America's Top Education Priority

Lifting Up Low-Performing Schools

• The Problem
• The Solution
• Summary

The acid test of America's commitment to giving every child the opportunity to excel is what the Nation does about low-performing schools. Typically found in lower-income rural and urban communities with small property tax bases, these schools are usually plagued by poverty and the host of social ills that accompany it. Low-performing schools must become America's highest education priority.

Low-performing schools often reflect the communities they serve: left behind by economic prosperity and hit hardest in economic downturns. This section of the policy guidebook is about the federal government's responsibility to lift up the students of the low-performing schools found across America in blighted urban settings and isolated rural communities.

To begin, one should walk around a low-performing school and then travel to a school in a well-financed suburban school district. The differences will be starkly apparent. In the low-performing school, one is likely to find crumbling, out-of-date facilities; minimal use of technology; and many teachers with emergency credentials or teaching outside their area of expertise. In the suburban school, one is likely to find modern, well-maintained facilities, the latest technologies, up-to-date textbooks and certified teachers with ample experience.

The students of these low-performing schools deserve better. Many of these schools and their communities have already begun that process and would benefit greatly from the federal government making them and their students a much higher priority. They have learned that the basics can make a difference in their schools. That means more instructional time, aligned standards, parental involvement, more resources and training, instructional leadership and other steps designed to place the student first.

I. The Problem:
Gross Inequities in Resources and Outcomes

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A. Resources

The public schools' reliance on local taxes, most often the property tax, means that schools in high poverty communities have far fewer resources at their disposal than schools in middle- and upper-income areas. Ironically, they must do more with less, as they face greater challenges and must meet greater needs. While state funding of the public schools helps reduce these disparities, it rarely eliminates them. Federal funding through Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) does the most to bring low-performing schools in high-poverty areas up to the levels of other schools. But at current appropriation levels, it is still inadequate to meet the challenge.

Consider these facts:

The average local spending per pupil in high-poverty communities is about one-half the amount spent for students in low-poverty communities, according to an August 2000 U.S. Department of Education study looking at 1994-95 school revenues.¹

In real numbers, state funding reduces the disparity to 18 percent. Federal funding closes the gap further but not enough. The Department of Education study found that federal funding brought combined per pupil revenues up to $6,958 in schools with the lowest levels of poverty and up to $6,245 in schools with the highest levels of poverty -- still a more than 10 percent shortfall for those districts facing the greatest challenges.²

Thus, after federal spending is included, there is an overall funding difference of $713 per student. In a school of 500 students, that means the schools with the students most in need of assistance would have $356,500 less to spend without even factoring in additional contributions in more affluent communities. To add insult to injury, of those schools considered to be "in need of improvement" under Title I, only 40 percent have received any of the additional professional development or technical assistance needed and prescribed under Title I.³

These funding disparities have a direct impact on teacher salaries. In 1997-98, the average teacher salary in schools with the highest poverty levels was $35,115, compared with $40,839 in schools with the lowest poverty levels.⁴ This makes it extra hard for high-poverty schools to recruit and retain the best teachers, considering that the workplace environment is often much harsher and the challenges to effective teaching much greater.

Moreover, teachers in low-poverty schools have an average of two years more experience than teachers in low-performing, high-poverty schools, and they are more likely to have a Master's Degree. Students in high-poverty secondary schools are more likely to be taught a core subject by a teacher who had not majored or minored in the subject.⁵

Indeed, many of the best teachers in low-performing schools move on to "better" schools serving middle class students after a few years. Since society cannot, nor should not, try to force an individual teacher to stay in one school, incentives should be encouraged to keep these teachers where they are most needed. These incentives should include salary increases, but they also need to go far beyond. They should range from enhanced mentoring and professional development programs that assist teachers with the unique challenges they confront to modernized school buildings that demonstrate to both students and teachers the commitment of society to make public education work for all.

Unfortunately, it is clear that higher rates of poverty and overall lower school performance too often go hand in hand. The subsequent section only underlines that point.

B. Student performance

Given the problems in funding, retaining the best teachers and coping with a host of social ills that start outside the school system, it is little wonder that student performance lags in schools in areas of high poverty.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) documents these disparities. The following chart looks at the percentage of 12^th graders who are performing below basic skill levels in five subject areas. It compares overall student performance with that of students in Title I schools (schools with the highest levels of poverty) and with students who receive free or reduced-price lunches (also a strong measure of poverty).

