Why are Kansas schools diverting urgently needed funds from at-risk students?
If your charitable contributions were getting siphoned away from their intended destinations, you’d likely cut them or cut them off.
Why should state aid be any different?
Yet a new Legislative Post Audit report says badly needed funds for Kansas’ at-risk students aren’t making it to many of those students and are being funneled to general student populations. And even when the aid does go to at-risk students, it’s often being spent on programs and practices whose effectiveness is in question.
“Most of the at-risk funding we reviewed was spent on teachers and programs that serve all students rather than focusing on at-risk students,” the new report says, adding that “only 9 (31%) of the 29 programs and practices districts told us they were using were specifically designed for at-risk students.”
Meanwhile, “only 3 of the 29 programs and practices were proven to be effective.”
“Sadly, it was not a surprise,” says state Rep. Kristey Williams, a Republican from Augusta, who not only chairs the House K-12 Education Budget Committee but is also a member of the Legislative Post Audit Committee that unearths such information.
After Kansas Supreme Court rulings years ago took note of disparities in achievement between low-income and other students, lawmakers specifically added at-risk funds above and beyond existing school district budgets. That figure is now some $400 million a year, though Williams notes the achievement gap between low-income and other students is still near the 25% it was when the high court urged action beginning in the 1990s.
About $191,000 of the at-risk funds, the audit found, was spent on such things as a projector, a school nurse, an athletic trainer, playground equipment, postage, a cellphone for a school resource officer, an after-prom party and a copy machine contract.
The report is damning in a number of ways, Williams says, but mostly in confirming that at-risk funding is simply not working.
“For kids who need it most, this funding hasn’t created any success,” Williams said.
“Some of the most common programs districts told us they used for at-risk students had little to no effect on improving student outcomes,” the post audit report on a cross section of 20 school districts says. At the same time, the Kansas State Department of Education “has not approved strong at-risk practices or provided districts with good guidance on at-risk spending. Most of the at-risk practices approved by the Kansas State Board of Education did not target at-risk students and were not clearly evidence-based.”
This, despite the fact that state law “directs the state board of education to identify and approve evidence-based practices for at-risk programs and for the instruction of at-risk students,” the report says. “Staff told us they rely on school districts and professional organizations to provide research because they do not have enough staff to compile and review the research.”
Many districts siphon off at-risk funds to achieve smaller class sizes, but research shows it’s unclear if that even helps above grades K-3, the report says, and classes “need to have 15 or fewer students to produce academic benefits to students.”
Brad Neuenswander, Kansas State Department of Education deputy commissioner for learning services, has said at-risk students are simply “general education students that receive most of their at-risk supports in a general education classroom setting.” But that’s not the view of the courts or Legislature, both of which singled out at-risk students for extra funds.
Blue Valley, one of the 20 districts studied in the statewide audit report, said in a statement to The Star that allegations of misapplied at-risk funds “do not pertain to Blue Valley. Blue Valley is using the funds to meet the needs of at-risk students.” The district actually spends about 157% more on at-risk services than it receives in at-risk aid from the state.
Williams says there’s not much legislators can do, as state laws on the matter are clear enough already, but that the state department of education needs to provide both guidance and accountability to schools. In lieu of that, she says at-risk funds ought to be withheld in the worst cases — which she says has never been done — and perhaps be used to give students the choice to go elsewhere for their education. Money needs to help students more than institutions, she argues.
“If they’re not going to take it seriously, then why are we giving it to them?” asks Williams. Good question.
State education officials should go the extra mile to assure future at-risk monies are spent on at-risk students.
Otherwise they should expect to have the funds cut or cut off.