Census Conundrums

This week, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) Released Title I Funds -- Who's Gaining, Who's Losing: School Year 2007-08 Update. The report reviews the funding for states and districts for the federal Title I, Part A programs for the school year 2007-08 and highlights the trouble caused by the combination of flat funding levels, the mandatory state reservation of funds for school improvement activities, the hold harmless condition of that reservation and the impact of the fluctuating annual poverty count updates on the distribution of Title I-A funds.

For school year 2007-08, the total appropriation for Title I-A grants to local educational agencies (LEA) was $12.8 billion, which is an increase of $124 million over the previous year’s funding. Of that funding, each state is supposed to set aside 4% of the total dollars allocated by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to districts in the state to carry out the activities under school improvement, corrective action and restructuring under section 1116(b); and 95% of the 4% must go directly to the LEAs. State educational agencies (SEAs), then, can reserve 5% of the 95% to carry out their responsibilities under sections 1116 and 1117 and to provide statewide technical assistance and support to LEAs. Yet, there is a catch: the 4% reservation “shall not decrease the amount of funds each local educational agency receives […] below the amount received by such local educational agency […] for the preceding fiscal year.” (Section 1003(e)). In short, the low funding levels for school year 2007-08 restricts the SEA ability to set aside the 4% and that, in turn, strains the ability of the LEAs and SEAs to provide the necessary school improvement services.
It gets worse. The report observes that the amounts of Title I-A general funding that some states and school districts receive have fluctuated from year to year due to annual updating of Census estimates of the number of children in poverty. The swings have been dramatic ranging from a 30.4% increase in Title I-A funding in Wisconsin to a 13.8% decrease in funding in Hawaii.
Indeed, many LEAs and SEAs have brought these matters to the attention of Congress by requesting that Title I-A receive funding that is commensurate to its expectations, that Congress continue to appropriate separately and substantially for school improvement. The report’s support of these positions is important but not novel. The CEP report, however, is unique in that it is one of the first to propose, publicly, a national solution to the volatility created by the annual Census estimates of the number of children in poverty: To require the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the U.S. Census Bureau to thoroughly review the accuracy of these estimates and to consideration other options, such as using the average of the two most recent Census estimates to calculate LEA grants. The idea is a welcomed contribution to a technically difficult matter.
Resource:
Title I Funds -- Who's Gaining, Who's Losing: School Year 2007-08 Update (Center on Education Policy: August 2007), www.cep-dc.org.
Author: DAD