A bookkeeping change at the U.S. Education Department will kick hundreds of rural school districts out of a federal program that provided funding to some of the most geographically isolated and cash-strapped schools in the nation..
The New York Times reports that more than 800 schools stand to lose thousands of dollars from the Rural and Low-Income School Program because the department has abruptly changed how districts are to report how many of their students live in poverty.
The change, announced in letters to state education leaders, comes after the Education Department said a review of the program revealed that districts had “erroneously” received funding because they had not met eligibility requirements outlined in the federal education law since 2002.
The department said it was simply following the law, which requires that in order to get funding, districts must use data from the Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates to determine whether 20 percent of their area’s school-age children live below the poverty line.
For about 17 years though, the department has allowed schools to use the percentage of students who qualify for federally subsidized free and reduced-price meals, a common proxy for school poverty rates, because census data can miss residents in rural areas.
Department officials say they were surprised to discover that the law was not being followed.
The department’s decision to enforce the tougher criteria has drawn bipartisan condemnation. Rural school districts, which serve nearly one in seven public school students, have long been considered the most underfunded.
Rural districts have come to rely on the program to supplement the costs of services that are far less accessible to rural students, such as technology, mental health and guidance counselors, and full-day kindergarten.
In its latest report, “Why Rural Matters,” the Rural School and Community Trust found that many districts “face nothing less than an emergency.” Nearly one in six students living in rural areas lives below the poverty line, one in seven qualifies for special education services, and one in nine has changed residence in the previous 12 months, the report said.
“Many rural students are largely invisible to state policymakers because they live in states where education policy is dominated by highly visible urban problems,” the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group concluded.
