SEF Policy Positions

The Southern Education Foundation’s (SEF) policy positions stem from our historic legacy of advancing educational opportunities for African Americans in the post-Civil War South. SEF believes states, districts, and schools have an intrinsic duty to affirm equity and excellence so that every student receives the highest level of education. The following policy positions outline SEF’s stances on key local and statewide K-12 education issues critical to the success of students of color.

Education Reform

SEF Supports:

• Charter school networks that are inclusive, evidence-based, transparent, and publicly accountable for serving all students despite disability status, academic history, race/ethnicity or any other student characteristic;
• The advancement of high-quality magnet schools with non-racial discriminatory admissions requirements;
• The expansion of high-quality early childhood and pre-kindergarten programs, including universal
  pre-kindergarten, as well as the professionalization of the early childhood teaching profession through professional development and fair pay;
• The implementation of a community schools approach or the provision of comprehensive wraparound supports for all students, but especially low-income students or students who have experienced childhood trauma;
• Parent and community engagement that results in shared accountability to improve school systems;
• Holding states, districts, and school leaders accountable for academic achievement and/or growth for student subgroups; and
• The implementation or expansion of culturally relevant, rich, and rigorous curriculums.

SEF Opposes:

• School vouchers, K-12 education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships, and those school choice efforts to fund private schools with public dollars; and
• Virtual charter schools and the for-profit charter school sector.

School Governance

SEF Supports:

• Limiting control of public education to the government closest and most responsive to the taxpayers and parents of the children being educated;
• Evidenced-based professional development for school board members, especially those who represent a high percentage of students of color; and
• State governance of public education that provides the necessary resources to school districts to implement whole school improvement strategies such as conducting equity audits, providing personalized learning, and supporting effective instruction to bolster academic achievement in chronically underperforming schools.

SEF Opposes:

• Takeovers of school districts by state entities that perpetuate inequitable school funding practices and demonstrate no reasonable strategy to help school districts improve chronically underperforming schools.

School Finance

SEF Supports:

• Equitable K-12 state funding formulas that address historical and present-day opportunity and achievement gaps and fiscal inequities that negatively impact students of color;
• Increasing K-12 per-pupil expenditures and amending tax provisions to ensure districts have the appropriate level of resources to invest in providing college-and-career ready curriculums, professional development, and support to attract and retain well-prepared and highly effective staff; and
• Teacher pay that is commensurate with experience and effectiveness and is competitive with other similar professional workforce salaries.

SEF Opposes:

• Efforts that would lead to disinvestments in public schools, including redistricting, consolidation of districts, or township successions that lead to decreased funding for low-income communities and communities of color.

The Southern Education Foundation recommends the following changes to the Higher Education Act:

Financial Aid

• Build on the early success of the prior year policy change and establish an early Pell Grant funding notification to low-income high school students to help understand the real cost of attending college;
• Allow low-income students to establish financial aid eligibility for more than one year;
• Increase the family income threshold for Pell-eligible students to automatically qualify for the maximum award amount;
• Repeal the 12 semester limit for Pell Grant eligibility;
• Require Pell Grants are used as last dollar grant aid so that more students can use Pell Grants for the full cost of attendance such as child care, housing, food, books, and transportation;
• Allow Pell Grant eligible high school juniors and seniors to access their Pell grant in high school to enroll in high-quality dual enrollment programs;
• Reinstate access to Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals eligible for release with “Second Chance Pell Grants”;
• Allow DACA recipients to receive all federal aid, including Pell Grants; and
• Create a Pell bonus for students whose income falls below the zero estimated family contribution (EFC) maximum threshold.

Student Loans

• Lower federal student loan interest rates and eliminate origination fees to make loans more affordable;
• Incorporate early and effective loan counseling and financial literacy education for students; and
• Streamline income-based student loan repayment to help students manage loan debt and eliminate defaults.

Minority Serving Institutions

• Provide funding for two years of free college at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Predominately Black Institutions, and Minority Serving Institutions;
• Allow earned interest income from the endowment fund to support student scholarships;
• HBCU Capital Finance Program – Lower loan interest rates for STEM-related facilities to expand STEM capacity;
• Hawkins Centers of Excellence – Retain the existing program to train highly qualified teachers at Minority-Serving Institutions and expand service delivery to develop and train district leaders; and
• Develop an HBCU Innovation Fund to provide the resources and incentives for HBCUs to experiment, pilot, evaluate and scale up innovative practices for student success.

College Completion and Accountability

• Develop incentives for institutions of higher education to partner with community-based organizations to deliver wraparound services to low-income college students;
• Encourage institutions of higher education to partner with local school districts to deliver high-quality dual enrollment and summer bridge programs;
• Target federal funds to help institutions identify, implement, scale up, and evaluate programs that improve completion for students most at-risk of dropping out;
• Incorporate fair metrics of success to evaluate MSIs such as assessing the rate students advance from developmental education courses to credit-bearing classes or the enrollment and persistence rate of
  students of color;
• Create financial incentives for institutions of higher education who graduate a large number or percentage of low-income students or student of color; and
• Preserve 90/10 gainful employment rules.