Found Money

Putting Title I funds to use for technology purchases

By Garry L. McDaniels

Garry L. McDaniels, a former elementary and junior high school teacher, is the president of SkillsBank Corporation, a publisher of educational software focusing on basic skills. He is a former director of education for the U.S. Department of Education.

If you're like most school leaders, you spend a good part of the year stretching your dollars as far as they will go. I'd like to let you know how you can stretch those dollars even farther, particularly when purchasing educational technology.

One key to saving money is learning how to put your federal Title I dollars to better use. Title I funds, which are earmarked to help disadvantaged students, can be used in ways that benefit all your students, not just those who are considered poor. And the poor children will not be shortchanged; in many ways, in fact, they will actually be better off.

Let me explain.

In the 1960s, as local communities failed to provide the same quality of education to all students, the federal government jumped in to fill the void. Chapter 1, now Title I, of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1964 earmarked federal funds to help disadvantaged students, and local school boards were instructed not to supplant this money with their own or mingle it with funds from other sources. This money was intended to provide the extra support needed to help the nation's poorest children. Nobody else was to benefit from it.

But these rules had many unintended consequences, the most visible of which was the creation of pull-out programs for designated children. ESEA money had to be spent on programs that were separate from the general programs in which poor children were enrolled. As a result, Title I students do not always learn alongside their peers, and this often puts them at a disadvantage.

The rules and regulations also did nothing to help school leaders stretch their dollars farther. Textbooks purchased for Title I students were used only by those students. Nobody else could use them, and the parents of children who benefited from these programs, as well as the state and local bureaucrats who managed them, were aggressive guardians of this money.

But the situation is changing--in large part because of educational technology and software. More and more schools are finding they can use Title I dollars to purchase educational software and other technologies, which are then used by Title I students as well as those are who are not designated for federal assistance. For instance, a school can use Title I money to purchase a math software program for Title I students, then obtain a site license to make copies of the software to make it accessible to all students in the school.

Furthermore, any computer station where software purchased with Title I funds is available, but not being used, is considered an idle resource that can be used by anyone. Computer disks that are licensed for loading on hard drives within a building are an idle resource after the computers are loaded for use by Title I students. Or, at the district level, any products purchased for all students within the federal program can be used for all students in the district as long as the Title I students have full access to the products.

Now schools are using Title I money to purchase computers, software, and multimedia stations. They are also using the money to hire people to help students and teachers make the best use of those technologies. And recent changes in Title I rules allow schools to use Title I funds for all students in a school if at least 65 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches. (The requirement used to be at least 75 percent of the students.)

Although that change gives schools even more flexibility, it has little effect on technology purchases made with Title I funds. Schools already have that kind of flexibility when it comes to purchasing technology. In a Title I policy manual, the U.S. Department of Education states that equipment purchased with Title I money can be "made available for other educational uses" as long as those uses do not interfere with the Title I project or significantly shorten the useful life of the equipment. In other words, a school that has 30 percent of its students living in poverty can still use Title I money to purchase equipment that will be used by students who are not impoverished as well as by Title I students.

Putting the savings to work

At Sandalwood Elementary school in Baltimore County, Md., 70 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches. So the school--which received $33,000 in Title I funds each year for the past three years--has benefited from the flexibility technology has created for school administrators looking to get the most out of their federal dollars.

Sandalwood Principal Marsha Ayres says everyone in the school benefits from Title I money in some way. The school used the funds to increase the number of computers in each classroom from two to four and to purchase a software program that emphasizes math, reading, language arts, writing, and encyclopedia research skills. The software program, she says, serves as a supplement to the regular Baltimore County curriculum.

Equally important, says Ayres, is that the money is being used to pay parent helpers and teacher assistants to help students use the technology. The school also hired a computer liaison, who is solely responsible for working with teachers and serving as a troubleshooter when problems arise. Without this kind of spending flexibility, the principal says, the school would not have been able to hire these people.

Ayres receives a weekly report showing her which students use the school computers and how long they use them. The report helps her make sure the Title I kids are getting a sufficient amount of time on the computers. By matching computer time with test score results, she says, the report will also help her examine whether the technology is having a significant effect on student achievement.

Allowing schools to purchase equipment that all kids can use is causing a blurring of the lines between Title I students and non-Title I students, says Ayres. That's good, she says, because all students have to meet the same standards.

"You wouldn't know who is a [Title I] student and who isn't in our school," she says, adding that "if 30 percent of our kids couldn't get on a computer [because they weren't Title I students], that would be wrong."

At Mars Estates Elementary School in Baltimore County, school officials are also finding they can use Title I money in ways that will benefit everyone, according to the school's principal, Stephen Mackert. The school has used the federal money to hook up every classroom to a local area network, purchase 15 of the 30 computers in the school's computer lab, and pay for a Scholastic Online service as well as modems to access the Internet.

Furthermore, Mackert says, some Title I funds have gone to purchase telephones for every classroom and to set up a voice mail system that includes a 24-hour homework hotline. And, the money has been used for personnel--including paid parent helpers in each classroom and one person who serves as a Title I liaison and technology coordinator.

The school--in which 50 percent of the student population is new each year--has about 65 percent of its students receiving free or reduced price lunches. Last year, the school received $240,000 under Title I.

Using money from Title I funds as well as other sources, Mackert says the school has managed to pump $500,000 worth of technology investments into the school over the past two years. He hopes the technology upgrades will attract students to the school and help cut the high student-mobility rate. Clearly, he says, the technology purchases benefit everyone, Title I and non-Title I students alike.

"It's only been for the past one or two years that schools have had that kind of flexibility," says Roger Proudfoot, Title I coordinator for the Baltimore County schools. "But if schools get results, they'll continue to do it."

John Hruska, Title I technology specialist for the Prince George's County, Md., schools, says many school officials remain confused about what they can or cannot purchase with Title I money. The plethora of rules and regulations regarding Title I makes purchasing decisions difficult.

"I'm not an expert on the law, but from what I understand, you can't use the money in ways that would exclude Title I kids," he says.

Even so, school officials say that still gives schools a wide range of choices. And because the primary goal of Title I is to help disadvantaged students succeed in regular classrooms, many educators believe that Title I kids should be using the same educational tools as their classmates.

Hruska says schools in Prince George's have used Title I money to equip classrooms with cameras and televisions that allow teachers to tape students throughout the school year. The equipment is used to critique students' progress in areas such as reading. As the county schools moved away from the idea of computer labs, Hruska says, he used Title I money to design teacher technology stations, which included laser disc players, VCRs, network hookups, and laser printers. Math software that helped first-graders prepare spreadsheets and understand bar graphs also came out of Title I money, and telephone announcements for each school in Prince George's are recorded on a voice mail system purchased with Title I funds. (One of the goals of Title I is to have parents more involved in their kids' education.)

To take advantage of Title I funds in similar ways, the first thing you have to do is emphasize that your school serves kids, not categorical programs. Pull all your sources of funds together and put your technology needs--particularly when it comes to software--in priority order. Ask yourself what can be purchased that will be accessible and valuable for all children. Once all students have access to the same educational tools and are judged by the same standards--once kids are no longer separated by category--true equity will emerge. And it will emerge at bargain prices.