Policy and Program Studies Service 

Early Implementation of Supplemental 

Educational Services under the 

No Child Left Behind Act 

Year One Report 

2004 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

DOC. # 2004-11

OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY

Early Implementation of Supplemental 

Educational Services under the 

No Child Left Behind Act: 

Year One Report 

Leslie M. Anderson 

Lisa Weiner 

Policy Studies Associates, Inc. 

Washington, D.C. 

Under Subcontract to SRI International 

U.S. Department of Education 

Office of the Under Secretary 

2004 
This report was prepared for the U.S. Department of Education under Contract Number ED01CO0091 with SRI 

International. Collette Roney served as the contracting officer’s representative. The views expressed herein do not 

necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. 

Department of Education is intended or should be inferred. 

U.S. Department of Education 

Rod Paige 

Secretary 

June 2004 

This report is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to 

reprint this publication is not necessary, the suggested citation is: U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under 

Secretary, Policy and Program Studies Service, Early Implementation of Supplemental Educational Services under 

the No Child Left Behind Act: Year One Report, Washington, D.C., 2004. 

To order copies of this report, write: 

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(202) 205-8113.
Contents 

Executive Summary............................................................................................................... v 

States’ Efforts to Implement Supplemental Educational Services ........................... vi 

The Districts’ Role in Implementing Supplemental Services.................................... viii 

Supplemental Service Providers ................................................................................ xiii 

Parents’ Role in Supplemental Educational Services ................................................ xv 

Lessons for the Future................................................................................................ xvii 

Introduction............................................................................................................................ 1 

Overview of the Supplemental Educational Services Provisions of NCLB.............. 2 

Evaluation Questions ................................................................................................. 2 

States’ Efforts to Implement Supplemental Educational Services ....................................... 5 

Selecting Supplemental Service Providers ................................................................ 5 

Monitoring Providers................................................................................................. 7 

The Districts’ Role in Implementing Supplemental Services................................................ 9 

District Efforts to Reach Parents................................................................................ 9 

Targeting Services ..................................................................................................... 15 

The Role of Identified Schools ................................................................................. 17 

District Management of Supplemental Service Providers ........................................ 20 

District Funding for Supplemental Services ............................................................. 24 

Supplemental Service Providers ............................................................................................ 29 

Getting Started .......................................................................................................... 29 

Provider Curriculum and Instruction ......................................................................... 30 

Provider Staff............................................................................................................. 31 

Monitoring Student Progress ..................................................................................... 32 

Communicating with Parents and Teachers............................................................... 32 

Other Issues of Concern............................................................................................. 33 

Parents’ Role in Supplemental Educational Services ............................................................ 35 

Parents’ Assessment of Children’s Educational Needs ............................................ 35 

Parents’ Criteria for Selecting Providers ................................................................... 36 

Parent Satisfaction with Provider Services................................................................ 38 

Early Evidence of Effectiveness ................................................................................ 38 

Lessons for the Future ........................................................................................................... 41 

Appendix A: Characteristics of Sampled Schools................................................................. A-1 
Tables 

Table 1: Supplemental Educational Services Eligibility and Participation Levels 

 in District Case Study Sample ................................................................................ ix 

Table 2: Case Study Districts’ Per Pupil Expenditures for Supplemental 

Educational Services............................................................................................... xiii 

Table 3: Characteristics of Supplemental Educational Service Providers, 

 by State, as of February 2003 ................................................................................. 7 

Table 4: Characteristics of the District Case Study Sample ................................................ 10 

Table 5: Characteristics of Selected Supplemental Service Providers ................................. 27 

Table IA: Characteristics of Sampled Schools for the Study of Early 

Implementation of the Supplemental Educational Services 

Provisions of NCLB............................................................................................. A-1 
v

Executive Summary 

 The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)1 expanded the range of choices available to 

parents whose children attend Title I schools identified for improvement. For example, children 

in schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two consecutive years or more are 

now eligible to transfer to another public school. Children from low-income families enrolled in 

schools not making AYP for three years or more are eligible to receive supplemental educational 

services, including tutoring, remediation, and other academic instruction. According to NCLB, 

states and school districts were required to implement the supplemental educational services 

provisions at the beginning of the 2002-03 school year. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) 

issued its draft non-regulatory guidance in August 2002.2

 This study looks at early implementation of the supplemental services provisions of 

NCLB through case studies of six states and nine school districts and analyzes the ways in which 

some states and local school districts have responded to the requirement to offer supplemental 

services to parents and their children who attend Title I schools identified for improvement. The 

study sample was purposefully selected to include states and districts that appeared to be 

relatively far along in implementing the supplemental services provisions in fall 2002, so the 

study findings are not representative of implementation efforts nationwide. This study of states 

and districts that were considered to be further along than others was conducted to gain insights 

from these efforts that could assist other states and districts.3, 4 

 Data collection for the study consisted of telephone interviews with state administrators 

responsible for administering the supplemental educational services provisions of NCLB. In 

addition, two-person teams conducted site visits between January and March 2003 to each of 

nine districts. Site visit teams conducted personal interviews with district staff who had any 

involvement in planning or implementing supplemental services. In addition, visits were made 

to up to three schools in each district where site visit teams interviewed principals, conducted 

teacher focus groups, and conducted either personal interviews or focus groups with parents of 

children eligible to receive supplemental educational services. Finally, the site visit teams 

interviewed up to three supplemental service providers in each of the nine districts. 

 

1

 Public Law No. 107-110. 

2

 The guidance has been finalized and is now available at www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.doc. 

3

 The six states included in the study sample were selected based on whether states had provider lists in place as of 

late October or early November 2002. States that had finalized their provider lists were contacted and asked to 

identify districts that were either already offering supplemental services to students or were about to begin offering 

services. From that list of recommended districts, the nine selected for this study were those that were furthest along 

in implementing the supplemental services provisions of the legislation. 

4

 This report contains both stronger and weaker examples of implementation of the supplemental services provisions 

of NCLB. The examples used here should not necessarily be interpreted as model approaches to the implementation 

of supplemental services. Rather, these are examples of ways in which some states and districts have responded to 

the supplemental services requirements of the law. 
vi

 The study examines the successes and challenges that states, districts, schools, and 

service providers experienced in implementing the supplemental services provisions of NCLB. 

Key evaluation questions include the following: 

• How are states and school districts working together to implement supplemental 

services? 

• How are states selecting providers? 

• How are school districts reaching out to and involving parents regarding 

supplemental services? 

• What services are provided? 

• What types of providers are offering and providing services? 

• What are the challenges and successes regarding implementation? 

 The first year report describes and analyzes important areas of activity related to 

implementation of the supplemental educational services provisions of NCLB. Specifically, it 

describes the early implementation experiences of: (1) states; (2) school districts and schools; 

and (3) supplemental service providers. In addition, it describes the experiences of parents who, 

on behalf of their children, are attempting to access available educational services. The final 

section of this report presents some lessons drawn from the experiences of the case study sites 

that could aid other states, districts, schools, and providers as they work to implement the 

supplemental educational services provisions of NCLB. 

States’ Efforts to Implement Supplemental Educational Services 

 Overall, administrators representing the six states included in the study sample—usually 

Title I administrators—reported that they are striving to respond to the new legislative 

requirement to implement supplemental educational services. Nevertheless, the selection of 

service providers has been slow and uneven. In addition, state administrators have not yet 

developed systems for monitoring provider performance. 

Selecting Supplemental Service Providers 

• Most states included in the sample did not put forth much effort to encourage 

provider applications. As one state administrator explained, “We have not had the 

luxury to do advertising. Providers are finding us.” Of the six states, five posted the 

provider application on their Web site or placed an advertisement in the newspaper. 

Administrators in one state also directly contacted a number of providers to 

encourage them to apply. Although the number of provider applications was as high 

as 288 in one of the six case study states, half of the states had fewer than 50 

applicants, with one state receiving only 20 applications from potential providers. 

• Each of the six states generally followed the legislative requirements or the 

Department of Education’s draft non-regulatory guidance with respect to 

establishing selection criteria for supplemental service providers. However, only 

four states required applicants to produce evidence of the connection between their 

programs to state academic standards. A fifth state required providers to ensure that 
vii

its program was aligned with the school curriculum but made no mention of state 

standards. In addition, states varied in the extent to which they applied their criteria 

in selecting providers. Some states used reviewers and scoring rubrics to evaluate 

provider applications based on their selection criteria. Other states, however, 

dispensed with rubrics and selected providers based on their subjective notion of 

whether applications “appeared to be sound” or whether the state had past experience 

working with a provider. Most states pledged to shore up their rather loosely-applied 

selection criteria for the 2003-04 application process. 

• Several states in the case study sample rejected applicants who could not produce 

evidence of effectiveness in raising student achievement. The type of evidence of 

effectiveness states would accept was somewhat varied, however. One state required 

independent test data, school grades, and referral letters indicating family satisfaction 

with provider services. Another state simply asked for “evidence of recent successful 

experience in improving student academic achievement.” 

• The majority of providers in each of the six states are private for-profit and 

nonprofit organizations. In addition, public schools and school districts are wellrepresented among the list of state-approved providers. However, although all six 

states have online providers, they represent a small percentage of state-approved 

supplemental service providers. Finally, only three of the six states have faith-based 

providers. 

• The range of state-approved supplemental service providers with respect to both 

location and service does not adequately match local need. Providers were often 

unable to serve the needs of rural areas as well as special education students and 

students with limited English proficiency.5 In addition, online providers were not 

available to some rural communities where Internet access or computer equipment 

was unavailable. The number of state-approved providers available to the nine 

districts in the study sample ranged from a low of two providers in a district to a high 

of 14 providers in a district. 

Monitoring Providers 

 Most states included in the study sample have begun thinking about ways to monitor 

provider performance, but none has yet collected any data. For next year, two of the six states 

have hired or are planning to hire external organizations to develop an instrument for the state 

and relevant districts to use to monitor provider performance. The majority of the six states 

included in the sample, however, have not yet developed criteria for removing providers from 

approved lists. 

 

5

 In cases where there are no approved providers available to provide supplemental services to disabled or limited 

English proficient students, the district needs to provide supplemental services, either directly or through a contract. 

 
viii

The Districts’ Role in Implementing Supplemental Services 

 District responsibilities include informing eligible parents about their option to obtain 

supplemental educational services for their children, entering into contracts with providers, and 

managing the costs of their supplemental services program. Districts in the study sample 

reported significant challenges in all of these areas. 

District Efforts to Reach Parents 

• Most districts followed the legislative requirement to inform parents of the 

availability of supplemental educational services. At a minimum, most districts 

mailed letters to parents—usually in English and translated into one other language—

informing them of the supplemental services provisions and including, at a minimum, 

the names of the providers available to the district. Some districts, however, sent 

letters home with students rather than mail them. Several districts took the process 

one step further and posted advertisements in local newspapers informing the 

community about the availability of supplemental services. Two districts, however, 

did not send letters to parents notifying them of the availability of supplemental 

services for eligible students because the state-approved providers could not offer 

services that were accessible to these rural sites. Table 1 shows the number of 

schools in which students were eligible to receive supplemental services, the number 

of students who were eligible to receive services (and whose parents districts needed 

to contact), and the number of students who ultimately received services. 
ix

Table 1 

Supplemental Educational Services 

Eligibility and Participation Levels in 

District Case Study Sample 

District Name6 

Number of 

Eligible 

Schools 

Number of 

Eligible 

Students 

Number of 

Students 

Receiving 

Services 

Percent of 

Eligible 

Students 

Served 

Brooktown School District 3 900 138 15% 

Cleartown School District 3 140 0 0% 

Las Cierras School District 4 2,609 0 0% 

Plainfield School District 3 973 397 41% 

Redding School District 12 5,292 326 6% 

Riverside School District 14 7,000 0 0% 

Smithville School District 14 19,600 2 <1% 

Sunnydale School District 59 4,500–6,000 1,900 32–42% 

Trainville School District 5 2,600 510 17% 

• Some districts went beyond the basic legislative requirements and took a very active 

approach to spearheading parent interest in supplemental services. For example, 

fearing that a full-scale recruitment process would yield more students than it could 

serve, one southern school district divided its outreach efforts into three phases, each 

intended to yield the most disadvantaged students within a category of schools. 

Another district hosted vendor fairs at the identified schools; used Title I district 

parent involvement funds to pay teachers to call parents to encourage them to apply 

for tutoring services; and encouraged principals and other school staff to conduct 

home visits to invite parents to take advantage of the supplemental services 

opportunity. Nevertheless, despite carefully planned, deliberate efforts to encourage 

participation in supplemental services, neither district succeeded in filling all the slots 

it expected to fund for supplemental services. 

• Contacting and communicating clearly with parents about the availability of 

supplemental services sometimes presented significant challenges to school 

districts. In some districts, many parent letters came back to the district office “return 

to sender; address unknown.” This tended to happen in districts where there were 

very high mobility rates among families. A typical response to this problem was for 

districts, working with the schools, to send letters home with the students. In one 

district, providers noted that the district letter to parents was very difficult to 

understand (a sentiment echoed by teachers and principals). One provider said that 

when the letter went out, she received 10 phone calls from parents who did not 

 

6

 To protect their confidentiality, pseudonyms have been used for all the states, districts, schools, and most of the 

service providers that participated in this study. 
x

understand what to do with the letter or when services would be provided. In another 

district, a universal complaint among school staff and providers was that the strategy 

used to inform parents was not suited to the population the program was trying to 

reach. Staff believed that using the media or telephone calls, rather than sending 

letters, would more effectively inform parents in their district about supplemental 

services. 

• Districts fear that although reaching parents was difficult this year, the challenges 

will multiply next year as the number of identified schools, and approved providers, 

increases. District leaders worry about the continuing challenge of giving parents 

informed choices; they have no idea what will happen next year when the number of 

schools identified for improvement will likely grow. 

