WestEd and APA researchers presented an addendum to last year’s performance report that adds recently received financial data and more detailed tables showing enrollment, revenues, expenditures and early student outcome measures.

The presentation, given by Sean Tanner and Amanda Brown of WestEd and APA, framed the addendum as a backfill of financial and some performance data that were not available when the commission received the initial report. "We're back filling the data that wasn't available when we presented the report last fall," Sean Tanner said.

The addendum covers fiscal years 2019–2024. Amanda Brown summarized three high-level fiscal takeaways: statewide student enrollment fell roughly 3% in that span with substantial variability by local education agency; total LEA revenues rose from about $5.5 billion in FY2019 to nearly $9.0 billion in FY2024; and much of the increase reflected changes in classification of local versus state revenues under the People-Centered Funding Plan (PCFP) and a temporary rise in federal funds (ESSER and related federal inflows) that pushed federal shares of revenue higher in FY2023.

The researchers said the increases in revenue were accompanied by modest increases in staffing and a notable rise in average salaries. "Most of your dollars are being spent on salaries and benefits," Brown said, and instructional positions remain the largest share of salary expenditures. Brown also showed that funding weights in the PCFP increased allocations for English learners and for students identified as at risk, with English-learner funding rising substantially and at-risk funding increasing from roughly $60 million to nearly $200 million in the years presented.

On outcomes, WestEd and APA presented snapshots of common performance measures. The presenters cautioned that the report is a compliance-oriented compilation of many mandated metrics and does not track individual students longitudinally. "This is not tracking a cohort of kids and their performance over time," Tanner said, describing the presentation as year-to-year snapshots for the student groups identified in each year’s data.

Key performance highlights in the addendum included small statewide increases in some secondary metrics (for example, modest gains in ACT ELA for grade 11) and mixed results across subgroups for early literacy and career/technical education participation. The researchers also shared longer tables showing CTE participation, AP participation and completion, early-literacy proficiency and other indicators broken out by subgroup and by LEA in the addendum.

A major point of discussion was the graduation rate and the number of students identified as at risk in successive cohorts. Tanner and Brown showed that the count of students identified as at risk in one graduating cohort more than doubled in the years compared and that the at-risk cohort’s graduation rate rose from 24% in one cohort to 63% in the following cohort. "This really did change," Tanner said, and he emphasized that the change reflects both a change in the pool of students counted in each cohort and actions taken to support students.

Commissioners and NDE staff pressed for careful caveats around interpretation. Commissioner Mark Mathers asked whether the at-risk results represent the same students across years; Tanner replied that the report's methodology compares the cross-sectional group labeled at risk in each year and is not a longitudinal cohort tracking the same students. Several commissioners urged clearer caveats in public materials to prevent misinterpretation of year-to-year snapshots as evidence that individual students are doing better or worse.

The presenters noted additional materials in the addendum: more than 70 tables and a 114-page addendum with LEA-level breakdowns. They said district-level tables on enrollment, staffing and spending are included in the addendum and available to commissioners.

Why it matters: the addendum integrates fiscal and performance data for the first time and will inform the commission’s work on funding weights and outcomes. But both presenters and commissioners said the state needs more targeted, longitudinal and district-level analysis to evaluate how the PCFP investments map to changes for the same students over time.

The commission requested follow-up work and promised to revisit the at-risk identification methodology in greater depth at the next meeting. The researchers said a more detailed at-risk analysis — including churn and cohort tracking — is scheduled for the commission’s next meeting.

Ending: WestEd and APA will provide the full performance report addendum to commissioners for review, and the commission asked staff and the contractors to add clearer explanatory text and caveats where year-to-year snapshots might be misread. Several commissioners said they expect more targeted analyses (cohort tracking, cross-state comparisons, and linkage of spending to interventions) in subsequent briefings.