Evidence suggests that a middle school organizational design has some administrative advantages over the traditional junior high school program because of the more unified social and academic atmosphere. (LH)

This overview of the literature on school district reorganization: (1) cites four reasons for reorganization; (2) gives two statistics on projected declines in student enrollment; (3) presents factors to be considered during the process of closing a school; (4) lists six administrative leadership skills needed during the school closure process;…

This review of the effective schools literature focuses on six teaching factors: the nature of instructional materials, lower versus higher order skills, classroom reinforcement practices, teacher selection, teacher training, and individual versus whole-group instruction. Different from earlier studies, the review concentrates on specific…

Research on school effects has shown that differences within schools have more influence on educational outcomes than do differences between schools. This chapter explores the implications for educational equity of ability grouping. Concerns about equity are organized by placing them in the context of the meaning of educational equity that implies…