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to another school or, ultimately, lose their principalship. Thus, principals have a vested
interested in enhancing the achievement of their students.
This paper focuses on the ways school principals use Title I, Title II, and Title III
programs to enhance student achievement. The reseacher interviewed 6 elementary and middle
school principals located in east Texas during the 2004 summer as a pilot study for a larger work.
However, because of a small unrepresentative sample and because of the limited parameters of a
pilot study, these results are not generalizable. Five of the principals had significant proportions
of Hispanic and non-English speaking students in their student populations; thus, this paper
reports the innovative ideas they used to increase the achievement of these students.
Challenges of No Child Left Behind
The challenges embedded in NCLB are daunting. The purpose of NCLB is to improve the
achievement of all students by increasing accountability for all public schools; providing more
choices for parents and students; providing greater flexibility for states, independent school
districts (ISDs), and schools; putting reading first; and providing high quality teachers.
This
paper focuses on Title I programs that are geared at helping economically disadvantaged
students, Title II programs that require highly qualified teachers and paraprofessionals in the
classroom, and Title III programs that are aimed to help students who do not speak English as
their first language.
Title I–Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged
Title I programs focus on delivering services to a disadvantaged and underserved
Convention