PLAINFIELD, Ind. (WRTV) — U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on Tuesday said her department is removing some restrictions on federal school funding for Indiana.
McMahon said the department will consolidate funding for five different federal education programs into a single funding stream totaling $50 million. She said this will give school officials the ability to use the money as they see fit and allow them to save about $20 million in application and assessment-related costs. McMahon said Indiana is the third state, after Iowa and Louisiana, to receive such a waiver.
“We must breathe innovation into education, not suffocate it with top-down mandates, because we certainly know that one size does not fit all in education,” she said.
The programs involved are Titles I-B, II-A, III-A, IV-A and IV-B. They cover a variety of supplemental education programs such as literacy services for highly mobile or migrant students, professional development, some English learner support and before/after school and summer programs in high-poverty communities. State education officials will still have to use the money for those purposes.
“Nothing happens that’s not in compliance with the law,” McMahon said. “All Title I funding is the same, or whatever measures, that’s not really being impacted here at all. It’s just how the states now are going to take those streams that are already approved and how they’re going to spend them better and more efficiently.”
Advocates for traditional public schools said the decision could disadvantage some students. Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, the president of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, said the U.S. Department of Education’s categories exist specifically to ensure particular categories of students, such as those with special needs, those in poverty or English language learners, receive an adequate education. She said combining categories puts them at risk.
“When you have these funds that are targeted for specific purposes, our worry is that it might result in a loss of services or resources for vulnerable kids,” she said. “We understand that it was difficult to have two different accountability systems, a state one and a federal one, but we want to make sure that accountability is still happening.”
Fuentes-Rohwer said it’s too soon to say whether Tuesday’s announcement will, in fact, put vulnerable student populations at risk. She said public education advocates will have to watch the use of those dollars closely.
Indiana Secretary of Education Dr. Katie Jenner said money will continue to flow toward schools as before because money is directed on a per-student, per-school basis.
“Now, our local school superintendents and leaders can really take that funding and rather than filling out multiple rounds of paperwork saying, ‘I want this child to read,’ now the money will specifically be able to be deployed exactly how they need it in a timely manner,” she said.
McMahon said schools will still need to submit monthly reports on how they are using federal dollars.
