[Oregon] Anti-poverty cash for schools has strings

from Oregon Live

By Scott Learn

More than other Oregon districts, Portland Public Schools has chosen to share Title 1 federal anti-poverty money with its high schools.

But that generosity -- projected at $1 million next school year -- comes at an increasingly high price, raising questions about whether it would make sense to come up with the high school cash another way.

That's because a school that spends the federal money faces strict sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law if it fails any of a myriad of federal achievement standards for two years running. Schools that don't use Title 1 money, designed to help poor students, face only bad publicity if they miss the federal targets.


Last week, the state reported that all 10 of Portland's general-purpose high schools failed at least one federal standard (see chart on opposite page). Statewide, three-quarters of high schools failed. But only seven of the 143 Oregon high schools that missed the federal goals at least two years straight use Title 1 money. Two of those seven are in Portland Public -- Benson and Madison.

Both landed on the sanctions list as a result.

And the consequences? By law, districts with multiple schools have to offer students transfers to schools not on the sanctions list. If schools on the list continue to fall short of federal standards -- which will get increasingly tougher -- they could be forced to reorganize, dramatically modify instruction, or change out teachers.

Portland Public's other Title I high schools -- Franklin, Jefferson, Marshall and Roosevelt -- probably will face sanctions after next school year. At that point, the district might have to allow transfers into Cleveland, Grant and Lincoln, its most crowded, wealthiest and most popular high schools, or risk a showdown with the feds.

And all this trouble, the district says, with no test-score evidence that students who transfer do better than the kids who stay behind.

Federal regulations require that schools with 75 percent of their students eligible for subsidized lunches get Title I money. Only one Portland high school program -- the Spanish-English school at Roosevelt -- has that much poverty.

Portland Public, however, has elected to spread Title I money to schools with 40 percent poverty and above, pushing Benson, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and the rest of Roosevelt's specialty schools into the path of possible federal sanctions.

Under Portland Public's policy, high schools get the least Title I money, $250 a year for each eligible student. That totals $1 million, from $116,000 for Jefferson next school year to roughly $250,000 at Roosevelt.

Putting the numbers in context: Jefferson's sum is about 3 percent of its budget, and the $1 million total amounts to 0.2 percent of the district's $405 million general fund.

The money pays for some crucial people, including tutors and reading specialists, as well as teaching materials to help low-performing students.

But the numbers suggest Portland Public could replace the high school Title 1 cash with other funds, funnel it to middle and elementary schools, and skip the sanction-list migraines.

Any thought of doing that, Superintendent Vicki Phillips?

Well, the district could replace the high school Title 1 money as part of a larger look at school spending, Phillips says. But the superintendent, a strong advocate for boosting school accountability, says any change in spending wouldn't be aimed at dodging No Child Left Behind.

Phillips says she does worry about mandated transfers down the line, and about the unfairness of schools being labeled as "troubled" based on missing a few federal targets out of dozens.

"It gets hard for those of us who truly believe in accountability and want to be faithful to it," Phillips says. "But we also want something that is fair."

Scott Learn: 503-294-7657; scottlearn@news.oregonian.com.