The most recent results of the 2000 NAEP tests for fourth-grade reading paint a bleak picture for Title I: 63 percent of black fourth-graders, 58 percent of Hispanics, 47 percent of urban students, and 60 percent of poor children scored below "basic" in reading -- which for all practical purposes means they cannot read.
Why Bush's Plan Won't Work
President Bush has proposed to increase the Department of Education's budget by 11 percent, to $44.5 billion. Assuming his budget is passed as is, Title I, which continues to be the largest single item in the federal education budget, would spend approximately $10 billion for a program that has consistently failed to produce any measurable results for close to four decades. (Democrats are pushing to boost Title I spending to $18 billion.) By comparison, charter schools in Bush's budget would receive around $175 million for start-up and facility costs.
The central component of the Bush plan would overhaul the Title I program for disadvantaged students by requiring states to develop systems of rewards and penalties to hold districts and students accountable for academic progress. Specifically, states would be required to test all students in grades three through eight in reading and mathematics every year, as a condition of receiving federal Title I aid. In a nod to federalism, Bush would not institute a national curriculum and would allow individual states to design their own diagnostic tests.
A voucher sanction in Bush's original plan has evolved, through the legislative process, into a $600 tutoring credit. It would allow parents at failing schools that do not make "adequate yearly progress" for three consecutive years to pay for extra reading and math instruction for their child.
That's not much help. But there's a bigger problem with the Bush plan: The current focus on failing Title I schools ignores the grim reality that many schools that have not been designated as failures are still not the kinds of places that most parents want to send their children. To fully appreciate this phenomenon, it is important to consider exactly how dysfunctional a school must become before it is designated a "failure."
Individual states vary widely in how they define what constitutes a "failing" school. Many states have set standards that deem a school's performance adequate even if less than half of its students meet state standards for proficiency. At least eight states have set their standard at or around the 40th percentile, and a few have set the standard even lower. In Alabama, for example, more than half of a school's students must score below the 38th percentile for the school to be put on an intervention track, and more than half must score below the 23rd percentile to immediately target a school for improvement efforts.
To appreciate how most schools escape the "failure" label, one must understand the notion of "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) and how it is measured. AYP is determined at the state level and is tied to meeting performance goals and state standards.
Some states require schools to meet an absolute target or performance threshold. In the president's home state of Texas, for example, a rating of "acceptable" means that at least 50 percent of students at a given school must pass the state assessment in reading, writing, and math. The 50 percent standard doesn't address the obvious: Do the parents of the 50 percent of students who did not pass the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills find this level of achievement to be "acceptable"? Such a low standard means that less than 1 percent of Title I schools in Texas are labeled as failures.
California schools must improve every year by 5 per-cent of the difference between their academic performance index and the state's performance target of 800. The formula is complex and is based on student scores on the Stanford 9 test. The bottom line is that in order to show AYP, my local school must gain a few percentage points each year on a standardized test.
Assuming that the school can actually achieve the mandated minimums each year, it could be two decades before my local school meets the state target score of 800. In effect, the state and the school district are willing to sacrifice the minds of the children who will be forced to attend this school over the course of the next 20 years while the school struggles to meet minimum AYP standards.
The real failures of El Cerrito Elementary, which can stand in for many schools across the country, become increasingly apparent when actual improvements in reading scores on the Stanford 9 test are considered. In 1998, the average second-grade test scores at El Cerrito Elementary were at the 36th percentile. By 2000, average second-grade reading scores jumped to the 38th percentile. A similar small improvement in achievement has occurred for the other grades at El Cerrito Elementary.
As a parent, perhaps I should be proud of the progress my local school is making. Instead, I am shocked that the school's accepted rate of yearly academic progress could mean that my son will spend his six years of elementary school at an institution that will not come close to meeting California's statewide target goal of 800 by the end of his tenure there.
Why Vouchers Hardly Mattered
Even if the voucher component of Bush's plan had not died in Congress, it would have had little impact on parents who are stuck with low-performing schools. President Bush's plan mirrored Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's A-Plus education program, so the Florida plan is instructive as a model of how the president's plan would likely work over time. By offering vouchers to students at failing schools, the Florida plan is intended to motivate those schools to improve their academic performance. Each public school in Florida is assigned a grade, from A through F, based on the proportion of its students earning a passing grade on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Students attending schools that receive two F grades in four years are eligible to attend a private school or to transfer to another public school.
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