Targeting Services 

• Six of the nine districts in the case study sample targeted services for students based 

on poverty level and achievement. Before determining whether services needed to be 

targeted or prioritized, several districts considered the number of students attending 

identified schools and the amount of Title I dollars available to fund the supplemental 

services provisions. For example, two districts anticipated a level of interest that 

would far exceed the dollars available to serve. Accordingly, they targeted the 

neediest students first, then loosened up selection restrictions as available slots went 

unfilled. Other districts determined the need to prioritize based on the initial response 

they received from the letters sent to parents. 

• Two districts prioritized services for poor, low-achieving students without knowing 

how much money they had available for supplemental services nor how many 

students that money would serve. Both districts seemed under the impression that 

they must identify students who are both poor and low-performing and were 

unfamiliar with the part of the legislation that specifies that performance need only be 

brought into the equation of defining eligibility for supplemental services if the 

district is unable to serve all low-income students who apply. 

The Role of Identified Schools 

• Administrators in three of the nine districts tried to avoid burdening the schools 

with the implementation and coordination of supplemental services. Despite their 

best efforts, however, it seems implementation of supplemental services makes 

involving the schools nearly unavoidable. Indeed, two districts were ultimately 

forced to ask schools to assist them. One district, lacking a data system for collecting 

and storing districtwide student demographic and achievement data, needed schools 

to provide achievement data on the students whose parents expressed interest in 

supplemental services. 
xi

• Most districts (six of nine) involve the schools identified for improvement in 

coordinating the provision of supplemental services to students. Several districts 

rely on the schools to recruit students and coordinate the delivery of supplemental 

services simply because they lack the staff capacity to administer this process 

centrally. Several schools reported playing a major role in notifying parents about the 

services available to their children. One school awarded the gift of a turkey to the 

teacher who turned in the most permission slips from parents. At another school in 

another district, the principal, assistant principal, counselor, and school secretary 

visited students’ homes and held a meeting at a housing project to help parents 

complete application forms. 

• In spite of misgivings among some school staff, many principals and teachers are 

willing to help support implementation of supplemental services. Although NCLB 

does not specify a role for schools in implementing supplemental services, teachers in 

virtually every district expressed interest in knowing how they can help promote the 

program to parents. As many explained, classroom teachers are typically those who 

are best known to parents and it is they who will find it easiest to contact parents and 

convince them of the need for services. Teachers and principals are also needed to 

help parents distinguish among the myriad after-school programs offered in schools. 

Several teachers also expressed a willingness to communicate with providers about 

their students’ progress. 

District Management of Supplemental Service Providers 

• At least one district has put in place a system intended to manage the provider 

services available to schools. Several districts, however, have had limited activity 

managing, or even communicating with, providers. Managing providers is simpler 

when the number of providers is limited, and district management and oversight of 

supplemental service providers has been particularly easy in districts that have only 

one provider. 

• In some districts, providers indicated that they had had little interaction with the 

district about supplemental services and that this was frustrating. One provider 

described non-responsiveness on the part of the district. Another provider noted 

having problems getting names of participating students from the schools. “None of 

the lists matched. Some [schools] didn’t make copies [of the registration forms they 

collected].” 

• Entering into contracts with service providers is new territory for the majority of 

districts in the study and is proving to be extremely time-consuming. According to 

the legislative requirements, districts are to enter into separate agreements with 

providers for each student a provider serves (i.e., to ensure that the specific needs and 

achievement goals of individual students are identified and addressed). Several 

district administrators said they had no real experience writing contracts for service 

providers. To the extent districts have contracts with service providers, they vary 
xii

tremendously in scope and purpose. Some contracts lay out details regarding issues 

from parent involvement to anticipated student achievement. One district, however, 

in an effort to simplify the contracting process and to expedite the provision of 

services to students, wrote one contract to cover all the students that its one provider 

served. 

• Several districts struggled to define the terms of the provider contract. One district 

explained that the biggest challenge in writing the contract, for both the district and 

the provider, is knowing in advance the number of students who will be served. 

When entering into these contracts, providers often want some guarantee that a 

certain number of students will sign up for their services. This has implications for 

providers’ staffing requirements. Nevertheless, this is a guarantee that districts were 

generally unable to provide. 

• If districts are attempting to measure provider performance at all this year—and 

many are not—their performance measures are usually “makeshift” or 

preliminary. That is, although the legislation assigns primary responsibility to the 

state for judging provider performance, most districts believe they must monitor 

providers because of the contractual agreements and believe they must ensure that 

providers are in compliance with those agreements. In addition, ED’s draft nonregulatory guidance stated that district responsibilities include providing information 

the SEA needs to monitor the quality and effectiveness of the services offered by 

providers. However, one district administrator explained why districts are struggling 

to develop and apply fair measures of provider performance. For example, he asked, 

should districts use a common measure across all the providers? Another district 

administrator explained: “With tutors focusing on different skills, different subjects, 

different students, is this feasible or fair? Who carries primary responsibility for 

judging the quality of the tutors?” 

• Most districts in the study sample pledge to have a clear accountability system for 

provider performance in place next year. At least one service provider outlined what 

she believes are reasonable guidelines for such a system. This provider, who was 

concerned that the very high student mobility rates in the district will make it difficult 

to fairly assess the program’s effectiveness, made clear that her company will only 

make performance guarantees for students who are “full-cycle” (i.e., they have 

completed 45 or more hours of tutoring). 

 District Funding for Supplemental Services 

• The average district per-pupil expenditure for supplemental services was about 

$865. However, the range in district per pupil expenditures ran from $370 per student 

in one large central city to $1,136 per student in a mid-size central city. Eight 

districts had determined their per-pupil expenditure for supplemental services; one 

had not. Table 2 shows the per-pupil expenditures calculated by the case study 

districts. 
xiii

Table 2 

Case Study Districts’ Per Pupil Expenditures 

for Supplemental Educational Services 

District Name Estimated Per Pupil Expenditure 

Brooktown School District $950 

Cleartown School District $570 

Las Cierras School District No set amount—depends on provider 

Plainfield School District Max of $1,036 

Redding School District $986 

Riverside School District $1,136 

Smithville School District $370 

Sunnydale School District $850 - $1,000 

Trainville School District $940 

• The median number of hours of tutoring services that districts purchased per 

student among the sampled providers included in the case studies was about 40 

hours, with an overall range of 28 to 228 hours of tutoring services per student. 

Provider hourly costs ranged from $5 to $40 for one hour of tutoring services per 

student, with a median of $22 per hour. 

• Because so few parents applied for supplemental services in 2002-03, no district 

exhausted its budget. Indeed, the proportion of eligible students served ranged from 

less than 1 percent to 42 percent (see Table 1). Districts in this study have untapped 

funding capacity to purchase supplemental services for many more students. Several 

districts expressed frustration about having so much money “tied up” for 

supplemental services while so few students requested them. 

• Several districts expressed concern about the administrative costs associated with 

implementing the supplemental services provisions. Several referred to the costs 

associated with mailing letters to parents. One district estimated that the cost of 

mailing letters to the families of students in just three identified schools was $50,000 

because the district had to find the parents’ addresses, translate the letter into multiple 

languages, and send and resend the letters to parents who did not receive them on the 

first or second mailing. Another district sent out a mailing to almost 40,000 parents. 

Supplemental Service Providers 

 Providers in the study sample were focused on recruiting students, hiring staff, 

communicating with district administrators, teachers, and parents, and delivering instructional 

services to students. Nevertheless, providers face a number of challenges as they attempt to 
xiv

respond to the demand for their services, none of which is likely to diminish as they gain 

experience managing their programs in collaboration with districts and schools. 

Getting Started 

Providers in the study sample often lack sufficient notice from the district regarding 

the number of students they will be expected to serve. Also, providers said they need enough 

students requesting services to make it a viable business proposition. That is, for many 

providers, the cost of setting up their operations in a district cannot be justified if only a handful 

of students request their services. Indeed, several providers found themselves unable to offer 

services because not enough parents had signed up. Providers in several districts also talked 

about the difficulty they had getting final lists of students from schools or districts. 

Provider Curriculum and Instruction 

• The content and structure of provider tutoring services varies both within and 

across districts. According to ED’s draft non-regulatory guidance, supplemental 

services may consist of academic assistance such as “tutoring, remediation and other 

educational interventions, provided that such approaches are consistent with the 

content and instruction used by the local education agency and are aligned with the 

state’s academic content standards” (ED, 2002, p.1). Among the providers included 

in the study sample, most offer services that focus on reading instruction; however, 

the instructional approach in reading ranges from detailed diagnosis and scripted 

lessons to more general help with homework. Some provider services consist 

primarily of academic instruction while others offer a variety of activities, including 

homework help.

• The extent to which providers coordinate their curricula with state or district 

standards is unclear. Few providers confirmed that their curricula were aligned with 

state or district standards and providers typically make only minor modifications to 

what appears to be their usually well-established program of services. Other 

providers, however, explained that their curricula were somewhat correlated with the 

regular classroom curricula or pointed out that their curricula were intended to 

prepare students for the state assessment. Finally, several providers explained that 

their services consisted of homework help. 

• Providers often must adapt their services to the dollars per child available through 

district supplemental service funding allocations. Typically, this requires 

increasing the student-teacher ratio and decreasing the number of sessions they 

would ordinarily provide. Several providers described adjusting the structure of their 

programs, usually by increasing the student-to-tutor ratio, to make the costs of 

program operations come within range of what the district was able to pay. 
xv

Provider Staff 

 Providers included in the study sample varied significantly with respect to their staffing 

practices. Some providers use only certified teachers, many of whom are or have been public 

school teachers. Other providers use graduate students from local colleges and universities. 

Providers often hire their tutors directly from the schools that students attend. Several principals 

raised concerns about providers that hire teachers directly from the schools identified for 

improvement. 

Monitoring Student Progress 

Among the providers in the study sample that have begun offering services, most have 

not yet fully defined their procedures for monitoring and reporting student progress. Several 

providers plan to schedule regular meetings, at varying intervals, with parents and teachers as a 

part of their feedback process. One provider plans to meet with and update parents and teachers 

every six weeks regarding student progress whereas another provider intends to give student 

progress reports to school leaders weekly and to parents twice in total. Still another provider 

says it will administer tests and report the results to parents on a quarterly basis. 

Communicating with Parents and Teachers 

 Provider efforts to communicate with teachers and parents are extremely varied and 

typically erratic. The nature of the communication tends to be left to the judgment of the 

provider tutors. For example, one tutor said that she carefully cultivates a good relationship with 

the teachers of her students. “The relationship with the teacher depends on how you approach 

the teacher. I call them and talk to them. If we had a whole classroom, we couldn’t [call all of 

the teachers],” she said. 

 Providers report making an effort to communicate with parents. Providers admit that 

they are usually most in touch with those parents who actively seek them out by stopping by 

before or after tutoring sessions. Providers say that parents’ work schedules and family 

responsibilities often limit communication opportunities between providers and parents. 

Providers also mentioned that language is often a barrier to effectively communicating with 

parents. 

Parents’ Role in Supplemental Educational Services7

 Most parents of children eligible to receive supplemental educational services are pleased 

to have the opportunity to enroll their child in a tutoring program; these same parents also report 

satisfaction with their children’s schools and teachers. 

 

7

 Parents in eight districts participated in focus groups for this study. In one of these eight districts, only two 

parents participated. Parents in the ninth district had not yet been informed of their provider options and were not 

asked to participate in interviews. 
xvi

Parents’ Assessment of Children’s Educational Needs 

• Overall, the parents interviewed said they like and trust their children’s schools and 

teachers even though the school is identified for improvement. Parents generally 

praised their schools and were happy with most of the teachers; parents were also 

well aware of the school’s low performance. Parents often based their judgment of 

the school on the accessibility and personality of the teachers (e.g., if he or she is 

caring and nice or not) and the school environment. 

• Most parents in the districts in this study chose to apply for supplemental services 

rather than transfer their child to another school, even when districts made efforts 

to educate parents about the choice option and explained that transportation would 

be provided. Most parents are familiar with their school and neighborhood and 

disliked the notion of sending their children “across town” to another school. In two 

of the districts, approximately 40 percent of eligible students received supplemental 

services. In the other seven districts included in the case study sample, the percent of 

eligible students served ranged from 0 percent to 17 percent (see Table 1). 

Parents’ Criteria for Selecting Providers 

• Parents included in the study report receiving varying amounts of information 

about their provider options. Some parents received only a letter from the district 

informing them of the supplemental services provisions of NCLB. Other parents 

were invited to and participated in district- or school-sponsored meetings intended to 

help them understand their options related to supplemental services. Some parents 

said they had heard about providers and services in the media. In other cases, parents 

received very little information on the topic. In one district, no parents who were 

interviewed were aware of their option for supplemental educational services. 

• Parents often rely on their children’s teachers and schools to help them make 

decisions about supplemental educational services. Many parents indicated that 

they were strongly influenced by their children’s teachers regarding the need for 

supplemental services. 

• For most parents, transportation is the deciding factor in choosing among 

providers. Parents looked for providers who offered services at the school because 

they do not have transportation to take their children off-site. Many parents rely on 

public transportation to get where they need to go. Parents often chose providers 

based more on logistics and convenience than on educational concerns.

Parent Satisfaction with Provider Services 

 Parents whose children were already receiving services expressed satisfaction with 

providers. Some parents, however, reported that the time between services being offered to them 

and services being provided was too long. They were concerned that their children would not 

receive the maximum benefit from the program. 
xvii

Early Evidence of Effectiveness 

 It is too early to report the actual effects of supplemental services on those students who 

have begun working with service providers. For example, in one district where tutoring started 

in January and testing was scheduled for April, staff did not expect that measurable 

improvements would become evident in such a short period of time. However, some parents and 

teachers noted positive academic changes in their students. 

Lessons for the Future 

 Implementing the supplemental services provisions of NCLB has thrust states, districts, 

schools, and providers into uncharted territory, and most of the administrators interviewed would 

say it has been a learning experience. State administrators, for example, have learned that the 

provider application process must start sooner, require more information about the range of 

services providers offer, and require more assurances of provider competency and commitment. 

