I am a Title 1 tutor. Two years ago, I was fortunate to be assigned to third grade only at my building. Our team was composed of two regular teachers, one IEP teacher, one paraprofessional, and myself. We made great strides in increasing the achievement of our children on measured assessments; more importantly, we achieved an almost magical “flow” during the school day. A visitor to our classrooms would be hard-pressed to determine the “real” teachers from the support staff. Unfortunately, this scenario is no longer possible. Although our district’s Title 1 budget has INCREASED substantially, especially with the introduction of the federal stimulus money, our Title 1 staff has been reduced to the point that I am currently servicing 4 grade levels and providing small group intervention for 30-minute blocks with students from 9 different classrooms. In the meantime, we have additional staff whose salaries are paid through Title 1 but they are paid with professional development funds and are not ALLOWED to work directly with children!I always thought that Title 1 was meant to serve children of poverty directly. It is time for policymakers to listen to the people who work with children on a daily basis and consider that a lot of good learning IS taking place before they decide to put budget constraints on districts.