Education reform efforts across the United States are dramatically raising expectations for student achievement. However, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) found that teachers have not been adequately prepared for the changes in practice needed to meet new student learning goals. This publication briefly examines research…

Some of the difficult questions surrounding intensive scheduling, along with examples of successful applications of this approach, are described in this document. This book offers a blueprint from a practitioner's perspective and is intended for educators and lay people interested in improving secondary schools. Chapter 1 demonstrates how to…

In 1988, the Education Commission of the States and Coalition of Essential Schools joined forces to create Re:Learning, which aimed to change the education system and bring about improved learning for all students. This report describes the development and implementation of the program and focuses on program influences on student achievement and…

Casebooks are becoming an increasingly popular format within education for structuring conversations around challenging issues. Although most education cases provide simple snapshots of classroom interactions, the cases provided in this text focus on some of the challenges faced by educators and communities intent upon reforming entire schools and…

A descriptive study was conducted that examined urban school counseling professionals' perception of school restructuring activities such as school-based management, community-school partnerships, and school-based family counseling. Professional school counselors (N=102) working in urban schools were surveyed. Several implications can be drawn…

This paper presents a dialogue on the subject of reading instruction in the 20th century, comparing historical perceptions of American public schooling with those of contemporary schools. It suggests that prognosticating about schooling traditionally seems to fall into the two categories of wildly optimistic or cautiously pessimistic, and that the…

The Accelerated Schools Approach is a whole-school reform being implemented in more than 1,000 U.S. elementary and middle schools. The program is characterized by a school structure that sets high expectations for students and teachers, a governance structure with broad teacher participation, and a "powerful learning" approach to…

This report examines the balance that exists between school-based management mandates and the superintendent's ultimate responsibility for student performance in Texas. It claims that the literature on school-based management stipulates that states must transfer authority, responsibility, and accountability from the central office to the school…

This paper explores how characteristics of complex educational change may virtually dictate the leadership strategies adopted by those charged with bringing about change. The change in question here is the large-scale reorganization of local education authorities (LEAs) across England. The article focuses on how across-the-board initiatives to…

This paper illustrates several collaborative program evaluation models and designs used in Newark, New Jersey, public schools since a state takeover in 1995. As part of its comprehensive design for school reform, the school district developed collaborations with community partners to provide direct services to schools. Each evaluation combined…

This essay traces the liberal to conservative changes in U.S. political attitudes and the effect these changes had on progressive and essentialist theories of education from the 1940s to the present. Focus is on the role Arthur Bestor played in these developments. Bestor was a leader of the anti-progressive movement during the 1950s and the most…

This paper explores the reform content and specific teacher learning conditions that enabled teachers at an urban California elementary school to find ways to examine the effects of their practices on students and to reflect on the values and beliefs underlying their practices. Over 5 years, a professional culture of inquiry developed, as required…

This paper focuses on how urban high schools may be not only revitalized but also transformed into institutions that are designed to help students at the crossroads of their academic careers. It discusses the rationale for change, historic highlights of this effort, and a new vision for American high schools. Some of the promising approaches to…

This report critiques the movement to decentralize decision making in public education. It provides an indepth examination of school-based management (SBM) with the aim of revealing why this type of reform seems to have had so little payoff for students. It addresses several key questions: What are the objectives of SBM, and are these objectives…

This book is part of a series of case studies that present better ways to educate Ohio's students. The case study is part of the Transforming Learning Communities (TLC) Project, designed to support significant school-reform efforts among Ohio's elementary, middle, and high schools. The text describes the transformation of a small high school in…