A coalition of Los Angeles parents, teachers and public school advocates are reaching out to others in LA. They report that;
The LAUSD school board will consider a resolution for “Educational Equity and Achievement for all Title I Students” next Tuesday, November 12 at 4pm. This resolution seeks to restore Title I funding to children attending schools at the former 40% poverty threshold. Fully funding entitled schools at the historical threshold can be achieved from carryover monies alone; not a single dime need be diverted from the coffers of any current Title I school.
YOU can help restore these funds by signing this petition, alerting school board members and staff to your endorsement of this imperative. The school board needs to hear from the community: please sign the petition right now!! Every single member of our diverse, deserving local public school district will benefit from your willingness to speak out. Thank you.
There is another way to help if you live or work near downtown Los Angeles. Please turn out at 333 S Beaudry Avenue (90017), before 4pm on Tuesday, November 12, 2013. Express your support for funding entitled schools at the former 40% poverty threshold; express your support for our Title I learners! If ever there was a population that deserves full, efficient utilization of federal resources, it is this one. Please help us restore entitled funds to our children who most need it.
You can also reach the petition via the following link: https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-board-members-stop-taking-money-away-from-our-kids-please-vote-for-educational-equity-and-achievement-for-all-title-i-students-resolution-on-11-12-13
If you know of others in LA, please pass along this important message
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am not able to identify who the members are of the Resolutions Advocacy Group which posted this petition. Although I am behind this request for the LAUSD BoE to fund Title 1, I would like to know more about the petitioners. Pelto who is the advocate is well known in Conn. but why would he foster a Ca. petition?
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Thanks Sara for clearing this up. Those of us who do are not incognito appreciate knowin gwheo says what.
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typo…who says what. I have signed your recommended petition.
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I don’t know who Jon Pelto is either, but I’m new to all this. I am a mother at Dahlia Heights Elementary. We are consistently at 47-49% qualifying students in the Fall (when the numbers are sent in to qualify for Title I funds next year), and above 50% by Spring semester (the reasons for this go beyond this topic and space for comment). Now that we lost our Title I funds, we no longer have tutoring and homework club and free afterschool care with additional instructional time.
When I pick up my kid after school now, I see the children of the “haves” (1/2 our population) in a pay-to-play sports program, and the children of the “have-nots” (the other 1/2) sitting on the sidelines. It is abhorrent to to me that my lovely small elementary school, diverse just like my community, is inadvertently modeling economic segregation to 8-year-olds.
I was happy when I found this grassroots group of concerned parents. They have analyzed the numbers (the publicly available schoolsite data, and the incomplete information the District has provided in response to their requests). And it is evident that the remaining 11 schools devastated by these cuts can have their funding restored solely from the excessive Administrative and Carryover costs the District retains. The schools that are still receiving funds are receiving a higher per-student allocation than we used to pre-ARRA/stimulus years. That’s fine. We just need enough to get our kids off the sidelines and back studying to have the opportunity this District says is their civil right.
I hope the Title I parents from my school will be permitted the opportunity to address our elected Board Members on Tuesday and ask for their mercy and for their vote to restore the dollars our children bring to the District but that have been taken from them unnecessarily.
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Rachel,
Jon Pelto is helping me on the site.
Diane
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At some of the poorest schools in LAUSD, the amount of money doled out by the district has decreased considerably. Clearly, the money is NOT going to the poorest Title I schools. The abuse and corruption is staggering. The lack of accountability is beyond profane.
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Oh good! Someone else seemed to question his credentials. I do not. The more help you get, the better. Godspeed!
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Dear Ravitch Admirers:
A coalition of parents from several schools affected by the LAUSD’s title I funding policy changes, have been working on this issue for two years now — since the time of the overnight-defunding. I agree the generic name of the petitioning group could incite suspicion. I believe many of the parents would prefer their identities be private in consideration of their families. In all honesty, I did not write this petition and might have worded things a little differently. But when working with a coalition, one accepts distributed responsibility: it seemed good-enough to me.
Since a question has been asked, let me add my voice, for what it’s worth. You can read nearly a hundred of my postings; you (will) know where I stand. I attest to the commitment of this petition group to equitably fund all (title I) entitled children in LAUSD. You may disagree with this attempt to achieve equity. But I assert my opinion that this group is acting in good faith to make an honorable effort to remedy social injustice.
Please read a little more about this initiative here: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
…and I invite you to read more of the entries in this blog to form some sort of opinion as to whom I might choose to work with.
Thanks.
p.s. It takes five of the education-devoted to cover the efforts of the formidable Diane Ravitch! Mr Pelto is one of this coalition asked to help Dr Ravitch in her time of ailment.
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Rachel’s report is both disheartening and fairly common in Title 1 schools. It is far from equitable that students be treated so differently.
Please Racherl, be sure to be in line early so you can get a speakers form to address the Board.
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Saw a flyer stating that John Deasy makes $1257 per day.
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Deasy came on at app. $275 a year with car+driver, housing and a very generous pension. He has what is a at will conract for the show boats. Unles they added one, he has no severance pkg. they say Admiral B got 2 million to go. He started talkin about breaking the beast into smaller districts and two days later he was tossed out. I know this whole reform thing is supposed to be modeled on business paradigms, but why would any company be help bent on bankrupting itself?
I mean that is what Deasy is doing. Closing schools, squandering funds , recklessly slashing and burning his way through any human lives. Making bank of his fancy law firm because LAUSD uses ur tax money to defend Deasy’s faux pas.
While I admit I know little about business, I do know about grifters. My old man was a confidence man. Not a very good one. But frankly, I am not confident Deasyis much better.
Of course my dad was flipping burgers at Denny’s at Deady’s age, which is whe he died, btw. Deasy has been at LAUSD 3 years. He presently makes $330k and I bet he got some nice change from the Apple -Pearson Sting despite what a sloppy sting it was.
No wonder Aquino and Deasy bailed on teaching! These mutha-f****** don’t know how to plan their way outta of a paper bag! And ya know they were no boy scouts, if they were, it was only suit deep. .But ya gotta give it to Deasy is is adept in crisis mode and he has a knack for turning his screw ups into something that ultimately scores points for his side. Frankly, I think he is an arrogant diva who can afford a PR foirm that vaguely covers his a**
Then there is the unseemly media bias in his favor. It is so over the top I dunno why we get all crazy bc none of my studers would by this crap, nor will their parents. They may not be as educated as well as Deasy…whith his dubious credentials. Yes, yes, we should all arch an eyebrow and start asking some questions.
