Challenges in the Implementation of Success for All

Introduction

African Americans and Hispanic communities continue to suffer unfairness despite numerous policy equity-focused reforms in the United States of America. In the 1990s, the achievement gap between Hispanic and African American origin and their counterparts of white ancestry continued to escalate despite many government-initiated reforms in the education sector (Blakely et al., 1987). Title I was one of these numerous educational reforms that aimed to bridge the attainment gap between students of different races and create an environment of fair educational attainments (Blakely et al., 1987). Reauthorized in 1994, Title I stressed a school-wide program that would utilize school-wide resources to improve the educational outcomes of students in high-need setups (Coburn, 2003) . Klingner et al. (2006) did a comparative study that contrasted the evaluation results of the Title I project with other projects in the education sector. According to the study, the James Comer's School Development Program and the Success for All (SFA) education improvement programs were the most effective achievement improvement programs. This agreed with Damschroder et al. (2009). The two programs improved learners' ability to comprehend passages and consequently affected the students' academic achievements. 

Paper Summary

Study Purpose

Success for All, a school-centered initiative for improving students' comprehension and academic performance, focused on learners' reading skills in the formative stages of education (Dane & Schneider, 1998) . Statistically, the program, which the education stakeholders developed in 1987, served about a million students in 1800 schools as of 2001 (Klingner et al., 2006). The program founders believed that every learner had an innate ability to read and understand by the time they were in the third grade (Datnow & Castellano, 2000) . Thus, in response to this belief, the program set strategies to ensure learners attained this goal. This strategy included a student-centered school curriculum, regular assessments of learners' skills, grouping students based on their ability levels, in-person sessions between learners and teachers, family support and collaboration, and program facilitation. Also, the program ensured that teachers allowed learning breaks, included fewer learners than usual per lesson, and employed a student-centered approach in the delivery of instructions. 

From discussing the intricate details about SFA programs, Klingner et al. (2006) opted not to assess the effectiveness of SFA programs because similar research studies that sought to evaluate SFA effectiveness had failed in the past. The authors explored the challenges that hindered the implementation of SFA programs in resource-limited settings that included learners of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Domitrovich et al., 2009). This research was part of a more extensive examination of why cultural and linguist differences among students are overrepresented among the disability and special education categories. As part of the experiment, Klingner et al. (2006) performed general and specific observations of instruction methods at 12 schools. Since SFA was the reading program in four of the sample's highest-need urban schools, information on implementing the SFA curriculum made up a large percentage of the study's data, raising intriguing issues about the SFA model's success with struggling readers. The paper intended to describe the nature of the SFA curriculum and how it fits into the vast array of school conditions.

The work documented by the authors based primarily on the National Academy of Sciences' strategy of understanding disproportionality. The model posited that the disproportionate representation of African Americans and Hispanic students was problematic. Aspects of instruction, referral, assessment, and student placements hindered learners' success (Klingner et al., 2006). The research, therefore, made a significant assumption that classroom interactions between a teacher and a learner caused a major impact on learner performance (Fallik et al., 2021) . In this regard, the authors believed that student performance depended upon teacher instruction methodologies and their referral decisions. 

Methodology

The study mainly included Black learners, although the population of Spanish-speaking students was also significant. As a way of limiting ethnicity, schools ensured they employed teachers of all races. Thus, no race comprised more than 45% of teachers. Also, every race at least constituted 20% of instructors. According to Kingner et al. (2006), 41-46% of instructors in three of the four schools had finished advanced training. In the fourth school, 26 percent had completed an advanced educational degree. The provision of free lunch to all learners also improved equity. The authors watched 30 teachers at work. Five of these teachers were instructors of special education.

The researchers collected data in three stages. The first two stages involved a description of district-wide student placement rates and referral policies and a review of the implementation of referral and placement policies in 12 schools that consisted of students of various ethnic and socioeconomic configurations. The third stage considered 12 individual students as case studies (Harper, 2015) . Klingner et al. (2006) met with district education administrators and school staff to discuss and evaluate materials during the project's initial phase. Throughout the second phase, the authors observed students from kindergarten to third grade while also interviewing school administrators, teachers, and other subordinate staff. Overall, the research collected data by observation, interviews, and reviewing of available documents. The authors used ethnography and grounded theory to interpret the findings. 

