This 2012 report shows that high school graduation rates continue to improve nationally and across many states and school districts, with 12 states accounting for the majority of new graduates over the last decade. Tennessee and New York continue to lead the nation with double-digit gains in high school graduation rates over the same period. The…

The "American Dream" is under duress as the economy slows, incomes stagnate, and upward mobility is more limited than at any time in recent history. Despite a steady increase in per-pupil spending on public schooling over the last decades, not enough students graduate with proficiency in reading and math. And despite some progress over the past…

In order to ensure that American students are competitive with students in other countries, since the 1980s, U.S. policymakers have been trying to improve the K-12 public school system. Recent reform efforts have led to the current high-stakes testing movement, which measures student achievement and school effectiveness mainly by standardized test…

British schools have been positioned by recent educational policy discourses as sites of innovation and transformation in new technological contexts, but more recent concerns about well-being suggest a more "affective turn" in educational policy-making. This article provides an analysis of a project which has explored the ways in which…

This ex post facto, causal-comparative research study examined student reading performance data within a school district before and after a school district-wide decision to alter the reading curriculum in response to local political pressure from parents. Data analysis revealed that test scores dropped to a significantly lower level, especially…

Higher education institutions are in the battle of a lifetime as they are coping with political and economic uncertainties, threats to federal aid, declining state support, higher tuition rates and increased competition from for-profit institutions. Amid all these challenges, these institutions are pressed to keep up with technological demands,…

This paper investigates the extent to which changes in the effectiveness status of schools can be related to changes in the functioning of school factors included in the dynamic model of educational effectiveness. The methods of a follow-up study were identical to those of a study conducted 4 years ago in order to test the validity of the dynamic…

Current value-added models for teacher accountability are better than models based only on student achievement, but they have their weakness. They are subject to systematic and random error, as are all measures, and there are concerns about the tests used for the measurements. However, value-added models are better than the alternatives at the…

If there is one thing all educators know and many studies have confirmed for decades, it is that there is no single answer to educational improvement. There are no grounds for the claim made in the past decade that accountability all by itself is a silver bullet, nor for the oft-asserted argument that choice by itself is a panacea. This article…

The recent appointment of a new superintendent, the need for priority-setting in the face of dramatic state budget cuts, and increased national attention on school reform have elevated the performance of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) to the forefront of local media and civic attention. Consequently, the need for an understandable and commonly…

The public debate about the success and expansion of charter schools often seems to gravitate toward a tiny handful of empirical studies, when there is, in fact, a relatively well-developed literature focused on whether these schools generate larger testing gains among their students relative to their counterparts in comparable regular public…

Purpose: The purpose was to identify whether the principals in three Southern California schools that have sustained API scores of at least 900 and state and similar schools ranking of a 10 for three or more consecutive years, demonstrate the eleven behaviors outlined by Marzano, Waters, and McNulty, in successfully achieving second-order change.…

The purpose of this study was to conclude if there is a difference in the perceptions between alternative school directors and alternative school teachers with regards to the extent of existence of effective characteristics and the importance of effective characteristics in their alternative education programs throughout the state of Indiana. Lead…

The purpose of this mixed-method study was to explore the relationship between faculty self-efficacy, organizational structure, and collegial trust. The concepts of teacher self-efficacy, organizational structure, and collegial trust were used to investigate any possible empirical relationships existing between these variables in a private,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of students with Individualized Education Programs who attend regional safe schools of their educational experiences. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates that students with disabilities be provided a free, appropriate, public education in the least restrictive…