Caring School Community: Research Results

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

The Caring School Community program comprises four highly effective elements first developed for DSC’s Child Development Project—class meetings, a cross-age buddies program, home-side activities, and schoolwide community building. The U.S. Department of
Education has recently highlighted the Caring School Community program’s research base and effectiveness.

Multiple Evaluations

Multiple evaluations of these combined approaches showed significant positive effects on the students. Evaluations were made over a twenty-year period in a wide range of elementary schools—including urban and rural schools, large and small schools, and schools with diverse socioeconomic and ethnic populations. They showed significant positive effects of these combined approaches on the students’ motivation to achieve. They also showed an impact on the students’ positive social tendencies and, over time, on their grade and test scores.

Nationwide Study

A nationwide, six-district study examined the impact of the Child Development Project in 12 ethnically diverse schools. Students’ attitudes and behaviors were compared with those of students in 12 matched schools.

• After three years of implementation, the program led to a wide range of positive outcomes in schools that consistently implemented it.
• Despite the fact that the program lasted only through elementary school, its influence was enduring.
• All differences are statistically significant.

Read six-district study report summary. (pdf)

San Francisco Study

A federally funded, third-party randomized trial of the CSC program was conducted from 2003 to 2006 by the San Francisco Unified School District’s research department. This study involved twelve underperforming elementary schools, six that were randomly selected to implement the CSC program while the other six served as a control group. Over the two-year intervention period, from spring 2003 to spring 2005, students in the CSC schools showed significantly stronger academic growth in both reading and math as measured by the California Standards Test—even though the CSC program does not include an instructional focus, but rather concentrates exclusively on creating a supportive learning environment and building a school-wide culture of care. The program and control schools used identical reading and mathematics curricula. Read a summary of this study here (PDF). 

St. Louis Study

In a four-year, third-party study funded by the U.S. Department of Education, forty schools in the Cooperating School Districts of St. Louis, MO were randomly assigned to four treatment groups of ten schools each—three groups of schools implemented CSC, the fourth group served as a control. The three treatment 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. Outcomes were measured annually via surveys of students, surveys of teaching staffs, records of student discipline referrals, and Missouri state achievement test scores in math and reading. Improvement in student achievement correlated directly with each year of CSC implementation. Overall, math achievement in CSC program schools showed a 54% improvement; communication arts achievement in CSC program schools showed a 46% improvement. These gains are particularly impressive because the CSC program does not include either reading or math instruction. Read a summary of this study here (PDF). 

Using Multiple Programs from DSC

Integrity Charter School in National City, CA opened in fall 2003 with a single classroom at each grade level, K–4. The school’s curriculum included the SIPPS decoding program, the Making Meaning reading comprehension program, and the Caring School Community community-building program. The school added a fifth grade classroom in fall 2004 and a sixth grade classroom in fall 2005.  At the time of the data collection, Integrity Charter School faced strong financial constraints. There was no school-wide library. Each classroom has only one computer. Teachers did not have materials for all content areas and had to design their own learning activities for science and social studies.

During three school years (2003–04 through 2005–06), Integrity’s students made extraordinary progress on the California Standards Tests. The overall percentage of students meeting or exceeding state proficiency standards in both English/Language Arts and Math significantly. Read a summary of the results here (PDF).