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![[image of the urban skyline]](ceic6_2_files/ceicban2.jpg) The National Center on Education in the Inner Cities |
THE CEIC REVIEW A catalyst for merging research, policy, and practice. |
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Volume 6 / Number 2 / August, 1997 |
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THE R xx |
The National Center on Education in the Inner Cities |
THE CEIC REVIEW A catalyst for merging research, policy, and practice. |
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Volume 6 / Number 2 / August, 1997 |
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CONTENTS Improving Our Capacity for Achieving Student Success:
Redesigning the Federal Compensatory Education
Program: Financing Title I: Meeting the Twin Goals of Effective Resources Targeting and Beneficial Program Interventions, Martin Orland, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, and Stephanie Stullich, Planning and Evaluation Service, U.S. Department of Education Sustaining State Reform Through Research and Recognition, Gerald R. Richardson, Florida Department of Education Meeting Student Diversity Needs in Poor, Rural Schools: Ideal Practices and Political Realities, Barbara L. McCombs and Bill Bansberg, Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory Educational Practices and Policies that Promote Achievement, Margaret C. Wang, Geneva D. Haertel, Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education, and Herbert J. Walberg, University of Illinois at Chicago Reading Achievement, Reading Instruction, and Title I Evaluation, Richard L. Venezky, University of Delaware English Language Learners and Title I Schoolwide Programs, Diane August, National Research Council, Washington, DC
Improving Our Capacity for Achieving
Student Success: For the first time in the history of federal involvement in education, students who receive compensatory education through Title I programs are no longer left at the margins of school reform. As part of a national effort toward systemic reform, the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), mandates that vigorous new standards be applied to all students, including students served by Title I programs. Two provisions in the IASA have particularly far-reaching implications. The first requires that the new, rigorous standards that are being developed for our nation's students be applied to all Title I students. The second is the expansion of Title I schoolwide projects. Schools with high concentrations of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds now have fewer restrictions and increased flexibility in allocating Title I resources to meet students' needs. In this issue of The CEIC Review, papers presented at a national invitational conference on the implementation of the Title I program in light of the IASA are summarized to forge continued dialogue on Title I and schoolwide programs. Although each author concentrates on a specific aspect of the Title I program, all authors share two basic assumptions: (a) there is a substantial research base and much practical know-how on effective and innovative implementation strategies and practices that can be culled to improve learning in high-poverty schools; and (b) assessment and evaluation must stem from the belief that all students can learn. What is required now is the use of that knowledge base to develop concrete strategies for overcoming known barriers of effective implementation to raise academic achievement for every student. The "Implementation of the Title I Program: Implications for Improving Our Capacity for Achieving Student Success" conference was sponsored by the National Center on Education in the Inner Cities, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Student Success, the mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory at Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education, and the Office of Compensatory Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education. The conference focused on examining the database and implications for improving Title I implementation in high-poverty schools in urban and rural areas that either have implemented or are eligible to develop Title I schoolwide projects. Participants included: teachers, principals and superintendents; researchers and university faculty in education and public policy; policymakers from state and federal education agencies; and key staff from the U.S. Department of Education, including the Office of Compensatory Education and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. The conference included plenary sessions addressing key issues framed by the commissioned background papers, including systemic reform and the Title I program, field-based perspectives from Title I schoolwide project implementation, and strategies for meeting the new challenges in school assessment and program evaluation. Participants devoted much of the conference time in small work groups in developing next-step recommendations. Four interdisciplinary work groups were formed to address one of the following topics: (a) Scaling Up Reform; (b) Building School-Community Relations; (c) Program Coordination and Instructional Inclusion; and (d) Improving Teaching in Title I Schools. The following is a summary of the next-step recommendations that have emerged from their deliberations. Scaling Up Reform Next-step recommendations toward scaling up educational reform include:
Building Strong School-Community Relations Positive school-community relations are integral to student success and are measured by their ability to raise the achievement of every student. Three barriers to improvement were identified by the conferees: (a) need for collaboration; (b) insufficient professional development; and (c) the need for evaluation. Recommendations in the area of building strong school-community relations include:
Program Coordination and Inclusion Program coordination and the inclusive approach to service delivery are central concepts for effective delivery of Title I services. Barriers to improvement were identified as: (a) attitudinal barriers; and (b) organizational barriers. Several recommendations for action were identified:
Improved Teaching and Learning in Three barriers to improvement identified by the conferees included: (a) attitudinal barriers; (b) ecological barriers; and (c) organizational and implementation barriers. Recommendations in the area of improved teaching and learning include:
Concluding Remarks Deliberations throughout the conference made it clear that the working assumptions of the planning committee of the conference were on target. The conferees repeatedly expressed frustration at the lack of implementation of what is known to work in the service of learning success. They concluded that sufficient research on effective practices and policies already exists to guide implementation that can lead to schooling success of every student, including those served by the Title I program. What needs to be remedied is the consistent underutilization of the knowledge base at all levels of school reform. The conferees shared their perspectives and experiences in working on Title I and related school improvement efforts, and they were informed on the design and findings from a wide range of innovative models and approaches to the delivery of Title I services. Conferees discussed the causes of some of the seemingly insurmountable barriers and strategies for overcoming them. Among the most frequently encountered barriers were: lack of time and expert technical and professional development support; contentious school/community relations; one-shot, top-down, inflexible professional development programs; inadequate coordination across administrative levels (federal, state and local); and a lack of within-school coherence in implementation coordination across varied categorical programs. Furthermore, the conferees voiced a pressing need for information on successful strategies. Synthesis of the knowledge base on what works in user-friendly and useful forms can greatly facilitate the integration of effective practices on an ongoing basis. Reducing the fragmentation of well intentioned professional development and technical assistance programs being provided through categorical funding at federal and state levels was another area of concern that generated much discussion. In addressing these barriers, the centrality of collaboration was emphasized along with the need to ensure that changes--whether concerning professional development at a school, district-level reorganization, or federal accountability system initiatives--are co-designed and shared by all partners. Another must, which was viewed as the singularly most important reform agenda, is that all assessments and evaluations must stem from the belief that all students can learn and that schools must be held accountable to a high standard of achievement for every student. Finally, there was a strong consensus that regularly scheduled regional and national working conferences for shared learning and networking among Title I service providers is critical to achieving a high degree of implementation of the Title I mandates. Opportunity-to-learn standards need to be applied to professional development of Title I service providers as well as the students they serve.
