Prepackaged School Reform - school use of standardized curricular programmes

School Administrator, Jan, 2000 by Jay Mathews

"An Educators' Guide to Schoolwide Reform," a nearly 300-page report on 24 schoolwide reform models analyzed by the Washington-based American Institutes for Research, has given both Success for All and Direct Instruction its highest rating. The report was sponsored by five educational heavyweights: AASA plus the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

The guide labels with a full-circle symbol those programs that show strong positive effects on student achievement. Promising effects get a half circle, marginal effects get a quarter circle, mixed or weak effects get an empty circle and programs that have no research backing them get a question mark.

Of the 24 programs rated, Success for All and Direct Instruction were the only two elementary school programs awarded a full circle for positive effect on student achievement. (The third full-circle winner was High Schools That Work, a program developed by the Southern Regional Education Board.) Success for All also received a full circle for the developer support it provides schools, while Direct Instruction, now marketed by several contractors, received a half-circle for developer support.

The educators' guidebook liked the research backing Direct Instruction's results because "there are many studies with similar findings, which raises confidence in the results. Further, of the 14 studies that used rigorous methodologies, five were conducted by independent researchers." Its only complaint was that the research was focused mostly on the reading and math results and that most of the studies were over 10 years old.

The report said the research on Success for All included "16 empirical studies, detailing information from about two dozen different sites." It said the studies of the program not only "show statistically and educationally significant improvement in student scores, but it does so consistently across the studies reviewed."

The Experience Factor

District leaders have widely varying reactions to these prescriptive models, often depending on the level of reading achievement at their local schools, the quality of teaching staff and availability of other research-based approaches.

Bill Montford, superintendent in Leon County, Fla., says he applauds efforts to fix low-performing schools, noting, "It's a quick way to failure not to change." Still, he prefers the homegrown methods his professional staff has developed in cooperation with two major universities in the Tallahassee area.

Michael Riley, superintendent in Bellevue, Wash., says he has seen Success for All work in schools in Baltimore and has a principal who just installed the program at Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue. Successful methods that rely on detailed instructions to teachers are useful, Riley says, "if you want to make a difference with kids and you want to do it fast."

Assessment of the local teacher talent is important in deciding to use prescriptive models, he says. When he worked as a central-office administrator in Baltimore, Riley says, Success for All's strong directions for teachers were attractive because "there was a sense that we were getting a lot of teachers who didn't have a strong foundation in teaching reading." Many teachers who welcomed the adoption of Success for All at Stevenson said it strengthened their skills. "Some said it was the best training they had ever gotten," he says.