Climbing the Ladder of Evidence
When the Investing in Innovation (i3) program was first launched at the U.S. Department of Education in 2009, it was heralded as a new type of grant program geared toward school districts and non-profit groups with a strong track record of results. At the time, I was implementing a high school improvement model I had created known as Building Assets, Reducing Risks(BARR). BARR uses the power of positive relationships and data to improve student outcomes. Results of the model were promising, and BARR was listed in several government program guides, including the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices.
I assembled a team of the brightest people I knew and began writing a proposal. We knew that the odds of winning were extraordinarily low. The competition attracted 1,300 applicants comprised of major research universities, well-known educational institutions, and national nonprofit organizations. I wrote a good portion of the proposal out of my high school counseling office after school hours while watching teams practice and having students stop by. We hit “submit” ten minutes before the deadline and prayed that the Internet in the building was working, which was not always the case.
Three months later, to my surprise and delight, a $5 million i3 Development grant was awarded to expand and further study BARR. My team of individuals working remotely from Minneapolis to DC to Maine were now at the same table as distinguished faculty from Harvard.
Funding through the Development grant allowed us to conduct a within-school randomized controlled trial (RCT) that demonstrated BARR’s success at improving student grade point averages, failure rates, and standardized test scores. This evidence allowed us to pursue and win an i3 Validation grant in 2013. The Validation grant provided funds to expand BARR to an additional 35 schools and conduct another 11 RCTs to evaluate BARR’s ability to improve student outcomes in a variety of settings.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education announced that a $20 million i3 Scale-up grant would be awarded to expand BARR to an additional 116 low-performing high schools across the country. The Scale-up project solidifies BARR as the first intervention to successfully climb the three tiers of evidence required under i3, moving from Development (promising) to Validation (moderate level of evidence) to Scale-up (strong level of evidence).
I’ve been asked numerous times to explain how BARR beat the odds and secured these three prestigious grants.
There are three main reasons.
The first reason is our unwavering focus on evidence. From day one, we viewed this primarily as a research project and steered our grant funding toward evaluation and research. When posed with options for a study design, we chose the most rigorous design, a within-school randomized controlled trial. We looked at what it would take to meet the highest evidence standards of the federal What Works Clearinghouse and partnered with independent evaluators, the American Institute of Research and Abt Associates, to help us meet that standard. BARR now meets the definition of “strong evidence” as included in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that will guide state and school district implementation of improvement interventions.
The second key reason for BARR’s success and appeal is that it is a universal intervention that serves all students in a school and uses the skills of existing staff to make improvements. It is an affirming and optimistic approach to school improvement which acknowledges that schools already have the talent to improve student outcomes. This approach is emphasized in the title of our Scale-up proposal and BARR’s tagline: “Same students. Same Teachers. Better Results.” Recognizing the tremendous challenges facing secondary schools in this country, there is support for a model that has the potential to substantially transform any school with the desire and commitment to better serve students.
Third, the BARR model is grounded in the development of authentic relationships; student to student, staff to staff and staff to student and an unwavering focus on what is right with the student. These untapped and underutilized concepts are already present in our schools but needed a structure and process to harness their powerful potential. The strength-based mindset has always been present in educators, and when leveraged with comprehensive and proven strategies, it motivates both teachers and students to achieve their highest academic and social emotional goals.
Of course, there are other factors that have been essential to our success. Our i3 proposals received active support from bipartisan leaders in Congress and we secured project partners such as AIR, Spurwink Services, and Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Most importantly, our commitment to evidence would be futile if we didn’t have school leaders and staff willing to conduct a study at their school and implement the BARR model with fidelity.
Schools have waited long enough for a system proven to work. BARR is that system. BARR has climbed the ladder of evidence, mobilized the existing talent in our schools and is poised to change the education landscape for our country.
