No Child Left Behind Act: Education Should Clarify Guidance and Address Potential Compliance Issues for Schools in Corrective Action and Restructuring Status

According to Education officials, in 2008, Education provided guidance to State Title I Directors responsible for providing guidance to districts for corrective action and restructuring in multiple meetings and via electronic dissemination through its regional comprehensive centers network. Education officials reported one example of the guidance the agency provided. An LEA may implement a corrective action earlier in the school improvement timeline. Whether a second corrective action would be required would depend on the nature of the initial corrective action and whether achievement data identify other issues that also need to be addressed. For example, the process for implementing a new curriculum takes several years. If an LEA implements a new curriculum in a school that is in the first or second year of improvement and the school subsequently becomes subject to corrective action, an additional corrective action may not be required as the new curriculum is still in the process of being implemented. However, if data indicate that there are other issues that need to be addressed in addition to the new curriculum, they would expect an LEA to take additional corrective action. Whether the nature of the additional steps that need to be taken rise to the level of a second corrective action would, thus, would depend upon the individual circumstances reflected in the achievement data. Officials also reported that since this is an ongoing topic of interest to states, it will be a part of continued technical assistance and support, as well as part of Education's monitoring of states in 2008-2009 to review practices in decision making for schools in improvement.

Education has updated its Consolidated State Performance Report (CSPR) each year for the past two years to obtain increasingly specific information on district implementation of corrective action and restructuring requirements. For example, in its latest report template, Education asks states to provide the numbers of schools that are implementing specific corrective actions or restructuring activities, based on reports from school districts. Education officials report that they are using information from this data collection as well as information from their monitoring activities to refine their guidance to states and to ensure that areas of noncompliance are being addressed. For example, in 2008, Education staff conducted technical assistance/guidance meetings for Title I directors specific to the issues identified as part of State and school district responsibilities under Title I for schools in corrective action and restructuring. Also, Education staff used information obtained from data collected through the CSPR to inform decisions about which school districts and schools to monitor in 2008-2009, with priority given to monitoring districts with schools in corrective action and restructuring in order to review firsthand the role of the State in supporting sub-state actions as well as the role of the districts in assisting schools with selecting appropriate data-driven plans and actions.

Education concurred with and has implemented this recommendation. In its protocol (revised in April 2008) used to monitor state education agencies, Education collects evidence that states are monitoring local education agencies to determine what assistance was provided to schools, whether that assistance has been effective, and whether that assistance is consistent with school improvement plans. The revised protocol has additional information to assist education in monitoring state oversight of LEAs.