[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SUPPLEMENTAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
UNDER THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT:
HOW TO IMPROVE QUALITY AND ACCESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 18, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-20
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
Chairman California,
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
David Wu, Oregon Ric Keller, Florida
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Susan A. Davis, California John Kline, Minnesota
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Kenny Marchant, Texas
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Tom Price, Georgia
Linda T. Sanchez, California Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Louisiana
David Loebsack, Iowa Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania York
John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky Rob Bishop, Utah
Phil Hare, Illinois David Davis, Tennessee
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Timothy Walberg, Michigan
Joe Courtney, Connecticut Dean Heller, Nevada
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan, Chairman
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Michael N. Castle, Delaware,
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Susan A. Davis, California Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Judy Biggert, Illinois
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
Linda T. Sanchez, California Rob Bishop, Utah
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Ric Keller, Florida
David Loebsack, Iowa Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
Phil Hare, Illinois Louisiana
Lynn C. Woolsey, California John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas York
Dean Heller, Nevada
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 18, 2007................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Castle, Hon. Michael N., Senior Republican Member,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary
Education.................................................. 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Fortuno, Hon. Luis G., a Resident Commissioner from the
Territory of Puerto Rico, letter for the record............ 70
Kildee, Hon. Dale E., Chairman, Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.............. 1
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby,'' a Representative in Congress
from the State of Virginia, questions for the record....... 80
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, submission for the record:
Prepared statement of Steven Pines, executive director,
Education Industry Association......................... 84
Statement of Witnesses:
Ashby, Cornelia M., Director of Education, Workforce, and
Income Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability
Office..................................................... 5
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Response to questions for the record..................... 81
Chafin, Ann E., assistant State superintendent for student,
family and school support, Maryland State Department of
Education.................................................. 30
Prepared statement of.................................... 32
Response to questions for the record..................... 82
Murray, Ruth D., director, Federal grants, Newport News
Public Schools............................................. 43
Prepared statement of.................................... 45
Response to questions for the record..................... 83
Piche, Dianne M., executive director, Citizens' Commission on
Civil Rights............................................... 47
Prepared statement of.................................... 49
Roberts, Monica M., director, office of Federal and State
programs, Boston Public Schools............................ 34
Prepared statement of.................................... 36
SUPPLEMENTAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
UNDER THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT:
HOW TO IMPROVE QUALITY AND ACCESS
----------
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary and Secondary Education
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:32 a.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dale Kildee
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Kildee, Scott, Kucinich, Davis of
California, Grijalva, Holt, Sarbanes, Sestak, Loebsack, Hirono,
Woolsey, Hinojosa, Castle, Ehlers, Biggert, Fortuno, Platts,
Keller, and Heller.
Staff present: Aaron Albright, Press Secretary; Alice Cain,
Senior Education Policy Advisor (K-12); Lloyd Horwich, Policy
Advisor for Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and
Secretary Education; Lamont Ivey, Staff Assistant, Education;
Jill Morningstar, Education Policy Advisor; Joe Novotny, Chief
Clerk; Lisette Partelow, Staff Assistant, Education; Rachel
Racusen, Deputy Communications Director; Theda Zawaiza, Senior
Disability Policy Advisor; James Bergeron, Deputy Director of
Education and Human Services Policy; Kathryn Bruns, Legislative
Assistant; Steve Forde, Communications Director; Victor Klatt,
Staff Director; Chad Miller, Professional Staff; and Linda
Stevens, Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General Counsel.
Chairman Kildee [presiding]. Good morning. A quorum being
present, the hearing of the subcommittee will come to order.
Pursuant to committee rule 12-A, any member may submit an
opening statement in writing, which will be made part of the
permanent record.
I will now recognize myself followed by Governor Castle.
Before I begin my opening statement, I want to extend the
committee's thoughts and prayers to the members of the Virginia
Tech community as they grieve their losses and they seek to
move forward. It is something that touches everyone. No man or
no person is an island. And we all extend our thoughts and
prayers and condolences.
I am pleased to welcome my fellow subcommittee members, the
public, and our witnesses today, some of whom have been here
before. And we appreciate that. We are having this hearing on
``Supplemental Educational Services Under the No Child Left
Behind Act: How to Improve Quality and Access.''
Including supplemental educational services in the No Child
Left Behind Act was a significant addition. And implementation
of those provisions has presented many challenges at the
federal, state and local level.
And today's hearing will play a critical role in the
committee's efforts to understand how these provisions are
working and whether they can be better implemented or improved
so that the law's goal of providing every student with a world-
class education, a goal we all share, can be realized.
Last August our first witness, the Government
Accountability Office, found, among other things, that states
and school districts needed much more assistance from the
Department of Education to fully and successfully implement
these services. Today GAO will testify that the department has
made progress in that area.
I also look forward to hearing from our state and district
witnesses, whether they have seen that progress on the ground.
We will hear from the state of Maryland about its efforts to
ensure quality services and to reach out to parents and also
about the challenges states face in ensuring access in rural
areas and for students with special needs.
As many of you know, since 2005, the Department of
Education has established two pilot projects concerning
supplemental educational services. And we are fortunate to have
with us a participant from each pilot.
The Boston Public Schools will describe their experience
with the pilot that allowed school districts in need of
improvement to continue acting as service providers and how
that affected both the quality and access to supplemental
services. And Newport News will tell us about having switched
the order of public school choice and supplemental services so
that supplemental services were offered first.
Both of these pilot projects represent important issues for
us to discuss during reauthorization. And I am pleased we have
the opportunity to hear directly from these participants.
Finally, the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights will give
us what they describe as both the good and bad news about
implementation, that while parents generally are satisfied,
there also remains much work to do to increase access. Of
course, one challenge that has been ongoing for 5 years is
funding. We owe it to our children to ensure that their schools
have the resources and support to provide them with the
education they need and deserve.
Since 2002, Congress and the President have under-funded No
Child Left Behind by $56 billion. And the President's proposed
budget for 2008 would under-fund the law by another $15 billion
for a total of $71 billion. However, I am hopeful with this
Congress we will start to do better.
I look forward to working with my ranking member, Mr.
Castle, our full committee chairman, and the ranking member,
Mr. Miller and Mr. McKeon, and with all the members of the
committee on bipartisan reauthorization of NCLB.
I now yield to Ms. Biggert for her opening statement.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I will actually read Mr. Castle's opening statement. And he
will be along. We had a schedule conflict this morning with our
conference and this hearing since everything was changed from
yesterday.
So I would like to thank my colleagues for joining me here
today for the latest in our series of hearings on No Child Left
Behind.
As always, I would like to thank our chairman, Mr. Kildee,
for his continued dedication to hearing from education leaders
around the country and all of you for being here today to
testify.
Today's hearing will examine the challenges and successes
of the implementation of the supplemental educational services
provisions under the No Child Left Behind Act and focus on ways
Congress can help to improve quality and access to these
services.
Under No Child Left Behind, students attending Public
Schools that do not make adequate yearly progress for 3
consecutive years have the right to take advantage of the free
supplemental services. Although the number of students
benefiting from SES is gradually increasing, I remain concerned
about the low overall rate of participation in these important
services. Today I hope we can examine how to increase this
level of participation.
Throughout the reorganization of NCLB, we must continue to
explore the best ways to help students by looking at how the
performance of private tutoring providers can be evaluated, how
we can ensure that private tutoring companies are aligned with
the school districts they are working with, and what role the
school district can play in providing students supplemental
services when the district has been identified as in need of
improvement.
I am certain this hearing will build upon the previous
hearings in this series. And I am eager to hear the unique
perspectives of our witnesses. And I extend a warm welcome to
them.
And I see that the Ranking Member Castle, has joined us. I
have just read his statement.
But you might like to add a few words to that. And I yield
the balance of my time.
Mr. Castle. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
That was a brilliant statement you read, by the way.
[Laughter.]
I would just like to thank you for that.
The only thing I would add to it is I just consider these
services to be of vital importance. To me they are the link
between the schools which are not making adequate yearly
progress and those which are. And I think we need to do
everything in our power to make sure these are being provided
as well as we can.
I look forward to the hearing. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Castle follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education
Good morning. I'd like to thank my colleagues for joining me here
today for the latest in our series of hearings on the No Child Left
Behind Act. As always, I'd like to thank our Chairman, Mr. Kildee, for
his continued dedication to hearing from education leaders around the
country, and all of you for being here to testify today.
Today's hearing will examine the challenges and successes of the
implementation of the supplemental educational services (or SES)
provisions under the No Child Left Behind Act, with a focus on ways
Congress can help to improve quality and access to these services.
Under No Child Left Behind, students attending public schools that
do not make adequate yearly progress (or AYP) for three consecutive
years have the right to take advantage of free supplemental services.
While the number of students benefiting from SES is gradually
increasing, I remain concerned about the low overall rate of
participation in these important services. Today I hope we can examine
how to increase this level of participation.
Throughout the reauthorization of NCLB, we must continue to explore
the best ways to help students by looking at how the performance of
private tutoring providers can be evaluated, how we can ensure that
private tutoring companies are aligned with the school districts they
are working with, and what role the school district can play in
providing students supplemental services when the district has been
identified as in need of improvement.
I'm certain this hearing will build upon the previous hearings in
this series, and I am eager to hear the unique perspectives of our
witnesses--and I extend a warm welcome to them.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Biggert.
Thank you, Governor Castle. I appreciate it.
We work very well together on this committee. We have done
our best work in a bipartisan way. And the two people who have
just spoken have proven their desire and eagerness to work in a
bipartisan way and have a great record.
And I thank you for that.
Without objection, all members will have 7 calendar days to
submit additional materials or questions for the hearing
record.
I would like to introduce the very distinguished panel we
have before us this morning.
Cornelia Ashby, who has been here a number of times, is
Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security for the
Government Accountability Office. Ms. Ashby joined GAO in 1973.
In 1992, she was selected for GAO's senior executive candidate
development program and in 1994 was appointed an associate
director for education and employment issues. She began her
current position in the year 2000.
Ann Chafin is Maryland's assistant state superintendent of
the division of student, family, and school support overseeing
Title I master planning, school improvement, student services,
and youth development. Previously Ms. Chafin was the state's
Title I director where she oversaw hundreds of millions of
dollars in federal and state aid for at-risk students.
Monica Roberts is the director of federal and state
programs for the Boston Public Schools where she is responsible
for the district's compliance with the No Child Left Behind
Act, administration of supplemental educational services, and
financial resource development. Ms. Roberts is also a graduate
of the Boston Public Schools.
And I would yield at this time to Bobby Scott to introduce
the next witness.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank you for mentioning Virginia Tech. Yesterday
both of our U.S. senators and nine of the 11 House members were
at Virginia Tech at the ceremony with the president and our
governor. And we appreciate your reference.
I appreciate also your allowing me to introduce Ms. Murray
from Newport News, which is located in my district. She is the
director of federal grants for Newport News Public Schools. She
has an educational specialist degree from George Washington
University as well as a master's degree in reading from the
University of Tennessee and a bachelor's degree in early
childhood and elementary education from Carson-Newsome College.
She worked in Title I programs for 10 years and served as
both a principal and teacher in the Newport News Public School
system. Newport News has been particularly successful in
implementing supplemental educational services.
And I would like to thank Ms. Murray for traveling here
today to provide her testimony about these successes. And we
look forward to hearing her recommendations. So I hope that we
can benefit from the Newport News experience. And I thank Ms.
Murray for coming today.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Scott.
Our next witness, Dianne Piche, is executive director of
the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, where she specializes
in promoting educational equity. Previously she directed the
commission's Title I monitoring project, which examined the
impact of education reforms on disadvantaged children.
We welcome all our witnesses.
For those of you who have not testified before this
subcommittee before, I will explain our lighting system and the
5-minute rule we have.
Everyone, including the members, is limited to 5 minutes of
presentation or questioning. The green light will be
illuminated when you begin to speak. And when you see the
yellow light, it means you have 1 minute remaining. When you
see the red light, it means that your time has expired and you
need to conclude your testimony. You certainly may complete
your paragraph or thought. And there is no ejection seat there.
But we would ask you to try to begin to terminate when you see
the red light.
Please be certain that as you testify that you turn on your
microphone and speak into the microphone and turn it off when
you are finished.
We will now hear from our first witness, Ms. Ashby.
STATEMENT OF CORNELIA M. ASHBY, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION,
WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Ashby. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I
am pleased to be here today to present information from our
August 2006 report on SES implementation.
While our September testimony before the full committee
provided an overview of that report, our current testimony
statement and my comments this morning focus on access and
service delivery, federal and state oversight, and recent
Department of Education actions to improve implementation.
In the 2004-2005 school year, 19 percent of eligible
students, that is 430,000 students, received SES. To increase
participation, districts have taken multiple actions.
For example, we estimate that 90 percent or more provided
written information about the services to parents with 72
percent also providing the information in a language other than
English. Ninety percent of them held individual meetings and/or
phone conversations with parents, encouraged school staff to
talk with parents about the services or offered services in
locations that were easily accessible to students after school.
However, challenges to increase access and participation
remain. Challenges include notifying all parents in a timely
and effective manner and attracting a sufficient number of
service providers within areas and groups of students such as
those with limited English proficiency or disabilities.