Bet we pay for all that and his stylist too! You know he got one. That whole Clark kent look he started off with? Come on! If someone doesn’t beat me to the punch, I plan to place him and his little buddies under citizen’s arrest next time I am in LA.
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This sounds good, but no situation represents the adage “the devil is in the details” better than LAUSD. With a superintendent that dismisses board resolutions as “unfunded mandates,” my concern about this resolution is that there is no directive on where the money will come from and no safety net for the highest need schools. There is a huge difference between a 49% poor school and a 100% poor school. With more schools qualifying, will each school simply receive a smaller piece of the pie? We don’t know because the resolution does not outline a methodology, source of funds or accountability measures. It is ripe for political shenanigans.
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On first reading about this here, it certainly seemed like the right thing to support this move. I didn’t really understand it though, with questions such as “don’t the feds decide what poverty level Title I funds go to?” And “What is being done with the money saved by changing the threshold from 40% to 50%? Going to pet projects of Deasy?”
I just read an article about the issue in a local LA newspaper, that sheds more light upon the issue: http://www.dailynews.com/article/20131109/NEWS/131109410
Now I am not against the purpose of the petition and resolution to be discussed at the Board meeting Tuesday, but not for it either. I would say I am undecided. It is not a clear cut and dried situation.
When LAUSD made the change in threshold from 40% to 50%, what was done with the money saved by excluding schools falling in the 40-50% range? No, it didn’t go to Deasy. It meant that more Title I funds went to those schools where 50% or more of the students families are considered poverty level. Of course the schools don’t like it who lost their Title I money by the change. I understand that, and sympathize with them. But changing the threshold back to 40% now would reduce Title I funds to the schools over 50%, in order to also include again those over 40%. I am sure the schools with a poverty rate more than 50% would not be happy with the proposed change, losing some of their Title I funds, in order to also include the 40-50% range.
So, there are really two sides to the issue. It is not as made out in the OP.
The main proponent of the change is LAUSD Board member Tamar Galatzan, who is no friend of ours, one of the two most stalwart Deasy supporters, along with Monica Garcia. The co-sponsor, of the resolution, however, is a board member we like-Monica Ratliff. What likely unites the two ladies (Galatzan and Ratliff) on this issue is that they both represent the San Fernando Valley, where it seems many of the 40-50% schools are located, and seem to be complaining a lot about having lost their Title I money. Of course they are going to represent their constituents.
If I was on the board, I don’t know how I would vote on this. Points could be made for both sides of the issue. I am not signing the petition.
Another issue about Title I, which many might not be aware of: Lame duck deputy supe Jaime Aquino made the decision a couple of years ago to not allow Title I funds in LAUSD to be used for arts instruction, although federal guidelines allow it. That has been district policy since, and has been disastrous for arts education in LAUSD, the same distrct that passed a resolution called “Arts at the Core” some months ago (which seems to be only nice words, that they do not really mean), I sure would like to see the board reverse that very bad policy of Jaime’s, although probably not too likely with their new pro-Deasy slant.
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Mike, did you read the essay highlighted above? This one: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
It may not add more of the hard information you are looking for, but it is certainly available. Allow me to try to address some of the issues you raise.
Most important, is the presumption that funding the 40-49% poverty concentration (pc) schools will necessitate “robbing Peter to pay Paul” — or as you put it: “I am sure the schools with a poverty rate more than 50% would not be happy with the proposed change, losing some of their Title I funds, in order to also include the 40-50% range.”
I’ll get to a substantive argument against this point in a moment. But from an emotional vantage, which is what you are channeling when you say ‘I am sure the schools …would not be happy with…’, let me just state for the record that my own child attends a 50%+ school and I am more than happy with this change. This is just one family at one school, and obviously isn’t very weighty in some sense. But it is not the case that everyone is strictly aligned regarding this according to what happens to be in their very own pocket. No way. This is a question of distributing title I funds equitably to children and schools that *need it*. And it is a question of challenging the presumption that we cannot “afford” this equitable distribution.
So here’s the more important argument: these 40-49% schools can be funded with the title I monies to which they are entitled *without taking a single solitary dime from any current title I school — that is from any school of 50%+ pc*. This resolution does not seek to instruct how the policy would be implemented because this is not in the purview of the board (this is perhaps debatable but is at least a conservative reading of the balance of power). However, from looking at past budgets, it is hard to see why monies that are currently going to title I schools directly need be in any way affected.
The amount of money needed to provide supplemental title I funds to schools of 40-49% poverty concentration is less than $1.4M.
By studying past budgets the following appears to be true. Note that attempts to request numbers from the district to clarify this research have all been rebuffed. But to the best of our understanding, the amount of money budgeted for _administrative_ title I costs last year (these have not yet been budgeted for the coming year we just counted for title I-eligibility, so this contrast is an estimate as it uses figures from two different years) is *five* times higher than the entire additional amount needed for these 40-49% schools. The amount of money budgeted for _indirect_ costs is *six* times as great as what is needed for these schools. And the amount of money budgeted for _”Other”_ programs, *including monies carried over from the previous year that were _just never spent to ameliorate poverty at all_*, is approximately *seventy-nine* times that $1.4M needed to provide schools of 40%-49% poverty concentration with title I funds. The amount of title I funds devoted to “Other” programs rather than being given to the kids in need at our schools directly, was $110.4M in 2012-13. That’s fully >>_34%_<< of LAUSD's entire 2012-13 $328.7M title I "receipts" (the district "bills" the state for title I funds, which come ultimately from the federal government). More than one-third of the title I funds received by LAUSD from the federal government for the purpose of supplementing academic needs among our economically disadvantaged children, did not go to our kids directly.
More questions: "don’t the feds decide what poverty level Title I funds go to?”. No, they do not. The guidelines are quite loosely provided about some stringent limits. Schools with pc above 75% must receive title I funds. Schools with pc down to 35% may receive title I funds. How the local educational agency chooses to distribute funds within these outer limits is up to them. LAUSD has a long history of funding title I schools with pc from 40-65% at 75% the rate of funding for schools of pc 65%+ (that is, the per capita funding rate is less in schools of lower poverty concentration). This resolution seeks to return that historical distribution that was altered in the wake of the aftermath of title I distributions that were temporarily inflated as a result of federal stimulus funds, that LAUSD failed to budget for the cessation of. Please see the above-referenced article for a lot of references to the title I rules and history.
