A model of a student expectation and scores
within a school reform

Jim Levin

Dave White

Department of Education Studies
University of California, San Diego

This is a model of the non-linear process of changing expectations of student academic performance within a school reform called ACCESS.

1. Click on the "Go" button.
2. Click on the globe in the upper left corner to increase the support for "ACCESS teachers' high student expectations". Notice that initially there is minimal impact on the other concepts in the model, but that a "tipping point" is reached after which student scores and student self-expectations increase, reducing the non-ACCESS staff's expections of low student performance.
3. Click again on the globe in the upper left corner to reduce support, and notice that for a substantial decrease, the expectations of students remain high, but that a second tipping point is reached at which point the expections and score return to the original state.

Key concepts:

• ACCESS teachers' high student expectations: represents the high expectations for student academic performance held by teachers participating in the ACCESS school reform
• non-ACCESS staff's low student expectations: represents the low expectations for student academic performance held by most of the school's staff not participating in the ACCESS reform
• student self-expectations: represents the students' expectations for their own academic performance
• improved student scores: represents the unexpectedly high scores that students participating in the ACCESS program received on community college placement examinations

Based on doctoral dissertation research by Dave White:

White, D. G. (2011). Using purposeful perturbations as a strategy for school reform: A design experiment at an alternative high school with low-performing students. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=2432867041&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1561&RQT=309&VName=PQD

and on this AERA 2013 paper:

White, D. G., & Levin, J. A. (2013). Navigating the turbulent waters of school reform guided by Complexity Theory. Paper presented at the 2013 American Educational Research Association meetings. San Francisco, CA. Available online at http://tinyurl.com/White-Levin-AERA2013-paper .