In October 1984, Education Secretary William Bennett proclaimed 1985-86 the "Year of the Elementary School" and announced the Elementary School Recognition Program. The program's goal was to focus national attention on schools providing high-quality instructional and character development programs. This article lists the 270 winning…

Contends that sound practice requires an understanding of the differences between centralized assessment that supports policy and classroom assessment that supports instruction. Bases discussion on 1943 article by Scates, exploring more differences between large-scale and classroom assessment than those referred to by Scates and defending…

The comprehensive framework was developed in the Effective School Improvement Project. The initial framework was based on an analysis of a range of theories and an additional analysis of case studies in the field of school improvement. A revision took place after an analytic confrontation of the initial framework with successful improvement…

This article questions whether culture and climate can be considered interchangeable concepts in school effectiveness research. Hereto both are compared by describing them thoroughly and reviewing their main advantages and disadvantages. It is argued that the two are different. Preference is given to culture as more suitable and more accurate for…

This paper outlines the ways in which successive UK governments have regulated and controlled the teaching profession since the 1980s. Key initiatives relating to curriculum, school effectiveness and individual teacher performance are considered in some detail, because these issues have arguably had the greatest impact upon teaching and learning.…

In recent years, as various agencies have stressed standards, assessment and accountability in schools, more and more attention has been given to getting students ready for the tests or the instruction. A more appropriate and humane approach to readiness considers not only how ready the child is for the school, but also how ready the school is for…

The charter school landscape is dramatically different today compared to when the federal government first forayed into the field in 1994. That year it established the Charter School Program as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA. The Charter School Program, which is designed to support the startup of new public charter…

This year's "Quality Counts" report, the 15th edition of this annual report produced through the joint efforts of the "Education Week" newsroom and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, arrives at a time of continued fiscal anxiety and education policy ferment in the wake of what has been widely described as the…

In this era of accountability, there is a need to fairly and accurately document the ways that educational systems contribute to student achievement. This study used the regression discontinuity design within a multilevel framework as an alternative approach to estimate school effectiveness by examining the effect of the value added to students'…

Few decisions by a school district are more controversial than the decision to close a school. School staff, students and their families, and even the local community all bear a substantial burden once the decision is made to close a school. Since 2001, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has closed 44 schools for reasons of poor academic performance or…

The search continues for effective ways to educate disadvantaged children in big cities. Different cities have tried varied approaches--intensive work on the professional skills of teachers and administrators in Boston, standardized approaches to instruction in San Diego, and extensive use of vouchers and chartering in Washington, D.C., and…

The components of a successful school are clear. Many educators can easily list them: high expectations for all students, a safe and orderly learning environment, strong instructional leadership, highly qualified teachers, data-driven decision making, etc. Then why don't more schools change the what they are doing to mirror them? Knowing the…

Value-added indicators are now a central part of school accountability in England, and value-added information is routinely used in school improvement at both the national and the local levels. This article describes the value-added models that are being used in the academic year 2007-8 by schools, parents, school inspectors, and other…

Contemporary models of action research that are complementary to and in some cases promoted in UK Government policy tend to follow a loosely scientific methodology. They are reductionist in character and work on the assumption that linear processes of balanced interaction between causes and effects enables the practitioner to make controlled…

Wonderful schools do not simply have to be imagined. Phenomenal examples of education going right for children exist in the United States. These schools are serving all populations of children and families. What becomes clear, even with schools that appear quite different from one another, is that common themes emerge across effective schools and…