For example, we estimate that there were not enough
providers to meet the needs of students with limited English
proficiency in one-third of districts and not enough to meet
the needs of students with disabilities in one-quarter of
districts. While providers have taken some steps to deliver
quality services, both providers and districts have experienced
coordination difficulties that have sometimes resulted in
service delays. Service providers have aligned their curriculum
with district instruction primarily by hiring district teachers
and communicating with the teachers of participating students.
However, when providers did not hire district teachers, the
frequency of contact between tutors and teachers varied. And
some providers did not contact teachers at all. Providers also
communicated with parents, including talking with parents over
the phone and meeting with them in person to communicate
information on student needs and progress. However, the
frequency of communication with parents also varied.
Coordination of service delivery has been a challenge. For
example, services were delayed or withdrawn in certain schools
in three of the districts we visited because not enough
students signed up to meet the provider's enrollment targets,
which the districts were not aware of. In part because
supplemental services are often delivered in school facilities,
providers and officials in the districts and schools we visited
reported that involvement of school administrators and teachers
can improve service delivery and coordination.
While state oversight of SES implementation and quality has
been limited, at the time of our review, the number of states
doing such monitoring was increasing. State oversight includes
on-site reviews of districts and providers as well as reviewing
information on providers, service delivery, and use of funds,
parent or student satisfaction with providers, and student
attendance.
However, oversight continues to be a challenge for states,
and they continue to struggle to develop meaningful evaluations
of service providers. Although several education offices
monitor various aspects of SES activity and provide SES support
through guidance, grants, research and technical assistance,
states and districts reported needing additional assistance and
flexibility with program implementation.
In our 2006 report, we made several recommendations to
education. And education has made significant progress toward
addressing some of them. Specifically, education has taken
steps that address our recommendations focused on increasing
dissemination of promising practices related to parental
notification, tracking providers in certain areas and student
groups, and improving local coordination.
For example, between November 2006 and March 2007,
education staff conducted an outreach tour during which they
met with state and district officials, providers, and parents
in 14 large school districts and discussed issues such as
parental outreach, parental notification, serving special
student populations, and local coordination. The department
plans to disseminate information collected during the tour
through a handbook to be distributed to state and district SES
and school choice coordinators at a national meeting this
summer.
Education has also taken some actions that address our
recommendations for improving state and district use of SES
funds by extending and expanding its pilot program to allow
four districts in need of improvement to serve as SES providers
for the current school year. In addition, education has
responded to our recommendation to improve federal and state
SES monitoring by requiring all states to submit information on
district SES spending to the department and providing technical
assistance and guidance to states on evaluating the effect of
SES on student academic achievement.
The department's center on innovation and improvement
issued an updated version of the guide book on SES evaluation
in November 2006. And it plans to provide technical assistance
before the end of the current school year to 16 states that
have requested such assistance.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would
be happy to answer any questions.
[The statement of Ms. Ashby follows:]
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
Ms. Chafin?
STATEMENT OF ANN E. CHAFIN, ASSISTANT STATE SUPERINTENDENT FOR
STUDENT, FAMILY AND SCHOOL SUPPORT, MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
Ms. Chafin. Chairman Kildee, thank you very much for
allowing me an opportunity to describe Maryland's program for
you today.
In Maryland, under the wonderful guidance of Dr. Nancy
Grasmick, our state superintendent, we are never content with
compliance. We always, for our children, try to ensure
compliance and move past that to excellence. And I think we are
on the way to doing that with our SES program.
I have to say up front though, this takes enormous planning
and enormous resource to be able to ensure that this program is
what is appropriate for each of our children.
You first start with the idea of why would we be doing
this. Every educator I know whose own child is struggling first
turns to a tutor. So we felt that if that was the concept, if
we could embrace it that way, that we could maximize the use of
the funds that we are putting forward for SES.
We have a very rigorous application process for our
vendors. We started out not as rigorous as we are now. We
learned from every year's experience. We began with having them
describe clearly their reading and mathematics programs.
We now make sure that they also show how that closely
aligns with our Maryland voluntary state curriculum. We want to
make sure that the services being provided to these students
actually will advantage them when they face the assessment
programs and the instruction going on. There should be a match.
We work very closely with the school systems to make sure
that they understand the issues that are facing them, many of
them contractual and others. And I have to say in light of the
horrific problem at Virginia Tech, we also must be clear here
that health and safety is primary in providing any of these
programs. So things like background checks and monitoring those
programs that actually go into children's homes becomes a very
serious issue and again, something that is much more
complicated for us to do.
We have an SES collaboration team that is composed of
people throughout the state that are affected by this. We have
a tool kit that gives model contracts, model parent letters,
strategies to vendors. We do a great deal of technical
assistance with our vendors.
At this point in time, I proudly say to you that nationally
there is a 19 percent participation rate in SES. And in
Maryland, that is 68 percent.
We look at it as systematically removing the barriers for
children to have access to these programs.
One of the things that we started out--a couple of our
districts had letters for the parents that said, ``Pursuant to
the reauthorization of ESEA''--I didn't even finish reading the
sentence. We now send letters home that say, ``Good news: Your
son or daughter might be eligible for extra tutoring.'' Those
are the things--you must go to the people--the parents are the
ones that understand the need. And you must also look at the
barriers they have for having their children have access to
these programs.
You have to work with the schools. A principal who says,
``Gee, Tommy, don't you get to go to SES this afternoon? Let me
walk you there. Tell me a little bit about what you are
doing''--that kind of interaction with the school-based people
makes such a difference to the attitudes the children go in
with.
We still have some big issues at the state level to deal
with, not the least of which is the expense. Maryland has made
the decision to put two full-time people behind this effort.
That means that other aspects of Title I may not have the same
support they would have had. So it is a decision making
process.
We know that in our more rural districts--and Maryland does
not have districts that are rural by the typical definition of
rural. But those Eastern shore and Western Maryland counties
that we have we do not have nearly the number of vendors
available to them. We have 47 vendors on our approved list.
But there are times that when you have the criterion of a
certain number of students that must chose that vendor before
they would offer the contract. In school systems like Kent
County that have so few kids that are eligible to begin with,
it is very hard to meet that standard.
We frequently do have online vendors that will serve any
area. But they offer us unique monitoring issues and monitoring
problems to deal with. So we are continuing to work with our
rural schools to encourage them to do parent outreach so their
numbers go up so that we can, in fact, have vendors available.
It is a wonderful opportunity. But it brings with it a lot
of responsibility. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Ms. Chafin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ann E. Chafin, Assistant State Superintendent for
Student, Family and School Support, Maryland State Department of
Education
Chairman Kildee, and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on how Maryland has implemented the
Supplemental Educational Services (SES) component of No Child Left
Behind (NCLB). My name is Ann Chafin, and I am the Assistant State
Superintendent for Student, Family and School Support at the Maryland
State Department of Education (MSDE). I have been in the role for less
than a year and served, prior to this, as Maryland's State Director for
Title I. I have fifteen years experience in one of Maryland's 24 school
districts as Director of Research and Assessment.
I am pleased to share with you Maryland's progress and successes in
implementing the Supplemental Educational Services program mandated for
Title I. Under the insightful direction of our State Superintendent,
Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, MSDE has been proactive in implementing NCLB.
Dr. Grasmick is never content with compliance when it comes to
educating Maryland students so we make every effort to ensure
compliance but step beyond it to excellence.
Title I, as you well know, is a compensatory program. That means we
must offer programming that compensates for the lack of rich, varied
experiences that often form the basis for academic achievement; that
recognizes and addresses health and environmental issues that cause
education to slip down the list of priorities; and that is delivered by
the best teachers and administrators that we can possibly provide.
It has been my experience that when educators find their own
children struggling in school they most frequently turn to a tutor. The
SES program extends this opportunity to the economically disadvantaged
children of this country who are attending low-performing schools. Our
philosophy has been simply, if educators believe in tutoring, this
program ought to work. And the SES program is working in Maryland.
First, SES providers are selected through rigorous application and
review processes in Maryland. We believe the application requirements
are the first steps toward providing quality services to our children.
Based on what we have learned over the last six years, we have refined
the application to more closely align the programs described by the
vendors with Maryland's Voluntary State Curriculum. If this work is to
be effective, vendors must be instructing students on the same material
that is expected of them in their classrooms and on the Maryland School
Assessment.
We have also encouraged and required vendors to work closely with
the school systems and the schools so that communication is clear and
school personnel feel they have input into the process.
Our data reporting requirements ask that MSDE, each local school
system and each vendor reconcile any discrepancies in participation,
attendance, goals setting and parental notification before we declare
the information final. In order to assure that this cooperation is
evident, we offer extensive technical assistance to potential vendors
prior to their application. When all players are fully informed and
participatory, the quality of SES programs improves.
Part of program improvement in Maryland must be credited to our
monitoring system. Noted in the January 23, 2007 publication of
Education Daily, Maryland is referred to as the ``data dream.'' In
2002, we developed an instrument that collected information on each
student receiving services, each provider, and each local school
system. In 2003, we converted that instrument to an Access data file
that allowed us to disaggregate data state-wide, set up reporting
dates, and trained local systems and providers to use it. The Access
file collects and monitors contact hours with students, as well as,
contacts with parents, local systems, and classroom teachers,
measurable goals, and parent outreach methods, among other data. The
message to all providers and local systems in Maryland is that every
aspect of SES is under scrutiny. It is valued and important, and our
data collection system is taken seriously. Delivering the best
opportunities available to our students is our focus. Monitoring also
includes site visit reports that identify findings and commendations,
all available on our websites.
Local school systems assist in all aspects of the program. Early
on, all LEA SES Coordinators were invited to become part of the SES
Collaboration Team. We meet four times a year and candidly discuss our
concerns and contribute to resolutions. The State Department
facilitates the discussion and researches the questions. The
relationships forged through the team saved countless hours for local
systems, and the entire State moved forward together. We developed a
Toolkit and, today, the toolkit continues to be updated with new
documents the LEAs are using. All documents, including the minutes of
the meetings are posted on the website. Now, we have LEAs attending the
meetings that are not yet required to offer SES but want to be prepared
if SES is a requirement.
One of the team's most frequently discussed concerns is how to
increase parent involvement. Those discussions have paid off. Today,
with a national participation rate of about 19%, Maryland's
participation rate is about 68%. The statute requires local school
systems to engage in aggressive parent outreach. Parents of eligible
children must select a provider to tutor their child. If parents don't
select, students do not participate. The six LEAs required to offer SES
in Maryland work hard at strategies that are effective. Local systems
stopped offering provider fairs; parents don't come. They stopped using
letters that are too hard to read; parents can't understand them. Local
systems enlisted the help of the individual schools, and parents felt
more engaged. We worked through our collaboration team to remove every
barrier to parent participation, including an agreement from each LEA
that providers may use their school buildings. Last year, SES funds
allowed for the participation of 15,837 students; of those 10,718
participated--an impressive 68%. Baltimore City enjoys a remarkable 99%
participation rate.
Two areas continue to leave us with unanswered questions. One, in
our rural areas we have limited access to vendors. Although Maryland
has almost 50 vendors on the approved list, most of them only work in
the metropolitan areas. We had an instance in Western Maryland where
parents of second graders in a school requested SES but no vendors were
available for primary tutoring in that area. We were able to redirect
dollars to a summer program for those students, but that was not a long
term solution.
Also, we continue to struggle with programs for special needs
students. Although many of our vendors do offer these services, it
requires much more monitoring and support to ensure that the IEP is
honored and the work is directed at the appropriate strategies.
As proud as I am of the accomplishments made in Maryland with this
program, I must put it in a context. Maryland has only 24 school
districts, admittedly some of them are quite large, but still only 24.
We have an internal monitoring structure that allows me to assign two
districts to each Title I specialist, in addition to many other
responsibilities. This means that we know each coordinator and can help
them address their individual issues. When it comes to SES, only 6 of
those 24 districts must offer SES. Other states that have hundreds of
school districts have a much more difficult job of technical
assistance, monitoring and communication.
The successes we have experienced in this program so far are due to
the decision by MSDE to dedicate two positions to this work. Dr. Jane
Fleming has led the development of the monitoring instrument and the
oversight of the implementation of the program. She is our secret
weapon. Site visits with written feedback that are posted for the world
to see are some of our best tools for improvement. Dr. Fleming,
supported by a loaned educator from a school district, developed that
process also.
Additionally, Maryland has only begun the process of evaluating the
effectiveness of these programs. We have a contract in place to pursue
the relationship between the work of each of our approved vendors and
success on the Maryland School Assessment. When we reach the point of
removing vendors from our list because of lack of effectiveness, this
program will enter another political realm. We look forward to the
support of the US Department of Education as we make these very
difficult decisions.
Thank you for this opportunity.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
Ms. Roberts?
STATEMENT OF MONICA M. ROBERTS, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FEDERAL AND
STATE PROGRAMS, BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Ms. Roberts. Good morning, Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member
Castle, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Monica
Roberts. And I am the director of federal and state programs
for Boston Public Schools. Thank you for this opportunity to
testify at this House hearing on supplemental educational
services.
Boston Public Schools is the largest school district in
Massachusetts and serves the largest number of low-income
students in the commonwealth with 71 percent of our students
eligible for free or reduced price lunch. Eighty-six percent of
our students are minorities. The district was one of nine
organizations approved by the Massachusetts Department of
Education to provide SES services in Boston. Today we continue
to operate our SES program through the pilot project offered by
the U.S. Department of Education.
