The goal at the National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) is to support school efforts to reach excellence--to raise academic expectations and to promote those practices that will help more students reach those expectations. The "Just for the Kids School Information Service" is the process NCEA has created to accomplish this goal in a…

Study sought to determine the feasibility of using a modified form of Judgment Analysis (JAN) as a vehicle for identifying a policy of rated school effectiveness in the experimental League of Cooperating Schools (LCS) project. (Authors)

The effective school's perspective for evaluating educational programs is not a scientific but rhetorical reform model. Definition of effective schooling must include school-wide and continuing achievement gains. Effective schooling research is geared toward educational policy. Effective schooling research should instruct administrators and…

Describes a framework for moving from the general school effectiveness factors to specific practices and behaviors focusing on strong leadership by the principal. Outlines the general functions of instructional leadership, then narrows to one function, monitoring student progress, and derives specific principal behaviors. (MLF)

Presents a checklist for determining the presence in individual schools of the characteristics determined by research to be typical of effective schools. Suggests ways of improving schools by using the checklist, which covers administrator and teacher behaviors and instructional program characteristics. (PGD)

Achievement is up in Washington State's District 414 where administrators have reorganized their responsibilities in order to spend more hours on instructional leadership. (Author/JM)

Implementing recommendations derived from research and literature on school effectiveness, 20 Milwaukee (Wisconsin) schools have set and enforced standards that reflect their belief in their students' ability to achieve. (Author/JM)

A Statements about Schools Inventory was used to assess the attitudes of teachers and students about the degree to which alternative and conventional high schools meet the needs in Maslow's hierarchy. Results showed that alternative school environments are more conducive to the satisfaction of basic human needs. (SK)

Presents two new approaches to improving academic achievement in inner-city schools--group-based, mastery-learning reading instruction and curriculum alignment. Explains why fundamental school reform and incremental improvement, introduced in the 1970s, failed to yield consistent results. (Author/WD)

Successful schools are founded on quality teaching; high, universal academic standards; adequate books, materials, and supplies; safe, well-maintained facilities; and staff accountability. Successful superintendents and other leaders possess four traits: honesty and integrity, clear and simple vision, high expectations, and courage to make hard…

Explores the dynamics of purposeful leadership and parental involvement, two central components of effective schools. Presents results of four case studies considering the ways in which principals work with parents in schools possessing a shared, consistent mission. Principal-parent interactions result from unique processes in each school and are…

Discusses two strategies for preventing violence in the schools: (1) improving the learning environment and academic achievements of students; and (2) teaching violence prevention in the schools. When addressing violence as a public health issue, these traditional school-based prevention strategies prove to be useful. (MAK)

Used data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study for Canada to study the stability of within-school socioeconomic gaps in mathematics and science achievement. Discusses the success of schools and teachers in fighting socioeconomic gaps in mathematics and science achievement. (SLD)

A retired elementary school principal, who first visited Cuba as an exchange student, returns 46 years later as an international consultant and finds that the Cubans have made health care and education the top priorities of their society with strong principals and a solid system of supervision and evaluation. (Author/MLF)

First- and second-grade cohorts in public and Catholic school Chapter 1 programs were compared. Catholic schooling did not have a significant effect on mathematics and reading test scores. Findings did not change when first-grade school-level scores were used to account for selection bias in the fourth-grade cohort. (Contains 22 references.) (JOW)