Order Code RL31329
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Supplemental Educational Services for
Children from Low-Income Families
Under ESEA Title I-A
Updated January 18, 2005
David P. Smole
Analyst in Social Legislation
Domestic Social Policy Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

Supplemental Educational Services for
Children from Low-Income Families
Under ESEA Title I-A
Summary
Supplemental educational services are educational activities provided outside
of normal school hours that are designed to augment or enhance the educational
services provided during regular periods of instruction. Examples include tutoring
in specific subject areas and preparation for academic achievement tests. The No
Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110) amended the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) to authorize supplemental educational services as a means of
school improvement. Local educational agencies (LEAs) are required to provide
students from low-income families, who attend Title I-A schools that have been
identified for a second year of school improvement, corrective action, or
restructuring, the opportunity to receive supplemental educational services from a
state-approved provider.
Public and private non-profit or for-profit providers are eligible to deliver
supplemental educational services upon being approved by state educational agencies
(SEAs). Parents of eligible students may select from approved providers offering
services in the jurisdiction of the LEA where their child attends school, or that of a
neighboring LEA. In instances where only a limited number of eligible children can
be provided with supplemental educational services — for example, because of
funding constraints or the limited availability of approved providers — priority must
go to the lowest achieving eligible children. Providers are required to demonstrate
that the services they provide contribute to the increased academic proficiency of the
eligible children they serve, as measured according to state standards, in order to
retain their status as approved providers.
If there is sufficient demand for supplemental educational services, LEAs must
dedicate an amount equal to between 5% and 20% of their Title I-A allocations to
fund them. Costs per pupil are limited to the lesser of an LEA’s Title I-A allocation
per poor student, or the actual cost of services. Nationwide, there is considerable
variation across LEAs in the maximum amount of funding available per pupil.
As more schools are identified for a second year of school improvement,
corrective action, or restructuring, LEAs are being required to offer increasing
numbers of students from low-income families the opportunity to receive
supplemental services. It appears that greater proportions of eligible students are
choosing to receive supplemental educational services than to change schools under
the ESEA Title I-A public school choice provisions. However, there have been
challenges to implementation, such as the availability of services in rural areas,
timely notification of parents regarding their children’s eligibility for services,
negotiation of contracts with providers for service delivery, and measurement of the
effectiveness of supplemental educational services in improving student academic
achievement.

Contents
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ESEA Title I-A Supplemental Educational Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Local Educational Agency Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
State Educational Agency Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Requirements of Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Funding for Supplemental Educational Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Implementation of Supplemental Educational Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Identification and Availability of Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Contracts for Supplemental Educational Services Delivery . . . . . . . . . 9
Requests for Supplemental Educational Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Accountability of Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
List of Tables
Table 1. Distribution of Maximum Allowable Expenditures Per Pupil
for Supplemental Educational Services, Mean within Deciles of LEAs:
School Year 2004-2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Supplemental Educational Services for
Children from Low-Income Families
Under ESEA Title I-A
Background
Supplemental educational services in the general sense are educational activities
provided outside of normal school hours that are designed to augment or enhance the
educational services provided during regular periods of instruction. Examples
include tutoring in specific subject areas and preparation for academic achievement
tests. Supplemental educational services are provided by a variety of public and
private non-profit and for-profit entities. In many instances, parents pay for their
children to receive these services; however, increasingly, privately-financed
scholarship programs and the government are subsidizing the provision of
supplemental educational services to children from low-income families. In this
report, we limit our discussion of supplemental educational services to those
provided as part of federally funded programs. Under current federal law, LEAs are
required to offer supplemental educational services to children from low-income
families who attend schools that have been identified for a second year or school
improvement, corrective action, or restructuring under Title I, Part A of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).1
In the past, federally funded programs that provide educational services to
disadvantaged students outside of the regular school day have been successful in
reaching a portion of children attending Title I schools. Based on information from
the National Longitudinal Survey of Schools (NLSS), the U.S. Department of
Education (ED) reports that during the 1999-2000 school year, 69% of Title I schools
operated before or after school programs and in 30% of Title I schools, these
extended day programs were funded by Title I. In the highest poverty elementary
schools (those with poverty rates between 75% and 100%), before and after school
programs provided students with an average of 227 additional hours of instruction
per year. Students in the highest poverty secondary schools were provided an
average of 279 additional hours of instruction per year through extended day
programs. However, the NLSS reveals that only a limited proportion of students
attending Title I schools received additional instruction — 26% in the highest
poverty schools, and 20% overall.2
1 ESEA, Title I (Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged), Part A
(Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies) §1116(e). (Hereafter
referred to as Title I-A).
2 U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under Secretary, Planning and Evaluation
(continued...)

