Describes the implementation of a student portfolio requirement at Boulder Canyon High School (Arizona) in 1999 as part of a focus on continual student improvement. Advocates the use of portfolios as a way to show incremental gains in academic areas and as a tool for encouraging student ownership in their own personal growth and improvement. (KP)

Describes the efforts of LaSalle-Peru High School (Illinois) to improve the teaching and learning climate by focusing on staff and student relationships. Specifically examines the work of the "Respect Committee," which focused on: (1) creating ways to demonstrate that members of the school care personally for one another; and (2) helping students…

Identifies challenges facing graduate library education and recommends ways to keep library programs from closing, including better defining the profession of librarianship and avoiding isolation by engaging in high-profile, universitywide relationships with other academic departments. Unique characteristics of librarians and librarianship are…

Describes a performance engineering model used to design an effective implementation system for a supervisory training program. Highlights include a discussion of management participation, an implementation planning matrix, a flow chart of the implementation process, and a form for field trainer follow-up. (LRW)

Survey forms were sent to 6,000 school board members who subscribe to "The American School Board Journal" in an attempt to discover what reform efforts are being utilized and which ones are working best in schools. A total of 1,347 readers (22.5%) responded. Curricular and instructional reforms were cited by 91% of the respondents, and 70% said…

The Manitoba School Improvement Program (MSIP) encourages Manitoba high schools to include students in their improvement projects. Through an array of action-oriented, student-centered initiatives, MSIP has come to a new understanding of "student voice" that encompasses various levels of students' engagement in both school improvement…

Reports on the Improving Education Quality Project in Uganda, which sought to improve primary education by using participatory action research to involve and empower teacher and community participants. Discusses the complexities and dilemmas of moving toward participatory ways within the context of Ugandan society, and how dialogue among all…

Considers strategies for the implementation of quality improvement in libraries. Highlights include structured quality improvement, especially Total Quality Management; organizational change; customer focus; continuous improvement; data-based decision making; systems thinking; employee involvement in decision making; diffusion of innovation;…

Family and community capacity building projects in Tasmania are attempting to address the disadvantage of communities marginalised by socio-economic and other influences. Collaborations between the projects, community members and groups, and education and training organisations, have resulted in a leadership process which has fostered reengagement…

Students who succeeded in school are almost always supported by their families, while other students struggle without support from home. For a school to develop a partnership program involving all parents in ways that increase student success requires new ways of thinking about family and community involvement. All schools need a purposeful,…

Integration of molecular modeling into General Chemistry lab encourages students to dually process molecular concepts both verbally and pictorially. When students are tested utilizing questions not previously encountered the dual processing of information can contribute to a transfer to knowledge. General Chemistry students utilized molecular…

Establishing and sustaining quality teaching is equally dependent on the capacity of organizations and networks at regional, district and school levels to productively engage in improvement efforts that are realized in the classroom. The "teacher workforce" evokes military and industrial images, huge numbers of workers who must be trained,…

This paper addresses the accumulating knowledge of prospective teachers of secondary school mathematics and their acquired proficiency during the course "Psychological aspects of mathematics education," in which we discussed theoretical models including the intuitive rules theory. Participants' performances are examined by means of an extensive…

Several years ago intermediaries in Boston were challenged to build a continuum of training around a shared set of competencies for those who work with young people ages five to twenty-two during the out-of-school-time hours. After receiving a few small planning grants, local intermediaries teamed up with large youth-serving organizations to…

The Point of Transition Service Integration Project was initiated in 1997 in California as a three-year model demonstration grant funded by the Department of Education. The goal of the project was to improve the level of cooperation and collaboration among public schools, the State Department of Rehabilitation, and the State Department of…