Rhee Says Budget Formula Change Will Bring Art, Music to Schools

"In fairness to the chancellor," Graham said, "there was a major transition, and she was still pulling together what her strategy would be."

The most significant change is elimination of the weighted student formula. For the past decade, public and charter schools in the District have been funded in two ways. A uniform per-pupil rate, currently $8,770, is established each year to cover all school system operations. Under the weighted formula, money from that pot was distributed to individual schools, with adjustments to account for numbers of students from low-income families, limited English-language skills or other special needs.

Local School Restructuring Teams, advisory bodies of parents, teachers and staff, would confer with principals on how the money should be used. An LSRT might want, for example, to keep class size down by hiring more teachers and making do with fewer employees such as librarians, attendance counselors or office staff. Those recommendations would be negotiated with the principal and forwarded to the central office. They were often approved.

The per-pupil formula is still in place. But Rhee has replaced the weighted system with a series of staffing requirements for elementary, middle and high schools. Every school's total staffing budget will be kept the same or increased based on enrollment projections, with an average increase of about 3.2 percent, according to information from Rhee's office. Officials said Rhee's plan provides for art, music and PE teachers -- and in some cases numeracy and literacy coaches -- in schools that have not had them for years.

The weighted formula was introduced in 1998 by then-Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, in an effort to ensure that budgets more accurately reflected the needs of individual school populations. It replaced a system in which the central office presented budgets to schools based on projected enrollment.

Some parents and school advocates are concerned that Rhee's new approach is a step backward to a time when budgeting decisions flowed from the top down, and not necessarily on the basis of children's needs.

"I don't know why we would want to go back to something that didn't work before," said Mary Levy of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, an expert on D.C. school budgets.

Rhee said the change was a bid to bring more equity, especially in schools where limited parent involvement has placed most of the power in the hands of principals. She said that when she examined the finances of some schools without art or music instruction, it was evident that money was available but was funding other jobs or programs.

One elementary school principal, who requested anonymity out of concern for alienating Rhee, said principals in schools with weak parent communities would lose influence under the new staffing system. Those with strong LSRTs, the principal said, would be able to negotiate with the chancellor's office to get what they wanted.

It's not clear what ability schools will have to challenge budget decisions. A recent PowerPoint presentation by school officials to LSRTs said that only in "rare cases" will schools be allowed to petition for changes to staffing allocations. Rhee said last week that that is not the case.

"The schools have the ability to come back and say no," she said. But the chancellor's office will have the final say.

Other experts say the District's weighted system has not worked as originally intended. The elementary school principal said it placed smaller schools at a disadvantage because they could not generate enough money through per-student allocations to pay for programs.

A 2005 study of D.C. school finances by the Council of the Great City Schools found "equity concerns across the District" with the formula.

"There was a fair amount of politicking behind it," Executive Director Michael Casserly said. "It got pushed and pulled and tugged on and it led to a formula that didn't have much impact. I'm not surprised that Chancellor Rhee would want to start over."