Baltimore Curriculum Project: Final Report of the Four-Year Evaluation Study. Report No. 62

摘要

This study reports the results of a four-year multi-method evaluation of the implementation of the Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP) in six Baltimore City schools. BCP used a combination of the Direct Instruction (DI) program and Core Knowledge as its reform curriculum. Each of the six schools was demographically matched with a similar, within-district school so that it would have a reasonable control against which it could be compared. Two cohorts of students in the BCP and the control schools were followed through the course of the evaluation--students who were in either kindergarten or grade two during the 1996-97 school year (primarily in third and fifth grades, respectively, during 1999-2000). Interviews with principals and DI coordinators and focus groups with teachers were conducted each of the four years of the study to gauge BCP-school staff perceptions of the ongoing innovation. In the first three years of the study, detailed classroom-level observations were made in the BCP schools. Data collected provided evidence about the implementation and the classroom-level effects of the BCP curriculum.