Funded at $18 billion annually, the Title I program in many ways represents the heart of federal discretionary aid to schools.
The program directs money to high-poverty school districts and schools, funding that can be used in a broad number of ways, supporting core academic programs and non-academic efforts for impoverished students.
Many of the programs and services districts and schools purchase through Title I are directly provided by education companies. So it’s critically important for vendors to understand how K-12 officials are spending that federal aid now.
In a new survey, EdWeek Market Brief asked district and school leaders about which priorities and programs they are currently supporting through Title I. The survey reveals the breadth of the program’s influence, which touches not just core academic efforts but personnel and aid for specific sub-populations of students.
Title I also appears poised to become even more important. EdWeek Market Brief research has shown that many districts plan to rely heavily on it when the flow of federal stimulus aid runs out after this year.
The top area of Title I spending by far are reading programs, the survey finds. Sixty-four percent of the district and school leaders surveyed indicated their systems are spending money in that subject area, which has come into new focus as states have ramped up efforts to adopt programs aligned with the “science of reading,” and as student performance continues to lag badly since the pandemic.
The second-highest priority identified in the survey is connected to staffing.
Forty-four percent of K-12 officials surveyed say they spend Title I dollars on paraprofessionals and support staff, whose roles have become highly important as staffing turnover has led to disruptions in districts across the country.
Districts located in rural/town areas, as well as urban areas, are more likely to devote Title I money to paraprofessionals (50 percent and 47 percent, respectively), compared to suburban districts (33 percent) — perhaps an indication of less acute staffing turnover in suburban districts.
Nearly as many survey respondents, 42 percent, identify another core academic subject, math, as a Title I spending priority. And 34 percent cite high-dosage, in-person tutoring/intervention, an indication of districts’ scramble to find academic recovery strategies — and an allegiance by some to face-to-face support for struggling students.
Social-emotional learning is another major priority with district and school Title I spending, cited by 29 percent of respondents. Nearly as many, 26 percent, identify English language learner-focused programs as a target for the aid.
In addition, nearly 1 in 5 respondents say they’re using the federal aid program for special-needs supports, and 17 percent are buying online, rather than in-person academic interventions.
The nationally representative survey was conducted in January through March of this year by the EdWeek Research Center, and it drew responses from 239 district leaders and 161 school leaders.
Virtual Tutoring Favored by Big Districts
There are many myths among district officials about the Title I program — most of them centered in mistaken beliefs that the program is quite narrow in the types of projects it can fund. As district program administrators and experts have explained to EdWeek Market Brief, it’s not true that Title I can only cover core academic subjects, or that it can’t be devoted to personnel or non-academic costs.
Fear of running afoul of the law will often make districts afraid to “really push the envelope” when it comes to seeing if something is allowable under Title I, Denise Ling, the director of federal and program for the Berkeley County, S.C., school district told EdWeek Market Brief in a recent story.
Heavy turnover in the ranks of K-12 administrators who oversee federal programs has also led to more caution, she said.
“I still question sometimes when a new idea comes across the desk, or somebody wants to do something in our district that is different because there is a new need.” Ling said. “But I would challenge all of us — no matter how long we’ve worked with the program — not to become complacent.”
States administer the flow of Title I money, and their restrictions can also influence allowable uses by districts and schools.
“That was an eye-opener for me, learning that what I might not be allowed to do in Texas was because of our Texas officials saying we could not do something with that money,” said John Emerich, superintendent of the 1,100-student Crockett Independent School District in Texas, recently told EdWeek Market Brief.
EdWeek Market Brief’s new survey results offer a number of intriguing differences in how school systems of different sizes, locations, and demographics spend Title I money.
For instance, while social-emotional learning has become a staple of many school systems’ efforts to create more holistic learning experiences for students, the survey finds that urban districts are much more likely to use Title I money for that purpose.
Forty-one percent of K-12 officials from urban school systems say their districts are spending Title I in that area, compared to just 35 percent of suburban leaders and and 22 percent of rural and town administrators.
Additionally, a separate but similar data point shows that districts with 10,000 or more students are much more likely to be spending Title I money on SEL (46 percent say they do) compared to districts with 2,500-9,999 students (27 percent), and those with less than 2,500 students (26 percent).
The interest among large and urban school systems in channeling Title I money into SEL could be connected to relatively high levels of poverty in those school systems — Title I is a poverty-based program — and the broad range of needs among students in those districts.
The survey also shows findings difference in district appetites for using Title I on tutoring.
Thirty-nine percent of the largest-sized school systems say they will spend the pool of federal aid on online tutoring/intervention, compared to just 16 percent of mid-sized K-12 systems and 10 percent of the smallest districts.
Many large school systems have been among those hardest hit by “learning loss.” For them, the relatively low per-student cost of online tutoring options may be especially attractive. (Research has generally shown that high-dosage tutoring, delivered 1-on-1 or in small groups, is effective, but costly.)
When it comes to high-dosage, in-person tutoring, mid-sized districts, with enrollments of between 2,500-9,999 students, are most likely to use Title I for that purpose (52 percent indicate that), compared to just 35 percent of districts with enrollments of 10,000 or more and 24 percent of systems with fewer than 2,500 students.
Other noteworthy differences in how districts of different sizes and demographics use Title I aid:
- Higher-poverty school systems — defined as those with more than half of students on free or reduced-price lunches — are more likely to use Title 1 on school counseling (25 percent are doing so), compared with more affluent systems (8 percent).
- Urban school systems are more likely to use Title I money to support ELL needs (41 percent) than are suburban ones (27 percent) and districts located in rural/town areas (20 percent).
- School systems located in Southern states are more likely to rely on Title I money for science needs (18 percent) than are those in the West (9 percent), the Northeast (4 percent) and Midwest (3 percent).
All of those differences are statistically significant.
Takeaway: The Title I program offers districts broad leeway to spend on different academic and non-academic needs, and the survey results capture the extent to which districts are taking advantage of that flexibility.
While the federal pool of aid can be spent outside core academic subjects, many districts are still heavily reliant on it to cover reading and math programs — a need that has likely spiked in recent years because of student academic struggles. Education companies working in those areas need to understand how much Title I funding the school systems they’re targeting are getting, who’s making decisions about how to spend it, and be ready to offer examples of how spending in other districts has had tangible benefits.
Providers of social-emotional learning and ELL products also need to be able to make their case. And all providers should be aware of districts’ interest in spending Title I on high-dosage tutoring — though urban and larger system have a much stronger appetite for online interventions.
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