Comparability, Meet Weighted Student Funding

You don't hear about it as much because it's not exclusively focused on education, but the Center on American Progress is an increasingly big player in the policy world. You can tell from the flat screen TVs in the lobby and the Hill staffers getting out of cabs to go into the CAP offices.  (Most Hill staff make folks come to them.)  Oh, and all the Soros money.

Anyway, CAP does have some education-related stuff going on, including this interestingly left-looking event focusing on the possibilities of reviving the "comparability" provision in Title I (click below for details).

I'd love to be wrong, but my prediction is that everyone at the event agrees that enhancing the comparability provision would likely be a good thing, but that no one has much of an idea about how to sell the change to Congress.  Especially given how a similar issue -- weighted student funding -- crashed and burned in NYC and is apparently being dropped in the District of Columbia.

And so, I will repeat my oft-heard lament:  policy ideas too often lack political thinking that's needed in order to make it beyond the luncheon circuit and into action.  But maybe CAP can do better.

Ensuring Equal Opportunity in Public Education

   

How Local School District Funding Practices Hurt Disadvantaged Students and What Federal Policy Can Do About It

   

RSVP for this Event       

Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 9:00am to  3:00pm
    Center for American Progress, Washington, DC    

Welcome and Introduction:
John Podesta, President and CEO, Center for American Progress

   

  Opening Address:
    Congressman Xavier Becerra, (D-CA)

   

  Panel I: Overview and History of the Comparability Provision

Discussants:
Phyllis McClure, Consultant and long-time Title I historian 
  Marguerite Roza, Research Associate Professor, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington
  Ross Wiener, Vice President, Education Trust

   Moderated By:
Cynthia Brown, Director of Education Policy, Center for American Progress

   Panel II: Closing the Comparability Loophole: Potential and Pitfalls

   Discussants:
F. Howard Nelson, Lead Researcher, Office of the President, American Federation of Teachers
  Marguerite Roza, Research Associate Professor, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington
  Kate Walsh, President, National Council on Teacher Quality

Moderated By:
Delia Pompa, Vice President, Education, National Council of La Raza

   Panel III: How to Do it Right: Resources and Assistance for States and Districts

  Discussants:
Matt Hill, Executive Officer of Strategic Projects, Oakland Unified School District
  Susan Sclafani, Managing Director, Chartwell Education Group 
  Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute for School Reform

  Moderated By:
Robert Gordon, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress (formerly of New York City Public Schools

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was intended to provide additional spending for states and school districts to meet the needs of low-income children. But the intent hasn’t always been met. A comparability provision—intended to ensure that federal funds are added to an already-level playing field of state and local funding for schools—has been ineffective and enforced inconsistently. Join us for a conference that will explore these issues and focus on ways to improve comparability requirements to ensure equitable spending practices within school districts. We will also consider how these changes can be enforced and implemented, and what technical assistance is needed to spur fairer spending practices that result in improvements in instruction for students in high-poverty schools.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008
        Program: 9:00am to  3:00pm
  Admission is free.

   

Breakfast will be served at 8:30 a.m., and lunch will be served at 12:45 p.m.

 

  Center for American Progress
  1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
    Washington,   DC   20005
  Map & Directions

Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center

RSVP for this Event

 

For more information, please call 202-682-1611.