2011 LRP Publications - Reproduction Prohibited 1551-224X/11/$7.50 + $4.

25 VOLUME 9, ISSUE 3 JULY 2011 Snapshots Cover Story Move away from district-level reserves If the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act prompted your district to expand its use of district-level set-asides, you should be aware that the Education Department is cracking down. Reserving funds at the district level to provide additional support, supplies, or staff on an as-needed basis is not allowable, according to several recent monitoring reports. Districts must distribute funds to schools in accordance with ESEA s ranking and serving requirements, which ensure that higher-poverty schools receive higher per-pupil allocations than schools that are lower on the poverty scale. Districts should only use set-asides for required activities, or for activities that are geared toward districtwide improvement or other services that must be coordinated at the district level. The reservation is not intended to fund basic program operation, ED monitors say. Full story, page 4. ASK THE INSIDER It is possible for a lowerranked school to receive more Title I funds than a higher-ranked school, wrote acting federal Title I director Patricia McKee in a recent letter to a parent. Page 6 DOS & DON TS Get tips on the financial and programmatic moves you should and shouldn t make, and why, when administering NCLB and Title I programs: n Don t use Title I for gifted, talented. n Don t extend Title I programs to students at non-Title I schools. n Do remit interest at least quarterly. Page 7

WASHINGTON PIPELINE Federal funding to create coordinated standards for early care education systems and early care providers has been two years coming, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said recently in announcing a $500 million grant program; and there should be improved coordination between the major federal education laws, according to a newly released paper from the Title I/IDEA Working Committee. Page 8 Use PD set-aside for all teachers The 10 percent professional development reserve offers surprising flexibility. See page 4. Highlights Meal program option will impact allocations, disaggregation Traps to Avoid: A new option under the National School Lunch Program will force district administrators to revamp certain basic procedures, including the way they distribute Title I funds. Page 2 Survive funding cliff by stretching your federal dollars Commentary: Since American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds must be spent by Sept. 30, many districts are now struggling with a funding cliff and wo ndering how to sustain current staff and programming. North Dakota Title I Director Laurie Matzke offers advice for taking advantage of the law s flexibility and othe r ways to creatively pool your resources. Page 3 Title I survives but PIRCs fall in final FY 11 budget

Under pressure to cut federal spending in FY 2011, congressional and Obama administration negotiators opted to eliminate many Education Department programs , but largely preserve funding for major formula programs and continue the department s key signature initiatives. Page 5

No Child Left Behind Financial Compliance Insider July 2011 2011 LRP Publications - Reproduction Prohibited 1551-224X/11/$7.50 + $4.25 Traps to Avoid Plan for universal meal impact on school allocations, disaggregation A new Community Eligibility Option under the National School Lunch Program, while offering new flexibility and reduced paperwork to high-poverty schools, will force district administrators to revamp certain basic procedures, including the way they distribute Title I funds. As under the law s existing Provisions 2 and 3, the new option will allow schools that provide lunch to all students free of charge to collect data about students individual economic status once every four years, or longer in some circumstances, rather than annually. But because free and reduced-price lunch enrollment doubles as poverty data in most Title I districts, the less-frequent certification requirement will have several impacts. Under ESEA, annual poverty data is used to: 1. Determine a school s poverty percentage, which is used to rank the school for purposes of doling out Title I funds. 2. Assign students to the economically disadvantaged subgroup for disaggregation and AYP purposes. 3. Identify students eligible for SES or priority for public school choice. New guidance In letters to state officials in May, Carl Harris, the Education Department s deputy assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, updated 2003 guidance pertaining to Provision 2 and Provision 3 schools. Under the new law, Harris explains, a school is eligible for the Community Eligibility Option if at least 40 percent of its students are directly certified as low-income through participation in other government aid programs. To account for lowincome students not directly certified, the percentage of students directly certified will be multiplied by a

statutorily established multiplier

initially 1.6.