In addition, states have learned that the application process must result in a wider range of 

applicants with respect to the services they provide, the grade-levels they serve, and the areas in 

which they work. 

 Districts have learned that they must more clearly articulate to parents what the 

supplemental services provisions of the legislation offer them and their children. They have also 

learned that they must make provider services available to students sooner. In addition, districts 

have learned that the process of contracting with providers is complicated and time-consuming, 

yet they have few ideas about ways to lessen the burden. Schools have learned that they know 

little about their role in the implementation of supplemental services—they are usually willing to 

do what they can to help but require more direction from the district regarding how. Finally, 

most providers in the study sample had begun providing supplemental services. Several 

providers described adjusting the structure of their programs in order to make the cost of 

program operations come within range of what the district was able to pay. What no one has 

learned much about is how to monitor and evaluate provider performance. 

 Finally, most administrators have learned that although start-up activity this year was 

difficult and error-prone, most of the challenges faced with respect to identifying providers, 

identifying schools, identifying eligible students, and notifying parents will not go away next 

year. That is, unlike other programs, these case study districts believe that implementing 

supplemental services will present many of the same challenges with each passing year. Every 

year, there will be new providers, new schools, different numbers of students, and different needs 

to serve. Nevertheless, the Year Two report will explore the extent to which the supplemental 

services provisions of NCLB have gotten any easier to implement and the extent to which states, 

districts, schools, and providers have been able to build on their experiences of the past year in 

implementing supplemental services in year two. 
xviii
1

Introduction 

 The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), signed into law in January 2002, expanded the 

range of choices available to parents whose children attend Title I schools identified for 

improvement. For example, children in schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) for 

two consecutive years or more are now eligible to transfer to another public school. Children 

from low-income families enrolled in schools not making AYP for three years or more are 

eligible to receive supplemental educational services, including tutoring, remediation, and other 

academic instruction. According to NCLB, states and school districts were required to 

implement the supplemental educational services provisions at the beginning of the 2002-03 

school year. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued its draft non-regulatory guidance in 

August 2002.8

 This study looks at early implementation of the supplemental services provisions of 

NCLB through a purposive sample of six states and nine school districts9 and analyzes the ways 

in which states and local school districts have responded to the expanded range of choices 

available to parents and their children offered through NCLB. The study sample was 

purposefully selected to include states and districts that appeared to be relatively far along in 

implementing the supplemental services provisions in fall 2002, so the study findings are not 

representative of implementation efforts nationwide. This study of states and districts that were 

considered to be further along than others was conducted to gain insights from these efforts that 

could assist other states and districts.10, 11 

 Data collection for the study consisted of telephone interviews with state administrators 

responsible for administering the supplemental educational services provisions of NCLB. In 

addition, two-person teams conducted site visits between January and March 2003 to each of the 

nine districts. Site visit teams conducted personal interviews with district staff involved in 

planning or implementing supplemental services. In addition, each team visited up to three 

schools in each district and interviewed principals, conducted teacher focus groups, and 

conducted either personal interviews or focus groups with parents of children eligible to receive 

supplemental educational services. Finally, the site visit teams interviewed up to three 

supplemental service providers in each of the nine districts. 

 

8

 The guidance has been finalized and is now available at www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.doc. 

9

 To protect their confidentiality, pseudonyms have been used for all the states, districts, schools, and most of the 

service providers that participated in this study. 

10 The six states included in the study sample were selected based on whether states had provider lists in place as of 

late October or early November 2002. States that had finalized their provider lists were contacted and asked to 

identify districts that were either already offering supplemental services to students or were about to begin offering 

services. From that list of recommended districts, the nine selected for this study were those that were furthest along 

in implementing the supplemental services provisions of the legislation. 

11 This report contains both stronger and weaker examples of implementation of the supplemental services 

provisions of NCLB. The examples used here should not necessarily be interpreted as model approaches to the 

implementation of supplemental services. Rather, these are examples of ways in which some states and districts 

have responded to the supplemental services requirements of the law. 
2

Overview of the Supplemental Educational Services Provisions of NCLB 

 Supplemental educational services are intended to increase the academic achievement of 

students in low-performing schools. Specifically, NCLB requires that supplemental services be 

consistent with the state’s academic content standards and with the instruction provided by the 

school district. In addition, services must be provided outside of the regular school day. School 

districts, in consultation with parents and providers, must develop specific educational goals for 

each student. Supplemental service providers measure the student’s progress regularly and 

report regularly on that progress to teachers and parents. 

 Supplemental educational services may be provided by a variety of agencies, including 

for-profit and nonprofit entities, approved school districts, faith-based organizations, and 

approved public or private schools. Each state is required to develop criteria for selecting 

providers and to provide school districts a list of available approved providers in their geographic 

locations. School districts are responsible for notifying parents of their children’s eligibility to 

receive supplemental educational services and for providing parents with adequate information 

to select providers for their children. Parents may select any approved provider in the area 

served by the school district or within a reasonable distance of the school district. School 

districts must make arrangements to reimburse providers directly for the services they provide to 

eligible students. 

 All students from low-income families who attend Title I schools that are in their second 

year or more of improvement, including those in schools in corrective action and restructuring 

status, are eligible to receive supplemental services. If funds are not sufficient to provide 

supplemental educational services to each eligible student, the district must give priority to the 

lowest-achieving eligible students. 

Evaluation Questions 

 This study focuses on the successes and challenges states, districts, schools, and service 

providers experienced in implementing the supplemental educational services provisions of 

NCLB in the two years following the enactment of the law. Key evaluation questions include 

the following: 

• How are states and school districts working together to implement supplemental 

services? 

• How are states selecting providers? 

• How are school districts reaching out to and involving parents regarding 

supplemental services? 

• What services are provided? 

• What types of providers are offering and providing services? 

• What are the challenges and successes regarding implementation? 

This first year report describes and analyzes important areas of activity related to 

implementation of the supplemental educational services provisions of NCLB. Specifically, it 
3

describes the early implementation experiences of: (1) states, (2) school districts and schools, 

and (3) supplemental service providers. In addition, it describes the experiences of parents who, 

on behalf of their children, are attempting to access available educational services. The final 

section of this report presents some lessons drawn from the experiences of the case study sites 

that could aid other states, districts, schools, and providers as they work to implement the 

supplemental educational services provisions of NCLB. 
4
5

States’ Efforts to Implement Supplemental 

Educational Services 

 Overall, administrators representing the six states included in the study sample, usually 

Title I administrators, reported that they are striving to respond to the new legislative 

requirement to implement supplemental educational services. Nonetheless, the selection of 

service providers has been slow and uneven. In addition, state administrators have not yet 

developed systems for monitoring provider performance. 

Selecting Supplemental Service Providers 

 Due to hiring freezes and spending caps, most of the six states included in the study 

sample reported having limited staff capacity to do a thorough job of attracting and vetting 

providers. Indeed, state efforts to encourage provider applications, apply stringent criteria to 

provider selection, and ensure variety in the location and type of provider were meager. 

 Most states included in the sample did not put forth much effort to encourage provider 

applications. As one state administrator explained, “We have not had the luxury to do 

advertising. Providers are finding us.” Similarly, an administrator in another state said they 

made no special effort to encourage potential providers because they had already received 

numerous inquiries. Although the number of provider applications was as high as 288 in one of 

the six case study states, half of the states had fewer than 50 applicants, with one state receiving 

only 20 applications from potential providers. 

 Of the six states, five posted the provider application on their Web site or placed an 

advertisement in the newspaper. Only one state went beyond these measures to encourage 

provider applications. This southern state sent letters to school districts encouraging them to 

apply or to seek out providers who should be encouraged to apply to the state. Administrators in 

this state also directly contacted a number of providers to encourage them to apply. Of the six 

states in the study sample, this southern state received the highest number of applications from 

potential providers. 

Each of the six states in the case study sample generally followed the legislative 

requirements or the Department of Education’s draft non-regulatory guidance with respect to 

establishing selection criteria for supplemental service providers. All six states released 

requests for proposals between May and September 2002. All six states required providers to 

meet the following criteria—included in the legislation or the draft non-regulatory guidance—for 

selection: 

• Provide evidence of program effectiveness. 

• Show intent to monitor student progress. 

• Show intent to ensure connections between the provider program and the program in 

the school. 

• Demonstrate intent to communicate with parents. 

• Provide evidence of financial and organizational capacity. 
6

• Provide evidence of compliance with local, state and federal health and safety 

standards. 

• Provide evidence of compliance with civil rights laws. 

• Provide evidence that all instruction and content are secular, neutral, and nonideological. 

However, although the legislation requires that providers ensure that curriculum and instruction 

are aligned with state standards, only four states specifically required applicants to produce 

evidence of the connection between their program and state academic standards. One state 

required providers to ensure that their program was aligned with the school curriculum but made 

no mention of state standards. Finally, only three states required that providers communicate 

with parents in their native language. 

 Some states took the application process a step further than required by the legislation, 

including additional selection criteria intended to ensure that providers responded to local needs. 

For example, three states required provider applicants to discuss their capacity to serve eligible 

students (e.g., special education, English language learners, etc.). Other states added criteria 

intended to ensure program quality. All six states, for example, required providers to provide 

evidence of qualified staff. In addition, two states required providers to produce evidence of 

linkages between research and their program design. Finally, in an effort to address liability and 

safety issues, four states required that provider applicants produce evidence that their employees 

have undergone background checks. 

 Most states in the case study sample rejected applicants who could not produce evidence 

of effectiveness in raising student achievement. The type of evidence of effectiveness states 

would accept was somewhat varied, however. One state required independent test data, school 

grades, and referral letters indicating family satisfaction with provider services. Another state 

simply asked for “evidence of recent successful experience in improving student academic 

achievement.” Some states rejected applicants that could not produce evidence of teacher 

quality. 

 States included in the case study sample varied in the extent to which they applied their 

criteria in selecting providers. Some states used reviewers and scoring rubrics to evaluate 

provider applications based on the state’s selection criteria. Other states, however, dispensed 

with rubrics and selected providers based on their subjective notion of whether applications 

“appeared to be sound” or whether the state had experience working with a provider in the past. 

Most states pledged to shore up their rather loosely applied selection criteria for the 2003-04 

application process. 

 Ultimately, the application process was not particularly selective in two states, where 86 

percent of their provider applicants were accepted. Two more states accepted 65 percent of their 

applicants and the remaining two states accepted 58 and 56 percent of their applicants. The 

majority of providers in each of the six states are private, for-profit and nonprofit organizations 

(Table 3). In addition, public schools and school districts are well-represented among lists of 

state-approved service providers. However, although all six states included in the sample have 
7

approved online providers, they represent a small number of state-approved supplemental service 

providers. Finally, only four of the six states have faith-based providers. 

Table 3 

Characteristics of Supplemental Educational 

Service Providers, by State, as of February 2003 

Number of Providers, by Provider Type 

State 

LEAs12 and 

Public Schools 

Colleges 

and 

Universities Faith-Based Online 

Other 

Private TOTAL 

State A 4 0 1 3 6 14 

State B 124 1 3 1 45 174 

State C 45 11 7 10 51 124 

State D 16 0 4 13 41 74 

State E 11 1 0 2 8 22 

State F 2 1 0 2 8 13 

Total 201 14 11 32 231 492 

The range of state-approved supplemental service providers with respect to both 

location and service does not adequately match local need. Upon releasing the provider lists to 

districts in August or September 2002, state administrators quickly learned that providers were 

often unable to serve the needs of rural areas and were unable to serve the needs of special 

education students and students with limited English proficiency.13 In addition, online providers 

were not available to some rural communities where Internet access or computer equipment was 

unavailable. Still other providers opted to work only in certain geographic areas rather than 

serving the district as a whole. In addition, because few states required providers to specify in 

their applications the number of contact hours and associated costs that they were offering, 

districts would attempt to access provider services only to discover that they were too expensive 

for the per-pupil dollar amount the district could afford. Finally, one state administrator 

explained that districts expressed concern about providers who may not be equipped to 

adequately instruct “hard-to-teach” children, especially if they use tutors who are not certified 

teachers, as is permissible under the law. 

Monitoring Providers 

Most states included in the study sample have begun thinking about ways to monitor 

provider performance, but none has yet collected any data. For next year, two of the six states 

have hired or are planning to hire external organizations to develop an instrument for the state 

and relevant districts to use to monitor provider performance. One state will use the instrument 

 

12 Local Education Agencies. 

13 In cases where there are no approved providers available to provide supplemental services to disabled or limited 

English proficient students, the district needs to provide supplemental services, either directly or through a contract. 
8

to determine whether providers will be invited to continue providing services. The majority of 

the six states included in the sample, however, have not yet developed criteria for removing 

providers from approved lists. Nevertheless, most states agree that providers who fail to show 

gains in student achievement for two consecutive years will be removed from state lists. 

 Finally, two states, stressing limited staff capacity, report that they will not conduct any 

active monitoring, either formal or informal, of provider performance despite the fact that the 

legislation requires all states to monitor provider performance. 
9

The Districts’ Role in Implementing Supplemental Services 

 District responsibilities include identifying eligible students, determining which providers 

on the state-approved provider list are available to the district, informing parents of the available 

services, collecting parent applications or signatures, coordinating provider activities with 

schools, identifying funding sources, estimating per-pupil expenditures, contracting with 

providers to provide services to students who request them, and managing provider activity. 

Although districts are not required to evaluate their providers, most districts believe that they 

must collect data in order to ensure that the providers are honoring the terms of their contractual 

agreement. 

 As Table 4 shows, districts vary tremendously in the number of schools they have to 

work with, the number of providers they have available to students, the number of students 

eligible to receive services, and the number of students receiving services. Accordingly, districts 

have approached implementation of supplemental services in a variety of ways. 