Redesigning the Federal Compensatory Education Program: Lessons from the Implementation of Title I Schoolwide Projects, Kenneth K. Wong, Gail L. Sunderman, and Jaekyung Lee, Department of Education, University of Chicago Federal funding support notwithstanding, policymakers in Washington have paid increasing attention to classroom learning among disadvantaged students in recent years. Policy analysts have directed their attention to program redesign at the school level in ways that would strengthen the schools' overall organizational capacity to develop more comprehensive (instead of fragmentary) strategies for helping disadvantaged students. Schoolwide projects can be seen as an institutional redesign that significantly alters Title I programs. For the first time in the history of the Title I program, the federal government strongly promotes flexibility in the use of resources and coordination between Title I and regular programs in Title I schools that are eligible for schoolwide projects. The adoption of schoolwide projects is closely related to reform efforts to improve schools that face seemingly intractable challenges. A review of the literature suggests that schoolwide projects serve three institutional functions. First, the schoolwide initiative grants new flexibility to school-site professionals to address the "concentration effects" of disadvantaged pupils in poor neighborhoods. Second, schoolwide projects are designed to reduce curricular and instructional fragmentation in the classroom. Third, schoolwide projects are designed to improve accountability at a time when there is growing public concern over the general quality of public education. In light of this significant policy departure, this article examines three sets of issues pertaining to the Title I program redesign: (a) the implementation of schoolwide projects in high-poverty schools as providing innovative ways to address several major policy challenges; (b) the need to determine whether schoolwide project schools offer institutional improvements to disadvantaged students in terms of facilitating student learning in at-risk circumstances; and (c) the variation within the group of schoolwide projects in two districts through detailed case studies designed to identify instructional and curricular strategies that contribute to better student performance in some schools. Research Design, Data Collection, and Analysis Given the promise of schoolwide projects as an institutional redesign, it is important to determine their impact on student performance in a systematic manner. To do so, a comparative analysis was performed in schools with similar racial and socioeconomic characteristics and the "learning gap" between Title I and non-Title I students. In examining the implementation of Title I schoolwide programs, two urban districts, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and the Houston Independent School District (HISD), were selected. Although there is little difference between the two districts in the level of poverty, the size of the Title I enrollment differs in the two districts. The Title I enrollment in Minneapolis was 9,259 of 43,932 students in 1993-94 (21% of the total student population) compared to a Title I enrollment of 74,503 of 198,013 students (66% of the total student population) in Houston for the 1992-93 school year. To analyze the impact of schoolwide projects on student learning, students in schoolwide Title I projects were compared with students in regular Title I programs. To compare trends in academic achievement by the type of school, a profile analysis of student test scores was conducted on each sub-sample grouped according to the type of school they attended to test for the significance of academic growth for students in different types of schools. To identify schooling factors that contribute to the effectiveness of schoolwide projects, case studies of selected sites in each district were conducted. In analyzing the data collected from the two districts, several trends emerge:
The analysis also examined aggregate patterns of academic growth by the type of students and type of school. For this analysis, sample students in Minneapolis and Houston were classified according to their eligibility for Title I services (eligible or not eligible) then were grouped according to the type of school they attended. The analysis of Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) gain scores for students in Minneapolis indicates positive and incremental growth in reading for all classifications of students. Growth in math, however, was more uneven. Additionally, the results from the analysis of variance found no significant differences between mean gain scores for students attending different types of schools. In Houston, students also showed growth in academic achievement, with larger gains in reading than in math. However, Houston showed little or no progress in reducing the performance gap between Title I and non-Title I students no matter which school students attended. This pattern may arise because two years of data were used for the analysis. To examine how school type affects student learning for different groups of students, a two-level Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) was used to separately analyze the Minneapolis 1990 cohort and Houston 1993 cohort samples. While there were no significant differences in average NCE gain scores between schoolwide projects and other types of schools, differences were found between districts in terms of the impact of schoolwide projects on student performance. Analysis of the Minneapolis data showed that schoolwide projects tend to reduce the learning gap between Title I eligible students and other students. However, analysis of the Houston data showed the opposite tendency, with a high degree of polarization in performance between Title I students and non-Title I students. Linking School Performance to Schoolwide Structure In analyzing the data collected from the Minneapolis and Houston districts, three trends emerge regarding the organizational patterns and instructional strategies that contribute to improving the performance of Title I students in effective schoolwide programs:
The research showed that district-level policies were found to influence Title I program design at the site level. The Houston district is highly centralized, with the HISD Board of Education determining Title I program designation, budget allocations to each school, and Title I program design parameters. The district encourages both schoolwide and non-schoolwide project schools to adopt program designs that include reach-in staff, pull-out instructional models, regrouping students, computer-assisted programs, on-site and off-site extended-day programs, and summer school programs. These services and district guidelines have brought a measure of uniformity to the programs in Houston's schoolwide sites. The statistical analysis showed that schoolwide projects in Minneapolis tend to reduce the gap between Title I eligible students and other students. These outcomes may be related to district policies that encourage site-level decision making regarding program design and allocation of instructional staff and support for instructional innovations. Additionally, by developing the Title I program to initially serve only students in grades K-3, resources were concentrated on early intervention. The Minneapolis district sets broad guidelines for the development of Title I programs. Each school develops its own specific program based on a staff consensus while the district provides support during a planning year, yet encourages creative thinking. While site-based management encourages schools to respond to local needs, this approach also results in differences in program design among schools that can lead to differences in outcomes. School Level Organization: Fragmentation or Integration Schoolwide projects differ in the ways in which they organize and coordinate their instruction and curriculum, thereby contributing to variation in student performance across sites. Low-performing schools continue to maintain different expectations for Title I eligible students versus their non-Title I peers, even after years of schoolwide program implementation. In these schools, fragmentation in instruction and curriculum exists. In high-performing schools, in contrast, expectations are the same for all students. These schoolwide projects provide increased benefits to Title I students because they receive additional exposure to regular classroom teachers and the regular curriculum. As a result, high-performing schools exhibit a higher degree of instructional and curricular integration than low-performing schools. A strategy that promotes integration and accounts for differences between high-performing and low-performing schools is the presence or absence of schoolwide goals. High-performance schools are more likely than low-performing schools to develop a program that has schoolwide goals. Low-performing schools, on the other hand, tend to emphasize individual remediation. Instructional Strategies that Work Drawing on the case studies, a number of instructional strategies that seem to improve student performance in highly disadvantaged settings were identified. These strategies include:
Conclusions and Policy Implications The redesign of Title I programs to incorporate schoolwide projects offers a promising strategy to address major challenges facing the schools. By concentrating resources on disadvantaged pupils in poor neighborhoods, schoolwide projects bring flexibility to school professionals in addressing the needs of students considered to be at risk. When carefully designed and supported, schoolwide projects reduce curricular and instructional fragmentation in the classroom and can contribute to narrowing the learning gap. A schoolwide project is not a panacea. Schoolwide effectiveness depends on a variety of factors, some of which are identified here. However, we encourage all urban districts to seriously consider using schoolwide projects as a redesign strategy to improve learning in urban schools. Title I schoolwide projects can be a promising tool to bring about real gains in student performance when carefully designed and supported.
