Products Featured Information SII Releases Key Findings from Large-scale Study of Comprehensive School Reform Programs 
School Improvement by Design: Lessons From a Study of Comprehensive School Reform Programs, by Brian Rowan, Richard Correnti, Robert Miller, and Eric Camburn, presents key findings from CPRE's research project, The Study of Instructional Improvement (SII), a large-scale quasi-experiment that sought to understand the impact of three widely-disseminated comprehensive school reform (CSR) programs on instruction and student achievement in high-poverty elementary schools.
The purpose of the study was to track implementation of the CSR programs in elementary schools and to investigate the impact of participation in these programs on teachers, students, and schools. Researchers at the University of Michigan followed schools working with one of three CSR programs—Accelerated Schools Project, America's Choice, and Success for All. The study also followed a set of closely matched comparison schools.
Although the focus of A Study of Instructional Improvement was on three comprehensive school reform programs, the goal of the study was much greater—to produce some larger insights into a process that the authors call “school improvement by design.” With this in mind, the goal in presenting this study of three comprehensive school reform programs is to provide readers with some key insights into the larger workings of design-based school improvement.
Funding for this study was provided by the Atlantic Philanthropies, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Visit the SII website (http://www.sii.soe.umich.edu/) for more information about the research project and to access instruments and data resulting from the study.
