Federal report proposes changes in supplemental services

Under current law, if a Title I school fails to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two years in a row, all students from low-income families -- regardless of their achievement level -- are eligible for supplemental educational services (SES), such as tutoring, remediation, and other intervention. Students from higher-income families who are struggling academically can receive SES only if there are enough resources.

A report released in November by the Inspector General’s Office urges Congress and the administration to explore whether “the focus of SES eligibility should be on academic proficiency rather than family income.”

The report identifies three alternative approaches that should be considered during the reauthorization:

• Further limit SES eligibility to only low-achieving students in low-income families, thereby focusing services on those students with the greatest overall needs.

• Modify SES eligibility to include all low-achieving students in Title I schools in need of improvement in order to better achieve the law’s goal of closing the achievement gap and ensuring all students achieve academic proficiency.

• Expand SES eligibility to include not only low-income students, but also low-achieving, higher-income students not currently eligible, thereby increasing the number of students allowed to receive SES.

The report also recommends that the Education Department reconsider its regulations that ban schools and districts identified as in need of improvement or corrective action from operating as SES providers.

Other schools and districts may provide SES, as well as for-profit companies, non-profit organizations, faith-based organizations, school districts, and public and private schools.

A report issued last February by the Education Department showed the SES option is not being fully used. Only 233,000 out of 1.4 million eligible students (17 percent) participated in SES programs in the 2003-04 school year.

The Education Department has approved “flexibility agreements” allowing the Boston; New York City; Chicago; Anchorage, Alaska; and Hillsborough County, Fla., districts to provide SES in an attempt to increase the number of eligible students receiving these services.

The department does not prohibit individual teachers or groups of teachers from being hired as a tutor by a state-approved SES provider even though the teachers work for a school or local education agency (LEA) in need of improvement.

“In effect,” the IG report states, “this policy creates a situation in which the same teachers that may have served as tutors for the school or LEA instead may work for other SES providers, at a potentially significantly higher cost to the LEA.”

According to the report, the San Diego school district, which is an approved SES provider, charged $256 per student, while outside providers charged that district an average of $564 per student in the 2004-05 school year.

NSBA’s legislative recommendations for improving NCLB call for school districts to be allowed to provide SES, even if they are in improvement status or corrective action. NSBA’s recommendations on SES also include the following:

• SES should be offered in the first year a school is in improvement status.

• SES need only be offered to low-achieving students within the specific group that fails to make AYP in the same subject for two or more years.