School Improvement Model Shows Promise in First i3 Evaluation

Education Week

One of the biggest early bets in the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation program seems to be paying off: Success for All, a literacy-related, whole-school improvement model, shows signs of changing teaching practice and boosting students' early-literacy skills after a year in schools.

The findings come from a new study by the New York City-based research group MDRC, the first of three installments in an ongoing $6.7 million evaluation of Success for All, a popular school-improvement model used in 1,000 schools representing 300,000 students nationwide. The program, which includes schoolwide curriculum, tutors, bimonthly student assessments, and teacher training, received $49.3 million from the federal i3 program in 2009 to expand its school improvement model and increase training for teachers and staff...

...MDRC's report is the first of the evaluations expected from the initial cohort of four programs that won the largest grants from i3, which are based on prior evidence of effectiveness....

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