Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools
Mary Levy, Testimony on the Mayor’s Proposed FY 2002 budget for the DC Public Schools
March 15, 2001

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Testimony Before the Council of the District of Columbia on the D.C. Public School Budget for FY 2002
March 15, 2001
Mary Levy, Analyst & Counsel

Summary

• The hearing on the public school budgets should not be held only three days after the Mayor’s budget was announced and before the public can get a copy of the budget book. The budget book has almost no useful information about schools apart from the bottom-line totals recommended by the Mayor. As a source of information about how the school system spends its money it is useless for anyone but accountants, and the year-to-year changes compare apples to oranges, or sometimes, kiwi fruit.
• The school budget has increased significantly in the last few years, but too short a perspective makes the increase look like more than it is: much is restoration of draconian cuts in mid-90’s and the rest has all flowed into special education In inflation-adjusted dollars, general education funding for DC children is $500 less per pupil than it was ten years ago. The school system’s requested increase if granted in full would bring it up by $150 a pupil, no more.

• The Formula no longer buys the level of resources for each student that it originally did. Increases in the cost of education have outstripped inflation in the last few years. Teacher and principal salaries, in particular, have risen in our competing suburbs at a much higher rate than the CPI, and our security and building costs have also risen. At the present base funding level, and the present weights, early childhood and elementary students have lost resources. DCPS makes up for this in the Weighted Student Formula – but does so by taking funding from middle and senior high school students, most of whom have access to very limited curricular offerings, support services, and athletics and activities.
• Per pupil spending The overall local budget this year divided by the total number of students comes to $9,298 per pupil, but the $113 million for state functions in this year’s budget supports only special education students in private schools, including wards of the city, and District-wide functions including special education transportation. Formula funding of $528 million this year supports the approximately 66,800 students in regular DC public schools as follows:

• Allocation of funds by function. This year 66% of the budget is in the local school instructional program, and 9% in facilities and security, for a total of 75% in the local schools. 16% is in special education tuition and transportation. All central management and services, including teacher training and automation add up to less than 8%.
• Comparison with suburbs. Last year, compared to Montgomery County, Arlington County and Alexandria City, DC spent less per pupil on central offices and local school programs, more on facilities and security and much, much more on special education private placements. This year, we pay our starting teachers about the average, but more experienced teachers much less than average, and principals up to $20,000 less annually. Suburban salaries are rising rapidly.

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Good afternoon. I am Mary Levy. Since 1980 I have studied the D.C. Public School system and analyzed its budget and expenditures for Parents United. For the last eleven years I have also monitored the progress of school reform and tracked the number and functions of the school system’s positions and employees. The information we present today reflects the results of some of our latest analyses.

Before talking about the Mayor’s proposed budget, we would like to acknowledge actions by the Mayor and Council over the last year. Last year at this hearing, we asked for four actions in connection with our funding system and methodology:

• Fund the formula for DCPS on prior year’s verified enrollment, for predictability;
• Fund Public Charter Schools on current year enrollment, to cover increases;
• Set up a process to amend residency documentation requirements, so as not to keep genuine DC residents out of school;
• Fund special education tuition and transportation fully, so they do not drain resources from students in DCPS.

The Council and Mayor have since enacted every one of these, along with full funding of the current formula. Both charter and traditional public schools benefited. We thank you.

Next, on behalf of parents and the general public, we wish to protest the timing of this hearing, only three days after the Mayor announced his school budget, and at a time when no information beyond his bottom line recommendations is yet available to anyone without special connections. The people who pay the bills and whose children attend the schools under compulsion of law are entitled to better, and we urge that next year, the Council and the CFO work out a schedule so that the Mayor’s budget is available to the public at least two weeks before the hearing.

Then, too, the public is also entitled to a city budget information book that does not mislead us as to how much money the school system has and the functions on which it is spent. Once again, the CFO’s city budget book contains very little useful information and no detail about the school budget. Second, it omits $12 million that is currently part of DCPS spending without so much as a footnote. Third, it mechanically lumps expenditures under obsolete codes and names that disguise the grab bag of functions they cover, and fail to recognize re-organizations from one year to the next. For example, it indicates that the "Superintendent’s Office" has a budget of over $16 million in local funds. But it does not tell us that $13 million of it is for school security guards and equipment, or that $600,000 is for emergency needs and $100,000 for assistive technology for handicapped students. Moreover, the totals they present do not match totals for the same categories in the school system’s budget, apparently as a result of arbitrarily changing numbers to reach the "correct" total. This is the result of a mechanical approach of budget presentation, not of ill intent, but the effect is the same: half-truths about fund allocation. Last year one of your number used these misleading numbers to tell our then Superintendent from the dais, that what she was saying was a lie. We do not want or need more of this kind of talk, and the CFO should not be setting either you or the Superintendent up for it.

