I recently gave a couple of speeches on evidence-based reform in education in Barcelona.  In preparing for them, one of the organizers asked me an interesting question: “What is your evidence that evidence works?”

At one level, this is a trivial question. If schools select proven programs and practices aligned with their needs and implement them with fidelity and intelligence, with levels of resources similar to those used in the original successful research, then of course they’ll work, right? And if a school district adopts proven programs, encourages and funds them, and monitors their implementation and outcomes, then of course the appropriate use of all these programs is sure to enhance achievement district-wide, right?

Although logic suggests that a policy of encouraging and funding proven programs is sure to increase achievement on a broad scale, I like to be held to a higher standard: Evidence. And, it so happens, I happen to have some evidence on this very topic. This evidence came from a large-scale evaluation of an ambitious, national effort to increase use of proven and promising schoolwide programs in elementary and middle schools, in a research center funded by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) called the Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education, or CDDRE (see Slavin, Cheung, Holmes, Madden, & Chamberlain, 2013). The name of the program the experimental schools used was Raising the Bar.

How Raising the Bar Raised the Bar

The idea behind Raising the Bar was to help schools analyze their own needs and strengths, and then select whole-school reform models likely to help them meet their achievement goals. CDDRE consultants provided about 30 days of on-site professional development to each district over a 2-year period. The PD focused on review of data, effective use of benchmark assessments, school walk-throughs by district leaders to see the degree to which schools were already using the programs they claimed to be using, and then exposing district and school leaders to information and data on schoolwide programs available to them, from several providers. If districts selected a program to implement, their district and school received PD on ensuring effective implementation and principals and teachers received PD on the programs they chose.

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Evaluating Raising the Bar

In the study of Raising the Bar we recruited a total of 397 elementary and 225 middle schools in 59 districts in 7 states (AL, AZ, IN, MS, OH, TN). All schools were Title I schools in rural and mid-sized urban districts. Overall, 30% of students were African-American, 20% were Hispanic, and 47% were White. Across three cohorts, starting in 2005, 2006, or 2007, schools were randomly assigned to either use Raising the Bar, or to continue with what they were doing. The study ended in 2009, so schools could have been in the Raising the Bar group for two, three, or four years.

Did We Raise the Bar?

State test scores were obtained from all schools and transformed to z-scores so they could be combined across states. The analyses focused on grades 5 and 8, as these were the only grades tested in some states at the time. Hierarchical linear modeling, with schools nested within districts, were used for analysis.

For reading in fifth grade, outcomes were very good. By Year 3, the effect sizes were significant, with significant individual-level effect sizes of +0.10 in Year 3 and +0.19 in Year 4. In middle school reading, effect sizes reached an effect size of +0.10 by Year 4.

Effects were also very good in fifth grade math, with significant effects of +0.10 in Year 3 and +0.13 in Year 4. Effect sizes in middle school math were also significant in Year 4 (ES=+0.12).

Note that these effects are for all schools, whether they adopted a program or not. Non-experimental analyses found that by Year 4, elementary schools that had chosen and implemented a reading program (33% of schools by Year 3, 42% by Year 4) scored better than matched controls in reading. Schools that chose any reading program usually chose our Success for All reading program, but some chose other models. Even in schools that did not adopt reading or math programs, scores were always higher, on average, (though not always significantly higher) than for schools that did not choose programs.

How Much Did We Raise the Bar?

The CDDRE project was exceptional because of its size and scope. The 622 schools, in 59 districts in 7 states, were collectively equivalent to a medium-sized state. So if anyone asks what evidence-based reform could do to help an entire state, this study provides one estimate. The student-level outcome in elementary reading, an effect size of +0.19, applied to NAEP scores, would be enough to move 43 states to the scores now only attained by the top 10. If applied successfully to schools serving mostly African American and Hispanic students or to students receiving free- or reduced-price lunches regardless of ethnicity, it would reduce the achievement gap between these and White or middle-class students by about 38%. All in four years, at very modest cost.

Actually, implementing something like Raising the Bar could be done much more easily and effectively today than it could in 2005-2009. First, there are a lot more proven programs to choose from than there were then. Second, the U.S. Congress, in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), now has definitions of strong, moderate, and promising levels of evidence, and restricts school improvement grants to schools that choose such programs. The reason only 42% of Raising the Bar schools selected a program is that they had to pay for it, and many could not afford to do so. Today, there are resources to help with this.

The evidence is both logical and clear: Evidence works.

Reference

Slavin, R. E., Cheung, A., Holmes, G., Madden, N. A., & Chamberlain, A. (2013). Effects of a data-driven district reform model on state assessment outcomes. American Educational Research Journal, 50 (2), 371-396.

Photo by Sebastian Mary/Gio JL [CC BY-SA 2.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.