Tom and I had just taken attendance during our second after-school opera rehearsal. Unexpectedly, five students informed us that they could no longer participate in the opera project due to after-school tutoring programs for which their parents had signed up months ago. Quickly I recapped the process leading up to that moment: approximately eighty third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students had applied to the opera project in November; we held auditions for all the various jobs in December; the twenty-one chosen students were informed of their acceptance prior to Christmas break; rehearsals began in January immediately following the break. Furthermore, parents had signed consent forms at each step in the process, committing to the project. And now this. Tom and I looked at each other with horror – supplemental educational services (SES) were threatening nearly a quarter of our newly formed opera company. What now?
At the time, I had only a vague notion of what SES were. For a couple of years, I knew there was after-school tutoring going on in my previous buildings; however, I never bothered to inquire beyond that fact. Now, after-school tutoring was seriously impinging on the after-school opera project and I needed to find out more information. Talking to the principal and other teachers at the school, and going online to educate myself, I began to piece together what exactly the SES were and what they had to offer. The following is background information on AYP and a brief description of what I ascertained.
Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), calls for parents of eligible students attending Title I schools that have not made “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) for three years to be given opportunities and choices to help their children achieve at high levels. In order to make AYP, a school has to achieve certain targets on standardized test scores including other factors such as attendance (graduation rates for high schools). The more diverse the student population the more targets the school must meet. In other words, at my current elementary school we have black, Asian, white, Latino, and Native American students; special education students and English language learners. Each category or subgroup must meet the minimum annual target for meeting or exceeding standards for reading and mathematics and attendance. For urban districts such as Providence, student diversity and high rates of mobility make meeting annual growth targets difficult. Conversely, suburban districts with less diversity and student mobility have fewer targets to meet. However, in the eyes of the State (and the news media that report the findings), all public schools are judged equally on making AYP, regardless of the number of targets. If a school does not make AYP for two consecutive years, it is placed in “choice” school improvement status, meaning the school develops an improvement plan and provides students the option to transfer to another school with transportation to get there. If a school does not make AYP for three consecutive years, it is moved to “supplemental services” school improvement status – in addition to “choice” requirements, the school must use Title I funds to support students by providing tutoring from a State-approved supplemental educational services (SES) provider. The purpose of SES is to increase the academic achievement of students from low-income families attending low-performing schools.
NCLB mandates that 20% of a district’s Title I funds be allocated for SES. For Providence in the 2011-2012 school year, that equals $4,402,401. The principal informed me that the SES providers receive $60 per hour per child (4 hours/week) for these services. Clearly, the federally mandated creation of supplemental educational services is a lucrative endeavor for approved providers. By law, SES providers can be any public or private entity that meets the criteria set by the State Educational Agency (SEA). In the case of Rhode Island, the SEA is the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). A potential provider can be an individual or group of individuals, charter and private schools, educational service agencies, institutions of higher education, faith-based organizations and other community-based organizations, and business groups. Looking at the list of State approved SES providers in Rhode Island, I find eleven for-profit companies (one of which claims on the website to be “in the business of education” which I think is quite telling), one non-profit, one charter school, one private school, one community centre, and two public school districts. Another company appears to be two local individuals who offer tutoring services – I could glean no further information from their website.
Perusing the criteria set out by the State for an entity to be an SES, it is obvious the providers are not held to the same standards as the low-performing public schools. The SES provider must offer instruction aligned with State academic standards but not necessarily the curriculum used in the district. In fact, the State’s wording of the provider’s instructional practices and program is vague: “In approving an SES provider, an SEA [the State] may also want to consider the following questions…” In effect, a provider is afforded a great deal of freedom regarding instructional program and design. The provider is also allowed a great deal of latitude regarding assessing student academic growth. Whereas, the public school is held accountable by the State’s standardized measure (NECAP), SES providers devise their own assessment tools, i.e., pre-test/post-test to show student gains. By mandating this supplementary tutoring by outside sources, the government is, in effect, saying the public school is not doing a good job and therefore must look elsewhere to increase student achievement. If that is the case, then the SES providers should be held accountable on the same measures that the schools themselves are judged. It seems to me the State should be evaluating SES providers on how well their interventions improve student performance on the NECAP, since that is how the State measures the school’s performance in making AYP.
Another area in which SES providers are not held to the same standards as public schools is in the staff hired to tutor the students. The tutors themselves do not have to meet the “highly qualified” teacher requirements required of public schools (Sections 1119 and 9101(23) of the ESEA). In fact, regulations specifically prohibit a State from requiring a provider to hire only staff that meet these requirements. One of the SES providers that used to operate in my current school is associated with a local university. The hired tutors are undergraduate students from the university (but not elementary education majors). According to teachers and the principal, the tutors often showed late to the school and had no sense of order or discipline with the students. In the opinion of one teacher, the tutors acted as though they wanted to be the students’ “friends.” Consequently, there was much mayhem and running around during those tutoring sessions. I looked at the completed proposal to the State requesting to offer SES and noted that the university-based provider claims to offer in-depth coordination and communication with students’ classroom teachers and parents regarding students’ progress. When I inquired, the teachers recalled no such communication with the tutors. The principal could only voice her complaints to the district, which presumably passed them on to the State regarding the provider. Clearly the program offered by the provider was ineffective; however, the principal’s hands were tied due to regulations that state: “with regard to determining whether a provider has a demonstrated record of effectiveness, an LEA (local district) may not make such a determination for the purposes of contracting and working with State-approved providers. Nor may [a district] refuse to permit a State-approved provider to serve students in the [district] because the [district] disagrees with the provider’s program design.” In other words, the district has no authority regarding SES providers. Fortunately, that particular SES provider no longer operates at the school (although, they continue to be on the State-approved list for Rhode Island). Of course, not all tutors are as slipshod as those university students (in fact, the companies currently operating at the school have hired teachers and teacher assistants from the building); however, the fact remains that SES providers are not held to the same standards as the public schools.
My final criticism of SES is that, not only are for-profit companies and private schools reaping the benefits of Title I funds, but also that faith-based organizations (FBO) are eligible to be SES providers. A colleague recently commented that she didn’t care who did the tutoring so long as “they did a good job” and “made a difference” for the students involved. I understand her sentiment; however, I still have a problem with federal funds for public education supporting a faith-based organization. As I found out, the SES business is quite a profitable enterprise for any State-approved provider. Though there are no FBO’s on the current (2011-2012) Rhode Island Department of Education list of Approved Supplemental Educational Services Providers, there is the possibility that one could be approved in the future. The current climate in which fundamentalist, conservative church groups have exerted extensive political power in recent years gives me pause when contemplating awarding Title I monies to FBO’s. It strikes me as yet another step toward dismantling and privatizing public education in this country. So I think we should care who is providing the tutoring.
Meanwhile, Tom and I were able to convince most of the five students (and their parents) to compromise and attend one night of tutoring and two of opera rehearsals. Unfortunately, we lost one student because it was more convenient for the parents to have the child involved in the tutoring – the tutoring program provided bus transportation to her house whereas our program did not. Of course, I am biased but I truly believe what the students are learning through the opera project is much more valuable than the tutoring programs. Additionally, Tom and I do not tap into the 20% Title I funds either – we volunteer our four hours/week working with students!
and a host of other sites on the web.
