







































 

 

 

 

 

 

Success for All: Professor Slavin and the 

Improvement of Evidence-Based Schools and 

Its Enlightenment to China

Longjun Zhou,1,2 Hui Gu
3
 

 
1. Jiangsu Second Normal University, Nanjing 211200, Jiangsu, China 
2. Engineering Research Center of Digital Learning Support Technology, 

Ministry of Education, Changchun 130000, Jilin, China 
3. Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210024, Jiangsu, China

Abstract. Success for All (SFA) is a school improvement project promot-

ed by the team of Professor Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University. 

This paper reviewed the development process of SFA and analyzed its 
characteristics. By comparing with China’s “New Basic Education” 

project, we summarized the reference value of SFA for China, and fur-
ther discussed the possible path of China’s evidence-based school im-

provement. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education 2021; 8(1):1029-1040. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.21.or35. 

How to Cite: Zhou, L., Gu, H. (2021). Success for All: Professor Slavin and the im-

provement of evidence-based schools and its enlightenment to China. Best Evidence 

in Chinese Education, 8(1):1029-1040. 

Keywords: Robert Edward Slavin, Success for All, Evidence-Based School Im-

provement, Enlightenment to China

 
 
 

 

About Author: Hui Gu, School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210024, Jiangsu, China. 
Email: gu_nnu@163.com 

Correspondence to: Longjun Zhou, Jiangsu Second Normal University, Nanjing 211200, Jiangsu, China;  Engi-

neering Research Center of Digital Learning Support Technology, Ministry of Education, Changchun 130000, Jilin, 
China. Email: 294437034@qq.com 

Conflict of Interests: None. 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1030 

ELPING schools, especially weak schools, improve the efficiency of educa-

tion and teaching, and promote the quality of teaching is an important theme in 

educational research and practice. Over the years, with the joint efforts of re-

searchers and practitioners, the improvement projects of some schools have achieved 

remarkable results. This includes “Success for All” (SFA) led by Robert Slavin of Johns 

Hopkins University, “Direct Instruction” (DI) of Siegfried Engelmann of the University 

of Illinois, and “The Accelerated Schools” of Henry Levin of Stanford University. They 

are all helping students, especially those with disadvantaged family backgrounds and 

poor grades, through which they have achieved remarkable results in improving stu-

dents’ reading, math, and language skills. However, researchers have noticed that what 

works well in some schools may not be applicable in others (Borman et. al., 2002). In 

order to avoid the bias of results caused by a single independent research, and to 

achieve the best plan for the evaluation of student ability, a non-profit social science 

research institution operated by the American Institutions for Research (AR) funded by 

the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education of the US Department of Education 

- Comprehensive School Reform Quality (CSRQ) evaluated and compared the effec-

tiveness and quality of 22 comprehensive school reforms. It was found that SFA relied 

on the wide coverage of schools (1,200) and applicable age (preschool-7th grade), the 

most research designs (41), the most valid conclusions (34), and a clear effect size (d = 

0.18), thus getting the best evaluation (Slavin, 2007). 

Chinese educators have also contributed greatly to the school improvement. As 

a successful school improvement project, SFA was the most important educational re-

search and practice legacy of Professor Slavin. It undoubtedly provided an important 

reference for the work of Chinese colleagues. This paper will discuss the path of Chi-

na’s evidence-based school improvement on the basis of reviewing and summarizing 

the experience of SFA, hoping to find some new ideas for the reform and development 

of Chinese education. 

Success for All: How Professor Slavin Promoted 

School Improvement Based on Evidence 

Since 1986, Professor Slavin’s team has been invited by Baltimore City Public Schools 

to develop a project that can ensure the success of all poor children, which became the 

origin of the SFA project. Professor Slavin and his team believed that a good school can 

 

 

 

 

 
 

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H 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1031 

develop more “adversity-resistant students”, thereby helping those students with poor 

family backgrounds to obtain “counter-attack” in performance. However, helping stu-

dents to read is an early key factor for students to achieve academic success. Therefore, 

the research team started from Cooperative Reading and gradually developed a school 

improvement plan that can provide comprehensive guidance for students from pre-

school to 7th-grade. Early interventions include ability grouping in the form of teaching 

organization-aka Joplin Plan (Slavin, 1987; Gutierrez & Slavin, 1992), classroom man-

agement strategies (Evertson et al, 2000), and one-to-one student reading improvement 

program (Pinnell et al., 1988; Pinnell et al., 1994), teacher professional development 

path (Perry et. al., 1999); etc. These actions were integrated into the early SFA plan. 

