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SUPPLEMENTAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICES

UNDER THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT:

HOW TO IMPROVE QUALITY AND ACCESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, 

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 

COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND LABOR

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 18, 2007

Serial No. 110–20

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor

(

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR 

GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Chairman 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

Linda T. Sa ́nchez, California 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii 

Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania 

John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky 

Phil Hare, Illinois 

Yvette D. Clarke, New York 

Joe Courtney, Connecticut 

Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California, 

Ranking Minority Member 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

David Davis, Tennessee 

Timothy Walberg, Michigan 

Dean Heller, Nevada

Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director 

Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan, Chairman

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Linda T. Sa ́nchez, California 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii 

Phil Hare, Illinois 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware, 

Ranking Minority Member 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

Dean Heller, Nevada 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on April 18, 2007 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of Members: 

Castle, Hon. Michael N., Senior Republican Member, Subcommittee on 

Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education .......................... 3

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Fortun ̃ o, Hon. Luis G., a Resident Commissioner from the Territory of 

Puerto Rico, letter for the record ................................................................. 70

Kildee, Hon. Dale E., Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education .............................................................. 1

Scott, Hon. Robert C. ‘‘Bobby,’’ a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Virginia, questions for the record .................................................. 80

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana, submission for the record: 

Prepared statement of Steven Pines, executive director, Education 

Industry Association .............................................................................. 84

Statement of Witnesses: 

Ashby, Cornelia M., Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office ................................... 5

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Response to questions for the record ....................................................... 81

Chafin, Ann E., assistant State superintendent for student, family and 

school support, Maryland State Department of Education ....................... 30

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 32

Response to questions for the record ....................................................... 82

Murray, Ruth D., director, Federal grants, Newport News Public Schools . 43

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 45

Response to questions for the record ....................................................... 83

Piche ́, Dianne M., executive director, Citizens’ Commission on Civil 

Rights ............................................................................................................. 47

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 49

Roberts, Monica M., director, office of Federal and State programs, Boston Public Schools ......................................................................................... 34

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 36

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SUPPLEMENTAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICES

UNDER THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT: 

HOW TO IMPROVE QUALITY AND ACCESS 

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, 

Elementary and Secondary Education 

Committee on Education and Labor 

Washington, DC

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:32 a.m., in Room 

2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dale Kildee [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Kildee, Scott, Kucinich, Davis of California, Grijalva, Holt, Sarbanes, Sestak, Loebsack, Hirono, Woolsey, Hinojosa, Castle, Ehlers, Biggert, Fortun ̃ o, Platts, Keller, and 

Heller. 

Staff present: Aaron Albright, Press Secretary; Alice Cain, Senior 

Education Policy Advisor (K-12); Lloyd Horwich, Policy Advisor for 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secretary Education; Lamont Ivey, Staff Assistant, Education; Jill Morningstar, 

Education Policy Advisor; Joe Novotny, Chief Clerk; Lisette 

Partelow, Staff Assistant, Education; Rachel Racusen, Deputy Communications Director; Theda Zawaiza, Senior Disability Policy Advisor; James Bergeron, Deputy Director of Education and Human 

Services Policy; Kathryn Bruns, Legislative Assistant; Steve Forde, 

Communications Director; Victor Klatt, Staff Director; Chad Miller, 

Professional Staff; and Linda Stevens, Chief Clerk/Assistant to the 

General Counsel. 

Chairman KILDEE [presiding]. Good morning. A quorum being 

present, the hearing of the subcommittee will come to order. 

Pursuant to committee rule 12-A, any member may submit an 

opening statement in writing, which will be made part of the permanent record. 

I will now recognize myself followed by Governor Castle. 

Before I begin my opening statement, I want to extend the committee’s thoughts and prayers to the members of the Virginia Tech 

community as they grieve their losses and they seek to move forward. It is something that touches everyone. No man or no person 

is an island. And we all extend our thoughts and prayers and condolences. 

2

I am pleased to welcome my fellow subcommittee members, the 

public, and our witnesses today, some of whom have been here before. And we appreciate that. We are having this hearing on ‘‘Supplemental Educational Services Under the No Child Left Behind 

Act: How to Improve Quality and Access.’’

Including supplemental educational services in the No Child Left 

Behind Act was a significant addition. And implementation of those 

provisions has presented many challenges at the federal, state and 

local level. 

And today’s hearing will play a critical role in the committee’s efforts to understand how these provisions are working and whether 

they can be better implemented or improved so that the law’s goal 

of providing every student with a world-class education, a goal we 

all share, can be realized. 

Last August our first witness, the Government Accountability Office, found, among other things, that states and school districts 

needed much more assistance from the Department of Education to 

fully and successfully implement these services. Today GAO will 

testify that the department has made progress in that area. 

I also look forward to hearing from our state and district witnesses, whether they have seen that progress on the ground. We 

will hear from the state of Maryland about its efforts to ensure 

quality services and to reach out to parents and also about the 

challenges states face in ensuring access in rural areas and for students with special needs. 

As many of you know, since 2005, the Department of Education 

has established two pilot projects concerning supplemental educational services. And we are fortunate to have with us a participant from each pilot. 

The Boston Public Schools will describe their experience with the 

pilot that allowed school districts in need of improvement to continue acting as service providers and how that affected both the 

quality and access to supplemental services. And Newport News 

will tell us about having switched the order of public school choice 

and supplemental services so that supplemental services were offered first. 

Both of these pilot projects represent important issues for us to 

discuss during reauthorization. And I am pleased we have the opportunity to hear directly from these participants. 

Finally, the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights will give us 

what they describe as both the good and bad news about implementation, that while parents generally are satisfied, there also remains much work to do to increase access. Of course, one challenge 

that has been ongoing for 5 years is funding. We owe it to our children to ensure that their schools have the resources and support 

to provide them with the education they need and deserve. 

Since 2002, Congress and the President have under-funded No 

Child Left Behind by $56 billion. And the President’s proposed 

budget for 2008 would under-fund the law by another $15 billion 

for a total of $71 billion. However, I am hopeful with this Congress 

we will start to do better. 

I look forward to working with my ranking member, Mr. Castle, 

our full committee chairman, and the ranking member, Mr. Miller 

3

and Mr. McKeon, and with all the members of the committee on 

bipartisan reauthorization of NCLB. 

I now yield to Ms. Biggert for her opening statement. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I will actually read Mr. Castle’s opening statement. And he will 

be along. We had a schedule conflict this morning with our conference and this hearing since everything was changed from yesterday. 

So I would like to thank my colleagues for joining me here today 

for the latest in our series of hearings on No Child Left Behind. 

As always, I would like to thank our chairman, Mr. Kildee, for 

his continued dedication to hearing from education leaders around 

the country and all of you for being here today to testify. 

Today’s hearing will examine the challenges and successes of the 

implementation of the supplemental educational services provisions 

under the No Child Left Behind Act and focus on ways Congress 

can help to improve quality and access to these services. 

Under No Child Left Behind, students attending Public Schools 

that do not make adequate yearly progress for 3 consecutive years 

have the right to take advantage of the free supplemental services. 

Although the number of students benefiting from SES is gradually 

increasing, I remain concerned about the low overall rate of participation in these important services. Today I hope we can examine 

how to increase this level of participation. 

Throughout the reorganization of NCLB, we must continue to explore the best ways to help students by looking at how the performance of private tutoring providers can be evaluated, how we can ensure that private tutoring companies are aligned with the school 

districts they are working with, and what role the school district 

can play in providing students supplemental services when the district has been identified as in need of improvement. 

I am certain this hearing will build upon the previous hearings 

in this series. And I am eager to hear the unique perspectives of 

our witnesses. And I extend a warm welcome to them. 

And I see that the Ranking Member Castle, has joined us. I have 

just read his statement. 

But you might like to add a few words to that. And I yield the 

balance of my time. 

Mr. CASTLE. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. 

That was a brilliant statement you read, by the way. [Laughter.] 

I would just like to thank you for that. 

The only thing I would add to it is I just consider these services 

to be of vital importance. To me they are the link between the 

schools which are not making adequate yearly progress and those 

which are. And I think we need to do everything in our power to 

make sure these are being provided as well as we can. 

I look forward to the hearing. I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castle follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education 

Good morning. I’d like to thank my colleagues for joining me here today for the 

latest in our series of hearings on the No Child Left Behind Act. As always, I’d like 

to thank our Chairman, Mr. Kildee, for his continued dedication to hearing from 

education leaders around the country, and all of you for being here to testify today. 

4

Today’s hearing will examine the challenges and successes of the implementation 

of the supplemental educational services (or SES) provisions under the No Child 

Left Behind Act, with a focus on ways Congress can help to improve quality and 

access to these services. 

Under No Child Left Behind, students attending public schools that do not make 

adequate yearly progress (or AYP) for three consecutive years have the right to take 

advantage of free supplemental services. While the number of students benefiting 

from SES is gradually increasing, I remain concerned about the low overall rate of 

participation in these important services. Today I hope we can examine how to increase this level of participation. 

Throughout the reauthorization of NCLB, we must continue to explore the best 

ways to help students by looking at how the performance of private tutoring providers can be evaluated, how we can ensure that private tutoring companies are 

aligned with the school districts they are working with, and what role the school 

district can play in providing students supplemental services when the district has 

been identified as in need of improvement. 

I’m certain this hearing will build upon the previous hearings in this series, and 

I am eager to hear the unique perspectives of our witnesses—and I extend a warm 

welcome to them. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Biggert. 

Thank you, Governor Castle. I appreciate it. 

We work very well together on this committee. We have done our 

best work in a bipartisan way. And the two people who have just 

spoken have proven their desire and eagerness to work in a bipartisan way and have a great record. 

And I thank you for that. 

Without objection, all members will have 7 calendar days to submit additional materials or questions for the hearing record. 

I would like to introduce the very distinguished panel we have 

before us this morning. 

Cornelia Ashby, who has been here a number of times, is Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security for the Government Accountability Office. Ms. Ashby joined GAO in 1973. In 

1992, she was selected for GAO’s senior executive candidate development program and in 1994 was appointed an associate director 

for education and employment issues. She began her current position in the year 2000. 

Ann Chafin is Maryland’s assistant state superintendent of the 

division of student, family, and school support overseeing Title I 

master planning, school improvement, student services, and youth 

development. Previously Ms. Chafin was the state’s Title I director 

where she oversaw hundreds of millions of dollars in federal and 

state aid for at-risk students. 

Monica Roberts is the director of federal and state programs for 

the Boston Public Schools where she is responsible for the district’s 

compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, administration of 

supplemental educational services, and financial resource development. Ms. Roberts is also a graduate of the Boston Public Schools. 

And I would yield at this time to Bobby Scott to introduce the 

next witness. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank you for mentioning Virginia Tech. Yesterday both of 

our U.S. senators and nine of the 11 House members were at Virginia Tech at the ceremony with the president and our governor. 

And we appreciate your reference. 

I appreciate also your allowing me to introduce Ms. Murray from 

Newport News, which is located in my district. She is the director 

5

of federal grants for Newport News Public Schools. She has an educational specialist degree from George Washington University as 

well as a master’s degree in reading from the University of Tennessee and a bachelor’s degree in early childhood and elementary 

education from Carson-Newsome College. 

She worked in Title I programs for 10 years and served as both 

a principal and teacher in the Newport News Public School system. 

Newport News has been particularly successful in implementing 

supplemental educational services. 

And I would like to thank Ms. Murray for traveling here today 

to provide her testimony about these successes. And we look forward to hearing her recommendations. So I hope that we can benefit from the Newport News experience. And I thank Ms. Murray 

for coming today. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

Our next witness, Dianne Piche ́, is executive director of the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, where she specializes in promoting educational equity. Previously she directed the commission’s Title I monitoring project, which examined the impact of education reforms on disadvantaged children. 

We welcome all our witnesses. 

For those of you who have not testified before this subcommittee 

before, I will explain our lighting system and the 5-minute rule we 

have. 

Everyone, including the members, is limited to 5 minutes of presentation or questioning. The green light will be illuminated when 

you begin to speak. And when you see the yellow light, it means 

you have 1 minute remaining. When you see the red light, it means 

that your time has expired and you need to conclude your testimony. You certainly may complete your paragraph or thought. And 

there is no ejection seat there. But we would ask you to try to 

begin to terminate when you see the red light. 

Please be certain that as you testify that you turn on your microphone and speak into the microphone and turn it off when you are 

finished. 

We will now hear from our first witness, Ms. Ashby. 

STATEMENT OF CORNELIA M. ASHBY, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. 

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. ASHBY. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I 

am pleased to be here today to present information from our August 2006 report on SES implementation. 

While our September testimony before the full committee provided an overview of that report, our current testimony statement 

and my comments this morning focus on access and service delivery, federal and state oversight, and recent Department of Education actions to improve implementation. 

In the 2004-2005 school year, 19 percent of eligible students, that 

is 430,000 students, received SES. To increase participation, districts have taken multiple actions. 

For example, we estimate that 90 percent or more provided written information about the services to parents with 72 percent also 

6

providing the information in a language other than English. Ninety 

percent of them held individual meetings and/or phone conversations with parents, encouraged school staff to talk with parents 

about the services or offered services in locations that were easily 

accessible to students after school. 

However, challenges to increase access and participation remain. 

Challenges include notifying all parents in a timely and effective 

manner and attracting a sufficient number of service providers 

within areas and groups of students such as those with limited 

English proficiency or disabilities. 

