New American Schools (NAS)

A decade ago, New American Schools (NAS) launched an ambitious effort for whole-school reform to address the perceived lagging achievement of American students and the lackluster school reform attempts that have produced so few meaningful changes. RAND assessed the effects of NAS designs on classroom practice and student achievement in a sample of schools in a high-poverty district. It found that while high-stakes tests may motivate these schools to increase performance, they may also provide disincentives to adopt richer, more in-depth curricula that could improve students' learning opportunities.

New American Schools, a private nonprofit corporation, was created in 1991 to develop break-the-mold designs for schools serving grades K-12. This report documents the significant changes in the designs that have taken place over the initiative's life spa

New American Schools (NAS), a private nonprofit corporation, began in 1991 to fund the development of designs aimed at transforming entire schools at the elementary and secondary levels, seeking to engage the nation's best educators, business people, and

After a decade of studies, this report draws together RAND's research on New American Schools, highlighting the organization's significant contribution to comprehensive school reform and noting the challenges that came with implementing whole-school designs.

This study sets forth the RAND statistical analyses determining both the areas of significant progress in the New American Schools scale-up of implementation of its whole-school reform designs, and various other areas in need of additional attention.