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Expanding the Reach

of Education Reforms Perspectives from Leaders in the Scale-Up

of Educational Interventions

Thomas K Glennan, Jr., Susan J Bodilly,

Jolene R Galegher, Kerri A Kerr

Prepared for the Ford Foundation

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Expanding the reach of education reforms : perspectives from leaders in the scale-up of educational interventions / [edited by] Thomas K Glennan [et al.].

The sporadic and often temporary ability to bring innovations ineducation to scale has long frustrated those interested in improvingthe performance of K–12 students in America’s public schools In thelast two decades, however, developers of educational interventionsdesigned to improve teaching and learning have made some progresstoward this goal, with several demonstrating measurable gains in stu-dent performance in multiple schools or districts The purpose of thisbook is to capture some of the knowledge of these developers, all ofwhom are leaders in the effort to improve the performance of stu-dents in public schools by introducing innovations in curriculum,teaching methods, administrative practices, and funding mechanisms.This volume grew out of a series of meetings of developers ofK–12 reforms convened by RAND Education, a division of theRAND Corporation The meetings, sponsored by the Ford Foun-dation, were intended to explore the experiences of the designers ofreform efforts, with a particular focus on identifying commonproblems in scaling up reforms and, if possible, common solutions tothem Developers of 15 different reform efforts contributed chapters.The authors attempt to capture their experiences and the lessons theylearned from their efforts to scale up the interventions they haddesigned and implemented

Thomas Glennan and Susan Bodilly convened the meetings thatstimulated these chapters Along with Jolene Galegher and KerriKerr, they helped to shape the final version of the chapters and wrotethe introduction and summary

The contributed chapters were the responsibility of the authors,all of whom are well-known experts in education reform Their con-tributions have been reviewed and refined by the editors of this vol-ume, as well as members of the staff in the Publications Department

of the RAND Corporation, but the views of education reform sented within each chapter, as well as the data describing the efficacy

pre-of the programs they have designed and implemented, are the soleresponsibility of the contributing authors

This book should be of interest to funders of education andeducation reform efforts, developers of interventions intended toenhance the performance of students at all levels of schooling, legisla-tors, state and federal policymakers, educational researchers, andschool authorities interested in supporting efforts to improve teachingand learning in K–12 education

In memory of Tom Glennan, who contributed immeasurably to thedevelopment of this book and the field of study it represents Tomwas a wonderful scholar, teacher, and friend, and we are grateful tohave had the opportunity to know him and to learn from him

Preface iii

Dedication vii

Figures xv

Tables xvii

Acknowledgments xix

Abbreviations xxi

CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Framing the Problem Susan J Bodilly, Thomas K Glennan, Jr., Kerri A Kerr, and Jolene R Galegher 1

Origins and Purpose of This Book 3

Scale-Up in an Earlier Era of Educational Reforms 5

Environmental Shifts in the 1980s and 1990s 13

Lessons from the Field 15

A Conceptual Framework for Scale-Up 27

Outline of the Remainder of the Book 32

References 34

CHAPTER TWO Cognitively Guided Instruction: Challenging the Core of Educational Practice Thomas P Carpenter and Megan L Franke 41

The Conceptual Basis for Scaling Up 43

Cognitively Guided Instruction 44

The Development of Children’s Mathematical Thinking 46

CGI in the Classroom 50

The Nature of the Professional Development 51

How Change Occurs 51

Teacher and Student Outcomes 53

Challenges 54

Scaling Up 54

Conclusions 71

Making It Work 76

References 77

CHAPTER THREE The National Writing Project: Scaling Up and Scaling Down Joseph P McDonald, Judy Buchanan, and Richard Sterling 81

The NWP Design 84

A Culture of Risk-Taking 94

Practices of Scaling Down 100

Conclusions 104

References 105

CHAPTER FOUR Impediments to Scaling Up Effective Comprehensive School Reform Models Siegfried E Engelmann and Kurt E Engelmann 107

Assumptions About the Context and Nature of Scaling Up Comprehensive School Reform Models 109

Problems in Scaling Up as a Function of the Demands of the Model 111

Effective Models 116

Patterns of Scaling Up and Their Relative Efficiency 120

Special Challenges of Large School Districts 122

Conclusions 130

References 132

CHAPTER FIVE Scaling Up Success For All: Lessons for Policy and Practice Robert E Slavin and Nancy A Madden 135

