A total of 531 students transferred to better-performing public schools and more than 200 were able to receive tutoring services during 2003-04 as a result of help provided by Project CREO, according to a February 2005 update from Hispanic CREO, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options.
Initiated in the fall of 2003 with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Project CREO is a five-city outreach effort to educate parents about the school choice and supplemental services provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
A total of 22,775 parents were trained by Project CREO, with the largest number–7,744–being in Miami, Florida. The four other cities where parents were trained were Austin, Texas (5,226), Camden, New Jersey (2,620), Dallas, Texas (4,027), and San Antonio, Texas (3,154).
Of the 531 students who transferred to better schools through Project CREO, 219 were in Austin, 150 in Camden, 118 in Dallas, and 44 in Miami.
GAO Reports Few Transfers
Nationwide, of the nearly 3.3 million students eligible to transfer to better public schools under NCLB in the 2003-04 school year, less than 1 percent–just 31,500 students–actually transferred, according to a December 2004 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
While the GAO report identified “tight timelines and insufficient classroom capacity” as the major reasons for the low transfer rate, it also suggested school districts might need help in providing information on choice options to parents so they could make informed decisions. That is the focus of Project CREO.
George A. Clowes ([email protected]) is associate editor of School Reform News.
For more information …
Further information on Hispanic CREO is available online at http://www.hcreo.org.
The December 2004 report from the Government Accountability Office, “No Child Left Behind Act: Education Needs to Provide Additional Technical Assistance and Conduct Implementation Studies for School Choice Provision,” is available online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d057.pdf.
George Clowes is former Heartland senior fellow addressing education policy. He served as founding managing editor of School Reform News between November 1996 and January 2005.
