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By Betsy Hammond and Lisa Grace Lednicer At least 25 Oregon schools whose students are behind in reading and math have turned down federal aid intended to help those students learn more, an analysis by The Oregonian has found. Not taking the money — typically $200,000 a year — allows a school to dodge consequences and pressure to improve brought by the federal No Child Left Behind law. As a result, students in those schools don’t get free tutoring and don’t have the extra teachers and teacher training that federal money would buy. Parents don’t get letters notifying them of their school’s achievement problems and plans to improve, and students lose the opportunity to transfer to a better-performing school. “Why would they turn down the money? It’s not like we don’t need the tutoring,” says Madison junior Betelehem Shenbulo. She would have failed algebra II last year without the help of a tutor paid with federal funds, the 16-year-old says. “I have seen people struggle this year, really struggle, but tutoring is not available anymore,” she says. “We should still have it.” Under No Child Left Behind, any school receiving federal funds to help disadvantaged students that misses academic performance targets two years in a row is put on a federal must-improve list. Nationwide, more than 2,500 schools — including 80 in Oregon — have been put on the federal list. They face consequences if they don’t improve. To get off it, schools are supposed to raise achievement and hit all performance targets for two years straight. To help them, they get an extra dose of federal money to speed their improvement. But in Oregon, more schools have gotten off the troubled schools list after turning down federal money than by raising reading and math scores. Turning away money translates into less help for students in real academic need, says Steve Olczak, interim principal at Portland’s Benson High, which lost $300,000 in federal funding this year. “We’re not saying we won’t help kids who need help,” Olczak says. “But we don’t have extra dollars to do it. We’re doing it in ways that are effective, but not as deep.” Students pay price Statewide, at least 25 middle and high schools have escaped consequences for low achievement solely by no longer accepting federal funds after they were warned that more accountability, more requirements — and more money to help pay for improvements — were on the way. That contrasts with the 18 schools that worked their way off the list by raising attendance and test scores. Schools that turned aside federal money are in every part of the state. But all serve middle or high school students — making it harder for those schools than elementary schools to meet federal standards. Most of the federal money that would have gone to those schools instead is shared among high-poverty elementary schools in the same school district. The districts also forfeit additional federal money set aside for schools on the troubled list. In Portland, for example, the school board’s decision to discontinue federal funding for Madison, Benson and Franklin high schools this fall means Madison lost roughly $200,000 a year it had received for years. That forced the school to scale back teacher training. Madison Principal Pat Thompson said that included money used to send teachers to a weeklong training in San Diego on reading strategies for students and money to pay substitutes to teach while regular teachers wrote curriculum and coached one another on how to teach literacy in the classroom. “In a normal 61/2-hour day, there’s not enough time for teachers to work collaboratively in teams,” Thompson says. It also means that Madison no longer gets additional federal money to provide after-school tutoring to all low-income students who want it — help that 120 Madison students received last year. And Madison lost its right to claim federal school improvement funds — money that paid for $700,000 worth of teacher training and other help for Madison students during the past three years. For Fernando Munoz, a Madison sophomore, the lack of tutoring has hurt him in his science class. He sought help from his aunt, but she doesn’t know enough about the subject to help. In contrast, with tutoring last year, he went from failing algebra to a C. Cutting funds “is a bad idea because some people actually need help with classes,” he says. “I don’t know of any other place they can get it.” Early grades get money Officials in Portland and other school districts deny that they stopped distributing federal aid to their middle or high schools to escape the consequences of No Child Left Behind. “Getting the foundation skills in the elementary schools will help our students to achieve higher in junior high and high school,” says Leigh Ann Arthur, curriculum director in Klamath Falls City Schools, which cut federal funds to its junior high and high schools. She and others point out that most Oregon school districts give their federal aid for disadvantaged students, known as Title I funds, only to their elementary schools. Amy Morrell, a Benson math teacher, worries about a ninth-grader who managed to pass math last year only after getting federally paid tutoring. This year, “he’s kind of borderline,” she says. “High school kids need resources, too.” “The pressure is good” Principals at Oregon middle and high schools that continue to accept federal funds — and the stiff requirements that come with them — say the extra money has been key in getting test scores to new heights. “We needed the money, and the pressure is good too,” says Charan Cline, principal of Winston Middle School, which made a wholesale turnaround after chronic attendance and achievement problems put it on the federal list in 2004. Since 2002, 18 schools, from Chiloquin High in Klamath County to Harold Oliver Intermediate School in the Centennial district of outer Southeast Portland, have undergone intensive teacher retraining and zeroed in on new skills to pull student achievement up to the federally required level. At Chiloquin, low reading scores — particularly among Native American students — weren’t viewed with urgency until No Child Left Behind put the school on the federal list, says district curriculum director Doug Smith. That unwanted attention, plus $55,000 to $140,000 a year in federal money to buy top-notch teacher training, made the difference, he says. Teachers learned how to foster good behavior and encourage attendance. Math teachers learned how to teach the math skills students really need. And one English teacher got a full set of materials and the intensive training needed to turn struggling readers into proficient ones. “No Child Left Behind focused our attention. We went in with a complete change in attitude about children learning,” Smith says. Chiloquin High met all achievement targets in 2006 and again in 2007. Twenty-three other Oregon schools remain on the federal list, despite past efforts to get off. All are getting extra money to help them improve achievement. All are offered a veteran educator to coach and support the principal and faculty to improve. Most are making notable progress. Dropping federal funds is legal, except at schools where more than three-fourths of the students qualify for subsidized school lunches. Oregon districts all comply with that rule. The top Title I official at the Oregon Department of Education, Helen Maguire, wasn’t aware of how often school districts have turned down Title I funds for schools with low achievement. Her boss, state Superintendent Susan Castillo, was visibly angered when told that schools commonly drop funding just in time to dodge the consequences. “I hate to see any school not take Title I money if they are eligible for it, because those kids need it,” Castillo says. |
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