The Indiana Choice Scholarship Program has the potential to be the largest school voucher program in the country. Though the authorizing legislation capped enrollment in the program at 7,500 for its first year (the 2011-12 school year), that cap was increased to 15,000 for this year, and will be removed for all subsequent years. With careful…

This paper documents the initial process by which a San Diego middle school, located in a low-income and predominantly Hispanic neighborhood and repeatedly failing to meet No Child Left Behind provisions, restructured into an academically rigorous, detracked charter school. The discussion of the political experience and working relationships…

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…

Recommendations for implementing school-based management and shared decision making are presented in this educational policy bulletin. Based on a literature review and reported experiences of educational practitioners, four recommendations include: transformation of authority at district and school site levels; development of a systemwide…

Since 1988, considerable state and school/district energies have been devoted to implementing Re:Learning in Pennsylvania. This paper describes the experiences of Cycle I project directors who implemented Re:Learning in late 1988 or early 1989. Re:Learning is a national effort to redesign the total school system, based on Theodore Sizer's (1984)…

Comprehensive school improvement is based on reorganizing and revitalizing the entire school rather than focusing on specific student populations or programs. An overview of 17 schoolwide reform programs is provided in this book. The purpose of the text is to give education leaders basic information about some of the best-known externally…

Describes restructuring objectives and changes at a suburban middle school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Although collaborative planning led to predictable changes (interdisciplinary teaching, advisories, flexible scheduling, common planning time, core curricula, and a discipline system), several unplanned changes occurred regarding home-school…

Guidelines for transforming and improving the nation's public schools are presented in this book, with a focus on the regional laboratory's program for educational change. The program is organized around "designing schools for enhanced learning" and is based on three principles--a focus on learning, a systemic approach to change, and…

Describes an assistant superintendent's experience in developing and implementing similar school reform plans in two high school settings. The less affluent but more successful school tied its restructuring plans to Coalition of Essential Schools principles. The key elements for success were energy, vision, and faculty and community commitment.…

Outcomes of a series of meetings held in 1990 by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) Roundtable on Public School Choice are summarized in this document's six chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the components (including motivations, vision formation, leadership, the design process, and the types of choice available) involved in…

Outcomes of a school improvement program begun in 1988 at Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, Oregon, are described in this paper. The first part provides a background of the school's innovative process and program development. The second part outlines the school's major components of restructuring--a common vision and core beliefs, principles of…

Examines general instructional strategies and specific intervention programs that are frequently discussed for their potential for improving education for African American students and that have a strong research base and appear particularly promising. Prerequisites for effective implementation of innovative approaches are discussed. Effective…

A case study of a large nonselective urban high school in Baltimore (Maryland) describes the design and implementation of a comprehensive package of school reforms, the Talent Development Model with Career Academies. Qualitative and quantitative evidence is provided on significant improvements in school climate, student attendance, promotion…

The major challenges for educational reform today are assembling disparate pieces of information to create sustainable systemic change and "scaling up" systemic reform to encompass all schools, all programmatic areas, all levels of schooling and diverse social contexts. Mid-continent Regional Education Laboratory (McREL) has begun to organize its…

Multicultural education has become a controversial topic in recent years, and in the midst of such controversy, there has been little agreement on a precise conceptualization of multicultural education. It is apparent that it takes many forms. A typology is presented that divides multicultural education programs into three categories according to…