You also ask: “What is being done with the money saved by changing the threshold from 40% to 50%? Going to pet projects of Deasy?” ….. Please see the "more substantive" response above. It would be awfully nice to know what that $110.4M "Other projects" is for. Some of it includes funds carried over between years. This may not be legal. What the rest of it is for, is entirely unclear. It would be nice if the LAUSD budget office received several thousand inquiries regarding this. Ours have gone unanswered. Why the federal government is not more curious about the disposition of their monies is also rather unclear to me. There was a federal audit recently of title III monies; perhaps the auditors should expand their scrutiny?
You claim that upon halting title I distributions to schools of 40-49% pc the money saved "…didn’t go to Deasy. It meant that more Title I funds went to those schools where 50% or more of the students families are considered poverty level." With all due respect I must ask: how do you know? When funding was cut for the 40-49% schools, the resulting per capita rate for both 65%+ and <65% pc schools both remained higher than prior to the artificially augmented stimulus years. There has been an unbroken ramping up of per capita title I funds yearly. In what way does it seem that unspent 40-49% funds went to augment 65%+ funds? In fact, during every one of these years before and after the cessation of 40-49% pc title I funding, the yearly carryover in title I funds was adequate to cover the amount needed to fund the 40-49% schools. In what way does money saved in this way equate to augmented funds for 65%+ schools?
I agree there are two sides to this issue. But they are not staked out across a divide between schools. All schools are in the same boat here; we are all educating children of very limited means. And the title I-eligible students in schools of 40% pc are just exactly as poor as the children in schools of 80% pc. An argument could be made that the students attending schools of middling poverty concentration could need comparatively more rather than fewer anti-poverty funds to level their own particular playing field. I have not seen this argument made theoretically or explicitly but it is certainly commented about among families informally; this is what it feels like to us in "the field". And yet note that the funds which would be disbursed to the 40-49% schools are a fraction that dispersed to the 65%+ schools anyway (25% fewer funds per capita go to schools <65% pc).
As for the reputation of the two sponsoring board members, recall that this is a complicated world we live in. I have had some conversations with the one "we like" that caused quite a bit of consternation in terms of what "we like". That's just me and YMMV, but sometimes it does not serve well to look deeper for motivation. Sometimes one just treats the symptoms.
Conversely, the sponsoring board member "we do not like" (and I *so* do agree with you here!!!), is nevertheless sponsoring a resolution that increases educational equity. I may disagree with most everything she does in general and in specific. But here, for whatever reasons, she is, IMHO, right. And I choose not to look deeper than the immediate action on the surface. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, thousands of children would be ill-served. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, we might miss the opportunity to shed some light on those $110.4M worth of "other programs". Some greater accountability for title I funds would be rather excellent. Taxpayers across the nation will benefit from that.
But as I said, I do agree there are two sides to this issue, but I did not complete the explication of where they fall. They do not fall on either side of this 50% threshold. That would be pitting friend against friend. Again, the children of poverty on either side of this divide are just as poor regardless of the divide. And the monies do not have to come from one to support the other.
No, the divide is between the children in our schools, the children who are *entitled to these funds*, and the adults disbursing these funds somewhere, anywhere other than _to these children directly_. The problem is with the opacity of the LAUSD budget, and the near-impossibility of following its money. Perhaps there is not enough money and we're all just f-ed. But until the LAUSD budget office explains that carryover that is larger than the funds needed for the 40-49%, or explains the "other programs" or releases a full and detailed line-item accounting of title I funds, I will be hard-pressed to see any division other than that which delineates the children of LAUSD from the central administration of LAUSD.
Finally, you mentioned that 'most of the 40-49% schools are located in the valley'. At the time of defunding that was true; 23 schools were defunded of which — can't find my notes for the precise figures on this but perhaps another will chime in with them — many if not most were indeed in the valley at this time. However subsequently, most of these valley schools became independent charters for the express purpose of receiving these title I funds directly from the state. LAUSD is no longer "billed" by these schools for title I funds; they receive them directly from the state. These schools are gone from the LAUSD system, as a direct result of this defunding move. For this current year there are just 16 schools in the 40-49% pc category. 1 is in LAUSD2, 8 in LAUSD3, 4 in LAUSD4, 1 in LAUSD5, 1 in LAUSD6, 1 in LAUSD6. You are correct that the majority of schools fall in the valley, though the actual number of affected students are very nearly equal in LAUSD3 and LAUSD4. No matter, the point is: support is more complicated than a simple accounting of number and location of schools.
Finally, note this lovely little factlet. While LAUSD is pretzeling itself over this issue of poverty concentration and some sliding point at which desperate need is pinpointed, charter schools blithely bill the state for per capita title I funding *completely independent of poverty concentration*. That's right, if you're a charter school of 2000 and 3 of your students are title I-eligible, you'll receive those title I funds for the asking.
So there's another divide. But it's not between the +/- 50% poverty concentrated.
Please Mike and any/everyone else — please follow the links in this article for some primary sources on poverty I funding: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
Please ask more questions if necessary.
Please sign this petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-board-members-stop-taking-money-away-from-our-kids-please-vote-for-educational-equity-and-achievement-for-all-title-i-students-resolution-on-11-12-13
And please come out to the board meeting this Tuesday at 4pm to request that LAUSD stop robbing the 40-49% "Peter" to pay for the LAUSD downtown-administrator's "other projects-Paul".
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Mike–
Short answer: We’re not asking the Board to rob Peter to pay Paul. We’re asking the Board to stop robbing Peter and Paul to pay John.
A bunch of the affected schools went charter to get their Title I funds separate from LAUSD rules.
Now it will only cost $1.3mil to cover the students at the remaining schools. That amount is dwarfed by the carryover and by “Administrative” and “Indirect” costs that the CDE reports swing wildly from year-to-year. Why does it cost $14mil one year and over $60mil another year for the LAUSD to “administer” these funds? No answer yet from Budget Services.
Rather than dismissing this Resolution because of sentiment against one of its sponsors, this would be an opportune moment to reject the politics of division and the tactics of diversion which stymie this Board. Let’s step up for the kids in need and then keep the pressure on for accountability from this Administration.
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Mike, did you read the essay highlighted above? This one: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
It may not add more of the hard information you are looking for, but it is certainly available. Allow me to try to address some of the issues you raise.
Most important, is the presumption that funding the 40-49% poverty concentration (pc) schools will necessitate “robbing Peter to pay Paul” — or as you put it: “I am sure the schools with a poverty rate more than 50% would not be happy with the proposed change, losing some of their Title I funds, in order to also include the 40-50% range.”