The early intervention has achieved obvious results. Since then, the research 

team has turned its attention to a wider range of areas. On the one hand, the SFA plan 

began to pay attention to the impact of related interventions on second language acqui-

sition. Because when teaching children from poor families, a large number of students 

come from families whose mother tongue is not English, it has partially demonstrated 

the positive effect of the SFA program on bilingual learning. At the same time, when 

teaching reading, learning phonics & phonological awareness, which is an important 

part of English learning like Chinese phonetic alphabet (Pin Yin in Chinese), is ex-

tremely conducive to the rapid grasp of English pronunciation and writing. Studies have 

found that this has a significant positive impact on the English learning of Spanish, Co-

lombian, Mexican and Chinese students (Calderon et al., 1998; Cheung & Slavin, 2005; 

Slavin & Madden, 1999; Ross et al., 1996). In addition, Borman et al. also conducted a 

longitudinal follow-up survey of Baltimore school students and found that by the eighth 

grade, these students’ performance in standardized reading was still significantly better 

than the early control students (Borman et al., 2003). On the other hand, the SFA pro-

ject team also explored the auxiliary teaching and evaluation of electronic software. The 

research team used Reading Reel and Alphie’s Alley. The former is software that helps 

students to learn vocabulary in the form of animation, and the latter is software that 

helps teachers to plan lessons and evaluate students. After three sets of comparative 

experiments, it was found that the students who used Reading Reel and Alphie’s Alley 

performed better than those who only participated in the SFA program and only partici-

pated in the SFA tutor guidance (Chambers et al., 2007; Chambers et al., 2005a; Cham-

bers et al. al., 2005b). So far, SFA has achieved great success. It has become one of the 

most effective and evidence-based education-based school improvement programs in 

the United States. 

After CSQR integrated 41 SFA experiments, it is found that the effect size of 

SFA on students is d = 0.18. Although 0.18 was a small effect size, in the field of edu-

cation, large-scale random intervention programs such as SFA could achieve an effect 

size of about 0.2 was already a very exciting result. This showed that the effect of SFA 

was significant, and its actions could provide strong evidence for the formulation of 

education policies. The success of SFA is largely due to the design, implementation and 

improvement of each of its interventions based on scientific evidence; and in the pro-

cess of continuous iteration, a robust, systematic, high promotion value, and effective 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1032 

intervention method has been formed. In this way, more schools will benefit in a larger 

scale. These proven methods include: 

Flexible Class Schedule and Class Placement Mode 

Based on the research of Evertson et al. (2000), the SFA plan uses 90 minutes as a 

course unit to make the classroom rhythm compact and efficient. What teachers have to 

do is to improve class management strategies and use time efficiently. However, due to 

the large differences in the abilities of students in a class, efficient teaching is chal-

lenged. Therefore, students in the SFA program should pass a test before participating 

in the reading program and be reclassified. This type of teaching has the following ad-

vantages: First, teachers can better teach per their aptitude to meet the different learning 

needs of students with different abilities. Second, teachers do not need to group in class 

for separate guidance when teaching, which not only improves the rhythm of the course, 

but also increases the efficiency of the class. Third, the class size after re-grouped is 

smaller than the original class size, which helps teachers pay more attention to students 

and accumulate teaching experience and skills. 

Rich and Diverse Teaching Resources 

In order to meet the different reading needs of students from preschool to seventh grade, 

SFA has designed different curriculum plans. In the teaching materials book provided 

by SFA, these activities will be integrated according to the physical and mental laws of 

student development, and the key points, goals, and maxims of teaching will be put 

forward. It provides teachers with a set of teaching systemic materials for almost all the 

ability development needs of students. In the pre-school stage, these materials were 

called Curiosity Corner and Kinder Corner by the SFA research team; after that, SFA 

provided Reading Roots, Reading Wings and Reading Edge course materials for the 

beginner, intermediate and middle school students, respectively. In addition to provid-

ing teaching materials and books, SFA also provides comprehensive guidance on activi-

ties corresponding to the development needs of students, student evaluation record 

sheets after teaching, evaluation methods and evaluation questions, which provide 

teachers with direction guidance. 

Professional “Coordinator” Guidance 

In order to realize the smooth development of the project, SFA has set up a project “co-

ordinator”, which mainly includes two roles: one is the facilitator for the entire project 

operation; the other is the tutor for coordinating courses, teachers, students, and equip-

ment. A school generally has a facilitator, whose main job is to organize periodic stu-

dent assessments, lectures and lectures, and teacher training, select the appropriate 

learning stage for students, and help teachers improve their work; etc. In this process, 

the coordinator is not an evaluator, supervisor or vice-principal, but a supporter of 

teacher development. Therefore, many coordinators themselves are excellent and ex-



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1033 

tremely experienced teachers. A school can have multiple tutors. When instructing stu-

dents, they often adopt one-to-one guidance, assess students’ progress, determine priori-

ty development abilities and teaching materials, combine class teaching, learn to read 

by reading, and actively communicate with class instructors. 

