A new analysis of federal money that public schools receive for low-income students shows that a record number of the nation’s school districts will receive less in the coming academic year than they did for theone just ended.

　　For the 2005-2006 school year, spending under the Department of Education’s Title I program, which helps low-achieving children in high-poverty areas, is increasing by 3.2 percent, to $12.6 billion. But because of population shifts, growing numbers of poor children, newer census data and complex formulas that determine how the money is divided, more than two-thirds of the districts, or 8,843, will not receive as much financing as before.

　　The analysis, based on data from the department, was made by the Center on Education Policy, a group advocating for public schools. A similar study by the group last year showed that 55 percent of the schools would receive less money than they did in the previous year.

　　“It’s an alarming number,” said Tom Fagan, a former department official who conducted the analysis. “It’s clear that the amount of overall increase is not keeping pace with the number of poor kids.”

　　Susan Aspey, a department spokeswoman, defended the spending levels for Title I，saying, “President Bush and Congress have invested record amounts of funding to help the nation’s neediest students.”

　　But Mr. Fagan said the increasing number of districts that are losing money is making it harder for the schools to meet the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush administration’s signature education program, which measures progress through annual tests in math, reading and science. That is giving critics of the program more grounds to accuse the administration of not sufficiently financing the program while demanding greater results.

　　Title I provides the largest component of financing for No Child Left Behind.

　　“The federal government is concentrating more money in fewer districts," said John F. Jennings, the president and chief executive of the Center on Education Policy. “It means there is lots of anger and lots of tension. They’re asking us to do more and more with less and less.”