Department of Education extends NCLB pilot program to reverse order of SES and public school choice
U.S. Department of Education (ED) has sent a letter to chief state education officers announcing that it will continue for the 2008-09 school year a pilot program for the purpose of determining whether more families would take advantage of supplemental educational services (SES) like tutoring if such services were offered in the first year of school improvement—one year earlier than the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires. In 2005-06, ED granted four school districts in Virginia the flexibility to offer SES to students beginning in the first year of school improvement and public school choice beginning in the second year of improvement, the reverse of the order set forth in the statute. ED expanded the pilot in the 2006-07 school year to include a limited number of school districts in Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, and North Carolina. The department indicates that the overall number of students receiving SES increased in the participating school districts. In the current 2007-08 school year, school districts in Alaska, Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia continue to participate in the pilot. ED invites all eligible States to apply to participate on behalf of their school districts. To encourage increased student participation in SES, the department has decided that: (1) there will be no limit on the number of school districts within an applying state that may participate for the program; and (2) participating school districts will be allowed to count costs for providing parent outreach toward the 20% they are mandated to spend on SES when triggered by NCLB accountability rules, up to an amount equal to 1% of the 20% (or 0.2% of a school district’s total Title I, Part A funding allocation). The letter sets forth state eligibility criteria for the pilot program. For more on SES and public school choice, see the last link.
ED letter
NSBA BoardBuzz on SES pilot program
NSBA School Law pages on SES and public school choice