Success For All 137

Program Characteristics Affecting Dissemination 139

Obey-Porter Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration 145

Extending Our Reach 147

Organization and Capital 154

District-Level Failures 157

District-Level Implementations 159

Reconciling District Successes and Failures 161

Lessons Learned 162

Policy Implications 164

Recommendations 165

Conclusions 169

References 171

CHAPTER SIX Taking Education Programs to Scale: Lessons from the Field James L Ketelsen 175

A Brief History of Project GRAD 176

Project GRAD Program Design Elements 179

How Project GRAD Achieves Results 182

The Effects of Project GRAD to Date 186

Challenges in Scaling Up Project GRAD 190

Funding Concepts and Their Effects on Scale-Up 192

Final Observations on Scaling Up Project GRAD 195

Reference 196

CHAPTER SEVEN Reaching for Coherence in School Reform: The Case of America’s Choice Marc Tucker 197

The Need for Coherent Systems to Drive Up Educational Performance 201

Building Capacity to Operate a Coherent System at Scale: The Story of the America’s Choice School Design 213

The Tools Needed for Building Capacity 221

Building Capacity at the School, District, and State Levels 241

The Case for Third-Party Assistance 253

Putting Coherent Systems in Perspective 254

References 258

CHAPTER EIGHT A Different Way of Growing Linda A Johannesen 259

Development and Implementation of the Different Ways of Knowing Design Through 1998 261

Responding to New Demands for School Reform Services After 1998: Building Capacity 279

Challenges Associated with Supporting the Goals of the No Child Left Behind Act 291

The Future of Schoolwide Reform: Obtaining the Resources to Support Intermediary Organizations 295

References 297

CHAPTER NINE Co-nect at the Crossroads: Four Considerations on Getting to Scale Bruce Goldberg 303

The Climate and Conditions for Scaling Up 304

Scaling Success: Attention to Results 310

Scaling the Desirable 318

The Feasibility of Scale 323

Sustaining Reform: Co-nect at the Crossroads 333

Conclusions 346

References 347

CHAPTER TEN Scaling Up Turning Points Through Autonomous Regional Centers Dan French and Leah Rugen 351

The Turning Points Design 352

A Brief History of the Turning Points Design 357

Creating the Turning Points Network of Regional Centers 363

Looking Ahead: Building on Strengths, Facing New Challenges 376

References 377

CHAPTER ELEVEN Scaling Up Talent Development High Schools: Lessons Learned from Comprehensive High School Reform Nettie E Legters, James M McPartland, and Robert Balfanz 379

What Is Wrong with Comprehensive High Schools, and Why Are They So Difficult to Change? 380

Challenges to Implementing and Scaling Up TDHS 390

Meeting the Challenges 409

It Is Not Too Late for Reforms in High Schools 425

References 429

CHAPTER TWELVE Taking High Schools That Work to Scale: The Evolution of a High School Reform Program Gene Bottoms 433

Linking Career and Technical Education to High School Reform: The Impetus for HTSW 435

Phase I: Launching HSTW 437

Phase II: Scaling Up HSTW 454

Phase III: Increasing Breadth, Depth, Stability, and Financial Resources 462

Achieving Success at Scale: Lessons from the Past and Challenges for the Future 474

Closing Thoughts 484

References 485

CHAPTER THIRTEEN The First Few Years of Edison Schools: Ten Lessons in Getting to Scale John E Chubb 487

Lesson One: Start with a Proven Reform Model—and Standardize It 489

Lesson Two: Hire and Fire Your Own Principals and Teachers 494

Lesson Three: Build Effective and Efficient Support Systems 497

Lesson Four: Build Site Capacity 500

Lesson Five: Establish Clear and Simple Accountability Systems 502

Lesson Six: Establish Strong Measurement Systems 504

Lesson Seven: Get Measurable Results—Fast 506

Lesson Eight: Satisfy Your Customers 509

Lesson Nine: Adjust To Local Norms 511

Lesson Ten: Find a Better Balance of Growth, Systems, and Profitability 513

References 516

CHAPTER FOURTEEN School Districts as Learning Organizations: A Strategy for Scaling Education Reform Thomas K Glennan, Jr., and Lauren B Resnick 517

Providing High-Quality Education for All Students 519

The District as the Target of Reform 522

Building High-Performance School Districts: A Theory of Action 537

Lessons from Experience 549

Closing Thoughts 559

References 560

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Choices and Consequences in the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative: Building the Capacity to Scale Up Whole-School Improvement Merrill Vargo 565