Emphasize Fairness and Full Participation 

According to the original purpose of the SFA plan, in order to promote educational eq-

uity, helping students from poor families to develop better. First of all, SFA plans to 

conduct school selection before officially introducing schools. It generally selects dis-

advantaged schools that are dominated by non-white students such as Latino or African 

descent. Secondly, before the school is ready to accept the plan, teachers will vote to 

decide whether to participate. It will only be introduced when more than 90% of school 

teachers show a positive attitude towards this plan. Finally, the school will inform the 

parents of the rules of the plan and sign an agreement to protect the parents’ right to 

know the plan; if the parents refuse to participate, the children will not be included in 

the school improvement plan. These three steps ensure that all participants initially have 

a positive attitude to promote the complete operation of the entire program. After the 

plan is launched, SFA will also obtain parental support and participation through vari-

ous methods such as home visits, sending text messages to parents, parent-child reading, 

and family-school activities. 

What Can We Learn? Enlightenment of Evidence-

Based School Improvement in a Comparative Per-

spective 

In the process of China’s education reform and development, school improvement is 

also a task that all parties attach great importance to. In the process of long-term explo-

ration, Chinese educators have also discovered some ways to improve schools with 

Chinese characteristics.  

Among the many local school reforms in China, the most influential one with 

the most complete system and the longest continuous practice is undoubtedly the “new 

basic education” reform. For a long time, excessive emphasis on test scores has made it 

difficult to cultivate the talents China needs. This is the main problem that China’s basic 

education has been widely criticized. In this regard, Professor Lan Ye from East China 

Normal University put forward the basic education reform idea of “new basic education” 

and put it into practice (Feng & Xiang, 2018). In 1994, Professor Lan Ye began to con-

struct the theory of “new basic education”; by 1999, it entered the stage of promotion 

and developmental research; so far, it has entered a stage of gradual enrichment and 

vigorous growth in theory and practice. The research and experiment of “new basic ed-

ucation” have gone through nearly 30 years. It has become a model of school improve-

ment with far-reaching influence and Chinese characteristics. 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1034 

This project, starting from the full and complete development of “life”, high-

lights the dominant position of learners, and builds a complete system of classroom 

teaching, teacher development, class construction, and school management. Its ultimate 

goal is to promote the healthy and comprehensive development of students. It is an edu-

cational reform that is jointly promoted by Chinese local researchers and front-line 

workers, combines educational theory and practical exploration, and meets the needs of 

cultivating new talents in the 21st century (Ye, 1999). Such a change has impacted the 

traditional educational concepts and strengthened the student-centered view of teaching 

in a considerable range, through which a distinctive, flexible and effective teaching 

mode and curriculum system have formed. Eventually it became a representative pro-

ject for the improvement of Chinese local schools in the new era (Liu, 2003). Similar to 

SFA, the experiments of “New Basic Education” are all educational reform projects 

based on school improvement. There are many similarities between the two in terms of 

value pursuit, implementation methods and research drive. 

First of all, both uphold the student-centered teaching 

concept, and make every student fully developed as the 

value pursuit. 

In terms of curriculum, SFA always focuses on the development of students, and strives 

to solve the reading problems of students in weak schools, so that students can increase 

students’ enthusiasm and autonomy through group cooperation, thereby improving stu-

dents’ reading ability. Meanwhile, the SFA program will also set up different reading 

courses for students at different levels to achieve personalized reading teaching as much 

as possible. China’s “New Basic Education” experiment also has a lot of measures fo-

cusing on individualized learning of students and helping disadvantaged schools and 

students. Both of them embody a strong value trend of emphasizing educational equity. 

Second, both have adopted a comprehensive reform ap-

proach to advance, and attach importance to the partic-

ipation of multiple subjects. 

