District hasn't updated poverty data in seven years New income data likely would boost federal Title I money for the district's and nation's poorest students by Joy Loube The reason is that the school district has not updated school-level poverty data in nearly seven years, and the student body at Anton Grdina — and other Cleveland schools — has grown poorer since then. In August, the U.S. Census ranked Cleveland the nation's poorest big city for the second time in three years.
While the district bases its Title I distribution to Grdina on an 85 percent poverty rating, student enrollment is much closer to 100 percent poverty, asserts Pamela Hummer, the teachers union representative at Grdina. The school is situated in the Garden Valley Estates public housing project near East 79th Street and Kinsman Avenue.

Similarly, the district currently bases Title I distributions to Wade Park, Franklin Roosevelt and Paul Revere on 84 percent poverty ratings, according to a "Building eligibility" form submitted to the state and federal governments. Like Grdina, those schools are located in the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Data from other sources indicate that poverty has increased in the neighborhoods surrounding these schools in the last seven years. "The child population accepting food stamps is really going up," says Lisa Nelson, associate director for community information at the Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change at Case Western Reserve University. "It doesn't surprise me, because the economy was much better in 2000."

School poverty ratings are based on income forms that parents fill out to qualify for free and reduced-priced lunch. Federal officials say they should be collected annually.

District officials say they are aware of the need to collect new data but that it is tough to do. With student mobility rates at 30 percent, the number of pupils changing schools during the semester makes collecting reliable data difficult, says Dan Minnich, a district spokesman.


After Catalyst asked the district about the old information in June, it announced in August a plan to update data for all schools in 2007-08. That news came after a U.S. Census report declared Cleveland the nation's poorest large city for second time in three years.

In 1999, the district first took advantage of a federal rule that allows districts with 60 percent or more its students in poverty to serve free lunches to all students. Since then, the district has identified itself as being at 100 percent poverty to the state. However, to allocate Title I funding to individual schools equitably, they must use individual school poverty ratings.

Typically, half of Title I funds go to districtwide programs — that's about $21.5 million in Cleveland, explains Kim Hicks, a U.S. Department of Education Title I specialist. Outdated poverty data means the remaining funds are not allocated equitably to the schools with the greatest needs. Hicks noted a similar situation in Brownsville schools in Texas.

While Cleveland continues to use the same poverty data schools collected seven years ago, Ohio's other urban districts, such as Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus, have each reported poverty increases of up to 8 percent since 2003. As a result, schools like Lincoln Park Elementary in Columbus now receive $50,000 more in federal funds because poverty rose from 89 to 96 percent since 2003.