The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed as a part of United States President Lyndon
B. Johnson's "War on Poverty"
and has been the most far-reaching federal legislation affecting education ever
passed by the United States Congress. The act is an extensive
statute that funds primary and secondary
education.[1] It also emphasizes equal access to education and establishes
high standards and accountability.[2] In addition, the bill aims to shorten the achievement gaps between students by providing each child with
fair and equal opportunities to achieve an exceptional education. As mandated
in the act, the funds are authorized for professional development, instructional materials,
for resources to support educational programs, and for parental involvement
promotion. The act was originally authorized through 1965; however, the
government has reauthorized the act every five years since its enactment. The
reauthorization of ESEA by President George
W. Bush was known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. ESEA was reauthorized on December 10,
2015 as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by President Barack Obama.[3] The ESEA also allows military
recruiters access to 11th and 12th
grade students' names,
addresses, and telephone listings when requested.
Historical Context
On January 12, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson urged Congressional action to improve
education opportunities for America's children. Wary of popular fears regarding
increased federal involvement in local schools, the Johnson administration
advocated giving local districts great leeway to use the new funds, which were
to be first distributed as grants to each state. Shortly thereafter, Carl D. Perkins (D-KY), the chair of the General Education
Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education
and Labor introduced H.R. 2362.
With the Johnson administration's support, and after significant wrangling over
the structure of the bill's funding formula committee, the full committee voted
23-8 to report it on March 2, 1965. Following a failed attempt to derail the
bill by Representative Howard K. Smith (D-VA), the House passed H.R. 2362 on March
26, 1965 in a 263-153 roll-call vote.[4]
As the Senate prepared to consider the
education bill, S. 370, Democratic leaders urged their colleagues to pass it
without amendment, so as to avoid throwing it back to the House for
reconsideration. S. 370 was assigned to the Senate Labor and Public Welfare
Committee, which subsequently reported the bill to the Senate floor
with unanimous support. During the Senate debates, several amendments were
introduced, though none passed. The Senate passed the bill in a 73-18 vote on
April 7, 1965.[4]
President Johnson signed the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act into law two days later on April 9, 1965.[4]
·
Title I—Financial Assistance To Local Educational Agencies For
The Education Of Children Of Low-Income Families
·
Title II—School Library Resources, Textbooks, and other
Instructional Materials
·
Title III—Supplementary Educational Centers and Services
·
Title IV—Educational Research And Training
·
Title V—Grants To Strengthen State Departments Of Education
·
Title VI—General Provisions
New Titles Created by Early Amendments to 1965
Law
2008 No Child Left
Behind Blue Ribbon School Logo
1966 amendments
(Public Law 89-750)
1967 amendments
(Public Law 90-247)
·
Title VII – Bilingual Education Programs (1966 title VII becomes
Title VIII)
Title I ("Title One"), a provision
of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed in 1965, is a program
created by the United States Department of Education to distribute funding to schools and school
districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families. Funding
is distributed first to state educational agencies (SEAs) which then allocate funds to local educational agencies (LEAs) which in turn dispense funds to public
schools in need.[6] Title I also helps children from families that have migrated to
the United States and youth from intervention programs who are neglected or at
risk of abuse. The act appropriates money for educational purposes for the next
five fiscal years until it is reauthorized.[7] In addition, Title I appropriates money to the education system
for prevention of dropouts and the improvement of schools. These appropriations
are carried out for five fiscal years until reauthorization.[7][8]
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, to
be an eligible Title I school, at least 40% of a school's students must be from
low-income families who qualify under the United
States Census's definition of low-income, according to the U.S. Department of Education.[6][9]
Title I mandates services both to eligible
public school students and eligible private school students.[6] This is outlined in section 1120 of Title I, Part A of the ESEA
as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Title I states that it gives priority
to schools that are in obvious need of funds, low-achieving schools, and
schools that demonstrate a commitment to improving their education standards
and test scores.
There are two types of assistance that can be
provided by Title I funds.[6] The first is a “schoolwide program” in which schools can
dispense resources in a flexible manner.[10] The second is a “targeted assistance program” which allows
schools to identify students who are failing or at risk of failing.[6]
Assistance for school improvement includes
government grants, allocations, and reallocations based on the school's
willingness to commit to improving their standing in the educational system.