CRS-2
The first significant opportunity under a federally funded program for parents
to select between public and private providers of tutorial or supplementary
educational services came under the Reading Excellence Act, through programs
funded by tutorial assistance subgrants.3 In administering tutorial assistance
subgrants, LEAs were required, among other things, to provide parents the
opportunity to select a tutorial provider for their child from among a variety of
choices that included both a school-based program and programs delivered by private
providers operating under contract with the LEA. While previously in other federal
education programs, private non-profit and for-profit providers delivered services
under contract, tutorial assistance subgrants marked the first direct opportunity for
parents to select a private entity to provide educational services to their children.
Some believed that this might be a first step toward publicly funded school vouchers.
The Reading Excellence Act required SEAs receiving reading and literacy
grants to award at least one tutorial assistance subgrant to LEAs that were eligible
according to certain criteria. Those criteria were that the LEA had at least one school
located in an empowerment zone or enterprise community; at least one school
identified for school improvement; the highest or second-highest number of Title I-A
eligible pupils in the state; or the highest or second-highest school age poverty rate
in the state. Little information is available as of yet about the effectiveness of the
tutorial assistance subgrants; however, national and state evaluations of the program
were required under the authorizing legislation.
During the 107th Congress’s deliberations over reauthorization of the ESEA, the
House and Senate considered numerous proposals to expand federal support of
parental choice and access to privately provided educational services. Proposals were
made to do so through school vouchers and tax subsidies. While legislation was
enacted into law allowing tax-free distributions from Coverdell Education Savings
Accounts to be used for elementary and secondary education expenses, including
tuition and fees for private school attendance, neither chamber passed a school
voucher provision. However, the Congress did pass legislation offering children
from low-income families who attend Title I-A schools that do not improve after
being identified for school improvement, the opportunity to receive supplemental
educational services from selected public or private providers. This provision was
enacted into law as Section 1116(e) of the No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110),
which reauthorized the ESEA.
2 (...continued)
Service, Provision of Title I Services: Recent Evidence from the National Longitudinal
Survey of Schools
, Aug. 2002. Available at [http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/PES/
title1_service03.pdf].
3 The Reading Excellence Act was incorporated into the ESEA in 1998 under P.L. 105-277.
Funds for reading and literacy grants, and tutorial assistance subgrants, were authorized
from FY1999 through FY2001. Tutorial assistance subgrants no longer are authorized under
the ESEA as amended by P.L. 107-110. For further information on the Reading Excellence
Act, see CRS Report RL30663, The Reading Excellence Act: Implementation Status and
Issues
, by Gail McCallion.

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ESEA Title I-A Supplemental Educational Services
Supplemental educational services, as provided for in the ESEA, are tutoring
and other academic activities that are in addition to any instruction provided during
the regular school day, and that are designed to increase students’ achievement on
state academic assessments and their proficiency in meeting state academic
achievement standards. The ESEA requires LEAs to offer supplemental educational
services to low-income students who attend Title I-A schools that have not made
adequate yearly progress (AYP) for three or more consecutive years, as part of a
series of requirements in support of school improvement.4 Students receiving
supplemental education services remain eligible to receive Title I-A services
otherwise provided through school-wide or targeted school programs.
Under the ESEA, students who attend Title I-A funded schools identified for
school improvement after failing to make AYP for two consecutive years must be
offered public school choice. This consists of the opportunity to select from among
two or more schools from within the same LEA that have not been identified for
school improvement, corrective action or restructuring;5 and that have not been
designated as unsafe, (unless prohibited by state or local law or policy).6 The lowest
achieving students from low-income families must receive priority in choosing an
alternate school. Schools identified for improvement also are required to implement
school improvement plans and be provided with technical assistance. LEAs must
offer students attending schools identified for a second year of school improvement
the opportunity to receive supplemental educational services, in addition to the
continued opportunity of intradistrict public school choice.7 In instances where a
school was in school improvement for two or more consecutive school years prior to
the enactment of P.L. 107-110, students attending such a school became eligible to
receive supplemental educational services beginning the first day of school year
2002-2003. In its regulations implementing the requirements of Title I-A, ED
provides that in instances where LEAs are unable to offer public school choice to
4 For a more thorough description of ESEA accountability and school improvement
requirements, see CRS Report RL31487, Education for the Disadvantaged: Overview of
ESEA Title I-A Amendments Under the No Child Left Behind Act
, by Wayne Riddle.
5 A school would be identified for corrective action after failure to make AYP for four
consecutive years; it would be identified for restructuring after failure to make AYP for five
consecutive years.
6 34 CFR 200.44; and U.S. Department of Education, Public School Choice: Nonregulatory
Guidance
, Draft, Feb. 6, 2004. Available at [http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/
schoolchoiceguid.pdf].
7 It should be noted that in many large poor LEAs, there are often schools that are eligible
for assistance under Title I-A, but that do not receive funding because other schools in the
LEA have greater proportions of Title I-A eligible students. If such schools fail to make
adequate yearly progress, poor students attending these schools would not be required to be
offered supplemental educational services (or public school choice) because these schools
are not subject to school improvement requirements under ESEA Section 1116.

