Describes one district's struggle to implement Maine's Common Core of Learning, model of education that blurred subject area lines and moved toward integrated framework for curriculum and instruction. Common Core presented a set of outcomes divided into four interdisciplinary categories: human record, reasoning and problem solving, communication,…

Educators at a Connecticut middle school are creating programs to help students develop more positive self-images within a safe, supportive learning environment. Schoolwide restructuring efforts led to teams of professionals concerned with school learning climate, team teaching, monitoring of pupil progress, staff development, at-risk students,…

Discusses 10 major school change strategies engaging the author's energy, beginning with training in group dynamics in the 1950s through today's emphasis on school restructuring. Other strategies included innovation diffusion and transfer, organizational self-renewal, knowledge transfer, creation of new schools, supported implementation, local…

Draws parallels between the educational reform movement of the Coalition of Essential Schools and revitalization movements, using the revitalization framework as a process model to clarify issues and tensions of school change efforts. The importance of simultaneous documentation and alternative change models is emphasized. (SLD)

Examines the principal's role in school restructuring using essential school precepts. Based on qualitative data from a 2.5-year longitudinal study, results indicate that principals must assume a more inclusive, prominent role in restructuring efforts. The Coalition of Essential Schools' metaphor "student as worker, teacher as coach"…

Through development of new mission statement and work of cross-disciplinary committees, Ohio high school adopted Coalition of Essential Schools principles while fashioning interdisciplinary Global Connections program. Aim was to maintain academic integrity and empower tenth graders to take an active role in shaping their world. Instructional goals…

This article addresses implications of cooperative learning for students with mild disabilities in regular classrooms. These include the importance of a collaborative ethic among special and regular educators, the efficacy of cooperative learning with this population, cooperative learning's relationship to social integration of these students, and…

Advocates universal cultural inclusion as a part of school restructuring, especially for African Americans. Recommends methods and curricula responsive to the home culture and supportive of a positive identity. Includes excerpts from interviews with African American students in a mostly White urban school district. (DM)

Staff ownership can be achieved only in a climate where synergism is understood and promoted. The principal must truly believe that the cooperative action of staff members working together is greater than the sum of their efforts taken independently and in isolation. Intimidating principal-teacher relationships must be eliminated. (eight…

Poses questions that school board members and administrators must address in planning school facilities to educate all students. Lists 24 questions that address the changing demographics within the community and demonstrate that school facilities of tomorrow will need to meet the diverse learning needs of all children. (MLF)

Reviews four lessons for parents and teachers using research to advocate for change: (1) research that changes schools does not belong to academics alone; (2) action research can raise important new issues; (3) advocacy supported by research is empowering; and (4) action research requires persistent activity over time. (SLD)

The oppressive mechanisms of racism suppress the development of children of color. Teachers must critically analyze school structures; conventional notions of ideology and identity; and cultural artifacts such as ideas, ideals, language, and routines to reveal how they reproduce the racism of the larger society. (SK)

A typology of school climate that reflects aspects of a school's restructuring agenda was developed by exploring the participation of 637 teachers in 32 schools in decision making using Q-technique factor analysis. Three decision climates emerge: (1) curriculum focused; (2) school management focused; and (3) classroom management focused. (SLD)

Uses interviews with approximately 200 middle school students to describe the instructional differences they face each day and the effects of these differences on what they learn. These observations suggest that reform efforts will be more successful if they take advantage of staff within the system ("scaling within") to create…

Teachers have not figured prominently in school restructuring, but exercise important pedagogical leadership through shaping, enacting, and living their schools' vision and culture. An Australian school's experience illustrates how teachers can create "radical spaces" for debate whereby the "entitlement to speak" against…