Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American
Educational Research Association, New York, 1996.
This paper was written under funding from the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (Grant No. OERI-R-117-D40005).
However, any opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the positions or policies of the U.S. Department
of Education.
The story of educational
innovation over the long run is a depressing one. Most innovations adopted
on a large scale were never adequately evaluated in the first place
(see Slavin, 1989), but even among the small number that have been successfully
evaluated few have been able to maintain themselves in schools over
an extended time period. Most often, innovations that have been enthusiastically
adopted and even found to be effective in particular schools are later
dropped, sometimes replaced by other innovations and sometimes reverting
to the status quo ante.
The reasons for this boom-to-bust cycle in innovation
are all too similar. In any area of endeavor ruled by fashion rather
than by evidence, such as art, music, design, and haute couture, novelty
is prized, and no fad or trend can last for many years. Unfortunately,
innovation in education far more closely resembles faddism in these
areas than the generational progress based on evidence characteristic
of such fields as medicine, applied physics, or engineering. In education,
even where solid evidence exists it is usually doubted, ignored, or
never publicized. Legitimate debates about evidence among researchers
is often used by educators to reject even the evidence that is widely
accepted by researchers and, more often, to reject the entire idea that
evidence should guide educational decisions.
While faddism and problems of the quality and valuation
of evidence are key factors in the waxing and waning of innovations
in general, there are many other factors that undermine innovations
at particular schools. In our experience, a change of principals introduces
the greatest danger in maintenance of an innovation; principals often
come in with their own agendas, and often don't like being put in a
position in which everyone in the school knows more about what is going
on they do. Innovations are often brought in or championed by one or
a small number of staff members, and the program may disappear when
these people move on. Many innovations require extraordinary efforts
on the part of staff and administrators and over time these people may
simply burn out. Changes in superintendents, school boards, and other
key district-level staff, and changes in district, state, or national
policies may doom particular innovations. Innovations with long-term
costs beyond usual per-pupil expenses may have to struggle for years
to maintain funding and may disappear when funds dry up; in fact, even
programs that do not cost much may still disappear when funds are cut,
as teachers and administrators may cut back on professional development
or materials budgets or as they simply become demoralized. Such disasters
as teacher strikes or work-to-rule actions, acrimonious board elections,
or excessive accountability pressure (such as being put on a list of
schools in trouble) may put an end to innovations.
With the many ways that innovations can be undone,
it is perhaps more surprising when they do maintain over time than when
they do not.
This paper describes one innovation, Success for
All, that incorporates a number of elements intended to increase maintenance
over time and has, in fact, maintained in schools as long as nine years.
There are currently more than 300 Success for All schools in 85 districts
in 26 states, and since the program began in 1987, only about a half
dozen schools have dropped out, primarily due to changes of principals
and/or major funding cuts. Many Success for All schools have survived
principal changes and funding cuts, changes in district leadership and
policies, and many other often-fatal changes. There is no guarantee
that the program will continue to grow and thrive over the next nine
years, of course, but the experience to date is at least instructive
as to how an innovation can attempt to anticipate and prevent threats
to its maintenance and effectiveness over time.
Success
For All
Success for All (Slavin et al., 1992, 1994, 1996;
Madden et al., 1993) is a program designed to comprehensively restructure
elementary schools serving many children placed at risk of school failure.
It emphasizes prevention, early intervention, use of innovative reading,
writing and language arts curriculum, and extensive professional development
to help schools start children with success and then build on that foundation
throughout the elementary grades. Table 1 summarizes the main elements
of the program.
Table
1
Major
Elements of Success for All
Success for All is a schoolwide program for students
in grades pre-K to five which organizes resources to attempt to ensure
that virtually every student will reach the third grade on time with
adequate basic skills and build on this basis throughout the elementary
grades, that no student will be allowed to "fall between the
cracks." The main elements of the program are as follows:
- Tutors.
In grades 1-3, specially trained certified teachers work
one-to-one with any students who are failing to keep up with their
classmates in reading. Tutorial instruction is closely coordinated
with regular classroom instruction. It takes place 20 minutes daily
during times other than reading periods.