Each educational institution requesting these grants must submit an application
that describes how these funds will be used in restructuring their school for
academic improvement.[8]
Schools receiving Title I funding are
regulated by federal legislation. Most recently, this legislation includes the No Child Left Behind Act which was passed in 2001.[6] In the 2006–2007 school year, Title I provided assistance to
over 17 million students who range from kindergarten through twelfth grade.[6] The majority of the funds (60%) were given to students in
kindergarten through fifth grade.[6] The next highest group that received funding were students in
sixth through eighth grade (21%).[6] Finally, 16% of the funds went to students in high school with
3% provided to students in preschool.[6]
In its original conception, Title I under the
ESEA, was designed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to close the skill gap in reading, writing and
mathematics between children from low-income households who attend urban or
rural school systems and children from the middle-class who attend suburban
school systems. This federal law came about during President Johnson’s “War on Poverty”
agenda Numerous studies have
been conducted since the original authorization of the ESEA in 1965 that have
shown that there is an inverse relationship between student achievement and
school poverty.[7]Specifically, student achievement has been found to decrease as
school poverty increases. According to the United States Department of Education (USDOE), students from low-income households
are “three times as likely to be low achievers if they attend high-poverty
schools as compared to low-poverty schools. Within this context, Title I was
conceived in order to compensate for the considerable educational deprivations
associated with child poverty.
Changes over time
First 15 years
In the past 46 years, Title I has changed
considerably. For the first 15
years, the program was reauthorized every three years with additional emphasis
placed on how funds were to be allocated. In the course of these reauthorizations, strict federal rules
and regulations were created for the guarantee that funds would be allocated solely
to students in need – specifically students eligible for services based on
socioeconomic status and academic achievement. Regulations also included added attention to uniformity in
regards to how resources were distributed to Title I and non-Title I schools
and the role of parents in the revisions of the program. In addition to more stringent rules, during
these years, policy makers outlined punitive actions that could be taken for
those who were out of compliance. Attention was also placed upon the assurance
that Title I funds would not serve as replacements for local funds; but rather
they would serve as ancillary resources. These federal regulations, which were
focused on financial resources, influenced local Title I programs in many ways.
Pull-out programs were adopted by Title I schools in order to comply with the
financial stipulations that were made in the initial reauthorizations. These programs separated eligible students
from ineligible ones to ensure that those who were in-need would benefit from
the program. By 1978, in response
to the extensive criticism of pull-outs on the grounds that they were
asynchronous with the instruction occurring in classrooms, another option for
providing assistance to students was introduced, the school wide approach. Schools
with a student body in which the make-up had 75% or more low-income students
could use Title I funds for the entire school’s improvement rather than for
specific individuals. Despite this amendment, local fund
requirements prevented all eligible students from using the school wide
approach.
The 1980s
During the Reagan Administration, Congress
passed the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) in 1981 to reduce
federal regulations of Title I. This reflected the administration’s stance that
resource control should be in the hands of states and local jurisdictions
rather than at a federal level. Despite the change outlined by the ECIA and the
new designation of Title I as Chapter I, little was done to implement it and
traditional Title I practices, like the use of pull-outs, continued.
As the financial regulations became
incorporated into practice, the conversation shifted around Title I to student
achievement. In 1988, the Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School
Improvement Act, re-focused Title I on cultivating school improvement and
excellent programs. The additions that
were made through this legislation called for synchrony between Chapter I and
classroom instruction, it raised the achievement standard for low-income
students by emphasizing advanced skills instead of basic ones and increased
parental involvement.[12] It also had two new provisions: program improvement and school
wide projects.[14] Program improvements were modifications that would occur when
students who received funding were not improving.[14] The school wide projects altered the requirement that local
funds had to match school wide program funding by Title I, allowing a larger
number of high need schools to implement school wide programming.
From the 1990s to the present
A 1993 National Assessment noted shortcomings
of the 1980s alterations to Title I.[12] These catalyzed the introduction of the 1994 Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA), which
significantly revised the original ESEA. This was the last major alteration
prior to that made by No Child Left Behind. The IASA attempted to coordinate
federal resources and policies with the preexisiting efforts at the state and
local levels in order to improve instruction for all students. This reform made
three major changes to Title I.[12] It added math and reading/language arts standards to be used to
assess student progress and provide accountability.[12] It reduced the threshold for schools to implement schoolwide
programs from 75% poverty to 50% and gave schools a longer reign to use federal
funding from multiple programs to dispense funds at a school wide level.[12]Lastly, the IASA gave more local control overall so that federal
officials and states could waive federal requirements that interfered with
school improvements.[12]
The most recent and significant alteration to
the original Title I was made by its reauthorization under No Child Left Behind
(NCLB).[15] In this reauthorization, NCLB required increased accountability
from its schools both from the teachers and from the students.[15] Yearly standardized tests were mandated in order to measure how
schools were performing against the achievement bars set by Title I.[15] Schools were also responsible for publishing annual report cards
that detailed their student achievement data and demographics.[15] Schools were now held accountable not only by punitive measures
that would be taken if schools fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), but also corrective
actions were taken if states did not have an assessment system approved by
Title I.[15] Under NCLB, Schools are also required to plan for
“restructuring” if they fail to make AYP for three years after being identified
for improvement.[15] More schools took corrective action under NCLB than under IASA.[15] NCLB also required teachers to be highly qualified if hired
using Title I funding.[15]
Modern applications of the Title I money have
been diverse. Recent uses include wide-scale purchasing of iPads and other
mobile Internet-enabled devices as electronic textbooks for students in 1:1
initiatives. Along with this, students from low-income families often do not
have adequate Internet access from home. Thus, various public money, including
Title I funds, are being investigated for possible use to provide cellular
Internet access for students to receive remediation or other instructional
content from home. The purpose of 24/7 internet access from home is to close
the gap between higher income families where remediation resources are
generally more available through parents and additional services and low-income
students where such resources are scarce. Educational Technology advocates have
long cited 24/7 Internet access as a boon to the education and advancement of
at-risk children.
