Title I
Why Rural Matters 2015-2016 is the eighth in a series of biennial reports analyzing the contexts and conditions of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the need for policymakers to address rural education issues in their respective states.
Date:
March 19, 2017
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Dillon County, South Carolina is a poor rural community located along interstate 95, about 70 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach. In Dillon County, roughly two-thirds of students are African-American, one-third are white and 90 percent are low-income.
Date:
August 17, 2016
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Regional Education Laboratories (REL) invite practitioners and leaders from rural schools and districts, as well as rural education researchers are invited the attend the Cross-REL full-day event in Nashville, Tennessee.
Date:
May 29, 2016
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In 2014, the Rural Trust announced that Greenville Elementary School, located in Greenville Florida, would receive an award from the Leonore Annenberg School Fund.
Date:
October 11, 2015
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Beginning in January 2015, the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) has hosted a series of community schools and equity webinars. The webinars explore how to utilize the full-service community school approach, both in policy and in practice. In addition, these webinars also discuss methods of closing the equity and opportunity gaps for all children.
Date:
May 21, 2015
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Hosted by the Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Central at Marzano Research, this April 8 webinar will provide participants with research and information about the instructional and organizational practices of rural districts that have closed the achievement gap.
Date:
March 22, 2015
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Critical investments in preschool, K-12 and higher education are among the highlights of the Department of Education's 2016 budget request.
Date:
February 22, 2015
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This upcoming webinar will focus on strategies to effectively reach young men of color in community schools through the lens of President Obama's initiative known as
My Brother's Keeper. Webinar presenters will also discuss how to leverage community partnerships to address racial and educational disparities.
Date:
February 22, 2015
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The Regional Education Laboratories (REL) are presenting webinars which focus on rural education topics. REL Central will present the March 4 Webinar. REL Southwest will host the March 5 Webinar.
Date:
February 20, 2015
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Throughout the United States, GEAR UP programs in rural communities face unique challenges trying to facilitate college readiness and access for low-income, first-generation students, ranging from transportation issues, teacher quality and turnover, and inadequate K-12 resources and rigor to lack of post-secondary education and economic development opportunities.
Date:
October 06, 2014
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On July 9, 2014, Rural Trust staff and researchers presented the key research findings of
Why Rural Matters 2013-14 at a policy briefing on Capitol Hill. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Representative Glen Thompson (R-PA) sponsored this Hill event, which was attended by a diverse group of educators, policy enthusiasts and rural supporters.
Date:
August 27, 2014
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The Capitol Hill briefing of
Why Rural Matters prompts Rep. Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson to call for reforms to Title I funding formulas.
Date:
July 28, 2014
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On April 22, 2014, a new "Whole-Child" policy guide was released which details how school board members can lead the way in securing a high-quality education for each and every student in their district.
Date:
April 23, 2014
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The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) as offered by the National School Lunch Program, provides an alternative approach for offering school meals to local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools in low income areas, instead of collecting individual applications for free and reduced price meals.
Date:
April 21, 2014
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Title I dollars are the foundation of the federal commitment to closing the achievement gap between low-income and other students. Unfortunately, the current formula for distributing funds has led to less poor districts receiving larger per-pupil Title I awards than their higher poverty neighbors.
Date:
July 03, 2013
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The White House budget for fiscal year 2014 includes a 4.6% increase in discretionary federal education spending, most of which is in pre-kindergarten programs and competitive grants.
President Obama’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget highlights key education investments in early learning, furthering the K-12 reform agenda, college affordability and quality, school safety and expanded opportunities for both middle- and low-income communities, while protecting formula programs for at-risk populations overall.
Date:
April 10, 2013
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U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee does not advance All Children are Equal Act, but important groundwork was laid to move ahead.
The House Education and Workforce Committee will be considering adoption of the ACE Act on February 28...
Why Rural Matters 2011–12 is the sixth in a series of biennial reports analyzing the contexts and conditions of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the need for policymakers to address rural education issues in their respective states.
Date:
January 10, 2012
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Nearly one in four American children attend rural schools and enrollment is growing at a faster rate in rural school districts than in all other places combined, according to
Why Rural Matters 2011–12, a biennial report by the Rural School and Community Trust.
Date:
January 10, 2012
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The bill to end discrimination in the way Title I funding is distributed has gained two more sponsors, continues to attract attention
A recent report from the U.S. Department of Education finds that many school districts spend less state and local funds per-pupil in their Title I and highest-poverty schools than in schools with lower rates of student poverty.
