Achieving Dramatic Improvement: An Exploratory Study

Presenters

Martin Orland (Primary)

Director, Evaluation and Policy Research
WestEd

Daniel Aladjem (Primary)

Principal Research Scientist
American Institutes for Research

Description

Martin Orland, Director of WestEd’s Evaluation Research Program and Daniel Aladjem, Principal Research Scientist at the American Institutes for Research, are authors of “Achieving Dramatic School Improvement: An Exploratory Study.” In this webinar, they will identify reform-related approaches and themes common across 11 schools that stood out from a larger study for their significant improvement in student achievement. The webinar will also describe differences in the specifics of the schools’ improvement efforts.

The schools highlighted in this report were selected for further examination from a nationwide pool of 1,946 initially low-performing elementary and middle schools that had received funding under the federal Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) program. In the course of a five-year longitudinal study of CSR implementation and student outcomes, these 11 schools stood out for their significant improvement in student achievement. Some of the schools were identified in the study as being "rapid improvement schools" because they had showed quick and dramatic improvement in student achievement; others improved at a slower pace.

This sub-study report, by researchers from WestEd and its CSR evaluation partner, American Institutes for Research, includes in-depth, retrospective case studies of the 11 schools. Drawing from those case studies, it identifies reform-related approaches and themes that were common across these schools. But it also describes how these schools differed in the specifics of their improvement efforts.

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