Every year, "Excelencia" in Education receives submissions for Examples of "Excelencia" from across the country. Our criteria for recognition are focused on a program's success backed by evidence that shows its effectiveness in serving Latino students in higher education. Since 2005, we have recognized over 280 different…

This book, for the first time ever, critically examines the role of full service and extended schools. The authors draw on their extensive international evaluations of this radical new phenomenon to ask: (1) What do extended or full service schools hope to achieve, and why should services based on schools be any more effective than services…

Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice, a research consortium headed by Vanderbilt University, this volume examines the growth and outcomes of the charter school movement. Starting in 1992-93 when the nation's first charter school was opened in Minneapolis, the movement has now spread to 40 states and the District of Columbia and by…

"Scale Up in Education, Volume 1: Ideas in Principle" examines the challenges of "scaling up" from a multidisciplinary perspective. It brings together contributions from disciplines that routinely take promising innovations to scale, including medicine, business, engineering, computing, and education. Together the contributors explore appropriate…

The dissemination of successful educational innovations has long been a strongly supported policy in educational settings. Recent research developments have led to a debate as to the appropriateness of a centralized versus decentralized dissemination policy. The current research provided a test of the modified Research, Development and Diffusion…

After implementing changes in language arts instruction, the principal--who is in a key position to sustain or institutionalize the changes--faces several responsibilities. Factors involved in directing innovations to become "built in" to school programs include solving specific problems, sharing decision-making responsibilities, upgrading and…

In the fifth volume of a 10-volume report, the development of federal dissemination-related school improvement policy is depicted through short case studies of nine distinctly different programs sponsored by the Department of Education: Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title III/IV-C, the Joint Dissemination Review Panel, the National…

The fourth volume of a 10-volume report, this document provides a synthesis and analysis of indepth ethnographic case studies of 12 school districts engaged in school improvement efforts in a subsample of the study's 146 districts. All districts were implementing new practices, seven using National Diffusion Network innovations and five developing…

Outlines elements of instruction--knowledge, information, action--and describes each in the context of writing instruction, reviews writing research, and uses these components of instruction to explore possibilities for automated writing instruction. The Writer's Workbench language analysis programs are used to illustrate major points. Program…

This document sets out a "Framework" to underpin the development and ongoing renewal of the school curriculum in Hong Kong. It also indicates the bases on which the Framework is developed. The Framework forms the foundation of Hong Kong's Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC) initiative and provides a useful reference for curriculum…

Two Oregon science education programs are described following an introduction that discusses underlying problems in science education and approaches taken by exemplary practices. Exemplary practices involve the process method of instruction, teacher training, utilization of science resources outside the school, and instruction that emphasizes the…

This paper summarizes some of the main conclusions of the Study of Dissemination Efforts Supporting School Improvement, specifically those regarding the process of innovation implementation. The focus is on the contributions of potential assisters to various implementation outcomes, from which implications for policy and practice are derived. The…

Researchers need to determine the conditions necessary for learning effectively from and the type of information best presented by new technologies, how electronic learning differs from print learning, what conditions foster successful teaching with new technologies, how lives will be changed, and what public policy issues are likely to arise. (RM)

A two-part report, sponsored by the Northwest Regional Exchange, focuses on the role of technical assistance in educational settings. This document, part II of the report, examines selected change models for establishing technical assistance systems and implications for action. After a brief introduction, the following critical components of…

This paper focuses on local (school district level) facilitators, or individuals with major responsibility for implementing federal or state-sponsored school improvement practices. It covers who they are, what roles they play, and how they contribute to various outcomes. The sample is from the Study of Dissemination Efforts Supporting School…