For example, we estimate that there were not enough providers 

to meet the needs of students with limited English proficiency in 

one-third of districts and not enough to meet the needs of students 

with disabilities in one-quarter of districts. While providers have 

taken some steps to deliver quality services, both providers and 

districts have experienced coordination difficulties that have sometimes resulted in service delays. Service providers have aligned 

their curriculum with district instruction primarily by hiring district teachers and communicating with the teachers of participating 

students. 

However, when providers did not hire district teachers, the frequency of contact between tutors and teachers varied. And some 

providers did not contact teachers at all. Providers also communicated with parents, including talking with parents over the 

phone and meeting with them in person to communicate information on student needs and progress. However, the frequency of communication with parents also varied. 

Coordination of service delivery has been a challenge. For example, services were delayed or withdrawn in certain schools in three 

of the districts we visited because not enough students signed up 

to meet the provider’s enrollment targets, which the districts were 

not aware of. In part because supplemental services are often delivered in school facilities, providers and officials in the districts and 

schools we visited reported that involvement of school administrators and teachers can improve service delivery and coordination. 

While state oversight of SES implementation and quality has 

been limited, at the time of our review, the number of states doing 

such monitoring was increasing. State oversight includes on-site reviews of districts and providers as well as reviewing information on 

providers, service delivery, and use of funds, parent or student satisfaction with providers, and student attendance. 

However, oversight continues to be a challenge for states, and 

they continue to struggle to develop meaningful evaluations of service providers. Although several education offices monitor various 

aspects of SES activity and provide SES support through guidance, 

grants, research and technical assistance, states and districts reported needing additional assistance and flexibility with program 

implementation. 

In our 2006 report, we made several recommendations to education. And education has made significant progress toward addressing some of them. Specifically, education has taken steps that 

address our recommendations focused on increasing dissemination 

of promising practices related to parental notification, tracking proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:06 Apr 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-20\34-539.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
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viders in certain areas and student groups, and improving local coordination. 

For example, between November 2006 and March 2007, education staff conducted an outreach tour during which they met with 

state and district officials, providers, and parents in 14 large school 

districts and discussed issues such as parental outreach, parental 

notification, serving special student populations, and local coordination. The department plans to disseminate information collected 

during the tour through a handbook to be distributed to state and 

district SES and school choice coordinators at a national meeting 

this summer. 

Education has also taken some actions that address our recommendations for improving state and district use of SES funds by 

extending and expanding its pilot program to allow four districts 

in need of improvement to serve as SES providers for the current 

school year. In addition, education has responded to our recommendation to improve federal and state SES monitoring by requiring all states to submit information on district SES spending 

to the department and providing technical assistance and guidance 

to states on evaluating the effect of SES on student academic 

achievement. 

The department’s center on innovation and improvement issued 

an updated version of the guide book on SES evaluation in November 2006. And it plans to provide technical assistance before the 

end of the current school year to 16 states that have requested 

such assistance. 

Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would be 

happy to answer any questions. 

[The statement of Ms. Ashby follows:]

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Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Chafin? 

STATEMENT OF ANN E. CHAFIN, ASSISTANT STATE SUPERINTENDENT FOR STUDENT, FAMILY AND SCHOOL SUPPORT, 

MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Ms. CHAFIN. Chairman Kildee, thank you very much for allowing 

me an opportunity to describe Maryland’s program for you today. 

In Maryland, under the wonderful guidance of Dr. Nancy 

Grasmick, our state superintendent, we are never content with 

compliance. We always, for our children, try to ensure compliance 

and move past that to excellence. And I think we are on the way 

to doing that with our SES program. 


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I have to say up front though, this takes enormous planning and 

enormous resource to be able to ensure that this program is what 

is appropriate for each of our children. 

You first start with the idea of why would we be doing this. 

Every educator I know whose own child is struggling first turns to 

a tutor. So we felt that if that was the concept, if we could embrace 

it that way, that we could maximize the use of the funds that we 

are putting forward for SES. 

We have a very rigorous application process for our vendors. We 

started out not as rigorous as we are now. We learned from every 

year’s experience. We began with having them describe clearly 

their reading and mathematics programs. 

We now make sure that they also show how that closely aligns 

with our Maryland voluntary state curriculum. We want to make 

sure that the services being provided to these students actually will 

advantage them when they face the assessment programs and the 

instruction going on. There should be a match. 

We work very closely with the school systems to make sure that 

they understand the issues that are facing them, many of them 

contractual and others. And I have to say in light of the horrific 

problem at Virginia Tech, we also must be clear here that health 

and safety is primary in providing any of these programs. So things 

like background checks and monitoring those programs that actually go into children’s homes becomes a very serious issue and 

again, something that is much more complicated for us to do. 

We have an SES collaboration team that is composed of people 

throughout the state that are affected by this. We have a tool kit 

that gives model contracts, model parent letters, strategies to vendors. We do a great deal of technical assistance with our vendors. 

At this point in time, I proudly say to you that nationally there 

is a 19 percent participation rate in SES. And in Maryland, that 

is 68 percent. 

We look at it as systematically removing the barriers for children 

to have access to these programs. 

One of the things that we started out—a couple of our districts 

had letters for the parents that said, ‘‘Pursuant to the reauthorization of ESEA’’—I didn’t even finish reading the sentence. We now 

send letters home that say, ‘‘Good news: Your son or daughter 

might be eligible for extra tutoring.’’ Those are the things—you 

must go to the people—the parents are the ones that understand 

the need. And you must also look at the barriers they have for having their children have access to these programs. 

You have to work with the schools. A principal who says, ‘‘Gee, 

Tommy, don’t you get to go to SES this afternoon? Let me walk you 

there. Tell me a little bit about what you are doing’’—that kind of 

interaction with the school-based people makes such a difference to 

the attitudes the children go in with. 

We still have some big issues at the state level to deal with, not 

the least of which is the expense. Maryland has made the decision 

to put two full-time people behind this effort. That means that 

other aspects of Title I may not have the same support they would 

have had. So it is a decision making process. 

We know that in our more rural districts—and Maryland does 

not have districts that are rural by the typical definition of rural. 

32

But those Eastern shore and Western Maryland counties that we 

have we do not have nearly the number of vendors available to 

them. We have 47 vendors on our approved list. 

But there are times that when you have the criterion of a certain 

number of students that must chose that vendor before they would 

offer the contract. In school systems like Kent County that have so 

few kids that are eligible to begin with, it is very hard to meet that 

standard. 

We frequently do have online vendors that will serve any area. 

But they offer us unique monitoring issues and monitoring problems to deal with. So we are continuing to work with our rural 

schools to encourage them to do parent outreach so their numbers 

go up so that we can, in fact, have vendors available. 

It is a wonderful opportunity. But it brings with it a lot of responsibility. Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Ms. Chafin follows:]

Prepared Statement of Ann E. Chafin, Assistant State Superintendent for 

Student, Family and School Support, Maryland State Department of Education 

Chairman Kildee, and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity 

to testify today on how Maryland has implemented the Supplemental Educational 

Services (SES) component of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). My name is Ann Chafin, 

and I am the Assistant State Superintendent for Student, Family and School Support at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). I have been in the 

role for less than a year and served, prior to this, as Maryland’s State Director for 

Title I. I have fifteen years experience in one of Maryland’s 24 school districts as 

Director of Research and Assessment. 

I am pleased to share with you Maryland’s progress and successes in implementing the Supplemental Educational Services program mandated for Title I. 

Under the insightful direction of our State Superintendent, Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, 

MSDE has been proactive in implementing NCLB. Dr. Grasmick is never content 

with compliance when it comes to educating Maryland students so we make every 

effort to ensure compliance but step beyond it to excellence. 

Title I, as you well know, is a compensatory program. That means we must offer 

programming that compensates for the lack of rich, varied experiences that often 

form the basis for academic achievement; that recognizes and addresses health and 

environmental issues that cause education to slip down the list of priorities; and 

that is delivered by the best teachers and administrators that we can possibly provide. 

It has been my experience that when educators find their own children struggling 

in school they most frequently turn to a tutor. The SES program extends this opportunity to the economically disadvantaged children of this country who are attending 

low-performing schools. Our philosophy has been simply, if educators believe in tutoring, this program ought to work. And the SES program is working in Maryland. 

First, SES providers are selected through rigorous application and review processes in Maryland. We believe the application requirements are the first steps toward providing quality services to our children. Based on what we have learned over 

the last six years, we have refined the application to more closely align the programs described by the vendors with Maryland’s Voluntary State Curriculum. If this 

work is to be effective, vendors must be instructing students on the same material 

that is expected of them in their classrooms and on the Maryland School Assessment. 

We have also encouraged and required vendors to work closely with the school 

systems and the schools so that communication is clear and school personnel feel 

they have input into the process. 

Our data reporting requirements ask that MSDE, each local school system and 

each vendor reconcile any discrepancies in participation, attendance, goals setting 

and parental notification before we declare the information final. In order to assure 

that this cooperation is evident, we offer extensive technical assistance to potential 

vendors prior to their application. When all players are fully informed and 

participatory, the quality of SES programs improves. 

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Part of program improvement in Maryland must be credited to our monitoring 

system. Noted in the January 23, 2007 publication of Education Daily, Maryland is 

referred to as the ‘‘data dream.’’ In 2002, we developed an instrument that collected 

information on each student receiving services, each provider, and each local school 

system. In 2003, we converted that instrument to an Access data file that allowed 

us to disaggregate data state-wide, set up reporting dates, and trained local systems 

and providers to use it. The Access file collects and monitors contact hours with students, as well as, contacts with parents, local systems, and classroom teachers, 

measurable goals, and parent outreach methods, among other data. The message to 

all providers and local systems in Maryland is that every aspect of SES is under 

scrutiny. It is valued and important, and our data collection system is taken seriously. Delivering the best opportunities available to our students is our focus. Monitoring also includes site visit reports that identify findings and commendations, all 

available on our websites. 

Local school systems assist in all aspects of the program. Early on, all LEA SES 

Coordinators were invited to become part of the SES Collaboration Team. We meet 

four times a year and candidly discuss our concerns and contribute to resolutions. 

The State Department facilitates the discussion and researches the questions. The 

relationships forged through the team saved countless hours for local systems, and 

the entire State moved forward together. We developed a Toolkit and, today, the 

toolkit continues to be updated with new documents the LEAs are using. All documents, including the minutes of the meetings are posted on the website. Now, we 

have LEAs attending the meetings that are not yet required to offer SES but want 

to be prepared if SES is a requirement. 

One of the team’s most frequently discussed concerns is how to increase parent 

involvement. Those discussions have paid off. Today, with a national participation 

rate of about 19%, Maryland’s participation rate is about 68%. The statute requires 

local school systems to engage in aggressive parent outreach. Parents of eligible 

children must select a provider to tutor their child. If parents don’t select, students 

do not participate. The six LEAs required to offer SES in Maryland work hard at 

strategies that are effective. Local systems stopped offering provider fairs; parents 

don’t come. They stopped using letters that are too hard to read; parents can’t understand them. Local systems enlisted the help of the individual schools, and parents felt more engaged. We worked through our collaboration team to remove every 

barrier to parent participation, including an agreement from each LEA that providers may use their school buildings. Last year, SES funds allowed for the participation of 15,837 students; of those 10,718 participated—an impressive 68%. Baltimore City enjoys a remarkable 99% participation rate. 

Two areas continue to leave us with unanswered questions. One, in our rural 

areas we have limited access to vendors. Although Maryland has almost 50 vendors 

on the approved list, most of them only work in the metropolitan areas. We had an 

instance in Western Maryland where parents of second graders in a school requested SES but no vendors were available for primary tutoring in that area. We 

were able to redirect dollars to a summer program for those students, but that was 

not a long term solution. 

Also, we continue to struggle with programs for special needs students. Although 

many of our vendors do offer these services, it requires much more monitoring and 

support to ensure that the IEP is honored and the work is directed at the appropriate strategies. 

As proud as I am of the accomplishments made in Maryland with this program, 

I must put it in a context. Maryland has only 24 school districts, admittedly some 

of them are quite large, but still only 24. We have an internal monitoring structure 

that allows me to assign two districts to each Title I specialist, in addition to many 

other responsibilities. This means that we know each coordinator and can help them 

address their individual issues. When it comes to SES, only 6 of those 24 districts 

must offer SES. Other states that have hundreds of school districts have a much 

more difficult job of technical assistance, monitoring and communication. 

The successes we have experienced in this program so far are due to the decision 

by MSDE to dedicate two positions to this work. Dr. Jane Fleming has led the development of the monitoring instrument and the oversight of the implementation of the 

program. She is our secret weapon. Site visits with written feedback that are posted 

for the world to see are some of our best tools for improvement. Dr. Fleming, supported by a loaned educator from a school district, developed that process also. 

Additionally, Maryland has only begun the process of evaluating the effectiveness 

of these programs. We have a contract in place to pursue the relationship between 

the work of each of our approved vendors and success on the Maryland School Assessment. When we reach the point of removing vendors from our list because of 

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ward to the support of the US Department of Education as we make these very difficult decisions. 

Thank you for this opportunity. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Roberts? 

STATEMENT OF MONICA M. ROBERTS, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 

FEDERAL AND STATE PROGRAMS, BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Ms. ROBERTS. Good morning, Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member 

Castle, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Monica 

Roberts. And I am the director of federal and state programs for 

Boston Public Schools. Thank you for this opportunity to testify at 

this House hearing on supplemental educational services. 

Boston Public Schools is the largest school district in Massachusetts and serves the largest number of low-income students in the 

commonwealth with 71 percent of our students eligible for free or 

reduced price lunch. Eighty-six percent of our students are minorities. The district was one of nine organizations approved by the 

Massachusetts Department of Education to provide SES services in 

Boston. Today we continue to operate our SES program through 

the pilot project offered by the U.S. Department of Education. 

