The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a great article today about using research-based reading programs to improve student achievement across a district. It profiles one effort by Allegheny County, PA called Power4Kids, where districts trained teachers to provide small-group reading instruction based on four reading curricula.  This initiative was led by reading researcher Joseph Torgeson.*

The results? Students receiving research-based reading instruction did better than those in the control group.  District officials expressed some disappointment that the reading gap did not entirely close, but I think that was probably an unrealistic expectation on their part. As Paul Worthington, from the remedial reading program Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes  comments on raising the performance of subpar readers, "It will mean the bloody hardest, most painful changes in the way we're doing business in school systems that you can imagine."  (He must be a Brit.) But, as with most things that are hard, it is worth it. 

Here's hoping that during the next NCLB reauthorization, we can focus school and district interventions on instruction, not school management, as a means to renarrow the achievement gap.

* For more on Torgeson, see this 2004 American Educator article.