This chart should not be misinterpreted. Not all low-income students are low performers; many excel. However, most low-performing schools are in low-income communities.

There are clear disparities in all subjects, though they are particularly glaring in math and science. However, the teachers in these schools do not need blame -- they need help. They are struggling with the fewest resources to teach those students who must leap the highest barriers on the way to excellence.

Fortunately, they are making progress. Student achievement in Title I schools is improving, much of it due to the 1994 ESEA reauthorization, which targeted Title I funds more directly to student achievement and accountability. As a result, the proportion of the schools with the highest poverty levels receiving Title I funds rose from 79 percent in 1993-94 to 96 percent in 1997-98.⁷

This had a positive impact on student performance. The percentage of fourth grade Title I students in 24 urban school districts scoring at or above the 25^th percentile in the NAEP increased from 41 percent to 56 percent in reading from 1994-95 to 1997-98, according to the Council of Great City Schools. In math, fourth graders scoring at or above the 25^th percentile rose from 49 percent to 59 percent. Eighth graders showed similar improvements: from 41 percent to 58 percent in reading and from 43 percent to 54 percent in math.⁸

Looking at average NAEP scores, fourth grade students in high-poverty schools improved from 180 to 188 in reading from 1992 to 1996, and from 208 to 217 in math during those same four years.⁹

This demonstrates that the right kind of reforms and additional resources can produce positive results, but much more must be done.

The recommendations that follow are designed to help achieve real turnaround.

II. The Solution: Lifting All Children Up

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Giving every child in a low-performing school the opportunity to excel requires a combination of substantial additional resources, reforms aimed at advancing student achievement in large part by empowering teachers and ensuring high quality, and raising standards and accountability. The National Education Association (NEA) believes that through full, and targeted, funding of Title I, school districts with low-performing schools can recruit, mentor, train and retain quality teachers; create turnaround teams for immediate improvements; and boost student achievement. It should be said, however, that these measures should be accompanied by the recommendations in the other four priority sections of this guidebook to fully realize success for all schools, especially low-performing schools.

A. Full funding of Title I

Title I works. It reaches the schools and classrooms that most need assistance in overcoming poverty's barriers to student achievement. Indeed, it is much more effectively targeted to students living in poverty than state aid. Unfortunately, Title I has never been fully funded. Current appropriation levels are only sufficient to provide assistance for one-third of the approximately 11 million eligible children. America is obligated to provide the resources that will empower teachers, principals and staff to get the job done. That means full funding of Title I -- to ensure educational opportunity for every poor child in America.

Title I funds are used for providing instruction, supporting the hiring of additional teachers and instructional aides, providing instructional materials and computers, and supporting other instructional services and resources. In fact, the share of funds used for instruction is greater for Title I (77 percent) than for school district expenditures overall (62 percent). Title I teachers spend two-thirds of their time working with students, and another 20 percent of the time, they prepare for class and grade student work.

Title I also extends learning time in districts and schools that need it most. Two-thirds of all schools are able to offer extended-time instructional or tutorial programs during the school year through before-school, after-school or weekend programs.

In fiscal year 2000, Title I grants to local school districts totaled $7.94 billion. In fiscal year 2001, they increased only modestly by 8.3 percent to $8.6 billion. Full funding for these grants would require an increase of $15.4 billion.¹⁰

To those who question whether America can afford this additional investment, NEA asks how the Nation can afford not to -- in effect, slamming the door of opportunity shut in the face of millions of children. America can afford the additional investment first because it is a moral imperative; second, because of the return it would earn, millions more children receiving a world-class education and the preparation they need for the jobs of the 21^st century; and third, because of the $2 trillion non-Social Security surplus. If policymakers feel the need to phase in full funding over five years, then so be it, but America can afford to do no less.

B. Excellence for All Investments Initiative

The National Education Association recommends full funding of Title I with a proportion of the new funds provided to the states under the Excellence for All Investments Initiative.

This new initiative would provide the states and local school districts the flexibility they need to do their job as they see fit. Within the parameters of ensuring that the funds help educate low-income children in the best possible way, states and school districts would retain control. The federal government would play its historic and appropriate role in providing them with a helping hand and the mechanisms to ensure success.

