Underserved schools often have fewer resources and less capacity to rigorously implement improvement strategies. As a result, the districts and schools that most need support programs are often least likely to adopt and implement them successfully--a phenomenon that we call the "needs paradox." To address the needs paradox, we created…

In 2004-05, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) began a groundbreaking partnership with the Eli Broad Foundation to develop the Academy for Leadership in Philadelphia Schools (ALPS), one of several Broad-funded, alternative principal development programs initiated across the country. The ALPS effort was designed to respond to two challenges:…

The aim of this paper is to identify the mechanisms that relate participation in programs established by Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 to student achievement. It focuses on what happens to students in Chapter 1 programs and how their experiences affect their growth in academic achievement. The paper begins…