Federal

Advocates Say NCLB’s ‘Comparability’ Provision is in Need of Fine-Tuning

By David J. Hoff — June 17, 2008 5 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, it rewrote much of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, increasing the amount of testing required and demanding that states hold schools accountable for results on those tests.

Although the changes were intended to hold school officials accountable for the educational experiences of disadvantaged children, Congress left intact a short clause in the main K-12 education law that, in practice, has failed to ensure that money from the federal Title I program only supplements state and local money, researchers and advocates said at a conference here last week.

“Title I is not having its intended effect,” Marguerite Roza, a research associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, said at the one-day conference sponsored by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. “It’s filling in the holes left by state and local funds.”

Differences in School Spending

Researchers looking at a sample of California school districts have documented that the districts spend more on teacher salaries and other expenditures in low-poverty schools than in high-poverty schools.

BRIC ARCHIVE

Source: Center for American Progress

With Congress behind schedule in its work to renew the NCLB law, now most likely in 2009, advocates for poor and minority children are lobbying for lawmakers to change the ways school districts allocate $13.9 billion in Title I money among the schools in their systems.

The public would endorse federal efforts to provide extra aid to poorer schools and “would be surprised to find out that the school districts spread their [federal] money around right now,” said Ross Wiener, the vice president for programs and policy at the Education Trust, a Washington-based group that advocates for policies to improve the education of poor and minority students. “We should acknowledge that this means changing the deal.”

Salaries Not ‘Comparable’

In several research projects studying school district budgets, Ms. Roza has documented how districts establish policies that distribute funding among schools, with those serving middle-class and affluent children often receiving more state and local funds than schools serving the most disadvantaged populations. (“Study: District Budget Practices Can Siphon Title I Aid From Poor,” Aug. 31, 2005.)

In a paper she prepared for the June 10 conference at the Center for American Progress, she cited data from California schools showing that low-poverty schools had almost $800 per pupil to spend in their annual budgets. What’s more, the average teacher salary in the low-poverty schools was $57,242—almost $10,000 more than in high-poverty schools.

In tracking Title I money, Ms. Roza says that teacher salaries account for most of the disparity in funding between schools, and those differences undermine the NCLB law’s requirement that Title I schools receive shares of state and local money that are comparable to those that don’t qualify for the program.

The section of the NCLB law that defines comparability requires districts to allocate Title I money based on the average teacher salary in that district, rather than the actual total spent on salaries in each school, in determining whether a district gives Title I schools state and local funding that is comparable to non-Title I schools.

The law makes it easier for districts to qualify as having comparable funding. Even though they usually spend more than average for teacher salaries in low-poverty schools—which attract experienced teachers—and less in high-poverty schools, districts are allowed under the law to calculate comparability as if their salaries are the same. That misrepresents the money actually spent in the school, Ms. Roza said.

“It doesn’t make any sense to leave teacher salaries out of the equation,” said Mr. Wiener of the Education Trust, which is lobbying to remove the clause requiring the use of the average teacher salary from the NCLB law.

If Congress eliminated the salary rule, high-poverty schools would receive between 5 percent and 15 percent more money in total aid per year, Ms. Roza’s paper said, citing her 2005 research on Texas school funding.

No Easy Solution

Such a change would free up discretionary money for principals at Title I schools, Ms. Roza said. It also might draw experienced, and presumably more effective, teachers to such schools, she said.

But such changes wouldn’t guarantee that effective teachers would move to Title I schools, said Kate Walsh, the president of the National Center on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based nonprofit group that advocates for policies at all levels to increase the number of effective teachers.

Changing the comparability rules “is not going to change whether schools are more attractive to teachers,” Ms. Walsh said at the conference. Some experienced teachers would retire rather than accept an assignment to a school where they don’t want to teach, she said.

Even if the changes were made, they wouldn’t have dramatic effects in the urban districts that receive the largest grants under Title I, added F. Howard Nelson, the lead researcher for the American Federation of Teachers, the 1.3 million-member union.

In Chicago, three-quarters of schools have at least 82 percent of their students living in poverty, Mr. Nelson said. Changing the teacher-salary rules would not make a substantial difference in the quality or experience of teachers for students in poverty, Mr. Nelson said.

Changes Coming

Title I’s comparability rules have been in place since 1970, but Congress may be ready to change them, said Mr. Wiener.

Last summer, the House Education and Labor Committee issued a discussion draft of a bill to reauthorize the NCLB law that would have eliminated the requirement that districts rely on average teacher salaries in determining whether state and local funds are distributed comparably to Title I schools.

The reauthorization process stalled last year when Democrats and Republicans couldn’t reach a consensus on issues such as changing the law’s testing-and-accountability requirements and supporting local efforts to offer merit pay for teachers. Although Senate education leaders say they are intent on reauthorizing the law this year, most political observers predict that President Bush and the Democratic Congress are unlikely to reach an agreement on the law.

Once Congress does take up the law, Mr. Wiener predicts changing the comparability rules will be the subject of much debate.

“This is the first serious attempt to strengthen the comparability provisions in the law,” Mr. Wiener said.

A version of this article appeared in the June 18, 2008 edition of Education Week as Advocates Say NCLB’s ‘Comparability’ Provision Is in Need of Fine-Tuning

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
College & Workforce Readiness Webinar
From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
Real careers start in school. Learn how Alton High built student-centered, job-aligned pathways.
Content provided by TNTP
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal No 'Gender Ideology': Ed. Dept.'s New Focus for Mental Health Grants It Yanked
The Trump administration abruptly canceled $1 billion in mental health grants in April that it said reflected Biden-era priorities.
5 min read
Amelia, 16, sits for a portrait in a park near her home in Illinois on Friday, March 24, 2023. “We are so strong and we go through so, so much," says the teenage girl who loves to sing and wants to be a surgeon. Amelia has also faced bullying, toxic friendships, and menacing threats from a boy at school who said she “deserved to be raped."
Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks during a Senate Appropriations hearing on June 3, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The U.S. Department of Education has revealed new priorities for two mental health grants after it abruptly canceled awards the Biden administration made.
Erin Hooley/AP
Federal Trump Admin. Starts Moving CTE to Labor Dept. After Supreme Court Order
The Education Department put arrangements to move some of its programs on hold while court battles over downsizing played out.
4 min read
Students make measurements to wood to add to a tiny home project during their shop class at Carrick High School in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Dec. 13, 2022.
Students make measurements to wood to add to a tiny home project during their shop class at Carrick High School in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Dec. 13, 2022. The Trump administration is shifting management of career and technical education programs to the U.S. Department of Labor now that the Supreme Court have given the go-ahead to proceed with downsizing of the U.S. Department of Education.
Nate Smallwood for Education Week
Federal Hope Shattered for Laid-Off Ed. Dept. Staff After Supreme Court Order
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to proceed with 1,400 Education Department layoffs.
6 min read
Supporters hold signs and cheer Education Department employees as they leave after retrieving their personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025.
Supporters hold signs and cheer Education Department employees as they leave after retrieving their personal belongings from the Education Department building in Washington on March 24, 2025. The Supreme Court on July 14, 2025, allowed the Trump administration to proceed with department layoffs that a lower-court judge had put on hold.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Federal Trump Admin. Says Undocumented Students Can't Attend Head Start, Early College
The administration issued notices saying undocumented immigrants don't qualify for Head Start and some Education Department programs.
7 min read
Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami. The Trump administration said Thursday that undocumented children are ineligible for Head Start and a number of other federally funded programs that the administration is classifying as similar to welfare benefits.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP