This fourth book in the Marzano Academies series focuses on secondary school leadership for competency-based education. The beauty of the framework, however, is that any leader seeking guidance on innovative, equitable, and effective practices can use this book as a blueprint for positive change. This is your blueprint for how you, as a secondary…

Purpose: School improvement planning has been a central part of school improvement initiatives for decades. Evidence suggests, however, that traditional planning processes are regularly superficial. In the USA, some principals have begun developing short-cycle planning designed to encourage school leadership teams and staff to develop, monitor and…

In order to upgrade school buildings and make them healthier for students and staff, a recent trend has been to build environmentally sustainable schools, which benefit the environment and offer improved learning experiences for students. This qualitative case study examined Sustainability High School, a school in Massachusetts that successfully…

There has been a proliferation of high school reform models and interventions over the past few decades aimed at improving the nation's high schools, including increasing graduation requirements, introducing technology to classrooms, grouping ninth-grade students into their own "academies," reorienting the curriculum toward particular…

The reauthorizations of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act emphasize that students and parents are to be considered equal partners in the individualized education program (IEP) process. This article addresses how to move from compliance with the law to facilitating meaningful involvement of high school students and their parents in…

This chapter recounts the first 3 years of the Student Voice Collaborative (SVC) in New York City, a district supported student leadership initiative that engages high school aged youth in school reform work at school and district levels. Based on his experiences developing and running the SVC, the author identifies nine design and implementation…

Students with disabilities have diverse needs that can be difficult for schools to meet. One promising approach that addresses this issue is Linked Learning, a high school reform initiative aimed at simultaneously preparing all students for college and career (ConnectEd, n.d.). Although research has shown that participation in Linked Learning is…

This paper proposes a framework for analyzing program design features that seem to matter in implementation. The framework is based on findings from a study conducted by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) between 2004 and 2007 that explored how reform ideas and practices created by five external provider organizations were…

For the past two and one-half years I have been a practitioner participant in the National Center on Scaling Up Effective School's (NCSU's) work with Fort Worth Independent School District. I have a unique vantage point, being one of the few members remaining who has been involved since the very beginning. In addition, my work with NCSU has…

Physical education classes at the authors' high school expose students to a variety of activities that are specifically geared toward their interests. The teachers and students also assess learning with the goal of attaining physical education standards including skills, strategies, rules, and personal/social responsibility. Seven years ago…

Drug abuse, or substance abuse, is a substantial public health problem in the United States, particularly among high school students. The purpose of this article was to review school-based programs implemented in high schools for substance abuse prevention and to suggest recommendations for future interventions. Included were English language…

This article documents a roadmap for developing fully inclusive school sites at the secondary level. Full inclusion is defined as placement in the general education classroom for all students with disabilities. Specifically, two large high schools located in suburban areas attempted to fully include over 300 students identified as needing special…

The purpose of this article is to provide evidence of how an integrated high school health, physical education, and wellness program can be implemented. In addition to describing the process used to develop and maintain this wellness curriculum, the article describes the content of the curriculum and how the teachers were able to capture and hold…

This executive position paper proposes recommendations for designing reform models between public and private sectors dedicated to improving school reform work in low performing urban high schools. It reviews scholarly research about for-profit educational management organizations, high reliability organizations, American high school reform, and…

Implementing Hellison's "Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility" (TPSR) system can help students take responsibility for their own behavior by helping students understand what it means to demonstrate appropriate behavior at various levels of responsibility. The levels range from zero through five and include: 0) irresponsibility, 1) respect,…