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> Evaluation # 3 (2002-2003): Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing Opportunities?
A Profile of the Evaluation of Supplemental Educational Services
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Program Description
| Overview | The U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires low-performing schools to offer Supplemental Educational Services (SES) to students from low-income families. These services are defined to include academic instruction (e.g., tutoring, remediation) that is provided outside of the regular school day. The program’s goal is to improve youth’s academic achievement. SES providers may include nonprofit, for-profit, and faith-based organizations, charter schools, private schools, and public and private colleges and universities. Local school districts can provide services, but only if they have not been identified as low performing. |
| Start Date | Fall 2002 |
| Scope | national |
| Type | after school, summer/vacation, before school, weekend |
| Location | urban, suburban, rural |
| Setting | public school, private school, community-based organization, religious institution, private facility, recreation center |
| Participants | elementary through high school students |
| Number of Sites/Grantees | 1,890 providers nationwide (spring 2004) |
| Number Served | 430,000 youth in 2004–2005 |
| Components | All youth from low-income families (e.g., those who qualify for the free or reduced price meal [FRPM] program) who attend Title I schools that are not meeting their state’s adequate yearly progress goals are eligible to receive SES or be transferred to another school. Each state is required to develop provider selection criteria, approve or deny provider applications, and provide school districts with a list of available providers in their area. Districts must inform parents of SES availability and provide them with information to select providers for their children, collect parent applications or signatures, coordinate provider activities with schools, estimate per-pupil expenditures, contract with providers to provide SES, manage provider activity, and develop specific educational goals for each student in consultation with parents and providers. Parents may select any approved provider in the area served by the district or within a reasonable distance of the district. Providers must measure and report on youth’s progress regularly to teachers and parents. Schools are not required to play a role in SES implementation. Services are required to be consistent with state academic content standards and district instruction. |
| Funding Level | NCLB requires districts to set aside 20% of their Title I, Part A allocation for school choice-related transportation and SES. Districts must spend at least 5% of this Title I, Part A allocation on SES unless demand is less than estimated. |
| Funding Sources | U.S. Department of Education |
Evaluation
| Overview | The DOE commissioned a multiyear study aimed at gaining insights from the early efforts of particular states and districts that could assist others in improving SES implementation. In addition, the Civil Rights Project conducted a study to examine the ability of districts to implement the requirement that schools offer SES to students attending poorly performing schools. |
| Evaluators | Policy Studies Associates, Inc. and the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University (now at the University of California–Los Angeles) |
| Evaluations Profiled | Early Implementation of Supplemental Educational Services Under the No Child Left Behind Act: Year One Report Case Studies of Supplemental Services under the No Child Left Behind Act: Findings From 2003–04 Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing Opportunities? School District Experience With Supplemental Educational Services |
| Evaluations Planned | Many states have commissioned evaluations. |
| Report Availability | U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under Secretary, Policy and Program Studies Service. (2004). Early implementation of supplemental educational services under the No Child Left Behind Act: Year one report. Washington, DC: Author. Available at: www.policystudies.com/studies/school/nclb.html U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service. (2005). Case studies of supplemental services under the No Child Left Behind Act: Findings from 2003–04. Washington, DC: Author. Available at: www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/disadv/supplementalyear2/index.html Sunderman, G. L., & Kim, J. (2004). Increasing bureaucracy or increasing opportunities? School district experience with supplemental educational services. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Available at: www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/esea/increasing_bureaucracy.pdf |
Contacts
| Evaluation | Katrina G. Laguarda Senior Research Associate Policy Studies Associates, Inc. Suite 400 1718 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20009 Tel: 202-939-5321 Fax: 202-939-5732 Email: laguarda@policystudies.com Gail L. Sunderman Senior Research Associate The Civil Rights Project 8370 Math Sciences Los Angeles, CA 90034 Tel: 310-267-5562 Fax: 310-206-6293 Email: glsunderman@yahoo.com |
| Program | Jackie Jackson Director Office of Elementary and Secondary Education 400 Maryland Ave., SW Washington, DC 20202 Tel: 202-260-0826 Fax: 202-205-0310 |
| Profile Updated | May 31, 2007 |
