Civil and Human Rights Coalition Responds to Department of Education’s Proposal on Funding for High-Poverty Schools

WASHINGTON – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Department of Education released its draft regulation under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) governing how schools can distribute federal education funds provided to serve low-income students:  

“Our system of funding education is unfair and unwise and this draft rule is an important step toward improving an intolerable status quo. 

States and districts routinely spend less money to educate children facing greater challenges and the pervasive and historic nature of this problem does not lend itself to easy solutions.  This is an old fight with a new urgency, now that students of color and low-income students both make up majorities of public school students.  

This spring The Leadership Conference, along with 29 partner civil rights groups, urged the Department to issue strong regulations to ensure that states and districts weren’t shortchanging low-income students. But the politics of education require compromise and the draft rule being proposed today is a step in the right direction. This rule doesn’t solve this massive problem—no single rule could—but it brings us closer to a more just education system. The additional $2 billion that the Department projects will flow toward improving schools for low-income students is desperately needed.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the civil rights community to offer formal comments on this draft rule and to working with the Department of Education and the White House to ensure that the final rule makes even greater progress for students.”

Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

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