A Fix for Funding Schools That Need Most

The resource gaps between high-poverty and low-poverty school districts have received much attention and advocates in many states have succeeded in narrowing many of these gaps, but funding gaps within school districts have drawn far less attention. These gaps shortchange the schools serving the highest percentages of low-income students, who need the most from their schools—and unfairly advantage schools serving wealthier student populations. Now, finally, a powerful and unusual trio of Washington lawmakers is tackling this critical issue.

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) along with Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) are sponsoring bills that would outlaw within-district funding inequities in districts receiving Title I funds. The legislation, called the ESEA Fiscal Fairness Act, would accomplish this by closing what’s known as the “comparability loophole” in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). 

Title I was designed to give high-poverty schools the resources they need to lift the achievement of their students by providing additional funds beyond what they receive from their states and districts. This supplementary money—on top of an equal funding base—should help Title I schools improve technology, expand support for teachers, increase learning time, and take other steps to boost student achievement.

The key, however, is that the federal funds be supplementary. Currently, the law requires districts to ensure that all schools—whether or not they receive Title I money—get comparable resources before federal funds are added. This requirement is known as comparability.

But the comparability provision has a loophole that lets districts shortchange their high-poverty schools, depriving students in these schools of needed resources.

The legislation sponsored by Rep. Fattah and Sens. Cochran and Bennet would close that loophole. Indeed, their bills would ensure that districts spend comparable amounts of per-pupil state and district funds in Title I schools as they do in non-Title I schools—before Title I dollars are allocated. This common-sense proposal asks districts to respect the law’s intent: giving low-income students the extra support they need to catch up to their more affluent peers.

Passage of this vital legislation would increase funding equity in thousands of school districts for millions of students. E-mail or call your U.S. representative and senators, and urge them to support the ESEA Fiscal Fairness Act.