[T]he state risks running afoul of federal law if it doles out over $2 million in school improvement dollars the way it intends, a former top Vermont Agency of Education officials told lawmakers last week.
The agency has had problems rolling out a new data collection system, which has created a series of downstream problems. Among them: it hasn’t been able to analyze and release school-by-school results from this spring’s math and English testing. That’s been a problem for identifying the schools that need the most help — and that are entitled to extra federal funds.
As a solution, agency officials have decided this year to make the funds available to all Title I schools in Vermont, which would effectively spread the dollars out over more than 200 schools. But Amy Fowler, the former deputy secretary of education, said that’s precisely what Congress didn’t want states to do.
“This is the opposite of the congressional intention. It is not what the intention of that law is,” she told the House Education committee Friday.
The federal Every Student Succeeds Act, the successor law to No Child Left Behind, wanted states to concentrate federal school improvement dollars in the districts that struggled the most, she said. That’s why Vermont, under its ESSA plan, is suppose to identify “comprehensive” and “equity” schools — the 5 percent of schools that need the most help, based in part on test scores.
By concentrating dollars in a smaller number of districts — and guaranteeing those funds for three years at a time — Congress assumed that it could make better use of finite resources, Fowler said.
The Agency has also said it will concentrate funding to “equity” and “comprehensive” schools next year once they are identified. But not knowing their status now — and how much funding they might receive — will affect schools in the future. Any interventions schools decide to fund with local dollars now can’t later be supported with federal funds. That’s because U.S. Department of Education rules require federal funds to “supplement, not supplant” local dollars.
The U.S. Department of Education has also kept a close watch on state plans for complying with ESSA, Fowler said, and “a change of this magnitude” would require the federal government’s approval.
The agency, for its part, says it’s following its existing policy for reallocating Title I funds, and that it doesn’t need the green light from the U.S. Department of Education.
“We do not need specific permission to do this as we are authorized to reallocate Title I funds as long as we have a procedure by which to do so,” said agency spokesperson Ted Fisher.
But Fowler argues that any policy the state has likely doesn’t apply to this situation.
“The only reallocation policy I can locate is one to redistribute money school systems failed to spend. It doesn’t address reallocating funds that were never distributed in the first place,” she said.
House Education committee chair Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, said Monday she is asking AOE officials to come back in to discuss the matter with lawmakers.
“The testimony clearly was concerning. We are asking the agency to respond to see if this problem persists or has been corrected,” she said.
Meanwhile, in Winooski schools, superintendent Sean McMannon said the extra dollars could have helped the district pay for math and literacy interventionists and math coaches.
“My understanding is that this ‘non-targeted’ approach for the upcoming school year will split the dollars among all Title I eligible schools, approximately 235 schools, instead of 12-15 schools so the reduction in monies would be significant,” he said.
