A Principal Discusses Educational Consequences of Inadequate Resources (Part 1)

In a recent post, we quoted extensively a Strib opinion piece by former Minneapolis superintendent Peter Hutchinson, in which he argues that the we must fix our urban public schools by going big financially.  (See "Minneapolis schools must go big or go home")  He urged that Minneapolis needs $100 million per year more to buy big change.  Hutchinson explained that we need to "go big" because tiny funding increments only result in tiny minimalist increments:  more of the same, but at a slightly increased price.  We need to go big with funding, but only if big increase buy big change. In response, some have wondered aloud whether money is the problem; what, we are asked, can money really do!

To provide a partial answer to that question, today's post, and in several posts following, we'll provide segments of testimony taken from a school finance litigation pending in Stearns County District Court.  The testimony explores the consequences of inadequate funding for students who are being left behind and discusses what educators could do, if they were free to apply the significant new resources  needed to buy the big change Hutchinson was calling for.  Much of that testimony focuses our need to intervene systematically to prevent children who are behind from falling further and further behind. 

This first testimony comes from a distinguished elementary principal with long experience in urban elementary schools.  In her testimony, the principal compares the stark difference in performance of students, some from advantaged backgrounds and others from less advantaged backgrounds while attending the same school. She explains that statistically the less advantaged students are coming to school two or three years behind the advantaged.  After several years of elementary school:

typically half of these [less advantaged] students, or more, are not scoring proficient in reading or math. Many of them have come to us two or three years behind their advantaged peers, and although growth is happening it is not at a rate that is sufficient to close the achievement gap, due to the limited resources to meet the diverse needs of our students

Strong measures Required:  "To overcome the challenges of students who come to us behind," she testifies,  "we need to take strong measures."

These measures require us to work smarter, with more intentionality, with more planning time, more professional development, more support staff, and curriculum and resources adapted to the students we are serving. Our at-risk students statistically need more targeted and individualized supports in both academic and social and emotional domains.

Need for tier 2 and tier 3 supports.  She continues:  "Our task is challenging because of the significant number of our at-risk students who need so-called tier 2 and tier 3 supports to close the achievement gap, [and] the lack of resources needed to provide these tier supports to meet students’ needs." She continues:

Again, our at-risk students are significantly behind where the standards call for them to be in comparison to their peers, and in order to “catch them up” we need resources in order to make this happen.

Resources.  "Lacking the resources to provide sufficient differentiated instruction to meet the needs of our students who are behind", she testifies, "it is critical in order to get our school dependent students up to state standards for their age and grade."

When students are behind in literacy, math, science and other critical areas, it limits their ability to take advantage of the core classroom instruction. When children are persistently behind, year after year, it can be demoralizing and make them feel that school is a place where they fail, instead of a place where they are on the road to success.

Multiple Consequences of Students Remaining Behind. The principal's testimony continues by describing multiple aspects of the insidious problems arising when students who start out behind are allowed to stay behind:  

"This issue has multiple aspects.

• First, students who are behind still need access to the core instruction for their age and grade, even though they aren’t fully ready to master it.
• Second, our students who are behind need interventions by qualified staff to work with them to master the educational building blocks that they must master to be able to function effectively in the core classroom instructional environment.
• Third, the teacher and supporting staff need curriculum materials and access to teaching strategies that work for students who are behind.
• Fourth, all of our teachers need significantly more professional development, more collaborative planning time, and more support from master teachers and instructional coaches to accommodate their teaching to diverse challenges in the classroom.
• Fifth, it is clear that most children who are significantly behind need more learning time, more learning time in the instructional day and a longer instructional year.  Their ability to catch up is a function of both the quality of what we bring to them during the currently available instructional day, and the quantity of time that we have to help them master state standards. 

More Resources Needed.  The principal's testimony repeats a point one hears over and over from about the need to "go big" as Peter Hutchinson called it. When educators are asked to plan for change with too little, they can't think big enough to design the change that actually will get the job done.  Why propose the major reforms necessary to do the job, when the central office is allocating a tiny portion of those resources, and maybe even asking you to make cuts in what you are already doing! :

While my District tries to stretch its budget for schools like ours, we don’t have anywhere near the resources we need to implement a program that achieves the objectives that state standards set for us. Our ability even to conceive of a fully effective program to meet state standards for at-risk children is limited by the fact that we know that there is simply not enough resources – staff, training, instructional time, professional development time, curriculum development time, mentoring, observation and reflection time to put together a system that actually does what we need to do. Instead, we are reduced to asking, what incremental changes can we make within the inadequate budget available to us.

 When school-leaders are asked to make change with minimal additional resources, they are forced to think small to solve big problems.    In the next post, we'll continue to draw on a principal's testimony on the kinds of "go big" improvements that can, and should be, implemented when adequate funds are used to advance effective programs, to buy big effective change.