MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
JEFFERSON CITY - Of the $190 million in federal funding used to bring Missouri students up to speed, almost none is going to state high schools.
Title I funding from the federal No Child Left Behind Act is being directed almost exclusively to elementary schools by Missouri school districts, said Dee Beck of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
"The research indicates that it's easier to get progress from the younger children," Beck said.
Older students are harder to bring up to the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act, Beck said. The act, signed into law last year by Pres. Bush, sets national achievement standards and distributes federal dollars according to performance. Title I funding is used to bring students up to those standards.
"High-school kids are more diverse, more independent," Beck said.
So rather than dedicate the federal funds to high-school students, Beck said, most districts are putting their money into lower grades, where it will have a better chance of raising academic performance.
Columbia Public Schools puts the Title I funds into early education because it has a better chance of getting students on the right track, said Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education Cheryl Cozette.
"Early intervention is prevention," Cozette said. "We can prevent a lot of the issues children will face later by putting the funding at the earlier stage's of the child's education."
Columbia's Title I preschools, designed to educate children from low-income families, are funded exclusively from Title I money, Cozette said. Programs such as Reading Recovery and early literacy groups, which provide personal literacy instruction for young students, are also paid for by Title I funds, Cozette said.
Bringing high-school students up to national standards is complicated for three basic reasons, Beck said.
Whereas children in lower grades are more open to adult instruction, Beck said, high-schoolers' values are more closely tied to their peers. So changes would be harder to implement by high-school teachers and administrators. "Adult influences are important to teenagers, but by the time they get to that age there are a lot of other influences that affect them," Beck said.
Older students are also more set in their ways, Beck said. Bad study habits are more difficult to correct among high-schoolers. "They have more things to unlearn," she said.
Finally, as time goes on, older students get further behind their grade level standards than do kids at lower grades, Beck said. Students who get behind early lag further and further behind grade standards even though they are making progress, Beck said. So high school students who underachieve are further behind than are grade school students who have trouble keeping up. For example, first-grade students could vary in proficiency from kindergarten to second-grade levels. Seventh-graders, however, could fall behind by multiple grade levels, Beck said.
"No Child Left Behind seeks to slow down that gap between these kids and, ideally, bring them up to speed," Beck said.
Rock Bridge Principal Bruce Brotzman said he agrees with districts that put federal funds to the front end of students' education. If that is the most effective way to improve academic performance with the resources available, that is where the money should be spent, he said.
"If the pool of money is limited, and of course it always is, someone has to make a decision on where it will go," Brotzman said. "Philosophically, we need to come down somewhere."
Brotzman said he agrees with the idea that resources are spent most efficiently at lower grade levels, where students can be reached early in the learning process. "We get the biggest bang for our buck by putting (federal funds) in the earlier grades," Brotzman said.
Secondary schools fund intervention programs through other sources of funding, Cozette said.
Extra funding would always be useful for high schools, Brotzman said, but it is up to high school teachers and administrators to do the most for students with what they have.
"Once they come into our doors, we'll do whatever we can with the resources we have available," he said.