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NYSED Reviews Poverty Measures Used for State Aid

By Deborah Cunningham posted 11-23-2016 11:18

  

NYSED Reviews Poverty Measures Used for State Aid

Chapter 54 of the Laws of 2016 directed the Commissioner of Education to examine Free and Reduced Price Lunch counts used in state aid formulas, as they are affected by the federal Community Eligibility Provision, as well as other reliable measures of student poverty, and issue a report by October 1, 2016.  The report reviews:

  • Using weighted direct certification data from other anti-poverty programs;
  • Using new or derived data from the Department of Taxation and Finance;
  • Using updated Federal Census poverty data;
  • Requiring all students to provide income inquiry forms;
  • Freezing and/or holding harmless data currently in use; and
  • Other non-financial alternative measures.

NYSASBO raised the issue of the measurement of poverty in its report on Foundation Aid:  Supporting Our Schools: A Comprehensive Study of New York State Foundation Aid.  The report, and NYSASBO’s subsequent State Aid proposal, recommended that the state replace FRPL and Census data currently used to calculate student poverty in Foundation Aid with Direct Certification and federal Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates data.  The intent is to improve the accuracy and validity of the data used especially for districts with high levels of student poverty.

The State Education Department report confirms problems with the current use of FRPL data, especially for districts that use the Community Eligibility Provision to access school lunch funding.  The report can be found here.

http://www.oms.nysed.gov/faru/PDFDocuments/Chapter54PovertyMeasuresReport.pdf

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