Funding
Under NCLB, Title I funding is given to
schools where at least 35% of the children in the school attendance area come
from low-income families or to schools where 35% of the student population is
low-income. To determine the
percentage of low-income families, school districts may select a poverty
measure from among the following data sources: (1) the number of children ages
5–17 in poverty counted in the most recent census; (2) the number of children
eligible for free and reduced price lunches under the National School Lunch
Program; (3) the number of children in families receiving Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families; (4) the number of children eligible to receive Medicaid
assistance; or (5) a composite of these data sources. The district must use the
same measure to rank all its school attendance areas. The funds are
appropriated for the use of improving academic achievement for students in
low-income households.[16]
Title I funding is received by more than 50%
of all public schools.[16] NCLB also requires that for funding to be received, all
districts and schools must meet adequate yearly progress goals for their
student populations and specific demographic subgroups.[16] Non-Title I schools are schools that do not receive federal
Title I funds.[16] Although school districts have some freedom in how Title I
funding is distributed among schools within a district, Title I requires them
to prioritize the highest-poverty schools.[16]
There are 4 distribution formulas under NCLB
for Title I funding: Basic Grant, Concentration Grant, Targeted Assistance
Grant, and the Education Finance Incentive Grant.[17] The Federal Education Budget
Project details the
requirements for each formula extensively.[17]
Basic Grant
The Basic Grant formula provides funding to
school districts based on the number of poor children they serve.[] To receive money through this grant, the school district must
meet the requirement of having at least 10 poor children and 2% of its students
in poverty.
Concentration Grant
The Concentration Grant formula is similar to
the basic grant formula because it gives funding to schools based on the number
of poor children they serve. To receive money
through this grant, school districts must meet the requirement of having at
least 15% of children in poverty or a total of 6,500 poor children.
Targeted Assistance Grant
The Targeted Assistance Grant formula
allocates more money for each child as the poverty rate in a district
increases. This means that school districts with more poverty get more money
for each poor child than districts with low poverty.
Education Finance Incentive Grant
The Education Finance Incentive Grant Formula
has a two-pronged approach It is meant to reward
schools that expend more state resources on public education and distribute
funding in an equitable manner. It is also meant to concentrate funds in
districts with high poverty that inequitably distributes state and local
education funding In states, funding is allocated to school districts in a way
similar to the Targeted Assistance Grant formula but the weight of schools in
districts with high poverty that inequitably distribute funding is doubled
Since 2001, Federal Title I funding has
increased by 88%. In dollars, this has been a $7.7 billion increase. These
funds were distributed through the Targeted Assistance and Education Finance
Incentive Grant formulas, which target funds to disadvantaged students most
directly
Title III
Title III of ESEA originally provided matching
grants for supplementary education centers (Political Education, Cross
2004).
Title III was the innovations component of
ESEA. It was, for its time, the greatest federal investment in education
innovation everIts best innovations, after validation, became part of the National Diffusion Network.
