ESSA Can Help Those Who Need More Get More
August 20, 2019
“Students who need more should get more,” writes Ramin Taheri, Director of Advocacy and Policy for Chiefs for Change. The most direct way to make this happen is through student-based budgeting—and ESSA could help. The federal law “includes a provision allowing flexibility for local education agencies to consolidate eligible federal, state and local funding ‘in order to create a single school funding system based on weighted per-pupil allocations for low-income and otherwise disadvantaged students.’” Taheri also notes, however, that given “the power of student-based budgeting to level the playing field, it’s unfortunate that very few districts took up the call to apply for this flexibility.”