Education law costs
$30M yearlyA new study is the first look
into state costs for the federal
No Child Left Behind Act
It costs Hawaii $30 million a year plus $24.6 million in start-up costs to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to a draft study presented to legislators yesterday.
Prepared by a Denver-based consulting firm, the report focused only on what it called "marginal, new costs" of the 2 1/2-year-old federal law, which requires states to set educational standards, measure performance and impose consequences on schools that fall short. The study is the first glimpse of the state's costs to comply with the federal law.
Hawaii already had its own standards and testing, so the study measured just the extra work required to comply with federal rules, not to create the whole system. The authors did not try to measure what it would cost to bring students up to academic targets or attract the "highly qualified" teachers required by the law.
"I think the estimates are understated because we're looking at the process without looking at how do we achieve the results," Board of Education Chairman Breene Harimoto said. "That has to be factored in somehow to complete the picture."
Augenblick, Palaich & Associates Inc., a nationally known firm that works with state policy-makers on education finance issues, prepared the study, "Estimating the New, Marginal Costs of NCLB in Hawaii," for the Hawaii Educational Policy Center on a $50,000 contract paid by the Department of Education.
The firm predicts that 162 of the state's 282 public schools will be rated low-performing under federal guidelines when test results come out this fall. By 2008, as students must meet ever-higher academic targets, that number is expected to jump to 237 schools. Low-performing schools are required to offer tutoring or transfers to students, adopt new academic programs and, ultimately, replace staff.
Department of Education administrators are handling No Child Left Behind tasks on top of their regular jobs, putting in long days and risking burning out, said John Augenblick, lead author of the report.
"They're not getting paid for it," he said, "but it is a cost. It was not just an isolated person or two working 10- or 12-hour days. It was everybody. People are working very hard. At some point you're going to have to address that question."
Big-ticket items in the $30 million cost for the last school year include school improvement programs, standards and assessment, and data management. The amount is projected at nearly $34 million by 2007. That works out to about $175 per student in the system.
Rep. Guy Ontai (R, Waipahu-Mililani) said he was encouraged that the cost figures were not higher.
"The numbers are much more comforting than some of the rhetoric," he said. "The fact that it's costing an additional $25 (million) to $30 million a year, to me, makes ludicrous the suggestion of my colleagues a couple of years back that asked the DOE to consider dropping (federal) Title I funds so that they don't have to comply with No Child Left Behind."
He added, "I've been staunchly behind this program because I think the DOE has been moving too slowly toward accountability."
Last school year, the department received about $36 million in federal Title I money, which is targeted to high-poverty schools, and it expects $43 million this year, according to Elaine Takenaka, educational administrative services director. But starting this school year, non-Title I schools will be identified as needing help under No Child Left Behind, as well.
"If we are to treat all schools equitably, we definitely need more money," Takenaka said. "For the current group of schools, we are struggling already."
Title I money goes toward school improvement and staff training programs on campuses, not the broader No Child Left Behind administrative tasks reflected in the report.
State DOE: No Child Left Behind
doe.k12.hi.us/nclb
U.S. DOE: No Child Left Behind
www.nochildleftbehind.gov