Career
His Success for All educational model has been highly influential in American academic reform since its inception in 1987. In 1986, the Superintendent of Baltimore Schools approached Slavin for help with failing schools in impoverished, inner city neighborhoods. The model Slavin developed for Baltimore became research-driven Success for All, used in 1,300 schools in 47 states, as of May 2005, and rated one of the most effective reform models according to a meta-analysis of school improvement programs.
Some teachers also reported that the program constrained their creativity and autonomy in their own classroom.
The program was aglosised and introduced into a small number of schools in Notingham. The program had a significant impact on the academic progress of young people.
In a 2011 report to Her Majesty government on early intervention by the Member of Parliament Graham Allen, SFA was noted as one of the most pervasive programs in the United Kingdom and one of only a handful of programs that had the research validity to claim they are "proven" to work. SFA United Kingdom is now lead by Matt Ditchfield as a non profit organisation, working with over a hundred schools in the United Kingdom along with new projects in South Africa, The Netherlands and Latvia.
Publications
His work includes research on classroom cooperative learning techniques including his 1980 paper "Cooperative Learning", which has been widely cited in academic research across multiple disciplines for over 30 years.
Slavin is a Program Director at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, and a Director at the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE). He was also the founding director of the Institute for Effective Education at the University of New York