Once that calculation is complete, districts should apply the following guidance to its Title I procedures: When ranking schools, districts must assume that a Community Eligibility Option school s poverty percentage is proportionate to the percentage of meals for which that Community Eligibility Option school is reimbursed for free meals by the [U.S. Department of Agriculture] for the same school year, Harris wrote. This percentage should be calculated by multiplying the number of students identified by the direct certification data by the statutory multiplier specified in the Act, or 1.6. All students in a Community Eligibility Option school may be deemed economically disadvantaged for purposes of AYP, as well as determining eligibility for SES and priority for school choice, Harris wrote. Accordingly, the economically disadvantaged subgroup in a Community Eligibility Option school would be eligible for SES and priority for public school choice would be based only on the lowest-achieving students. Harris notes that districts may collect direct certification annually. If the data show an increase in eligibility, the revised numbers may be used for Title I purposes. n No Child Left Behind Financial Compliance Insider Board of Advisors 2011 by LRP Publications. All rights reserved by the copyright owner. Any signed article is the personal expression of the author and is not necessarily endorsed by LRP Publications.

Reproduction without written consent of LRP Publications is prohibited. Responsible comment is invited. John Borkowski, Esq. Hogan & Hartson LLP Indianapolis, IN Marcy Brack Director of federal programs and grants Goose Creek CISD

Baytown, TX Bobby Burns NAFEPA President/ Deputy Superintendent Calhoun County Schools Anniston, AL Christian P. Johnson, Esq. Attorney & Education Consultant New York, NY Jacquie Moore Title I Consultant Nevada Dept. of Education Carson City, NV John A. Pfaff NAFEPA Past President/ ESEA Coordinator Sheboygan Area Sch. Dist. Sheboygan, WI Elizabeth Pinkerton NAFEPA Past President/ Consultant Elk Grove, CA Michele Sandro Director, Office of Instructional Support Harrison Community Schs. Harrison, MI Lorna L. Stark Partner, KPMG LLP

Risk & Advisory Services New York, NY Roy M. Stehle Director of Special Revenue Projects Beaufort Cty. Sch. Dist. Beaufort, SC Leslie R. Stellman, Esq. Hodes, Ulman, Pessin & Katz, PA Towson, MD R. Craig Wood Professor University of Florida Gainesville, FL Publisher Kenneth F. Kahn, Esq. Vice President, Editorial Claude J. Werder Executive Editor Candace Gallo Editorial Director Jeanne Sweeney Copy Editor Crystal McKenna Washington Bureau: News Editor: Charles Hendrix Staff Writers: Emily Ann Brown

Adam Dolge Jean Gossman Wangui Njuguna Kim Riley Mark W. Sherman Jeanne Sweeney Frank Wolfe Contributing Reporter Tricia Offutt V.P., Marketing & Customer Service Jana Shellington Product Group Manager Jeanine Craner Production Director Joseph Ciocca Publications Director Roberta J. Crusemire No Child Left Behind Financial Compliance Insider (ISSN 1551-224X) is published monthly by LRP Publications, 360 Hiatt Drive, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418, (561)622-6520. Subscription cost is $220 per year. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to No Child Left Behind Financial Compliance Insider, 360 Hiatt Drive, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418. Permission to photocopy for internal use is granted through the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) for a $7.50-per-document fee and $4.25-per-page fee to be paid directly to CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. Fee Code: 1551-224X/11/$7.50 + 4.25. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher and editor are not engaged in rendering legal counsel. If legal advice is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

