4/ ESEA Title III Annual Report

Strengths of Title III

Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is the most effective force in American education for constructive innovation and change. Since its enactment by Congress in 1965, Title III has made federal funds available to the states for projects which apply new methods and research to educational problems in local elementary and secondary schools. In doing so, Title III has stimulated interest in improved educational practices at the grassroots level of education and has brought research and development directly into the classroom.

For most school districts, the funds available from Title III are the only funds available for experimental research and development. School administrators find it difficult to take the risks which are inherent in innovation if the money for this purpose must come from hard-pressed local fiscal resources. Congress recognized this, and also that a continuing process of self-improvement in education is in the national interest, when it provided federal support for innovation to local schools through Title III.

Under the legislation, Title III funds may be used for projects in any curriculum area. The administrative machinery of the Title III program at the state and national levels does not need to "tool up" for each new problem or approach. This fact, that it is a flexible program in being, makes it possible for Title III to respond to educational needs as they arise. The program is therefore a valuable model-creating resource, both to education as a whole and to other federal education programs.

Title III pilot projects exist in many of the fields in which the federal government has made major commitments to education in recent years: environmental education, preschool, ethnic studies, bilingual education, reading, career and personal guidance and counseling, special education for the handicapped, and compensatory education for the disadvantaged. That the Title III experience, which is a practical source of expertise, is often not tapped by other government programs is a failure of cooperation within and between government agencies rather than of the Title III concept.

Title III projects are locally initiated, locally administered, and respond to locally identified educational needs. This conforms to the American commitment to local control of education and also fulfills one of the conditions for educational change: that it must rise out of local concern and be sustained by local conviction. Change imposed on schools from outside-and especially from above-has historically not endured.

Title III projects respond to learner needs which are identified by school systems through systematic assessment of current educational outcomes. If programs in certain curriculum areas are not producing good results for children, or if there seems to be need to give children new kinds of educational experiences, Title III can provide development capital for innovation, to demonstrate the possibility or feasibility of making changes in educational practices.

A successful new practice developed in a Title III project can be copied, in whole or in part, by other schools. Change thereby spreads by a process of diffusion, as a blotter absorbs ink. This kind of change is sometimes criticized as noncomprehensive and too gradual, but it has the great advantage of producing lasting effects in attitude on the part of educators.

Title III projects operate in classrooms-which is where the problems are. In doing so, they bridge the gap between theory and practice which has often rendered education research sterile and unprofitable. A Title III project proposal must show that existing research in the subject field has been taken into account and that the project directors are aware of and knowledgeable about the background work which has been done by other educators. The Title III project then moves immediately to practical application of this theory to the needs of children in classroom situations and thereby provides the practical evidence which educators need of the applicability of research to their own problems.

Strengths and Recent Accomplishments / 5

The stimulation of new solutions to difficult educational problems is the vital central objective of Title III. However, in achieving it, Title III has developed a process of needs assessment, research utilization, management by objectives, evaluation, and accountability which impacts far beyond the program itself. In all of these areas, Title III staffs in the United States Office of Education and state education departments are in the forefront of new educational thinking and provide leadership to other programs.

Title III has made a distinctive contribution to public participation in education decision-making. Each state is required by the legislation to appoint an advisory council composed of persons who represent the broad educational and cultural interests of the state, and each operating project is required to have a local advisory council made up of citizens of the community. These councils, state and local, have become a network through which citizens can express their concerns about education, and they have been highly effective in creating the public understanding which is essential to successful educational change.

Title III has been instrumental in developing cooperation within the educational structure, by stimulating creation of intermediate units which serve a number of school districts with research, dissemination services, equipment, or personnel; by bringing together public and nonpublic schools; and by encouraging interrelationships between education departments and other public agencies and community facilities.

Since it was enacted by Congress in 1965, Title III has been nurtured by the contributions of many educators, supported by citizen advisory councils, and strengthened by the increased competence of state departments of education. The needs are still great, but the foundation and the framework have been laid, and in the years ahead, Title III can serve as the focus and the incentive for continuing educational improvement.

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Recent Accomplishments of Title III

Unlike most other federal programs, Title III depends upon people at the state and local levels to define the critical areas for educational innovation and reform. The program operates on the assumption that practitioners in the field know best what problems they face and are best able to develop appropriate responses to those problems.

Of the more than 6000 projects which have been funded by Title III to date, many have had considerable impact-as continuing projects within their own communities; as models which other communities have adopted; or as ideas which have had opportunity to be tested and which subsequently have been implemented in larger, more substantial contexts.

CONTINUATION AND ADOPTION

The first impact of a Title III project is, of course, at its original site. To evaluate this effect, the National Advisory Council in 1971 commissioned a study of the rate of continuation of projects after the termination of federal funding. Eight hundred school superintendents were asked what had happened at the end of the three-year