Comprehensive School Reform: The Implementation Gap

U nder pressure to improve s t ud e nt a c h ie ve me nt , schools throughout the nation have, over the past 20 years, turned to comprehensive school reform (CSR). CSR is based on the idea that a school should have a coherent educational strategy that addresses all aspects of its operations and aligns them in a well-functioning delivery system. Hundreds of CSR models have been developed. More than 8,000 schools have adopted a CSR model, and more than $2 billion in federal funds have been used to implement CSR. CSR is one of a limited set of interventions that the No Child Left Behind Act explicitly allows for schools that need to improve their performance. Nevertheless, CSR’s eff ectiveness continues to be hotly debated. Does CSR work? Research results have been mixed. Some studies have measured a modest improvement in student achievement; others have found no eff ect. A team of RAND researchers has approached the question of CSR’s eff ectiveness by fi rst focusing on an even more basic question: Has CSR been implemented? A shortcoming of nearly all previous studies is that they have assumed that schools have implemented their CSR model in its entirety. But what if most schools have implemented CSR only partially or not at all? In such cases, improved student achievement cannot be expected—or, if it does occur, cannot be attributed to CSR. Until we can measure the level of implementation, we cannot determine whether CSR works, or whether one CSR model works better than another.