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students attending schools that are in the first year of school improvement, LEAs may
offer these students the opportunity to receive supplementary educational services.8
Parents whose children are eligible to receive supplemental educational services
must be afforded the opportunity to choose a provider from a list of those approved
by the SEA and that offer services in the local area. To facilitate parental choice in
the selection of supplemental educational services providers, the ESEA delineates
certain responsibilities for LEAs, SEAs, and providers.
Local Educational Agency Responsibilities
LEAs whose jurisdiction includes a school receiving funding under ESEA Title
I-A that has been identified for a second year of school improvement, or that has been
identified for corrective action or restructuring under ESEA Title I-A, are required
to make arrangements for the provision of supplemental educational services to
children from low-income families who attend that school or schools. In doing so,
at least once per year, such LEAs must notify parents of children who attend such
schools of the availability of supplemental educational services for their children. In
this notification to parents, LEAs must identify providers that offer supplemental
educational services either within the LEA’s jurisdiction or that of a neighboring and
reasonably accessible LEA (including providers that offer services through distance
learning). They must also provide a description of each provider, to include the
services it provides, its qualifications, and its demonstrated effectiveness.9 If
requested, LEAs must provide parents with assistance in selecting a provider. If
sufficient funds are not available to serve all eligible children, LEAs must give
priority to the lowest achieving of eligible children. Finally, LEAs are prohibited
from disclosing the identity of a student who is eligible or receiving supplemental
educational services without the written permission of the student’s parents.
Once the parents of an eligible student select an approved supplemental
educational services provider, the LEA then must enter into an agreement with the
provider covering the provision of services. Among the requirements of such
agreements are that an LEA must consult with both a student’s parents and the
provider in the development of academic achievement goals for the student and how
achievement of those goals will progress and be measured. If a student with a
disability is to be served, the plan must be consistent with the student’s
individualized education program (IEP). The LEA is responsible for making
payment to the provider for the costs of providing supplemental educational services.
8 34 CFR 200.44(h)(2). However, when LEAs voluntarily offer supplemental educational
services, they are not bound by the requirements of ESEA §1116(e) otherwise applicable
to supplemental educational services.
9 An LEA may request from the SEA a full or partial waiver of the requirement to make
supplemental educational services available if no providers approved by the SEA offer
services either in the LEA’s jurisdiction or within a reasonable distance, and if the LEA also
shows that it is unable, itself, to provide supplemental educational services.

