Background: Guidelines for the successful implementation of two-way dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs foreground the role of program leadership, hiring and preparing culturally and linguistically competent teachers, family involvement, and the alignment between curriculum, assessments, and instruction in both languages. Absent in…

Background/Context: Professional development (PD) programs have been the primary tool school districts have used to improve teachers' knowledge and skills, though the evidence is mixed on the degree to which these investments translate into improved outcomes for teachers and their students. Further, most research has tracked researcher-designed…

Background: Substantial research on reform implementation highlights numerous challenges to implementing innovations at scale with depth and sustainability, yet new reforms continue to encounter many of the same challenges. This has led to calls for researchers to work in partnership with practitioners to design, implement, and scale educational…

Background: Research suggests a number of benefits from teacher participation in school improvement--chief among them that it can increase teacher receptivity to innovation and reform adoption. Improvement science has been put forward as a new paradigm for involving local school stakeholders in the improvement process. Purpose: We describe the…

This chapter recounts the first 3 years of the Student Voice Collaborative (SVC) in New York City, a district supported student leadership initiative that engages high school aged youth in school reform work at school and district levels. Based on his experiences developing and running the SVC, the author identifies nine design and implementation…

Background/Context: The sustainability of change efforts continues to be an important and challenging question in educational research. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: By examining 13 programs aimed at increasing student voice in school reform, this article examines conditions that enable and constrain the sustainability of…

Background/Context: As accountability pressures have mounted toward ever-higher targets under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, low-achieving schools have sought new tools for raising achievement. The association between parent involvement and student achievement is well established, though the association is an indirect relationship mediated…

Buffalo's Early Childhood Centers, which grew out of court-ordered desegregation plans, are described and evaluated in this article in terms of student achievement, parental involvement, and racial balancing. (IAH)

The change process surrounding the introduction of an all-day kindergarten program in a small suburban school district is examined in this case study. Implications for adoption and implementation of early childhood programs in other school systems are discussed. (IAH)