Because federal law offers little guidance for continually-failing schools, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) conducted a study from August 2006 to January 2007 in Michigan to explore questions of what happens after restructuring, particularly to schools that continue to fail to meet achievement targets. Because it had an accountability system…

This course workbook is designed to help students understand the principles of active learning, student assessment, and team training used in Arizona State University's core engineering curriculum. Eight sections focus on: (1) active learning, teaching and learning styles, and cooperative learning; (2) student assessment, levels of learning, and…

This paper presents a grounded theory of educational partnership process. A case-study design was used to describe aspects of the partnership process of the Cooperative Alliance for Gifted Education (CAGE) during part of its second year of operation. Three organizations served as partners: a large urban school district, a state university, and a…

In 1969, the College of Lake County (CLC) was founded in Grayslake, Illinois, as the result of a grassroots effort by area residents. To ensure employee input into decisions during the formative years, CLC established the All-College Senate (ACS), an employee forum featuring representatives from every employee group who met regularly to discuss…

From a synthesis of findings culled from a study that examined partnerships of families and communities with middle schools at multiple sites, researchers derived eight "lessons" that can help foster understanding of the nature of family-school partnerships in the middle grades. Researchers also elaborated implications of these lessons,…

School reform in the 1990s has been focused on school-based restructuring, with local efforts shown to be more successful than earlier central or remote control approaches. Success has followed changes in teachers' classroom behavior, in the structure of the school, and its school culture. The local school restructuring approach is illustrated…

This guide presents a framework that identifies what a home, school, and community partnership can do to help families thrive as they experience change and their young children grow. The guide explains how connections among home, school, and community enable families to move from setting to setting with ease and build on their previous experience.…

This book aims to help parents, community members, and educators find resources, design school options, and take action together to improve small rural schools in ways that meet community and student needs. Chapter 1 discusses the virtues of smallness, outlines basic assumptions about the role and nature of good education, examines the…

This book is addressed to educators and work-place trainers interested in applying the Malcolm Baldrige award criteria and/or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000 training guidelines for program improvement. An initial section compares and contrasts the ISO standards and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award…

This book traces the restructuring of a Texas school district that moved from management by coercion to continuous improvement for quality. In 1990, the Dickinson Independent School District (Texas) began implementation of Continuous Improvement Management (CIM), based on the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, William Glasser, and J. M. Juran.…

This paper reports on how teachers and principals in Maine schools perceive current and desired involvement of parents, community members, and students in school decision making. A survey assessed decision making in four basic areas: (1) mission, goals, and objectives; (2) curriculum, from specific learning outcomes to development of curriculum…

As Texas public schools undertake their third year of implementing site-based decision making (SBDM), it becomes increasingly important to examine the extent to which SBDM has achieved its purported goals. This paper examined how Texas public school districts might effect mandated governance changes through the political phenomenon known as…

This book presents a wide array of sophisticated problem-solving tools and shows how to use them in a humanizing way that involves all stakeholders in the process. Chapter 1 develops the rationale for educational stakeholders to consider quality tools. Chapter 2 highlights three quality group-process tools--brainstorming, the nominal group…

During the spring of 1993, a needs assessment was conducted in rural Kansas communities to determine existing services and community strengths available to special needs children. Interviews were conducted with a cross section of the community regarding community resources, collaboration, parent and family involvement, planning processes, and…

A survey of French research by CEREQ ("A French research centre for analysis of occupations and of vocational education and training") shows that firms have undertaken a number of experiments, most of them large scale, to retrain their work force. These initiatives are situated within a general context of change. Training programs based…