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[Cross-Site Analysis Part 1]Education Reforms and Students At Risk - October 1996
Case Study Summaries
To answer the questions above and to learn about the contextual factors that sustain effective reforms, we visited 12 sites nationwide. These sites, based upon previous national evaluations conducted by AIR and Johns Hopkins (Stringfield, S., Winfield, L., Millsap, M., Puma, M., Gamse, B., & Randall, B. (1994). Urban and suburban/rural special strategies for educating disadvantaged children: First year report. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education; Rossi, R. J. (in press). Effective strategies for keeping students in school: Evaluation of projects funded by the School Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program. Washington, DC: Office of Policy and Planning, U. S. Department of Education) or upon other research studies (Fine, M., Char( er) ing Urban School Reform Philadelphia Style), demonstrated effectiveness at enhancing student performance. In addition to demonstrating this effectiveness by engaging in reform activities, we considered three other selection criteria for case study sites: raised academic standards for students, a supportive school climate, and the presence of a dropout prevention program. In selecting sites to study, we ensured that the site provided at least one of these attributes. In the following section, the attribute( s) found at the site appear in parentheses after the school name. Much is already known about the components of these model programs; our aim was to enhance this knowledge base by identifying the systemic and school-community factors that undergird the reforms that are in place at the sites.
We also visited six additional sites that had programmatic features similar to the model sites. This stepwise replication was designed to examine the robustness of reform elements in varying contexts and to assess the effects of system dynamics and school-community status on the performance of these elements. We viewed building sound systemic and school-community relations that are sensitive to diverse circumstances and student populations as perhaps the underlying conditions most necessary for successfully implementing education reforms.
School A (Supportive Climate, Dropout Prevention). School A, located in the rural hill country of west central Texas, evidences a unique governance and organizational structure to meet the needs of students most at risk. Over 40 percent of the students at School A are Hispanic. Many students are at risk on almost every dimension, including over-age for grade, high truancy or suspension rates, below grade level on basic courses, substance abuse, and pregnancy. Attempting to overcome fiscal limitations, eight cooperating districts in this area of Texas pooled their resources to develop the Cooperative Alternative Program (CAP) at School A. CAP serves at-risk students and dropouts drawn from the participating districts. The superintendents of the eight districts, with the leadership of the principal at School A, make up the program's management and governance board. This type of inter-jurisdictional coordination may be a desirable approach to dropout prevention and recovery in remote rural areas. School A was deemed effective in preventing school dropout in a recent national evaluation.
To help inform questions about how poor rural areas with limited resources can meet the complex needs of students at risk, we chose to look at School A's reasonably effective approach to this situation. Decreases in student dropout rates and measured gains in grade averages have been carefully documented over time and are most encouraging (Rossi, 1993). Designated as a model at-risk and dropout-recovery program by the Texas Educational Agency because of its favorable student outcomes, CAP's strategy of pooling resources from several school districts has been replicated in other rural areas of Texas. In 1992, CAP was recognized by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory as an "Outstanding Rural Program for at-Risk Students" from the southwest region, which includes schools in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana and Arkansas. CAP was also recognized by the Governor's Committee on Excellence in 1993.
In addition to the academic and vocational classes, School A's program provides educational services to adult students up to 32 years of age and operates an on-site licensed day care program for the children of students and staff. Extensive staff development is provided for teachers to work with the difficult population of students. By pooling the resources from the participating districts, the program at School A is able to provide individual and group counseling, vocational training, paid-work experience, flexible scheduling, and sensitivity to differences in learning styles. It also has many features that research suggests are key to successful at-risk and dropout prevention programs: small classes, individualized instruction, school-to-work links, and opportunities to participate in accelerated programs. When properly implemented, these reforms have shown promise at improving the performance of students at risk (Legters and McDill, 1994).
School B (Raised Standards, Supportive Climate). School B is an inner-city public K-8 school located in a northeastern U. S. city. Over 95 percent of the students attending School B are of non-European extraction, with the largest group being African-American. School B is in the fifth year of an unusual effort to implement the curricular and instructional program from a highly competitive, elite private school in an inner-city public school context. Although School B's curricular and instructional approach have changed, the school remains a neighborhood public school, staffed by public school teachers and administrators. In recent years, education reformers have begun to explore public-private partnerships as strategies for improving schools. We felt that by studying the strategy and success of School B's program, we could inform discussion of similar and more broad public-private ventures. The duration of this program, started in Fall 1990, makes it useful for exploring issues of gradual, sustained reform.
