America's Choice School Design Raises Test Scores, Evaluation Says

Washington, DC—Students in elementary and middle schools using the America's Choice School Design in Duval County, Fla., after two years "regularly outgained students in other [Duval] schools in writing" and "significantly outperformed their peers" in math, according to a study by researchers at the Philadelphia-based Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE).

The study of reading, writing, and math achievement trends between 1999 and 2001 also found that America's Choice schools narrowed the achievement gap between white and African American and Hispanic students in a significant number of grades and subjects.

Because the America's Choice reading program was just being introduced in Duval County in 2001, the CPRE study found no significant difference in performance in Duval's 62 America's Choice schools and the district's 96 other schools between 1999 and 2001.

"I am very encouraged by these results," said Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, the Washington, DC-based non-profit organization that created the America's Choice design. "This careful study, conducted by one of this country's most admired evaluation organizations, shows that the America's Choice School Design does just what we set out to do - significantly raise the performance of the students on state tests in key curriculum areas. The report covers only the first two years of implementation of a program that is designed to be implemented over a number of years. The best is yet to come."

The America's Choice School Design is one of the nation's leading comprehensive K-12 standards-based school reform programs. Now used in over 500 schools in 15 states, it provides schools, school systems, and states with the research-based designs, materials, and technical assistance they need to ensure that all students leave high school ready to do rigorous college-level work.