In response to 1986 state legislation calling for improvements in college effectiveness and accountability, the California Community Colleges began various efforts to promote the evaluation of matriculation. One effort, the Matriculation Local Research Options Project, was formed in 1989 to develop models for local evaluation of matriculation and…

This publication summarizes research that investigated how school-based management (SBM) can be implemented for long-term school improvement. It is argued that a successful SBM plan must be part of a quest for improvement and utilize a "high involvement" model. In addition to having more power, schools need knowledge of the organization,…

Should teachers be held responsible for their long-term influence over students? Should monitoring systems be extended to cover the long-term impact of teachers, departments, and schools? This paper describes a longitudinal study that extended a British comprehensive monitoring system--the A Level Information System (ALIS)--to examine the effects…

Outcomes of a collaborative project among policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in Scotland to develop a framework of qualitative performance indicators for school self-evaluation and development planning are described in this paper. Following an introduction, the second section presents an overview of the Scottish public education…

This paper presents W. Edwards Deming's 14 management points, 7 deadly diseases, and 4 obstacles that thwart productivity, and discusses how these principles relate to teaching and learning. Application of these principles is expected to increase the quality of learning in classrooms from kindergarten through graduate level. Examples of the…

This paper presents findings of a study that sought to determine whether a composite score is a more appropriate dependent variable in the measurement of school effectiveness than any one component score. The viability of using a composite score, such as the School Effectiveness Index (SEI), was compared with the viability of using any one of five…

Blumberg and Greenfield (1986) identified a key element of leadership associated with school effectiveness--the principal's "vision" for his or her school. Using a 14-item instrument developed to measure the extent to which teachers in a given school know, share, and work toward realization of their principal's vision, this paper offers…

This guidebook is designed to help the individual school faculty, staff, and administration create a school plan. Five features critical to a successful school-improvement plan include: support by research findings; a focus on student achievement; attention to issues of quality and equity; collaboration; and an ongoing and self-renewing process.…

An evaluation of the Educational Partnerships Program (EPP) examines the feasibility of using earlier research on educational change to foster such change. Also, studying educational partnerships between businesses and schools can determine the limits and possibilities of using them to foster change. The Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) and…

This report presents the findings of a survey of both the public's and Catholics' attitudes toward public and Catholic schools and school choice. While members of the general public were more likely to give their own community's schools a high grade, about half of them judged schools nationally as average. Responses were similar for Catholics.…

Outcomes of the School-Based Instructional Leadership (SBIL) program are described in this paper. The goal of the program is to empower school leadership teams (which include administrators, teachers, and representatives of stakeholder groups) for new roles and relationships as they implement a school-development process within their own contexts.…

Three factors in the 1990s will increase the importance of schools in the development of children. First, the character of schools will change as more students with special educational needs are integrated into mainstream classes. Second, efforts will be made to keep these students out of specialized teaching arrangements and in normal classrooms.…

This paper presents findings of a study that sought to delineate subtopics within school-effects research (SER). After conducting a literature review and determining initial categories, a survey was conducted of 37 authors who were judged to have made the most significant contribution to SER within the last decade. A total of 28 authors responded.…

The Government Accounting Agency estimates that one third of the nation's schools are in need of extensive repairs or replacement of one or more buildings. The condition of America's rural schools are at a crisis stage and need to be improved to continue to educate rural youth. This paper profiles the state of rural schools' infrastructure, rural…

This book examines the process of developing an authentic system of instruction and assessment to measure student performance based on tasks that are relevant and useful in real life. The process of making the transition from traditional to authentic assessment is presented in a systematic, step-by-step fashion. Chapters are: (1) "Initiating…