mod3-und-fin

School Budgets and Student Achievement in California: The Principal’s Perspective

• • •

Heather Rose Jon Sonstelie Peter Richardson

2004

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rose, Heather, 1971- School budgets and student achievement in California : the

principal’s perspective / Heather Rose, Jon Sonstelie, and Peter Richardson.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN: 1-58213-098-1 1. Education—California—Finance—Congresses.

2. Education—Standards—California—Congresses. 3. School principals—California—Congresses. I. Sonstelie, Jon, 1946- II. Richardson, Peter, 1959- III. Public Policy Institute of California. IV. Title.

LB2826.C2R57 2004 379.1'22'09794—dc22 2004009604

Research publications reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, officers, or Board of Directors of the Public Policy Institute of California.

Copyright © 2004 by Public Policy Institute of California All rights reserved San Francisco, CA

Short sections of text, not to exceed three paragraphs, may be quoted without written permission provided that full attribution is given to

the source and the above copyright notice is included.

PPIC does not take or support positions on any ballot measure or on any local, state, or federal legislation, nor does it endorse, support, or oppose any political parties or candidates for public office.

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Summary

Over the last decade, K–12 education funding and performance levels have become increasingly important concerns for Californians. By way of response, the state legislature recently opted to include K–12 education in what used to be the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The joint committee to create the new Master Plan assembled working groups of educators, researchers, and policymakers to address a range of issues. It then collected the reports of those working groups, heard testimony, and finished its final report in August 2002. The first piece of legislation emerging from the committee’s work was passed in September 2002. AB 2217 called for the formation of a Quality Education Commission and charged it with developing a Quality Education Model. The model should consist of school prototypes with resources such that the vast majority of California’s students could meet the state’s academic standards.

Both the Master Plan and AB 2217 subscribe to a particular conception of school funding systems and student performance. That conception is based on the notion of adequacy. Although the term has been used variously over the years, adequacy in this context generally refers to school funding approaches that link resource provision to specific performance levels. This approach, however, presupposes a stronger and more predictable relationship between school inputs and outcomes than most researchers have observed in their studies. As a result, many policymakers have recognized the need to reconsider the most effective ways to deploy scarce public funds to raise student performance.

To help California policymakers with this reconsideration, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funded a three-part PPIC project to examine links between school resources, academic standards, and student outcomes. The first report in this series, High Expectations, Modest Means: The Challenge Facing California’s Public Schools, appeared

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in 2003 and offered background information on the state's academic standards, resources, and funding mechanisms. This second report builds on the first by presenting the results of school budget workshops conducted by PPIC and executed by a group of 45 principals from representative schools throughout the state. The workshops were designed to elicit the principals’ judgments about links between resources, allocations, school characteristics, and student performance. In those workshops, we asked principals to allocate resources at two schools with differing demographic profiles so as to maximize student performance as measured by the state’s Academic Performance Index (API). We then repeated the exercise raising the budget by 15 percent and 30 percent and analyzed the results. (By way of comparison, the medium budget corresponded to per-pupil spending in Illinois, Minnesota, and Indiana, and the high budget was comparable to spending in Michigan, Delaware, and Vermont.) The third report will present the findings of the site visits, interviews, and surveys that preceded and helped structure the budget workshops. Taken together, the three reports are meant to provide the education community with data and conceptual tools for determining the resources California’s public schools need to educate students to state standards.

Research Approach For this study, we designed a new approach to understanding the

connections between school resources and student performance. Having reviewed the scholarly literature, we were convinced that any attempt to use observed data and statistical analyses to construct a production function for education—one in which a specific set of inputs can be expected to produce a specific level of academic performance—was unlikely to produce the desired results. As several other states and educational organizations had done, we therefore turned to the professional judgment approach, which relies heavily on the insights of school practitioners. However, we sought to elicit these professional judgments according to specific criteria, thereby converting our budget workshops into a pseudo-experiment of the sort social scientists have used successfully in recent years. First, we chose to focus on principals, largely because they know the most about the academic standards,

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resources, and outcomes we have in mind. Second, we decided not to ask principals about individual resources in isolation; rather, we wanted to see how they combined resources to maximize achievement. Third, we wanted principals to combine these resources under a budget constraint. Only this constraint would distinguish desires from needs and reveal the relative value of each resource. Finally, by changing the budget, our analysis focuses mainly on how allocations and predictions changed as the budget changed. This research design allowed us to assume that the principals’ choices and predictions reflected the perceived values of the resources and not the influences of unobservable factors.

We invited the principals in our sample to participate in a series of budget simulation workshops conducted in San Francisco. The purpose of the workshops was to elicit their judgments about the optimal allocation of school resources and the connection between those allocations and student performance. To gather these judgments, we used an electronic spreadsheet that listed each resource and asked the principals to enter the quantity they wished to purchase. The prices of each resource and the budgets were also listed on the spreadsheet (Table S.1). The resource prices and the lowest of the three budget levels approximated statewide averages in 1999–2000.

We presented principals with descriptions of two hypothetical schools—one whose student body had a lower socioeconomic status (SES) than the other. The student characteristics in the low-SES school reflected those in actual schools between the 25th and 35th percentile of the California school characteristic index. The student characteristics of the high-SES school corresponded to those in the 65th–75th percentile. Each elementary school served 600 students, each middle school 1,000 students, and each high school 1,800 students.

We instructed principals to assume that the hypothetical schools had satisfactory facilities and personnel. In particular, we asked them to assume that salaries were adequate to attract and retain qualified personnel, that personnel had sufficient time to learn their roles and perform them satisfactorily, and that principals could define those roles. Finally, we instructed them to ignore the restrictions placed on them by the California Education Code and collective bargaining

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Table S.1

School Resources Spreadsheet

Resource Unit of Measure Cost per Unit ($) Quantity Teachers Teachers—grades K–3a FTEb 59,000 ______ Teachers—grades 4–5a FTE 59,000 ______ Teachers—corec FTE 59,000 ______ Teachers—noncorec FTE 59,000 ______ Teachers—physical educationc FTE 59,000 ______ Administration Principals FTE 100,000 ______ Assistant principals FTE 90,000 ______ Clerical office staff FTE 37,000 ______ Support staff Academic coaches FTE 67,000 ______ Instructional aides FTE 29,000 ______ Counselors FTE 78,000 ______ Nurses FTE 78,000 ______ Librarians FTE 67,000 ______ Security officers FTE 37,000 ______ Technology support staff FTE 77,000 ______ Community liaisons FTE 36,000 ______ Specialty teachersa FTE 59,000 ______ Student programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher No. of teachers x hourly teacher

wage ______ Preschoola Students 4,400 ______ Full-day kindergartena 1 = yes 0 = no No. of kindergarten teachers x

annual teacher waged ______ After-school tutoring program Teacher hours/week 1,649

______ Longer school day Hours/day No. of teachers x hourly teacher

wage x instructional days per yeare ______

Summer school Students 401 ______ Longer school year Days/year No. of teachers x daily teacher

wage ______ Computers for instruction Computers 300 ______

Other $ thousands 1,000 ______

NOTE: For elementary schools, the number of teachers counts kindergarten teachers twice because we assume that they teach two sessions of students, each of which needs to stay for the additional hour.

aOption available only to elementary principals. bFull-time equivalents. cOption available only to middle and high school principals. dAlso includes the cost of professional development and a longer school year for the

additional teachers. eInstructional days include days added to the school year in the longer school year category.

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agreements. If they wanted to increase class size despite a union agreement to the contrary, they were free to do so.

Working independently, each principal completed six exercises. The first three, which involved the low-SES school, were the same except that the budget gradually increased. The second three exercises focused on the high-SES school and used the same three budget levels. At the end of each exercise, we asked principals to predict the API score of the school they had constructed. To better understand their thinking, we asked principals to describe their rationales in writing. We collected these rationales and discussed the exercises as a group at the end of the day.

Key Results

Elementary Schools The choices made by elementary school principals are perhaps best

understood against the backdrop of K–3 Class Size Reduction, the state program giving school districts financial incentives to reduce class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grade. The low-budget scenario, which roughly reflected California revenue levels in 1999–2000, gave principals the resources to reduce class sizes, but we removed the financial incentives for doing so. Although the principals chose smaller classes for grades K–3 than for grades 4 and 5, they also achieved a more even balance in class sizes between K–3 and grades 4 and 5 than most currently have in their schools. In the low-budget, low- SES scenario, principals created an average size of 21.5 for grades K–3 and an average of 27.4 for grades 4 and 5. That allocation allowed them to use more of their budget for such student programs as full-day kindergarten and after-school tutoring. They also focused a considerable portion of their budget on improving the quality of instruction. Even in the low-budget scenario, principals provided their teachers with the services of a full-time academic coach in addition to a full week of professional development.

As their budgets grew, principals increased expenditures in almost all resource areas, but they allocated the largest share of the additional funds to student support programs. Forty percent of their additional funds

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went to such programs as after-school tutoring, preschool, and full-day kindergarten. The increases in the last two areas reflect the state’s new academic content standards, which raise academic expectations for kindergarten. Principals also increased the amount of instructional time for all students, adding nearly seven days’ worth to the school year through a combination of longer days and more school days. They also focused more resources on improving instruction. As they moved from the low-budget scenario to the high-budget one, principals almost doubled both the time allocated to professional development and the number of academic coaches. In contrast, principals chose only modest reductions in class sizes when moving from the low-budget scenario to the high-budget scenario—a 6 percent reduction in grades K–3 and a 9 percent one in grades 4 and 5. The general allocation patterns were similar for both low-SES and high-SES schools.

