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Urban Students Gain in Federal Title l Program, Says Study

Report to Be Released, Education Secretary to Speak at Great City Schools Conference

WASHINGTON, March 19 – Title 1 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 report will be released at the Council of the Great City Schools' Spring Legislative/Policy Conference, March 20-23, at Washington's Watergate Hotel, 2650 Virginia Ave., N.W.  More than 300 urban school superintendents, administrators and school board members will convene.

To kick off the conference, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley will address urban school leaders at a noon luncheon this Sunday, March 21. He is expected to outline Clinton Administration policies that would benefit urban education.

 On Monday, March 22, urban educators will be briefed on next steps in the education-rate program by Kate Moore, president, Schools and Libraries Division, Universal Service Administrative Company, which administers the federal program to help schools and libraries acquire telecommunications services.  They will also hear from Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), who will discuss bilingual and immigrant education and minority issues.

Also on Monday morning, former White House education adviser Michael Cohen will give a briefing on class-size reduction legislation, followed by former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, who will zero in on school construction legislation. Both Moseley-Braun and Cohen are now special advisers to Secretary Riley.

The Council study, Reform and Results: An Analysis of Title l in the Great City Schools, 1994-95 to 1997-98, shows that the federal Title l 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 l reading gains, while 83 percent showed increased Title l 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 l students below the 25th percentile to be declining over two and three-year periods, while the percentage of Title l 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 l 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 l component," says Michael Casserly, executive director of the coalition representing the nation's largest urban public school systems. "The legislators need to know just how effective the program really is, 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 l 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 the state level.  

Based on 34 responding urban school systems, which enroll some 2.5 million, or roughly 23 percent, of the nation's Title l children, the study gives suggestions on how to improve the program.

It indicates that the standards-based approach to Title l 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 l 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 l funding so that resources are not diluted."