Early State Implementation of Title I School Improvement Grants under the Recovery Act
Author: McMurrer, Jennifer
Date: 2011-02-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: School Effectiveness,Low Achievement,Federal Aid,Federal Legislation,Grants,Politics of Education,Educational Improvement,Models,Federal Regulation,School Districts,School Restructuring,Organizational Change,Charter Schools,School Closing,Group Guidance,State Departments of Education,Educational Change,Principals,State Government

Over the next three years, states will dedicate an unprecedented amount of federal funding to school improvement efforts at approximately 5,000 of the nation's lowest achieving schools. The $100 billion for education appropriated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus package, included an additional $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) to help reform low-performing schools. Following passage of ARRA, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued new guidance that changed the requirements for using school improvement grants under section 1003(g), including the ARRA SIG funds (ED, 2010a; 2010b). The guidance targets these grants on the most persistently low-achieving schools--a smaller and somewhat different pool of schools than those identified for improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). It also requires grantees to use one of four school improvement models: (1) transformation, which entails replacing the school principal and undertaking three other specific reforms; (2) turnaround, which involves replacing many of the school staff; (3) restart, which means becoming a charter or privately managed school; and (4) school closure. To learn more about states' early experiences in using this infusion of ARRA SIG funding and implementing the new SIG requirements, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) conducted two surveys. The first, which consisted of questions on a broad range of ARRA implementation issues including SIGs, was administered to state deputy superintendents of education in October and November of 2010. Responses were received from 42 states and the District of Columbia, which is counted as a state in all tallies in this report. The second, which focused on how the ARRA has shaped state implementation of school improvement grants, was administered to state Title I directors from November 2010 through early January 2011. A total of 46 states (including D.C.) responded. Three key findings about ARRA SIGs emerged from the survey of state deputy superintendents of education: (1) Despite tight turnaround times, most states (28 of those responding) had awarded all of their ARRA SIG funding to districts by the time of our survey in fall 2010; (2) Many states (20) reported that at least three-quarters of the eligible schools in their states applied for ARRA SIG funds; and (3) The transformation model is the most popular of the ED-endorsed intervention models. Four key findings about the impact of ARRA on SIG implementation emerged from the survey of state Title I directors: (1) The majority of the states surveyed are serving increased proportions of high schools with ARRA SIG funds compared to the proportions served previously with Title I school improvement grants; (2) States plan to provide various types of assistance to districts receiving ARRA SIG funds; (3) The majority of Title I directors surveyed viewed federal ARRA SIG guidance as helpful and federal SIG funding as adequate; and (4) Title I directors had mixed responses about the extent to which the new SIG requirements are targeting the schools most in need of assistance in their state. Survey Development and Data Collection is appended. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables, 3 boxes and 4 footnotes.)