In 2009, the Obama Administration created a $4.3 billion dollar grant competition for states called "Race to the Top" (RttT). The money, earmarked from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was to be distributed by the Department of Education to states who were making efforts to adhere to precirculated reforms supported by…

We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of Struggling Schools, a user-generated approach to Comprehensive School Reform implemented in 100 low achieving schools serving disadvantaged students in a Canadian province. The results show that while Struggling Schools had a statistically significant positive effect on Grade 3 Reading achievement, d = 0.48…

This article reflects on my 28-year tenure editing "The Elementary School Journal" ("ESJ"). During my tenure as editor, the educational system was in constant reform, from a Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind. Considerable evidence suggests that these various reforms, which consumed vast resources, were not successful in…

A university-school district partnership, Schools of Promise (SOP), was formed to improve elementary schools for all children through whole-school reform. This effort focused on the concepts of belonging and inclusion, positioning the needs of marginalized students at the center of the reform through a university-facilitated restructuring of…

Between 1970 and 1990 enrolment in Newfoundland and Labrador schools dropped by 22 percent. The first wave of major educational reform (1990 to 2000) saw massive reductions in public school expenditures and the reduction of more than 1650 teachers. Facing continued enrolment loss and a large current account deficit, in 2004, government again…

The national Norwegian school reform of 1994, which gave students statutory rights to at least 3 years of upper secondary education, had a significant impact on educational attainment among immigrant youth. In particular, we find that the immigrant transition rate from compulsory schooling to completion of the first year of upper secondary…

The authors of this monograph assert that by assisting school systems to more closely resemble "high reliability" organizations (HROs) that already exist in other industries and benchmarking against top-performing education systems from around the globe, America's school systems can transform themselves from compliance-driven…

U.S. educators and policymakers are concerned about the poor performance of the public schools, particularly schools that serve students from low-income families. Although education is primarily a state function, the federal government also has a longstanding interest in improving education for disadvantaged students, and it targets funding to…

Choice is most frequently realized within the public sector using the mechanisms of residence, magnet schools, and open enrollment systems, whereas the voucher-like systems applauded by choice advocates and feared by opponents are extremely rare. Further, the charter sector is neither large enough nor sufficiently prepared to go to scale to…

In this article, we evaluate the advantages of public-private partnerships in helping fund and support district initiatives targeting out-of-school youth and those students who are disengaged or at-risk of dropping out of high school. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 2 notes.)

The purpose of this study was to use the "KSH analytic framework", a blend of the work of Kotter (1996), Senge (2006), and Heifetz (1994, 2002), as a tool to provide insight into the organizational change process that, when considered, might result in lasting and significant school change. Leadership, vision, teamwork, and action implementation…

The education system in the United States is under pressure from a variety of sources to reform and improve the delivery of educational services to students. Change across a system as complex and dynamic as the educational system requires a systemic approach and requires the participation or buy-in of all participants and stakeholders. This…

It is possible that human capital produces positive externalities to the society indirectly, through non-market channels such as health or crime. Another such channel could be the effect of education on the functioning of democratic decision-making. Measures of the functioning of democracy are bound to be controversial, but one such measure--voter…

This report details what happened in Philadelphia's middle schools during the Children Achieving reform effort, a comprehensive, one-size-fits-all reform project. Based on research of the program over a 5-year period, the paper explains why reforms fell short of their intended outcomes. The critical levers for change were content standards, the…

Identifies factors distinguishing fast-starter from slow-starter schools during the first year of the Memphis Restructuring Initiative, which follows a "cell-division" implementation model. Startup is enhanced by strong administrative leadership; a restructuring model matching schools' current beliefs; curricula aligned with state…