The strategies used in multiage classrooms have the capacity to shift instruction in all classrooms because the focus is on individual academic growth within an effective classroom community.

In "School Rethink 2.0," editors Frederick M. Hess, Michael B. Horn, and Juliet Squire gather leaders immersed in the nuts-and-bolts work of educational reinvention to present ten promising education improvements and ways to implement them. Contributors, including acclaimed education pioneers Sal Khan, Beth Rabbitt, and Larry Berger,…

The aim of this report is to review current research studies on how school infrastructure affects children's learning outcomes and to identify key parameters that can inform the design, implementation, and supervision of future educational infrastructure projects. At the same time, this document also aims to identify areas where the evidence is…

Our educational system is in a continuous state of reform, yet outcomes are nowhere near what we can accept. Though the search for answers is perpetual, many efforts over the past decade have homed in on one feature of high schools--their size. If we simply reduce school size, the argument goes, students will gain a safer environment that can…

Written by an interdisciplinary group of experts in education, psychology, sociology, and other fields, this landmark handbook provides a thorough examination of U.S. secondary education from the private academies of Colonial America to the comprehensive high schools and alternative schools of today. This accessible compendium is a treasure trove…

Even in higher education there is a disjunction between the realities of Monday morning--with its budget crunches, operational constraints, and internecine squabbles--and the world of the imagination. However, the separation of the two realms is neither necessary nor helpful. The focus of this point of view is on the problems and potentials of…

Seven separate reports survey the literature and current thinking in the following topic areas: optimum school and class sizes, organization of schools into appropriate grade-level groups, the benefits and disadvantages of ability grouping, the decline in student achievement as measured by standardized tests, the expansion of kindergarten…

The existing knowledge of the school environment is reviewed in this book, with a focus on its impact on educational effectiveness and student achievement. Chapter 1 examines how the composition of educational groups affect learning; chapter 2 focuses on the learning climate and cultures--the norms and values that characterize learning…

This book takes a stand against the belief that "bigger is better" and warns that size and technological complexity are not risk-free. There is a price to be paid for our uncritical affirmation of bigness, universal solutions to problems, dehumanizing uniformity, and standardized mass production. The U.S. government, cities,…

This book uses data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) to examine whether students who attend restructured high schools learn more and have access to a more equal education. The NELS:88 examined the educational status and progress of a large, nationally representative sample of 8th grade students, retesting and…

This monograph is a report of the findings of a comprehensive survey to identify the functions, organizational structures, and numerical adequacies of central-office staffs, by size of school systems, in Virginia and to determine the relationships between certain characteristics of school systems and the numerical adequacies of central-office…

The main purpose of this study is to provide those concerned with planning and administration of education in Saudi Arabia with a deeper insight into the elementary education system by analyzing the growth patterns observed in the past, presenting a more vivid picture of the present situation, and projecting the probable quantitative expansion in…

School business administration is recognized as an important component of educational administration. The current trend toward the administrative team concept of administration has added prestige and importance to the function of the school business administrator. The study reported here revealed that a large percentage of present school districts…

Increasing numbers of middle school educators believe that the education of young adolescents can be enhanced when teachers and students are members of classrooms and small team groups characterized by long-lasting relationships. This book describes how to offer students the benefits of smallness within increasingly larger schools by ensuring…

A description, analysis, and assessment of diversity in American higher education is offered based on data collected since 1960 from more than 600 colleges and universities. The value of different kinds of colleges is discussed in chapter one, followed by discussions of what makes institutions different, how colleges are becoming more alike, ways…