- A School-Wide
Curriculum. During reading periods, students are regrouped
across age lines so that each reading class contains students all
at one reading level. Use of tutors as reading teachers during reading
time reduces the size of most reading classes to about 20. The reading
program in grades K-1 emphasizes language and comprehension skills,
sound blending, and use of shared stories that students read to
one another in pairs. The shared stories combine teacher-read material
with phonetically regular student material to teach decoding and
comprehension in the context of meaningful, engaging stories. In
grades 2-5, students use novels or basals but not workbooks. This
program emphasizes cooperative learning activities built around
partner reading, identification of characters, settings, problems,
and problem solutions in narratives, story summarization, writing,
and direct instruction in reading comprehension skills. At all levels,
students are required to read books of their own choice for twenty
minutes at home each evening. Classroom libraries of trade books
are provided for this purpose. Beginning in the second year of implementation,
cooperative learning programs.
- Preschool
and Kindergarten. The preschool and kindergarten programs
in Success for All emphasize language development, readiness, and
self-concept. Preschools and kindergartens use thematic units, Peabody
Language Development Kits, and a program called Story Telling and
Retelling (STaR).
- Eight-Week
Assessments. Students in grades K-3 are assessed every
eight weeks to determine whether they are making adequate progress
in reading. This information is used to suggest alternate teaching
strategies in the regular classroom, changes in reading group placement,
provision of tutoring services, or other means of meeting students'
needs.
- Family Support
Team. A family support team works in each school to
help support parents in ensuring the success of their children,
focusing on parent education, parent involvement, attendance, and
student behavior. This team is composed of existing or additional
staff such as parent liaisons, social workers, counselors, and vice
principals.
- Facilitator.
A program facilitator works with teachers to help them implement
the reading program, manages the eight week assessments, assists
the family support team, makes sure that all staff are communicating
with each other, and helps the staff as a whole make certain that
every child is making adequate progress.
____________________
Research comparing Success for All to control schools
in 23 schools in nine districts has consistently shown that Success
for All has substantial positive effects on student reading achievement
throughout the elementary grades (Slavin et al., 1994, 1996; Madden
et al., 1993) as well as reducing special education placements and retentions
and improving attendance (Slavin et al., 1992). Recently, programs in
mathematics, social studies, and science have been added to the Success
for All base. The combined program, called Roots & Wings, has also
been successfully evaluated (Slavin et al., 1996).
Success for All was first piloted in one Baltimore
elementary school in the 1987-88 school year. In 1988-89 it was expanded
to a total of five schools in Baltimore and one in Philadelphia. At
present, we are adding approximately 100 schools to our network each
year.
Program
Characteristics Affecting Dissemination and Maintenance
There are several unique characteristics of Success
for All that have an important bearing on the strategies we use in disseminating
the program. First, while Success for All is always adapted to the needs
and resources of each school using it, there are definite elements common
to all. A fully functional Success for All school will always implement
our kindergarten program and reading program in grades 1-5 or 1-6, will
have at least one tutor for first graders, and will have a full-time
facilitator and a family support team. Other elements, such as preschool
and full-day kindergarten, are optional, and schools vary in the number
of tutors, the staff time devoted to family support, and other features.
Yet despite this variation, we believe that the integrity of the program
must be maintained if schools are to produce the results we have found
so consistently in our research. The whole school must make a free and
informed choice to adopt Success for All; we require a vote by secret
ballot of at least 80%. But when schools make this choice they are choosing
a particular model of reading instruction, a particular use of Title
I and special education resources, a particular within-school support
structure, and so on. Unlike many alternative school-wide change models,
Success for All is not reinvented from scratch for each school staff.
Success for All requires substantial change in
many aspects of curriculum and instruction. It takes time for teachers
to learn and perfect new forms of instruction, and for facilitators,
tutors, family support team members, and principals to learn new roles.
Therefore, the program requires a great deal of professional development
done over an extended period of time. While the initial training period
is only three days for classroom teachers, many follow-up visits from
Johns Hopkins or other Success for All trainers take place each year.
Schools budget for 20 person-days of training in the first implementation
year, ten in the second, and five in each subsequent year.
Success for All requires that schools invest in
tutors, a facilitator, materials and extensive professional development.
Because of the focus of the program and its cost, the program is primarily
used in high-poverty schools with substantial Title I resources (usually
at least $100,000). Success for All schools rarely receive funds beyond
their usual Title I allocations, so in one sense the program has no
incremental costs, but there are many schools that could not easily
afford a credible version of the model. While the cost of the program
does restrict its use, it also has an important benefit: it increases
the likelihood that the school and district will take it seriously and
work to see that their investment pays off.