Financing Title I: Meeting the Twin Goals of Effective Resources Targeting and Beneficial Program Interventions1, Martin Orland, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, and Stephanie Stullich, Planning and Evaluation Service, U.S. Department of Education The financing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s (ESEA) Title I has long captured the attention of education policymakers. From its inception, Title I has been the largest single federal aid program supporting elementary and secondary education. Thirty years later, Title I’s size still dwarfs all other federal aid programs in elementary and secondary education. Much more important to policymakers than Title I’s absolute size is its earmarked purpose. Title I represents one of many potential federal policy responses for meeting the needs of low-achieving children living in poor communities. However, its funding philosophy cannot be divorced from its overall policy assumptions. From its beginnings, the program has been grounded in the belief that the achievement of children from high-poverty areas could be substantially improved if federal resources were efficiently targeted to those children who most need support. Such targeting could lead to effective interventions on behalf of children in poverty. Description of Major Title I Funding Provisions Since 1965, Title I funds have been allocated through a multistage process based on poverty and student achievement. Currently, there are four Title I allocation formulas for distributing funds to states, counties, and school districts: (a) Basic Grants, (b) Concentration Grants, (c) Targeted Grants, and (d) the Education Finance Incentive Program. The Basic Grant formula has allocated the vast majority of Title I funds (90% of all Title I funds) since 1965 with few changes to the formula. School districts are eligible for Basic Grants if they have at least 10 children in poverty and a poverty rate over 2%. Allocations are made in proportion to each county’s share of the nation’s children in poverty, and are adjusted for differences in education costs among the states. The Concentration Grant formula, enacted in 1978 and later reauthorized by the 1988 Hawkins-Stafford amendments, has risen gradually to represent 10% of total Title I funds. Funding is allocated only to counties and school districts with at least 6,500 eligible children or over 15% eligible children. The Targeted Grants formula was created in the 1994 reauthorization to increase targeting on higher poverty districts. Yet the 1996 and 1997 appropriations bills overrode this provision, resulting in continued allocation of funds solely through the Basic and Concentration Grant formulas. The Targeted Grant formula would allocate funds through a weighted-child approach and include stricter eligibility thresholds than the Basic Grant formula (at least 10 children in poverty and a poverty rate over 5%). The Education Finance Incentive Program, also created in the 1994 reauthorization, would allocate funds based on the number of all school-age children (not just children in poverty) in the state multiplied by factors to provide higher levels of funding to states that have higher levels of fiscal effort and within-state equalization. This provision also has not been used to date. School and Student Targeting Districts select school recipients of Title I services by ranking schools according to the percentage of children from low-income families. Schools may be designated "schoolwide programs" if their poverty rate is at least 50%. Schools that choose not to implement a schoolwide approach or do not meet the eligibility threshold provide targeted assistance to educationally disadvantaged students within designated schools based on district definitions of educational disadvantage. Often these schools focus Title I resources on early intervention strategies (50% of Title I students are in preK-3) by either "pulling out" students from their regular education classrooms for short periods (approximately 30 minutes), or providing in-class support through instructional aids and/or computer assistance. Participating Title I schools must comply with specific fiscal requirements (the "supplement, not supplant" provision and comparability) to ensure that funds are used to meet the needs of low-achieving children in higher poverty schools. Perhaps the most significant changes in the 1994 reauthorization are the new requirements to use updated census poverty estimates in 1997 and to make federal allocations directly to school districts (rather than to counties) in 1999. The use of decennial census data causes allocation inefficiencies and inequities because the data often become significantly outdated over time or cause abrupt funding shifts as new census data are incorporated. Getting the Right Resources to the Right Children The rationale for targeting Title I on the highest poverty districts and schools is that the Title I program will have the greatest impact on reducing the achievement gap among schools and students if the resources are concentrated on those with the greatest needs. Because many high-poverty districts choose to focus their Title I resources on their highest poverty schools, while low-poverty districts are able to serve schools with substantially lower poverty rates, many low-achieving students in high-poverty schools fail to receive Title I services while higher achieving students in low-poverty schools are served. As a result, the need for improved targeting was one of the key principles promoted by the Clinton Administration throughout the 1994 reauthorization. Nevertheless, the changes that resulted may have little impact on targeting below the federal level because improved targeting was made largely dependent on increased funding for Title I, which was to flow through the Targeted Grant formula. The Targeted Grant formula itself is an imperfect mechanism for targeting funds to high-poverty districts. The specific sets of weights used in the Targeted Grant formula have an urban tilt so that small districts with moderately high poverty rates tend to do less well than large districts with lower poverty rates. Similarly, states with many poor, rural counties (such as Southern states) tend to do less well than more urban states. However, the Targeted Grant formula does provide a stronger and fairer targeting effect than the Concentration Grant formula. The Concentration Grant’s "cliff effect" causes counties just below the 15% threshold to receive no funds, while barely qualifying counties receive the same proportional benefit as the highest poverty counties. The Targeted Grant’s weighted formula would provide a smoother range of funding increases to districts with varying poverty rates. The other new Title I funding formula, the Education Finance Incentive Program, would (if funded) decrease targeting on the highest poverty areas, largely because allocation would be based on counts of all school-age children rather than just children in poverty. Thus, additional funds allocations through the Incentive Program formula would provide larger funding increases to low-poverty areas than to higher poverty areas. The 1994 reauthorization is likely to have a greater impact on targeting at the school level due to stricter requirements governing how districts allocate funds to schools. New laws have tightened up issues of eligible schools, minimum allocation rules, provisions to allow statutory or regulatory waivers, and allocations based on low income, not low achievement. Although data are not yet available to examine the impact of these changes, it can be expected that they will result in funds being targeted to a smaller number of schools, while providing funds to a larger number of high-poverty schools (particularly middle schools and high schools). Title I Financing and Instructional Effectiveness While the above discussion demonstrates the shortcomings in Title I resource targeting, a more fundamental question is whether allocated resources are, in fact, making a difference in student achievement. Recent data from the Prospects Study comparing Title I participants (by grade and poverty level) with similar groups of students not receiving Title I, concluded that program participation did not reduce the test score gap between disadvantaged students and others. Plans are now underway to evaluate the impact of recent changes to "reinvent Title I" based on the 1994 program reauthorization. It is not too soon, however, to hypothesize about how Title I financing arrangements can be expected to continue to affect the creation of local program designs and instructional practices that have a greater likelihood of improving student achievement. Directions for Program Reform Recognizing that Title I’s instructional effectiveness has been modest at best, there is increasing consensus on program design reforms that are more likely to lead to enhanced student achievement. In general, researchers and policy analysts support instructional designs for disadvantaged students that incorporate the following interrelated characteristics:
Taken together, these reforms paint a vision of a radically altered organizational environment for the delivery of services to disadvantaged students. However, there are profound interventions at work between Title I funding and programming arrangements that create significant barriers to reforms like these becoming prevalent local practice. In particular, the generally low level of program funds in relation to local needs and the continued requirements to comply with Title I’s strict fiscal accountability processes inhibit efforts by local districts to pursue program and design features most likely to improve program effectiveness. Recent Title I Changes and Their Prospects for While the latest Title I legislative authorization preserves the program’s basic fiscal accountability framework, some noteworthy changes in the law appear to reflect an increasing recognition of the extent to which this framework may unintentionally drive ineffective program practices. One clear example is in new provisions designed to increase both the prevalence and effectiveness of schoolwide programs. An additional 10,000 schools are now eligible to receive funds that can be used to benefit the entire school, a strategy long recommended by researchers and policymakers. A second example is changes in the law regarding how Title I is to be evaluated. Under the old law, the Title I evaluation system was independent from the regular instructional program. The new Title I law, in contrast, requires states to adopt or develop Title I student assessments over the next five years that are consistent with those for all students and that employ ambitious state content and student performance standards. This shift to emphasizing the overall achievement gains of Title I students, irrespective of whether such change can be directly tied to Title I program intervention, can be expected to provide further encouragement to state and local program officials to integrate Title I with their ongoing instructional efforts. Conclusion In order for Title I to succeed, adequate resources must reach those most in need of assistance and then be marshaled in such a way so as to reduce the achievement gap between educationally disadvantaged students in high-poverty communities and their more advantaged peers. Concentrating Title I funds on the schools with the greatest needs is a major change in Title I’s financing structure that could improve its effectiveness at meeting the needs of disadvantaged students. However, since most funds continue to be allocated to school districts through the Basic Grant formula and have not been appropriated for the Targeted Grant formula, the prospects for more targeted allocations to school districts in the foreseeable future do not bode well. Fiscal accountability structures also affect administrator attitudes and behaviors in ways detrimental to effective interventions. Despite federal efforts to encourage less rigid, more effective program designs, Title I’s continued requirement to comply with the "supplement, not supplant" provision sends a strong, if unintended, signal to local educators that the path of least resistance remains ensuring a "clean" program. Whether new legislative provisions-e.g., encouraging the development of more schoolwide programs and changing the standards for assessing student progress and program effectiveness-will prove more successful than earlier efforts at redressing this imbalance is an open question. There will always be some tension in Title I between the goals of effective resource targeting and beneficial instructional interventions. Political considerations will continue to invite the spreading of resources to more school districts and schools than would be ideal; and, despite their deleterious effects on innovative and creative program designs, some fiscal accountability safeguards will clearly remain necessary to protect the program’s most vulnerable constituencies. But historically this program’s structure has appeared to reflect more concern about monitoring fiscal propriety than ensuring equitable allocations and effective program designs. From the perspective of improving the achievement of children living in high-poverty areas, it might well be advisable to reverse these priorities. 1This article is intended to promote the exchange of ideas among researchers and policymakers. The views are those of the authors, and no official support by the U.S. Department of Education is intended or should be inferred. Sustaining State Reform Through
