How States and Districts Used Title II, Part A Funds

A new report finds that districts most often used key federal funds for improving educator quality to provide professional development. Other common uses included reducing class sizes and recruiting and retaining effective teachers and principals. Title II, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provides over $2 billion per year in funding to states and districts to support effective instruction through the preparation, recruitment, and training of educators. The 2015 reauthorization of ESEA, as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), provided greater flexibility for states and districts in how they use Title II‑A funds, by expanding the option to transfer funds to other ESEA programs, authorizing states to set aside additional funds for training principals and other school leaders, and authorizing new allowable uses of the funds. A new IES report, State and District Use of Title II, Part A Funds in 2018-19, describes the use of those flexibilities and provides a national picture of state and district priorities for Title II-A funds in the 2018-19 school year.  Key findings include: Half of the states and a quarter of districts used new ESSA flexibility. The most common state use was to reserve additional funds for supporting principals and other school leaders. Districts were more likely than states to use options to transfer funds to other ESEA programs, usually transferring funds from Title II-A to Title I-A (Education for the Disadvantaged). Professional development was a popular and substantial use of district Title II-A funds, with both short- and long-term training common. Eighty percent of districts reported using Title II-A funds on professional development, most commonly focused on improving instructional practice and teacher content knowledge in English language arts and in science, technology, engineering, and math. Professional development investments amounted to 58 percent of all Title II-A spending at the district level, for a total of a total of $1.04 billion nationally. Districts most commonly used the funds for short-term training, but many districts also supported longer-term training and education, and some supported job-embedded training. Districts also invested Title II-A funds in reducing class size and in recruiting and retaining effective educators. These uses accounted for 18 percent and 13 percent of the funds, respectively. States and districts varied in their response to newly authorized uses of funds for developing new or expanded preparation academies and evaluation systems. Just two states reported using Title II-A funds for preparation academies, while 22 states and 10 percent of districts used the funds for evaluation and support systems for teachers and school leaders. The findings in this report reflect early responses to new flexibility and allowable uses of Title II-A funds contained in ESSA. Subsequent rounds of these annual surveys will show the evolving responses of states and districts to the new ESSA provisions.