Save the Children Joins Funding Formula Campaign


Last Updated: March 30, 2011
 

This article appeared in the March 2011 Rural Policy Matters.

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Save the Children is the most recent organization to join the Formula Fairness Campaign. The organization is widely recognized as the leading independent organization for children in need. It has programs in 120 countries, including the United States. Its goal is to “inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives by improving their health, education and economic opportunities.”

Twenty-six organizations are now participating in the effort to bring fairness to the formulas that are used to distribute funding through Title I, the nation’s largest federal program supporting the education of low-income students.

Title I has existed since 1965 and has brought significant, essential resources to school districts to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for the nation’s poorest children.

But in 2002 changes were implemented in the way the formulas are calculated. The result is that poor children in about 10,700 smaller school districts (80% of all districts) get less Title I funding than students in about 550 large districts, many with very low poverty rates.

The differences in the funding levels are significant — oftentimes more than $1,000 per child.

Think this is unfair? Want to learn how the formulas affect your school district? Visit the Formula Fairness Campaign website, where you will find all kinds of useful information.

For information on how your organization can become a sponsor, contact marty.strange@comcast.net.

Read more from the March 2011 Rural Policy Matters.