Weighted Student Funding (WSF)RETHINKING  RESOURCES  FOR STUDENT  SUCCESS

Why do districts decide to implement WSF?

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• EQUITY: Students are funded equitably regardless of which school they attend.

• SCHOOL EMPOWERMENT: Schools have both the autonomy and the responsibility to design their schools to best meet their student needs. • INNOVATION: Principals have the freedom to organize their school in whatever way they believe will best serve their students.

• ACCOUNTABILITY: Every school controls its own budget and school leaders are responsible for resource decisions and related outcomes.

• TRANSPARENCY: A WSF formula makes it clear to all relevant stakeholders how much money schools receive and how the allocation process works.

Weighted Student Funding???

Fair S

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Fund

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??Student-Based

Budgeting???

Before we begin, let’s talk a little about terminology …

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Districts use many different names for their WSF systems …

Here are a few important terms that are often used when discussing the WSF formula

WSF Formula: The formula that the district will use to allocate out the WSF Pool to schools – the formula is calculated using the WSF Weights and Student Enrollment data.

BASE WEIGHT: Weight that every student receives

NEED WEIGHTS: Additional $s provided to meet the needs of certain student populations

GRADE-LEVELPERFORMANCE (HIGH and LOW)SPECIAL EDUCATIONENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERSMOBILITYSCHOOL TYPE

FOUNDATION: Fixed amount given to all schools (or just to small schools) to help cover baseline “fixed” costs

Here are a few important terms that are often used when discussing school control of resources

LOCKED or RETAINED CENTRALLY• Resources that the district will manage centrally due to

a compelling reason: consistency, economies of scale, etc.

• These $s are not included in the WSF Pool and are not allocated out via the WSF Formula

UNLOCKED or DEVOLVED to SCHOOLS• Resources that schools have budgetary control over –

i.e., schools are responsible for providing these services using their WSF Allocations and meeting any applicable federal, state, local, funding, union requirements

• Resources that will be included in the WSF Pool and allocated to schools based on the WSF formula.

Under WSF, schools receive $s based on the needs of the students at their schools …

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1.0 = $5,000

Mark Maria

Base Weight - the $s that all students receive

Poverty0.1 = $500

1.0 = $5,000

High School 0.05 = $250

SPED Resource

0.5 = $2,500 ELL0.4 = $2,000

1.60 = $8,000 1.50 = $7,500

The district will determines how much it costs to serve different student types, for example:

Additional Weight - the additional $s given to certain students to reflect the increased cost to serving their learning challenges

Due to internal/external restrictions around the $s that districts receive, WSF is just one part of how $s are allocated to schools

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Allocated via rules of the categorical fund

“Locked funds” allocated via District Policy

(i.e., 1 art teacher per school, $200/pp for library books)

GENERAL FUND $s

CATEGORICALFUND $s

How districts allocate $s to schools:

Allocated via WSF Formula

How districts get $s:

So schools will receive budgets made up of all three components:

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Example: Elementary School Budget

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Total School Budget: $3.3 million

Important Implications

:

Schools will likely

receive a significant portion of

their budgets

outside of WSF

Weighted Student Funding Enrollment Weight Total $s

Base Weight 500 1.0 = $5,000 $2,500,000

Poverty 300 0.1 = $500 $150,000

ELL 33 0.3 = $3,000 $100,000

SPED – Resource/Consultant 10 1.0 = $5,000 $50,000

TOTAL :$2.8 million

Special Funds

Title I Allocation$100,000

Title III Allocation $75,000

C4E Allocation $75,000

Total: $250k

Locked Funds

Custodian/Cleaner 2 FTE = $75,000

SPED TCOSE/CASE 1 FTE = $75,000

Utilities & Maintenance $100,000

Total: $100k + 3 FTES

WSF and Locked Funds should cover basic school structures, while Special Funds are used to provide add‘l support services

9Education Resource Strategies

WSF• Baseline # of Teachers: GenEd,

ELL, SPED

• Principal• Secretary• Supplies (Inst. & Custodial)• Security• Etc.

Locked• Cleaners/Custodians• Cooks/Food Helpers• Etc.

BASIC SCHOOL STRUCTURE

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

Special Funds• Can be used to fund additional

support services

• For example:

• Title I $s could be used to fund an additional specialist or reduced class sizes in target grade levels

• C4E $s could be used to provide extended day or individual time/attention

Two of the most important decisions that districts have to make in developing their WSF system are:

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What resources will be “unlocked” under WSF – a.k.a., budgetary control will be given to schools?

What student characteristics will the WSF formula weight? And how much should the weights be?

1. To Lock or Unlock? That is the question …

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Does school control of this resource fit within the district’s VISION OF THE PRINCIPAL’S ROLE?

Is this resource a key CENTRAL ROLE such that devolving it impacts the district’s ability to fulfill a vital function?

Is this resource a district-wide priority that the district wants each school/student to have CONSISTENT access to it?

Is this resource needed INFREQUENTLY OR UNPREDICTABLY, making it hard for schools to budget for it?

Does this resource have REQUIRED INPUT/OUTPUT such that the district is accountable for it to external source?

