Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 108 Part 5.djvu/31

 - :^r*e- PUBLIC LAW 103-382—OCT. 20, 1994 108 STAT. 3521 "(8) Decentralized decisionmaking is a key ingredient of systemic reform. Schools need the resources, flexibility, and authority to design and implement effective strategies for bringing their children to high levels of performance. "(9) Opportunities for students to achieve high standards can be enhanced through a variety of approaches such as public school choice and public chsirter schools. "(10) Attention to academics alone cannot ensure that all children will reach high standards. The health and other needs of children that affect learning are frequently unmet, particularly in high-poverty schools, thereby necessitating coordination of services to better meet children's needs. "(11) Resources provided under this title can be better targeted on the highest-poverty local educational agencies and schools that have children most in need. "(12) Equitable;and sufficient resources, particularly as such resources relate to the quality of the teaching force, have an integral relationship to high student achievement. "(d) STATEMENT OF I*URPOSE. — The purpose of this title is to enable schools to provide opportunities for children served to acquire the knowledge and skills contained in the challenging State content standards and to meet the challenging State performance standards developed for all children. This purpose shall be accomplished by— "(1) ensuring high standards for all children and aligning the efforts of States, local educational agencies, and schools to help children served under this title to reach such standards; "(2) providing children an enriched and accelerated educational program, including, when appropriate, the use of the arts, through schoolwide programs or through additional services that increase the amount and quality of instructional time so that children served under this title receive at least the classroom instruction that other children receive; "(3) promoting schoolwide reform and ensuring access of children (from the earliest grades) to effective instructional strategies and challenging academic content that includes intensive complex thinking and problem-solving experiences; "(4) significantly upgrading the quality of instruction by providing staff in participating schools with substantial opportunities for professional development; "(5) coordinating services under all parts of this title with each other, with other educational services, and, to the extent feasible, with health and social service programs funded from other sources; "(6) affording parents meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children at home and at school; "(7) distributing resources, in amounts sufficient to make a difference, to areas and schools where needs are greatest; "(8) improving accountability, as well as teaching and learning, by using State assessment systems designed to measure how well children served under this title are achieving challenging State student performance standards expected of all children; and "(9) providing greater decisionmaking authority and flexibility to schools and teachers in exchange for greater responsibility for student performance.

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