How to Spend Your ESEA Title IV Money Wisely
With all of the new
research, new curricula, new software, and new “ways to do things”—most
educators do not have the time to effectively evaluate what is real
(evidence-based, successful, and applicable) and what is illusion (marketed,
ineffectively researched, and invalid).
Indeed, they do not have the time to objectively determine what
approaches are scientifically sound, and then what sound approaches can be
appropriately applied to their settings, situations, and students.
Today, I want to
talk about how money is used in education.
And my ultimate
message is: It is not how much money
we have. . . It’s how we use it, what we use it on, and what we accomplish with
it. . . relative to students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral
outcomes.
And even though
educators often tell me that they do not have enough money to fund what they
need (and, I understand), I want to remind us all that even when we had
(have) plenty of funds, our outcomes were (are) not impressive.
Examples? Look at the student-focused outcomes when
districts received their millions of dollars of Reading First funds in the
mid-2000s. . . when they received their millions of dollars of American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds in 2009. . . and when they received
their millions of dollars of School Improvement Grant (SIG) funds thereafter.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Today’s Reminder: It’s Not About the Money
Last week, an
evaluation of the Gates Foundation published the results of its $212 million
multi-year effort to improve the effectiveness of teachers while increasing
student achievement in three large school districts (Memphis, TN; Pittsburgh,
PA; Tampa, FL) and one charter school consortium in California. With the required district investments, the
total cost of the initiative was $575 million.
The bottom line? The evaluation, conducted by the RAND
Corporation and the American Institutes for Research (AIR), found that student
graduation rates, the achievement of students in general, and the achievement
of low-income and minority students specifically were largely unaffected.
These poor results
fall on the heels of the Gate Foundation’s mid-2000’s “Small Schools
initiative” that similarly did not impact student achievement or graduation
rates.
_ _ _ _ _
So what have we
learned from this and other large-sum (but, from my perspective, largely
naïve) educational initiatives?
Beyond the fact
that “It’s not about the money,” we have learned that:
·
Change requires a multi-tiered
science-to-practice blueprint that is anchored in organizational and systems,
social and group, cognitive and learning, developmental and ecological, and
normal and abnormal psychology.
·
You can’t focus on just one facet in the
educational equation. . . student achievement is impacted by a multi-tiered
understanding of effective and targeted curriculum and instruction as
interfaced with the individual and groups needs of struggling students.
·
Change occurs through professional development
that focuses on teacher skills and sustained implementation, and that
effective and ongoing mentoring and coaching is required, along with
supervision, evaluation, feedback, and administrative action (the latter, if
needed).
And so, have
schools learned “their evidence-based lessons?”
In many cases. . .
apparently not.
Not if we look at
the significant number of schools that continue to use approaches that are
either invalid (e.g., mindfulness), or that do not substantially contribute to
student achievement (e.g., growth mindset approaches).
Not if we look at
districts and schools (“If it’s free, it’s for me”) who have implemented the
PBIS Framework pitched by the federally-funded Positive Behavioral Support and
Interventions (PBIS) National TA Center . . . without reading (or
understanding, or attending to) the U.S. Department of Education-commissioned
study that completely questions its impact and utility.
And, not if we look
at districts and schools adopting the heavily-marketed, but research-thin (if
not nonexistent), restorative justice approaches.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Next Funding
Opportunity: ESEA’s Title IV
This year’s Student
Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IV of The Elementary and
Secondary Education Act—ESEA) received a huge increase from Congress this past
year—from $400 million during the 2017-18 school year, to $1.1 billion for the
2018-19 school year.
Providing districts
with a great deal of discretion relative to targeting specific areas, Title IV
funds can be used across a wide range of programs to make students safer,
healthier, and more well-rounded, or to enhance the role of technology in
learning.
This Blog message goes
on to discuss:
·
What ESEA says Title IV funds can be used for
·
How the Title IV funds need to be distributed
across the program areas described immediately above
·
How districts are planning to use their Title IV
funds, according to two recent national surveys
In the latter area,
it appears that some districts, once again, will invest their money,
professional development time, student support services, and focus and
attention on programs (like PBIS, and non-evidence-based SEL or bullying
approaches) that will not be as successful as other evidence-based practices
that have been integrated into field-tested and well-documented
science-to-practice implementation blueprints.
_ _ _ _ _
Finally, this Blog
suggests that educators, who are now making plans for their Title IV funds,
consider Project ACHIEVE as an evidence-based and field-tested alternative in
the Title IV areas of: (a) school safety positive school climate, (b) PBIS and
social-emotional learning, (c) bullying and violence protection, and (d)
student engagement and trauma-informed classroom
Project ACHIEVE is
listed on (since 2001) on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services’ (SAMHSA) National Registry of
Evidence-based Programs and Practices.
It was the ESEA School Improvement model, as well as the PBIS and MTSS
models, for the Arkansas Department of Education for 13 years under its State
Personnel Development Grant (SPDG). And,
it has been implemented in schools in every state in the nation for over 35
years.
Educators wanting
to learn more about Project ACHIEVE can view one or more of the free national
webinars that were delivered during the past school year:
·
A Guide to Strategic Planning, Shared
Leadership, and Student Success
[Creative Leadership Solutions; with Dr. Doug Reeves]
·
Fixing MTSS: The Keys to Successful Multi-Tiered
Academic and Behavioral Interventions [Creative Leadership Solutions; with Dr.
Doug Reeves]
·
Planning Your Multi-Tiered (MTSS) Services for
Next Year by Analyzing Your Current Students' Needs Today [Creative
Leadership Solutions; with Dr. Doug Reeves]
·
Building Academic and Social, Emotional, and
Behavioral Progress for All Students [PresenceLearning]
·
SEL: Critical Steps to Implementing a
Comprehensive School-Wide Evidence-Based Program [Illuminate
Education; with Dr. Chris Balow]
·
Decreasing Disproportionate Discipline Referrals through a Behavioral Accountability
System that Work [Creative Leadership Solutions; with Dr. Doug Reeves]
·
Conducting Quarterly Student Achievement Review
(Q-STAR) Meetings: An Early Identification & ESSA Progress Monitoring Approach
[Illuminate Education; with Dr. Chris Balow]
What do you think?
Best,
Howie