Principals predicted that API scores for these schools would vary with budget levels and the school’s SES (Figure S.1). With the low budget, principals predicted that the high-SES school would achieve an API of 708—about 120 points higher than the low-SES school with the same budget. With the high budget, they predicted that the high-SES school would achieve an 840 API, well above the state’s goal of 800 and also 90 points higher than the API of the low-SES school with the same budget.

Low-SES school High-SES school

Low budget Medium budget High budget 500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

A P

I

Figure S.1—Average Predicted API for Elementary Schools by SES and Budget

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These predictions suggest that the low-SES school would require a higher budget to achieve the same API as the high-SES school. Principals explained that low-SES students arrive at school less prepared and that the school must make up some of this gap. Comparing the average allocations from the high-budget, low-SES school with those of the medium-budget, high-SES school reveals that principals thought that the low-SES school would need almost one more teacher and an additional instructional aide. With the higher budget in the low-SES school, principals also allocated almost one extra day of professional development for its teachers and devoted eight more hours per week to after-school tutoring programs.

Middle Schools In some respects, the priorities of middle school principals resembled

those of their elementary school counterparts. For example, they allocated significant funds to improving the quality of instruction. In the low-budget scenario, they chose nearly a week of professional development—an amount they increased by 60 percent in the high- budget scenario. They also chose to hire 1.2 academic coaches in the low-budget scenario and 3.4 academic coaches in the high-budget one. Also like the elementary school principals, they increased instructional time by lengthening the school day and year the equivalent of almost ten days.

Compared to their elementary counterparts, however, middle school principals chose higher average class sizes. With the low budget, core classes (such as English, math, and history) averaged 27.3 students per class, and noncore classes (such as art, foreign language, and other electives) averaged 33.3 students per class. The principals reduced class sizes (by 10 percent for core classes and 19 percent for noncore classes) as their budgets grew. These larger classes permitted middle school principals to address a common concern—the lack of counselors in California middle schools. On average, the principals chose 1.7 counselors in the low-budget scenario and 2.5 counselors in the high- budget scenario. Principals constantly reminded us that the emotional problems typical of the adolescents they serve make a good counseling staff an important part of a smoothly functioning middle school. Middle

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school principals also allocated 1.6 security officers, even in the low budget, to patrol school grounds during the day.

Like their elementary school counterparts, middle school principals predicted that API scores would vary by budget level and student SES, but their average predictions were less optimistic. None of the budgets led to an 800 API in the low-SES school (Figure S.2). To reach an API of 750, the principals predicted that the low-SES school would require 30 percent more funding than the high-SES school—in other words, the difference between the low budget and the high one.

A comparison of the high-SES, low-budget school with the low-SES, high-budget one shows that the latter had five more teachers, one more administrative full-time equivalent (FTE), two more academic coaches, and over six other support staff. Principals also used the additional funds to intensify all the student support programs. For example, they allocated 46 more weekly hours for tutoring programs and provided summer school for 100 more students.

600

650

700

750

800

850

A P

I

Low budget Medium budget High budget

Low-SES school High-SES school

Figure S.2—Average Predicted API for Middle Schools by SES and Budget

High Schools Compared to elementary and middle schools, high schools are

complicated organizations, yet there were similarities between the choices of high school principals and those of their counterparts. For example, high school principals purchased over a week of professional development for their teachers even in the low-budget scenario. In fact, they chose at least 30 percent more time for professional development than middle school principals at all three budget levels. We suspect that

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this greater emphasis on professional development reflects the greater challenges of implementing standards-based instruction in high schools. Historically, high school teachers have had more freedom to design their own curricula and thus must work harder to align them with state standards. Also, the state’s academic content standards are very ambitious at the high school level.

Like their middle and elementary school counterparts, high school principals stressed the importance of increasing instructional time, adding nearly eight days’ worth. They also chose larger class sizes in noncore classes than in core classes. In the low-budget scenario, the average class size was 26.6 students in core classes and 34.7 in noncore classes. High school principals also allocated significant resources to counseling, reducing the student-counselor ratio to 300 to 1 in the high- budget scenario. (Ratios of 500 to 1 are common in California high schools.) High school principals hired close to three security officers regardless of the budget level, reflecting the reality that adequate security has become an absolute requirement for high schools.

Like their middle school counterparts, the high school principals, on average, predicted that only the high-budget, high-SES school could attain an 800 API (Figure S.3). A comparison of the medium-budget, high-SES school and the high-budget, low-SES school indicates that the low-SES school would need $525 more per pupil—the difference between the high and medium budget—to achieve an outcome similar

600

650

700

750

800

850

A P

I

Low budget Medium budget High budget

Low-SES school High-SES school

Figure S.3—Average Predicted API for High Schools by SES and Budget

to that of the high-SES school. With the high-budget, low-SES school, principals allocated nearly six more teachers, over one more

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administrative FTE, and six more support personnel relative to the high- SES school with the medium budget. Principals also added 37 more weekly hours of teacher tutoring time and provided summer school for 138 more students in the low-SES school.

Policy Implications The passage of AB 2217 indicates that state policymakers are willing

to consider new approaches to funding schools in light of the state’s high academic standards. According to the bill, the Quality Education Model should be a list of school resources, along with their costs, that would enable the “vast majority” of pupils to meet the state’s academic standards. The language of AB 2217 makes it clear that the Quality Education Commission may produce a series of models, or prototypes, and directs the commission to consider school and demographic characteristics when constructing these models. The bill also specifies that the commission’s work is meant to “enable the legislature to make more informed annual budgetary decisions.”

Although our study was not meant to develop the prototypes required by AB 2217, the commission may find our research approach, survey instrument, and protocols helpful. AB 2217 stipulates that “parents, classroom teachers, other educators, governing board members of school districts, and the public be involved in the design and implementation of the Quality Education Model.” The spreadsheets we developed provide an efficient and inexpensive way of collecting and distilling the views of these and other stakeholders. Both the protocols and the spreadsheet can be adapted in various ways to serve the commission’s purposes.

The commission may find our results helpful as well. Even with the low budget, for example, elementary school principals hired teachers to maintain small class sizes. Middle school principals began with larger class sizes and then progressively reduced them as budgets grew. High school principals followed a similar trajectory, but they placed more emphasis on improving teacher quality. Another important though unsurprising result is that all three groups thought that more spending was required for most schools to reach the state’s relatively high academic standards. They also indicated that thoughtful allocations, not just

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bigger budgets, would be critical for reaching the state’s academic standards. Also unsurprisingly, principals thought that the cost of reaching these standards would vary according to SES.

Even in a highly controlled budget simulation, our principals differed somewhat in their optimal allocations and API predictions. As a consequence, our results do not point to specific bundles of resources that would ensure specific performance levels at any school or budget level. The variation we observed, however, does not rule out meaningful discussion of the average responses. Indeed, we came to regard these responses the way we might view model homes in a new housing development—as tangible and whole representations of what certain funding levels might buy, not inflexible prototypes requiring slavish imitation. Although resource allocations at actual schools might vary, the models are useful insofar as they provide a funding benchmark for the legislature. After reviewing the results, our sights shifted from the question, “How much will it cost for all schools to reach an API of 800?” to a slightly different one: How much are Californians willing to spend to increase the probability of a school reaching an API of 800? This question more accurately reflects the uncertainty inherent in such predictions, but it also lends itself to a more nuanced and realistic policy deliberation. For these reasons, the commission may wish to provide the legislature with model schools at several resource and SES levels. For each model school, it could also include the likelihood that such a school would achieve various API scores, perhaps ranging from 800 to 650, which roughly reflected the national median in 1999. Table S.2 provides an example of what such a table might look like.

In addition to estimating the costs of achieving performance levels, this approach would refocus attention on another basic question: What do California schools need to be successful? Answers may differ, but the question is the right one, and it is currently obscured by a school finance system that imperfectly reflects the needs, costs, and challenges of real schools.

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Table S.2

Predicted Likelihood of API Scores by SES and Budget: Elementary Schools

Low-SES School High-SES School

API Low

Budget Medium Budget

High Budget

Low Budget

Medium Budget

High Budget

800 or higher 6% 7% 44% 31% 50% 81% 750 or higher 6 7 56 50 63 94 700 or higher 13 33 88 50 94 100 650 or higher 31 80 94 81 100 100

NOTES: Percentages are based on the distribution in Table 5.2. Even if 100 percent of principals predict a certain API, there is still no guarantee it will be obtained.

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5. Elementary School Results

California’s elementary schools differ from middle and high schools in several important ways. Because of the state’s Class Size Reduction (CSR) program, grades K–3 have significantly smaller classes than others. A larger portion of elementary schools already scores 800 or more on the state’s Academic Performance Index, and the security requirements of elementary schools tend to be lower than those for middle and high schools in comparable neighborhoods. Yet, in some ways, elementary schools also have tougher challenges than middle and high schools. They tend to have a higher proportion of English learners, for example, and California families with young children have higher poverty rates than other households. Both patterns present high hurdles for the state’s elementary schools as they strive to raise student achievement.

