How to Ensure Title III Funds Reach Every Newcomer Student

Every student deserves a quality education—period.

Few people would disagree with this statement. We live in a society that believes kids should have an education that opens the door to a future of endless possibility.

Unfortunately, not every student has access to the quality education that affords them those opportunities. Many different indicators demonstrate that the system isn’t working for a number of vulnerable student groups. For example, in 2017, the status dropout rates¹ for Native American and Latinx male students were more than double the rate for white male students (11.6 percent, 10.0 percent, and 4.9 percent, respectively). Another illustration: nationally, the high school graduation rate for English learners (ELs) in 2017–18 was 68.4 percent, compared to 85 percent for non-ELs; and in that same academic year, the proficiency gap between all students and those experiencing homelessness in Reading and English Language Arts was 22.5 percent. Reviewing these data, it’s clear that no matter the measure or the group that is assessed, systemic educational inequity persists.

Like many other students, newcomers—a catch-all term used to describe all recently-arrived immigrants and refugees of school age—also suffer from educational inequity. Unfortunately, there is no public data mechanism to track newcomer academic outcomes in K–12 schools; and the limited information that is available paints a bleak picture. According to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Migration Policy Institute, roughly 3,900 newcomers aged 14 to 21 were not enrolled in New York City schools in the period of 2015 to 2019. Additionally, anecdotal evidence from schools across the country reveal that newcomers lack access to equitable educational opportunities,² and given their intersectionality with many of the aforementioned groups, there’s no reason to believe they are being served any better across the board. All this, despite the fact that forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe that undocumented students were protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, affirming their right to a free and public education without discrimination due to their country of birth or immigration status.

The data make it clear that many districts have yet to figure out how to fulfill the promise of a quality education for every student, including for newcomers. As a former educator, I have witnessed many missed opportunities to deliver a quality education to undocumented and newcomer students. Most schools in my district failed to meet the bare minimum of providing adequate translation and interpretation services for non-English speaking newcomer students upon arrival, or of engaging families in their child’s education throughout their time in the district. Moreover, they struggled to meet specific programmatic needs, such as foreign transcript equivalency services for appropriate course registration and linguistically and culturally responsive mental-emotional supports for students who needed it.

With more than 61,000 unaccompanied minors placed with sponsors in FY22 alone, and thousands of refugee youth from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other countries settling in districts across the country, addressing educational equity for newcomers is both urgent and essential.

My former school district’s lackluster response to newcomers isn’t unique. With more than 61,000 unaccompanied minors placed with sponsors in FY22 alone, and thousands of refugee youth from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other countries settling in districts across the country, addressing educational equity for newcomers is both urgent and essential.

Adequate funding is essential to providing a quality educational experience and delivering the aforementioned wraparound services for students. At this moment, there is only one federal government funding source that provides districts with funding explicitly for newcomer immigrant students.³ That source—Title III Immigrant student funding⁴—fails to provide districts with sustainable and consistent funding to support newcomer students throughout their first few years in U.S. schools, when language development, social adjustment, and physical and emotional stability are critical.

The government’s response to the unprecedented impacts of the Coronavirus (COVID) pandemic through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund has provided districts a unique opportunity to address gaps in services for their most underserved students. This unexpected influx of flexible funding gives us an excellent idea of what equitable funding could look like for newcomer students, as some districts have started new programs and expanded existing targeted programs and services with these funds.

This report has two aims. First, it highlights the inadequacy of the existing Title III model to properly equip districts to support newcomers. Second, it demonstrates the significant gains that can be made with adequate funding through an analysis of districts with a high proportion of newcomers that used COVID relief funding to better meet these students’ needs.

Drawing upon findings from qualitative interviews with district leaders and a document review of Title III and ARP ESSER expenditures across thirteen districts, I argue that the federal government should distribute Title III Immigrant subgrants on a formula basis, which would ensure newcomers receive equitable access to resources in any district they attend once they arrive to the United States and throughout the critical first few years in U.S. schools.

Funding Newcomer Education: the Landscape Before COVID

What is Title III?

The English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act—commonly referred to as Title III—is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), and was established under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and reauthorized by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA). Its purpose is to ensure districts have the support they need to implement effective language instruction and other programs so that English learners (ELs) and immigrant students can attain English proficiency and meet the same academic standards as their peers.⁵ To this end, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) distributes federal grants to state education agencies (SEAs), who then distribute subgrants to local education agencies (LEAs) that serve these students.