I’ll get to a substantive argument against this point in a moment. But from an emotional vantage, which is what you are channeling when you say ‘I am sure the schools …would not be happy with…’, let me just state for the record that my own child attends a 50%+ school and I am more than happy with this change. This is just one family at one school, and obviously isn’t very weighty in some sense. But it is not the case that everyone is strictly aligned regarding this according to what happens to be in their very own pocket. No way. This is a question of distributing title I funds equitably to children and schools that *need it*. And it is a question of challenging the presumption that we cannot “afford” this equitable distribution.
So here’s the more important argument: these 40-49% schools can be funded with the title I monies to which they are entitled *without taking a single solitary dime from any current title I school — that is from any school of 50%+ pc*. This resolution does not seek to instruct how the policy would be implemented because this is not in the purview of the board (this is perhaps debatable but is at least a conservative reading of the balance of power). However, from looking at past budgets, it is hard to see why monies that are currently going to title I schools directly need be in any way affected.
The amount of money needed to provide supplemental title I funds to schools of 40-49% poverty concentration is less than $1.4M.
By studying past budgets the following appears to be true. Note that attempts to request numbers from the district to clarify this research have all been rebuffed. But to the best of our understanding, the amount of money budgeted for _administrative_ title I costs last year (these have not yet been budgeted for the coming year we just counted for title I-eligibility, so this contrast is an estimate as it uses figures from two different years) is *five* times higher than the entire additional amount needed for these 40-49% schools. The amount of money budgeted for _indirect_ costs is *six* times as great as what is needed for these schools. And the amount of money budgeted for _”Other”_ programs, *including monies carried over from the previous year that were _just never spent to ameliorate poverty at all_*, is approximately *seventy-nine* times that $1.4M needed to provide schools of 40%-49% poverty concentration with title I funds. The amount of title I funds devoted to “Other” programs rather than being given to the kids in need at our schools directly, was $110.4M in 2012-13. That’s fully >>_34%_<< of LAUSD's entire 2012-13 $328.7M title I "receipts" (the district "bills" the state for title I funds, which come ultimately from the federal government). More than one-third of the title I funds received by LAUSD from the federal government for the purpose of supplementing academic needs among our economically disadvantaged children, did not go to our kids directly.
More questions: "don’t the feds decide what poverty level Title I funds go to?”. No, they do not. The guidelines are quite loosely provided about some stringent limits. Schools with pc above 75% must receive title I funds. Schools with pc down to 35% may receive title I funds. How the local educational agency chooses to distribute funds within these outer limits is up to them. LAUSD has a long history of funding title I schools with pc from 40-65% at 75% the rate of funding for schools of pc 65%+ (that is, the per capita funding rate is less in schools of lower poverty concentration). This resolution seeks to return that historical distribution that was altered in the wake of the aftermath of title I distributions that were temporarily inflated as a result of federal stimulus funds, that LAUSD failed to budget for the cessation of. Please see the above-referenced article for a lot of references to the title I rules and history.
You also ask: “What is being done with the money saved by changing the threshold from 40% to 50%? Going to pet projects of Deasy?” ….. Please see the "more substantive" response above. It would be awfully nice to know what that $110.4M "Other projects" is for. Some of it includes funds carried over between years. This may not be legal. What the rest of it is for, is entirely unclear. It would be nice if the LAUSD budget office received several thousand inquiries regarding this. Ours have gone unanswered. Why the federal government is not more curious about the disposition of their monies is also rather unclear to me. There was a federal audit recently of title III monies; perhaps the auditors should expand their scrutiny?
You claim that upon halting title I distributions to schools of 40-49% pc the money saved "…didn’t go to Deasy. It meant that more Title I funds went to those schools where 50% or more of the students families are considered poverty level." With all due respect I must ask: how do you know? When funding was cut for the 40-49% schools, the resulting per capita rate for both 65%+ and <65% pc schools both remained higher than prior to the artificially augmented stimulus years. There has been an unbroken ramping up of per capita title I funds yearly. In what way does it seem that unspent 40-49% funds went to augment 65%+ funds? In fact, during every one of these years before and after the cessation of 40-49% pc title I funding, the yearly carryover in title I funds was adequate to cover the amount needed to fund the 40-49% schools. In what way does money saved in this way equate to augmented funds for 65%+ schools?
I agree there are two sides to this issue. But they are not staked out across a divide between schools. All schools are in the same boat here; we are all educating children of very limited means. And the title I-eligible students in schools of 40% pc are just exactly as poor as the children in schools of 80% pc. An argument could be made that the students attending schools of middling poverty concentration could need comparatively more rather than fewer anti-poverty funds to level their own particular playing field. I have not seen this argument made theoretically or explicitly but it is certainly commented about among families informally; this is what it feels like to us in "the field". And yet note that the funds which would be disbursed to the 40-49% schools are a fraction that dispersed to the 65%+ schools anyway (25% fewer funds per capita go to schools <65% pc).
As for the reputation of the two sponsoring board members, recall that this is a complicated world we live in. I have had some conversations with the one "we like" that caused quite a bit of consternation in terms of what "we like". That's just me and YMMV, but sometimes it does not serve well to look deeper for motivation. Sometimes one just treats the symptoms.
Conversely, the sponsoring board member "we do not like" (and I *so* do agree with you here!!!), is nevertheless sponsoring a resolution that increases educational equity. I may disagree with most everything she does in general and in specific. But here, for whatever reasons, she is, IMHO, right. And I choose not to look deeper than the immediate action on the surface. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, thousands of children would be ill-served. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, we might miss the opportunity to shed some light on those $110.4M worth of "other programs". Some greater accountability for title I funds would be rather excellent. Taxpayers across the nation will benefit from that.
But as I said, I do agree there are two sides to this issue, but I did not complete the explication of where they fall. They do not fall on either side of this 50% threshold. That would be pitting friend against friend. Again, the children of poverty on either side of this divide are just as poor regardless of the divide. And the monies do not have to come from one to support the other.
No, the divide is between the children in our schools, the children who are *entitled to these funds*, and the adults disbursing these funds somewhere, anywhere other than _to these children directly_. The problem is with the opacity of the LAUSD budget, and the near-impossibility of following its money. Perhaps there is not enough money and we're all just f-ed. But until the LAUSD budget office explains that carryover that is larger than the funds needed for the 40-49%, or explains the "other programs" or releases a full and detailed line-item accounting of title I funds, I will be hard-pressed to see any division other than that which delineates the children of LAUSD from the central administration of LAUSD.