This chapter describes how the 16 elementary school principals in our budget workshops allocated resources when they were given prices and a budget. Their responses provide a picture of what a typical school would look like under three different budgets. We show which resources principals added as budgets grew and what they expected API scores to be with different budgets and different assumptions about the SES of the student body. Using their API predictions, we focus on the question of which additional resources principals think a low-SES school needs to achieve an API similar to that of a high-SES school.

The elementary school principals worked independently during the workshop, essentially creating 16 separate model schools with accompanying API predictions for each exercise. Table 5.1 shows the average allocations for the first exercise, which used the low budget for the low-SES school of 600 students.1 To show the level of consensus in _____________

1The total expenditures based on these averages do not exactly equal the actual amount budgeted because of the nonlinearities in the prices. However, the differences are small and do not affect our analysis.

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Table 5.1

Resource Levels for a Low-SES Elementary School of 600 Students with a Low Budget of $3,500 per Pupil

Units

Resource Unit of Measure Average Fourth Lowest

Fourth Highest

Teachers Teachers—grades K–3 FTE 16.3 14.0 18.0 Teachers—grades 4 and 5 FTE 7.3 7.0 8.0 Administration Principals FTE 0.9 1.0 1.0 Assistant principals FTE 0.3 0.0 0.5 Clerical office staff FTE 2.3 2.0 3.0 Support staff Academic coaches FTE 1.2 0.5 2.0 Instructional aides FTE 1.8 0.0 3.0 Counselors FTE 0.3 0.0 0.5 Nurses FTE 0.4 0.0 1.0 Librarians FTE 0.6 0.0 1.0 Security officers FTE 0.1 0.0 0.0 Technology support staff FTE 0.3 0.0 0.5 Community liaisons FTE 0.4 0.0 0.5 Specialty teachers FTE 0.7 0.0 1.0 Programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher 33.2 11.0 50.0 Preschool Students 12.8 0.0 40.0 Full-day kindergarten 1 = yes 0 = no 0.3 0.0 1.0 After-school tutoring Teacher hours/week 23.3 6.0 30.0 Longer school day Hours/day 0.0 0.0 0.0 Summer school Students 39.9 0.0 95.0 Longer school year Days/year 0.1 0.0 0.0 Computers for instruction Computers 38.6 11.0 63.0 Other $ thousands 0.4 0.0 0.0

their responses, the table also shows the fourth-lowest value and the fourth-highest value for each resource. One-quarter of the principals chose values less than or equal to the fourth-lowest value, and one- quarter chose values greater than or equal to the fourth-highest value; the remaining half chose allocations between or equal to these two values.

The low budget approximates California’s average funding level for these resources in 1999–2000. According to CDE (2002a), a typical California school in that year with 600 students would have 26 teachers and a student-teacher ratio of 23 to 1. However, the principals in our

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study selected slightly fewer teachers so as to include certain programs. With the low budget, the principals selected 23.6 teachers, yielding an overall student-teacher ratio of 25.5 to 1. This student-teacher ratio serves as a rough guide to actual class sizes. Average class size differs from the student-teacher ratio because specialty teachers can pull students out of regular classes during the day, thus reducing regular class sizes for part of the day.2 On average, principals allocated 0.7 specialty teachers. Several described this position as a reading specialist. One principal explained, “Students would benefit from one-on-one or small group reading interventions.”

The overall student-teacher ratio masks an interesting result: namely, that principals generally chose significantly smaller class sizes for grades K–3 than for grades 4 and 5, despite the fact that we removed the state’s incentives for CSR in the lower grades. In this exercise, the class size for grades K–3 averaged 21.5 students compared to 27.4 for grades 4 and 5. Although CSR policies are often criticized for thwarting administrators who wish to allocate resources toward more urgent priorities, most principals in our experiment thought that small classes were worth maintaining in the early grades. One principal explicitly noted in the post-exercise discussion that children in the lower grades need more attention than others, and another principal said that she would structure her classes so that grades K and 1 were smaller than grades 2 and 3. Thus, the allocations seem to reflect the conviction that small class sizes in the early grades provide a solid foundation for later learning.

There was less consensus about the optimal K–3 class size. For example, four principals chose 16 K–3 teachers and another four principals chose 18 (Figure 5.1). Although one principal allocated 20 K–3 teachers, not all principals chose to maintain small class sizes. Four of the 16 principals chose 14 or fewer K–3 teachers, yielding a class size _____________

2Also, in the case of grades K–3, the total number of students divided by the total number of teachers hides the fact that, under the exercise’s assumptions, kindergarten teachers teach two sections of students each day. Thus, 100 kindergarten students require fewer teachers than 100 first grade students to maintain equivalent class sizes. This section of the report accounts for that relationship when reporting class sizes; however, it does not factor in the use of specialty teachers.

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0

1

2

3

4

5

N um

be r

of p

rin ci

pa ls

Number of K–3 teachers allocated

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Figure 5.1—Number of Principals Selecting Different Quantities of K–3 Teachers

of at least 25 students in those grades. There was more agreement about fourth and fifth grade teachers. Nine principals chose seven of these teachers and four opted for eight.

The allocations also confirmed the integral role that nonteaching staff play at a school. Only two principals did not allocate one FTE for the position of principal.3 As one explained, “I began with a principal doing two schools and the office staff severely constrained. I’m not sure that is doable, but it was the only way to maintain any kind of student services.” The other principal allocated what most observers might consider a principal to the academic coaching position to highlight the importance of that aspect of a typical principal’s job. With the low budget, principals chose an average of 0.3 FTE assistant principals and 2.3 clerical staff. One principal explained that her clerical staff would also serve “as liaison and tech support.”

In this first exercise, principals chose an average of 1.2 academic coaches. One principal claimed, “The greatest level of staff development, based on my experiences, comes from coaches.” Another noted the extra importance of coaches for new teachers. The principals also budgeted for an average of 1.8 instructional aides. One principal _____________

3In Table 5.1, the average value may not fall within the fourth-highest and fourth- lowest values if most principals had the same answer and just one or two principals deviated from it.

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described the aides’ function as assisting “with primary language support.” However, several principals noted that they felt the pinch of the low budget and used instructional aides to staff many of the other support positions. For example, one principal explained that he would assign an instructional aide to the library rather than hire a certificated librarian, and he would assign an aide/health technician to provide health services instead of a nurse. At the other extreme, five principals chose not to employ any instructional aides in the school, indicating in the subsequent discussion that other resources were more helpful to students.

Principals staffed the remaining support positions meagerly. For example, they allocated less than half an FTE for community liaison work, even though one principal described this role as necessary “for organizing parent education classes, home/school contacts, parent club coordinators, student attendance problems, finding agencies to assist needy families, etc.” Another imagined the counselors handling some of these responsibilities; in particular, counselors would “direct parents to community and social service resources.”

The principals’ choices revealed the importance of several programs as well. On average, principals provided each teacher with 33 hours per year of professional development, yet there was a remarkable range of responses regarding this resource. One-quarter of the principals chose 11 or fewer hours, and one-quarter chose 50 or more hours. Principals allocated these hours in various ways. Some chose to provide day-long sessions at either the beginning or end of the year. Others chose to provide short weekly sessions. Still others chose a combination of these two approaches. In our discussions, one principal said he planned to reallocate his total professional development hours across teachers, directing them to only kindergarten and first grade teachers. Regardless of the approach, most professional development focused on reading and math curriculum.

Principals also supplied an average of about 23 hours of teacher time per week for tutoring. Although three principals did not provide any tutoring programs, those who did generally served 120 students in groups of 13 for about three hours per week. Summer school was provided for about 40 students, on average. However, one-quarter of the

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principals offered summer school for at least 95 students. Almost no principal opted for a longer school day or year with the low budget, but four chose to offer full-day kindergarten, and four chose to offer preschool to 40 or more students.

Given the prominent role CSR plays in elementary schools, it is worth comparing the spending patterns of the four principals who chose larger K–3 classes with the remaining 12 teachers who preferred to maintain smaller K–3 classes (see Figure 5.2). The categories in this figure are nearly identical to the broad categories in Table 5.1. The difference is that spending on academic coaches and professional development has been removed from their respective categories of support staff and programs and combined into a new category called teacher training. Student programs thus include preschool, full-day kindergarten, tutoring, summer school, and a longer school day and year. The negligible spending in the “other” category was also included with student programs.

Principals who opted for larger K–3 class sizes by spending less on K–3 teachers directed a portion of their savings to administration— enough to employ a principal or assistant principal for an additional two days per week. Principals with fewer teachers also spent more to train their teachers. On average, these principals supplied each teacher with about 55 hours per year of professional development—about 29 hours more than did principals who retained small K–3 class sizes. Spending on student programs differed the most between these two groups of

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

S pe

nd in

g pe

r pu

pi l (

$) Small K–3 classes Large K–3 classes

Teachers Administration Support staff Teacher training

Student programs

Figure 5.2—Spending Patterns Based on Class Size

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principals. Principals with large K–3 class sizes provided preschool for 40 students, on average; those with small class sizes provided this program for an average of only four students. Principals with large K–3 class sizes also provided 12 more students with summer school and provided 42 more computers than principals with small K–3 class sizes. In dealing with student preparedness, then, most elementary school principals preferred smaller class sizes to more extensive preschool and summer school interventions.

