1. provide increased flexibility to school professionals to meet the needs of disadvantaged pupils in poor neighborhoods;

2.  can reduce curriculum and instructional fragmentation; and

3.  improve academic accountability when there is a growing public concern over the quality of public education. (Wong & Meyer, 1997, p.2).

Many of the goals of the Children Achieving agenda found congruence with the goals of the Title I schoolwide programs.  Each of these policies and programs Philadelphia developed regarding Title I schoolwide programs still exists in the system today, although the new Children Achieving reforms are transforming them.  Although the Children Achieving program shares the ultimate aim of improving education and support services to children in urban schools, it has brought new organizational structures with new administrative personnel, new methods of instructional support and professional development, and new academic standards, accountability, and assessment mechanisms.  These programs will ultimately affect the way Title I schoolwide projects administer their educational programs for at-risk students.  

The new structures and administrative policies of the Children Achieving agenda overlap with and replace some of the functions of the District's Title I policies.  The following are components of the Children Achieving agenda that have the potential to positively impact the way educational and support services are administered to at-risk students in Title I schoolwide projects. Table 3 highlights the corresponding points of intersection between Philadelphia's existing schoolwide programs and the new Children Achieving agenda:

The Children Achieving structures themselves are set up in ways that complement the programs, policies, and personnel of Title I schoolwide programs:

1. Reorganization of the District into Clusters: Under the Children Achieving reforms, the District is being subdivided into 22 clusters, following the feeder patterns of elementary, middle and high schools in a neighborhood.   The clusters form an intermediary support structure for the schools.  In keeping with the trends of the central office providing support and direction to the schoolwide projects, the cluster structure provides administrative assistance to the schools to better coordinate and integrate professional development and services to at-risk students. The cluster is a step in shifting decision-making and support services away from the District offices and closer to the school level.  It has also created new administrative positions to facilitate in delivering instruction and services to at-risk students:

. Teaching and Learning Network: The Teaching and Learning Networks, whose headquarters are at each cluster office, have the potential to expand the professional development opportunities in Philadelphia, in keeping with the priorities of the Title I law. The TLN can add to professional development activities, and to the SIP process, by sending professional development coordinators to the schools. The administrative personnel in the Teaching and Learning Networks in the cluster office are to provide hands-on, in-class instructional advice to teachers on how to improve instruction to all children. In keeping with the intent of the IST program and goals of the Title I schoolwide projects to help at-risk students in group settings, the TLN coordinators work with special education teachers (Basic Skills Teachers) and regular classroom teachers at the school to learn more specific ways of including at-risk and special education students in the regular classroom.  Under the Children Achieving reforms, the TLN coordinators have also assumed the responsibility of helping schools develop their School Improvement Plans.   Both activities have the potential to help teachers in schoolwide programs "implement new techniques for educating children." (Wells, 1994).

. Equity coordinators-These cluster level administrators are charged with helping schools and teachers pay special attention to issues which affect at-risk children.  The equity coordinators are to help schools on issues of special education and desegregation, and help schools identify and streamline the delivery of special services to at-risk children. They are also charged with the task of collecting the student achievement data from the pre- and post-tests to help schools track and evaluate the progress of at-risk children.  Their presence, along with that of the Basic Skills Teachers and the IST team members, has the potential to further coordinate education and resources for at-risk children in schoolwide projects.

2. School reorganization. The Children Achieving agenda calls for the reorganization of schools into several smaller learning communities.  The reform plan also calls for schools to develop School Councils, consisting of parents, teachers, school staff, and the principals. Each of these restructuring strategies holds the potential to further the goals of the schoolwide projects and to improve instruction and delivery of Title I services to at-risk children.

. Small Learning Communities: The reorganization of schools into smaller learning communities is intended to create a more personal, one-to-one atmosphere between teachers and students, and to increase communication and planning time among staff. These goals of the SLC overlap with the aims of both the IST process and the schoolwide projects, which both hoped to foster integration of instruction to at-risk students within a school.  Under the Children Achieving agenda, each SLC within a school is to develop its own independent instructional organization, grade grouping, academic theme, and goals for the year that will contribute to the overall school improvement.