Boston has won numerous awards and recognition for its
continuous improvement towards and closing the achievement gap
and moving towards proficiency for all students, including the
2006 Broad Foundation prize for urban education. Despite our
progress and continued gains in student academic performance,
60 schools were identified this school year as not having made
AYP for 3 or more consecutive years, up from 43 schools in
School Year 2005-2006 and 22 in School Year 2004-2005.
This year Boston Public Schools notified nearly 23,000
students of the availability of SES programs and reserved
nearly $5.9 million of its Title I grant for of SES. Based on
the per pupil allocation of nearly $2,400, the district
estimated that it could serve about 2,460 students, a total of
4,400 eligible students applied for SES services. And 70
percent of these chose the Boston Public Schools as its
provider.
The per pupil cost for the district program is $610, a
quarter of the cost charged by other providers for their own
SES program. When our district acts as a provider, the balance
of the per pupil SES allocation, approximately $1,800, remains
in the available SES funding pool to allow for continued
enrollment above the 2,460 students originally projected.
As a result, the district has been able to accommodate
every student applying for SES this year and nearly 2,000 more
students are being served in the program because the Boston
Public Schools is a provider. Boston's experience is consistent
with those of other urban school districts, as you can see in
the Council of Great City Schools data at the end of my written
testimony.
The BPS SES program model offers small group differentiated
academic intervention services and tutoring in mathematics,
reading, and writing for a minimum of 80 hours and up to 136
hours. At 80 hours per child, the district offers between 33
percent and 100 percent more hours than other providers.
Having experienced SES as both a provider and a district
managing the program, Boston has been working to identify areas
of strength and areas in need of improvement. Particularly, the
district is excited by the role that parents are asked to play
in this initiative and the effort to empower parents to make
informed choices that can result in significant academic
improvement. Schools hosting SES programs have found that
parents with children enrolled in these programs are engaged
and actively seek to understand their children's academic
performance and strategies to support growth.
Challenges are inevitable, and the district is working
collaboratively with providers and the state department of
education to address them. The district has focused its efforts
on developing and offering practical solutions to some of the
problems that have inundated districts and providers.
Boston Public Schools offers the following proposals to
strengthen Supplemental Educational Services. We recommend
revising the student eligibility requirement to be prioritized
into two categories: low-income and low-performing and low-
performing students from groups performing below proficiency on
the state assessment; permit all districts to become SES
providers, regardless of their NCLB status; all SES providers
should be required to hire highly qualified instructional
staff, including staff working with English language learners
and special needs students; allow districts to use 10 percent
of SES funds to cover overhead and program management costs,
which are high and can limit district ability to support
program expansion.
In particular, districts are currently covering the cost of
data management systems, enrollment materials, program
management staff, and parental outreach, which includes
newspaper and radio advertisements, fliers. Require states to
comply with the current requirement to evaluate providers and
administer a common growth model of assessment for all
providers; require all states to put limitations on incentives
offered by providers to students for enrollment and recruitment
of other students, not to exceed a $5 value per child; and
finally, require all SES providers to serve all students
enrolled in their program regardless of the number of students
enrolled district-wide, and to begin services within 2 weeks of
receiving their enrollment data.
Mr. Chairman, this is the end of my prepared statement. I
would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Roberts follows:]
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
Ms. Murray?
STATEMENT OF RUTH D. MURRAY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL GRANTS, NEWPORT
NEWS PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Ms. Murray. Thank you. Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member
Castle, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the
opportunity to be here today. As director of federal grants in
Newport News, a great deal of my time is spent implementing and
monitoring supplemental educational services.
As part of the SES reversal pilot during the 2005 and 2006
school years, Newport News Public Schools was allowed to
implement SES during the first year of Title I school
improvement instead of public school choice. A larger
percentage of students, 68 percent as compared to 5 percent,
have been provided help due to this reversal.
In Newport News, we attribute our success to a variety of
factors and strategies. We approached implementing SES in a
systematic way across departments. We developed a master plan,
a calendar and a timeline for implementing the project.
Expectations and responsibilities were clearly defined.
We received a great deal of support from the Virginia
Department of Education through numerous training sessions on
SES, opportunities to network with other divisions, monitoring
visits, and printed resources for the program. State department
representatives and coordinators were always available to
answer questions and help us work through problems and issues.
In Newport News, SES facilitators are recruited to manage
the SES program in the school. Last year, SES facilitators were
selected from existing school personnel. But because of the
added responsibility on existing staff members distracted from
their main jobs, part-time facilitators were hired this year
from student teachers, retired teachers, and the local
universities.
We consider our SES providers partners in our students'
success. SES providers are not charged for the use of our
school buildings. And they may contract with the school
division to provide transportation services. SES providers must
provide criminal background checks, T.B tests, and
fingerprinting for all tutors. SES tutors receive training from
our district supervisors in the math and reading curriculum of
our division as well as the state SOL standards.
Believing there is value in having SES providers and tutors
dialoguing with parents, teachers, and administrators about
academic achievement, SES providers are invited to serve on
each school's school improvement team. In order for SES to have
a positive impact on schools and communities, the program
cannot be a separate entity, but must be integrated into the
school's culture.
Rather than rely just on fliers in students' book bags,
Newport News has used a variety of strategies to make parents
well-informed about the SES opportunity. Open house, back to
school night, parent/teacher conferences, progress reports, and
child study meetings are all used as opportunities to discuss
and encourage parents to take advantage of the SES opportunity.
The parent application booklet is available as soon as
possible after school starts in the fall and contains
information for parents to contact SES providers directly. Our
SES application is mailed home several times to parents with a
stamped, self-addressed envelope. And it is available online in
different languages.
A list of parents not returning the SES application form is
maintained by the SES facilitator and the classroom teacher.
The school staff continues to contact these parents throughout
the year with phone calls, home visits, and additional
mailings.
Other strategies to support participation are open
enrollment periods, SES summer school, assemblies and
incentives for students, information displayed on school
marquees and in newsletters, the superintendent sending letters
and meeting with faith-based leaders in the community, an
automatic phone dialing system that has messages for parents.
Regardless of our efforts, some parents have chosen not to
participate in SES. On their children's application form, we
received 283 parents declining SES services. Reasons included
the parents felt the services were not needed, the student's
schedule would not allow for any additional commitments, no
transportation, and the family was moving.
Reflections on our experiences with SES in Newport News
have brought us to the following recommendations for improving
the quality and access of SES: continue to allow schools the
flexibility to reverse the order of sanctions in the first 2
years of improvement; supplemental educational services may be
offered to eligible students in Title I schools the first year
and public school choice the second year; target SES funds to
low-performing, low-income students; allow part of the 20
percent set-aside to be used for administrative costs to
implement programs; continue to allow unused SES set-aside
funds to remain in the district for use in Title I schools; and
tutors that are employed by the SES providers should meet the
state's definition of highly qualified teachers.
This would help to minimizes problems which have occurred
such as tutors not showing up for sessions, not communicating
with parents, not using appropriate language and discipline
methods and also tutoring sessions where only the child went
over the homework.
I appreciate this opportunity again to present. And I
welcome your questions.
[The statement of Ms. Murray follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ruth D. Murray, Director, Federal Grants,
Newport News Public Schools
Thank you Chairman Kildee and Ranking Member Castle for the
opportunity to speak before the Subcommittee. As the Director of
Federal Grants in Newport News Public Schools (NNPS), a great deal of
my time is spent monitoring and implementing Supplemental Educational
Services. As part of the SES Reversal Pilot, during the 2005 and 2006
school years, Newport News Public Schools was allowed to implement SES
during the first year of Title I School Improvement instead of Public
School Choice. A larger percentage of students, 68% as compared to 5%,
have been provided help due to the reversal.
In Newport News Public Schools, we attribute our success with SES
to a variety of factors and strategies. We began with the examination
of our current attitudes, policies and practices related to school,
family and community partnerships. This examination involved teachers,
school leadership teams, and members of central office. We approached
implementing SES in a systematic way across departments. Working with
staff members from academic services, purchasing, public relations,
mail services, child nutrition, principals, and federal grants, a SES
Plan, master calendar, and implementation timeline were developed.
Expectations and responsibilities were clearly defined. We also
received a great deal of support from the Virginia Department of
Education through numerous training sessions on SES legislation,
opportunities to network with school divisions experienced in
implementing SES, monitoring visits, and printed resources for the
program such as SES provider contracts, parent agreements and learning
plans. Coordinators were readily available for working through problems
or issues.
In NNPS, SES facilitators are recruited to manage the SES process
in each school. They serve as liaisons among central office, school
personnel, SES providers, parents and students. Their responsibilities
include scheduling space for providers, maintaining accurate records
and reports, recruiting participants, and attending meetings with the
Director of Federal Grants to share best practices. Last year, SES
facilitators were selected from existing school personnel. Because the
added responsibility on existing staff distracted them from their main
jobs, part-time facilitators were hired this year for each school.
Part-time facilitators were recruited from our retired teacher
population, student teachers, and local universities.
Training of our school personnel also is an important ingredient in
our recipe for success. The agenda includes an overview of program
requirements, Title I regulations and SES non-regulatory guidance, the
SES facilitator's role, responsibilities of parents, provider
contracts, the availability of supporting funds, a timeline for
implementation, and assorted SES forms and documents.
We consider our SES providers partners in our students' success.
SES providers are not charged for the use of the school buildings, and
they may contract with the school division for transportation services.
SES providers must provide criminal background checks, TB tests, and
fingerprinting for all tutors. Tutors also receive training with
district supervisors on the division's math/reading curriculum and the
state standards of learning. Believing there is value in having SES
providers and the actual tutors dialoging with parents, teachers, and
administrators about academic achievement, SES providers are invited to
be on the School Improvement Team in each school. We believe that in
order for SES to have a positive impact in the schools and community,
the program can not operate in isolation but must be integrated into
the school culture. By bringing providers to the table, school leaders
can be sure everyone's goals are aligned.
Rather than rely just on flyers in students' book bags, Newport
News uses a variety of strategies to make sure parents are well
informed about the SES opportunity. As much as possible we use our
existing school culture to support SES participation and recruitment.
Open House, Back to School night, parent/teacher conferences, progress
reports and report cards, and child study meetings are all used as
opportunities to discuss and encourage parents to take advantage of
SES. Provider fairs are held in every school and parents are given the
tools needed to organize information and examples of important
questions to ask providers. The parent application booklet is available
as soon as possible after school starts in the fall and contains
information needed by parents to contact providers directly. Our SES
application is mailed home several times to parents with a stamped,
self-addressed envelope; it also is available online and in different
languages. A list of parents not returning SES enrollment forms is
maintained by each SES facilitator and classroom teacher. The school
staff continues to contact parents throughout the year with phone
calls, home visits, and/or additional mailings. We encourage
participating parents to be ``ambassadors'' for the SES program and
tell their neighbors and other eligible families about the services.
Other strategies to support participation are an open enrollment
period, SES summer program, assemblies and incentives for students,
information displayed on school marquees outside buildings and in
newsletters, the superintendent sending letters and meeting with faith
community leaders in the community, and an automatic phone dialer
system (Parent Link) activated with messages for parents. Regardless of
our efforts, some parents are not using SES services. On their
children's application forms, 283 parents declined SES services.
Reasons included the parent felt the services were not needed,
student's schedule would not allow for additional commitments, no
transportation, and the family was moving.
The Federal Grants Director meets regularly with SES providers to
address problems or discuss issues so the program will operate
smoothly. Parents are often good judges of quality. If a SES provider
is not providing quality services, not showing up on time for the
tutoring, not communicating with the parents, or using inappropriate
language or discipline methods, parents will let us know and we will
work with the provider to resolve the issues.
Reflecting on our experiences with SES in Newport News, the
following changes would, in my opinion, improve the quality and access
of SES.
Continue to allow schools the flexibility to reverse the
order of sanctions in the first two years of school improvement.
Supplemental educational services may be offered to eligible students
attending Title I schools in improvement in the first year and public
school choice in the second year.
Target SES funds first to low performing, low income
students in Title I schools and then to all economically disadvantaged
students.
Allow part of the 20% set-aside to be used for
administrative costs to implement the programs. The management of the
SES and Public School Choice programs is very time consuming and less
effective when added to personnel working in existing positions.
Continue to allow unused SES set-aside funds to remain in
the district for use with Title I schools. Under the best of
circumstances all set-aside funds for SES and Public School Choice may
not be used.
Tutors employed by SES providers who provide direct
instruction to students should meet the state definition of highly
qualified teachers. This would help to minimize problems which have
occurred such as tutors not showing up for sessions, the use of
inappropriate language and discipline methods, and only covering
homework assignments.
Thank you for your attention. Again, I appreciate the opportunity
to speak today.
______
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much, Ms. Murray.
Ms. Piche?
STATEMENT OF DIANNE M. PICHE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CITIZENS'
COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS
Ms. Piche. Good morning, Chairman Kildee, Mr. Castle, and
members of the subcommittee. And thank you for the opportunity
to testify today on the supplemental educational services
provisions of No Child Left Behind.
Today I would like to emphasize the concerns of my
organization and other civil rights organizations for the
students who are most left behind in public education today.
