Treatment Integrity: Fundamental to Education Reform

Education reform efforts are frequently introduced and discontinued without producing the promised impact. The problem may lie not with the quality of the reform initiative but rather with the quality of its implementation or treatment integrity. This article reviews the variables that influence treatment integrity and some specific approaches for increasing it and concludes with a proposed data-based decision-making approach to scaling up treatment integrity in large educational systems. If true education reform is to occur, then it will be necessary to assure that the reform efforts are implemented with integrity.