1. Accountability

As with any investment, the American people have a right to know that they are getting a good return on their tax dollars. Low-performing schools receiving the assistance they need to improve student performance must then demonstrate that their students are achieving at higher levels. But here again, the focus must not be on blame or punishment, but on getting results. What matters is the outcome: that all students have a full and equal opportunity to excel.

To that end, the National Education Association recommends two strong accountability measures as part of the Excellence for All Investments Initiative.

First Accountability Measure: Technical assistance to align goals, standards, curricula, professional development and assessments, and to develop multiple measures of progress

Too often, single, high-stakes tests are imposed on schools and students, with funding riding on the test scores. There are three fundamental problems with this increasingly common "accountability" mechanism:

• It is done without coordinating curriculum and professional development with assessment. Often, the tests do not measure what the students have been learning; other times, they are designed without adequate consideration of what and how the students should be learning. There must be adequate resources for technical assistance to align the curriculum with the standards set and the testing mechanisms adopted.

• A single test, no matter how well designed, is not an adequate way to measure the multitude of ways in which students learn and express what they have learned.

• Often, single tests are designed more for simplicity of scoring than for the way in which they measure the lifelong learning skills students will need as adults in the 21^st century workforce. Placing multiple-choice regurgitation of facts over problem-solving and critical thinking does students no service.

While these issues are addressed in the chapter on Standards and Accountability, they are also addressed here because they affect low-performing schools so acutely.

Thus, Excellence for All Investments could be used by states, school districts and individual schools for technical assistance to help fully align tests with the appropriate goals for student learning, and to help fully align curricula and professional development with the tests. They could also be used to help states redesign their tests, or craft tests measuring the different ways students learn, in order to more accurately measure how well low-performing schools and their students are doing.

Second Accountability Measure: Standards for continued student improvement

Using the previous three years before receiving Excellence for All Investments as a baseline, schools receiving assistance under this initiative will be expected to show improvement in student performance over a sustained period. This should be measured through multiple tools of assessment with guidelines developed jointly between the states and the U.S. Department of Education. If these improvements are not forthcoming, school districts and/or states would be empowered to investigate further into the reasons why. If a determination is made that the school needs new investments, they would be available as additional resources under the Excellence for All Investments Initiative. If these schools show continual improvement over a three to five year period, they would be empowered to set their own accountability standards for the future, to which they would then be held. Moreover, it would not be enough to show overall student improvement. Schools would also need to show improvement in various subset groups such as race, gender and socioeconomic status.

The focus must be on turning each low-performing school around until every single one is a high-performing school for all students.

2. State preconditions

In order to receive funds under the Excellence for All Investments Initiative, states would have to meet certain reasonable preconditions to ensure the maximum benefit to students. States must:

• Maintain all other efforts: Excellence for All Investments must not supplant any existing federal, state or local education funding, including other Title I funds.

• Use funds exclusively for Title I Schools, targeting low-performing schools: high-poverty, high-need schools where student performance lags behind other schools.

• Target middle and high schools more than current Title I funds do. Only 15 percent of current Title I appropriations go to secondary schools,¹¹ yet U.S. student performance declines as they reach higher grades.

States would primarily distribute Excellence for All Investments to local school districts for use by low-performing schools. States could send some funds directly to these schools if they chose. States could also use a portion of the funds for statewide initiatives designed to improve student performance, such as recruiting and retaining quality teachers and principals for impacted schools.

3. School preconditions

In order to receive Excellence for All Investments from their state or local school district, low-performing schools would have to meet certain reasonable preconditions. They must:

• Develop and start implementing a school-wide improvement plan with clear goals for raising student performance and effective strategies for achieving them. Schools can use Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program grants for improvement plans and Excellence for All Investments could supplement them. If necessary, there could also be exemptions for rural/small schools where paperwork requirements could be more onerous to tackle.

• Ensure that 100 percent of their teachers are fully certified or implement a plan to reach this goal within three years.

• Implement professional development programs tailored to the needs of their teachers, in which teachers are central to the programs' planning and delivery. "One-size-fits-all" professional development imposed from levels of oversight far removed from the classroom does not improve teacher quality. Efforts that are customized to address each teacher's unique needs and that are designed and implemented by current or former teachers do the most to raise teacher performance. Moreover, professional development should be embedded in the jobs of all teachers and paraprofessionals, with time for training, planning with colleagues and reflecting on practice. And as noted earlier, it should be aligned with standards and assessments.