No Child Left Behind Financial Compliance Insider Vol. 9, Iss. 3 2011 LRP Publications - Reproduction Prohibited 1551-224X/11/$7.50 + $4.25 Commentary Survive funding cliff by stretching your federal dollars BY LAURIE MATZKE The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided approximately $100 billion for education, creating a historic opportunity to save jobs, support states and school districts, and advance reforms and improvements that will create long-lasting results for students. School districts were told it was a one-time grant and were strongly encouraged to look for ways to spend the additional funds that would not force them to eliminate staff in two years or require the district to pay for staff once the funding is gone. Many districts heeded the advice and used the ARRA funds for extended learning initiatives like summer school or afterschool programs where they could use existing staff and not hire new personnel. Districts have also used the ARRA funds for professional development, computer purchases, and to enhance instructional resources within the schools. However, some districts did hire additional personnel using ARRA funding with the intent of serving more students with added staff. Since the ARRA funds must be spent by Sept. 30, 2011, many districts are now struggling with a funding cliff and wondering how to sustain current staff and programming. To further add to the dilemma, we are also seeing cuts in federal funding with the 2011 federal appropriation, as well as state budget cuts. Use flexibility in federal law One idea for sustaining staff and programming for SY 2011-12 is to request a waiver of excess regular Title I funding. Under normal circumstances, districts are only allowed to carry over 15 percent of their regular Title I funds to the subsequent school year. Once every three years, districts can request a waiver to exceed that 15 percent limit. With the addition of the ARRA funds, many districts used their waiver last year (SY 2009-10). However, due to the influx of the ARRA funds, the Education Department is

granting states the authority to grant districts who received a waiver for SY 2009-10 another waiver in SY 2010-11. This new flexibility may help some districts. Another option is to be creative in using professional development set-aside funds. When a school or district is identified for improvement, within the first two years, it must reserve at least 10 percent of its Title I funds for professional development. These set-aside funds could potentially pay for staff to provide high-quality professional development in the area of instructional coaching or data analysis. The law requires districts to use the set-aside funds to address those areas that led to the identification; therefore, these funds may be used throughout the district in both Title I and non- Title I buildings. This flexibility to use the funds district wide makes it ideal to support staff that work with all buildings on school improvement planning. This provision also applies to buildings in improvement; therefore, a building could also sustain its professional development staff with set-aside funds. In March 2011, ED released a document highlighting flexibility for spending federal dollars. The document, online at www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/secletter/flexibility .doc, discusses the benefits of the ESEA s transferability and REAP options, as well as the schoolwide co-mingling option. A school that operates a schoolwide program may consolidate funds from other federal education programs in addition to Title I, Part A to improve the academic achievement throughout the school; therefore, schools don t have to conform to the specific statutory or regulatory requirements of each separate program as long as the intent and purpose of those programs are met. The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction has created a Co-mingling Schoolwide Funds Toolkit, which can be accessed at www .dpi.state.nd.us/title1/schlwide/comingle.pdf. There may also be the possibility of a waiver for the ARRA funds. Some states are contemplating applying for a Tyding s Amendment waiver regarding the Title I ARRA funds which would extend the period of availability for one year. To date, ED has not announced whether they will grant states such a waiver. Be creative Pooling your resources can make federal dollars go a long way. Districts that have limited funding or are looking to retain staff funded with ARRA dollars can pool their resources with other districts within a close proximity to share the costs for staffing. Some positions that work well for sharing include an instructional coach, ELL staff, or counselors. It is also relatively easy to split the cost of professional development. School districts can also make use of braided funding to stretch their federal dollars and keep ARRA-funded initiatives going. Title I funds can be cost-shared with other federal funds such as IDEA funds or Title II, Part A funds

to pay for staff, professional development, or RTI. Districts could potentially use Education Jobs Fund program dollars to continue funding staff hired with ARRA funds. The period of availability for obligating these funds extends through Sept. 30, 2012. Laurie Matzke is director of Title I for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. n

