Background/Context: School districts are responsible for helping schools improve learning for students. However, many district initiatives conflict with each other or with existing instructional practices in schools. Recent research on urban school reform points to the value of program coherence in sustaining school change. Our paper addresses an…

As part of a larger project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education, the Center on Education Policy prepared this compendium, which summarizes the findings of major studies of the implementation and effects of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) conducted by various organizations and agencies. The brief summaries are…

In June 2007, the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) was awarded a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop the College Ready School Diagnostic, a web-based diagnostic instrument. The purpose of this tool is to provide individual school profiles and customized recommendations, enabling each institution to make…

Since 1989, North Carolina has implemented several statewide initiatives to establish high expectations for all students. State educators have also paid increasing attention to the flexible use of time as a resource for expanding student learning. Block scheduling is a reorganization of school time that is increasingly being adopted by North…

This directory supplement provides information about 211 schools (in British Columbia, Department of Defense Dependent Schools--Panama, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Oregon, Pacific Jurisdictions, Washington, and Wyoming) working with the school-based management process Onward to Excellence (OTE), which seeks to…

The program model presented in this handbook is directed to urban high schools in crisis. In 1982, Central High School in Providence, Rhode Island, was such a school. Thirty percent of the student body came from low-income families, violence erupted regularly, it was difficult to maintain discipline, academic achievement was consistently below…

This report evaluates the 1984 Search for Elevation, Education & Knowledge (SEEK) prefreshman summer program at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY), and describes its curriculum, staffing, recruitment of students, and objectives. Ninety-four students were enrolled: 73.4% were 18 or 19 years old; 73.0% were women; 90.4% were…

The federal government has played a role over the years in providing resources to school districts, colleges and universities, and research and technical assistance centers for the purpose of transitioning students to English. The evolving educational standards movement and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have begun to reshape how the federal…

The paper describes an academic support program at Mercy College of Northwest Ohio. The Project Assuring Student Success (PASS) Program is multi-faceted and comprehensive, designed to help students find success in their academic endeavors. The first phase of this program was the development and implementation of the Student Success Center. Some of…

As the need to serve a broader and larger population of students at the community college level increases, the rate of student success is decreasing at many institutions. There is a greater need to deliver in-class and co-curricular experiences that satisfy the students currently entering college. The Student Success Project at Santa Monica…

The Connecticut Academy for Education implemented the School Improvement Support Team (SIST) in the Waterbury, Connecticut, Public Schools during the 1998-99 school year. The main goal of the SIST is to provide a comprehensive and cohesive set of programs and activities for improving student performance in the Waterbury Public Schools. The…

The purposes of this book are to help teachers understand the rationale and nature of the current emphasis on U.S. education on standards and to provide classroom teachers with guidance on the many ways the standards movement might affect their classrooms. Approaches to implementing standards may be organized into two general categories, indirect…

This technical report presents third-year analyses of the progress of five Maryland elementary schools participating in a multi-school, multi-district implementation of the Core Knowledge Curriculum (E. Hirsch, 1987, 1996). Third-year results are presented in the areas of implementation and outcomes. Factors clearly affecting implementation of…

This reprint of an article on how one rural school district was able to use effectively a variety of acceleration strategies in different elementary schools is preceded by a commentary that stresses that the form of programming is less crucial than the training and attitude of the participating teachers. (Contains 3 references.) (CR)

When the standards movement began more than 15 years ago, most educators welcomed the prospect of having clearly articulated student learning goals. The publication of the first set of standards by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 1989 was greeted with unprecedented optimism. Standards offered educators a direction for reform…