Today I am continuing a series of “consultation tips” emails on the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In the last email for consultation tips, I explained the new funding method for determining the amount of funds available for equitable services under Title I. The topic today is the funding for the Title IIA program. Title IIA provides equitable services to private school students by providing professional development to their teachers. All students generate funds for this program and the district where the private school is located is responsible for providing the funding and services.
Under NCLB, the district could choose to use its Title IIA funding for professional development, class size reduction, and/or teacher recruitment and retention. Only the funds the district decided to use for professional development were equitably shared with the private school program.
For example, if the district had $2,000,000 under Title IIA and decided to spend $1,500,000 for class size reduction, the private school students would only generate an equitable share from $500,000. Under ESSA, Title IIA funding for equitable participation is determined from the total amount of funds received by the district. Under ESSA, the proportional share is determined from $2,000,000.
Using this example, if the private school students were 10% of all students in the district, then under NCLB they would generate $50,000, while under ESSA they would generate $200,000, an increase of $150,000. You can find information on this change in the U.S. Department of Education’s Non-Regulatory Guidance equitable services in Question P-2.
As you enter into the consultation process with your public school counterparts, be sure to ask the total allocation for 2016-17, the amount of that allocation used for professional development, the total allocation for 2016-17, and the proportion of all students who are children attending private schools for both years. With the answers to these questions, you can fill in your own data in the example above.
Consultation requires a discussion of the funds available and how they were determined, so be assured that asking these questions and getting the answers are an integral part of consultation.