Matthew Joseph is a Senior Policy Advisor at ExcelinEd.
Nearly all states provide additional funding to support the education needs of low-income students. Yet states continue to grapple with key issues surrounding this support: What is the right amount of funding to provide? What are the best ways to identify the students who most need the extra resources? What can states do to ensure that the additional funding results in improved outcomes?
Over the next three weeks, ExcelinEd is publishing several resources to help state policymakers answer these important and complex questions.
We start with a 50-state survey of data, showing how much supplemental funding states are currently providing for their low-income students. Results show that the nationwide average amount is $1,273 per low-income student, which is 22 percent above the average base funding for other students.
However, the survey also reveals that the funding range is significantly broad. Some states provide more than $4,000 extra, while others are below $100. This unique analysis gives policymakers a general sense of how their states compare to others in their region and across the country.
Next, a forthcoming brief will describe best practices for identifying low-income students. For several decades, states used eligibility for free and reduced-price meals as the criteria. But now, most schools no longer need to establish eligibility for individual students each year, which means alternatives are needed. Related to this, new research shows the importance of the neighborhoods in which students are living, above and beyond the specific resources in each student’s household.
The final brief in this series considers the evidence on whether supplemental funding improves outcomes for low-income students. Spoiler alert! Recent analyses from across the ideological spectrum show that money matters—and that state policies have a strong hand in determining the impact on student improvement. The brief describes how states can ensure the supplemental funding gets to schools serving low-income students and is used effectively.
Together, these policy briefs will help states consider how to improve outcomes for low-income students with the help of supplemental funding, provided that the funding is sufficient, well targeted and spent on evidence-based strategies.
As of 2023, 42 states plus the District of Columbia provide schools with supplemental funding for their low-income students. Policymakers often want to understand how the amount of extra funding they provide for low-income students compares to other states.
