The responsibilities of school principals in the United States have shifted to include instructional leadership in addition to the management of facilities and people. Principals at all levels can find it challenging to balance their administrative and instructional leadership roles. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand…

The major challenge with time is finding it. Current school-day schedules and school-year calendars are leaner than ever because of budget reductions. States and districts have implemented furlough days to balance lean-and-mean budgets that show no sign of improving. Few are willing to take the leap toward reducing instructional time to improve…

This study explores the question of how Boston Public Schools (BPS) can strengthen and support autonomy and accountability across its portfolio to promote innovation and expand access to equity and high performance. Some of the specific questions guiding this work are: (1) Should all schools within BPS operate within autonomous structures? (2) Is…

Because of increasing student enrollment, a new school was formed in a small low-income Southern California school district. Teachers could choose to transfer to the new school or remain at the existing school. Over five years, quantitative analyses of demographic data showed little differences between the two schools across the years except for a…

Corbin High School is located in a small, rural community of approximately 8,000 residents in southeastern Kentucky, midway between Lexington and Knoxville, Tennessee. The mission of Corbin High School is to provide opportunities that will help each student prepare for a successful transition to college, the workplace and life. This report…

For children, change can be frightening, and the middle school years are a time of dramatic change for them. Young adolescents are grappling with confusing and often difficult changes in their emotions, their bodies, their schools, their schedules, and the social and academic expectations placed upon them. Middle school administrators, teachers,…

This study investigated school administrators' perceptions of school improvement policies in a high-impact policy environment by measuring the impact of accountability, site-based management, professional development, and scheduling reform on the three dependent variables of a) academic outcomes, b) staff morale, and c) parent and community…

This document is designed to help administrators and faculties understand how the many complicated pieces of a high-performing school fit together. Trying to implement all the pieces at once may not be a solid plan for accomplishing a vision of quality. Taking steps to determine what is most critical for students is the logical starting place. The…

The Education Council Act of 1991 established the National Education Commission on Time and Learning as an independent advisory body and called for a comprehensive review of the relationship between time and learning in U.S. schools. This document serves as a supplementary volume to the commission's first report released in May 1994, which found…

In 1994, the National Education Commission on Time and Learning (NECTL) published "Prisoners of Time," an eye-opening study into how much schools are governed by the clock and calendar, and how families, administrators, and teachers are subsequently affected. This report expands and updates the 1994 report, adding informative questions and answers…

The Education Council Act of 1991 Established the National Education Commission on Time and Learning as an independent advisory body and called for a comprehensive review of the relationship between time and learning in American schools. The commission's report, released in May 1994, found that school reform is destined to founder unless programs…

This document is comprised of volume 14 of the Harvard Education Letter, published bimonthly and addressing current issues in elementary and secondary education. Articles in the six issues of this volume include the following: (1) January-February--"Multi-Age Classrooms: An Age-Old Grouping Method Is Still Evolving" (Walser),…

This background paper is a result of a literature review conducted under Project FORUM that identifies research-based inputs and processes related to student outcomes. It was intended to provide background information for the participants attending the Wingspread Conference on Inputs and Processes in October, 1998. In addition, the report is…