Thomas D. Cook,
Farah-naaz Habib, Meredith Phillips,
Richard A. Settersten, Shobha C. Shagle and Serdar M. Degirmencioglu
Abstract
A randomized experiment of Comer's School Development
Program was conducted in 23 middle schools in Prince George's
County, Maryland. It showed that Comer schools implemented some
of the program's central elements better than control schools,
but not all or even most of them. This shortfall in program implementation
was probably responsible for students in the experimental schools
not changing any more than controls. After all, quasi-experimental
analyses showed that the program theory may well be correct in
many of its predictions about student changes in psychological
and social outcomes, but not achievement. However, achievement
gains were found in schools with a more explicit academic focus,
suggesting that improving this focus should be as central to Comer's
program theory as improving the school's social climate. Even
more needed, though, are ways to improve program implementability,
the sine qua non for student change.
Paper was published in American Educational Research
Journal, Fall 1999, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 543-597.
Thomas D. Cook, Department of Sociology,
Northwestern University Farah-naaz Habib, Former Graduate Fellow,
Institute for Policy Research Meredith Phillips, School of Public Policy and
Social Research, UCLA Richard A. Settersten, Department of Sociology,
Case Western Reserve University Shobha C. Shagle, Former Postdoctoral Fellow,
Institute for Policy Research Serdar M. Degirmencioglu, Department of Psychology,
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
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