This 3-year study attempted to identify school and district management practices that produce exemplary urban high schools. Information was gathered from 40 high schools with the following characteristics: (1) offering a comprehensive curriculum with no examination requirements; (2) located in one of the 166 largest and densest central cities; and…

Catonsville Community College (CCC) conducted a self-image survey to examine employees' perceptions about the college's instructional and student support programs and the general college environment. The survey was distributed to all full-time faculty, administrators, and classified personnel. It was also distributed to adjunct faculty during the…

This discussion of the professionalization of teaching centers around areas of the teacher's work which are perceived as essential to the prospective teacher's education. The first of these is the arts and sciences component, in which prospective teachers acquire knowledge of the subject matter they will teach, and also a liberal education that…

Common characteristics were investigated in four effective secondary schools in the rural Appalachian regions of Kentucky and Tennessee. A double loop process was used to select schools from a pool recommended by the Chief State School Officers of Kentucky and Tennessee. Schools were rated on aspects of student performance and teacher and…

This guide is designed to help schools and teachers communicate better with parents. Communication is seen as the basic foundation for learning and the means for developing parent involvement programs and building a strong home-school partnership. The guide presents strategies that schools and teachers are using to communicate with parents and…

The history of equity concerns in Texas public school finance, spanning over a century, is reviewed in this report. Three issues related to three reform eras are discussed: equitable availability of public schooling, equal resources for schools, and school effectiveness. State responses to the issues included equalization of opportunities in rural…

This directory contains information about schools that are working to improve student performance through the school-based management process "Onward to Excellence." Over 600 schools were sent questionnaires asking for detailed information about activities using "Onward to Excellence" and about results of that work. Data…

Five of the project teams of the Educational Quality Indicators (EQI) initiative of Alberta (Canada) came together to provide their perspectives on the initiative and to report their progress in developing local indicator systems that have the involvement and support of their respective communities. The conceptual framework of the EQI initiative,…

The importance of a state role in assessing and improving undergraduate education and possible initiatives that states can pursue are discussed. Two roles for states are identified: (1) state regulatory and funding mechanisms should create an appropriate climate and concrete incentives for inducing institutional self-improvement; and (2) state…

While the world of teaching has been primarily female, the administration world has always been populated by men. While there are similarities in the backgrounds and experiences of males and females, the legacy of discrimination and exclusion has shaped a world in which women's experiences and behaviors are often unlike those of men. Research on…

The major purpose of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is to provide information useful for improving the quality of American elementary and secondary schools. NAEP has focused more on the measurement of academic achievement than on the need for information on learning contexts. Additional information is needed about why…

This guide is designed to help South Carolina's school administrators implement the school improvement process mandated by the state legislature. The first chapter introduces the educational philosophy produced by the research on effective schools. Six indicators of effective schools (positive school climate, instructional leadership of the…

In a national effort to derive an empirical data base for establishing rural education research priorities, 273 general educators and 188 special educators representing public schools (180), colleges/universities (137), and other agencies (137) ranked 46 specific research questions clustered around the issues of rural school effectiveness,…

To obtain rural school superintendents' assessment of research needs, questionnaires were sent in 1986 to 752 superintendents from schools with less than 1,000 K-12 student population. The questionnaires, adapted from the research agenda of the Rural Education Association (REA), consisted of 51 research topics grouped under 9 thematic categories.…

Catholic educators want students to do their best academically and become good Catholics. Challenges that make this goal difficult to accomplish include a changing environment within the Catholic school: staffs that were almost entirely composed of priests or religious are now almost entirely lay, and the tension between the school as an…