Manitoba's secondary school system is under increasing pressure to respond to economic and social changes transforming the province. This report explores existing strategies related to curriculum development and adaptation, instruction, assessment, and leadership that could be used to restructure Manitoba secondary schools. A literature review…

Effective-schools research has determined that successful schools are invariably led by a principal who is recognized as an instructional leader. This paper synthesizes and attempts to clarify the most recent perspectives on instructional leadership. Data sources included professional educational journals, trade books on leadership, and…

Serious confrontation of the problems facing education requires a reform of the organizing principles of learning: a shift from an instrumental purpose to the moral and political purpose of cultural renewal, from learning for economic purposes to learning for citizenship. This book focuses on the work of secondary schools in the contexts of…

Evaluation data are reported from two examples of a comprehensive approach to urban school reform that attempted to involve the full range of stakeholders, including parents, in school reform. The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation awarded grants to five urban school districts to improve middle schools by focusing on high expectations, high content,…

When the Chicago School Reform Act was first passed, many worried that the legislation would usher adversarial politics into the school building. This paper describes parent and community involvement in school decision making at Sprague Elementary school, which serves 1,500 Latino students. The case study chronicles the school's development…

Genuine educational reform depends on developing relationships with the home, community groups, politicians, and the business community (Seeley, 1981). This volume is the second of three reports that are products of a 3.5 year study of education reform, with a focus on the role of parent, family, and community involvement in the middle grades. The…

Solving the challenges of educating language-minority students to the high standards expected of all children requires a willingness to reform the usual practices at many of today's public schools. This volume, the second in a series of three, presents findings of a study that examined exemplary school-reform efforts involving the education of…

More than one-fifth of American school-age children and youth come from language-minority families--homes in which languages other than English are spoken. This volume, the last in a series of three, describes the research design and methodology for a study that examined exemplary school-reform efforts involving the education of limited…

The 1988 Education Reform Act precipitated major educational change in the United Kingdom. This book is a compilation of papers originally presented at the 1994 Centre for Educational Development Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) conference at the University of Warwick (England). The papers focus on changes that have occurred and are occurring in the…

This paper describes a process for restructuring service-delivery models for inclusion in New York State schools. The process is based on several assumptions, some of which include: (1) Home-zone school placement or choice/magnet school options are the preferred placement for special education students; (2) inclusion models must restructure…

This guide is intended to provide direction to Kentucky districts and schools as they develop local curricula designed to meet the state's six learning goals and academic expectations as identified in the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Specifically, the guide provides direction to local curricula development teams; effects change by…

America's public schools face a demanding call for reform. This guidebook argues that public schools are failing and that the "education establishment" has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The book provides guidelines for parents and citizens for making community-based changes or state reform of education. Section 1, "What Is…

This report describes the attitudes of district school board members about the implementation of school reforms based on the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). Information on attitudes toward KERA was gathered by a mail-out, 11-page questionnaire sent to a random sample of 600 local school board members. The questionnaire asked for the…

Given the current social and economic changes, American education must change in order to connect students to the future. This book is comprised of a collection of essays on the topic of systemic change in education. The book focuses on reform for the future by bringing together systems theory with detailed examples of strategies and cases that…

The Partnership Schools Initiative (PSI) originated among Texas schools in 1992 as a network to create an educational system for achieving excellence and equity for all students. Participants in the network developed a matrix to be used by schools embarking on restructuring efforts, which identifies what leaders of successful schools can do to…