Success for All

Despite the constant public outcry about the crisis in education in the United States, every large city [Page 2103]has one or more outstanding and often widely recognized public schools. Some of these appear to succeed because they serve children of wealthy, well-educated parents or because they are magnet or charter schools that can screen out unmotivated or low-achieving students. However, there are also ordinary schools that serve disadvantaged and minority children in inner-city or rural locations and, year after year, produce outstanding achievement outcomes. Such schools play a crucial role in reminding us that the problems of our school system have little to do with the capabilities of children; they provide our best evidence that all children can learn. Yet the success of these lighthouse schools does not spread very far. Excellence can be demonstrated in many individual schools but rarely in whole districts or communities. An outstanding elementary school benefits about 500 children, on average. Yet there are millions of children who are placed at risk by ineffective responses to such factors as economic disadvantage or limited English proficiency. How can we make excellence the norm rather than the exception, especially in schools serving many at-risk children? How can effective practices based on research and on the experiences of outstanding schools be effectively implemented every day by hundreds of thousands of teachers?

Success for All was designed in an attempt to answer these questions. Born in one Baltimore school in 1987, Success for All is used (as of fall 2011) in about 1,000 schools in 47 states. More than 2 million children have attended Success for All schools. These schools are highly diverse. They are in large urban districts, rural districts, inner suburban districts, and Indian reservations. Most are Title I schoolwide projects with many children qualifying for free lunches, but many are in much less impoverished circumstances. Success for All is by far the largest research-proven, whole-school reform model ever to exist. It is the first model to demonstrate that techniques shown to be effective in rigorous research can be replicated on a substantial scale with fidelity and continued effectiveness.

The purpose of this entry is to describe Success for All, its rationale, and its research base, as one example of a replicable approach to prevention and early intervention in elementary schools.

Success for All was created to show how schools can ensure that virtually all children learn to read and write. Although its main focus is on reading, Success for All is a whole-school approach that affects every child and every staff member. It puts into practice strategies known from research to enhance students' achievement, including the following:

• Schoolwide systems to support rapid school improvement
• Integration of instructional processes with curriculum objectives in literacy supported by daily lessons and materials
• Constant assessment of children's progress and regrouping across grades and classes to ensure that all children are challenged
• Embedded multimedia on interactive whiteboards or DVD to add motivation and visual input
• One-to-one and small-group computer-assisted tutoring for children, especially first graders, who are struggling in learning to read
• A Solutions Team that works on issues such as parent involvement, attendance, behavior, and vision to help ensure that all children are ready to learn
• Extensive professional development for teachers, administrators, and others in the school