Federal Title I Funds Wasted

Your article on the wasted billions of Title I funding (Jan. 17) to bridge the gap between poor children and their rich counterparts was long overdue. A sample of what a typical school does with its Title I funding would have brought home an even more shocking picture of the corruption of Title I moneys.

Unlike the 40% of funds spent on part-time paraprofessionals at a district level, much more is wasted at specific schools. On a typical campus, over 75% of the Title I money is spent on staff and material that never set foot inside a classroom. Each school needs a Title I coordinator, who is usually a strong teacher. This experienced teacher is then taken out of the classroom to become a coordinator. And of course, he or she needs a secretary and computer to handle all the “needs” of the program.

When teachers complain about lack of resources or help from Title I, we are quickly shouted down with the threat of cutting off the school’s copy machine, the only true source of “materials” that Title I provides. At one school I worked at, an instructional aide, an unemployed nephew of the coordinator, was given a job watching the parking lot gate.

Eliminate the job welfare the money creates and give the funds directly to teachers who work with these children. For each student, allow the six teachers who instruct that child to split the $573. If a teacher comes in contact with 60 Title I students a day, then roughly $6,000 a year would be given to each instructor to supplement his/her instructional plan.

ALFEE ENCISO, Teacher, Dorsey High, Los Angeles

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The fundamental problem with Title I is that to receive the money, children must not only be in poverty but be performing substantially below grade level. If the children were brought up to grade level, the funds would be cut off. With such a perverse incentive, it is no surprise that hardly any children have been brought to grade level with the $118 billion spent under Title I.

What has worked is the low-income voucher program in Milwaukee, where, with families earning less than $18,000, the gap between black/white performance has been cut in half during the last seven years. This remarkable achievement has been accomplished with a little more than half the per student funding in Milwaukee’s public schools.

Los Angeles now has a low-income voucher program, sponsored by philanthropists John Walton and Ted Forstmann. There is no reason to believe that the results will be any different in L.A. than they were in Milwaukee.

ALAN BONSTEEL, San Francisco