Boston has won numerous awards and recognition for its continuous improvement towards and closing the achievement gap and 

moving towards proficiency for all students, including the 2006 

Broad Foundation prize for urban education. Despite our progress 

and continued gains in student academic performance, 60 schools 

were identified this school year as not having made AYP for 3 or 

more consecutive years, up from 43 schools in School Year 2005-

2006 and 22 in School Year 2004-2005. 

This year Boston Public Schools notified nearly 23,000 students of the availability of SES programs and reserved nearly $5.9 million of its Title I grant for of SES. Based on the per pupil allocation 

of nearly $2,400, the district estimated that it could serve about 

2,460 students, a total of 4,400 eligible students applied for SES 

services. And 70 percent of these chose the Boston Public Schools 

as its provider. 

The per pupil cost for the district program is $610, a quarter of 

the cost charged by other providers for their own SES program. 

When our district acts as a provider, the balance of the per pupil 

SES allocation, approximately $1,800, remains in the available 

SES funding pool to allow for continued enrollment above the 2,460 

students originally projected. 

As a result, the district has been able to accommodate every student applying for SES this year and nearly 2,000 more students 

are being served in the program because the Boston Public Schools 

is a provider. Boston’s experience is consistent with those of other 

urban school districts, as you can see in the Council of Great City 

Schools data at the end of my written testimony. 

The BPS SES program model offers small group differentiated 

academic intervention services and tutoring in mathematics, reading, and writing for a minimum of 80 hours and up to 136 hours. 

At 80 hours per child, the district offers between 33 percent and 

100 percent more hours than other providers. 

35

Having experienced SES as both a provider and a district managing the program, Boston has been working to identify areas of 

strength and areas in need of improvement. Particularly, the district is excited by the role that parents are asked to play in this 

initiative and the effort to empower parents to make informed 

choices that can result in significant academic improvement. 

Schools hosting SES programs have found that parents with children enrolled in these programs are engaged and actively seek to 

understand their children’s academic performance and strategies to 

support growth. 

Challenges are inevitable, and the district is working collaboratively with providers and the state department of education to 

address them. The district has focused its efforts on developing and 

offering practical solutions to some of the problems that have inundated districts and providers. 

Boston Public Schools offers the following proposals to strengthen 

Supplemental Educational Services. We recommend revising the 

student eligibility requirement to be prioritized into two categories: 

low-income and low-performing and low-performing students from 

groups performing below proficiency on the state assessment; permit all districts to become SES providers, regardless of their NCLB 

status; all SES providers should be required to hire highly qualified 

instructional staff, including staff working with English language 

learners and special needs students; allow districts to use 10 percent of SES funds to cover overhead and program management 

costs, which are high and can limit district ability to support program expansion. 

In particular, districts are currently covering the cost of data 

management systems, enrollment materials, program management 

staff, and parental outreach, which includes newspaper and radio 

advertisements, fliers. Require states to comply with the current 

requirement to evaluate providers and administer a common 

growth model of assessment for all providers; require all states to 

put limitations on incentives offered by providers to students for 

enrollment and recruitment of other students, not to exceed a $5 

value per child; and finally, require all SES providers to serve all 

students enrolled in their program regardless of the number of students enrolled district-wide, and to begin services within 2 weeks 

of receiving their enrollment data. 

Mr. Chairman, this is the end of my prepared statement. I would 

be happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

[The statement of Ms. Roberts follows:]

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Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Murray? 

STATEMENT OF RUTH D. MURRAY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL 

GRANTS, NEWPORT NEWS PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Ms. MURRAY. Thank you. Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member 

Castle, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. As director of federal grants in Newport 

News, a great deal of my time is spent implementing and monitoring supplemental educational services. 

As part of the SES reversal pilot during the 2005 and 2006 

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stead of public school choice. A larger percentage of students, 68 

percent as compared to 5 percent, have been provided help due to 

this reversal. 

In Newport News, we attribute our success to a variety of factors 

and strategies. We approached implementing SES in a systematic 

way across departments. We developed a master plan, a calendar 

and a timeline for implementing the project. Expectations and responsibilities were clearly defined. 

We received a great deal of support from the Virginia Department of Education through numerous training sessions on SES, opportunities to network with other divisions, monitoring visits, and 

printed resources for the program. State department representatives and coordinators were always available to answer questions 

and help us work through problems and issues. 

In Newport News, SES facilitators are recruited to manage the 

SES program in the school. Last year, SES facilitators were selected from existing school personnel. But because of the added responsibility on existing staff members distracted from their main 

jobs, part-time facilitators were hired this year from student teachers, retired teachers, and the local universities. 

We consider our SES providers partners in our students’ success. 

SES providers are not charged for the use of our school buildings. 

And they may contract with the school division to provide transportation services. SES providers must provide criminal background 

checks, T.B tests, and fingerprinting for all tutors. SES tutors receive training from our district supervisors in the math and reading curriculum of our division as well as the state SOL standards. 

Believing there is value in having SES providers and tutors 

dialoguing with parents, teachers, and administrators about academic achievement, SES providers are invited to serve on each 

school’s school improvement team. In order for SES to have a positive impact on schools and communities, the program cannot be a 

separate entity, but must be integrated into the school’s culture. 

Rather than rely just on fliers in students’ book bags, Newport 

News has used a variety of strategies to make parents well-informed about the SES opportunity. Open house, back to school 

night, parent/teacher conferences, progress reports, and child study 

meetings are all used as opportunities to discuss and encourage 

parents to take advantage of the SES opportunity. 

The parent application booklet is available as soon as possible 

after school starts in the fall and contains information for parents 

to contact SES providers directly. Our SES application is mailed 

home several times to parents with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. And it is available online in different languages. 

A list of parents not returning the SES application form is maintained by the SES facilitator and the classroom teacher. The school 

staff continues to contact these parents throughout the year with 

phone calls, home visits, and additional mailings. 

Other strategies to support participation are open enrollment periods, SES summer school, assemblies and incentives for students, 

information displayed on school marquees and in newsletters, the 

superintendent sending letters and meeting with faith-based leaders in the community, an automatic phone dialing system that has 

messages for parents. 

45

Regardless of our efforts, some parents have chosen not to participate in SES. On their children’s application form, we received 

283 parents declining SES services. Reasons included the parents 

felt the services were not needed, the student’s schedule would not 

allow for any additional commitments, no transportation, and the 

family was moving. 

Reflections on our experiences with SES in Newport News have 

brought us to the following recommendations for improving the 

quality and access of SES: continue to allow schools the flexibility 

to reverse the order of sanctions in the first 2 years of improvement; supplemental educational services may be offered to eligible 

students in Title I schools the first year and public school choice 

the second year; target SES funds to low-performing, low-income 

students; allow part of the 20 percent set-aside to be used for administrative costs to implement programs; continue to allow unused SES set-aside funds to remain in the district for use in Title 

I schools; and tutors that are employed by the SES providers 

should meet the state’s definition of highly qualified teachers. 

This would help to minimizes problems which have occurred such 

as tutors not showing up for sessions, not communicating with parents, not using appropriate language and discipline methods and 

also tutoring sessions where only the child went over the homework. 

I appreciate this opportunity again to present. And I welcome 

your questions. 

[The statement of Ms. Murray follows:]

Prepared Statement of Ruth D. Murray, Director, Federal Grants,

Newport News Public Schools 

Thank you Chairman Kildee and Ranking Member Castle for the opportunity to 

speak before the Subcommittee. As the Director of Federal Grants in Newport News 

Public Schools (NNPS), a great deal of my time is spent monitoring and implementing Supplemental Educational Services. As part of the SES Reversal Pilot, during the 2005 and 2006 school years, Newport News Public Schools was allowed to 

implement SES during the first year of Title I School Improvement instead of Public 

School Choice. A larger percentage of students, 68% as compared to 5%, have been 

provided help due to the reversal. 

In Newport News Public Schools, we attribute our success with SES to a variety 

of factors and strategies. We began with the examination of our current attitudes, 

policies and practices related to school, family and community partnerships. This examination involved teachers, school leadership teams, and members of central office. 

We approached implementing SES in a systematic way across departments. Working with staff members from academic services, purchasing, public relations, mail 

services, child nutrition, principals, and federal grants, a SES Plan, master calendar, and implementation timeline were developed. Expectations and responsibilities were clearly defined. We also received a great deal of support from the Virginia 

Department of Education through numerous training sessions on SES legislation, 

opportunities to network with school divisions experienced in implementing SES, 

monitoring visits, and printed resources for the program such as SES provider contracts, parent agreements and learning plans. Coordinators were readily available 

for working through problems or issues. 

In NNPS, SES facilitators are recruited to manage the SES process in each 

school. They serve as liaisons among central office, school personnel, SES providers, 

parents and students. Their responsibilities include scheduling space for providers, 

maintaining accurate records and reports, recruiting participants, and attending 

meetings with the Director of Federal Grants to share best practices. Last year, SES 

facilitators were selected from existing school personnel. Because the added responsibility on existing staff distracted them from their main jobs, part-time facilitators 

were hired this year for each school. Part-time facilitators were recruited from our 

retired teacher population, student teachers, and local universities. 

46

Training of our school personnel also is an important ingredient in our recipe for 

success. The agenda includes an overview of program requirements, Title I regulations and SES non-regulatory guidance, the SES facilitator’s role, responsibilities of 

parents, provider contracts, the availability of supporting funds, a timeline for implementation, and assorted SES forms and documents. 

We consider our SES providers partners in our students’ success. SES providers 

are not charged for the use of the school buildings, and they may contract with the 

school division for transportation services. SES providers must provide criminal 

background checks, TB tests, and fingerprinting for all tutors. Tutors also receive 

training with district supervisors on the division’s math/reading curriculum and the 

state standards of learning. Believing there is value in having SES providers and 

the actual tutors dialoging with parents, teachers, and administrators about academic achievement, SES providers are invited to be on the School Improvement 

Team in each school. We believe that in order for SES to have a positive impact 

in the schools and community, the program can not operate in isolation but must 

be integrated into the school culture. By bringing providers to the table, school leaders can be sure everyone’s goals are aligned. 

Rather than rely just on flyers in students’ book bags, Newport News uses a variety of strategies to make sure parents are well informed about the SES opportunity. 

As much as possible we use our existing school culture to support SES participation 

and recruitment. Open House, Back to School night, parent/teacher conferences, 

progress reports and report cards, and child study meetings are all used as opportunities to discuss and encourage parents to take advantage of SES. Provider fairs are 

held in every school and parents are given the tools needed to organize information 

and examples of important questions to ask providers. The parent application booklet is available as soon as possible after school starts in the fall and contains information needed by parents to contact providers directly. Our SES application is 

mailed home several times to parents with a stamped, self-addressed envelope; it 

also is available online and in different languages. A list of parents not returning 

SES enrollment forms is maintained by each SES facilitator and classroom teacher. 

The school staff continues to contact parents throughout the year with phone calls, 

home visits, and/or additional mailings. We encourage participating parents to be 

‘‘ambassadors’’ for the SES program and tell their neighbors and other eligible families about the services. Other strategies to support participation are an open enrollment period, SES summer program, assemblies and incentives for students, information displayed on school marquees outside buildings and in newsletters, the superintendent sending letters and meeting with faith community leaders in the community, and an automatic phone dialer system (Parent Link) activated with messages for parents. Regardless of our efforts, some parents are not using SES services. On their children’s application forms, 283 parents declined SES services. Reasons included the parent felt the services were not needed, student’s schedule would 

not allow for additional commitments, no transportation, and the family was moving. 

The Federal Grants Director meets regularly with SES providers to address problems or discuss issues so the program will operate smoothly. Parents are often good 

judges of quality. If a SES provider is not providing quality services, not showing 

up on time for the tutoring, not communicating with the parents, or using inappropriate language or discipline methods, parents will let us know and we will work 

with the provider to resolve the issues. 

Reflecting on our experiences with SES in Newport News, the following changes 

would, in my opinion, improve the quality and access of SES. 

• Continue to allow schools the flexibility to reverse the order of sanctions in the 

first two years of school improvement. Supplemental educational services may be offered to eligible students attending Title I schools in improvement in the first year 

and public school choice in the second year. 

• Target SES funds first to low performing, low income students in Title I schools 

and then to all economically disadvantaged students. 

• Allow part of the 20% set-aside to be used for administrative costs to implement 

the programs. The management of the SES and Public School Choice programs is 

very time consuming and less effective when added to personnel working in existing 

positions. 

• Continue to allow unused SES set-aside funds to remain in the district for use 

with Title I schools. Under the best of circumstances all set-aside funds for SES and 

Public School Choice may not be used. 

• Tutors employed by SES providers who provide direct instruction to students 

should meet the state definition of highly qualified teachers. This would help to 

minimize problems which have occurred such as tutors not showing up for sessions, 

47

the use of inappropriate language and discipline methods, and only covering homework assignments. 

Thank you for your attention. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much, Ms. Murray. 

Ms. Piche ́? 

STATEMENT OF DIANNE M. PICHE ́ , EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

CITIZENS’ COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS 

Ms. PICHE ́. Good morning, Chairman Kildee, Mr. Castle, and 

members of the subcommittee. And thank you for the opportunity 

to testify today on the supplemental educational services provisions 

of No Child Left Behind. 

Today I would like to emphasize the concerns of my organization 

and other civil rights organizations for the students who are most 

left behind in public education today. 

There is a subset of students in K through 12 schools in the 

United States in dire need of hope and help, even a subset of the 

Title I eligible population of students. These are children who attend the lowest performing schools in the country, often in highly 

concentrated poverty environments. Many of their schools have 

been failing or on needs improvement lists on both federal and 

state measures for as long as these lists have been kept. 

