Copyright 1999 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
June 17, 1999
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 798 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY June 17, 1999 RUTH MILES SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR & PENSIONS FEDERAL EDUCATION RESEARCH AND EVALUATION EFFORTS
BODY:
Statement to U. S. House of Representatives
Education and Work Force Committee and Senate Committee an Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Ruth Miles, Title I Program Specialist. Richmond Public
Schools, Richmond, VA June 17, 1999 My name is Ruth Miles. It is a pleasure for
me to speak before you today. I hope I ran provide some insight into your
deliberation on the reauthorization of IASA, ESEA, and OERI.
Richmond Public Schools is an urban school division of approximately 28,000
students. The school division has a poverty level of almost 70%, and a majority
of the comprehensive schools, 36 out of 49, receive assistance through the Title
I Program. We began implementing Schoolwide Programs in 1991, and for the
1999-2000 school year all 36 of out Title I schools will have a schoolwide
focus. Initially, schools operating as Schoolwide Programs were given total
autonomy in developing a plan to improve their overall instructional program.
Schools chose to implement various instructional programs, and even though most
of the programs implemented had a research base, this was not a requirement of
the school division. During the past five years, the school division has placed
a heavy emphasis on research-based programs. This is in concert with the
emphasis of the 1994 reauthorization of 1ASA, which recommends the
implementation of Schoolwide Programs in an effort to achieve total school
reform. Whereas in the past, schools had been given the latitude to select
programs for their schools without central office approval, the focus on
research-based programs required that all programs implemented in Title I
schools have research to validate their effectiveness. As administrators in our
Department of Instruction looked at the achievement levels of our students, and
weighed them against the high standards set by the state of Virginia, we
realized that major changes needed to take place in many schools in order to
achieve the state's standards. With the funds available for Title I Schoolwide
Programs, an effort was made to find research-based program that had been
successful with student populations similar to Richmond. The basic question
raised when considering implementation of a new program became, "what does the
research say about it?" Because of the great need that exists in our environment
to save more of our children from the streets," there is no time to experiment
with implementing programs that supposedly work because of a theoretical base.
It is crucial that our school division implement programs that have been proven
to work under circumstances similar to those existing in our schools. When our
school division learned about the availability of the U.S. Education
Department's Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program (CSRD), we were
extremely pleased because we knew that we had schools that would benefit from
total school reform and that the administrators in these schools would
enthusiastically pursue the funds. One thing that was appealing about the CSRD
opportunity was that research had already been conducted by the U.S. Department
of Education to identify 44 national models that could provide opportunities for
improved student achievement in high poverty schools. The Virginia Department of
Education conducted further research and determined that 26 of the models were
aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning. This presented a golden
opportunity for our high poverty/low achieving schools to implement a
research-based school reform program. Information about CSRD was presented to
eight of our schools that were in school improvement, and five administrators
decided to assemble teams in their schools to write proposals and compete for
the grants. Schools team gathered further information on the reform models that
seemed to fit well into their environments, u research finding as a basis. After
a reform model was selected, the school team, with technical assistance from
central office, was responsible for writing the proposal. Virginia limited the
number of grants per school division to four, and Richmond was very fortunate to
receive the maximum number. CSRD offers the following as an opportunity for
low-achieving schools to improve: (1) the research has already been conducted on
a large number of reform models, allowing schools to search for ones that match
their needs; (2) the recommended reform models have research that supports their
effectiveness; (3) the funds are directed to the high poverty schools that are
most in need of total school reform; (4) the funds are in addition to the Title
I funds already allocated to the schools. Overall, the most important thing for
us is research that can be used in the classroom. I am happy to answer any
questions you may have.
LOAD-DATE: June 18, 1999
