Number of Children Left Behind

While federal money for students has increased substantially since the passage of NCLB, some advocates and research groups claim that there are still millions of children that are, in fact, being "left behind" because they are not receiving necessary funds. Title I funding, the largest expenditure under NCLB, and low-income child counts are used as the basis to calculate the number of children left behind. The calculations are commonly done using two different methods which are explained in detail below.

Calculating the number is somewhat controversial, because it relies upon the assumption that Congress should be meeting the fully authorized level of NCLB every year, even though authorized amounts are usually guidelines and not actual funding instructions. Whether or not one thinks the number of children left behind is a valid number, it is useful to understand how it is calculated and what it means.

Calculation Based on Census Data

One way of calculating the number of children that are not served by Title I grants is to use U.S. census data to determine the number of impoverished children in the country that are old enough to attend either primary or secondary school. This is how many individuals should ideally be receiving NCLB funds.

Assessing how many students are actually covered by NCLB requires taking the total amount of Title I funding appropriated by Congress and dividing it by 40 percent of the national average per pupil expenditure on education (NCLB's proxy figure for the additional costs associated with the extra education needs of disadvantaged children). The difference between the total number of children from the census data and the number of students covered by the appropriated funds represents the number of children that are left behind. This math is presented in equation form below:

Using data from FY2006, the number of children left behind was around 4.2 million:

This 4.2 million figure represents the difference between the total number of impoverished school-age children and the number of students that are covered by allocated federal education funds, assuming each child receives the average amount. In other words, there are roughly 8 million impoverished school-age children, while available funds cover around 3.2 million children. The difference, 4.2 million, represents the number of children that are "left behind" because they are not covered under the current amount of appropriated Title I funds.

One flaw in this calculation is that the cost of educating children in different parts of the country varies by region. Therefore, the amount of money needed to cover additional impoverished children may be above or below the national average, meaning

Calculation Based on Authorized vs. Appropriated Funding

A slightly different way to calculate the number of children left behind is to find the difference between the amount of funding Congress is authorized to spend and the amount actually appropriated for NCLB. Dividing this difference by 40 percent of the national average per pupil expenditure then yields the number of children that should have been covered given the money appropriated, but were not. This equation is presented below:

Using data from FY2006, the number of children left behind using this method was just over 4 million.

This number implies that an additional 4 million children would be covered under NCLB if Congress actually funded it at the level authorized under law.

While these numbers are not without flaws, their similarity reveals a concerning fact: Despite the funding increases brought about under NCLB, there are still millions of low income children that are underserved by the very program designed to ensure they were not "left behind."