Does this resource have ECONOMIES OF SCALE such that the savings for centralizing outweighs desire of school control?

2. To Weight or Not to Weight? That is the question …

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Does the district have the ability to TRACK AND PROJECT ENROLLMENTS for this characteristic?

Does this student characteristic CORRELATE WITH ANY OTHER CHARACTERISTIC such that we might be double-weighting?

Are we supporting a DISTRICT PRIORITY by deciding to weight this student characteristic?

What type of ADDITIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES do students with these characteristics need (i.e., what do we expect schools to do with the extra dollars)?

Is this characteristic both SUFFICIENT AND UNIQUE within the district’s overall population to merit weighting?

Here's the universe of characteristics that other districts have weighted under WSF:

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Grade-level

Poverty

Special Ed

Academic: Low-

Performers

School Type

Academic: High-

Performers

ELL

Mobility

Are there other characteristics?

But districts weight only the characteristics that make sense given their academic strategy and context

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ff Baltimore Cincinnati Denver Hartford Houston NYC Oakland SF Seattle

Foundation Amount

Grade

Perf-High

Perf-Low

Poverty

SPED

ELL

Other

1. Does the district believe that additional resources are required to appropriately serve this student characteristic?

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For example: Poverty (FRL) students

Low-income students may need both additional instructional and social-emotional support to achieve at the same level as their peers

• What type of additional support services do students with these characteristics need?

Extra instructional support?

Extra socio-emotional support?

Other types of support?

Education Resource Strategies

2. Is this student characteristic sufficient and unique within the district’s overall population to merit weighting?

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For example: Poverty (FRL) students

Many top urban districts are 90%+ FRL - almost all students would be eligible for this weight – it may make more sense to build the additional support into the base weight for all students

• Are there a sufficient number of students with this characteristic in the district such that it makes sense to weight them?

• Is this student characteristic so pervasive across the district such that almost all students would be weighted?

3. Does the district have the ability to track and project enrollments for this student characteristic?

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For example: Poverty (FRL) students

Most districts should be able to reasonably track and project FRL status based on historical enrollment and demographic shifts

• Since WSF budgets are developed in the spring preceding the school year, the district can only weight characteristics for which it can reasonably track and predict accurate enrollments

• Otherwise, doing mid-year adjustments will be a painful process for schools

4. Does this student characteristic correlate with any other characteristic such that we might be double-weighting?

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For example: Poverty (FRL) students

Some research indicate that there may be strong correlation between FRL status and low academic performance, particularly at the elementary school grade levels

• Weights are additive (i.e., students receive all the weights that they are eligible for)

• So if a student is already receiving additional support for being X, do they need more resources for being Y?

• Or do those characteristics have different needs that require different resources?

5. Are we supporting a district priority by weighting this student characteristic?

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For example: Poverty (FRL) students

Is supporting low-income students a specific district academic strategy and priority?

• Since the district has a limited amount of funding, the more characteristics it chooses to weight, the fewer $s will be available for each weight

• So the district should only be weighting student characteristics that reflect a current district academic strategy and priority

For example: District X was considering adding a grade weight for students in K-3 and G7-9 and wanted to know the impact …

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No Grade Weight

SPED$20m

ELL$5m

Base Weight$127m

=> $5,000/pp

Grade Weight of $750/pp for K-3, 7-9

SPED$20m

ELL$5m

Base Weight$114m

=> $4,500/pp

Grade$15m

… in other words, if you weight certain grades because you believe they need add'l services, you are implicitly saying that other grades need fewer services

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K

No Grade Weight 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

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Everyone gets the same $5,000/pp

KGrade Weight

of $750/pp for K-3, 7-9

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

10

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These grades now get $4,500/pp

These grades now get $5,250/pp

When thinking about how much to weight characteristics in the WSF formula – the questions to ask are:

How much does the district currently spend to serve this characteristic?

How much would the district “ideally” want to spend?

Final Weight

Ideal Program Design

Current Spending

Range of the Possible Weights

Does this weight make sense from an EQUITY stand-point?

Is this weight based on RESEARCH-DRIVEN best practices?

What are the POLITICAL/COMMUNITY IMPLICATIONS of this weight?

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As we all know, the “devil is in the details” when it comes to implementing WSF

Districts with WSF make very different decisions when it comes to designing their WSF systems and developing their WSF formulas

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But for WSF to work well, all districts must address the following three issues:

AUTONOMYDistrict policies and practices are changed to permit school leaders to use resources strategically

CAPACITY Central office provides training and support to help school leaders use resources strategically

ACCOUNTABILITYSchool leaders are held accountable for student-outcomes and fiscal responsibility in return for increased control

Auto

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Acco

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Cap

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Strategic Use of School-

Level Resources

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Weighted Student Funding (WSF) RETHINKING  RESOURCES  FOR STUDENT  SUCCESS

Education Resource Strategies (ERS)

is a non-profit organization that works closely with leaders of urban public school systems to rethink the use of district and school-level resources, supporting strategies for improved instruction and performance.

Visit us at www.erstrategies.org