Project Description: A Test of School District Strategies for Eliminating Educational Disadvantage is an attempt to develop and evaluate the ways in which large school districts containing many disadvantaged students can organize themselves to introduce improved school and classroom programs and practices. The basis of 2001 is a structured approach to planned change that calls for careful assessment of existing practices and outcomes to determine what must be done, identification of interventions to achieve the needed outcomes when applied, and the design of strategies to overcome actual and perceived obstacles to radical rearrangement of priorities and resource allocations to do what is needed.
This project is an evaluation of the effectiveness of the multiple components of the Charleston County (South Carolina) School District's Project 2001. Project 2001 is a district-wide K12 improvement effort. Taking a structured approach to planned change, it calls for assessment of existing practices and outcomes, identification of interventions necessary to achieve desirable outcomes, and the design of strategies to overcome actual and perceived obstacles to radical rearrangement of priorities and resource allocations. Central elements of Project 2001 include: (1) redefinition of school and school system goals and objectives; (2) a planning and evaluation structure; (3) an Integrated Targeted Reading program in grades one through three; (4) improved kindergarten; (5) cooperative learning in grades three through eight; (6) computer-assisted elementary language arts instruction; (7) heightened teacher expectations; (8) summer school; (9) parental assistance; (10) classroom and behavior management in the middle school grades; and (11) drug prevention. The ultimate objective of this evaluation is to demonstrate that an entire public school system can produce dramatic improvements in learning, grade promotion, and, ultimately, high school graduation rates for disadvantaged populations.
Project Director: Gottfredson, Gary G.
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Study Design: The Charleston County (South Carolina) School District is a city and county district of 50,000 students with high minority and poverty populations in both rural and urban settings. The district is committed to the planning, implementation, and evaluation model that forms the core of Project 2001 and to the reallocation of Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and other resources. Top administrators are being trained in the application of the structured planning model, and all of the district's elementary school principals are receiving a day-long orientation to Project 2001.
In its initial phase, the research involves: (1) identification of intervention and evaluation designs for multiple school improvement interventions across the grade levels; (2) collection of baseline data with school-by-school and grade-by-grade reports on cumulative grade retention, standardized achievement testing, and results of school climate assessments for the district; and (3) initiation and evaluation of the results of pilot field experiments involving teacher expectations, kindergarten and elementary reading instruction, cooperative learning, and school discipline, among other variables. In later phases, the researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the various components of Project 2001 being implemented district-wide and in particular schools. There is a separate research design for each program component. Outcome measures include: standardized achievement test scores; other tests of reading, listening, and comprehension skills; grade retention; special education assignments; and student commitment to education and attachment to school.
Unit of Analysis: The unit of analysis is the individual school.
Generalizability: The samples upon which this study is based consist of selected schools and students within the Charleston County School District, and, therefore, findings are generalizable only to those participating schools and students.
Sample Description: Sub-samples for the component evaluations are unspecified; however, all schools and students are drawn from the Charleston County School District (see Study Design).
Dependent Variables: Dependent variables include achievement test scores, grade retention rates, special education placements, and student attitudes.
Independent Variables: Independent variables include components of Project 2001, such as the kindergarten intervention and cooperative learning.
External Variables Controlled: Some of the component evaluations involve random assignment of interventions to schools or of students to treatment and comparison conditions within schools. These procedures control for extraneous school, teacher, and student variables.
Statement of Finding(s): The findings of component evaluations found that in all cases, components that were implemented well had positive effects, and those that weren't did not. Implementation of interventions is a difficult problem even when the implementation is being carried out with a program development evaluation model.
Description of Finding(s): The evaluation of a component to improve adolescent conduct found that the strength and fidelity of the implementation varied considerably across schools and was tied to the level of administrator support for the program. In schools where the program was well implemented, student conduct improved significantly and substantially.
An evaluation of the TESA program found a small positive outcome when the comparison of effects was made within schools, and negative effects when the comparison was made across schools. The results did not produce the large effects that will be required to ameliorate the retention and achievement disparities that characterize the district.
Evaluation of the Success for All program found strong positive effects for the kindergarten program and mixed evidence for the first grade. No consistent pattern of effects was found for the higher grades. The program sharply curtailed grade retention in the first grade.
An evaluation found that participation in the DARE program reduced student alcohol consumption, increased students' belief in conventional rules, led to less association with drug-using peers, and helped students develop attitudes unfavorable toward drug use. In some schools, the positive results were clear and large; in other schools, there was little evidence of effectiveness.
Are data from the study available? Yes
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