. School Councils: Under the new reform plan, each school is supposed to form a group of parents, teachers, school staff, and the principal to make decisions collectively about school issues.  The presence of parents on the formal governing body, and the fact that the school council must be voted in by 51% of the parents in the school, supports the Title I goal of increased parent involvement in school issues.  This has the potential to supplement the activities of the Home School Association and could help schools meet parent participation requirements for their Title I schoolwide program.

3. New Academic Standards and Accountability Mechanisms: As discussed earlier, the Children Achieving agenda has created new standards of accountability, assessment, and academic instruction which seek to improve the quality of education offered to all students in the District.  Along with the goals of the re-authorized Title I legislation for schoolwide projects, the Children Achieving agenda seeks to hold all children to high standards, including those considered to be at-risk of educational failure. Hornbeck's plan calls for three major initiatives in this department which have the potential to impact that which is closest to the student: instruction and assessment.

Thus, each of these aspects of the Children Achieving agenda has the potential to facilitate the goals of the Title I schoolwide projects in Philadelphia.   The new structures created by District restructuring, school-level reorganization, and the new academic standards introduced all have goals in common with the re-authorized Title I legislation and the schoolwide projects.   Whether or not the reforms are being implemented in such a way as to meet their potential is the impetus for this investigation.  

The preliminary findings of this study suggest that the Children Achieving reform program is meeting its potential to enhance the Title I schoolwide projects.  Initial evidence suggests that notwithstanding the political conflicts at the higher levels of administration, the strategies of the Children Achieving reforms generally mesh well with and are facilitating the implementation of the Title I schoolwide projects at the cluster, school, and classroom levels. 

As described earlier, the introduction of the Children Achieving agenda was met with considerable political conflict at the city and District level.  At the cluster level, conflict was not as vocal, but there were new relationships and positions to establish.  Researchers' interviews with newly-appointed cluster personnel during the 1995-1996 year confirmed their confusion in the face of shifting priorities, new roles, and unfamiliar policies.  However, there was some initial evidence to suggest that by the end of the first year, cluster administrators were beginning to define their duties and positions with respect to the schools, working out ways to bring needed services and support closer to the schoolwide projects (Wong & Sunderman, 1997). 

At the school level during the first year, most teachers and principals took readily to the idea of subdividing their schools into Small Learning Communities, and in that first year, most schools began discussions about strategies to develop SLCs.  In a survey of 27 elementary schools in the first six clusters of the Children Achieving plan, 18 reported that they had already established Small Learning Communities which were fully operating by the end of the first year of reform, the 1995-1996 school year (Wong & Brown, 1997).  In response to the challenge to create fully operating school councils, schools made similar progress.  Eighteen of the 27 schools reported that they had school councils up and running by the spring of 1996.  However, in interviews with the schools in this study, principals admitted that a lack of parent participation on the councils was preventing them from electing functional councils.  Many of the schools in the OMG survey already had some other form of decision making group in place (Ibid).  

Notwithstanding the earlier difficulties of implementation of Children Achieving, by the second year of reform, there was evidence that the substantive components of the Children Achieving agenda were beginning to be integrated into the Title I schoolwide projects.  Teachers, principals, and TLN coordinators, and school staff reported that new curriculum and assessment priorities were beginning to be integrated into activities of professional development, planning sessions, lesson plans, instruction, assessment, and testing at the school and classroom level.  Rather than being another layer of reform, Children Achieving was starting to be integrated into the priorities, goals, and activities of the schoolwide projects.  

This trend from fragmentation towards integration seemed to be taking place at the cluster, school, and classroom levels.  At each level, administrators, teachers, principals, and staff were finding ways to combine the new Children Achieving reform initiatives with the existing priorities and services of the Title I schoolwide projects.  In most cases, the combination improved the delivery of Title I services, fostered the achievement of schoolwide project goals, and worked ultimately to benefit the instruction and support of at-risk children in these schools.  Evidence from the most recent site visit indicates that the cluster offices and schools are just now beginning to adapt the core components of the Children Achieving agenda to their respective settings to support the Title I schoolwide programs.  

