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, D.C., April 18, 2007.

Signed into law in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) promised to revolutionize American public education. Originally supported by a bipartisan coalition, it purports to improve public schools by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing. Many people supported it originally, despite doubts, because of its promise especially to improve the way schools serve poor children. By making federal funding contingent on accepting a system of tests and sanctions, it is radically affecting the life of schools around the country. But, argue the authors of this citizen's guide to the most important political issue in education, far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education-including school innovator Deborah Meier, education activist Alfie Kohn, and founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools Theodore R. Sizer-come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve: * How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools * How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools * How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms * And they put forward a richly articulated vision of alternatives. Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here.

This report describes state efforts to carry out supplemental educational services (SES)requirements. It is the first in a series of CEP publications on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) implementation that will report on the results of 2006 surveys of officials from 50 state educational agencies, a national sample of school districts, and case study research. Reported findings included: (1) Many states are unable to monitor "to a great extent" the quality and effectiveness of SES providers; (2) Almost all of the state education agencies surveyed reported using the criteria required by NCLB law and federal guidance to review and approve applications from potential supplemental service providers; (3) 20 states said they review new SES provider applications more often than once a year (the minimum required by the NCLB law), and 22 states reported updating their SES provider lists more than once a year; and (4) SES reapplication process varies widely by state. The report concludes that further research on SES program implementation and effectiveness could shed light on whether supplemental educational services are contributing to higher academic achievement for disadvantaged children. This report is part of a larger study examining state capacity in implementing NCLB that focuses on two main research questions: In what ways are states fulfilling their responsibilities under NCLB, and to what extent do state education agencies have the capacity to implement the requirements of NCLB? (Contains 6 footnotes, 5 figures and 3 tables.).