Creating Good Schools for Children in Poverty Through Title I Schoolwide Programs

The Improving America' s Schools Act--the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--will make schoolwide Title I programs available, beginning with the 1996-97 school year, to schools in which at least 50% of students are from families in poverty. Through schoolwide programs, eligible schools may combine Title I funds with other federal, stare, and local resources to upgrade the quality of education for all children. The legislation explicitly encourages schools and districts to design their own ambitious curricula for all students, keeping them in Title I programs within their regular education classrooms while minimizing the time they spend in "pullout" programs. In this article, we synthesize research on schoolwides with the views of experienced practitioners in 21 highly regarded schoolwide projects under Title I's predecessor, Chapter 1, to identify the principles guiding effective schoolwides. Findings are based on in-depth interviews with teachers and principals and on evidence of success found in reviews of project materials and outcome evaluations. Although schoolwide programs are locally devised and unique, the most successful build on a framework that includes these eight features: a shared vision, time and resources for planning and program design, skillful management and a well-defined organizational structure, a clear focus on academics, continuing professional development schoolwide, a commitment to cultural inclusiveness, patent and community involvement, and an accountability orientation. The study highlights promising practices that future Title I schoolwide programs can adopt to reorganize schools, streamline management, and upgrade the curriculum for children in schools serving communities with the highest concentrations of poor families.     

Parent Involvement and the New Title I

The Improving America's Schools Act legislation of 1994 greatly increased the responsibility and requirements for parental involvement activities in Title I schools. Though the requirements for annual meetings and involvement of parents in planning, review, and implementation of projects remain from the old Chapter 1 wording, expansion of the parental involvement role signifies its importance. Because schools have so much to learn following the changes to Title I, the school-parent compact has often been at the center for parental involvement activities as the new legislation is implemented. Many compacts have been generic to entire districts or buildings. Some model designs have gone from general school concepts to concepts specific to each child and family. Those with some explicit points, where parents and/or guardians and school staff can demonstrate the action, seem to have the greatest effect. It is important to note that the legislation talks about shared responsibility, not just what more a parent should do. Of further interest is the denotation of the involvement of the "entire school staff" and not just the Title I staff. Though it is not a requirement, many schools have also delineated a portion of the compact for the child to develop and/or sign. Meaningful partnership between home and school can only strengthen the support for learners to achieve high state standards.     

An integrated assessment of the effects of Title I on school behavior,resources, and student achievement

We examine the effects of Title I on school behavior, resources, and academic performance using a rich set of school finance and student-level achievement data from one large urban school district using a regression discontinuity design. We find that Title I eligibility raises Federal revenues of schools by about $460 per student. This is partially offset by decreases in revenues from state categorical aid grants, so that the net increase to schools is about $360 per student. We find no impact on overall school-level test scores, but also no impact among the subgroups of students most likely to be affected by Title I. A novel finding is that schools appear to respond to the incentives embedded in the Title I allocation process by manipulating the fraction of their students signed up for free lunch to secure more Federal funds.     

A Review of: “Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Anthony S. Bryk,Penny Bender Sebring,Elaine Allensworth,Stuart Luppescu,and John Q. Easton.”

This article summarizes the results of a study of state and local practices related to the implementation of Title I of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA; 1994). In translating policy to practice, state and local practitioners articulated how they approached the provisions of IASA: the expectation that all children will meet challenging state standards, flexibility with accountability, targeting funds, family and community partnerships, and support system roles and infrastructure. This snapshot of reform in progress shows that multiple chains of events at the national and state levels influenced the implementation of the law and that more time and support are needed to produce the impact intended in the Title I reauthorization.     

Strengthening the Ties Between Title I and Family Literacy

When schools work together with families to support learning, children are inclined to succeed not only in school but throughout life as well. Three decades of research show that parental participation in schooling improves student learning. Title I, as amended by the Improving America's Schools Act (Public Law 103-382), reflects these research findings and emphasizes the importance of family involvement as a means to help address more completely the full range of student needs that affect their learning. Although parental involvement can take many forms, in this article I focus specifically on family literacy services. The Title I statute requires any Title I program to include "strategies to increase parental involvement, such as family literacy services." In addition, any school district with a Title I allocation above $500,000 must spend at least 1% of its allocation for district- and school-level parental involvement activities, which can include family literacy activities. Title I also recognizes that schools and patents share responsibility for the education of children. Therefore, each Title I school is to develop school-parent compacts that outline how parents, the entire school staff, and students will share responsibility for improved student achievement and the means by which schools and parents will work together to help children achieve high state standards. School-parent compacts area logical tool for addressing family literacy needs. Equally important, Title I has a history of parental involvement that literacy can help enrich further.     