Research and Recognition, Gerald R. Richardson, Florida
Department The rhetoric of educational reform addresses school improvement and accountability in generic terms, often using sweeping generalizations and truisms that are difficult to refute. However, the mechanics of school reform-the "how to’s"-are often difficult to navigate. Through collaborative research and internal recognition, Title I can help all agents of school improvement focus on the characteristics and needs of those schools that present the greatest challenges. Accordingly, what follows is the story of one state’s recent efforts at nurturing and sustaining reform through collaborative research about and internal recognition of relatively successful high-poverty schools-many of which have Title I programs. Background The Successful Schools project in Florida was conceived in the summer of 1993. Through the collaborative efforts of the Chapter 1 State Evaluation Panel, an agenda was created to identify ways in which evaluation data could be used to best support decisions about Chapter 1 (now Title I) programs and to identify factors that could distinguish successful high-poverty schools throughout the state. Once itemized, observations could then be put to work through dissemination information to help sustain state-level reforms as well as to enhance the design of the Chapter 1\Title I program in Florida. After much discussion by the group, three initiatives emerged. The first initiative of the Successful Schools project, conducting statewide research, was aimed primarily at identifying factors associated with higher performing, higher poverty schools as well as identifying actual schools that could serve as exemplars for lower performing schools with similar demographics. The second initiative of the Successful Schools project was the development of surveys for staff and parents in Chapter 1 schools to detect differences between higher and lower performing schools. The third initiative was to conduct on-site visits in higher poverty schools where observed performance was clearly higher than expected. These visits were conducted to validate instrumentation and to gather first-hand information to support factors that distinguished successful schools. To oversee these initiatives, staff from the Chapter 1 Evaluation Advisory Panel, joined by staff from regional technical assistance centers, were recruited to form the Successful Schools Steering Committee. Funding was provided through a Chapter 1 Program Improvement grant totaling $99,000, which was supplemented by resources from local Chapter 1/Title I budgets and state-level administrative funds. Successful Schools Pilot Project From the Successful Schools Pilot Project, a publication was produced that summarized research findings in three areas: database factors related to Successful Schools; staff and parent perceptions; and on-site observations. The database included 1,458 elementary schools in Florida. The main emphasis of the analysis was on the impact of poverty on student achievement. Among the student achievement variables examined were school-level aggregates of reading, writing, and math. Variables associated with a school’s learning environment included promotion rate, attendance rate, and out-of-school suspension rate. Student characteristics as well as school inputs were also included as database variables. Another important component of the Successful Schools Pilot Project was the development and field testing of a survey instrument intended to supplement the database research. Survey items based on promising instruments used elsewhere in the county were recast to fit the target audience of staff working in Florida’s higher poverty schools. A comparable version of the survey that focused mainly on home-school relations was also adapted for parents that focused mainly on home-school relations. Finally, on-site observations of several Chapter 1 schools were also used to supplement the database research. During the course of the review, on-site teams interviewed over 200 school personnel. Summary of Findings Findings from the database analysis on the impact of poverty clearly showed that schools with high concentrations of students from low-income families are likely to have low achievement, lower rates of promotion, and higher rates of suspension. High-poverty schools typically served considerably more minority students and experienced more student turnover than did medium- or low-poverty schools. Surprisingly, however, high-poverty schools (at least in Florida) had more money to spend on students than low-poverty schools in the same district. The greatest encouragement came in finding that, despite tremendous odds, some high-poverty schools had higher levels of achievement than either state averages or many other low-poverty schools. The results of the staff surveys were instructive, providing researchers with the ability to detect difference between higher versus lower achieving schools in a way that yielded results with both statistical and practical significance. Three parts of the survey showed the greatest contrast between groups of higher- and lower achieving schools. The "Safe and Orderly Learning Environment" subscale had the highest correlation with student achievement, provided the sharpest contrast between higher and lower achieving schools, and had the largest effect size of all the correlates. Two items identified as most strongly related to achievement were respectful treatment of staff members by students and lack of student vandalism. The "Instructional Leadership" subscale had a moderate correlation with achievement and resulted in a substantial, but smaller effect size for differences between higher and lower achieving schools. Most strongly related to achievement were high principal visibility and principal accessibility. The "High Expectations" subscale also had a moderate correlation with achievement. The effect size for differences between higher and lower achieving schools was also substantial, but slightly smaller. The two items most strongly related to achievement were positive school spirit and students’ desire for success. Results from the parent survey were quite different. In fact, there was little distinction between the responses of parents whose children attended higher- versus lower-achieving schools; both groups were very positive. Results from the on-site analysis showed that several characteristics are more prevalent in higher achieving schools than lower achieving schools, including: positive disciplinary approaches; positive principal leadership roles; increased discussion of staff development; positive attitudes toward change; and evidence of a unified staff. A Closer Look at Successful, High-Poverty Elementary Schools The second Successful Schools product was a publication containing a collection of short descriptions of 20 higher-achieving, high-poverty schools that were visited during the 1994-95 school year with a cross-site analysis of observations made by the visiting teams. Candidate schools were selected on the basis of the following criteria: high performance or greatest improvement; high percentage of student poverty; geographical representation across the state; cross section of urban, rural, or suburban setting; high percentage of minority students; high percentage of LEP students; and/or high migrant composition. Following on-site visitation, the data were compiled to produce several findings. Many of Florida’s high-poverty schools were found to be successful in providing students with quality educational programs that resulted in academic success. Primary factors that promoted success were a committed faculty, facilitative instructional leadership, structured instructional programs, effective discipline programs that stressed personal responsibility and nonviolent problem solving, strong parent and family involvement, an overall sense of school community pride, and expectations for all children to learn at a high level. A Closer Look at Successful Middle and High Schools Almost immediately following the second Successful Schools project, a request to repeat the project for middle and high schools was made. The initiative for the middle and high school extension project was spearheaded not by Title I at first, but by the state-supported Office of School Improvement, which had the major responsibility for implementing school reform in general and for helping low-achieving schools in particular. Criteria for selecting candidate schools were modified only slightly to reflect the different poverty characteristics of middle and high schools and to impose slightly higher performance standards. As before, schools were chosen based on the highest number of nominations received from an external review panel. Neither the instruments nor the procedures were changed substantially for the on-site visits to middle and high schools. General Observations About Successful High-Poverty Schools In light of the extensive research, several common features of elementary, middle, and high schools were identified by the Florida Successful Schools Projects. Highlights from the findings include: Safe and Orderly Learning Environment. Student well-being, safety, and academic engagement are central concerns of successful, high-poverty schools. All staff are involved in monitoring and maintaining student discipline, attempting to redirect the energy of misbehavior before it becomes problematic. Leadership. Of the effective schools visited, principals maintain an "open door" policy. Principals are knowledgeable about and are attuned to district/school-board policies, procedures, and requirements, and draw heavily on resources that are available. High Expectations. The school culture of successful schools is largely characterized by high expectations and a strong unifying force among administration, teachers, and students. Teachers at the schools give freely of their time and energy to meet the needs of the students; all staff take responsibility for student performance and share in acknowledging/rewarding students who do their best. Instructional Programs. Instructional programs are diverse, relevant, engaging, and risk-taking. Teachers work across grade levels, subject areas, and departments to promote and reinforce student. Technology plays an important role in student learning; teachers and students are aggressive in acquiring computer-related skills. Frequent Monitoring. There is frequent monitoring of achievement, attendance, and behavior through multiple methods of documenting student progress. Counseling programs are strong. Item analysis or similar strategies are used to detect and correct specific skill deficiencies as measured by testing programs. Staff evaluate the impact of their school improvement efforts using data on student achievement to document what happens, help set goals, and refine planning efforts. Staff Development. Teachers are encouraged to participate and have a voice in training options. They display an openness to change and willingness to share with one another as a family of professionals. Home-School-Community Relations. Schools support and encourage strong community involvement in all aspects of school operations, but especially in the instructional program. Schools establish an atmosphere in which parents and community members feel welcome and are a part of the school. Some schools provide special resource rooms for parents and community, where members actively seek business and other community partnerships. Opportunity to Learn and Time on Task. Classroom time is precious. Numerous opportunities are planned for students to learn before school, after school, over weekends, and during the summer. Barriers to School Improvement. The most frequently listed barriers were typically reversals of factors leading to successful schools, including a lack of clear vision, supportive leadership, good school/community communication, teacher training, district and parental support, and academic focus. Other barriers to improvement included: lack of cooperation among school staff, a lack of dedication to students and willingness to change, low student expectations, a lack of outreach to parents and community, and a lack of materials and resources, including technology or know-how of technology.
