Abbott Reforms Are Producing Strong Gains

Robert E. Slavin

Johns Hopkins University

            New Jersey is the home of a bold experiment to improve children’s learning in schools serving poor communities.  That experiment is working, substantially increasing achievement in the state’s 30 highest-poverty urban districts.  The New Jersey Supreme Court’s Abbott reforms provide significant additional funding to these districts and require them to use these funds to invest in an array of proven approaches to improving achievement.  The results have been nothing short of phenomenal.  Since the Elementary School Performance Assessment (ESPA) began in 1999, reading scores in Abbott districts have increased substantially, starting to close the gap with state averages.  The same is true of mathematics.

            Faced with such dramatic success, you’d imagine that there would be universal celebration of Abbott’s accomplishments.  Yet in the June 8 Times of Trenton, a University of Arizona professor dismisses the Abbott reforms, claiming that the court’s decision “made it virtually impossible for Abbott schools to substantially improve,” by requiring that schools in Abbott districts select a whole school reform.

            This professor has made a career of attacking Success for All, one of the whole-school reform models embraced by the Court, and this is why he is upset about Abbott.  Yet the facts speak for themselves.  Since 1999, the 43 elementary schools using the Success for All reading program (including five in Trenton) gained 35.7 percentage points in fourth graders scoring at proficient or better on ESPA.  The state as a whole gained 23.6 points.  The 10 schools that also began our math program in 1999 or earlier (including two in Trenton), gained 19.7 percentage points on ESPA math, while the state gained 8.5 points.

            The New Jersey experience is far from unique.  An article about to appear in the prestigious Review of Educational Research placed Success for All among the three most extensively and successfully evaluated of all whole-school reform models.  The article identified 41 rigorous experimental-control comparisons done by researchers across the U.S., many of which are published in the most selective scientific journals in education.  Previous independent reviews by the American Institutes of Research, the Thomas Fordham Foundation, and others, came to the same conclusion.

            The gains in Abbott districts using whole school reforms are not limited to Success for All schools.  In a report recently presented to the Supreme Court, Rutgers professor Bari Erlichson reported that from 1999 to 2002, Abbott elementary schools gained 36 percentage points in fourth graders scoring proficient or better in reading.  Non-Abbott students gained 20 percentage points.  These schools are using a wide array of whole-school reform models, as Abbott requires.  The models are quite diverse, but all of them use research-based instructional methods, extensive professional development, tutoring for struggling students, family support strategies, and other elements known to enhance achievement.

            It hardly matters that an Arizona professor doesn’t like Success for All and other Abbott whole-school reforms.  Here’s what does matter: these reforms are producing gains on the essential state tests.  Yes, these reforms require a substantial investment of state funds, at a time when the budget is tight.  Yet New Jersey should stay the course.  The state’s disadvantaged urban districts have shown what they can accomplish with whole school models and other reforms.  To roll back the progress that has been made would be shortsighted.  Budget problems will pass, but the children in the Abbott districts are central to New Jersey’s future.

            New Jersey should be proud of its accomplishments in advancing the achievement of its most disadvantaged children.  Your state is leading the nation in tackling the most urgent and difficult challenge facing public education today.  Of course, the Abbott reforms must be carefully evaluated and modified where necessary to move to the next level of gains.  But the Abbott approach—concentrating funding on research-based programs known to increase achievement—is the right one.

Dr. Robert E. Slavin is the Co-Director of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk at Johns Hopkins University, and Chairman of the non-profit Success for All Foundation.  He is the author of 20 books and more than 200 articles on school reform.
 

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