Researchers working with the American Indian Rehabilitation Research and Training Center in Arizona have found that culture is important in social research, especially with indigenous people. Community-based participatory research is one approach that has yielded outcomes valuable to researchers and community members. However, ethical concerns…

According to Federal land appraisals, the land surrounding the Pineville community in Delaware County, Oklahoma, was "unfit for any use," but to the Cherokee who lived there it was a land of plenty. In 1875 Cherokee families constructed a log meeting house, which served first as a church and became a school in 1893. The 1880 Cherokee Census…

This guidebook presents strategic interventions for community change. It is designed to build an understanding of six strategic interventions and create the capacity to deploy them. It helps local education funds (LEF) engage their communities, organize parents and other residents, advocate for sound policy, and work with districts and teachers.…

This sourcebook, which builds on a 1993 publication, "The Prevention of Youth Violence: A Framework for Community Action," offers insight into best practices to prevent violence by children and adolescents. It was developed with input from people working to prevent youth violence and people whose positions made them likely to play a role…

A growing number of charter schools are being designed, launched, and operated by community-based nonprofit organizations (CBOs). This resource guide is intended to target a priority technical assistance need: creating and sustaining a healthy relationship between a new charter school and a founding community organization, leading to the creation…

In these times of shrinking budgets, scarce economic resources, intensifying criticism of the results of public schools, and increased demands on schools to provide more than traditional education, educational partnerships can serve as major resources to schools. The objectives of this sourcebook are to provide examples of the multitude of…

In 1995, the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) was awarded a 5-year grant to improve performance in mathematics and science in a 66-county area in central Appalachia through high-quality, standards-based teaching supported by aligned, coherent local and regional systems. The ARSI model has three levels. The first level entails local…

The DeWitt Wallace-Readers Digest Library Power Initiative has been instrumental in precipitating reform efforts in school libraries. National Library Power programs have strengthened the role of the school library media specialist and the school library program. The initiative emphasizes that library media specialists integrate information…

Passage in 1989 of Oklahoma's education reform bill, H.B. 1017, provided encouragement and financial rewards for use of consolidation as a reform strategy, but this approach is often met with anxiety and hostility from stakeholders. In an effort to identify strategies that facilitate consolidation, semistructured interviews were conducted with the…

Developed as part of the America Reads Challenge, this booklet helps family and community members to identify "checkpoints"--what most children can do in reading and writing by developmental periods and what most children can read, by grade level. The checkpoints are grouped largely by three-year developmental periods because children of…

This report describes 18 American Indian and Alaska Native community programs administered by Indian Housing Authorities (IHAs). The programs were funded first by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Relations and Involvement programs aimed at improving quality of life for housing authority residents, but most IHAs have…

This paper provides an overview of national and state efforts to address school-performance scores as a means of monitoring local school productivity for the 21st century. School-accountability report cards were introduced in the early 1990s to provide parents and others with interesting and useful information about schools. However, many of these…

This book highlights the community building experience at Maricopa Community College District (MCCD) in Arizona. Sixty-five percent of upper division transfers at Arizona State University come from MCCD, and 80% of The University of Phoenix's graduates have done a major portion of their lower division work at MCCD. At any given time, 50 to 60…

The Spanish-language version of this best practices sourcebook builds on a 1993 publication, "The Prevention of Youth Violence: A Framework for Community Action." It offers insight into tested strategies to prevent violence by children and adolescents. It was developed with input from people working to prevent youth violence and people…

The case studies in this booklet highlight how five communities, in big cities and small towns, overcame the obstacles inherent in creating good new schools in existing neighborhoods. These studies illustrate the creativity that people across the United States have brought to the task of creating new schools in older neighborhoods. There is…