For those who would like to see Ron Wolk's vision of schools realized, the challenge of scaling up is the most daunting one faced. Skeptics like to say, "Oh well, that 'X' and 'Y' did something really special is irrelevant; they're exceptions." But the author's experience suggests that today's exceptions can become tomorrow's norms. If that is to…

In the No Child Left Behind era of high-stakes testing, school administrators are facing their toughest challenge ever. They are being held accountable for the performance of their schools, yet current systems in public education typically fail to provide them with the appropriate tools to manage effectively. Although the classroom is where…

Even after more than a decade of experience, surprisingly little is understood about the entities responsible for authorizing and overseeing charter schools. In this article, the authors argue that the success of the charter school movement depends on the effectiveness of those authorizers. In order to find out how charter authorizers are doing…

Has the culture of accountability become a culture of fear for school leaders? In this article, the authors share the stories of three successful principals whose careers and reputations were altered by the impact of a set of test scores. The authors suggest that perhaps this culture of educational accountability, created by well-intended policy…

The realities and needs of urban students, families, and educators have outgrown traditional individual counseling models. The American School Counselor Association's National Model and National Standards and the Education Trust's Transforming School Counseling Initiative encourage professional school counselors to shift roles toward implementing…

In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis in higher education on the explicit articulation of assessment standards and requirements, whether this emanates from calls for public accountability or is based on ideas of good educational practice (Ecclestone, 2001). We argue in this article that a single-minded focus on explicit…

States and districts are going to get more breathing room to meet the federal mandate that teachers be "highly qualified," but extending the deadline, teacher-quality advocates say, could ultimately bring more pressure on school officials to make progress. That's because the one-year reprieve dangled in late October 2005 by federal…

Critics argue that No Child Left Behind's requirement that states bring all students up to academic proficiency by the year 2014 represents a massive unfunded mandate. These critics reason that unless the feds put a lot more money on the table, financially strapped state and local governments will be forced to raise taxes sharply. Otherwise, the…

Portfolios, a term derived from the carrying case of paintings or drawings that artists present as proof of their talents, are collections of student work. With the nationwide efforts to raise graduation standards and the increasing use of standardized testing, the idea of basing promotion and graduation decisions on portfolios of students' work…

In the spring of 1995, the Chicago Public School system, the nation's third largest and, arguably, one of the most troubled, made national headlines when it was taken over by Mayor Richard M. Daley, then starting his third term and the most popular mayor since his father, Richard J. Daley, held the office for 21 years. By far the biggest reform…

Over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle wrote a treatise on ethics in which he proposed that there were both intellectual and moral virtues to be developed in the human being. Virtue ("aristeia") was roughly equivalent to the English word "excellence" and the unifying virtue that was both a moral and an intellectual virtue was…

From talking with educators across the United States, the author has concluded that No Child Left Behind is having "an enormously positive impact." NCLB's most important benefit is a new focus on the academic performance of poor and minority students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. The law has also provided…

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, standards-based reform has taken center stage in the educational arena. Although standard setting and accountability issues affect every facet of education, the challenges of implementing such a movement are greater in contexts such as urban special education. This article highlights some of the…

This chapter highlights some of the issues that need to be addressed when operating international campuses and provides a list of questions to help guide relevant institutional research. (Lists 8 online resources.)

Student affairs practitioners often rely on anecdotal evidence when asked to demonstrate their contributions to the community college, but their future may depend on their ability to become more data-based and outcomes-oriented. This chapter discusses the need for a culture of evidence in student affairs, describes how to build such a culture, and…