Figure 1

Once the amount appropriated for Title III is finalized each year, the secretary of education can reserve up to 7.5 percent of that total for ED to provide support to SEAs, to conduct research and evaluations, and to distribute to non-government organizations in the form of discretionary grants to support this work.⁶ The remainder of the funds are issued in grants to SEAs based on the following criteria:

a. The number of ELs in each state based on:

1. 1. data from the American Community Survey (ACS) ; or
   2. the number of students assessed for English language proficiency in that state; or
   3. a combination of 1 and 2.

b. The number of immigrant children based on ACS data.

Upon receipt of its allocation, states can then reserve up to 5 percent of their total allocation to provide professional development, consultation, evaluation, coordination, and technical assistance to LEAs, and the remaining funds must be reallocated as sub-grants to LEAs. Two types of subgrants are available for LEAs: a) English Language Acquisition (ELA) grants that aim to support the implementation of effective instructional programs and effective language instruction; and b) Title III Immigrant grants that aim to provide additional support to LEAs that receive an influx of immigrant children and youth compared to previous years.

States can reserve “not more than”’ 15 percent of their total allocation for Title III Immigrant subgrants to LEAs that have experienced a significant increase in the percentage or number of immigrant children and youth, as compared to the average of the two preceding fiscal years. That increase is defined by the SEA and adjusted as needed each year without approval from ED. The remaining funds are distributed to LEAs in the form of Title III ELA formula subgrants based on the number of ELs in each district.

How do core components of Title III grant allocations make it difficult to support newcomer students?

Eligibility

Like many other grant-based funding systems from the federal government, LEAs must demonstrate eligibility to receive Title III Immigrant funds from an SEA. However, some district leaders I’ve spoken to have pointed to the challenge of being eligible due to the “significant increase” requirement. This requirement is problematic because it limits the eligibility of districts to receive critical funds to start and sustain programs that meet the unique needs of newcomers in each community.

“Significant increase” is defined differently in each state. For example, in California, LEAs must meet at minimum a 2-percent increase in new immigrant students enrolling in the district from the previous two years in order to be eligible for the Title III Immigrant subgrant.

In other states, that threshold is different—and more complicated. According to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, a district may be eligible for a Title III Immigrant subgrant in FY22 year if: a) there are 100 or more eligible students in the district; b) at minimum, 25 percent of eligible students qualify as economically disadvantaged; c) the number of eligible students enrolled is “at least” ten more than the average of the previous two years; and d) the percent of eligible students enrolled is “at least” 15 percent higher than the average of the prior two years. By comparison, the Massachusetts eligibility criteria, including the percent increase in enrollment required, is higher and significantly more detailed than that required by the state of California, exacerbating the difficulty of receiving a subgrant in Massachusetts and districts’ ability to maintain programs for newcomer students.

The “significant increase” set by each state makes it difficult for many districts to meet the eligibility requirements for an immigrant subgrant. For example, Coppell Independent School District, a mid-sized school district northwest of Dallas, Texas, has a number of newcomer-serving programs, including programs to provide students with linguistically appropriate supplies on their first days in the district, Parent Collaborative classes, non-U.S. transcript evaluation services, and immigrant family advisory councils. Each of these programs was launched with Title III Immigrant funds, which the district secured for six years in a row. However, in the last two years, the district failed to sustain enough of an increase in newcomer student enrollment to maintain Title III Immigrant grant eligibility, losing that critical funding stream during the first two school years of the pandemic. Instead, it has had to rely on Title III ELA funds in some cases, as well as seeking other funding sources to sustain its pre-pandemic newcomer programs.

Oakland Unified School District, a large district in northern California, has also struggled to secure eligibility for Title III Immigrant funding. This district runs two schools that explicitly serve older newcomers: Oakland International High School—an Internationals Network of Public Schools location—and Rudsdale Newcomer High School. In addition to these specialized schools, Oakland runs district-wide programs, such as the Newcomer Wellness Initiative, that aims to improve attendance and increase retention and engagement, and has established new systems to strengthen intake processes, train all educators to support newcomers, provide social workers and clinicians on every campus, and collect and disaggregate data for newcomers.

The district initially used Title III Immigrant funds to start building out this work. However, due to the district falling just below the 2 percent newcomer enrollment increase in recent years (including throughout the pandemic), the district is no longer eligible to receive Title III Immigrant funds, and it has had to rely on private philanthropy and alternative state grants—such as supplemental and concentration grants under the Local Control Funding Formula—to sustain its newcomer programs.

