Scott Reacts to CAP Report on Title I Portability

Statement

Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA), ranking Democratic member on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, released the following statement today in response to a new report that outlines the harmful effects of recent House and Senate Republican proposals on our nation's poorest schools. The Center for American Progress report examines legislation to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and analyzes how funding provisions known as "Title I portability" would eliminate the targeting of federal dollars to areas with the highest concentrations of poverty and move these funds from low-income schools and districts to more affluent ones. On Tuesday, Republicans on the committee introduced H.R. 5, an ESEA reauthorization bill that includes this Title I portability funding formula.

"The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is intrinsically a civil rights law: for fifty years, the federal role in education policy has been to target resources to schools and children who traditionally have been left behind, so that all children have equitable access to a high-quality education," said Rep. Scott. "The Center for American Progress report shows that recent Republican proposals would allow states to siphon resources away from the students, schools, and communities who need them the most, and quantifies the real damage that would be done by so-called "portability,' the majority's latest attempt to deprive poor and minority children of desperately needed resources."

Title I, Part A of ESEA is the primary source of federal dollars for schools serving poor children. Under current law, states allocate these funds to school districts based on the number and concentration of students living in poverty, recognizing that the challenges for low-income students are significantly greater when they are clustered with peers who are also poor.

Making Title I funds portable, however, would allow states to award these funds based solely on the total number of children in low-income families. Portability would redistribute vast amounts of resources away from schools with the greatest need to other, more-well-off schools previously ineligible for Title I funding. Other research confirms that portability fails to systematically address the needs of low-income students--the very children that Title I is intended to help.

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