Meeting Student Diversity Needs in Poor, Rural Schools: Ideal Practices and Political Realities, Barbara L. McCombs and Bill Bansberg, Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory Poor, rural students whose circumstances place them at risk of educational failure may now be offered the promise of more inclusive and equitable education through the provisions of the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA) of 1994. These provisions will allow many students eligible for Title I compensatory services to receive more coherent services through schoolwide programs. Schoolwide programs aim to include Title I students in regular classrooms rather than placing them in stigmatizing pull-out programs that often emphasize remedial skills and have lower expectations and performance standards than those demanded of regular education students. Schoolwide programs are one key delivery system for effecting these value-added strategies, particularly in rural schools. The Context of Student and Teacher Learning Needs in Poor, Rural Schools Diversity of student and teacher learning needs in rural schools are a function of the surrounding community, geographic location, and general economic conditions. Due to isolation, poor, rural schools face a lack not only of quality staff and specialized resources needed to serve specific types of diversity needs, but also the political voice and power needed to obtain student services that define ideal Title I programs. While rural communities offer rich cultural and community resources that encourage student learning, they also tend to have more students in poverty. Therefore, to better understand what is needed to improve Title I program implementation in poor, rural schools, implementation in existing schools must be examined. Prior to the IASA, Title I programs were typically pull-out in structure and remedial in orientation. No special services were specifically defined for the student populations most often served in poor, rural schools--migrant students and students with limited English proficiency (LEP). Although previous programs were theoretically designed to provide specialized, targeted assistance, many of the Title I teachers lacked the language skills needed to adequately assess LEP students. Historically, Title I programs in poor, rural schools qualified only for limited targeted assistance because allocations were determined by the percentage of students living in poverty. Thus, providing specialized services for culturally and linguistically diverse students was limited. Very little research has been done to broaden awareness among Title I educators and policymakers of the special needs of poor, rural schools and the diverse student population they serve. Increasing research in recent years has shown that, beyond resource and qualification issues, a number of issues can lead to the discontinuance of successful programs, including leadership issues, ideological mismatches, inappropriate expansion decisions, narrow program assessments, inefficient staff development, and inability to deal with top administrators. Although many of these issues are also experienced in poor, urban areas, the authors believe that poor, rural schools have unique needs and strengths that need to be addressed in schoolwide programs. To determine what is needed to improve Title I implementation in poor, rural schools, several case studies on successful programs were researched. Five programs in particular were selected as excellent models of components present in successful Title I schoolwide programs. These include: (a) Hazelwood Elementary School, Louisville, Kentucky; (b) Hollinger Elementary School, Tucson, Arizona; (c) Snively Elementary School, Winter Haven, Florida; (d) Blythe Avenue Elementary School, Cleveland, Tennessee; and (e) Ganado Primary School, Ganado, Arizona. Enrollment in these schools averaged between 200 and 800 students. All five schools showed similar characteristics, including: at least 50% minority enrollment; over 85% student eligibility for the free lunch program; bilingual staff; and the integration of the cultural aspects and language into the curriculum. To better understand the social systems that these schools create, an understanding of the psychological and sociological principles that affect these systems is required. Using the 12 Fundamental Principals About Learners and Learning, identified by the Task Force on Psychology in Education of the American Psychological Association, as a framework to guide decisions about the content, environment, and opportunities for learning for the student, a model of change could be developed. These principles identified factors that influence learning for all learners. In light of these data, it was determined that three fundamental domains must be addressed in order for schoolwide Title I programs to improve:
Effective Practices Research has shown that attention to the personal domain is more critical to the development of a sense of professional community or culture than structural conditions. To develop new cultures that are caring, engaged in learning and change, and collaborative, the willful involvement by all parties influenced by the change is required. Cultures dedicated to these goals develop through the shared dedication of all participants of the system to continuous improvement rather than to maintaining the status quo. To meet the diverse learning needs of Title I students in poor, rural schools, it is particularly important to attend to language and cultural issues. The most successful programs are those that design an instructional program relevant to students, parents, and the community. While there are several steps that teachers can take individually to promote successful programs, a high priority in ensuring the success of Title I schoolwide programs in poor, rural schools is to address service provision, integration, and culture building through the use of innovative technologies that focus on professional development. Components in the organizational domain must be present to further support professional development approaches that help existing rural school teachers acquire the specialized skills for effectively working with migrant, culture and language minority, and other special Title I students. In this way, an umbrella is provided for meeting students’ personal and technical needs, involving parents effectively in school activities, and securing community resources and support. As identified by the five case examples, organizational practices, structures, and policies that contribute to meeting diverse student needs include: (a) setting up the school as a community center that provides family services, social services, and health care; (b) shared decision making policies; (c) strong professional development component providing specialized training to all teachers; (d) policies that align standards with the community’s goals and needs; and (e) child- or learner-centered practices and policies that meet the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of students and their families. An Integrated Look at Improving Title I Programs in There is an overarching concern with creating learner-centered models that can positively address student diversity issues. The resulting school practices and cultures are those that respect and value diverse student, family, and community groups, focusing on their strengths in an atmosphere of caring, learning, and collaboration. Effective professional development requires concrete opportunities for reflection, dialogue, collaboration, and networking with fellow professionals as well as with administrators, parents, and community members. Schoolwide Title I programs that enhance motivation, learning, and achievement for all students must be based on an understanding of the "psychology of learning and change." The particular emphasis recommended for Title I teachers in poor, rural schools is placing a high priority on professional development that prepares them to:
As such, this emphasis has the promise of integrating personal, technical, and organizational domain practices within a learner-centered framework, thus serving as an "umbrella" for maximizing use of limited Title I resources. It is also recommended that teachers and administrators invest in parent and community involvement in ways that build trust and mutual respect. In the case of schoolwide Title I programs in poor, rural schools, support is particularly needed for true integration and implementation of practices for migrant, LEP or diverse cultural groups for obtaining resources needed from state and federal agencies and for addressing "political will" issues that include more equitable funding allocations for poor, rural schools. Conclusions and Recommendations From a personal perspective, there is a need for:
In the technical area, it is important to:
From the organizational perspective there must be:
In the area of policy, there is a need to attend to those policies that address:
In review, we see the need to refine what is known about best practices for specific diversity issues faced by students and teachers in poor, rural schools. Research is also needed to extend and refine prior research to answer questions pertaining to students from diverse cultures, language, lifestyles, and mobility patterns such as migrancy. Finally, research is needed to help clarify specific strategies, resources needed, assessment models, and professional development experiences that can enhance learning, motivation, and achievement of all Title I students in poor, rural schools. This research needs to be broadly shared among key decision makers (i.e., teachers, administrators, parents, community members, policymakers). It is vital that we value the diversity of students in poor, rural schools in order to develop and sustain the diversity of skills, talents, and other strengths needed to enrich the larger society. To do this, we must help educators transform their thinking about the value represented by diverse learners and the fundamental mission of schools to educate all students. We must begin this process by self-examination and reflection.
