High-quality care in the earliest years of life has been shown to relate to positive developmental outcomes for children, including improved early academic skills, social-emotional competencies, and cognitive functioning. Unfortunately, the early care experiences of many children are not always high quality; rather, research suggests that…

This paper describes summative evaluation of the Quest project conducted at four case-study schools. The schools were selected for their high involvement in Quest, varied interpretations and uses of the project, and diverse locations and demographic constitutions. Data collection included participant observation, individual and semistructured…

The School Improvement Model project, a total systems approach to evaluating and improving instruction, will be fully implemented by 1983-84. The project includes four components: teacher performance evaluation, administrator performance evaluation, student achievement measurement, and staff development. Five school districts in Minnesota and Iowa…

Each year staff members in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Division of School Improvement, conduct onsite visits to each of the most improved schools, K-12, as identified by the ABCs of Public Education. Using a structured-interview process, staff members talk with administrators and teachers to determine what strategies…

A pilot study attempted to develop a link between research findings and potential users of those findings. A school-based intervention, Changing Teacher Practice (CTP), was developed to teach school leaders, principals, and resource leaders what research has discovered to be effective teaching and effective staff development. CTP was designed to…

The experiences and results of the Urban/Rural School Development Program, a federally-sponsored effort to improve education in poor communities, are reviewed in this study. The thrust of the program was to involve community members and school staff from 25 extremely poor neighborhoods in equal decision making focused on the use of staff…

School administrators, eager to raise student achievement levels to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, are increasingly looking to staff development as a means to enhance student achievement. In this article, the author describes how Mountain View Alternative High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, an alternative high school…

A new Chapter 1 law, P.L. 100-297, was passed in 1988. Chapter 1 schools must examine the program operated during the previous school year. Schools that fail to demonstrate overall achievement gains must develop a Program Improvement Plan (PIP), a document describing how the Chapter 1 program in that school will be modified. This guide provides a…

This report describes the final status of classroom practice in Texas prekindergarten programs in comparison to initial study findings and findings from a self-study component implemented in 1993 with prekindergarten staffs participating in the study. Findings from the longitudinal component indicated positive trends in academic performance for…

A vocational-technical center in Delaware, launched a massive restructuring effort in 1988. Educators used frameworks provided by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education and Southern Regional Educational Board and visited High Schools That Work sites. In 1991, Sussex Technical High School opened its doors as a newly designed…

A group of dedicated teachers in Gilmer County High School, Glenville, West Virginia (WV), worked with school administrators to make far-reaching changes to prepare all students for further study and the workplace. With their experiences from High Schools That Work workshops and help from a WV Department of Education representative, educators…

Progress toward four stated objectives in a K-12 career education project was determined after examining the field testing results of students, interviews, and data analysis. Satisfactory progress was made toward objective 1: revising, expanding, and refining two computer retrieval career education units. On a developer questionnaire teachers…

Randolph County Vocational Technical Center, Elkins, West Virginia, received a grant in 1997 for a project that was part of the High Schools That Work (HSTW) initiative to improve academic skills of career-bound students. The superintendent and faculty knew that improving achievement meant reaching out to the three home high schools to bring them…

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)-State Vocational Education Consortium's commitment to higher standards for and greater achievement of vocational students has brought substantial gains in student performance. SREB's High Schools That Work (HSTW), a school improvement initiative, documents achievement gains by vocational students. Data…

This publication contains descriptions of "outstanding practices" in high schools that had the most success in improving student performance by doing the best job of implementing one particular High Schools That Work key practice. The 33 efforts are organized according to which of these 10 key practices they reflect: high expectations…