The efforts of a large urban school district to apply research findings on effective elementary schools to improve the reading achievement of its low-income junior high school students were studied. The research objective was to create an ethnographic account of change. At the school district studied, the Comprehensive Reading/Language Arts Program (CRLAP) was developed to improve student achievement and instructional effectiveness by reducing educational fragmentation. The investigator served as a participant observer and examined the change processes involved as the CRLAP program was implemented. The researcher utilized two major approaches to social change: (1) a "stage model" perspective, and (2) an emphasis on the systemic factors that influence the change process (structures, processes, and outputs). Findings of the study indicated that CRLAP participation produced gains larger than non-participation produced, especially in the second year of implementation. No single conceptual model was found to explain or predict change structures and processes that would account for most of the variations in outcomes. More importantly, the study indicated that the commonly used models of change overlap and complement each other--which suggests that they can be fused into a single model. The remainder of this paper presents and describes this proposed model, and presents recommendations for school districts wishing to move beyond mere effectiveness to exceptionality and also makes recommendations for further research. A six-page list of references concludes this document. (KH)