Title I students in urban
schools have made gains in academic achievement, according to a
first-ever study on the impact of the federal program for
disadvantaged students in America's urban schools.
The Council of the Great City Schools study, Reform and
Results: An Analysis of Title I in the Great City Schools, 1994-95
to 1997-98, shows that the federal Title I program's additional
instructional support for disadvantaged students in reading and
math, especially in elementary grades, is paying off.
Eighty-eight percent of the urban school districts showing test
score results in the study revealed increased Title I reading
scores, while 83 percent showed increased Title I math
achievement. ``Gains were particularly strong over a
three-year period and in 4th grade and in reading," stressed the
report.
Moreover, the survey shows that the percentage of Title I
students below the 25th percentile to be declining over two and
three-year periods, while the percentage of Title I students
above both the 25th and 50th percentiles to be increasing.
Although math and reading performance levels continue to be low,
improvement is steady and substantial, the report emphasizes.
Reform and Results also shows that parental involvement is
increasing in urban school systems, which are using Title I funds to
spur parental participation with greater outreach, training, family
literacy activities, and staff deployment.
``Results of this survey are extremely important at this time,
since the 106th Congress will be considering the reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and its key Title I
component," says Michael Casserly, executive director of the
coalition representing the nation's largest urban public school
systems. ``The legislators need to know that the program can be
effective, especially at the local level."
The purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of
changes in the 1994-95 reauthorization on the operations and
effectiveness of Title I in the nation's urban schools.
It is not common for examinations to be made of how the program
works at the big-city level. Typically, reviews are conducted
at state and national levels.
Based on 34 responding urban school systems, which enroll some
2.5 million, or roughly 23 percent, of the nation's Title I
children, the study gives suggestions on how to improve the program.
It indicates that the standards-based approach to Title I
initiated in the 1994-95 reauthorization is ``bearing fruit" in
urban schools. ``Its implementation may not be as fast as
everyone desires and quality may not yet be as high as everyone may
wish, but the direction of reform is paying off in better student
performance," says the report. ``Acknowledging progress while
finding ways to accelerate it ought to be the direction of the
coming Title I reauthorization rather than pursuing a different
track."
Further, the report points out that ``schoolwide" reforms make a
difference in student achievement, ``but policymakers may wish to be
cautious in how they implement this approach with Title I funding so
that resources are not diluted."
Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great
City Schools, is giving testimony on Capitol Hill regarding Title I.