4. Assistance

States, school districts and low-performing schools would have enormous flexibility in determining how to use Excellence for All Investments. They could use the funds for any or all of three broad areas: student achievement, quality teacher recruitment and retention and teacher/parent/community partnerships. Within these areas, the investments must fund activities that have either been proven to raise student performance or show promise and potential in doing so. This approach gives school districts and schools the power to identify and meet their unique needs within a context that will help maximize their success.

a. Student achievement

The types of efforts to be funded through the Excellence for All Investments Initiative in this category could include many of the following programs, but this guidebook should not be interpreted as indicating one of these programs as the sole solution or encouraging the creation of wholly new programs where proven, existing ones are available:

• Technical assistance by statewide "Turnaround Teams" of teachers and education employees experienced in raising student achievement at low-performing schools. Excellence for All Investments could be used at the state level to create and train these Turnaround Teams, and at the local level to bring these Teams into low-performing schools for a period of two to three years. One potential model is the North Carolina ABC Improvement Program, under which "assistance teams" are dispatched to high-need schools. They work closely with staff to provide professional development and mentoring for teachers, implement school improvement programs and generate additional resources needed. In its very first year, the ABC Program helped turn around 14 of 15 elementary schools from "low-performing" to "exemplary." In just three years, this initiative helped reduce the number of North Carolina schools classified as "low-performing" from 7.5 percent of all schools to just 0.7 percent.

• Class size reductions. As noted in the chapter on school modernization, smaller class sizes, especially at the elementary school level, are proven to have a positive effect on student achievement not only during the school year in which the students have smaller classes but throughout the remainder of their education. Studies ranging from Tennessee's STAR Project to California's statewide class reduction program to Wisconsin's Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program all show that students benefit from smaller classes, especially low-income and minority students. Low-performing schools could combine these funds with any funds received through the Class Size Reduction Initiative to bolster their efforts to ensure their students receive individualized attention from their teachers. NEA continues to support class size reduction efforts and calls for completion of the goal of 100,000 new teachers.

• Extended learning time. For many low-performing school students, the school day is not long enough to learn what they need to know and gain the skills required to achieve at high levels. Before- and after-school tutorials can bridge the gap, providing struggling students the time and attention they need. They have the added benefit of giving students whose parents may not be home when the school day ends something productive and safe to do. This could be achieved by expanding the 21^st Century Learning Centers program.

• Technological advancement and teacher training. Due to their lack of funding, many low-performing schools do not have the most effective teaching technologies commonly used by schools in middle-class suburban communities. This problem is exacerbated by the "digital divide," as students in low-performing schools are less likely than their peers to have computers and Internet access at home. They need both at school more than any other group of students. Consequently, Excellence for All Investments could finance the introduction of everything from computers and Internet access to new science lab technologies; from improvements in libraries and media centers to better audio/visual equipment. These steps are all the more valuable for low-performing schools because the use of technology is often a strong motivator for otherwise disengaged students. However, there must be one prerequisite to receiving this assistance: that teachers and paraprofessionals be trained in how to best use the new technologies. Of course, the Excellence for All Investments Initiative can fund this training as well as the technologies themselves.

b. Quality teacher recruitment and retention

Perhaps the largest single barrier to consistently improving student performance in low-performing schools is their inability to attract and retain quality, experienced teachers. With salaries lower than average and working conditions much tougher than average, this should come as no surprise. However, it must change if all students are to have an opportunity to excel. In particular, schools need to cultivate teams of quality, experienced teachers who are in it for the long haul. This requires a combination of the right incentives, dramatic improvements in the workplace environment and teacher empowerment to unleash their talents in pursuit of their calling: high student achievement.

The types of initiatives to be funded through the Excellence for All Investments Initiative in this category could include:

• Professional development and mentoring programs. In low-performing schools, one finds some of the greatest turnover of teaching staff. The schools are more likely to have newer teachers and teachers with emergency credentials and/or teachers instructing in areas outside of their training. In addition, these schools have conditions that are some of the most challenging in the Nation. As a result, these teachers and paraprofessionals need as much training and guidance as can be provided. Excellence for All Investments could be used to access, create or enhance professional development. In addition, the funds should be used to access the mentoring programs discussed in the section on teacher quality in this guidebook.

