If Nebraska wants to “move the needle” on its graduation rates, it needs to focus on high-needs students, those who are economically disadvantaged, living with disabilities, experiencing homelessness or have limited English proficiency, according to Michael Griffith, Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Learning Policy Center.
The four-year graduation rate for Nebraska students who are not categorized as high needs is around 97%, but that rate lags for high-needs students, Griffith said at an Oct. 17 webinar hosted by OpenSky Policy Institute. For example, in 2018, only 49% of students with limited English proficiency and just 59% of students experiencing homelessness were able to graduate high school in four years in Nebraska.
A quality education funding system would not only ensure resources are targeted to all students, but especially those with high needs, Griffith said.
Overall, a funding formula should: be aligned with standards and educational expectations; strive for equity, including equity in opportunity and in offerings for all students; and be transparent, comprehensible and predictable so that both the state and its school districts can do advanced planning, Griffith said.
The most important of these in terms of improving outcomes for students is to define expected outcomes, he said. Once it’s determined whether the goal is to increase graduation rates, college-going rates, test scores or career readiness, then a state can look at its formula and see whether it’s accomplishing those goals.
Nebraska’s formula, however, isn’t tied to any such goals, Griffith said. Instead, Nebraska has what’s called a base or foundational system where the starting funding point isn’t the amount needed to get general education students up to state standards, but rather the prior year’s expenditures. While this system allows for predictability, Griffith recommended changing it to be based on outcomes or expectations.
Griffith also raised caution about efforts to further limit school spending in Nebraska. The vast majority of school spending goes to support salaries and benefits, which are costs that will increase every year due to inflation, he said. Furthermore, the cost of other inputs are also going up, including technology and textbooks.
That means schools need at least an inflationary bump in order to just do the exact same thing year over year, he said. That ensures Nebraska can continue having “adults teaching children,” Griffith said.
There are also significant requirements placed on schools at both the state and federal levels that aren’t optional for schools but can also be costly, Griffith said. Special education services, for example, are mandated by the federal government and can increase a school’s costs significantly. Even if a school is just breaking even paying for such services, it often must increase class sizes or reduce staff as a consequence, he said.
Slides from the discussion, which was moderated by Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont, Chair of the Legislature’s Education Committee, can be downloaded here. The conversation, which can be viewed here, was part of a series of webinars OpenSky is hosting this fall. The series continues this morning with a panel discussion about the factors that influence the location decisions of working-age Nebraskans. The webinar, which starts at 10 a.m., will feature a conversation with:
- Kyle Arganbright, Mayor of Valentine and co-founder and executive vice president of Sandhills State Bank and co-founder of Bolo Beer Co.;
- Dr. Shirley Vargas, a senior administrator in the Nebraska Department of Education;
- Liz Codina, a Community Investment Officer with the Peter Kiewit Foundation; and
- Pamela Hitchens, a physician recruiter with Nebraska Medicine.
The panelists will discuss what influences their personal location decisions. Hitchens and Arganbright — who both work to recruit people to their communities — also will discuss what helps and challenges them in this work. Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln will moderate the discussion.