This qualitative case study explored the perceptions of educators regarding the impact nonprofit sanctioned programs and services have on schools rated as failing, or "academically unacceptable" by the Louisiana Department of Education during the 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and 2016-2017 school years. The schools represented in this study are…

Summarizes Louisiana's mandated school improvement program, discusses results, and describes how districts create effective or ineffective schools. Principals in ineffective schools defined their roles as limited, passive, and bureaucratic; principals in effective schools held multiple schooling goals and regarded the achievement process as…

This book describes the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study (LSES), a decade-long project that identified the characteristics of effective schools. Following the foreword by Larry Cuban, four chapters in part 1 outline the rationale and four-phase design of the LSES. Four chapters in part 2 present quantitative and qualitative findings from LSES…

Despite the proliferation of school improvement projects and school effectiveness research during the 1980s, there have been very few methodologically rigorous, large-scale, widely published school effectiveness studies. As a result, the research base is thin and needs to be updated. This paper presents a brief history of the Louisiana School…

Reporting on a study designed to evaluate West Court High School (WCHS, a pseudonym) in Louisiana, this document discusses quantiative and qualitative aspects of the study; the development of interview protocols for the administrators, teachers, students, and parents who participated; and the sociograms developed to assess the interaction patterns…

Compares school, classroom, and student level data for matched pairs of high- and low-achieving rural schools and matched pairs of urban schools. Finds that organizational and interpersonal processes sustaining effective schools vary by rural/urban context. Includes three longitudinal case studies of rural schools. Contains 26 references. (SV)