They are children who are one or more grade levels behind. 

Many of these children and their parents despair of ever getting 

caught up. They tend to attend schools in either large urban areas 

or in rural areas, but not exclusively. And finally, I want to emphasize the students furthest behind tend to be poor and in one or 

more other sub-groups reported under NCLB. For example, they 

are also non-white, disabled or learning English. 

There are many ways in which NCLB provides hope and help to 

these and other students and their families. Today’s subject, the 

SES provisions, is one tangible and much-needed way. Research 

and, indeed, the practice of middle-class and more affluent parents 

indicates that one on one and small group tutoring are among the 

more effective means of helping struggling students to get caught 

up to their appropriate grade level. 

And I probably don’t need to say, but when students do not get 

caught up to grade level, they tend to fall further and further behind. And at some point if you cannot do math and reading on 

basic grade level, you cannot achieve in other subjects. And these 

students will drop out of school. 

Congress recognized the importance of extra tutoring, afterschool programs, and summer school programs included in SES 

when it reauthorized Title I in NCLB. In fact, Congress said in the 

House report accompanying H.R. 1 that these services provide ‘‘an 

important safety valve for students trapped in failing schools.’’

We now have several years of implementation of the supplemental services program. And, of course, when you begin a new 

program like this, as many of the witnesses have indicated, you 

have a lot of bumps in the road. You have a lot of relationships to 

be sorted out. 

And I have in the past analogized the relationship between providers and school districts as something akin to an arranged marVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:06 Apr 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-20\34-539.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
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riage or maybe even a shotgun wedding where we have organizations and entities that may not be used to working together. Some 

may not want to work together. But this law requires that everybody work together and figure it out and figure out how to do the 

best thing for children. 

When I was asked to testify, I wrote to some of my colleagues 

and was surprised at all the good news that is out there on the 

SES program. And I have summarized some of this good news in 

my testimony, including reports that have been done both by providers and by school districts as well as independent research from 

the University of Memphis. 

Unfortunately, not all the news about SES is good. And I have 

summarized in my report some of this bad news and want to call 

your attention to research that my own organization did. We essentially verified and the GAO then verified our research that the participation rates are abysmally low, both for the transfer program 

and for SES. We have some tables in the testimony. We show some 

of the variation among districts. This is 2004-2005 data, so I would 

just caution you that we believe there have been improvements in 

the participation rates. 

But one of the critical things to look at is the number of students 

eligible, the number of students applying and to figure out—and I 

think Newport News is doing a great job—how we can get more eligible parents to apply. But then you look at the drop-off between 

students who have actually applied for these services and the number of students actually receiving them. And in some cases, there 

is a huge disparity. 

We can, you know, attribute some falloff to family needs and circumstances changing and that kind of thing. But why is there a 

falloff between the number of parents who sign up and the number 

of parents who actually receive these services? So I think it is important as we move forward to examine some of these problems 

and some of the problems of parent access. 

I also refer to a lawsuit that was brought in Newark, New Jersey. We have appended that to the testimony. And then finally, we 

have a series of recommendations. I just want to highlight a couple 

in the short time I have left. 

One is that we don’t believe we should have a rollover of funds 

from 1 year to the next, that this money really should be earmarked for SES and tutoring. We need much more emphasis on 

finding kids where they are and providing services in communitybased settings or on school site. 

Finally, we also need much more monitoring and enforcement of 

this law at all levels of government starting with the federal government and down to the local school district level so that we can 

ensure that more students are served. 

And then finally, I did want to say for the record that we do have 

some concerns about proposals that would allow all districts to provide these services if they are in need of improvement. We only 

think they should be able to provide the services if they, in fact, 

can show they have the capacity to do so. 

And while we would support moving up SES to the first year, we 

would not support flipping with the transfer. We believe parents 

should have the right to choose either of those options. 

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Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Ms. Piche ́ follows:]


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Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much, Ms. Piche ́. 

Ms. Murray, you suggested that maybe we should flip—first of 

all, the members up here will be recognized in the order in which 

they appeared and then by their seniority. 

But, Ms. Murray, you suggested that we would flip. I think at 

the end of the second year now we have public school choice and 

the end of the third year, the supplemental. You suggested that 

that might be flipped. 

And I think Ms. Piche ́ had some statements different from that. 

If both of you could comment on that. 

Ms. MURRAY. Yes. In Newport News, we have offered public 

school choice first and then supplemental services. But then in the 

pilot we were able to flip. The reason that we believe in Virginia 


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that this is a more appropriate way is that in a school that needs 

improvement, they need to retain the students that are in the 

school and offer them many opportunities such as extra tutoring 

and have the involvement of concerned parents and willing parents 

to help with the school improvement process. 

If parents are allowed to pull children out and take them to other 

schools, then the capacity of the school goes down to make critical 

changes. Also, our parents are not as interested in public school 

choice as they are in supplemental educational services. And so, we 

want to provide those in schools that we can. 

Sometimes in public school choice, they are transferring to 

schools that are non-Title I schools that do not even have the resources that Title I schools do such as extra teachers and afterschool tutoring and that type of thing. And that simply is due to 

a transportation issue. 

Chairman KILDEE. Ms. Piche ́? 

Ms. PICHE ́. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to respond. 

The Citizens’ Commission, along with the Leadership Conference 

on Civil Rights, which is the broader coalition, has supported the 

right of parents to transfer their children to a better public school 

since the IASA. And under IASA, that was really not a requirement. It was more of an option for corrective action. 

The reason we support this—and by the way, we don’t have a position on private school choice—is that we believe it is important 

for low-income parents to have the opportunity to transfer their 

child out of a school that is not working for their child and hasn’t 

been working for a period of years pretty much on the same basis 

that everybody in this room can move their child to a school that 

works for their child. And we do support supplemental services. 

So I would say from our perspective we can certainly see accelerating the timeline for supplemental services and understand the 

needs it provides. But we do not want to limit the choices that parents have been provided, the rights they have under this law. The 

participation rates have been low. But if it is because parents are 

not interested, then there would not be that same impact on the 

school. 

We actually believe there is probably more interest in the right 

to transfer. But we also issued a report on the right to transfer in 

2004 and found that, just like the SES provisions, there has been 

a real uneven implementation and enforcement of these provisions 

and that a number of districts have not effectively offered that 

right to parents. 

And just as a matter of educational quality, if a parent can find 

a better school for their child, that means the child is getting a full 

6 or 7 hours a day of better instruction. And that may be, for that 

parent, much more value added than a more limited number of 

hours that their child would be in tutoring. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. 

Ms. Roberts, you testified that Boston links its supplemental 

educational services to other social supports to ensure that students receive comprehensive services and to accommodate working 

parents. 

Could you expand on that, how that works in Boston? 

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Ms. ROBERTS. Boston Public Schools currently has over 12,000 

students enrolled in after-school programs that are school-based. In 

our school-based SES programs we have a school-based coordinator 

who works with the instructional staff and the principal to ensure 

that SES students are able then to transition into these programs, 

which are primarily enrichment. 

Some are academic improvement—so that the school day is, in 

fact, extended for parents. We don’t have this issue of transportation problems with our working parents not being able to pick up 

their children early. 

Our elementary schools let out at about 3:30. Middle school is 

out at 1:20. We are able to extend the school day between 5:30 and 

6:00 by allowing transition into other programs. 

Chairman KILDEE. Ms. Ashby, do states currently have the capacity and resources to effectively implement the law, supplemental educational services, and particularly in the rural areas? 

Ms. ASHBY. Well, the state role in supplemental educational services is to select providers, to provide a list of providers based on 

adequate criteria for determining their ability to provide the services. States also encourage districts to notify parents and provide 

assistance to districts in doing that. 

Given the role that the states have, we didn’t find anything to 

indicate they didn’t have the capacity to do that. Where the rubber 

sort of hits the road is at the district level and the interactions between the district and the providers. And that is where there 

seemed to be more concern. 

Chairman KILDEE. Do you find that more in the rural areas? 

Ms. ASHBY. I am sorry; I didn’t answer that part of the question. 

There definitely are problems in rural areas because, number 

one, finding the providers who are available to provide services. 

And also there isn’t necessarily an adequate cluster of students 

needing services to justify providers coming in and offering those 

services. So the typical problems of rural areas because of their 

sparseness and lack of population occur here as well. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thanks very much. 

Governor Castle? 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This panel is a wealth of information, almost to the point I don’t 

know how to start to begin to ask questions. There is so much out 

there. But let me try to determine a few things. 

And, Ms. Ashby, let me start with you. We have heard differing 

rates here in terms of participation. But it seems to me that overall 

that the participation rates are low from a percentage point of 

view, even though there may be some exceptions, which we have 

heard about today. 

Can you explain to me why you think that is? I mean, is it a 

money issue? Is it an unwillingness of parents to be involved in 

this issue, which we have heard about a little bit here? What seems 

to be the reasons for that? 

To me, it would seem to be all positive that kids would be involved. And yet they are not necessarily. 

Ms. ASHBY. It is a mixture of things. And let me point out that 

when we did our study, we were looking at the 2004-2005 school 

year. And we haven’t updated our numbers. 

59

The numbers that are the percentage participation we reported 

for that year was an increase over the prior year. So it is reasonable to believe that things have improved since then. However, the 

participation rates from everything I have seen and heard are still 

low. And that is due to a number of factors. 

Part of the problem is parental notification and parents understanding what SES is and what it provides. That is improving. The 

department is taking additional steps to help states. And states are 

helping districts do a better job of notifying parents and notifying 

parents in a way that the parents can under. 

Supplemental educational services conflict with other activities 

students might be involved in. They themselves perhaps prefer 

sports or prefer some type of other activity. Many students sign up 

for SES but don’t continue through the school year, for example, 

probably in part for that reason. 

There are still some issues regarding accessibility and location of 

programs and problems with school districts being concerned about 

the use of their facilities or not allowing their facilities to be used. 

So actually getting access to the programs may still be an issue in 

some places. 

So there is a number of things. 

Mr. CASTLE. Ms. Roberts mentioned this other side of it. If the 

school district is supplying the SES services versus an outside vendor, has that made a difference in terms of the participation with 

respect to the students? Do you understand my question? 

Ms. ASHBY. Yes. 

Mr. CASTLE. And if so, why? And what can we do to make sure 

the participation is higher with the outside vendors? 

Ms. ASHBY. So you are asking if the school district is the provider? 

Mr. CASTLE. Right. 

Ms. ASHBY. That is not something we studied. We didn’t evaluate 

the pilots, for example. And others can respond to that better than 

I can. 

Mr. CASTLE. Maybe I should ask Ms. Roberts then. 

Ms. ASHBY. But that is certainly reasonable. Yes. 

Mr. CASTLE. I mean, apparently, if I understand it, Boston does 

this. And have you found a greater participation rate when the 

school district is providing the services versus outside vendors? 

And why? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Well, I think there are several factors. One is that 

most parents are familiar with their school. And it is a caring and 

safe environment that they feel comfortable with. The other piece 

is that we have significant transportation problems. 

Our parents cannot pick up their children after school. And so, 

having a school-based program allows for an extended day where 

that fits their schedule so that more parents can, in fact, enroll. I 

would say those are the two main issues. 

Mr. CASTLE. What was the basic percentage breakdown, if you 

know, of kids receiving services from the district versus outside 

vendors in Boston? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Seventy percent of students in Boston selected the 

BPS as their program. We were able to accommodate 67. The remaining 33 percent have been placed in external programs. 

60

Mr. CASTLE. I mean, I don’t know this for sure. But it seems to 

me if we had a panel of people here who were testifying on behalf 

of the outside vendors, they would argue that, you know, if you are 

inside a district, you have greater access to the students, greater 

ability to do these things, greater ability to coordinate schedules in 

schools, et cetera, all of which may be legitimate arguments to a 

degree. 

How do you manage that in terms of balancing both use of an 

internal school district system and outside vendors? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Okay. We try to offer every provider an opportunity to be in this school. This year seven providers requested to 

be school-based systems and were placed within schools. 

One of the issues is that there are capacity problems. Most of our 

schools have an after-school program. We have 12,000 students enrolled district-wide. There is limited space. So we could not have 

all 24 of our providers in the school building. 

But we do help them to negotiate with the principals. We hold 

a principal-provider meeting. We also have a school site coordinator 

who is able to coordinate the services of the school, the schoolbased teachers as well as the other after-school programs taking 

place within the building. 

So we make every effort to ensure that providers are allowed to 

be school-based if they would like to, but also to ensure that all the 

services are coordinated. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Ms. Roberts. 

I see that my time is up, although I suspect I only got 3 minutes 

out of all that. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Sestak? 

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I apologize that I missed part of the testimony, but if I might ask 

you a question. I was taken by what I had read, that you have acknowledged that Maryland is a unique case, to some degree, because of the number of districts. But at the end, you had talked 

about beginning a process of evaluating the effectiveness of SES 

programs. 

Can you speak about—since you have been somewhat successful, 

well, 19 percent to 68 percent access—what are the steps you are 

taking to assess the effectiveness, to evaluate it? And then stepping 

back, what would you, you know, humbly offer to other states to 

think about in that area that you are about to embark on? 

Ms. CHAFIN. Okay, thank you very much for asking. 

We have entered into a contract with Dr. Steven Ross from the 

University of Memphis. He is right now one of the premier people 

in the nation who is evaluating and offering guidance in the evaluation of SES. 

What we have done up to this point is simply look very carefully 

at the data we have been monitoring. We not only ask were they 

enrolled. We ask how often they come, are they really participating, 

what are the goals that you have set with parents. We do a site 

visit to every vendor in each district. 

