secretary, so I'm not sure how that helps). As part of that, states must "provide assurance" that they have adopted "challenging academic achievement standards," but they are not required to submit those standards to the Secretary (this is how they're resolving the question of federal requirements and the Common Core). States must have state standards for "mathematics, reading or language arts, and science" and have English language proficiency standards; they may have standards in other subjects.

...and just in case we were unclear on the Secretary's authority:

FEDERAL CONTROL.—The Secretary shall not have the authority to mandate, direct, control, coerce, or exercise any direction or supervision over any of the challenging State academic standards adopted or implemented by a State.

Testing: In their plans, the states have to demonstrate that they have "in consultation with local educational agencies,...implemented a set of high-quality student academic assessments in mathematics, reading or language arts, and science." Emphasis there mine; has anyone been consulted? The tests must (and I'm pulling the language here, because I think this is going to come up):

(ii) be aligned with the challenging State academic standards, and provide coherent and timely information about student attainment of such standards and whether the student is performing at the student’s grade level; (iii) be used for purposes for which such assessments are valid and reliable, consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical testing standards, objectively measure academic achievement, knowledge, and skills, and be tests that do not evaluate or assess personal or family beliefs and attitudes, or publicly disclose personally identifiable information; (iv) be of adequate technical quality for each purpose required under this Act and consistent with the requirements of this section, the evidence of which shall be made public, including on the website of the State educational agency...

Students must be tested in math and ELA one a year in grades 3-8 and once in grades 9-11, and in science once in grades 3-5, once in grades 6-9, and once in grades 10-12. Schools still need to have a 95% participation rate in testing, but what happens to the schools that don't is up to the state.
The tests also must:

(vi) involve multiple up-to-date measures of student academic achievement, including measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding, which may include measures of student academic growth and may be partially delivered in the form of portfolios, projects, or extended performance tasks; (viii) at the State’s discretion— ‘‘(I) be administered through a single summative assessment; or ‘‘(II) be administered through multiple statewide interim assessments during the course of the academic year that result in a single summative score that provides valid, reliable, and transparent information on student achievement or growth;

States are required to provide individual "interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic" student reports with information that allows "parents, teachers, principals, and other school leaders to understand and address the specific academic needs of students" and they have to do so in a timely fashion. There are parallel reporting requirements for reporting out on subgroups (and no "supersubgroups" as in the waivers; each needs to be broken out, so long as it's of a statistically significant size).The test items are "(xiii) be developed, to the extent practicable, using the principles of universal design for learning."
All ELL students must be annually assessed in their English proficiency. The states have a few options on what to do with newly arrived students (in the U.S. for less than 12 months) on the other tests; they can have the student not take the tests, or they can exclude their results from accountability (but report them).
Local districts can choose a different "nationally-recognized high school academic assessment" with state approval. Regarding opting out:

Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as preempting a State or local law regarding the decision of a parent to not have the parent’s child participate in the academic assessments under this paragraph.

In other words, they kicked this one back to the states.

More on state plans: They have to include four indicators, of which three are state testing proficiency rates, ELL student proficiency, another subgroup proficiency and one more; high schools get five, adding graduation rate. The other options include student engagement, educator engagement, access to and completion of advanced coursework, post-secondary readiness, school climate/safety, or something else. For those working on other ways assessing schools, this is a crack in the door that should be pushed on! States are still required to identify lowest 5% of performing (how we get there is going to look a little different) plus high schools failing to graduate one-third or more of their students AND other schools at the state's discretion. What exactly they do with those schools is up to the states.

Interestingly, if a district has only had a student for less than half the year, the student's test score can't count against the school's accountability level. Likewise, a student who doesn't graduate counts for the high school that has had that student for the majority of high school.

Schools indentified as underperforming still need to submit school improvment plans, and the process looks fairly parallel to now (group of stakeholders analyzing local data, plan has to include "evidence-based interventions" and consider resources, and has to be approved locally and monitored by the state). The state has to establish exit criteria for this. The state is also to analyze resource allocation and provide technical assistance for any district having a significant number of schools falling into underperforming.

The bill is also speaks at length, forbidding the Secretary to specify quite a number of things, including the evaluation methods of teachers and other school professionals and forbidding data collection beyond what already happens in other sections of federal law.
States are also required to specify how they will assist local districts in increasing early childhood education; ensure that disadvantaged students are not served by inexperienced teachers, reduce bullying, reduce out-of-school suspension, reach all students, stabilize the education of students in foster care, and support homeless students. And if that sounds like a hodgepodge, that's because it is! Likewise, there are a list of assurances the states are required to submit (starts on page 109, if you're interested).
Both states and local districts must issue annual report cards.
Districts need to have annual school improvement plans as well (and what needs to be included starts on page 134). As part of that plan, districts:

shall notify the parents of each student attending any school receiving funds under this part that the parents may request, and the local educational agency will provide the parents on request (and in a timely manner), information regarding any State or local educational agency policy regarding student participation in any assessments mandated by section 1111(b)(2) and by the State or local educational agency, which shall include a policy, procedure, or parental right to opt the child out of such assessment, where applicable.