A three-year evaluation, funded by the Abell Foundation (Stringfield, 1993), found that students involved in School B's program scored, on average, 20-40 percentile points higher than pre-program students had scored on the same tests during previous years. Program students in first, second, and third grades scored at or above the national average on a widely used norm-referenced test (the CTBS), and on a norm-referenced test used in private schools (the ERB). The principal observed that the halls and classrooms of School B, once noisy and occasionally violent places, had become orderly, and an academic focus came to permeate the building. In addition to the dramatic improvement in student achievement and attendance, special education and Title I assignments decreased under this program. These unusually strong positive outcomes are consistent with the reliable implementation of a proven curriculum.
School C (Supportive Climate, Dropout Prevention). School C, located in the midwestern United States, serves a population of inner-city youth. Since 1986, School C's school-within-a-school/New Horizons project has provided counseling, attendance monitoring, career-related instruction, and work experience to high school students at risk throughout School C's public school system. Many at-risk students have multiple needs. Recognizing this, administrators in the School C's district combined two program components believed to help at-risk youth: (1) smaller class sizes with more individual attention and (2) work experience combined with job-related skills acquisition. Students in the New Horizons/School-Within-a-School (NH/SWS) program attend SWS classes and receive instruction in academic subjects identical to the regular curriculum, as well as life skills and career exploration activities. As long as students remain in school, they receive after-school, paid jobs for an average of three hours per day, 15 hours per week. Three work advisors hold weekly group sessions for participants on job-related behaviors and skills, make job placements, monitor students' performance on the job, and visit students' homes. Looking at both the comparisons of dropout rates for individual years and the cumulative comparisons of the lengths of time to dropout for individual students over a four-year period, the NH/SWS Program has demonstrated its effectiveness in keeping students at risk enrolled.
This program was designated as a dropout demonstration project by the U. S. Department of Education. School C's program also benefited from a state law allowing for local taxes to be levied to help fund programs for at-risk youth instead of requiring districts to go through the more typical process of trying to pass a bond measure to increase funding to schools. The NH/SWS program has many of the features that research suggests are key to successful at-risk and dropout prevention programs: small classes, individualized instruction, school-to-work links, and opportunities to participate in accelerated programs. When properly implemented, these reforms have shown promise at improving the performance of students at risk (Legters and McDill, 1994). The program provides counseling, attendance monitoring, career-related instruction, and work experience to its students. Our aims in visiting the NH/SWS program were to examine whether the effectiveness of the reforms had lasted over time and to assess the effects of system and school-community dynamics on the performance of these elements.
School D (Raised Standards, Supportive Climate). School D, located in a large city in Texas, is an inner-city elementary school located in an industrial and warehouse district of the city. The larger district serves a population that is 84 percent Hispanic, 5 percent African-American, 8 percent Caucasian, and 2 percent Asian. Fully 96 percent of School D's students receive free or reduced-price lunches, 28 percent are classified limited English proficient (double the district average), the school has the 12th highest mobility index among the district's 60+ schools, and the school's annual per pupil operating expenditure is below the district average (Schubnell, in press). Through long-term involvement in Trinity University's Smart Schools project and more recent participation in the Core Knowledge curriculum program, School D is not only producing test scores at and above the national average, but it is also providing a dynamic academic atmosphere for students and adults.
The school's approach shows how curriculum can be multicultural and also grounded in the "classics" (e. g., Greek and Roman mythology, Shakespearean literature, Mayan temples and foods, African villages, Asian customs), and students seem to be gaining solid academic skills while gaining substantial amounts of "cultural capital." Wide community support for the program at School D is evident in the numbers of volunteers from service agencies and local postsecondary institutions working with students in classrooms. Thus, instead of a curriculum focusing on basic skills, students learn basic and not-so-basic skills through materials conveying useful and interesting information (historical, cultural, literary, artistic). It was in part this approach that gained School D a reputation for having something special to offer at-risk and other youth.