Table 4 summarizes the progress of integration of Title I and Children Achieving goals in year one and year two at District, cluster, school, and classroom level:

As the summary table shows, by the second year of reform, schools and clusters were beginning to integrate the new Children Achieving reforms in ways that supplemented their existing Title I schoolwide programs and practices.  After that first year of initial political conflict, confusion, and resistance, the reforms began to move into a new phase of gradual accommodation and adaptation, at least at the cluster, school, and classroom levels.  

1. District restructuring-cluster services for schoolwide projects At the cluster level, administrators in the newly created TLN and equity coordinator positions continued to define their roles and establish their relationships with the schools.  Whereas in the first year, teachers and principals weren't sure how the TLN and equity coordinators could assist them, the role and support of these cluster administrators became more clearly defined by the second year of reform.  

In each of the four sites, the TLN was actively organizing new types of professional development activities for teachers both at the cluster offices and by going to provide training at the schools.  There was considerable variation between sites on the matter of how frequently the TLN visited the schools, but all four clusters and their respective schools had, by the second year of reform, established schedules of when, where, and what type of professional development support services would be provided. In each site, a system was clearly emerging. 

One of the most helpful services schools reported the TLN providing was assisting with the development of a School Improvement Plan.  This involved strategic planning sessions with teams of teachers, principals, staff, an provided schoolwide projects the opportunity to think strategically about the way they provided services to at-risk students and find ways to improve their services and instruction.  One cluster helped their schools design a program to more effectively employ the classroom Support Services Assistants (known as "SSAs").  Upon visiting several schools and talking with teaches, the TLN coordinators noticed that the SSAs, hired from the community with Title I dollars, were simply assisting teachers with administrative tasks instead of helping students.  The TLN then held a series of training sessions for the SSA on tutoring techniques and how to provide one-on-one reading help for children.  Now the SSAs are helping teachers in more substantive ways, and providing extra instruction for children who need extra help.    This kind of integration of reform priorities is one example of how the new Children Achieving initiative meshes well with and facilitates the goals of the  Title I schoolwide projects.  

Each of the four schools also reported that the TLN coordinators were helpful this year in doing training sessions with teachers on the new standards and academic benchmarks set by the District under the Children Achieving agenda.  One cluster designed a six-week professional development mini-series for teachers on what the new curriculum standards were and how to integrate them into lesson plans.    In many cases, the training on the new standards and benchmarks was often coupled with preparation for the SAT-9.  Principals and teachers in all four schools reported that their TLN coordinators helped them know how to best prepare children to do well on the SAT-9 tests, and how to incorporate preparatory material into daily lessons.   

This was also the case for the professional development and training surrounding the Title I pre-and post-assessment tests.  Teachers from each of the four schools praised the TLN for their help in this area especially.    More specifically, the principals and teachers reported that the TLN training with teachers on how to pick standards to test, and on how to integrate the preparation into classroom instructional activities provided teachers with concrete examples of how to effectively implement curriculum standards.  Teachers explained that formerly, these curriculum guidelines were often vague and did not have much impact on how teachers taught their daily lesson plans.  

With respect to the Title I services surrounding the IST process, the TLN coordinators, along with the equity coordinators at each cluster assisted teachers in learning ways to provide in-class instruction to at-risk students with special needs.  This is one of the goals of the Title I schoolwide projects: to prevent isolating Title I students from the rest of the students for special services.  One Basic Skills Teacher reported that it was encouraging to see this issue being addressed in a systematic way with all classroom teachers, now that there was an equity coordinator in charge of the training.   Before the Children Achieving created those cluster positions of the equity coordinator and TLN to do regular, on-going training, this type of professional training had only been done on a targeted basis.  

