GOP ESEA Draft Fiscally Irresponsible, Promotes Inequality at the Expense of Students and Federal Taxpayers: News of the Day

Committee Republicans recently released partisan ESEA reauthorization legislation which introduces significant changes to the federal role in public education. This legislation would eliminate key measures in current law that ensure states and schools districts are accountable  to students and taxpayers for their use of federal tax dollars. Currently, states and local school districts are required to spend a certain portion of their federal funds - known as Title I, Part A funds - to benefit specific, high-need populations. The Republican legislation would allow these targeted funds to instead be spent by states and local districts on unrelated activities and without requiring consistent state and local support.  This lax in spending requirements alarms the New America Foundation. They explain the potential implications of this Republican proposal:

1. First, the bill would move several existing programs to Title I, Part A of the law. These programs, which provide specific funding streams to local school districts for services for migrant students, neglected and delinquent students, English language learners, rural students, and Indian education, would be moved to the same section that funds grants for low-income students...By allowing states and districts to merge funds from several funding streams targeted for specific high-need populations, the House bill would give them license to overlook the needs of some students in exchange for others. While giving state and district leaders more autonomy and control over federal funds to tailor services to their students’ needs is important, these specialized federal programs exist to serve students that are typically ignored. 

2. Next, the House bill would allow any school that receives Title I, Part A funds to provide school-wide services, regardless of the percentage of students living below the poverty line. Those schools would no longer have to provide targeted services to just their high-need students, meaning these students could get lost or overlooked in the shift.

3. Finally...[the bill would allow] state and local governments to cut per pupil or overall funding for education for districts but remain eligible for Title I funding...this change...has the potential to increase the percentage of education spending the federal government supplies while allowing state and local governments to cut their own spending.

The thrust of these changes is that they would turn Title I funds into an all-purpose block grant, making the nation's highest-need students more vulnerable than ever before and schools less accountable for the use of federal funds. As a number of civil rights, business and education groups have observed, this amounts to “rollback” that “undermines the core American value of equal opportunity of education.”