ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997              TAG: 9704230057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: C-6  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

SCHOOL AID TO RISE 7 PERCENT VIRGINIA TO RECEIVE OVER $108 MILLION

Officials say the increase reflects greater support by Congress to get aid to poverty areas.

Federal money to help poor children learn math and reading will rise 7 percent next school year, with 16 states getting a double-digit boost, the Education Department said Tuesday.

The grant total will increase from $6.7 billion to $7.1 billion with most of the money designated for districts with high concentrations of poor children.

Virginia is to receive $108,448,457, an 8.82 percent increase from last year. The changes reflect greater support by Congress for targeting the aid to poverty areas and an increase in the estimate of how many children live in poverty, officials said.

Most states will get more money than in the past. The increases are most dramatic for Connecticut, getting 29 percent more, and Massachusetts, getting nearly a 20 percent boost.

Fourteen other states will get double-digit increases, including Arizona, California and Florida, all of which have seen their immigrant populations rise.

For 14 states and Puerto Rico, the amount of aid under the so-called Title I program will drop. The biggest decline would be for Iowa, which will get 6.22 percent less.

The grant money helps pay for teachers, summer programs, curricular changes and other help for children.

``There's good news that we're moving the money,'' said Mary Jean LeTendre, head of Title I at the Education Department. ``The not-so-good news is that there's a lot more poor kids out there than there were before.''

The distribution is based on a mixture of outdated 1990 census data and some 1994 updates, which have not been approved by a scientific advisory panel.

In 1994, Congress called for the use of updated Census estimates in distributing Title I money. Without that requirement, money would be sent out for next year based on poverty estimates taken in 1989, before a national recession.

But a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, which advises Congress, has raised questions about the 1994 Census Bureau model for updating estimates. The panel recommended using a blend of both estimates for sending out the 1997-1998 school year funds.

LENGTH: Medium:   54 lines