The impact of federal policy on local practice: The case of Chapter 1 program improvement

In 1988 the Hawkins-Stafford Amendments of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act required schools receiving Chapter 1 funds to meet state-determined standards for achievement. Those schools failing to meet their state's standard were required to enter into a process for upgrading their instructional program and student achievement. Historically, Chapter 1 (formerly Title I) has been a precedent setting program, and this new policy was no exception. This requirement, known as the program improvement policy, was the first such requirement ever written into federal education law.; The research described in the following chapters examined the effectiveness of the federal Chapter 1 program improvement policy. Essentially this research was designed to determine whether the program improvement policy served as a feedback and accountability mechanism that generated extensive innovation and improved instruction in Chapter 1 schools with low student achievement. My research focused on how identified schools responded to the Chapter 1 program improvement policy. For each school in the sample I examined those factors, including teachers' knowledge, instructional traditions, and policy implementation, that I thought would help explain variation in how schools responded to the program improvement provisions in the Hawkins-Stafford Amendments.; The research questions for this study were: How did schools that fit into the program improvement category respond to the program improvement requirements? What was the relationship between teachers' knowledge about the program improvement policy, teachers' decisions regarding instruction, and teachers' awareness and agreement with the goals for improvement and the implementation of program improvement in identified Chapter 1 schools?; The research focused on the views of teachers from four program improvement schools in California. I also interviewed teachers from two "control" schools. Their responses were the primary source of information for this study.; Generally, the research found that in the identified schools in the smaller district, the accountability and feedback mechanism worked more effectively than in the schools in the larger district.