The Talent Development Middle Grades Model A Design for Improving Early Adolescents' Developmental Trajectories in High-Poverty Schools

• Published in: Handbook of Research on Schools, Schooling, and Human Development pp. 446 - 462
• Main Authors: Mac Iver, Douglas J., Ruby, Allen, Balfanz, Robert W., Jones, Leslie, Sion, Fran, Garriott, Maria, Byrnes, Vaughan
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2010
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Ceo Turnover; Middle Grades; Interrupted Time Series; Mac Iver; Bottom Quartile; High Dropout Risk; Science Facilitator; Matched Control Schools; Scale Score Points; National Science Resources Center; Partner Reading; Teacher Child Closeness; Mathematics Achievement Growth; Professional Development; Control Schools; High Poverty Schools; NCEs; Writing Center; Science Instructional Time; Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center; Middle Grades Students; Achievement Growth; Regular Math Class; Positive Youth Development; Talent Development
• ISBN: 0805859489; 9780805859492; 0805859497; 9780805859485
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203874844-35

For more than 40 years, the U.S. government has made various attempts to spur improvements in the education received by students living in poverty. For example, the Title I program was started in 1965 to provide a revenue stream for schools serving high percentages of economically disadvantaged students so that the schools might provide targeted compensatory educational services to these students. Evaluations of Title I during the 1970s and 1980s showed only small, short-term program impacts on student achievement except in the rare schools where the targeted educational services for eligible students funded by Title I-such as individual pull-outs-were carefully orchestrated to cohere with and support a regular education program of solid curriculum and instruction (for a review, see Rowan & Guthrie, 1989). Fortunately, important changes in the Title I legislation in 1988 made it possible for high-poverty schools-in which 75% or more of the students are living in poverty-to opt for "school-wide models" of Title I service delivery that blend Title I funds and personnel with the school's other funds and personnel in order implement whole-school reforms that seek to improve, coordinate, and integrate the school's compensatory and regular education instructional programs for all students (Rowan, Barnes, & Camburn, 2004). The hope was for high-poverty schools to develop or adopt more comprehensive (and less fragmentary) models for instructional improvement that would stimulate an integrated and strategic set of schoolwide reforms to all key aspects of the school's educational program including curriculum, instruction, organization, professional development, and parent involvement (Desimone, 2002; Wong & Meyer, 1998).