Observations of and interviews with teachers and administrators in three elementary and three secondary schools provided support for the hypothesis that the social organization of the school as a workplace affects the fruitfulness of staff development efforts and the effectiveness of the school as a whole. This report reviews the relevant…

In the spring of 1979, the National Institute of Education, in collaboration with the United States Office of Education, the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE), and members of a nation-wide network of research and development agencies, sponsored a national colloquy on the theme that testing could have an important impact in improving…

This report evaluates the initial year of a project implemented in 15 elementary and 5 junior high schools in Cleveland in support of the schools' efforts to install effective school procedures designed to upgrade students' basic skills and academic achievement. The report deals with the following areas: (1) district support for the project; (2)…

This monograph is written to help school administrators and policy makers, in addressing the question of safe schools, separate analytically what is "school" and what is "society" in order to better understand the real span of the school's control. The central question is: what are the characteristics of safe and effective…

To provide a framework for the design and implementation of school improvement efforts, this booklet presents summaries of research on major factors influencing student achievement--school and classroom characteristics, educational expenditures, the quantity and quality of professional staff, and social environment--and conclusions based on that…

The project entitled "A Study of Schooling" went to 7 regions in the U.S. to collect data on 13 widely representative elementary schools and the 25 junior and senior high schools they feed. School board members, administrators, 17,000 students, 8,500 parents, and 1,350 teachers were interviewed or responded to questionnaires. Over 1,000…

As part of an evaluation study of the Berkeley Unified School District, this impact study was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of the district, schools, and programs in terms of basic skill achievement and to determine the relationship of specified educational variables (such as instruction, staffing, and school attributes, and of student…

The New York State Education Department's state-wide testing program using the Pupil Evaluation Program (PEP) is shown to be generally inadequate for judging program or school effectiveness, or for making decisions which would allow improvements in program effectiveness. The Comprehensive Achievement Monitoring (CAM) system can, however, be…

The Oregon school graduation requirements, the trends and events that led to their development, and the implementation program that followed their adoption are the subjects of this report. The requirements, adopted in September 1972, call for districts to establish minimum "survival level" competencies that each student must meet in…

The results of a critical survey of research on educational effectiveness, performed to assess the current state of knowledge regarding the determinants of educational outcomes, are reported. An input-output approach was used to analyze the relationship between the amounts of various resources provided to students and the educational outcomes.…

In many states renewed attempts at school reorganization may be the sole policy response to solving the rural school improvement issue. Reorganization should be resisted because benefits of reorganization are mixed, good rural schools have many strengths, and the demise of rural schools will damage the infrastructure of rural America. (JHZ)

Statistical methods employed by Alexander and Pallas do not negate the differences between public and private school students' achievement. Instead, their work supports the conclusion that Catholic schools help average students achieve by increasing the likelihood of their enrollment in the academic track and by enhancing their performance in the…

This study, conducted by the Community College Resource Center (CCRC), identifies community college management practices that promote student success. This study builds on earlier CCRC research using national survey data. It used transcript-level data on 150,000 students in three cohorts of first-time Florida community college students and a…

This paper discusses the work of the Education Trust and other teams of researchers and school leaders. If focuses on one symposium on and five research studies of high-performing, high-poverty schools. The six studies provided information about best practices in school leadership, organization, and instruction. Building on scholarship from the…

This collection of conference papers includes: (1) "Using Market Forces to Make Title I More Effective" (Marci Kanstoroom and Tyce Palmaffy); (2) "Making Economically Grounded Decisions about Comprehensive School Reform Models: Considerations of Costs, Effects, and Contexts" (Jennifer King Rice); (3) "Does Title I Money…