Results

The researchers noted that the implementation of SFA programs varied considerably among the schools considered for the research. Although there were many instances of excellent classroom practice among the schools considered, there were no particular examples of school-wide programs that implemented SFA projects (Klingner et al., 2006). Nonetheless, good teachers promoted SFA implementation and modified SFA standards to fit the scenario of the school. Also, the lowest learners in classroom ranks lacked sufficient support because mixed grade systems failed to recognize that some learners had limited learning ability and needed extra help. 

Teachers who appeared to be excellent at using the SFA program were the same ones who earned favorable evaluations in other areas of instruction. Teachers who were deemed ineffective were, in turn, inefficient in their utilization of the SFA program (Klingner et al., 2006). Similarly, instructors with superior classroom management abilities could administer the SFA instruction manual without significant management obstacles, whereas instructors with poor classroom management experienced management issues that affected their ability to administer SFA instruction.

Adaptation of the SFA manual was more common than the precise implementation of the program. Aside from the fact that competent instructors' instruction and management abilities were not dependent on the SFA program, the authors also observed that such instructors did not strictly adhere to the SFA handbook (Harper, 2015) . For instance, the researchers interviewed two teachers to describe their experience with the SFA model of teaching. The first teacher, who mainly taught in first grade, stated that she preferred to use the concept of SFA without adopting it in its entirety (Klingner et al., 2006). According to her, only the aspects she found relevant to her learners would make part of her teaching methodology. The second teacher, who mainly taught third graders, described that children's abilities and interests determined the appropriateness of SFA programs. The teacher believed peer reviews were misplaced because it would be insensible to ask learners to grade each other's work when they do not know how to do it. Also, the teacher preferred to select students to read passages rather than the spontaneous approach recommended by the SFA manual. Further, the research also exposed a limited focus on low-ability learners, recycling learning materials because of limited resources, and mixed grading and instruction of students. Nonetheless, some schools still implemented special referral programs. 

Critical Discussion

The authors' observation about SFA programs presented poorly implemented programs marred with numerous challenges and incompatibility issues. Primarily, fidelity was the cause of non-uniform implementation as different teachers perceived the programs differently and attempted to simplify them to suit the specific conditions at their schools (Klingner et al., 2006). The researchers, however, failed to realize the particular reasons behind the non-uniform implementation of SFA programs in the schools. Certainly, it proved challenging to explain the varied versions of SFA programs in schools that mainly comprised black and Hispanic learners. Probably, resource limitation was the primary reason teachers preferred to adapt the programs partially instead of training their learners with programs that could not attain complete implementation. 

The study agreed with many other previous studies that studied SFA implementation in similar settings. Firstly, teachers varied their methods of implementing the propositions of SFA learning programs (Klingner et al., 2006). This limited the effectiveness of such projects and created a significant gap in the assessment of SFA effectiveness because it became challenging to measure different parameters. Secondly, learners mainly landed in cycles of boredom and repetition without necessarily gaining reading and comprehension skills (Harper, 2015) . This trend was widespread among older learners. The boredom challenge created a significant challenge for the teacher when grouping and labeling learners based on abilities. Therefore, the research argued that teachers needed to receive a solid grasp of practice and knowledge on implementing SFA programs uniformly. 

The article suffers several weaknesses in its approach. Despite the effectiveness of the analysis, the study faced several limitations mainly based on its methodology. Although the authors spent substantial time watching in each classroom and compiled a large dataset, their principal aim was not to assess the efficiency of SFA training. Also, the authors were not experts in SFA implementation. Instead, they interpreted the findings of the observations and interviews as subsets of the data collected while employing similar analytic approaches as used with the other data on decision-making processes that lead to the placement of kids in special education programs.

Conclusion

Klingner et al. (2006) presented an accurate analysis of how teachers implemented SFA programs in resource-limited schools. According to their presentation, the programs' implementation was non-uniform due to different school conditions and teacher preferences. According to the discussion of findings, this trend pointed to the limited education of teachers on implementing SFA propositions and learner variations. The analysis excelled at exposing SFA implementation in schools that comprised mainly African Americans and Hispanic learners through evidence-based research. The article's comparison with previous studies made it a useful resource on the subject matter because it presents an authoritative and evidence-based proposition.

References

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Klingner, J., Cramer, E., & Harry, B. (2006). Challenges in the implementation of success for all in four high‐need urban schools.  The Elementary School Journal ,  106 (4), 333-349.  https://doi.org/10.1086/503635