Excellent schools strive to develop a comprehensive and integrative improvement process for students and their families that integrate best practices of positive school culture, climate, and social and emotional learning; character development skills, enhanced academic achievement strategies, and positive parent engagement. Character.org's…

"Service-learning" is a multilayered term with a complex historical evolution. In the last two decades, service-learning and community engagement (SLCE) have flourished in higher education as staff, faculty, and students have realized it can be a high-impact teaching and learning practice to promote student learning and development.…

School psychologists are a critical part of the school team that ensures quality, genuinely accessible education for all students. National Association of School Psychologists' (NASP's) "Ready to Learn, Empowered to Teach: Guiding Principles for Effective Schools and Successful Students" (2015) foundational policy document recommends…

Greater interest from students, universities, and communities has increased pressure on faculty to design and implement service-learning courses. Often with no prior experience and limited institutional and programmatic guidance, faculty must make their way through a growing body of literature on service-learning. This article presents a novice…

A new team-taught course focused on interdisciplinary teaching and integrative learning was offered at Grand Valley State University during the Summer of 2008 at a regional campus in Holland, Michigan. Faculty from Engineering and Business developed this community-based, alternative-format course to engage students in the question: "What will…

Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original…

The league of Cities for the Arts in Education encourages the integration of all the arts in all parts of school curricula for all children. An overview of the project and the individual programs of Hartford, Little Rock, Minneapolis, New York, Seattle, and Winston-Salem are described. (JMD)

Former U.S. Ambassador and philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg has pledged a significant portion of his personal wealth to America's public schools if his contribution is "matched" by the nation. Up to $50 million in matching money over the next 5 years has been earmarked specifically for rural schools. This document provides a context…

Educators today are challenged with building a communications system that promotes educational values while at the same time teaching children to cope with a chaotic information environment. This report examines how educators are grappling with the difficult interplay of technological change and educational values. It begins by reviewing the…

Managing and leading educational change entails a great degree of complexity and uncertainty and remains a pressing challenge for administrators. This work documents lessons learned from a national study on the concept and development of the Creating Communities of Continuous Inquiry and Improvement project of the Southwest Educational Development…

The Language Academy initiative enabled the San Francisco Unified School District to transform remedial, compliance-based programs for English language learners into standards-based language-learning programs for all students. Administrators relied on stakeholder involvement, coherent policy, and quality program design to achieve their goal of…

Argues that the centralized, bureaucratic model of education management has created more problems than solutions. Contrasts the current situation with an earlier model defined by local autonomy and personal commitment. Explores a broad set of issues and approaches designed to make arts education more autonomous and less divisive. (MJP)

"Supporting Indigenous Children's Development" challenges and offers an alternative to the imposition of best practices on communities by outside specialists. It tells the story of an unexpected partnership initiated by an Aboriginal tribal council with the University of Victoria's School of Child and Youth Care. The partnership has…

In view of increasing concern about the Nation's serious waste of natural resources and the growing interest in a permanent program of conservation education, it is fitting and desirable that schools should be able to secure help from the U.S. Office of Education in introducing the subject into the regular school curriculum. Courses of study and…