When teachers at Thomas Gardner Elementary School voted in fall 2003 to join Boston's network of "pilot" schools, they had no inkling of the political firestorm that lay ahead. A few months after they moved to become part of the city's nationally watched experiment with small, autonomous public schools, the president of the Boston Teachers Union…

America's urban high schools are having trouble making sophomores, resulting in freshmen classes bulging with students repeating a grade. Research shows that these students are at high risk of failure and dropout. Urban districts have begun to respond to the notable "freshmen bulge" through school restructuring. This mixed-methods study…

The Massachusetts charter movement facilitated Boston's development of pilot schools (in-district charters), which posed a dilemma for staff, students, board members, and codirectors of Fenway Middle College High School. A year later, a coalition of pilot school leaders is glad they stayed in the system and pursued high-level educational…

Although North Dakota boasts the highest graduation rate in the nation at 95.7%, the state is shifting its perspective from a system of inputs and methodologies to a system emphasizing student-centered learning and performance. This article describes North Dakota's progress in consensus building, developing performance standards, revamping…

In California, the regional partnership structure is being used to support implementation of recommendations for middle level school reform. The partnership's loose structure allows flexibility in financial contribution and opportunities to solicit paying partners from the local community. A support network or forum allows individuals and schools…

This case study reports on a program that permits waivers of individual rules in order to encourage local innovation. Enacted in 1989, Washington State's Schools for the 21st Century program allows participating schools and districts to request waivers from state rules believed to impede restructuring efforts. The pilot project also supplies…

Effective administrator preparation programs provide students with self-awareness and insight about their thought patterns and behaviors' influence on executing their leadership roles. This paper describes a current university pilot program based on these assumptions, discusses program effectiveness as perceived by student participants, and…

In December of 2004, media outlets across the country were abuzz with news of the just-released results of the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tests. Once again despite highly publicized efforts to reform American math education over the past two decades, the United States did little better than average. Taken…

This paper provides information about strategies that high poverty urban elementary schools have used to initiate major reforms in their processes and structures and to share the process used to elicit information from these schools. A research study analyzed the experiences of six high poverty urban elementary schools in Massachusetts, New York,…

This two-part document reports on the summative, district-level evaluation of 33 Dade County (Florida) schools that participated in a 3-year pilot School-Based-Management/Shared Decision-Making (SBM/SDM) program, and describes the operation and impact of selected innovations operating in some of the schools. Evaluation information was drawn from…

Six articles by Lynn Olson, published in various issues of "Education Week" starting in January 1993 and ending May 1995, describe a Maryland project to improve elementary education in the State: (1) "Winning NASDC (New American Schools Development Corporation) Project Takes Flight" (the basic skills children need to succeed in…

The Accelerated Schools model attempts to restructure schools with high at-risk student populations and mainstream these students by the end of elementary school. A 6-year process of collaborative unity is used to identify challenge areas and move the school toward individualized solutions. The Accelerated Schools Satellite Center Project emerged…

Describes a state-sponsored pilot project to facilitate the quality of organizational change within Florida schools and districts. Guided by quality standards fashioned after national Baldridge criteria, the project is a partnership venture between the University of South Florida and 13 West-Central Regional Leadership Network districts, which…

Intent of "A Nation at Risk" was to call attention to erosion of students' family lives, not to excoriate teachers. Reforms affecting only six hours of children's daily lives cannot succeed. Schools must reach out to help parents, and child-care workers become skilled at incidental (informal) teaching. Other concerns include technology,…

Describes the New American Schools effort of the New American Schools Development Corporation, a private corporation underwriting development of new educational institutions and the dissemination of innovative ideas. A random sampling of ideas from competing design teams highlights nine program proposals. (SLD)