"where applicable"...hm...
Districts are also required to post on their website what assessments are used, where it comes from, how long it will take, what it will test, and when they'll have results available.
As they're still talking about "low income," the bill offers the following for how to measure that:

a local educational agency shall use the same measure of poverty, which measure shall be the number of children aged 5 through 17 in poverty counted in the most recent census data approved by the Secretary, the number of children eligible for a free or reduced price lunch under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, the number of children in families receiving assistance under the State program funded under part A of title IV of the Social Security Act, or the number of children eligible to receive medical assistance under the Medicaid Program, or a composite of such indicators, with respect to all school attendance areas in the local educational agency

Secondary school calculations may be based off estimates from the elementary schools.
Federal funds are still required to supplement not supplant local (and state) spending; it also retains the "hold harmless" provision on funding (page 199; note that it isn't entirely harmless), and the requirement of state's maintenance of effort (states have to keep funding education themselves in order to received federal funds).

Innovative assessments: As part of the Title I B assessment grants, the bill provides for "innovative assessments" in up to seven states for the first three years of the law. Those have to report out, and at the end of that time, the Secretary may extend that "demonstration authority" further.

There's a provision for local districts to enter an agreement with the Secretary for a local weighed per-pupil funding system, allowing for substantially more funding to go to their neediest student bodies. Districts can bundle their Title I, Title II, Title III, and parts of Title IV and V to do so.

Title IIA: (teacher development) There's a list of provisions for which these funds may be used starting on page 336. It does allow for pay-for-performance, but it also allows the funds to be used to reduce class size. Several mentions in this section of "human capital management"

21st Century Learning grants are in, but not for any substantial boost back up in funding.

Charter schools and magnet schools: For those who like to compare these things, the grant to expand charter schools is funded at a higher level that the grant to fund magnet schools ($270M rising to $300M versus $94M rising to $108M).

Promise Neighborhoods are in, but funding isn't specified; the same is true of community schools.

National readers note that there is a substantial section on Native American education, including a requirement that the Secretary of Education report on student suicides.

Federal impact aid is level funded until FY2020.

Speaking of definitions that might be useful, here's ESSA's definition of a "well-rounded education" (from Title VIII, page 807):

(52) WELL-ROUNDED EDUCATION.—The term ‘well-rounded education’ means courses, activities,and programming in subjects such as English, reading or language arts, writing, science, technology,engineering, mathematics, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, geography,computer science, music, career and technical education, health, physical education, and any other subject, as determined by the State or local educational agency, with the purpose of providing all students access to an enriched curriculum and educational experience.’’

Title VIII also requires the Secretary of Education to figure out how many federal employees worked on programs that no longer exist under this renewal and to cut the department by that many positions (page 813).

Waivers of federal provisions: Both schools and districts can request waivers of the provisions within the law (the schools request of the district, which turns to the state; the district requests of the state which turns to the federal department) (page 816 and following).

"Prohibition against federal mandates" speaks for itself:

IN GENERAL.—No officer or employee of the Federal Government shall, through grants, contracts, or other cooperative agreements, mandate, direct, or control a State, local educational agency, or school’s specific instructional content, academic standards and assessments,curricula, or program of instruction developed and implemented to meet the requirements of this Act (including any requirement, direction, or mandate to adopt the Common Core State Standards developed under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, any other academic standards common to a significant number of States, or any assessment, instructional content, or curriculum aligned to such standards), nor shall anything in this Act be construed to authorize such officer or employee to do so.

Likewise, the federal government can't require local or state funds be directed particular ways. Also nothing in the act shall:

require the distribution of scientifically or medically false or inaccurate materials or to prohibit the distribution of scientifically or medically true or accurate materials

Military recruiter opt-in: Districts are required to provide military recruiters with student information unless the parents specifically have directed the district to not provide it. Districts creating instead an "opt in" provision is not allowed. This came in as part of NCLB.

Free-range kids: The federal government can't make laws regarding parent-permitted school travel, but, then, they also can't limit the abilities of local or state authorities to do so.

Student privacy: There is a "sense of Congress" section requesting that the Secretary review all applicable provisions and ensure student data is protected. As I've seen pointed out elsewhere, there's no teeth in this; on the other hand, it isn't here by accident.

Regarding the First Amendment:

It is the sense of Congress that a student, teacher, school administrator, or other school employee of an elementary school or secondary school retains the individual’s rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States during the school day or while on the grounds of an elementary school or secondary school. 

Posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson (starts on page 914)

Reports: Congress is asking for reports on dropouts, subgroup sample size, access to digital learning resources, and the Title I formula (that's like FBRC federally!). 

Preschool development grants which are being administered through Health and Human Services (as Head Start is).

"Highly qualified" is over.

and, whew! That's it.

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday at 7

The Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, December 3 at 7. You can find the agenda here.
The report of the superintendent this week--the first report Dr. Rodrigues is giving as interim--is his entry plan.

There are no subcommittee reports this week.
We have a response coming back from administration on the updated numbers on the state cherry sheet (worse than they were when we passed the budget in June) and what the final cost on gas will be, as that contract was still being negotiated when we passed the budget. And while it's lower than the projection, skim down to the utilities line in the first quarter update on where we're expected to be on building utilities for why we won't be hearing a recommendation to move funds. 

In the ongoing settling up of the student activities accounts, we're being asked to accept a donation of $6,261.81 to Doherty. 
We're being asked to accept $400 from Shaw's for Heard Street School.
We have several requests for recognitions.
Mr. Monfredo is asking that administration work to get more mentors for AVID.
Miss Biancheria is asking that the security audit be discussed at the December 17 meeting and also at the February 25 meeting.
She's also asking a number of questions around textbooks: how many are rebound, how many we have versus need, how many are on the computer, how many students don't have textbooks, and if there's a central inventory.

I'm clearing out old items (lest I linger on agendas!), so I have a list of items I'm pulling off of subcommittee agendas and out of administration (many of which have been answered, anyway).

We have the annual Head Start report. 
We have the collaborative's audit.
We're being asked to accept an alternative education grant for $20,000 (not clear on what it's for, exactly).
We're being asked to accept STARS Residency grants for Columbus Park and for Jacob Hiatt (for neat stuff, incidently: check out the backup!)
We're being asked to recognize the WPS Foundation for their constuction at the One City, One Library branches, and being asked to accept the donation of the materials and equipment there. 

Every six years, the state comes in and does a Coordinated Program Review (which, inevitably and much to my confusion, gets abbreviated 'CPR') to check on on how the district is doing with adhering to federal regulations. Ours has now come back and it includes:

• the CPR report with sections on special education, civil rights, and career and vocation education
• the CPR review of English Language Learning in the district
• the Title I review (it looks like the backup on this one got scanned out of order; page 1 is page 2) with NO FINDINGS
• the Title IIA review and more here (that's teacher training), with "Commended" status on two categories of professional development
• the safety inspections of our vocational education areas in the high schools

Note that the reports came through a few months ago; I expect that we'll have a report on what has already been changed or improved in a number of these areas.


There is an executive session for a grievance.

ESEA compromise bill coming out

EdWeek has the full rundown ('though the language isn't out yet). For those paywalled out, major points:

• testing grades 3-8 and once in high school, but what it counts for is up to states. Bottom 5% of schools, as well as those not closing achievement gap, need intervention, but how is up to states. Likewise, while 95% participation in testing is still required, what happens if it isn't met is up to states.
• while there's some block granting on the federal education grants, it doesn't look as major as it could have been (watch that one); something on the innovation bit, something on the wraparound bit as well.
• no Title I portability (money doesn't move with kids), though there's some sort of a pilot program (watch this one, too)
• also no changes to Title I calculations, though some changes to Title II calculations (Title II is teachers)

The projection is that this will be in conference next week, with a vote by Thanksgiving. 

Duncan's most destructive legacy

Salon's response to the Washington Post piece on Arne Duncan goes in several different directions, but it hits the most important point last:

Congress, in its efforts to rewrite NCLB, has “moved to substantially scale back the federal government’s role in education.” The impetus for this scaling back is bipartisan and shared in both the House and the Senate. And should a new version of NCLB pass, it will limit the federal government’s role in our nation’s schools.

What’s particularly unfortunate about that policy direction is that the federal government historically has had a mostly positive influence in public schools. As the article reminds us, what we now call NCLB was “initially passed in 1965 as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,” a law that “was originally designed to protect the nation’s neediest students, and that the federal government must play a significant enforcement role to ensure that poor students, racial minorities and students with disabilities all receive an equal education.”

Because of that act, millions upon millions of impoverished children have had resources funneled to their schools through programs like Title I. Students who do not speak English as their first language have had funds sent to their schools to pay for specialists. Students who have physical disabilities, social-emotional problems and trouble with their learning and intellectual development have had more access to education opportunities and better supports in their schools. More girls and young women have been provided opportunities to play sports and experience a full curriculum.

Sure, this federal mission has not always been fully funded or adequately implemented. But that was the goal, and it was the goal NCLB took our attention away from and the goal this blundering oaf of a secretary refused to take up as his primary job, even though everyone outside his inner circle clamored he do so.

