Project Description: Experiments in Middle and High Schools is developing, implementing, and evaluating experimental field trials in four high priority areas for the improvement of the education of disadvantaged students in middle and high schools: (1) evaluation, reward, and recognition structures: (2) alternatives to tracking and retention; (3) curriculum improvements to meet student needs; and (4) staffing arrangements for a more supportive human environment
Project Director: McPartland, James M.
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Activity ID: 7121-20026
Statement of Finding(s): Experiments have identified, developed, and evaluated effective practices in all four high priority areas that improve education for disadvantaged students.
Description of Finding(s):
Evaluation, Reward, and Recognition Structures. This project has developed an alternative evaluation and recognition system (Incentives for Improvement) that encourages and rewards students for improvement over their past record, while simultaneously providing them with realistic feedback on their current level of performance. This system challenges students of all achievement levels to be dissatisfied with their current level of performance, helps them set specific improvement goals that are challenging but reachable, and recognizes and rewards them both for doing better than they have done in the past, and for reaching and maintaining higher levels of achievement. The system continues to be implemented and evaluated in four middle schools, evaluated, and revised.
Findings of evaluations indicate that recognizing low achieving middle-school students' progress toward high standards increases their effort, grades, and promotion rates. In a full-year pilot test of the program that included seventh- and eighth-grade urban middle school students in 20 matched pairs of classes, fourth-quarter grades of the Incentives for Improvement students were almost two-thirds of a standard deviation higher than grades of control students; passing rates were significantly higher than for control students, and the program especially benefited students who were most at risk (those with low general averages in the previous year) -- 12 percent more of these students passed in Incentives for Improvement classes than in control classes. The Incentives for Improvement students also reported expending more effort (studying harder for quizzes and tests, working closer to their potential) than did students in control classes.
This project also includes the More Responsive High Schools Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, which is working with a group of high schools in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area to examine the processes for evaluating the performance of at-risk students and the use of student information in schools. The project has produced three review papers, a review essay on the use of student information by educators at the school and district levels, an annotated bibliography of research related to information usage in schools, and a review essay on performance assessment practices and disadvantaged students. One of the major findings of this project is that the processes by which high schools assign students to classes and programs do not meet the educational needs of students, especially in high schools serving predominantly disadvantaged populations. Student assignments are based primarily on inadequate information about each student, limits on physical and staff resources, external bureaucratic regulations, and internal political issues, rather than on students' academic needs and concerns about teaching and learning.
Alternative Programs for More Effective Middle Grades Education. This project evaluated alternatives to tracking in middle and high schools that directly address the drawbacks of this process while not ignoring either the practical difficulties of teaching heterogeneous classes at the secondary level or the danger that placing low-ability students in heterogeneous classrooms may initially dampen their achievement expectancies if these students feel unable to compete with their higher-achieving classmates. These alternatives include mixed-grade grouping across the curriculum, untracked classes, limited tracking and no-low-track plans. Alternatives to traditional tracking practices often involve the creation of heterogeneous classrooms. Thus, these alternatives are likely to be most effective when they are accompanied by the use of instructional methods that are appropriate for the wide range of student performance levels in these classrooms.
A specific field study is investigating whether schools can avoid some of the negative effects of tracking on low and middle track students by using cooperative learning techniques to strengthen the instructional program and climate for learning in tracked classes. Initial findings of this study indicate no greater achievement for students in high-standard untracked classes, but students are exposed more to cooperative learning and indicate they will take more high-level courses.
Curriculum Issues in Effective Middle and High Schools. Field experiments in this project addressed the key curriculum issues of effective reading, modern mathematics, and critical thinking. The findings in each of these areas are:
Effective Middle School Reading Instruction: The project worked with innercity middle schools to develop, pilot, and experimentally test the Student Team Reading and Student Team Writing programs. The Student Team Reading program was evaluated with sixth-graders in six urban middle schools; then both the Reading and the Writing programs were evaluated with sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders in five urban middle schools. The program combines research-based practices in teaching reading and writing, good literature as the basis of instruction, integrated reading and writing instruction, and cooperative learning processes. Results of the field tests show that students in the program achieved significantly higher on standardized measures of reading vocabulary, reading comprehension, and language expression. There were no significant differences in language mechanics.