There is a subset of students in K through 12 schools in
the United States in dire need of hope and help, even a subset
of the Title I eligible population of students. These are
children who attend the lowest performing schools in the
country, often in highly concentrated poverty environments.
Many of their schools have been failing or on needs improvement
lists on both federal and state measures for as long as these
lists have been kept.
They are children who are one or more grade levels behind.
Many of these children and their parents despair of ever
getting caught up. They tend to attend schools in either large
urban areas or in rural areas, but not exclusively. And
finally, I want to emphasize the students furthest behind tend
to be poor and in one or more other sub-groups reported under
NCLB. For example, they are also non-white, disabled or
learning English.
There are many ways in which NCLB provides hope and help to
these and other students and their families. Today's subject,
the SES provisions, is one tangible and much-needed way.
Research and, indeed, the practice of middle-class and more
affluent parents indicates that one on one and small group
tutoring are among the more effective means of helping
struggling students to get caught up to their appropriate grade
level.
And I probably don't need to say, but when students do not
get caught up to grade level, they tend to fall further and
further behind. And at some point if you cannot do math and
reading on basic grade level, you cannot achieve in other
subjects. And these students will drop out of school.
Congress recognized the importance of extra tutoring,
after-school programs, and summer school programs included in
SES when it reauthorized Title I in NCLB. In fact, Congress
said in the House report accompanying H.R. 1 that these
services provide ``an important safety valve for students
trapped in failing schools.''
We now have several years of implementation of the
supplemental services program. And, of course, when you begin a
new program like this, as many of the witnesses have indicated,
you have a lot of bumps in the road. You have a lot of
relationships to be sorted out.
And I have in the past analogized the relationship between
providers and school districts as something akin to an arranged
marriage or maybe even a shotgun wedding where we have
organizations and entities that may not be used to working
together. Some may not want to work together. But this law
requires that everybody work together and figure it out and
figure out how to do the best thing for children.
When I was asked to testify, I wrote to some of my
colleagues and was surprised at all the good news that is out
there on the SES program. And I have summarized some of this
good news in my testimony, including reports that have been
done both by providers and by school districts as well as
independent research from the University of Memphis.
Unfortunately, not all the news about SES is good. And I
have summarized in my report some of this bad news and want to
call your attention to research that my own organization did.
We essentially verified and the GAO then verified our research
that the participation rates are abysmally low, both for the
transfer program and for SES. We have some tables in the
testimony. We show some of the variation among districts. This
is 2004-2005 data, so I would just caution you that we believe
there have been improvements in the participation rates.
But one of the critical things to look at is the number of
students eligible, the number of students applying and to
figure out--and I think Newport News is doing a great job--how
we can get more eligible parents to apply. But then you look at
the drop-off between students who have actually applied for
these services and the number of students actually receiving
them. And in some cases, there is a huge disparity.
We can, you know, attribute some falloff to family needs
and circumstances changing and that kind of thing. But why is
there a falloff between the number of parents who sign up and
the number of parents who actually receive these services? So I
think it is important as we move forward to examine some of
these problems and some of the problems of parent access.
I also refer to a lawsuit that was brought in Newark, New
Jersey. We have appended that to the testimony. And then
finally, we have a series of recommendations. I just want to
highlight a couple in the short time I have left.
One is that we don't believe we should have a rollover of
funds from 1 year to the next, that this money really should be
earmarked for SES and tutoring. We need much more emphasis on
finding kids where they are and providing services in
community-based settings or on school site.
Finally, we also need much more monitoring and enforcement
of this law at all levels of government starting with the
federal government and down to the local school district level
so that we can ensure that more students are served.
And then finally, I did want to say for the record that we
do have some concerns about proposals that would allow all
districts to provide these services if they are in need of
improvement. We only think they should be able to provide the
services if they, in fact, can show they have the capacity to
do so.
And while we would support moving up SES to the first year,
we would not support flipping with the transfer. We believe
parents should have the right to choose either of those
options.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Ms. Piche follows:]
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much, Ms. Piche.
Ms. Murray, you suggested that maybe we should flip--first
of all, the members up here will be recognized in the order in
which they appeared and then by their seniority.
But, Ms. Murray, you suggested that we would flip. I think
at the end of the second year now we have public school choice
and the end of the third year, the supplemental. You suggested
that that might be flipped.
And I think Ms. Piche had some statements different from
that.
If both of you could comment on that.
Ms. Murray. Yes. In Newport News, we have offered public
school choice first and then supplemental services. But then in
the pilot we were able to flip. The reason that we believe in
Virginia that this is a more appropriate way is that in a
school that needs improvement, they need to retain the students
that are in the school and offer them many opportunities such
as extra tutoring and have the involvement of concerned parents
and willing parents to help with the school improvement
process.
If parents are allowed to pull children out and take them
to other schools, then the capacity of the school goes down to
make critical changes. Also, our parents are not as interested
in public school choice as they are in supplemental educational
services. And so, we want to provide those in schools that we
can.
Sometimes in public school choice, they are transferring to
schools that are non-Title I schools that do not even have the
resources that Title I schools do such as extra teachers and
after-school tutoring and that type of thing. And that simply
is due to a transportation issue.
Chairman Kildee. Ms. Piche?
Ms. Piche. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to respond.
The Citizens' Commission, along with the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights, which is the broader coalition, has
supported the right of parents to transfer their children to a
better public school since the IASA. And under IASA, that was
really not a requirement. It was more of an option for
corrective action.
The reason we support this--and by the way, we don't have a
position on private school choice--is that we believe it is
important for low-income parents to have the opportunity to
transfer their child out of a school that is not working for
their child and hasn't been working for a period of years
pretty much on the same basis that everybody in this room can
move their child to a school that works for their child. And we
do support supplemental services.
So I would say from our perspective we can certainly see
accelerating the timeline for supplemental services and
understand the needs it provides. But we do not want to limit
the choices that parents have been provided, the rights they
have under this law. The participation rates have been low. But
if it is because parents are not interested, then there would
not be that same impact on the school.
We actually believe there is probably more interest in the
right to transfer. But we also issued a report on the right to
transfer in 2004 and found that, just like the SES provisions,
there has been a real uneven implementation and enforcement of
these provisions and that a number of districts have not
effectively offered that right to parents.
And just as a matter of educational quality, if a parent
can find a better school for their child, that means the child
is getting a full 6 or 7 hours a day of better instruction. And
that may be, for that parent, much more value added than a more
limited number of hours that their child would be in tutoring.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you.
Ms. Roberts, you testified that Boston links its
supplemental educational services to other social supports to
ensure that students receive comprehensive services and to
accommodate working parents.
Could you expand on that, how that works in Boston?
Ms. Roberts. Boston Public Schools currently has over
12,000 students enrolled in after-school programs that are
school-based. In our school-based SES programs we have a
school-based coordinator who works with the instructional staff
and the principal to ensure that SES students are able then to
transition into these programs, which are primarily enrichment.
Some are academic improvement--so that the school day is,
in fact, extended for parents. We don't have this issue of
transportation problems with our working parents not being able
to pick up their children early.
Our elementary schools let out at about 3:30. Middle school
is out at 1:20. We are able to extend the school day between
5:30 and 6:00 by allowing transition into other programs.
Chairman Kildee. Ms. Ashby, do states currently have the
capacity and resources to effectively implement the law,
supplemental educational services, and particularly in the
rural areas?
Ms. Ashby. Well, the state role in supplemental educational
services is to select providers, to provide a list of providers
based on adequate criteria for determining their ability to
provide the services. States also encourage districts to notify
parents and provide assistance to districts in doing that.
Given the role that the states have, we didn't find
anything to indicate they didn't have the capacity to do that.
Where the rubber sort of hits the road is at the district level
and the interactions between the district and the providers.
And that is where there seemed to be more concern.
Chairman Kildee. Do you find that more in the rural areas?
Ms. Ashby. I am sorry; I didn't answer that part of the
question.
There definitely are problems in rural areas because,
number one, finding the providers who are available to provide
services. And also there isn't necessarily an adequate cluster
of students needing services to justify providers coming in and
offering those services. So the typical problems of rural areas
because of their sparseness and lack of population occur here
as well.
Chairman Kildee. Thanks very much.
Governor Castle?
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This panel is a wealth of information, almost to the point
I don't know how to start to begin to ask questions. There is
so much out there. But let me try to determine a few things.
And, Ms. Ashby, let me start with you. We have heard
differing rates here in terms of participation. But it seems to
me that overall that the participation rates are low from a
percentage point of view, even though there may be some
exceptions, which we have heard about today.
Can you explain to me why you think that is? I mean, is it
a money issue? Is it an unwillingness of parents to be involved
in this issue, which we have heard about a little bit here?
What seems to be the reasons for that?
To me, it would seem to be all positive that kids would be
involved. And yet they are not necessarily.
Ms. Ashby. It is a mixture of things. And let me point out
that when we did our study, we were looking at the 2004-2005
school year. And we haven't updated our numbers.
The numbers that are the percentage participation we
reported for that year was an increase over the prior year. So
it is reasonable to believe that things have improved since
then. However, the participation rates from everything I have
seen and heard are still low. And that is due to a number of
factors.
Part of the problem is parental notification and parents
understanding what SES is and what it provides. That is
improving. The department is taking additional steps to help
states. And states are helping districts do a better job of
notifying parents and notifying parents in a way that the
parents can under.
Supplemental educational services conflict with other
activities students might be involved in. They themselves
perhaps prefer sports or prefer some type of other activity.
Many students sign up for SES but don't continue through the
school year, for example, probably in part for that reason.
There are still some issues regarding accessibility and
location of programs and problems with school districts being
concerned about the use of their facilities or not allowing
their facilities to be used. So actually getting access to the
programs may still be an issue in some places.
So there is a number of things.
Mr. Castle. Ms. Roberts mentioned this other side of it. If
the school district is supplying the SES services versus an
outside vendor, has that made a difference in terms of the
participation with respect to the students? Do you understand
my question?
Ms. Ashby. Yes.
Mr. Castle. And if so, why? And what can we do to make sure
the participation is higher with the outside vendors?
Ms. Ashby. So you are asking if the school district is the
provider?
Mr. Castle. Right.
Ms. Ashby. That is not something we studied. We didn't
evaluate the pilots, for example. And others can respond to
that better than I can.
Mr. Castle. Maybe I should ask Ms. Roberts then.
Ms. Ashby. But that is certainly reasonable. Yes.
Mr. Castle. I mean, apparently, if I understand it, Boston
does this. And have you found a greater participation rate when
the school district is providing the services versus outside
vendors? And why?
Ms. Roberts. Well, I think there are several factors. One
is that most parents are familiar with their school. And it is
a caring and safe environment that they feel comfortable with.
The other piece is that we have significant transportation
problems.
Our parents cannot pick up their children after school. And
so, having a school-based program allows for an extended day
where that fits their schedule so that more parents can, in
fact, enroll. I would say those are the two main issues.
Mr. Castle. What was the basic percentage breakdown, if you
know, of kids receiving services from the district versus
outside vendors in Boston?
Ms. Roberts. Seventy percent of students in Boston selected
the BPS as their program. We were able to accommodate 67. The
remaining 33 percent have been placed in external programs.
Mr. Castle. I mean, I don't know this for sure. But it
seems to me if we had a panel of people here who were
testifying on behalf of the outside vendors, they would argue
that, you know, if you are inside a district, you have greater
access to the students, greater ability to do these things,
greater ability to coordinate schedules in schools, et cetera,
all of which may be legitimate arguments to a degree.
How do you manage that in terms of balancing both use of an
internal school district system and outside vendors?
Ms. Roberts. Okay. We try to offer every provider an
opportunity to be in this school. This year seven providers
requested to be school-based systems and were placed within
schools.
One of the issues is that there are capacity problems. Most
of our schools have an after-school program. We have 12,000
students enrolled district-wide. There is limited space. So we
could not have all 24 of our providers in the school building.
But we do help them to negotiate with the principals. We
hold a principal-provider meeting. We also have a school site
coordinator who is able to coordinate the services of the
school, the school-based teachers as well as the other after-
school programs taking place within the building.
So we make every effort to ensure that providers are
allowed to be school-based if they would like to, but also to
ensure that all the services are coordinated.
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Ms. Roberts.
I see that my time is up, although I suspect I only got 3
minutes out of all that. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Sestak?
Mr. Sestak. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I apologize that I missed part of the testimony, but if I
might ask you a question. I was taken by what I had read, that
you have acknowledged that Maryland is a unique case, to some
degree, because of the number of districts. But at the end, you
had talked about beginning a process of evaluating the
effectiveness of SES programs.
Can you speak about--since you have been somewhat
successful, well, 19 percent to 68 percent access--what are the
steps you are taking to assess the effectiveness, to evaluate
it? And then stepping back, what would you, you know, humbly
offer to other states to think about in that area that you are
about to embark on?
Ms. Chafin. Okay, thank you very much for asking.
We have entered into a contract with Dr. Steven Ross from
the University of Memphis. He is right now one of the premier
people in the nation who is evaluating and offering guidance in
the evaluation of SES.
What we have done up to this point is simply look very
carefully at the data we have been monitoring. We not only ask
were they enrolled. We ask how often they come, are they really
participating, what are the goals that you have set with
parents. We do a site visit to every vendor in each district.
