08-21-09
Washington, DC
Billions
for school improvement to be distributed within
the next few months
Funding to target schools that have
failed to meet achievement targets under the No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
States and school
districts will receive an unprecedented amount
of funding – more than $4.5 billion – in the
coming months targeted at providing extra
assistance to schools that have failed to meet
achievement targets under the No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLB). During the past 6 years,
schools have been identified as poorly
performing under NCLB, but little funding has
been targeted on assisting them to improve. Due
to the economic stimulus package and the new
education funding bill, that situation has
changed.
Reservation of
Title I Funds for School Improvement
NCLB authorizes
two different pots of funds for this purpose.
One source of funding is a 4% reservation of a
state’s total allocation of Title I, part A
grants to school districts. The amount of
funding available under this provision has grown
with recent appropriation increases for the
Title I, part A program. In other words, there
is a larger amount of money being provided to
Title I, so the amount reserved has also grown.
The fiscal year
2009 appropriations bill increased funding for
the Title I program by about $600 million for a
total appropriation of $14.5 billion. This
resulted in an estimated school improvement
reservation of $580 million. The American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA),
commonly known as the stimulus package, also
provided $10 billion extra for the Title I
program, which translates into an approximate
school improvement reservation of $400 million.
This means that
in the coming months, states will have almost $1
billion of school improvement funds to
distribute to districts through the reservation.
Separately
Authorized Funds for School Improvement
The second pot of
funds for school improvement is a provision
under NCLB that receives a separate
appropriation. This separate authority first
received an appropriation of $125 million in
fiscal year 2007.
The fiscal year
2009 appropriations bill allocated $546 million
for this authority. Under the ARRA, $3 billion
is also provided for section 1003(g).
So, in addition
to the approximately $1 billion that will be
reserved from the state Title I grants, states
will also receive another $3.5 billion to carry
out school improvement activities.
Differences in
the Use of Funds Under the Two School
Improvement Provisions
The two different
sources of school improvement money have
different rules that govern their uses, and can
cause some problems in using the new funds.
Table 2 outlines some of the similarities and
differences in the use of funds. Some of the key
differences are as follows:
Under section
1003(a), if a state determines that the school
improvement needs have been met and that there
is an excess of school improvement funds, the
excess funds may be redistributed to school
districts. The section 1003(g) funds cannot be
redistributed, so states may first want to
distribute 1003(g) funds so that they have the
flexibility of redistributing excess 1003(a)
funds.
Under section
1003(a), there is no restriction on the size of
the grants to be awarded to school districts,
but school improvement money distributed under
section 1003(g) requires that the grants be
$50,000 to $500,000 for each participating
school.
Under section1003
(a), funds can only be used to provide
assistance to Title I schools in school
improvement, corrective action, or
restructuring. The 1003(g) funds, however, can
also be used to provide two additional years
assistance to schools that have exited school
improvement status and that previously received
school improvement funding provided that such
schools meet the State’s definition of “greatest
need and greatest commitment.”
The U.S.
Department of Education should, by regulation or
by using its waiver authority, smooth out the
differences in these two funding streams so that
states can use them more efficiently to improve
schools.
More information
on the school improvement funds can be found on
the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site at
www.ed.gov.
Center on Education Policy
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