In spite of its at-risk population, School D is an example of a school serving a population of bright, outgoing students to whom another school might have been tempted to offer a simplified curriculum. The halls and classrooms of School D are filled with students' interpretations of South American and African art, Egyptian, Greek and Roman Gods, and European architecture, and Hispanic, free-lunch, elementary-grade students referencing Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet! By fifth grade, both attendance and state test scores are well above district averages (Schubnell, in press).
School D is a school where responsible teachers and administrators have sought to educate themselves and do the best for their students, even when that means additional time investments on their part. They are connected with other parts of their community -- a department of education at a local private university, businesses, school-business partnership organizations, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies -- who can contribute to the resources and goals of the school. They have also made use of E. D. Hirsch Jr. 's ideas regarding cultural literacy (Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know), initially with understandable caution and skepticism, given the academically perceived potential of such an approach to be "Eurocentric" and/or irrelevant to students from non-European-American ethnic backgrounds.
School E (Raised Standards, Supportive Climate, Dropout Prevention). School E, located in rural Pennsylvania, serves about 550 9th-12th graders. The school population is approximately 99 percent white; only 8 percent of the students are disadvantaged (as determined by free or reduced-price lunches), and there are no limited English proficient students. Almost all 9th- and 10th-grade students at School E are organized in 80- to 100- student "teams." Each team is served by an interdisciplinary faculty group that includes one teacher of English, history, math, and science. Faculty teams meet together one hour per day to discuss progress on cross-disciplinary units and the progress being made by individual students. Nontracked student teams work together on integrated curriculum units. A recently completed longitudinal study of promising programs found that School E was well on its way to implementing the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) program. CES schools, or "sizer schools," are built around nine common principles that are intended to characterize more humane and more intellectually challenging schools for students.
The CES program model is at the forefront of the school-restructuring movement in the United States. Over 700 schools were using CES ideas in 1994, and the program developer, Theodore Sizer, has recently received a substantial grant to extend research and development. Widespread implementation, combined with minimal evaluation, suggests the need for a closer look at the model. School E was nominated as an exemplary CES site by the Education Commission of the States, a group which helps operationalize CES ideas. Findings from this case study reinforce findings from the limited research base on CES. Program implementation is compromised by the difficulty of incorporating all students and staff. For example, scheduling difficulties prevent groups of students who receive advanced or remedial assistance from participation. Staff opposition to the program can divide the school. However, within the program, staff and students at School E seem to have developed a sense of community, and teachers felt that the CES program allows them to work more closely with students.
School F (Raised Standards, Supportive Climate, Dropout Prevention). School F is a neighborhood elementary school serving grades K-5 in Pennsylvania. Approximately 57 percent of School F's students are Asian, 19 percent African-American, 19 percent white, and 4 percent Hispanic. School F has an enrollment of approximately 1,100 students. Seventy percent of these students are enrolled in three charters and one academy at the school site. In 1988, School D's public school system began implementing charters in their 22 comprehensive high schools. Since the city in which School F is located also has a system of magnet schools that historically has attracted the better students from the system, the comprehensive high schools in this district serve primarily students most at risk. Therefore, the charter schools provide a potential context in which to study the effects of school-community dynamics as well as other environmental support systems that likely influence the institutionalization of a program that seeks to address many of the problems related to large, urban high schools serving socioeconomically disadvantaged youth.
The objective of the charter[ ing] reform is to enable educators and parents to "reinvent" the governance structures, instructional programs, and community linkages of high schools in order to improve educational opportunities for students at risk. For example, in a high school, "charters," or intellectual communities, are created in which relatively small, heterogeneous groups of students are assigned to about 10 core teachers who work with students until graduation. At School F, the Trades Charter provides an integrated academic and vocational curriculum. The Cities-in-Schools Charter serves those students who are repeating at least one grade level. The Hospitality Charter is designed around career exploration and hands-on experience in travel and tourism. The Business Academy, the most rigorous of the programs, was established to prepare students to succeed in obtaining and maintaining quality jobs after graduation from high school. According to Michelle Fine (1992), "charters" such as these provide students with both emotional stability and intellectual engagement. Fine also states that these charters change the context from that of placing students at risk to that of "educational communities of resilience." Available data collected by the program suggest that charter students outperform noncharter students in attendance and course passage.