As the budgets increased in subsequent exercises, the variation in the K–3 teacher-pupil ratio declined. Principals who started with larger K–3 class sizes added 1.9 teachers, and those who started with lower class sizes added only .7 teachers. With the high budget, average K–3 class sizes for these two groups were 22.4 and 19.7, respectively. Even with the high budget, however, principals varied more in their allocation of K–3 teachers than in their allocation of fourth and fifth grade teachers. With that budget, 11 principals agreed that eight teachers for fourth and fifth grade would be optimal.

As budgets grew for the low-SES school, principals added resources to all areas, but they added the largest share of their additional funds, over 40 percent, to student programs. When describing the rationale behind their allocations, one principal said, “Establishing strong early interventions and mentoring support over time is the key to success.” Figure 5.3 documents the average spending patterns in the five broad categories as budgets grew by 30 percent, and Appendix Table B.1 shows the average resource allocations for each budget. Half the additional spending in the student programs category funded preschool and full-day kindergarten, reflecting the need to prepare students in their early years. With the high budget, preschool served an average of 21 more students, and six more principals chose to institute full-day kindergarten. In part, this allocation reflects the effect of academic content standards in kindergarten. One principal explained, “Full day kindergarten allows the teachers to introduce the academics and the basic skills needed for reading, writing, and math.” Another added, “All day kindergarten would allow for the academic components to be met as well as the socialization skills.” However, one principal warned that although

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Low budget Medium budget High budget

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

S pe

nd in

g pe

r pu

pi l (

$)

Teachers Administration Support staff Teacher training

Student programs

Figure 5.3—Allocation of Funds in Low-SES Elementary School as the Budget Grew

preschool has its merits, accountability and mandatory attendance do not occur until the student reaches age six.

With the high budget, principals also added another 19 hours of teacher tutoring time, 42 students to summer school, eight minutes to the school day, and 2.8 days to the school year. However, these averages dilute the extreme positions some principals took. One principal added 20 days to the school year with the medium budget, noting, “I focused on extending the school year as soon as resources were available.” Principals also traded some programs for others as more funds became available. One principal reduced her tutoring program once she had the funds to add an extra hour to the day.

Not all principals were equally enthralled with the idea of extra student programs. As one principal remarked during the discussion, her goal was to construct a school where teachers “teach correctly and effectively the first time and no tutoring or summer school is necessary.” Another recommended some nonmonetary changes that could help student achievement. For example, she suggested a plan to “modify the school year so a large gap doesn’t occur in summer. Many summer school programs are elaborate day care systems.”

Principals budgeted one-quarter of the additional funds for support staff, but they reserved a much smaller share of the additional funds for teachers. This pattern points to the notion of diminishing marginal productivity; ensuring small class sizes in the low budget makes nonteacher resources more important in the high budget. On average,

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the additional expenditures directed to support staff funded three additional FTE, with instructional aides and specialty teachers constituting 1.7 FTE. In the area of teacher training, principals hired 0.6 FTE more academic coaches and provided 17 more hours of professional development for each teacher.

Principals used a very small amount of their additional funds to add administrative help, on average hiring 0.6 more FTE. A principal who added an assistant principal did so to help with grant writing. Another explained that adding an assistant who could manage discipline issues would allow the principal to spend more time observing teachers in the classroom. Another principal added a half-time secretary so that “parents can be called immediately if their child is absent or tardy.”

Although this discussion has focused on spending patterns in the low-SES school as budgets rise, similar trends emerge at the high-SES school, where the largest shares went to student programs and support staff, respectively. The average resource allocations for the high-SES school with each budget are also shown in Table B.1.

Student Outcomes and API Predictions Principals predicted that the different budgets would lead to very

different outcomes (Figure 5.4). The average API prediction in the low- SES school ranged from 588 with the low budget to 750 with the high budget. Furthermore, the principals predicted that the same budget would lead to very different outcomes depending on the school’s SES. With the low budget, principals predicted that the high-SES school would achieve a 708 API—some 120 points higher than the low-SES school with the same budget. With the high budget, they predicted that the high-SES school would achieve an 840 API—well above the state’s goal of 800 and also 90 points higher than the API of the low-SES school with the same budget.

Although the average predicted API for the low-SES schools was still short of the state’s goal with the high budget, almost half the principals believed that the low-SES school would achieve at least an 800 with that budget. In contrast, only one principal thought that the low-SES school

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Low-SES school High-SES school

Low budget Medium budget High budget 500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

A P

I

Figure 5.4—Average Predicted API for Elementary Schools by SES and Budget

could achieve the state’s goal with the medium budget. Table 5.2 shows the number of principals predicting each API score for each of the exercises. There is no way to judge the accuracy of these predictions, and the principals were the first to admit that their estimates were informed guesses. In all three budget scenarios, however, API predictions in the low-SES school clustered around certain values. With the low budget,

Table 5.2

Number of Elementary School Principals Predicting Each API Range

Low-SES School High-SES School

API

Low Budget $3,500

Medium Budget $4,025

High Budget $4,550

Low Budget $3,500

Medium Budget $4,025

High Budget $4,550

300–499 2 – – – – – 500–549 2 1 – 1 – – 550–599 2 1 – – – – 600–649 5 1 1 2 – – 650–699 3 7 1 5 1 – 700–749 1 4 5 – 5 1 750–799 – – 2 3 2 2 800–849 – – 6 4 3 5 850–899 1 – – 1 4 3 900–1000 – 1 1 – 1 5 Average 588 666 750 708 780 840

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eight out of the 16 principals predicted an API in the range of 600 to 699 for the low-SES school. With the middle budget, predictions concentrated in the range of 650 to 749. With the high budget, half of the predictions were between 750 and 849.

Principals also said it was difficult to predict the API scores of schools that were unlike their own, yet their predictions were not correlated to the socioeconomic status of the school where they actually worked. Overall, the average API estimates for the hypothetical schools with the low budget was about 50 points lower than the actual API scores of schools that matched the demographics of each hypothetical school. On average, actual elementary schools matching the low-SES hypothetical school had an API of 635 and actual schools with the demographic characteristics of our high-SES hypothetical school had an average API of 760.

Student Characteristics and Resource Allocations In addition to showing the perceived relationship between resources

and test scores, the API predictions reveal how much more principals thought the low-SES school would need to achieve the same level of academic success as the high-SES school. For example, the low-SES school was predicted to achieve a 750 API with the high budget of $4,550 per pupil, whereas the high-SES school was expected to achieve a comparable API somewhere between the low and medium budget. This result suggests that principals thought the low-SES school would require something between $525 and $1,050 per pupil more to earn roughly the same API as the high-SES school.

To give a sense of the additional resources that a low-SES school would need to achieve nearly the same academic success as a high-SES school, Table 5.3 compares the average resource allocation in the low- SES, high-budget school to the allocation in the high-SES, medium- budget school. (To compare low-SES and high-SES allocations with the same budgets, see Appendix Table B.1.) The final column shows the difference between the two allocations: specifically, the number of additional resources required in the low-SES school for it to achieve nearly the same outcome as the high-SES school. With these additional

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Table 5.3

Resources Needed for Elementary Schools to Achieve Similar API Scores (Approximately a 750 to 780 API)

Resource Unit of Measure

Low-SES School, High

Budget

High-SES School, Medium Budget

Additional Units in Low-SES School

Teachers Teachers—grades K–3 FTE 17.2 16.4 0.8 Teachers—grades 4 and 5 FTE 8.0 8.0 0.0 Administrators Principals FTE 0.9 0.9 0.0 Assistant principals FTE 0.7 0.4 0.3 Clerical office staff FTE 2.5 2.4 0.1 Support staff Academic coaches FTE 1.8 1.5 0.3 Instructional aides FTE 2.7 1.5 1.2 Counselors FTE 0.6 0.4 0.1 Nurses FTE 0.5 0.4 0.2 Librarians FTE 0.8 0.8 0.0 Security officers FTE 0.1 0.1 0.0 Technology support staff FTE 0.6 0.7 0.0 Community liaisons FTE 0.7 0.4 0.3 Specialty teachers FTE 1.5 1.8 –0.3 Programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher 50.6 45.8 4.8 Preschool Students 34.2 20.6 13.6 Full-day kindergarten 1 = yes 0 = no 0.6 0.3 0.3 After-school tutoring Teacher hours/week 41.9 34.0 7.9 Longer school day Hours/day 0.2 0.1 0.1 Summer school Students 82.1 79.6 2.4 Longer school year Days/year 2.8 0.6 2.2 Computers for instruction Computers 66.8 70.0 –3.2 Other $ thousands 1.7 1.5 0.2

Budget Dollars/pupil 4,550 4,025 525

NOTE: Because of rounding, the additional units may be off by 0.1.

resources, the average API at the low-SES school is still lower than that at the high-SES school, but the distribution of predicted API scores at the two schools is actually somewhat similar. A negative value in the last column means that the low-SES school had less of that resource; in other words, the principals thought that those resources would not be as

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beneficial in the low-SES school as they were in the high-SES school and that other resources took priority.

On average, the principals targeted certain areas over others when considering their allocations for the low-SES school. Among staffing categories, principals allocated an average of 0.8 K–3 additional teachers and 1.2 more aides to the low-SES school. They also provided the low- SES school with an added 1.5 days per week each from an assistant principal, an academic coach, and a community liaison. Relative to the high-SES school, principals provided the low-SES teachers with nearly five additional hours of professional development, offered preschool to 14 more students, devoted eight more hours of teacher time to tutoring programs, increased the school year by two days, and increased the school day by 7.5 minutes (which amounts to 4.5 additional days of annual instruction). Most of these increases were financed by the higher budget, but some additional funding came from reallocating certain resources. For example, the number of specialty teachers and computers in the low-SES school was lower than in the high-SES school.