District Efforts to Reach Parents 

Most districts included in the study sample followed the legislative requirement to 

inform parents of the availability of supplemental educational services. At a minimum, most 

districts mailed letters to parents, usually translated into English and one other language, 

informing them of the supplemental services provisions and including, at a minimum, the names 

of the providers available to the district. Several districts took the process one step further and 

posted advertisements in local newspapers informing the community about the availability of 

supplemental services. One district even had the letter printed on the front page of the local 

newspaper and called it “free tutoring” instead of supplemental services. It was not unusual for 

districts to send letters to parents multiple times in an effort to generate interest in supplemental 

services. Two districts in the study sample, however, did not send letters to parents notifying 

them of supplemental services because the state-approved providers could not offer services that 

were accessible to these rural sites. 

Some districts went beyond the basic legislative requirements and took a very active 

approach to spearheading parent interest in supplemental services. For example, fearing that a 

full-scale recruitment process would yield more students than it could serve, one southern school 

district divided its outreach efforts into three phases, each intended to yield the most 

disadvantaged students within the lowest performing schools (see box on page 11). 

 
Table 4 

Characteristics of the District Case Study Sample 

District 

Name Demographics 

Number of 

Eligible 

Schools 

Date 

Received 

Provider 

List 

Number of 

Providers 

in District 

Date of Parent 

Notification 

Student 

Eligibility 

Criteria for 

Services 

Number of 

Eligible 

Students 

Number of 

Students 

Receiving 

Services 

Pe

of 

S

Brooktown School District 

Large Central City; 70,847 students; 80% minority; 27% LEP 

3 September 2002 13 September 2002 Prioritized based on poverty and achievement 900 138 

Cleartown School District 

Rural; 2,091 students; 72% minority; 19% LEP 

3 September 2002 2 None—services not accessible Prioritized based on poverty and achievement 140 0 

Las Cierras School District 

Rural; 2,491 students; 99% minority; 75% LEP 

4 October 2002 2 None—services not accessible None—all eligible 2,609 0 

Plainfield School District 

Large Central City; 68,277 students; 56% minority; 7% LEP 

3 August 2002 4 August 2002 

Prioritized based on poverty, gradelevel, and achievement 

973 397 

Redding School District 

Mid-size Central City; 35,344 students; 71% minority; 1% LEP 

12 August 2002 3 August 2002 None—all eligible 5,292 326 

Riverside School District 

Mid-size Central City; 16,424 students; 63% minority; 12% LEP 

14 September 2002 3 October 2002 Prioritized based on poverty and achievement 7,000 0 

Smithville School District 

Large Central City; 73,587 students; 39% minority; 7% LEP 

14 October 2002 14 October 2002 None—all eligible 19,600 2 

Sunnydale School District 

Large Central City; 117,207 students; 91% minority; 2% LEP 

59 August 2002 6 November 2002 Phased in based on school and student performance 4,500– 6,000 1,900 3

Trainville School District 

Large Central City; 52,850 students; 77% minority; 28% LEP 

5 July 2002 12 August 2002 

Prioritized based on poverty and achievement but served all who requested services 

2,600 510 
11

 

 Another district included in the study sample exerted similar levels of effort to encourage 

parents to enroll their children in supplemental services. This district introduced several 

strategies to try to reach parents, including the following: 

• Hosting a “vendor fair,” held for one whole day at each of the three identified schools 

to give parents an opportunity to learn about the services offered. Both parents and 

staff were encouraged to interact with and learn more about each provider. 

• Using Title I district parent involvement funds to pay a stipend to teachers of students 

in the highest priority grades who were willing to call parents of low-achieving 

students, on their personal time, to encourage them to apply for tutoring services. 

• Encouraging principals and other school staff to conduct home visits to invite parents 

of students in the greatest need to take advantage of the supplemental services 

opportunity. 

 According to the district administrator, if they had not really “pushed” in terms of 

reaching out to the parents of the most academically needy and economically deprived students, 

they would not have served the lowest achieving students. “We would have had [average] or 

above-average kids enrolled in supplemental services primarily. We had to put these students on 

hold while we tried to fill slots with those with the highest need,” he said. 

A Southern School District’s Efforts to Reach the Parents of Students 

Most in Need of Supplemental Services 

The district divided its outreach efforts into three phases. Phase I outreach was targeted at the 

parents of eligible students in schools on probation (i.e., schools that did not make adequate yearly 

progress in meeting performance goals for four years) and scoring in the lowest quartile on state 

assessments. It sent 10,000 Phase I parents a short letter notifying them that information on 

supplemental services would be mailed to them soon and that they should read it carefully. A short 

while later, the Title I office sent those parents a professionally printed brochure with information on 

the program and inserts with information on each of the six providers. Elementary school students 

were given the brochures to take home to their parents, but brochures were mailed to secondary 

school parents. Parents had two weeks to return the registration card enclosed with the brochure, 

and a reminder was sent out after one week. According to the Title I director, the school district had 

expected to fill its slots with Phase I students. However, only 1,100 parents requested services for 

their children, leading to subsequent rounds of outreach to additional parents about supplemental 

services. The district also printed an advertisement in the major local newspaper and in one 

community paper, and it ran public service announcements on several radio stations. The Title I 

office also prepared a briefing packet entitled “School Communicator’s Guide to Supplemental 

Educational Services” for all school-based Title I facilitators (every Title I school has a full-time 

facilitator). The facilitators did not have an active role in recruiting parents, but the Title I office 

wanted them to be able to answer questions if parents approached them. All told, the program 

enrolled about 1,900 students. 
12

 Despite their carefully planned, deliberate efforts to encourage participation in 

supplemental services, neither district succeeded in filling all the slots it expected to fund for 

supplemental services. 

Once initial letters were sent to parents informing them of the availability of 

supplemental services, districts’ parent outreach activity varied tremendously. Some districts 

relied on the schools to follow-up with parents and encourage participation. For example, one 

district sent applications for supplemental services to parents with instructions for them to take 

the applications to school to request services and to see what is available. The district included 

the state list of providers with the application. Other districts followed-up with parents by 

providing them with additional written information. For example, after sending letters (in 

English, Spanish, and Hmong) to parents to say that their child’s school was eligible and some 

students would be identified to receive supplemental services, one district sent additional letters 

to individual parents or guardians inviting them to a meeting to get an overview of the program 

and to listen to providers describe their services. These meetings were held at all five identified 

schools. Parents also received a table documenting the characteristics of each provider’s services 

(i.e., where services would be held, personnel, frequency, structure, subject, accommodation of 

second language learners, frequency of progress reports, attendance policy, grade level served). 

 By contrast, another district waited until February before reconnecting with families who 

had expressed interest in supplemental services after receiving the initial introductory letter in 

October. Some parents who had received a call from the district said they were told that they 

would soon receive another packet of forms to complete so their children could receive 

supplemental educational services. None had yet received the forms at the time of the visit to the 

district. 

Problems in translation. One district reported that efforts to reach parents were hindered 

by the lack of available resources for translation services. This was particularly problematic 

because so much information (e.g., written reminders, announcements, etc.) was sent home to 

parents and there was already confusion, even among native English language speakers, about 

the specifics of the supplemental services. The need for ongoing communication was great but 

could not be adequately provided because district resources with respect to translation services 

were limited. 

 Another district explained that language and cultural problems make communication 

difficult. “The students become the translators for their parents, but they don’t really understand 

what [supplemental services] are about,” explained one district administrator. “But if you can 

get the parents to come to a meeting and understand, they will make sure their kids show up.” 

 Contacting and communicating clearly with parents about the availability of 

supplemental services sometimes presented significant challenges to school districts. In some 

districts, many parent letters came back marked “return to sender; address unknown.” This 

tended to happen in districts where there were very high mobility rates among families. As one 

principal explained: 
13

...[M]y clientele is very poverty-oriented and transient. Last year we had 54 percent 

transience within the district. I have up to 35 homeless kids at one time. We feed from 

three homeless shelters. 

A typical response to this problem was for districts, working with the schools, to send letters 

home with the students. In using this approach, however, districts run the risk that the letters will 

be distributed inconsistently. For example, in one case study district, some of the schools sent 

letters to the homes of all children in the school, but in others, letters were given to teachers who 

then distributed them to those students whom they believed were most in need of help despite the 

fact that teachers do not necessarily know which students met the poverty criteria. In one school, 

for example, teachers were given six or seven letters and told to identify the children who should 

receive them. One teacher indicated that she selected her lowest achieving students and those 

who spoke Spanish, but little English, because, “They need the most help,” she said. Another 

teacher, however, did not seem to understand the selection criteria and selected students who 

were not the lowest achieving in her class but whom she believed only needed a little extra help 

to get up to grade level. 

 Another district provided information about supplemental services on the last page of the 

October 2002 edition of its monthly newsletter. The services were described as “before- or afterschool tutoring, from private individuals or organizations identified by the [state].” In addition, 

the newsletter explained that the availability of supplemental services was limited and that 

students “may be eligible” to receive them. The newsletter did not include a list of approved 

providers. Rather, parents were referred to the state Web site or to the school office for 

information about service providers. Parents were told to obtain application forms from their 

school office and that the deadline for applying for services was November 2002. Focus group 

data from two schools suggest that few teachers or parents understood the newsletter 

information. As one parent explained, “You had to read between the lines to know what was 

being offered.” In addition, several parents noted that few parents read all the way through 

district newsletters—if they read them at all. 

 In another district, providers noted that the district letter to parents was very difficult to 

understand (a sentiment echoed by teachers and principals). One provider said that when the 

letter went out, she received 10 phone calls from parents who wanted to sign their children up for 

services right then; parents did not understand what to do with the letter or when services would 

be provided. She called the district, which acknowledged that parents were indeed confused by 

the letter. As the superintendent explained: 

People were confused when the letter went out to parents; we didn’t have enough time 

to do parent information meetings. We will learn from that piece and will be able to 

start the information sharing earlier in the year.

 In yet another district, a universal complaint among school staff and providers was that 

the strategy used to inform parents was not suited to the population the program was trying to 

reach. The following comments from a provider and a principal, respectively, illustrate the 

problems with district efforts to notify parents: 
14

[The district] did not properly notify parents. Using direct mail and notes [sent] home 

to parents is a poor way to communicate with [low-income] parents. Low-income 

parents respond to what they hear on television and radio. They should have invited 

parents using the media and telephone calls. If I could promote my program directly to 

students, I would have had a much better response. 

The brochures were too much.... My concern about it was whether parents understood 

the information. Some said no transportation will be provided. I’m not sure whether 

parents were sure about the implications [of that]. It was too much information. 

Parents’ educational level is not too good. This was about 20 minutes [worth] of 

reading. Give parents what they need to know, what choices they have, big letters 

about [lack of] transportation, and the deadline. They could have saved a million 

dollars at the printer. 

In one school district, central office administrators and school staff alike maintain that 

parents are ill-equipped to negotiate the system of supplemental services they are offered. One 

district administrator explained that parents are unable to choose a provider on their own and 

need the district to assist them. The district Title I team expressed concern that the choice 

provisions of the law assume middle class expectations for parents who are not middle class. 

One of them said, 

The law was constructed from a middle class viewpoint, believing that parents would 

look at a form and pick... We have middle class expectations for parents who don’t 

have the background to respond and a lot of what we do perpetuates this. 

Central office administrators in this school district also reported that communicating with parents 

by mail and imposing a deadline for a response is not effective with their particular parent 

population. In their district, it would be necessary to “approach parents in a way that appreciates 

the pressures they are under.” Administrators in this district believed that deadlines do not mean 

a great deal to a parent “worried about putting food on the table.” The Title I director summed 

up the challenges of communicating with and empowering parents: 

The way it is set up is a nightmare for the district. We bring the presenters and allow 

them to share the information with the parents but the information is way over the 

parents’ heads. One sounded like a car sales pitch and used terminology parents don’t 

understand. He had no experience in talking to parents. He was the only provider who 

showed up so parents selected him. It would be good if we could screen and narrow 

options. 

The Title I team in this district thought that nine providers was too large a pool for parents to 

choose among. That is, they believed that parents lacked the capacity to discriminate between 

the qualifications and background of multiple providers. 
15

Districts fear that although reaching parents was difficult this year, the challenges will 

multiply next year as the number of identified schools, and approved providers, increases. 

Although district leaders recognize that this year’s start-up activities have taught them a great 

deal about implementation of the supplemental services provisions, they worry about the 

continuing challenge of giving parents informed choices. Administrators have no idea what will 

happen next year when the number of schools identified for improvement will likely grow. Two 

Title I administrators shared their worries: 

There will be approximately 30 schools and 15,000 students eligible for supplemental 

services next year [compared to the 3 schools and 1,200 students currently eligible]. 

That will mean a tremendous administrative burden for us. 

Just organizing the whole thing [is difficult]. I had the providers sit down with the 

principals so they could have input and talk about what each needed from the other. 

Now that services have started, [communication and coordination among providers, 

principals, and parents] is better. When we add schools, though, we’ll have to do startup again. We will probably have to sign new agreements each year.

Targeting Services 

 Six of the nine districts in the case study sample targeted services for students based on 

poverty level and achievement. According to ED’s draft non-regulatory guidance, all students 

from low-income families who attend Title I schools identified for the second year of school 

improvement, corrective action or restructuring are eligible to receive supplemental services. 

However, if available district funds are insufficient to provide supplemental educational services 

to eligible students whose parents request services, the school district must give priority to the 

lowest-achieving students. 

 Before determining whether services needed to be targeted or prioritized, several districts 

considered the number of students attending identified schools and the amount of Title I dollars 

available to fund the supplemental services provisions. For example, two districts anticipated a 

level of interest that would far exceed the dollars available to serve. Accordingly, they targeted 

the neediest students first, then loosened up selection restrictions as available slots went unfilled. 

Other districts determined the need to prioritize based on the initial response they received from 

the letters sent to parents. If the response to the letters was greater than the number of students 

districts estimated they were able to serve, then services were provided to students with the 

lowest achievement. In at least three districts, however, due to low levels of interest, all eligible 

students (regardless of achievement) were allowed to receive services. 

