Abstract:
The research literature is clear in indicating that all students can learn and schools
can be successful learning communities, no matter what the socio-economic or race-ethnic
make-up of the student body. Yet, achieving this success requires diligent efforts, and this
success can be tenuous. This paper describes the history of an elementary school in a lowincome
community with high proportions of racial-ethnic minorities and a long history of very
low achievement that implemented Direct Instruction as a whole school reform. Data were
gathered through extensive, in-depth interviews with participants and examination of
historical records; and the pages below describe Our hope is that, by examining this case
study, we can understand more about underlying dynamics that can help other
communities.