An Enabling Mathematics Curriculum for Disadvantaged Middle Grade Students: This project adapted and developed materials and methods for teaching mathematics applications and concepts to students who have had little previous success in math and who may not be able to routinely do arithmetic without using electronic calculators. The project developed a system of mathematics applications, instructional materials, and classroom organizational designs for sixth-to-eighth grade classes with students who have widely varying prior math achievements, including students who have not yet mastered basic computational skills. The model incorporates calculators and instruction about their use in a major introductory unit; incorporates content previously developed through federally-funded curriculum development efforts, adapting these for students with poor prior math achievement; incorporates existing instructional computer programs that focus on teaching strategies for solving problems rather than on the actual arithmetic steps in their solution; and includes the development of new computer and traditional-media-based activities that direct learning toward understanding and using math in motivating contexts. Classroom heterogeneity is addressed with a series of team learning activities as well as individualized computer tutorials. The model was not evaluated due to school implementation difficulties.
Evaluation of a Critical Thinking Course Sequence (Touchstones) in the Middle Grades: This project evaluated the use of the Touchstones Critical Thinking Course in 8th grade classrooms in middle schools in Baltimore City. The evaluation did not support the further use of the Course.
Creating a More Supportive Human Environment for Disadvantaged Students within Middle and High Schools. This work focused on experiments on advisor/advisee programs; an examination of the role of supportive human environments in explaining success of disadvantaged students through building resiliency; and an examination of the Essential Schools model of the supportive high school.
Developing and Evaluating a Middle and High School Self-Management Program: Students in secondary schools typically receive instruction from a variety of adults, and no one adult has responsibility to see that individual students do not fall through the cracks of the educational system. This project has focused on students at greatest risk of academic and conduct problems. It employs school guidance counselors in new support roles for high risk students. These school personnel provide assistance to students in developing problem-solving and decision-making skills, self-instruction, persuasive communication, and resistance to negative peer influence. The objectives of the self-management program are to increase student self-control, school success, attachment and commitment to education, self-efficacy expectations, and belief in rules. 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.
Evaluation of the Essential Schools Model in an Urban Comprehensive High School: Walbrook High School in Baltimore established its essential schools program five years ago as a random subunit within the school. The model has continued to expand with each successive entering class, and now includes the entire ninth grade and the majority of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders. The Essential School had its first graduating class in June 1990. Evaluations were conducted from the program's beginning in the 1986-87 school year into the 1991-92 school year. Qualitative evaluations based on observations and interviews provided strong evidence that elements of the Essential Schools model were being implemented and were affecting student performance, attitudes, and behaviors in positive ways. Quantitative evaluations provided much less strong but some significant evidence of positive effects on student achievement on standardized tests and on attendance.
Disadvantaged Students Who Succeed: The findings of this project are contained in a special issue on the topic of the resiliency of disadvantaged students for Education and Urban Society. The articles by Center staff and the publication of the journal provide an extensive review of the concept of resilience and provide a number of new studies and examinations that add significant scientific knowledge concerning the determinants and correlates of resiliency in disadvantaged youth. The concept of "resilience" can be applied to help redefine research on disadvantaged children to address positive factors rather than negative. Disadvantaged children who are succeeding against the odds illustrate the concept of resilience and move education research toward studying the protective mechanisms operating at key turning points in their lives that help them be resilient. The critical issues in education are not who is at risk or how many of the risk factors one has to have to be at risk. Rather, the critical issues for policy and instruction center around identifying the protective processes and mechanisms that reduce risk and foster resilience.
Are data from the study available? Yes, for most studies.
Principal Investigator(s): Stevens, Robert; Natriello, Gary; Becker, Henry J.; Nettles, Saundra M.; McPartland, James M.; and Mac Iver, Douglas J.
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
-###-
![[ Previous Project ]](/icons/prev.gif){kind=icon}
![[ Center Description ]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
![[ Next Project ]](/icons/next.gif){kind=icon}