The ACE act to end discrimination against most high-poverty districts in Title I funding is at an important juncture. Congressional Representatives need to hear from their constituents that this bill is critical.
Don’t miss commentary by Marty Strange, Rural Trust Policy Director, in Education Week.
Date:
September 28, 2011
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Both the All Children are Equal Act and the Formula Fairness Campaign have new co-sponsors.
A bill introduced this month in the U.S. House of Representatives aims to alter the Title I formulas that are unfair to students in poorer, smaller school districts.
A new bill would amend the Title I law to require school districts to spend as much on the education of students in high-poverty schools as it does on students in low-poverty schools.
The All Children are Equal (ACE) Act was introduced July 12 in the U.S. House of Representatives by 11 original co-sponsors led by Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA).
Date:
July 14, 2011
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A bill that deals with the impact of number weighting in the Title I formulas has been drafted in the U.S. Congress. The Formula Fairness Campaign gains momentum.
Number-weighting in the Title I formulas is so detrimental to most high-poverty districts that many would be better off if the formulas made no attempt to target more money to districts with high rates of poverty. This post from the
Formula Fairness Campaign explains why.
Punitive and unequal disciplinary policies and funding inequities are just two of the public policies that the North Carolina Rural Education Working Group addresses. This month the group held a conference to draw attention to the issues and to their work.
The national non-profit Save the Children is the newest sponsor to join the Formula Fairness Campaign.
Ever wish you had a simple tool to help you explain how the Title I formulas work and why they provide a lot less money to low-income children in some school districts than others? Now you have it.
Date:
March 14, 2011
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The Rural Trust has joined a number of other organizations in expressing concern that a recent change in the law defining “highly qualified teachers” under No Child Left Behind will make it harder to ensure that students facing the most educational challenges get the best prepared and experienced teachers.
Characteristic Eight: An Accurate Match of Resources to Needs. Making sure that students who have out-of-the-ordinary educational needs or characteristics get the support they need is a critical part of a strong school finance system.
The number of organizations that are co-sponsoring a national effort to bring fairness to the federal Title I program continues to increase.
This month, three new organizations became co-sponsors of the Formula Fairness Campaign. Find out how your organization can join the effort.
It’s time to address the real challenges that undermine the educational opportunities of many of our nation’s children
The mid-term elections are an important time to tell both incumbents and challengers that Title I funding needs to be fixed....
An analysis of the effects of the “number weighting” provisions of the federal Title I program shows that high-poverty rural districts that are headed by African-American superintendents collectively lost more than $8 million in Title I funding in 2009. These superintendents make up more than a quarter of all African-American superintendents in the U.S. Their districts are losing federal funding to larger, lower-poverty suburban districts...
The federal Title I formulas send more funding for poor students to large low-poverty suburban districts than to smaller, higher-poverty rural districts. That’s not right and Congress needs to hear that the formulas should be fixed.
In Mena, Arkansas, students are reading. A lot. Test scores are up significantly. Title I funding makes the district’s comprehensive literacy program possible. But programs like this one could be in jeopardy.
Two rural education advocacy groups held leadership gatherings in Arkansas this month. Both included a focus on bringing fairness to the Title I funding formulas.
Competitive grants are an increasingly important part of federal funding for schools. But will they reach the highest-poverty rural schools or enhance equal educational opportunity.
The
Formula Fairness Campaign is exploring options for ways to fix the Title I formulas. One option is to use a figure calculated by the National Center for Education Statistics to determine how much college-educated non-teachers make in local labor markets around the country. This figure could be used to estimate the cost of providing an education in each school district. But this method would make things worse for most rural districts.
Districts in richer states that support education get a lot more federal money to improve the education of very low-income students than districts in poor states that provide less funding for schools...
A report evaluating the implementation and outcomes of the federal Comprehensive School Reform program (CSR) from 2002 to 2008 finds that most schools receiving CSR funds did not implement all the program requirements, nor did they make more achievement growth than comparison schools. Although it would seem that extra financial support did not produce desired outcomes, a closer read of the report finds that most schools faced a number impediments to implementation and that addressing these impediments might go a long way toward helping high-poverty low-performing schools achieve at higher levels.
The Rural Trust’s Formula Fairness Campaign has conducted two new analyses of Title I funding that demonstrate how — and why — some districts get less federal support than other districts for each very low-income student. One report shows how districts located in states that spend more on education get more Title I funding. The other report analyzes one option for fixing Title I to make it more equitable for high-poverty school districts, especially those located in rural areas.
