Program Profile: Comer's School Development Program

This is a school-based intervention involving administrators, teachers, staff, and parents that aims to improve relationships and school climate to enhance student achievement. The program is rated Promising. Students in treatment schools reported statistically significant reductions in the frequency of angry feelings and acting out, and greater disapproval of misbehavior, compared with students in control schools. There were no statistically significant differences in substance use.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals

Comer’s School Development Program is a school-based intervention involving administrators, teachers, staff, and parents that aims to improve relationships and school climate to enhance student achievement. The program is based on the premise that a range of student skills can be developed by first improving interpersonal relationships and social climate in a school as a prelude to enhancing a school’s academic focus, which should then lead to an improvement in student behavior and academic performance.

The goal of the program is to improve child development within six domains (physical, moral, social, psychological, academic, and speech and language) while creating a positive school environment to improve students’ motivation, educational experience, and opportunities for learning.

Program Components/Key Personnel

Three teams are central to Comer’s School Development Program. The first is the School Planning and Management Team, which is integral to developing a school improvement plan, gaining support from the entire school community, monitoring progress toward program goals, and proposing midcourse modifications. This team includes school administrators, teachers, other school staff, parents, and, on occasion, students. The second is the Social Support Team, which provides support to students with special needs and disseminates information to staff and parents on child development and the influence of social and racial factors. This team includes counselors, nurses, social workers, special education teachers, and psychologists. The third team is the Parent Team, which attempts to create close community bonds and encourages parents to participate in school governance, to support the school by volunteering (in the classrooms, hallways, and libraries), to chaperone school trips, and to participate in fundraising events.

Three operations are integral to Comer’s School Development Program: 1) a comprehensive school plan, 2) staff development, and 3) assessment and modification. The comprehensive school plan concentrates on both the social environment and academics. Staff development trains and assists school staff in delivering the curriculum as intended. Finally, assessment and modification of the school plan and curriculum are conducted as needed.

Additionally, there are three process principles on which the program operates. The first principle is that adults should cooperate with one another and put the needs of the students above their own. The assumption is that competition distracts adults from successfully serving students (Cook, Murphy, and Hunt 2000). The second principle is that, to foster teamwork, schools should operate with a problem-solving approach rather than a fault-finding approach. The third principle is that all decisions should be reached by a consensus, which requires adults to listen to one another and respect different views, rather than by a vote, which polarizes voters into winners and losers.

Together, the three teams, three operations, and three principles are important for implementing Comer’s School Development Program.

Study

Cook, Murphy, and Hunt (2000) conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of Comer’s School Development Program on school climate and student behaviors in 19 inner-city Chicago, Ill., middle schools.

The program was implemented over 4 years with a pilot year and two phases. The pilot year (the 1991–92 school year) included four treatment schools where the program was implemented. Phase 1 (1992–93) included eight middle schools, which were matched for 2 prior years on academic achievement and racial composition, before being randomly assigned to treatment or control status. Phase 2 (1993–94) included 12 middle schools from less economically affected parts of the city compared with Phase 1 schools, using the same matching technique. For various reasons, 5 of the 24 schools dropped out of the study, leaving a final sample of 19 schools. The pilot schools were added to the Phase 1 schools, thus creating 8 Phase 1 schools (4 treatment and 4 control), and 11 Phase 2 schools (6 treatment and 5 control). Control schools had the option to enter the Comer School Development Program 4 years later.

There were 10,306 male and female students in grades 5 through 8 who were surveyed on at least one measurement occasion (referred to as the cross-sectional sample). Of these, 1,685 were first eligible to be in the study in grades 5 or 6 in the fall of 1993 or 1994 and remained in the same school for 3 or 4 years between grades 5 and 8. The longitudinal sample comprised these students. Students in both treatment and control schools were mostly minority, including Black (81 percent of the treatment schools, and 74 percent of control schools), Hispanic (13 percent of treatment schools, and 18 percent of control schools), or Asian (4 percent of treatment schools, and 5 percent of control schools). Most students also came from a low-income background (91 percent of treatment schools, and 94 percent of control schools) and lived with at least one biological parent (45 percent of treatment schools, and 46 percent of control schools). There were no statistically significant differences between treatment and control schools on school demographics and student reports of family demographics and processes, but treatment students scored below control school students on achievement tests (math and reading scores).

The Chicago Public School System provided annual data on each school’s enrollment, attendance, student mobility, percentage of students classified as having limited English proficiency, and percentage of low-income students. In the first study year (or the second year for pilot schools), questionnaires were administered to students in late fall to provide a baseline for the written outcome measures. Subsequent outcome testing took place in the late spring of each school year. Only students from grades 5 through 8 were sampled because of the need to complete written questionnaires on outcome measures and school climate. Student outcome measures were organized into four domains: 1) mental health (including anger), 2) negative social behaviors (consisting of an “acting out” scale that covered normative beliefs about misbehavior, questions about substance use, etc.), 3) positive social behaviors, and 4) academic achievement. The student questionnaires also included reports of the student’s sex, race, parents’ or guardians’ education and work status, and household composition, and family process variables such as measures of home academic support, use of reasoning in parenting practices, parental rule setting, and the quality of parent–child affective relations.

To examine student outcomes measuring lack of anger, acting out, substance use, and disapproval of misbehavior at the 3-year follow-up, analyses were conducted at both the school-level and individual-level. The CrimeSolutions review of this study concentrated on student-level results. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses that used occasions of measurement within individuals as the first level, individuals within schools as the second, and schools as the third were tested. The last observation (eighth grade) was chosen as the zero-reference point for the longitudinal student sample. At the individual student-within-schools level, race, gender, family composition, parental employment status, and third-grade combined Iowa Test of Basic Skills test scores in math and reading were used as covariates. The school-level covariates were Comer, phase, and the Comer-phase interaction. No subgroup analysis was conducted.

James Comer, a child psychiatrist at the Child Study Center of Yale University, developed Comer’s School Development Program as a part of his empirical work with elementary schools serving minority students in urban communities (University of Washington College of Education, N.d.).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Comer, James P., and Norris M. Haynes. 1999. “The Dynamic of School Change: Response to the Article, “Comer’s School Development Program in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A Theory-Based Evaluation,” by Thomas D. Cook et al.” American Educational Research Journal 36(3):599–607.

Cook, Thomas D., Farah–Naaz Habib, Meredith Phillips, Richard A. Settersten, Shobha C. Shagle, and Serdar M. Degirmencioglu. 1999. “Comer’s School Development Program in Prince George’s County, Md.: A Theory-Based Evaluation.” American Educational Research Journal 36(3):543–97.

University of Washington College of Education. N.d. Comer School Development Program. Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington.

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

School-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs

Designed to foster the development of five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies, in order to provide a foundation for better adjustment and academic performance in students, which can result in more positive social behaviors, fewer conduct problems, and less emotional distress. The practice was rated Effective in reducing students’ conduct problems and emotional stress.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Multiple juvenile problem/at-risk behaviors
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Internalizing behavior

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?