How Title I “Number Weighting” Hurts High Poverty Small Districts

This guest essay, written by Marty Strange, Policy Director of the Rural School and Community Trust. The author’s views do not necessarily represent those of the Access Network.

There is a systematic bias against small, high-poverty rural districts in the funding formula for Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Since 2002, some of the federal funds provided to local school districts under Title I have been distributed through “weighted” formulas intended to better target funding to districts with the highest concentrations of poverty.

A district’s Title I student count is calculated using two weighting systems. One weighting system inflates the student count as the percentage of students who are Title I eligible increases. The higher the percentage of Title I students in the district, the more each Title I student counts in the formula.

The other weighting system inflates the student count as the absolute number of Title I students increases. The more Title I students you have, the more each on counts in the formula.

The weighting system that leads to the highest total weighted count for a district is the one used to determine that district’s share of the Title I pie. Since the appropriation pie is fixed, any gain by one district causes a loss to other districts.

The number weighting alternative is often of benefit to very large districts, especially if the district’s Title I student percentage is not especially high. But because small districts simply do not have enough students to benefit from number weighting, they are never better off with number weighting.

As a result, two districts with the same percentage of Title I students can have very different levels of per pupil funding, with the larger district always favored. And, a small district with a higher poverty rate can, and often does, get less funding per pupil than a much larger district with a lower poverty rate.

Let’s get down to cases. Consider Houston Independent School District. In 2006-7 it had a poverty rate of 29% and an estimated 71,000 Title I eligible students. Little Jim Hogg County School District in South Texas had a nearly identical 28% poverty rate but only an estimated 310 Title I eligible students.

Under percentage weighting they both get about the same weight. But under number weighting, Houston gains 82 percent more weight than Jim Hogg County, and 82% more money per Title I student under the weighted programs.

There are a lot more poor kids in Houston than there are in Jim Hogg County. But, there are a lot more places like Jim Hogg County than there are like Houston. Of the 242 Texas districts with poverty rates about the same as Houston’s, 214 have fewer than 5,000 students and serve over 229,000 students, 63,500 of whom are Title I eligible. They provide educational services on a scale with Houston to a population as needy as Houston’s, but receive on average 40 percent less money per Title I student.

Now consider the Austin Independent School district. With 19,500 Title I eligible students and a poverty rate of 21%, (7 percentage points lower than Jim Hogg County), it received about 50 percent more money per Title I student under the weighted grant programs than Jim Hogg County.

A Congressional Research Service analysis showed that districts hurt most by number weighting serve smaller high-poverty urban areas – places like Bakersfield (CA), Flint (MI), Gary IN), Hartford (CT), Jackson (MS), La Joya and Laredo (TX), Monroe (LA). These districts would benefit most from eliminating number weighting because they would gain a significant share of the total weight nationally if large, relatively low-poverty districts lost the advantage of number weighting. Almost every small rural district would also benefit.

That CRS analysis also showed districts losing money to number weighting outnumber those gaining from it by a ratio of better than 10 to 1. You can see how much your district wins or loses under number weighting on our website at: www.ruraledu.org.

Prepared January 23, 2008. Please visit the Rural School and Community Trust for more information.