Evaluation 3: Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing Opportunities? School District Experience With Supplemental Educational Services
Evaluation Description
| Evaluation Purpose | To answer the following questions: What was the extent of participation in SES? How did districts implement SES? What are the challenges to effectively evaluating SES? |
| Evaluation Design | Non-Experimental: The sample included 11 districts in 6 states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, New York, and Virginia) that enrolled large numbers of minority and low-income youth. In most cases, the districts’ average math and reading proficiency rates were below the state average. Six districts were among the nation’s 50 largest school districts (including the 3 largest) and the other 5 were in the “central-city” portion of their Metropolitan Statistical Area. One district in Virginia was excluded from analysis, since it was not required to offer SES in year 1. On average, 19% of each of the other 10 districts’ schools were required to offer SES, ranging from 4% to 28% per district. The vast majority of students in schools required to offer SES were non-White, especially Black and Latino. Interviews were done with district officials responsible for SES implementation, superintendents, associate superintendents, Title I program coordinators, human resource directors, and transportation coordinators. |
| Data Collection Methods | Document Review: District documents and policies related to SES were reviewed. Interviews/Focus Groups: Interviews asked about the 1st year of program implementation. Secondary Source/Data Review: Data were collected from district statistics (number of schools identified for improvement and youth who requested and participated in SES), records on all public schools in each state (Title I program status, number of years in improvement, enrollment, student demographics, and achievement outcomes), and media accounts of SES. |
| Data Collection Timeframe | Data were collected October 2002 through July 2003. |
Findings:
Formative/Process Findings
| Costs/Revenues | School staff reported that due to low program participation, large sums of money went unspent until late in the school year. The set-aside requirements created incentives for districts to use funds in instructionally ineffective ways since they could not be reallocated until late in the year. District officials were concerned about total program and pupil costs. The law states that districts can reduce the Title I allocation to schools required to offer SES by 15% to meet the set aside requirement. Since the SES allocation was based on the total district Title I allocation, the maximum per child expenditure for SES was greater than the per pupil allocation a school received for Title I services. Further, NCLB did not provide additional funds to administer SES. Although districts could use their Title I administration funds, this was a reallocation of existing funds; many districts used their own resources for administration. |
| Program Context/Infrastructure | Districts had a mix of local, national, and online providers. In addition, 7 of the 10 districts applied to provide their own SES. Districts reported a number of advantages in providing SES themselves, including lower costs (allowing them to provide more SES), easier tracking of SES, and an inside knowledge of the academic curriculum. District officials struggled to determine SES locations and schedules. District personnel felt that if services were far from school or inconvenient, youth would not attend. If a district was a service provider, union contracts influenced how districts could develop a program, including which teachers could apply to teach in the program. |
| Program–School Linkages | Many districts were vague about how providers would coordinate SES with schools or maintain communication with teachers. In some districts, officials thought that since providers were required to assess student needs and teach state standards, SES would necessarily align with school instruction. Some districts felt that these issues posed challenges. For example, in a district offering SES on Saturdays, officials worried these services were at odds with district and school efforts to integrate remediation and extra instruction into the school day. |
| Recruitment/Participation | The percentage of students in each district who were eligible for SES ranged from 4% to 24%. The percentage of these eligible students who requested and received SES ranged from 0% to 18% per district. |
| Staffing/Training | Most districts assigned program administration responsibilities to existing staff. A few districts hired additional staff to handle these duties. Districts also involved legal counsel, human resources, transportation staff, communications, and budget staff. |
| Systemic Infrastructure | Districts struggled to implement SES since most did not receive the list of schools required to offer SES until after the year began. Also, final guidance, which included additional requirements about which schools needed to offer SES, was not released until December. The late date of this requirement meant that most districts were unprepared to begin offering SES. Nonetheless, most districts offered programs, most starting late in the year. According to district officials, many providers were cautious about entering new markets and worried about financial loss, and therefore did not offer SES in the 1st year. Some providers made demands on districts that were difficult to meet, including guaranteed enrollment and school facilities use. |