Title I Federal Aid: History, Programs, and NCLB Impact

Introduction: Goals and Questions Behind Title I

On the U.S. Department of Education website, the headline above Title I reads: "Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged." Further into the government's description of Title I — the largest and oldest federal aid program for elementary and secondary schools — readers learn that it exists in order "to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments." Those are laudable, lofty, idealistic, and thoroughly worthy goals. But numerous questions arise in the mind of an objective Title I researcher, such as: (1) What is the most effective way in which Title I funds may be used? (2) What do teachers envision when they project Title I impacts five years from now? (3) Do Title I resources truly make a substantial difference in a child's success?

History of Title I Legislation

Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965, and the most significant, substantial, and best-known portion of the legislation was Title I, which provided money to assist poorly performing students in "disadvantaged" schools. One drawback of the original legislation was that Title I funds could not be co-mingled with any other grants or funding sources a school receives. That ESEA restriction was eased in 1988, when Congress reauthorized the bill (renaming Title I "Chapter 1"), which at that time allowed schools with at least 75% of the student body below the poverty line to use the funds to create school-wide programs. The advantage of this measure was that funded programs could be integrated into a school, and all low-income children — not just "at risk" or "low-achieving" students — would benefit.

In 1994, the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) changed Chapter 1 back to Title I and built more flexibility into the program. The "new" Title I called for accountability and shifted the focus from low-income and poorly achieving students to students from all economic backgrounds. The IASA Title I also offered funding for programs featuring students with high academic potential — a significant new innovation.

The most recent version of Title I emerged as part of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation in 2001, a product of the George W. Bush Administration and members of Congress who jointly participated in its creation. The NCLB has set highly ambitious goals — for all its programs, including Title I — that some educators and politicians argue are unachievable. Indeed, a number of states began to lower passing scores on the standardized tests that the new law mandates. Several U.S. Senators initiated legislation that would allow states to obtain a waiver to escape the strict requirements. After all, if stringent rules regarding student achievement in math and English/language arts are not met by a target date, schools can lose federal aid and/or be taken over for "restructuring." Notwithstanding the outcome of such waiver attempts, the ideal Title I program under NCLB should be school-wide, funded from multiple sources, and designed to prepare students to meet challenging new state standards.

NCLB Rhetoric vs. Reality: Funding Commitments

Just as good nutrition powers the brains of students, money makes Title I programs work. In order for schools to meet the stiff new challenges, billions of dollars flow from Washington, D.C., to school districts in all 50 states. It is therefore pertinent to examine funding while also exploring the potential successes and failures of Title I. In this context, it is clear that the Bush administration's budgets — for both fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004 — did not show the same commitment to Title I and NCLB that Bush's rhetoric had led the nation to expect in 2002, when the bill became law amid public photo opportunities and sound bites.

Indeed, a little more than a year after Bush stood side-by-side on the White House lawn with long-time education advocate Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Kennedy was sharply criticizing the budget. Kennedy stated in 2002 that the $1.4 billion increase for all education programs was the "smallest increase in seven years" (Techniques, 2002) and would actually cut $90 million from elementary and secondary school programs covered by the NCLB. Kennedy also noted that Bush's budget proposed 50 times more in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans than for new education spending. "If we fail to provide greater resources," Kennedy said, "we will send a very discouraging message [to schools] about the importance of these reforms and severely diminish their chances of success. I believe a $10 billion increase for education over last year is called for to implement the school reform."

Meanwhile, if the administration's budget request for fiscal year 2004 were enacted, federal education funding would rise to $53.1 billion — the highest level in history and "an increase of nearly $11 billion since I took office," Bush said in June 2003 (Cardman, 2003). However, Tom Houlihan, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), rebutted Bush's remarks: "With the worst state budget deficits in 40 years, states cannot be expected to fully implement this law without the resources that they were promised by the Congress and administration when the bill was signed into law."

The Most Effective Use of Title I Funds

Title I funds, according to an article in Educational Leadership, "can narrow the achievement gap by focusing on early intervention, summer learning experiences, class size, and comprehensive school reform" (Borman, 2003). Doing so requires "significant investments in preschool, summer school, and school-year programs," but this investment can produce "long-term economic returns and benefits to our society that considerably outweigh their substantial costs." From the perspective of this paper, the Landon Elementary program reflects the most effective use of Title I resources: small groups, one-on-one tutoring, and intensive teacher training all represent sound and well-supported approaches to closing the achievement gap.

Conclusion: Title I's Promise and the Standardized Testing Problem

As the bar is raised higher and higher under NCLB for schools, teachers, and students, standardized test publishers are entering a dramatic growth cycle, with enormous profits in their forecast. Placing ever-greater emphasis on standardized tests, however, creates a serious problem: teachers will be increasingly tempted to "teach to the test" — increasing test familiarity and preparation — lest schools lose funding when their students fail to meet the stiffer NCLB requirements. Though it seems anti-intellectual and mercenary, some California schools and teachers already receive bonuses based on increased test scores (Thompson, DiCerbo, Mahoney, & MacSwan, 2002). According to an analysis by Arizona State University, "each of the 1,000 certificated staff in underachieving schools with the largest growth in test score enhancement in California receives $25,000."

Schools that do not meet test score goals can be taken over by the state. It is little wonder that test scores rise when teachers know they will be penalized if their students do not succeed on standardized tests. Teaching to the test is not a new concept — teachers who worked in Texas when George W. Bush was governor are well acquainted with it — but with the extremely high goals set by NCLB, it does not take a genius to predict what teachers and administrators will do to avoid failure. The deeper question is whether teaching to the test will genuinely help children learn to read, write, and think. In both the short run and the long run, the answer must be "no."

Borman, Geoffrey D. (2002). How can Title I improve achievement? Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Cardman, Michael (2003). Bush: all state plans now approved; funding ample (implementing NCLB). Education Daily.

Education Program for Gifted Youth (2002). A brief history of Title I and its applicability to gifted education. www.epgy.stanford.edu.

Etheridge, Sheldon D. (2001). Case study: Title I schoolwide programs — district support for achieving success: Berkeley County School District. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk.

Holzberg, Carol S. (1997). Little kids, big projects: primary grade students' use of computer technology. Technology & Learning.

MacKenzie, Karla K. (2002). Using literacy booster groups to maintain and extend Reading Recovery success in the primary grades. Reading Teacher.

Success for All Foundation (2003). Curriculum. www.successforall.net.

Thompson, Marilyn S., DiCerbo, Kristen E., Mahoney, Kate, & MacSwan, Jeff (2002). A validity critique of language program evaluations and analysis of English learner test scores. Education Policy Analysis Archives: College of Education, Arizona State University.

U.S. Department of Education (2003). Title I — Improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged. www.ed.gov.