Higher-level music education was in a poor state in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. In particular, the country's most significant conservatoire, the Royal Academy of Music in London, suffered from a lack of financial support, poor management, and a reputation for mediocre teaching and amateurish standards. Responding to the need for an overhaul,…

Reform is a common tool used by policymakers to increase student achievement, yet some reform efforts are more successful in some schools and not others. This study looks specifically at the following constructs related to both student achievement and reform: school culture, school climate, teacher efficacy, and collective efficacy. The…

This study explored student abilities in applying conceptual knowledge when presented with structured performance tasks. Specifically, the study gauged proficiency in higher-order applications of students enrolled in earth and environmental science or biology. The student sample was drawn from a Redesigned STEM high school model where a tested…

The focus of this study is on the readiness of higher education institutions in the Philippines to the implementation of the Senior High School program of the new K-12 curriculum. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire. The findings reveal five predisposing factors, namely: eligibility, staffing guidelines, course streamlining,…

This performance assessment pilot study was a major research component of the overall National Science Foundation funded Redesigned High Schools for Transformed STEM Learning Project. Secondary Earth/Environmental Science students' abilities to translate cognitive knowledge into demonstrable performance-based proficiencies were specifically…

Many schools are starting Small Learning Communities yet much is unknown about their outcomes. Students are literally disappearing in comprehensive high schools and violence has escalated. Those who implement Small Learning Communities are looking to combat these problems. While rarely feasible to split large schools into smaller schools, it is…

A mainstay in NCLB and the Obama administration education plan is turning around low-performing schools. This study utilized surveys and interviews with school leaders from four turnaround urban high schools in Texas to understand student outcomes before and after school restructuring and reconstitution. Although some organizational changes were…

This study demonstrates the understandings that result from teachers' explanations of how they learn when they encounter everyday situations that evoke their learning. The study renders these explanations as a framework for further research on teacher workplace learning in informal settings. The framework emerged from a constant-comparative…

With the restructuring of the senior secondary education system in Hong Kong in 2009, the senior secondary curriculum was overhauled substantially by the conversion of the two-year Certificate Level and the two-year Advanced Level to a new three-year senior secondary level. This process entails changes to the contents and organization of various…

This exploratory study describes approaches to improving schools through retrospective, in-depth qualitative case studies. To select schools to be examined, the authors sought to identify Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) schools demonstrating two distinctive patterns of improved student achievement between 2000 and 2005, rapid-improvement (i.e.,…

This "Fifth-Year Report" from the Evaluation of the Comprehensive School Reform Program Implementation and Outcomes (ECSRIO) is the final report on the outcomes of the federally funded Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) program. It presents findings about the relationship between participation in the U.S. Department of Education's…

This publication focuses on professional development, a key element of school reform. In order to improve instruction and learning, schools need to increase the capacity of teachers to promote academic excellence in their classrooms. As part of their school and district plans, educators need to include professional development for teachers that is…

This report summarizes program evaluation results from Austin Independent School District's 2007-2008 high school Student Advisory/Family Advocacy Program.

This best practices piece is based on key research into high school transition strategies. It draws on two studies of high school reform models conducted by MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization, which shed light on promising strategies to support ninth-grade students. Increasing the capacity of high schools to provide extra help…

School restructuring is a process of reform that attempts to reconcile idealistic aspirations of educators with the realities of large public schools. While most educators have high expectations for their students, the impersonal structure of public schools is an obstacle to achieving these goals. In order to be effective, teachers must know the…