Success for All to Expand to 1,100 More Schools With $50m i3 Grant
Thursday, September 30, 2010
By: Kathleen Manzo

Highest-rated "scale-up" winner in federal competition will spread success to low-performing schools.

Contact: Mia Proctor
Email:mproctor@successforall.org
Phone: 800-548-499

Baltimore, Maryland-Sept. 30, 2010- The Baltimore-based Success for All Foundation has been awarded a $50 million Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand its comprehensive school improvement program.

Success for All is currently used by 1,000 predominately low-income schools nationwide. As a result of the grant, which begins Oct. 1, the foundation's network of schools is expected to more than double over the next five years.

The $650 million Investing in Innovation program, which is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will support efforts to start or expand research-based innovative programs that help close the achievement gap and improve outcomes for high-needs students. SFAF was one of nearly 1,700 applicants and one of just four to win a $50 million scale-up grant, the highest award available.

The Success for All Foundation will use the i3 grant money to reduce first-year costs of SFA by offering $50,000 grants to Title I schoolwide projects. It will create local coaching support centers in high-poverty districts, improve the availability of high-quality coaching for SFA, and commission MDRC to carry out a large third-party, cluster randomized evaluation of SFA in high-poverty schools. Over the five-year duration of the grant, SFA will serve approximately 550,000 new students in 1,100 elementary schools, in addition to the 500,000 students in 1,000 schools that the program already serves.

"The i3 program shows a real commitment to supporting what works," said Robert Slavin, Director of the Center for Research and Reform at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and Chairman of the Success for All Foundation. "SFA has been rigorously evaluated and proven to be effective. We now look forward to helping more schools launch and sustain efforts to make high academic achievement a reality for all students."

Success for All's track record on school improvement was recently highlighted by Nicholas Lemann in an article for The New Yorker. Lemann, an author and the dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, wrote that Success for All has "the best sustained record of producing better-educated children in difficult circumstances, in hundreds of schools over many years."

Grants from the Education Department were awarded to 49 organizations in three categories: "scale-up" grants of up to $50 million for programs that have been proven through extensive research to work; "validation" grants of up to $30 million for programs with emerging evidence of success; and "development" grants of up to $5 million for untested but promising research-based ideas. SFA had the highest-rated application of all scale-up proposals. "The scale-up RFP emphasized evidence base and ability to go to scale, both of which are SFA's core capabilities," said Slavin.

To help meet the mandatory 20 percent match required by the Department of Education, Success for All received financial support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Bowland Charitable Trust, Rural Schools and Community Trust, First Book, Pitney Bowes Management Services, HBP Inc., and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Success for All is partnering with schools in Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia as well as schools in Bell County, KY; Garfield, CO; Geary County, KS ; Knox County, KY; Allentown, PA; Prince George's County, MD; Lorain City, OH; Putnam County, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Steubenville, OH; and Lansdowne, PA. Other grant participants include MDRC, and the Colorado and Pennsylvania state departments of education. These partner districts will use grant funds to support district coaches, who will be trained by Success for All to support schools in their region.

Success for All was first developed in 1987 by Slavin and SFA President Nancy Madden, both researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The program provides extensive professional development to all teachers in methods such as cooperative learning, classroom management, frequent assessment and feedback, use of data to guide instruction, strategies for English learners, and family support. It also uses a response-to-intervention approach, including individual and small-group tutoring for struggling readers. In recent years, the program has added embedded multimedia elements to enrich lessons, add motivation, and model learning strategies.

Schools in the current Success for All network have used the program for an average of 10 years and report significant improvements as a result. Many studies, including national third-party evaluations, have shown positive effects of the program, which is the only i3 grantee to meet the evidence standards of Social Programs That Work.

"Over the past 18 years, I have worked with Success for All in two school districts and the results were the same student achievement in reading increased dramatically," said Mary Beyda, Superintendent, Roosevelt School District No. 66, in Phoenix. "I have found the SFA staff to be extremely helpful in supporting our teachers with implementing the program."
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Contact: Mia Proctor, email mproctor@successforall.org, phone: 800-548-499

Success for All is an extensively evaluated whole-school improvement model for elementary schools. The Success for All Foundation (SFAF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development, evaluation, and dissemination of proven reform models for preschool, elementary, and middle schools, especially those serving many children placed at risk.