Key Terms

photo: child pointing at a screen

Adequate yearly progress (AYP): a measure of the extent to which all students, as well as certain groups of students, in a school or district, demonstrate proficiency in at least reading/language arts and mathematics on state achievement tests and on other academic measures, such as graduation rates or student attendance rates.  Each state has developed its own definition of AYP, and these definitions have been approved by the U.S. Department of Education and are available on the Department’s Web site (www.ed.gov).  State definitions of AYP must reflect the goal that all students are proficient in reading and math by the end of the 2013–2014 school year.

Assurances: a legal document, used by states in applications for supplemental educational service providers, that guarantees that the provider will comply with specific guidelines set by the state.  Assurances require that a provider:

Criteria: requirements set by each state that a provider must meet for state approval.  At a minimum, a program must demonstrate in its state application that it:

Contract: a legal agreement between a school district and a supplemental educational services provider that describes rules and procedures, such as the schedule and length of services a provider promises to offer and the amount and timing of payments from districts to providers.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA): the reauthorization of ESEA in 2001 by the No Child Left Behind Act mandated several changes, including:

Title I is the section of this Act that directs Federal funds to schools serving large numbers of low-income students.

Free or reduced-price lunch: a Federal program that offers students free school lunch if:

Students can qualify for a reduced-price school lunch if their household income is below 185 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines.

Local educational agency (LEA): a term used to describe the local school district administration.

Monitoring: the No Child Left Behind Act requires that states evaluate the performance of approved providers in improving the academic proficiency of participating students.  States are required to withdraw approval from providers that fail for 2 years in a row to help raise academic achievement of students.  States can also withdraw approval from providers that fail to meet other state eligibility requirements.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB): The NCLB Act of 2001 reauthorized the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  Title I is the section of this law that directs Federal funds to schools serving large numbers of low-income students.  Key features of NCLB’s changes to the ESEA include:

For more information, go to www.nclb.gov.

Provider: a group or entity that is approved by a state(s) to offer research-based tutoring or other academic support to students who are eligible for supplemental educational services.  Supplemental educational services providers can be any of the following:

Many providers will offer hands-on tutoring by trained instructors.  Others may offer Internet-based instruction that students can access through a computer at home, in a school, or at a community center.  Regardless of the identity of a provider, the instruction and content must be secular, neutral, and non-ideological.  Districts may use Title I funds to pay supplemental educational services providers.

Public school choice: Title I schools that do not make adequate yearly progress for 2 or more years in a row must offer all students the opportunity to transfer to another public school.

School improvement status: a term used to describe a Title I school that does not make adequate yearly progress (AYP), as defined by the state, for 2 years in a row.  States identify these schools as being “in need of improvement.” The No Child Left Behind Act requires that these schools develop a plan to improve student achievement and that districts provide the schools with additional support and resources.  Students in these schools must be offered the option of transferring to another public school in the district, which may include a public charter school, that has not been identified as needing school improvement.  If a school does not make AYP for 3 years, the school enters its second year of improvement status.  A school that has been in school improvement status for 2 or more years must offer its low-income students supplemental educational services, and it must offer all students the right to transfer to another public school in the district.

Scoring rubric: a tool commonly used by states to rate and review applications submitted by potential supplemental educational services providers.  States give application points for specific qualifications and calculate total scores.  Typically, states set a minimum score for approving providers.  States often include rubrics in the application.

State educational agency (SEA): a term used to describe the state education administration, including the state Superintendent of Education and his or her staff.

State Educational Agency Toolkit on Supplemental Educational Services: a resource developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers to provide states with a model application and review criteria to develop their list of approved supplemental educational services providers.  The goal of this toolkit is to help states set initial standards for approval that ensure a minimum level of quality and provide parents as much choice as possible among potential supplemental educational services providers.  It is available at www.ccsso.org/content/pdfs/SSPToolkit.pdf.

Supplemental educational services (SES): free tutoring services or additional academic help for students provided outside of the regular school day.  These services are generally available to students who:

Parents can choose supplemental educational services from a list of approved providers developed by their state, and the district pays for these services.

Title I: a part of the No Child Left Behind Act, Title I directs Federal dollars to schools that serve high numbers of low-income students to help ensure that all students meet state academic standards.  Title I funds are distributed by state and local educational agencies to public schools with the highest percentages of children from low-income families.