Title I Overview

PURPOSE OF THE PROGRAM

The purpose of Title I is to support school efforts to ensure that all children meet challenging academic standards and have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education. This purpose can be accomplished by providing additional resources for high poverty schools to enhance educational opportunities for disadvantaged students.

Title I funds must be used in addition to District and State funds. All of the services students would receive in the absence of Title I must be in place before Title I funds are used.

HISTORICAL UPDATE

First enacted in 1965 as a component of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" program, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) had its impetus in Public Law (P.L.) 100-297. This law authorized federal funds for supplementary programs to help educationally deprived children whose academic achievement was below an appropriate level for children their same age and it focused funds on high-poverty areas.

In 1981, during President Reagan’s administration, the program name changed from ESEA Title I to Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) Chapter 1. In the 1988 reauthorization, the ECIA was changed back to ESEA.

In the October 1994 reauthorization of Chapter 1 law (P.L.103-382) by the United States Congress, the program name was changed from ECIA Chapter 1 to ESEA Title I. The “Improving America’s School Act of 1994” signed by President William Jefferson Clinton, included changes to Title I allocation provisions in an effort to target more Title I funds to the districts and schools with the highest concentration of poverty.

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001”, amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Title I of the ESEA, as amended by the NCLB Act, is designed to help disadvantaged children meet high academic standards and sets a goal of all children achieving at state-defined "proficient" level by the end of 2013-14.

GENERAL INFORMATION

What is Title 1?

Title I is a federally funded program for economically disadvantaged children who reside in school attendance areas with a high concentration of children from low income families. Since a high incidence of poverty in a school has a direct correlation with low academic student achievement, Title I funds are used to provide supplementary instruction to raise the achievement of students who are failing, or are at-risk of failing.

How are Title I schools selected?

Schools are selected to receive Title I services when the schools’ level of poverty is at or above 50 40% (based upon the number of students who qualify for free/reduced price meals). Title I funds are used to serve as many schools as possible while targeting resources sufficiently to schools where needs are greatest.

What is the Title I program goal?

The goal of the Title I program is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. This goal can be accomplished by:

  • Ensuring that high-quality academic assessments, accountability systems, teacher preparation and training, curriculum, and instructional materials are aligned with standards;
  • Meeting the educational needs of low-achieving children in our highest-poverty schools;
  • Closing the achievement gap between high-and low-performing children, especially the achievement gaps between minority and non minority students, and between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers;
  • Holding schools, districts and states accountable for improving the academic achievement of all students;
  • Distributing and targeting resources sufficiently to make a difference where needs are greatest;
  • Improving and strengthening accountability and teaching and learning;
  • Providing greater decision making authority and flexibility to schools and teachers in exchange for greater responsibility for student performance;
  • Providing children an enriched and accelerated educational program; and
  • Affording parents substantial and meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children.

INDIVIDUAL TITLE I SCHOOL BUDGET

Each eligible school has an individual Title I budget that includes all school level budgeted Title I expenditures. Title I funds may be spent for items listed below, but not for administrative use. Employee Salaries, Employee Benefits, Professional Development, Equipment/Software, Library Books (classroom sets only), Instructional Games, Parental Involvement Staff and Activities, Travel, Classroom Materials and Supplies (Textbook expenditures must be in addition to what general funds provide, supplementary to district). Expenditures should not exceed the district’s basal aggregated per pupil costs.