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July 5, 2007Students in Underperforming Schools Benefit from Supplemental Educational Services Under No Child Left Behind |
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RAND : Students in underperforming schools generally made statistically significant gains in math and reading after participating in supplemental educational services such as tutoring and remediation, according to a study conducted by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Education. The Department of Education, which issued the study today, asked RAND to gauge the effects of federally funded Title I school choice and supplemental educational services established under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. The study found that students who transferred out of poorly performing schools to better performing schools did not experience any significant improvement in test scores, cautioning that limited data makes it difficult to draw a conclusion. "Providing supplemental educational opportunities is showing potential for improving the performance of underachieving students," said Ron Zimmer, the study's senior author and a senior policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. Schools that don't make adequate yearly progress toward meeting state standards for two or more years are identified for school improvement. At a Title I school that has been identified for improvement after one year, low-income parents are offered the opportunity to enroll their children in supplemental education services. Supplemental educational services like tutoring had a positive influence on reading and math test scores in five out of seven large districts studied where there were sufficient students to examine effects.
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