Adjusted Poverty Measures and the Distribution of Title I Aid: Does Title I Really Make the Rich States Richer?

Bruce D. Baker (), Lori Taylor, Jesse Levin (), Jay Chambers () and Charles Blankenship ()
Additional contact information
Bruce D. Baker: Department of Educational Theory, Policy and Administration, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Jesse Levin: American Institutes for Research, San Mateo, CA
Jay Chambers: American Institutes for Research, San Mateo, CA
Charles Blankenship: American Institutes for Research, San Mateo, CA

Education Finance and Policy, 2013, vol. 8, issue 3, 394-417

Abstract: Federal and state governments in the United States make extensive use of student poverty rates in compensatory aid programs like Title I. Unfortunately, the measures of student poverty that drive funding allocations under such programs are biased because they fail to reflect geographic differences in the cost of living. In this study, we construct alternative poverty income thresholds based on regional differences in the wage level for low-skilled workers. We then examine the distribution of Title I revenues after adjusting poverty rates for geographic differences in the cost of living and adjusting Title I revenues for geographic differences in the purchasing power of school districts. Our findings turn conventional wisdom on its head. We find that when we fully adjust for regional differences, Title I funding patterns disproportionately favor rural school districts in low cost-of-living states. We conclude with policy recommendations for revising Title I funding formulas. © 2013 Association for Education Finance and Policy

Keywords: Title I; student poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I22 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/EDFP_a_00103 (application/pdf)
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:394-417

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1557-3060

Access Statistics for this article

Education Finance and Policy is currently edited by Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Randall Reback

More articles in Education Finance and Policy from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().