Schools not getting their share of funds

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Dec. 20, 1999 | 11:40 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The fast-growing Clark County School District is not getting its fair share of federal money for low-income neighborhood schools, an analysis of U.S. Department of Education budget statistics shows.

At issue is Title I money, federal dollars handed to schools with high percentages of students from poor families. Schools use the money for remedial reading, language arts and math programs.

The Department of Education doles out Title I money to states based on 1995 census estimates of a state's poor population, rather than calculate a new estimate every year. That hurts Clark County because the district has added 50,000 students since 1995.

Because the U.S. Department of Education uses old census data, Title I money has increased just 3.6 percent during the last three years in Clark County, while enrollment has grown 13.7 percent.

"We would hope we would be getting a lot more," said Mark Lange, who administers the district's Title I money.

Clark County this year distributed its share of Title I money, about $16 million, to 32 elementary schools and seven middle schools with high concentrations of students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, Lange said.

Education Department officials say 1995 data is simply the best information they have.

"We use the most recent figures available from the Census Bureau," Department of Education spokeswoman Melinda Malico said. "We use what they give us."

The department will continue to use 1995 data until 2001 when the department will use 1997 data, Malico said.

School districts value the federal money because much of it is funneled directly to classrooms.

At Arturo Cambeiro Elementary School, teachers are using about $182,000 in Title I money to pay for two tutors and a national reading program called Success For All.

The program uses a composite of best-practice trends in teaching literature and phonics, principal Cenie Nelson said. All students take part in the Success for All program for 90 minutes every morning, she said.

"When you have a comprehensive program used schoolwide, that's a good expenditure of your funds," Nelson said.

Title I money represents just one chunk of federal education money funneled to Nevada each year.

Nevada will receive about $123.6 million from the U.S. Department of Education for the current school year, including about $23 million for higher education student aid money, according the department's budget approved by Congress last month.

That total is up about 10.5 percent from $111.9 million last year. Enrollment grows about 6 to 7 percent each year in Clark County.

Clark County officials say they have not yet calculated exactly how much of the $123 million in federal money the district will get this school year. Last year, the district got about $47 million of the $92 million in federal money funneled to Nevada for K-12 education.

The federal government sends the money to each state, mostly in form of grants. Districts then must apply to the state for the grants, so that $47 million represents 28 federal grants that Clark County applied for and won.

"We would like to get more," said the district's Terry Lizotte, who manages the district's federal programs. "Certainly, we would like to apply for more."

The federal government spends more on Title I and special education than any other education programs.

But local special education officials for years have lamented that the federal government's contribution is just a drop in the bucket.

Of the $111 million in federal money funneled to Nevada for the 1998-99 school year, about $15 million eventually was deposited in Clark County's special education coffers. That represents about 7 percent of the district's $211 million special education budget. State and local taxes pick up the rest of the tab.

Special education officials for districts like Clark County have struggled to keep up with increasing special education enrollments. About 10.5 percent of the district's 217,000 students are designated special education.

Officials say it costs about $9,500 average to teach special education pupils, but costs can range wildly -- up to $80,000 a student in extreme cases.

"Funding special education is an old struggle across the country," said Assistant Superintendent Charlene Green, who oversees special education programs in Clark County.

Clark County, like many districts, has lobbied to get more money from both the state and federal governments for special education. But federal money has remained relatively static for Clark County at a time when larger percentages of students are being designated special education in the growing district.

"The more services that kids with disabilities need, the more we take from the general fund, and that's money for the regular education student," Green said.

The federal government saddled local districts with a whole new set of laws in 1975 with the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Those now amount to mostly unfunded mandates, say many special education experts. The act said that the federal government would never pay more than 40 percent of a state's special education budget and the federal government has never paid anywhere near that much.

Still, federal government spending on special education has gone from $2.3 billion in 1996 to $4.3 billion in 1999, said Tom Parrish, director of the non-profit Palo Alto-based Center for Special Education Finance.

"The federal government feels like they have really upped what they had been paying, and they have," Parrish said. "But in terms of the overall percent of what districts spend on special education, the federal contribution is relatively peanuts."

Parrish said that the federal government traditionally has been hesitant to get into the business of schooling children.

"Public education in general has primarily been the responsibility of states and localities," Parrish said. "Many have argued that the federal government should have no role in education."