Magnets also losing out Veronica Anderson Magnet schools are another big loser under the new Title I formula. Of the 22 elementary schools that lost all of their Title I eligibility, 14 were magnet schools.
By the fall of 1998, Turner-Drew Language, located in Roseland, will lose $142,900; Black Magnet in Calumet Heights will lose $155,400; and Disney Magnet in Uptown will lose $287,100. Beasley Magnet, located across the street from Robert Taylor Homes, took the biggest hit. By the end of next year, the school will lose $467,900.
For the past two year, these schools benefitted because poverty counts were based in...
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Central office controls $30 million Veronica Anderson Not all Title I money allocated to the Chicago Public Schools is distributed to schools to use as they see fit. This school year, central office retained some $30 million, or about 20 percent of the total, for programs of its choice, according to Acting Budget Director Drew Gilchrist.
"It's not being sucked off into central office," he notes. "It's being used for programs citywide."
He cites child-parent centers and mandatory summer school programs as examples. Only 1.5 percent of Chicago's total Title I goes for program administration, he says.
"They're not...
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Schoolwide programs catching on fast Lisa Lewis Over the past four years, the number of Chicago public schools using their federal Title I dollars for schoolwide programs has soared from 11 to 262, with 165 schools joining the trend this year.
Instead of spending the money only on their lowest-scoring students, these schools now are spending it to bolster their schools as a whole or to expand the range of students who get special attention. Hiring more teachers to reduce class size has been a popular use. And computer labs and other programs that once were restricted now are open to all students.
"I prefer schoolwide...
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Rich districts get poverty money, too Lisa Lewis Only 3 percent of students in the west suburban Central Stickney School District qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Yet the district, which has one of the richest property tax bases in the state, gets $1,200 for each of its 11 low-income students.
Similarly, only 7 percent of the students in the Maercker School District in DuPage County qualify, yet the district also gets $1,200 in Title I funds for every low-income child.
In Chicago, 80 percent of the students are free-lunch eligible, yet the school district gets only $500 per low-income child.
And in south...
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Old, new formulas Veronica Anderson The School Board's new formula for distributing federal Title I funds focuses entirely on the poverty level of a school's student population, not its neighborhood. It also broadens the definition of poverty in a way that includes more Hispanics. And it seeks to minimize wide variations in funding from one school year to the next.
Under the old formula, a school's poverty rate was determined by a combination of two factors: the number of children in the school who were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches and the number of children in the surrounding community whose parents...
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High schools lost the most in new formula Veronica Anderson High schools are the big losers under the new Title I formula. Fifty-three of them are losing money, including 20 that will lose it all.
A couple of factors are responsible. First, the new formula gives greater weight to the number of students at a school who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. And older kids are less likely than younger children to turn in the required forms, say school officials, speculating they may be embarrassed to line up for a subsidized lunch.
Second, the new formula changed how the AFDC factor (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) is...
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Fallout from Title I switch Veronica Anderson For the first time, Hubbard High School in West Lawn is looking forward to receiving federal Title I funds. The $291,000 addition to next year's budget will take the school a long way toward its goal of installing Internet connections in every classroom.
Meanwhile, the local school council at Burnside Academy in Chatham is struggling to cope with a $149,000 loss—half its current federal Title I allotment—and is bracing for a total loss in 1998-99.
Senn High School in Edgewater is in a similar position. Next year's Title I budget will be the same as this year's, $792,000, but...
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