[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 22 (Tuesday, February 10, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E191]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 TO AMEND THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT OF 1965 TO ADJUST 
               FUNDING LEVELS FOR CERTAIN OUTLYING AREAS

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                  HON. GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN

                    of the northern mariana islands

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 10, 2015

  Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, as we ready to reauthorize the Elementary 
and Secondary Education Act in the 114th Congress, I am introducing 
legislation, which I want to see incorporated into a reauthorization 
and which will help fulfill one of the original goals of the Act, 
namely to ensure that American children have access to a high-quality 
education--no matter the economic circumstances of the geographic area 
where they live. Title 1 of the ESEA was designed to address the 
``impact that concentrations of low-income families have on the ability 
of local educational agencies to support adequate educational programs 
. . .'' Pub. L. No. 89-10, Sec. 201. But this intent--to close the 
educational opportunity gaps that exist from community to community in 
America--has not yet been realized in my district, the Northern Mariana 
Islands, where incomes are less than half the national median and our 
local educational agency still struggles to meet the needs of students.
  Expenditures for public elementary and secondary education nationally 
were $10,667 per pupil in fiscal 2012, the most recent year for which 
this data is available. In the Northern Marianas public elementary and 
secondary education spending per pupil was just $6,246. National Center 
for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. In part, this 
gap is a function of the local contribution; but the point of Title I 
was to use federal resources to balance educational funding nationwide 
by helping places where there is limited fiscal capacity. And my 
constituents are not unwilling to invest in education: In November they 
adopted an initiative amending our Commonwealth Constitution to require 
that 25 percent of each year's local revenues go to our schools, an 
increase of the existing 15 percent requirement. But, because personal 
incomes are low, these local government revenues are limited.
  The local contribution in the Northern Marianas is also constrained 
because we have only one layer of government. Local educational 
agencies nationwide are generally funded both by a state and by a 
county or municipal government, a system that shares state resources 
across wealthy areas and poor. In the Northern Marianas there is only a 
single, state-level government that has authority to raise revenues and 
is solely responsible for supporting our school system.
  If it operated as intended, the system of allocation established for 
Title I-A funding should alleviate such variations in local capacity, 
instead it appears to disadvantage the Northern Marianas. The ESEA 
gives the Secretary of Education authority to allocate a fixed one 
percent of Title 1 funds among the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) 
schools and four ``outlying areas,'' of which the Northern Marianas is 
one. But, according to the Congressional Research Service, the result 
in fiscal 2014 was an allocation of $1,987 per qualifying child in 
Bureau schools, while each qualifying child in Northern Marianas 
schools was allotted only $1,073.
  In addition to this allocation discrepancy, associated with 
Secretarial discretion, there is an inherent flaw in the Title 1 set-
aside of a fixed percentage of annual funding to assist a population 
that changes with time. We expect families to seek economic opportunity 
for themselves or better schooling for their children by moving from 
one area of our nation to another. I have seen this kind of out-
migration from my district. And the annual adjustments in Title I-A 
allocations among the states respond to this dynamic, but the fixed one 
percent to BIE and the outlying areas does not. Likewise, the 
population counts and income data, which the Secretary uses in 
allocating funds among the outlying areas, are based on the decennial 
census, not on the more up-to-date information used for Title I-A 
allocations nationally. As a result, Title I-A allocations among the 
outlying areas continue fixed--on auto-pilot--for a decade, even if the 
economy in one of these areas flags, incomes fall, or the number of 
qualifying children increases. I have also witnessed this effect in my 
district.
  Ironically, I understand, the one percent set-aside may originally 
have been intended to protect the small, outlying areas from year-to-
year swings in funding and to assure our areas of federal assistance 
sufficient to run meaningful programs and to compensate for the 
inherent fiscal deficiencies islands we face, as a result of geographic 
and economic isolation. But the present effect of this set-aside is 
that Title I-A support for public elementary and secondary education in 
my district, the Northern Marianas, is, as noted, $1,073 per student, 
even less than the national average of $1,215.
  So, today I am introducing legislation that modifies the present 
Title I-A funding system for the outlying areas. My bill ends the 
special set-aside system, removes Secretarial discretion, and employs 
the same funding formula that applies to every other part of our 
nation, although at a much reduced rate in recognition of our 
relatively smaller populations. And I ask my colleagues for their 
support.

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