I want to try to tie two interesting bits of Internet thread together here. The first is the discussion of Title I targeting that David Hoff, Kevin Carey, Mike Dannenberg and my colleague John have been having (Hoff here, and the rest here).  The second is Dana Goldstein’s piece on Ossining’s schools.  That’s because I think Ossining becomes a good lens through which to view improved targeting. 

There is, of course, an obvious upside to targeting. In the context of a rising tide, I want to push money as aggressively as possible to the kids who need it most.  This matches my desire to have an accountability system which identifies schools that need the most help and provides it to them. The question is: what do we do if we’re not in a rising tide?  Title I funding in New York state has, on average, had a real increase of a bit more than 3 percent a year since NCLB.  But, when you adjust for inflation, what’s been happening in the last three years is that the Empire state is giving back some of the initial investment. These numbers look at the averages, but they don’t tell you much about targeting.  

Goldstein’s piece focuses on a program for African-American males and raises questions about racial and gender integration.  But she’s writing about a lot more than that. On Ossining itself:

But today, like many post-industrial communities, Ossining can't seem to revive its downtown. Locally owned shops flounder. Palatial downtown Victorians have been split into low-income rental units inhabited mostly by African Americans and recent immigrants, while wealthier and whiter residents have fled to newer homes and subdivisions in the hills.

Goldstein documents that the district has become poorer and more at risk.  Private contributions from a foundation backed by some parents pay for the program she’s discussing. Ossining is one of 150 school districts with real Title I funding increases since 2002. But only eight districts had smaller increases. Targeting means that 488 other districts, some of them not really that much different from Ossining, had cuts. 

My first point is that we shouldn’t be satisfied to have arranged the deck chairs optimally when it means we’re taking chairs away from kids who we’d all agree need the support. My second point: one of the victories of NCLB is that it shines a light on performance of at-risk subgroups in those districts that predominately serve whiter more middle class populations. Better targeting of funds couples this specific increased attention with specific disinvestment. There are some moral and political questions to ponder here.