Scaling Up Capacity for Continuous Improvement 567

Building Capacity in Education Organizations 569

A Focus on Cultural Change 571

Organizational Capacity and Continuous Improvement in Action 572

A Response: BASRC’s History and Approach 577

BASRC Results 579

Early Strategic Choices and BASRC’s View of Scale 580

Building on the Policy Context: Choices and More Choices 584

Lessons Learned About Scale 598

References 601

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Leveraging the Market to Scale Up School Improvement Programs: A Fee-for-Service Primer for Foundations and Nonprofits Marc Dean Millot 603

My Vantage Point 605

Philanthropy’s Challenge 606

How NAS Came to the Fee-For-Service Strategy 610

Pursuing a Fee-for-Service Dissemination Strategy 617

Are Developers Ready for Scale? 622

The Role of Foundations in Attaining Scalability 635

Conclusions 645

Reference 646

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Summary: Toward a More Systematic Approach to Expanding the Reach of Educational Interventions Thomas K Glennan, Jr., Susan J Bodilly, Jolene R Galegher, and Kerri A Kerr 647

Further Elaboration of the Scale-Up Process 648

Core Tasks in the Scale-Up Process 652

Conclusions 681

References 684

APPENDIX A Contributors 687

B Program Descriptions and Contact Information 701

1.1 The Replication Model of Scale-Up 11

1.2 The Interactive Process of Scale-Up 28

7.1 Coherence Matrix 256

8.1 KIRIS Index Point Gains over Two Years 276

14.1 IFL Theory of Action 538

16.1 Spending on K–12 School Improvement: Foundation Grants Versus School Purchases 607

17.1 The Detailed Interactive Model of Scale-Up 649

1.1 Interventions Included in This Volume 6

6.1 TAAS Passing Rates, 1994 and 2002 188

6.2 TAAS Passing Rate for Fifth-Graders 189

8.1 Chronology of the Different Ways of Knowing Kentucky Scale-Up 269

8.2 Chronology of Research, Development, and National Expansion 281

9.1 Capsule History of Co-nect 1992–2002 307

10.1 Turning Points Core Practices 354

10.2 Current Turning Points Guides 356

10.3 Profile of Current Regional Centers 366

11.1 Challenges Comprehensive Public High Schools Face, Common Reform Principles Addressing the Challenges, and Specific Reform Strategies 382

12.1 Requirements for State Participation in HSTW 438

12.2 Key Conditions for Accelerating Student Achievement 440

12.3 Key Practices for Accelerating Student Achievement 441

12.4 Requirements for Becoming an HSTW Site 452

14.1 Core Principles 525

The enterprise that led to the book was prompted by a singleimportant question from Janice Petrovich of the Ford Foundation.Familiar with our previous work as analysts of education reformefforts, she asked us how we would explain the frequent failure ofreform efforts to scale up The Ford Foundation sponsored twomeetings at which national leaders in efforts to scale up schoolreforms were invited to present their ideas and experiences as devel-opers of diverse approaches to education reform We thank Janiceand the foundation for their interest in and support of this work.The developers—who eventually became the contributors to thisvolume—responded enthusiastically to our invitation At each of thetwo meetings, they provided many worthwhile and insightful contri-butions, thus helping each other to identify both the common andthe unique aspects of their respective efforts and, thereby, contribut-ing to a general understanding of the complexities of scaling up edu-cation reforms The targets of their efforts—particular areas of thecurriculum, levels of education, networks of teachers, state educationpolicies—varied widely, but they held in common an intense andenduring commitment to improving the quality of education for all

of America’s children We appreciate both their participation in thesemeetings and their responsiveness to our recommendations as theydeveloped and refined the papers presented here

Our colleagues Jake Dembosky and Gina Ikemoto supportedthe meetings by taking notes and conveying the notes quickly andefficiently back to the contributors Steve Bloodsworth designed the

cover; Daniel Sheehan provided preliminary editorial advice, andPhyllis M Gilmore edited the final version; Carolyn Rowe helpedorganize production; and John Warren helped organize prepublica-tion marketing Peter Hoffman, Managing Editor of RAND Publica-tions, answered many important questions about the publicationprocess and, along with other members of the Publications staff,helped us push this book out the door.

