Verbatim Mac

Solvency – Title I Portability

Solvency – achievement gap

Schools choice solves achievement gap

School choice resolves the achievement gap and motivates students to succeed

Anselem, Policy Analyst, Education Policy Studies, Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity, Heritage Foundation, 2014

(Mary Clare, “Barriers to High School Completion Create Barriers to Economic Mobility”, Heritage Foundation, May 15, 2014, http://www.heritage.org/education/report/barriers-high-school-completion-create-barriers-economic-mobility, accessed July 14, 2017, GDI-JG)

School Choice. Perhaps the best way to address the problem is to give parents real choice over which school to send their children. School choice is rapidly expanding all over the country. If students are able to attend high-quality public schools or charter schools, regardless of where they live, factors that contribute to the achievement gap such as race or income will start to diminish. Different children thrive in different environments and in different academic areas. School choice gives parents the freedom to match their children to the school that best fits their particular talents and needs. When students are in an environment of their or their parents’ choosing they have more motivation to succeed.∂ The research seems to support such benefits of choice. A National Bureau of Economic Research study, for instance, found that “winning the lottery to attend a chosen school has an immediate impact on absences and suspensions after notification, and that this result is particularly strong for older male students.”[61] School choice has positive effects on motivation and school performance. The U.S. Department of Education found that simply receiving a scholarship to attend a school of choice increased graduation rates by about 12 percent.[62] These children are doing better in school, and parents reported feeling that their children are in a safer environment. The Education Department’s evaluation revealed, “School safety is a valued feature of schools for the families who applied to the Opportunity Scholarship Program. A total of 17 percent of cohort 1 parents at baseline listed school safety as their most important reason for seeking to exercise school choice—second only to academic quality (48 percent) among the available reason.”[63] (Cohort 1 parents were those who opted for school choice. They found themselves significantly more satisfied with their children’s educational environment than parents who did not choose their children’s school.) The increase in graduation rates alone shows that giving parents a voice in how and where their children receive an education can significantly improve academic outcomes.

Portability good – restrictions on states coupled with lack of portability limit effective programming for disadvantages students

Furtick and Snell, a policy analyst and director of education, 2014(Katie Furtick and Lisa Snell, “Federal School Finance Reform: Moving Toward Title I Funding Following the Child”, Policy Brief 125, September 2014, ?Database?, July 3, 2017,)GDI/DCM

The current Title I spending safeguards do not ensure that funds are allocated to disadvantaged students in ways that most benefit them and improve academic outcomes—the goal of the program at its inception in the 1960s. To rectify this deficiency, Title I funding should be made portable.

The program’s existing regulations prohibit federal Title I funds from being combined with state financial efforts to improve educational outcomes for low- income and disadvantaged students, thereby limiting the reach of many state-run programs proven to improve academic outcomes for the students they serve. The same regulations also restrict how states may disburse funds and which schools may receive Title I funds, resulting in funding inequities (especially for schools with large numbers—but a smaller percentage—of low-income students). Further, the supplement-not-supplant and comparability requirements of Title I create an unnecessary administrative burden and hinder the creation of comprehensive and innovative programs. Together, these complications and problems inherent to the Title I program make it difficult to achieve the goals of the program and limit its effectiveness.

Spending decisions should be made by those closest to the students Title I funds are intended to support, with the students’ benefit at the forefront. Title I funding should be gauged by students’ results rather than on the basis of inputs and spending decisions. Schools, educators and administrators need to be held accountable primarily by outcomes, rather than by fulfilling reporting and compliance requirements.

Per pupil funding and litany of regulations make Title I ineffective at closing achievement gaps – only portability would solve

Koteskey, Education Policy Analyst, 15 (Tyler, "Title I funding portability is key to ESEA reform"; the hill; 7/9/15 thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/247300-title-i-funding-portability-is-key-to-esea-reform, 7/3/17, GDI AC)

The current Title I program is broken. A meta-analysis of 17 federal studies on its effectiveness indicated only a modest overall impact, while another by Harvard University concluded the program had failed in its original mission of closing achievements gaps between disadvantaged and wealthy students. Examining what schools have to go through to get Title I funding, it is easy to see why. The program’s litany of regulations forces the administrative staff of states and districts to spend resources proving compliance with requirements on how they spend their grants to avoid losing eligibility. This wastes time and money that could be used to allocate the funding in ways that best serves their schools’ individual needs. The “supplement not supplant” and “comparability” provisions, discussed at length in the Reason Foundation’s Title I reform analysis, restricts states’ abilities to combine these dollars with pre-existing state funding for low-income students to create comprehensive programs. And because Title I allocates grants to schools rather than individual students, it actually promotes per-student funding inequalities between schools, especially at larger schools with high numbers but low-percentages of low-income kids. Scott’s Title I portability amendment has the potential to change all of this. Tying Title I funds to eligible students relieves administrative burdens by removing the need to justify expenditures. It also ensures that every school gets the same amount of per-student grants for every low-income child they educate. By making these funds portable, wherever these students enroll, low-income pupils will be able to expand their educational options. They will benefit from administrators with new incentives to attract and retain them to get access to the dollars they bring. Portable Title I funding could even be combined with expanding state voucher, tax-credit scholarship programs, and education savings accounts, with proven positive effects on achievement for disadvantaged students to give even more families access to better options.