Every day for 15 minutes at a stretch, Susanne Evans sits down one-on-one with Crestview Elementary students who are having trouble in school and goes over basic reading skills while they read aloud.
"If they make a mistake in a sentence, we let them finish the sentence and then go back to the word," Evans said, glancing at fellow reading tutors. "We go back over it until it makes sense. After a few months, we all see a difference."It sounds so simple, just reviewing reading or arithmetic until the student understands it. But educators say the long-lived Chapter 1 program makes a dramatic difference in the abilities of otherwise low-achieving children.
Until recently, Utah's share of Chapter 1 funds looked like it might be sliced by a new federal formula for distributing the money.
However, state officials now say intensive lobbying in Washington, D.C., may result in the Beehive State getting about the same amount of money as in previous years.
"Things are looking much better," said John Ross, the state Chapter 1 coordinator.
Currently, Chapter 1 money is distributed according to a formula that provides 90 percent of the funding for basic Chapter 1 programs and 10 percent to areas with high concentrations of poverty.
President Clinton wants to revise the formula to give half the money to high poverty areas. That would chop $5.3 million from the $28 million Utah currently receives.
Ross led a coalition of small states that recently lobbied a subcommittee of the House of Representatives and seemed to get good results. A new, conciliatory amendment now under federal review would distribute $6.3 billion under the old formula, leaving many small states about the same and providing $700 million for pockets of high poverty.
Chapter 1 money is given to districts and schools that have a certain number of low-income families. The children are chosen strictly by academic standards -those who score the lowest on tests are eligible for Chapter 1 help.
Ross said that although Utah does not have the same level of poverty as many other areas, there still are children here who need help. Utah also comes out badly when federal money is distributed because funds often are connected to the average per pupil expenditure - and Utah's is the lowest in the nation.
"I felt no pain bringing out our states together," Ross said of the lobbying coalition. "Per student, we are getting as few dollars as any state in the nation. When we pay our federal taxes we don't get those discounted to 80 cents on the dollar. Our families pay just as much as families in New York or Chicago or the ghettos in Los Angeles."
If the formula stays the same, that is good news for local districts that stood to lose as much as half their funding. Last year, Granite helped 8,137 youngsters in the Chapter 1 program, while Salt Lake served 5,024, Jordan, 2,720 and Davis, more than 3,000.
"One of the good things about Chapter 1 is that it really focuses on the child," said Ann Keller, principal at Crestview Elementary in Layton.
Educators also like the fact that Chapter 1 is results-oriented. The 80 children at Crestview who get Chapter 1 help must show improved test scores or the school risks losing its money.