Since establishing its first campus in 1868, the University of California (UC), California's land-grant university, developed into the nation's first multi-campus system in the United States, and is today widely recognized as the world's premier network of public research universities. This short essay provides an historical brief on the role that…

This article explores leadership practice and change as evidenced in multiple data sources gathered during a self-study implementation of a teaching performance assessment. It offers promising models of distributed leadership and organizational change that can inform future program implementers and the field in general. Our experiences suggest…

What happens when teachers are given funding and time to identify and develop targeted and innovative professional learning? This article focuses on lessons learned from grants funded through the California Department of Education that were designed to do just this. As the state and the nation consider the best approaches to professional learning…

School leadership has been shown to exert a positive but mostly indirect influence on school and student outcomes. Currently, there is great interest in how quality leadership preparation is related to leadership practice and improved teacher outcomes. The purpose of the study was to understand the moderating influence of leadership preparation on…

The Student Study Team (SST) is described as a California intervention model that encourages effective multidisciplinary team participation. The development, training, operation, and evaluation of such teams are discussed, and implementation recommendations are offered. The article includes a flow chart of the SST process, a meeting competency…

The efforts of two pilot accelerated schools serving poor and minority students are evaluated in this report. A program goal was to integrate improvement at the school and community levels. Section 1 briefly describes the attitudes and meanings predominant in schools serving poor and minority youth. The focus on the individual, a narrow view of…

An assessment of two pilot accelerated schools using the inquiry process model for the transformation of school culture and classroom practices in serving at-risk students is presented in this report. The inquiry process is a central feature of the accelerated school, a comprehensive school renewal initiative. The traditional approach to changing…

The report of a California task force examines new or revised special education service delivery models which would allow for maximum interaction between special education and general education. After a review of the literature and a 2-day policy forum, the task force concluded that there is no one model appropriate for all schools and all…