Flexing Our Way Towards Reform?

Just like during NCLB’s creation, the issue of local control over federal dollars is brimming to the surface again. While far less sexy than highly effective teachers or growth models, flexibility may be another looming battle in the fight over if/when/how to reauthorize NCLB. Recently, Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon introduced the State and Local Flexibility Improvement Act, designed to give state and local officials more authority over federal dollars. In describing the legislation, McKeon used the ever-popular federal-government-ruins-everything refrain in advocating “removing Washington constraints on federal dollars.” The bill proposes expanding flexibility authority for states and local school districts to use federal funding in ways that better match their needs.

Sound familiar? NCLB had four new provisions that provide for this exact type of flexibility. What’s happened since? A new series of reports from the U.S. Department of Education looks at participation rates in each program and how and why districts use (and don’t use) the various provisions.* The newest Education Sector Chart You Can Trust analyzes how these provisions have been used and why participation has been lower than expected.

Interestingly, rural districts have the highest participation rates. These small districts get very small allocations under some Title programs and pooling those funds for other purposes makes a lot of sense for them. Other districts are not quite as enthused with flexibility. Only 16% of districts report using Transferability, a flexibility provision available to all districts. And even fewer districts—one to be exact—used the new Local-Flex program, which was intended to provide even more flexibility to districts.

The reasons that participation isn’t higher vary-and some have to do with uneven implementation and a lack of information. Some districts also reported being frustrated with the small amount of money eligible to transfer—a problem that McKeon’s proposal aims to address. However, a sizeable percent of districts (44%) that didn’t use the program reported choosing not to participate because they already had sufficient existing flexibility in how to use funds.

None of this is to suggest that flexibility isn’t a good idea that could use some tweaking, or that local control isn’t important. It does provide a caution however, that like many education catch-phrases, just “removing Washington,” doesn’t necessarily lead to the kind of dramatic change we all want.

*Full disclosure: I recently left the Department of Education, where I served as the contracting officer’s representative on the contract that produced this evaluation, but an independent contractor conducted all analyses and wrote these reports.