Both in the workshop discussions and on the written questionnaires, principals described the rationales behind their allocations in the two types of schools. They maintained that the low-SES students arrive at school less prepared. As one principal described:

There needs to be more learning opportunities [at the low-SES school], because students arrive less prepared and skilled; parents are less educated and needs are focused on survival for the family. . . . Students need to be offered more experiences due to lack of exposure and background knowledge. Lots of parent training/education is needed.

Another principal noted, “In the low-SES scenario, many students do not have a place at home to do homework, and it is almost essential that schools provide one.” Some principals maintained that staff development is also more important in the low-SES school because English language learners have additional needs that teachers must learn to address. Although the workshop instructions stated that teachers at both schools had the same education levels, some principals expected teachers in the low-SES school to be less prepared and more in need of professional development.

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In contrast, principals explained that students and families at high- SES schools place more importance on education, and the schools therefore make more use of specialty teachers, enrichment programs, and computer labs. Because the perceived need for after-school tutoring is less pressing at the high-SES school, tutoring programs focus on enrichment activities rather than on remediation. Fewer aides are needed because many parents help in the classrooms. One principal maintained that even without aides or volunteers, students in the high-SES school “seem to be able to work independently while the teachers work with individuals or small groups.”

Once again, however, comparing the average allocations at the high- and low-SES schools hides interesting variation. For example, most principals thought that there was a greater need for community liaisons at the low-SES school because they could encourage interest in the school or even teach basic reading skills to parents. Yet some principals commented on the important role that community liaisons play in the high-SES schools, where they can recruit, manage, and coordinate parent volunteers. Likewise, some principals thought that administrative help was more important in the high-SES schools because parents were more involved in their student’s academic life and more demanding of administrators’ time. As one principal explained, an “additional assistant principal is needed because higher SES parents require more attention.” As these examples illustrate, the level of resources needed to achieve similar outcomes and how these resources are deployed may vary dramatically depending on the student body of the school.

Conclusion On average, elementary school principals preferred small class sizes,

even with low budgets. However, they were willing to accept somewhat larger class sizes than exist today to pay for important student support programs. As budgets grew, principals increased expenditures in almost all resource areas, but they allocated the largest share of the additional funds to student support programs.

Not surprisingly, the principals also predicted that a low-SES school would need more resources than a high-SES school to achieve nearly the same outcomes. On an optimistic note, seven principals thought that a

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low-SES school could achieve the state’s goal of an 800 API with the high budget. At the same time, half thought that the high-SES school could attain an 800 API with the medium budget. Both budgets represent a higher level of funding than California schools received in 1999–2000.

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6. Middle School Results

When it comes to budgets and resource allocations, middle schools differ considerably from elementary schools. The key difference, perhaps, is that most middle schools must accommodate a wider range of student needs than any single elementary school is likely to encounter. One principal described that sort of accommodation as follows:

One of the realities of a middle school is that we receive students … often from a number of elementary feeder schools. Students come from different backgrounds with different skill levels, and the schools themselves have done a better or worse job of promoting strong student academic performance. For this reason, for the foreseeable future, middle schools will be remediating student skills, especially in reading, writing, and math, so that these students can take advantage of the increasingly discipline-based education program.

This approach to remediation guided the resource allocations of many of our 14 middle school principals, especially in the low-SES school. Again, they worked independently, essentially creating 14 separate model schools for each exercise. Like the previous chapter, this one describes how the principals allocated resources under different budget conditions and predicted student achievement. Table 6.1 summarizes the results of the low-budget, low-SES exercise by showing the average allocation of each resource.1 It also shows the third-lowest and third-highest observation for the 14 middle school principals to give a sense of the smallest quarter of responses and the largest quarter of responses.

One significant difference between elementary and middle schools concerns the way teachers are distributed across the curriculum. For the low-budget, low-SES exercise, the middle school principals chose an average of nearly 40 teachers for their school of 1,000 students, or one _____________

1As noted in the previous chapter, the total expenditures based on these averages do not exactly equal the actual amount budgeted because of the nonlinearities in the prices. However, the differences are small and do not affect our analysis.

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Table 6.1

Resource Levels for a Low-SES Middle School of 1,000 Students with a Low Budget of $3,500 per Pupil

Units

Resource Unit of Measure Average Third

Lowest Third

Highest Teachers Teachers—core classes FTE 29.3 26.0 32.0 Teachers—noncore classes FTE 6.0 5.0 7.0 Teachers—physical education FTE 4.5 4.0 5.0 Administration Principals FTE 1.0 1.0 1.0 Assistant principals FTE 1.6 1.0 2.0 Clerical office staff FTE 4.0 3.0 5.0 Support staff Academic coaches FTE 1.2 0.5 2.0 Instructional aides FTE 2.7 0.0 6.0 Counselors FTE 1.7 1.0 2.0 Nurses FTE 0.6 0.2 1.0 Librarians FTE 1.0 1.0 1.0 Security officers FTE 1.6 1.0 4.0 Technology support staff FTE 0.8 0.5 1.0 Community liaisons FTE 0.5 0.0 1.0 Programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher 30.5 18.0 40.0 After-school tutoring Teacher hours/week 46.0 20.0 62.5 Longer school day Hours/day 0.0 0.0 0.0 Summer school Students 164.0 0.0 300.0 Longer school year Days/year 0.0 0.0 0.0 Computers for instruction Computers 102.8 40.0 168.0 Other $ thousands 0.2 0.0 0.0

teacher per 25 students. Because these teachers have one daily preparation period during which they are not teaching students, the average actual class size was higher, at about 30.2 students. The overall average class size, however, masks an important class size distinction between core and noncore classes. Middle school principals allocated teachers so that core classes (such as English, math, and history) were smaller than noncore classes (such as art, foreign language, and other electives) and much smaller than physical education classes. Core classes averaged 27.3 students per class, noncore classes averaged 33.3 students, and physical education classes averaged 44.9 students. Because most

67

elementary school pupils spend most of the day with one teacher, the distinction between core and noncore subjects has fewer staffing consequences in those schools. Interestingly, the average core class size was similar to what elementary school principals chose for their fourth and fifth grade classes with the same per-pupil budget.

The number of teachers (and therefore class sizes) that middle school principals chose varied greatly. Core classes ranged in size from 25 to 32 students and were fairly evenly distributed within that range. In their write-ups during the workshops, several principals stressed small class sizes. “Manageable class sizes are the highest priority in order to maintain a safe and orderly environment conducive to learning,” maintained one principal. Another noted, “Teachers should know their students well,” and a third principal emphasized “positive student- teacher relationships.” Principals agreed much more about the optimal size of noncore classes, with half of the principals selecting exactly six noncore teachers leading to class sizes of about 33 students. Overall, the total number of teachers was quite evenly distributed from a low of 36 teachers to a high of 43 teachers.

Although teachers are the fundamental resource required to educate students, the principals’ allocations reflected the need for nonteaching staff as well. Not surprisingly, all middle school principals chose to have one principal at their hypothetical school. They also chose an average of 1.6 assistant principals and a clerical staff consisting of four full-time employees. One principal itemized his four clerical positions as follows: receptionist, school secretary (primarily for the principal), clerk (primarily for the assistant principal), and attendance clerk. The allocations for the group included a range of support staff as well. One principal chose to have two academic counselors and a half-time psychologist. Another pointed out that nurses, the first contact regarding health issues for students and parents, were especially important in the low-SES school. Unlike their elementary school counterparts, the middle school principals cited security as a major concern. All but one principal chose at least one security officer, for an average of 1.6 FTE. In contrast, only one elementary school principal chose one FTE security officer, even in the high-budget scenario. On a per-pupil basis, middle school principals chose more administrators,

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counselors, and security personnel than their elementary school counterparts.

Throughout the budget workshop, middle school principals also stressed the importance of professional development. On average, they provided 31 hours per teacher per year—just two fewer hours than elementary principals chose. Middle school principals were evenly split about how to allocate these hours. About half preferred to use professional development time in full-day increments. One principal noted, “The best professional development occurs during a full day, not added on to the end of an already busy and stressful normal teaching day.” The other principals preferred to give teachers briefer but more frequent opportunities for professional development. Regardless of the approach, curriculum and academic standards formed the cornerstone of most professional development programs. One principal placed special emphasis on these programs in low-SES schools:

Many underperforming students lack basic literacy/numeracy skills. Many times the teacher frustration level is high due to lack of training, low expectations, and lack of content knowledge. Delivering a standards-based instructional program for struggling learners is quite a challenge! The above areas can be addressed through a quality professional development plan that is of high quality, job-embedded, and ongoing.

The principals’ allocations also revealed the importance of several student-based programs. Typically, principals provided tutoring for about 200 students in groups of 18 for three to four hours per week. Generally, they geared these programs to remediation. In addition, they provided summer school for an average of 164 students.

As the budgets increased, spending on teachers grew the most in absolute terms, followed by spending on support staff and then student programs. Figure 6.1 summarizes how money was spent in each of five broad resource categories as the budgets grew, and Appendix Table B.2 shows the average allocations for each budget. Again, “teacher training” includes spending on academic coaches and professional development. The remaining categories correspond to the broad categories in Table 6.1.

