50 Different Ways to Run a School:
The Good, The Bad AND The Ugly

The history of education is replete with school designs that were hailed as breakthrough innovations. Some of these school "models" lived up to their designers' hopes, others did not. Even today, numerous "models" are offered by various organizations. Fortunately, there is an emerging body of research to help sift through claims.

This table shows some of these "whole school reform models", and is keyed to show which models are discussed in which of the following reports:

Model	Type	Personality	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	Ilinois Loop
Accelerated Schools	Whole school	Levin			C	D	E	F	G
America's Choice	Whole school				C		E
ATLAS Communities	Whole school					D	E	F	G
Audrey Cohen College	Whole school						E	F
Bensenville (IL) New American School	Whole school							F
Breakthrough to Literacy	Literacy								G
Carbo Reading Styles Program	Whole school					D
Center for Effective Schools	Whole school						E
Child Development Program	Whole school						E
Classical / Trivium	Whole school									Click!
Coalition of Essential Schools	Whole school	Sizer			C		E		G
Community for Learning	Whole school					D	E		G
Community Learning Centers	Whole school						E	F
Comprehensive Early Literacy Training	Literacy								G
Co-nect	Whole school					D	E	F	G
Consistency Management & Cooperative Discipline	Whole school			B
Constructivism / Progressivism (in general)	Whole school									Click!
Core Knowledge	Whole school	Hirsch	A	B	C	D	E		G	Click!
Different Ways of Knowing	Whole school					D	E		G
Direct Instruction	Whole school	Engelmann		B	C	D	E		G	Click!
Edison Project	Whole school				C		E
Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction	Whole school					D
Expeditionary Learning / Outward Bound (ELOB)	Whole school				C		E	F	G
First Steps	Whole school								G
First Things First	Whole school					D
High Schools that Work	Whole school			B		D	E
High/Scope Primary Grades	Whole school					D	E
Hillsdale Academy	Whole school		A							Click!
Integrated Thematic Instruction	Whole school						E		G
K - 12	Whole school	Bennett	A
Learning Network	Whole school						E
Literacy Collaborative	Whole school					D			G
MicroSociety	Whole school						E
Middle Start	Whole school					D
Modern Red SchoolHouse	Whole school					D	E	F	G
Montessori	Whole school						E
More Effective Schools	Whole school					D
Multiple Intelligences	Whole school	Gardner			C					Click!
National Alliance for Restructuring Education	Whole school							F
National Heritage Academies	Whole school		A							Click!
National Writing Project	Writing								G
New American Schools	Whole school							F
Odyssey Project	Whole school							F
Onward to Excellence	Whole school					D	E		G
Paideia	Whole school	Adler					E
Progress in Mathematics	Math		A
Quantum Learning	Whole school					D
QuESt	Whole school					D
Riggs Institute	Reading		A
Roots & Wings	Whole school						E	F
Saxon Math	Math	Saxon	A							Click!
Saxon Phonics	Reading		A
School Development Program	Whole school	Comer		B	C	D	E		G
School Renaissance	Whole school					D			G
Singapore Math	Math		A							Click!
SRA Direct Instruction	Reading		A
SRA Open Court Reading	Reading		A							Click!
Success For All	Whole school	Slavin		B	C	D	E		G
Talent Development High Schools	Whole school					D	E
Talent Development Middle Schools	Whole school					D
Turning Points	Whole school					D
Urban Learning Centers / L.A. Learning Ctrs	Whole school					D	E	F
Ventures Initiative and Focus System	Whole school								G

• A: How to improve a school? Start here!
  "Best Bets: Education Curricula That Work", Center for Education Reform: This report shines a spotlight on some of the best available math, history, reading, and multi-subject curricula around. In addition, the compilation explores what makes a curriculum great. It spells out the basic building blocks of effective curricula, provides descriptions, contact information and other details about numerous highly recommended curricula and their providers, as well as information about a few outstanding textbooks. Highly recommended!
  
  
• B: What Works: Six Promising Schoolwide Reform Programs (PDF doc), American Federation of Teachers. In this powerful report, the AFT commends a handful of "whole-school" reform models that have compelling evidence of success. Included among the six featured programs are Core Knowledge and Direct Instruction.
  
  
• C: Better by Design? A Consumer's Guide to Schoolwide Reform, Fordham Foundation, December 01, 1998. This report includes richly detailed personal accounts of visits to schools that have implemented ten different models, and a table of basic facts about each.

• D: Here is a reasonable collection of descriptions of a couple dozen "whole school reform models": Catalog of School Reform Models, Northwest Regional Education Laboratory.

• E: Comprehensive School Reform and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis, Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR), November 2002. There are separate links for the report's Appendix A and Appendix B, and its summary Tables of the descriptions and evaluations of the models.

• F: The Evolution of the New American Schools, by Jeffrey Mirel, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, October 2001. In July 1991, President George H. Bush and Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander and a number of business leaders announced the launch of the New American Schools Development Corporation charged with encouraging innovative ideas for a new generation of schools. In this vivid report, Jeffrey Mirel charts how the good intent of the NAS became bogged down in bureaucracy. Far from encouraging breakthrough ideas, NAS wound up doing little more than repeating progressivist axioms, as it dispensed contracts mostly to mainstream established educationists with predictable philosophies.

• G: CSRQ Center Report on Elementary School CSR Models (PDF), American Institutes for Research (AIR) / Comprehensive School Reform Quality (CSRQ) Center, November 29, 2005.