The editors thank all these individuals for their help in thiseffort

ARPANET Advanced Research Projects Agency Network

(precursor to the Internet)

BASRC the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative

BBN BBN Technologies, a technology oriented R&D

companyCCE Center for Collaborative Education

CES Coalition of Essential Schools

CFO chief financial officer

CGI cognitively guided instruction

CMCD Consistency Management and Cooperative

Discipline

CPRD Center for Prevention Research and DevelopmentCPRE Consortium for Policy Research in Education

Program

HISD Houston Independent School District

KIRIS Kentucky Instructional Results Information SystemLRDC Learning Research and Development Center

(University of Pittsburgh)MBA master of business administration

MTF mathematical team facilitators

NCEE National Center on Education and the Economy

NIFDI National Institute for Direct Instruction

OERI Office of Educational Research and Improvement

(U.S Department of Education)PCA Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

PBEC The Public Education and Business Coalition

R&D research and development

TAAS Texas Assessment of Academic Skills

TIMSS Third International Math and Science Study

Susan J Bodilly, Thomas K Glennan, Jr., Kerri A Kerr, and Jolene R Galegher

Fifty years ago, Brown v Board of Education set in motion a series of

legislative and judicial efforts to undo the effects of racial segregation,providing opportunities and support for children who had been

denied both Twenty years ago, the publication of A Nation at Risk

(National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) drewattention to the need for reform in all of America’s schools to ensurethe nation’s ability to compete in the international economy Thesetwo forces—pressure to improve the quality of schools for all studentsand pressure to reduce gaps in access and performance of students—have resulted in both a demand for better approaches to teaching andlearning and a supply of interventions intended to build the capacitywithin our schools to serve all children better

On the demand side, the nation has given education a highpriority, even in the face of economic downturns and internationalturmoil Individual states, some on their own and some underpressure from federal leaders, have revamped their standards, theirassessment systems, and the incentives they provide to schools toimprove their performance The federal government, through the NoChild Left Behind Act of 2001, continues to press for improvements

in educational performance within all the many social and ethnicgroups in American society and is holding schools accountable forachieving it

On the supply side, private philanthropists and the federal ernment have invested heavily in developing and disseminating inno-vative reforms intended to change the existing practices of teachersand schools With the help of these investments, organizations exter-

gov-nal to the school have created interventions to improve curriculumand instruction and to promote stronger teacher collegial interactions

in support of better teaching In this book, we use the terms designs, reforms, interventions, and programs interchangeably to refer to sys-

tems of ideas and activities intended to improve teaching and learning

in schools We refer to the external organizations responsible for these

interventions as providers or developers.

In the past, such external improvement providers often mighthave helped one or two schools or a few dozen teachers But, as thenation has demanded systemwide improvements, the educationestablishment has looked to such providers to implement reformsmore rapidly and more extensively than in the past In addition,recent federal support for school improvement efforts has been madecontingent on the ability of the developers and marketers of schoolimprovement services to provide scientific evidence demonstratingthe positive effects of their programs In short, expectations forimprovement have risen over the past 20 years, shifting from satisfac-tion with meeting individual teacher or school needs to demands forimprovements “at scale” and with proven effectiveness

The major challenge states, districts, schools, and teachers nowface is building and maintaining the capacity within the newlyevolving system to deliver the educational promises of performance-based accountability The demand for increasing the capacity ofstates, districts, schools, and teachers for continuous educationalimprovement on a wide scale is high and insistent

This moment is fragile; success is not assured The organizationsthat supply education improvement services are still young, stillworking to find better ways to address the problems of large numbers

of schools and students Often, they can provide only limited dence of their value and have only limited capacity to deliver high-quality services Further, the capacity of the educational system to usethe services is limited; teachers, schools, and school districts have notyet learned how to organize for continuing improvement of instruc-tion and performance on a wide scale (Glennan, 1998; Stringfieldand Datnow, 1998)

evi-Thus, it is now opportune to assess what we know aboutexpanding the reach of educational interventions provided by thoseexternal to the school and intended to improve the capacity of theexisting systems to ensure continuous progress—in particular,reforms designed to improve teaching and learning in the classroom,whether directly or indirectly.

