What They Are Saying: All Children Are Equal (ACE) Act

An unlikely ally, the Center for American Progress (CAP) today wrote a great article on the ACE Act, bipartisan legislation I recently introduced to address inequities with Title I education funding. Most recently authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Title I dollars support children living in concentrated poverty. Unfortunately, the current formula has the perverse effect of diverting funding from higher poverty school districts to more populous school districts, regardless of the actual poverty rates.  In addition to the CAP article, the Erie Times today announced their support for the ACE Act through an editorial, “Thompson's education bill makes sense.” 

From the Center For American Progress: 

“…A wide variety of groups supports the All Children are Equal Act. Naturally this includes groups whose members stand to gain should the bill become law. But groups such as the National Alliance of Black School Educators or the American Association of School Administrators represent education professionals scattered across districts of every size. Because the bill tempers large districts’ funding advantage, there must be something beyond the calculus of winners and losers in play. Perhaps the idea that all children are equal is alive and well, and as important as it was when President Johnson signed ESEA as a flagship program in the war on poverty…”

From the Erie Times: 

“U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson's "All Children are Equal Act" ought to be called the "All Children Should Be Equal Act," considering they clearly are not treated as equals in many ways. But Thompson's bill makes a lot of sense… The bill, which has not reached a vote in either the House or Senate, would restructure how the federal government distributes Title I funding, giving more dollars to smaller districts...Title I funds are the largest pool of federal funds targeting poor students in elementary and secondary schools… Thompson deserves credit for the bill perhaps mostly because it's a creative attempt to help districts that have been subject to huge state cuts as states reel from big deficits related mostly to the national recession…”

It’s time we all recognize that a Title I eligible child should not be put at a disadvantage because of where he or she lives and how big or small their school district is – all children should be equal. I want to thank CAP and the Erie Times for taking the time to review and learn more about this important legislation.  

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