The DCPS budget submission this year is a far more accurate source of information on school system spending of local funds. It is very well done and highly informative, except for a dearth of summary tables, and contains budgets for all local schools. It should be the basis for both questions and conclusions.

We recognize that the school budget has increased significantly in the last few years, but too short a perspective makes the increase look like more than it is: much is restoration of draconian cuts in mid-90’s and the rest has all flowed into special education In inflation-adjusted dollars, general education funding for DC children is $500 less per pupil than it was ten years ago. The school system’s requested increase if granted in full would bring it up by $150 a pupil, no more.

Behind this page of my testimony is a diagram and table showing the three elements of local funding for public schools in the District: the per student formula funding for DCPS and the public charter schools; the funding for state level functions, especially special education tuition and transportation; and a request by DCPS to increase formula funding and provide additional funding for "new initiatives." The Mayor’s recommended budget fully funds the first two, but responds to the last only with $2 million for the Teaching Fellows and LEAD Principals programs.

From a parental point of view, this is disappointing.. Ms Young, Parents United’s Director, will discuss what we miss in more detail. I will set forth some specifics about the Formula.

• The weighting of 1.16 demonstrably under funds the costs of pre-kindergarten students for both DCPS and public charter schools, as well as the cost of kindergarten, at least for DCPS, because of the Council’s requirement of an aide for each class at these levels. See the attached tables.
• The weightings for special education probably under fund it. Public charter schools have consistently complained that they have to subsidize special education from general education funding. Unfortunately, the CFO’s accounting systems for DCPS produce almost no relevant data on special education costs, precluding a careful examination of the subject without more work than we have yet had time to do. But if it costs an average of $33,000 per pupil for private day placements, the $24,000 per pupil at a similar level of disability within DCPS must be too low, and it is hard to see how the system is to establish new programs to bring these students – along with their $10,000 apiece transportation costs – into public placements.
• Because increases in the cost of education have outstripped inflation in the last few years, the Formula no longer buys the level of resources for each student that it originally did. Teacher and principal salaries, in particular, have risen in our competing suburbs at a much higher rate than the CPI, and our security and building costs have also risen. The result is that the Formula only covers half the amount of supplies and equipment it used to, and funds an average class size of 22 for pre-school and pre-kindergarten children, more than the District government allows in private and charter schools. The typical elementary school can no longer afford an assistant principal or a social worker. Thus at the present base funding level, and the present weights, early childhood and elementary students have lost resources. DCPS makes up for this in the Weighted Student Formula – but it does so by taking the funding from middle and senior high school students, most of whom have access to very limited curricular offerings, support services, and athletics and activities.

We urge you to consider the school system’s request in this light, and recommend adjustments in the formula to cover the costs and initiatives requested there.

The rest of my testimony relates to where DCPS funding is now budgeted. We have attached a series of tables and graphs that we hope you will find helpful in your own analysis. This narrative summarizes some of the findings that they reflect:

If one takes all the funds that come into DCPS and divide them mechanically by the total official enrollment, it comes to over $11,000 per student. This includes all federal funding for all purposes, as well as intra-District grants, private grants and reimbursement funds. Much of this money does not go to the 66,758 students enrolled in regular D.C. schools, however, as the following chart and tables show.

• Some of the federal money is passed through DCPS as a state agency to private and public charter school students, for example Title I and special education aid.
• Some, from all revenue sources, is spread well beyond the public school enrollment – not only to charter school, private school and adult students, for example special education transportation and intra-District training grants.
• A large amount of local funding is concentrated on a small number of high need students in private schools for special education – including wards of the city and severely handicapped children who have to be institutionalized.
• Federal food aid flows only to low-income students, including private and charter school students and is in any event a welfare rather than an education expenditure, delivered through schools because that is where the children are.

Setting aside these funds, we are spending roughly $7,650, in local and $1,150 in federal funds on each student actually in the D.C. Public Schools. These funds are not distributed evenly because of differing special needs. What we budget per pupil in local funds appears in the second graph after this page, which shows that we budget $6,773 for all expenses for each student, not counting special education or ESL services. We budget $2,548 additional for each ESL pupil and $7,367 for each special education pupil above and beyond the $6,773 in general education costs. The last number consists of $5,151 for the local school instructional program and $874 for local school facilities and security, a total of $6,025 in the local schools and $748 per student in central administration, instructional support and central services.

The remaining tables show where the local dollars go, including a breakdown of the central office costs. Roughly, in this year’s budget:

• 66% in local school and other direct instructional services to children and 9% in local school facilities and security, for a total of 75% in the local schools.
• 16% in special education tuition and transportation.
• A little less than 8% for all central office costs
• 1% not attributable and state agency costs.