Origins and Purpose of This Book

This book originated with an apparently simple suggestion from theleader of the education program at the Ford Foundation Several of

us at the RAND Corporation had been studying the investments of anumber of different foundations in developing education-relatedinterventions intended to increase the capacity of many classes ofeducators to improve practice She asked whether we could distill les-sons from this work that would help her and other funding executivesmanage their investments in education reform In particular, shewanted to determine whether there were lessons to be learned thatcould significantly increase the likelihood that the products of theinvestments would find wide use in the education community andwould significantly affect student learning

This book represents a limited inquiry into what the last 20years of experience reveal about scaling up educational innovations

We used the following principles to shape the boundaries of ourinquiry

First, we defined the topic of interest as specific types of tional improvement efforts—those that attempt to improve the exist-ing practices of the existing teaching staff so as to improve teachingand learning in classrooms—a concept that Wilson (1989) defined as

educa-reform Education reform in this sense is distinct from alternative

approaches to organizational improvement, such as replacing existingstaff, changing the governance structure, or introducing market-basedsystems

Second, we focused on reforms from external providers working

in a research, development, and demonstration mode with funding

from philanthropic or government sponsors We directed our inquiryinto the process of how they spread from their demonstration sites toreach more students, more teachers, and more schools.

Third, our inquiry included models, programs, designs, andinterventions with different foci for change, ranging from individualteachers to specific subjects within a school to whole schools and theirfull curriculum to systems of schools This definition also includedinterventions that were highly prescriptive and those that were shapedonly by general principles for continuous improvement

Following our initial conversations with the Ford Foundation,

we began the process that led to this book by asking a simple tion: Who would know the most about this enterprise? The answer

ques-we arrived at was equally simple: the individuals who developed thereforms and have attempted to scale up their programs systematically.Our goal was to engage them in drawing out the practical lessonsfrom their efforts to scale up diverse educational interventions

This book is a descriptive analysis of the scale-up process, sisting of a collection of reflective essays by leaders of external pro-vider organizations The essays describe how the providers createdinterventions and built and sustained organizations and networks thatassisted educators, schools, and school districts in implementing theimproved practices more systematically than in the past We askedthese leaders to meet with us as a study group to discuss the problems

con-of scale-up as they understood them from their own practical ences and to identify potentially important issues for further thought

experi-On the basis of this initial meeting, the members of the study groupprepared drafts of the essays in this book The group met again toreview and critique one another’s essays, after which the authorsrevised their essays Working from readings of these essays, reviews ofthe literature, and the discussions of the study group, RAND staffmembers wrote this introduction, which provides the context for thecontributing chapters, and a final chapter of the book, which analyzesthe contributing chapters and provides a set of observations on thescale-up process

The contributors, all leaders in their field, were asked to pate because they are recognized for achieving at least some success in

partici-spreading the programs they developed The list of possible tors was quite long, but many were not available to participatebecause of scheduling and other conflicts The authors, the programswith which they are associated, the focus of the program, and thenumber of places using the program as of fall 2003 are listed in Table1.1.

contribu-This is not an evaluation of the interventions associated with thecontributors to this book Others are conducting such evaluations,and as evidence becomes available, it is assembled and distributed bythe online What Works Clearinghouse (U.S Department of Educa-tion, undated)

In the remainder of this chapter, we outline the conceptsunderlying the programs and processes discussed in this book Webegin by describing how the concept of scale in educational improve-ment evolved, moving from a simplistic replication model to themore-complex view that now prevails Included in that discussion is areview of the literature of scaling-up educational interventions inten-ded to improve teaching and learning in classrooms, directly orindirectly We then provide a conceptual framework that includes aspecific definition of scale-up and a list of choices facing developersand providers of services Finally, we introduce the contributed chap-ters

Scale-Up in an Earlier Era of Educational Reforms

Significant attempts at widespread instructional reform that wereactually evaluated date back to the 1960s Figure 1.1 provides a pic-ture of the view of the process of scale-up that prevailed in educationfrom the 1960s through the 1970s, which was often referred to as the

replication model Based in management science precepts about

orga-nizational change, this model envisioned an external provider whowould respond to a felt need for change or a performance failure inschooling by developing an idea or sets of ideas for curriculum,instruction, and associated training for teachers intended to improve

Table 1.1

Interventions Included in This Volume a

Description Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI)

Goals Influence teachers’ instructional practices by providing

pro-fessional development on research-based knowledge about children’s mathematical thinking

Currently Approximately 4,000 teachers trained each year b

Since inception More than 20,000 teachers

See Chapter Two, by Thomas P Carpenter and Megan L Franke

National Writing Project (NWP)

Goals Improve student writing achievement by improving the

teaching of writing in the nation’s schools Grade Levels K–12

National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI)c

Goals Accelerate the academic achievement of all students by

con-trolling the characteristics of instruction and relevant ables in the school setting

vari-Grade Levels K–5

Years in existence 6 d

Intervention level School

Disciplines Reading, language arts, math, cultural literacy

Adopters

Currently 23 schools e

Since inception 57 schools

See Chapter Four, Siegfried E Engelmann and Kurt E Engelmann

Table 1.1—Continued

Description Success For All

Goals Comprehensively restructure elementary schools serving

many at-risk children focusing particularly on language arts curriculum and instruction

