Talent Development Middle Grades Program
Talent Development Middle Grades Program (TDMG) is a whole school reform approach for large middle schools that face serious problems with student attendance, discipline, and academic achievement. The program includes both structural and curriculum reforms. It calls for schools to reorganize into small ”learning communities” of 200–300 students who attend classes in distinct areas of the school and stay together throughout their time in middle school. In addition to structural changes, schools adopting the program purchase one or more curricula that are intended to be developmentally appropriate and to engage students with culturally relevant content. For students who are behind in reading and math, the program provides additional periods devoted to these subjects that include group activities and computer-based lessons. To improve implementation, each school is assigned a team of “curriculum coaches” trained by the developer to work with school staff on a weekly basis to implement the program. In addition, teachers are offered professional development training, including monthly sessions designed to familiarize them with the program and demonstrate effective instructional approaches.
Reviewed Research
Dropout Prevention
As of March 2009, no studies of Talent Development Middle Grades Program were found that fell within the scope of the Dropout Prevention review protocol and met WWC evidence standards. Therefore, the WWC is unable to draw any research based conclusions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Talent Development Middle Grades Program to improve outcomes in this area.
Adolescent Literacy
|
Outcome domain |
Effectiveness rating |
Studies meeting standards |
Grades examined |
Students |
Improvement index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comprehension |
|
1 study meets standards | 7-8 | 24 | -- |
| Herlihy, Corinne M.; Kemple, James J. (2004) | 7-8 | 24 |
|
A group of closely related outcomes.
A summary of the effectiveness of an intervention in an outcome domain, based on the quality of research, the statistical significance of findings, the magnitude of findings, and the consistency of findings across studies.
 Positive: strong evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes. |
 Potentially Positive: evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence. |
 Mixed: evidence that intervention’s effect on outcomes is inconsistent. |
 No Discernible: no evidence that intervention had an effect on outcomes. |
 Potentially Negative: evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence. |
 Negative: strong evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes. |
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for rating of effectiveness.
The number of studies that met WWC design standards and provide evidence of effectiveness. Selecting an item below will display all studies that met WWC design studies in the domain. Selecting a study citation will take you to more information on that study and its findings.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for study rating.
Grades of the students examined in the studies that met WWC design standards, which may not reflect the full range of grades for which the intervention may be used.
The number of students included in the studies that met WWC design standards.
The sample size for the studies that met WWC design standards.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
The indicator represents the highest level of similarity found between your students and each of the high-quality studies of the intervention. Three filled in ovals indicates that at least one study that met standards was conducted on students very similar to yours. Clicking on the indicator for a study will provide information on the similarity for each of the characteristics you selected.