Caring School Community: Academic Performance

Scientific Basis  |  Research Results  |  Core Principles  |  Recognition
Academic Performance  |  Student Behavior

Outcome data from two federally funded evaluations of the Caring School Community program prove that creating a strong sense of community increases not only students’ safety and sense of well-being, but also their academic performance. These gains are particularly impressive because CSC does not include either reading or math instruction.

San Francisco, CA

As part of a federally funded character education grant from 2003–06, the San Francisco Unified School District’s research department conducted a randomized study of the CSC program. This study involved twelve underperforming elementary schools—six that received the CSC program and six that served as a control group. At the end of the two-year intervention period, students in the CSC schools showed significant academic gains in both reading and math.

Percentage of 2nd–5th Grade Students Proficient or Above on the California Standards Test

St. Louis, MO

Under a large third-party federal grant, 40 schools in the Cooperating School Districts of St. Louis, Missouri, were randomly assigned to four groups of ten schools each—three groups of schools implemented CSC, and the fourth group served as a control. The three groups of CSC schools began implementing CSC in successive years—the first group in 2002–03, the second group in 2003–04, and the third group in 2004–05. The graphs below show statistically significant differences in average state achievement scores in math and reading in Spring 2005.

Percentage of Students Proficient or Advanced on the Missouri State Achievement Tests