Several methods exist for assessing a person's scholarly and practical contributions. In the case of Jere Brophy, quantitative methods can begin to tell his remarkable story. Brophy authored or co-authored over 300 articles, monographs and books. His research has been cited over 36,000 times. Over 60 of his publications have been cited at least…

This chapter presents data from a 15-year, mixed-methods school improvement effort. The High Reliability Schools (HRS) reform made use of previous research on school effects and on High Reliability Organizations (HROs). HROs are organizations in various parts of our cultures that are required to operate successfully "the first time, every…

Over the last 4 decades, the school effectiveness and school improvement research bases have gained prominence and recognition on the international stage. In both a theoretical and empirical sense, they have matured through a wide range of well-documented projects, interventions, and innovations across a range of countries, describing how efforts…

Research and scholarship into educational effectiveness research (EER) is comprehensively reviewed from the UK, The Netherlands, the US, Cyprus, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and other societies, dating from the field's origins in the 1970s. Issues include its history, methodological and theoretical advances, scientific…

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…

The authors describe a reform effort in which characteristics derived from High Reliability Organization research were used to shape whole school reform. Longitudinal analyses of outcome data from 12 Welsh secondary schools indicated that 4 years after the effort was initiated, student outcomes at the sites were strongly positive. Additional…

Differential results of analysis of effective, typical, and ineffective schools in middle and low socioeconomic neighborhoods are presented. Implications for practitioners and for future research are discussed. (Author/MT)

A major focus in Phase III of the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study is on the relationship between classroom interaction patterns and school effectiveness. Early results are discussed. (Author/MT)

This paper analyzes data on elementary schools in Memphis, Tennessee, that had reorganized 4 years prior to the study. The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) was used to provide performance scores showing students' year-to-year gains, whereas data analyzed for this paper were derived from scores on the TerraNova, the state-mandated…

United States has shown considerable development within the school effectiveness and improvement fields. U.S. effectiveness research is contextually sensitive, small in quantity, and increasingly conducted within a "mixed methods" tradition. There is progress in describing and analyzing teacher and school effects and devising…

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 paper summarizes activities associated with school-improvement projects in 12 Louisiana School Effectiveness and Assistance Pilot Study (SEAP) Cohort One schools during school year 1997-98 and plans for future improvement activities in 1998-99. Faculty and administrators at each school were asked to revise their current school-improvement…

At the 10th International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement, participants noted progress in effectiveness research regarding development of outcome measures, size effects, measures of educational processes, and variables contributing to effectiveness. School-improvement research has focused on schools' status changes,…

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…