Education Week - April 1, 2015 - 22

1965-2015 The ESEA at 50
Title I Achievement Link
Proves Hard to Quantify
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19
Education, and Welfare from 1969 to 1972.
Launched in 1974 and completed three years
later, the National Institute of Education Compensatory
Education Study consisted of 35 different
research projects focused on fund allocation, compensatory
services, student development, and administration.
The director of that study was Paul T.
Hill, who went on to found the Center on Reinventing
Public Education at the University of Washington
Bothell; Ms. Rotberg was the deputy director.
Mr. Hill suggested that the compensatory education
research caught policymakers' attention
because members of Congress commissioned an
evaluation that responded to their own questions.
"Our study was a turning point," he said. "It took
a program that had been extremely controversial
because it didn't consistently lead to higher reading
scores and explained to Congress it had set up a
program that wasn't a machine to do just one thing.
It was [intended] to change the priority of educating
poor kids from being something secondary to
the primary concern of local districts, and Title I
really had done that. ...
"Almost everyone in Congress could find something
in the program that they liked," he said.
Weighing Outcomes
Previous and subsequent federal studies did address
the thorny question of achievement outcomes
of Title I and non-Title I students.
A 1996 meta-analysis in the peer-refereed journal
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis found
that, between 1966 and 1993, there had been no
fewer than 17 different federal evaluations that
examined the connection between Title I and student
achievement. Across the studies included in
the analysis, Title I was shown to have provided a
slight advantage, equivalent to moving the average
student from the 50th to the 54th percentile on
a standardized exam. The researchers also found
evidence that results improved as the program
matured.
"Unfortunately, there has been no major national
evaluation of Title I since the late 1990s,
and the former Title I Evaluation and Reporting
System, which provided national compilations of
Title I students' achievement outcomes, was disbanded
in the 1990s," meta-analysis lead author
and University of Wisconsin-Madison education
professor Geoffrey D. Borman wrote in an email
to Education Week. "Therefore, there has been
little systematic national data on Title I and
student achievement available since our metaanalysis
from 1996."
Now an associate professor of education at Howard
University in Washington, Zollie Stevenson Jr.
worked in the U.S. Department of Education for
a decade, retiring in 2010 as director of student
achievement and school accountability programs.
"Research played a limited role, in particular for
Title I," he said of his time in the department.
Overall, the lack of definitive research on Title
I may have had its own kind of influence, according
to Chester E. Finn Jr., the former president of
the right-leaning Fordham Institute, who served as
assistant secretary for research and improvement
and counselor to the secretary at the U.S. Department
of Education between 1985 and 1988.
"The absence of proven impact may also be part
of the explanation for the ever-tighter regulatory
hardness and additional strings attached to Title
I," said Mr. Finn. "Because if it had been shown to
be 'effective,' folks would have said, 'It's working as
it is, don't mess with it.' But because of the lack of
demonstrated efficacy, there's been endless tinkering,
endless efforts to add just a few more rules and
accountability provisions, in the hope that maybe
someday it will actually accomplish its stated purposes
if only we keep fiddling with it."
22 | EDUCATION WEEK | April 1, 2015 | www.edweek.org
PUTTING A KEY PROGRAM UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
T
hough research has had a limited impact
on Title I of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, partly because the nature
of the program makes it difficult to
evaluate, a number of key studies over the past
several decades represent major efforts to draw
meaningful conclusions about the nation's single
largest federal funding stream for education.
National Institute of Education
Compensatory Education Study
Author: National Institute of Education
Year: 1977
Methodology: Both mandated by and produced for
Congress, this study consisted of 35 different research
projects, including a national survey, detailed case
studies, and demonstration projects in which 13 school
districts operated under waivers from specific aspects of
the law so that researchers could observe the outcomes
Main takeaways: Title I funding not only served lowerincome
students, it appeared to encourage localities and
states to devote additional resources to this previously
neglected population. Much Title I instruction occurred in
pull-out programs at the elementary level. Teacher aides
played such a key role in this instruction that half the
nation's aides were paid from Title I funds.
Critique: The study did not assess student achievement
outcomes for Title I versus non-Title I students, but did
help Congress understand why this was a difficult, if not
impossible, task.