Grade Levels Pre-K–6

Years in existence 15

Intervention level School

Disciplines Reading, writing, language arts

Adopters

Currently 1,500 schools

Since inception Approximately 1,900 schools

See Chapter Five, by Robert E Slavin and Nancy A Madden

Different Ways of Knowing

Goals Work with schools to identify student learning and

profes-sional development goals and choose appropriate school improvement strategies and tools to meet school goals Grade Levels K–12

Years in existence 14

Intervention level School

Disciplines Reading, writing, math, social studies, arts

Adopters

Currently 101 schools

Since inception 625 schools

See Chapter Eight, by Linda A Johannesen

Co-nect

Goals Provide professional development services in such areas as

curriculum, instruction, technology, and data-driven sionmaking to help K–12 districts and schools improve stu- dent achievement

deci-Grade Levels K–12

Years in existence 11

Intervention level School

Disciplines Literacy, math, science, technology

Adopters

Currently 225 schools

Since inception 560 schools

See Chapter Nine, by Bruce Goldberg

Table 1.1—Continued

Description Turning Points

Goals Assist middle schools with a multiyear, intensive,

whole-school reform process to significantly improve teaching, student engagement, and learning

Grade Levels 6–8

Years in existence 4

Intervention level School

Disciplines Reading, writing, math, social studies

Adopters

Currently 68 schools

Since inception 90 schools

See Chapter Ten, by Dan French and Leah Rugen

Talent Development High School (TDHS)

Goals Redesign low-performing high schools using a

comprehen-sive reform model emphasizing organizational and tional change within an academy approach

instruc-Grade Levels 9–12

Years in existence 8

Intervention level School

Disciplines Reading, writing, math

Adopters

Currently 40 schools

Since inception 60 schools

See Chapter Eleven, by Nettie E Legters, James M McPartland,

and Robert Balfanz

High Schools That Work (HSTW)

Goals Raise the achievement of high school students by providing a

combination of challenging academic courses and modern career and technical studies

Currently More than 1,100 schools

Since inception Approximately 1,600 schools

See Chapter Twelve, by Gene Bottoms

Table 1.1—Continued

Description Edison Schools

Goals Partner with schools and districts to raise student

achieve-ment through a business model Edison manages all educational, organizational, and man- agement aspects of schooling in partner schools

Grade Levels K–12

Years in existence 11

Intervention level School

Disciplines English language arts, math, science, social studies, foreign

language, fine arts, physical fitness and health Adopters

Currently 150 schools

Since inception 165 schools

See Chapter Thirteen, by John E Chubb

America’s Choice

Goals Ensure all students are academically successful by creating

coherent educational systems focused on instruction and building the capacity of all levels of the system to sustain improvement

Grade Levels K–12

Years in existence 5

Intervention level School and district

Disciplines Reading, writing, language arts, math, science

Goals Improve educational outcomes for students in

low-perform-ing schools by providlow-perform-ing a comprehensive, coherent model

of support, including proven curricular models and nity support

commu-Grade Levels Pre-K–12

Years in existence 10

Intervention level School and district feeder patterns

Disciplines Reading, writing, math

Adopters

Currently 9 school systems

Since inception 10 school systems

See Chapter Six, by James L Ketelsen

Table 1.1—Continued

Description Institute for Learning (IFL)

Goals Partners with school districts to bring about systemwide

change in teaching and learning Grade Levels K–12

Years in existence 8

Intervention level District

Disciplines English, math, science, social studies g

Adopters

Currently 12 districts g

Since inception 17 districts

See Chapter Fourteen, by Thomas K Glennan, Jr., and Lauren B.

Resnick

Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC)

Goals Improve student achievement and narrow achievement gaps

through building school-level capacity to engage in a tematic process of continuous improvement

Currently 98 schools and 27 districts (for districtwide change)

Since inception 322 schools

See Chapter Fifteen, by Merrill Vargo

h This count includes one consortium of districts.

