Marguerite Roza & Robin Lake, via a kind Deb Britt email:
When the Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), recently released a draft bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (otherwise known as the No Child Left Behind Act), reaction was swift. At issue is the $14 billion in Title I funds—designed to drive extra money to educate poor, disadvantaged children.
Senator Alexander’s proposal would let dollars follow a student to whatever school he attends and would grant districts greater flexibility in how they use their Title I dollars. Some groups worry about how to guarantee those dollars are well spent. Others are concerned that divvying up funds equally among poor students means that the poorest school systems may not get as much money as they do under the current funding scheme.
These concerns are not insignificant, but they ignore the elephant in the room. And if we tame this elephant, we have the chance to finally turn the tide for poor students.