This report presents a wide variety of 1984-85 data on all of the secondary schools and programs in the Portland, Oregon, Public Schools. The profiles are divided into three sections. Part 1 compares the 10 major high schools for selected variables, including enrollment, costs, graduation and attrition rates, absenteeism and discipline problems,…

Twenty-four elementary and junior high public schools that have received Chapter 1 funds since 1981 were selected for study in order to isolate effective school practices. Nine of these schools were included, also, in the earlier 1981-82 project; this publication, therefore, contains descriptions of only the 15 new achieving compensatory…

A long term leadership development project for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana principals is outlined in this paper. The project model emphasized peer networking as a primary process component for developing instructional leadership of principals. In the first year, three activities were implemented: (1) concerns-based meetings; (2) a workshop series;…

The Effective Schools Pilot Project, conceived in fall 1983, was designed to improve selected schools by focusing resources to assist six elementary schools in developing strategies for self-assessment and renewal through participatory decision-making. Phase I of the project (1983-1984) resulted in a set of research-based school improvement plans…

Frequently administrators must spend time producing documents and reports, though theoretically they are supposed to use information to create better educational environments and experiences for students. By using the personal computer as a tool for tasks and analyses that, before the computer, used to take days, administrators will have time to…

The extent, nature, and sources of alienation among students and teachers in high school are being examined at two inner city comprehensive high schools in each of five large urban districts. Research methods include interviews with staff (over 300 individuals) and collection of statistical data. A conceptual framework for studying these issues is…

To assess the relative effectiveness of public and private school environments, researchers must distinguish between the effects of the schools' programs and the students' innate abilities. Student background variables do not appear to account for all the important differences among students attending public and private schools. This document…

Since the measurement of school achievement involves the administration of achievement tests to various grades on various subjects, both grade level and subject matter contribute to within-school achievement variations. To determine whether achievement test scores vary most among different fields within a grade level, or within fields among…

Four district brochures presenting guidelines on services for children and adults with autism have been combined to form this document. "General Guidelines for Education and Treatment of Individuals with Autism" addresses aspects of education and treatment, listing important questions about such topics as ancillary services, indivdualization, home…

Based on the work of Ronald Edmunds, this speech reviews the characteristics of effective schools for poor children. The author begins by stating that effective schools seem to share a climate requiring all personnel to be instructionally effective with all children. Noted is a renaissance in the belief that all children are educable, in spite of…

This presentation challenges the implicit assumption, in "A Nation at Risk" and other recent national reports on education, that elementary schools share the blame for the deterioration of educational quality. Examples are first provided of unsubstantiated generalizations presupposing that elementary schools share in the culpability…

The Saginaw Successful Schools Project (SSSP) is a structured process through which school staffs can cooperatively identify and address their most needed areas for improvement. It is a structured approach that integrates group process principles of participation in decision making with solid research on instructional and school effectiveness.…

An interview study in Delaware gathered information about educational administrators' perceptions of effective high schools and existing statewide standards for effective schools. This report describes the design and analysis of this study and demonstrates how the resulting information was used to reformulate the state's policy and program for…

In the spring of 1975, three alternative secondary schools in the Federation of Alternative Schools, with the help of the Minneapolis Public Schools' Research and Evaluation Department, surveyed their students. The 66-item questionnaire, which was developed to provide an overall assessment of student attitudes and information for program…

The Quality Measurement Project of New York State, in an attempt to simplify the assessment of school effectiveness, has applied nomographic techniques to this process. Essentially a nomograph is an easy graphic method of obtaining a predicted score without the use of the original regression equation upon which it is based. In the case herein…