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Low budget Medium budget High budget

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

S pe

nd in

g pe

r pu

pi l (

$)

Teachers Administration Support staff Teacher training

Student programs

Figure 6.1—Allocation of Funds in Low-SES Middle School as the Budget Grew

Whereas elementary school principals ensured relatively smaller classes with their low budget and added new funds to student programs, middle school principals began with relatively large classes and devoted additional funds to reducing them. Again, this pattern helps illustrate the point that the marginal productivity of a resource depends on a school’s original allocation. With the high budget, middle school principals added a total of 5.6 teachers, reducing their average core classes by about three students and their noncore class size by six students. One principal who deviated from the average trend explained that, because he viewed teachers as so important, he ensured a high number of teachers even in the low budget; as a result, he could focus on other areas as the budget increased. Nearly one-quarter of the additional funds in the high budget was spent on six additional support staff. On average, instructional aides accounted for over half these additional FTEs; counselors and community liaisons each accounted for nearly 15 percent of the new support staff.

Principals used another one-quarter of the additional funds in the high budget to broaden the scope of many student programs. On average, they more than doubled their spending on resources in this category. None chose an extended school day or school year in the low budget, but with the high budget, they lengthened the school day by 12 minutes. Over 180 days, the additional time totaled 37 hours, or about seven additional days of classes for students. In addition, principals lengthened the school year by three days. One principal said that he

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added after-school tutoring until the budget permitted an extension of the school day and year, thus enabling him to reach students who might not otherwise make it to the tutoring program. With the high budgets, too, principals on average enlarged summer school programs to accommodate 115 more students and provided an additional 34 hours per week of teacher tutoring time. On average, the tutoring programs served about 100 more students; and several principals also reduced the size of the tutoring groups by about four students, explaining that with smaller group sizes “instructors would be able to use data to target the areas that individuals or groups were weak in and assist them in those targeted areas.”

Principals more than doubled spending in the area of teacher training, even though that resource received slightly less than 20 percent of the additional funds. Principals added two academic coaches and provided another 19 hours of professional development for each teacher in the high-budget scenario. Principals generally allocated this time in much the same way they had allocated it in the low-budget scenario— either in full-day increments or in a set number of hours per week.

A very small share of the additional funds was allocated to administration, indicating the relatively fixed costs of that category. On average, principals added 0.9 administrative FTE in the high budget. One principal added an assistant principal to help with additional instruction and curriculum observation.

Although Figure 6.1 focuses on what happens in the low-SES school as budgets rise, the broad trends are apparent in the high-SES school. Table B.2 shows average resource levels for the three budget scenarios with the high-SES school.

Student Outcomes and API Predictions Like their elementary school counterparts, middle school principals

predicted that both hypothetical schools would achieve higher API scores with higher budgets. The average API prediction for the low-budget, low-SES middle school was about 668. Although it rose to 738 with the high budget, it still fell short of the state’s goal of 800 (Figure 6.2). Middle school principals also predicted that the high-SES school would

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Low-SES school High-SES school

Low budget Medium budget High budget 500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

A P

I

Figure 6.2—Average Predicted API for Middle Schools by SES and Budget

perform better than the low-SES school at each budget level—about 77 points better with the low budget and 63 points higher with the high budget. These API gaps based on SES, however, were not as wide for middle schools as they were for elementary schools.

The range of API predictions was fairly narrow and more pessimistic than that of elementary school principals (Table 6.2). Only three of the 14 middle school principals predicted that the low-SES school could achieve an 800 API or higher with the high budget. Even so, their average prediction with the low budget tended to be higher than the

Table 6.2

Number of Middle School Principals Predicting Each API Range

Low-SES School High-SES School

API

Low Budget $3,500

Medium Budget $4,025

High Budget $4,550

Low Budget $3,500

Medium Budget $4,025

High Budget $4,550

600–649 3 1 – – – – 650–699 7 3 1 – – – 700–749 4 8 9 6 2 1 750–799 – 2 1 8 9 5 800–849 – – 2 – 2 6 850–899 – – 1 – 1 1 900–1000 – – – – – 1 Average 668 703 738 745 775 800

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actual API scores of schools with comparable demographics. The average prediction for the low-SES school was about 60 points higher than the average for actual schools with those demographics. For the high-SES schools, API predictions were only about 20 points higher than actual scores for similar schools. These differences are not entirely surprising given that our principals worked at schools that did relatively well within their demographic categories. Also, the exercise assumed more flexibility in resource allocation and more stability in staffing than the real world permits. In this sense, the higher API predictions may represent the benefits of flexibility and stability.

Student Characteristics and Resource Allocations These results again permit an indirect estimate of the additional

resources a low-SES school might need to achieve the same outcome as a high-SES school. By way of example, consider the low-SES school with the high budget. According to Figure 6.2, the average predicted API of 738 is quite similar to the 745 API predicted for the high-SES school with the low budget. In monetary terms, then, it would cost an additional $1,050 per pupil (the difference between the low and high budgets) for the two schools to have similar API scores close to 750. To give a sense of how the additional funds would be spent in the low-SES school, Table 6.3 compares the average resource allocation in the low- SES, high-budget school and that in the high-SES, low-budget school. (To compare low-SES and high-SES allocations with the same budgets, see Appendix Table B.2.) The final column shows the difference between the two allocations: specifically, the number of additional resources required for the low-SES school to achieve an outcome similar to that in the high-SES school.

As the table indicates, principals tended to add resources to the low- SES school in almost every category. On average, they used the additional funds in the low-SES school to hire more than five additional teachers, mostly core class teachers. Nonetheless, their allocations also suggest that noncore classes and physical education classes should have more teachers in the low-SES school. In the low-SES school, principals allocated one additional administrative FTE, with most of that time coming from clerical office staff. In the area of support staff, principals

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Table 6.3

Resources Needed for Middle Schools to Achieve Similar API Scores (Approximately a 750 API)

Resource Unit of Measure

Low-SES School, High

Budget

High-SES School, High

Budget

Additional Units in Low-SES School

Teachers Teachers—core classes FTE 32.7 29.2 3.5 Teachers—noncore classes FTE 7.4 6.3 1.1 Teachers—physical education FTE 5.3 4.5 0.7 Administration Principals FTE 1.0 1.0 0.0 Assistant principals FTE 1.9 1.6 0.3 Clerical office staff FTE 4.7 4.0 0.7 Support staff Academic coaches FTE 3.4 1.3 2.1 Instructional aides FTE 6.2 2.6 3.6 Counselors FTE 2.5 1.8 0.7 Nurses FTE 0.7 0.6 0.2 Librarians FTE 1.1 1.0 0.1 Security officers FTE 2.1 1.2 0.9 Technology support staff FTE 1.0 0.8 0.2 Community liaisons FTE 1.3 0.5 0.8 Programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher 49.0 30.7 18.3 After-school tutoring Teacher hours/week 80.3 34.8 45.5 Longer school day Hours/day 0.2 0.0 0.2 Summer school Students 279.1 167.3 111.8 Longer school year Days/year 3.2 0.0 3.2 Computers for instruction Computers 159.9 108.0 51.8 Other $ thousands 1.9 0.6 1.4

Budget Dollars/pupil 4,550 3,500 1,050

NOTE: Because of rounding, the additional units may be off by 0.1.

allocated over eight additional FTEs. Specifically, they added two more academic coaches, over three instructional aides, and nearly one additional counselor, security officer, and community liaison. One principal explained that there were “fewer security [personnel] needed for a more academically motivated student population.”

On average, principals intensified all support programs in the low- SES school with the additional funds. They provided 18 more hours of

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professional development to teachers and 46 more hours of teacher tutoring time for students. The allocations also reflect the importance principals placed on teaching time as evidenced by a 0.2-hour longer school day and the three-day longer school year. In addition, principals provided over 100 more students with summer school in the low-SES school. Their rationale was very similar to that of the elementary school principals; in particular, they maintained that the low-SES students would need more intervention and remediation. As one principal put it, “The high-SES school will have 100 or more fewer students requiring additional academic support.”

Conclusion Relative to elementary schools with the same level of per-pupil

funding, middle school principals chose higher average class sizes. As their budgets increased, they tended to increase spending across all resource areas, but they used one-third of the additional funds to hire more teachers, thereby reducing class sizes. On average, they reduced their noncore class sizes by more than their core class sizes, in part because their noncore classes were larger to begin with.

The school’s SES affected the principals’ API predictions for a given budget level; specifically, principals believed that a low-SES school would require more resources to achieve an academic outcome similar to that of a high-SES school. To reach an API of 750, the principals predicted that the low-SES school would require 30 percent more funding than the high-SES school. Given that none of the budgets led to a predicted API average of 800 in the low-SES school, it is not clear how much more funding they thought would be required to meet the state’s API goal.

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7. High School Results

High schools differ considerably from schools at other levels. On average, they are almost twice as large as middle schools, and the high school exit exam has focused new attention on academic performance. These and other differences provided the backdrop for the high school budget workshops, which drew 15 principals from schools around the state. Like the previous two chapters, this one describes which resources principals added as their budgets grew and how their API estimates corresponded to budget levels, allocations, and student characteristics. We also asked the high school principals to predict the graduation rates for the various schools they created during the exercises.