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State Educational Agency Responsibilities
SEAs are responsible for working to ensure that parents have the opportunity
to choose from among the greatest number of qualified supplemental educational
services providers. Each year, SEAs are required to notify potential providers of the
opportunity to become, and procedures for becoming, an approved provider of
supplemental educational services. They also must evaluate potential providers’
effectiveness in improving students’ proficiency as measured according to state
academic standards for required subjects (reading or language arts and mathematics,
and, no later than school year 2005-2006, science). In addition, SEAs are required
to develop standards and techniques for monitoring the actual effectiveness of
providers in increasing the academic proficiency of students who receive
supplemental educational services provided under ESEA Title I-A. Finally, SEAs
must establish and maintain lists of approved providers, delineated by LEA. They
must remove from the list of approved providers any that fails for two consecutive
years to contribute to the improved proficiency of the eligible students it serves.
SEAs are also required to remove from their list of providers, schools and LEAs that
have been identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring.10
Requirements of Providers
Providers of supplemental educational services may be public entities, such as
LEAs or schools that have not been identified for school improvement, institutions
of higher education, and private non-profit or for-profit entities (including groups of
individuals, such as teachers, organized as such). Religiously affiliated organizations
are not prohibited from being supplemental educational services providers; however,
the ESEA requires all instruction and content to be secular, neutral, and
nonideological, and also prohibits the use of ESEA funds to pay for religious worship
or instruction. Providers must abide by all applicable federal, state, and local health,
safety, and civil rights laws.
Federal civil rights laws generally apply to recipients of federal financial
assistance; however, according to ED supplemental services providers are not
considered recipients of federal financial assistance unless they otherwise receive
federal financial assistance through other means. Despite this, in non-regulatory
guidance ED states that because federal civil rights laws apply to SEAs and LEAs,
they “have the responsibility for ensuring that there is no discrimination in their
supplemental educational services programs.”11
In order to maintain their listing by the SEA as approved providers, providers
must agree to supply parents and LEAs with information about the academic progress
of the children they serve in an easily understandable format. In addition, the
academic content of their programs and method of instruction must be consistent
10 34 CFR 200.47(b)(1)(iv).
11 U.S. Department of Education, Supplemental Educational Services, Non-Regulatory
Guidance, Final Guidance, Aug. 22, 2003, C-3. Available at [http://www.ed.gov/policy/
elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.pdf]. (Hereafter cited as ED, Supplemental Educational Services
Guidance
.)

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with that of the LEA and the state, and also aligned with state academic achievement
standards. Providers may not be required to hire only staff who meet the
qualifications for teachers and paraprofessionals under ESEA Section 1119.12
Funding for Supplemental Educational Services
ESEA requirements for the funding of supplemental educational services are
jointly applicable with the requirements for funding public school choice-related
transportation. If there is sufficient demand, LEAs must spend an amount equal to
20% of their Title I-A funding for public school choice-related transportation
expenses and supplemental educational services.13 LEAs must spend a minimum of
an amount equal to 5% of their Title I-A funding on each if there is sufficient
demand. LEAs may divide the other 10% between the two purposes; however, if
there is no demand for choice-related transportation, then the LEA must spend an
amount equal to the full 20% on supplemental educational services.14 The ESEA
does not require LEAs to provide students with transportation to the sites where
supplemental educational services providers offer services. However, if LEAs do
provide transportation, they may not count transportation costs toward the 5%
minimum expenditure requirement.
The ESEA does not stipulate whether the funds used to pay the cost of
supplementary education services for students attending a particular school must
come from the Title I-A allocation that would normally go to that school, or if the
allocation to other schools in an LEA, or to central administration and services, may
be reduced to cover these costs. However, the ESEA does prohibit LEAs from
reducing the total amount of Title I-A funds provided to any school identified for
corrective action or restructuring by more than 15% to cover the costs of providing
supplemental educational services (or for the cost of transporting students
participating in public school choice, or any combination of the two).
The ESEA limits LEAs’ cost per-pupil of providing supplemental educational
services to the lesser of (a) the amount of the LEA’s Title I-A allocation per poor
student (based on the number of children aged 5 to 17 from families below the
poverty level), or (b) the actual cost of the supplemental educational services
12 34 CFR 200.47(b)(3); and ED, Supplemental Educational Services Guidance, C-19.
13 LEAs are not required to spend Title I-A funds for choice-related transportation or
supplemental educational services. Rather LEAs may meet or exceed the applicable
expenditure requirement with funds from other federal, state, local, or private sources. With
regard to federal funds, LEAs may use Title V-A-3 (Local Innovative Education Programs)
funds to pay for supplemental educational services. SEAs also may transfer funds to LEAs
for supplemental education services under Title VI-A-2 (Funding Transferability for State
and Local Educational Agencies). Funds may be transferred to LEAs from grants to states
under the following programs: Title II-A (Teacher and Principal Training and Recruiting
Fund); Title II-D (Enhancing Education Through Technology); Title IV-A (Safe and Drug-
Free Schools and Communities); and Title V-A (Innovative Programs). SEAs also are
authorized (but not required) to use administrative funds reserved under Title I-A or Title
V-A to assist LEAs in meeting the costs of supplemental educational services.
14 ED, Supplemental Educational Services Guidance. K-3.

