The Delivery and Organization of Compensatory Education. Trends and Issues No. 9.

Recent evaluations of Federal compensatory education programs funded by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Title I, and maintained by the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981, Chapter 1, point to qualified effectiveness in the targeting of services, program structures, and.classroom arrangements for increasing the academic achievement of educationally disadvantaged students. The poverty status of the school should be considered as the first criterion for target4ng services and then students ' achievement, although most districts further target resources to elementary school students. The smaller class size used in compensatory education classrooms has been strongly linked to increased achievement, but the effectiveness of the extended periods of compensatory instructional time are less certain. The homogeneous grouping employed in instructional groups is considered detrimenta