Making Sure We Get the Bang For Our Buck

The New York Times published an article on April 21, 2009 to its website in the editorial section entitled "Accountability in Schools". As opposed to going after the usual suspects that are framed by the term accountability (principals, teachers, or parents) the article was actual a critical look at the uses of Title 1 funding. The federal stimulus gave a $13 million boost to Title 1 and the education funding in the bill was certainly a hot topic upon its passage. Therefore, the scrutiny that will now come over such programs will intensify in the coming years as all people on the political spectrum form their opinions of the stimulus bill. Even those who support the funding, people of whom I count myself a member, it is important to ask the question: is the funding going to the schools and the students who really need it?

Title 1 funds at the district level have traditionally gone to the district because those are the people that parcel out the monies. There have been times where that money was rolled into the full budget and disproportionately benefits higher performing schools that actually don't serve the students that warranted the Title 1 funding in the first place. Therefore, the Congress has instituted reforms that require more transparency on the uses of the funds. Exciting news here, Baltimore is ahead of the curve on something in education! Say what you will about the "Fair Student Funding" initiative in the city, it has told us where the per pupil funding is going in this city. Principals did have to budget and those budgets are publicly available. Now many teachers will look at those budgets and there will be discrepancies, the schools also have to account for their expenditures throughout the year and I think the next step in the process of transparency will be to post the annual accounting of each school along with their proposed budgets.

Now, this doesn't mean that Baltimore isn't partially missing the point with the Title 1 funding. Ideally the point was that it should be additional funding for those schools that qualify, but currently our funding structure does not make it completely clear that this is the case. We also roll our Title 1 funds into our general operating to dole out as well, but we do assign funding based on different types of student needs in our current system which is a more equitable system. While we may not feel like the funding or the money is enough, I do think we are on the road toward many of the steps necessary to make it transparent. With that transparency could come more people who realize the stimulus value of education funding and more supporters for those types of financial infusions in the future.