Other subsections of Title III that dictate how to prioritize grant allocation further complicate districts’ chances at receiving funding for newcomers. According to Title III Section 3114(d)(2), the SEA receiving a Title III grant and awarding subgrants to LEAs:

• shall equally consider eligible entities that satisfy the required “sudden increase” but have limited or no experience in serving immigrant children and youth; and
• shall consider the quality of each local plan and ensure that each subgrant is of sufficient size and scope to meet the purposes of this funding.

The first stipulation is important because it indicates that the authors of this language were thoughtful and intentional enough to ensure that funding doesn’t only go to districts with an established history of supporting immigrant and refugee communities—such as large cities like Los Angeles or New York —but that districts who might never have supported newcomers before would also receive federal support to establish and develop those programs. In Coppell’s case, other Texas districts that have only recently worked with newcomers have been the recipients of recent Title III Immigrant grants in recent years, receiving critical technical and instructional support from the SEA to set those up. Unfortunately, this leaves Coppell and other districts that have already established those programs without the resources to sustain them, forcing them to find alternative funding sources to sustain their work.

Ultimately, all districts that serve newcomers and aim to create meaningful programming to meet their needs require sufficient funding to do so. Title III, in its current structure and at its present level of resources, fails to support them all.

The second stipulation here instructs SEAs to assess the local plans for Title III against other districts in its subgrant allocation, and ensure that each subgrant allocation is significant enough to make an impact. Indeed, this is also important for ensuring accountability and quality of programming at the LEA level. However, given that states have limited discretion to increase the allocation dedicated specifically to newcomers—which is capped at “not more than” 15 percent—that state for any reason can choose to use less than that, regardless of the number of qualifying newcomers in the state. This limits the amount of targeted newcomer funding in the pot, thereby potentially decreasing the number of LEAs that can get a grant or the size of those grants. As a result, districts within each state compete against each other for a limited amount of funding without assurance that they will receive that funding, even if they meet their state’s eligibility criteria.

Insufficient Funds

Finally, what underscores these challenges is an overarching insufficiency of funds. As demonstrated above, restrictive eligibility requirements and prioritization guidance create a zero-sum game, where some districts receive funding while others do not. Ultimately, all districts that serve newcomers and aim to create meaningful programming to meet their needs require sufficient funding to do so. Title III, in its current structure and at its present level of resources, fails to support them all.

Since its creation in 2002 with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), total Title III appropriations have remained relatively unchanged, despite the growth of the EL population by over 1 million during that same time period. According to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Title III appropriations have never risen above $800 million, even in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, when the effects of the pandemic were most disruptive to in-person learning for ELs.

A number of advocates and school-based practitioners have argued that school funding—especially for serving ELs and newcomers—is woefully inadequate. Even President Biden’s FY23 budget proposal to increase Title III by 35 percent from the 2021 enacted level would only marginally increase newcomer-specific financial support for districts, given the cap for immigrant student subgrants at 15 percent and restrictive eligibility requirements that aim to address sudden student growth.

Title III funds haven’t adequately allowed LEAs to sustainably support newcomer students. However, the ED’s influx of funding to states in response to the COVID pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to reassess school funding, with an eye toward equity in serving historically underserved student groups and centering community input in planning and implementation.

New Opportunities to Support Newcomers with ARP ESSER Funds

What Is ESSER?

In 2020 and 2021, Congress passed three stimulus bills that provided nearly $190.5 billion to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. States received funds from ESSER based on the same proportion that they would have received under ESEA Title I-A. States then distributed at least 90 percent of funds to LEAs based on each district’s proportional share of ESEA Title I-A funds. States were also allowed to reserve up to 10 percent of their ESSER allocation for emergency needs to address statewide issues responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds had the following legislative origins:

• The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed on March 27, 2020, provided $13.5 billion to the ESSER Fund.
• The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021 (CRRSA), passed on Dec. 27, 2020, provided $54.3 billion in supplemental ESSER funding, known as the ESSER II fund.
• The American Rescue Plan Act, passed on March 11, 2021, provided $122.7 billion in supplemental ESSER funding, known as the ESSER III (or ARP ESSER) fund.

For this report, I assessed the plans submitted by thirteen districts in order to receive ARP ESSER funds. Those plans are required to be posted publicly within thirty days of receiving federal funds.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, SEAs are required to reserve a portion of their ARP ESSER award to carry out the following activities: 5 percent to address learning loss, 1 percent for afterschool activities, 1 percent for summer learning programs, and 0.5 percent for administrative costs. Of the total amount allocated to each LEA, the LEA must reserve at least 20 percent of those funds to address learning loss through the implementation of evidence-based interventions and ensure that those interventions respond to students’ social, emotional, and academic needs and address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. To this end, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education released specific guidance to support LEAs who aim to spend ARP ESSER funds on students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, and ELs.