Not just ‘sunny days’: Aboriginal students connect out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices

In this paper, I report on a school‐university collaborative research project that investigated which practices and knowledges of Canadian Aboriginal students not acknowledged in school may provide these students with access to school literacy practices. The study, which took place in a small city in Western Canada, examined ways to merge the out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices for minority language learners who struggle with academic literacies. Drawing on the third space theory, in conjunction with the concept of “funds of knowledge,” I explain how students' linguistic and cultural resources from home and community networks were utilised to reshape school literacy practices through their involvement in the Heritage Fair programme. I analyse a representative case study of Darius, a 10‐year‐old boy who explored his familial hunting practices for his Heritage Fair project. This illustrative exemplar, “Not just sunny days,” highlights the ways in which children's out‐of‐school lives can be used as a scaffold for literacy learning. In conclusion, I discuss implications for educators and researchers working to improve literacy learning for minority students by connecting school learning to children's out‐of‐school learning.     

Stories of Mixed Success: Program Improvement Implementation in Chapter 1 Schools

Program Improvement (PI) provisions in the 1988 Chapter 1 reauthorization were intended to improve the curricula and Chapter 1 services in ineffective Chapter 1 schools. Through site visits, we studied practices used by 15 California elementary and middle schools that had been in PI for 3 years. Following each school visit, data were summarized into a school profile. Using a uniform rating scale, we scored each school on four dimensions: staff, core curriculum, integration of Chapter 1 services, and capacity for change. Eight characteristics distinguished those schools engaged in change from those schools reluctant to change: a strong principal and site leadership team with a vision for the school, professional treatment of teaching staff, quality core curriculum, quality Chapter 1 services, a Chapter 1 coordinator as implementer, school autonomy and district support, positive administrator and teacher attitudes, and extensive parent and community involvement. In addition, findings common to all schools revealed a limited impact of PI and the negative effect of principal turnover.     

Title I and School--Family--Community Partnerships: Using Research to Realize the Potential

Title I's requirements for parent and community involvement in both schoolwide programs and targeted assistance schools, along with requirements for funding such involvement, challenge Title I schools to think seriously about and to plan for involvement that will help make a difference in children's learning. In this article, we (a) review the requirements and how they may be interpreted (especially the requirement for school-parent contracts); (b) briefly summarize recent research on the effects of school-family partnerships on students, teachers, and parents; and (c) discuss two major research-based comprehensive programs for building school-family-community partnerships that provide a foundation upon which Title I schools could develop, in conjunction with parents, their own comprehensive and effective programs.     

Longitudinal Achievement and Chapter 1 Coordination in High-Poverty Schools: A Multilevel Analysis of the Prospects Data

Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to study the relations between the degree of Chapter 1 and regular-program coordination in high-poverty schools and students' longitudinal achievements while controlling for the compositional features of the schools. Variables derived from the national Prospects survey were developed to represent school-level coordination and composition. These variables were used to predict the learning rates of 1st- and 3rd-grade cohort students over 2 (Cohort 1) and 3 (Cohort 3) school years. The results were not consistent across cohorts or subjects; however, some school characteristics significantly predicted the students' learning rates in more than 1 of the 4 possible analyses. The main findings were (a) additional days of school were associated positively with 1st-grade cohort math and reading achievements, (b) students in rural 1st-grade cohort schools learned at significantly slower rates in reading and math relative to their urban peers, and (c) schools that coordinated their Chapter 1 programs with other school services had students who learned at faster rates. These and other findings revealed some situations in which high-poverty schools can influence, through schoolwide reform efforts, the academic achievements of their at-risk students.     

Policy issues: Student Performance and Congressional Support

In the first issue of this journal, I wrote about policy issues with which all stakeholders associated with at-risk children and youth should be involved (Carroll, 1996). Continuing in the policy arena, I now speak to student results. The Title I program serves more than 5 million children with a $7 billion appropriation, and school districts need only report to the state the achievement of Title I participants who are tested as part of the annual state assessment program at three grade groupings--Grades 3 to 5, 6 to 8, and 10 to 12. Districts and states are no longer required to conduct pretest and posttest assessments that show the normal curve equivalent growth of children. Instead, adequate yearly progress toward meeting the states' definitions of advanced, proficient, and partially proficient student performance measures is the new yardstick of accountability and program success. These definitions apply no later than the year 2000-2001, when the states must have their student assessments aligned with their content and student performance standards. Even though the new Title I regulations ease up on frequency and coverage of assessment, Title I schools and programs should not. Schools must assess the performance of all their students and show results if we are to garner continued financial and program support from members of Congress and out constituencies at the state and local levels.     

