This formative report presents data collected through the second year of full operation (1990-1991) of Nolin Middle School for Environmental Science, in the Kansas City School District, Missouri. The report focuses on student demographics; program implementation information; achievement data; and perceptions of staff, parents, and students of the…

This report discusses the activities of the California Educational Research Cooperative (CERC) over the past year. The CERC was established in 1998 as a joint venture between the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside, the San Bernardino County Offices of Education, and 19 local school districts to bring educational…

This document is a report of a symposium whose participants are involved with the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development, a project engaged in a longitudinal study of 80 low-income families with preschool-aged children in Boston (Massachusetts). The project was designed to identify possible success factors for children from…

The key factors in the success of nine urban high schools that prepare students for specific occupational fields as well as for college entrance were studied in an attempt to show how these high schools deliver services to students and to stimulate discussion and action that will encourage further development of exemplary career-related and…

This paper reports on a study of the curricular development in the ABC Unified School District in Southern California, over a span of 10-15 years, in response to an increase in limited-English-speaking students and legislative mandates. The case study was conducted through document review, observations, and interviews. The study focuses on key…

An overview of the elementary school review process used in North York (Ontario) is provided. School reviews, which are part of North York's Quality Assurance program, were piloted during 1987-88, when each family of schools' assistant superintendent identified one school to participate in a school review. The aim of the reviews was to collect…

The 1983 publication of "A Nation at Risk" began a new reevaluation of American schooling. The issues raised in that and several more recent reports are summarized and discussed in this preface to the ERIC volume, "Trends and Issues in Education, 1986." This paper offers observations and reflections on the issues presented in that volume and…

Educational research studies conducted in recent years are distilled into 59 significant findings or conclusions that can be used as a practical guide for parents and teachers seeking those educational practices found to be most effective in helping children to learn. The 59 findings are displayed one to a page. Each page is organized into three…

To illustrate the theoretical dynamics involved in analysis of the process of "metasensing," this paper investigates the language of 22 elementary school principals and their strategic actions during school improvement programs. The study's grounded theory approach frames the principals'"epistemology of practice"--thereby…

The current debate on educational choice concerns whether locally centralized school systems of the kind that predominate in the public school sector are responsive to and can accommodate the diversity of educational consumers' preferences. Section I analyzes policy options and illustrates how policymakers, by examining a range of solutions to the…

Based on the results of an "Administrator and Teacher Survey" (ATS) administered to approximately 500 of the schools included in the "High School and Beyond" (HSB) longitudinal study (which showed that private schools produce significantly greater gains in achievement than public schools), the present study is a detailed…

This book by a former principal of Marion High School in Adelaide, South Australia who held that post from 1972 to 1983, examines the influence of theory and practice of secondary education in many countries upon the management of the school during those years. The first 17 chapters discuss the management of the school as a whole, addressing the…

Do variables identified as existing within effective school models relate causally to student achievement? A study attempted to answer this question by manipulating selected school effectiveness variables and teacher behavior and by examining the effects of that manipulation on student achievement. Over a 1-year period, 10 kindergarten through…

The object of this report is to review recent developments in compulsory schooling, to raise what appear to be the critical educational problems alreading facing, or beginning to emerge in, the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and to suggest some of the considerations that might influence policy…

A critical ingredient for understanding the experiences that students undergo in the transition from elementary school to junior high school is the students' changing perceptions. The Ecological Perspectives for Successful Schooling Practice Junior High School Transition Study tapped the perceptions of students in transition using data from two…