In 1983 Manchester High School (CT) became involved in a five-year planning process to reshape the school curriculum through redefinition of the competencies needed by its students to achieve success in the future. The five-year plan is outlined along with a discussion of establishing a flexible planning process that allows the school to shape the…

Discusses "backward design," a strategy for planning curriculum and school improvement by first thinking carefully about desired results and then working backward to develop meaningful assessments and learning plans. For this design to work, educators must identify desired results, analyze multiple sources of data, and determine appropriate action…

Discusses how schools can avoid mistakes in building their school-improvement plans. The two most common mistakes are (1) using measures of student learning that are not sensitive to the actual learning occurring, and (2) having no system for interpreting and using the data. (Contains 1 figure and 11 references.) (WFA)

Discusses data warehousing, which provides information more fully responsive to local, state, and federal data needs. Such a system allows educators to generate reports and analyses that supply information, provide accountability, explore relationships among different kinds of data, and inform decision-makers. (Contains one figure and eight…