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As
of the 2003-2004 school year, Success for All Foundation
(SFAF) programs are being implemented in more than 1300
schools in over 500 districts in 48 states in all parts
of the United States, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
Versions of the model are also used in other countries,
including England, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Australia.
The Success for All (SFA) reading program has been evaluated
in 47 experimental-control studies, carried out by researchers
at many research institutions in addition to those completed
by Johns Hopkins University researchers. Seventeen of
these were done by researchers at Johns Hopkins University,
and 30 were done elsewhere. In each, matched SFA and
control schools have been compared on individually administered
reading scales and/or state accountability measures,
as well as other outcomes. The results have almost always
favored SFA. In average grade equivalents on individually-administered
measures such as the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test,
SFA students perform approximately three months ahead
of comparison students by the end of first grade, and
more than a year ahead by fifth grade. Effects are particularly
strong for students who are most at risk, those in the
lowest 25% of their grades. Effects of the Spanish version
of SFA have also been strong. SFA has produced substantial
reductions in retentions and special education referrals
and placements.
Studies of SFA have taken place in districts throughout
the U.S., including Baltimore, Memphis, Philadelphia,
Miami, Tucson, Houston, Ft. Wayne (IN), Modesto (CA),
Riverside (CA), Montgomery (AL), Charleston (SC), St.
Mary's County (MD), Caldwell (ID), Clarke County (GA),
Little Rock (AR), Clover Park (WA), and Louisville (KY).
A statewide study of all 111 Texas SFA schools found
that these schools gained substantially more on the
TAAS than other Texas schools. An independent evaluation
of Memphis schools using the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment
Scale found Success for All to produce the highest scores
among eight reform models. Statewide studies of MathWings
similarly found significantly greater gains in MathWings
schools on state accountability measures. Not every
study has found positive results, but the great majority
have. When SFA is well implemented, results are always
positive compared to control groups.
The American Institute of Research, in a review commissioned
by the AFT, NEA, NAESP, NASSPand AASA, found that of
24 whole-school reform programs, only SFA and Direct
Instruction meet the highest standards for evidence
of positive impacts in rigorous studies. This report
can be obtained from the AASA website www.aasa.org.
For a summary of research on Success for All, the following
article can be found under Research/Results on this
website.
Slavin, R. E. & Madden, N. A. (2003).
Success for All / Roots & Wings: Summary of research
on achievement outcomes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University, Center for Research on the Education of
Students Placed at Risk
We encourage district and school staff to review program
materials, view video tapes, schedule an awareness session,
and visit nearby SFA sites. Call us at 1-800-548-4998
for a list of schools in your area. Our staff will work
with you to choose the program(s) to meet your school’s
needs, and we also provide grant-writing assistance
for federal funding opportunities.
SFA is disseminated by the Success for All Foundation,
a not-for-profit organization. Every penny received
by the Success for All Foundation goes into hiring well-qualified
trainers, developing materials, and supporting schools.
We price the program as inexpensively as we can to enable
the largest possible number of schools to use it. More
than 1,300 schools have somehow found the money to afford
SFA. Some have received CSRD or other grants, but about
80% have just used their Title I funds. What they do
is to substitute SFA functions for other activities
that are directed at the same goal. Any Title I school,
especially Title I schoolwide projects, should be able
to afford the program.
There are three key components to the cost of SFA.
One is the training, usually 26 person-days of on-site
training plus additional training for the principal
and facilitator, telephone contacts, and conferences.
The second key component is materials, which are voluminous
and which replace many materials schools would have
to purchase anyway. The third key component is staff.
Staff costs are typically covered by the school's Title
I budget, usually by reallocating existing staff to
new functions. Considering the amount of training that
is provided, the amount of materials, and the extent
of change brought about throughout the school, it is
hard to think of SFA as expensive. An average Title
I elementary school (500 students) has a total annual
budget of about $4 million. Costs charged by the Success
for All Foundation for an average school are about 2%
of the total school budget in the first year. This drops
sharply in later years. As so many schools have demonstrated,
these funds can be found by taking a hard look at all
of the money available to the school and setting priorities.
SFA is more expensive than some programs, but these
are invariably programs that provide far less total
training, material, and continuing support.
The majority of SFA schools pay for SFA using Title
I and state compensatory education funding. Increasingly,
SFA schools are receiving grants through the Comprehensive
School Reform Demonstration, Reading Excellence Act,
or other federal and state sources. Funds for special
education, bilingual/ESL, professional development,
early childhood, and other special purposes can be folded
in with Title I to fully fund SFA in a school.
The overwhelming majority of teachers do support SFA.
In the first place, at least 80% of the teachers in
a school must vote in favor of SFA, by secret ballot,
before we will agree to training. After the programs
get going, support remains high. Three studies of this
question, in Memphis, Little Rock, and the San Francisco
Bay Area, found that between 78% and 90% of teachers
supported the program after one to three years of implementation.
In the California study, a majority of the teachers
who said they didn't like SFA still acknowledged that
it worked for children. In San Antonio, Texas, a new
superintendent required teachers in schools implementing
various restructuring designs to vote again if they
wanted to retain the programs in their schools. The
vote for SFA among 24 schools averaged 81% positive;
for other programs, the vote averaged only 36% positive.
