Memphis Study Tracks Gains in Whole-School Designs

By Lynn Olson

The closely watched effort in Memphis, Tenn., to enhance learning by encouraging the adoption of reform designs that encompass the entire school appears to be paying off.

A study released last week found that 25 elementary schools that began implementing the whole-school designs in 1995-96 showed much greater gains on state tests two years later than did a control group of schools that had not adopted the reform models.

The report by researchers at the University of Memphis, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore provides some of the first hard evidence of learning gains in schools that have adopted designs sponsored by New American Schools. The Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit group helps schools adopt research-based reform designs with the goal of creating a critical...