Using specific examples, describes key features of current comprehensive community initiatives to improve the lives of children and considers the limitations of efforts to evaluate them and factors contributing to their success or failure. Comprehensive community initiatives use multifaceted approaches to strengthen communities and improve the…

A major reason for scaling up school-community collaborations is to provide greater equity across community lines and offer similarly coordinated services to all children and families. Capacity must be built through eliciting commitment from key constituents. Expanding school-linked services is as complex as major educational reforms, since it…

Resources allocated by the New South Wales (NSW) Department of School Education (Australia) are inadequate for teacher librarians to carry out effective Cooperative Program Planning and Teaching (CPPT) and is doomed to failure. Describes the origins of CPPT, relief from face-to-face teaching, a comparison of conditions in Canadian and NSW schools,…

In 1990, George Mason University (Virginia) proposed building a combined library/student center. Examines the processes, policies, and procedures used to develop a new library collection combining multiculturalism, diversity, and core texts. Discusses the collection development plan, strategies, and policy; faculty involvement; key series and sets…

In the late 1980s, radical administrative changes (setting up boards of trustees and relaxing zoning restrictions) were undertaken in New Zealand's education system to make schools more responsive to their communities. This paper describes the consequences of implementing these policies, using evidence from a study of a particular high school.…

Describes a program for formulating and implementing a staff development plan for technology based on experiences in the Lake Forest School District (Delaware). A comparison of pre- and posttest responses of teachers indicated improvement in skill levels and more positive attitudes toward the use of technology in education. The annual technology…

Problem-based learning is designed to maximize active student participation in the learning process, foster student problem-solving and self-education skills, enhance student self-assessment, increase student communication skills, and improve student abilities to access and use information resources. A Texas high school's innovative problem-based…

Profiles four successful charter schools. San Diego's O'Farrell Community School provides an enrichment curriculum for inner-city middle schoolers. The Minnesota New Country School, established by three teachers, stresses individual and group projects. Saint Paul's City Academy engages 60 racially diverse youngsters with real-life construction…

Difficulties with selecting a coordinator for Delaware's newly approved RE:LEARNING pilot project foreshadowed later obstacles to achieving planned reforms. Unlike other states, communities, and schools, Delaware schools were not seen as desperate enough to need comprehensive reforms. Affluent parents upheld the status quo, and state officials…

Examines the impetus for and impact of a high-stakes assessment plan and reform initiative, North Carolina's ABC Plan for Public Education, from the perspective of state level policymakers and local level implementers. Finds practitioners received little support for implementing the initiative, and an adversarial relationship developed between…

Virginia's Public Education Network (PEN) was one of the first statewide public school Internet systems. PEN began as a regional pilot that led to the establishment of a regional prototype, Teacher-LINK. Teacher-LINK in turn became the basis for the statewide K-12 Internet system. Topics include PEN's educational content, Internet services, and…

Discusses the background and purpose of 1994's School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA). Focuses on the implementation of STWOA's three components (i.e., school-based learning, work-based learning, and connecting activities), highlighting the role of tech prep in joining school- and work-based instruction. Argues that community colleges are…

Proposes a way of thinking that integrates technology into elementary education. Describes the first four years of efforts at the University of Colorado at Denver to integrate technology into its preservice teacher education program. Outlines information and learning technologies skills, knowledge, and attitudes for two teacher training courses.…

Studied how teachers perceived the importance of the set of interventions of the teacher support program for the implementation of adaptive teaching. Nine schools and 129 teachers participated in the intervention; 36 of these participated in the evaluation. Data from questionnaires and interviews show that teachers attach considerable importance…

A survey indicating that 77% of Connecticut family and consumer sciences teachers would retire by 2012 spurred the work of a coalition to reinstate the teacher education program at a public university. A stakeholders' forum and collaborative linkages resulted in a teacher education curriculum proposal. (Contains 12 references.) (JOW)