School G (Raised Standards, Supportive Climate). School G, a K-8 inner-city school in the midwestern United States, serves a student population consisting of approximately 770 African-American children, of which 95 percent are eligible for free or reduce-priced lunches. Most of these children begin school with severe language deficits that must be addressed by the school's faculty. In 1983, at the front of many of the reform efforts that began during the 1980s, School G's district superintendent introduced the "Paideia" concept to the city's schools. That fall, faculty at School G, along with three other schools in the system, began implementation of Mortimer Adler's Paideia Proposal (1982). The Paideia Proposal provides a framework for "a course of study that is general, not specialized; liberal, not vocational; humanistic, not technical" (Adler, 1984). It is a way to provide School G's students with an education that more closely resembles that received by children in affluent college-preparatory schools, rather than continuing to use a hodgepodge of special programs designed for low-achieving children. We chose to visit School G because of its long involvement in the Paideia program and because of the opportunity it offers to examine the school reforms in School G's city in an "at risk" context.
The Paideia program is based on Mortimer Adler's concept of how children should be educated in a democratic society. The Paideia program seeks to develop all aspects of the students' cognitions: "acquisition of knowledge, development of intellectual skills, and enlarged understanding of ideas and values" (Adler, 1984). The program also makes curricular suggestions based primarily on great pieces of western literature and conceptual understanding along with three "modes of learning and teaching: didactic instruction, coaching, and Socratic seminars." Not only are academic demands high, but observers have also described the school as an island of safety and comfort in an otherwise drug- and gun-infested, dangerous part of School G's city.
The Paideia program at School G is now 11 years old. The children's standardized test scores show no viable improvements as a result of the program. However, it appears to be inhibiting the potential rapid decline in scores seen in inner-city schools without special programs (Stringfield, 1993). The outcomes of Socratic seminars have been measured primarily by survey data obtained from students, teachers, and parents. The results range from the children's being better able to express themselves than years ago, or than might be expected, to their reading a wider variety of books. Despite the absence of test-score improvement, the faculty of the school and the members of the community believe that the program is a viable one for this population of children, and they are unwilling to give it up without working diligently to make it a successful program. This faith in the framework and basic philosophy of Paideia makes School G an interesting context in which to study the effects of school-community dynamics as well as other environmental support systems that influence the institutionalization of a program in a school whose constituents are virtually all at risk.
School H (Supportive Climate). School H, located in California, serves an ethnically mixed population, including students from first- or second-generation immigrant backgrounds. Students come to the school from a wide range of language backgrounds, and some teachers are bilingual and/or have a Language Development Specialist (LDS) credential. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. School H is an example of a school that works to make sure all of its students do well academically, socially, and emotionally. It is committed to building good relationships between individuals, regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, class, or other differences. It is a member of the Child Development Project (CDP), which emphasizes building community, and it participates in a number of other local programs designed to assist schools in providing high-quality math and science classes. The program has aided teachers in understanding how children develop and in using this knowledge to enhance and improve many aspects of school life for students. We chose to visit School H because it is a Child Development Project site.
The CDP was designed to enhance children's sociomoral development as well as their intellectual development; currently its work is targeted at the elementary school years. "Sociomoral," a term that CDP project staff use interchangeably with "prosocial," includes elements in four domains: cognitive characteristics; affective, motivational, and attitudinal characteristics; behavioral competencies; and action tendencies. The CDP includes several programmatic elements -- a comprehensive classroom program, a set of schoolwide and community services, and a parent program? and strives to create caring communities in schools. Currently, 12 elementary schools in 6 districts across the country have adopted the CDP. At several sites, the project has succeeded in revitalizing ineffective programs: changing teacher behaviors, affecting positively students' perceptions of their teachers and their schools, and improving students' school performance. CDP sites serve a diverse constituency and include Title I schoolwide programs and programs working largely with Hispanic and migrant populations.