ARP ESSER guidance offers LEAs significant flexibility in their spending to respond to the needs of their communities, though that flexibility comes with checks. LEAs were required to engage community stakeholders in the development of their ARP ESSER plans to ensure the desires of the school community were prioritized in COVID spending, and they had to report which groups they met with and describe the meetings they held with each group they engaged. According to a recent commentary by the Migration Policy Institute, efforts by many LEAs to engage groups representing ELs, their parents, and immigrant families in their school community “appeared to be poorly planned, executed, and advertised.” Still, for those districts that serve a large newcomer population, these funds offer a new opportunity to invest in newcomers using data and community input to inform investments.

How did districts use ARP ESSER for newcomers?

Figure 2

In my document review of thirteen districts, I found:

• Only six explicitly named ELs in their plans⁷ (including multilingual learners and emergent bilinguals as alternative terms) and allocated a specific dollar amount for academic interventions and wraparound support for this student group;
• only three districts mentioned newcomers in their plans; and
• only one district named a specific dollar amount for their newcomer plans.

While just a handful of the districts that I reviewed have used COVID relief funding to support newcomers explicitly, those that did had spent years leveraging Title III Immigrant subgrants to work closely with their immigrant and refugee communities and develop ideas and plans for a variety of wraparound models and initiatives—including newcomer centers, robust multilingual family engagement practices, targeted evaluation metrics and teaching strategies, and staff positions to support specific immigrant and refugee populations.

Additionally, and most notably, these districts used data to make funding decisions that would meaningfully support their newcomer students—data that they have collected in a variety of ways to track the experiences and outcomes of newcomers, poising them to better understand their students’ unique needs and have a greater impact in the long run.

Figure 3

The following section demonstrates how three districts supported their newcomer students using ARP ESSER funding. These case studies are based on a combination of qualitative interviews with district leaders and a document review of district Title III appropriations and approved ARP ESSER plans, carried out by the author in the spring of 2022.

Case Study One: Montgomery County Public Schools (MD)

Demographic context: Montgomery County Public Schools is a large district in Maryland outside of the Washington, D.C. metro area where, according to the National Center for Education Statistics 2015–19 survey, approximately 40 percent of students in the district speak a language other than English.

How they leveraged ARP ESSER funds: According to Montgomery County’s approved ARP ESSER plan, the district chose to prioritize funds for newcomers by providing funding for the following services:

• $226,092 for Student and Family Support and Engagement: “Coordinates school-based services, aligns learning programs and works with Navigation Network for Newcomers to link students and their families/sponsors to wraparound supports and integrated services in and out of school, and leads data collection/analysis. Provides counseling, coordinates wraparound services and academy support for newcomers (Pre-K–12). Provides multilingual and culturally sensitive supports (acculturation, trauma, etc.). Position: Coordinator position for Unaccompanied Minors—1 full time employee at $113,046 for two years.”

Montgomery County is unique because it has identified that newcomers, particularly unaccompanied minors in the district, have particular needs that must be met by a committed, specially trained employee, and has accordingly dedicated a line item in its ARP ESSER plan explicitly to that employee to serve this group of students. Creating a position with specific duties designed to support the needs of unaccompanied minors demonstrates a clear commitment to serving the newcomer student population with these funds.

Case Study Two: Elk Grove Unified School District (CA)

Demographic context: Elk Grove Unified School District is the fifth largest school district in California and one of the largest refugee resettlement areas in the state. There are 129 languages spoken in the district, and there are two newcomer centers in areas of the district where a larger proportion of the newcomer communities reside, though there are newcomers all across the district.

Creating the right conditions to support newcomers: Elk Grove’s programs aim to serve newcomer students who are within their first three years of U.S. schooling and who speak a language other than English upon arrival. When a qualifying student enrolls in the district at one of the district’s welcoming centers, the Family and Community Engagement Department supports the student and family with their transition, gathers relevant information about their strengths and needs, and collaborates with the child’s teachers to leverage their assets in the classroom and ensure the student receives appropriate support.