We might not hit all of their sites in a district, but we
have at least one site visit. And the basis of that, our
specialists ask things like show me the signed goals that the
parents have signed saying this is what you are working on.
Show me the background checks. Show me what the curriculum is
for this child. What are you doing to interface with their
teacher?
So we get that monitoring information that allows us to see
what are really the things that are going on with the school.
We ask that they do surveys of parents. Are they satisfied with
the services? Are the schools satisfied with the services? We
have been collecting that. We have not raised it up to the
level of are these services actually helping kids be proficient
in reading and mathematics.
Mr. Sestak. Right.
Ms. Chafin. That is what we hope to see this evaluation and
have asked to see this evaluation do.
Mr. Sestak. I am taken because, at least in the background
I come from, you know, you can expect what you inspect. And
that is why I am interested in this evaluation portion of it.
But I was also taken that you made a conscious decision, the
part of your testimony I heard, to take money from somewhere
else in Title I to fund these two positions.
Are you going to have to do the same in order to implant an
evaluation system that adequately assesses the proficiency?
Ms. Chafin. No, actually we are not because we went the
contractual route with this. So it is taking money to do this.
But it is not an issue of using up another staff position.
Right now that is the big thing for us.
As I said in my written testimony, we only have 24
districts. So we have the luxury of picking up a phone and
saying, ``Gee, can you help us with that?'' We can know the
names of those people.
But when it comes to looking at this issue about is this
effective, we felt that we needed to have that external view
that could be more objective.
Mr. Sestak. Out of curiosity, what were the areas of Title
I that you felt like they have import, it was less than this
program?
Ms. Chafin. You know, that is hard to get me to admit I am
not doing everything as best I can. But I think that more than
anything, what we lose is some of the statewide flexibility and
support to low-performing schools and being able to have staff
throughout and deal with other issues related to low
performance. I think that is what suffers.
Mr. Sestak. And, ma'am, thank you.
In just the last few seconds, I didn't hear your testimony.
I apologize. But I went through it. Could you just speak for a
moment--because I am quite taken about English language
learners and those with disabilities needing greater access.
Your best options for that were?
Ms. Chafin. We were very concerned about those two
populations from a civil rights point of view and from an
educational achievement point of view.
Mr. Sestak. I agree.
Ms. Chafin. We do have some recommendations. One of the
recommendations is that there be an examination of the costs of
providing services to students with special needs.
Mr. Sestak. At the additional per pupil cost?
Ms. Chafin. Right because right now every student who is
eligible will essentially be eligible for the same dollar
amount of services. But we know that some students are further
behind than others, and some students need a tutor who is
qualified to help them with math.
But if the student does not speak English or if the student
has an IEP, the tutor will also need to have some qualification
or there may need to be additional personnel brought in just
like we have in the regular school day. So I think that there
should be an examination of whether it might make sense to
differentiate the needs and then attach different cost options
to those needs.
Mr. Sestak. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Biggert?
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a question probably to Ms. Chafin and Ms. Roberts
and Ms. Murray.
And, Ms. Chafin, you mentioned in your testimony that there
is considerable cost that we were just talking about. Are the
school districts in Maryland spending the entire 20 percent of
Title I on SES?
Ms. Chafin. Some of them are, some of them are not.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay. Do you have school districts that are
spending more?
Ms. Chafin. No, not at this point. I will say that in
Baltimore City where we have a 99 percent participation rate,
we have through an audit agreement resolution asked that they
put money on top of their 20 percent to serve even more of
their eligible students. And that, I believe, is what has
pushed up their rate to the 99 percent, their attempt to
achieve beyond that.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay.
Ms. Chafin. I think they do put in money for the monitoring
and the support at the school level that is coming out of other
pieces of their money.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay.
Then, Ms. Roberts, your school system is on the pilot
program, as is the Chicago Public Schools. And I have dealt
with the Chicago schools a lot. And number one, they really did
a reformation of the schools prior to No Child Left Behind,
except that they reversed a couple of things, which I thought
was very important.
Number one was that they wanted to do the tutoring in the
supplemental services in the first year rather than in the
third year and have the transfer and then the reconstitution of
schools of the school wasn't working, bring in a whole new
administrative team and teachers. They finally got a waiver
from the Department of Education as far as their tutoring
because there were so many students that were eligible for it
that they couldn't provide the services by the private vendors.
And it turned out that the private vendors--and I wonder if
this is happening in your school district, too. The private
vendors were actually hiring those same teachers from the
school to be the tutors but at twice the cost of what it would
cost the school system to hire the same tutors, the school
teachers after school. Number one, when a school is failing and
you want to provide the SES, does that mean that every student
is eligible for the tutoring?
And I think, Ms. Murray, you said that you try and do the
students that are below grade average first that qualify. But
then do you do all the students that are within either the sub-
groups or within the whole school district that are provided
with tutoring?
And I am asking the three of you.
Ms. Roberts. The law requires that we serve lower income
students first. The demand for our SES program has not yet
exceeded our capacity to provide the program. So we have not
had to rank students. But in the case that we would, we would
do it based on low-income and then student performance. We
would probably look at those groups that were failing in terms
of the state assessment.
Mrs. Biggert. So it could be though that if they are low-
income they could be the students that are actually performing
at grade level but because they are low-income they are the
first to qualify.
Ms. Roberts. Yes. And we have a number of students who do
not qualify in terms of income eligibility but do qualify when
you look at the student performance. This is particularly true
of our special education population.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay.
And, Ms. Murray, is that----
Ms. Murray. I would agree with that. We had the same
situation, a situation where the low-income students are doing
fine and do not necessarily need the supplemental services but
higher-income students are not doing well and would benefit.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay.
Ms. Roberts, do you still find that there are a lot of
students that are not getting the services because of the
availability of funds?
Ms. Murray. We have not exceeded our capacity of funding.
Mrs. Biggert. You have not?
And you have not, Ms. Roberts?
Ms. Roberts. No.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, Chicago certainly has.
Ms. Chafin?
Ms. Chafin. Again, except for Baltimore City, all of our
systems still have money available within that 20 percent to
serve more students.
Mrs. Biggert. All right.
Do each of you think it makes sense to use the supplemental
services in the first year rather than the third year?
Ms. Murray?
Ms. Murray. Well, certainly, our experience in Newport News
has shown that more parents have participated in supplemental
services than did public school choice.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay, okay.
Ms. Roberts?
Ms. Roberts. I think you are going to find that the answer
will vary from district to district. In Boston we have had
continually declining funds across all of our NCLB grants. And
so, we have been left inclined to start SES in our first year
when we already have a school choice program.
Mrs. Biggert. But in your school system do you really have
other public schools that are available to take the numbers
that would want to transfer?
Ms. Roberts. We don't have surrounding districts. But we do
have schools within the district.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay.
Ms. Chafin?
Ms. Chafin. I think we have found that we often are limited
in the number of schools that are available for them to
transfer to. And most of our parents very much want their kids
to stay in their neighborhood school with their friends. So we
at the state would love to have the option of saying district
by district and evaluating whether or not that would be there,
whether it would come first.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Woolsey?
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great panel.
Thank you so much, all of you.
Every time we go through this, we learn more. But we are
learning more every day with No Child Left Behind. And we know
that. And that is what we need to be basing our reauthorization
on is what we have learned from the last 5 years.
Overall there is no question that students are best off
if--and that is the operative word, if--their local school can
meet the individual needs of the child and leave no child
behind. So that has got to be our goal. And I think we can--and
you have given us such a menu of good ideas here today--pick
the best from what each one of you has offered to us as
recommendations for our reauthorization.
What I want is that SES availability be there but not just
in numbers, but in quality. And I like the idea of school
choice. But I prefer that that school choice be later. I really
think that is punitive when we--maybe a school will be so bad
off that kids absolutely need to leave that school. But if that
is so, we shouldn't have that school. What is the matter with
us, the richest nation in the world?
But I really think we do a great disservice to have a
school in need and then have their school population leave,
particularly those whose parents are more active and motivated.
They leave and leave that school with the kids that need the
most help and less money because the kids have left. None of it
makes sense to me.
So what I want us to do is pick the best of all these
ideas. And Newport News--didn't I read a book about Newport
News?
Anyway, it seems like you have got so many good ideas, Ms.
Murray. So what I would like you to talk to me about is how you
measure your SES vendors and teachers and how you attract them
because we expect our teachers to be the best qualified and
certified and we are measuring them. How do we make sure that
these services that we bring, the tutoring, et cetera, can
measure up to the same standards?
Ms. Murray. Currently I think it is very difficult with the
SES providers to know the quality of the tutors because they
are not required to have certified teachers or licensed
teachers or teachers who meet the highly qualified state
standard.
I believe that is something that would improve SES if that
were required because it has been our experience, the
complaints that we have had from parents have been because of,
as I mentioned, tutors not showing up, tutors using
inappropriate language or discipline methods, tutors just going
over homework with the students, not doing an actual teaching
lesson, those types of things. I believe that if there were
higher quality of professional in those positions than we may
not have the problem.
I know that some companies do require licensed
professionals. But that, again, is on an individual basis.
Ms. Woolsey. Would anybody else like to respond to this?
Like how are we going to have enough tutors? Is that what we
expect?
Ms. Murray. Well, certainly, quality is of utmost
importance. And as I said earlier and as we have explained in
our statement, quality starts at the state level because it is
the states who certify the providers and provide a list that is
available to the district for making it available to parents to
select the actual providers.
Monitoring and technical assistance are also very
important. Monitoring by the states and also in some instances,
by districts of providers is absolutely important for
accountability. There are providers who have been taken off the
list. That should certainly be pursued in instances where you
have providers that are not doing the job. That has to be done
in order to have a quality system.
Ms. Woolsey. So, Ms. Chafin, do we look at then every
school year in the AYP tests? Is there a way to say, well,
these kids still aren't measuring up and they are going to this
particular service or this is how we are tutoring them versus
the kids that are measuring up?
Ms. Chafin. We certainly encourage the vendors to work
directly with the school so they know what that child needs.
And that is one of the things we monitor. We select our vendors
with a very rigorous process. Our last vendor group we had 33
applications. We approved 10. So you started at all of those
places, I think, but you have to go back.
I am still looking at this evaluation we will have in place
that will link vendors and students who participate in their
program to how those students are achieving on the Maryland
school assessment. That to me is where we are going to have the
true information about effectiveness of the programs. But you
have got to not just choose them rigorously.
You have got to grow them to some extent and make sure that
you are looking-we give technical assistance on how do you
write goals and objectives. Some of these incredibly well-
intentioned vendors just don't have those basic skills. So we
are still working at that level. But we screen out a lot more
than we allow through.
Ms. Woolsey. Okay. Well, my time is up. But I think that is
one of the things we have to look at in No Child Left Behind
reauthorization is how do we evaluate.
Ms. Chafin. Absolutely.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Keller?
Mr. Keller. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And let me begin--Mr. Chairman is a good friend of mine.
But I just correct any impression that folks may have in
mentioning the reductions in the funding for Title I. Since the
No Child Left Behind Act was passed, Title I funding is
actually up 46 percent nationally from $8.7 billion in 2001 to
$12.7 billion in 2006. In my home state, it is up 58 percent.
And I say that just because I hear from a lot of folks back
home the same thing. Because it is authorized at a certain
amount. If it is not appropriated to that amount, people think
it is a cut when, in fact, it is not. The funding is up
substantially. It doesn't mean we can't do better.
But, Ms. Roberts, I am going to direct all my questions to
you just because your issue is the one that I am really most
interested in. And that is the private versus public providers
of tutors.
So let me begin by asking you--give me the name of an
elementary school in Boston.
Ms. Roberts. Gavin.
Mr. Keller. What is that?
Ms. Roberts. Gavin.
Mr. Keller. Gavin, all right. Let's say that we have a 2nd-
grader named Johnny at Gavin Elementary School in Boston. And
he is having problems reading, and he qualifies for extra
tutoring help. If the district is the provider, would that
tutoring take place at Gavin Elementary School?
Ms. Roberts. Yes.
Mr. Keller. Okay. If a private vendor is the provider,
would the tutoring take place at Gavin Elementary School?
Ms. Roberts. It would depend on the provider. The provider
selects their location and form partnerships with particular
principals. And a number of our providers have their own sites.
Mr. Keller. Okay. So in some cases, yes, in some cases, no?
Ms. Roberts. Yes.
Mr. Keller. Okay. If the district is the provider, would
the teacher for Johnny in providing the tutoring likely be a
teacher from Gavin Elementary School, although different than
his regular classroom teacher?
Ms. Roberts. It is possible. We recruit our highly
qualified teachers that have a track record of high academic
performance for the program. They can be from within the school
or from other schools.
Mr. Keller. Okay. If there is a private SES provider, would
it also be possible that the tutor might be a teacher at that
same Gavin Elementary School?
Ms. Roberts. It is possible. In many cases we are finding
that the staff can range from a high school student to a highly
qualified teacher.
Mr. Keller. Okay. Let's assume for a second because it is
possible under both circumstances that Gavin Elementary School
will provide Johnny with some extra reading help and it will be
from a teacher at Gavin Elementary School. What would be the
difference in pay that that teacher would receive from the
district versus what that teacher would receive from a private
provider?
