In December 2004, the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) examined the issue of high school reform in its Education Policy Brief, "Redesigning High Schools to Prepare Students for the Future" (ED488911). Since the publication of that report, many new policies and programs have been established across the country at the…

The author states that being a leader is more than being put "in charge" of something. It means sharing and modeling what's best for students. She describes real-world teacher leadership as participating on or heading committees or acting as department heads for some teachers. While for others, it means mentoring other teachers, asking probing…

This document describes the work of communities participating in the Public Education Network's policy initiative, which focuses on public engagement as the key element in sustainable school reform and on local education funds (LEFs) as key intermediaries in the engagement process. This document provides a snapshot of what has taken place in these…

Achievement effects as measured by the Stanford Achievement Test 9 were estimated for students in grades 1-11 that participated in America's Choice, Co-nect, Different Ways of Knowing, Success for All (SFA), and Urban Learning Centers comprehensive school reform (CSR) designs implemented in Los Angeles Unified School District between 1999 and…

Restructuring has come to mean fundamentally substantive change leading to improvement in students' education, while offering the promise of power sharing. Organizational, curricular, relational, and fiscal changes were part of the restructuring initiatives of four urban districts. Unfortunately, the efforts generally fell short of genuine…

The study examines the defining features of school improvement programs. Twelve research-based programs that have been implemented for 5 or more years in at least 50 schools or for 3,000 students were analyzed. All have achieved national visibility. Eight of the programs focused on curricular reform and topics included: (1) Core Knowledge; (2)…

As school-restructuring efforts are initiated across the country, many schools are calling upon facilitators to guide the change process. Many people both inside and outside the school system can play facilitative roles. This guidebook offers tools and approaches for facilitating school change, breaking down the facilitator's role into 12…

This study explored the social world of one school, looked at the web of relationships, and documented the social interactions that occurred in the context of a mandated reform. The study was designed to describe and understand the relationships of teachers in one school as they planned and developed a school-wide strategy for change as required…

This booklet recounts an educator's musings on what education could be for his 2-year-old granddaughter. It describes the shift in pedagogical paradigms away from the diagnostic-prescriptive approach, with its focus on identification of problems and deficiencies, toward education design, with its concern for human potential and human differences.…

States have used a variety of strategies to address financial and educational bankruptcy in public school districts and schools. The results of these intervention strategies are ambiguous. Four approaches that have been used are: (1) district takeovers; (2) mayoral control; (3) third-party partnerships; and (4) reconstitution of schools. In all,…

The Illinois Community College Board created this document that discusses accountability and productivity in Illinois Community Colleges in the fiscal year 2003. This report includes results of 131 academic, 889 career and technical education, and 54 adult and developmental education programs. The summaries include both program strengths and the…

To assess the progress of students in large urban school districts and to learn more about major reform initiatives taking place in urban schools, a study of 13 large districts was conducted. Of the 13 districts studied, 10 showed increases in the percentage of elementary school students in the highest poverty schools meeting the district or state…

Gareth Morgan's "Images of Organization" introduces readers to "holographic organization" and explores his concepts of connectivity and redundancy, simultaneous specialization and generalization, minimum critical specification, and self-organization. This paper attempts to put these concepts into operation successfully by using data, surveys,…

This report focuses on the nature of restructuring in a sample of Washington State schools, and the degree to which those changes improved student learning. The research attempted to distinguish between simply changing school or classroom practices and the broader concept of restructuring a school. A restructured school was defined as one that has…

The College of Education at the University of Idaho (UI) is embarking on the first year of a project to restructure its teacher education program and refocus it to reflect national standards and place K-12 students at the center of preservice learning. Teacher education students are being prepared to meet the needs of school students through an…