Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) is an idea—an approach to improving schools—focusing on reorganizing and revitalizing entire schools, rather than on isolated piecemeal efforts to raise student achievement. In the words of the July 2002 guidance from the Department of Education, “The [CSR] program is built on the premise that unified, coherent, and integrated strategies for improvement, knitted together into a comprehensive design, will work better than the same strategies implemented in isolation from each other.”

This comprehensive approach has been supported by three congressional initiatives: the 1994 Title I reauthorization that created “Title I Schoolwide,” the 1998 Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The purpose of the federal initiative is to provide financial incentives for schools to develop comprehensive school reforms that have been shown to be effective through scientifically based research, so that all children can meet challenging state content and performance goals.

The current federal legislation specifies eleven components of practice and school organization that must be addressed in a comprehensive school reform plan. Many schools choose to base these plans on one or another established comprehensive design that has previously been found to be effective elsewhere.

Under this federal program, funds are allocated to individual states, which make competitive awards to schools and districts to implement CSR plans. The largest portion of these funds are specifically for Title I schools, but all schools are eligible for the competition.