Educational Practices and Policies that Promote Achievement, Margaret C. Wang, Geneva D. Haertel, Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education, and Herbert J. Walberg, University of Illinois at Chicago Research and practitioner knowledge about what influences learning can help improve educational policies and practices. New understandings about how children learn can contribute to efforts to upgrade the nation’s teaching corps, set standards, and generally enhance the academic performance of the nation’s children and youth. Such challenges underscore the need to bring what is known about learning to the national agenda of educational reform. For example, standard setting has become one of the most visible activities in the current wave of educational reform. Numerous types of standards have emerged over the past several decades (i.e., content, performance, opportunity to learn, assessment ).To implement such standards, educators must first identify the content and level of performance they expect children to attain. Second, they must determine what teacher actions, instructional practices, student pursuits, and schoolwide practices and policies should be implemented to guarantee that all students will have an opportunity to achieve the desired standards. Research on what influences learning is one source of information that can be used in this process. Despite the potential value of educational research findings to inform standard setting and other reform efforts, there is a gap separating what is known about learning from what educators actually do and the reforms they implement. One reason for this gap is that the formal knowledge base about effective educational practices and policies is generally inaccessible to field-based professionals. In an attempt to narrow this gap, this study presents results of a survey of 1,818 educational researchers, educational administrators, and policymakers. These survey participants rated 146 educational practices and policies in terms of their influence on learning and assessabilty. Results of this survey provide a source of information that can be used in a variety of educational reform efforts, such as: setting standards; guiding the development of site-specific programs; monitoring program implementation; evaluating program outcomes; and designing teacher education and professional development activities. Conceptual Framework A conceptual framework was constructed to guide the development of the survey. In an earlier research study, results of prior quantitative syntheses, narrative reviews, and surveys of educational experts had been identified which focused on the relationships between student characteristics, instruction, and features of the home and community that influence learning. These results represented over 50 years of educational research studies and over 11,000 statistical relationships between aptitudinal, instructional, and contextual influences and student learning. Among the frequently identified influences on student learning were: maximized learning time, motivational incentives, advanced organizers, classroom management, classroom and school climate, teacher characteristics, curriculum materials, and home environment. The findings support the primacy of student characteristics, instructional practices, and home and community influences on student learning. Two hundred and twenty-eight influences on student learning were identified and grouped into six categories. From those six categories, four were selected for use in this survey: Classroom Practices; Design and Delivery of Curriculum; Schoolwide Practices; and Federal, State, and District Policies. Developing and Conducting the Survey Based on the conceptual framework, a survey was constructed using 146 items that were grouped into four clusters: Classroom Practices; Schoolwide Practices; Design and Delivery of Curriculum; and Federal, State, and District Policies. For each item in each cluster, two Likert rating scales were constructed: (a) degree of influence on learning; and (b) degree of assessability. Influence on learning was defined as the degree to which students’ acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values is affected by an educational practice or policy. Assessability was defined as the extent to which the presence or absence of the policy or practice can be determined by direct observation, archived documents, or other means. Each of the 146 survey items was rated twice using three-point Likert scales--once for the item’s influence on learning and a second time to determine the item’s assessability. Eight samples of survey recipients were drawn from the following organizations: (a) American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division A, Administration; (b) AERA Division C, Learning and Instruction; (c) AERA Division H, Evaluation; (d) National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP); (e) National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP); (f) American Association of School Administrators (AASA); (g) Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS); and (h) Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). A total of 3,141 surveys were mailed and non-respondents received a follow-up survey about six weeks later. A total of 1,818 individuals returned their surveys for a response rate of 57.9%. Results of the Survey In the statistical analyses, the survey participants were divided into two groups: "Researchers" (members of AERA Divisions A, C, and H) and "Educational Administrators" (members of AASA, CCSSO, CGCS, NAESP, and NASSP). The results showed high agreement between the researcher’s and administrator’s ratings of influence (r=.87, p<.01) and between their ratings of assessability (r=.68, <p.01). These findings indicate that researchers and educational administrators agree about the relative influence and assessability of educational practices and policies. Such consensus gives a measure of assurance that the knowledge base on what works to improve student learning has been successfully communicated among the research, school, and policy communities. When the four clusters of items (Classroom Practices; Schoolwide Practices; Design and Delivery of Curriculum; and Federal, State, and District Policies) are compared, in terms of their relative influence on learning, the classroom, school and curricular practices are perceived, by survey participants, as exerting stronger influences on learning than policies. Ironically, however, the survey participants saw the policies as more assessable than the classroom, schoolwide, and curriculum practices. Although researchers and educational administrators agree with each other about the influence and assessability of specific practices and policies, the groups do not agree on the relationship between influence and assessability. The correlation of influence and assessability ratings for researchers is near zero (r=-.03, p >10), whereas there is a moderate correlation for educational administrators’ (r=.52, p<.01). One possible explanation for this difference is that researchers are less optimistic about the assessability of many educational practices and policies. In an additional analysis, the 146 items were divided into quartiles on the basis of their average influence ratings. The average assessability ratings for each of the 146 items were also divided into quartiles. Using this data, the items in the highest and lowest quartiles of each of the four item clusters were identified. The primary findings of this analysis were that classroom practices, and, to a lesser degree, schoolwide practices, and curriculum design and delivery, have a high degree of influence on student learning and are readily assessable. Federal, state, and district policies were judged to have little influence on student learning, although they are readily assessable. Selected details of this analysis are described below: Classroom Practices. Of the 70 Classroom Practices items, 18 were in the highest quartile of influence on learning. These items focused on the teacher’s role in the classroom, a cognitively challenging classroom environment, and the frequency and nature of teacher-student interactions. The Classroom Practices items that were in the highest quartile of assessability were those practices that were directly observable--features of the classroom environment, presence of particular practices, resources, and instructional and grouping practices. Schoolwide Practices. Of the 39 Schoolwide Practices items, 11 fell in the highest quartile of influence on learning. These items included: a safe, orderly, positive, and academically-oriented school climate; parent involvement; maximizing student instructional time; collaboration and shared decision-making among school personnel; and low staff alienation and absenteeism. Seven of the 39 Schoolwide Practices items fell in the highest quartile of assessability. These included practices that were easy to judge--a safe and orderly school, school size, the presence of particular policies, low staff abseenteism, and turnover. Schoolwide practices that fell in the lower quartiles of assessability were those that required evidence of less observable qualities, such as consensus and positive attitudes. Curriculum Design and Delivery. Only four of the 16 Curriculum Design and Delivery items were in the highest quartile of influence on learning. These highly influential items included: alignment of curriculum content, instruction, and assessment; tailoring the content to each student’s capabilities and prior knowledge; and availability of materials and activities for different instructional groupings. Eight of the Curriculum Design and Delivery items were in the highest quartile of assessability. These included items focused on tangible features of curriculum materials--presence of specific objectives, assessments, and activities tailored to instructional groups based on students’ academic needs; and availability of materials, human resources, and procedures for effective behavioral and cognitive management. Federal, State, and District Policy. Only two of the 21 Federal, State, and District Policy items fell in the highest quartile of influence on learning: central office support and Board of Education support. This finding suggests that the most influential policies are those manifest in the form of local resources and assistance. Of the 21 Policy items, 10 were in the highest quartile of assessability. Most of these items were judged highly assessable because the presence or absence of the policy can be readily detected through document reviews or other minimal data collection. Central office and board of education assistance and support for school programs were judged as highly influential, but not easy to assess. Conclusions To our knowledge, the present survey is the first of its kind. It is a compact presentation of expert knowledge garnered from researchers and educational practitioners about practices and policies that improve learning. Along with results of research syntheses, these survey results can serve as a basis for planning site-specific education reforms. While the results of the survey are of general interest, personnel from schools, school districts, and states must identify practices and policies that meet their particular needs and site characteristics. These results can be used, along with other relevant information, to alter classroom and school practices; design school, district, and state policies; identify standards; develop accountability measures; monitor program implementation; and design indicators for use in summative evaluations.
