Success for All: First-Year Outcomes of a Comprehensive Plan for Reforming Urban Education

This article reports the first year's outcomes of Success for All, a program designed to bring all children to grade level in basic skills by the third grade. The program uses one-to-one tutoring, research-based reading methods, frequent assessment, enhanced preschool and kindergarten programs, family support, and other interventions to prevent learning problems from developing. An evaluation of the program in an inner-city elementary school found substantially enhanced language skills among preschool and kindergarteners and reading skills among students in Grades 1–3 in comparison to matched controls. Special education referrals and retentions in grade were also substantially reduced. Implications of the findings for compensatory and special education are discussed.