Modern Red SchoolHouse Research Base
By Sally B. Kilgore, Ph.D.

Research in sociology, psychology, neuroscience, and economics informed the development of the Modern Red SchoolHouse approach. The classic work of psychologist J.B. Carroll (1963) provided the framework for how schools could affect the achievement outcomes of students. Carroll's formulation emphasized that a school's impact on student learning was limited to the amount of time students have to acquire knowledge, the quality and pacing of instruction, and the quality and amount of effort that the student expends in acquiring that knowledge.

Sociologists, extending his work, (Barr, 1973; Barr and Dreeben, 1978; Boudon, 1974; Gamoran, 1992; Garet and Delany, 1988; Heyns, 1978; Kilgore, 1991 and 1993; Rosenbaum, 1976; Rutter, Motimer, and Ouston, 1979; Sorensen and Hallinan, 1977; Stevenson and Stigler, 1992; Summers and Wolf, 1985; Wiley, 1976) have found in numerous national and international studies that schools affect a student's level of achievement through the opportunity they provide a student to learn (both in terms of the quantity and quality of teaching) and the effort a student makes in learning.

Research in cognitive psychology, expertly summarized in the work of Bransford, Cocking, and Brown (How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School , 1999), provides considerable insight into the learning styles and needs of children. The Modern Red SchoolHouse is informed, though, not only by that research evidence, but also by that of Bloom (1985) and Hirsch (1987), which point—respectively—to how one develops talent in individual children, the role of prior knowledge in student reading skills, and the role of practice in achieving mastery.

Organizational insights that have informed the Modern Red SchoolHouse approach include those of March and Simon (1958), Deming (1988), and Senge (1990). These theorists, whose work has received considerable empirical support over the years, point to the critical role of shared decision-making in building an effective and responsive school organization that is focused on student achievement. James S. Coleman's (1987, 1988) work on social capital, as well as the work of James Comer (1996), has been most informative to the MRSH approach in terms of understanding the types of relations that parents and schools need for students to become high achievers.

For further information

Anderson, R.C. 1984. "Role of the Reader's Schema in Comprehension, Learning, and Memory." In Learning to Read in
      American Schools, edited by R. Anderson, J. Osborn, and R. Tierney. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Carroll, J.B. 1963. "A Model of School Learning." Teachers College Record 64 8, pp. 723-33.

Barr, R. 1973-4. "Instructional Pace Differences and their Effect on Reading Acquisiton." Reading Research Quarterly 9 4,
      pp. 526-54.

Barr, R. and R. Dreeben 1978. "Instruction in Classrooms." In Shulman LS (ed), Review of Research in Education 5. Itasca IL:      Peacock, pp. 89-162.

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Boudon, Raymond. 1974. Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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Stevenson, Harold W., and James W. Stigler. 1992. The Learning Gap. New York: Summit Books.

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