Developer tests, demonstrates, and evaluates

3

Replicate through adoption

4

Adopting site

Adopting site

Adopting site

teaching practices and eventually student performance (steps one andtwo) This set of ideas would be tested in a specific school or with a

group of teachers called a demonstration site, then refined and

per-fected (step three) Sometimes the program would be evaluated toassess its ability to improve test scores or other measures of achieve-ment It was then assumed that the intervention could be adoptedwith great fidelity at multiple sites in the same way that had worked

in the demonstration site (step four) This transfer was often ported by documented curriculum, pedagogy, and a uniform trainingregimen Funders had a role in providing the resources for the devel-opment, testing, demonstration, and evaluation and often for expan-sion of the reform

sup-In this model, most of the arrows run from left to right becausethe process was perceived to be a one-way system, with the developersdoing something to the educators to ensure adoption in more places

by more people Feedback loops, interactions among the parties, andinteractions among sites were not emphasized (Goggin et al., 1990)

Scale meant quantity—the number of teachers, schools, classrooms,

or districts that adopted a reform—and changes in depth of practice

in the adopting schools, how long the changes were sustained, orwhat other changes were needed for sustainability received little atten-tion

Elmore, writing in Harvard Educational Review (1996, p 1),

lamented this view of scale-up, attacking its hollow center:

The problem of scale in educational innovation can be briefly stated as follows: innovations that require large changes in the core of educational practice seldom penetrate more than a small fraction of American schools and classrooms, and seldom last for very long when they do By the “core” of educational practice, I mean how teachers understand the nature of knowledge and the student’s role in learning, how these ideas about knowledge and learning are manifested in teaching and classwork.

Elmore (1996, p 21) suggested that this failure to scale up cational interventions “is not so much a failure of a theory of how toreproduce success but the absence of a practical theory that takesaccount of the institutional complexities that operate on changes inpractice.”

edu-Throughout the 1970s, in what Goggin et al (1990) called thefirst and second waves of implementation studies, evaluators assessedthe efficacy of this “cookie cutter” approach and found few new sitesthat had implemented the design with fidelity (i.e., sites where repli-cation actually occurred) The culminating study was the RANDChange Agent Study (Berman and McLaughlin, 1975), which evalu-ated several attempts to use the replication model to scale up federalinterventions The study found that implementation in the adoptingsites was often rife with departures from the model because of interac-tions with the institutional setting The authors coined the term

“mutual adaptation” to describe the phenomena of drift away fromfidelity to the model

As a result, some in the education sector began to realize the ficulty of changing the practice of teachers who were embedded in asystem of rules and regulations that did not support new practices(Fullan, 1993; Goggin et al., 1990; Tyack and Cuban, 1995) Hier-

dif-archical mandates that worked in command structures or the privatesector did not appear to work in public education The market forcesthat promoted adoption of innovations in the private sector did notoperate on schools Consumption, in the form of attendance, is man-dated for those under a certain age, and parents could not select apublic school for their children to attend except by choosing a hous-ing location Public educational institutions were governed by politi-cal processes and were administered by entrenched bureaucraciescharacterized as a system of fragmented centralization prone to seek-ing legitimacy by remaining the same, not by innovating (Hill andBonan, 1991; Meyer, Scott, and Strang, 1987; Scott, 1987; Weick,1976; Wise, 1979) These contextual factors explained some of theinability of interventions to take hold.

Environmental Shifts in the 1980s and 1990s

Nevertheless, the field continued its attempts to bring new practices

to scale but in a changing environment On the demand side, twoconcerns emerged to prompt a new round of education reforms.Those interested in maintaining a worldwide competitive economicposition called for improved educational services for all (NationalCommission on Excellence in Education, 1983; National Center onEducation and the Economy, 1990), while others who focused on theachievement gaps between the white students and minority studentscalled for more targeted improvements (Commission on Work, Fam-ily, and Citizenship, 1988; Carnegie Task Force, 1989) These callsfor reform galvanized educators to look for ways to improve instruc-tional practices more systematically, often by adopting practices fromother countries or based in business (Smith and O’Day, 1990; Chubband Moe, 1990)

Partly in response to these demands and calls for newapproaches, states began to evolve policy strategies involving systemreforms that focused on developing high standards, then aligning cur-riculum, instruction, and assessment with them The Kentucky Edu-cation Reform Act of 1990 was the first such comprehensive state

law, followed quickly by similar measures in other states, such asMaryland, Texas, and North Carolina This push toward a standards-based system was supported by federal funds allocated to states tosubsidize the development of goals and standards At the same time,the role of the district central office was de-emphasized and a greater

emphasis was placed on school-level leadership, often called site-based management or decentralization (Chubb and Moe, 1990) This

emphasis on school-level leadership reflected both a growing distrust

of central-office bureaucracies, particularly in large urban districts,and the belief then common in the business world that the peopleclosest to the issue were in the best position to make good decisionsconcerning solutions, so long as standards and expectations wereclear

