This study examines the role of Title I in 18 secondary schools (nine intermediate and nine high schools) that serve disadvantaged student populations, are engaged in comprehensive school improvement efforts, and, for the most part, have consistently high or improving student achievement. It is intended to describe school improvement and the role of Title I in secondary schools that are engaged in comprehensive reform efforts and to examine whether Title I is motivating, supporting, or hindering these efforts. The study was prompted by the changes to Title I incorporated in the 1994 Improving America’s Schools Act, which refocused Title I on supporting schoolwide efforts to raise academic standards and student performance. The 1994 changes have also resulted in more high-poverty secondary schools receiving Title I funds, prompting an examination of secondary schools serving concentrations of disadvantaged students.

The purposes of the study were to:

• describe practices in improving or high-performing secondary schools that serve disadvantaged students,
• determine the function of Title I in these schools, and
• identify issues related to improvement in secondary schools with concentrations of disadvantaged students.

Schools included in the study were selected after a search that included reviewing files of recent Title I Distinguished Schools and National Blue Ribbon Schools and asking reform networks, researchers familiar with secondary schools, and organizations representing secondary schools to recommend schools that met these three criteria:

• engagement in a comprehensive school improvement effort—with elements supported by research—to raise student achievement,
• enrollment of a significant proportion of low-income students, and
• improving or consistently high student achievement, as demonstrated by objective measures.

The schools reflect geographic and racial or ethnic diversity and use varied approaches to school improvement. Among these are:

• use of alternative instruction and assessment that is meaningful to students outside the school context, vi
• integration of academic and vocational instruction to prepare students for challenging careers or postsecondary education,
• establishment of rigorous content standards and realignment of curriculum, instruction, professional development, and assessment to help students reach the standards,
• use of interdisciplinary, integrated curricula that help students understand the interrelationship and practical applications of what they are learning, and
• systematic use of up-to-date student outcome data to analyze educational needs, identify educational strategies that respond to those needs, and continually reassess and adjust those strategies based on objective measures of their success.

Data collection for the study consisted of three-day visits to each of the 18 schools during the spring and summer of 1998. During the site visits, experienced researchers interviewed key administrative and instructional staff, reviewed documents, observed classroom instruction, and followed students during the school day. Analysis of the results drew on findings and recommendations from previous research on secondary schools, including an earlier study of Title I in high-poverty secondary schools. The results summarized here reflect the experiences of only these 18 schools; it is not known to what extent the practices highlighted in this report are also found in similar schools that are not engaged in comprehensive reform or that have not experienced consistently high or improving levels of student achievement.

Teaching and Learning

The schools in the study relied on three major strategies to improve and maintain the quality of teaching in their classrooms, which were:

• providing teachers with multiple opportunities to expand their professional expertise,
• instituting school accountability systems that require students to demonstrate their intellectual growth, and
• using data collection and analysis to guide all of the school’s decisions.

Professional development at many of the schools provided sustained opportunities for teachers to collaborate with their peers and explore different solutions to problems they experienced in their classrooms. Teachers were more likely to report that professional development had positive influences on their practice when it addressed a limited set of objectives in great depth and when it addressed particular needs identified by school staff. Also, based on teachers’ comments, the most effective professional development activities were those that provided them with sustained assistance in addressing schoolwide goals and objectives, instead of discrete needs identified by individual teachers. In most cases, professional development focused on enhancing teachers’ pedagogical skills rather than their mastery of content.

Strong state and local accountability systems, when present, exerted tremendous influence on teaching and learning in these schools, and many schools also devised supplemental internal accountability systems. Schools in states such as Texas and Kentucky, which impose sanctions on lowperforming schools and give cash awards or other recognition to high-performing schools, geared their instruction to the content on the states’ assessments. In the absence of strong state accountability systems, local accountability systems, such as those in two districts in California, also exerted strong influences on schools’ curricula. Schools operating without strong accountability systems adopted student accountability measures, such as graduation exhibitions for students or career ladders for teachers, to maintain a focus on schoolwide goals and objectives.

Systematic collection and analysis of timely data helped the schools in the study to assess programs and reforms, and eliminate activities that did not yield improved achievement. In these schools, all staff were involved in collecting and analyzing data and in making decisions based on the results. With the help of these data, staff in some schools made informed decisions to adopt block schedules, eliminate tracking, select reading materials, and adopt other innovations. Moreover, the use of data did not end with adoption; rather, schools continued to collect and review results from their innovations to assess whether they contributed to improved outcomes.

