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RAND:
Schools that embrace comprehensive reform models designed to improve student achievement frequently do not fully adopt all practices recommended by the model developers, according to a RAND Corporation report issued today.
The findings call into question whether the comprehensive school reform model approach that has been adopted by more than 8,000 schools nationally can become a key strategy to help improve student performance.
The reason most often cited for failing to adopt all aspects of the reform packages was a shortage of support for needed improvements and investments such as teacher training.
"At the current level of implementation, comprehensive school reform models are likely to have only modest or no effect on student achievement," said lead author of the report Georges Vernez, who is a senior social scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.
RAND researchers surveyed principals and teachers at the schools in the study, and visited a number of campuses in order to more closely assess adoption of the chosen comprehensive school reform model.
Schools were most likely to adopt the curriculum prescribed by the model developer, but were less likely to adopt the recommended instructional practices.
However, in schools where the level of support increased, so did adoption of the developer-recommended practices, according to researchers.
RAND researchers also surveyed a number of similar schools in Florida and Texas that had not embraced a formal reform program and found those schools had adopted many of the same changes in curriculum, instruction and governance as those schools following comprehensive school reform.
Researchers focused on four models that have been used widely across the nation, but differ from each other significantly.
Posted on November 9, 2006 08:04 PM
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