Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
MAY 12, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
1376 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
CHRISTOPHER T. CROSS
CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT REVIEW PANEL AND
PRESIDENT, COUNCIL FOR BASIC EDUCATION
BEFORE THE
SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE
BODY:
History of the Independent Review Panel
In the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA), P.L. 103-382, Congress called for the creation of a
panel of researchers, policymakers, and other interested parties to advise the
U.S. Department of Education on the evaluation of programs authorized under that
statute. In fact, panels were called for in two sections of the law. For the
purposes of organization and clarity these two panels were combined into a
single body known as the Independent Review Panel.
Since its inception in
1995, the panel has met 15 times as a group and spent many hundreds of hours
advising the U.S. Department of Education on the design, implementation, and
sequencing of evaluation studies. Its function has been to advise Congress and
the Department on the qualities of good evaluation, the limitations of what can
be done, and the need for adequate funding and research. University professors,
state and local educators and education administrators, and representatives of
education stakeholder groups comprise the panel. I chaired the panel; Joyce
Benjamin, the Associate Superintendent for Federal Programs in Oregon, was
vice-chair.
By design, our final report does not contain any original
evaluation or research data. That is the province of the reports issued by the
Department of Education, entitled Promising Results, Continuing Challenges: The
Final Report of the National Assessment of Title I and Federal Education
Legislation Enacted in 1994: An Evaluation of Implementation and Impact. Rather,
the panel has chosen both to express its own interpretation of the data and to
raise issues and concerns that, by their very nature, were not included in the
evaluation reports.
Overview of The Panel's Report
The education of our
most disadvantaged students is the most important federal role. The 1994 changes
in Title I are an important step in assuring that a high quality education is
provided to all deserving children. The panel's report focuses on Title I.
The panel examined Title I and the federal role in the broader context of
student achievement as a way of grounding our assessment in a clear
understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the American education system.
Recent gains in student achievement as measured by the National Assessment of
Educational Progress indicate that while some progress has been made in raising
student achievement, much more needs to be done.
We recommend that Congress
triple the amount of funding for the Title I program, from $8 billion to $24
billion. Title I of ESEA is the largest federal education
program serving elementary and secondaryschools. It gives schools that serve
large concentrations of low-income students additional resources to help
students who are least likely to reach the challenging academic standards that
states have established for all students.
The panel's report reaffirms the
federal government's secondary but critical role in promoting equity and
excellence in the nation's public schools. Federal education aid has provided
states, districts, and schools with the extra resources they can use to improve
education. It can be the oil that makes the gears operate more efficiently and
effectively for all students. Moreover, the panel believes that continued
federal support for schools with many children from low-income families will be
essential for all children to learn at high levels.
The panel also
encourages Congress to sustain and strengthen many of the provisions it approved
in 1994, when it reauthorized ESEA and passed the Goals 2000:
Educate America Act. It would be premature to change the law's key provisions
now, before there has been time for implementation and full evaluation. In
particular, the panel calls on Congress to hold schools accountable for student
achievement and to invest resources in teacher development to ensure that
schools have access to the highest quality teaching staff available.
Highlights of the Pane!'s Recommendations
Among our recommendations:
The panel agrees with Title I's insistence on holding schools and districts
accountable for having the same challenging standards for low-income students as
they have for other students.
States are off to an excellent start
developing high standards, but they need more technical assistance and other
resources to build their capacity to formulate, review, and refine their
standards.
Both the public and private sector need to direct more resources
to curriculum development and implementation, so that as states translate their
standards into curriculum frameworks, the frameworks will be sufficiently
detailed and complete to be useful to classroom teachers and other educators.The
panel asks that Congress require states and districts to ensure that teachers
and instructional aides in high poverty schools be at least as qualified as
those in non-Title I schools.
It is clear to the panel that a greater
investment in both preservice teacher education and high quality professional
development for teachers is vitally needed.
The panel advocates barring
districts from using federal funds to hire teacher aides to provide instruction,
a role for which they usually lack training.
The panel believes that
Congress should not allow districts to spend federal funds to hire
paraprofessionals to provide instruction, since they generally lack adequate
training for that role. Congress should begin to phase out districts' use of
paraprofessionals in Title I instruction altogether during the next
reauthorization. Meanwhile, districts should be encouraged to use
paraprofessionals in non- instructional roles, and they are to be commended for
placing language-minority paraprofessionals in classrooms with high
concentrations of students with limited proficiency in English.
The panel
endorses Congress' decision to target Title I funds on schools with the highest
proportions of low-income students, and calls on Congress to appropriate funds
for targeted grants.
Title I plays a crucial, but necessary supplemental,
role in supporting efforts to improve achievement among poor children and to
move all students toward challenging standards. Title I dollars (representing an
average of $460 per student per year) do not come close to closing the resource
gap between rich and poor schools. States and localities, which pay for more
than 90 percent of the cost of elementary and secondary education, must be
primarily responsible for closing the gap, but have failed to do so. However, to
improve the effectiveness of Title I, we strongly endorse targeting funds on
schools with high proportions of poor students. In addition, we recommend that
the targeted grants authorized by Congress in 1994, but never funded, be
appropriated in the next funding cycle.
The panel encourages the development
of a non-federal process for reviewing and validating state standards and
assessments.
The panel believes that the federal government should continue
to stay out of the business of rating state standards, as is currently required
under federal law. We encourage the participation of external organizations in
reviewing and validating state standards and assessments.The panel decries the
low level of federal funding set aside for research and evaluation in education,
and calls for Congress to increase eight-fold--from $5 million to $40
million--the amount of funding available for these activities.
We became all
too aware of the scarcity of resources for research and evaluation in education
as we prepared this report. The research, information, and evaluation base was
inadequate to responsibly advise Congress on the issues addressed in this and
the Department of Education's reports. Pertinent studies were too few and
marginally funded, and the broader research base that could be used was spare.
This is in marked contrast to levels of support for such research and evaluation
in other sectors. Furthermore, the demand for "best practices" is increasing,
and the knowledge base needs to keep pace. A significant investment in research
and development is the best foundation for the dramatic improvements in
education that all the nation's children need and deserve.
END
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