Education Week - June 6, 2018 - 27

What's in ESSA's Big Flexible-Spending Pot

By Alyson Klein

he Student Support and Academic
Enrichment Grants-better known as
Title IV of the Every Student Succeeds
Act-is one of the most flexible federal
programs around. And it just got a
huge increase, from $400 million in
the 2017-18 school year to $1.1 billion
for the 2018-19 school year. The program is closely
watched by advocates and district officials alike, in
part because the dollars can cover such a wide array
of needs-from school safety training to drama clubs
to science programs to suicide prevention.
Here's a look at how the program works and how
districts might spend that considerable increase.

What is Title IV of ESSA and why
did Congress create it?
Title IV, Part A of ESSA, or the Student Support and
Academic Enrichment Grants, was intended to give district
leaders more flexibility when it comes to federal funding.
The program was created by collapsing a bunch of smaller
programs aimed at physical education, arts education,
math and science instruction, counseling, Advance Placement course fees, and school safety. Congress authorized up
to $1.6 billion for the program in its first year. That would
have made it the third-largest program in ESSA. But lawmakers only provided $400 million for federal fiscal year
2017, which generally covers the 2017-18 school year. This
spring, in the fiscal year 2018 spending bill, Title IV got a
boost of $700 million, bringing it to $1.1 billion.

What can the money be used for?
The money flows to districts from state education
officials through a formula. Districts have broad discretion to use the aid for a wide range of programs aimed at
making students safer and healthier, more well-rounded,
or to enhance the role of technology in learning. Activities aimed at improving student health and safety include
things like promoting parent and community involvement,
establishing or improving dropout prevention programs,
and putting in place or bolstering health and nutrition
programs, or programs to combat the opioid crisis. Wellrounded activities can include initiatives to bolster foreignlanguage courses, college counseling, dual enrollment,
musical theater, and computer science. Districts can also
use the money for technology, including blended learning
and building technological capacity.
Districts that receive at least $30,000 must spend 20
percent of their funding on those activities that help students be more well-rounded, and 20 percent on something
that bolsters student health and safety. Districts can't
spend more than 15 percent of their funding on technology infrastructure.
Every district is supposed to receive at least $10,000. Districts can opt to combine their money and use it as a consortium. And districts can opt to transfer as much of their

Title IV funding as they want to other ESSA programs,
including Title I grants for disadvantaged students, or Title
II, which covers teacher training and salaries. Given that
there was so little funding in the first year of the program,
some districts decided to direct the money to Title II. That
included the entire state of Hawaii, which is made up of
just one school district.

How has the program worked
in the past?
There are no hard-and-fast data available yet on how districts used the money in the first year. But a forthcoming
survey, spearheaded by the National Association of Federal
Education Program Administrators, found some "interesting trends," said David DeSchryver, a senior vice president
and director of research at Whiteboard Advisors, a consulting organization, who helped to conduct the survey.
For instance, DeSchryver said, districts opted to spend
their money on programs that emphasized positive behavioral interventions and supports, or PBIS, which seek to
create a common set of behavioral expectations for schools.
Districts also directed funds to develop safe and supportive learning environments. In the "whole child" category,
science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and
social and emotional learning were popular. Districts that
spent their money on technology tended to opt for educator professional development. And in general, early survey
results show that many districts opted not to transfer the
money to other titles of the law, DeSchryver said.
Because there was so little money available in the first
year of the program, states were given the option
of distributing the money through a competition, rather than by formula. At least seven
states opted to do this, according to an
Education Week survey conducted last
summer.
Now that the program is receiving a
lot more money at the federal level, all
states are expected to distribute the
funds through a formula.
Some states were also slow to distribute the money in the program's first year.
About half of states had not allocated the
grants by January of this year, according to the
Title IV-A Coalition, a group of more than 50 organizations
that advocates for the program. And California still has
not distributed its funds from the first year of the program,
and may combine them with the second year of funding.

Now that there's more money available,
how might the program change?
Now that Title IV has received a $700 million
boost at the federal level, more districts are likely
to receive significantly more money. For example,
in the program's first year, just 25 districts got
grants of $1 million or more. That number will tick
up to an estimated 125 districts, according to an
analysis of federal data by the Title IV-A Coalition.

An estimated 1,000 more districts will receive grants of
at least $100,000, up from about 460 in the program's
first year. About 2,800 districts will get grants of at least
$30,000, up from just over 1,100 in the program's first year.
It's unclear at this point what districts will spend this
extra cash on. But Noelle Ellerson Ng, the associate
executive director of policy and advocacy for AASA, the
School Superintendents Association, said that she's
hearing a lot of interest in school safety, given the recent spate of school shootings. "There's been a big burst
around mental health supports, school resource officers,
bullying prevention, school climate," Ellerson Ng said.
Many districts though, may not get larger grants-
about 9,000 will still see grants of less than $30,000.
That's down from nearly 12,000 last year, but it's still the
majority.
For instance, the Downington Area school district outside
Philadelphia got about $10,000 last year, which it directed
to teacher professional development through Title II. And
even with the big federal increase, Superintendent Emilie
Lonardi isn't expecting a windfall for her own district. "For
us, it's really not going to change appreciably," Lonardi
said. She expects that she may get about $10,000 again,
and could decide to continue to direct the funding to
teacher training.

What are the program's prospects
going forward?
The program enjoys bipartisan support on Capitol Hill,
but the Trump administration has twice
sought to eliminate all funding for
it. Lawmakers were poised to
at least keep the program
going despite the administration's opposition in
fiscal year 2018. But
the program, which can
target funding toward
school safety activities
among its many flexible
uses, may have gotten
a big increase, in part
because the final spending
bill was released just days
after the shooting at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, Fla., which left 17
dead.
"I think there is an appetite to keep this
program well-funded so that we can have
a couple years of good data about how the
program helps schools and students," said Ally
Bernstein, the executive director of the Title
IV-A Coalition.
DeSchryver urged districts to let
policymakers-and the public-know
how the money has helped them. "It's
important for districts to tell a story
of how they use these funds in order to
make the case for the continuation of
these funds," he said.
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