Title I in a Nutshell
TITLE I HISTORY:
• Title I program is 41 years old (Title I, Chapter 1, Title I again).
• Title I started in 1965, with Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society Concept”.
• The focus of the program has always been on supporting economically and educationally disadvantaged children.
ESSA:
New Hampshire state plan under the 2017 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a long-awaited overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) or most commonly referred to as the No Child Left Behind Act. ESSA passed with bipartisan support, and encourages states and schools to innovate, while at the same time maintaining an emphasis on state and local systems of improvement and strengthening a more balanced assessment and accountability system.
ESSA establishes a framework for preparing students for life beyond K-12, whether that is attending college or pursuing a career. The reauthorized Act largely continues Congress’ interest in ensuring that the nation’s investment in elementary and secondary education is in service of our most vulnerable youth. This includes:
- Ensuring students graduate high school ready for college and the workplace;
- Reducing gaps among student groups in achievement, opportunity and graduation;
- Supporting and improving struggling schools;
- Improving school conditions for student learning, including the use of technology to improve academic achievement;
- Providing all students with access to a well-rounded education;
- Expanding access to high-quality early learning opportunities; and
- Keeping the focus on high-quality classroom instruction through professional development and meaningful feedback for educators.
TITLE I FUNDS
• Basic Grant Funds – distributed through a formula to all eligible school districts
• Concentration Funds – distributed through a formula to only those districts with poverty counts or percentages that exceed the state’s average low-income count and the state’s average percentage.
• Targeted Grants and Education Finance Incentive Grants – distributed through a formula to only those school districts with greater than 5% poverty. Built in weights so that districts with larger percents of children in poverty get more dollars. Use these dollars in exactly the same way as Basic and Concentration funds.
• School Support Funds – These funds are targeted to schools identified as Title I Schools in Need of Improvement.
• Part D Funds – for State Agencies and LEAs to run programs for children and youth in delinquent institutions and also for dropout prevention.
PART A: HELPING DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN MEET HIGH STANDARDS
INTENT AND PURPOSE
The purpose of Title I, Part A is to enable schools to provide opportunities for children served to acquire the knowledge and skills contained in the State’s challenging content and performance standards that all children are expected to meet.
Title I programs must supplement a child’s basic educational program. In no case should Title I supplant, take the place of, the services provided by the district to all children.
INTENDED BENEFICIARIES OF THE PROGRAM
• Title I is designed to help disadvantaged children meet challenging content and student performance standards.
• Title I provides financial assistance to LEAs to meet the educational needs of children who are failing or most at risk of failing to meet a State’s challenging content and student performance standards in school attendance areas and schools with high concentrations of children from low-income families and in local institutions for neglected or delinquent (N or D) children.
ALLOCATIONS TO DISTRICTS
• Dollars follow poverty. District allocations are based on a district’s low-income count. This count includes the number of children between the ages 5-17, inclusive, from families
a) below the poverty level determined census data and free and reduced lunch for small school districts.
b) families receiving AFDC payments above the poverty level;
c) in foster homes in the district; and
d) in institutions for neglected children.
DISTRICTS INELIGIBLE FOR TITLE I BASIC FUNDS
Reason #1: A district’s low-income count (see above) is less than ten.
Reason #2: A district’s low-income count (see above) is equal to two percent or less of
the total school age population.
LOCAL EDUCATION AGENCY PLAN PROVISIONS
Each LEA must include the following:
1. A description of additional high-quality student assessment, if any, other than the State Assessment, that the LEA and school served will use to
a) determine the success of children served in meeting the State’s student performance standards and provide information to teachers, parents, and students on the progress being made toward meeting the State student performance standards;
b) assist in the diagnosis, teaching, and learning in the classroom ; and
c) determine what revisions are needed to Title I projects.
2. A description of any other indicator(s) that will be used in addition to the assessments described above. (This is an optional provision.)
3. A description of the strategy the LEA will use to provide professional development for teachers, and, where appropriate, pupil services personnel, administrators, parents, and other staff.
4. A description of how the LEA will coordinate Title I services and other services at the LEA or individual school level, such as
a) Head Start, Even Start and other preschool programs, vocational education programs and school-to-work
transition programs; and
b) services for children with limited English proficiency or with disabilities, migratory children, neglected or
delinquent youth, homeless children and immigrant children in order to increase program effectiveness, eliminate duplication, and reduce fragmentation of the instructional program.