By the second year of reform, the equity coordinator role was becoming more clearly defined in ways that fostered the delivery of special educational and support services for Title I students.  In the previous year, all four equity coordinators complained that the administrative and paper-work duties of their position prevented them from being in the classrooms more.  But this year, their assistance began to shift from an administrative to a more substantive level.  At each cluster, the equity coordinators worked with the TLN to customize professional development and training to schools with high proportions of at-risk students.   In most cases, the equity coordinator took on the responsibility of getting teachers to focus on how new policies and instruction would affect Title I schoolwide programs, special education, and services for at-risk children.  They interpreted the Title I pre-and post-assessment test results with the teachers, encouraging them to think of new ways in which to reach students who were not performing satisfactorily.  As one equity coordinator explained, "I help to change mind-sets."    Thus, by the second year of reform, the cluster component of the Children Achieving reform was integrated with the existing Title I schoolwide programs fostering the priorities of the schoolwide projects.

2. School restructuring: Small Learning Communities and School Councils: In the same way that the District restructuring into smaller clusters began to integrate support services in schoolwide projects, the reorganization of schools into smaller learning communities also seemed to start improving the teaching and learning environment for students.  By the second year of having SLCs in their schools, the principals and teachers in schoolwide projects were beginning to see how they could "take ownership" of school reform  and tailor it to the specific needs of children at their school by designing thematic units for instruction, reorganizing grade groups into new arrangements, coordinating lesson planning, and introducing more creative learning activities into the classroom.  

Nearly everyone interviewed about the SLCs, from cluster leaders to teachers, had positive things to say about the concept of subdividing schools into smaller learning communities.   The SLCs were frequently mentioned as one of the most positive aspects of the Children Achieving agenda.  After a year of having SLCs at their schools, several teachers reported that it gave them more time to plan with other teachers, time that was not specifically organized for that before.  Teachers at three schools reported that this was especially helpful when preparing for the Title I pre- and post-assessment tests and the SAT-9 tests.  The group planning time gave them the opportunity to coordinate their units of instruction by discussing what students were learning in other grade levels and classes.  They were also able to share instructional strategies during that newly-created planning time.   Only two teachers reported that planning activities surrounding the SLC took time away from curriculum and instruction.    

Although some teachers and principals expressed frustration at the difficulties of regrouping hundreds of students, rearranging teaching schedules, and re-coordinating instruction time, most teachers and principals also reported that they were finally beginning to overcome the initial obstacles of planning and organization surrounding the set-up phase.  They acknowledged that the first year of SLCs had really been a "transition year," or a "phasing-in" time.

Cluster leaders reported that an increasing number of their elementary schools were trying to establish Small Learning Communities on their campuses in the second year of reform.   However, when discussing the development of the SLCs, cluster leaders, principals, and teachers frequently alluded to a tension between the quantity and quality of SLCs.  While the central administration was pushing for the quick development of a greater number of SLCs in each cluster, some cluster leaders and principals were more patient with the evolution of small learning communities.  As one cluster leader explained, 

We have SLCs in about 80% of our elementary schools.  But only a few of those schools really get what the concept is about.  Those few focus on substantive issues, not just fluff.  Building a truly cohesive small learning community of trust among teachers and students takes time; it's not something that can be rushed or mandated by the principal. It has to have a behavioral and emotional component before a substantive curriculum focus can be effectively implemented.   

This sentiment was echoed closely by two other principals, several teachers, two TLN coordinators, and every cluster leader interviewed. Rather than pushing to achieve higher numbers of SLCs, the principals who steered the development of SLCs seemed to have a commitment to developing quality SLCs: structures that would allow for meaningful, more personal interaction between teacher and student, especially at-risk students.  One principal explained that "the teachers have to learn how to work together and to trust each other first, before they can begin to take the risk of changing the way they relate to each other and to students, which is what the SLC asks them to do."  

In schools where SLCs were well underway, they helped with the management of Title I services.  One TLN coordinator noted that "the SLC helps to blend Title I services into a schoolwide setting," with an emphasis on integration of students into entire learning communities rather than on classroom ability groups.  In turn, the Title I funds and project staff available in schoolwide projects helped facilitate the development of SLCs. For instance, in three of the four schools, the people responsible for coordinating and planning the development of the SLCs were part-time Title I funded staff, such as Basic Skills Teachers and resource teachers.  As one BST explained, "we are qualified to do a lot of the SLC coordinating activities because we don't have full-time classroom teaching responsibilities; we are also familiar with many different teachers' schedules, know our way around the bureaucracy of school organization, and we know how to work with many different teachers from our duties as support staff."  