Many middle class schools successfully use the program.
Because most of SFA schools are in high-poverty urban,
rural, or inner suburban schools, about 80% of SFA students
qualify for free lunch. However, there is nothing in
the instructional program unique to disadvantaged students.
Family support activities are different in different
communities, but any group of children, regardless of
social class, will contain learners with a range of
needs, all of which will be accommodated by SFA.
The greatest obstacle to middle class schools using
SFA is financial, since these schools may not have adequate
Title I funds or other discretionary funds. However,
if schools can find a way to fund the program, SFA works
very effectively in middle class schools.
A small but rapidly increasing number of charter schools
are adopting Success for All as part of their charter
plan. Because they are usually new schools without existing
curricula, charter schools often phase in all elements
of Success for All very quickly, as their core instructional
program in all subjects.
The grouping strategy used in SFA reading is the Joplin
Plan, cross-grade grouping according to reading performance
level. The Joplin Plan has been extensively studied
over the years and has been found to be effective. It
is often confused with tracking or ability grouping,
which causes some educators to oppose it on philosophical
grounds. However, the Joplin Plan is quite different.
First, because it involves cross-grade grouping, there
is no "high class" or "low class";
all classes (except the lowest-performing first grades)
have high, average, and low achievers. Because groupings
are revised every eight weeks, students are not relegated
forever to a "track" from which it is difficult
to move. In fact, because low achievers are likely to
receive tutoring services, they are expected to move
over time to higher-performing groups. The Joplin Plan
creates groups all at one instructional level, enabling
teachers to move at a very rapid pace. It avoids the
need to have multiple reading groups within the class,
a practice that forces teachers to assign much more
seatwork than necessary and which may have a stigmatizing
effect at least as great as that in the Joplin Plan.
Since every child in grades 1-6 is regrouped into a
reading class, low achievers do not feel singled out,
as they might be in a low reading group within a single
class. Finally, regrouping children into a larger number
of classes, making use of additional teachers (because
tutors and other certified teachers teach a reading
class), helps schools reduce class sizes for reading.
Six longitudinal studies have been done to evaluate
the impact of SFA on the achievement of English language
learners. Three have involved the Spanish bilingual
program (Lee Conmigo), and three have involved the ESL
adaptation. A summary of this research can be found
on this website under Research/Results or in the following
article:
Slavin, R.E. & Cheung, A. (2003).
Effective reading programs for English language learners:
A best-evidence synthesis. Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University, Center for Research on the Education
of Students Placed at Risk.
All of the studies found consistently higher achievement
in SFA schools than in matched control schools in first
grades, and these effects generally maintained in later
years. One of the bilingual studies followed children
long enough to see a transfer from superior performance
in Spanish to superior performance in English. Another
found a sharp increase in the number of children ready
for early transition to English instruction.
SFA provides Spanish materials for use in Spanish bilingual
programs, but in schools in which this is not an option,
SFA strategies are built around the English materials.
With additional training and supplementary materials
to help all teachers succeed with English language learners.
These materials have been successfully used with thousands
of English language learners throughout the U.S. The
materials themselves, by providing a step-by-step phonetic
structure and a strong emphasis on oral language development,
help English language learners develop their reading
skills at the same time as their English language skills
are developing. Classroom teachers are given ESL strategies,
such as Total Physical Response and use of realia, to
help ESL children gain the vocabulary necessary to comprehend
the English materials. ESL teachers are given strategies
for integrating with the reading instruction, including
pre-teaching of vocabulary that will be in the books.
In fact, because of the consistent materials and strategies
taught across the school, it is easier in a SFA school
to maintain close articulation between ESL and classroom
reading strategies.
The main focus of SFA with respect to children with
special needs is prevention, especially for children
with learning disabilities or at risk for learning disabilities.
The idea, called "neverstreaming", is to provide
children with effective preschool and kindergarten programs,
beginning reading programs, and family support programs,
plus one-to-one tutoring or other special adaptations
if needed, to ensure that students are successful in
the first place and are never referred to special education.
What special education program is more effective for
children with learning disabilities than well-structured
instruction, one-to-one tutoring, and extensive family
support programs? Four studies of the special education-related
outcomes of SFA have found reductions in special education
placements of from one-half to three-quarters, as well
as increased achievement among children who already
have IEP's for learning disabilities.
For children who have more serious learning disabilities
or other academic limitations, SFA advocates a policy
of full inclusion. These children are typically assessed,
placed in appropriate reading groups, tutored if necessary
(usually by a special education teacher), and otherwise
treated the same as other children, with appropriate
adaptations to their unique needs. There is no research
on this at present, but we have heard numerous reports
of success of SFA with children with Down's Syndrome,
severe auditory disabilities, and other disabilities,
as well as for children with various behavioral disabilities.
For a summary of research on the special education
aspects of Success for All, please see the following
article (available on this website under Research/Results).
Slavin, R.E. (1996). Neverstreaming:
Preventing learning disabilities. Educational Leadership,
53 (5), 4-7.
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