School I (Supportive Climate, Dropout Prevention). School I is located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. School I's district serves Hispanic and Native-American summer migrant students. Approximately 50 percent of each summer's class of students attend the district's regular school program during the school year, and about half spend their winters in Texas, Mexico, or other southern states. As a transitory population, migrant students often cannot take full advantage of school-year programs for at-risk students. Programs that are geared towards the needs and schedules of these students, especially programs with native language support for limited English proficient students, warrant further analysis. The summer migrant program examined at School I was identified by the state Title I director as an exemplary program for migrant and settled-out migrant students. This case study identifies difficulties endemic to programs serving migrant populations. School I's program, which has received state and national recognition for its efforts, employed two outreach workers who canvassed local farms with migrant workers encouraging school-age children and young adults to participate.
Some of the students at School I, especially the children of Mexican workers, entered the summer program having had virtually no formal schooling. The program has developed a curriculum that builds on students' prior academic experiences without ignoring or punishing students who enter at levels well below their expected grades. The district's director of federal programs and the school's principal work with the state's migrant program director to create and sustain a program that encourages and closely monitors students' progress in basic reading and math skills, computer literacy, and integrated research, writing, and art work.
School J (Raised Standards, Supportive Climate). School J is a Title I schoolwide project and a year-round K-6 school located in the third largest school district in California. The school's 905 students reflect the diverse culture of the city: 35 percent Hispanic, 35 percent various Asian immigrant groups (Hmong, Vietnamese, Laotian), 15 percent African-American, and 15 percent "other," including white. Over 75 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches, and many of the Asian and Hispanic students are limited English proficient. School J was visited on two previous occasions as part of previous studies of exemplary schools serving disadvantaged students (see Helpler et al., 1987). In the mid-1980s, the school was nominated by California's Title I office and by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory as providing superior services; in the late 1980s, School J was recognized nationally, and was studied as one of 20 exemplary national programs serving Title I students (Stringfield et al., 1988). Since we were interested in studying sites with long-term, stable records of providing exemplary services and producing exemplary effects in diverse communities, School J was one of our first choices. The fact that School J was continuing to offer exemplary services despite the loss of its former principal and its superb specialist teacher made the visit all the more relevant to the issue of sustainable exemplary services.
For a decade, School J's students have scored above state and national averages on the California Assessment Program and on other normed tests. The school's Super Kids program has been copied by several other schools in the district and around the state. School J is virtually free of the types of violence and disorder that have harmed neighboring schools. In addition, School J and several surrounding schools have become "year-round schools." In these cases, the designation meant that the school facility was used 48 weeks a year and served essentially four-thirds the normal number of students by rotating students through complicated block-scheduling schemes that involved 12 weeks of schooling, followed by 4 weeks of vacation, followed by 12 weeks of schooling, and so forth. Such scheduling efforts are increasingly common in California and other cash-strapped areas of the country, especially in schools serving large numbers of students placed at risk. The opportunity to visit one such site was attractive.
School K (Raised Standards, Dropout Prevention). School K, located in Pennsylvania, has implemented the Success for All program. Located in the inner city, the school serves a mixed Asian-immigrant and African-American community. This site has been the subject of three previous evaluations, all of which have reported positive findings. In addition, learning activities at School K -- as at most Success for All sites -- have recently been boosted as a result of a development award from the New American Schools Development Corporation. At the same time, School K has recently undergone a change in principal, is presently part of a search for a new district superintendent, and has had its Title I funds reduced by the maximum amount allowed (i. e., 15 percent) due to population shifts reflected in the 1990 census. For these reasons, School K presents an excellent opportunity to observe a highly successful implementation of a well-researched program at a moment when the implementation may be under considerable stress.
Success for All is a schoolwide restructuring program designed to see that students begin with success in the early grades and then maintain success through the elementary years (Slavin et al., 1992, 1996). Longitudinal studies, using matched control students in matched schools, consistently indicate that Success for All improves student achievement, especially for students with initial low achievement. The specific program explored here, at School K, was selected by the program developer as a representative example of Success for All. Evidence from School K also suggests that Success for All improves student achievement and is especially effective in balancing the needs of students with limited English proficiency. The curriculum and instructional methods are based on research on effective education and were implemented faithfully. School K's program seemed to benefit from staff working together in a supportive community to achieve common goals. Program stability was built upon consistent funding, staffing, and district support.
