Public schools receive funding from federal, state, and local government. A+ Education Partnership believes that we must make sure more money is spent on what we know improves learning, and we must invest more in our public schools.
Links:
- Education Sector: Education Finance – Education Sector is an independent think tank that is committed to making a measurable impact on education poilcy. This site has reports, policy briefs, and blog posts about the problems Education Sector currently sees in education funding policy and their proposed solutions.
- US Department of Education Budget Office – Here you can find detailed information about the 2013 budget requestion for education.
- The School Funding Center – This organization helps schools find and apply for grants.
Resources:
- Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card – This report by Bruce Baker, David Sciarra, and Danielle Ferrie describes fairness in education funding based on principles of equal educational opportunity for all students, especially students from low-income households. The authors analyze school funding in each states and rank the states by fairness.
- A Primer on The Foundation Program and School Funding in Alabama – This guide by the School Superintendents of Alabama provides a survey of the current school funding program in Alabama.
About Title I Funding:
Title I Funding refers to the funding provided by Title I Part A of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which is the latest reautorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Title I funds are provided to high-poverty schools and districts to provide services to students who are educationally disadvantaged or at risk of failing to meet state standards.
Links:
- U.S. Department of Education: Title I, Part A Program – Go here for an in-depth description of the Title I program’s purpose, regulations, eligibility information, etc. and resources about the program.
- New America Foundation: Federal Education Budget Program – The Federal Education Budget Project is a non-partisan source of information on federal education funding. This site provides an overview of Title I funding and goes over the funding regulations and formulas used to determine funding distribution. It also provides a discussion on and an analysis of disparities of funding among districts,
- Children’s Defense Fund: Funding – Title I – The Children’s Defense Fund is a non-profit child advocacy organization that works to ensure a level playing field for all children. This site argues that Title I funding is unfair because it favors large school districts in favor of small districts with high poverty rates. They also argue that Title I funding unfairly discriminate against high poverty school districts that do not spend a lot on education in favor of districts with more wealth and political commitment to education. This link also includes resources that detail how to fix Title I funding’s downfalls.
- Center for American Progress: Title I Education Grants Interactive Map – The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan educational institute dedicated to improving lives through progressive ideas and actions. This interactive map shows Title I allocation, fiscal effort on education, average teacher salary, and spending per student for each state. Alabama is below the national average on all these marks.
Resources:
- Comparison of FY09 Title I-A Grants with Estimated FY09 Title I-A Grants – This chart shows values for actual grants received by school districts in Alabama under three different formulas and compares these values to estimated grants using the same formulas without number weighting. The numbers suggest that adjusting the formulas used to determine grants can affect an increase in grants received by most Alabama school districts.
- Reforming How State Per Pupil Spending is Factored into the Title I Formula – This table shows the current Title I formula approach to state per pupil spending levels, and the effect of two possible reforms. The study shows that applying both the reforms could cause an increase of $1,424 per pupil in Alabama.
