Notes on SES

Newly released interim report (pdf) from the Department of Education shows that the number of kids in chronically low-performing schools who are getting free tutoring through NCLB’s Supplemental Educational Services (SES) is rising but still only reaches 17 percent of all those eligible. Same kids also have the option to switch from their school to a better performing school but only a paltry one percent of eligible students are taking advantage of this. Why such low participation rates for SES and public school choice? Mostly because parents don’t seem to know or understand that they have these options (only half of those surveyed said they had been notified about the SES option, and less than a 1/3 said they’d heard about the public school choice option). [By the way, it's increasingly unlikely that SES will survive NCLB reauthorization, at least not without big changes. It's ironic, really, that as an NCLB provision (albeit now the ugly stepsister) SES is not really held accountable in any meaningful way for student outcomes. So changes should ensure that we can at least tell whether or not SES or SES providers (which have tripled in number in the past 3 years) actually improve learning opportunities for kids. Proposals to get rid of SES or lump it together into another pot don't address the participation/access issue or the questionable quality issue.]