Legacy: The study informed Congress about some of the
diverse uses of Title I funds, which may have bolstered
support for the program because these uses tended to
align with at least some of the desires of the lawmakers as
well as with the goals of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act.
The Sustaining Effects Study of Compensatory
and Elementary Education
Author: System Development Corporation
for the U.S. Department of Education
Year: 1982
Methodology: Researchers collected data from a
representative sample of 120,000 students at 300
elementary schools, following one cohort over the course of
three successive school years.
Main Takeaway: In grades 1 through 3, Title I students
made more progress in reading and in math than
comparable, non-Title I students, with average achievers
benefitting most from the program and low achievers
benefitting little, if at all. Gains were stronger in math
than in reading. Benefits seemed to fade by 7th grade for a
small subgroup of students who were followed through 9th
grade, but researchers urged caution in interpreting this
finding because the data was problematic. Researchers
also found that, while higher percentages of poor children
received services, greater numbers of non-poor children
benefitted from Title I.
Critique: In 1987, researchers found stronger results
in favor of Title I when they used different statistical
techniques to re-analyze the original Sustaining Effects
data, by creating comparison groups that were more
similar to the pool of Title I beneficiaries. Researchers
also noted numerous limitations to their study, such as
the fact that the practice of removing children from
Title I services once their achievement had improved
created a permanently low-achieving pool of students and
made it difficult to assess the program's effectiveness.
Legacy: Although the study results suggested several
ways in which Title I might be improved, these nuances
were largely obscured by the battle between Republicans,
who advocated across-the-board cuts to federal education
programs, and Democrats, who hesitated to support
changes for fear that anything but the staunchest
support might open the door to elimination.
Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated
Study of Educational Growth and Opportunity
Author: Abt Associates, Inc., for the
U.S. Department of Education
Year: 1997
Methodology: The nationally representative study
tracked up to 40,000 students for a four-year period,
beginning when the students were in grades 1, 3, or 7.
Parents, teachers, and administrators also responded to
questionnaires.
Main Takeaways: Title I students and non-Title I
students demonstrated similar rates of growth. As a
result, the services provided via Title I (then called
"Chapter 1") did not help close the achievement gap. The
program was least effective for the most-disadvantaged
students. Like previous studies, the report also found
that Title I services varied considerably by district and
by school.
Critique: Researchers contrasted Title I students with a
comparison group of more-advantaged peers although a
follow-up analysis that corrected for selection bias found
limited substantive differences between the two groups.
A 2000 Government Accountability Office report also
criticized the study for focusing mainly on elementary
schools (which receive most but not all Title I funds) and
for failing to examine the cost of Title I or to clearly define
criteria for assessing its effectiveness.
Legacy: During the 1994 reauthorization of the esea, a
preliminary version of the report helped spur Congress to
alter Title I's longstanding focus on pulling students out of
class for remedial services.
Longitudinal Evaluation of School
Change and Performance
Author: Westat and Policy Studies Associates
for the U.S. Department of Education
Year: 2001
Methodology: Between 1996 and 1999, researchers
collected data from a nonrepresentative sample of 71
Title I schools from 18 districts in seven states. Children
were tracked from grades 3 through 5. Rather than
comparing Title I and non-Title I students, the study
focused exclusively on Title I schools, exploring the
impact of standards-based reforms contained in the 1994
esea reauthorization,
Main Takeaways: Student achievement improved faster
when teachers gave high ratings to their professional
development and reached out to parents of low-achieving
students in certain grades. Additionally, students made
more growth in math between grades 3 and 5 when their
5th grade teachers encouraged them to explore the topic.
The researchers did not find a consistent relationship
between student achievement growth and teachers'
knowledge of standards and assessment.
Critiques: Among the critiques of the study identified in
a 2000 Government Accountability Office report: Staff,
contractors, and advisory panel members disagreed about
the purpose of the study; the small, nonrepresentative
sample made it difficult to draw general conclusions; the
reform efforts being studied changed over time; and Title I
schools were not compared with non-Title I schools.
Legacy: The legacy is unclear. Although interim results
were made available earlier, the final report was released
in the summer of 2001, when the law's then-most recent
reauthorization was close to completion.
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