Student achievement outcomes in a scaling urban standards-based science reform.

This work examines the effects on achievement of a multifaceted reform supporting standards based science teaching in urban middle schools. Several project-based inquiry science curriculum units were introduced to the Detroit public schools, supported by aligned professional development, learning technologies, and administrative policy. The units scaled to over 20,000 students in 26 schools over 6 years, producing unique large-scale longitudinal achievement data on curriculum reform. Chapters include a review of achievement studies on scaling reforms, an examination of the impact of the inquiry curriculum units on state standardized test results, and an investigation of the effect of scaling and teacher experience on student learning. Two cohorts of 7th and 8th graders that participated in the curricula are compared with the remainder of the district population using state standardized test results. Both the initial (n = 760) and scaled up (n = 1,043) cohorts show higher science content understanding and process skills, and significantly higher pass rates. The effect does not attenuate with scaling, is greater for students who experience an inquiry curriculum in both 7th and 8th grade, and reduces the gender gap in achievement for urban African-American boys. Scaling effects as the curriculum innovation matured over 4--6 years are examined using pretest/posttest assessments for two curricula involving 6,396 and 5,043 students respectively. There is no attenuation in student achievement as the innovation scales and outside support fades. Student achievement shows significant gains in the first two years of curriculum enactment, before reaching a stable plateau. By contrast, individual teachers show yearly improvement in student achievement on average as they gain experience with curricula. The absence of a plateau suggests that stability of teacher staffing and administrative support for reform are important for maintaining and improving achievement. Together, the findings demonstrate that standards-based, inquiry science curriculum embedded in a multifaceted, aligned reform can lead to substantive achievement gains in historically underserved urban students, and that the gains can be sustained when scaled to large populations.PhDEducationEducational administrationScience educationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124792/2/3163801.pd