11 Politics and federal aid to urban school systems: the case of Chapter One

This chapter tracks the early effects of the 1988 amendments to the federal Chapter One programme on the policies and practices of four large urban districts (Atlanta, Chicago, Dade County and Dallas). Specifically, the article analyses reform efforts in the areas of programme co‐ordination, parental involvement, school‐wide projects and school performance accountability. Drawing on an historical analysis of the evolution of relations between the federal government and local school districts since the programme's inception in the 1960s, the authors argue that the apparently only modest impact of the 1988 reforms on the practice of Chapter One programmes to date is a result of a basic conflict between the intent of the reforms (to enhance educational effectiveness) and the political context as it occurs at the local level (an orientation toward bureaucratic and regulatory compliance).     

Relationship Between Educational Resources and School Achievement: A Mixed Method Intra-District Analysis

This study examines the relationship between educational resources (fiscal, personnel and facilities) and school achievement within a large urban/suburban elementary school district. A sequential mixed methods approach reveals inequitable resource allocation trends and patterns between schools within a school district by producing different student outcomes. The educational resources positively correlated to higher school achievement are: higher teacher salaries, newer schools, more multi-purpose space per pupil and less portable classrooms. Without question, White students receive more of these resources than Latino students, low-income students and English Language learners. This study also conducts a multiple comparative case study analysis comparing between Title I and non-Title I schools, within Title I schools and within non-Title I schools. The study contains policy and practice implications to improve opportunity and school achievement in urban/suburban school districts.     

TWO-YEAR COLLEGE COMPLIANCE WITH THE NOTICE REQUIREMENT OF THE CAMPUS SECURITY ACT

The Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act, passed by Congress on November 9, 1990, mandates that all colleges and universities receiving federal assistance funds under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 must provide graduation and crime data to current and prospective students and employees. The purpose of this study was to determine if two-year college admissions officers were complying with the Act's requirements.     

A Study of the Relationship between Parental Acceptance and the Academic Achievement of Adolescents

Abstract

A key issue involved in studying the sustained impact of Title I programs is whether gains achieved during the school year are lost over the summer. Previous studies, using simulated projects from a large data base, show summer gains. This study, using actual local data, reveals substantial losses across 704 students, 20 districts, 7 grades, and 8 tests. It also demonstrates that students exhibiting the largest gains during the school year register the largest losses during the summer. This study indicates that losses, not gains, may be anticipated as districts complete the sustained effects evaluation required b> Title I.     

‘It didn't have to be so hard’: the first years of teaching in an urban school

This article presents a case study of Mark Westin from his first to his fifth year of teaching fifth grade in an urban public school. Despite extreme management challenges and limited administrative support in a school with unusually high turnover, Mark persevered through his difficult novice years to become among the most respected and dedicated teachers in his school. Through classroom observations and interviews with Mark, I first present a snapshot of Mark's first year of teaching, followed by a longitudinal study of Mark's perceptions of his early years of teaching, gathered through observations, field notes and interviews during the succeeding four years. As Mark's confidence, experience and teaching competence grew, he became increasingly reflective and critical of his teacher preparation and his early teaching experiences, especially the lack of support he received from the school administration. A high proportion of teachers in similar situations leave teaching in the first several years. Mark's story helps to put a human face on the exceptions and offers his perspectives on improving teacher preparation and support.     

The Effectiveness of the Title I Compensatory Education Program: 1965-1997

We examine the nature and quality of some of the most prominent evaluations of Title I over the past 3 decades. The early assessments conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s were plagued by a host of inadequacies of both programmatic implementation and evaluation designs and procedures. These flawed assessments suggested that Title I was not meeting its fundamental mandate of eliminating the large achievement gaps between high-poverty students and their less-disadvantaged peers. Beginning in the mid- 1970s and continuing periodically to the present, a series of large-scale, national evaluations of the program has been conducted. The earliest of these studies revealed that Title I was modestly enhancing the math and reading achievement of moderately disadvantaged students hut was failing to improve the relative performance of the most needy segment of the Title I population. Further, such effects typically "faded out" as students progressed through school. Finally, the evidence indicates that the program was not cost effective in that no relation existed between programmatic costs and achievement gains. However, in the past decade, evaluation studies, conducted at both the national and local levels, indicate that a variety of local programs, especially comprehensive, school-wide models, have evolved that provide convincing evidence of at least limited effectiveness of Title I. The hallmarks of such models are clear goals; methods and materials linked to the goals; continuous assessment of student progress; well-specified programmatic components, materials, and professional development procedures; and dissemination of results by organizations that focus on quality of implementation.     