The comprehensiveness, complexity, and cost of
Success for All have important consequences for dissemination and maintenance.
First, they mean that the program cannot be mandated en masse; instead,
districts usually start with a few schools and gradually add more. Second,
they mean that the commitment to the program must be long-term, and
we must be prepared to be engaged with schools for many years, perhaps
forever.
Building
Success for All to Last
There are several key aspects of Success for All
that are likely to contribute to the longevity and quality maintenance
of the program, as well as strategies specifically designed for this
purpose. The quality of the program and its extensive research base
are, we hope, principal reasons why Success for All has maintained as
well as it has, but there are many other facets that are certainly influential.
These are as follows.
Facilitators
One of the most important elements of Success for
All both for the quality of implementation and for longevity is the
provision of a building facilitator. Usually an experienced teacher
from the school's own staff, the facilitator's full-time job is to ensure
the quality, effectiveness, and integration of all program elements.
A good facilitator is able to help all teachers improve the quality
of their teaching, but is also able to help deal with problems likely
to occur over the long run. For example, the facilitator provides an
induction program for teachers who are new to the school or new to teaching.
The facilitator can and does cushion the staff from changes in principals
or district staff or policies. In many ways, the program becomes identified
with the facilitator, and as long as the staff has respect and affection
for the facilitator the program is likely to survive even the greatest
threats. When facilitators move on (they sometimes become principals),
they are usually able to train a replacement who is also an experienced
and respected teacher from the school's own staff, so continuity is
maintained.
Materials
and School Organization
Success for All provides teachers with extensive
curriculum materials and changes in school organization and staffing
as well as teacher's manuals and professional development. One side
effect of this is that once a school has fully implemented the program,
changing back to traditional materials takes effort, expense, and some
degree of professional development. Programs that involve professional
development but not specific materials are far easier to drop, and there
is certainly no cost for doing so. Implementing innovations without
changing curriculum materials and other regularities of school and classroom
context is like stretching a rubberband from a fixed point; it will
stay stretched only as long as energy is applied. Changing materials
and other school structures moves the fixed point.
Schoolwide
Buy-In
One key factor in the Success for All in its first
year of implementation is the fact that before we agree to work with
a school, we require a vote, by secret ballot, of at least 80% of a
school's professional staff. This ensures that teachers know that they
had a free choice to select or not select the model, and that all or
almost all of their colleagues supported the choice (individual teachers
who remain adamantly opposed may transfer, but this happens rarely).
This procedure probably has an influence over the long run as well.
Because the whole staff chose it, the program belongs to the whole staff,
not to the principal or to the small group of teachers that was initially
enthusiastic. Among other things, this means that the program will outlast
any particular individual or set of individuals. Any new teachers who
enter the school are trained and socialized to the school's norms and
behaviors. Cliques of "insiders" and "outsiders"
are unlikely to form since everyone was involved in the decision. The
initial vote begins a process that we actively encourage of developing
cohesion and a sense of mission among the school's staff.
Funding
From Reliable Sources
Almost all Success for All schools fund their facilitators,
tutors, and other continuing costs out of Title I and other funding
sources that are both dedicated to improving the achievement of children
in high-poverty schools and relatively reliable (even given recent cuts).
Two of the first Success for All schools, in Baltimore, had additional
funds beyond Title I. Their loss of these funds, in combination with
changes of principals, contributed to the dropping of the program. Other
schools that have dropped out have also done so due to a loss of funds.
Ironically, schools that experience a loss of funds from very high to
merely high levels are in more danger than schools that never had large
amounts of funding. This experience has focused us on trying to ensure
that schools can fund implementation of Success for All out of the funding
sources likely to remain.
While it is critical to base educational innovation
on reliable sources of financial support, it may also be the case that
expensive interventions may maintain better than cheap ones. Comprehensive,
ambitious, and therefore expensive interventions like Success for All
cannot be marginalized within a school; they must be at the core of
what the school is about. In contrast, an inexpensive innovation limited
to one subject or to a few teachers may be easier to get into a school
but also harder to maintain. This is exactly what we find with inexpensive,
easy-to-learn, generic cooperative learning strategies (such as Student
Teams Achievement Divisions), which are in very wide use but both enter
and leave schools far more easily than Success for All (see Slavin,
1995).
