Funding Fairness

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Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provides billions of dollars every year for additional educational services and supports for low-income students to help them achieve at high levels. But the program isn’t working as Congress planned.

For Title I to have the intended impact, high-poverty schools must first receive as much in state and local funding as do low-poverty schools. In fact, ESEA contains a “comparability” provision that requires a school district receiving Title I funds to give its high-poverty schools resources that “are at least comparable” to what its wealthier schools receive. 

Read more about how to fix the comparability provisions of Title I in this Fact Sheet and in our report, "Close the Hidden Funding Gaps in Our Schools." A wide array of groups, including the NAACP and the NEA, have joined our efforts and have signed a letter urging Congress to close the loophole.