Finding a Golden Mean in Education Policy: Centering Religious and Public Schools

The separation between Church and State, private and public education, is blurring, and coming together, as the government gives families vouchers to attend private and religious schools. Religious groups are starting and supporting their own charter schools, and local jurisdictions (cities and counties) are providing free transportation and food services to children attending private schools. What emerges, and is the focus of this analysis, is the new “middle ground,” a “golden mean,” by which public schools learn diversity and choice while private/religious schools are helped by public programs and funds. The oldest, perhaps, was Lyndon Johnson's compromise with the Catholics to get Title 1 passed as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that sends public school teachers into private schools to help children in need. This study examines the emergence of a middle group in public–private education, and how the policies are working and what's changing. It argues that the child is the center of education, and government and private agencies are changing and should come together to serve the clients, the children.     

Understanding Heterogeneity in the Impact of Public Preschool Programs

We examine the North Carolina Pre-K (NC Pre-K) program to test the hypothesis that observed variation in effects resulting from exposure to the program can be attributed to interactions with other environmental factors that occur before, during, or after the pre-k year. We examine student outcomes in 5th grade and test interaction effects between NC's level of investment in public pre-k and moderating factors. Our main sample includes the population of children born in North Carolina between 1987 and 2005 who later attended a public school in that state, had valid achievement data in 5th grade, and could be matched by administrative record review (n = 1,207,576; 58% White non-Hispanic, 29% Black non-Hispanic, 7% Hispanic, 6% multiracial and Other race/ethnicity). Analyses were based on a natural experiment leveraging variation in county-level funding for NC Pre-K across NC counties during each of the years the state scaled up the program. Exposure to NC Pre-K funding was defined as the per-4-year-old-child state allocation of funds to a county in a year. Regression models included child-level and county-level covariates and county and year fixed effects. Estimates indicate that a child's exposure to higher NC Pre-K funding was positively associated with that child's academic achievement 6 years later. We found no effect on special education placement or grade retention. NC Pre-K funding effects on achievement were positive for all subgroups tested, and statistically significant for most. However, they were larger for children exposed to more disadvantaged environments either before or after the pre-k experience, consistent with a compensatory model where pre-k provides a buffer against the adverse effects of prior negative environmental experiences and protection against the effects of future adverse experiences. In addition, the effect of NC Pre-K funding on achievement remained positive across most environments, supporting an additive effects model. In contrast, few findings supported a dynamic complementarity model. Instrumental variables analyses incorporating a child's NC Pre-K enrollment status indicate that program attendance increased average 5th grade achievement by approximately 20% of a standard deviation, and impacts were largest for children who were Hispanic or whose mothers had less than a high school education. Implications for the future of pre-k scale-up and developmental theory are discussed.     

The Impact of Sustained, Standards-Based Professional Learning on Second and Third Grade Teachers’ Content and Pedagogical Knowledge in Integrated Mathematics

This 3 year longitudinal study reports the feasibility of an Improving Teacher Quality: No Child Left Behind project for impacting teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge in mathematics in nine Title I elementary schools in the southeastern United States. Data were collected for 3 years to determine the impact of standards and research-based teacher training on these aspects of teacher quality. Content knowledge for the scope of this research study refers to the knowledge that teachers have about subject matter. Teacher quality is directly related to teachers’ “highly qualified” status, as defined by the No Child Left Behind mandate. According to this mandate, every classroom should have a teacher qualified to teach in his subject area and be able to “raise the percentage of students who are proficient in reading and math, and in narrowing the test-score gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students.” Participants were six second grade and seven third grade teachers of mathematics from nine schools within one failing school district. The implementation of standards-based methods in the nine Title I Schools increased teacher quality in elementary school mathematics. In fact, qualitative and quantitative data revealed significant gains in teachers’ mathematics content and pedagogical knowledge at both grade levels.     

A comparison of childrens’ statements about social relations and teaching in the classroom and in the outdoor environment

Two teachers from a school in Copenhagen were allowed to move their third grade teaching into a forest every Thursday for three years. Thus 20% of the class's regular teaching took place in an outdoor environment. The purpose of the present study was to ask the children how they experienced lessons in the classroom and the forest settings. Therefore, two almost identical questionnaires including a total of 26 statements adjusted to each context were completed by the children four times from 2000 to 2003. Further, in the forest questionnaire three specific statements were added about the outdoor environment plus one question about their choice of playmates during breaks at school and breaks in the forest. Ten statements were categorized as ‘social relations’, 14 statements as ‘teaching’ and finally two related to ‘self-perceived physical activity’. A significant difference (p < 0.001) was found between the school/classroom and the outdoor environment when scores from all four questionnaires (2000–2003) were summed. The categories ‘social relations’ (p < 0.001), ‘teaching’ (p < 0.001) and ‘self-perceived physical activity’ (p < 0.001) all showed significant differences. It is concluded from the present case study that the combination of classroom and outdoor teaching, over a three-year period had a positive effect on the children's social relations, experience with teaching and self-perceived physical activity level.