Senator Feinstein Leads Effort to Remedy California’s Education Funding Levels for Disadvantaged Students
July 28, 2000

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last night was successful during a joint House-Senate Appropriations Conference Committee in securing California’s fair share of Title I education funding geared to disadvantaged students, a provision that cost the state $40 million last year.

As part of an agreement reached on the FY 2001 Labor-Education Appropriations measure, Senator Feinstein teamed with Representatives Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego) and Nancy Pelosi (D-San Fran.) to ensure that California’s Title I funding level would not be hampered by a “hold harmless” provision which keeps slow-growth states at the same funding level they received the previous year despite the decline in the number of children. The hold harmless provision has hurt high growth states such as California where student enrollment has increased at triple the national rate.

“Federal education dollars should go where our nation’s poor children are and I am delighted that this agreement reflects that principle,” Senator Feinstein said. “Over the past three years, California has lost over $120 million in Title I funds because of this provision. The compromise reached last night ensures that California will receive the funds it deserves according to the number of children in the state.”

For the last few years, Senator Feinstein has been fighting to remove the hold harmless provision from federal formulas dictating education funding. This agreement would keep a hold harmless on Title I funding so that no state would receive less than it did the year before. In addition, the agreement provides all states that would otherwise be shortchanged by the hold harmless, including California, with as much funding as they would have received if no 100% hold harmless existed.

Today, California has 5.8 million school children, more than 36 states have in total population. And from 1990 to 1995, the number of poor children increased in California by 50%, while national rate of increase was 22%. In the 1990-2000 school year, California got $690 in Title I funds per poor child while the U.S. average was $822 per poor child.