Verbatim Mac

Solvency – Fair Funding reforms

Using fair funding incentive grants provides resources for disadvantaged students

CAP Education Policy Team, 2015

(Center for American Progress, “A Fresh Look at School Funding”, May 18, 2015, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/reports/2015/05/18/113397/a-fresh-look-at-school-funding/, accessed 7/3/17, GDI-JG)

President Barack Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2016 requested an additional $1 billion for Title I in order to provide additional resources to states and districts that would support implementation of key reform efforts. These new resources are sorely needed, but they should be specifically targeted to help states move toward progressive funding systems that would close the resource gaps between high- and low-income districts that have been created by inequitable state school finance systems.∂ CAP’s proposal would make the $1 billion available in new funding under Title I for Fair Funding Incentive Grants to be distributed to states; states would then distribute the funds to districts via the existing Title I formula. The grants would provide additional administrative funds for states to develop and implement progressive funding systems. To be eligible to receive a grant under this new funding stream, states would need to commit to match their grant amount with state funds that are directed at inequitably funded low-income districts in order to close across-district funding gaps. This match requirement would be waived for states that can demonstrate that all low-income districts spend more state and local funds than all high-income districts. All states would be required to either continue to match the grant amount with state funds on an annual basis or implement fully progressive funding systems that provide more resources to low-income districts than high-income districts. If this requirement were not met, the state would lose access to the additional funding. States would also publicly report on gaps in actual expenditures between high- and low-income districts and disclose whether these gaps are closing.∂ In addition to receiving a Fair Funding Incentive Grant, states that do not yet have progressive funding systems but commit to develop and implement such systems within five years would receive the authority to reserve an additional 1 percent of their total Title I funding for state-level activities to support these systems. These states would need to demonstrate progress toward increasing funding equity in order to continue to receive these additional funds.∂ Providing additional resources for low-income schools through an increase in the Title I program would be a good step for Congress to take toward ensuring that disadvantaged students have the supplemental resources they need to achieve at high levels. However, using these additional resources to create incentives for states to contribute additional state funds toward the goal of equitably funding their low-income districts would make these federal resources even more effective.

Solvency – increase funding

School funding reforms spur achievement and attainment for disadvantaged students—studies prove

Chingos, Senior Fellow, The Urban Institute, and Director, Education Policy Program, The Urban Institute, 2017

(Matthew M., "How progressive is school funding in the United States?", Brookings, June 15, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-progressive-is-school-funding-in-the-united-states/, accessed 7/8/17, GDI-JG)

Policymakers, advocates, and the public have long been concerned with inequities in funding levels between schools attended by students from low-income families and their more affluent peers. School funding has received increased attention in recent years as multiple high-quality studies have found that school funding reforms initiated by courts and state legislatures improved the outcomes of disadvantaged students, both in terms of academic achievement (test scores) and attainment (high school graduation and college enrollment).[1]

Title I helps needy students – quality teachers, enrichment programs, and additional tech

Korry, staff writer at Youth Today, 2016

(Elaine, “High-Poverty School Districts Shortchanged by Title I” Youth Today, October 11, http://youthtoday.org/2016/10/high-poverty-school-districts-shortchanged-by-title-i/, accessed 7-5-17, GDI-RH)

Under a complicated formula based on poverty, roughly one-third of Barstow pupils (31.3 percent) are eligible for special funding under Title I of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The law, passed in 1965 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, supplements state and local education funding to bolster students who are at risk of failing academically. Last year, according to U.S. Department of Education figures, the Barstow school district received more than $2 million from Title I, which breaks down to $995 per eligible pupil — money Malan used to address achievement gaps. “One of the best uses of Title I funds is for quality teachers and staff to support students that need intervention or academic services, whether it’s English-language instruction or mathematics or any other subject,” he said. Title I also funds enrichment programs that take place outside of the school day, “all those things that help our students to be successful — early childhood intervention, after school, summer school, all that — and additional technology or devices and materials to support students who have academic needs.”

Solvency – funding cost of living adjustments

Changing Title I formulas allow for fair distribution of funding to schools, taking the cost of living to allocate funds

Boser & Brown, 15, Vice President of Education Policy at American Progress [Ulrich & Catherine; 7-7-2015, American Progress "5 Key Principles to Guide Consideration of any ESEA Title I Formula Change," Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/reports/2015/07/07/116696/5-key-principles-to-guide-consideration-of-any-esea-title-i-formula-change/ ; RJC]

1. Make the Title I formula more fair and transparent

Today, Title I, Part A, funds are distributed through four complex formulas: Basic Grants, Concentration Grants, Targeted Grants, and Education Incentive Finance Grants, or EIFG. These formulas have different eligibility requirements, weighting systems, and purposes. For example, the Education Finance Incentive formula rewards states that spend equally on poor and non-poor students alike. Other formulas do not.

This complexity makes it nearly impossible for policymakers, school system leaders, and the public to understand how money is distributed. It also makes it hard for the federal law to incentivize thoughtful actions at the state and local level since the reward system is so opaque. In order to fix this problem, the formulas should be condensed into a single, straightforward method of allocating funds. In short, dollars should go to schools in a fair and easy to understand manner based on a few simple factors that are predictable. This policy fix would enable local leaders to better understand the state and district’s Title I allocation, as well as develop more reliable projected education budgets.

In particular, the formula should take cost of living into account more precisely. In areas with high costs of living—such as Boston, Los Angeles, and Chicago—it can cost twice as much to pay teachers than it does in low-cost communities. But the current formulas do not expressly take that differential into account when allocating funds. Instead, the current formulas reward states for the amount that they have spent on education in the previous year, which serves as an inadequate proxy for cost of living.

“Educational costs vary, sometimes significantly, from district to district and from state to state. Title I allocations should account for these variations not with invalid proxies for cost such as state per-pupil spending, but with state- and district-level cost factors grounded in empirical research and updated every few years,” wrote Goodwin Liu, a school finance expert and former professor of education law at University of California, Berkeley. “Congress could use estimates that are presently available, or it could commission new studies,” he continued.

Education researchers have developed a sound statistical way to account for differences in the cost of living across states and districts, and the approach, known as the Comparable Wage Index, or CWI, is widely used. Any change to the Title I formula should include a variable that accounts for the differences in cost of living across schools and districts and streamlines the formula itself. This set of policy fixes would go a long way to help state and district leaders better predict their annual allocations and more fully understand the impact of local policy decisions.