Establishing priorities, leveraging technology, and getting the most from categorical funding

Guest Contributor: David Brazer

“David, you’ve got to cut 40 sections from next year’s master schedule by Monday so I can present our plan to Cabinet.” The chief business officer and the superintendent were looking to eliminate the district’s budget deficit, and they asked me to cut several beloved programs and 10% of my teaching staff.

Over the course of my 40-year career in education, I have navigated some gut-wrenching budget cuts like this one that many school and district leaders will be facing in the school year ahead due to economic fallout from COVID-19. My experience has taught me three things that I think are instructive for school and district leaders looking to lead through a period of declining revenue:

1. There is always enough money for the highest priorities.

2. Anticipating cuts and leveraging technology can help you support your team.

3. Creative leaders unlock federal funding to weather state revenue shortfalls.

Dedicate resources to your highest priorities — and eliminate the rest

Right now, every school leader is witnessing Coronavirus-related economic decline and job loss that will ultimately reduce state revenue and impact district budgets. Now is the time to establish priorities ahead of the downturn. Re-center your thinking on what is at the heart of your school or district mission. If your drive is to close achievement gaps, institutionalize effective programs for special populations, or engage students more deeply in their learning, then all flexible resources should be focused there, even if that means sacrificing long-time sacred cows. This is your responsibility — and a huge opportunity — as a leader.

Knowing what is most important and highest leverage in your setting is vital before getting into budget discussions or making decisions. For me, high quality instruction has always been the top priority because I believe what matters most is having excellent teachers in every classroom. A faculty of effective, caring teachers resolves most other challenges. If you agree, resources that support teachers and improve their ability to achieve improved student outcomes should be your top priority.

Even when you are confident about what is most important, it can be difficult to make choices. With all the emphasis on testing over the past 25 years, that expenditure might seem untouchable. But I believe expensive benchmark assessments are actually an easy target for cutting. Benchmark data that show Johnny and Sally are still behind in math and reading is not usually a news flash for their teachers, and my research (Brazer, 2018) demonstrates that this type of data has little impact on how teachers work with struggling students. Instead of confirming the same results repeatedly, focus scarce resources on catalyzing positive classroom changes that will ultimately benefit students.

Anticipate cuts and leverage technology to mitigate the impact

State revenue and local budgets may be stable at this moment, but they are going to change. Now is when you have some breathing room to plan. Find out how bad the future is predicted to be and plan for something a little bit worse.

Remember that personnel costs generally make up 80–85% of a district’s budget. So technology that helps your team save time is critical. Everything else is playing at the margins.

School and district leaders tend to make the mistake of looking at time spent by their salaried personnel as “cost neutral,” when, in fact, it is by far the largest part of their budget. Rather than fixating on the narrow slice of the budget that represents non-personnel costs, look for ways to optimize your team’s performance:

• EveryDay Labs uses behavioral science to save districts time by automating research-backed interventions to improve student attendance, which, for many districts, has the additional benefit of increasing revenue. Instead of district staff dedicating significant time analyzing absentee data, designing and coordinating mailings, and making phone calls, EveryDay Labs’ product handles it all with significantly higher efficacy. That’s a no-brainer in a budget crunch.

• TeachFX, the organization I work with, uses AI to measure student engagement. The TeachFX app allows teachers to record their classes and receive automated feedback on their teaching practices, such as their talk ratio, questioning techniques, use of wait time, equitable distribution of participation, or lesson design. A teacher reflecting on the feedback generated by TeachFX requires no time from a principal, AP, or instructional coach, and the technology can be a powerful supplement to traditional observation methods or coaching cycles that require significant time investment from instructional leaders.

Leveraging technology that enables you to do “more for less” is particularly crucial if you anticipate personnel cuts. These can be some of the most difficult cuts to experience as a community, and reserving a small amount of savings from the cuts to provide greater instructional support for teachers who continue to give their best in classrooms every day will help boost morale through a difficult time.

Unlock categorical funding to enhance teaching and learning

District and school leaders often struggle to sustain high quality teaching during education budget cuts, but they often overlook how categorical funding, the “extra” money that comes from the state and/or federal government, can be used to support their teachers.

The rule-driven nature of categorical funding can strike fear in the hearts of school leaders. If you make a mistake, you put the district at risk of having the money taken away. But the compliance criteria for various sources of categorical funding are more flexible and inclusive than you might think.