Some schools were taking advantage of the SLC structures to help their most at-risk children.  One school designed their SLCs specifically to help improve reading skills for at-risk students performing below average. The SLC coordinator, who was also a resource teacher paid in part from the Title I budget, suggested that the school organize students into integrated, multi-age groups with multiple reading abilities.  Each group comprised a different SLC, which met for special reading time at various cycles throughout the day.  The school was able to use the SLC organization to tailor reading instruction around thematic units, employ peer tutoring, increase one-on-one tutoring time with the students who were at-risk of failing, while at the same time challenging those reading at higher grade levels.   

At another school, two teachers entered into a "looping" arrangement, where they each stayed with the same group of students for two years.  Each group formed a prototype of a small learning community-instruction was organized around thematic units, special teaching activities were introduced, and the extra year with the same children provided the teachers time to get to know the students on a more individual level.  "With this type of long-term one-on-one interaction, we were really able to identify problems and get the at-risk kids help right away. They did better because they knew we would stick with them to work through learning problems or behavioral difficulties.  They really thought of themselves as a group by the end of that second year, too, a community." 

Thus, the Small Learning Community reorganization under Children Achieving meshed well with the goals of the Title I schoolwide projects.  These were two mutually supporting reform programs which intersected for the educational benefit of at-risk students.  However, the School Council has not meshed as successfully with the goals of the Title I schoolwide projects as well as the SLCs have.  With the potential for increased site-based decision making and higher levels of parental involvement, the school council has not yet demonstrably improved either.  Each of the four schoolwide project sites report having had difficulty setting up the school councils and getting the necessary parent vote to meet official status.   Often times, schools already have other formal governing bodies in a school (see Wong & Brown, 1997), and they report that their school council seems superfluous.  One TLN coordinator explained, "It's unclear to the teachers exactly what the mission and purpose is of the school council when the schools have so many other schoolwide leadership groups already."   On a more optimistic note, one principal expressed her hope that even though her school only had a transitional school council, it is shaping up to be a good voice of constructive criticism for the school: "we can hopefully use our school council as an evaluation tool, to help us see where we're headed and how we're doing."   Thus, although it is unclear at this point how the school councils directly foster the goals of the Title I schoolwide projects, they might indirectly help improve school organization once they become more fully established. 

3.  Classroom Level: Academic Standards and Assessment: While the clusters and SLCs changed the organizational structures at the District and school level, the new academic standards and assessment mechanisms introduced under the Children Achieving agenda meshed very well with the goals of the Title I schoolwide projects at the classroom and instructional level.  At this level, there were positive intersections between Children Achieving and Title I that seemed to directly impact and improve education for at-risk students.

SAT-9 Testing: In close keeping with the goals of the newly authorized Title I assessment requirement, the SAT-9 sought to evaluate all children in the School District and hold Title I students to the same high standards as all other students.  Despite the vocal protests by teachers' union to the performance-based exam in its first year, teachers worked with cluster TLN coordinators to prepare their students for the exam during the second year.  Although the overall performance of the students on the SAT-9 was below expectations the first year, by the second year, there had been slight improvements.   

One of the most useful aspects of this test, according to several TLN coordinators, principals, is that it provides a snapshot of academic performance for schools to use to evaluate how their students are doing compared to other schools in the District.  When TLN coordinators help schools interpret student achievement data as they design the School Improvement Plan for the year, the SAT-9 score results are proving to be a crucial evaluation tool in discerning which students need extra help and in what areas.    This fosters the goals of the Title I program not only in holding Title I students to the same high standards as other students in the District, but it also helps teachers discover where to concentrate their instruction to improve overall classroom performance in certain subjects.

Title I Pre- and Post-Assessment Tests: Possibly the most tangible and direct point of intersection between Title I schoolwide projects and Children Achieving is the pre-and post-assessment test required by Title I legislation.  Each program helps the other one get implemented, to the ultimate benefit of the children in schoolwide projects.  The new District standards provide benchmarks by which all children are measured, even those Title I children in schoolwide projects, thereby helping to implement the assessment requirement of the newly-authorized Title I legislation. These standards provide appropriate measures for gauging the yearly progress of Title I students.  In turn, the Title I pre- and post-assessment tests help the Children Achieving standards get implemented, as teachers get to choose two standards for their students to be tested on. The TLN network, equity coordinators, and SLC structures help teachers plan for the tests, thus integrating new standards into the curriculum. This helps teachers track the academic progress of at-risk students on a much more thorough basis than was done previously for Title I.

