State legislation designed to help schools and students achieve "excellence" may spawn numerous unforeseen consequences. This article discusses seven potentially harmful reform ideas: extended school year, mimimum competency tests, reliance on standardized achievement tests, state-mandated courses or curricula, blue ribbon reform panels,…

This article discusses implementation of the California Department of Education's accountability program, its structure and function, selection of performance indicators, and recognition of schools. A survey of school officials found strong support for the concept of accountability, but weak agreement on the specifics to implement it. (Author/JAZ)

The six articles in this issue suggest that, prior to selection and implementation, school reforms be critically examined for the following: (1) curricular content and impact on complex social organization of school; and (2) sufficient flexibility to permit teachers and building leaders to adapt reforms to local needs. (PS)

Today is an opportune time for school administrators to exercise leadership in curriculum development for school achievement. Effective schools research has found a school's culture and its strategies and tactics to be foundational to an excellent school. These are explored in this article. (DCS)

The director of the National School Safety Center describes the operations of the center and joins three co-authors to discuss the relationship between school climate and school discipline. The authors define six conditions essential to positive climate and explore methods for involving local agencies in achieving these conditions. (PGD)

A rating scale measured further training needs of 337 school principals. Their concerns were as follows, starting with highest concerns: instructional leadership role; staff development; creative problem solving; planning for school growth; collaborative long-range planning; personal awareness; and school as an ecological system. (GDC)

Discusses the history of schools of choice and their place within the current school reform efforts and Excellence Movement. Asserts that choice is an effective strategy for holding schools accountable for improving conditions for teachers and students and for paving the way for innovation. (CR)

Students who neither cause problems nor display giftedness tend to receive little attention in high schools. Research findings from thousands of observations in fifteen high schools suggest that the varied curricula that support special students allow average students to drift through school. Schools must be restructured to motivate average…

Presented is a general statistical methodology for analyzing hierarchically structured data. The use of the methodology is illustrated by reexamining the "High School and Beyond" data and the controversy over the effectiveness of public and Catholic schools. (Author/RM)

Examines schoolwide improvement programs initiated by four states. Describes successful endeavors of California, Ohio, and Colorado schools to improve curricula and student achievement and the Connecticut schools' strategy to improve principal-teacher communication. Attributes the success of these reform programs to solid leadership skills,…

Argues for the need to render schools that Black children attend more educationally effective regardless of the feasibility of making those schools integrated. Further argues that racial-balance remedies do not guarantee the equal education demanded by the "Brown" decision and that the all-Black schools that persist need not be…

Describes the first phase of an effective schools project in six urban elementary schools. Provides monthly reports on the first year of this multiyear effort that has focused on familiarizing school personnel with the literature on school improvement and encouraging them to put it into practice. (RDN)

In this address, the District of Columbia Public School System superintendent refers to several recent educational studies and comments on the need for school/student discipline, computer literacy, standards of performance, and the formation of coalitions and partnerships with outside groups. (CJM)

Examines the effectiveness of paying teachers in large urban areas a salary differential, also known as "combat pay," for teaching at racially isolated or all-minority schools. In a sample of seven schools, "combat pay" is found to be ineffective in attracting or retaining high quality teachers. (CMG)

We consider the question whether pupils from the lower social strata perform better in private government-dependent schools than in public or private-independent schools, using the PISA 2000 data on European high schools. In the eighty's, Coleman and Hoffer (1987) found in the USA that the performance of these pupils was better at religious…