The reform of the SFA model was originally intended to improve the reading level of 

the students in the lower grades of weak schools. However, with the advancement of 

experimental reforms, the SFA model not only includes reading teaching, but also in-

volves the psychological aspects of students, and finally developed into an effective 

teaching paradigm for bilingual teaching and non-native English teaching. In order to 

promote school reform and ensure the effect of intervention, SFA has also formed a 

package plan including research support, teaching optimization, leadership improve-

ment, and home-school cooperation. It has fully mobilized the power and resources of 

schools, families and communities. At the same time, with the support of the govern-

ment and enterprises and other social forces, the participants have realized diversifica-



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1035 

tion. The “New Basic Education” experiment also showed such characteristics in the 

process of organization and implementation. Researchers in the theory of education 

system ecology represented by the American psychologist Bronfenbrenner (1979) be-

lieved that the development of human beings is affected by multiple environmental fac-

tors. Through mutual restriction and mutual connection among various elements, chil-

dren’s development and understanding will be enriched continuously. Both of these 

projects have achieved the joint participation of schools, families and communities, and 

the joint efforts of multiple parties have contributed to success. 

Third, both are based on full cooperation between 

scholars and schools, and school improvements imple-

mented with the support of academic research. 

As mentioned earlier, during the implementation of SFA, Professor Slavin and his team 

provided solid research support for the reform of the school. This support is not only 

reflected in the provision of relevant teaching resources and teaching models for the 

implementation of reforms, but also in the implementation of recommendations and 

interventions based on research evidence. This ensures that relevant reforms can be car-

ried out in the right direction, while also being able to adjust specific measures in a 

timely manner based on feedback. The “new basic education” was initiated by scholars 

when it was implemented. Starting from theoretical research and then promoting practi-

cal improvement, throughout the implementation process, a research-driven, theory-

practice-combined approach was adopted. From this perspective, these two school im-

provement projects are different from the reform efforts carried out by the schools 

themselves, and both reflect obvious research-leading characteristics. 

Although the two projects have the same characteristics as above, it is undenia-

ble that there are also differences between the two. Although the “New Basic Education” 

is a far-reaching school improvement project in China, it has also made outstanding 

contributions to the reform of China’s education. But so far, such efforts still suffer 

from insufficient scientific evidence, improper grasp of the model, unclear interpreta-

tion of the rules, and difficulty in popularizing experience. The reason for this is largely 

due to the fact that many Chinese school improvement projects, including “new basic 

education”, are not based on scientific evidence, but rely more on experience and feel-

ings. For a long time, in China’s education reforms, the gradual empiricist reform mod-

el is often emphasized, that is, reforms are carried out in accordance with past experi-

ence and subjective wishes while ignoring scientific evidence (Zhang, 2007). 

This makes it difficult for people to objectively judge the actual effect of a cer-

tain reform. Furthermore, due to the lack of scientific evidence, even if a certain reform 

achieves the expected results, we still cannot know exactly what factors have led to 

such a success under what conditions. Therefore, it is even more difficult to know to 

what extent such success reveals the scientific laws of education and teaching, and to 

what extent can it be promoted and valued. As a representative project of evidence-

based school improvement, SFA may be able to provide us with reference to solve this 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1036 

problem in China. As an outstanding scholar of evidence-based education research and 

reform, Professor Slavin has spent his life exploring the methods and paths of evidence-

based education. In the implementation of the SFA project, on the one hand, any inter-

vention is based on the evidence of previous studies. 

On the other hand, during the implementation of the project, rigorous experi-

mental interventions were also implemented. So that researchers and practitioners can 

accurately grasp and evaluate the effect of project implementation and its mechanism of 

action. In this way, we can get rid of the chronic problem of empirical school improve-

ment projects and help find more targeted and effective school reform measures. This is 

probably the most worthy place for Chinese schools to learn from. 

What Can We Do? Possible Approaches to China’s 

Evidence-Based School Improvement 

From the perspective of the advancement and improvement process of SFA, research 

methodology based on educational experiments and quasi-experiments has become an 

important support for the reform of the program. In the reform, the use of evidence as 

the basis for selected programs will enable education to enter a virtuous circle of inno-

vation, evaluation, and gradual improvement (Slavin, 2013). But it needs to be pointed 

out that due to the differences in national conditions and teaching conditions, when we 

learn from the experience of SFA, we first need to demonstrate the possibility of learn-

ing. 

First, as far as the overall policy environment is concerned, China has issued a 

series of policy documents and emphasizes the application of evidence in the educa-

tional decision-making and reform process. However, we are not like the United States, 

requiring all important education reforms at the national level to be based on evidence 

and educational scientific research. As a result, many of the current decisions and re-

forms in China are still based on feelings, experience and even the consciousness of 

officials. Therefore, the scientific awareness and quality of educators need to be greatly 

improved. 

