This article begins by describing the principles and beliefs in Nova Scotia that guide educational services for children with disabilities and then discusses findings from a special education implementation review that indicate progress has been made in implementing changes in many special education policy areas. Implementation recommendations are…

Discusses successes and problems of Head Start. Suggests that Head Start's difficulties relate to its implementation, not its design. Proposes increasing the effectiveness of Head Start through a series of reform strategies that relate to interventions that address the needs of children in child care, preschool children, and school-age children.…

Examines school-based management as an effective strategy for optimizing the individual performance of teachers, students, and parents. Under school-based management, principals and teachers are given total responsibility for budgeting, selecting textbooks, scheduling, and hiring. This system provides flexibility in relationships with the broader…

Questions assumptions implicit in the fifth objective of National Education Goal 5, calling for critical thinking, communication and problem-solving abilities. Outlines strategies for a national assessment/improvement program, including setting goals, preparing faculty to foster student learning, gathering evidence on outcomes, and using…

Fundamental attitudinal and behavioral changes must occur among faculty, librarians, and students alike before colleges can implement effective information literacy programs. Successful change will require acknowledgment of barriers, collaborative effort, and establishment of a learning community for an information-rich environment. (Author/MSE)

One of five articles on professional development schools in this theme issue. This annotated bibliography of resources from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) features journal articles, reports, and project descriptions related to conceptualizations, planning, implementation, and evaluation of professional development schools. The…

Empirical evidence concerning the promise of setting national standards for school improvement is assembled. From this evidence, it is predicted that standards will not lead to the standardization of educational practice, stifled creativity, or minority-student endangerment. Benefits, which are less easily predicted, will depend on the quality of…

A collaboration between secondary teachers and university faculty to implement the use of writing portfolios for student assessment in English illustrates that the process of reform implementation is crucial. The testimony of teachers, administrators, and university consultants shows that participants viewed the change, its process, and the…

Cuban says schools reflect our society's fascination with fads, which increases their vulnerability to pressures from different constituencies. The most long-lasting innovations have avid supporters and equitable intent. Kindergarten and preschool education are prime examples. Policymakers' efforts to change classroom teaching practice usually…

The technological infrastructure at New Hampshire's Brewster Academy has affected policy building, teaching methods, staff development, and administrator role. The five-year phased implementation of a school design model based on universal connectivity and curricular embedding is discussed, with emphasis on network architecture, financial…

This article discusses problems with traditional top-down methods of disseminating educational innovations to teachers and proposes a conceptual framework in which teachers share a primary role with educational researchers in the development of innovative practices. Focus is on the critical dimensions of teacher change as they participate in the…

Kogan, who has headed the Samara (Russia) Education Department since 1992, believes education reforms cannot succeed without overarching objectives and desirable outcomes. Communities are struggling with cooperatively choosing and implementing curricular and other reforms because they have no "civil society" or democratic traditions on which to…

This descriptive study investigated two areas: (a) perceived changes in gifted and talented (G/T) programming in Iowa from the time a state mandate was implemented to the time of the study, and (b) perceived effects of the mandate on G/T programming in Iowa. Perceptions of middle-level teachers of gifted and talented students (n = 111) were…

This paper opens with a discussion of the relevance of service integration to the successful implementation of the Integrated Community Schools (ICS) policy in Scotland. It continues to offer an overview of the teacher/speech and language therapist (SLT) collaboration policy context and introduces some of the relevant wider children's services…

The development, implementation and perpetuation of a student academic and social support system has become an imperative strategy at South African universities. Access to tertiary education has, since 1994, systematically transformed institutions until they represent the demographic profile of the country. Previously disadvantaged groupings…