• Loan forgiveness for teachers after five years of service in a low-performing school. This is an important financial incentive that means much to teachers. Unlike other professions, where high salaries provide the means to pay back loans for graduate and professional school, teachers often struggle with their loan payments. Some 27 states currently offer some form of loan forgiveness or scholarship programs, serving more than 28,000 teachers, according to Education Week. However, in only 10 states are they targeted at "hard-to-staff schools." Excellence for All Investments could be used to strengthen these programs and focus them more directly on low-performing schools, as well as to help other states start their own initiatives. Loan forgiveness will work in attracting quality teachers to these schools and the five year requirement will keep them there.

• Tuition and stipend for teaching as a second career. A great potential pool of new needed teachers lies with those who have started their careers in other fields but who find themselves seeking the unique professional fulfillment that comes from helping students learn. The Excellence for All Investments Initiative could help pay tuition and a stipend for people currently in the workforce to get their teaching degree and certification, in exchange for teaching at a low-performing school for a minimum of five years.

• Paraprofessional-to-teacher program. Teachers' aides and other paraprofessionals are another enormous potential talent pool for the quality teachers of the future. They know exactly what it is like in the classroom. Thus, those choosing a teaching career usually teach for the rest of their professional lives, compared with the high percentage of new teachers directly out of college who leave the field within five years. Moreover, paraprofessionals are more likely to be minorities than many other groups of prospective teachers, thus providing an important way to increase teaching diversity in schools serving largely minority populations. Excellence for All Investments could be used to pay their tuition to get the degree and certification they need, in exchange for teaching at a low-performing school for five years. Loan forgiveness could be used as an alternative to direct grants.

• Low-performing school bonus program. Excellence for All Investments could be used to pay salary bonuses in these schools, providing a very important financial incentive for quality teachers and staff to come to and stay where they are needed the most. Funds could be used to start bonus programs or to strengthen existing programs. This recognizes that low-performing schools usually require educators to work longer hours, confront very challenging situations and, if properly trained, spend more time in professional development.

c. Teacher/parent/community partnerships

Parents (and other community stakeholders), students and teachers form the three sides of the education triangle. When all three are working in tandem toward the same goal, anything is possible. Indeed, both research and hands-on experience makes clear that strong parental involvement is a prerequisite for successful schools. Broader community support can provide an additional critical difference in resources, volunteers and the overall school environment.

Parental and community support are often problematic in low-performing schools due to the challenges of poverty and economic deprivation. Parents are struggling just to find jobs or make ends meet. The surrounding community rarely has substantial resources to commit to the schools either. But with a significant effort from the school, this situation can be turned around for the better.

The types of initiatives to be funded under the Excellence for All Investments Initiative in this category could include:

• Summer planning and training institutes. How often do teachers, school staff, principals and parents get together to plan for the upcoming school year? Not often enough. It would be invaluable for teachers to spend three weeks in the summer developing the next year's curricula and school-wide programs, coordinating efforts (so all teachers in the same grade teach the same basic skills), receiving needed training, organizing parental contributions and gaining complete "buy-in" by all parties. In fact, these institutes could make the greatest difference of all in turning low-performing schools around. Excellence for All Investments could be used by school districts or individual schools to pay for a portion or all of the expenses associated with summer planning and training institutes, including teacher and staff salaries for the three-week period.

• Parental education and involvement. This is a broad category and low-performing schools should receive resources to focus on any or all areas where they see the greatest needs. These are important areas indeed, but funds should be directed at assisting school-based programs as opposed to creating federal level programs in this area. For example, assistance could be provided for:

  • Skills workshops for parents, so they can better help their children learn to read, add and subtract, and gain other skills;
  • Parental classroom volunteer programs;
  • Encouraging parental volunteerism in other areas;
  • English lessons and other forms of special outreach for the non-English-speaking parents of schoolchildren; and
  • A more organized, comprehensive program of parental outreach.

• Community partnerships. One need not have a child in the local public schools to have a stake in their success. In every community in America, home values, quality of life, the local economy and even public safety all depend on the public schools. Excellence for All Investments could be used by schools to forge partnerships with local businesses, congregations, civic leaders and neighborhood groups to generate financial support, volunteers, mentors and tutors, and other forms of support that will benefit children.