Ms. Roberts. That actually is very difficult to gauge. The
district provides contractually about $38 per hour. Private
providers range from anywhere between $15 to the same amount,
$38 per hour.
Mr. Keller. Okay. This is what I am getting at. In your
testimony you said that the district provides these SES
services at a rate of about four times cheaper. Right?
Ms. Roberts. Yes.
Mr. Keller. I am trying to decide, well, if the district
provides the tutor who is a public school employee, does that
person get $10 an hour? And if the private sector vendor is
providing that same teacher, does that teacher also get $10 an
hour and the private vendor pockets the rest as profit? Or is
that private vendor saying, ``Hey, work for us and we will pay
you $30 an hour?'' Do you have a sense of how that works?
Ms. Roberts. I would say most private providers--very few
private providers use teachers. But those who do generally pay
slightly under what the district is charging. And they do
charge the full per pupil allocation of $2,400. Some of those
may relate to operational costs. But some of it definitely has
a profit issue.
Mr. Keller. Okay. Have you looked at the data to see if the
test scores are any better in the Boston Public Schools with
the students who got the public school vendors versus those who
got the private sector tutoring?
Ms. Roberts. We have actually been trying to do an
evaluation. We have had some difficulty getting data. We have
been doing a pre and post test. We have some data on the
district program but not much on the external provider programs
because of their participation rates.
Mr. Keller. But you are looking into still an open
question. My time is about to wrap up, so let me just make one
final comment. I see that you wanted to use about 10 percent of
the funds for administrative costs and right now you are not
allowed to use any for administrative costs?
Ms. Roberts. Yes, sir.
Mr. Keller. I have noticed throughout No Child Left Behind
we have various provisions that say 95 percent of the funds
shall be used in the classroom. And would you be comfortable
with 5 percent of the funds being used for administrative
purposes? That is at least better than zero.
Ms. Roberts. I think 5 percent would be better than none,
yes.
Mr. Keller. Okay.
Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Keller.
The gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Hirono?
Ms. Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Is it Ms. Piche? Am I pronouncing your name correctly? She
testified--and this is for all of the other members of the
panel. Ms. Piche's testimony says that the students who are
furthest behind tend to be poor and in one or more of other
sub-groups. They are usually non-white, disabled, or are
learning English.
Would you agree that those are the students who are the
furthest behind?
Ms. Ashby. I would. Our work would corroborate that.
Ms. Hirono. All of you would agree?
Now, these are groups that have been identified long before
NCLB ever got put in place that generally they needed more
help. This is why we have programs such as Head Start, ESL.
There is also another federal law that requires special needs
students to receive equal educational opportunities, also not
particularly well funded by the federal government.
So that being the case, do you think that we need to go
through all of the testing required under NCLB in order to
identify that these groups of students need special help?
So in other words, since these groups were already
identified, can't we just get quality SES to these students
without going through all of the testing that they have to go
through under NCLB?
Ms. Ashby. I can respond to that. The testing serves a
number of purposes. One is to determine how students are
achieving the content standards for the academic curriculum.
And that is all students, what progress they are making and to
what extent within a district the district is likely to meet
its goal of being proficient in math and science by 2014.
Also testing provides information to teachers and to school
personnel about what is needed to help students progress. Where
does the instruction need to be targeted? What areas are
lacking in the student's knowledge. So there are a number of
reasons for having assessments in addition to identifying poor
and minority students who need help.
Ms. Chafin. I think we most certainly could identify those
students that need help without the test. However, the test to
me is what makes the school and the districts accountable for
the quality of work that is presented to that student. SES is
one small piece of school improvement.
If all you do is SES and everything stays the same, I don't
think you will see the effect. But as it is folded into a full
school improvement plan that has the accountability of the test
at the end, I think that we are in Maryland having discussions
about students that we may never have discussed as fully as we
do now.
Ms. Roberts. I would say the district of Boston is not
opposed to the testing. I think what we take issue with is the
fact that growth is not factored into AYP. For example, Boston
and San Diego performed similarly on the national assessment of
core educational progress. But Boston has 60 schools identified
for having failed to make AYP for 3 or more years while San
Diego has 15 schools.
There is clearly a wide variety across the states in terms
of the level of rigor and the starting lines for sub-groups.
And so, until you address that and develop a national standard
so that you are able to compare one state to the next, there
are some problems with this model.
Ms. Murray. I do agree that NCLB has brought accountability
to school districts and to states for those sub-groups of ESL
and special education students. I do think that growth models
need to be taken into account.
Ms. Hirono. Did you want to add something?
Ms. Piche. I served on the secretary of education's growth
model peer review process. And I would say that growth models
are going to be a very important component in moving forward.
But the bottom line is that the tests are needed for purposes
of accountability. And, in fact, what you find is that you can
also use these assessment results to identify schools that are
doing a good job.
For example, several years ago, we identified a school in
Prince George's County in Maryland where minority males who
were also low-income were doing phenomenally well in science.
So that school had been written up as an exemplary school for
other schools to look at in terms of what are they doing, why
is it that their scores for this particular sub-group of
students were so much higher than the rest of the state.
Ms. Hirono. I am probably going to want to follow up with
some of you regarding where I am going with these questions
because, yes, I agree that at some point we ought to assess
whether or not the supplemental services is having a positive
impact. But I think what I am concerned about is, you know, how
do we get to that point in the least costly and yet effective
way.
Thank you.
Chairman Kildee. The gentleman from Puerto Rico, Mr. For-
tuno?
Mr. Fortuno. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
you and certainly Governor Castle and the staff for today's
hearing.
But most importantly, I want to thank all five of you. And
it has been a truly interesting and enlightening session for us
as we move forward in trying to reauthorize No Child Left
Behind. I know that educational standards and performance are
major challenges that we are facing as a committee.
And, Mr. Chairman, you are doing a superb job in steering
us in the right direction and trying to understand what is
being done out there, best practices and so on.
Unfortunately, in my district, the district of Puerto Rico,
we have been falling way short across the board in terms of the
educational standards and the implementation of NCLB standards.
I had mentioned earlier on March 7th the U.S. Department of
Education had sent a letter to the Puerto Rico Department of
Education stating that it is in violation of NCLB by failing to
submit AYP determinations in a timely fashion. And Puerto Rico
was fined for that.
Now on March 21st, the U.S. Department of Education sent a
subsequent letter to the Puerto Rico Department of Education,
where the department stated its concerns regarding ``the
alignment of Puerto Rico's academic achievement tests to grade
level content standards and the performance level descriptors
for Puerto Rico alternative evaluation tests.'' And it states
that actually Puerto Rico may lose 50 percent of the Title I
part A administrative funds for fiscal year 2006.
And, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to introduce
into the record the March 21st letter sent by the Department of
Education, if I may.
Chairman Kildee. Without objection.
[The letter follows:]
Mr. Fortuno. Thank you very much.
And in preparing for today's hearing for SES, the
department was unable to furnish us adequate data on the
program implementation in Puerto Rico prior to this hearing. I
am certain that we are facing the same concerns and same
problems.
The first question that I have for Ms. Chafin--if you could
elaborate further in your division service contracts with
outside or in other jurisdictions, as you were mentioning. How
do you structure that, and what exactly are you doing? And
maybe the second question there--will you be willing to do the
same thing for Puerto Rico?
Ms. Chafin. You are talking about our external evaluations?
Mr. Fortuno. Exactly, yes.
Ms. Chafin. Yes, again, we already have a very strong
database under the direction of Dr. Jane Fleming, who is our
coordinator. We actually helped the U.S. Department of
Education construct the guidance around the elements of a
monitoring system. So when that guidance came to us last year,
we were already collecting those pieces. So that is a very
essential part.
You must know who is participating, when they are
participating, and you must have that close tie with the
vendor. What we are adding on with this external evaluator is
that connection to achievement and being able to look at--we
have vendors who do one-on-one tutoring with students.
We have vendors who go into homes. Then we have vendors who
work at schools. And they work with groups of five to six. We
have so many different configurations of this that we feel that
we need this external independent evaluation of it to make that
connection.
Mr. Fortuno. Okay.
Ms. Chafin. So that is the structure that we are having
right now.
Mr. Fortuno. Okay, I see. I have a feeling that your
student body is pretty similar to mine in the sense that it
tends to be not rural, but more based on cities. And you were
probably facing some of the same challenges. Could you
elaborate even further on how you brought up those numbers in
terms of participation-wise and otherwise?
Ms. Chafin. One of the tools that a state has is to look
each year at the Title I carryover money. Right now you get 20
percent of your funds. And then when the 15 months are over,
the state, at least in Maryland, we have exercised the option
to say we see how hard you are working, and we see the
improvement in your participation rate, your attendance, your
removal of barriers for parents. So we will this year allow you
to carry over that money into your general Title I funding.
We have also said in this year we do not see that you have
made that effort, you have actually gone down in participation.
So we are asking that you carry over that money and leave it
earmarked for SES.
Mr. Fortuno. Okay. Specifically for SES. Okay.
Ms. Chafin. Yes. So we feel that each time we have done
that we have seen an increase in participation and an increase
in the communication. They are doing a really good job. I don't
want to make that sound like districts don't care until you
push them. But they need to understand the seriousness and the
consequences of it sometimes. But they also need you there
holding their hand to address these issues.
We never just say go away and do this better. We always say
what can we do to help. What are the issues here?
I have to point out that one of the biggest barriers to SES
participation is the fact that these children at ages, you
know, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grade don't see this as something
that is really good.
Mr. Fortuno. I know. I am the father of triplets, so I know
what you are talking about.
Ms. Chafin. They see this as something they are being sent
to. We are trying very hard to say--and I am a baseball fan.
When Cal Ripken had a batting slump, he took extra batting
practice. Okay? We are trying to instill in them you have some
control here. You go and snatch all the education you can out
of every opportunity. That is missing. That is not really the
atmosphere that SES is in.
Mr. Fortuno. Yes.
Ms. Chafin. So it is touching all of the people involved.
And we would be glad to help you.
Mr. Fortuno. Thank you. Thank you again.
My time is up. But again, I commend you, all five of you.
And, Mr. Chairman, again, likewise, thank you.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes?
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity to work at the Maryland
State Department of Education for 8 years, part of that time
with Ms. Chafin.
And I am reminded again of why I learned so much from you
when I was there from your testimony today.
I want to thank everyone on the panel for your testimony.
I had a couple of questions. So I will jump right into
them.
First of all, what is your view--and anyone can answer this
question if they would like. But what is your view on what the
minimum qualifications should be of the instructional personnel
that are in these SES? And we have talked about how if they are
going to be teachers, then they probably ought to meet the
highly qualified standard.
But we have also pointed out that in many instances they
are not teachers. And I am just trying to get a sense of where
you think the standard ought to be and, I guess, where you
think it is trending right now.
So we could start with you, Ann.
Ms. Chafin. Okay. I think it is trending toward vendors
using highly qualified teachers. It is not there yet. And
because there is no mandate and because of access, school
systems are not able to get all the highly qualified teachers
they need. So the vendors would suffer from the same
situations.
I think that it is the more qualifications with the tutor,
the better off we are. But I guess I would hold out one little
piece. I have a 16-year-old. And sometimes if she hears it from
a 17-year-old, she is more willing to listen to it.
So I think there is a role involved here for support and
tutoring that may not always fall under that characteristic.
But I do think our vendors are moving more in that direction.
And I think that our districts are much more comfortable when
they know that those actual teachers are the highly qualified
teachers.
Mr. Sarbanes. Any others agree with that?
Ms. Roberts. Yes. I would not say that the tutors have to
be teachers. But they should meet the definition of a highly
qualified teacher. Particularly in Massachusetts we have a
number of colleges and universities where our providers can
draw from.
This is particularly important for us for our English
language learners and our special needs students because what
we are finding is that a number of our providers are not
equipped to provide services for them and eventually drop them,
and then we have to take them into the district program where
we are equipped to do so. So it would be very helpful
particularly when you are looking at those two categories if
the tutors were at least meeting the definition of highly
qualified, even if they weren't teachers.
Mr. Sarbanes. Well, let me ask you--let me follow up on
that because working with systems like the Baltimore City
Schools--and I know other urban districts are facing huge
shortages in qualified teachers, unless things have changed
dramatically in the last couple of years.
And so, aren't we heading towards a situation where we are
going to have all these private SES providers competing of the
same pool of qualified candidates? And isn't that going to
create more pressure and problems potentially for the
traditional districts in terms of where they are getting their
teachers?
Ms. Roberts. I think depending on the availability of
individuals within your city. As I said, Boston is very
university-rich. And so, we have a number of higher education
programs from which our providers can withdraw tutors as well
as our district. That may not be the case in other cities and
other states. But it most certainly is an option.
Mr. Sarbanes. Yes.
Ms. Piche. You know, there probably is going to be some
regional variation in your available labor market. But what we
know about the teaching population in this country is that many
highly qualified teachers are not actually teaching. There are
many teachers who have left the profession for a variety of
reasons. There are also--I think we can't rule out the
possibility of people who have credentials and have
capabilities to perform tutoring under the supervision of
highly trained, capable super-teachers, if you will, the folks
who administer and run these programs.
But we know from the research about effective reading
programs--I will take the success for all program, for
example--is that the program can actually be run--and its one-
on-one tutoring and small group tutoring can be done
successfully by highly trained paraprofessionals. And we put
this program into place in a school district where we worked,
Fort Wayne, Indiana.
