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The eleventh component focuses on a school's demonstration that
practices involved in the program have evidence of effects, both
individually and as an integrated set of practices. The federal
CSR legislation states that CSR programs must be found to significantly
improve the academic achievement of students, or demonstrate "strong
evidence" that the programs will do so. For research on specific
instructional strategies, please refer to the resources for reading,
math, and science listing under Component I,
as well as resources on CSR models.
It is considerably more difficult to find research that has demonstrated that particular components work together to impact student achievement. While the interplay of components is an under-researched area of CSR, there is some evidence to support the adoption of a whole-school approach. The studies referenced below suggest that a whole-school approach is better than individual attempts at school reform—neither study meets the "scientifically based" standard.
Resources on Strategies that Improve Academic
Achievement:
Federal Policy Options for Improving the Education of Low-Income
Students (1993) - RAND
This study, which invited commentaries by 91 policymakers, researchers,
and educators, encouraged the federal government to expand funding
to include schoolwide rather than selective programs.
After evaluating Title I (then called Chapter 1), RAND researchers
concluded that Title I's impact on education in low-income communities
would be greatly increased through schoolwide reform. The report
made the argument that "extra" services for those schools and students
qualifying were fragmented and not effective. Schoolwide reform,
on the other hand, would bring an end to fragmentation and would
encourage comprehensive change, resulting in better opportunities
for Title I-targeted districts, schools, and students.
This study can be ordered from RAND.
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/RRR.winter94.5.
education/Recent_Education.html
Hope for Urban Education: A Study of Nine High-Performing, High-Poverty,
Urban Elementary Schools (1999) - U.S. Department of Education
This report shares the practices of nine high-poverty schools
that attained higher levels of achievement than most schools in
their states or the nation. The schools used federal Title I dollars
to support comprehensive school improvement efforts.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/urbanhope/index.html
Making Comprehensive School Reform Work (2000) - ERIC Clearinghouse
for Urban Education
This publication explores the effects of comprehensive school reform
(CSR) by focusing on principles that can be learned by studying
implementation of large scale CSR reform efforts. The report looks
at variations in implementation, design choice, principal leadership,
politics, support from design teams, resources, and context, and
makes recommendations for implementation and future research of
CSR. The author examined school effectiveness research and studies
of school restructuring to find support for the concept of whole-school
reform.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/sitemap/html_0900000b800929de.html
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