The district’s newcomer work (including language development and transcript evaluation staff, refugee coordinators, data collection, and running newcomer programs and the centers) has historically been funded by Title III Immigrant grants. Most recently, Elk Grove used the 2020–21 Title III Immigrant grant to build relationships with community-based organizations (CBOs) and hire linguistically appropriate interpreters to support a large new community of Afghan refugees. However, without a new Title III Immigrant grant in the 2021–22 academic year, the district has turned to ARP ESSER funds to fill the gap.

How they leveraged ARP ESSER funds: According to Elk Grove’s approved ESSER plan, the district has dedicated $7.6 million for its EL students, naming newcomers in the description of those services below:

• $2.9 million for Continuous In-Person Learning EL Services: “Classified, certificated, staff will be acquired to provide targeted academic and social emotional supports within the school day, outside the school day, and programs to support multilingual and EL families. This will result in higher reclassification rates, lower LTEL population, inclusive practices for students identified as dually identified, accelerated access to core curriculum for refugees and newcomers, supplementary primary language, and comparative successful outcomes with same-age peers.”
• $4.7 million for Additional EL Services: “Certificated and classified staff, and material resources will be acquired to provide support for Family Teacher Academic Team training and meetings, targeted socioemotional and academic support for family education workshops, build capacity for family community liaisons, and expand services for newcomer and refugee students and families. These services will increase parental capacity to actively engage in their children’s education and support deeper school-home partnerships.”

Using data from families and newcomers collected in previous years, the Department of English Learner Services that runs newcomer programs advocated for ARP ESSER funds to be used this upcoming year to build two additional newcomer welcome centers that will have staff that speak a variety of different languages in need in the district, including Hmong, Vietnamese, Dhari, Farsi, Pashto, Mandarin, and Cantonese. The opening of these additional newcomer centers will allow Elk Grove to expand and improve its existing services in an urgent and timely manner, especially as the district is anticipating a large Ukrainian refugee community.

Tracking progress and measuring outcomes: As the district prepares to open these new centers for the 2022-23 school year, they are setting up data systems to assess new families’ access to these expanded services, the number of families served throughout the year, their experiences with the services provided, and if these services yield positive outcomes for students in the classroom. As has already been argued, tracking progress and measuring outcomes is what has allowed Elk Grove (and other districts) to make intentional investments to address student needs. The funds have allowed the district to hire enough EL coordinators in high density areas so that they can provide personalized supports for their long term English learners and newcomers, tailored to their needs and in their home language.

Where Title III allocations failed to support a district with a significant proportion of students who need specialized support services, Elk Grove found a way to sustain its work through COVID-relief funds. Reflecting on this process, the director of English learner services said this:

Just the acceleration of getting these new newcomer centers open is a huge help. We have been trying to do this for years… so we had done some planning, but now we had the acceleration of funds to do it and to prioritize [our newcomer students]. It helped, and it stoked a sense of urgency among all stakeholders so it wasn’t just my department [advocating for this], but we saw the need to support and welcome all newcomer students. This funding continues to make sure that newcomers and refugees are always included.

Case Study Three: Coppell Independent School District (TX)

Demographic context: Coppell Independent School District is a medium-sized school district northeast of Dallas that serves a large newcomer population predominantly from throughout the Asian continent and Pacific Islands. Because of this, the district has had to design its programs, processes, and services around its students and not depend on services from nearby districts, the majority of which predominantly serve students from Latin America.

Leveraging data to target, identify, and meet student needs: Years ago, Coppell administrators looked at data to determine where the greatest needs were in their student population that were not being met in classrooms. They found that students who were brand new to the United States and new to learning English needed a combination of English language development and wraparound supports to succeed alongside their U.S.-born, English-speaking peers. Since then, Coppell has actively identified students that meet this criteria and designed its newcomer programs to support social adjustment and English language development while emphasizing and celebrating the skills and strengths students already bring with them.

Like Elk Grove, all of the district’s newcomer work prior to the pandemic (including professional development for staff on the needs of newcomer students, transcript services for newcomer enrollment, family and community engagement, targeted summer programming, and welcoming programming for all newcomer enrollees) was funded by Title III Immigrant subgrants. However, now that the district has lost eligibility for those grants, it has turned to ARP ESSER funds to continue its programs.

