Education Week - October 28, 2015 - 19

Programs Face School Choice Advocates Cool to Title I Portability Plan
Uncertainties
FOLLOWING THE STUDENT
chairman of the Senate eduIn ESEA Fight the
cation committee, saw his similar
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

sources to help fix low-performing
schools.
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers' initiative,
funded at about $1.1 billion this
school year, is the largest program
that the Senate has embraced, but
that the House would like to get
rid of. In fact, the program, which
offers grants for after-school and
summer programs, was originally
left out of the Senate bill, but
was added back in through an
amendment with broad, bipartisan
support.
Jodi Grant, the executive director
of the Afterschool Alliance, whose
members benefit from the program,
said that doesn't mean it will survive conference negotiations.
"We get that we're up against
a philosophy of really wanting to
consolidate programs," she said.

"

Once their champion
is no longer in
Congress, they often
fade away."
JOEL PACKER
Committee for Education Funding

But she thinks that would ultimately limit school districts' ability
to finance after-school programs.
"We think it's going to lead to less
choice, not more."
What's more, the Senate bill
would create some brand-new
programs-most prominently a
new investment in early-childhood
education that's a big priority for
Murray and the Obama administration.
It also includes a new literacy
investment along the lines of a
program Murray has been championing for years. And it would add a
new research and innovation program that could serve as a successor of sorts to the administration's
Investing in Innovation program.

Also Targeted
There are also programs that
would be scrapped under both bills,
some of which haven't been funded
for years, including Reading First
(a George W. Bush-era program
aimed at improving literacy that
faced conflict-of-interest allegations) and the Even Start Family
Literacy program, a favorite of
former House education chairman
Bill Goodling, a Pennsylvania Republican who left Congress more
than a decade ago.
That's the problem, Packer said,
for programs with just one powerful supporter on Capitol Hill.
"Once their champion is no longer in Congress, they often fade
away," he said.

proposal for Title I portability killed
off before the Senate passed its own
ESEA bill in July. (A provision of
the Senate bill that passed would
let states permit students in lowperforming schools to transfer.)
President Barack Obama has
threatened to veto any ESEA bill
that includes portability. The White
House in February emphasized the
Title I cuts to many districts that
would take place under portability, estimating that the 100 districts
facing the most severe cuts would
lose 15 percent of their Title I aid, or
$570 million in all. But those figures
are based on the administration's
proposed fiscal 2016 budget, which
has not been enacted and which
House Republicans have ignored.
The stalled push to expand choice
in the next version of the federal
education law stands in contrast
to new laws in states like Nevada.
Earlier this year, that state adopted
a groundbreaking education-savings-account program that gives
parents the power to direct state
spending earmarked for K-12 to
private schools (including religious
ones) and home schooling, as well as
other expenses.
Petrilli suggests that many choice
advocates have been more concerned with the reauthorization of
the federal Opportunity Scholarship program, which provides private school vouchers to students in
the District of Columbia, than Title
I portability. (The House voted to
reauthorize the program last week.)
Disappointment over the lack of
"full" Title I portability that extends
to private schools is another example of Republican leaders refusing to
do battle politically with Obama and
other Democrats, said Dan Holler, a
spokesman for Heritage Action for
America, a conservative political action committee that supports vouchers and believes portability should
be extended to private schools.
Holler said that the weak Title I
choice provision in the House bill,
one that would apply to the next
ESEA reauthorization for several
years, simply isn't worth holding
on to, especially with the opportunity for a GOP candidate to win the
White House next year.
"You could see the whole [choice]
issue taken off the table for the next
president's first term," Holler said.
"We would just rather see things
continue apace for 18 months."

Included in the House bill to reauthorize the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act is a provision that would allow states to
make their federal Title I aid for disadvantaged students "portable."
What does that mean, what are the arguments about it, and what
are its chances of survival?
n Title I portability would allow federal aid dollars targeted at low-income

students, about $14.5 billion total, to follow students to the public schools of their
choice.
n School choice advocates in many cases want Title I to be made available to

private schools as well. A push to include that provision died a relatively early
death in the ESEA reauthorization process during this session of Congress.
n Other groups argue that allowing Title I dollars to follow students would hurt the

schools with the highest concentrations of poverty and undermine the program's
purpose.
n The Obama administration has threatened to veto the House ESEA bill in part

due to opposition to Title I portability. That, combined with lukewarm support or
indifference by choice advocates, could mean that portability doesn't survive
current negotiations between the House and Senate over the ESEA.
SOURCE: Education Week

vouchers and anything like that,"
Griffith said. "I don't think there's
anyone out there who thinks this is
a big change."
If states had the option to enact
Title I portability, though, wealthier districts and their constituents
would see an opportunity to pick up
additional federal funding for their
schools and act accordingly, at the
expense of schools with high concentrations of poverty, said Natasha
Ushomirsky, a senior policy and

Getty

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

data analyst at the Education Trust,
which opposes portability.
"There would be a lot of political
pressure on states to take this option up," Ushomirsky said.
Politics aside, the Education Trust
and other like-minded groups believe
that the damage portability would
do to the poorest districts makes the
issue so potentially damaging that
they must oppose it vigorously.
Separate proposals related to
Title I in the House and Senate bills

would affect the distribution of aid
to school districts and states, respectively, by altering the formulas governing the aid.
An Education Trust analysis published last February found, for example, that under Title I portability, California districts in the highest-poverty
quartile would lose 13 percent of their
Title I aid, while corresponding districts in Pennsylvania would lose 21
percent of their aid, and such districts
in Illinois would lose 19 percent.

Choice and Political Pressure
The districts hardest hit by Title I
portability would be in urban centers
like Chicago and Philadelphia and
cities with both high poverty rates
and relatively robust charter sectors
that present more public school options, said Michael Griffith, the senior school finance analyst with the
Education Commission of the States.
Title I aid per student can reach up
to roughly $3,000 annually, Griffith
noted, depending on the state.
"This is one of the few areas [federal lawmakers] can actually touch
in federal funding that would have
anything to do with choice and
EDUCATION WEEK | October 28, 2015 | www.edweek.org | 19
http://www.edweek.org/go/Trends21 http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - October 28, 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - October 28, 2015
