Title I Program
Title I Director, Gary Aytes at 717-5453
Title I was a key part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's program to help the poor. Using a poverty-based formula, Title I, Part A, allocates funds to more than 90 percent of the nation's school districts to offset the effects of poverty on the educational opportunities of low-performing children in high-poverty schools. Each state oversees the program for its own school districts and schools, and acts as the conduit for the funds. State education agencies play a central role in setting standards and enforcing program requirements. Title I is the largest single program of federal aid for elementary and secondary education. It is estimated that all agencies of the federal government together contributed $45 billion to K-12 education in school year 2004-05. Of this, Title I, Part A, itself constituted over a quarter of the funding followed closely by grants for students with disabilities. Today, Title I is part of the federal legislation called No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the current reauthorization of President Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.
NCLB requires that parents of children in Title I schools be notified of their rights to receive information concerning their child's classroom teachers and paraprofessionals. In general, parents have the right to receive information on:
More information about Title I, Part A, and other federal programs can be found on the State of Tennessee's web site: http://www.tennessee.gov/education/fedprog/fptitle1.php. More information about No Child Left Behind can be found on the federal government's web site: http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml.
"The new title I: the changing landscape of accountability; Kristen Tosh Cowan, Esq.; Thompson Publishing Co.; March 2005".
