A group of Edmonton (Alberta) principals developed 10 commandments for developing needed skills for the next millennium. Principals must be goal-directed, light others' way, have high expectations, foster empowerment, provide authentic educational experiences, be team members, value school community differences, encourage others' participation,…

Restructuring efforts, including curriculum integration, require that teachers exercise intellectual skills transcending craft wisdom and recipe exchanges. This article explores the tension between teamed middle-school teachers' technical interest in seeking recipes and their deliberationist interest in engaging in fruitful dialog. Teachers…

Many middle schools use teaming or other models to create smaller teaching and learning units. Too often, schools align these models with characteristics advocated in the literature, rather than focusing on collaborative work environments' effects on teachers' and students' lives. These structures' true value lies in the collaborative work…

This review includes recent research that manipulated features of cooperative learning as well as studies of the relationship between interaction in small groups and outcomes. The analysis examines the kinds of discourse that are productive for different types of learning and moves toward studies of task and interaction. (SLD)

This article describes Colorado's approach to implementation of least restrictive environment (LRE) policy, specifically focused on the recent reform initiative of inclusive education. It describes how state leadership and collaboration have resulted in increased integrated placements. Emerging policy initiatives and questions about the merger of…

This paper introduces this journal issue on the Network for Innovative Colleges of Education, which was originally created to allow five deans to meet periodically to support one another but which quickly grew to support other key faculty. The colleagues all contributed to restructuring each of the five colleges. (SM)

Examines the process undertaken by the authors, both learning center administrators, when faced with the campus-wide process of restructuring. Explains their systematic examination of services offered by the learning center, the data gathered, and the changes made. Presents a model of a learning center that effectively meets the needs of a rapidly…

In the current context of standards-based reform and heightened accountability for school performance, state education agencies (SEAs) have an important, but not yet well-articulated, role to play in local school improvement efforts. This article starts to articulate such a role by examining the variety of approaches and strategies used by 7 SEAs…

The author recently had the same conversation about local school reform with two superintendents--one from a large, urban district in the East and the other from a small district in the Midwest. Both superintendents were working with their respective boards to approve, design and fund reading initiatives consistent with the new federal guidelines.…

In the 1980s, a Republican president led a defense build-up in response to foreign crises, and his education secretary, chided the establishment on school reform. Legal experts debated the merits of affirmative action, while advocates questioned the growing reliance of students on loans instead of grants to finance a college education. Sound…

In this article, the author discusses multiage education. Multiage education hailed as recently as 10 years ago as a promising way to restructure schools and boost student achievement but now has fallen on hard times. Interest in the issue has waned, with new research on the topic virtually nonexistent and attendance at national multiage…

Current theory and research in the area of motivation indicate that while frequent academic failures are clearly undesirable, temporary failure in challenging academic tasks can have important psychological benefits when followed by successful coping. However, teachers' responses during our school reform programme suggest that some special…

Utah state Representative Margaret Dayton adored President Bush. Her conservative politics lined up with his. One of her favorite memories was being at an intimate gathering and hearing the president echo her top priorities, God, family, and country. However, Dayton had drove one of Bush's biggest education-relation headaches. Dayton led a…

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the average 17-year-old today is no more proficient at reading or mathematics than his counterpart in 1970. Some progress has been made by 9- and 13-year-olds, but the gains evaporate by the time these students reach the end of their K-12 experience. The average 17-year-old…

We evaluated the role that social capital among teachers plays in affecting teacher pedagogy in the context of comprehensive school reform (CSR). CSR implementation was designed to change school- and classroom-level processes, including organization and governance, curriculum and instruction, professional development (PD), and parental…