• School-linked comprehensive services for children and families. A rapidly growing number of schools in high-poverty areas are placing health, family, children's and other social services directly on-site. This has many advantages. First, it better enables the school to overcome the out-of-school hurdles that may be standing in the way of high student achievement. Second, because public schools are community centers by nature, it provides a central and more effective point to help families address problems in a comprehensive and collaborative way. The Excellence for All Investments Initiative could help schools start or expand these school-linked services, in conjunction with Title XI of ESEA. Again, this would keep them school-based and not create federal-level programs.

The National Education Association strongly believes that with full funding of Title I and the Excellence for All Investments Initiative, low-performing schools would be made the priority they should be. They would finally start receiving the resources they need in the ways that will make the greatest positive difference in the lives of their students, and they would be held accountable for the outcome. Student achievement will rise as a result.

III. Summary of NEA's
Low-Performing Schools Recommendations

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To ensure that no child is left behind, America must make the challenge of fixing the Nation's low-performing schools its top priority. Located primarily in low-income rural and urban communities, these schools suffer from inadequate resources and substandard outcomes for students. They are particularly burdened by the fact that Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the primary vehicle for closing the achievement gap between lower-income and other students, is funded at just one-third of its full level. Low-performing schools need immediate and dramatic assistance to lift them up to the high-performance institutions every school should be.

The good news is that this process is occurring in many previously low-performing schools. But the federal government, in partnership with states and school districts, must take the lead in making it universal.

The National Education Association recommends that the 107^th Congress and President Bush fully fund Title I, with targeted assistance provided to the states under a new Excellence for All Investments Initiative.

Excellence for All Investments would provide the states and local school districts the flexibility they need to lift up low-performing schools as they see fit.

To guarantee accountability, the initiative would:

• Provide technical assistance to align goals, standards, curricula, professional development and assessments and to develop multiple measures of progress.

• Ensure strong standards of continual student improvement.

To raise student performance, states would have enormous flexibility to use the Excellence for All Investments Initiative in three major categories:

• Student Achievement. Excellence for All Investments could be used to:

  • Provide technical assistance by statewide "Turnaround Teams" of teachers and education employees experienced in raising student achievement at low-performing schools.

  • Reduce class size (in combination with the Class Size Reduction Initiative).

  • Extend learning time for students who need more than the traditional school day to perform at high levels.

  • Make technological advancements and train teachers in their use.

• Quality teacher recruitment and retention. Excellence for All Investments could be used to:

  • Implement professional development and mentoring programs

  • Provide loan forgiveness for teachers after five years of service in a low-performing school.

  • Pay tuition and a stipend for professionals choosing teaching as a second career and then teaching at a low-performing school for five years.

  • Offer bonuses for teachers and staff at low-performing schools.

• Teacher/parent/community partnerships. Excellence for All Investments could be used to:

  • Establish summer planning and training institutes where teachers, principals, staff and parents would develop curricula and programs for the upcoming school year.

  • Implement parental education, outreach and involvement programs.

  • Build community partnerships to strengthen public schools through the involvement of businesses, congregations, civic leaders and neighborhood groups.

  • Strengthen school-linked comprehensive services for families.

Copyright © February 2001 by the National Education Association
All Rights Reserved

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¹U.S. Department of Education, "Study of Educational Resources and Federal Funding: Final Report," August 11, 2000, p. xii.

² U.S. Department of Education, "Study of Educational Resources and Federal Funding: Final Report," August 11, 2000, p. xii.

³U.S. Department of Education, "Title I Accountability: Guidance on the $225 Million Fiscal Year 2001 Appropriation for School Improvement," January 2001.

⁴U.S. Department of Education, "Study of Educational Resources and Federal Funding: Final Report," August 11, 2000, p. xx.

⁵U.S. Department of Education, "The Condition of Education," 2000.

⁶National Assessment of Educational Progress (1998 results for reading, writing and civics; 1996 results for math and science).

⁷U.S. Department of Education, "Study of Educational Resources and Federal Funding: Final Report," August 11, 2000, p. xiv.

⁸Council of Great City Schools, "Reforms and Results: An Analysis of Title I in the Great City Schools" -- as cited in Committee for Education Funding, "Education Budget Alert for Fiscal Year 2001," 2000, p. 23.

⁹U.S. Department of Education, "Final Report of National Assessment of Title I," 1999.

¹⁰ U.S. Department of Education, "Study of Education Resources and Federal Funding: Final Report," August 11, 2000, pp. 25-26.

¹¹U.S. Department of Education, "Study of Educational Resources and Federal Funding: Final Report," August 11, 2000, p. xvi.