National
and Local Support Networks
Almost invariably, educational innovations that
last are ones that involve educators in an active network of like-minded
innovators. These networks hold national and local conferences, publish
newsletters, and create an esprit de corps and a sense of belonging
to a valued and caring organization composed of people who speak the
same language, share common world views, and know the same secrets.
The network provides technical assistance and information, of course,
but perhaps more importantly it provides emotional support to help innovators
keep up their spirits and their efforts. Innovators are often viewed
with suspicion or even outright hostility by colleagues in schools not
participating in the innovation, who are often jealous of the attention,
resources, and outcomes they see in the innovating school. They are
often under pressure from central office adminstrators who advocate
different approaches, local accountability systems, and many other forces.
It is crucial that innovators perceive a sense of belonging to a larger
organization that they know will support what they are doing.
Success for All maintains a very active national
network. We hold an annual three-day conference for experienced schools,
which is very well attended. At this conference staff and school staffs
show off their latest developments and new ideas, attend workshops on
common problems, and engage in other activities to hone their skills
and understandings. We have a newsletter and other communications. We
strongly encourage schools to create local support networks, in which
facilitators and principals (in particular) meet on a regular basis
to compare notes, show off their recent accomplishments, and mentor
schools new to the network. The advice and technical assistance schools
provide to each other is crucial, but the social support school leaders
can provide each other may be even more crucial.
Standards
of Practice
Any program that expects to have a widespread impact
on student achievement must have well-specified standards of practice
and ways of following up with schools to see that these standards are
adhered to. Success for All places a strong emphasis on classroom coaching
by facilitators and fellow teachers, on follow-up visits from Hopkins
staff to the school, and on sharing data on student assessments to enable
both school staff and Hopkins contacts to evaluate the degree to which
the school is approaching the goal of success for all students. These
standards of practice certainly account for much of the effectiveness
of the program, but they probably also contribute to its longevity.
What defines a professional in any field is the possession of unique
skills not possessed by the general public and adherence to a code of
professional conduct and quality of service. Our insistence on standards
of practice appears to give teachers and administrators a sense of pride
and professionalism that enable them to hold out even in the face of
hostility by outsiders, funding cuts, or other disasters.
Continuing
Research and Development
A program must continue to grow, improve itself,
and respond to (and incorporate, when appropriate) new developments
in research and new popular ideas. A problem in the longevity of innovations
is that educators willing to implement one innovation are likely to
be receptive to other innovations, too, leading to a flitting from one
program to another. Programs need to constantly be learning from schools
themselves and from other research, and then incorporating new ideas
into new materials. This enables innovative educators to feel as though
they are constantly growing and contributing to an endless development
process. Continuing development is also necessary to respond to new
standards, new assessments, and new objectives adopted by states and
districts. In addition, continuing evaluations of program outcomes,
if positive, contribute to a sense that a program is progressing and
is justifying the efforts necessary to implement it.
Conclusion
There is no guarantee that Success for All and
its newest incarnation, Roots & Wings, well continue to expand or
maintain indefinitely. A decade from now, Success for All may be as
much as a memory as mastery learning or Madeline Hunter. Yet we believe
that as long as we can maintain the Success for All network, this program
can continue indefinitely to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands
of children. It is clear that educational programs do not maintain solely
because they have a good research base and are popular and accessible.
When they do maintain, it is because their developers and disseminators
are constantly working on maintenance and quality and are building networks
of technical and social support. To expect maintenance to occur on its
own is naive, and this accounts for the many bleached bones of once-promising
educational innovations that litter the landscape. Yet Success for All
and other comprehensive, network-based innovations show the possibility
that maintenance and quality can be achieved in school reform.
References
Madden, N.A., Slavin, R.E., Karweit, N.L., Dolan,
L.J., and Wasik, B.A. (1993). Success for All: Longitudinal effects
of a restructuring program for inner-city elementary schools. American
Educational Research Journal, 30, 123-148.
Slavin, R.E. (1995). Cooperative learning:
Theory, research, and practice (2nd Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Slavin, R.E., Madden, N.A., Dolan, L.J., &
Wasik, B.A. (1996). Every child, every school: Success for All.
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