What’s going on at FUSD? It’s nation’s second-lowest performing urban district

I read the recent report in The Fresno Bee that says the “California Department of Education is demanding that Fresno Unified revise its school spending plan after the district used state money meant for poor, minority students to pay for police programs…among other things.”

It seems to me that now we are getting more of the same from FUSD, as the district continues to operate in a state of delusion as to their ability to truly serve their students.

The district likes to create the illusion that everything is going well for our students. They tout an 85 percent graduation rate (do not be fooled) and spin numbers to reveal whatever results they would like the public to know.

I would like to share some numbers with the public that the district has not publicized.

The National Association of Educational Progress conducts a study each year of the largest school districts in the country. Fresno has participated in this study through the Trial Urban District Assessment, which studies proficiency of students in fourth and eighth grades in the areas of mathematics and reading.

Let’s look at some real numbers that reveal how FUSD stacks up nationally with other districts similar to our own. In 2015, in mathematics, 86 percent of our fourth graders and 88 percent of our eighth graders were not at or above proficiency.

That puts us below school districts such as Philadelphia and Los Angeles and really puts us in the proficiency level category of Baltimore and Cleveland. For the record, per this study, this puts FUSD as one of the lowest performing school districts in the nation, when compared to districts similar to our own.

Let’s look at how our students ranked in the reading portion of the assessment. In 2015, 87 percent of fourth and eighth graders in FUSD were found not to be at or above proficiency in reading. Once again, this puts us in the ranks of Baltimore, Philadelphia and Cleveland.

In fact, in both of the assessments, the only school district in the country that FUSD really scored higher than (more than a couple percentage points) was Detroit.

All of this is happening underneath the funding strategy called the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which was enacted in California to connect funding levels at schools to student need.

This formula increases funding for nearly all school districts, but there are base grants that provide a fixed dollar amount per student, and there are supplemental and concentration grants that provide much-needed funding to help school districts support low-income students, foster youth and English learners.

The intent of the law is crystal clear: districts receive these funds to help these groups of students succeed.

But CDE had to get involved because Fresno Unified intended to spend the money on police services and school improvements.

The Fresno Bee reports that “Fresno Unified Chief Financial Officer Ruthie Quinto said in an email that the district will make the state’s recommended adjustments before approving the 2017-18 LCAP [the spending plan for the LCFF funds], and ‘looks forward to strengthening the LCAP language to ensure it reflects disadvantaged students.”

Meanwhile, the Advancement Project, an organization that specializes in budget analysis, states that the district no longer differentiates between supplemental and concentration funds and base funds in its spending plan. This does not reveal what the district is truly doing to best serve disadvantaged students!

Why is this important? Because it’s not clear how Fresno Unified is using the funds that are intended to help low-income students, foster youth and English learners. Millions of dollars are available to provide this support, but where is the money going?

The numbers are clear and FUSD continues to have the most resources it has ever had, while we rank as one of the lowest-performing schools in the nation! Are these dollars not being utilized effectively to truly impact student achievement in the district? This simply does not add up.

I sincerely hope another formal complaint isn’t necessary, but this issue clearly has the attention of the state, and other districts have noticed as well. It comes down to this: Fresno Unified trustees need to make it clear how they’re spending this money and how this money is actually contributing to student achievement.

www.firminc.org

This story was originally published June 19, 2017 at 12:34 PM.