Written to help educators maximize student learning, this publication outlines a process for designing and implementing an improvement and restructuring plan based on knowledge acquisition, needs assessment, indepth planning, and development of commitment to change. Research has identified 14 conditions for successful schools: high attendance,…

School-based planning for instructional improvement has been a major national education reform focus for over 2 decades. However, many efforts proposed to put schools in charge of their own instructional operations delivered only increased discretion rather than real autonomy over internal operations, such as budgeting. In 1997, New York City…

After 10 years' experience, the Salem County Vocational Technical Schools (New Jersey) have had positive results from developing objectives annually and clarifying long range goals. The Salem County Board of Education's philosophy is to operate the district as a business would, defining its function as human service and its product as the people…

This report describes what schools and educators across Kentucky are doing to implement school reform in school-based decision-making based on the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). The School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) component of KERA is a decentralized governance structure that vests great authority in SBDM councils operating at…

The Dade County, Florida, school system selected 32 schools to participate in a pilot program for shared decision making. Evaluators found similar problems and solutions in a variety of school settings and classified them into 9 categories. (MLF)

This publication offers school counselors and school staff a 5-phase planning model for implementing national standards for school counseling programs. The process involves the examination of current school counseling programs; identification of student needs; and selection of activities, strategies, and services to ensure that students achieve…

School Based Decision Making (SBDM) was implemented in two secondary, two junior high, and three elementary schools in the Memphis City School System in Tennessee during the 1989-90 school year. The implementation process of that first year and the roles of the persons involved are discussed as well as the use of the Tennessee School Climate…

This report presents findings of an evaluation study of the District of Columbia's special education service delivery model (SDM) which focuses on decentralization, to school-based teams, of the processes of identification, assessment, and placement of special education students. The SDM was initially implemented as a pilot project with 40 schools…

Six school-based improvement programs distributed throughout the United States were studied in order to determine how effective these plans have been and what factors help or hinder them. The programs studied shared three central features: 1) focus on the school as a whole; 2) involvement of teachers in designing improvements; and 3) incorporation…

This is Part II of the Seattle Public Schools' School-Based Planning Manual, which is addressed to principals and program managers within the school district. An outgrowth of Project ACCESS, a program designed to assist Seattle schools as they move toward school-based management, the volume contains materials that supplement the planning model…