L.A. Schools Trim Anti-Poverty Aid After Funding Cut

Hit by the first wave of federal budget cuts for education, the Los Angeles Board of Education voted Monday to scale back an anti-poverty program just a year after expanding it.

But in a much-debated compromise, the board took only 21 schools out of the program, instead of the 40 recommended by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Many of the schools were included in the program, known as Title I, for the first time last year.

The funding is intended to provide a financial boost at schools where the student body is predominantly poor. The money is used for additional services such as counseling and tutoring. Faced with a federal cut of 17% in the program, the task force recommended concentrating the remaining resources on a smaller number of schools.

Under the compromise, Title I will be awarded to those 433 schools where two-thirds of the children qualify for free lunches or come from families on welfare. The amount of funding at the schools, calculated on a per-pupil basis, will drop slightly, from $253 per student this year to $234 next year.

Board member Barbara Boudreaux, one of two to vote against the compromise, said “sharing the wealth sometimes will end up diluting it so much it won’t help any child.”