How they leveraged ARP ESSER funds: According to its ARP ESSER plan (not a full plan, but what is publicly available and was confirmed by district officials), Coppell Independent School District is committing a significant amount of its ARP ESSER funds to run a month-long summer program over the next two years for newcomers, grades 1–12, who are at the early stages of their English language development. The elementary component will be hands-on with a focus on English proficiency acceleration. For secondary programming, the district is focusing on activities that help with language development within content-specific coursework for subjects like reading, math, social studies, and science. In total, the district has dedicated $97,000 in ARP ESSER funds for two years of newcomer summer programming, including the costs of transportation, meals, supplies, curriculum development for the program, staff pay, and all other costs to keep the program running. It is also earmarking $55,000 to continue its normal yearly academic programs in 2022–23 without Title III Immigrant subgrant funding. The district ran newcomer specific summer programming prior to losing Title III eligibility that helped students develop language skills, adjust to the U.S. education system, and supported their advancement in content.

Coppell, like Elk Grove, has had to advocate for the district to prioritize newcomers in its ARP ESSER decisions. The director of English as a second language/bilingual programs shared the following of the process:

When Immigrant Title III funds were cut, I told the Superintendent that we wouldn’t be able to provide summer programming for newcomer students and immigrant families because we were cut off. We used to have summer programming every year with that funding. I did that at a board meeting where there were parents, and those parents asked for it as advocates for their children, and at every meeting that I was at for the past year and a half, I reminded folks that there would be no summer programming for newcomer students because the funds were gone. After doing this throughout the pandemic, it was finally recommended that ARP ESSER funds go to summer programming for [our newcomers]. This summer will be the first time bringing them back since the pandemic started.

Tracking progress and measuring outcomes: While it is still quite early to assess the total impact of these investments on newcomers in Coppell, there are early signs of the impact on students during summer programming. ARP ESSER funds allowed the district to offer summer programming to every newcomer in grades 1 through 12. Already, students have demonstrated improved English language proficiency and academic gains from direct instruction in small groups. These gains have been summarized in progress reports for their schools and their families throughout the summer. District leaders have also seen students building relationships with their peers and staff and displaying greater confidence. Most importantly, district leaders noted high attendance across all grades, indicating both the importance of this program for the community and the value students derive from it. These progress reports will allow students and families to track and take ownership of their own growth. Additionally, continued data collection will allow Coppell to continue improving its summer offerings and continue to make the case that their summer program is essential to newcomer student success.

Lessons Learned from ESSER: We Need Sustainable Solutions

The acceleration of COVID-relief funds to districts and the flexibility offered to support underserved communities allowed these districts to accelerate existing plans and bring them to fruition more rapidly. They allowed the work to happen. But districts have made clear that they are concerned about the sustainability of these new or expanded programs funded by these short-term funding streams.

While these ARP ESSER funds have provided a unique opportunity to invest in newcomers during the pandemic, they are not a sustainable solution to the failures of Title III to meet newcomer students’ needs.

As a representative from Oakland said: “Everything that we’ve done will eventually run out. The maintenance of the programs that we have in place is what I’m prioritizing.” And as another interviewee noted, “going back” to the current system”—depending on Title III Immigrant funds that are inconsistent and “woefully inadequate based upon the outcomes that we still see in our classrooms”—”isn’t good enough for newcomers either.”

While these ARP ESSER funds have provided a unique opportunity to invest in newcomers during the pandemic, they are not a sustainable solution to the failures of Title III to meet newcomer students’ needs. Districts that have established systems for serving them—and those that don’t yet but are seeking guidance and resources to do so—need sufficient and sustainable options to serve students within their first years in U.S. schools. We can’t wait to fund this incredible work already happening in pockets across the country. Newcomers are in classrooms now. New funding solutions are needed to advance equity to newcomers and to provide sustainable options for LEAs doing that work.

Recommendations

Moving forward from the COVID pandemic, the federal government should adjust Title III in the following ways to meet the demonstrated needs of newcomers in classrooms across the country:

1. Formalize a federal definition for newcomers in Title III.

Advocates and practitioners agree that the Title III immigrant student definition is inadequate. The name fails to signal the inclusion of many students who could benefit from newcomer programming but may not describe themselves as “immigrants,” such as refugees and asylees. Further, it is often conflated with immigration status—putting undocumented students and their families at risk of discrimination and deportation.

In the absence of an adequate federal definition, states and districts have been left to create their own definitions. All of the districts interviewed for this report thought about and formalized a definition for their newcomers that allowed them to better support their students. Unfortunately this means that newcomers who move districts or states may not qualify for newcomer-specific services they received elsewhere. Setting a standard definition at the federal level is a necessary condition to ensure consistency in naming practices across SEAs and LEAs, further disaggregate and track outcome data, and inform policy and target supports to meet the specific student needs of newcomers, including when they move districts both within and across state borders. ED should also examine in this new definition whether or not three years is an appropriate or adequate window for “newcomer status” qualification.

