Georgia’s largest school districts would lose millions of dollars under proposed changes to the federal funding formula, according to a new analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C.
The biggest losers would be the districts with the highest concentrations of poverty: $9.2 million would be shifted from Atlanta Public Schools and $6.6 million from the DeKalb County School District, the group told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In a new report, "Robin Hood in Reverse," CAP says Gwinnett County Public Schools and the Cobb County School District would also lose funding, despite their lower, but growing, proportions of students from low-income households. Gwinnett stands to lose $1.5 million and Cobb $2.2 million.
The change, proposed in the U.S. Senate, would be incorporated in the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a decades old law more recently known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Currently, districts with higher concentrations of poverty get more money per student under a provision of the law known as Title 1. With growing need due to an increase of school-aged children in poverty, especially in the South, a so-called "portability" provision in the Senate proposal would allow states to redistribute more money to wealthier districts, CAP says.
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