Finally, growing disillusionment with the role that the federalgovernment played in bringing about desired improvements throughits compensatory education programs, especially Title 1, led to sig-nificant changes in that program Starting in 1990s, regulations con-cerning the use of Title 1 funds were eased, allowing schools withhigh levels of poverty greater discretion over funding, known as

“whole-school status.” Finally, in 1997, Congress appropriated fundsunder the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Programs

to encourage the adoption of whole-school designs

On the supply side, in the 1980s, developers created tions and strategies for implementing these interventions—initially

interven-on a modest scale but ultimately in large numbers (AcceleratedLearning, Success For All,1 and the Bay Area Writing Workshop arenotable examples of programs that were developed and began tospread at this time) In 1991, the business community founded theNew American Schools Development Corporation, which we willrefer to by its present name, New American Schools (NAS),2 todevelop “break-the-mold” designs for schools that could be imple-mented in a wide number of schools throughout the country.

1 See Chapter Five in this volume.

2 See Chapter Sixteen in this volume.

Throughout the 1990s, other innovations—dealing with specificsubjects, whole schools, or even district activities—entered the educa-tional improvement market in response to the growing demands andfunding for improvements.

The funding of the design and development work for theseinterventions was provided largely by private funders and founda-tions Until 1997, the federal government provided only a limitedamount of funding For many of the interventions, the initial imple-mentation was also privately funded, but, as the 1990s unfolded and

as attempts were made to improve increasingly large numbers of rooms and schools, an increasing proportion of the funding for theinterventions came in the form of fees for the services of the develop-ers who began to provide implementation assistance The changes inTitle 1 mentioned above allowed greater use of federal funds forschools to “buy” the services of external providers In an importantsense, the nation began to see the emergence of a market for externalassistance in improving core practices through designs, materials, andsupport for implementation

class-Lessons from the Field

This growth in providers and those attempting reforms resulted insignificant evaluative efforts during the 1990s These evaluativeefforts, however, seldom focused on scale as an issue Rather, theytended to focus on whether adoption improved student outcomesand, in a few cases, on the level of implementation accomplished inspecific locales, schools, or groups Although there are differencesbetween widespread adoption across many teachers and sites andadoption at a single site, we draw on studies of both processes becausethe results of these investigations point to common issues and,together, capture the current state of knowledge

In this section, we highlight the factors that researchers (and, tosome extent, practitioners) have identified as the most important indetermining the success or failure of the implementation and scale-up

of educational reforms These factors are the characteristics of the

intervention, school conditions, assistance provided for tion, and alignment of the policy and infrastructure supports.

implementa-Characteristics of the Intervention That Affect Implementation

Researchers hypothesize that the probability that a scale-up effort will

be successful is a function of the characteristics of the interventionitself, including comprehensiveness, ambitiousness, and elaboration(Cohen and Ball, 2001; Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1989) The fol-lowing paragraphs focus on three characteristics of interventionsthought to influence implementation: the origin of the reform designrelative to adopters, whether the reform is targeted toward specificpopulations or curricular areas or is implemented broadly across asite, and whether the reform primarily includes structural as opposed

to instructional change

development—whether the reform is developed internally by teachersand administrators in a school or externally by a developer—as hav-ing major effects on implementation Both approaches have beenassociated with successful implementation in specific schools(Crandall and Loucks, 1983; Fullan, 2001) However, there is someevidence that externally developed reforms are easier and less costly toimplement and involve fewer risks (Crandall and Loucks, 1983;McLaughlin, 1991; Nunnery, 1998; Stringfield, Millsap, andHerman, 1997) This observation has significant implications forthose trying to implement reforms at scale The easier and less costly

it is to implement a design, the more likely it is that disseminationacross large numbers of schools or classrooms will be possible

That a reform has been developed externally does not necessarilymean that teachers and administrators have no role in making keydecisions about how the reform will be carried out Rarely doesimplementation proceed without some alteration or adaptation of thereform model, regardless of where it was developed Hence, evenexternal reforms become “co-constructed” at the school and class-room levels, meaning that the form they take in a school is deter-mined by both the actions of developers (and sometimes otherexternal actors, such as state policymakers) and educators within