Cover Story: Allocations Scale back district-level set-asides With the extra infusion of Title I funds distributed in FY 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, many districts set up district-level programs, such as teacher training and reading interventions, or used funds to fill needs at certain schools. Such initiatives are sometimes easier to administer and oversee than schoollevel programs, and given ARRA s more stringent reporting requirements, they also help reduce the paperwork burden. But as those funds finally run out this year, districts should return to the standard way of doling out funds to Title I schools: the ranking and serving process established under ESEA Section 1113. The statute requires a district to allocate funds on a per-pupil basis to eligible schools in rank order of poverty. Schools with higher levels of poverty must always receive higher per-pupil amounts than schools with lower levels of poverty. Several recent monitoring reports completed by the Education Department point to district-level purchases or staff assignments as Section 1113 violations: A district in New Mexico was cited for allocating flat sums of $10,000 to all Title I schools, without regard to the impact of the extra distribution on per-pupil allocations. Another New Mexico district had assigned assistant principals to four Title I schools on the basis of need, but provided no additional funds to four other Title I schools that were ranked higher on the poverty scale than some of the other schools. This resulted in several instances where some Title I schools had higher per pupil allocations than schools that had higher percentages of poverty, federal monitors wrote. Arkansas districts were cited for using a districtlevel reservation to provide additional technology, materials and/or supplies for all of their Title I schools without regard to the possible impact to ranking and per pupil allocation requirements. Regulatory language In its review of Title I programs in Arkansas last year, ED said districts should hew closely to Section 200.77, which lists the activities for which a district is either required or authorized to reserve funds; the reservation is not intended to fund basic program operation.

The regulations spell out the required LEA reservations, including funds for administration, the education of homeless students, parent involvement activities, professional development, services for private school students, and for SES and public school choice-related transportation. But language pertaining to voluntary set-asides is more vague: Section 200.77(f) says only that an LEA may reserve funds that are reasonable and necessary to ... conduct other authorized activities, such as school improvement and coordinated services. The regulations do not specify any activities that may not be supported by district-level set-asides. Yet in its monitoring, ED officials seem to suggest some activities are unallowable. In particular, the Arkansas report states, [p]roviding additional technology, supplies, and/or materials to all Title I schools is not an allowable activity. n Use improvement professional development in all schools One required LEA reservation has an unusual twist, noted Roy Stehle, an education associate at the South Carolina Department of Education, during an LRP audio conference, Title I Spending Pitfalls: Stretching Your Dollars Without Breaking the Rules. Funds reserved under ESEA Section 1116 for professional development in schools and districts identified for improvement may be used for activities in all schools Title I and non-Title I. That s because all schools may be contributing to the AYP failure that caused the improvement identification. For example, Stehle said, many districts hire instructional coaches at the district level. If those coaches are tasked with helping teachers address the reason for identification, those coaches may work in both Title I and non-Title I schools. Furthermore, district-level set-asides spent for improvement activities are not subject to equitable services requirements, according to a 2008 policy letter from Zollie Stevenson Jr., then-federal Title I director. Part A funds reserved for professional development in this situation are designed specifically to improve the educational services of the students in the public schools (Title I and non-Title I schools) that caused the district to be identified for improvement, he wrote. Children enrolled in private school did not contribute to the district s identification and are therefore not entitled to services funded by that reserve. Stevenson further noted that if a district voluntarily reserves additional funds for professional development, those funds must be expended, on an equitable basis, to support services for the private school teachers of Title I children. n

Budget 2011 Title I survives but literacy programs, PIRCs fall in final FY Under pressure to cut federal spending in FY 2011, congressional and Obama administration negotiators opted to eliminate many Education Department programs including all of Title I, Part B; Striving Readers; and Parental Information and Resource Centers but largely preserved funding for major formula programs, including Title I, Parts A, C, and D, and continue the department s key signature initiatives such as Race to the Top, School Improvement Grants, and Promise Neighborhoods. Title II, Part A and Title III suffered minor cuts; Title II, Part D was eliminated. FY 2011 funds will fund programs during SY 2011-12. The FY 2011 budget may give a glimpse into likely outcomes for FY 2012, which will fund programs starting in SY 2012-13. The Obama administration has proposed an increase in education spending to support expansions of Race to the Top and SIG (which would be renamed School Turnaround Grants), and a new rewards program under Title I, Part A. The administration has also proposed consolidating many existing programs in FY 2012, including the now-eliminated Even Start and Striving Readers under broad teaching and learning categories. PIRCs would be consolidated with charter school and Smaller Learning Community grants under an expanding educational options umbrella. Major ED ESEA grant programs: FY 10 through FY 12 (proposed) (numbers are rounded) 11 budget

