The Classroom-Centered (CC) intervention was designed to reduce the early risk behaviors of poor achievement and aggressive behavior through enhancements to the curriculum, improvements in teacher instructional and classroom behavior management practices, and specific strategies for children not performing adequately (Ialongo et al., 1999). Each intervention classroom was divided into three heterogeneous groups, which provided the underlying structure for the curricular and behavioral components of the intervention. Additionally, the intervention program enhanced the Baltimore City Public School curriculum in language arts and mathematics by adding material to increase critical thinking, composition and comprehension skills (Petras, Masyn, & Ialongo, 2011). The primary behavior management component was a behaviorally-focused classroom management program called the Good Behavior Game (GBG), which in previous trials demonstrated a beneficial impact on student behavior (Barrish, Saunders, & Wolf, 1969; Kellam et al., 2008). The GBG is a whole-class strategy that aims to decrease disruptive behaviors by assigning children to teams and only allowing the teams that do not exceed a specified criterion of precisely defined off-task, disruptive, and aggressive behaviors to “win”.