Finally, you mentioned that 'most of the 40-49% schools are located in the valley'. At the time of defunding that was true; 23 schools were defunded of which — can't find my notes for the precise figures on this but perhaps another will chime in with them — many if not most were indeed in the valley at this time. However subsequently, most of these valley schools became affiliated charters for the express purpose of receiving these title I funds directly from the state. LAUSD is no longer "billed" by these schools for title I funds; they receive them directly from the state. These schools are gone from the LAUSD system, as a direct result of this defunding move. For this current year there are just 16 schools in the 40-49% pc category. 1 is in LAUSD2, 8 in LAUSD3, 4 in LAUSD4, 1 in LAUSD5, 1 in LAUSD6, 1 in LAUSD6. You are correct that the majority of schools fall in the valley, though the actual number of affected students are very nearly equal in LAUSD3 and LAUSD4. No matter, the point is: support is more complicated than a simple accounting of number and location of schools.
Finally, note this lovely little factlet. While LAUSD is pretzeling itself over this issue of poverty concentration and some sliding point at which desperate need is pinpointed, charter schools blithely bill the state for per capita title I funding *completely independent of poverty concentration*. That's right, if you're a charter school of 2000 and 3 of your students are title I-eligible, you'll receive those title I funds for the asking.
So there's another divide. But it's not between the +/- 50% poverty concentrated.
Please Mike and any/everyone else — please follow the links in this article for some primary sources on poverty I funding: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
Please ask more questions if necessary.
Please sign this petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-board-members-stop-taking-money-away-from-our-kids-please-vote-for-educational-equity-and-achievement-for-all-title-i-students-resolution-on-11-12-13
And please come out to the board meeting this Tuesday at 4pm to request that LAUSD stop robbing the 40-49% "Peter" to pay for the LAUSD downtown-administrator's "other projects-Paul".
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Mike, did you read the essay highlighted above? This one: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
It may not add more of the hard information you are looking for, but it is certainly available. Allow me to try to address some of the issues you raise.
Most important, is the presumption that funding the 40-49% poverty concentration (pc) schools will necessitate “robbing Peter to pay Paul” — or as you put it: “I am sure the schools with a poverty rate more than 50% would not be happy with the proposed change, losing some of their Title I funds, in order to also include the 40-50% range.”
I’ll get to a substantive argument against this point in a moment. But from an emotional vantage, which is what you are channeling when you say ‘I am sure the schools …would not be happy with…’, let me just state for the record that my own child attends a 50%+ school and I am more than happy with this change. This is just one family at one school, and obviously isn’t very weighty in some sense. But it is not the case that everyone is strictly aligned regarding this according to what happens to be in their very own pocket. No way. This is a question of distributing title I funds equitably to children and schools that *need it*. And it is a question of challenging the presumption that we cannot “afford” this equitable distribution.
So here’s the more important argument: these 40-49% schools can be funded with the title I monies to which they are entitled *without taking a single solitary dime from any current title I school — that is from any school of 50%+ pc*. This resolution does not seek to instruct how the policy would be implemented because this is not in the purview of the board (this is perhaps debatable but is at least a conservative reading of the balance of power). However, from looking at past budgets, it is hard to see why monies that are currently going to title I schools directly need be in any way affected.
The amount of money needed to provide supplemental title I funds to schools of 40-49% poverty concentration is less than $1.4M.
By studying past budgets the following appears to be true. Note that attempts to request numbers from the district to clarify this research have all been rebuffed. But to the best of our understanding, the amount of money budgeted for _administrative_ title I costs last year (these have not yet been budgeted for the coming year we just counted for title I-eligibility, so this contrast is an estimate as it uses figures from two different years) is *five* times higher than the entire additional amount needed for these 40-49% schools. The amount of money budgeted for _indirect_ costs is *six* times as great as what is needed for these schools. And the amount of money budgeted for _”Other”_ programs, *including monies carried over from the previous year that were _just never spent to ameliorate poverty at all_*, is approximately *seventy-nine* times that $1.4M needed to provide schools of 40%-49% poverty concentration with title I funds. The amount of title I funds devoted to “Other” programs rather than being given to the kids in need at our schools directly, was $110.4M in 2012-13. That’s fully >>_34%_<< of LAUSD's entire 2012-13 $328.7M title I "receipts" (the district "bills" the state for title I funds, which come ultimately from the federal government). More than one-third of the title I funds received by LAUSD from the federal government for the purpose of supplementing academic needs among our economically disadvantaged children, did not go to our kids directly.
More questions: "don’t the feds decide what poverty level Title I funds go to?”. No, they do not. The guidelines are quite loosely provided about some stringent limits. Schools with pc above 75% must receive title I funds. Schools with pc down to 35% may receive title I funds. How the local educational agency chooses to distribute funds within these outer limits is up to them. LAUSD has a long history of funding title I schools with pc from 40-65% at 75% the rate of funding for schools of pc 65%+ (that is, the per capita funding rate is less in schools of lower poverty concentration). This resolution seeks to return that historical distribution that was altered in the wake of the aftermath of title I distributions that were temporarily inflated as a result of federal stimulus funds, that LAUSD failed to budget for the cessation of. Please see the above-referenced article for a lot of references to the title I rules and history.
You also ask: “What is being done with the money saved by changing the threshold from 40% to 50%? Going to pet projects of Deasy?” ….. Please see the "more substantive" response above. It would be awfully nice to know what that $110.4M "Other projects" is for. Some of it includes funds carried over between years. This may not be legal. What the rest of it is for, is entirely unclear. It would be nice if the LAUSD budget office received several thousand inquiries regarding this. Ours have gone unanswered. Why the federal government is not more curious about the disposition of their monies is also rather unclear to me. There was a federal audit recently of title III monies; perhaps the auditors should expand their scrutiny?
You claim that upon halting title I distributions to schools of 40-49% pc the money saved "…didn’t go to Deasy. It meant that more Title I funds went to those schools where 50% or more of the students families are considered poverty level." With all due respect I must ask: how do you know? When funding was cut for the 40-49% schools, the resulting per capita rate for both 65%+ and <65% pc schools both remained higher than prior to the artificially augmented stimulus years. There has been an unbroken ramping up of per capita title I funds yearly. In what way does it seem that unspent 40-49% funds went to augment 65%+ funds? In fact, during every one of these years before and after the cessation of 40-49% pc title I funding, the yearly carryover in title I funds was adequate to cover the amount needed to fund the 40-49% schools. In what way does money saved in this way equate to augmented funds for 65%+ schools?