At every school, principals, teachers, and staff are making extensive and conscientious efforts to not only fulfill the Title I testing requirements, but also to weave District standards into the daily lesson plans of the teachers. Most of the cluster administrators, the principals, teachers and staff seem to embrace the goals of the assessment requirement and of the District standards.  

The pre-and post-assessment tests have been described as "a good marriage between Children Achieving and Title I;"  "mesh well with our goals for new curriculum benchmarks;"  and "go hand-in-hand with our standards and SAT-9 testing."   One equity coordinator explained the particular benefit of the pre- and post-assessment tests in fostering good Title I schoolwide programs:  

When the teachers have to pick the standards to test, design the tests, prepare the children for them, administer them, grade them, and interpret the results, it really lets the schools have more ownership of the Title I programs. They began to realize that Title I belongs to the school. That sense of ownership alone helps Title I get implemented better at these schools.

Not only that, but the pre-and post-assessment tests are helping to change the way teachers instruct children in schoolwide projects. One teacher explained that the process of preparing students for the post-assessment test not only forced her to find ways to integrate the new standard into her daily lessons, but it made her finally visualize what performance-based, alternative assessment was all about. "I didn't really understand what alternative assessment meant until I sat down to try to do it with my kids on this test. There's a lot of problem-solving activity in my classroom now because of what's on those tests, what my kids have to get ready for. They have to explain their answers now, how they got them, not just bubble in a letter on a multiple choice form." Another classroom teacher from another school echoed that experience:  "The pre- and post-tests really showed us where we were with our kids.  We tied it into our reading and writing instruction.  We did exercises to practice in class that mirrored the assessment.  I had the kids write, and explain their answers, not just memorize information and pick the right answer from a multiple choice test.  That was helpful to get us going on that higher level of reading and writing."    As other studies of how teachers respond to curriculum changes indicate, this type of change in teachers' daily practice at the classroom-level is often times the most difficult to affect (Evans, 1996 p.4).

In many cases, the Title I funding has helped provide the professional development time for teachers to learn how to design and prepare for these tests, and the new TLN support services provided by the cluster initiative under Children Achieving has given teachers the advice and assistance necessary to make these types of improvements in their day-to-day teaching.   Not only is preparing for the test beneficial, but so is evaluating the results.  Equity coordinators explain that they are able to sit down with teachers in schoolwide projects and look at the progress of their kids over one year.   As the Basic Skills Teacher/SLC coordinator from one school commented of the testing:  "This really helps them see who needs help and who is doing OK.  I guess I didn't really do that on a systematic basis before.  This has really gotten us to think systematically about what we teach, who we teach, and how we teach." 

Thus, the pre and post-assessment tests along with the District benchmark standards are prime examples of a very positive intersection between District Children Achieving reforms and federal Title I schoolwide programs.  This type of classroom level educational change ultimately benefits students directly, which is something that is not often apparent with structural reforms.  

Given the evidence from the first two years of reform, it seems that the Children Achieving agenda is following the pattern of implementation common to other education reform policies: a period of initial conflict and confusion, followed by a gradual adaptation and accommodation of the reform goals to the school settings.  Although the political conflicts still persist at higher levels, the cluster administrators, teachers, and principals are finding ways to integrate the core components of the Children Achieving agenda into their existing Title I schoolwide programs.  They are "tinkering" with both reform agendas, and their efforts seem to foster the implementation of both the Children Achieving and Title I schoolwide programs.  