So the biggest tragedy of Arne Duncan is not only the millions of students and families ill-served under his tenure but the millions that will likely be ill-served in the future because it looks like his self-righteous, narrow-minded zeal will leave the federal government’s role in education marginalized for the immediate and foreseeable future.

Chhhhanges...

...or Round two of "No, no expansion in administration"

Should you be checking in on WPS internal postings or hearing of them, you will have seen some or all of the following from this past week:

• Facilities Director
• Technology Focused Instructional Coach
• Health and Physical Education Liaison
• Evaluation Team chairperson
• Focused Instructional Coaches at Clark Street, Canterbury, Elm Park, and Burncoat High

All of the above are current positions in the Worcester Public Schools. 

Very briefly: the Facilities Director is THE person who oversees any and everything having to do with buildings and grounds for the 50 buildings that we have for the Worcester Public Schools; he (currently) is the point person on everything from snow removal to heat to construction and renovation. 

The Technology Focused Instructional Coach is the person who gets teachers to the place they need to be for our kids to be able to do with computers and other technology that we want and need them to be able to do (and, not at all incidentally, one of the most in demand people in the district). 

The health and PE liaison is the one person in the district ensuring that the information that literally saves kids lives is being delivered in the classroom everywhere--in every school--in the district. 

The evaluation teams are the special education IEP teams; the person who coordinates those meetings with parents, staff, and others, and works through the decision making process is both legally necessary and crucial to the process. 

The focused instructional coaches--funded by Title IIA funds for that are for professional development and thus are not able to be used for other staffing positions--are how WPS does in-house professional development. 

All of these positions are projected to be continued in next year's budget.

What would sequestration do to the Worcester Public Schools?

By now, you may have seen the state-by-state breakdown of what sequestration would mean should it kick in on Friday. You can find Massachusetts here.
The best estimates we have are that sequestration would cut the federal education grants by approximately 5.1% on March 1.
The Worcester Public Schools are receiving about $27 million (see page 59 and following in the FY13 budget; sorry, we apparently didn't do the internal links to budget sections this year) this year in the grants that are affected by sequestration. The largest of those grants are (grant allocation starts on page 167 of the budget):

• Head Start, which for FY13 is funded at $5,766,902, serves 730 preschoolers and their families in Worcester. Head Start, because it is directly funded to us (it doesn't first go through the state), starts a new fiscal year in May. That means that this program would see the earliest cut in WPS, as we would have to come up with the funds to pay five teachers for two months out of FY13 dollars, or cut those teachers.
• Title I, which for FY13 is funded at $9,984,145, provides services for low income students, In Worcester, we use these funds for whole school programs at schools with large numbers of low income students. If you saw the presentation at our February 7 school committee meeting, you saw how this is being allocated this fiscal year.
• Title IIA, which for FY13 is funded at $1,730,325, funds "highly qualified teachers." In Worcester, this grant is largely used to fund instructional coaches, who provide on-site professional development for teachers. As we are required to provide professional development for teachers, regardless, any cut from this grant would need to be made up by general fund dollars.
• Title III, which for FY13 is funded at $1,146,244, is funding for English Language Learners. This funding goes to several different types of support from our kids--who come to us from all over the world--who are learning English. We run after school programs; we have IA's in classrooms to assist with their English acquisition; we give extra professional development for teachers who teach children who are learning English. All of these supports would be imperiled by a cut in this grant.
• IDEA, which for FY13 is funded at $7,320,000, is a grant for special education. It is another grant which is particularly worrying, because nearly the entire grant funds instructional assistants that are legally required for special education services. Were a 5% cut to hit IDEA, the Worcester Public Schools still need to provide those services, and thus those IA's. We would have to cut elsewhere in the budget to fund those IA positions.

These grants for FY13 total $27 million dollars. A cut of 5% is the equivalent of 23 teachers.

Silly rabbit!*

I've commented before that Secretary Duncan was very strongly in favor of the federal government staying out of local decisions...right up until that federal government became, well, him.
The trend continues.
Leonie Haimson writes on Huffington Post this week that the Obama administration is pushing to take money from Title II--"Highly Qualified" teacher funds--to fund programs like Teach for America. She notes that in many cases, Title II funds are used to lower class size by hiring additional teachers, one of the things we know actually works when improving student achievement. And we also have ten years of data on what TFA does for student achievement.
But you know, when we've got a long-standing program that's been shown to work up against a new program that sure looks swell and has big money support...in an election year...
You can find how much money your state may lose here. For Massachusetts, it's a bit over $11 million, a loss of about 25% for FY14.
Worcester is budgeting for a loss of 15% for FY13 (see p. 181), though in our case, Title II has not been used for class size; it's used for instructional coaches.





*Yes, I'm sure I'm dating myself here.