CRS-7
provided to a particular student. The amount of per-pupil funding available for
supplemental educational services will vary considerably across LEAs due to the
variation across LEAs and states in the amount of Title I-A funding allocated per
pupil under the four formulas (basic grants, concentration grants, targeted grants, and
education finance incentive grants). It also will be affected by the ESEA provision
that the amount of funding per pupil for supplemental educational services is limited
by the amount of Title I-A funding per student whose family is living below the
poverty level.15
To show the variation in the amount that LEAs may be required to spend per
pupil for supplemental educational services, we calculated the nationwide
distribution of FY2004 (school year 2004-2005) Title I-A allocations per pupil by
LEA, weighted according to each LEA’s population of students from families below
the poverty level, for those LEAs eligible to receive basic grants. We found
considerable variation across LEAs in the amount of funding per pupil available for
supplemental educational services. This potentially may result in differing levels of
service being available to students depending on the LEA in which they attend
school. For instance, as shown in Table 1, the average LEA in the top decile of
LEAs (ranked according to Title I-A allocations per pupil), may be required to spend
$2,038 for supplemental educational services, whereas the average LEA in the
bottom decile of LEAs may be required to spend only $881.
ED has released tables of FY2004 Title I-A allocations to LEAs, which include
estimates of the maximum per-child expenditure for supplemental educational
services and the total amount of Title I-A funds LEAs must reserve for supplemental
educational services and transportation for public school choice, should they be
required to fund these school improvement options.16
15 Title I-A grants are calculated for each LEA based on the number of children aged 5 to
17 in families living below the poverty level; in families receiving temporary assistance for
needy families (TANF) payments in excess of the poverty income threshold for a family of
four; or living in institutions for neglected and delinquent children, or who are being
supported in foster homes with public funds, whether or not they are from a family below
the poverty line. Using the number of pupils from poor families, rather than the total
number of Title I-A eligible pupils, to calculate the per-pupil cost limit for supplemental
educational services results in a comparatively higher cost limit for select LEAs. One
reason for this is that although the non-poverty children constitute only about 4% of the
Title I-A formula eligible children nationally, this percentage is much higher in certain
LEAs. More broadly, Title I-A grants per poor child vary due to differences in the state
expenditure factor, degree of poverty concentration, hold-harmless effects, and other factors.
16 U.S. Department of Education, Budget Office, ESEA Title I LEA Allocations — FY2004,
Available at [http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/titlei/fy04/index.html#reservation].
ED’s Budget Office provides these data for informational purposes only.

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Table 1. Distribution of Maximum Allowable Expenditures Per
Pupil for Supplemental Educational Services, Mean within
Deciles of LEAs: School Year 2004-2005
Decile of LEAs
Mean maximum
(weighted by pupils
expenditure
below the poverty level)
($’s per-pupil)
10th
$2,339
9th
$1,959
8th
$1,693
7th
$1,566
6th
$1,474
5th
$1,403
4th
$1,344
3rd
$1,266
2nd
$1,170
1st
$1,011
Source: CRS calculations.
Implementation of Supplemental Educational Services
School year 2004-2005 is the third year in which LEAs with schools identified
for a second year of school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring have
been required to offer students attending those schools the opportunity to receive
supplemental educational services. Information is increasingly becoming available
on how supplemental educational services are being implemented across the nation.
This section identifies and describes various aspects of the implementation of
supplemental educational services.
Identification and Availability of Providers. The ESEA requires SEAs
to compile lists of eligible supplemental educational services providers and to make
these lists available to parents of eligible students. According to the Education
Commission of the States, it appears that nearly all states have established criteria for
reviewing and approving providers and have compiled lists of those eligible to
deliver services. Most states have implemented supplemental educational services
as required and are monitoring for results, although in a few states, implementation
appears to be lagging.17 While providers are identified and approved by SEAs and
placed on state lists of approved providers, in many instances providers may offer
their services only in selected regions or areas of a particular state. For example,
small non-profit providers or consortia of teachers might offer services only in a
17 Education Commission of the States, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Database. Available
at [http://nclb.ecs.org/nclb/].

