Lessons from the Field of School Reform: A Review of Slavin and Madden's (2001) Success for All

Reviews the book, Success for All: Research and Reform in Elementary Education edited by R. E. Slavin and N. A. Madden (2001). In their edited volume, Slavin and Madden chronicle the tenets, history, and outcomes of their school restructuring reform. Success for All (SFA) is a school-wide, elementary-level reform program. With roots in Slavin's earlier research on cooperative learning at Johns Hopkins University, SFA began in a pilot site in Baltimore city schools in 1987. It is conceptualized as a primary prevention program with cascading secondary intervention services for students with poor achievement. The book contains a concise description of the program and its history (Chapter 1), an overview of the program evaluation data from its American sites (Chapter 2), an extensive examination of implementation issues and outcomes in Memphis city schools (Chapter 3), applications of SFA in five international sites (Chapters 4 to 8), and a chapter devoted to policy and dissemination issues (Chapter 9). The book is overwhelmingly generous in its support for SFA. Even if one tempers this ebullient enthusiasm, many aspects of this book, and of SFA, should be of interest to a school psychology audience. Success for All presents a hopeful and compelling tale of school reform success. It is enlightening in its analyses of implementation and policy issues, especially the challenges of adapting a model to different cultural contexts. It is refreshing in its reliance on science to inform practice and its attempts at program evaluation. The book would be improved and could contribute to the scientific literature if it presented a more balanced and critical appraisal of the model. Despite its limitations, SFA does challenge us to think preventively about school failure, to think holistically about school reform, and to rely on science to reinvent practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)