This study reflects on children's voices when they are motivated, engaged, and learning in school. It consists of hearing what they have to say about what works for them and their positive school experiences rather than those told by adults. Adults who make policy are missing important information about the student curriculum they write. They are…

This publication is intended to help foundation program officers, educators, and organizers use the Education Organizing Indicators Framework to understand the contribution that community organizing makes to school reform. The Framework is the product of a study that examined five community groups to document how organized groups of parents and…

This research report discusses findings from descriptive studies that investigated the context and outcomes of educational programs for students with disabilities who were expected to receive standard high-school diplomas. The nine high schools included three in urban areas, three in suburban areas, and three in rural areas. Principals, special…

This book explains how to create a collaborative learning environment involving librarians, teachers, administrators, and all team players in K-12 education. Building on existing educational standards, the book features such proven tools as a ready-to-use framework for establishing a collaborative relationship, 40 discussion prompts to help…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is an ongoing project of the National Center for Education Statistics. The NHES used random digit dial sampling and computer-assisted telephone interviewing to conduct studies on important education issues. There are 13 NHES data sets, covering 6 broad educational topics. The six NHES components on…

Teachers in a range of disciplines are interested in engaging their students in authentic activities that reflect the experiences of real-world practitioners. Adopting this approach requires the design and implementation of learning environments that incorporate and support such activities. This paper describes two real-life cases at the…

The U.S. Department of Education's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention publishes "Catalyst," a newsletter covering current Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence (AODV) prevention issues at institutions of higher education. "Catalyst" discusses emerging issues and highlights…

Collaborative, shared leadership among administrators, students, faculty, and staff is a key component to creating campus environments that foster student success. Collaborative work groups can be powerful vehicles for launching and institutionalizing student-friendly policies and practices and for developing complementary programs such as…

This book investigates the value of school-based mentoring (SBM) in the lives of adolescent African America and Latino males and offers alternative, more positive ways in which society can embrace them. Understanding that mentoring is a cultural practice, this book informs schools and communities of the roles and responsibilities that they have in…

This is a critique of the current system of governance in public education. Chapters include: (1) "Statement of the Problem," which introduces the issues related to educational reform and provides some examples of previous successes and failures; (2) "The Non-Learning, Non-Self-Correcting System," in which the current system is…

A historical and qualitative analysis of a northern urban de facto segregated school is presented that explains the unique factors of the school's history that led to the maintenance of the school today. The focus is on the school's context, its historical and present-day leadership, and its past and present teachers. In considering the school's…

The purpose of this research brief is to summarize the literature on research conducted with at-risk students. Emerging from the research are three central groups of factors that are characteristic of at-risk students: (1) social and family background; (2) personal problems; and (3) school factors. In spite of the presence of several risk factors,…

A plan for increasing effective student writing skills was developed and implemented. Subjects were students in a regular first-grade class, a fifth-sixth grade behavior disorder (BD) class, and a seventh-eighth grade self-contained educable mentally handicapped (EMH) class, all of whom exhibited inadequate writing skills. Evidence for the…

This action research project evaluated the impact of a program for enhancing interpersonal problem-solving skills on academic achievement in elementary students in an industrial, urban Illinois community. The lack of social skills and inability to think critically were documented through office referrals and teacher observations of kindergarten,…

This ethnographic study was conducted to study students', administrators', and teachers' perceptions of and experiences at a Business Technology and Communications magnet high school in a large urban district that has been under court-ordered desegregation since 1985. Triangulation of data collection included classroom observations over 20 weeks,…