The 25-Year Failure of "Success for All": Implications for Policy and Practice

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 18
  In Roundtable Session: Comparative Education Policy

Abstract

Success for All is the most research validated reform for improving reading in high-poverty schools, grades 1-6. As a result of this evidence it became the most widely used reform for improving the reading in high-poverty urban schools for several decades. However, this paper will show that despite all the evidence in AERA and other top journals the program was never actually effective and was highly regressive. This led to large-scale social injustice for the neediest students. This paper will (a) show how the research was systematically manipulated to make the program look effective when it wasn’t, (b) raise cautions about government policies to promote evidence based practices, and (c) suggest reforms to avoid such misdirection in the future.

Author

• Stanley Pogrow, San Francisco State University