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particular LEA, county, or urban area. Some remote rural schools may be served
only by providers offering services through distance learning. State lists typically
identify the approved providers for each LEA with a school in which children are
required to be offered services.
Contracts for Supplemental Educational Services Delivery. To make
supplemental educational services available to eligible students, LEAs and providers
need to negotiate agreements or contracts for the provision of services for each
student. Evidence has shown that contract negotiation can be a difficult and time
consuming process, as separate contracts often must be negotiated with each provider
in LEAs in which services are required to be offered. Items that often must be
negotiated include the specific services to provided for a given cost (as within each
state, different LEAs often have different maximum per-pupil expenditure amounts),
whether providers receive up-front payment for services to be provided, access to
school facilities, how student transportation will be provided if services are delivered
off school grounds, whether LEA instructional staff will be hired and trained by the
provider to deliver services or if the provider will bring in its own staff, and whether
a provider will require a minimum threshold of students before providing services
(e.g., will the provider deliver services if selected by only one student in a particular
school or LEA?).18
While the negotiation of contracts may appear to be a barrier in the
implementation of supplemental educational services, the issues being negotiated
often are not insignificant. For instance, providers and multiple LEAs may have to
determine how appropriate services can be delivered when each LEA is authorized
to pay different amounts for services and providers often are seeking to work in
multiple LEAs. This may lead to providers having to develop different service
models for different LEAs. Some LEAs may have rules that prohibit the use of
school space by for-profit entities, or may wish to charge providers rent for the use
of school facilities. Others may have a reluctance to have multiple outside entities
operating within a school after normal school hours. In instances where providers
do not have access to school facilities, they may want transportation costs to be
included in their fee (LEAs are permitted, but not required, to provide transportation
to service providers). It may also be difficult for providers enrolling students from
multiple LEAs to ensure that their services are appropriately aligned with each LEA’s
curriculum. In addition, special agreements often must be drafted regarding the
provision of services to students with special needs or who have limited English
proficiency.
Requests for Supplemental Educational Services. While supplemental
educational services have only been required to be offered to students attending
schools identified for school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring for a
few years, it appears that the percentage of eligible students served to date has been
limited. For example, in a sample of LEAs required to offer supplemental
18 For a discussion of some issues raised in the negotiation of contracts, see Michael
Casserly, No Child Left Behind: A Status Report on Choice and Supplemental Services in
America’s Great City Schools
, Council of Great City Schools, Jan. 2004. (Hereafter cited
as Casserly, No Child Left Behind.)

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educational services, percentages of eligible students receiving services ranges from
a high of 16% to less than 1%.19 There are a number of reasons why eligible students
might not be receiving services. As previously discussed, the initial process of
identifying providers and negotiating contracts has been slow in some instances.
Also, there have been delays in the identification of schools where children are
required to be offered services, and in notifying parents of the availability of services.
In many instances, parents were not notified of the availability of services until after
the 2003-2004 school year began.20 In some instances, notices announcing the
availability of services may not have been easy to understand, or may not have been
received by parents.
Accountability of Providers. It appears that in practice, LEAs and
providers are still in the beginning stages of implementing the accountability
requirements applicable to supplemental educational services.21 Providers are
required to provide information on the academic progress of the students they serve
to individual student’s parents and to LEAs. SEAs also are required to assess the
performance of providers as they maintain lists of eligible providers. At present,
little information is available on the performance of providers and on the
effectiveness of supplemental educational services in improving student academic
achievement.
19 Gail L. Sunderman and Jimmy Kim, Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing
Opportunities? School District Experience with Supplemental Educational Services
, The
Civil Rights Project, Harvard University, Feb. 2004, p. 22. Available at
[http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/esea/increasing_bureaucracy.pdf]
(Hereafter cited as Sunderman and Kim, Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing
Opportunities?
)
20 Casserly, No Child Left Behind, p. 28. Late notification may have had less of an impact
on student receipt of supplemental educational services than on public school choice (in
which there is an even lower take-up rate), as it is considerably more disruptive to change
schools after the start of the school year than to start a tutoring program outside of regular
school hours.
21 Sunderman and Kim, Increasing Bureaucracy or Increasing Opportunities? p. 31.