Title V
This section of the original ESEA provided for
strengthening state departments of education (Political Education, Cross
2004). The original Title V was amended to state the purposes of education
reform efforts between local and state educational systems. Title V states that
the government should endorse and support local education reforms that parallel
reforms occurring at the state level. Parts of this section also state that the
government should support innovative programs that help to improve an
educational system. This includes support programs for libraries, scientific
research leading to state and local educational agencies to put promising
reforms into place, as well as for programs to improve teacher performance.[8]
Title V also provides government grants given
to educational institutions appropriating money to gifted programs for
students, foreign language developers, as well as physical education, the arts,
and overall mental health care of children and students.[8]
Title VII
Added during the 1967 reauthorization of ESEA,
Title VII introduced a program for bilingual
education. It was championed by Texas Democrat Ralph Yarborough (Political Education, Cross 2004). It
was originally created to aid Spanish-speaking students. However, in 1968 it transformed
to the all-encompassing Bilingual Education Act (BEA). In its original form, the BEA was not explicit in
mandating that all school districts provide bilingual education services—it
left much room for interpretation by districts. The ruling in Lau v. Nichols provided some clarity—specific program goals
were established, support centers for bilingual education were created, and
what a “bilingual education program” should look like was defined. The courts
upheld the language of the BEA as it declared a “bilingual education program”
as one providing English instruction in unison with the native language. The
idea was to push students to high academic achievement via a program
encouraging them to learn English while maintaining the native language.[19] "It proposed to cultivate in this child his ancestral
pride, to reinforce (not destroy) the language he natively speaks, to cultivate
his inherent strengths, to give him the sense of personal idenfitication so
essential to social maturation," summarizes Professor Cordasco of
Montclair State College.[20]
In addition to programs for bilingual
students, Title VII implemented plans to help Indian, Native Hawaiian, and
Alaskan natives be provided opportunities for achieving academic equality.[8] In late 1967, Congress gave $7.5 million to school districts,
scholars, and private research groups who proposed the best programs for
improving bilingual education.[21] This section of the ESEA promotes the federal government working
closely with local educational institutions to ensure that Indian, Hawaiian,
and Alaskan students are being aided in getting the same educational
experiences as all other students.[8] This is achieved through programs that keep cultural values
intact and push students to strive for academic excellence.
It is worth noting that Title VII was replaced
in the most recent reauthorization of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and is now Title III “Language Instruction
for Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Students.”
Effects on bilingual
education
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter established
the Department of Education which allowed for the Bilingual Education campaign
to expand bilingual education programs.[22] In addition to Carter’s efforts, President Clinton also showed
his support through the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. The
act dramatically increased funding for bilingual and immigrant education. In 1998, the Linguistic Society of America
showed its support for the BEA arguing that bilingual education was a basic
human right; it believed that children should be educated in order to maintain
their native language and cultural identity while acquiring the English
language.
In 2001 Texas authorized and encouraged school
districts to adopt dual language immersion programs for elementary-aged
students. It stipulated that instruction in each language should be split 50–50
in classMore recently “The Civil Rights Project, a research center founded at
Harvard University and located at UCLA since 2007 is calling on policymakers to
develop a new vision for bilingual education. Gándara and Hopkins gather
compelling evidence that shows English-only policies in the states that adopted
these restrictions aren’t workingThe project proposes a new attitude that
embraces bilingualism: “It is time that the U.S. join the rest of the developed
world in viewing bilingualism as an asset, not a deficit,” argues Gary Orfield,
co-director of the project.
A 2014 bill, the Native Language Immersion
Student Achievement Act, "cites reports from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and educational institutions 'that use primarily Native American languages to deliver education' and 'have indicated that
students from these schools have generally had high school graduation and
college attendance rates above the norm for their peers.
The biggest obstacle to the BEA and expansion
of bilingual education programs is the English-only Movement. There is no official language
in the U.S., although some states have declared English as their official
language. Three states in particular, California, Arizona, and Massachusetts,
have declared English as their official language. In 1998, California passed Proposition 227 with the help of sponsor, Ron Unz, essentially
ending bilingual education programs in exchange for an English immersion model
which values assimilation over multiculturalism. In 2000, Arizona passed the English for Children initiative backed, again, by Ron Unz which
mirrored California’s Proposition 227 in replacing bilingual education programs
with English immersion ones.
Many Americans question whether bilingual education
programs or English immersion models are the best route to helping students
acquire English. The question of whether public education should encourage the
development of the native tongue or completely leave that up to the parent is a
difficult one. Some point out that California’s Proposition 227 is failing the
students for simply failing to address both the linguistic and cultural
struggles that students face; in 2004, the test results for California public
school students showed the achievement gap for English learners widening and
the test scores of English learners to be declining across grade levels. Scholar Stephen Krashen maintains that these three states who have
taken the harshest anti-bilingual education policies have seen progress that is
modest, at best. In a report to the
United States Government, an Arizona study shows that English language learners
can take up to 13 years to attain fluency—most school programs only offer 3
years of participation in English-immersion or bilingual programs, putting the
effectiveness of these programs into question. In order to ease the worries and
qualms that people had in the programs' effectiveness, the Obama Administration
has recently proposed the implementation of an evaluation system that it would
require states to use in order to judge the progress seen in English language
learners in schools. This would potentially restore faith in the bilingual
programs and hold schools more accountable to student achievement and progress.
The question remains if states are properly equipped across the board to meet
such high expectations.
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