ESEA: Title I-A Poverty Measures and Grants to Local Education Agencies and Schools. CRS Report R46600, Version 2

Congressional Research Service. Web site: https://crsreports.congress.gov/

N

48

Policymakers

Poverty; Federal Legislation; Educational Legislation; Elementary Secondary Education; Federal Aid; Grants; School Districts; Low Income Students; Family Income; Funding Formulas; Resource Allocation; Accountability; Census Figures; Lunch Programs; Eligibility

Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I; Improving Americas Schools Act 1994 Title I

The primary source of federal aid to elementary and secondary education is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--particularly its Title I-A program, which authorizes federal aid for the education of disadvantaged students. The ESEA was initially enacted in 1965 (P.L. 89- 10) "to strengthen and improve educational quality and educational opportunities in the Nation's elementary and secondary schools." The Title I-A program in particular provides supplementary educational and related services to low-achieving and other students attending elementary and secondary schools with relatively high concentrations of students from low-income families, as well as eligible students who live in the areas served by these public schools but attend private schools. Since the enactment of the ESEA, Title I-A grants have always been calculated based on one or more measures of a child's family financial situation (also referred to as poverty measures), with an emphasis on providing aid to schools serving concentrations of children from low-income families. Currently, four individual formulas are used to determine Title I-A grants to local educational agencies (LEAs). These formulas are based on a variety of factors, including data available from the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program, which is administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. SAIPE includes estimates of the number of children ages 5-17 living in families in poverty. This report begins with an overview of the Title I-A formulas used by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to make grants to LEAs, with a focus on the numerous ways in which measures of a child's family income are employed. This is followed by an historical overview of the Title IA formulas and how the measures of poverty included in them have changed over time. The discussion then focuses on measures of school-level poverty that are used to make Title I-A grants from LEAs to the school level. This includes a focus on allocation methods for the past 20 years and complications that have arisen related to continuing to use these allocation methods to make grants to schools and for Title I-A accountability and reporting requirements. The last section of the report discusses some alternative school-level poverty measures that ED has considered or is currently examining. The report also includes two appendices. Appendix A provides an overview of the key factors included in each of the Title I-A formulas. Appendix B provides a detailed discussion about the standard federal poverty measure included in the SAIPE data used to determine Title I-A LEA grants.

ERIC

2021

ED610713