This report reviews high school dropout rates and related factors in rural high schools throughout 15 Southern and Southwestern states. These schools are in districts that are among the 800 rural districts with the highest student poverty rate nationally. Seventy-seven percent of the "Rural 800" districts and 87 percent of the students in them are in these fifteen targeted states.
Date:
May 19, 2010
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In a pointed letter to Congressional leadership, the Children’s Defense Fund makes the case for fixing the Title I funding formulas and changing other aspects of the federal education law…
Check out new developments in the Formula Fairness Campaign…
The unfairness of “Number Weighting,” which shifts Title I funding for poor students from poorer school districts to larger less poor districts, is gaining attention…
The Obama administration has issued its goals for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We share what we think…
The following article was recently posted to the
Formula Fairness Campaign's blog.
RPM will print selected Campaign blog posts. To learn more about the campaign to bring fairness in federal funding for low-income rural students, visit the website, where you can join the campaign and sign a national
petition.
Sign the petition to bringing fairness to the Title I funding formula…
Student test score data is the core of
Blueprint. Test scores would be used to rate teacher effectiveness and reward or reconstitute schools. And, more student and teacher data would be collected and published…
Blueprint requires states to rate teachers and principals according to the test scores of their students, a provision
RPM thinks will drive teachers away from the schools where they may be most needed…
Blueprint puts in place new rating categories, Reward and Challenge, for schools, districts, and states...
Blueprint keeps formula grants in place for ELL programs and requires states to put in grade level proficiency standards…
Blueprint includes language about rural schools, but little of it will actually make much positive difference…
Blueprint suggests a number of programs that will be available to schools through grants.
RPM has categorized those programs based on whether
Blueprint identifies the program as available on a formula or competitive basis...
A rural county in North Carolina uses federal Title I funding to bring state of the art technology to the homes of all its students. That the program also helps the entire county gain high-speed Internet access — and the economic opportunities that come with it — is all part of the strategy for making sure than low-income rural students and their communities get the resources that will really make a difference.
The federal Title I program, which is intended to help schools address the educational challenges of the most disadvantaged students, provides more funding for some low-income students than for others. This guide explains what Title I does, how its formulas work, and why the program matters for rural districts and students — all in plain language.
The Rural Trust is organizing to eliminate unfair and discriminatory treatment of small and rural districts in the formula for distributing funds to local school districts under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Learn more about the Campaign and how you can get involved.
The fact that Title I provides more federal money for some low-income students than for others is coming under increasing scrutiny. Two recent reports spotlight the problem…
The Rural Trust has been reporting on disparities in Title I funding over the past year, filling you in on the reallocation of funds in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Now you can find out exactly how your school district is affected.
The biggest victims of “number weighting” in the distribution of Title I funds are high poverty small cities. Title I funds are intended to provide additional federal support to school districts to help meet the needs of students with extra learning challenges, especially challenges related to poverty. But a change to the formula — the number weighting provision — means that many large districts with low rates of student poverty are getting a lot more Title I funding per student that smaller districts with high rates of student poverty…
New analysis of the effects of “number-weighting” in the Title I formulas demonstrate that very low poverty large districts are big winners, getting more money per poor student than very high poverty large districts. Smaller very poor districts loseTitle I funding to both high and low poverty large districts - all because of the effects of the formula…
RPM interviews
Why Rural Matters (WRM) co-author Jerry Johnson about his personal perspectives on the findings in this important report.
The Rural Trust announces a new campaign to bring fairness in the Title I funding formula for smaller higher poverty school districts…
Poor rural schools continue to lose Title I money to larger richer districts…
Some districts get less Title I money per eligible student than others, often much less, even in districts with very high poverty rates. That discrepancy is explained here with easy-to-understand examples…
Why Rural Matters 2009 is the fifth in a series of biennial reports analyzing the contexts and conditions of
rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the need for policymakers to address rural education issues in their respective states.
Date:
October 30, 2009
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Members of the North Carolina Rural Education Working Group put some tough questions to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about education in rural areas…
Misconceptions about rural schools abound and they hurt students and communities, especially in the toughest places. In this essay we explore some of the realities of rural education and some of the things that would actually make a positive difference…
The Obama administration has a great chance to learn about rural communities, but only if it will refrain from preaching a pre-determined agenda and really listen…
A White House gathering of representatives of a number of rural education organizations identified key issues affecting rural schools and suggested policy initiatives…
A diverse group of organizations suggest an overhaul of the federal education law…
A recent analysis of Title I funding by the Rural Trust finds that two of the four formulas that are used to provide extra funding for poor students provide much more federal funding per eligible student to some districts than to others with similar or higher poverty rates....
