National Assessment of Title I: Final Report

This two-volume report, and Summary of Key Findings, presents findings from the congressionally mandated National Assessment of Title I on the implementation and impact of the program. Volume I contains key findings on the implementation of the program under No Child Left Behind, and Volume II presents a report on follow-up findings from Closing the Reading Gap, an evaluation of the impact of supplemental remedial reading programs on achievement of 3rd and 5th grade students.

As part of NCLB, the Congress mandated a National Assessment of Title I (Section 1501) to evaluate the implementation and impact of the program. This mandate also required the establishment of an Independent Review Panel (IRP) to advise the Secretary on methodological and other issues that arise in carrying out the National Assessment and the studies that contribute to this assessment. In addition, the law specifically requires a longitudinal study of Title I schools to examine the implementation and impact of the Title I program. Results from that study are included in Volume I.

Some Key Findings 

These key findings are drawn from Volume II: Implementation  which contains a more extensive discussion of the implementation study findings.  Unless otherwise indicated, the key findings reported below describe the Title I program nationally.  All findings reported were statistically significant at the 0.05 level.  Title I Participants and Funding Title I funds go to 93 percent of the nation’s school districts and to 56 percent of all public schools.  Most Title I funds (74 percent) go to elementary schools, and nearly three-fourths (72 percent) of Title I participants in 2004-05 were in pre-kindergarten though grade 6.Minority students accounted for two-thirds of Title I participants. 

• Fueled by a growing use of Title I schoolwide programs (see Exhibit 2), the number of students counted as Title I participants has tripled over the past decade, rising from 6.7 million in 1994-95 to 20.0 million in 2004-05.  In 2004-05, 87 percent of Title I participants were in schoolwide programs. • The number of private school students participating in Title I has increased gradually over the past 20 years, to 188,000 in 2004-05, although it remains below the high of 213,500 reached in 1980-81.  Private school students typically received Title I services from district teachers who traveled to the private school to serve students.  Private school principals reported that districts usually consulted with private school representatives about Title I services, although they indicated that professional development, parent involvement, and student assessment were not always covered in those consultations. 
• Funding for Title I, Part A, has increased by 35 percent over the past seven years, after adjusting for inflation, from $9.5 billion in FY 2000 to $12.8 billion in FY 2007.
 • A majority of Title I funds were targeted to high-poverty districts and schools, but low-poverty districts and schools also received these funds.  In 2004-05, about three-fourths (76 percent) of Title I funds went to high–poverty schools (with 50 percent or more students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch).   Low-poverty schools (with less than 35 percent of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch ) accounted for 14 percent of Title I schools and received 6 percent of Title I funds. 
• At the district level, Title I targeting has changed little since 1997-98, despite the intent of NCLB to target more funds to high-poverty school districts by allocating an increasing share of the funds through the Targeted Grants and Incentive Grants formulas.  The share of funds appropriated through the Targeted and Incentive formulas rose from 18 percent of total Title I funds in FY 2002 to 32 percent in FY 2004, while the less targeted Basic Grants formula declined from 85 percent to 57 percent of the funds.  Despite these shifts, the share of funds actually received by the highest-poverty quartile of districts in 2004-05 (52 percent) was similar to their share in 1997-98 (50 percent).
• At the school level, the share of Title I funding for the highest-poverty schools also remained virtually unchanged since 1997-98, and those schools continued to receive smaller Title I allocations per low-income student than did low-poverty schools.  The average Title I allocation in the highest-poverty Title I schools was $558 per low-income student in 2004-05, compared with $563 in 1997-98 (see Exhibit 3).  The middle two poverty groups of schools, however saw statistically significant increases in their per-pupil funding.  Low-poverty schools did not see a significant change in their share of funding, but they continued to receive larger Title I allocations per low-income student than did the highest-poverty schools ($763 vs. $558). 
• Most Title I funds were used for instruction, supporting salaries for teachers and instructional aides, providing instructional materials and computers, and supporting other instructional services and resources.  In the 2004-05 school year, nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of district and school Title I funds were spent on instruction, 16 percent were used for instructional support, and another 11 percent were used for program administration and other support costs such as facilities and transportation.  About half (49 percent) of local Title I funds were spent on teacher salaries and benefits, with an additional 11 percent going for teacher aides. 7 Student Achievement  For both state assessment and NAEP results, recent achievement trends through 2004 or 2005 are positive overall and for key subgroups, particularly in mathematics and at the elementary level.  At this early stage of NCLB implementation— states, districts, and schools began to implement the NCLB provisions in 2002-03—it is not possible to say whether the trends described below are attributable to NCLB, to other improvement initiatives that preceded it, or a combination of both.
 • In states that had three-year trend data available from 2002-03 to 2004-05, the percentage of students achieving at or above the state’s proficient level rose for most student subgroups in a majority of the states.  For example, state reading assessments administered in the 4th grade or an adjacent elementary grade show achievement gains in elementary reading for low-income students in 27 out of 35 states (77 percent) that had trend data available for this subgroup (see Exhibit 4).  Across all student subgroups examined, states showed achievement gains in 78 percent of the cases.  Results for mathematics and for 8th grade show similar patterns .
  • Recent NAEP trends showed gains for 4th-grade students in reading, mathematics, and science, overall and for minority students and students in high-poverty schools, but trends for middle and high school students were mixed.  For example, from 2000 to 2005, 4th-grade black students gained 10 points in reading and Hispanic students gained 13 points, while in mathematics, black students gained 17 points and Hispanic students gained 18 points.  Over the longer term, black and Hispanic students showed even larger gains in mathematics (33 points and 26 points, respectively, from 1990 to 2005), but somewhat smaller gains in reading (eight points and seven points, respectively, from 1992 to 2005).  
  • Neither  8th-  nor  12th-grade  students  made  gains  in  reading  or  science  achievement.  Eighth-grade students made significant gains in mathematics, but not in reading or science.  At the 12th-grade level, reading and science achievement in 2005 was unchanged from the preceding assessments  (2002  for  reading  and  2000  for  science)  and  showed  significant  declines  from  the  first years those assessments were administered (1992 for reading and 1996 for science).  Recent trend data for 12th-grade mathematics are not available. • State assessments and NAEP both provided some indications that achievement gaps between disadvantaged students and other students may be narrowing.  For example, state assessments showed a reduction in the achievement gap between low-income students and all students in most states, typically a reduction of one to three percentage points.  On the Trend NAEP, which has used a consistent set of assessment items since the 1970’s, achievement gains for black and Hispanic substantially outpaced gains made by white students, resulting in significant declines in black-white and Hispanic-white achievement gaps, but recent changes in achievement gaps often were not statistically significant. Under NCLB, high schools are held accountable for graduation rates, but methods for calculating graduation rates vary considerably across states.