We might not hit all of their sites in a district, but we have at 

least one site visit. And the basis of that, our specialists ask things 

like show me the signed goals that the parents have signed saying 

61

this is what you are working on. Show me the background checks. 

Show me what the curriculum is for this child. What are you doing 

to interface with their teacher? 

So we get that monitoring information that allows us to see what 

are really the things that are going on with the school. We ask that 

they do surveys of parents. Are they satisfied with the services? 

Are the schools satisfied with the services? We have been collecting 

that. We have not raised it up to the level of are these services actually helping kids be proficient in reading and mathematics. 

Mr. SESTAK. Right. 

Ms. CHAFIN. That is what we hope to see this evaluation and 

have asked to see this evaluation do. 

Mr. SESTAK. I am taken because, at least in the background I 

come from, you know, you can expect what you inspect. And that 

is why I am interested in this evaluation portion of it. But I was 

also taken that you made a conscious decision, the part of your testimony I heard, to take money from somewhere else in Title I to 

fund these two positions. 

Are you going to have to do the same in order to implant an evaluation system that adequately assesses the proficiency? 

Ms. CHAFIN. No, actually we are not because we went the contractual route with this. So it is taking money to do this. But it 

is not an issue of using up another staff position. Right now that 

is the big thing for us. 

As I said in my written testimony, we only have 24 districts. So 

we have the luxury of picking up a phone and saying, ‘‘Gee, can 

you help us with that?’’ We can know the names of those people. 

But when it comes to looking at this issue about is this effective, 

we felt that we needed to have that external view that could be 

more objective. 

Mr. SESTAK. Out of curiosity, what were the areas of Title I that 

you felt like they have import, it was less than this program? 

Ms. CHAFIN. You know, that is hard to get me to admit I am not 

doing everything as best I can. But I think that more than anything, what we lose is some of the statewide flexibility and support 

to low-performing schools and being able to have staff throughout 

and deal with other issues related to low performance. I think that 

is what suffers. 

Mr. SESTAK. And, ma’am, thank you. 

In just the last few seconds, I didn’t hear your testimony. I apologize. But I went through it. Could you just speak for a moment—

because I am quite taken about English language learners and 

those with disabilities needing greater access. Your best options for 

that were? 

Ms. CHAFIN. We were very concerned about those two populations from a civil rights point of view and from an educational 

achievement point of view. 

Mr. SESTAK. I agree. 

Ms. CHAFIN. We do have some recommendations. One of the recommendations is that there be an examination of the costs of providing services to students with special needs. 

Mr. SESTAK. At the additional per pupil cost? 

Ms. CHAFIN. Right because right now every student who is eligible will essentially be eligible for the same dollar amount of servVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:06 Apr 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-20\34-539.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
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ices. But we know that some students are further behind than others, and some students need a tutor who is qualified to help them 

with math. 

But if the student does not speak English or if the student has 

an IEP, the tutor will also need to have some qualification or there 

may need to be additional personnel brought in just like we have 

in the regular school day. So I think that there should be an examination of whether it might make sense to differentiate the needs 

and then attach different cost options to those needs. 

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. 

The gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Biggert? 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a question probably to Ms. Chafin and Ms. Roberts and 

Ms. Murray. 

And, Ms. Chafin, you mentioned in your testimony that there is 

considerable cost that we were just talking about. Are the school 

districts in Maryland spending the entire 20 percent of Title I on 

SES? 

Ms. CHAFIN. Some of them are, some of them are not. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. Do you have school districts that are spending more? 

Ms. CHAFIN. No, not at this point. I will say that in Baltimore 

City where we have a 99 percent participation rate, we have 

through an audit agreement resolution asked that they put money 

on top of their 20 percent to serve even more of their eligible students. And that, I believe, is what has pushed up their rate to the 

99 percent, their attempt to achieve beyond that. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. 

Ms. CHAFIN. I think they do put in money for the monitoring and 

the support at the school level that is coming out of other pieces 

of their money. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. 

Then, Ms. Roberts, your school system is on the pilot program, 

as is the Chicago Public Schools. And I have dealt with the Chicago 

schools a lot. And number one, they really did a reformation of the 

schools prior to No Child Left Behind, except that they reversed a 

couple of things, which I thought was very important. 

Number one was that they wanted to do the tutoring in the supplemental services in the first year rather than in the third year 

and have the transfer and then the reconstitution of schools of the 

school wasn’t working, bring in a whole new administrative team 

and teachers. They finally got a waiver from the Department of 

Education as far as their tutoring because there were so many students that were eligible for it that they couldn’t provide the services by the private vendors. 

And it turned out that the private vendors—and I wonder if this 

is happening in your school district, too. The private vendors were 

actually hiring those same teachers from the school to be the tutors 

but at twice the cost of what it would cost the school system to hire 

the same tutors, the school teachers after school. Number one, 

when a school is failing and you want to provide the SES, does that 

mean that every student is eligible for the tutoring? 

63

And I think, Ms. Murray, you said that you try and do the students that are below grade average first that qualify. But then do 

you do all the students that are within either the sub-groups or 

within the whole school district that are provided with tutoring? 

And I am asking the three of you. 

Ms. ROBERTS. The law requires that we serve lower income students first. The demand for our SES program has not yet exceeded 

our capacity to provide the program. So we have not had to rank 

students. But in the case that we would, we would do it based on 

low-income and then student performance. We would probably look 

at those groups that were failing in terms of the state assessment. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. So it could be though that if they are low-income 

they could be the students that are actually performing at grade 

level but because they are low-income they are the first to qualify. 

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes. And we have a number of students who do 

not qualify in terms of income eligibility but do qualify when you 

look at the student performance. This is particularly true of our 

special education population. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. 

And, Ms. Murray, is that——

Ms. MURRAY. I would agree with that. We had the same situation, a situation where the low-income students are doing fine and 

do not necessarily need the supplemental services but higher-income students are not doing well and would benefit. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. 

Ms. Roberts, do you still find that there are a lot of students that 

are not getting the services because of the availability of funds? 

Ms. MURRAY. We have not exceeded our capacity of funding. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. You have not? 

And you have not, Ms. Roberts? 

Ms. ROBERTS. No. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Well, Chicago certainly has. 

Ms. Chafin? 

Ms. CHAFIN. Again, except for Baltimore City, all of our systems 

still have money available within that 20 percent to serve more 

students. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. All right. 

Do each of you think it makes sense to use the supplemental 

services in the first year rather than the third year? 

Ms. Murray? 

Ms. MURRAY. Well, certainly, our experience in Newport News 

has shown that more parents have participated in supplemental 

services than did public school choice. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay, okay. 

Ms. Roberts? 

Ms. ROBERTS. I think you are going to find that the answer will 

vary from district to district. In Boston we have had continually declining funds across all of our NCLB grants. And so, we have been 

left inclined to start SES in our first year when we already have 

a school choice program. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. But in your school system do you really have 

other public schools that are available to take the numbers that 

would want to transfer? 

64

Ms. ROBERTS. We don’t have surrounding districts. But we do 

have schools within the district. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. 

Ms. Chafin? 

Ms. CHAFIN. I think we have found that we often are limited in 

the number of schools that are available for them to transfer to. 

And most of our parents very much want their kids to stay in their 

neighborhood school with their friends. So we at the state would 

love to have the option of saying district by district and evaluating 

whether or not that would be there, whether it would come first. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Woolsey? 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great panel. 

Thank you so much, all of you. 

Every time we go through this, we learn more. But we are learning more every day with No Child Left Behind. And we know that. 

And that is what we need to be basing our reauthorization on is 

what we have learned from the last 5 years. 

Overall there is no question that students are best off if—and 

that is the operative word, if—their local school can meet the individual needs of the child and leave no child behind. So that has got 

to be our goal. And I think we can—and you have given us such 

a menu of good ideas here today—pick the best from what each one 

of you has offered to us as recommendations for our reauthorization. 

What I want is that SES availability be there but not just in 

numbers, but in quality. And I like the idea of school choice. But 

I prefer that that school choice be later. I really think that is punitive when we—maybe a school will be so bad off that kids absolutely need to leave that school. But if that is so, we shouldn’t have 

that school. What is the matter with us, the richest nation in the 

world? 

But I really think we do a great disservice to have a school in 

need and then have their school population leave, particularly 

those whose parents are more active and motivated. They leave 

and leave that school with the kids that need the most help and 

less money because the kids have left. None of it makes sense to 

me. 

So what I want us to do is pick the best of all these ideas. And 

Newport News—didn’t I read a book about Newport News? 

Anyway, it seems like you have got so many good ideas, Ms. 

Murray. So what I would like you to talk to me about is how you 

measure your SES vendors and teachers and how you attract them 

because we expect our teachers to be the best qualified and certified and we are measuring them. How do we make sure that 

these services that we bring, the tutoring, et cetera, can measure 

up to the same standards? 

Ms. MURRAY. Currently I think it is very difficult with the SES 

providers to know the quality of the tutors because they are not required to have certified teachers or licensed teachers or teachers 

who meet the highly qualified state standard. 

65

I believe that is something that would improve SES if that were 

required because it has been our experience, the complaints that 

we have had from parents have been because of, as I mentioned, 

tutors not showing up, tutors using inappropriate language or discipline methods, tutors just going over homework with the students, not doing an actual teaching lesson, those types of things. 

I believe that if there were higher quality of professional in those 

positions than we may not have the problem. 

I know that some companies do require licensed professionals. 

But that, again, is on an individual basis. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Would anybody else like to respond to this? Like 

how are we going to have enough tutors? Is that what we expect? 

Ms. MURRAY. Well, certainly, quality is of utmost importance. 

And as I said earlier and as we have explained in our statement, 

quality starts at the state level because it is the states who certify 

the providers and provide a list that is available to the district for 

making it available to parents to select the actual providers. 

Monitoring and technical assistance are also very important. 

Monitoring by the states and also in some instances, by districts 

of providers is absolutely important for accountability. There are 

providers who have been taken off the list. That should certainly 

be pursued in instances where you have providers that are not 

doing the job. That has to be done in order to have a quality system. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So, Ms. Chafin, do we look at then every school 

year in the AYP tests? Is there a way to say, well, these kids still 

aren’t measuring up and they are going to this particular service 

or this is how we are tutoring them versus the kids that are measuring up? 

Ms. CHAFIN. We certainly encourage the vendors to work directly 

with the school so they know what that child needs. And that is 

one of the things we monitor. We select our vendors with a very 

rigorous process. Our last vendor group we had 33 applications. We 

approved 10. So you started at all of those places, I think, but you 

have to go back. 

I am still looking at this evaluation we will have in place that 

will link vendors and students who participate in their program to 

how those students are achieving on the Maryland school assessment. That to me is where we are going to have the true information about effectiveness of the programs. But you have got to not 

just choose them rigorously. 

You have got to grow them to some extent and make sure that 

you are looking-we give technical assistance on how do you write 

goals and objectives. Some of these incredibly well-intentioned vendors just don’t have those basic skills. So we are still working at 

that level. But we screen out a lot more than we allow through. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay. Well, my time is up. But I think that is one 

of the things we have to look at in No Child Left Behind reauthorization is how do we evaluate. 

Ms. CHAFIN. Absolutely. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Keller? 

Mr. KELLER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

66

And let me begin—Mr. Chairman is a good friend of mine. But 

I just correct any impression that folks may have in mentioning the 

reductions in the funding for Title I. Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, Title I funding is actually up 46 percent nationally from $8.7 billion in 2001 to $12.7 billion in 2006. In my 

home state, it is up 58 percent. 

And I say that just because I hear from a lot of folks back home 

the same thing. Because it is authorized at a certain amount. If it 

is not appropriated to that amount, people think it is a cut when, 

in fact, it is not. The funding is up substantially. It doesn’t mean 

we can’t do better. 

But, Ms. Roberts, I am going to direct all my questions to you 

just because your issue is the one that I am really most interested 

in. And that is the private versus public providers of tutors. 

So let me begin by asking you—give me the name of an elementary school in Boston. 

Ms. ROBERTS. Gavin. 

Mr. KELLER. What is that? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Gavin. 

Mr. KELLER. Gavin, all right. Let’s say that we have a 2nd-grader named Johnny at Gavin Elementary School in Boston. And he 

is having problems reading, and he qualifies for extra tutoring 

help. If the district is the provider, would that tutoring take place 

at Gavin Elementary School? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. If a private vendor is the provider, would the 

tutoring take place at Gavin Elementary School? 

Ms. ROBERTS. It would depend on the provider. The provider selects their location and form partnerships with particular principals. And a number of our providers have their own sites. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. So in some cases, yes, in some cases, no? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. If the district is the provider, would the 

teacher for Johnny in providing the tutoring likely be a teacher 

from Gavin Elementary School, although different than his regular 

classroom teacher? 

Ms. ROBERTS. It is possible. We recruit our highly qualified 

teachers that have a track record of high academic performance for 

the program. They can be from within the school or from other 

schools. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. If there is a private SES provider, would it 

also be possible that the tutor might be a teacher at that same 

Gavin Elementary School? 

Ms. ROBERTS. It is possible. In many cases we are finding that 

the staff can range from a high school student to a highly qualified 

teacher. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. Let’s assume for a second because it is possible under both circumstances that Gavin Elementary School will 

provide Johnny with some extra reading help and it will be from 

a teacher at Gavin Elementary School. What would be the difference in pay that that teacher would receive from the district 

versus what that teacher would receive from a private provider? 

67

Ms. ROBERTS. That actually is very difficult to gauge. The district provides contractually about $38 per hour. Private providers range 

from anywhere between $15 to the same amount, $38 per hour. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. This is what I am getting at. In your testimony you said that the district provides these SES services at a 

rate of about four times cheaper. Right? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes. 

