The research case for Success for All
Since 1987, Success for All has been implemented in thousands of schools and evaluated through more than 60 studies, including independent evaluations, randomized controlled trials, research syntheses, and long-term follow-up studies.
Across rigorous U.S. evaluations, including studies in high-poverty and Title I schools, the evidence shows positive effects on reading achievement, with especially strong effects for students who begin furthest behind.
- Nearly 40 years of research
- 60+ studies
- ESSA Tier 1 Strong Evidence
- Multiple randomized controlled trials
The strongest effects are for students who start furthest behind.
That finding matters even more in today’s classrooms, where many schools are trying to change outcomes for large numbers of students who aren’t yet reading on grade level.
A 2021 synthesis identified more than 60 U.S. studies of Success for All and included 17 that met rigorous research standards.
Across those 17 studies:
+0.24
Average effect on reading achievement across all students
Among studies that separately examined students who began among the lowest achievers:
+0.56
Average effect on reading achievement
The average effect for students who began furthest behind was more than twice the overall effect.
That’s exactly why the response has to be schoolwide.
What does an effect size mean?
Effect sizes allow researchers to compare results across studies that use different assessments. A larger positive effect size means a greater average difference in outcomes between students in Success for All schools and students in comparison schools.
Success for All was built to respond to what every student needs next.
From the beginning, Success for All was built around the expectation that every child can succeed and that schools should be organized to give students the instruction and support they need to keep making progress.
In an SFA school, frequent assessment helps educators know what each student has mastered and what they are ready to learn next. Students receive reading instruction at their instructional level, across grades when needed, and move forward as soon as they are ready.
A child who needs foundational reading skills gets them. A child who is ready to move ahead does.
When a student needs more, the school has a clear way to respond through aligned instruction, regrouping, tutoring, and schoolwide support. Then educators review progress, adjust, and keep going.
The school keeps asking: What does this child need next? And it has a system for acting on the answer.
Strong evidence, independently evaluated.
ESSA Tier 1 — Strong Evidence
ESSA Tier 1 is the highest evidence level defined under the Every Student Succeeds Act. It is reserved for interventions supported by well-designed experimental research demonstrating statistically significant positive effects.
Success for All meets the Tier 1 Strong Evidence standard.
Its evidence base includes independent and federally funded evaluations conducted by organizations and researchers including MDRC, the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, and others.
View the Evidence for ESSA review | View the What Works Clearinghouse review
Different studies. The same essential question: does it work?
What does the full U.S. evidence base show?
17-study synthesis
A 2021 review identified every U.S. evaluation of Success for All that met its inclusion criteria and found an average effect of +0.24 across all students.
For students beginning among the lowest achievers, the average effect was +0.56.
Cheung, Xie, Zhuang, Neitzel & Slavin, 2021
What happens in a large national randomized trial?
IES / MDRC national evaluation
A five-year federally funded study examined Success for All across 41 high-poverty Title I schools.
After three years, students in SFA schools significantly outperformed students in comparison schools on measures of word attack, word identification, and passage comprehension.
Quint, Zhu, Balu, Rappaport & DeLaurentis, 2015
Do the findings hold across many schools?
Research at scale
Success for All research spans schools in urban, rural, and suburban communities and includes studies conducted under real-world implementation conditions.
That breadth matters. Success for All was designed to work across whole schools, not to depend on extraordinary individual teachers or tightly controlled research conditions.
Strong early reading should change more than the next test score.
One of the most distinctive findings in the Success for All evidence base is that differences have been documented years after students left elementary school.
In a longitudinal study following students through eighth grade, at least three years after they had left an SFA elementary school, former SFA students continued to outperform comparison students in reading.
They were also:
- 3.4× less likely to have repeated a grade (9% compared with 23%),
- and spent 50% less time in special education.
The researchers found that savings associated with reduced retention and special education placements offset the cost of implementing Success for All.
Borman & Hewes, 2002
The research tells us what SFA can do. Schools show us what that looks like.
Success for All has been implemented in public, charter, and private schools across very different communities.
Each school starts from a different place. The results below are examples of what improvement has looked like in schools implementing the model.
“Success for All provides consistency and coherence in our literacy instruction across all classrooms. We’re building a sustainable model for continuous improvement in teaching and learning.”
Sara Ramirez
Jerry D. Allen Elementary, Texas
Edwin Loe Elementary — North Dakota
Rural public elementary | SFA since 2019
When Edwin Loe began Success for All, 28% of students were reading on grade level. In recent years, more than 70% have been reading on grade level, and the school came off North Dakota’s improvement list after 15 years.
Archdiocese of Los Angeles — California
Urban private school system | SFA since 2024
Across participating schools, reading proficiency has risen as implementation has expanded — leading the Archdiocese to continue growing its Success for All partnership.
Steubenville City Schools — Ohio
High-poverty public district | SFA since 2000
Steubenville has sustained Success for All for more than two decades while producing reading outcomes that substantially outperform what poverty rates alone would predict.
SFA turns research and evidence into a child’s daily school experience.
