July 13, 2011
Statement By Democrats for Education Reform on H.R. 2445 - The State and Local Funding Flexibility Act
The Republican majority on the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee today pushed through, on a strict party line vote, a sweeping bill that would disadvantage those students who are most in need of a high-quality education. Kudos to Democrats on the Committee, including ranking member George Miller (D-CA) and ranking subcommittee member Dale Kildee (D-MI), who worked as hard as possible to point out the weaknesses in the bill and offer constructive amendments to protect the most vulnerable schoolchildren, all of which were struck down without any serious consideration whatsoever.
We are deeply disappointed by the majority's decision to approve this deeply flawed bill, first and foremost because it would further disadvantage students in high-poverty schools by allowing states to waive the federal Title I funding formula.
The federal government targets funds to poor children, especially those in high-poverty schools, because states and local governments do not. Even with federal aid, children from schools in disadvantaged communities have less of everything - great teachers, excellent curriculum, modern technology - when it comes to those things that matter most in giving every child an opportunity to learn to his or her highest potential.
It is perverse and unjust that H.R. 2445 would allow states to shortchange these children, their teachers, and their schools even further especially because, as a new analysis that we have done shows, the federal government has made steady progress in remedying these inequities.
The federal Title I education law has had some notable effects over its forty-six year history. The highest poverty schools in the country - those with 75 percent or more poor students - receive 38 percent of all Title I funds. High-poverty schools that receive Title I funds get an additional $1,600 per student from the federal government. Funds for school personnel alone provide Title I schools with 10 percent more per student over and above state and local education funding.[i]
The amendments to Title I made by Congress via NCLB greatly increased the targeting of funds to high-poverty schools. In 2001, Title I allocated about the same amount per pupil ($800) per student regardless of the concentration of poverty in the school they attended. Due to the recognition that it was high-poverty schools that faced the greatest challenges in educating students, Congress changed the formula with the result that by 2010, the amount per student in the highest poverty schools was about 25 percent higher than the per-pupil amount for low-poverty schools, a figure that will grow over time as Congress continues to put additional monies into the new formula.
If one includes funds in the recently passed FY2011 budget, the cumulative shift in Title I education dollars to poor kids in schools at the bottom quintile in the highest poverty schools in the U.S. is $6.5 billion.[ii] To put it in local terms, that's a lot of bake sales.
The goal of giving states and local education agencies the flexibility they need to better serve low-income children in high poverty schools is a worthy one. Unfortunately, this bill takes federal policy in exactly the opposite direction.
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[i] State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, Volume VI--Targeting and Uses of Federal Education Funds (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2008).
[ii] Numbers used in this analysis are courtesy of the U.S. Department of Education, at the request of Democrats for Education Reform (May 2011).