Broadcast on WTSP on Aug. 18, 2015.

On Tuesday, Aug. 18, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor sent a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan regarding the Tampa Bay Times' report which raises very serious questions regarding Pinellas County Schools' use of Title I dollars.

Castor is requesting that the Department of Education review "the crisis in our local schools and help the students of South St. Petersburg have an equal opportunity to receive the tools they need to be successful."

Castor, the Tampa Democrat whose district includes part of south Pinellas County, said in the letter that the Times' story detailed how some schools win and some schools lose in Pinellas. The most troubling part, she says, is that it appears Pinellas County School District may be shortchanging the schools in South St. Petersburg through a possible shell game of Title 1 dollars.

Castor is requesting that the Department of Education review "the crisis in our local schools and help the students of South St. Petersburg have an equal opportunity to receive the tools they need to be successful."

The Times investigation, "Failure Factories," detailed how the district abandoned integration efforts in 2007, then failed to follow through with promised new resources for schools that became mostly black and poor.Today, the county's most segregated schools — Campbell Park, Fairmount Park, Lakewood, Maximo and Melrose elementaries — are failing at rates far worsethan almost any other schools in the state.

Teachers are also hard to retain in those schools. The Times investigation revealed that 52 percent of teachers at those five schools requested a transfer last year and Fairmount Park lost more than 10 percent of teachers that year. The teachers who have stayed have worked less time in the field than the district average.

Castor says that without experienced and stable teachers, she believes that these students and schools are not receiving "comparable resources" which is a fundamental requirement of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).