School Improvement Grants and Struggling High Schools

The federal School Improvement Grant program, which provides funds to school districts to help turnaround their lowest performing schools, has been a point of contention among state governments and education stakeholders since the U.S. Department of Education released new regulations for the program in 2010. The Department of Education developed the regulations in response to $3 billion in new funding provided for the program in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. States have been distributing these grants to school districts via a competitive grant process since the funds became available in mid-2010. The Center on Education Policy (CEP) recently released a report on how states have been using the SIG funds, revealing a new focus on high schools in the effort to support the country’s struggling schools.

The new federal regulations governing how SIG funds are distributed and used targeted funding to the bottom 5 percent of schools in each state and limited the ways schools can approach the school improvement process to four models. The regulations also allow school districts to use SIG funds to improve low performing schools that do not receive funding under federal Title I grants, particularly high schools. Though some stakeholders believe these new regulations will strengthen the efficacy of SIG, others find them too stringent and inflexible, particularly for rural schools.

In developing its report, CEP administered surveys to 50 states and the District of Columbia on implementation of the SIG funds and received responses from 44. Respondents indicated that most states had managed to distribute their SIG funds to districts by November of 2010 and that in many states at least three-quarters of eligible districts were interested in participating in the SIG program. These findings are impressive because states were given a very small window of time to conduct their grant competitions and distribute funds. In fact, many states faced pushback from local stakeholders on the implementation of SIG because of the inflexibility of the turnaround models. However, the vast majority – 74 percent of SIG recipients, according to state surveys – will use the less-stringent “transformation” model in their turnaround efforts.

The most interesting finding, however, is that 31 states reported that the proportion of high schools that will receive SIG funds has increased due to the new regulations. In the past, many struggling high schools did not receive SIG funds because they did not receive Title I funds. Many districts choose not to give high schools Title I funds because then those high schools would be subject to No Child Left Behind accountability requirements or because they believed that they would get more bang for their buck by giving the money to elementary and middle schools. Title I does not require districts to provide funds to all grade levels or types of schools. As a result, student achievement in low-income high schools around the country has been largely exempt from federal accountability rules.

However, the new SIG regulations opened the competition up to schools that do not receive Title I funds, including high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent. Given the well-documented high school graduation “crisis” in low-income high schools, it is no surprise that many high schools were eligible and applied for the funds. Though these schools may not be held to accountability standards through No Child Left Behind, most are still responsible to meet state and local achievement standards and the demands of today’s workforce and economy to improve student achievement and graduation rates.

It remains to be seen whether the pre-defined turnaround models will produce the results that students at these high schools so desperately need. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, many high schools that received SIG funds will use the “transformation” model for their turnaround efforts. Though this model is likely more rigorous than turnaround methods in the past, it is the least structured of the four models. For example, schools undergoing the transformation model must replace the existing principal and improve teacher and leader effectiveness, but there is no requirement to replace ineffective teachers or otherwise rethink how teachers are hired or retained. And research shows that high schools are notoriously difficult to improve without major changes to school culture.

Regardless, it is surely a good thing that more high schools are able to tap into SIG funds and the support they provide than ever before. Though the new SIG regulations are controversial, this development is a step in the right direction for high schools and the students they serve.