School L (Supportive Climate, Dropout Prevention). School L is located in an inner-city, financially distressed area in the northeastern U. S. Its students are 95 percent African-American and come from a neighborhood that consists primarily of rentals and substandard quality low-rise housing units. School L is one of the original Comer School Development Program (CSDP) schools and began its involvement in the CSDP during the 1985-86 school year. James Comer's School Development model, developed at the Yale Child Study Center, provides a blueprint for restructuring schools around the needs of the whole child. The program, which is operating in over 150 schools in 14 districts across the country, is curriculum-content-free and, in principle, could be adapted to diverse local curricula. School L was selected as an exemplary Comer school by staff at the Yale Child Study Center and is regarded by school district and CSDP staff as one of the program's outstanding implementation sites.
Research suggests that the CSDP has a positive effect on students' academic and affective growth. A recent three-year study of "promising programs" praised the Comer program at School L, finding that it provided a safe climate for students' learning with high expectations for student performance shared by school staff and parents. As a result, achievement gains for students at the site were unusually large. The major elements of success at School L were an extraordinary, caring, and dedicated principal; a committed and competent staff; the realization that success is a multiparty game involving many community agencies; an adequate dose of training to implement the components over a multiple-year period; and a model that is effective if the above elements are in place. The school boasted outstanding staff morale, shared decision making, and competent teachers. Interestingly, school-level staff very rarely mentioned the Comer model; however, this is not to say that the pieces were not in place. Rather, staff had taken ownership and believed the school was effective because of their input.
School AA. School AA, located in Pennsylvania, has three in-school charters and one in-school academy. The charters serve approximately 400 of School AA's 1,200 students, while the Law Academy serves an additional 200 students. The charters focus on Humanities, Multicultural Influences, and Venturing into Professions, and they feature a similar core curriculum with different electives. The Law Academy, which is privately funded, has its own governing board, greater autonomy than the charters in selection of curriculum, and more rigorous admission standards.
School BB. School BB, located in California, has an enrollment of 550 students in grades 9-12. The student body is diverse (e. g., about half the students are members of minority groups) and is served by 35 teachers and administrators. Since adopting the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools, the school has re-examined the roles and responsibilities of its teaching staff and broadened the scope of student work so that real-life problems come clearly into focus under an academic lens. School BB has reshaped its schedule into 95-minute periods that meet two to three times weekly, strengthened connections between courses across the curriculum, and established a mid-year "Interim Week" in which students explore one subject in depth on or off campus.
School CC. School CC, located in California, is a Catholic school serving grades 9-12. The school's philosophy is to make the average student better and the below-average student average; however, college preparatory classes are not compromised, and peer pressure works in a positive way. A student with two failing grades in one semester is admitted to an "opportunity" class where individual attention is given and mainstreaming into regular school after one to two semesters is possible. This academy does not rely on the parish for funds, so all monies are generated by the school.
School DD. School DD serves a K-5 population in Texas. The school has adopted the Core Knowledge curriculum as a major supplement to the district's regular reading and mathematics curriculum. While the program has been in place for less than 2 years, and is thus too early in the implementation cycle to accurately judge effects, the halls and classrooms are covered with strikingly advanced student work. For example, a third-grade class displayed student art/science work on five types of galaxies. Artifacts from an extended first-grade unit of Japanese culture were equally striking.
School EE. School EE is located in the southeastern United States. The school serves a racially mixed student body. School EE was the first school in the region to adopt the Paideia model of school restructuring, and in the last year has become a Paideia magnet school. The school has had many Paideia successes, including some evidence of achievement gains and evaluator-observed increases in students asking higher order questions; however, full implementation remains a not-yet-achieved goal.
School FF. School FF serves a K-5 population in the northeastern United States. The community being served is 100 percent African-American, and the over 90 percent of School FF's students receive free or reduced-price lunches. The school has completed one full year of a four-year effort to implement the Calvert Curriculum. The school is too early in the implementation cycle to accurately judge effects; however, first-year achievement data in first grade indicate 15-20 NCE gains over previous cohorts at School FF. The strongest implementing first-grade class had mean CTBS reading scores above the 90th percentile.
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[Study Aims and Study Questions Part 1] [Cross-Site Analysis Part 1]