Shanker Blog » The Characteristics Of SIG Schools:
A few years ago, the U.S. Department of Education (USED) launched the
School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, which is designed to award grants to “persistently low-achieving schools” to carry out one of four different intervention models.
States vary in how SIG-eligible schools are selected, but USED guidelines require the use of three basic types of indicators: absolute performance level (e.g., proficiency rates); whether schools were “making progress” (e.g., rate changes); and, for high schools, graduation rates (specifically, whether the rate is under 60 percent). Two of these measures – absolute performance and graduation rates – tell you relatively little about the actual performance of schools, as they depend heavily on the characteristics (e.g., income) of students/families in the neighborhood served by a given school. It was therefore pretty much baked into the rules that the schools awarded SIGs have tended to exhibit certain characteristics, such as higher poverty rates.
Over 800 schools were awarded “Tier 1” or “Tier 2” grants for the 2010-11 school year (“SIG Cohort One”). Let’s take a quick look at a couple of key characteristics of these schools, using data from USED and the National Center for Education Statistics.
The table below compares SIG schools with all U.S. schools in terms of poverty, ethnicity, school type, and school location in 2009-10, the year prior to their receiving the grants.
Clearly, Tier 1/2 SIG schools are different in terms of these characteristics. The free and free/reduced lunch (FRL)
Clearly, Tier 1/2 SIG schools are different in terms of these characteristics. The free and free/reduced lunch (FRL)
