Implementation, Sustainability, and Scaling Up of Social-Emotional and Academic Innovations in Public Schools
Abstract
Many attempts at bringing successful educational programs and products “to scale” as part of school reform, particularly in urban districts, have been disappointing. Based on the experiences of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and reviews of literature addressing implementation failures, observations about failures to “scale up” are presented. These include persistent structural features in educational settings that are too often unrecognized, the perpetuation of a narrow and decontextualized “programs and packages” perspective, poor management of time and other resources, and inadequate attention to characteristics of the adults who must carry out planned reforms. Several assumptions essential for success are identified, including the need to incorporate social and emotional learning as an integral part of academics and the ways in which diversity provides an ever-changing context for implementation. Concluding thoughts center around three points: the need to prepare professionals with the array of skills needed to lead efforts at scaling up school reform, the importance of an action-research perspective, and the need to better document the stories of educational innovation and scaling up efforts so that contextual details can enrich an understanding of what is required for success.
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Scaling up a program comes with its own set of challenges.
“scaling up comes with its own set of challenges (Elias et al., 2003; Klingner et al., 2003)”
From Building Better Bridges into STEM: A Synthesis of 25 Years of Literature on STEM Summer Bridge Programs (2017) · cites this paper as Elias et al., 2003
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- Authors
- Elias, M. J., Zins, J. E., Graczyk, P. A., & Weissberg, R. P.
- Affiliations
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- University of Cincinnati (US)
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Elias, Maurice J.
- Venue
- School Psychology Review
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2003-09-01
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 303-319
- ISSN
- 0279-6015 (ISSN-L)
- 2372-966X
- OpenAlex
- W1593719938
- Cited by
- 483
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 31
- FWCI
- 87.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- School Psychology Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Social Sciences › Education › Teacher Education and Leadership Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Educational Assessment and Improvement
- Keywords
- social-emotional learning, scale-up, educational program implementation, educational reform, public schools, urban districts, program sustainability, CASEL, program management, school leadership, diversity, action research, educational innovation
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