A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Conclusion

The Improving America's Schools Act fundamentally restructured ESEA to incorporate the lessons researchers and practitioners have learned since 1965 about improving services to the most disadvantaged students in the nation's schools. Working with the frameworks of other federal, state, and local education reforms, Title I, Part A of ESEA was designed to improve teaching and learning for more than 6.5 million children in more than 90 percent of the school districts in the nation. This makes ESEA a significant resource schools can use to leverage long-overdue comprehensive, whole-school reforms.

We are reminded by Mary Jean LeTendre, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Comprehensive Education Programs, that Title I was intended to be the "voice of hope to all children," especially the many children who go to bed hungry and who live with uncertainty in all aspects of their lives (LeTendre, 1997, p. 205). They include the neglected, the delinquent, the homeless, and the migrant children in our society. When educators from every organizational level collaborate to integrate services and dramatically improve learning opportunities for these children, the intent and purposes of this landmark legislation will be served.

The schoolwide program option that Title I offers to districts gives schools tools to "serve first those children who are often served last, children in high-poverty schools" (LeTendre, 1997, p. 208). LeTendre notes that the changes schools need to make are at once both fundamentally simple and daunting. They include:

• Making all decisions based on data

• Using the best practices of school reform strategies

• Providing an accelerated curriculum with instruction that challenges all children

• Using research-based instructional strategies

• Minimizing pullout programs and taking seriously students' need for extended learning time

• Enhancing parent involvement through parent compacts and family literacy services

• Providing professional development that prepares teachers to teach to high standards

The schoolwide program option gives every school serving large concentrations of low-income students the chance to reaffirm its commitment to creating the "whole village" that is required to raise a child—and, in doing so, to provide these children with a first-class education.

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[Section V - Sustaining Schoolwide Programs through Accountability. . .]

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