 Examples of ways in which districts prioritized the allocation of supplemental services 

include the following: 

• Parents of students performing two levels below their age-appropriate grade on the 

state assessment were contacted and encouraged to enroll in supplemental services. 
16

• Lowest achieving students in the highest need grade received priority for 

supplemental services. Lowest achieving students in two of the highest need subjects 

received second priority. Lowest achieving students in one of the highest need 

subjects received third priority. Lesser priority levels were assigned according to the 

following criteria: lowest achieving students in reading (any grade); lowest achieving 

students in math (any grade); lowest achieving students in language (any grade); 

lowest achieving students in vocabulary (any grade) and lowest achieving students in 

math applications (any grade). 

• Students in schools on probation and scoring in the lowest quartile on state 

assessments received highest priority, followed by students in schools on notice and 

scoring in the lowest quartile on state assessments. Third priority was given to all 

students attending probation schools, regardless of achievement. 

 One district, however, prioritized services for poor, low-achieving students without 

knowing how much money it had available for supplemental services or how many students that 

money would serve. Given that less than 350 parents expressed interest in supplemental 

services, it seems unlikely that this district could not meet the needs of every eligible student. 

And yet, ultimately, only 166 students are currently approved by the district to receive provider 

services. The same was true in another district, where the students in the lowest quartile of 

performance were targeted to receive services. Both districts were unfamiliar with the part of the 

legislation that specifies that performance need only be brought into the equation of defining 

eligibility for supplemental services if the district is unable to serve all students from low-income 

families who apply; administrators in these two districts were under the impression that they 

must identify students who are both poor and low-performing. 

District administrators raised several issues that suggest that the legislation and 

subsequent guidance have been sources of both confusion and consternation with respect to 

targeting services. For example, one district was confused about whether it could serve students 

who were not both high poverty and low achieving, misunderstanding that all students from lowincome families are eligible. The district representative also believed that because the money 

and resources had already been committed to supplemental services, it was only fair that any 

student within the school who desired services receive them. “[A student] should not be turned 

away if the space and capacity to serve him or her exists,” he said. Although districts are not 

precluded by the law from serving students other than those from low-income families, districts 

cannot count the cost of serving them as part of the 20 percent allocation they must set aside for 

supplemental services. 

 In a slight twist to the targeting issue, one district was unable to provide services to at 

least 10 of the lowest achieving students in the district because these students were not eligible. 

That is, these students did not qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches, as is required for 

eligibility. The district representative noted that this seemed somewhat unfair, especially given 

the fact that, for various reasons, some parents whose children would normally be eligible for 

free lunches do not take advantage of the program out of pride and instead, struggle to provide 

the lunches themselves. She described a heated exchange with a parent who asked 

incredulously: “You mean I have to apply for free lunch in order to get tutoring for my child?” 
17

she demanded. The district representative agrees with this parent’s position, arguing that the 

lowest-achieving children in a schoolwide program should have access to services regardless of 

their economic condition as measured by application for free or reduced-price lunches (under the 

National School Lunch Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture). 

The Role of Identified Schools 

 Neither the legislation nor ED’s draft non-regulatory guidance sets any expectation that 

schools would play a role in implementing the supplemental services provisions of NCLB. 

Indeed, the legislation appears to bypass schools entirely by requiring districts to communicate 

directly with parents and providers regarding the supplemental services provisions. Some 

districts have tried to leave out of the implementation process identified schools whose students 

are eligible to receive supplemental services. However, the practical realities of offering 

supplemental services—before- and after-school services offered to a population of students that 

is typically hard-to-reach—makes implementation without involving schools difficult to 

accomplish. 

Administrators in three of the nine districts tried to avoid burdening the schools with 

the implementation and coordination of supplemental services. In one district, the Title I office 

handled the entire recruitment process, and only asked schools to collect the registration cards 

and send them to the Title I office. Title I facilitators at the schools were available to answer 

questions, but the two facilitators interviewed, and their principals, said they fielded few 

questions from parents. The principal at one school said, “The Title I office did the bulk of the 

work [of recruiting parents and processing applications]. Our part was made smooth because of 

all the work the Title I office did for us.” 

 In another district, the efforts of district staff to avoid burdening the schools were evident 

given that many of the teachers interviewed had little or no knowledge of the supplemental 

services provisions. As teachers in one district explained: 

I didn’t know what supplemental services was. I assumed it was me—in the 

classroom—that we have to work harder.... 

We are all in the dark. Maybe the information was not filtered down correctly. We 

hear about so much, it sounds similar to many other services so we didn’t know the 

difference. 

 Despite these districts’ best efforts, however, it seems implementation of supplemental 

services makes burdening the schools nearly unavoidable. Indeed, two districts were ultimately 

forced to ask schools to assist them. One district, lacking a data system for collecting and storing 

districtwide student demographic and achievement data, needed schools to provide achievement 

data on the students whose parents expressed interest in supplemental services. In that same 

district, schools were burdened with many phone calls—in one case, hundreds—from anxious 
18

parents who did not understand the district letter and feared their child’s school was closing. 

Other parents simply called to inquire about the types of services that were going to be offered. 

We had about 200 calls about the letter. Parents didn’t understand it. They thought 

[the district] was closing [the school]. Getting parents to understand what 

[supplemental services] is was very difficult. They don’t have a high education level.... 

When we started [sending out the letters] there was a lot of confusion. No one knew 

what the guidelines were. So [the district] sent the letter to everyone, low income or 

not. Then [the district] asked us to attach information—standardized testing data, how 

students were achieving in the classroom, etc.—to the parent applications the district 

received. It was a lot of work. 

 In another district, the involvement of school staff changed once services began. 

According to one principal, “It’s working, but we made it work.” The principal reported having 

to change the work schedules of five employees so the school would have maintenance and 

security staff on-site until the program ends at 5:30. “My custodial staff doesn’t [normally] stay 

that late.... They are not happy,” she said tersely. Moreover, the provider asked that the 

principal remain on-site until 5 p.m. every night, but she refused. 

 Most districts visited (six of nine) involve the schools identified for improvement in 

coordinating the provision of supplemental services to students. Several districts rely on the 

schools to recruit students and coordinate the delivery of supplemental services simply because 

they lack the staff capacity to administer this process centrally. Several schools reported playing 

a major role in notifying parents about the services available to their children. One school 

awarded the gift of a turkey to the teacher who collected the most parent permission slips. At 

another school in another district, the principal, assistant principal, counselor, and school 

secretary visited students’ homes and held a meeting at a housing project to help parents 

complete application forms. 

 In several districts, although schools were expected to participate in the implementation 

process, teachers and principals were not entirely clear about their responsibilities. For example, 

according to one principal interviewed: “We didn’t understand at first that we had to give parents 

a choice of providers, that came out after the fact.” As a result, parents at this school learned 

about other available supplemental service providers only after being told that only one provider 

was available to serve their children. 

 In spite of some misgivings among some school staff, many principals and teachers are 

willing to help support implementation of supplemental services. Although NCLB does not 

specify a role for schools in implementing supplemental services, teachers in virtually every 

district in the study sample expressed interest in knowing how they can help promote the 

program to parents. Indeed, most school staff said they recognize that schools play a significant 

role with respect to implementation of the supplemental services provisions of NCLB. As many 

explained, classroom teachers are typically those who are best known to parents and who 

typically find it easiest to contact parents and inform them of available services. Teachers and 

principals are also needed to help parents distinguish among the myriad after-school programs 
19

offered in schools. Several teachers also expressed a willingness to communicate with providers 

about their students’ progress. Teachers said the following: 

It would be nice to have communication with providers. I want to know what they’re 

doing, how children are performing, what they see as the children’s strengths and 

needs. 

I would like progress reported by e-mail weekly or biweekly. The chances of our 

meeting and talking with them are slim—no time, but some regular correspondence by 

e-mail—a way to comment back and forth. Something that’s fast. 

 Relying on principals and teachers to coordinate supplemental services may not always 

result in successful implementation. Some school staff in at least four districts resented the 

program. One district administrator observed that the supplemental services program had a 

“demoralizing” effect. He said, “[It implies] we have to hire someone else to help your kids 

succeed.” This could account for the “wait and see” attitude that many teachers have taken 

toward the program and the attitude of neutrality or even resentment that was evident during 

some of the teacher interviews: 

[I do not] really think there is a need for this program because of the preexisting 

programs. I take it as an affront that students have to go to outside vendors. This is 

what the school should be providing. [The providers] are competition [for us]. 

We have so many services. We have Title I summer school and reading for summer 

school. We provide breakfast and lunch. I haven't seen the need [for supplemental 

services]. 

 In all four districts, it was believed that the supplemental services program had created 

some jealousies among teachers. Indeed, because most schools had their own after-school 

programs in place, some believed the current faculty could do the tutoring job with the extra 

resources—or that the money would be better spent by hiring another teacher (even a part-time 

teacher). The following teacher’s sentiment was echoed by many: 

Every child could benefit from any help given regardless of the level. The reality is that 

[teachers] would love to have any assistance; we are so passionate about our kids. It 

just depends on how much additional services cost and whether that would be a good 

way to divert funds. I think that after school, the kids are tired. The kids are shutting 

down. I think it would be better to [use the money to] put an aide in the classroom. 

Give me one aide all day.

 This attitude among teachers sometimes created less than cordial relationships between 

providers and school staff. In one district, the provider noted that some principals were not very 

welcoming. For example, the principal at one school never returned her telephone calls or 

acknowledged her numerous requests to get on the agenda for staff meetings. This made it 
20

difficult for her to reach out to teachers and other school staff to inform them about the program. 

“We were put in his school. It was not [the principal’s] choice and he did not necessarily want 

supplemental services in his school,” she explained. 

 School participation in the implementation of supplemental services raises student 

participation. For example, when schools allow providers to offer services at the school 

building, parents are more likely to apply for those providers’ services. In one district, parents 

picked the provider that offered services at the school site over the one that did not. In another 

district, all agreed that the convenience of having tutoring on location in the schools is extremely 

important to parents and students and everyone acknowledged that in the absence of schoolbased after-school tutoring, attendance would be significantly lower. 

District Management of Supplemental Service Providers 

 District efforts to put in place procedures for managing supplemental service providers 

are quite diverse. Establishing contracts with providers has been particularly challenging for 

districts and some providers. Some districts, however, have no providers yet and have not 

anticipated a process for managing providers in the future. 

 At least one district has put in place a system intended to manage the provider services 

available to schools. Parents are allowed to choose any provider offering services in their 

district. Some districts arranged for providers to offer services on school campuses. In one 

district where all but one of the providers sought to offer services at the school site, the district 

attempted to install a system that would prevent multiple providers from vying for space in the 

schools. The Title I office divided the schools into three geographic zones and three clusters 

within each zone. Each cluster had four to six schools, each with a different provider assigned to 

the school. The brochure sent to parents indicated which provider was assigned to their child's 

school. They could select any provider serving a school in their cluster, but if they picked a 

provider at a school their child did not attend, the parents had to provide transportation to that 

school. This system worked well enough but had its detractors. One provider complained that 

he had a very difficult time getting his questions answered. “It was almost like you had to feel 

your way.... It took weeks just to find out who the contact in the district was.... It was like the 

blind leading the blind. Everyone said, ‘We can’t give you a direct answer.’” He said that every 

time he asked a question, the district had to check with the state, which had to check with the 

Department of Education before he could get an answer. Another provider noted having 

problems getting names of participating students from the schools. “None of the lists matched. 

Some [schools] didn’t make copies [of the registration forms they collected]. They didn’t know. 

Some didn’t send them at all.” 

Several districts, however, have had limited activity managing—even communicating 

with—providers, a situation some providers find frustrates their efforts to provide services. 

District management and oversight of supplemental service providers has been particularly easy 

in the cases where districts are only working with one provider. Among districts with multiple 

providers, only one district’s Title I director said he is in frequent telephone contact with the 

providers to answer questions, to pass on complaints from parents, or to give the provider 
21

feedback. In other districts, providers indicated that they had had little interaction with the 

district about supplemental services and that this was frustrating. One provider described her 

experience with the district as follows: 

The district said they would call. November went by. At the beginning of December I 

called them, they said, ‘Don’t worry, they said, we’re just setting up the program.’ I 

said I needed more particulars so we can get ready, [information such as] the cost per 

child, if we would be able to do it within our system as far as providing services. They 

said they would call. In January, I called back, they said: ‘Not to worry, we’ll have a 

meeting.’ Then they called the day before the meeting and said, ‘Oh, we’re having a 

meeting, it’s at 2:00.’ I couldn’t go. They said they were going over some very 

important things. I asked if it would be possible for them to collect the information and 

send it to me or call me. They said they would try to but they didn’t know what to 

expect. I have not heard from them since.

Indeed, staff in this particular district did not appear particularly knowledgeable about the service 

providers. The district supplemental services coordinator said the following: 

I did not get descriptors of the services [the providers] offered. I don’t know who was 

supposed to do that [e.g., providers themselves, the district, or the state]. We gave the 

names of all the providers [in the letter] and then it was the parents’ responsibility to 

make contact with the providers. I don’t know what emphasis [the providers] place on 

various subjects or tutoring services. Other providers may be e-learning providers, but 

I don’t know much about them. I have no information on that. Individual providers 

will have to explain their services to the parents. It’s a problem for parents who don’t 

speak English. 

 Entering into contracts with service providers is new territory for most districts and is 

proving to be extremely time-consuming. According to the legislative requirements, districts are 

to enter into separate contractual agreements with providers for each student a provider serves 

(i.e., to ensure that the specific needs and achievement goals of individual students are identified 

and addressed). Several district administrators said they had no real experience writing contracts 

for service providers. Several administrators said they turned to their states for sample contracts, 

but that did not necessarily solve their problems. One Title I director, for example, explained 

that the state had sent them the sample contract that the Council of Chief State School Officers 

had provided in their supplemental services toolkit, but it was a contract for professional 

development services, not supplemental services. 