FY 2010 actual appropriation FY 2011 appropriation FY 2011 final appropriation (FY 2011 appropriation less 0.2 percent across-the-board cut) FY 2012 president s proposed budget Title I, Part A $14.5 billion

$14.5 billion $14.5 billion $14.8 billion Basic Grants $6.6 billion $6.6 billion $6.6 billion $6.6 billion Concentration Grants $1.4 billion $1.4 billion $1.4 billion $1.4 billion Targeted Grants $3.3 billion $3.3 billion $3.3 billion $3.3 billion Education Finance Incentive Grants $3.3 billion $3.3 billion $3.3 billion $3.3 billion *Title I rewards $0 $0 $0 $300 million **School Improvement Grants (ESEA 1003(g))

$545 million $536 million $535 million $600 million *Early Learning Challenge Fund $0 $0 $0 $350 million ***Race to the Top $0 $700 million $699 million $900 million ***Investing in Innovation $0 $150 million $150 million $300 million Early Reading First (Title I, B) $0 $0 $0 $0 Even Start (Title I, B) $66 million $0 $0 ***** Literacy through School

Libraries (Title I, B) $19 million $0 $0 ***** Striving Readers $200 million $0 $0 ***** Migrant Education (Title I, C) $395 million $395 million $394 million $395 million Neglected & Delinquent Education (Title I, D) $50 million $50 million $50 million $50 million Homeless Education (McKinney-Vento) $65 million $65 million $65 million $65 million Impact Aid $1.3 billion $1.3 billion $1.3 billion

$1.3 billion 21st Century Learning Centers $1.2 billion $1.2 billion $1.2 billion $1.3 billion **** Improving Teacher Quality State Grants (Title II, A) $2.9 billion $2.5 billion $2.5 billion $2.5 billion English Learner Education (Title III) $750 million $735 million $734 million $750 million Education Technology State Grants (Title II, D) $100 million $0 $0 $0 Promise Neighborhoods $10 million $30 million $29 million $150 million

*New program proposed by Obama administration; would require congressional appro val.

**Would be renamed School Turnaround Grants under FY 2012 Obama proposal. ***Programs initiated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would nee d authorization to be continued under ESEA. Source: Education Department; www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget11/11actio n.pdf and www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget12/ summary/appendix6.pdf. n

Ask the Insider Help parents understand Title I per-child allocations Q Is it ever appropriate for a school with a lower poverty rate to receive a higher total Title I, Part A allocation than another school, in the same district and grade span, with a higher poverty rate? A Yes, it is entirely possible for a lower-ranked school to receive more Title I funds than a higher-ranked school, wrote acting federal Title I director Patricia McKee in a recent letter. McKee was responding to a parent who felt schools in her district were being treated inequitably. As McKee explained in the letter, under ESEA Section 1113, a school district is required to rank order its schools by level of poverty and determine a per-pupil allocation for each school. Higher-ranked schools must receive higher per-pupil allocations than schools ranked lower on the poverty scale. Title I funds are then distributed based on the number of children residing in each school s attendance area. The number of poverty children attending each school is multiplied by the school s per-pupil allocation to get the school s total Title I allocation. A district may rank and serve schools within certain grade spans, but it must serve all schools with a poverty rate above 75 percent. A school s total allocation is, therefore, a function not only of its poverty level but the size of its enrollment as well, McKee wrote. It is possible, for example, that the total Title I amount allocated to a school with a 50 percent poverty rate may be more than the amount allocated to a school with a higher poverty percentage because the school with the lower poverty rate has a greater number of children enrolled in the school, she wrote. Insider Resource: Patricia A. McKee: Letter to Mary Lou Morris, May 24, 2011. n Determining school poverty levels LEAs must select one of five measures of poverty to determine relative percentages of children from low-income families residing in their attendance areas. Those five measures are: 1. Census counts of children from families below the poverty level. (This is the same data used by the federal government to allocate Title I funds to districts.)