It was highly successful. It was actually also evaluated by
Steve Ross from the University of Memphis. So I think as we get
more of the results from these evaluations, we know more about
the quality and what is working and what is not, we will
probably have better data about that. But I would say across
the board that it might not be realistic to expect that every
single tutor would have those highly qualified credentials as
they exist now under NCLB.
I guess I would also say----
Mr. Sarbanes. I just lost the yellow light, so I want to
get a question in real quick before the chairman takes my time
back.
And that is particularly in these situations where the
district is the provider, which is a fascinating sort of in
some ways Kafka-esque result.
Ms. Chafin and others, Ms. Roberts, do you ever wake up in
the morning and scratch your head and say we are sort of
creating an alternative shadow school system in a way that has
these special features to it that make it more attractive in
many ways but, we have got the same teachers providing the
services, it is in the same building, et cetera? And where is
that heading? What are the implications of that?
Or is it okay because you are sort of jostling the system a
bit and, yes, people are walking out one door and coming back
in the other? But maybe it heightens the awareness of the kinds
of services that need to be provided and creates other dynamics
that are positive. So if you could just quickly respond to
that.
Ms. Chafin. I guess I do have concerns about that.
Currently in Maryland we have two schools, districts that are
in improvement. And they are not allowed to offer SES services.
I think it is an issue of training, however. If I were
confident that a teacher participating with a vendor would
receive extra-professional development that might actually make
them do a better job during the day, too, this would be more
palatable.
Mr. Sarbanes. Ms. Roberts?
Ms. Roberts. Boston is selecting its most highly qualified
teachers for its program so that our instruction is in the
after-school SES program is hopefully at a higher quality than
what is offered, in some cases, in the school day. It is also
more connected because you are able to ensure that the SES
teachers are connected with the school day curriculum and with
the school day teachers.
In terms of how that affects the school districts and our
ability to work with external providers, I think that we have
come to a happy medium where we are able to provide services,
we are able to do it in a highly qualified way. We are able to
show some improvement.
And we have been looking at our preliminary data. We see
that students that attend 75 percent or more of the time in the
district program do show improvement. We cannot say the same
for external providers because we don't have enough data.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you.
The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Grijalva?
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
this excellent panel.
Let me just follow up on the point that you were just
making, Ms. Roberts. Have Boston Public Schools done any
monitoring to see how well private providers--their tutoring
program is matching up with the classroom strategy, with the
curriculum? Is that monitoring being conducted?
Ms. Roberts. The state requires us to approve all of the
students and parents home contracts, which do outline what the
student will cover. In most cases, there is very little
alignment on the front end between what is happening in the
school and what is happening with the SES provider, although we
do provide that information. Most providers offer a pre-
packaged program which they are following. And so, they are
using their own pre and post-assessments by which they offer a
student success plan.
Mr. Grijalva. Wouldn't a continuum of instruction be good
in terms of if we are trying to bring these kids to a certain
level? I have always heard that a continuum is a very important
factor in that improvement.
Ms. Roberts. Yes. We most certainly would like to see
better alignment between what is going on in the school day and
what is going on with the SES providers. We found that that is
difficult to do when you already have a pre-packaged program.
Mr. Grijalva. Got it. I think the other one I was going to
ask you about, if I may, Ms. Roberts, is how much does your
school district as an example spend on disseminating all the
SES information about the providers in the district. How much
does that cost?
Ms. Roberts. This year we spent nearly $100,000. We did
newspaper advertisements. We have done things on our cable
channel. We sent packages home through the school and by mail.
We have held SES provider fairs for parents. And so, we have
tried to reach out to parents through a number of ways as do
most large urban districts. And that data is available at the
end of my written testimony.
Mr. Grijalva. Okay. And I think one more and then I will
shift to another question.
Ms. Piche from the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights--I
think we heard her say or in her testimony that she believes
school districts must make a case to the Department of
Education that their involvement does not detract from the
school improvement needs.
You cite Boston Public Schools commendable record on
participation and serving all eligible children at a lower cost
than the private providers. Do you have any comments about
making the case statement that Ms. Piche made, number one? And
number two, do you know the other four districts that are in
the pilot program if they have had the same record that you
have in terms of participation cost?
Ms. Roberts. I cannot answer the question about the other
four districts. I believe that for most of us our participation
rate meets at least the national standard, if not higher.
What was your first question again? I am sorry.
Mr. Grijalva. The first part of the question having to do
with the comment that before getting involved in the SES
improvement services that a case must be made to the Department
of Education that you are not detracting from the improvement
plan.
Ms. Roberts. In Massachusetts our state department works
very closely with us to ensure that the quality of the program
is there but also that the schools are able to continue with
their school improvement process. And so, while it is not
explicitly done, it is implicitly done.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I think Ms. Piche made a very good point. And
it dealt with the two groups of students that all of us know
are not doing as well under the mandates. And that is English
learners and special education.
Let me use the example of my state. There are 33 providers.
I think all but three are private providers in the state of
Arizona. Every one of them claim that they have expertise in
being able to work with children who need a second language
acquisition. From my information, there is no way to verify
that expertise.
I mention that, Mr. Chairman, because I really think that
in those two populations that private providers that are part
of this SES improvement process have to be monitored and
evaluated on English learners, special education, outreach,
expertise of their staff, parent communication. Because if that
is supposed to be a support base for a lot of these children
and it is not working and all you need to do, at least in the
state of Arizona is check a box that you have expertise in the
area, I don't think that is enough.
And I appreciate the comments that the witness made because
I really feel that that is a glaring gap in holding these
private providers or any provider of SES services accountable
for reaching every one of the kids that we are supposed to be
reaching. And I yield back. I have no further questions, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hinojosa?
Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to the presenters here today on our panel.
I have always been a very strong proponent of parental
involvement. And at every level, pre-K through the 12th I think
that where we see parental involvement, those children seem to
do better than those who do not have parents involved.
My question to Ms. Chafin is, could you describe your
efforts to ensure that limited English proficient parents
understand the opportunities available for supplemental
services?
Ms. Chafin. I certainly can. I would never say to you that
we are doing everything that could possibly be done. But we do
translate all of our documents into the five major languages in
Maryland. We have community outreach members in each of our
districts that are making concerted efforts to have personal
contact with parents.
We were just shown--we had a parent advisory council
meeting yesterday for the superintendent. We had a wonderful
presentation where the woman talked to us about we don't really
send too much written. It is verbal. It is phone. It is having
translators. It is having interpreters there for people so that
they can understand all of the issues available to them.
You must have those printed materials, but you must also be
able to contact them where they are in community centers. And I
think across Maryland you can find that happening. I won't tell
you that it is happening everywhere that it could. But it is
increasing on a regular basis. We must get to the parents where
they are so they understand the options.
Mr. Hinojosa. Can you tell me the difference in the daily
attendance, average daily attendance in the schools in Maryland
where we have a high level of parental involvement versus
school districts where we don't have it?
Ms. Chafin. I am sure there is a difference. We do not have
statistics there, but we are confident through our work with
our Maryland Parent Advisory Council that there is more to be
done in making sure that parents understand access to schools.
I have to tell you that, in working with these, they have
come clear with, if there is nothing else that happens, make
that school secretary be nice to us when we come in.
Mr. Hinojosa. Well, there are some folks in the
administration which are not friendly to parents. And I can say
that the private providers who are offering the tutoring, it
seems to me, at least from parents that have spoken to me about
this, that they aren't getting enough information that would
make it easy for them to identify the tutors for the core
courses for their children to do better on standardized tests.
What can you all do to improve that?
Because the money is there. It is not being utilized. And I
believe that there must be a problem. It could be language. It
could be communication. But somehow the parents that are
involved are having trouble getting the tutors.
Ms. Chafin. For one thing, we would follow up on any report
of that individually. But again, it is pushing at all of the
points, making sure you have the materials translated, making
sure you have people who are instrumental in the different
international communities who themselves understand SES and can
teach that. It is making sure that the school itself, which is
the parents' first thought for anything, understands those
services.
Mr. Hinojosa. Know that that is going to be important if we
are going to improve the issue that we are working on today on
No Child Left Behind.
My last question to Cornelia Ashby. Can you tell me what
percentage of students are receiving supplemental services in
middle schools and what percentage are receiving those
supplemental services in high school?
Ms. Ashby. I do not have that information. I don't know if
that is something that I could get. And perhaps----
Mr. Hinojosa. Would you try to get me an answer in writing
to my question?
Ms. Ashby. I will try to do that, yes.
Mr. Hinojosa. And how have states and school districts
worked to ensure that appropriate services were available for
secondary school students? And what has been most effective in
serving the population of the English language learners so that
they could do better on standardized tests?
Ms. Ashby. Let me say with regard to evaluations of all
types they are--they haven't been done for SES. That is true
for English language learners as well as other students. There
are states that are in the process of trying to do that. Ms.
Chafin has talked about in Maryland.
The difficulty is in having the data available and
controlling for other factors that can influence a student's
progress. And that is the difficult thing that hasn't been
overcome. The Department of Education has stepped up its
efforts to help states in this regard. It is too soon, or I
don't know how effective they have been.
There is a special center within the department that is
providing assistance this school year to 16 states who have
asked for it. And that should improve states' ability, at least
to collect data. But controlling for other factors will still
be difficult. So I can't answer your question with regard to
limited English proficient students or any other group of
students right now.
Mr. Hinojosa. That seems to be the answer on so many of the
problems that we are having, that they don't have the data,
they don't have--they are not tracking it. And I think that No
Child Left Behind after 6 years has done very poorly and those
excuses that there isn't enough data--there should have been
from the very beginning when you started having complaints from
states, including Virginia and Texas and California. There
should have been somebody in the department who would have
said, well, then let's start collecting data so that we can
track it and see where the gaps are.
Ms. Ashby. The difficulty is the department's data comes
from the states. States issue reports to the department.
Mr. Hinojosa. Yes, but our money from the federal
government is coming to the states and to the school districts.
And it seems to me that we ought to exercise some leadership
and get them to collect that data. It is not your fault. I
realize that. But the message has to get up to the folks above
you.
Ms. Ashby. Thank you.
Mr. Hinojosa. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kildee. Thank you very, very much.
Governor Castle and I have been commenting to ourselves up
here that what a great panel this is. There has not been a
scintilla of politics, very straight and knowledgeable answers
from people who really know what is going on. This has been
very helpful.
And I think I can predict that there will be some changes
in No Child Left Behind from the testimony that we received
here today. It has been very, very helpful.
So as previously ordered, the members will have 7 calendar
days to submit additional materials for the hearing record. Any
members who wish to submit follow-up questions in writing to
the witnesses should coordinate with the majority staff within
the requisite time.
And without objection, unless you have something to say,
the hearing is adjourned.
[Additional questions for the record submitted by Mr. Scott
follow:]
Committee on Education and Labor,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC, April 20, 2007.
Cornelia Ashby, Director,
Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, U.S. Government
Accountability Office, Washington, DC.
Ruth Murray, Director,
Federal Grants, Newport News Public Schools, Newport News, VA.
Ann Chafin, Maryland Assistant State Superintendent,
Student, Family, and School Support, Baltimore, MD.
Dianne M. Piche, Executive Director,
Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, DC.
Monica Roberts, Director,
Office of Federal and State Programs, Boston Public Schools, Boston, MA
Dear Ms. Ashby, Ms. Chafin, Ms. Roberts, Ms. Murray, and Ms. Piche:
Thank you for testifying at the April 18, 2007 hearing of the
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.
Representative Robert C. Scott (D-VA), a Member of the
Subcommittee, has asked that you respond in writing to the following
questions:
Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income
students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an
effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more
responsive, should SES services be targeted to subgroups that fail to
make AYP? Also, should these services be available to everyone in a
subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income?
Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources
be devoted to targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school
choice be made available to subgroups who are not underperforming? For
example, if a school is failing a certain group of students, why are
students other than that group permitted to transfer schools?
Please send an electronic version of your written response to the
question to the Committee staff by COB on Wednesday, April 25--the date
on which the hearing record will close. If you have any questions,
please contact the Committee.
Sincerely,
George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor.
Dale E. Kildee, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary
Education.
______
[Response to Mr. Scott's questions from Director Ashby
follows:]
Education, Workforce, and Income Security,
U.S. Government Accountability Office,
Washington, DC, April 25, 2007.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives.
Hon. Dale Kildee, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education,
Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of
Representatives.
Subject: Responses to Questions for the Record Related to the
Supplemental Educational Services Provisions of the No Child Left
Behind Act
This letter responds to your April 20, 2007, request that we
provide responses to questions related to our recent testimony before
the Subcommittee on Early Childhood Education, Elementary and Secondary
Education on early implementation of the supplemental educational
services (SES) provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA).\1\
Our testimony discussed (1) how the proportion of eligible students
receiving services has changed in recent years and actions that have
been taken to increase participation; (2) how providers are working
with districts and schools to provide services that increase student
achievement; (3) the extent to which states and districts are
monitoring and evaluating SES; and (4) how Education monitors state SES
implementation and assists state and district efforts. This testimony
was based on our recent report on these topics.\2\ Your questions,
along with our responses, follow.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Actions May Help
Improve Implementation and Evaluation of Supplemental Educational
Services, GAO-07-738T (Washington, D.C.: April 18, 2007).
