Promising Programs for Elementary and Middle Schools: Evidence of Effectiveness and Replicability

Abstract

This is a time of great opportunity, but also of great danger in the education of students placed at risk for school failure. Students may be placed at risk for many reasons, among which are low socioeconomic status (SES), minority status, and limited English proficiency, if they attend schools that are not prepared to build on their strengths. Although individual low-income and minority students may excel, and individual schools may have great success with high-poverty students, on average such students perform significantly worse in school than do advantaged students in well-funded schools (Knapp & Woolverton, 1995; National Center for Education Statistics, 1993, 1994). In particular, African American and Latino students have, as a group, performed significantly lower than other groups. Although the gap between these groups and White students on the National Assessment of Educational Process (NAEP) and other tests has gradually diminished since the early 1970s, the gap remains substantial, and in the most recent NAEP assessments the White-minority gap actually increased slightly for the first time since the NAEP has been given (National Center for Education Statistics, 1994).