Title 1 schools shortchanged by funding formulas

Sheilah Vance, Esq., president and general counsel of the Institute for Educational Equity and Opportunity, says a new Education Department study finds "a significant problem of inequitable resources in Title I and non-Title I schools as well as in higher-poverty and lower-poverty schools; more than 40% of Title 1 schools had lower personnel expenditures than non-Title I schools in the same district.”

Vance participates in Math and Science as a Civil Right during Innovation & Equity 2012: Capitalizing Creativity: Job Creation and Innovation, the 12th annual symposium for the 50  Most Important African-Americans in Technology on Jan. 15 at B. Smith Union Station.

Before 2009, school districts were allowed to aggregate their categorical federal spending, targeted to students with low incomes or other disadvantages, by district instead of reporting it by school.  Vance thinks Congress should mandate that expenditures be equalized.

In Philadelphia, Vance notes, “For example, low-spending Title I and higher-poverty schools in Philadelphia would see a projected average increase of 12 percent in their state and local expenditures under the existing money approach, or $445 per pupil for each school (on average).”

These patterns, not unlike the disparities which led to the Brown vs. Board of Education case in the 1940s and 1950s, are bringing about lawsuits to bring fairness to school financing.

She says there are finance equity suits in 45 states, where parents have won in 27 states, lost in 16 states and had mixed results in two.

One consequence of the funding patterns is the low participation of black students in math and science courses.  Nationally, only 0.6 percent of black high school students take calculus and fewer than one in five take algebra 1.

Vance suggests that funds which should address those disparities are being used instead to cover declines in state and local support for schools.