\2\ GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Actions Needed to
Improve Local Implementation and State Evaluation of Supplemental
Educational Services, GAO-06-758 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 4, 2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income
students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an
effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more
responsive, should SES services be targeted to subgroups that fail to
make AYP? Also, should these services be available to everyone in a
subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income?
While students from low-income families who attend Title I schools
that have missed adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals for 3 consecutive
years are the only students currently eligible to receive SES, the law
also allows for SES to be targeted to students within that cohort who
are the lowest achieving, and potentially in the sub-groups that fail
to make AYP. Specifically, under current law, districts in which the
demand for SES exceeds the level that the 20 percent Title I set-aside
can support are required to give priority to the lowest-achieving
eligible students. In this situation, the district has some flexibility
in determining which students to prioritize for services. For example,
the district might decide to focus services on students who are lowest-
achieving in the subject or subjects that caused the school to be
identified for improvement, or it might decide that services will be
most effective if they are concentrated on the lowest-performing
students in particular grades.
However, because of low participation in SES across the country, it
is unlikely that many districts have had to prioritize eligible
students for services. In our August 2006 report, we estimated that 19
percent of students who were eligible for SES in 2004-2005 received
services nationwide. Further, no students received services in about 20
percent of the approximately 1,000 districts required to offer SES in
2004-2005.
Concerning the academic achievement level of students that have
received SES, we also gathered information in our August 2006 report on
this issue. Specifically, we estimated that 91 percent of districts
that reviewed the academic records of students receiving SES classified
most or all of these students as academically low-achieving. While we
did not independently verify this information, it suggests that the
lowest achieving students, potentially including those in the sub-
groups that failed to make AYP, are receiving SES.
Since a subgroup's AYP status is based on the performance of each
student in the sub-group--regardless of income--to the extent that
funds permit, an argument could be made for providing SES to everyone
in a sub-group that fails to make AYP in order to raise the academic
achievement of the sub-group, with the lowest-achieving low-income
students in the sub-group having first priority. However, without
additional evaluation of SES's impact on student academic achievement,
the extent to which these services are accomplishing this goal is
unknown. Consequently, the extent to which these services would be able
to increase the academic achievement of students in subgroups that have
failed to make AYP is also unknown.
2. Given the low participation in school choice, should more
resources be devoted to targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should
school choice be made available to sub-groups who are not
underperforming? For example, if a school is failing a certain group of
students, why are students other than that group permitted to transfer
schools?
Because of low school choice participation rates, school choice-
related transportation costs likely do not account for a significant
portion of the 20 percent Title I set-aside that districts are required
to use for choice-related transportation and SES. Both our report on
school choice\3\ and the U.S. Department of Education's most recent
report on Title I \4\ found that nationwide only 1 percent of students
transferred schools under the No Child Left Behind Act's school choice
provisions in 2003-2004. Low participation may be in part the result of
parents' preferring to keep students in neighborhood schools that are
close to their homes, as well as the limited availability of schools
for students to transfer into. Because of low participation rates, we
found that less than 5 percent of the Title I set-aside was spent on
choice-related transportation costs in 5 of the 7 districts we visited.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Needs to Provide
Additional Technical Assistance and Conduct Implementation Studies for
School Choice Provision, GAO-05-7 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 10, 2004).
\4\ U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation,
and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service, Title I
Accountability and School Improvement From 2001-2004 (Washington, DC.:
April 2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the availability of the school choice option to all
students in schools that have failed to meet AYP for 2 consecutive
years, this program design provides all students in these schools with
the ability to transfer to schools that may better meet their academic
needs, and it also provides schools with an incentive to increase
student academic achievement in order to retain students. If the school
choice provisions are targeted to certain underperforming sub-groups,
rather than all students, these program goals may not be as effectively
achieved. In addition, as we noted in our report on school choice,
little is known about the academic performance of students who have
chosen to transfer schools under the choice provisions. Without that
data, it is unknown whether students currently exercising the option to
transfer are those in the sub-groups that have failed to make AYP or
those in the larger student population.
If you have any questions about the content of this letter, please
contact me.
Sincerely yours,
Cornelia M. Ashby, Director,
Education, Workforce, and Income Security,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.
______
[Response to Mr. Scott's questions from Ms. Chafin
follows:]
Response to Questions by Ann E. Chafin, Assistant State Superintendent
for Student, Family and School Support, Maryland State Department of
Education
Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income
students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an
effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more
responsive, should SES services be targeted to subgroups that fail to
make AYP? Also, should these services be available to everyone in a
subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income?
Within the current structure of NCLB, when school districts have
more requests for SES than they can fund with the 20% Title I set
aside, they must give priority to those economically disadvantaged
students who have the more severe academic need. Thus when there are
more requests than money, the students with the most serious academic
need get first service under SES. If the law was changed so that only
those economically disadvantaged students in subgroups that are NOT
meeting AYP are allowed to participate in SES, we may address the
immediate need in the school but lose an opportunity to invest in the
future performance of students. However, since many students fall in
multiple subgroups, prioritizing by subgroup rather than individual may
address many of the same students.
SES services are provided by Title I funds. Title I was established
and continues to be for the mitigation of the effects of poverty on
learning. If these funds are made available to any student not making
AYP, regardless of poverty status, we are changing the mission of Title
I. Poor parents and students do not have the same options as those
parents and students who are not economically disadvantaged. Title I
funds should not be redirected in this manner.
Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources
be devoted to targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school
choice be made available to subgroups who are not underperforming? For
example, if a school is failing a certain group of students, why are
students other than that group permitted to transfer schools?
In Maryland, the SES option has received more attention from
parents than the transfer option. Any additional funds in this area
could be included in direct services to students. The transfer option,
although it may meet the parents' needs and desires for their child,
does not carry with it the powerful intervention strategies that exist
in their home school.
Because of this, the money might be better spent on SES.
As I said in my previous answer, the subgroups currently making AYP
may not make it the next year. Some investment in the future of
students who are borderline or non-proficient regardless of their
subgroup membership could play a part in a long term solution. However,
some clever parents are trying to game the system to buy a house in a
poor district and opt to have their kindergarten child attend the
school in the more affluent attendance zone. We have curbed this
practice by saying that only students currently enrolled in schools can
exercise the transfer.
______
[Response to Mr. Scott's questions from Ms. Murray
follows:]
Response to Questions by Ruth D. Murray, Director, Federal Grants,
Newport News Public Schools
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your questions
regarding SES and Public School Choice. My responses are below:
Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income
students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an
effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more
responsive, should SES services be targeted to subgroups that fail to
make AYP? Also, should these services be available to everyone in a
subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income?
The current requirement of offering SES services to all low-income
students regardless of AYP performance has cause concern and alarm
among parents in our division. Parents of high-performing students have
had many questions on why they were being asked to participate in SES.
Because in our division the goal is 100% participation in SES, these
parents are often asked many times in many ways to participate. This is
frustrating for them and the school division.
Currently the funds for SES services are taken from the school
division's Title I allocation. Setting aside this 20% reduces the
funding to all Title I schools and therefore reduces services in high-
poverty schools. Schools having not less than 40% poverty can operate
as Title I School-wide programs and provide services to all students in
the building. I believe this same concept could be used with SES. All
students, regardless of income or subgroup, who fail to achieve
proficiency on the state assessments, should be offered the opportunity
to receive SES services. This would target the students who need the
help.
Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources
be devoted to targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school
choice be made available to subgroups who are not underperforming? For
example, if a school is failing a certain group of students, why are
students other than that group permitted to transfer schools?
Public School Choice and SES Set-Aside is an amount equal to 20% of
Title I, Part A allocation. The breakdown is 5% Public School Choice,
5% Supplemental Education Services; and 10% either as needed. In
Newport News we allocate the entire amount for SES because the low
participation in Public School Choice makes the expenses minimal.
Offering all students the opportunity to leave a low-performing
school and then the next year (after students have left) providing
extra help through tutoring, does not seem the best way to help a low-
performing school. Often the students who leave the school are the ones
who are performing well and whose parents are the most involved.
Reversing the order of SES and Public School Choice would allow the
school to offer tutoring first and then if students are still not
performing and parents are still not satisfied, they could choose
another school. Limiting Public School Choice to only students who are
not performing academically would eliminate students transferring for
reasons other than achievement.
______
[The prepared statement of Steven Pines follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steven Pines, Executive Director,
Education Industry Association
Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member Castle, Members of the Subcommittee
on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education: I am Steve
Pines, the executive director of the Education Industry Association
(EIA), the nation's leading professional association for private
providers of education services and suppliers/developers of educational
content for students spanning Pre-K through college. Our 500+ members
serve individual families, communities and partner with schools, and it
is the latter group that I am addressing today: specifically, providers
of Supplemental Education Services (SES).
Thanks to the bi-partisan No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), children
attending schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress toward
academic proficiency in reading and math have access to tutoring
services paid for with federal dollars. With this provision, low income
students can now access the same high-quality tutoring that middle-
class parents have sought for their children for years.
EIA welcomed the Subcommittee's examination of the supplemental
educational services (SES) provision of ``No Child Left Behind''
(NCLB), particularly its focus on accountability, widening access to
more students, and ensuring the availability of high-quality SES
programs.
I appreciate the opportunity to comment on these three important
issues.
Accountability--EIA fully supports SES accountability, and
has called for additional funding to be made available to States to
assist with the implementation of comprehensive SES evaluation
programs. The witnesses at the hearing, as well as the Members in
attendance, made it clear that while some progress has been made,
States must do more to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of SES.
Meantime, EIA has tracked third-party SES evaluations done to date, and
found that federally funded tutoring is highly regarded by parents
(with typically 8 in 10 parents citing evidence that the tutoring has
helped their children in school), and is having a positive effect on
standardized test scores. A report on our findings can be accessed at
the EIA website, www.educationindustry.org.
Accessibility--EIA was pleased to hear of the efforts of
the state of Maryland, as well as the Newport News, VA school district,
to make SES available to the greatest number of eligible families
possible. However, both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and
the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights testified that SES enrollment
rates continue to be unacceptably low, the latter calling for greater
efforts to improve outreach and earlier promotion of SES, including the
further opening of school sites to SES programs.
Quality--Once again, Maryland leads by example, describing
State policies that ensure delivery of high-quality SES services. EIA
believes that the current NCLB quality standards which guide the
States' provider approval process are effective and appropriate,
including those covering curriculum alignment, instructional methods,
tutor qualifications and instructional materials. All providers, as a
condition of state-approval, must align their tutoring curricula to the
state's academic standards--the same standards to which local school
districts must align.
To address these broad issues, EIA encourages the Subcommittee to
consider EIA's NCLB reauthorization policy recommendations, issued on
March 29, available at www.educationindustry.org, and summarized below:
Increase student access and participation by requiring
that unspent SES funds are carried over by states and districts for SES
use only.
Expand administrative resources for States and school
districts to better market, manage and evaluate SES programs.
Require states to appoint a third-party administrator of
SES in situations where school districts are permitted to provide SES
services to ensure fair-play.
Expand research and evaluation of SES effectiveness at the
national level.
Provide incentives to increase access to services for
underserved student groups, including limited English proficiency (LEP)
students, students residing in rural areas and those with disabilities.
EIA also offers the following comments on additional issues raised
by Subcommittee Members during the hearing:
SES providers must align tutoring curricula with state
learning standards--The alignment of SES curricula with such standards
is a requirement for provider selection by states. These same state
standards guide local school districts, thus completing the sequence of
linking tutoring to academic standards used in the classroom. All
instruction and methods used by tutors must be research-based as well.
SES tutors are selected by parents for academic support
which supplements the instruction of the regular school day, often
filling skill gaps not taught in the classroom. Tutors are often, but
not always, certified teachers, and it is this variety of instructors
that creates an enriched and innovative array of academic supports that
are responsive to the diverse needs of low-performing students.
Requiring all tutors to meet the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT)
standard will substantially limit the supply of tutoring organizations
and reduce the overall participation rate of students. Overall program
quality is best regulated through rigorous evaluations of program
impacts.
SES providers are using innovative means to address the
needs of students residing in rural locations; the needs of English
language learners and students with learning disabilities--The number
and variety of SES providers offering services nationwide ensures that
these students are receiving the special services they require. More
must be done to increase the participation rates of these subgroups,
including increasing to resources that may be needed to accommodate
their unique learning needs and environments.
Costs and therefore service fees cited by school district-
managed SES providers vs. private SES providers are not comparable--
Private SES providers face and must account for a host of costs not
borne by district-managed programs, including rental of school
facilities, costs for instructional materials, supervisory and
professional development expenses, data-entry and other administrative
expenses. A true ``apples to apples'' cost comparison would show no
differences in the costs of service delivery between the local schools
and an external organization.
Finally, while EIA observed the witnesses at today's hearing
offering good and timely information, we hope that Congress will seek
comment from some of the hundreds of thousands of families who have
been given hope and needed support by the after-school tutoring
program.
On behalf of EIA and especially our members who are SES providers,
thank you for the opportunity to submit my comments for the record. I
welcome any questions or followup requests for information Members of
the Subcommittee may have.
______
[Whereupon, at 11:23 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]