The average allocations for the low-budget, low-SES high school are shown in Table 7.1.1 Again, it includes the fourth-lowest and fourth- highest observations to give a sense of the variation in responses. Seven principals allocated resources between or equal to these values. With this low budget, principals chose 70.2 teachers for their school of 1,800 students, yielding an overall ratio of 25.6 students per teacher. Because teachers have one preparation period per day, the average class size at this budget level is 30.8, slightly higher than that of middle schools.

Like their middle school counterparts, the high school principals thought that smaller classes were more important in the core classes than in the noncore classes. One principal explicitly confirmed this pattern: “Noncore usually run larger because of the nature of courses, such as choir, band, art, etc.” Using our assumptions about the number and type of classes that students take (see Chapter 4 for details), principals allocated teachers in a way to accommodate core classes of 26.6 students, noncore classes of 34.7 students, and physical education classes of 48.4 _____________

1As noted in the previous chapters, total expenditures based on these averages do not exactly equal the actual amount budgeted because of the nonlinearities in the prices. However, the differences are small and do not affect our analysis.

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Table 7.1

Resource Levels for a Low-SES High School of 1,800 Students with a Low Budget of $3,500 per Pupil

Units

Resource Unit of Measure Average Fourth Lowest

Fourth Highest

Teachers Teachers—core classes FTE 40.6 38.0 43.0 Teachers—noncore classes FTE 26.0 24.1 28.0 Teachers—physical education FTE 3.7 3.3 4.0 Administration Principals FTE 1.0 1.0 1.0 Assistant principals FTE 2.9 2.0 3.0 Clerical office staff FTE 8.7 6.0 10.0 Support staff Academic coaches FTE 1.8 1.0 2.5 Instructional aides FTE 4.4 2.0 6.0 Counselors FTE 4.3 4.0 5.0 Nurses FTE 0.5 0.0 1.0 Librarians FTE 1.0 1.0 1.0 Security officers FTE 2.8 1.5 4.0 Technology support staff FTE 1.4 1.0 1.6 Community liaisons FTE 1.3 1.0 2.0 Programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher 39.5 17.7 60.0 After-school tutoring Teacher hours/week 85.6 24.0 120.0 Longer school day Hours/day 0.1 0.0 0.0 Summer school Students 330.5 100.0 500.0 Longer school year Days/year 0.0 0.0 0.0 Computers for instruction Computers 309.9 175.0 400.0 Other $ thousands 2.7 0.0 0.0

students. Relative to middle schools, these core classes were slightly smaller, but the noncore and physical education classes were larger. Once again, principals were not in complete agreement about the optimal number of teachers. Allocations ranged from 36 to 46 teachers for core classes, with a fairly even distribution within that range. Noncore teacher allocations ranged from 20 to 30. Generally, principals who chose larger-than-average core class sizes chose smaller-than-average noncore class sizes. Furthermore, one principal added that he would structure his core classes so that those serving English language learners were smaller than those serving students proficient in English.

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Nonteaching staffing at the low-budget level also followed fairly clear patterns with some variation. The low-budget school depicted in Table 7.1 had an average of one principal, three assistant principals, and 8.7 clerical staff. Although every participant allocated exactly one principal, the allocation of assistants varied. One principal who chose four assistant principals explained, “Administration is key to orchestrate the development, implementation, and sustenance of the student support programs. To that end, I started with a healthy administrative staff and increased it as funding grew.” On average, principals also allocated more than 17 support staff, of whom 4.4 were instructional aides. The purpose of these aides, one principal noted, was to “get in the classroom and provide one-on-one support to struggling students.” With a staff of 4.3 counselors, each counselor was responsible for about 418 students. Like their middle school counterparts, high school principals regarded security officers as a necessity; on average, they allocated 2.8 full-time officers to the low-SES school. The staffing ratio implied by this allocation was similar to that in the low-budget middle school.

High school principals also emphasized professional development, supplying nearly 40 hours per teacher per year in the low budget—about eight hours more per teacher than the allocation chosen by the elementary and middle school principals. Like the other principals, the high school principals were split over how to allocate these hours. About half preferred to have teachers meet in full-day increments, whereas the other half preferred to dole out hours on a weekly basis. Several principals noted that they would allocate more professional development time to teachers in the core subject areas than to those in noncore subjects.

The principals stressed student-based programs as well. Their average budget allowed for 350 students in the tutoring programs; generally, these students met in groups of 16 for about four hours per week. These tutoring programs were typically a mixture of homework clubs and remediation programs devoted to reading and English skills. Summer school was funded for an average of 331 students.

As the budget increased for the low-SES school, high school principals allocated the additional funds in much the same way middle school principals did. Spending on teachers grew the most, followed by

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almost identical increases in spending on support staff and spending on student programs. Appendix Table B.3 shows the average resource allocations for all three budgets, and Figure 7.1 summarizes the spending patterns in five broad categories as the budgets grew. Once again, the spending categories are comparable to the broad categories in Table 7.1 except that teacher training includes spending on academic coaches and professional development.

Like their middle school counterparts, principals used the largest share of their additional funds to add more teachers—10.2 more than in the low-budget scenario. One principal noted that these small classes “allow for more individual student-teacher contact” and another added that they would reduce disciplinary issues. However, several principals believed that professional development was more important than small class sizes. One principal remarked, “I increased staff development because how effective a teacher is has more to do with increasing achievement than does class size.” Another principal added, “Professional development is a key component in building a strong staff. I didn’t need more teachers, I needed people who are better prepared and qualified!” Yet another noted the importance of smaller class sizes but maintained that teachers need to motivate young people and must therefore be talented. In a follow-up message to the budget workshop coordinators, one principal expanded on this point:

Low budget Medium budget High budget

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

S pe

nd in

g pe

r pu

pi l (

$)

Teachers Administration Support staff Teacher training

Student programs

Figure 7.1—Allocation of Funds in Low-SES High School as the Budget Grew

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I have become more and more convinced that lowering class size is NOT the real answer to improved performance. If there is any message that I, as a workshop participant, would like to send to a commission or to the legislature or to the Governor, it is that we need to put significant resources behind changing the way teachers go about doing their work and allow for some curricular flexibility rather than just giving teachers fewer students. Obviously, we should be reasonable about lowering the oppressive student loads that are carried by some teachers, and I tried to reflect that thought in my exercise decisions. However, I kept returning to the thought that there must be a balance between making a teacher’s work easier and helping make a teacher’s work better.

With this argument in mind, perhaps, principals added an average of 27.3 hours of professional development per teacher as their budgets increased. High school principals placed much more emphasis on professional development than did elementary or middle school principals, who added only 18 hours on average.

Teacher quality and preparedness also emerged as priorities in other programs. One principal explained, “After-school tutoring is important, but not an emphasis. I believe reasonable class size with spectacular instruction is more powerful.” One principal said she was reluctant to extend the school day or academic year if instruction was merely more of the same. Another explained that she chose not to fund a longer day or year because “effectively using the time we have now is the key.” One principal also stressed making more effective use of the current resources.

A longer day and longer year are not the solution. We need to do more in less time. Let’s not bore students by making them attend longer days or more days. Less may be more in this case. Summer school shouldn’t be necessary if we are doing our jobs during the regular school year.

Despite these sentiments, high school principals, like their middle school counterparts, more than doubled their spending on student programs as their budgets increased. They extended the school day by an average of 11 minutes with the high budget, thereby adding about one additional week of class time to the school year, and added 2.5 days to the official school year. One principal pointed out that these additional days should come at the beginning of the school year to “allow more instruction prior to state-mandated assessments.” On average, principals enlarged summer school programs to accommodate 312 more students, and they provided an additional 43 hours per week of teacher tutoring time. As a result, the

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tutoring program was expanded to serve about 200 more students than were served in the low-budget program. About one-third of the principals also reduced the size of the tutoring groups by an average of six students; however, the weekly hours of meeting remained relatively stable.

Principals used one-quarter of the additional funds in the high budget to add nearly ten support staff. Instructional aides, counselors, and community liaisons accounted for three-quarters of these additional FTEs. Several principals described the critical role that liaisons play in a low-SES school. One maintained:

Especially in lower-SES schools, ongoing support and communication with parents is crucial. This communication needs to be in the language used by the parents. In many cases, the liaison is more approachable for parents.

Another principal added:

There is a need for more parental contacts in a low-SES school. Many parents won’t sign their children up for free lunch; they are not aware of problems at school (due to lack of phones, permanent address, etc.).

Administrative staffing also received a small amount of the additional funds. On average, principals added 0.8 FTE assistant principal. The function of this assistant principal was, as one principal explained, “to improve overall supervision and increase administrative presence in the classroom.” More administrative involvement in the classroom reinforces the priority of improving teacher quality. Another principal noted that an additional assistant principal could focus on intervening with struggling students more effectively. Yet another added an attendance clerk, believing that higher attendance rates would translate into higher academic performance. As budgets grew, the overall patterns in Figure 7.1 were similar regardless of the school’s SES (see Table B.3 for the average allocations in the high-SES school).

In addition to making changes in staffing, teacher training, and student programs, principals mentioned structural changes that could be made with minimal costs. For example, one principal believed that “single-track, year-round schedule and block daily scheduling would be a cost-effective and more efficient way to keep the momentum going with frequent breaks and tutoring and collegial work built into the school

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day.” Despite our instructions to purchase any necessary professional development time, some principals said they would simply rearrange their schedules to accommodate an hourly meeting per week for teachers.

