To Amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to Adjust Funding Levels for Certain Outlying Areas
by Representative Gregorio Kilili Camacho SablanPosted on 2015-02-10
Tweet
SABLAN
of the northern mariana islands
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, as we ready to reauthorize the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act in the 114th Congress, I am introducing
legislation, which I want to see incorporated into a reauthorization
and which will help fulfill one of the original goals of the Act,
namely to ensure that American children have access to a high-quality
education--no matter the economic circumstances of the geographic area
where they live. Title 1 of the ESEA was designed to address the
``impact that concentrations of low-income families have on the ability
of local educational agencies to support adequate educational programs
. . .'' Pub. L. No. 89-10, Sec. 201. But this intent--to close the
educational opportunity gaps that exist from community to community in
America--has not yet been realized in my district, the Northern Mariana
Islands, where incomes are less than half the national median and our
local educational agency still struggles to meet the needs of students.
Expenditures for public elementary and secondary education nationally
were $10,667 per pupil in fiscal 2012, the most recent year for which
this data is available. In the Northern Marianas public elementary and
secondary education spending per pupil was just $6,246. National Center
for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. In part, this
gap is a function of the local contribution; but the point of Title I
was to use federal resources to balance educational funding nationwide
by helping places where there is limited fiscal capacity. And my
constituents are not unwilling to invest in education: In November they
adopted an initiative amending our Commonwealth Constitution to require
that 25 percent of each year's local revenues go to our schools, an
increase of the existing 15 percent requirement. But, because personal
incomes are low, these local government revenues are limited.
The local contribution in the Northern Marianas is also constrained
because we have only one layer of government. Local educational
agencies nationwide are generally funded both by a state and by a
county or municipal government, a system that shares state resources
across wealthy areas and poor. In the Northern Marianas there is only a
single, state-level government that has authority to raise revenues and
is solely responsible for supporting our school system.
If it operated as intended, the system of allocation established for
Title I-A funding should alleviate such variations in local capacity,
instead it appears to disadvantage the Northern Marianas. The ESEA
gives the Secretary of Education authority to allocate a fixed one
percent of Title 1 funds among the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)
schools and four ``outlying areas,'' of which the Northern Marianas is
one. But, according to the Congressional Research Service, the result
in fiscal 2014 was an allocation of $1,987 per qualifying child in
Bureau schools, while each qualifying child in Northern Marianas
schools was allotted only $1,073.
In addition to this allocation discrepancy, associated with
Secretarial discretion, there is an inherent flaw in the Title 1 set-
aside of a fixed percentage of annual funding to assist a population
that changes with time. We expect families to seek economic opportunity
for themselves or better schooling for their children by moving from
one area of our nation to another. I have seen this kind of out-
migration from my district. And the annual adjustments in Title I-A
allocations among the states respond to this dynamic, but the fixed one
percent to BIE and the outlying areas does not. Likewise, the
population counts and income data, which the Secretary uses in
allocating funds among the outlying areas, are based on the decennial
census, not on the more up-to-date information used for Title I-A
allocations nationally. As a result, Title I-A allocations among the
outlying areas continue fixed--on auto-pilot--for a decade, even if the
economy in one of these areas flags, incomes fall, or the number of
qualifying children increases. I have also witnessed this effect in my
district.
Ironically, I understand, the one percent set-aside may originally
have been intended to protect the small, outlying areas from year-to-
year swings in funding and to assure our areas of federal assistance
sufficient to run meaningful programs and to compensate for the
inherent fiscal deficiencies islands we face, as a result of geographic
and economic isolation. But the present effect of this set-aside is
that Title I-A support for public elementary and secondary education in
my district, the Northern Marianas, is, as noted, $1,073 per student,
even less than the national average of $1,215.
So, today I am introducing legislation that modifies the present
Title I-A funding system for the outlying areas. My bill ends the
special set-aside system, removes Secretarial discretion, and employs
the same funding formula that applies to every other part of our
nation, although at a much reduced rate in recognition of our
relatively smaller populations. And I ask my colleagues for their
support.
____________________
