This white paper provides a basic introduction to the origins and foundational ideas behind First Things First (FTF). The authors review the previous fifteen years of school reform in order to situate the early development of FTF in the broader research, policy, and practice context.
Starting with the argument that schools themselves should be the primary entry point for education reform, the authors then lay out seven “critical features” of successful school reform, and examine the research base supporting these features. The paper concludes by reinforcing the central role of evaluation in the FTF theory of change; and how ongoing evaluation can provide practitioners with the necessary data and information to create the conditions for sustainable reform.