I agree there are two sides to this issue. But they are not staked out across a divide between schools. All schools are in the same boat here; we are all educating children of very limited means. And the title I-eligible students in schools of 40% pc are just exactly as poor as the children in schools of 80% pc. An argument could be made that the students attending schools of middling poverty concentration could need comparatively more rather than fewer anti-poverty funds to level their own particular playing field. I have not seen this argument made theoretically or explicitly but it is certainly commented about among families informally; this is what it feels like to us in "the field". And yet note that the funds which would be disbursed to the 40-49% schools are a fraction that dispersed to the 65%+ schools anyway (25% fewer funds per capita go to schools <65% pc).
As for the reputation of the two sponsoring board members, recall that this is a complicated world we live in. I have had some conversations with the one "we like" that caused quite a bit of consternation in terms of what "we like". That's just me and YMMV, but sometimes it does not serve well to look deeper for motivation. Sometimes one just treats the symptoms.
Conversely, the sponsoring board member "we do not like" (and I *so* do agree with you here!!!), is nevertheless sponsoring a resolution that increases educational equity. I may disagree with most everything she does in general and in specific. But here, for whatever reasons, she is, IMHO, right. And I choose not to look deeper than the immediate action on the surface. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, thousands of children would be ill-served. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, we might miss the opportunity to shed some light on those $110.4M worth of "other programs". Some greater accountability for title I funds would be rather excellent. Taxpayers across the nation will benefit from that.
But as I said, I do agree there are two sides to this issue, but I did not complete the explication of where they fall. They do not fall on either side of this 50% threshold. That would be pitting friend against friend. Again, the children of poverty on either side of this divide are just as poor regardless of the divide. And the monies do not have to come from one to support the other.
No, the divide is between the children in our schools, the children who are *entitled to these funds*, and the adults disbursing these funds somewhere, anywhere other than _to these children directly_. The problem is with the opacity of the LAUSD budget, and the near-impossibility of following its money. Perhaps there is not enough money and we're all just f-ed. But until the LAUSD budget office explains that carryover that is larger than the funds needed for the 40-49%, or explains the "other programs" or releases a full and detailed line-item accounting of title I funds, I will be hard-pressed to see any division other than that which delineates the children of LAUSD from the central administration of LAUSD.
Finally, you mentioned that 'most of the 40-49% schools are located in the valley'. At the time of defunding that was true; 23 schools were defunded of which — can't find my notes for the precise figures on this but perhaps another will chime in with them — many if not most were indeed in the valley at this time. However subsequently, most of these valley schools became affiliated charters for the express purpose of receiving these title I funds directly from the state. LAUSD is no longer "billed" by these schools for title I funds; they receive them directly from the state. These schools are gone from the LAUSD system, as a direct result of this defunding move. For this current year there are just 16 schools in the 40-49% pc category. 1 is in LAUSD2, 8 in LAUSD3, 4 in LAUSD4, 1 in LAUSD5, 1 in LAUSD6, 1 in LAUSD6. You are correct that the majority of schools fall in the valley, though the actual number of affected students are very nearly equal in LAUSD3 and LAUSD4. No matter, the point is: support is more complicated than a simple accounting of number and location of schools.
Finally, note this lovely little factlet. While LAUSD is pretzeling itself over this issue of poverty concentration and some sliding point at which desperate need is pinpointed, charter schools blithely bill the state for per capita title I funding *completely independent of poverty concentration*. That's right, if you're a charter school of 2000 and 3 of your students are title I-eligible, you'll receive those title I funds for the asking.
So there's another divide. But it's not between the +/- 50% poverty concentrated.
Please Mike and any/everyone else — please follow the links in this article for some primary sources on poverty I funding: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
Please ask more questions if necessary.
Please sign this petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-board-members-stop-taking-money-away-from-our-kids-please-vote-for-educational-equity-and-achievement-for-all-title-i-students-resolution-on-11-12-13
And please come out to the board meeting this Tuesday at 4pm to request that LAUSD stop robbing the 40-49% "Peter" to pay for the LAUSD downtown-administrator's "other projects-Paul".
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I will attempt to post this in two sections as I am having trouble with Dr Ravitch’s server:
Mike, did you read the essay highlighted above? This one: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
It may not add more of the hard information you are looking for, but it is certainly available. Allow me to try to address some of the issues you raise.
Most important, is the presumption that funding the 40-49% poverty concentration (pc) schools will necessitate “robbing Peter to pay Paul” — or as you put it: “I am sure the schools with a poverty rate more than 50% would not be happy with the proposed change, losing some of their Title I funds, in order to also include the 40-50% range.”
I’ll get to a substantive argument against this point in a moment. But from an emotional vantage, which is what you are channeling when you say ‘I am sure the schools …would not be happy with…’, let me just state for the record that my own child attends a 50%+ school and I am more than happy with this change. This is just one family at one school, and obviously isn’t very weighty in some sense. But it is not the case that everyone is strictly aligned regarding this according to what happens to be in their very own pocket. No way. This is a question of distributing title I funds equitably to children and schools that *need it*. And it is a question of challenging the presumption that we cannot “afford” this equitable distribution.
So here’s the more important argument: these 40-49% schools can be funded with the title I monies to which they are entitled *without taking a single solitary dime from any current title I school — that is from any school of 50%+ pc*. This resolution does not seek to instruct how the policy would be implemented because this is not in the purview of the board (this is perhaps debatable but is at least a conservative reading of the balance of power). However, from looking at past budgets, it is hard to see why monies that are currently going to title I schools directly need be in any way affected.
The amount of money needed to provide supplemental title I funds to schools of 40-49% poverty concentration is less than $1.4M.
By studying past budgets the following appears to be true. Note that attempts to request numbers from the district to clarify this research have all been rebuffed. But to the best of our understanding, the amount of money budgeted for _administrative_ title I costs last year (these have not yet been budgeted for the coming year we just counted for title I-eligibility, so this contrast is an estimate as it uses figures from two different years) is *five* times higher than the entire additional amount needed for these 40-49% schools. The amount of money budgeted for _indirect_ costs is *six* times as great as what is needed for these schools. And the amount of money budgeted for _”Other”_ programs, *including monies carried over from the previous year that were _just never spent to ameliorate poverty at all_*, is approximately *seventy-nine* times that $1.4M needed to provide schools of 40%-49% poverty concentration with title I funds. The amount of title I funds devoted to “Other” programs rather than being given to the kids in need at our schools directly, was $110.4M in 2012-13. That’s fully >>_34%_<< of LAUSD's entire 2012-13 $328.7M title I "receipts" (the district "bills" the state for title I funds, which come ultimately from the federal government). More than one-third of the title I funds received by LAUSD from the federal government for the purpose of supplementing academic needs among our economically disadvantaged children, did not go to our kids directly.