Schools in this study exhibited and experienced numerous obstacles to improving teaching and learning. Among the most prominent obstacles were:

1. Ability Grouping. Most of the 18 schools employed some form of ability grouping that restricted lowperforming students’ access to challenging content and the best teachers.
2. Lack of Focus on Improving Teachers’ Knowledge of Subject Matter. Although most content standards call for teachers to teach more challenging material, most professional development in the sample schools concentrated on pedagogy, rather than on upgrading the content of classroom instruction.
3. Insufficient Time for Teachers to Plan and Develop Challenging Lessons. Upgrading curricula to conform with state and local standards requires significant time and effort; however, most schools did not set aside enough time for all teachers to engage in that process.
4. Conflicting Priorities between School-Based Reforms and State or Local Standards-Based Reforms.

In a few cases, efforts to integrate content areas through thematic units ran afoul of state or local efforts to devise and employ subject-specific content standards.

Noninstructional Services That Support Student Achievement

Virtually all of the schools in the study provided noninstructional services to foster an environment that was conducive to student learning. Although they were unwilling to serve as social service agencies, schools nonetheless saw the value in helping students overcome some nonacademic barriers to their success. The goals of these services were to:

• increase student attendance at school,
• address students’ noninstructional needs,
• give students opportunities for relationships with caring adults, and
• foster connections between schools, families, and the community.

All of the larger middle schools and almost half of the high schools in the study created smaller learning communities—also called teams or houses—to combat the impersonality of many large schools. These learning communities typically included about 100 students and four to eight teachers who stayed together for at least two years, giving students a sense of continuity and teachers an opportunity to get to know their students’ academic and personal strengths and weaknesses. Block scheduling within each community gave teachers flexibility in arranging the academic day; it also minimized the amount of time that students spent in transition between classes. Team leaders, who were exempt from most or all teaching duties, often helped coordinate team activities.

Schools in the study also sought to increase student attendance by engaging students in the life of the school. In several schools, students could select from varied extracurricular clubs and activities. In others, they could take part in community service projects. Students served as peer mediators in several schools, helping their fellow students resolve disputes peacefully. These opportunities allowed students to gain self-confidence, experience workplace environments, and establish links between the school and their community.

For students with personal or emotional problems that interfered with learning, schools offered access to support services that included academic, social, and career counseling and health services. Academic counselors helped students choose courses of study; develop personal, academic, and career goals; and prepare college applications. Support groups allowed students with related problems (for example, drug and alcohol abuse or emotional scars due to physical or sexual abuse) to seek help and understanding from each other and from trained professionals. Several schools had their own medical clinics for students from uninsured families; these clinics offered immunizations, physical exams, primary health care, and mental health counseling.

Schools in the study made strong efforts to communicate with parents and worked hard to keep parents involved with the school. To combat the drop-off in parent involvement in upper grades, schools adjusted the time and location of parent functions to increase attendance. They also communicated positive news about the school and individual students, rather than calling parents only when students misbehaved. Some schools provided services to parents, such as parent resource rooms at the school and field trips to cultural events around the city.

Role of Title I

The 1994 reauthorization of Title I authorized a new focus for the program: supporting state and local efforts to help all students achieve high academic standards. Through the expansion in the number of schoolwide programs, Title I could help support comprehensive school reform, enhance the professional expertise of classroom teachers, provide supplemental support to students who were struggling to reach the higher content and performance standards, and promote higher levels of parent involvement. This vision contrasted sharply with the version of Title I (then Chapter 1) observed in earlier research on secondary schools, in which Title I operated apart from the regular academic program and often had lower standards for its students.

In the schools in this study, Title I provided valuable academic assistance that helped students succeed in their regular classes. Schools used Title I to provide low-achieving students with extra instruction during and beyond the school day, through the use of in-class assistants, before- and afterschool tutoring, summer programs, and computer labs that helped students complete class assignments.

Title I also helped reduce student-to-teacher ratios in some schools, enabling teachers to craft individual lessons for their lowest-achieving students. Title I also paid for additional instructional materials and technology that would not have otherwise been available.

Title I played a limited role in supporting other elements of schoolwide improvement efforts in the sample schools, yet did not impede these efforts. In these 18 schools, Title I funds were not supporting extensive professional development related to standards, nor were schools using Title I to assist in comprehensive school reform efforts or to increase parent involvement. However, most schools had incorporated Title I into their improvement efforts. These schools used Title I to support low-achieving students in the ways described above.

District Title I coordinators exerted minimal control over the schools’ use of Title I resources, making it difficult for the district to use Title I to leverage change at the school level. School principals and their designees, not district Title I directors, made most decisions about the use of Title I funds. Unlike elementary schools, many of the 18 schools had school-based Title I coordinators who were responsible for the operation of Title I in the school, including monitoring the allocation of funds, supervising Title I teachers, and evaluating program quality. In schools without such coordinators, principals were more responsible for the operation of the Title I program, including the selection of Title I staff, than were district Title I coordinators.