Schools can reduce special-education and remedial instruction costs by helping students succeed in early grades. This article profiles several prevention and early intervention programs, including Success for All, Reading Recovery, Prevention of Learning Disabilities, the Carolina Abecedarian Project, Comer's School Development Program, and…

This article tells the story of one elementary school faculty who responded to the call for accountability by adopting an inclusive view and implementing educational practices where all students were welcomed and considered valuable, contributing members of the school community. The inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education…

In December of 2004, media outlets across the country were abuzz with news of the just-released results of the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tests. Once again despite highly publicized efforts to reform American math education over the past two decades, the United States did little better than average. Taken…

The "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act has made schools accountable for assuring adequate yearly progress of students. Therefore, it has become critical to identify school-level variables that can be controlled to affect student achievement, especially given that, thus far, most school reform efforts have failed to significantly affect…

In this article I critique six quantitative studies of Reading Recovery and five reviews of Reading Recovery research published in Tier 1 research journals--journals accepted as having high levels of "expert scrutiny" through peer review. I also critique several quantitative research studies of Reading Recovery published in Tier 2…

Accountability in Chicago in the 1990s derived from progressive reform legislation adopted in 1988 and 1995. The Illinois General Assembly in 1988 passed the Chicago School Reform Act (P.A. 85-1418), which included a set of goals, a redistribution of the school district's resources, and a decentralization of decisionmaking to the school level. The…

The lessons learned from a decade long, site based school reform project are used to examine the relationship between technology integration and school reform. The nature of the reforms will be described along with implications and conclusions for technology planning. Six key school reform takeaways will be shared that are necessary to build a…

I synthesize some of the lessons we have learned about systemic school reform in order and derive two explicit hypotheses about when such reforms are likely to be more and less successful. The first hypothesis focuses on program implementation: to achieve success, any systemic reform must overcome challenges at each stage of the policy-making…

Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate factorial invariance between vocational and academic teacher groups on a measure of the learning organization concept. Participants were 488 full-time teachers of public trade industry-technical and business schools located within Seoul, South Korea. Statistically significant…

The winds of decentralizing reform that have been driving their way through various government education systems across the globe over the best part of two decades have generated a great deal of conflict. In the late 1990s those working in the Western Australian government high school in which I conducted the research reported here found…

Webster Middle School, situated in a large Midwestern city, serves primarily an African-American, lower-to middle-class population. As with many other schools in similar geographic and demographic situations, the academic performance of its students was very poor, the physical facilities were in decay, and enrollments were dropping, with only 250…

Accountability for student learning is the key focus of New Mexico's system of school improvement. The Public Education Department's commitment to continuous improvement is evident in the steps taken to refine the 2007-2008 School Improvement Framework to reflect No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. The School Improvement Framework was…

In many schools and districts, leaders are lacking the necessary skills and preparation for the roles to which they are assigned. Improving the preparation of school and district leaders prior to hiring or promotion can help schools and districts accomplish the following goals: (1) Meet the growing need for highly qualified leaders; (2) Raise…

Numerous researchers have devoted their careers to school reform. At the same time, many politicians have gotten elected by promising to fix failing schools. Although a lot of time, energy, and money have been invested in tackling this problem, the problem persists: Too many schools in the United States are failing to prepare too many students for…

In this article, the author focuses on the Washington, D.C. school system and Antonio, a child victim of violence, to discuss the background problems that affect the school performance of children from troubled neighborhoods. People who work in schools know that children--even kindergarten and preschool children--don't come to them as blank slates…