Though the pattern of conflict-to-accommodation is emerging in Philadelphia there remain questions for further study.  One is to ask why the political conflict and opposition to reform still persists at higher levels.  What are the factors which would compel the competing interests to come to a compromise over reform priorities, budget issues, and change strategies?  The struggle between the teachers union and the superintendent is potentially very harmful to the successful implementation of reform efforts, as evidenced by dozens of principals and teachers leaving their jobs in the 1997-1998 school year (Jones, 1997).  Harmful, too, is the District's budget deficit and an inability of the School District, the school board, the city, and the state to reach an agreement on what to do about school funding.  These are complicated issues, obstacles to successful reform which don't have ready solutions.  Is it a matter of strengthening the leadership in key positions?  Or is this a question of an uneven distribution of power hindering successful implementation, as Murphy might suggest?

Another issue for further investigation would be to examine the driving forces behind the adaptation at the cluster, school, and classroom levels.  There, despite higher-level conflict, practitioners are finding ways to work together to introduce gradual changes into traditional routines and familiar settings.  What is the motivation for teachers, principals, and administrators to adopt the new reform policies, which obviously require dedicated effort and time to implement?   There is variation between sites, of course, in the extent and depth of the changes that take place. But what is it about the successful sites that sustains a commitment to educational reform?  Finding those key ingredients-identifying common elements to successful educational change-would be a subject for further study.

For now, the Children Achieving agenda seems to be living up to its potential to positively impact the education of at-risk students in schoolwide projects.  The new cluster services provided by the TLN and equity coordinators, the Small Learning Communities, and the new Academic Assessment Mechanisms and standards, the Children Achieving agenda complements and supports the goals of schoolwide programs and fosters the delivery of support services to disadvantaged students.  The evidence gathered from the first two years of Children Achieving suggests that the intersection of these two programs ultimately enhances the way each is administered, to the ultimate benefit of the at-risk students in Philadelphia's schools.

Whether this positive interaction can be sustained remains to be seen. The ultimate judge of whether reforms are beneficial will be the improved academic achievement of the at-risk students, something which will become evident only after many years of persistent efforts to improve. But now the structures, personnel, and goals seem to be in place to make that happen. A collective, concentrated effort is now underway to improve the education and services made available to at-risk students in Philadelphia, with the combined policies, programs and personnel of the Title I schoolwide programs and the Children Achieving agenda.

Byers, R.  (1997, October 30).  A black hole of red ink. Philadelphia Inquirer.

Evans, R. (1996). The human side of educational change. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, Inc.

Jones, R. (1997, November 28). Departures of 42 principals leave big gaps in Philadelphia Schools. Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mezcappa, D. (1997, October 9). Hornbeck allies become opponents: School board members who helped recruit him now act against him. Philadelphia Inquirer.

Murphy, J. T. (1971). Title I of ESEA: The politics of implementing federal education reform.  Harvard Educational Review, 41(1), 35-63.

Peterson, P., Rabe, B., & Wong, K. K. (1998). The evolution of the compensatory education program. In D. Doyle, & B. Cooper, (Eds.), Federal aid to the disadvantaged: What future for Chapter I? London: Falmer Press.

School District of Philadelphia. (1995, February 6). Children achieving action design. Philadelphia, PA.

School District of Philadelphia. (1996-1997). Title I informational manual tickler file: An implementation guide for the Children Achieving educational plan and Title I initiatives. Philadelphia, PA. Office of Standards, Equity, and Student Services, Title I Schoolwide Projects.

Tyack, D. B., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wells, R. M. (1994). Education bill provisions. Congressional Quarterly.

Wong, K. K. (1994). The politics of education: From political science to multi-disciplinary inquiry. In Politics of Education Association Yearbook, 21-35.

Wong, K. K., & Brown, J. (1997, April). Reform progress in Philadelphia's schools: An analysis of the OMG survey in the first six clusters during 1995-1996. Unpublished draft prepared for Laboratory for Student Success at Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education, Philadelphia, PA.

Wong, K. K., & Meyer, S. J. (1997).  The effectiveness of Title I schoolwide projects: A synthesis of findings from the first years of evaluation. LSS Spotlight on Student Success, No. 203. Philadelphia: Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education.

Wong, K. K., & Sunderman, G. (1997, February). Effects of local reform on Title I schoolwide programs in Philadelphia. Presented at the American Education Research Association Annual Conference, Chicago, March 1997.