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External Evaluator Finds Active Implementation of PICCS at Participating SchoolsExcerpt from PICCS Profiler: PICCS Implementation Taking Hold (Year 3 Evaluation) Studies of school improvement over many years suggest that schools know how to change. They are experts at adopting quick fixes to pressing educational problems in the hope of finding the magic bullet for reform. What schools do not know how to do as well is improve by sustaining change. Indeed, a decade of research on comprehensive school reform (CSR) reveals that sustaining school reform beyond the initial stages of enthusiasm is one of the biggest hurdles educators confront. A study by RAND, in fact, found that after two years, only 45% of the schools that had initially adopted a CSR model were still engaged in model implementation. Considering that major change takes time—typically three to five years—before the necessary structures and systems are in place to realize student achievement gains, it is no wonder that research to date has found only modest effects of schoolwide reform models on student achievement.Our work with PICCS paints a different picture of program implementation. Year-to-year comparisons show that according to school leaders, and to a lesser extent teachers, participating charters not only were active implementers of the PICCS model, they had expanded the quality of model implementation with time. Specifically, in both 2009 and 2010, all leaders reported that the PICCS program was being used in their schools. What was different across years was the quality of use: From 2009 to 2010 more leaders observed routine implementation of the PICCS model rather than uneven implementation. Teachers, too, saw an improvement in PICCS implementation, with more reported users in 2010 than 2009—59% vs. 54%—and more reported “routine” users—26% vs. 22%. To be sure, teachers’ level of use in both years is best described as “uneven” or “in the planning phase,” but that can be expected to change in the future as teachers become more familiar with the PICCS model and as all model components reach scale. Our research also showed that some components of PICCS were implemented more widely and with greater fidelity than others. According to leaders and teachers, the following components were used by nearly all PICCS. Learn more >> | Changes in teacher practice at PICCS schools
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