Key NCLB Requirement Lacks Research Support

There isn't enough research to know whether or not third-party tutoring and other "Supplemental Education Services" required by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act does any good, according to a policy brief funded and issued by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice in East Lansing, MI.

The report finds that SES programs have low participation rates and offer limited services for English Language Learners and special education students. It also finds that states and school districts lack the capacity to offer significant monitoring or accountability for SES programs -- in stark contrast to the NCLB law's strict accountability measures applied to the schools themselves.

The report recommends:

• Redesign the law to address the core problem of local administrators lacking fiscal resources and expertise to successfully administer SES programs.
• Commission federally funded, comprehensive evaluations to determine: (a) to what degree SES may affect student achievement, and (b) to what extent at-risk student populations have access to SES services.
• Investigate the feasibility and desirability of reallocating Title I funds from SES programs to existing successful state and local reform efforts.
• Examine and reconsider NCLB's apparent tension between the high-stakes accountability imposed on schools and the more limited measures for holding SES providers accountable for their contributions to student achievement.

The brief examines the supplemental education services (SES) provision of NCLB, which requires school districts to pay the cost of after-school tutoring services for eligible students attending schools that have failed to meet mandated Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks three years in a row.

Those schools must set aside up to 20 percent of their Title I funds to pay for third-party tutoring services provided by state-approved providers. Currently, this field of providers is dominated by private, for-profit companies.

The report finds that SES programs have low participation rates and offer limited services for English Language Learners and special education students. It also finds that states and school districts lack the capacity to offer significant monitoring or accountability for SES programs -- in stark contrast to the NCLB law's strict accountability measures applied to the schools themselves.

The report emphasizes the overwhelming lack of evidence to support (or refute) the wisdom of the SES policy. The report states, "existing research offers little information about specific conditions that support positive outcomes" from supplemental education services provided under the law. "To make well-informed decisions in the future, policy makers will require additional empirical evidence."

The policy brief, "Supplemental Education Services under NCLB: Emerging Evidence and Policy Issues" (PDF, 257 KB, 24 pages ), is by Patricia Burch, Ph.D of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

May 1, 2007