Federal Education Dollars: Are We Content with a “D”?

The federal government continues its decades-long interventions into public schooling. In the past few years, one of its programs has been billions in funding under a School Improvement Grant Program. The Department of Education has released a report of the performance of schools who received the grants, as measured by the states’ testing program in reading and mathematics. The results are underwhelming: Over 30% of the schools did the same or worse in the testing outcomes after implementing programs using the grant funding. A related blog included this analysis.

For me, this report begs a few questions:

1)    Are there other ways to measure success than state-specific testing programs for reading and mathematics? Could children be benefiting in other ways by these funds that aren’t measured on these tests?

2)    Was lack of funding an actual cause of these schools’ difficulties in the first place? In other words, was it reasonable to expect improved testing outcomes through the application of funding?

3)    Are schools reporting on responsible and effective use of the grant funds? How much goes to actual student-facing interventions, as opposed to administrative overhead?

4)    Who is best positioned to determine what goes on in schools: the federal government, state governments, or the local school stakeholders?

5)    Should federal grants of these amounts continue in the face of evidence showing limited to no to even negative impact? To whom is the U.S. Department of Education accountable when their program outcomes are so poor?

As a tax-paying citizen and educator, I am troubled by a society in which a far-removed central government agency chooses funding winners and losers amongst school programs. I’m further troubled when their own reporting shows such anemic results of those choices. Congress’s legislative mandates that give this type of responsibility to an executive branch agency need to be reviewed—hard-earned tax dollars should have greater impact than we’re seeing here, if they are to continue being spent in this way.