 To the extent districts have contracts with service providers, they vary tremendously in 

scope and purpose. Some contracts lay out details regarding issues from parent involvement to 

anticipated student achievement. One district, in an effort to simplify the contracting process and 

expedite the provision of services to students, wrote one contract to cover all the students that the 

provider served—setting certain parameters for the kinds of services providers offered, how 

many contact hours providers would guarantee in tutoring services to each child served, and 

what gains in student performance the provider guaranteed. 
22

One administrator noted that the costs and time associated with writing contracts, even 

when providers have boilerplate contracts available, is already significant. “Each [contract] still 

has to be read, points [have to be] clarified and reworded, and differences across school sites 

have to be accounted for. We write the contract, run it by our lawyers, and send it to the 

provider, who runs the contract by its lawyers. Then, if there are any changes to the contract, we 

go through that process all over again. Imagine going through this for every individual child or 

for each of the 15 providers we expect to have next year.” Other districts noted the same types 

of concerns: 

Getting contracts with providers could be a potentially lengthy and drawn out process 

because [our] school system uses the same attorneys that serve the entire city 

government. Our legal and contractual system is bound up in the city system and is 

therefore very slow moving. 

 Several districts struggled to define the terms of the provider contract. One district 

explained that the biggest challenge in writing the contract, for both the district and the provider, 

is knowing in advance the number of students who will be served. When entering into these 

contracts, providers often want some guarantee that a certain number of students will sign up for 

their services. Although districts are unable to provide these guarantees to service providers, this 

has implications for providers’ staffing requirements. In one district, for example, efforts to 

contract with the sole provider available to the district failed because the district could not 

guarantee a minimum of 95 students, as the provider required. 

 Two other districts were struggling to interpret the legislative requirements regarding 

providers. One district was working under the assumption that the legislation prohibits providers 

from charging districts for sessions students do not attend and that providers may not drop a 

student from their program. The district argued, “[This] will make it very difficult to attract 

quality providers and is somewhat unreasonable given that providers must pay their staff 

regardless of whether a student shows up. The risk of substantial financial loss is great.” 

Similarly, another district administrator said she was struggling with how to handle the 

intertwining issues of student attendance, student achievement, and appropriate payments to 

providers who make themselves available to tutor students but who, at the last minute, may find 

themselves with no one in attendance. She defined the ambiguities in the legislation as follows: 

What happens if a student misses tutoring? Will the provider still be paid? Also, how 

can a provider be held accountable for the achievement level of a child who misses 

tutoring on a consistent basis? At one point should a child who is consistently absent 

be ‘expelled’ from the program to make room for another child who is eligible but who 

has been denied services because of limited resources? 

She said no specific guidance on these important implementation issues has been provided yet. 

She warns that although these are not significant problems now, they could become significant as 

the program grows and more and more providers and students become involved. 
23

 Finally, two provider executives interviewed by telephone raised concerns about the 

provider applications and contractual agreements that the legislation requires. Both believed that 

more efficient application and contracting processes were needed, particularly for providers that 

were working in many districts and states. One executive pointed to the value of having 

templates for application forms and contracts. 

Administrators and school staff in two districts raised concerns about issues of safety 

and liability in allowing outside service providers to use school facilities. In one district, a 

principal talked about her concerns about tutors, who are typically unidentified, walking into her 

school at the end of the day when she has no way of identifying who they are. In addition, until 

she made an issue of it and got them to stop, tutors were going home at the end of tutoring 

sessions leaving students unsupervised in the building to wait for parents to come for them. Two 

provider executives also raised concerns about students’ safety and well-being, explaining that 

providers are rarely willing to take responsibility for the students they work with and that schools 

do not necessarily have a dedicated person to ensure that students leave the school safely and that 

the school building is secure. 

 If districts are attempting to measure provider performance at all this year—and many 

are not—their performance measures are usually “makeshift” or preliminary. That is, 

although the legislation assigns primary responsibility to the state for judging provider 

performance, most districts believe that their contractual agreements require that they monitor 

providers in order to ensure that providers are in compliance. In addition, ED’s draft nonregulatory guidance stated that district responsibilities include providing information the SEA 

needs to monitor the quality and effectiveness of the services offered by providers. One district 

says it plans to call the parents and ask them whether the services their children received were 

“worth it.” As the district administrator explained, “We just want them to tell us whether the 

services were what [their children] needed.” 

 Another district said that it doesn’t have a provider evaluation system in place yet, and is 

struggling with the notion of what a fair system should look like. For example, because provider 

services are limited to 21-28 hours of tutoring over a two or three month period, state test scores 

would not be a good measure of provider impacts. Another issue the district is struggling with is 

whether it should use a common measure across all of the providers. As the district 

administrator explained, “With tutors focusing on different skills, different subjects, different 

students, is this feasible or fair? Who carries primary responsibility for judging the quality of the 

tutors?” 

 The one district that attempted to measure provider performance this year opted to use a 

temporary and controversial standard. That is, the district determined that the amount of time 

before the school year ended was not sufficient to generate measurable Normal Curve Equivalent 

(NCE) gains on the state assessment. Therefore, it is using report card grades as its measure for 

evaluating the tutoring services. Under the terms of the provider contracts, providers’ students 

must demonstrate a one-letter-grade improvement in the tutored subject areas on either their 5th 

or 6th marking period report card. However, students must attend at least 80 percent of the 

tutoring sessions in order to be included in the evaluation. Providers are very unhappy with this 
24

provision. The director of one provider service decried the subjective nature of report card 

grades, “I can show you a teacher where 25 percent of your grade is based on whether you attend 

a basketball game.” Another provider said, “What goes on in the regular classroom has the 

greatest weight. How do you determine whether it is the after-school program that is weak or the 

regular classroom teachers?” Title I staff defended the use of report card grades as the only 

measure available to them given the late start this year. Next year, the district expects to use 

NCE gains as its measure of provider performance. 

 Finally, most districts pledge to have a clear accountability system for provider 

performance in place next year and at least one service provider outlined what she believes are 

reasonable guidelines. This provider who was concerned that the very high student mobility 

rates in the district will make it difficult to fairly assess the program’s effectiveness made clear 

that her company will only make performance guarantees for students who are “full-cycle” (i.e., 

they have completed 45 or more hours of tutoring). 

 Few districts, if any, have systems in place for tracking students who are receiving 

services. Only one district seemingly recognized the need to have a student tracking system and 

is currently working with its research office to create an addendum to the district’s student-level 

management information system. The addendum will include all relevant data about each 

student’s participation in supplemental services, including regular progress reports. 

District Funding for Supplemental Services 

 NCLB establishes a joint funding mechanism for supplemental services and Title I 

choice-related transportation of an amount up to or equal to 20 percent of a district’s Title I, 

Part A, allocation, before any reservations. This means that the amount of funding that a district 

must devote to supplemental educational services depends in part on how much it spends on 

choice-related transportation. However, if the cost of satisfying all requests for supplemental 

services exceeds an amount equal to 5 percent of a district’s Title I, Part A, allocation, the district 

may not spend less than that amount on those services. NCLB also sets the per-child cost for 

supplemental services as the lesser of either the district’s per-child allocation under Part A of 

Title I or the actual cost of the services. 

The average district per-pupil expenditure for supplemental services was about $865. 

However, the range in district per pupil expenditures was from $370 per student in one large 

central city to $1,136 per student in a mid-size central city (Table 4). Eight districts had 

determined their per pupil expenditure for supplemental services; one had not. Indeed, because 

this rural district had no providers in the area, it had not considered what it would spend per 

student when services became available. 

The amount of tutoring time that supplemental service dollars bought varied somewhat 

both within and across the nine districts. As Table 5 shows, provider hourly costs range from 

$5 to $40 dollars for one hour of tutoring services per student. In general, the more expensive 

the provider, the fewer hours of tutoring services the district funding buys. In addition, most 
25

providers offer small group tutoring sessions as opposed to one-to-one or individualized 

instruction. 

 The processes districts have put in place to pay providers are something of a mixed bag. 

One district said it pays each provider based on the number of slots being filled, even if 

individual slots are filled by more than one student. For instance, if a student attends for three 

weeks, drops out, and is replaced two weeks later by someone on the waiting list who finishes 

out the year, that counts as one slot being filled, even though several sessions were missed. 

Thus, payment is not based on attendance at individual sessions. Another district pays providers 

in three installments: one-third when services begin, one-third in the middle of the semester, and 

one-third at the conclusion of the school year. 

Because so few parents applied for supplemental services in 2002-03, no district in this 

study exhausted its budget. Indeed, the proportion of eligible students served ranged from less 

than 1 percent to 42 percent (Table 4). Districts appear to have untapped funding capacity to 

purchase supplemental services for many more students. Indeed, several districts expressed 

frustration about having so much money “tied up” for supplemental services while so few 

students requested such services. 

 Several district administrators expect next year’s funding experiences to be vastly 

different. Many expect that levels of participation in the school choice option will increase 

substantially next year when more schools are identified for improvement. This means that less 

funding will be available for supplemental services. In addition, many administrators expect that 

word-of-mouth communication will have taken hold and that many more parents will apply for 

supplemental services for their children. 

 Several districts expressed concern about the administrative costs associated with 

implementing the supplemental services provisions. Several referred to the costs associated 

with mailing letters to parents. One district estimated that the cost of mailing letters to the 

families of students in just three identified schools was $50,000 because the district had to find 

the parents’ addresses, translate the letter into multiple languages, and send and resend the letters 

to parents who did not receive them on the first or second mailing. A Title I administrator in 

another district explained that the process of preparing and sending out a mailing to almost 

40,000 parents places a significant burden on his staff. 

 At least two districts noted that they needed to hire more staff in order to attend to the 

implementation of the program. One district administrator believes that administration of this 

program requires a full-time coordinator: 

Given the volume of work, this program needs a full-time coordinator to: expedite 

communication among all the supplemental service providers; help ensure that letters 

are written and distributed in a more timely manner; and be the point person to whom 

vendors, parents, and school staff could turn for resolution of most supplemental 

services related issues. 
26

Several districts said they are forced to provide the additional staff out of their district’s 

administrative overhead budgets or to assign existing staff the additional duties. Most district 

administrators emphasized that the amount of staff time required to attend to program 

implementation issues was vastly underestimated. For example, it took a great deal of time and 

effort to make the necessary schedule adjustments, address transportation and safety issues, and 

compile, prioritize, and share academic assessment data for the purpose of identifying and 

ranking students for supplemental services. 
27

Table 5 

Characteristics of Selected Supplemental Service Providers14 

Provider Type of Provider 

Cost of 

Services per 

Contact 

Hour 

Number of 

Contact 

Hours Per 

Student 

Number of 

Students 

Served 

Tutoring 

Format Service Capacity 

Brooktown School District 

Sylvan Education Solutions15 Private for-profit $21 45 138 Small group Not yet determined 

Cleartown School District 

(NOTE) District seeking federal waiver in order to become an approved supplemental service provider 

Las Cierras School District 

Kaplan K-12 Learning 

Services 

Online $20 30 0 Individualized Depends on school 

capacity 

Plainfield School District

EdSolutions Private for-profit $5 228 111 Small group Not yet determined 

Project X Private for-profit $13-$19 52-76 125 Small group and 

individualized 

Not yet determined 

Club THINK Faith-based $5 228 50 Small group 77 

Redding School District 

Bose Learning Center Private for-profit $35 28 230 Small group Depends on provider 

capacity 

Sylvan Learning Center Private for-profit $35 28 50 Small group and 

individualized 

Depends on provider 

capacity 

Winners Learning Program Private for-profit $35 28 46 Small group Depends on provider 

capacity 

Riverside School District 

Boys and Girls Clubs Nonprofit $25-$40 44 0 Small group Depends on provider 

capacity 

Sylvan Learning Center Private for-profit $40 36 0 Small group and 

individualized 

Not yet determined 

Key Learning Systems Private for-profit Unknown Unknown 0 Not yet determined 

Smithville School District 

Brown’s Services Independent 

Consultant 

$30 As many as 

necessary 

2 One-to-one Up to 10 students a day 

Kaplan K-12 Learning 

Services 

Online $20 30 0 Individualized Depends on school 

capacity 

Sunnydale School District 

Project Learn Sunnydale School 

District 

$22 39 537 Small group Not yet determined 

EdSolutions Private for-profit $7 130 431 Small group Not yet determined 

Mr. J’s Tutorial Services Independent 

Consultant 

$25 39 36 Small group Not yet determined 

Trainville School District 

Sylvan Education Solutions Private for-profit $24 39 510 Small group Depends on school 

capacity 

 

14 This table provides available information regarding selected supplemental services providers. Not all providers, 

however, were serving students at the time the data were collected for this study. 

15 Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. has two major businesses that provide supplemental educational services: Sylvan Learning 

Centers and Sylvan Education Solutions. Sylvan Learning Centers provide tutoring services at their own private facilities. 

Students receive individualized instruction or small group instruction of 3:1 students to tutors. Sylvan Education Solutions is a 

sister company to Sylvan Learning Centers and provides tutoring services to students directly in public and private schools, as

well as through community-based organizations. The program serves children in small groups averaging around 6:1 students to 

tutors. 
28
29

Supplemental Service Providers 

 Supplemental services vary considerably in content and pedagogy across the nine 

districts included in the study sample. Supplemental services also vary in student-to-tutor ratios 

and duration and frequency of services. Although some providers offer individualized 

instruction, most providers included in the study sample offer group instruction, in which 

student-to-tutor ratios range from 3:1 to 8:1. The duration and frequency of services tends to 

range from one to one-and-a-half hours twice a week for approximately one semester. Among 

the providers included in the study sample, most offer services that focus on reading instruction; 

however, the instructional approach in reading ranges from detailed diagnosis and scripted 

lessons to more general help with homework. Many providers have experience working with 

school-aged children, but few provide the same array of services for the supplemental services 

program as they do for their regular program. Moreover, few providers have served primarily 

low-income students. Providers must often adapt their services to the dollars per child available 

through district supplemental service funding allocations. Many providers offer tutoring services 

at the school sites. To be economically feasible online providers must target their services to 

students who will seek out facilities with Internet access. 