Reading Achievement, Reading Instruction, and Title I Evaluation, Richard L. Venezky, University of Delaware Although the idea of continuous progress in school improvement may seem commonsensical, it is, nonetheless, foreign to most current educational thinking. Change in education navigates from quiescence to turbulence and then back again. When external pressures are light, schools rarely change. Since the late 19th century, an outside-in approach to school improvement has developed. Although proponents of this approach seldom deny the central importance of instruction for student learning, their focus is frequently on the context of instruction and not on instruction itself. Many models assume that if the organizational structure is sound, teachers are properly trained, and if appropriate resources are available, good instruction will follow. However, schools are loosely coupled systems; educators at all levels, using the same materials and methods, may provide distinctly different types of instruction and achieve significantly different results. This paper attempts to define a model of reading achievement that can serve simultaneously as an instructional plan for meeting high national standards and an evaluation blueprint for Title I programs. What is presented is an inside-out approach where (a) effective reading instruction is defined; and (b) the support system required to sustain such instruction is specified. Classroom instruction is placed at the center of school improvement. For Title I school reading programs, this model will provide a strategy for analyzing the effectiveness of Title I programs and, at the same time, provide a model for continuous progress for these same schools. Literacy, Society, and School Reform Since the 1920s, American schooling has undergone a variety of reforms, both large and small. Although recently there have been impressive calls for reform in mathematics and science, curiously absent from current reform literature is any serious proposal to reform literacy instruction in schools. Current definitions locate literacy in a set of acts, the success of which are dependent upon individual requirements. However, without knowing an individual’s goals, it is difficult to determine his or her literacy level. Drawing on work done in literary criticism, literacy might be better defined as active, autonomous engagement with print. This definition shifts the locus of literacy from social navigation to personal interactions with print itself, carrying with it strong implications for how one applies reading and writing ability. Without active, autonomous engagement, literacy is limited and asymmetrical; a person receives but does not produce messages. Literacy, therefore, is not a static ability that can be measured by cognitive tests alone, but requires active demonstration. As they grow older, children are expected to engage in literate acts in their personal and social lives-literacy is a skill that stratifies youth. Part of this chasm, however, is an unfortunate result of school stratification, based on or resulting from reading ability. Poor readers are often placed together and generally receive less challenging assignments and less content area information. As they progress through school, they fall behind not only in language arts but also in most other subjects. Social Construction of Knowledge For more than a century and a half, teaching in the United States has been dominated by a simplistic model of development that states that a child begins life with a mind akin to an empty slate and minimal mental capacities. Mental faculties develop through a natural order. Education should mirror this natural order of development through a linear curriculum, sequenced from simple to abstract ideas. Although many theorists addressed the issue of child development, it was not until Vygotsky’s work was translated into English that a serious challenge existed to the concrete-to-abstract, pour-in-the-knowledge philosophy. Now one of Vygotsky’s central tenets of school learning-the social construction of knowledge-has begun to dominate the reform literature. The social construction of knowledge, in its simplest form, is a recognition that knowledge is constructed by each individual, generally through interactions with others. Through verbal interactions, through doing, and especially through assistance from more knowledgeable peers and elders, we build our own understanding of the world around us. Vygotsky was not the first to suggest that knowledge is constructed by each individual. His contribution was in building an educational theory that was part of a broader developmental view and that minimized inherent limitations to learning. Incorporation of these views into modern curriculum reform can be seen in elementary science more so than in other school subjects. In part this results from the compatibility of Vygotsky’s views with those of current science educators and curriculum developers. Current Problems in School Literacy By understanding literacy in the context of culture, philosophy of learning, and the history of school literacy programs, we can identify at least two problems with current reading program designs. The first problem with most elementary reading programs is that they spend too much time on narrative fiction and too little time on teaching students to read other types of materials (e.g., expository texts, charts, diagrams). By the fourth grade, many students who appear to be successful readers of fiction cannot read with the same facility from their content area textbooks. The second dilemma, presented by the social construction of knowledge paradigm and other efforts to focus on higher level thinking skills, is that a knowledge base is required for almost any form of reasoning to take place. In addition, the required lower level skills must be sufficiently automated in order for mental capacity to be available for other subtasks. Students with high background-knowledge (a) gain more from less coherent texts than low-background knowledge students, and (b) gain more from less coherent texts than coherent texts. The variable at work here is depth of processing. Both groups must struggle to understand the less coherent texts. Those with high background knowledge succeed; those with low background knowledge generally do not. Those who succeed, because of the extra processing required, tend to make more connections across ideas within the text and more linkages between background knowledge and text propositions, and therefore gain more from the reading. Knowledge, Strategies, and Fluency Reading and writing ability in all genres depends upon background knowledge, literacy strategies, and fluency. The proposed thesis is that reading is an interactive process driven by the reader’s goal, the text to be read, and the reader’s abilities with regard to the text and reading goal. One critical variable that emerges from the goal/text/ability framework is depth of processing. Understanding or writing texts and documents requires varying amounts of background knowledge and experience, both about the content and the form of the texts. For many students who lack literacy skills, especially those immigrants from less technologically advanced countries, the absence of certain types of general knowledge complicates literacy acquisition. Strategies are the attack plans that readers and writers develop for particular types of texts under particular goals. Part of any strategy is a recovery plan-what to do if the general plan does not work. For recovery plans to be useful, however, the reader must recognize that a particular reading strategy is not working. The poorer reader, struggling to recognize a minimal amount of the text, may not detect a mistake. Metacognitive strategies move beyond basic skills, generally without overt control by the reader, to strategies that require conscious decisions. The competent reader monitors understanding, recognizing when basic strategies are not working, and shifts to new strategies or terminates reading when the reading goal is not being reached. Metacognition can also come into play as the advanced application of basic skills. The competent reader has a bag of strategies for such reading problems and knows how and when to deploy them. Fluency can be defined as the ease with which a text or document can be read with understanding appropriate for a given task or the ease with which sentences and paragraphs are written. For oral reading, fluency is marked by correct recognition of words, proper phrasing and intonation, and appropriate reading speed. For silent reading, similar abilities are required, but without oral production. Fluency, then, represents the abilities that most often become automated in the experienced reader; that is, the lower-level abilities that can, with sufficient practice, be executed without conscious control. For writing, fluency is a function of manual ability in producing letters and words and cognitive ability in recalling appropriate spellings and punctuation and in generating coherent discourse. Steps Toward an Instructional Model To make appropriate student placements into an instructional level, placement and goal setting should occur in conjunction with one another. This type of goal-setting with high expectations is especially important for Title I students. Instruction begins on the appropriate level, student progress is monitored, and changes in instruction are made if necessary. Ideally, both the teacher and another staff member (reading specialist, Title I coordinator, or principal) periodically review student progress as a team and discuss what should be done next. At the same time that in-school instruction begins, parents should be informed of the goals for the year, the instructional program, and their expected role in supporting the program. Similarly, if special services are available for the student (e.g., ESL, Title I), coordination of these with the classroom teacher should be established so each knows what the other is doing. This requires allocating time for joint planning, a step often ignored in Title I schools. Year-end schoolwide reviews should be made of all students, including assessments of individual student progress toward instructional goals. This basic instructional cycle is critical for all schools, but especially for Title I schools. Each stage needs to be implemented overtly, with information recorded and communicated to all involved. Diagnosis, placement, monitoring, review, and program evaluation must all become part of the routine of the school, just as the bells, the lunch period, and the class picnic are now. Content of Instruction Outlined in Table 1 is the best set of guidelines for teaching readiness that can be devised from the available evidence. Whether this plan will lead directly to student success may not be as important as its self-checking design. There is the possibility that a better plan will emerge over time.
Table 1 provides the key components of what is known about children that should be used to structure literacy programs in all schools, including Title I schools. From these postulates, a variety of indicators can be extracted. If children are not performing at a certain level in comparison to the norms, it may be an indicator that they need help. A similar feedback system can also be developed for assessing instruction. Finally, all monitoring systems should include test scores. Testing, whether state-wide or district-based, should allow comparisons to national norms. Greater student success compared to other high-poverty schools may be a step forward, but students and teachers must be held to high standards and assessed based on whether or not students are reaching these standards. The indicators sketched in Table 1 relate mostly to the process of instruction. The ultimate test is whether or not the process, when in place, leads to the desired outcome. Conclusion This paper proposes a model for reading instruction, from which a set of indicators can be drawn to assess reading programs based upon both general instructional variables and variables specific to reading instruction. This strategy for school reform has at its core a continuous improvement model that allows schools to build better instructional programs year by year. Built into this notion is an improvement orientation: schools accept review and improvement of their instructional programs as an ongoing responsibility instead of a crisis. Title I will then become a school support program that assists schools in building capacity for problem solving.
