Comer 1998 Release

COMER SCHOOL REFORM PROJECT IMPROVES BOTH ACADEMICS AND BEHAVIOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Northwestern News on the World Wide Web: http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/media/
CONTACT: Pat Tremmel at (847) 491-4892 or p-tremmel@nwu.edu)

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Students' academic achievement and school climate improved while negative social behavior declined in the 10 elementary schools in Chicago's inner city that participated in the Youth Guidance Comer Development Program.

The program was evaluated over a period of four years, and the results are documented in a new report by researchers at the Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research (IPR).

"Implemented at the same time that the whole Chicago school system is undergoing reform, Comer schools are outperforming schools that are themselves also improving," said Thomas D. Cook, professor of sociology, IPR faculty fellow and primary author of the report.

Compared to the performance of the nine control schools, reading and math scores improved three to five points for the more than 10,000 fifth- through eighth-grade students who participated in the Comer project. Teachers reported that they were doing more to improve the academic climate and motivate students -- and students agreed.

Students also said that their school's social climate was more positive and that they experienced less anger and were more in control of negative emotions. Their reports of mischievous and delinquent behaviors showed steadily declining trends relative to the controls on a measure that other researchers have shown is related to criminal conduct in adulthood.

"The Comer experiment is one of only a few school reform projects that targets both academic performance and behavior modification," said Cook. "It is rare to see both effects come about at the same time."

The outcomes are especially important given the general improvement in Chicago schools. "In many respects, Chicago schools are already on an upward-moving escalator," said Cook. "But the Comer schools are outpacing even the escalator."

Cook noted that the decentralization of the Chicago school system in 1988 provided a unique opportunity for innovations like the Comer schools to be established in Chicago. "It opened the door for individual schools to explore innovative approaches to improving education," said Cook.

The students are from low-income families and have minority ethnic backgrounds, predominantly African-American, Latino and Asian. Nineteen schools participated, including 10 Comer schools and nine control schools. All schools volunteered to participate and were randomly assigned to Comer or control groups.

The report notes that Comer schools are now improving at faster rates in both math and reading than control schools, particularly in the last two years. The Comer schools started behind the control schools in both math and reading, but caught up to them four years later.

"The results presumably would be even more important if the changes involved all of the schools in a large urban system like Chicago's," said Cook. "But Comer's program is as yet only in a small minority of city schools."

Designed by Dr. James Comer at Yale University, the reform program advocates that strategies to improve a school's social climate and relationships should precede efforts to enhance academic achievement. It was first implemented in several New Haven public schools in the 1970s, and by 1995 it had been adopted in 563 elementary, middle and high schools in 80 school districts throughout 22 states. In Chicago, the Comer Program is being implemented by youth guidance, a 75-year-old school-based social service agency.

A central concept is that each school should determine its own academic and social goals through collaborative relationships that are based on trust and respect. The program is structured around three adult teams: a planning and management team responsible for developing and implementing a school improvement plan; a social support team of professionals that deals with psychological and social welfare issues; and a parent team that is encouraged to become actively involved with school activities.

Among the major findings:

The Comer schools' academic climate improved, with teachers reporting that they are expending more efforts to motivate students and feeling more efficacious in the classroom; students reported that their teachers are doing more to encourage their achievement and that their classmates are more accepting of school values.
By the end of the first year, perceptions of the schools' social climate are more positive for the Comer students than for those in the control schools and remain at this level for the entire four years.
Comer students experienced less anger and had better control of their anger relative to control students. According to their reports, they also were more conventional in their beliefs toward misbehavior and delinquency. Still, the Comer program produced no improvements in the domain of mental health.
Reduced negative behaviors, however, were not accompanied by increased positive behaviors, such as participation in after-school sports or clubs, doing more homework, reading more or engaging in other activities that adults consider worthwhile.

Not all the results were positive. In contrast to their students, the Comer staff had lower perceptions of their school's social climate than those in the control schools after the first year of the evaluation, and they remained lower throughout the four years.

The researchers speculate that because the Comer process opens new channels of communication and involves more people in the decision-making process, it may initially create unrest among school adults as school governance becomes distributed. The Comer process also may raise the standards by which staff members judge themselves and their school.

The report, "Comer's School Development Program in Chicago: A Theory-Based Evaluation," was written by Cook; H. David Hunt, an IPR postdoctoral fellow; and IPR graduate fellow Robert F. Murphy. Funding was provided by the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

(For more information on the Comer Program or Youth Guidance, call Nancy Johnstone or Vivian Loseth at 312-435-3900.)

11/16/98

Read the paper in PDF format