 Providers in the study sample were focused on developing contracts with districts, hiring 

staff, communicating with district administrators, teachers, and parents, and delivering 

instructional services to students. Nevertheless, providers face a number of challenges as they 

attempt to respond to the demand for their services, none of which is likely to diminish as they 

gain experience managing their programs in collaboration with districts and schools. 

Getting Started 

Providers in the study sample often lack sufficient notice from the district regarding 

the number of students they will be expected to serve. Also, providers said they need enough 

students requesting services to make it a viable business proposition. That is, for many 

providers, the cost of setting up their operations in a district cannot be justified if only a handful 

of students request their services. Indeed, several providers found themselves unable to offer 

services because not enough parents had enrolled. Providers in several districts also found it 

difficult to get final lists of students from schools or districts. The lack of advance notice about 

the number of students providers would be expected to serve often caused providers, once they 

had a signed contract from the district, to scramble to schedule services and hire appropriate 

numbers of staff. As one provider described: 

Our capacity in this program [at this school site] is 30. It’s too late this year to enroll 

more kids here. All the slots are filled. It would be easier in September [to bring in 

new kids]. Our capacity to serve more kids is not good for this year [because we don’t 

have enough staff], but better for next year. Nevertheless, we would need more staff, 

and it would cost more initially, to buy more materials. 

For providers that do preliminary testing of students, the delays in finalizing student 

lists is particularly problematic, as two providers explained: 
30

Every time we came in [to the school], we got a different list of students. We probably 

assessed 60 kids that [we] did not need to. 

The lists of participating students changed daily and hourly. In addition, the time we 

were given to make things happen was just not enough. 

 Some providers in the study sample, however, are simply not equipped to handle the 

demand for services. In several districts, providers experienced more demand for their services 

than they could staff, resulting in far fewer students receiving services than districts had 

anticipated. Some providers found themselves having to restructure their program due to 

insufficient staffing capacity; others had to turn students away. 

Provider Curriculum and Instruction 

The content and structure of provider tutoring services varies both within and across 

districts. According to ED’s draft non-regulatory guidance, supplemental services may consist 

of academic assistance such as “tutoring, remediation and other educational interventions, 

provided that such approaches are consistent with the content and instruction used by the local 

education agency and are aligned with the state’s academic content standards” (ED, 2002; p. 1). 

Among the providers included in the study sample, most offer services that focus on reading 

instruction; however, the instructional approach in reading ranges from detailed diagnosis and 

scripted lessons to more general help with homework. Some provider services consist primarily 

of academic instruction while others offer a variety of activities. For example, one provider 

begins each tutoring session with homework assistance, then spends the next 30 minutes on 

guided reading of social studies, science, or other content-based material. Other providers offer 

students snacks and allow them to choose between reading- or math-related activities. Several 

providers offer incentives, usually called tokens, to students for attending tutoring sessions 

regularly, remaining engaged in their tasks, and completing their work. At various intervals over 

the course of several weeks, students can redeem their tokens at provider “stores” where students 

can buy small toys, candy, pens and pencils, and other small items. Other providers offer 

“creative projects” or various enrichment or artistic activities. Finally, one provider uses Leap 

Pad technology, as the following describes: 

• Leap Pad is a lap-top-sized electronic device into which students place colorful and 

creative worksheets that they complete using a special stylus. Their answers are 

recorded onto a cassette that slides out of the pad and can be plugged into the 

teacher’s computer, which records all responses and tracks progress. This enables the 

teacher to analyze and print reports on each student for parents and teachers. 

Students spend the first few weeks completing skill assessments and learning to use 

the pads. They are then assigned a “Learning Path” based on their results. The 

Learning Path is essentially a sequence of worksheets that address specific academic 

weaknesses. The program is self-paced and requires minimal instruction by the 

teacher. 
31

 The extent to which providers coordinate their curriculum with state or district 

standards is unclear. According to the law, provider services must be aligned with state 

academic content standards. When asked, providers claimed that their curriculum was aligned 

with state and district standards; however, it appeared that providers typically make only minor 

modifications to their well-established program of services and offered little concrete evidence of 

the specific ways in which their curriculum was aligned with standards. Some providers 

explained that their curriculum was somewhat correlated with the regular classroom curriculum 

or pointed out that their curriculum was intended to prepare students for the state assessment. A 

few providers mentioned referencing state or district standards in their work. One provider said 

she uses the standards to help her know what skills students need in each subject to bring them 

up to grade level. Finally, several providers explained that their services consisted of homework 

help. 

 One teacher’s assessment of provider services, however, questions the notion that 

provider services must be aligned with state or district standards. This teacher explained that, 

although the provider was using a curriculum that had little relation to what teachers were doing 

with students in the regular classroom, the services were helping students: 

[The provider’s] strategies remind me of the way I learned how to read. I think [the 

provider’s] strategies are better [than ours] because they focus on getting [the words] 

off of the page first—they don’t leave out meaning, but it focuses on phonetics, which is 

logical to me. There is a phonetic component to our reading curriculum [Balanced 

Literacy], but it’s not as strong and central as it is in the [provider’s curriculum]. Lots 

of kids have no one at home who can read to them in English. 

 Finally, several providers administer their own assessments to students prior to providing 

services. Providers use the assessment data to gauge individual student learning needs and to 

place students in the appropriate learning group or provide students with the appropriate learning 

materials. 

 Providers often must adapt their services to the dollars per child available through 

district supplemental service funding allocations. Typically, this requires increasing the 

student-to-tutor ratio and decreasing the number of sessions they would ordinarily provide. 

Several providers described adjusting the structure of their programs, usually by increasing the 

student-to-tutor ratio, to make the costs of program operations come within range of what the 

district was able to pay. One provider indicated that he incurred significant “ramp-up costs” 

(i.e., about $40,000) associated with hiring additional staff and more office space to operate his 

program in the district. As he explained, “With the per student payment capped and no 

reimbursement for overhead, only tutoring costs, it would be difficult to maintain the one-on-one 

tutoring for everyone.” 

Provider Staff 

 Providers included in the study sample varied significantly with respect to their staffing 

practices. Some providers use only certified teachers, many of whom are or have been public 
32

school teachers. Other providers use graduate students from local colleges and universities. Still 

other providers have far less stringent staff requirements. 

 Several providers hire their tutors directly from the schools their students attend. 

Several principals raised concerns about providers that hire teachers directly from the schools 

identified for improvement. One Title I facilitator commented, “I have a philosophical problem 

with a company that comes in and says we are going to fix you, but you have to give us the 

people to do it.” Some principals also worried about the drain on teachers’ energy. They argued 

that if teachers work all day in their classrooms and then stay an additional two or three hours 

after school for tutoring, they will begin to burn out much faster, making them less effective as 

classroom teachers. In addition, this practice of hiring teachers directly from the schools 

sometimes backfires for providers. In one school, the principal was very surprised to learn that a 

provider hired three of her teachers without asking for her opinion. The principal explained that 

two of the teachers the provider hired were among the weakest on her teaching staff. 

 By contrast, however, some principals preferred having their own teachers in the building 

after hours providing tutoring instead of strangers. One principal said, “If they were not my 

teachers, I would not let them use the classrooms” and, “You need someone who knows these 

kids.... If we didn’t have internal people, this would not have worked.” 

Monitoring Student Progress 

 Among the providers in the study sample that have begun offering services, most have 

not yet fully defined their procedures for monitoring and reporting student progress. Several 

providers plan to schedule regular meetings at varying intervals with parents and teachers as a 

part of their feedback process. One provider plans to meet with and update parents and teachers 

every six weeks regarding student progress whereas another provider intends to give student 

progress reports to school leaders weekly and to parents two times in total. Still another provider 

says it will administer tests and report the results to parents on a quarterly basis. 

Communicating with Parents and Teachers 

 Provider efforts to communicate with teachers and parents are extremely varied and 

typically erratic. The nature of the communication tends to be left to the judgment of individual 

tutors. For example, one tutor said that she carefully cultivates a good relationship with her 

students’ teachers. “The relationship with the teacher depends on how you approach the teacher. 

I call them and talk to them. If we had a whole classroom, we couldn’t [call all of the teachers].” 

A teacher in another school in another district described working with a tutor on her student’s 

behalf. She noted that her student was overwhelmed by having two lists of sight words to learn 

(one from the provider and one from the school). The classroom teacher asked the Sylvan tutor 

for her sight word list and began using that list in her classroom. In addition, communication 

between teachers and tutors in this district has led the provider to add a new writing component 

to their curriculum in order to align better with the district’s literature-based curriculum. 
33

 Providers reported making an effort to communicate with parents, sometimes hosting 

family nights to discuss student progress. However, providers explained, parents do not usually 

attend these types of events. Providers say that parents’ work schedules and family 

responsibilities often limit communication opportunities between providers and parents. 

Providers admit that they are usually most in touch with those parents who actively seek them 

out by stopping by before or after tutoring sessions. Providers say they have little or no contact 

with parents who, for various reasons, do not come personally to pick up their children or who 

do not actively seek the providers out. Providers also mentioned that language is often a barrier 

to effectively communicating with parents. 

Other Issues of Concern 

 Some students may need extra incentives to participate in the supplemental services 

program. At least two districts were meeting some resistance among middle school students 

who felt self-conscious about needing help and who were embarrassed to admit to their peers 

that they are in a tutoring program. One middle school principal described the problem: 

I think there’s an image problem [with supplemental services]...for kids who are slow. 

I’ve got kids who sneak into Sylvan because they don’t want to be seen as dumb. We 

try to portray it as just another club we have; that it’s no different from being in drama 

club...that they just chose that one. We offer the snacks [in Sylvan] that we do in other 

clubs...but kids talk. They’re good at it. They’re much more perceptive than we give 

them credit for. 

While absenteeism is somewhat of a problem in the elementary schools’ tutoring programs, it is 

a significant issue in middle school. In addition, because middle school students have multiple 

teachers, it is often difficult for tutors to identify individuals within the school who are best able 

to help them address absenteeism and other behavioral issues. One skeptical middle school 

teacher had the following to say: 

Long-term, [supplemental services] is not going to help the kids who really need the 

help because those are the kids who won’t go [to receive tutoring services] and parents 

won’t make them go. The kids who need help are the ones who won’t go. There’s only 

so much school we can give kids. 

Finally, competition from sports and other after-school activities is more pronounced in middle 

schools than in elementary schools, further reducing middle school participation levels in 

supplemental services. The following is one teacher’s description of the myriad after-school 

activities available to students in his middle school: 

There are a million after-school programs here. There are also other tutoring 

programs after school—the college down the street offers tutoring services two days a 

week where college students come and tutor kids. There’s also a homework club where 

kids can get tutoring. In addition, after school are all the sports activities. Our school 
34

also has two dozen after-school clubs such as the year book club, the drama club, cheer 

leaders, etc. 

 Students may “burn out” on tutoring if they never get a significant break from their 

academic studies. In several districts, school staff pointed out that students work from 8 a.m. 

until 5 p.m. without much of a break in their academic schedule. As one teacher explained, 

“Kids are in class or at lunch from the moment they get to school to the end of the day 

(approximately 6 or 7 hours).” Some teachers expressed the concern that to plunge these 

students into more academic tutoring after school could be detrimental. “We are only into the 

third week with this program and I have some kids who do not want to go anymore. It’s too long 

a day for most kids,” stated one teacher. Another teacher explained, “Kids need after-school, 

extra-curricular activities. They need to develop their whole person.” 

 Online providers can reach only a subset of students and therefore do not solve access 

problems in rural areas. To be economically feasible, online providers must target their 

services to students who will seek out facilities with Internet access. The result is a focus on 

older and highly motivated students and typically excludes students younger than ten-years-old, 

students who are limited English-proficient, and those who are disabled. Indeed, several school 

staff stated that online services were not appropriate for students most in need of assistance. 

They noted that only higher-functioning students would have the discipline to participate in a 

distance-learning program. Furthermore, the youths to whom the program is targeted typically 

need more hands-on, one-on-one assistance to progress. Therefore the assumption that online 

providers can solve the access problems in rural areas is problematic, as one district 

administrator explained: 

If you are a parent of a third-grader and say, I want additional services and don’t like 

your school, the online provider cannot serve their child. If I’m a parent of a middleschooler, I have some options. Some parents are excited about the option. [Only] high 

school and middle school students have options [to use online providers]. 

In addition, using an online provider option does not necessarily result in limited involvement on 

the part of districts or schools. At one site, the Title I director reported that the online provider 

was planning to have 20 students work in the school’s computer lab without supervision. “They 

called and said, ‘You can provide a supervisor, right?’” The district had to find funds to provide 

supervision during that time.
35

Parents’ Role in Supplemental Educational Services16

Most parents of children eligible to receive supplemental educational services are pleased 

to have the opportunity to enroll their child in a tutoring program; these same parents also report 

satisfaction with their children’s schools and teachers. Transporting children to and from 

supplemental services is one of parents’ chief concerns with the program; parents prefer 

programs that provide transportation for children or those that are offered at students’ schools. 

Many parents did not receive information from their districts that helped them understand the 

services available to them. For many parents, their children’s teachers are their most trusted 

source for deciding whether to enroll their children in a tutoring program. 

Parents’ Assessment of Children’s Educational Needs 

Overall, the parents interviewed said they liked and trusted their children’s schools and 

teachers, even though the schools are all identified for improvement. In addition, parents 

seemed to value the special programs and services schools offered before and after the school 

day to help low performing students. Because parents were generally satisfied with their 

children’s schools and because they wanted to keep their children close to home, most parents 

chose the supplemental services option rather than school choice. 

Parents generally praised their schools and were happy with most of the teachers; parents 

were also well aware of the school’s low performance. Parents often based their judgment of the 

school on the accessibility and personality of the teachers (e.g., if he or she is caring and nice or 

not) and the school environment. In one of the few schools in the study where parents were 

dissatisfied with the school, it was because it did not have a very “family-friendly” atmosphere. 

