What's New for February 2012

REL Report Examines the Title I Supplemental Educational Services Program in the Appalachia Region (February 10, 2012)
Under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, students from low-income households are eligible for extra academic assistance if they attend a Title I school that has not made adequate yearly progress for at least three consecutive years. Supplemental educational services usually involve individual or small-group tutoring beyond regular school hours in reading and math. This 2006-2011 REL Appalachia at CNA report, A Descriptive Study of Enrollment in Supplemental Educational Services in the Four REL Appalachia Region States, examines the 2007/08 Title I supplemental educational services program by school locale in the Appalachia Region. The study examines enrollment rates, the number of tutoring hours contracted for and attended, and variation in the type of instruction provided.

REL Technical Brief Updates Database of Dropout Prevention Programs and Policies in Nine Low-Income Urban School Districts in the Northeast and Islands Region (February 9, 2012)
Nationally, many public school students fail to graduate from high school. Those most at risk for not graduating continue to be non-White students living in low-income, urban areas. To learn what dropout prevention programs and policies low-income school districts with high racial/ethnic minority student populations in the Northeast and Islands Region are implementing, (Myint-U. et al. 2009) constructed an interactive database covering nine pilot districts. This REL Northeast and Islands Technical Brief, Updating a Searchable Database of Dropout Prevention Programs and Policies in Nine Low-Income Urban School Districts in the Northeast and Islands Region, builds on the Myint-U. et al. (2009) report, describing updates to the database in 2011 and characteristics of new, discontinued, and sustained programs since 2006/07.

REL Report Examines Effectiveness of Success in Sight Program on Student Achievement (February 8, 2012)
The 2006-2011 REL Central at McREL conducted a randomized control trial of the Success in Sight school improvement intervention in elementary schools in Missouri and Minnesota. Success in Sight is a district-wide intervention designed to help schools, leadership teams, and teachers systematically and systemically engage in continuous school improvement practices to advance the learning of all students. The program focuses on improving data-based decision making, building a purposeful community with a collective belief that the community can achieve its goals, shared leadership, research-based practices, and a cycle of continuous improvement.

The study included approximately 8,200 students and 1,500 teachers in grades 3 through 5 across 52 schools in 8 school districts. The study found that students who attended schools participating in the Success in Sight intervention had comparable levels of math and reading achievement as students who attended schools that did not participate in the intervention. Key results include the following:

• Success in Sight did not produce a statistically significant impact on student reading or mathematics achievement after two years of implementation.
• Teachers who were in Success in Sight schools reported similar levels of engagement in data-based decision making, purposeful community, and shared leadership as teachers who did not receive the intervention.