DCPS spending on central offices is low compared with the suburbs and with what it once was. Last year, we compared DCPS with Montgomery, Arlington and Alexandria to see how DC compared in per pupil spending for instruction vs. facilities and security vs. central offices, with ESL and special education separated. DC spent more per pupil on school facilities and security and less on local school general education instruction, central offices, and special education. This year DC is spending more on special education, but proportions are otherwise unchanged.

*Private placements are not funded through school system budgets in Virginia; Montgomery County pays similar tuition, but despite having twice DC’s enrollment, Montgomery has only a fraction of the number of private placements.

Central offices are not a source for funding anything new, unless we want to largely cut the local loose from central office standards, monitoring and services, i.e., to "charterize" the system. If we want standardization, supervision, and automated central services, then we probably need to increase central office spending along with the quality of management. DCPS spending on facilities and security, in contrast, is quite high. Unfortunately, at least in the short term, we have little choice. Security is a major priority for parents, and the front line personnel are already poorly paid. The parental priority on facilities is to carry out the Long Term Master Plan, created with unprecedented community input and attention to its educational impact. We need concurrently to deal with excess space, and we urge the system and the city to be creative about alternative uses, especially charter school use and city services to families.

We have also compared entering and top teacher salaries in the District and the surrounding suburbs this year. We are close to average for entry level, but significantly behind at the top. We are 5% behind Montgomery County at the entry level, and with that jurisdiction’s decision to raise teacher salaries by 5%, it would take a 10% increase to catch up. Our principals receive up to $20,000 less annually than suburban principals.

Finally we show what the $75 million increase requested for next year would buy:

80% ($60 million) would go directly to local schools, for teacher and principal pay raises, school staff and supplies, custodians, athletics and initiatives to improve low-performing schools.

10% ($7.7 million) would go to central instructional support, mostly for teacher training.

6% ($5 million) will go to educational costs for foster care children and other state-level costs

4% would go to central administration and services, mostly for systems automation

These are not budget allocations with which we can find fault. We do share the concerns of others about the system’s current ability to spend all of what it is asking for effectively, but we have no question as to the needs. We urge you to fund as much as possible, and deal with the concerns through the oversight process. Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

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Local Funding for Public Schools in the District of Columbia

Formula Funding in FY 2002: $ 5,907 per student $1,422 charter facilities +add-on percentages for special education, ESL & certain grade levels

State Level Costs: costs borne only by DCPS, including tuition for special education students in private schools, transportation of all special education students entitled to it, educational costs for children in foster care and juvenile facilities and "state agency" functions like the D.C. school-age child census, impact aid survey, teacher certification.

For Next School Year (FY 2002 Budget)

Additional charts submitted with the testimony

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Parents United for the DC Public Schools
11 Dupont Circle, NW, Room 433 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 518-3667

THE DC PUBLIC SCHOOL BUDGET FOR FY 2002 – NEXT YEAR

March 16, 2001

Council: Public Hearing, April 4, 4 p.m. at 1 Judiciary Square, NW
TO TESTIFY, CALL Joyce White 724-8068
Committee budget mark-up, April 11
Full Council budget vote, May 1

*Consists of $629.3 M "DCPS" and $12.1 M "reserve fund," transferred into FY 2002 DCPS budget.

The Mayor’s recommendation keeps schools where they are now. The $17.2 million increase covers only:

$ 4.9 M Increases in special ed transportation and tuition for foster care children
$ 2.0 M Teaching Fellows (100) and LEAD principals (30) programs
$ 10.3 M Pay increase for teachers and principals less than 5% (Weighted Student Formula) OR some program improvements, but not both

Note on teacher and principal salaries: DC’s beginning and top teacher salaries are less than in most of the surrounding suburbs. DC’s entering salary is 5% less and its top teacher salary is 19% less than in Montgomery County. Montgomery plans to raise teacher salaries by 5% next year, leaving DC teachers 10 % or more behind, and good ones highly vulnerable to being recruited away. DC’s principals are paid up to $20,000 less than in surrounding suburbs.

What the Mayor’s budget would not cover:

• Weighted Student Formula per pupil increases to local schools for smaller classes; more supplies, materials and equipment; more pre-K classes; more custodians; initiatives to turn around low-performing schools
• Investment in special education programs to bring students back from expensive private special education schools and the need to bus them there
• Teacher training in standards, subject content, and technology
• Investment in automation and staff training to fix dysfunctional systems of procurement, payroll, information, and personnel
• Pay increases for custodians and other support staff
• Athletics and after-school care and supervision

INCREASES REQUESTED BY THE SUPERINTENDENT AND BOARD