 Parents appreciated schools’ existing school-day and after-school programs designed to 

help low achieving students improve their skills. In one district, elementary school parents were 

especially pleased that the school was implementing Accelerated Reading and other corrective 

reading programs, explaining that their children were reading more since the school began the 

programs. In another district, parents had high praise for an after-school program in which 

regular classroom teachers work with low achieving students to improve their skills for the state 

assessment. 

 Most parents in the districts in this study chose to apply for supplemental services 

rather than transfer their child to another school, even when districts made efforts to educate 

parents about the choice option and explained that transportation would be provided. Most 

parents are familiar with their school and neighborhood and disliked the notion of sending their 

children “across town” to another school. One of the parents interviewed, although aware of her 

choice options, said she would not send her child to another school because, “I like the teachers 

here. It would be really iffy [at another school]. A teacher would have to be really 

 

16 Parents in eight districts participated in focus groups for this study. In one of these eight districts, only two 

parents participated. Parents in the ninth district had not yet been informed of their provider options and were not 

asked to participate in interviews. 
36

disappointing. And the principal is very good about shifting your child to another class.” In 

addition, some parents said they were uncomfortable or uninterested in sending their children to 

an unfamiliar neighborhood. As one parent explained, “We live really close. I live a block 

away. Why would we want to send our kids halfway across town?” 

Parents’ Criteria for Selecting Providers 

 Some parents were better informed than others about supplemental services and about 

their provider options; this largely hinged on school and district efforts to provide them with 

information. In some cases, English-speaking parents had more access to information than did 

limited-English speaking parents. A number of parents did not distinguish between 

supplemental services and programs already offered by their schools. Parents often look to their 

children’s teachers to help them decide what services best fit their child’s needs, but in the end, 

transportation and easy accessibility were the primary factors affecting parents’ choice of a 

provider. 

Parents included in the study reported receiving varying amounts of information about 

their provider options. Some parents received only a letter from the district informing them of 

the supplemental services provisions of NCLB. Other parents were invited to and participated in 

district- or school-sponsored meetings intended to help them understand their options related to 

supplemental services. Some parents said they had heard about providers and services in the 

media. In other cases, parents received very little information on the topic. For example, one 

parent who was already looking for a tutor for her child said that she “just happened to see the 

flyer [from the district] and read between the lines.” In another district, no parents interviewed 

were aware of their option for supplemental educational services. In one district, administrators 

reported that parents who had received letters, participated in meetings, and heard about the 

program in the media were more likely to have applied for services for their children. 

 Due to language barriers, some parents did not fully understand their option to select 

supplemental services for their children. While districts with large limited English proficient 

populations usually sent letters home in English as well as the major languages their students 

spoke, many limited English proficient parents indicated that they received their letter only in 

English and did not understand it. Some parents are not literate in either English or their native 

language. Some parents also said that there was no one at their school with whom they could 

communicate. In one district, the Spanish-speaking parents interviewed (through an interpreter) 

only knew about the services because school staff encouraged them to register their children. 

 Language differences can also present problems in providers’ communication with 

parents. One provider said, “Even with the phone calls we make, we can only speak with parents 

who speak English because our Spanish is not good enough to communicate by phone.” 

Administrators in several districts expressed concern that as supplemental services expand into 

more and more schools where lesser-spoken languages are prevalent and districts and schools 

lack translators, communicating with parents could become particularly problematic. 
37

 Many parents do not see a difference between supplemental services and other afterschool programs offered by their child’s school. Some parents expressed confusion about the 

difference between what schools were already offering and supplemental services. In parents’ 

eyes, these schools already had tutoring available. For example, in one district, children who are 

identified as low performers for the state assessment receive after-school tutoring from regular 

day teachers for 35 minutes per day, two days per week, at the school; many parents interviewed 

talked about their satisfaction with this program. In another district that already had numerous 

other local, state, and federally funded after-school programs, these programs have continued to 

operate even as the supplemental services program was introduced. As a result, in the eyes of 

many parents, NCLB’s supplemental services program is just another “supplemental service” (in 

the generic sense) that is available to students. In another district, parents interviewed for this 

study did not understand what “supplemental services” were. Once it was explained to them, 

several parents noted that their schools already offer after-school and before-school programs, 

some of which are referred to as “tutoring” programs, which may account for some of the 

confusion about what supplemental services are. 

 Parents often rely on their children’s teachers and schools to help them make decisions 

about supplemental educational services. Many parents indicated that they were strongly 

influenced by their children’s teachers regarding the need for supplemental services. For 

example, one parent said her son had not been reading very well and the teacher told her he 

needed to go to a particular service provider: “I got a letter and was told to sign it,” she said, and 

so she did. Another parent said, “My daughter is fine in all subjects. I don’t know why they 

selected her for tutoring.... But if the teacher says I should send her to tutoring, I will send her.” 

In many cases, parents also relied on the school to help them decipher the sometimes confusing 

provider information and make their final choices. 

Parents’ knowledge of provider services varied. Some parents knew about the different 

provider services offered. In some cases, parents worked with their school and teachers to select 

the best provider for their children. In other cases, parents were simply provided with the names 

of the providers available. A number of parents who chose one particular provider did so based 

solely on that provider’s television advertisements. “We’re going by what we think and what we 

hope,” one parent said of her choice of provider. Some parents were bewildered by the range of 

choices offered them. 

 For most parents, transportation is the deciding factor in choosing among providers. 

Parents looked for providers who offered services at the school because they did not have 

transportation to take their children off-site. Parents often chose providers based more on 

logistics and convenience than on educational concerns. For example, in one district, many 

parents opted for a provider that offers to transport children to its center and then back home to 

their door. There are also logistical difficulties for parents who lack transportation and who need 

to make arrangements for daily childcare for their children (i.e., tutoring on some but not all days 

makes childcare difficult to organize for parents who need a consistent and reliable five-day-perweek arrangement). Finally, the absence of transportation makes it difficult for children to make 

their way home after tutoring if their parents are unable to pick them up. Walking after dark, 

even short distances, to one’s home is out of the question in the dangerous neighborhoods that 
38

typically surround inner-city schools, according to several school principals and district 

administrators. 

Parent Satisfaction with Provider Services 

 Parents whose children were already receiving services expressed general satisfaction 

with providers. However, some parents reported that the amount of time that elapsed between 

the services being offered to them and services being provided was too long. These parents were 

concerned that their children would not receive the maximum benefit from the program. 

Parents are satisfied with the services their children have received so far. In districts 

where children were receiving services, the parents expressed satisfaction with the services. One 

parent said that she was pleased with the provider and the progress her child was making. She 

receives regular written and verbal progress reports from the provider and is pleased that the 

provider reviews her child’s grades and test scores. Another parent said the following: 

I love it, I do! My older daughter is in third grade. This program helped her on a 

broad spectrum of what can be accomplished. With my first-grader, he didn’t know 

how to read. This program helps him stay focused—both my kids love to come. It’s so 

cool. I knew my first-grader needed help—I would try to help him, but I would get 

frustrated with him. I was more of a hindrance than a help. The teachers keep him 

motivated. 

Parents want services delivered sooner. Parents in one district where students have not 

yet begun receiving services expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time it has taken for 

the district to actually begin providing services; they expected services to begin soon after they 

sent their initial responses back to the district letter in October. One parent said, “Where is this 

help? My son is struggling.” Another parent said, “They should have started earlier in the 

school year instead of this late. It will still help them but not as much as if it had started at 

beginning of the school year.” 

 In a school in another district, several weeks passed between the time parents were 

notified that they were eligible and the time tutoring began. This gap resulted in a substantial 

drop in the number of participants (from 50-60 down to 15-20) actually receiving tutoring. This 

suggests that the opportunity simply may not stay on parents’ radar screen for long.

Early Evidence of Effectiveness 

 It is too early to report the actual effects of supplemental services on those students who 

have begun working with service providers. For example, in one district where tutoring started 

in January and testing was scheduled for April, staff did not expect that measurable 

improvements would become evident in such a short period of time. However, in one district, 

parents said that their children were reading better and or getting better grades since starting 

tutoring: 
39

I have noticed improvement and his teacher says he reads a lot better. 

He’s been in tutoring since the end of October. His reading has improved a lot—now 

he’s reading chapter books. He likes shopping—using the tokens he earns through 

Sylvan. 

 In another district, several teachers commented on the increased confidence exhibited by 

students who are receiving provider services. Referring to one such student, a teacher noted: 

“He’s a laid-back guy, but he shows more tenacity now; he’s not afraid to read something new or 

pick up more challenging reading.” 
40
41

Lessons for the Future 

 Implementing the supplemental services provisions of NCLB has thrust states, districts, 

schools, and providers into uncharted territory, and most of the administrators interviewed would 

say it has been a learning experience. State administrators, for example, have learned that the 

provider application process must start sooner, require more information about the range of 

services providers offer, and require more assurances of provider competency and commitment. 

In addition, states have learned that the application process must result in a wider range of 

applicants with respect to the services they provide, the grade-levels they serve, and the areas in 

which they work. 

 Districts have learned that they must more clearly articulate to parents what the 

supplemental services provisions of the legislation offer them and their children. They have also 

learned that they must make provider services available to students sooner after notifying 

parents. In addition, districts have learned that the process of contracting with providers is 

complicated and time-consuming, yet they have few ideas about ways to lessen the burden. 

Schools have learned that they know little about their role in the implementation of supplemental 

services—they are usually willing to do what they can to help but require more direction from 

the district regarding how. Subsequently, most providers in the study sample had begun 

providing supplemental services. Several providers described adjusting the structure of their 

programs in order to make the cost of program operations come within range of what the district 

was able to pay. What no one has learned much about is how to monitor and evaluate provider 

performance. 

 Finally, most administrators have learned that although start-up activity this year was 

difficult and error-prone, most of the challenges faced with respect to identifying providers, 

identifying schools, identifying eligible students, and notifying parents will not go away next 

year. That is, unlike other programs, these case study districts believe that implementing 

supplemental services will present many of the same challenges with each passing year. Every 

year, there will be new providers, new schools, different numbers of students, and different needs 

to serve. 

 The following are some of the questions or concerns raised by states, districts, schools, 

and providers with respect to implementing the supplemental services provisions of NCLB. 

These questions suggest areas in which support is needed: 

• Evaluation: What criteria should states use to evaluate provider performance? What 

are some useful benchmarks for assessing provider quality and impact? Is it 

appropriate for school districts to judge provider performance? What data does the 

state use to evaluate provider performance? Are districts required to collect 

evaluation data on provider performance and transmit it to the state or are states 

expected to collect their own evaluation data? 

• Contractual obligations: Must a district enter into a contract with a provider it 

deems to be underperforming simply because the state has not removed a provider 
42

from the state list of approved providers? Must districts enter into separate contracts 

with providers for each student served? 

• Funding: What is the process districts should use to determine how much funding 

they will need to set aside for the choice-related transportation and supplemental 

services provisions? Some districts set aside the full 20 percent of their Title I 

allocation, whereas others only set aside 5 percent of their allocation for choicerelated transportation and 5 percent for supplemental services. The legislation states 

that districts should set aside the full 20 percent unless “a lesser amount is needed to 

comply with [choice-related transportation] and to satisfy all requests for 

supplemental educational services under subsection (e).” However, some districts set 

aside various percentages of their Title I allocation prior to determining the level of 

interest or “satisfying all requests for supplemental educational services.”

• Role of schools: What is the school’s responsibility with respect to recruiting parents; 

coordinating transportation to provider facilities; offering space to providers; 

monitoring student attendance, activity, and performance; and communicating with 

parents and providers about student performance? 

The Year Two report will examine these questions as well as explore the extent to which 

the supplemental services provisions of NCLB have gotten easier to implement and the extent to 

which states, districts, schools, and providers have been able to build on their experiences of the 

past year in implementing supplemental services in year two.
Appendix A 

Characteristics of Sampled Schools 

A-1

Table 1A 

Characteristics of Sampled Schools for the 

Study of Early Implementation of the 

Supplemental Educational Services Provision of NCLB 

School 

Number 

of 

Students

Percent 

Poverty 

Percent 

Minority 

Percent 

LEP 

Number of 

Eligible Students 

Receiving Services 

Brooktown School District 

Los Pajaros Elementary School 628 89% 99% 42% 48 

Soheap Elementary School 335 95% 97% 34% 40 

West St. Middle School 705 80% 87% 20% 50 

Cleartown School District 

Riley Elementary School 641 79% 76% 15% 0 

Thomas Elementary School 708 75% 71% 23% 0 

Cather Middle School 729 64% 68% 17% 0 

Las Cierras School District 

Springfield Elementary School 568 84% 99% 61% 0 

Elm Elementary School 491 84% 99% 79% 0 

Martinez High School 700 76% 99% 82% 0 

Plainfield School District 

Johnson Elementary School 432 100% 81% 0 73 

Pine St. Elementary School 513 100% 70% 18% 157 

Potter Elementary School 488 90% 83% 0 167 

Redding School District 

Moon River Elementary School 403 74% 61% 0 24 

Ngyuen Elementary School 643 69% 87% 0 38 

Walker Middle School 891 69% 84% 0 Approx. 20 

Riverside School District 

Fairfield Elementary School 810 80% 85% 84% 0 

Palomar Elementary School 577 78% 71% 11% 0 

King Elementary School 667 57% 80% 16% 0 

Smithville School District 

Hendricks Elementary School 852 77% 64% 15% 1 

Blue Bay Elementary School 857 60% 35% 7% 0 

Marshall Junior High School 1,239 69% 68% 7% 1 

Sunnydale School District 

Maple Elementary School 516 85% 99% 0 15 

Rivera Elementary School 730 99% 99% 0 40 

Trainville School District 

Morrison Elementary School 761 88% 83% 54% 100 

Bass Elementary School 295 95% 86% 49% 100 

Jackson Middle School 641 73% 80% 20% 60