It's one of the raging debates in education.
Critics say aides are ineffective and used too broadly in the classroom.
Teacher aides are paraprofessionals who support the classroom activities of regular teachers. Aides hired under Title I, a federally-financed program first enacted in 1965 to help improve the scholastic achievement of disadvantaged youth, work in some of the nation's most challenging learning environments. About half of all instructors hired under Title I in 1997-98 were aides, according to federal figures. The effectiveness of aides in helping close the gap between disadvantaged students and their more well-off peers has often been called into question. I program have challenged the effectiveness of aides in increasing academic performance, arguing instead that hiring qualified teachers is a much better use of federal dollars.