“The new regulations, which could become final after 62 days, attempt to ensure that annual federal Title I funds to help poor students are added on top of equitable state and local spending, rather than topping off an unequal distribution of funds. This problem is a real and persistent one. Within districts, high-poverty schools often have less experienced and lower-salaried teachers. Since salaries make up the bulk of school spending, lower salaries create significantly lower funding in schools with more disadvantaged students. In these cases, federal money often supplants, rather than supplements, equitable local funding. This regulatory fight isn't over whether there is a problem; it's a fight over who should fix it, and how. Last December, Congress debated changing the supplement-not-supplant rules in the Every Student Succeeds Act but ultimately left the old version intact. The act did require districts to report school-level spending, to highlight where these inequities occur. It also included unprecedented limits on the power of the secretary of education in the wake of years of federal overreach. The act explicitly prohibited the secretary from proscribing any specific methodology to equalize spending under supplement-not-supplant.”
California
2.19.26