State schools take funding hit

DALEVILLE, Ind. -- After 35 years, the small school district of Daleville is losing federal dollars allocated to help poor students who have fallen behind in reading or math.\nIt's not that the community doesn't have its share of poor children who need help. School officials contend the Census Bureau simply failed to count them.\nSix other Indiana districts also have learned they won't receive any extra money this year, based on 2000 census figures that determine federal funding to serve disadvantaged children.\nThe financial blow is so severe that state education officials visited each school in person to discuss the bad news.\nIn Daleville, a district of about 600 students northeast of Indianapolis, administrators cried. The district stands to lose $50,000.\n"This is such a small place that dollar signs have faces," said Superintendent Paul Garrison, wiping his eyes, still emotional weeks after learning about the loss.\nUnder the 2003 federal budget, 286 of Indiana's 293 school districts will receive some form of so-called Title I funding intended to provide extra help for disadvantaged children.\nBut six of the seven districts that failed to qualify this time around are new to the list and will lose more than $405,000 combined.\nEducators say the districts lost money even though they clearly enroll students mired in poverty, raising questions about whether years-old census figures are an accurate count of the disadvantaged children in America's schools.\nFederal education officials rely on census poverty figures to determine if schools should qualify for Title I funding. Census figures are updated every two years, but few changes are made until a new census is completed each decade.\nSome schools argue the data is outdated by the time federal officials use it to determine school funding. Others contend the number of students who receive free and reduced lunches more accurately reflects poverty in schools.\nSandy Brown, a program analyst for the U.S. Department of Education, said the federal government requires that census figures be used, in part because they can't be manipulated at the local level. And because the threshold for free and reduced lunches is 185 percent of poverty, more children qualify, he said.\nBut even as some districts lose Title I dollars, others get more money to serve poor children, he said.\n"The formula is designed to get the money where the highest concentration of poor kids are," he said. "I would argue that the formula is working as it should."\nEducation officials have proposed giving $11.3 billion in Title I grants to state education agencies, with Indiana expected to receive more than $156 million.\nIn order to qualify for Title I funding, at least 2 percent of a school district's student body -- and at least 10 students -- must be considered impoverished.\nIt is always a "bittersweet moment" when the updated census figures come out, said Linda Miller, who oversees Title I funding as assistant superintendent for the state Department of Education.\nSome schools that desperately need the funding get more money, while others in similar situations get nothing, she said.\n"I suspect that it's as close to the federal government being able to find data they can use across all states and territories. And it's really hard to refute for us," she said. "Fifty thousand dollars doesn't sound like a lot, but to a tiny school corporation, it's a whole lot."\nIn a community where everyone knows everyone else, the losses might have been avoided had the school district worked with census takers, Garrison said. Census forms were not delivered to post office boxes in Daleville, leaving out members of the community most likely to meet federal poverty guidelines, he said.\n"I didn't really think about it at the time. I should have thought about it because I'm sitting in the position I'm sitting in," Garrison said. "I know if the Census Bureau had contacted the school, we'd have done a much better job. I'd have sicced my own people on it, at our own expense, because it means that much to us."\nAnother small district, South Madison Community Schools northeast of Indianapolis, will lose $166,605. While the census showed the number of disadvantaged students declining, the number of students on free and reduced lunches tells a different story.\n"In our district, about 13 to 14 percent get free and reduced lunch. Many of those students need extra help," said Tom Warmke, assistant superintendent. "We're already in a tight budgetary situation. This makes it worse."\nEven districts that will receive money for the first time in years agree. The superintendent for Carmel Clay Schools, an affluent northern suburb of Indianapolis, said she was surprised to learn her district was eligible for funds, while South Madison was not.\n"Everybody is just absolutely agape that they have fallen off. You only need to drive around Madison County to figure out they have poverty there," Barbara Underwood said. "Everybody is saying that has to be some error in reporting. There just has to be something wrong."\nThe folks in Daleville agree. The school had received Title I funding for the past 35 years. Connie Osborne, the district's lone Title I teacher for 30 years, was so upset upon learning about the lost funds that she fired off an angry letter to her congressional delegation.\nThe money pays for Osborne's salary and supplies, as she works with struggling students in kindergarten, first and second grades.\nThe school transferred money from its cash reserves to keep the reading program going one more year. After that, Osborne doesn't know what to expect.\n"I'm going to retire here one of these days," said Osborne, 62. "My concern is, when I retire, no one's going to fight for this like I do"