Questions Surrounding NCLB-Mandated
Supplemental Educational Services
Bryan Ford,
Project Coordinator
One of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act - Supplemental Educational Services (SES) - highlights the sheer speed and scale at which NCLB’s implementation has taken place, as well as the risks associated with the dramatic ramp up. Supplemental Educational Services are for students in schools that do not meet proficiency standards, and include academic assistance such as tutoring, remediation, and other educational interventions designed to increase the academic achievement of students in low-performing schools. The implementation of SES is triggered by schools’ improvement status: students attending schools that are in their second year of school improvement (i.e., they have not made adequate yearly progress (AYP) for three of more years), in corrective action, or in restructuring are eligible for these services. The budget associated with SES is not inconsequential - more than $2 billion nationwide - which has drawn the attention of a number of private, for-profit providers and some large school districts.
Because of the pathway associated with NCLB’s implementation, each year more students qualify for SES as their schools fail to make AYP. The number of eligible students is sizable, approximately 2 million nationwide and participation is beginning to rise dramatically. In fact, 226,000 students participated in 2002-03, up nearly 100% from the 116,000 students taking part in 2002-03; and only a fraction of eligible students actually participate in SES.
Difficulties associated with monitoring the quality of SES providers have emerged alongside the increased participation. The way SES is organized, students and their parents can select a state-approved provider and pay for tutoring through Title I funding. While even this action would be enough to cause an uproar in many anti-privatization education circles, investigations and reports have been surfacing that may generate greater concern regarding this fledgling system.
An investigation by Richard Condon, the Special Commissioner of Investigation of the New York City School District, exposed problems that give pause to policy makers and administrators. The most glaring problem he reported was that tutoring companies were paying schools off to funnel students to their programs, in some cases even bribing administrators directly. Such collusion undermines the initiative’s choice provision. Another area of concern the New York City report uncovered was the lack of fingerprinting and criminal background checks on employees of tutoring companies, security steps routinely undertaken with teachers and others who are in direct contact with students. A recent Teacher magazine article highlighted still another SES concern, this time about access: “rural students have been caught in limbo when tutoring companies declined to set up shop in remote areas; under NCLB rules, districts that haven’t shown improvement can’t hire their own tutors to do the job.” Still another area of concern is the lack of standards for tutor qualifications. While an open-door hiring policy provides companies with the freedom to bring in skilled educators from a variety of backgrounds, it could also undermine the quality of the instruction that takes place for students who, by definition, are already being left behind academically. For example, some tutoring companies interested in offering SES actually outsource their services to instructors in India. If such companies were able to participate as SES providers, they may be able to serve students in rural areas, but such students would have a different kind of interaction and contact with their tutors.
Taken together, these emerging questions have challenged local schools and districts, and state departments of education. The locus of responsibility for ensuring the different dimensions of SES providers’ quality is decentralized. Under the U.S. Department of Education’s June 13, 2005 “Non-regulatory Guidance,” responsibility for approving and monitoring SES providers rests with state education agencies (SEAs), which are already fully occupied with other intervention activities related to NCLB. Schools and school districts, meanwhile, are responsible for selecting a menu of approved SES providers, soliciting student participation, and compiling information about students’ participation in SES and parental reactions. With their own sets of improvement activities underway, following up on SES providers often falls to the bottom of local educators’ priorities.
The increase in the number of students, schools, and SES providers involved, coupled with the shared responsibility at the school, district, and state level, mean that oversight of SES providers can get lost. Independent, third party evaluators represent one good option for bolstering the continued credibility and quality of SES. The five changes outlined below could go a long way towards improving SES, both in terms of their effectiveness and in the court of public opinion.
1) Require independent evaluation of SES provider services as part of SES providers “record of effectiveness in increasing student academic achievement” for receiving State approval.
Giving parents, schools, and districts provider-related data to base decisions on is a good first step, but the integrity of the data can really only be optimized when collected, analyzed, and reported by a third-party evaluator.
2) School districts should consider offering SES in a manner that allows for cross-comparisons of effectiveness in terms of academic outcomes.
NCLB highlighted the importance of using “scientifically based” evidence for decision-making in education. For this to take place with SES providers, schools, districts, and SEAs should consider structuring the provision of SES in a way that allows for manipulation. As a straightforward example, certain schools may be assigned a subset of SES providers, while other schools make use of another, mutually exclusive, set of SES providers. At the end of a two-year period, the progress and academic outcomes of the students participating in SES can be compared to determine whether any meaningful differences can be discerned.
3) Introduce incentives for SES providers to reach neglected student populations, focusing on computer-based options.
As few as 18 percent of eligible students receive SES. Improved technology-based tutoring content and services can help rural students, and others, gain access to much-needed remediation services. Independent evaluation can be used to assess which computer and technology-based options are most effective, and for which student populations.
4) Create, test, and put into place a qualification protocol for tutors.
While different types of people with diverse sets of qualifications contribute to the robustness of the tutoring talent pool, minimum standards need to be articulated and put in place. This should be secondary to data-driven proof of success, however, as some students may find success with non-professionally trained tutors. Independent evaluators can be given the task of studying which types of tutors are most effective in specific environments to guide the protocol.
5) Require third party checks on tutors’ backgrounds.
This simple change will not affect learning outcomes, but will ensure safety and give parents their due peace of mind.
The implementation of the above recommendations would greatly improve the SES program from a variety of standpoints. While it may difficult to quickly implement these changes, the continued need for and presence of SES requires that a concerted effort be made to determine whether and to what extent these publicly-funded programs actually help students learn. Third party evaluations represent one avenue for providing state and local education leaders with objective evidence to support decision making.
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Article sources
- http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.doc
- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/07/national/main1380811.shtml
- http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2006/03/01/05tutor.h17.html
- http://slswatch.pubdef.net/archives/2005_10_23_archive.html
-http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/02/17/24ses.h25.html?levelId=1000