Date:
May 05, 2009
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"Innovative Ways for Rural Schools to Invest Title I Stimulus Funds" was the topic of the April 2009 Rural School Innovation Network webinar.
Many Children Left Behind presents analysis of the distribution of Title I funds in Pennsylvania showing the unintended consequences of these weighting systems. A very few large districts benefit from the weighting systems, but most districts of all sizes with high percentages of eligible students get far less money per eligible student.
Date:
April 15, 2009
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Rural Trust President Rachel Tompkins helps put the letter of a South Carolina teen in national perspective...
Date:
April 03, 2009
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The federal stimulus package provides needed relief to many schools, but it replicates serious inequities for smaller districts with high poverty rates…
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides significant additional funding for public schools. Details are still forthcoming, but we outline the basic funding streams and their requirements…
Date:
March 12, 2009
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Why Rural Matters 2007 is the fourth in a series of biennial reports analyzing the importance of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the urgency for policymakers in each state to address rural education issues.
Date:
March 04, 2009
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Rural students receive, on average, less funding per eligible student through the federal Title I program, which is intended to provide additional educational support for very low-income and seriously at-risk students.
Federal student loan forgiveness programs can help schools, especially low-income schools, recruit teachers...
President of the Rural School and Community Trust, Rachel Tompkins posts her musings for your consideration, push back and feedback every couple of weeks.
Date:
June 05, 2008
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President of the Rural School and Community Trust, Rachel Tompkins posts her musings for your consideration, push back and feedback every couple of weeks.
Roy Forbes' report, “Additional Learning Opportunities in Rural Communities: Needs, Successes, and Challenges,” adds another important voice to the call for equitable resources for rural schools and their students, especially their low-income students...
Date:
May 01, 2008
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Federal funds distributed to schools to help educate disadvantaged children are distributed through a complicated series of formulas. One of the most political of the Title I provisions is the so-called "small state minimum"...
Date:
April 01, 2008
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The Rural Trust has been reporting on disparities in Title I funding and the reallocation of funds in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Now you can find out exactly how your school district is affected.
Review of the current formula and its bias against small districts.
Date:
March 26, 2008
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In the February 2008
Rural Policy Matters, Rural Trust President Rachel Tompkins writes about the complexity of rural education in "Rural Schools: Growing, Diverse, and... Complicated." This piece first appeared as a "back page" editorial in the national publication,
Education Week, on January 16, 2008. Also, a critical analysis of nationally significant school funding issues in Georgia is the focus of "School Funding in Turmoil in Georgia," where radical proposals in the legislature could cripple school funding and citizen participation in education policymaking.
The 800 rural districts with the highest poverty rates (what we call the “Rural 800”) serve a population made up primarily of students of color. The districts, scattered across 38 states, serve nearly a million students...
Gauge and Indicator Results from
Why Rural Matters 2007, including six focus areas: Importance, Socioeconomic Challenges, Student Diversity, Policy Context, Outcomes, and Rural Education Priority.
Date:
October 23, 2007
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Major findings from
Why Rural Matters 2007: The Realities of Rural Education Growth.
Date:
October 23, 2007
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Media links and information for
Why Rural Matters 2007: The Realities of Rural Education Growth.
Date:
October 23, 2007
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Why Rural Matters 2007: The Realities of Rural Education Growth is a snapshot of rural education that provides essential information on the condition of rural education in the 50 states and uncovers new trends and challenges facing rural educators.
Date:
October 23, 2007
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The 800 poorest rural districts in the U.S. enroll nearly a million students and have poverty rates higher than most cities....

Since 2002, some of the federal funds provided to local school districts under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have been distributed through weighted grant formulas intended to better target funding to districts with the highest concentrations of poverty. While a worthy goal, these formulas actually skew funds toward larger districts and place a greater value on the education of a Title I student in a large district than on the education of a Title I student in a smaller district — even when these districts have the same poverty rate.
Date:
April 16, 2007
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Why Rural Matters 2005 is the third in a series of reports analyzing the importance of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the urgency with which policymakers in each state should address the problems of rural education.
Date:
May 12, 2005
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Why Rural Matters
This transcript of the virtual news conference for
Why Rural Matters 2005 features Rachel Tompkins, Ed.D., President, Rural School and Community Trust; Jerry Johnson, Ed.D., State and Regional Policy Studies Manager; and Marty Strange, Director of Policy Programs at the Rural Trust.
Date:
May 11, 2005
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Why Rural Matters 2005 is the third in a series of reports analyzing the importance of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the urgency with which policymakers in each state should address the problems of rural education.
Date:
May 10, 2005
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