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Continued….
More questions: “don’t the feds decide what poverty level Title I funds go to?”. No, they do not. The guidelines are quite loosely provided about some stringent limits. Schools with pc above 75% must receive title I funds. Schools with pc down to 35% may receive title I funds. How the local educational agency chooses to distribute funds within these outer limits is up to them. LAUSD has a long history of funding title I schools with pc from 40-65% at 75% the rate of funding for schools of pc 65%+ (that is, the per capita funding rate is less in schools of lower poverty concentration). This resolution seeks to return that historical distribution that was altered in the wake of the aftermath of title I distributions that were temporarily inflated as a result of federal stimulus funds, that LAUSD failed to budget for the cessation of. Please see the above-referenced article for a lot of references to the title I rules and history.
You also ask: “What is being done with the money saved by changing the threshold from 40% to 50%? Going to pet projects of Deasy?” ….. Please see the “more substantive” response above. It would be awfully nice to know what that $110.4M “Other projects” is for. Some of it includes funds carried over between years. This may not be legal. What the rest of it is for, is entirely unclear. It would be nice if the LAUSD budget office received several thousand inquiries regarding this. Ours have gone unanswered. Why the federal government is not more curious about the disposition of their monies is also rather unclear to me. There was a federal audit recently of title III monies; perhaps the auditors should expand their scrutiny?
You claim that upon halting title I distributions to schools of 40-49% pc the money saved “…didn’t go to Deasy. It meant that more Title I funds went to those schools where 50% or more of the students families are considered poverty level.” With all due respect I must ask: how do you know? When funding was cut for the 40-49% schools, the resulting per capita rate for both 65%+ and <65% pc schools both remained higher than prior to the artificially augmented stimulus years. There has been an unbroken ramping up of per capita title I funds yearly. In what way does it seem that unspent 40-49% funds went to augment 65%+ funds? In fact, during every one of these years before and after the cessation of 40-49% pc title I funding, the yearly carryover in title I funds was adequate to cover the amount needed to fund the 40-49% schools. In what way does money saved in this way equate to augmented funds for 65%+ schools?
I agree there are two sides to this issue. But they are not staked out across a divide between schools. All schools are in the same boat here; we are all educating children of very limited means. And the title I-eligible students in schools of 40% pc are just exactly as poor as the children in schools of 80% pc. An argument could be made that the students attending schools of middling poverty concentration could need comparatively more rather than fewer anti-poverty funds to level their own particular playing field. I have not seen this argument made theoretically or explicitly but it is certainly commented about among families informally; this is what it feels like to us in "the field". And yet note that the funds which would be disbursed to the 40-49% schools are a fraction that dispersed to the 65%+ schools anyway (25% fewer funds per capita go to schools <65% pc).
As for the reputation of the two sponsoring board members, recall that this is a complicated world we live in. I have had some conversations with the one "we like" that caused quite a bit of consternation in terms of what "we like". That's just me and YMMV, but sometimes it does not serve well to look deeper for motivation. Sometimes one just treats the symptoms.
Conversely, the sponsoring board member "we do not like" (and I *so* do agree with you here!!!), is nevertheless sponsoring a resolution that increases educational equity. I may disagree with most everything she does in general and in specific. But here, for whatever reasons, she is, IMHO, right. And I choose not to look deeper than the immediate action on the surface. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, thousands of children would be ill-served. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, we might miss the opportunity to shed some light on those $110.4M worth of "other programs". Some greater accountability for title I funds would be rather excellent. Taxpayers across the nation will benefit from that.
But as I said, I do agree there are two sides to this issue, but I did not complete the explication of where they fall. They do not fall on either side of this 50% threshold. That would be pitting friend against friend. Again, the children of poverty on either side of this divide are just as poor regardless of the divide. And the monies do not have to come from one to support the other.
No, the divide is between the children in our schools, the children who are *entitled to these funds*, and the adults disbursing these funds somewhere, anywhere other than _to these children directly_. The problem is with the opacity of the LAUSD budget, and the near-impossibility of following its money. Perhaps there is not enough money and we're all just f-ed. But until the LAUSD budget office explains that carryover that is larger than the funds needed for the 40-49%, or explains the "other programs" or releases a full and detailed line-item accounting of title I funds, I will be hard-pressed to see any division other than that which delineates the children of LAUSD from the central administration of LAUSD.
Finally, you mentioned that 'most of the 40-49% schools are located in the valley'. At the time of defunding that was true; 23 schools were defunded of which — can't find my notes for the precise figures on this but perhaps another will chime in with them — many if not most were indeed in the valley at this time. However subsequently, most of these valley schools became affiliated charters for the express purpose of receiving these title I funds directly from the state. LAUSD is no longer "billed" by these schools for title I funds; they receive them directly from the state. These schools are gone from the LAUSD system, as a direct result of this defunding move. For this current year there are just 16 schools in the 40-49% pc category. 1 is in LAUSD2, 8 in LAUSD3, 4 in LAUSD4, 1 in LAUSD5, 1 in LAUSD6, 1 in LAUSD6. You are correct that the majority of schools fall in the valley, though the actual number of affected students are very nearly equal in LAUSD3 and LAUSD4. No matter, the point is: support is more complicated than a simple accounting of number and location of schools.
Finally, note this lovely little factlet. While LAUSD is pretzeling itself over this issue of poverty concentration and some sliding point at which desperate need is pinpointed, charter schools blithely bill the state for per capita title I funding *completely independent of poverty concentration*. That's right, if you're a charter school of 2000 and 3 of your students are title I-eligible, you'll receive those title I funds for the asking.
So there's another divide. But it's not between the +/- 50% poverty concentrated.
Please Mike and any/everyone else — please follow the links in this article for some primary sources on poverty I funding: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
Please ask more questions if necessary.
