What will happen with the Title I set-asides?
The answer will have big implications on how quickly $2 billion in stimulus money is spent. State and officials are waiting for guidance from the Department of Education, which is expected soon.
The background: NCLB added a requirement that districts receiving Title I grants offer public school choice and free tutoring to students whose schools fail to make AYP for several years. The law requires districts to reserve up to 20 percent of their allocations for those services. If districts don't spend all of that money in one year, they can use it on their regular programs the next year. Because participation rates in choice and tutoring have been low, just about every district in the program has been carrying over money from one year to the next.
Back in October, then-Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings issued a new set of rules demanding that school districts ensure parents know about their options for choice and tutoring. She also made it more difficult for districts to roll over unspent money from one year to the next. Lobbyists representing school districts want to put those rules on hold.
When Spellings published those rules, no one expected that the next president would be giving districts a $10 billion bonus in Title I money for fiscal years 2009 and 2010. With the money in place, school officials are wondering whether they'll need to reserve $2 billion for choice and tutoring.
If they do, it may dilute the stimulus law's immediate effect. A large portion of Title I's share of the stimulus might not be spent immediately as districts reserve money for services that parents and students may not be demanding.
The Department of Education is expected to weigh in soon, possibly as early as next week. Watch closely to see how strictly the new administration interprets the law and Spellings' regulations.
As you say, this rule applies only to schools that didn't make AYP for many years in a row; in other words, for schools that couldn't get their act together despite repeated failure signals and while failing thousands of their students in the process. This currently means about 20% of Title I schools, so in any case we are not talking about $10B but only about $2B, and holding 20% of their allocations comes at most $400M. So, first, let's stop talking about not immediately spending a fraction of $10B and start talking about not immediately spending a fraction of $400M. $9.6B will be spent as soon as possible in any case.
Second, we should insist that failing schools use this extra money to boost the per-student allocation for SES in addition to trying to engage more students--anyway the current average per student allocation for SES has been dropping over the years. Spending more money inefficiently on their regular program--as those schools clearly have been doing for years--is not going to help the students they fail every day right now. This is what the regulations say, and I think it is for the better.
Dear Mr. Huff,
I would like to share a real life scenario from Warner Robins, Ga.
We have 35 conventional schools in our county and only one Title I high school, NSHS that is in its 3rd year of NI.
The school system has carried over a half million dollars every year even though we KNOW children are failing at other TITLE I schools, but overall the schools made AYP due to the infamous Georgia Backloading standards.
Anyway, we offer school choice to the folks at NSHS, BUT here's the catch and one that I would like decision makers to know. The school system will "reimburse" the costs of transportation for those who can get their kids across town. OK, here's the clincher... Those folks are Title I, which means they are the least likely to have an additional automobile sitting around for their highschooler's transportation. THUS, in Georgia, school districts that do NOT offer transportation know good and well what they are doing. Additionally, I guarantee there is no data collected on the socioeconmic status of the kids who transferred since choice applies to ALL students. The federal dollars are NOT helping the very populations it was intended to help. In fact, it is more likely for poor kids to continue the bus service to the failing school.
Unless folks honestly start going to the trenches and auditing what is going on, the poor kids with poor parents will reamain trapped at a failing school if the school system does not provide transportation to a successful school.
In our distrit, we still bus some students living in the NSHS zone to Houston County High and Warner Robins High because of the racial thing. So, why do you suppose the school district will not bus the "choice" kids from NSHS to the aforementioned successful schools ???
What is wrong with this picture? Once again it is the "system" who is manipulating the process to ensure an outcome that maintains the status quo of NSHS failing to make AYP.
I will do my best to contact the folks at the USDOE.....as this news is outrageous and I am afraid that the failing kids at the failing schools, who are the minority and disadvantaged will contiue to be the one's who disproportionately represent the uneducated and drop outs in our NATION. Thus continuing the education cycle that seems that nobody really wants to change. Local flexibility may work for some areas, BUT WITHOUT regulation and oversight some districts are NO better than AIG, American Motors, or Bernie Madoff. School is HUGE business, and it is time people start holding folks accountable. However, we can't if NOTHING changes.
Dear Secretary Duncan:
Particularly troubling to EIA and its members are the Department’s guidelines to states and local education agencies regarding the distribution of approximately $10 billion in additional funding under Title 1, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. We strongly object to the “Invitation for Waivers” provision in the guidelines which indicates that you will consider requests to waive the supplemental educational services (SES) and public school choice set aside requirements that apply to Title 1 under current law, as well as the requirement of calculating the per pupil amount for SES based on an LEA’s FY 2009 Title 1, Part A allocation.
We believe that these proposed waivers will send the message to local school leaders that they no longer have to use after-school tutoring as a tool to help improve academic performance, and they may gut the truly revolutionary and reform-minded parental choices that have been offered to Title 1 families for nearly seven years. Moreover, use of the waivers will severely cripple the very popular and effective SES tutoring program which currently serves more than 500,000 deserving students nationwide.
EIA implores you to modify the ARRA Title 1 funding guidelines, eliminate the offer of waivers regarding the set asides, and use the power of your office to build and improve an SES program that is helping kids achieve, boosting school performance, giving hope to parents, and producing thousands of jobs for qualified tutors nationwide:
• Enrollment into SES programs has steadily increased with well over 500,000 children receiving high-quality after school tutoring support. The additional funding will mean that children on school district wait-lists could now receive the help they so desperately need. In Chicago alone, over 200,000 children are eligible, 68,000 signed up for tutoring this year, and only 47,000 were served. In another recent example, Hartford, CT had to abruptly end its SES program because student demand for tutoring outstripped available funding. With ARRA funding fully available to these students, a game-changing impact in school performance is possible.
• SES serves as an effective safety net for low-performing children while their schools and their adult leaders seek ways to improve performance. Evaluations of SES by states and school districts, including Chicago Public Schools while you were superintendent there, have repeatedly pointed to a program that raises reading and math skills, improves their attitude toward school and studying, and is hugely popular with their parents.
• SES, besides helping to close the achievement gap, is creating hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs and supporting small businesses throughout America. A recent survey by EIA of SES providers nationwide , indicated that the average SES provider employs 180 tutors part time (most of them certified teachers looking to supplement their income), and each pumps nearly $900,000 in payroll receipts into its local economy. Small businesses, large companies, community organizations, non-profit groups and school districts: the more than 3,000 approved SES providers nationwide comprise a significant – and essential – industry, one that produces jobs, tax revenues, and most importantly, educational results.
• SES providers will be able to quickly scale up programs benefiting from increased Title 1 funding. The SES infrastructure has been built, tested and improved by states, LEAs and providers over its seven-year existence. SES providers have demonstrated that they can adapt to the varying requirements of states, school districts and individual schools, and they have successfully served hundreds of thousands of students, even as enrollments quintupled over the past several years. This can happen quickly within the existing infrastructure and avoid the “funding cliff” your guidelines caution against.
Secretary Duncan, we trust that you will not only keep SES intact, but will take steps to build on this highly effective and successful program which gives economically and educationally disadvantaged children access to high-quality tutoring services once thought the domain of their better-off counterparts. This includes enforcement of NCLB regulations that call for more transparency in reporting by States and districts on SES outreach and enrollment efforts.
Thank you,
Steve Pines, EIA Executive Director