2. Remove the proportions stipulated for ELA and Immigrant subgrants within an SEA’s total Title III allotment and establish a formula grant system for Title III Immigrant subgrants.

As demonstrated throughout this report, the existing funding model is restrictive, and due to the limited funds allowed for Immigrant subgrants and the eligibility criteria established by Title III for those grants, many SEAs create a de facto competitive grant process which leaves many LEAs with insufficient funding. The current law also caps the amount that can be used for Immigrant subgrants at 15 percent, which allows states to allocate less than that amount and prevents districts from accessing these crucial funds to develop and maintain important newcomer programs and services. Even without an updated federal newcomer definition, ED makes Title III allocation determinations based on the existing immigrant student definition that includes any new arrivals that have been in U.S. schools for less than three years. If immigrant students are eligible for special status at the federal level for up to three years, the student should receive targeted newcomer supports for the entirety of those three years (at the very least), when language development, social adjustment, and stability are critical.

A formula grant that bases its allocation on the number of students who qualify under Title III immigrant student status would allow all districts serving newcomers to make data-driven decisions and provide sustainable critical services from a baseline source that will be dependable throughout those students’ first years in the country. Additionally, with a formula system for both ELA and Immigrant subgrants, the law does not need to stipulate a cap for either so long as each SEA makes at least one of each grant each year and grants are distributed based on need for qualifying students in both categories.

3. Improve transparency on newcomer student outcomes by including newcomers in federal accountability systems.

ESSA already requires the collection of different data indicators for accountability purposes, and ED should disaggregate all collected indicators by newcomer status (with the new federal definition). At the federal level, this would allow ED (and other federal policymakers and advocates) to understand how newcomers are doing in schools systemically and inform policy to more meaningfully address newcomers’ needs.

At the local level, SEAs and LEAs must know those communities and their students and collect and track data to make smart and intentional investments in immigrant and refugee communities and better understand their academic and behavioral experiences in schools beyond just language needs. Each of the districts interviewed for this report has made data-driven funding decisions for newcomers based on robust data accountability systems that identify newcomers in order to track their outcomes and experiences. SEAs currently review district plans to ensure funds are aligned to the scope and intended outcomes of the work funded by Title III. With additional funds reaching LEAs to support newcomer student outcomes, we need better transparency about the effectiveness of those funds. In order to ensure that funding and programs are having the intended effect on outcomes, LEAs that aim to receive Title III Immigrant formula funding should be required to collect this data and make it available to all school, district, and state education officials to monitor and target funds. Finally, any LEA submitting Title III Immigrant spending plans to SEAs should intentionally address this data to justify items in their spending proposals in order to receive subgrants.

4. Boost the total Title III allotment.

In order to address learning gaps and meet the social emotional needs of ELs, newcomers, and all subgroups of ELs such as long term ELs and students with limited or interrupted formal education, we must commit to equitably funding them. As of 2019, there are about 5.1 million ELs in the United States, and there are an estimated 1 million newcomers (many of whom are dually identified as ELs) according to the latest biennial report to Congress. Cost studies that assess EL education estimate that districts need 39 to 200 percent more or an additional $41 to $700 per EL to provide equitable supports for ELs. There are currently no estimates for the additional investments needed to support newcomers, but we can use the aforementioned ranges as proxies to provide consistency for Title III allocations across both subgrants. As such, Congress should change the calculation that determines the total Title III allotment by weighing the national per-pupil expenditure (about $13,185, according to the Education Data Initiative) with a percentage that falls in the recommended range divided by the total enrollment of ELs and newcomers from the previous year. This new formula would increase the total Title III allotment far beyond President Biden’s FY23 Title III proposal of $1.1 billion and would give ED sufficient funds to increase per-pupil support for ELs and newcomers in all districts that support them.

5. Establish an emergency fund for unexpected increases in newcomer enrollment.

Title III Immigrant grants were initially established to address these sudden influxes of new students, often due to external causes such as refugee crises or mass migration due to war or climate displacement. However, as the newcomer population grows as a larger proportion of our students, it’s important to have a baseline source of funding to meet their needs throughout their first years and establish a separate emergency use fund that is distributed at the discretion of the secretary to address sudden influxes and assist districts in adapting to community changes while maintaining services for those students already in the district.

