The Tongue River Elementary School in Ranchester, Wyoming, has faced the friction of bringing in students from other schools, school district consolidation with no written curriculum, and low test scores. How the school survived and prospered is described. (MT)

The needed cooperation between industry and education means schools should recognize industry's central role in the partnership process to help schools improve academic and vocational education. Cooperation will involve planning, training, reevaluation of resource allocation, and financial investment. (CJH)

The school review program includes evaluation of the principal's performance, observation of all teachers and programs, school climate analysis, parental preferences and suggestions, and recommendations and planning reports. Recommendations fall into three categories: maintenance, consideration, and problem areas. The program is used in the Red…

Four findings regarding school effectiveness taken from the Department of Education's report "What Works--Research about Teaching and Learning" are reviewed. Effective schools, school climate, discipline, and teacher collegiality are discussed. (MT)

Points out the shortcomings of education in the 1950s--the "good old days." (EL)

The Irving Elementary School (Illinois), serving a low-income, transient population, used the Illinois Quality Schools Index to measure the school's effectiveness. After various committees identified six problem ares, task forces were formed to refine goals, resolve problems, and suggest improvements. A later reevaluation shows progress in…

Differential results of analysis of effective, typical, and ineffective schools in middle and low socioeconomic neighborhoods are presented. Implications for practitioners and for future research are discussed. (Author/MT)

Three years ago Phillips Elementary, a K-5 school in Pittsburgh, received a new principal who was committed to instructional improvement with emphasis on reading, reinforcement of positive behavior, and bringing parents into the school. Attendance is up, teachers enjoy teaching, and parents are involved in many ways. (MT)

Discusses the new roles for school counselors in helping middle school students achieve academic and personal success. Roles include nurturing the school mission, guiding program development, facilitating instruction and group involvement, and belonging to a leadership team. (BL)

A formula developed for the high schools in Queens County, New York, measures the academic integrity of the instructional areas of English, social studies, mathematics, science, and foreign language. Several components of the subjects are measured and ratios established that serve as a longitudinal measure of each school's performance. (MLF)

The theory that strong external accountability improves school performance fails to recognize the importance of internal accountability and insufficient efforts to develop organizational capacity. A study of 24 restructuring schools found that schools with strong external accountability tended to have low capacity; strong internal accountability…

Argues that although John Gray, Harvey Goldstein, and Sally Thomas treat the notion of trend in an unproblematic manner, as deterministic time trends, movements in data identified by Gray as school improvement trends may not be generated by the deterministic processes they assume. Opines these upward and downward movements may reflect a purely…

Builds on earlier research suggesting it is fairly difficult to extrapolate current trends in school performance into the future. Explores two areas of research on school improvement which have, to date, received little attention: (1) trends in performance over time and (2) the incidence of time lagged phenomena. (BT)

Outlines a theory of school effectiveness/improvement, based on master concepts of intellectual capital, social capital, and leverage, linked with conventional concepts of institutional outputs. Sets 12 educational concepts within this theoretical framework. Proposes range/fertility of a simplified model can be exemplified and tested in three…

Comparative analysis of the power of two models (technical and participating) of European school self-evaluation to explain the success of the process itself. Finds similarities in explanatory power of both models, suggesting that they be combined for self-evaluation optimization. (Contains 26 references.) (PKP)