Education leadership is possibly the most important single determinant of an effective learning environment. Change leaders must understand procedures and processes that create the conditions necessary for organizational improvement. Building principals must be able to assess and evaluate the impact and perceptions of their leadership styles.…

There is nothing like tracking down 2,000 state policies to reinforce one's understanding that states do not approach problems or policy in the same way. Education policies in California fill 17 volumes. Alaska's consist of one short chapter of a codebook that also covers elections, guardianships, and trusts. States such as Texas select textbooks…

When it comes to the legal fight over special education that they have waged for the past seven years, Jocelyn S. and Martin P. Schaffer and their Maryland school district don't agree on much. But the two sides do see eye to eye on this: With the U.S Supreme Court's decision to review the Schaffers' case, the dispute suddenly has the potential to…

The "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act has made schools accountable for assuring adequate yearly progress of students. Therefore, it has become critical to identify school-level variables that can be controlled to affect student achievement, especially given that, thus far, most school reform efforts have failed to significantly affect…

To lure highly qualified teachers to low-performing schools, the Mobile County, Alabama, school board did what a small but growing number of districts are considering: pay teachers more money for working in what are considered less attractive jobs. As school districts are more pressured to raise achievement among all student groups, more are…

The philosophers of the Enlightenment formulated a set of new ideas and visions about access to knowledge and education for all citizens. The main discourse of modernity is linked to liberty, democracy and equality, but modernity is also an ambiguous project, characterized by an ongoing conflict between individual freedom and discipline. Modernity…

Using statistical data collected during a 30-year period, the article reports on the significant movement of females into all of the line administrative positions in the largest school districts in the country (by student population) since the passage of Title IX with one notable exception, that of superintendent. The position of superintendent…

The purpose of this study was to gain a student's perspective on the differences between alternative and traditional educational settings. Specific objectives were to (1) identify obstacles students perceived in transitioning from alternative settings to traditional school settings and (2) hear the authentic voices of students to determine what…

Accountability in Chicago in the 1990s derived from progressive reform legislation adopted in 1988 and 1995. The Illinois General Assembly in 1988 passed the Chicago School Reform Act (P.A. 85-1418), which included a set of goals, a redistribution of the school district's resources, and a decentralization of decisionmaking to the school level. The…

Now in its third full school year of implementation, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has been drawing praise and blame. It has been praised for its goals of increasing all students' learning, requiring disaggregated data to monitor the progress of major subgroups of students, and having high-quality teachers in all schools. It has been…

Despite its multilingual heritage, the USA has a history of linguistic intolerance. Arizona, in the country's desert Southwest, is decidedly anti-bilingual although it has significant non-English-speaking groups, especially Spanish-speaking Mexicans/Mexican-Americans and indigenous groups such as the Navajo, Hopi and Yaqui tribes, among many…

This article presents perspectives of tutors that reflect the current experiences and thoughts from Dun Laoghaire VEC's Adult Education Service's literacy, second chance and community education provision as the adult education service moves towards more accreditation of programmes. This move has been prompted by a number of significant changes and…

The purpose of this study was to identify variables that facilitate the academic success of college students with learning disabilities. Twenty recent college graduates with documented learning disabilities were interviewed using a semi-structured format. An analysis of the transcripts of the interviews revealed eight common themes, many of which…

In May 2000, a class action lawsuit on behalf of California's public school students, Williams v. State of California, was filed in state court in an effort to make the state address inequities in its public schools. The central issue of the case was students' access to the "bare essentials" of public education: qualified teachers,…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) assumes that state-mandated tests provide useful information to school administrators and teachers. However, interviews with administrators and teachers suggest that Minnesota's tests, which are representative of the current generation of state-mandated tests, fail to provide useful information to administrators…