Number Weighting – What is it?
There is a systematic bias against smaller, high-poverty rural and urban districts in the funding formula that distributes federal funds under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Since 2002, some of the federal funds provided to local school districts under Title I have been distributed through "weighted" formulas intended to better target funding to districts with the highest concentrations of poverty. But the weighting mechanism favors only the very largest districts. High poverty districts that are smaller – whether urban or rural – invariably lose funds to the larger districts.
Here is how it works. Each district's Title I student count is calculated using two alternative weighting systems that inflate the actual count of disadvantaged students. One weighting system inflates the student count as the percentage of disadvantaged students increases. The higher the percentage of Title I students in the district, the more each Title I student counts in the formula.
The other weighting system inflates the disadvantaged student count as the absolute number of Title I students increases. The more Title I students in a district, the more each one counts in the formula.
The weighting system that results in the highest total weighted count for a district is the one used to determine that district's share of Title I funding. Since the amount available to be distributed is fixed, any gain by one district causes a loss to other districts.
The number weighting alternative is often favorable to very large districts, especially if the district's Title I student percentage is not especially high. But because smaller districts simply do not have enough students to gain much from number weighting, they are rarely better off under the number weighting alternative.
As a result, two districts with the same percentage of Title I students can have very different levels of per pupil funding, with the larger district always favored. And, a smaller district with a higher poverty rate can, and often does, get less funding per pupil than a much larger district with a lower poverty rate.
Let's get down to cases. Consider Houston Independent School District. In 2006-07 it had a poverty rate of 29% and an estimated 71,000 Title I eligible students. Little Jim Hogg County School District in South Texas had a nearly identical 28% poverty rate but only an estimated 310 Title I eligible students.
Under percentage weighting they both get about the same weight because about the same percentage of their students are Title I eligible disadvantaged students. But under number weighting, Houston gains 82 percent more weight than Jim Hogg County, and 82% more money per Title I student under the weighted programs.
There are a lot more poor kids in Houston than there are in Jim Hogg County. But, there are a lot more places like Jim Hogg County than there are places like Houston. Of the 242 Texas districts with poverty rates about the same as Houston's, 214 have fewer than 5,000 students and serve over 229,000 students, 63,500 of whom are Title I eligible. They provide educational services on a scale with Houston to a population as needy as Houston's, but receive on average 40 percent less money per Title I student.
Now consider the Austin Independent School district. With 19,500 Title I eligible students and a poverty rate of 21%, (7 percentage points lower than Jim Hogg County), it received about 50 percent more money per Title I student under the weighted grant programs than did Jim Hogg County.
A Congressional Research Service analysis of FY 2008 Title I data showed that districts hurt most by number weighting serve smaller high-poverty urban areas – places like Bakersfield (CA), Flint (MI), Gary IN), Hartford (CT), Jackson (MS), La Joya and Laredo (TX), Monroe (LA). These districts would benefit most from eliminating number weighting because they would gain a significant share of the total weight nationally if large, relatively low-poverty districts lost the advantage of number weighting. Almost every small rural district would also benefit from eliminating number weighting.
That CRS analysis showed districts losing money to number weighting outnumber those gaining from it by better than 20 to 1. You can see how number weighting affects your state as a whole and each of the districts in it by clicking here: See How Your State Fares