Student Outcomes, API Predictions, and Graduation Rates

Like their counterparts, high school principals predicted that budget increases would lead to better academic outcomes and that, for the same budget, outcomes would be better for the high-SES school than for the low-SES school (Figure 7.2). For the low-budget, low-SES school, the average API prediction was 665. With the high budget, the average prediction rose nearly 100 points to 761. Although that average is still short of the state goal, nearly half the principals predicted that the low- SES school would indeed achieve an 800 API (Table 7.2). For the high- SES school, about one-third predicted that the high-SES school would attain an 800 API with only the medium budget. These results indicate that they believed that the low-SES school would need $525 per pupil more than the high-SES school to achieve a similar outcome.

With the low budget, the predicted API score for the low-SES school exceeded the average of actual ones for schools with similar demographics by 75 points; similarly, the high-SES predictions exceeded

Low-SES school High-SES school

Low budget Medium budget High budget 500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

A P

I

Figure 7.2—Average Predicted API for High Schools by SES and Budget

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Table 7.2

Number of High School Principals Predicting Each API Range

Low-SES School High-SES School

API

Low Budget $3,500

Medium Budget $4,025

High Budget $4,550

Low Budget $3,500

Medium Budget $4,025

High Budget $4,550

550–599 1 – – – – – 600–649 4 2 2 – – – 650–699 4 1 – 1 1 1 700–749 5 9 3 6 1 1 750–799 – 2 3 7 7 4 800–849 1 1 6 – 4 7 850–899 – – 1 1 1 1 900–1000 – – – – – 1 Average 665 710 761 742 774 800

actual API scores by about 55 points. The workshop’s structure may have led principals to overestimate API scores, and there may have been a natural tendency to believe that API scores would reach the goal of 800 under the highest budget. The gap could also be due to the greater resource flexibility and staff stability assumed in the budget exercises than actually exists in California high schools.

As noted above, the focus on graduation rates distinguishes high schools from elementary and middle schools. Principals predicted that the low-SES school would have a lower graduation rate at each budget level. Figure 7.3 shows the average predicted graduation rate for each of the schools with each of the budgets. With the medium budget, principals predicted that 93 percent of the students from the low-SES school and 96 percent of students from the high-SES school would graduate. At the highest budget level, the low-SES school graduation rate was estimated to be 96 percent, matching the high-SES school at the medium budget. This calculation suggests that, as with the API score, the low-SES school. requires more resources—about $525 per pupil more—to achieve the same graduation rate as the high-SES school. This is the same spending difference principals predicted would be required for the APIs of the two schools to be similar.

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Low-SES school High-SES school

Low budget Medium budget High budget 80

82

84

86

88

90

92

96

100

94

98 P

er ce

nt ag

e of

s tu

de nt

s gr

ad ua

tin g

Figure 7.3—Average Predicted Graduation Rate for High Schools by SES and Budget

Student Characteristics and Resource Allocations To examine which additional resources principals thought would be

especially effective in equalizing student achievement and graduation rates across the types of schools, we compared the low-SES, high-budget scenario to the high-SES, medium-budget scenario. The first two numerical columns of Table 7.3 show the average allocations for the low- SES school and the high-SES school, respectively. (Appendix Table B.3 shows allocations for the low-SES and high-SES schools with the same budgets.) The third column shows the additional resources allocated in the low-SES school.

The most striking staffing difference is that the low-SES school had nearly six more teachers, most of them core teachers, and 3.5 additional FTE instructional aides to achieve the same outcomes as the high-SES school. One principal explained the importance of lower class sizes in the low-SES school: “I felt that class size was not as relevant [in the high-SES school] since academic gaps did not appear to be as significant.” This rationale also explains the increased focus on student support programs in the low-SES school. Principals provided nearly 40 more hours of tutoring time and 140 more summer school slots. Although principals did not always change the level of other student

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Table 7.3

Resources Needed for High Schools to Achieve Similar API Scores (Approximately a 770 API)

Resource Unit of Measure

Low-SES School, High

Budget

High-SES School, Medium Budget

Additional Units in Low SES School

Teachers Teachers—core classes FTE 47.1 42.2 4.9 Teachers—noncore classes FTE 28.9 28.2 0.7 Teachers—physical education FTE 4.4 4.3 0.2 Administration Principals FTE 1.1 1.0 0.1 Assistant principals FTE 3.7 3.3 0.3 Clerical office staff FTE 10.4 9.4 1.0 Support staff Academic coaches FTE 3.6 3.0 0.6 Instructional aides FTE 8.9 5.3 3.5 Counselors FTE 6.0 5.7 0.3 Nurses FTE 0.7 0.7 0.0 Librarians FTE 1.4 1.3 0.1 Security officers FTE 3.5 3.2 0.4 Technology support staff FTE 2.4 2.0 0.4 Community liaisons FTE 2.4 1.5 0.9 Programs Professional development Hours/year/teacher 66.8 63.2 3.7 After-school tutoring Teacher hours/week 128.6 91.2 37.4 Longer school day Hours/day 0.3 0.1 0.1 Summer school Students 642.5 504.3 138.2 Longer school year Days/year 2.5 1.8 0.7 Computers for instruction Computers 523.5 461.1 62.5 Other $ thousands 3.6 2.7 0.9

Budget Dollars/pupil 4,550 4,025 525

NOTE: Because of rounding, the additional units may be off by 0.1.

programs depending on the school, they explained that the focus of such programs would change. For example, longer school days at the high- SES school would be used to provide time for students to fulfill college prerequisites and take advanced placement courses, but that time would be used for remediation at the low-SES school.

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Conclusion At the low-SES, low-budget school, high school principals preferred

that core classes be smaller than noncore classes. As budgets increased, principals used the additional funds in much the same way as the middle school principals. Although they increased spending in all resource areas, they used the largest portion of the funding to hire more teachers and reduce class sizes. At the same time, many stressed the critical importance of improving the quality of the teaching force. High school principals allocated about eight more hours per teacher to professional development under the low budget than did their elementary and middle school counterparts. As the budget grew, they also added nine more hours per teacher than did elementary and middle school principals.

Unlike their middle school counterparts, almost half the high school principals thought that the low-SES school could attain an 800 API with the high budget. Furthermore, their predictions indicate that the low- SES school would need $525 more per pupil, allocated optimally, to achieve an academic outcome similar to that of the high-SES school.

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8. Conclusion

This report presents a new approach to thinking about adequate funding for California schools. By attaching prices to school inputs and then asking principals to make tradeoffs under realistic budget scenarios, this approach offers a useful way to distinguish needs from desires. It also blends allocation strategies with estimates of student achievement for various budget levels and for schools with different student body characteristics. The results therefore link resources, prices, budget decisions, demographics, and student performance estimates in a novel and instructive way.

It may seem obvious that school funding systems should reflect prices, budgets, student needs, and academic performance goals, but this has not been California’s practice in recent years. In response to a series of court decisions and state ballot initiatives, the current school finance system allocates revenue according to formulas based on past budgets and a complicated array of categorical programs. Since the passage of Proposition 98, for example, California has sought to maintain per-pupil spending at its 1986–1987 level with adjustments for growth in real per- capita income. Although easy to summarize, Proposition 98 includes many details that are devilishly difficult to understand, much less implement. A series of contingencies, most of them added to adjust to difficult economic times, makes its budget provisions more flexible but virtually incomprehensible as well. A ballot initiative that appeared to be a simplification and a guarantee of adequate school funding has proven to be neither. Furthermore, Proposition 98 has encouraged legislators to satisfy its complicated mandates rather than focus on more fundamental questions, including what budget levels and resource combinations are most likely to help students meet the state’s academic standards.1

_____________ 1For more on Proposition 98, see Rose et al. (2003).

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In the absence of reliable production functions for education, policymakers must rely on judgments to answer such questions. Although a great deal of research and experience can inform these judgments, in the final analysis the basic question—What do we want our schools to look like?—is a political one, and for various historical and institutional reasons, the state has chosen to address it now. Chief among those reasons, perhaps, is the fact that the state government is now responsible for both school funding (through the legislature) and setting performance goals (through the State Board of Education).2 To many policymakers and observers, it follows that the state should provide the resources students need to achieve those goals. Recent legislative activity, including the Master Plan and the passage of AB 2217, indicates that state policymakers are prepared to investigate this approach.

The Quality Education Commission To help close the loop between standards, funding, and

performance, Governor Davis signed AB 2217 into law in September 2002. That law calls for the formation of a Quality Education Commission and charges it with developing a Quality Education Model.3 According to the bill, the Quality Education Model should be a list of school resources, along with their corresponding costs, that would enable the “vast majority” of pupils to meet the state’s academic standards. The language of AB 2217 makes it clear that the Quality Education Commission may produce a series of models, or prototypes, rather than a single, inflexible one; the bill notes, for example, that the commission should produce at least one prototype each for elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. It also directs the commission to consider school and demographic characteristics when constructing these models. By doing so, the bill suggests that different types of schools may require different resource levels and therefore different _____________

2For a history of California’s school finance system, see Sonstelie et al. (1999). Rose et al. (2003) discusses the split between the legislature’s funding role and the State Board of Education’s role in setting academic standards.

3The idea for a Quality Education Model for California arose from PPIC research undertaken for the Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education. See Sonstelie (2001).