2. Counts of children eligible for free and reducedprice lunch. 3. Counts of children whose families receive assistance under the federal welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. 4. Counts of children eligible for Medicaid. 5. A combination of two or more of these data sources. An LEA must use the same measure of poverty to identify eligible school attendance areas, rank schools by poverty level, and determine a per-pupil allocation for each area. n SUBSCRIPTION OFFER . YES! Please start my one-year subscription to No Child Left Behind Financial Compliance Insider for $220 plus $27 shipping/handling for 12 issues. Sales Tax: Residents of PA, IN, VA and FL add percentage applicable to your state or county. If tax exempt, please provide certification. Shipping and handling prices are for the continental U.S. only. Please call for delivery charges outside the U.S. I understand that I may be shipped, on 30-day approval, future editions, updates, cumulative digests, and/or related products. I am free to change or cancel my order for upkeep services at any time and any update issued within three months of my initial purchase will be sent to me at no additional charge. . I do not want the additional upkeep service. LRP Publications P.O. Box 24668

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Dos & Don ts . Don t use Title I for gifted, talented It may be reasonable for a Title I targeted assistance school to view helping all of its students reach their full potential as its foremost responsibility, but that does not mean it is OK to use Title I, Part A funds to support extra services for these students. Responding to an inquiry from a national advocacy group for gifted children, acting federal Title I director Patricia A. McKee asserted that Title I funds must be reserved for students at the low end of the performance scale. A school operating a targeted assistance program may use its Title I, Part A funds only to provide supplemental educational services to eligible students selected for those services because they have the greatest academic need that is, students who are failing, or most at risk of failing, to meet the State s academic achievement standards, McKee wrote. Gifted students, she wrote, generally are not academically at-risk. Even in a schoolwide program, McKee continued, services for high-performing students would likely not be allowable. There may be circumstances in which a school may propose using gifted and talented instructional strategies to improve the achievement of their lowest-achieving students or to implement instructional strategies designed to provide lowachieving students with the knowledge and skills to participate in gifted and talented coursework. However, because gifted and talented students, by definition, are not low-achieving or at risk of failing to meet a State s standards, it is unlikely that Title I, Part A funds could be used for such students in a school that operates a schoolwide program, McKee wrote. . Don t extend Title I programs to students at non-Title I schools A Title I school must use its allocated Title I funds to serve its own eligible students, and may not extend programs to students at other schools, according to Todd Stephenson, a management and program analyst in the Education Department s Title I office. Stephenson was responding to an inquiry regarding whether an economically disadvantaged student

from a non-Title I school may attend a summer program being offered at a Title I school. In order to receive Title I services, a student must generally be a Title I student from a Title I school, Stephenson wrote in an e-mail. The exception to this would be when the ESEA specifically authorizes a student in a non-Title I school to receive such services, such as homeless student. An LEA must distribute Title I funds to school in rank order of poverty, allocating funds based on the number of economically disadvantaged students enrolled at each school. Each school must then use those funds to serve students identified as at greatest risk of failing to meet state-determined academic standards. . Do remit interest at least quarterly Cash management has become a major area of focus for ED s Office of Inspector General. Districts should keep to an absolute minimum the amount of time between the drawing down of federal funds and the disbursement of the funds to vendors or employees. This practice ensures that the U.S. Treasury earns maximum interest on federal revenue before disbursing it to meet programmatic obligations. But if despite these precautions a district earns interest on drawn down funds, the interest must be returned to ED, according to the department s March 2010 Title I American Recovery and Reinvestment Act guidance. Citing 34 CFR 80.21(i), the guidance notes that the interest must be submitted promptly, but at least quarterly. The grantee or subgrantee may keep interest amounts up to $100 per year for administrative expenses, the regulation notes. ED warns in its guidance that districts will be subject to financial penalty for failure to comply with cash management policies. ED will take appropriate actions against SEAs and LEAs that fail to comply with this requirement, the guidance says. Insider Resources: Patricia A. McKee: acting director, Office of Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs; letter to Nancy Green, March 30, 2011. Todd Stephenson: management and program analyst, Office of Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs; e-mail to Tim Martin, May 11, 2011.

