Education Department Announces Benefit to Students with Extension and Expansion of Pilot Programs
From Education Newsfeed:
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon today announced the extension and expansion of two pilot programs designed to help struggling K-12 students.
The two pilots, which were initiated by the Department of Education last year, are focused on increasing student participation in the tutoring or supplemental educational services (SES) provisions offered under the No Child Left Behind Act.
One pilot will allow four districts in need of improvement to be providers of tutoring, and the second pilot will allow several districts within five states to offer tutoring ahead of schedule to students in schools in year one of school improvement status.
Supplemental educational services are an important component of No Child Left Behind, giving low-income parents real options to obtain free tutoring and after-school services for their children.
Unfortunately, not enough students who qualify for this help are receiving it; only about 10 to 20 percent of eligible students across the country participated in free tutoring during the 2003-04 school year.
Through a partnership with the Council of the Great City Schools, the Department offered this flexibility to the Chicago and Boston public school systems as part of the "district in need of improvement" pilot for the 2005-06 school year.
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