A Controlled Evaluation of a Total School Improvement Process, School Renaissance.

This report presents results of a study involving the School Renaissance program. The School Renaissance Learning package includes the Accelerated Reader program, which has been shown to improve students' reading achievement and reading attitudes. Four elementary schools were chosen for the study, which included two treatment schools (designated as model Renaissance schools) and two contrast schools. Student test scores served as input for an analysis-of-covariance (ANCOVA) data treatment design. Trained observers were also sent into the classrooms to measure the implementation of the Reading Renaissance program and certain aspects of the classroom and teacher-student interactions. In all comparisons involving standardized test scores in reading, language arts, and mathematics, the Renaissance schools' children outperformed the contrast schools' children. Other analytical results suggest that the Accelerated Reader produces the greatest gains with lower achieving students. One treatment school with a student body with 52 percent free/reduced-priced lunch eligible, had 97 percent of its students obtain a "passing" score on the 2002 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, with nearly 75 percent scoring "exceeds expectation." The conclusion is that the Renaissance program was highly effective in raising the performance of these elementary students. Two appendices contain program-implementation checklists. (Contains 15 references and 10 tables.) (RT)