Second, in terms of the implementation conditions of evidence-based school 

improvement, Chinese schools need to implement teaching in accordance with the na-

tional curriculum standards and syllabus during the teaching process. Therefore, the 

teaching autonomy of schools and teachers is greatly restricted. This makes the selec-

tion and implementation of intervention measures face more restrictions and difficulties 

in the process of promoting school improvement. 

Third, because of the evidence-based research and reform of education, it is 

still a new thing for China. Therefore, there are deficiencies in the research staff and 

research level. There is also a lack of accurate and effective measurement tools suitable 

for the local area, which makes us have more difficulties in measurement and analysis 

to deal with in the process of carrying out evidence-based education reform. 

This means that China must do something and not do something in the process 

of promoting evidence-based school improvement. In other words, it is necessary to 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1037 

explore the evidence-based school improvement road with Chinese characteristics based 

on the national conditions and education of the country. 

(i) Whether they are policy makers, researchers, principals or frontline teachers, 

they all need to firmly establish a scientific outlook on development. In the 

reform and development of education, it is necessary to strengthen the aware-

ness of evidence and truly achieve decision-making and teaching based on ev-

idence. To achieve this, the government not only needs to further strengthen 

the requirements for evidence at the institutional level, but also requires re-

searchers to change the style of study and vigorously strengthen empirical re-

search; further, schools need to pay more attention to the acquisition and use 

of evidence in the reform process. 

(ii) It is necessary to vigorously strengthen and promote educational experimental 

research in China. As far as the current research status of domestic school im-

provement is concerned, most of the research is still speculative research, and 

a small amount of empirical research is mostly statistical description and cor-

relation analysis. Although this type of research can help understand the sta-

tus quo and influencing factors of specific educational phenomena, it is diffi-

cult to conduct causal analysis. In education empirical studies without a con-

trol group, there would be a risk of biased estimation of the intervention effect 

(Cheung & Slavin, 2016). To solve this problem, technically, the best way is 

to carry out rigorously designed experimental research. Only in this way can 

we provide more robust scientific evidence for school improvement based on 

more empirical research. 

(iii) Efforts should be made to solve the problem of measurement methods and 

tools. In the process of school improvement in China, they are often good at 

reforming teaching and management models. However, due to the lack of au-

thoritative and scientific measurement tools suitable for China conditions, 

many school improvement plans are unable to accurately report actual effects, 

influencing factors, and mechanism of action, so it is difficult to summarize 

their truly effective scientific laws. To solve this problem, the only way to in-

crease scientific research is to develop measuring tools suitable for China’s 

national and teachings conditions, and truly solve the problem of “can be 

measured and measured more accurately”. 

(iv) As mentioned earlier, successful evidence-based school improvement projects 

are the result of the cooperation of multiple parties. From the current reality 

of China’s education reform and development, it can be known that the trans-

formation of school improvement from experience-based to evidence-based 

cannot be accomplished with the efforts of one party alone. In terms of educa-

tion evidence-based research and reform itself, it also requires close coopera-

tion between researchers and practical work. It is impossible to obtain effec-

tive and robust evidence only by speculative “rocking chair” research, let 

alone evidence-based school improvement. Therefore, this must be a process 

from cooperation to win-win. In other words, the road of evidence-based 



Zhou & Gu. Success for All: Professor Slavin and the Enlightenment to China. 

Vol.8, No. 1, 2021 1038 

school improvement must be the road of mutual dependence and promotion 

between theory and practice. 

Professor Slavin and his team have presented a successful evidence-based 

school improvement path for educators around the world through the SFA project. Alt-

hough the situation in different countries is not the same, the idea and path of evidence-

based school improvement based on scientific research to promote the achievement of 

reform goals has shown its universal value. This is especially important for a country 

like China that has long been accustomed to advancing reforms through experience. 

After decades of rapid economic development in China, its education reform, like re-

forms in other fields, has entered the “deep water zone.” Under such circumstances, 

reforms based solely on experience have increasingly shown its risks. Relying on scien-

tific evidence to promote reforms steadily has become the only way for China’s educa-

tion reform and development. This road is not easy, but it is full of hope. In this process, 

Professor Slavin’s outstanding work in the field of evidence-based research will contin-

ue to guide the researchers and practitioners to move forward like a lighthouse! 

We would like to commemorate the respected Professor Slavin with this article. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Total-ZJYX200707005.html 

 

Received: 19 May 2021 

Revised: 24 May  2021 

Accepted: 26 May 2021

 

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https://www1.successforall.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Overcoming-Four%20-Barriers-to-Evidence-Based-Education-Education-Week.pdf
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	OriginalArticle-LongjunZhou-BECE_title_May2021
	OriginalArticle-LongjunZhou-BECE_MaintextMay2021

