Thanks for the stimulus money; now what about Title I spending restraints?

By Emily Richmond

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009 | 2 a.m.

In a conference call with reporters Friday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan touted the federal stimulus package, which includes $100 billion in new funding for public schools.

Meanwhile, local educators are hopeful there will be more leeway in how they spend some of the federal dollars they have.

Last year Clark County, the nation’s fifth-largest school district, received about $60 million in Title I money, which goes to schools serving the highest percentages of students from low-income families. Ten percent of that money must be set aside for “school choice” — offering transfers to students at low-achieving campuses who want to attend a more successful school.

Districts must also set aside 10 percent of Title I funding for tutoring.

For the current academic year, roughly 30,000 Clark County students qualified for school choice. Fewer than 300 took advantage of the opportunity. If the law would allow it, the district would shift the unspent money where it would do more good, said Charlene Green, deputy superintendent for student support services.

The Sun asked Duncan whether there was an appetite in his office to reconsider some of the conditions on Title I funds.

“There’s absolutely room in our office to do that,” Duncan said. “As we get into the regulations and the guidance, we want to address those types of questions. Those kinds of ideas and thoughtful flexibility, I want to be very responsive to.”

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If Nevada wants to improve its dismal dropout and graduation rates, schools will have to do a better job of tracking students. That’s the message Keith Rheault, Nevada’s superintendent of public education, delivered this week to the Assembly Education Committee.

With the nation’s governors agreeing to use a common formula for calculating graduation rates, accuracy will matter more than ever, Rheault said.

Under the new formula, schools can boost their graduation rates by removing students from the rolls when they transfer to another school or earn their diplomas in an alternative program.

Rheault said he’s heard of school districts in other states pushing the envelope to bolster graduation rates. Some require little more than word-of-mouth as proof that a student has transferred to another school, rather than dropped out.

Nevada will require proof, Rheault said.

“You can’t just take word-of-mouth,” Rheault said. “You need documentation.”

Rheault said Nevada’s graduation rate could jump significantly once the switch is made to the new formula in the 2010-11 academic year. The Education Department currently reports the state’s graduation rate at 67.4 percent, although some outside reports put it as low as 50 percent. Under the new formula, Nevada’s graduation rate could be as high as 80 percent, which would move the Silver State’s ranking from near the bottom to the middle of the list nationally.

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If you ask Clark County high school students which math test they worry about, odds are the answer is the statewide proficiency exam, which they must pass to graduate.

The district’s common semester tests, intended to measure how well students are learning the course material, aren’t on most kids’ radar.

That might be one of the reasons for the high failure rate on the semester test, said School Board member Chris Garvey, who was elected in November.

Though the district’s overall performance improved in January compared with last year’s results — the first time the test was given — failure rates were still as high as 84 percent among high school algebra students.

Garvey says she’s concerned some students aren’t giving the test their full effort because it isn’t “high-stakes.” When students don’t pass the statewide proficiency exam, “there’s a consequence,” Garvey said.

Indeed, the test is even less important to students at some high schools than others.

Campuses were given leeway in how much the test would count toward students’ final grades, provided it be no more than 20 percent.

Schools are using a range of percentages, from 5 to 20, Ebert said. Some principals allowed individual classroom teachers to decide their own percentages, rather than setting a campuswide standard.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes has said he would like to see uniformity in how the common semester tests are counted in final grades. But for now, the decision is being left to individual schools.

Results for the math tests, including a school’s districtwide ranking, can be found online at lasvegassun.com/

district-math-results/.