Education Department: Funds under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 Made Available Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, March 2010; www2 .ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/guidance/title-i-rev-201003.doc. n

Washington Pipeline ED to devote $500 million for Early Learning Challenge program Federal funding to create coordinated standards for early care and education systems and early care providers has been two years coming, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said May 25 in announcing $500 million under the Race to the TopEarly Learning Challenge grant program. This is a day I ve waited for a very long time, Duncan said. Investing in early learning is one of the smartest, best things we can do in education. ... We re looking for challenge, commitment, and creativity. The goal is to raise standards across early child care and education programs that are of uneven quality and uneven access, he said. The Education and Health and Human Services departments will jointly administer the competition. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who joined Duncan at the announcement, said that while in the past states did not have a full and active partner in the federal government, the competition will help the U.S. outcompete the world by making sure every child gets a healthy start and a rich learning experience. The funds take up the lion s share of a $700 million Race to the Top Fund appropriation that Congress included in the FY 2011 budget. The remaining $200 million will be made available under a separate competition for Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and South Carolina the nine RTF finalist states that did not win grants in the first two rounds. Broad support The competition comes as states face budget shortfalls and reduce spending on early childhood programs. The news was welcomed by stakeholders and members of Congress. Business, police, military, and literacy leaders at the press conference said investing in early childhood leads to reduced crime and incarceration costs as well as increases in the number of students able to graduate high school and qualify for entry into the military. The Early Learning Challenge Fund announcement is proof positive that this administration gets it, said Ralph Smith, executive vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation , a group that advocates for getting children reading by third grade. This administration with leadership in Congress understands the urgency of early learning. What we see

today is a down payment toward that end. Next steps ED said a joint ED/HHS grant announcement and application request will be available this summer with funds to be awarded no later than Dec. 31. The department is also accepting public input on what should be included in the grant application. n Title I, IDEA group seeks improved coordination The isolated manner in which statutes, regulations, and guidance are developed in regard to the millions of children who live in poverty and who also have a disability must end, according to a newly released paper from the Title I/IDEA Working Committee. Intended to remediate the overlap between Title I of ESEA and the IDEA as they regard the 2.5 million students who are eligible for services under both laws, the working committee on June 1 set out recommendations during a Capitol Hill briefing on how the Education Department and policymakers might move forward to improve collaboration and coordination between the two federal laws. While the days of students with disabilities being served in isolated buildings or classrooms and Title I students being served at the far end of the corridor are becoming a thing of the past, students will be even better served if the mechanics of these two programs focused on children s education are better aligned and/or integrated, according to the group s paper, Recommendations for Improved Coordination Between Title I and IDEA. Members of the working committee, which is a joint initiative of the National Title I Association and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, pointed out that while Title I and the IDEA have improved access to high-quality programs for millions of students, a lack of clarity exists about how to implement the statutes when a student is eligible under both. Duplication, confusion and a lack of coordination limits our ability to make a difference in helping our most vulnerable children achieve their full potential, according to the paper. We are in this business to make that difference. NASDSE Executive Director Bill East pointed to several areas where procedures need to be changed. For example, ESEA and the IDEA contain different definitions of supplement, not supplant; the group recommends that ED issue guidance on how to meet those dueling requirements. n