Mr. KELLER. I am trying to decide, well, if the district provides the tutor who is a public school employee, does that person get $10 

an hour? And if the private sector vendor is providing that same 

teacher, does that teacher also get $10 an hour and the private 

vendor pockets the rest as profit? Or is that private vendor saying, 

‘‘Hey, work for us and we will pay you $30 an hour?’’ Do you have 

a sense of how that works? 

Ms. ROBERTS. I would say most private providers—very few private providers use teachers. But those who do generally pay slightly under what the district is charging. And they do charge the full 

per pupil allocation of $2,400. Some of those may relate to operational costs. But some of it definitely has a profit issue. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. Have you looked at the data to see if the test 

scores are any better in the Boston Public Schools with the students who got the public school vendors versus those who got the 

private sector tutoring? 

Ms. ROBERTS. We have actually been trying to do an evaluation. 

We have had some difficulty getting data. We have been doing a 

pre and post test. We have some data on the district program but 

not much on the external provider programs because of their participation rates. 

Mr. KELLER. But you are looking into still an open question. My 

time is about to wrap up, so let me just make one final comment. 

I see that you wanted to use about 10 percent of the funds for administrative costs and right now you are not allowed to use any for 

administrative costs? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. KELLER. I have noticed throughout No Child Left Behind we 

have various provisions that say 95 percent of the funds shall be 

used in the classroom. And would you be comfortable with 5 percent of the funds being used for administrative purposes? That is 

at least better than zero. 

Ms. ROBERTS. I think 5 percent would be better than none, yes. 

Mr. KELLER. Okay. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Keller. 

The gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Hirono? 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Is it Ms. Piche ́? Am I pronouncing your name correctly? She testified—and this is for all of the other members of the panel. Ms. 

Piche ́’s testimony says that the students who are furthest behind 

tend to be poor and in one or more of other sub-groups. They are 

usually non-white, disabled, or are learning English. 

Would you agree that those are the students who are the furthest behind? 

Ms. ASHBY. I would. Our work would corroborate that. 

Ms. HIRONO. All of you would agree? 

68

Now, these are groups that have been identified long before 

NCLB ever got put in place that generally they needed more help. 

This is why we have programs such as Head Start, ESL. There is 

also another federal law that requires special needs students to receive equal educational opportunities, also not particularly well 

funded by the federal government. 

So that being the case, do you think that we need to go through 

all of the testing required under NCLB in order to identify that 

these groups of students need special help? 

So in other words, since these groups were already identified, 

can’t we just get quality SES to these students without going 

through all of the testing that they have to go through under 

NCLB? 

Ms. ASHBY. I can respond to that. The testing serves a number 

of purposes. One is to determine how students are achieving the 

content standards for the academic curriculum. And that is all students, what progress they are making and to what extent within 

a district the district is likely to meet its goal of being proficient 

in math and science by 2014. 

Also testing provides information to teachers and to school personnel about what is needed to help students progress. Where does 

the instruction need to be targeted? What areas are lacking in the 

student’s knowledge. So there are a number of reasons for having 

assessments in addition to identifying poor and minority students 

who need help. 

Ms. CHAFIN. I think we most certainly could identify those students that need help without the test. However, the test to me is 

what makes the school and the districts accountable for the quality 

of work that is presented to that student. SES is one small piece 

of school improvement. 

If all you do is SES and everything stays the same, I don’t think 

you will see the effect. But as it is folded into a full school improvement plan that has the accountability of the test at the end, I think 

that we are in Maryland having discussions about students that we 

may never have discussed as fully as we do now. 

Ms. ROBERTS. I would say the district of Boston is not opposed 

to the testing. I think what we take issue with is the fact that 

growth is not factored into AYP. For example, Boston and San 

Diego performed similarly on the national assessment of core educational progress. But Boston has 60 schools identified for having 

failed to make AYP for 3 or more years while San Diego has 15 

schools. 

There is clearly a wide variety across the states in terms of the 

level of rigor and the starting lines for sub-groups. And so, until 

you address that and develop a national standard so that you are 

able to compare one state to the next, there are some problems 

with this model. 

Ms. MURRAY. I do agree that NCLB has brought accountability 

to school districts and to states for those sub-groups of ESL and 

special education students. I do think that growth models need to 

be taken into account. 

Ms. HIRONO. Did you want to add something? 

Ms. PICHE ́. I served on the secretary of education’s growth model 

peer review process. And I would say that growth models are going 

69

to be a very important component in moving forward. But the bottom line is that the tests are needed for purposes of accountability. 

And, in fact, what you find is that you can also use these assessment results to identify schools that are doing a good job. 

For example, several years ago, we identified a school in Prince 

George’s County in Maryland where minority males who were also 

low-income were doing phenomenally well in science. So that school 

had been written up as an exemplary school for other schools to 

look at in terms of what are they doing, why is it that their scores 

for this particular sub-group of students were so much higher than 

the rest of the state. 

Ms. HIRONO. I am probably going to want to follow up with some 

of you regarding where I am going with these questions because, 

yes, I agree that at some point we ought to assess whether or not 

the supplemental services is having a positive impact. But I think 

what I am concerned about is, you know, how do we get to that 

point in the least costly and yet effective way. 

Thank you. 

Chairman KILDEE. The gentleman from Puerto Rico, Mr. Fortun ̃ o? 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

you and certainly Governor Castle and the staff for today’s hearing. 

But most importantly, I want to thank all five of you. And it has 

been a truly interesting and enlightening session for us as we move 

forward in trying to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. I know that 

educational standards and performance are major challenges that 

we are facing as a committee. 

And, Mr. Chairman, you are doing a superb job in steering us in 

the right direction and trying to understand what is being done out 

there, best practices and so on. 

Unfortunately, in my district, the district of Puerto Rico, we have 

been falling way short across the board in terms of the educational 

standards and the implementation of NCLB standards. I had mentioned earlier on March 7th the U.S. Department of Education had 

sent a letter to the Puerto Rico Department of Education stating 

that it is in violation of NCLB by failing to submit AYP determinations in a timely fashion. And Puerto Rico was fined for that. 

Now on March 21st, the U.S. Department of Education sent a 

subsequent letter to the Puerto Rico Department of Education, 

where the department stated its concerns regarding ‘‘the alignment 

of Puerto Rico’s academic achievement tests to grade level content 

standards and the performance level descriptors for Puerto Rico alternative evaluation tests.’’ And it states that actually Puerto Rico 

may lose 50 percent of the Title I part A administrative funds for 

fiscal year 2006. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to introduce into 

the record the March 21st letter sent by the Department of Education, if I may. 

Chairman KILDEE. Without objection. 

[The letter follows:]

70


fort-1.eps
71


fort-2.eps
72

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Thank you very much. 

And in preparing for today’s hearing for SES, the department 

was unable to furnish us adequate data on the program implementation in Puerto Rico prior to this hearing. I am certain that we 

are facing the same concerns and same problems. 

The first question that I have for Ms. Chafin—if you could elaborate further in your division service contracts with outside or in 

other jurisdictions, as you were mentioning. How do you structure 

that, and what exactly are you doing? And maybe the second question there—will you be willing to do the same thing for Puerto 

Rico? 

Ms. CHAFIN. You are talking about our external evaluations? 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Exactly, yes. 


fort-3.eps
73

Ms. CHAFIN. Yes, again, we already have a very strong database 

under the direction of Dr. Jane Fleming, who is our coordinator. 

We actually helped the U.S. Department of Education construct the 

guidance around the elements of a monitoring system. So when 

that guidance came to us last year, we were already collecting 

those pieces. So that is a very essential part. 

You must know who is participating, when they are participating, and you must have that close tie with the vendor. What we 

are adding on with this external evaluator is that connection to 

achievement and being able to look at—we have vendors who do 

one-on-one tutoring with students. 

We have vendors who go into homes. Then we have vendors who 

work at schools. And they work with groups of five to six. We have 

so many different configurations of this that we feel that we need 

this external independent evaluation of it to make that connection. 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Okay. 

Ms. CHAFIN. So that is the structure that we are having right 

now. 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Okay, I see. I have a feeling that your student 

body is pretty similar to mine in the sense that it tends to be not 

rural, but more based on cities. And you were probably facing some 

of the same challenges. Could you elaborate even further on how 

you brought up those numbers in terms of participation-wise and 

otherwise? 

Ms. CHAFIN. One of the tools that a state has is to look each year 

at the Title I carryover money. Right now you get 20 percent of 

your funds. And then when the 15 months are over, the state, at 

least in Maryland, we have exercised the option to say we see how 

hard you are working, and we see the improvement in your participation rate, your attendance, your removal of barriers for parents. 

So we will this year allow you to carry over that money into your 

general Title I funding. 

We have also said in this year we do not see that you have made 

that effort, you have actually gone down in participation. So we are 

asking that you carry over that money and leave it earmarked for 

SES. 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Okay. Specifically for SES. Okay. 

Ms. CHAFIN. Yes. So we feel that each time we have done that 

we have seen an increase in participation and an increase in the 

communication. They are doing a really good job. I don’t want to 

make that sound like districts don’t care until you push them. But 

they need to understand the seriousness and the consequences of 

it sometimes. But they also need you there holding their hand to 

address these issues. 

We never just say go away and do this better. We always say 

what can we do to help. What are the issues here? 

I have to point out that one of the biggest barriers to SES participation is the fact that these children at ages, you know, 4th, 

5th, 6th and 7th grade don’t see this as something that is really 

good. 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. I know. I am the father of triplets, so I know what 

you are talking about. 

Ms. CHAFIN. They see this as something they are being sent to. 

We are trying very hard to say—and I am a baseball fan. When 

74

Cal Ripken had a batting slump, he took extra batting practice. 

Okay? We are trying to instill in them you have some control here. 

You go and snatch all the education you can out of every opportunity. That is missing. That is not really the atmosphere that SES 

is in. 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Yes. 

Ms. CHAFIN. So it is touching all of the people involved. And we 

would be glad to help you. 

Mr. FORTUN ̃ O. Thank you. Thank you again. 

My time is up. But again, I commend you, all five of you. 

And, Mr. Chairman, again, likewise, thank you. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes? 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity to work at the Maryland 

State Department of Education for 8 years, part of that time with 

Ms. Chafin. 

And I am reminded again of why I learned so much from you 

when I was there from your testimony today. 

I want to thank everyone on the panel for your testimony. 

I had a couple of questions. So I will jump right into them. 

First of all, what is your view—and anyone can answer this question if they would like. But what is your view on what the minimum qualifications should be of the instructional personnel that 

are in these SES? And we have talked about how if they are going 

to be teachers, then they probably ought to meet the highly qualified standard. 

But we have also pointed out that in many instances they are 

not teachers. And I am just trying to get a sense of where you 

think the standard ought to be and, I guess, where you think it is 

trending right now. 

So we could start with you, Ann. 

Ms. CHAFIN. Okay. I think it is trending toward vendors using 

highly qualified teachers. It is not there yet. And because there is 

no mandate and because of access, school systems are not able to 

get all the highly qualified teachers they need. So the vendors 

would suffer from the same situations. 

I think that it is the more qualifications with the tutor, the better off we are. But I guess I would hold out one little piece. I have 

a 16-year-old. And sometimes if she hears it from a 17-year-old, she 

is more willing to listen to it. 

So I think there is a role involved here for support and tutoring 

that may not always fall under that characteristic. But I do think 

our vendors are moving more in that direction. And I think that 

our districts are much more comfortable when they know that 

those actual teachers are the highly qualified teachers. 

Mr. SARBANES. Any others agree with that? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes. I would not say that the tutors have to be 

teachers. But they should meet the definition of a highly qualified 

teacher. Particularly in Massachusetts we have a number of colleges and universities where our providers can draw from. 

This is particularly important for us for our English language 

learners and our special needs students because what we are finding is that a number of our providers are not equipped to provide 

75

services for them and eventually drop them, and then we have to 

take them into the district program where we are equipped to do 

so. So it would be very helpful particularly when you are looking 

at those two categories if the tutors were at least meeting the definition of highly qualified, even if they weren’t teachers. 

Mr. SARBANES. Well, let me ask you—let me follow up on that 

because working with systems like the Baltimore City Schools—

and I know other urban districts are facing huge shortages in 

qualified teachers, unless things have changed dramatically in the 

last couple of years. 

And so, aren’t we heading towards a situation where we are 

going to have all these private SES providers competing of the 

same pool of qualified candidates? And isn’t that going to create 

more pressure and problems potentially for the traditional districts 

in terms of where they are getting their teachers? 

Ms. ROBERTS. I think depending on the availability of individuals 

within your city. As I said, Boston is very university-rich. And so, 

we have a number of higher education programs from which our 

providers can withdraw tutors as well as our district. That may not 

be the case in other cities and other states. But it most certainly 

is an option. 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. 

Ms. PICHE ́. You know, there probably is going to be some regional variation in your available labor market. But what we know 

about the teaching population in this country is that many highly 

qualified teachers are not actually teaching. There are many teachers who have left the profession for a variety of reasons. There are 

also—I think we can’t rule out the possibility of people who have 

credentials and have capabilities to perform tutoring under the supervision of highly trained, capable super-teachers, if you will, the 

folks who administer and run these programs. 

But we know from the research about effective reading programs—I will take the success for all program, for example—is that 

the program can actually be run—and its one-on-one tutoring and 

small group tutoring can be done successfully by highly trained 

paraprofessionals. And we put this program into place in a school 

district where we worked, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

It was highly successful. It was actually also evaluated by Steve 

Ross from the University of Memphis. So I think as we get more 

of the results from these evaluations, we know more about the 

quality and what is working and what is not, we will probably have 

better data about that. But I would say across the board that it 

might not be realistic to expect that every single tutor would have 

those highly qualified credentials as they exist now under NCLB. 

