Louisiana’s Workaround

SIG guidelines from the U.S. Department of Education indicate that state education agencies (SEAs) must ensure that all Tier I and Tier II schools—the very worst performing– are funded before the slightly better-performing Tier III schools in a district. But at least one state—Louisiana—found a way around this requirement. Rather than automatically funding all Tier I and IIs first, Louisiana opted to fund individual schools with the best applications. This meant that Tier III schools in several districts, including the Recovery School District of New Orleans, were selected to receive funds over Tier I and II schools.

Specifically, according to its application to the U.S. Department of Education, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) evaluated all Tier I, II, and III schools using a weighted evaluation rubric (embedded in the applications) and made it a requirement that Tier III schools had to implement one of the four models. External evaluators awarded points in categories like human capital strategies, governance, external learning time, and other components of the plan on a 100-point rubric with the potential for 10 bonus points. Tier I and II applications were scored first, and those that didn’t meet the cutoff score were not funded; only two schools met or exceeded the score to receive a grant. Then the evaluators scored the Tier III applications and only funded those applications that met or exceeded the cutoff score, funding a total of 30 Tier III schools, but omitting 20 Tier I and Tier II schools who applied. The LDE also required that any Tier III schools receiving SIG funds must choose one of the four models. Twenty of the thirty-two funded schools chose transformation while there were three turnarounds. Six were existing restarts and three were new restarts.

(As with previous maps, you can select a specific parish, tier, or model (existing restarts: restarts that began within the last two years) by using the tool bars. For more information about SIG and other interactive maps, check out EdSector’s newest paper, “A Portrait of School Improvement Grants.”)

Is Louisiana’s strategy a good one? The best reason that the LDE would do this is to maximize the impact of the funding by selecting schools with better plans for improvement. In fact, Louisiana was more competitive than most states, in that it awarded funds to the schools with the best plans—not just because they were the neediest. E-mails to the U.S. Office of Elementary and Secondary Education confirm that states weren’t supposed to fund Tier III schools over Tier I and Tier II schools. However, Louisiana’s interpretation of the purpose of SIG might not be so bad—it may be a response to serious questions about the SIG approach. In funding the worst of the worst, can the lowest-performing schools really turn themselves around? Are we simply throwing money out to schools that don’t have capacity? And do we expect these schools to show dramatic improvements in such a short period of time?

–Padmini Jambulapati, research assistant.

Tagged as: Louisiana, School Improvement Grants, SIG