Title I: Education Needs To Monitor States' Scoring of Assessments. Report to the Secretary of Education.

In response to concerns that Title I, the largest source of federal funding for education, was not significantly improving the educational achievement of at-risk students, Congress, in 1994, mandated major changes, including changes to the ways in which states measure student performance. This report provides a snapshot of how close states had come to meeting the 1994 requirements when the new requirements of the 2001 legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act, was signed into law. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has collaborated with other agencies in reviewing how states implement these measures and use the data to assess schools' progress in raising student achievement. This report contains GAO findings on the status of states' compliance with key 1994 Title I requirements, factors that have helped or hindered states in meeting requirements, and the actions states are taking to ensure that Title I assessments are scored accurately. Interviews with officials of the U.S. Department of Education and state Title I directors and other sources of data show that as of March 2002, there were 17 states in compliance with 1994 Title I requirements, and 35 states and instrumentalities were not. Most of the states reported taking some action to ensure that Title I assessments were scored accurately, that any exemptions were justified, and that students with disabilities were receiving appropriate accommodations. Many states are still developing the procedures necessary to monitor such assessments. One appendix describes the scope and methodology of the study, and the other contains comments by the U.S. Department of Education to this report. (SLD)