5. A description of the poverty criteria that will be used to select school attendance areas.
6. A description of how teachers, in consultation with parents, administrators, and pupil service personnel, in targeted assistance schools (TAS) will identify the eligible children most in need of services under this part.
7. A general description of the nature of the programs to be conducted by the LEA.
8. A description of how the LEA will ensure that migratory children and formerly migratory children who are eligible to receive Title I services are selected to receive such services on the same basis as other children.
9. Where appropriate, a description of how the LEA will use Title I funds to support pre-school programs.
ONCE A DISTRICT GETS AN ALLOCATION – GENERAL NEXT STEPS
•Districts with multiple attendance areas (more than one school at same grade level) identify eligible schools using low-income data. The most common data used for this purpose is free and reduced lunch data. Schools with a poverty level equal to or greater than district or grade level averages are eligible to receive Title I funds. In districts with single attendance areas, one school at a grade level, all schools are eligible.
• Districts with multiple attendance areas distribute dollars to schools using the same low-income data used to determine eligibility. Single attendance districts have flexibility on how they distribute their Title I dollars.
• Districts with private schools must work with private schools to identify the number of low-income children from eligible attendance areas. After dollars have been determined, LEA and private school officials work together to determine the following:
a) how the children’s needs will be identified;
b) what services will be offered;
c) how and where services will be provided;
d) how the services will be assessed; and
e) the size and scope of the equitable services to be provided eligible private school children, and the amount of funds to be used for those services.
ONCE A DISTRICT GET AN ALLOCATION – GENERAL NEXT STEPS
•There are two types of Title I schools: Schoolwide Schools (greater than 50% poverty)
Targeted Assistance Schools (non-schoolwides).
• Each Title I school must annually write a plan detailing the required components of their Title I program at that school. (Schoolwides generally go through a year of planning before writing their plan and operating as a schoolwide.)
• In Targeted Assistance Schools (TAS) – children are selected through a process that identifies first who is in the pool of educationally deprived children, and then selects those most in need. You do not need to be economically disadvantaged to receive services. Economic factors disappear once the school receives its Title I allocation.
• LEAs review school plans and determine if they address all required components adequately and look at the effectiveness of program design. LEAs need to provide ongoing support.
• LEAs compile all the information regarding their schools into the Consolidated Application.
8 COMPONENTS OF A TITLE I PROGRAM IN A TARGETED ASSISTANCE SCHOOL (TAS)
The program must:
1. Use the resources to help participating children meet the State’s student performance standards expected for all children.
2. Be based on effective means for improving achievement.
3. Ensure that planning for participating students is incorporated into school planning.
4. Use effective instructional strategies that consider extended learning time, accelerated, high quality curriculum and minimize pullouts.
5. Coordinate with and support the regular education program.
6. Provide instruction by highly qualified staff.
7. Provide professional development opportunities.
8. Provide strategies to increase parental involvement.
8 COMPONENTS OF A TITLE I SCHOOLWIDE PROGRAM:
A schoolwide program must include the following eight components:
1. A comprehensive needs assessment of the entire school.
2. Schoolwide reform strategies that:
• provide opportunities for all children to meet the State’s proficient and advanced levels of student performance;
• are based on effective means of improving children’s achievement;
• are based effective instructional strategies that increase the amount and quality of learning time; help provide an enriched and accelerated curriculum; and meet the educational needs of historically undeserved populations;
• address the needs of all children in the school, but particularly the needs of children of target populations of any school that is included in the schoolwide programs, and address how the school will determine if these needs are met;
• are consistent with, and are designed to implement, the State and local improvement plans, if any approved under Title III of Goals 2000;
• instruction by highly qualified staff;
• professional development for teachers, aides and other staff to enable all children in the schoolwide to meet the State’s student performance standards;
• strategies to increase parental involvement;
• strategies for assisting preschool children in transition from early childhood programs;
• steps in include teachers in the decisions regarding the use of assessments; and
• activities to ensure that students who experience difficulty mastering any of the State’s standards during the school year will be provided with effective, timely additional assistance.
Have questions? Contact us.
Lisa Brown, Project Manager