Turning Around Five At‐Risk Elementary Schools

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Abstract
This article presents a description of an instructional management system called Consistency Management and its implementation in five urban elementary schools in Texas. The five schools were identified in 1986 by the Texas Education Agency as ranking in the lowest 5 percent of all elementary schools taking the state mandated Texas Education Assessment of Minimal Skills (TEAMS). An analysis of the program indicates that the five schools significantly improved their TEAMS test scores from 1985‐86 to the 1987‐1988 school year in mathematics, reading and writing. When compared to a matched set of elementary schools, the Consistency Management schools increased 17 percent in the percent passing the TEAMS while the non‐program schools decreased 2 percent in the percent passing during the 1987‐1988 school year. When the students of teachers trained in the program were compared with students of untrained teachers, based on the Metropolitan Achievement Tests (MAT6) and the TEAMS, the program (experimental) group scored significantly higher beyond the p<.01 level in total language, total reading, social studies, science and total mathematics and in mathematics and writing on the TEAMS. Additionally, discipline referrals were reduced and a series of structured interviews of the five principals and nineteen teachers indicated that the program had direct transfer to the classroom (Freiberg, Prokosch, Treister, Stein & Opuni, 1989a). This study seems to support the pioneering works of Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, and Weisenbaker (1979); Brookover and Lezotte (1977); Edmonds (1979a, 1979b, 1979c); Goodlad (1983a, 1983b); Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, Ouston, and Smith (1979); Murnane (1975); Summers and Wolfe (1975); Stallings and Mohlman (1981); Levine and Stark (1982); Edmonds and Frederiksen (1978); and Wynne (1980) who establish that schools can make a difference in academic achievement regardless of socio‐economic status. This is given substantial support from several syntheses and reviews of school‐level impact on students’ academic achievement (Benbow, 1980; Bridge, Judd, & Moock, 1979; Centra & Potter, 1980; Edmonds, 1979c; Glassman & Biniaminov, 1981; Good & Brophy, 1986; MacKenzie, 1983). This study disaggregated the school achievement data to determine the influence of training on teachers who were inserviced in the program against those teachers from matched schools who were not trained in this specific program but received other similar services from the district. Qualitative data derived from structured interviews of principals and teachers from the five schools provided a broader understanding of the results and issues faced by principals, teachers and their students.

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