Obama budget threatens funding for poor school districts

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Obama budget threatens funding for poor school districts
By Kate Randall
8 February 2010

The Obama administration’s budget proposal for 2011 contains sweeping
changes to funding for primary and secondary education. New rules
would radically alter the guidelines for the distribution of funding
to schools with high concentrations of low-income students, punishing
students and teachers in these schools for failure to meet “college-
or career-readiness” goals.

Obama will ask Congress for $49.7 billion in discretionary spending
for the 2011 fiscal year for the Department of Education (DOE), a
modest $3.5 billion or 7.5 percent increase over 2010. To put this
into perspective, Obama’s request for spending in 2011 for the
Department of Defense is $708.2 billion.

How the DOE will allocate its funds is also of critical importance.
While details of the education proposal remain sketchy, the changes
being pushed by Obama to what is known as Title I funding are to the
right of the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of
2001—the law that is widely recognized by teachers and parents as an
attack on education, particularly in poorer school districts.

NCLB is the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESAE), a federal statute enacted in 1965 that
authorized and funded school development and resources and promoted
parental involvement.

Under Title I of the act, the US Department of Education established a
set of programs to distribute funding to schools and school districts
with a high percentage of students from low-income families. To
qualify, a school typically must have around 40 percent or more of its
students coming from families with incomes falling below the federal
poverty level, or about $22,000 annually for a family of four.

Under Obama’s proposals, a significant portion of these Title I funds
would be distributed to poorer districts—not on the basis of economic
need, but according to their “performance.” This would in effect
penalize students and teachers in schools already operating with
budgets funded by lower tax bases, and where increasing numbers of
families are struggling under the growing impact of the economic crisis.

The change is modeled on Obama’s Race to the Top (RTTT) program, which
is forcing states to compete for $4.3 billion in stimulus funds. Under
RTTT, states that prohibit the use of test scores in teacher
evaluations are ineligible for funds. States are also rewarded for
opening up more charter schools, institutions that are privately run
but receive federal money at the expense of public schools.

In line with Obama’s RTTT, the governing body of the New York City’s
Department of Education voted last month to close 7 middle or
elementary schools and 12 high schools. More than 10,000 students, the
vast majority from poor and working-class communities, will be
affected by the closures. This scenario will be repeated in
communities across the country in the coming months.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave an indication of what the changes
to Title I funding would mean in remarks at the Brookings Institution
in Washington last May. He said, “When a school is chronically
under-performing despite additional supports and other strategies, you
have to consider bolder action, whether it’s changing the leadership,
hiring a new staff or turning schools over to charter operators.”

In other words, “under-performing” schools could see funds withdrawn,
and teacher and administrator firings; or they could be handed over to
for-profit charter operators or shut down outright. Districts that
reject evaluation and payment of teachers based on student
performance—so-called merit pay—would be similarly penalized.

In much the same way as the Clinton administration gutted the welfare
system, poor students in poor districts would no longer be “entitled”
to Title I money, but would be forced to compete for the funds along
with other equally cash-strapped schools. This is a fundamental and
regressive change to a system of school funding that has been in place
for four-and-a-half decades.

The New York Times quoted Jack Jones, president of the Center on
Education Policy, who attended a recent media event where the Obama
administration outlined its proposals. “They want to recast the law so
that it is as close to Race to the Top as they can get it, making the
money conditional on districts’ taking action to improve schools,” he
said.

“Right now most federal money goes out in formulas, so schools know
how much they’ll get, and then use it to provide services for poor
children,” Jones added. “The department thinks that’s become too much
of an entitlement. They want to upend that scheme by making states and
districts pledge to take actions the administration considers reform,
before they get the money.”

As in other areas of social spending, Obama is overseeing in education
the dismantling of a vital public program for working families. While
trillions of dollars have been allocated to bail out Wall Street and
the banks, no such bailout is available for the public schools. School
districts throughout the country, facing unprecedented budget crises,
are responding with teacher layoffs, the closing down of schools, and
the elimination of programs such as art, music and physical education.

The Obama administration contends it is seeking to move away from the
Bush administration’s emphasis on math and reading in NCLB—and the
consequent “teaching to the test” imposed on teachers—to focus more on
college preparedness. But under conditions where school districts,
particularly poorer ones, will be forced to compete for inadequate
resources, the end result will be an overall dumbing down of public
education.

Additionally, the stress placed on graduating students who are
“career-ready” makes clear that the political establishment does not
view affordable, high-quality college education as an opportunity that
should be available to all young people. Rather, in working class and
poorer districts, high schools should be geared towards producing
workers for low-wage jobs.

In opposition to the interests of their own membership, teachers
unions have been complicit in imposing the bipartisan attack on public
education.

Last December, the Detroit Federation of Teachers union forced through
a concessions contract with a concerted campaign of intimidation and
threats directed against teachers. The DFT worked closely with the
school district, the media, and the Democratic Party at both the local
and national level.

Included in the rotten deal was a “Termination Incentive Plan,”
proposed by DFT leaders, which amounts to a $10,000 pay cut for
full-time teachers over two years at a rate of $500 a month. The plan
was presented as a loan that the DFT claims will be returned when
teachers retire or are laid off. In reality, it is aimed at compelling
older, more senior teachers to leave their jobs, allowing the district
to hire new teachers at lower pay and with no rights.

Other concessions in the pact include cuts to health benefits, a pay
freeze and the imposition of “peer review” and merit pay. In line with
a bill passed by the Michigan state legislature, the contract also
opens the way for the expansion of “priority schools”—i.e., charter
schools.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten took
out a full-page ad in the New York Times in an effort to browbeat DFT
members into accepting the contract. She argued that it was better for
teachers to accept the attacks on wages, benefits and rights with the
help of the unions, instead of in opposition to the union bureaucrats.

In a speech January 12 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,
Weingarten called on union members and school district management to
collaborate in imposing such contracts on teachers, along with
“accountability” schemes like merit pay.

According to the AFT web site’s report on the Weingarten speech, the
DFT president “singled out several school districts that have made
positive changes because of their trusting and respectful
labor-management relationships, including in New Haven, Connecticut;
St. Paul, Minnesota; and Detroit.”

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/educ-f08.shtml

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