A review of effective schools studies suggests that the research should continue but the methodology must change if the studies are to gain credibility. The first of this paper's three sections explains the educational production function in terms of the microeconomics of education. The measurement and classification of such function variables as…

The Effective Schools and Even Start Act is a bill aiming to increase school effectiveness and to reduce adult illiteracy. This hearing report school effectiveness and to reduce adult illiteracy. This report presents the testimony of witnesses and includes materials which outline the extent to which various states are using state funds and…

Addressing the question, "What can be done to promote school achievement?", this paper summarizes the literature on motivation relating to classroom achievement and school effectiveness. Particular attention is given to how values, ideology, and various cultural patterns impinge on classroom performance and serve to enhance motivation to achieve.…

It is the premise of this study that the performance of black students in math and science is crippled by the interference of their language patterns. It is argued that schoolwork of these students demonstrates how nonstandard English can lead to misunderstanding. The connection between students' misunderstandings of certain quantitative relations…

These four papers focus on a consideration of the costs of evaluation, as examined in the Evaluation Use Project. "A Framework for Estimating Evaluation Costs," by Marvin Alkin and Brian Stecher, considers overall theory and draws on previous research in determing evaluation costs. The concepts are extended to develop informal quidelines…

As part of the Research-Based Training for School Administrators Project at the University of Oregon, this scripted material was prepared for use by school administrators giving presentations in Project Leadership workshops. Project Leadership uses networking and administrator-led workshops to disseminate research results and state-of-the-art…

Prepared for parents, this handbook aims to help them study and assess their public schools. An introduction presents the reasons parents should gather information on their schools and discusses planning the project, organizing the group, and conducting the evaluation. Next, 13 qualities of an academically effective school are listed. Nine…

Using a research approach founded on explicit normative assumptions about the social goals of education, and proceeding from the hypothesis that lifelong socialization largely determines an administrator's capability, this paper analyzes the experiences of one "good" principal. Following an initial discussion of educators' attitudes toward…

This report describes the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a project designed to keep parents, school officials, and policy makers abreast of the educational realities. Information is collected and reported at regular intervals concerning the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of elementary and secondary school students. NAEP has…

This document, one of a series of public opinion surveys conducted for Project Outreach of the Michigan Board of Education, reports the results of a telephone survey of adult citizens in Michigan on their opinions about the public schools in the state. The survey was conducted in April, 1985 and a total of 801 interviews was completed. Survey…

School administrators can get a better idea of what their purpose is by examining, first, what schools achieve; second, how schools function; and, third, why they function. A school's production function (what it achieves) involves many specific functions, but they all are a product of the relationship between school inputs and outputs. Inputs…

Two computer simulation models, arrived at by using System Dynamics (a systems analysis method for developing models of dynamic causal structures), have emerged from work on the dynamic differences between schools that are effective and ineffective for initially low-achieving children. One model focuses upon the differences between effective and…

Discusses the need for the development of school-university collaboration in the school reform movement. Describes three successful collaborative projects showing the positive effects gained from such collaborations. Includes a sidebar outlining the essentials for such partnerships and a list of references. (MD)

Reports on an indepth probe of the Japanese educational system by American educators. This study shows that the United States cannot expect to achieve economic growth by copying the Japanese system, which has been shaped largely by its geography and culture and society. (MD)

Asserts that achievement and cost measures of school districts' effectiveness are useful but insufficient performance critera. Focusing on British Columbia, Canada, this paper demonstrates a surprising negative relationship between cost and achievement and seeks a third element--school ethos or goodness--as a potential predictor of school…