A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Comprehensive School Reform

U. S. Department of Education
Office of Educational Research and Improvement

Background:

The Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, which began in 1998, aims to raise student achievement by helping public schools across the country to implement successful, entire-school reform programs that are grounded in scientifically based research. The U.S. Department of Education's CSR program provides financial incentives for schools to develop and implement school reforms that help all children meet challenging State academic content and achievement standards.

Within the Department, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) has primary responsibility for research and evaluation of comprehensive school reform. OERI has funded a number of ongoing activities that will build on and support the agency's earlier work on comprehensive school reform.

1. In FY 1998 and 1999, a total of $13 million dollars was awarded to the Regional Educational Laboratories to provide assistance to State and local education agencies supporting the CSRD program.
2. OERI created a National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform to provide educators and the public with the most recent research and evaluation of reform designs, models, and strategies. In addition, the clearinghouse will assist customers in promoting the use and application of research and development to upgrade the capacity of schools so they can prepare all students to achieve to high standards.
3. OERI awarded $76.7 million in contracts to seven organizations to conduct 5-year studies researching and developing models of comprehensive school reform for middle and high schools.
4. To respond to the lack of long-term capacity of existing organizations to meet the demand created by the CSRD program, OERI awarded a total of $37.5 million to fifteen model providers. The grants will improve the capacity of those fifteen comprehensive school reform models to provide high quality services to larger numbers of schools.
5. OERI awarded $21.3 million in grants for six research studies designed to provide a better understanding of school reform by examining the large-scale implementation of research-based comprehensive school reform models. The studies will rigorously evaluate more than a dozen different externally-developed models to determine their effectiveness in improving student achievement. They also will provide information about how various model characteristics are likely to achieve success in schools with differing student populations, capacities, and needs; and about supporting conditions and strategies needed to effectively implement and sustain comprehensive school reform.