As the largest single federal investment in schooling, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) [P.L. 103-382] provides almost $7 billion to school systems across the country to improve education for children at risk of school failure who live in low-income communities. It reaches over 6 million children annually, primarily in the early elementary grades; one in every five first graders participates. Typically it supports supplemental instruction in reading and math.
Although Title I has operated for more than 30 years, its reauthorization in 1994 redesigns the program in fundamental ways. Congress also mandated a National Assessment of Title I (NATI) to evaluate the progress of the redesigned Title I in achieving its aim of helping children at risk of school failure to meet high standards.
Reauthorization of the Chapter 1 program as Title I relied heavily on the findings of the previous national assessment to help inform its redesign. Evaluation of the reauthorized Title I will necessarily examine:
How the program has been restructured to support state and local efforts to help at-risk students meet high academic standards,
The extent to which that support contributes to changes in schools and classrooms, and
The extent to which academic performance of at-risk students improves as a result of the new program structure.
The NATI's Independent Review Panel , also mandated by Congress, has reiterated the importance of these concerns and has advised the Department of Education on evaluation questions and research strategies to address the most significant areas.
The redesign of the Title I program offers a challenge and an opportunity to rethink how the evaluation of the program is planned and conducted; changes to the program's structure and key provisions will mean changes in how the program is evaluated and how progress is assessed. In particular:
The mandate in Title I requires the NATI to examine both student and system performance at the national level. This involves mapping back from the key objective of the program?to improve student performance?to the kinds of supports that will be needed at the classroom, school, district, and state levels to achieve improvement. Indicators that measure planning and early implementation are essential for providing policymakers at all levels?from the classroom up to the federal level?with information on where they are in the reform process, how far they need to go, and where they need to make mid-course corrections. These performance indicators, as required under the Government Performance and Results Act (P.L. 103-62), will be used to report the program's progress in achieving its objectives. The Department seeks the active participation of state and local school systems in developing indicators that provide information that is useful for continuous improvement at all levels.
Title I is no longer conceived of as an isolated supplement, operating separately from regular instruction. Rather it is to serve as an integral support for states and local school systems as they seek to improve teaching and learning through standards-driven reforms. Because Title I standards, curriculum, and instruction are tied to those developed within each state for all children, evaluations cannot assess the program in isolation from state and local reform efforts.
As a consequence, evaluations of Title I must assess the federal program in relation to the impact of state and local content and performance standards on high-poverty schools and at-risk students. To the extent feasible, national evaluations need to be conducted in collaboration with state and local agencies responsible for overall educational improvement in the states.
Changes to key provisions of Title I should result in service to broader categories of children, substantial improvements in curriculum and instruction, and greater innovation in services provided. These changes would be a radical departure for a program that has been characterized by narrow targeting on individual children, a remedial focus in instruction, and well-established procedural compliance. The extent to which changes in the Title I law will translate into changes in practice is largely unknown. Title I is expected to operate both as a fully mature program and as one in which basic components remain to be tried out and tested.
Adding uncertainty is the changing state and local context in which Title I operates. Schools, school systems, states, and federal officials will need to learn as they go. Several elements will be in transition throughout the reauthorization cycle. Standards are now in the process of being developed and adopted by states; assessments aligned to these standards are not required to be in place until the year 2001, after the next ESEA reauthorization.
Evaluations of Title I that summarize outcomes at the end of a five- or six-year reauthorization cycle come too late to affect changes in program implementation and operation that can have an impact on results. Consequently, evaluations of Title I must provide information throughout the reauthorization cycle so that policymakers and practitioners can make midcourse corrections to improve program performance.
Improved student performance will demonstrate the success of Title I, but improvement takes time. Student performance will need to be assessed incrementally over the long term. We should not expect achievement gains to occur overnight, and not without sustained policy and programmatic changes at the federal, state, local, and school levels.
When large federal programs go through as radical a restructuring as Title I has, the full effects of reforms are not known for years. Indeed, the principles of systemwide improvement and the provisions new to the reauthorized program have yet to be fully implemented on a national scale or even?in their entirety?at the state, local, school, or classroom levels. In addition, many basic concepts such as "alignment" and "comprehensive approaches" are not yet well defined and are consequently difficult to measure. The challenge for the NATI is to first develop working definitions and to then translate these concepts into specific indicators, study questions, and analyses.
Accordingly, the NATI will need to be cautious in evaluating student performance and ascribing changes prematurely to the success or failure of the program. Tracking the implementation of the important changes in policy and program operations that support improved student learning will be essential to provide indicators of intermediate outcomes.
New Title I evaluations will emphasize obtaining information that can support continuous performance improvement. This means concentrating on the performance of key educational and administrative processes as well as on the end result?improved student learning. Monitoring these intermediate outcomes will provide early warning of problems in implementation and offer guidance on policies and practices that appear most promising.
The NATI will draw on a variety of evaluations, including: quick-turnaround surveys of Title I customers, program administrators, and representatives of families and communities; focused in-depth studies of the implementation of critical processes, including standards implementation and parent involvement; and analyses of program monitoring reports. While the NATI will collaborate with other data collectors to ensure that the work is conducted as efficiently as possible, it cannot proceed with planned studies without sufficient funds. The National Assessment of Chapter 1 and Prospects ?the separately mandated longitudinal study used in the Assessment?were funded at about $6 million annually, or approximately one-tenth of one percent of the funds for Part A. The NATI has estimated that it will need at least an equivalent amount to carry out its mission. The intent is to provide results as quickly as possible to federal, state, and local policymakers, practitioners, parents, and the general public so that mid-course improvements can be made.
-###-
Return to Elementary and Secondary Education Page
mail to esed@ed.gov
This page last updated February 10, 1999 (kdw).