Project SERV (School Emergency Response to Violence) and the Disaster Recovery Unit (DRU) are similar models housed in ED that have been employed to aid districts responding to unexpected emergencies that impact the learning environment and normal school functions, such as the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas and hurricanes in Florida and Puerto Rico in 2017. LEAs that apply for grants to support unexpected increases in newcomer enrollment should collaborate with community based organizations to coordinate culturally and linguistically responsive and appropriate spending and implementation to meet the needs of incoming families, as well as other relevant state and federal organizations that contribute to the ecosystem of assistance in these situations, such as relevant divisions within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, etc. This emergency pool of funding can enable districts to respond to influxes when they happen without having to stretch the funds that maintain long-term programming.

As we approach the time to reauthorize ESSA, it is time for the federal government to demonstrate its commitment to newcomer immigrant and refugee communities by ensuring that their children get the support that they need to learn and grow and flourish in U.S. schools

Conclusion

LEAs should be able to access funding to build the social and programmatic infrastructure to support incoming newcomer students in their district, as well as to maintain funding for staff and program sustainability over time. If states distribute funding to all LEAs that serve newcomer students, and do not base their allocation decisions on restrictive eligibility requirements, then LEAs will be able to invest in long-term sustainable equity for newcomer immigrant students immediately when they arrive, and throughout their first years in U.S. schools.

Budgets are documents that clearly demonstrate our values. As we approach the time to reauthorize ESSA, it is time for the federal government to demonstrate its commitment to newcomer immigrant and refugee communities by ensuring that their children get the support that they need to learn and grow and flourish in U.S. schools. This is a critical education equity issue. As the first major institution that students encounter upon their arrival to the U.S., it is our duty to equip schools with meeting that challenge for every child to thrive.

Methodology

Using American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2015 to 2019, as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), I downloaded data files from each state and consolidated relevant inputs using STATA, creating a large spreadsheet of data organized by district. I chose to focus on “Foreign-born as Share of Total Enrollment” as a primary input, and filtered districts in the highest 10 percent of that category (top 1100). Within the highest for foreign-born as share of total enrollment, I tried to choose districts from a range of enrollment size, from tiny to some of the largest in the United States, and tried to ensure there was geographic diversity in my selection. Finally, I looked at the inputs that reveal which regions new students came from and the primarily languages spoken at home in those districts (other than English), to ensure that the ethnic, racial, and linguistic diversity of the students in the districts I chose for this report was widely representative of the diverse immigrant and refugee population in our classrooms across the country.

Once I settled on my list of thirteen districts, I sought to understand the newcomer funding landscape in each of these districts prior to and throughout the pandemic by checking the Title III allocations for each of these districts in the last three years and assessing their ARP ESSER plans. My goal was to understand how those districts used their relatively flexible COVID relief funds to support their student communities, especially newcomers. My hypothesis was that if districts have a high proportion of newcomers, they would be more likely to use this new funding to invest in support systems that are linguistically and culturally relevant for those students. From this, I conducted my analysis.

Acknowledgements

This report could not have come together without the help of Francisco Miguel Araiza who assisted with data cleaning, analysis, and multiple rounds of feedback; Lucy Bollinger from Elk Grove Unified School District, Tom Felix from Oakland Unified School District, and Dr. Patricia Dawson from Coppell Independent School District for their useful insight and plethora of knowledge shared during qualitative interviews; Julie Sugarman from the Migration Policy Institute and Levi Bonahan, a Next100 alum, for their expert feedback on different parts of this report; and the TCF team for their editorial and production support to make this report come to life.

1. The percentage of all 16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and do not have a high school diploma or an alternative credential, such as a GED.
2. Author’s conversations with students and school administrators between 2017 and 2022.
3. The U.S. Department of Education uses the term “immigrant students” defined by Title III Sec. 3201(5) as students who are aged 3 through 21, were not born in any U.S. state, and have not attended any U.S. school for more than three full years.
4. ESSA Title III Sec. 3111(c)(2)(A)(ii). https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/school-support-and-accountability/essa-legislation-table-contents/title-iii-part-a/#TITLE-III-PART-A
5. ESSA Title III Part A Sec. 3102. https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/school-support-and-accountability/essa-legislation-table-contents/title-iii-part-a/#TITLE-III-PART-A
6. ESSA Title III Part A Sec. 3111(c). https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/school-support-and-accountability/essa-legislation-table-contents/title-iii-part-a/#TITLE-III-PART-A
7. Note: U.S. ED explicitly named ELs in the list of underrepresented student subgroups for which LEAs are advised to implement programs to support.