Please sign this petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-board-members-stop-taking-money-away-from-our-kids-please-vote-for-educational-equity-and-achievement-for-all-title-i-students-resolution-on-11-12-13
And please come out to the board meeting this Tuesday at 4pm to request that LAUSD stop robbing the 40-49% "Peter" to pay for the LAUSD downtown-administrator's "other projects-Paul".
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Continued…
More questions: “don’t the feds decide what poverty level Title I funds go to?”. No, they do not. The guidelines are quite loosely provided about some stringent limits. Schools with pc above 75% must receive title I funds. Schools with pc down to 35% may receive title I funds. How the local educational agency chooses to distribute funds within these outer limits is up to them. LAUSD has a long history of funding title I schools with pc from 40-65% at 75% the rate of funding for schools of pc 65%+ (that is, the per capita funding rate is less in schools of lower poverty concentration). This resolution seeks to return that historical distribution that was altered in the wake of the aftermath of title I distributions that were temporarily inflated as a result of federal stimulus funds, that LAUSD failed to budget for the cessation of. Please see the above-referenced article for a lot of references to the title I rules and history.
You also ask: “What is being done with the money saved by changing the threshold from 40% to 50%? Going to pet projects of Deasy?” ….. Please see the “more substantive” response above. It would be awfully nice to know what that $110.4M “Other projects” is for. Some of it includes funds carried over between years. This may not be legal. What the rest of it is for, is entirely unclear. It would be nice if the LAUSD budget office received several thousand inquiries regarding this. Ours have gone unanswered. Why the federal government is not more curious about the disposition of their monies is also rather unclear to me. There was a federal audit recently of title III monies; perhaps the auditors should expand their scrutiny?
You claim that upon halting title I distributions to schools of 40-49% pc the money saved “…didn’t go to Deasy. It meant that more Title I funds went to those schools where 50% or more of the students families are considered poverty level.” With all due respect I must ask: how do you know? When funding was cut for the 40-49% schools, the resulting per capita rate for both 65%+ and <65% pc schools both remained higher than prior to the artificially augmented stimulus years. There has been an unbroken ramping up of per capita title I funds yearly. In what way does it seem that unspent 40-49% funds went to augment 65%+ funds? In fact, during every one of these years before and after the cessation of 40-49% pc title I funding, the yearly carryover in title I funds was adequate to cover the amount needed to fund the 40-49% schools. In what way does money saved in this way equate to augmented funds for 65%+ schools?
I agree there are two sides to this issue. But they are not staked out across a divide between schools. All schools are in the same boat here; we are all educating children of very limited means. And the title I-eligible students in schools of 40% pc are just exactly as poor as the children in schools of 80% pc. An argument could be made that the students attending schools of middling poverty concentration could need comparatively more rather than fewer anti-poverty funds to level their own particular playing field. I have not seen this argument made theoretically or explicitly but it is certainly commented about among families informally; this is what it feels like to us in "the field". And yet note that the funds which would be disbursed to the 40-49% schools are a fraction that dispersed to the 65%+ schools anyway (25% fewer funds per capita go to schools <65% pc).
As for the reputation of the two sponsoring board members, recall that this is a complicated world we live in. I have had some conversations with the one "we like" that caused quite a bit of consternation in terms of what "we like". That's just me and YMMV, but sometimes it does not serve well to look deeper for motivation. Sometimes one just treats the symptoms.
Conversely, the sponsoring board member "we do not like" (and I *so* do agree with you here!!!), is nevertheless sponsoring a resolution that increases educational equity. I may disagree with most everything she does in general and in specific. But here, for whatever reasons, she is, IMHO, right. And I choose not to look deeper than the immediate action on the surface. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, thousands of children would be ill-served. If I did, and did not fight for this resolution, we might miss the opportunity to shed some light on those $110.4M worth of "other programs". Some greater accountability for title I funds would be rather excellent. Taxpayers across the nation will benefit from that.
But as I said, I do agree there are two sides to this issue, but I did not complete the explication of where they fall. They do not fall on either side of this 50% threshold. That would be pitting friend against friend. Again, the children of poverty on either side of this divide are just as poor regardless of the divide. And the monies do not have to come from one to support the other.
No, the divide is between the children in our schools, the children who are *entitled to these funds*, and the adults disbursing these funds somewhere, anywhere other than _to these children directly_. The problem is with the opacity of the LAUSD budget, and the near-impossibility of following its money. Perhaps there is not enough money and we're all just f-ed. But until the LAUSD budget office explains that carryover that is larger than the funds needed for the 40-49%, or explains the "other programs" or releases a full and detailed line-item accounting of title I funds, I will be hard-pressed to see any division other than that which delineates the children of LAUSD from the central administration of LAUSD.
Finally, you mentioned that 'most of the 40-49% schools are located in the valley'. At the time of defunding that was true; 23 schools were defunded of which — can't find my notes for the precise figures on this but perhaps another will chime in with them — many if not most were indeed in the valley at this time. However subsequently, most of these valley schools became affiliated charters for the express purpose of receiving these title I funds directly from the state. LAUSD is no longer "billed" by these schools for title I funds; they receive them directly from the state. These schools are gone from the LAUSD system, as a direct result of this defunding move. For this current year there are just 16 schools in the 40-49% pc category. 1 is in LAUSD2, 8 in LAUSD3, 4 in LAUSD4, 1 in LAUSD5, 1 in LAUSD6, 1 in LAUSD6. You are correct that the majority of schools fall in the valley, though the actual number of affected students are very nearly equal in LAUSD3 and LAUSD4. No matter, the point is: support is more complicated than a simple accounting of number and location of schools.
Finally, note this lovely little factlet. While LAUSD is pretzeling itself over this issue of poverty concentration and some sliding point at which desperate need is pinpointed, charter schools blithely bill the state for per capita title I funding *completely independent of poverty concentration*. That's right, if you're a charter school of 2000 and 3 of your students are title I-eligible, you'll receive those title I funds for the asking.
So there's another divide. But it's not between the +/- 50% poverty concentrated.
Please Mike and any/everyone else — please follow the links in this article for some primary sources on poverty I funding: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/11/07/enacting-economic-equity/
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Final bit!!!
Please ask more questions if necessary.
Please sign this petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/lausd-board-members-stop-taking-money-away-from-our-kids-please-vote-for-educational-equity-and-achievement-for-all-title-i-students-resolution-on-11-12-13
And please come out to the board meeting this Tuesday at 4pm to request that LAUSD stop robbing the 40-49% “Peter” to pay for the LAUSD downtown-administrator’s “other projects-Paul”.
LikeLike