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January 28 marked the last day that schools could spend most of their federal COVID-relief funds—the largest one-time education appropriation in history. The very next day, the nation’s report card delivered sobering news: Student achievement largely remains stagnant or in decline. With pandemic relief dollars largely gone and academic recovery still elusive, schools are entering a defining moment—one that calls for bold action in the wake of severe budget cuts.

Fortunately, federal funding structures include a little-used tool for sustaining student support programs. Title I, which provides billions in funding for schools serving low-income students, includes a provision allowing states to set aside up to 3 percent of their allocations for direct student services, including tutoring and other high-impact interventions. This funding could be a lifeline to the all-too-recently defunded programs making the biggest impact on the most vulnerable students. 

This provision requires no new funding yet remains largely untapped. Policymakers and education leaders have long pointed to the 3% state set-aside in Title I as a way to sustain critical interventions, but few states have taken full advantage of it. Instead, they simply add it to the money they share with districts.

But with pandemic-era funds largely depleted and budgets tightening, this overlooked mechanism offers a rare opportunity: preserving the programs that have made the greatest impact without forcing districts into painful trade-offs.

For now, Title I appears to be a stable source of federal funding, with regular increases each year. Even when the Trump administration moved to halt federal funding last month, Title I stayed online. Since 1980, allocations to districts have grown by an average of 4.2% a year. This steady rise creates a practical opportunity: A state could allocate its full 3 percent set-aside for direct student services while still increasing district funding, at least in nominal dollars.

For example, if all states had reserved the complete 3% entitled in 2023, they would have had $552 million to continue supporting direct student services and still raised allocations to districts by $639 million. And 2023 allocations weren’t an anomaly. As Figure 1 shows, growth exceeds 3% in most years, with 24 of the past 43 years surpassing this mark and 11 others showing growth below 3%.

However, even looking at the worst years for Title I growth, it is still feasible to build toward the 3% allocation over a series of years. A state could gradually build up to that level, taking 1% initially and then additional shares in two subsequent years. The transition would be helped by the fact that a districts’ Title I allocations fluctuate from year to year reflecting changes in the U.S. Census Bureau estimates of the number of eligible children in each district.

Ohio is already leveraging the set-aside allocation with its Expanding Opportunities for Each Child grant. The program directs funding toward high-dosage tutoring, advanced coursework, career pathways, personalized learning, and academic acceleration, aligning with local improvement plans to improve student outcomes. 

Districts have leveraged this grant funding to introduce Advanced Placement and College Credit Plus courses, expanding access to high-level curriculum that were previously out of reach. At the same time, the grant has helped establish career pathways that expose students—some as early as middle school—to high-demand industries, giving them a head start on college and career readiness. 

These investments not only accelerate learning but also work to close long-standing opportunity gaps, illustrating the potential of targeted Title I set-aside spending to drive meaningful change.

Beyond successful state examples, the Council of Chief State School Officers has published a guide addressing the logistics of implementing the set-aside allocations. The guide also details how, with proper planning and careful communication, states can use this money as a powerful lever for filling gaps in critical supports, like intensive tutoring and wraparound services. Done right, this is more than just financial maneuvering; it’s a blueprint for how federal education policy can be both ambitious and effective.

The expiration of the $190 billion in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding marks a natural transition, but it need not mean the end of direct student services, such as tutoring programs, that have proven valuable to mitigating pandemic-era learning loss. 

By leveraging year-over-year increases in Title I funding, states can establish a sustainable mechanism to continue these services without reducing district budgets. This approach balances our commitment to students with our responsibility to districts, ensuring that we move forward in a way that is both effective and equitable.

The end of ESSER doesn’t have to mean the end of targeted academic support. But making the most of existing resources requires political will. The question is whether states will act before students fall even further behind.

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