Here are three tips for thinking about three categories of federal money made available through the Every Student Succeeds Act:

Take advantage of Title I flexibility

Up to 75% of Title I funds can pay for personnel, with the remainder devoted to materials, software, and equipment. You might want to start a brainstorming conversation with your district’s Title I coordinator. Title I schools are permitted to purchase technology for the purpose of improving educational outcomes for Title I eligible students. As long as Title I students are served and have full access to purchased resources, all other students can benefit from Title I-funded materials and programs as well. (Some schools have Title I-eligible students without being designated a Title I school. The same guidelines apply.)

As a principal, I purchased a class set of desktop computers (okay, that was a long time ago!) with Title I money. Title I students used the classroom lab every day, but those computers were used every period by Title I and non-Title I students alike.

My current organization provides a more contemporary example: TeachFX is a tool that serves all students by supporting their teachers in creating a learning environment where students are discussing ideas and constructing knowledge through verbal engagement with the material. Research shows that while Title I students benefit the most from opportunities to participate verbally in class, they are typically given far fewer opportunities to do so (Ho, 2005). Because of this, nearly a third of our schools and districts are leveraging Title I funding to support their partnership with TeachFX. Although a platform such as ours may seem like an obvious fit for Title II funds (see below), the regulations for Title I allow for a lot more flexibility and inclusivity than many educators realize.

Maximize professional development opportunities with Title II

Title II has many qualifying criteria to determine funding alignment. Professional development should be classroom focused, evidence based, data driven, intended to be collaborative, and job embedded. As long as these criteria are met, funding can be applied to personnel, technology (as long as it’s not simply “product training”), printed material that supports teacher development, and many other means for helping teachers improve their practice.

You can pay for technology support for teachers when it meets one or more of the Title II criteria. Ideally you are checking multiple boxes. With the TeachFX example, you check them all: it analyzes classroom interactions (classroom focused) using objective data about student engagement (data driven), stems from four decades of research on student discourse (evidence based), allows for teachers to work more effectively in groups by providing windows into each other’s classrooms (collaborative), and it’s all be happening as part of normal classroom practice without requiring extra time from the teacher (job-embedded).

Perhaps the most important rule of a budget crunch is not to let any funding go to waste! Many districts have not used their full allocation of Title II funds for the 2019–20 school because COVID-19 disrupted many conferences and in-person professional learning plans. Reallocate what is left toward resources you can use in the coming year. Negotiate with vendors to encumber funds now to purchase goods and services in the next academic year. Or, in reverse, suggest receiving services this summer that you will pay for later after carryovers are confirmed and available. Don’t forget that vendors are worried too and this gives you some leverage. Maybe your PD vendor can offer you a “buy one get one free” discount that allows you to run a summer PD this June and then receive a “free” PD next school year when money will be tighter.

Use Title III funds to support English learners

Title III is unusual in that districts must write a grant to get access to funding. Check with your district’s academic services division to see if your district has a grant and learn how the money is allocated. If not, you may want to help write one. Title III pays for coaching and professional development specifically targeted toward EL teachers.

Much of the same flexibility with Title I applies similarly to Title III funding. To continue with the TeachFX example, the findings I mentioned above (Ho, 2005) are true for students with disabilities and English learners as well — those groups benefit disproportionately from a more dialogical classroom, and because of that our partners often use Title III funding to supplement or fully support our work together.

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The bottom line here is this: If any specific programs or resources you currently use are particularly effective for low-income students, provide teacher PD, or enhance English learners’ achievement, you’ll want to consider categorical funding sources before cutting them from the budget.

Education leaders will need to get creative as budgets decline, but they can’t do it alone. Start strengthening partnerships among principals, central office officials, and superintendents that allow for frank and productive budget discussions that achieve smart allocations to high-leverage programs and resources. Becoming informed about opportunities and guidelines for categorical fund use will help you ride out the hard budget times.

In K-12 education, every budgetary situation is unique, but these three principles can help you navigate even the most complex situations. Take advantage of underutilized funding, leverage technology to compensate for cuts, and, most importantly, focus resources on your highest priorities and what’s most central to your mission.

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I’d love to be a thought partner about budgets and other school and district leadership issues. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to contact me with questions or ideas: david@teachfx.com.