Editor's note: This is the tenth post in Fordham's 2016 Wonkathon. We've asked assorted education policy experts to answer this question: What are the "sleeper provisions" of ESSA that might encourage the further expansion of parental choice, at least if advocates seize the opportunity? Prior entries can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
There isn’t much in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that explicitly addresses school choice. Still, there will likely be indirect effects from some ESSA policies. Specifically, I think there are two key areas where ESSA will have important implications for school choice. First, both the weighted student funding pilot program and the new requirement to report school-level expenditures will further solidify the idea that dollars should follow students, which will likely lead to increases in school choice funding levels. Second, the requirement for more diverse measures in state accountability systems aligns with school choice’s focus on innovation and specialization. With academic success defined across a broader set of outcomes, the ability for choice schools to pursue broader academic outcomes will be less constrained.
School-level spending transparency and student-based budgeting
Under ESSA, states will be required to report expenditures at the school level. It’s amazing that even now, despite the amount of education-related data available, basic school-level expenditures are widely unknown. Where they are known, however, there is strong evidence that many school districts shortchange their neediest students. This largely occurs because education dollars are allocated based on teacher compensation. More expensive teachers (those who have been in the system longer and are able to make savvy choices) choose to work at schools where students are easier to educate. The result is counterproductive: Dollars allocated to school districts based on formulae that account for student needs are distributed to schools in ways that ignore those needs.
In addition to the new reporting requirements, ESSA is introducing a Flexibility for Equitable Per-Pupil Funding program that will allow fifty districts to start pilot programs to implement student-based budgeting (or weighted-student funding, or “backpack funding” as some refer to it). Regardless of the terminology, the bottom line is that such policies ensure that dollars follow students to the schools they attend. Boston, Chicago, Denver, and other districts across the country are already experimenting with weighted student funding. ESSA’s efforts will drastically enhance this growing trend.
So what are the implications for school choice? By shining a brighter light on actual school expenditures and, most importantly, solidifying the principle that dollars should follow students, the increased ESSA focus on expenditures will be a game changer with meaningful spillover effects for choice systems. Currently, students enrolled in charter schools and those participating in voucher and tax credit programs receive far fewer public dollars than traditional public schools would garner for educating the same students. This imposes a burden on school choice providers and is a significant barrier for many non-participating schools. Once it becomes more widely accepted that every dollar allocated for a student should be spent on that student, the same logic can be easily applied to students participating in choice programs. As a result, current choice schools will have more resources to educate their students and new schools of choice will have a greater incentive to participate.
Requirement for more diverse measures in state accountability systems
There is growing evidence that schools of choice are having large impacts in domains other than student achievement. Most notably, substantial impacts have been found in high school graduation (see, for example, here and here), college enrollment (see here and here), and later-life earnings. I many cases, these impacts have occurred in the absence of student achievement gains.
Under NCLB, state accountability systems were largely based on the percentage of students testing proficient on standardized achievement tests. By contrast, ESSA will require states to increase and broaden the measures employed in their accountability systems. To be sure, achievement tests will still play a role. But accountability systems will also incorporate graduation rates and other measures of success, such as school climate, school safety, or student engagement. It will be up to states to decide what additional measures they wish to include. And while I’m certain that some accountability systems will not be particularly creative, the current parade of buzzwords (non-cognitive skills, social-emotional learning, growth mindset, etc.) in the education policy lexicon are likely harbingers of what’s to come in many state systems.
To the extent that ESSA acknowledges a broader view of what constitutes a quality education, schools of choice may be particularly suited to thrive. Schools of choice have always held the promise of enhanced innovation and specialization, but this promise has been partially stifled by holding many of them to the same rigid accountability standards imposed on traditional public schools. As accountability measures become broader, the range of options offered by school choice providers can also expand. This, coupled with the ongoing backlash against accountability testing in traditional public school systems, could significantly incentivize schools of choice to provide educational offerings that appeal to a more diverse set of parental preferences and focus on a wider set of outcomes.
Of course, most of what will actually occur under ESSA is unknown. Policies have a tendency to look quite different when filtered through the political machinery of fifty states and thousands of school districts. But if these two features of ESSA end up being implemented in meaningful ways, I think it is likely that school choice programs will experience real enhancements, both in terms of financial support and educational diversity.
Brian Kisida is an assistant research professor in the Department of Economics and the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.