I guess I would also say——

Mr. SARBANES. I just lost the yellow light, so I want to get a 

question in real quick before the chairman takes my time back. 

And that is particularly in these situations where the district is 

the provider, which is a fascinating sort of in some ways Kafkaesque result. 

Ms. Chafin and others, Ms. Roberts, do you ever wake up in the 

morning and scratch your head and say we are sort of creating an 

alternative shadow school system in a way that has these special 

features to it that make it more attractive in many ways but, we 

76

have got the same teachers providing the services, it is in the same 

building, et cetera? And where is that heading? What are the implications of that? 

Or is it okay because you are sort of jostling the system a bit 

and, yes, people are walking out one door and coming back in the 

other? But maybe it heightens the awareness of the kinds of services that need to be provided and creates other dynamics that are 

positive. So if you could just quickly respond to that. 

Ms. CHAFIN. I guess I do have concerns about that. Currently in 

Maryland we have two schools, districts that are in improvement. 

And they are not allowed to offer SES services. I think it is an 

issue of training, however. If I were confident that a teacher participating with a vendor would receive extra-professional development that might actually make them do a better job during the 

day, too, this would be more palatable. 

Mr. SARBANES. Ms. Roberts? 

Ms. ROBERTS. Boston is selecting its most highly qualified teachers for its program so that our instruction is in the after-school 

SES program is hopefully at a higher quality than what is offered, 

in some cases, in the school day. It is also more connected because 

you are able to ensure that the SES teachers are connected with 

the school day curriculum and with the school day teachers. 

In terms of how that affects the school districts and our ability 

to work with external providers, I think that we have come to a 

happy medium where we are able to provide services, we are able 

to do it in a highly qualified way. We are able to show some improvement. 

And we have been looking at our preliminary data. We see that 

students that attend 75 percent or more of the time in the district 

program do show improvement. We cannot say the same for external providers because we don’t have enough data. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Grijalva? 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for this 

excellent panel. 

Let me just follow up on the point that you were just making, 

Ms. Roberts. Have Boston Public Schools done any monitoring to 

see how well private providers—their tutoring program is matching 

up with the classroom strategy, with the curriculum? Is that monitoring being conducted? 

Ms. ROBERTS. The state requires us to approve all of the students 

and parents home contracts, which do outline what the student will 

cover. In most cases, there is very little alignment on the front end 

between what is happening in the school and what is happening 

with the SES provider, although we do provide that information. 

Most providers offer a pre-packaged program which they are following. And so, they are using their own pre and post-assessments 

by which they offer a student success plan. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Wouldn’t a continuum of instruction be good in 

terms of if we are trying to bring these kids to a certain level? I 

have always heard that a continuum is a very important factor in 

that improvement. 

77

Ms. ROBERTS. Yes. We most certainly would like to see better 

alignment between what is going on in the school day and what is 

going on with the SES providers. We found that that is difficult to 

do when you already have a pre-packaged program. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Got it. I think the other one I was going to ask 

you about, if I may, Ms. Roberts, is how much does your school district as an example spend on disseminating all the SES information about the providers in the district. How much does that cost? 

Ms. ROBERTS. This year we spent nearly $100,000. We did newspaper advertisements. We have done things on our cable channel. 

We sent packages home through the school and by mail. We have 

held SES provider fairs for parents. And so, we have tried to reach 

out to parents through a number of ways as do most large urban 

districts. And that data is available at the end of my written testimony. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Okay. And I think one more and then I will shift 

to another question. 

Ms. Piche ́ from the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights—I think 

we heard her say or in her testimony that she believes school districts must make a case to the Department of Education that their 

involvement does not detract from the school improvement needs. 

You cite Boston Public Schools commendable record on participation and serving all eligible children at a lower cost than the private providers. Do you have any comments about making the case 

statement that Ms. Piche ́ made, number one? And number two, do 

you know the other four districts that are in the pilot program if 

they have had the same record that you have in terms of participation cost? 

Ms. ROBERTS. I cannot answer the question about the other four 

districts. I believe that for most of us our participation rate meets 

at least the national standard, if not higher. 

What was your first question again? I am sorry. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. The first part of the question having to do with 

the comment that before getting involved in the SES improvement 

services that a case must be made to the Department of Education 

that you are not detracting from the improvement plan. 

Ms. ROBERTS. In Massachusetts our state department works very 

closely with us to ensure that the quality of the program is there 

but also that the schools are able to continue with their school improvement process. And so, while it is not explicitly done, it is implicitly done. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I think Ms. Piche ́ made a very good point. And 

it dealt with the two groups of students that all of us know are not 

doing as well under the mandates. And that is English learners 

and special education. 

Let me use the example of my state. There are 33 providers. I 

think all but three are private providers in the state of Arizona. 

Every one of them claim that they have expertise in being able to 

work with children who need a second language acquisition. From 

my information, there is no way to verify that expertise. 

I mention that, Mr. Chairman, because I really think that in 

those two populations that private providers that are part of this 

SES improvement process have to be monitored and evaluated on 

78

English learners, special education, outreach, expertise of their 

staff, parent communication. Because if that is supposed to be a 

support base for a lot of these children and it is not working and 

all you need to do, at least in the state of Arizona is check a box 

that you have expertise in the area, I don’t think that is enough. 

And I appreciate the comments that the witness made because 

I really feel that that is a glaring gap in holding these private providers or any provider of SES services accountable for reaching 

every one of the kids that we are supposed to be reaching. And I 

yield back. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hinojosa? 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to the presenters here today on our panel. 

I have always been a very strong proponent of parental involvement. And at every level, pre-K through the 12th I think that 

where we see parental involvement, those children seem to do better than those who do not have parents involved. 

My question to Ms. Chafin is, could you describe your efforts to 

ensure that limited English proficient parents understand the opportunities available for supplemental services? 

Ms. CHAFIN. I certainly can. I would never say to you that we 

are doing everything that could possibly be done. But we do translate all of our documents into the five major languages in Maryland. We have community outreach members in each of our districts that are making concerted efforts to have personal contact 

with parents. 

We were just shown—we had a parent advisory council meeting 

yesterday for the superintendent. We had a wonderful presentation 

where the woman talked to us about we don’t really send too much 

written. It is verbal. It is phone. It is having translators. It is having interpreters there for people so that they can understand all of 

the issues available to them. 

You must have those printed materials, but you must also be 

able to contact them where they are in community centers. And I 

think across Maryland you can find that happening. I won’t tell 

you that it is happening everywhere that it could. But it is increasing on a regular basis. We must get to the parents where they are 

so they understand the options. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Can you tell me the difference in the daily attendance, average daily attendance in the schools in Maryland where 

we have a high level of parental involvement versus school districts 

where we don’t have it? 

Ms. CHAFIN. I am sure there is a difference. We do not have statistics there, but we are confident through our work with our Maryland Parent Advisory Council that there is more to be done in making sure that parents understand access to schools. 

I have to tell you that, in working with these, they have come 

clear with, if there is nothing else that happens, make that school 

secretary be nice to us when we come in. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Well, there are some folks in the administration 

which are not friendly to parents. And I can say that the private 

providers who are offering the tutoring, it seems to me, at least 

from parents that have spoken to me about this, that they aren’t 

79

getting enough information that would make it easy for them to 

identify the tutors for the core courses for their children to do better on standardized tests. 

What can you all do to improve that? 

Because the money is there. It is not being utilized. And I believe 

that there must be a problem. It could be language. It could be 

communication. But somehow the parents that are involved are 

having trouble getting the tutors. 

Ms. CHAFIN. For one thing, we would follow up on any report of 

that individually. But again, it is pushing at all of the points, making sure you have the materials translated, making sure you have 

people who are instrumental in the different international communities who themselves understand SES and can teach that. It is 

making sure that the school itself, which is the parents’ first 

thought for anything, understands those services. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Know that that is going to be important if we are 

going to improve the issue that we are working on today on No 

Child Left Behind. 

My last question to Cornelia Ashby. Can you tell me what percentage of students are receiving supplemental services in middle 

schools and what percentage are receiving those supplemental services in high school? 

Ms. ASHBY. I do not have that information. I don’t know if that 

is something that I could get. And perhaps——

Mr. HINOJOSA. Would you try to get me an answer in writing to 

my question? 

Ms. ASHBY. I will try to do that, yes. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. And how have states and school districts worked 

to ensure that appropriate services were available for secondary 

school students? And what has been most effective in serving the 

population of the English language learners so that they could do 

better on standardized tests? 

Ms. ASHBY. Let me say with regard to evaluations of all types 

they are—they haven’t been done for SES. That is true for English 

language learners as well as other students. There are states that 

are in the process of trying to do that. Ms. Chafin has talked about 

in Maryland. 

The difficulty is in having the data available and controlling for 

other factors that can influence a student’s progress. And that is 

the difficult thing that hasn’t been overcome. The Department of 

Education has stepped up its efforts to help states in this regard. 

It is too soon, or I don’t know how effective they have been. 

There is a special center within the department that is providing 

assistance this school year to 16 states who have asked for it. And 

that should improve states’ ability, at least to collect data. But controlling for other factors will still be difficult. So I can’t answer 

your question with regard to limited English proficient students or 

any other group of students right now. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. That seems to be the answer on so many of the 

problems that we are having, that they don’t have the data, they 

don’t have—they are not tracking it. And I think that No Child 

Left Behind after 6 years has done very poorly and those excuses 

that there isn’t enough data—there should have been from the very 

beginning when you started having complaints from states, includVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:06 Apr 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-20\34-539.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
80

ing Virginia and Texas and California. There should have been 

somebody in the department who would have said, well, then let’s 

start collecting data so that we can track it and see where the gaps 

are. 

Ms. ASHBY. The difficulty is the department’s data comes from 

the states. States issue reports to the department. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Yes, but our money from the federal government 

is coming to the states and to the school districts. And it seems to 

me that we ought to exercise some leadership and get them to collect that data. It is not your fault. I realize that. But the message 

has to get up to the folks above you. 

Ms. ASHBY. Thank you. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very, very much. 

Governor Castle and I have been commenting to ourselves up 

here that what a great panel this is. There has not been a scintilla 

of politics, very straight and knowledgeable answers from people 

who really know what is going on. This has been very helpful. 

And I think I can predict that there will be some changes in No 

Child Left Behind from the testimony that we received here today. 

It has been very, very helpful. 

So as previously ordered, the members will have 7 calendar days 

to submit additional materials for the hearing record. Any members who wish to submit follow-up questions in writing to the witnesses should coordinate with the majority staff within the requisite time. 

And without objection, unless you have something to say, the 

hearing is adjourned. 

[Additional questions for the record submitted by Mr. Scott follow:]

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Washington, DC, April 20, 2007. 

CORNELIA ASHBY, Director, 

Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability 

Office, Washington, DC. 

RUTH MURRAY, Director, 

Federal Grants, Newport News Public Schools, Newport News, VA. 

ANN CHAFIN, Maryland Assistant State Superintendent, 

Student, Family, and School Support, Baltimore, MD. 

DIANNE M. PICHE ́, Executive Director, 

Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, DC. 

MONICA ROBERTS, Director, 

Office of Federal and State Programs, Boston Public Schools, Boston, MA 

DEAR MS. ASHBY, MS. CHAFIN, MS. ROBERTS, MS. MURRAY, AND MS. PICHE ́: Thank 

you for testifying at the April 18, 2007 hearing of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. 

Representative Robert C. Scott (D-VA), a Member of the Subcommittee, has asked 

that you respond in writing to the following questions: 

Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more responsive, should SES services 

be targeted to subgroups that fail to make AYP? Also, should these services be 

available to everyone in a subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income? 

Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources be devoted to 

targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school choice be made available 

to subgroups who are not underperforming? For example, if a school is failing a cerVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:06 Apr 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-20\34-539.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
81

1GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Actions May Help Improve Implementation and 

Evaluation of Supplemental Educational Services, GAO-07-738T (Washington, D.C.: April 18, 

2007). 2GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Actions Needed to Improve Local Implementation 

and State Evaluation of Supplemental Educational Services, GAO-06-758 (Washington, D.C.: 

Aug. 4, 2006). 

tain group of students, why are students other than that group permitted to transfer schools? 

Please send an electronic version of your written response to the question to the 

Committee staff by COB on Wednesday, April 25—the date on which the hearing 

record will close. If you have any questions, please contact the Committee. 

Sincerely, 

GEORGE MILLER, Chairman, 

Committee on Education and Labor. 

DALE E. KILDEE, Chairman, 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. 

[Response to Mr. Scott’s questions from Director Ashby follows:]

EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY, 

U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, 

Washington, DC, April 25, 2007. 

Hon. GEORGE MILLER, Chairman, 

Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives. 

Hon. DALE KILDEE, Chairman, 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives. 

SUBJECT: Responses to Questions for the Record Related to the Supplemental Educational Services Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act

This letter responds to your April 20, 2007, request that we provide responses to 

questions related to our recent testimony before the Subcommittee on Early Childhood Education, Elementary and Secondary Education on early implementation of 

the supplemental educational services (SES) provisions of the No Child Left Behind 

Act (NCLBA).1 Our testimony discussed (1) how the proportion of eligible students 

receiving services has changed in recent years and actions that have been taken to 

increase participation; (2) how providers are working with districts and schools to 

provide services that increase student achievement; (3) the extent to which states 

and districts are monitoring and evaluating SES; and (4) how Education monitors 

state SES implementation and assists state and district efforts. This testimony was 

based on our recent report on these topics.2 Your questions, along with our responses, follow. 

1. Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more responsive, should SES services 

be targeted to subgroups that fail to make AYP? Also, should these services be 

available to everyone in a subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income? 

While students from low-income families who attend Title I schools that have 

missed adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals for 3 consecutive years are the only 

students currently eligible to receive SES, the law also allows for SES to be targeted 

to students within that cohort who are the lowest achieving, and potentially in the 

sub-groups that fail to make AYP. Specifically, under current law, districts in which 

the demand for SES exceeds the level that the 20 percent Title I set-aside can support are required to give priority to the lowest-achieving eligible students. In this 

situation, the district has some flexibility in determining which students to 

prioritize for services. For example, the district might decide to focus services on 

students who are lowest-achieving in the subject or subjects that caused the school 

to be identified for improvement, or it might decide that services will be most effective if they are concentrated on the lowest-performing students in particular grades. 

However, because of low participation in SES across the country, it is unlikely 

that many districts have had to prioritize eligible students for services. In our August 2006 report, we estimated that 19 percent of students who were eligible for 

SES in 2004-2005 received services nationwide. Further, no students received services in about 20 percent of the approximately 1,000 districts required to offer SES 

in 2004-2005. 

82

3GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Needs to Provide Additional Technical Assistance 

and Conduct Implementation Studies for School Choice Provision, GAO-05-7 (Washington, D.C.: 

Dec. 10, 2004). 4 U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service, Title I Accountability and School Improvement From 2001-

2004 (Washington, DC.: April 2006). 

Concerning the academic achievement level of students that have received SES, 

we also gathered information in our August 2006 report on this issue. Specifically, 

we estimated that 91 percent of districts that reviewed the academic records of students receiving SES classified most or all of these students as academically lowachieving. While we did not independently verify this information, it suggests that 

the lowest achieving students, potentially including those in the sub-groups that 

failed to make AYP, are receiving SES. 

Since a subgroup’s AYP status is based on the performance of each student in the 

sub-group—regardless of income—to the extent that funds permit, an argument 

could be made for providing SES to everyone in a sub-group that fails to make AYP 

in order to raise the academic achievement of the sub-group, with the lowest-achieving low-income students in the sub-group having first priority. However, without additional evaluation of SES’s impact on student academic achievement, the extent to 

which these services are accomplishing this goal is unknown. Consequently, the extent to which these services would be able to increase the academic achievement of 

students in subgroups that have failed to make AYP is also unknown. 

2. Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources be devoted 

to targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school choice be made available 

to sub-groups who are not underperforming? For example, if a school is failing a certain group of students, why are students other than that group permitted to transfer schools? 

Because of low school choice participation rates, school choice-related transportation costs likely do not account for a significant portion of the 20 percent Title 

I set-aside that districts are required to use for choice-related transportation and 

SES. Both our report on school choice3 and the U.S. Department of Education’s most 

recent report on Title I 4 found that nationwide only 1 percent of students transferred schools under the No Child Left Behind Act’s school choice provisions in 

2003-2004. Low participation may be in part the result of parents’ preferring to keep 

students in neighborhood schools that are close to their homes, as well as the limited availability of schools for students to transfer into. Because of low participation 

rates, we found that less than 5 percent of the Title I set-aside was spent on choicerelated transportation costs in 5 of the 7 districts we visited. 

Regarding the availability of the school choice option to all students in schools 

that have failed to meet AYP for 2 consecutive years, this program design provides 

all students in these schools with the ability to transfer to schools that may better 

meet their academic needs, and it also provides schools with an incentive to increase 

student academic achievement in order to retain students. If the school choice provisions are targeted to certain underperforming sub-groups, rather than all students, 

these program goals may not be as effectively achieved. In addition, as we noted 

in our report on school choice, little is known about the academic performance of 

students who have chosen to transfer schools under the choice provisions. Without 

that data, it is unknown whether students currently exercising the option to transfer are those in the sub-groups that have failed to make AYP or those in the larger 

student population. 

If you have any questions about the content of this letter, please contact me. 

Sincerely yours, 

CORNELIA M. ASHBY, Director, 

Education, Workforce, and Income Security,

U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

[Response to Mr. Scott’s questions from Ms. Chafin follows:]

Response to Questions by Ann E. Chafin, Assistant State Superintendent 

for Student, Family and School Support, Maryland State Department of 

Education 

Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more responsive, should SES services 

be targeted to subgroups that fail to make AYP? Also, should these services be 

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available to everyone in a subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income? 

Within the current structure of NCLB, when school districts have more requests 

for SES than they can fund with the 20% Title I set aside, they must give priority 

to those economically disadvantaged students who have the more severe academic 

need. Thus when there are more requests than money, the students with the most 

serious academic need get first service under SES. If the law was changed so that 

only those economically disadvantaged students in subgroups that are NOT meeting 

AYP are allowed to participate in SES, we may address the immediate need in the 

school but lose an opportunity to invest in the future performance of students. However, since many students fall in multiple subgroups, prioritizing by subgroup rather than individual may address many of the same students. 

SES services are provided by Title I funds. Title I was established and continues 

to be for the mitigation of the effects of poverty on learning. If these funds are made 

available to any student not making AYP, regardless of poverty status, we are 

changing the mission of Title I. Poor parents and students do not have the same 

options as those parents and students who are not economically disadvantaged. 

Title I funds should not be redirected in this manner. 

Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources be devoted to 

targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school choice be made available 

to subgroups who are not underperforming? For example, if a school is failing a certain group of students, why are students other than that group permitted to transfer schools? 

In Maryland, the SES option has received more attention from parents than the 

transfer option. Any additional funds in this area could be included in direct services to students. The transfer option, although it may meet the parents’ needs and 

desires for their child, does not carry with it the powerful intervention strategies 

that exist in their home school. 

Because of this, the money might be better spent on SES. 

As I said in my previous answer, the subgroups currently making AYP may not 

make it the next year. Some investment in the future of students who are borderline 

or non-proficient regardless of their subgroup membership could play a part in a 

long term solution. However, some clever parents are trying to game the system to 

buy a house in a poor district and opt to have their kindergarten child attend the 

school in the more affluent attendance zone. We have curbed this practice by saying 

that only students currently enrolled in schools can exercise the transfer. 

[Response to Mr. Scott’s questions from Ms. Murray follows:]

Response to Questions by Ruth D. Murray, Director, Federal Grants, 

Newport News Public Schools 

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your questions regarding SES and 

Public School Choice. My responses are below: 

Under current law, SES services are only provided to low-income students, regardless of whether this subgroup is making AYP. In an effort to make the responses to failure to make AYP under NCLB more responsive, should SES services 

be targeted to subgroups that fail to make AYP? Also, should these services be 

available to everyone in a subgroup that failed to make AYP regardless of their income? 

The current requirement of offering SES services to all low-income students regardless of AYP performance has cause concern and alarm among parents in our 

division. Parents of high-performing students have had many questions on why they 

were being asked to participate in SES. Because in our division the goal is 100% 

participation in SES, these parents are often asked many times in many ways to 

participate. This is frustrating for them and the school division. 

Currently the funds for SES services are taken from the school division’s Title I 

allocation. Setting aside this 20% reduces the funding to all Title I schools and 

therefore reduces services in high-poverty schools. Schools having not less than 40% 

poverty can operate as Title I School-wide programs and provide services to all students in the building. I believe this same concept could be used with SES. All students, regardless of income or subgroup, who fail to achieve proficiency on the state 

assessments, should be offered the opportunity to receive SES services. This would 

target the students who need the help. 

Given the low participation in school choice, should more resources be devoted to 

targeted SES programs? Additionally, why should school choice be made available 

to subgroups who are not underperforming? For example, if a school is failing a cerVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:06 Apr 06, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-20\34-539.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
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tain group of students, why are students other than that group permitted to transfer schools? 

Public School Choice and SES Set-Aside is an amount equal to 20% of Title I, Part 

A allocation. The breakdown is 5% Public School Choice, 5% Supplemental Education Services; and 10% either as needed. In Newport News we allocate the entire 

amount for SES because the low participation in Public School Choice makes the 

expenses minimal. 

Offering all students the opportunity to leave a low-performing school and then 

the next year (after students have left) providing extra help through tutoring, does 

not seem the best way to help a low-performing school. Often the students who 

leave the school are the ones who are performing well and whose parents are the 

most involved. Reversing the order of SES and Public School Choice would allow the 

school to offer tutoring first and then if students are still not performing and parents are still not satisfied, they could choose another school. Limiting Public School 

Choice to only students who are not performing academically would eliminate students transferring for reasons other than achievement. 

[The prepared statement of Steven Pines follows:]

Prepared Statement of Steven Pines, Executive Director,

Education Industry Association 

Chairman Kildee, Ranking Member Castle, Members of the Subcommittee on 

Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education: I am Steve Pines, the executive director of the Education Industry Association (EIA), the nation’s leading professional association for private providers of education services and suppliers/developers of educational content for students spanning Pre-K through college. Our 500+ 

members serve individual families, communities and partner with schools, and it is 

the latter group that I am addressing today: specifically, providers of Supplemental 

Education Services (SES). 

Thanks to the bi-partisan No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), children attending 

schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress toward academic proficiency in 

reading and math have access to tutoring services paid for with federal dollars. 

With this provision, low income students can now access the same high-quality tutoring that middle-class parents have sought for their children for years. 

EIA welcomed the Subcommittee’s examination of the supplemental educational 

services (SES) provision of ‘‘No Child Left Behind’’ (NCLB), particularly its focus on 

accountability, widening access to more students, and ensuring the availability of 

high-quality SES programs. 

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on these three important issues. 

• Accountability—EIA fully supports SES accountability, and has called for additional funding to be made available to States to assist with the implementation of 

comprehensive SES evaluation programs. The witnesses at the hearing, as well as 

the Members in attendance, made it clear that while some progress has been made, 

States must do more to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of SES. Meantime, 

EIA has tracked third-party SES evaluations done to date, and found that federally 

funded tutoring is highly regarded by parents (with typically 8 in 10 parents citing 

evidence that the tutoring has helped their children in school), and is having a positive effect on standardized test scores. A report on our findings can be accessed at 

the EIA website, www.educationindustry.org. 

• Accessibility—EIA was pleased to hear of the efforts of the state of Maryland, 

as well as the Newport News, VA school district, to make SES available to the 

greatest number of eligible families possible. However, both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights testified that 

SES enrollment rates continue to be unacceptably low, the latter calling for greater 

efforts to improve outreach and earlier promotion of SES, including the further 

opening of school sites to SES programs. 

• Quality—Once again, Maryland leads by example, describing State policies that 

ensure delivery of high-quality SES services. EIA believes that the current NCLB 

quality standards which guide the States’ provider approval process are effective 

and appropriate, including those covering curriculum alignment, instructional methods, tutor qualifications and instructional materials. All providers, as a condition of 

state-approval, must align their tutoring curricula to the state’s academic standards—the same standards to which local school districts must align. 

To address these broad issues, EIA encourages the Subcommittee to consider 

EIA’s NCLB reauthorization policy recommendations, issued on March 29, available 

at www.educationindustry.org, and summarized below: 

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• Increase student access and participation by requiring that unspent SES funds 

are carried over by states and districts for SES use only. 

• Expand administrative resources for States and school districts to better market, manage and evaluate SES programs. 

• Require states to appoint a third-party administrator of SES in situations 

where school districts are permitted to provide SES services to ensure fair-play. 

• Expand research and evaluation of SES effectiveness at the national level. 

• Provide incentives to increase access to services for underserved student groups, 

including limited English proficiency (LEP) students, students residing in rural 

areas and those with disabilities. 

EIA also offers the following comments on additional issues raised by Subcommittee Members during the hearing: 

• SES providers must align tutoring curricula with state learning standards—The 

alignment of SES curricula with such standards is a requirement for provider selection by states. These same state standards guide local school districts, thus completing the sequence of linking tutoring to academic standards used in the classroom. All instruction and methods used by tutors must be research-based as well. 

• SES tutors are selected by parents for academic support which supplements the 

instruction of the regular school day, often filling skill gaps not taught in the classroom. Tutors are often, but not always, certified teachers, and it is this variety of 

instructors that creates an enriched and innovative array of academic supports that 

are responsive to the diverse needs of low-performing students. Requiring all tutors 

to meet the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) standard will substantially limit the 

supply of tutoring organizations and reduce the overall participation rate of students. Overall program quality is best regulated through rigorous evaluations of 

program impacts. 

• SES providers are using innovative means to address the needs of students residing in rural locations; the needs of English language learners and students with 

learning disabilities—The number and variety of SES providers offering services nationwide ensures that these students are receiving the special services they require. 

More must be done to increase the participation rates of these subgroups, including 

increasing to resources that may be needed to accommodate their unique learning 

needs and environments. 

• Costs and therefore service fees cited by school district-managed SES providers 

vs. private SES providers are not comparable—Private SES providers face and must 

account for a host of costs not borne by district-managed programs, including rental 

of school facilities, costs for instructional materials, supervisory and professional development expenses, data-entry and other administrative expenses. A true ‘‘apples 

to apples’’ cost comparison would show no differences in the costs of service delivery 

between the local schools and an external organization. 

Finally, while EIA observed the witnesses at today’s hearing offering good and 

timely information, we hope that Congress will seek comment from some of the hundreds of thousands of families who have been given hope and needed support by the 

after-school tutoring program. 

On behalf of EIA and especially our members who are SES providers, thank you 

for the opportunity to submit my comments for the record. I welcome any questions 

or followup requests for information Members of the Subcommittee may have. 

[Whereupon, at 11:23 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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