English Language Learners and Title I Schoolwide Programs1, Diane August, National Research Council, Washington, DC Schoolwide projects provide a vehicle for much-needed reform in that regular classroom instruction rather than supplemental and pull-out instruction becomes the focus for improving student outcomes. Under the former Chapter 1 (now Title I) law, schools with 75% of students in poverty could apply to use funds for schoolwide projects rather than for supplemental instruction targeted to individual children. Current law enables many more Title I schools to develop schoolwide programs by lowering the minimum poverty level at which a school can become a schoolwide program to 50% of students in poverty. However, for schoolwide programs to be effective, school staff must attend to the special needs and strengths of its students, particularly English-language learners. Accordingly, what follows are recommendations for policy and practice to enhance the inclusion of English-language learners in such programs. Legal Requirements and Implications for English-language Learners The 1994 reauthorization of Title I requires that plans for schoolwide programs be developed through the collaborative efforts of the community to be served, education professionals, and, where appropriate, pupil services personnel, parents, and students. In schoolwide programs targeting English-language learners, it is important that experienced individuals in the education of English-language learners assist the development of the schools’ plans. Effective Programming To achieve effective programming, the law requires that schoolwide programs include several basic components (see Table 1). However, certain attributes of effective schooling and assessment above and beyond those necessary for all students are important for English-language learners. For example, because many English-language learners cannot take the same assessments as their fluent-English speaking peers, modifications to needs assessments are necessary to fully include these students.
Schools that are responsive to the needs of English-language learners must be developed. Effective school communities that include English-language learners challenge bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination; place high expectations on all students; design services and activities to serve and include English-language learners; promote professional development to help personnel better address the needs of language minority students; and maintain articulation and coordination within and between schools. To ensure that English language learners grasp subject matter, additional tutelage is often required. When instruction in their native language is not available, teachers must provide appropriate background information and contexts to establish connections between learners’ knowledge and the subject to enhance student comprehension. To achieve success, schools also should design support programs for English-language learners that provide additional guidance when making decisions about their future. Increased access to these services could be provided through bilingual counselors, mentors, and workshops. Similar modifications should be made to increase parental involvement for families of English-language learners. Finally, providing timely assistance to these students, especially at the middle-grade and secondary-school levels, poses several challenges to educators when attempting to accommodate older students with limited English proficiency and limited prior schooling. Development of newcomer centers for arriving immigrant students that provide intensive English language instruction cultural adaptation is one response to this challenge. Assessment The law requires that schoolwide programs include comprehensive assessments of schools’ performance in relation to state content and student performance standards. Additionally, states must develop or adopt a set of high-quality, yearly assessments for reading or language arts and math. Although English-language learners should be assessed to determine mastery of the same standards, assessments might be modified to learn how much they know and can learn. Significant modification methods employed by states include: (a) provision of assessments in the students’ native languages; and (b) piloting statewide assessment programs in languages other than English. Minor modifications might include: the allowance of extra time; provision of simplified directions; use of dictionaries or glossaries; use of audio-taped instructions in native languages; and allowance of responses in native languages. In all instances, however, it is important to ensure that assessments are equivalent in content and rigor to those used to measure the progress of fluent English speakers. The law also requires the collection of data on achievement and assessment results of students disaggregated by gender, race/ethnicity, limited English proficiency status, or their status as migrant students, students with disabilities as compared to other students, and economically disadvantaged students as compared to students who are not economically disadvantaged. Therefore, as required by law, student assessment results should be disaggregated by English-language learner status. Further disaggregation by economic status would help prevent misattribution of potential differences between English-language learners and their English proficient peers that are related to socioeconomic factors. To the extent that English-language learners have historically been at great risk of failing in school, separate reporting of the outcomes for these students, even during a transitional period, would most convincingly demonstrate whether there is local and school improvement and whether this improvement incorporates these students. Careful monitoring of differences between English-language learners and fluent English-speaking students, trends in progress by subject, and socioeconomic factors also contribute valuable information for making instructional decisions. There are two distinct purposes for calculating disaggregated results for these students: (a) to describe the performance of the particular group of English-language learners in a school, district, or state at a given time of testing; and (b) to assess whether the English-language learners in the school, district, or state are making adequate yearly progress toward meeting performance standards. One issue of concern is the number of English-language learners necessary for the data to be statistically sound. To serve the first purpose of assessing yearly progress, statistical soundness does not depend upon the sample size. However, in reporting data at the school level when the number of English-language learners is extremely small caution is necessary for reasons other than statistical soundness-that is, the confidentiality of the individual students may be violated in reporting the data publicly. To serve the second purpose of generalizing beyond the particular sample, such as through a comparison of a sample students by year, the statistical soundness of the comparison depends upon the sample, size, and measurement error of the test. However, there is no golden rule as to what an adequate number should be in attaining statistical soundness because the number is dependent on the variability in the data, the expected magnitude of the year-to-year progress, and the desired ability of the statistical tool to pick up on year-to-year progress. In general, data should be calculated at all levels for descriptive purposes, regardless of the number of English-language learners, except in cases where student confidentiality might be violated. Exemption from Statutory or Regulatory Provisions In the development of school-wide programs, a local education agency may combine funds from different programs to upgrade the entire education program in a school. In addition to schoolwide program funds, a school may use federal funds under any program administered by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, except programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Act. This "Special Rule" allows schools to develop and implement creative schoolwide programs that address the educational needs of all children. Exemption from certain statutory or regulatory provisions of programs combined with Title I programs may be requested only if the intent and purposes of the other programs are met. In addition, provisions in other programs or statutory schemes relating to a variety of services (e.g., health, safety, civil rights, and gender equity) may not be exempted. The Special Rule does not allow the wholesale exemption of programs; rather, it is concerned with the possible exemption of only those provisions that prevent the combining of funds and/or support schoolwide programming in some way, thereby undermining the intent and purposes of the other programs. Recommendations for Research and Development While this paper has offered recommendations for policy and practice to enhance the inclusion of English-language learners in such programs, a research and development agenda is necessary to ensure that English-language learners are effectively served by schoolwide programs. Before incorporating English-language learners in assessments of subject matter knowledge, research is needed to determine the validity and reliability of these modifications. This includes the development and field testing of other modifications suggested but rarely attempted. Methods to improve the scoring of open-ended and performance-based assessments given in English to English-language learners also must be identified. Research is also needed to determine when English-language learners are ready to take English-only assessments, and additionally on what assessment modifications are most appropriate for those that do not take the standard English assessment. The current practice of inclusion based on the number of years attending an English-speaking school does not consider the varying rate of English acquisition by English-language learners. A more promising approach may be the use of an assessment of English proficiency that measures all four domains as part of a triage system to determine whether unmodified English assessment, modified English assessment, or a waiver from assessment should be offered. Although research has uncovered a wide range of attributes related to effectiveness, much of this research has been conducted within the design of the nominated schools. These studies generally do not report student achievement data and thus link interventions to student outcomes. Other studies have looked at changes in student outcomes as a result of an intervention, but many of these studies do not include comparison groups to determine whether the intervention produced the positive outcomes. Finally, research is also needed to identify and test promising educational interventions for English-language learners. This research, inclusive of schoolwide adaptations (e.g., class arrangement, teaching strategies, and curricular modifications), should attend to interactions between effective practice and student characteristics by identifying features of programs that may be important, developing competing theories leading to sharply distinct proposals for programs, and creating new programs to specification and assessing their effectiveness in tightly controlled and conclusive comparative studies. 1Author's Note: This paper is based in part on a previous report on English-language learners and Title I prepared by the author and her colleagues and published by the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education in November, 1995.
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