Modern Red SchoolHouse: Summary Report of Student Achievement Data presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, March, 2002.
Download complete report from Henson and Peevely.

Authors: Dr. Robin Henson, College of Education , University of North Texas and Dr. Gary Peevely, The Center for Research and Policy on Basic Skills, Tennessee State University

Relation of author to model: independent evaluators

Date evaluation report completed: April, 2002

Months/years covered by evaluation: Varies by years of implementation. Generally 1997 through 1999.

Number of schools involved: 49

Demographics of sample population: Nearly all schools are Title 1 schools, and most of them began their work with MRSH as low performing schools. Nearly all of the students attending the schools are minority students, mostly African American. Schools are fairly evenly distributed across the country—Midwest, Northeast, and South have the largest concentrations of MRSH schools. Rural and urban schools are present in fairly equal measure.

Purpose of study: To evaluate effectiveness of design in improving student achievement by comparing performance gains of MRSH schools with their district performance.

Methodology: Researchers utilized data from all sites actively partnering with MRSH in the academic year 1999-2000. These included schools in their first through sixth year of implementation of the MRSH design—with participating sites likely to have more recent start dates.

Data were gathered for each grade level of adopting MRSH schools and for each subject area tested. In some cases, data were not available from the state websites, thereby creating some inconsistency of reporting across schools in this report. Furthermore, data were available in a variety of metrics, including (a) percent passing or percent scoring above the 50th percentile [these were both treated as percent passing], (b) mean percentile ranks, and (c) mean scale scores. Data are reported (and collected) as percent passing when possible.

The percent passing and mean scale scores at the district level were used as the comparison "group" (or benchmark) for the baseline year and each successive year of MRSH implementation. Use of these data allowed for external comparison of school performance in addition to the school's performance across time. However, in many cases, these benchmark data were not available from the appropriate websites or were inconsistently available (e.g., not given for all relevant years or the district reporting metric was different from the school reporting metric), again creating some inconsistency of findings in the current report. Nevertheless, when district data were available, they were used accordingly.

Measures/indicators used to assess effectiveness: Pass rates or mean scale scores on state assessments administered by state in which school is located. Comparisons are made against district pass rates.