In this article the author describes his professional life and his connection to Ted Sizer's "Horace's Compromise." He describes Sizer as someone who wrote in a new and unique way about schooling, rooted in razor-sharp observations of the lives, hopes, and frustrations of real students and real teachers within their shared environment. The…

This article reports findings from a study of the experiences of 11 school principals who are leading the conversion of a large, comprehensive, urban high school into six thematic small schools. Specifically, this study addresses the question, What do high school principals identify as the leadership challenges and opportunities embedded in the…

The conversations that take place in a school reveal a great deal about its culture. What educators say is a powerful indicator of the values and beliefs that form their school's culture.The School Culture Evaluation Exercise from "Breaking Ranks: A Field Guide for Leading Change" is a tool developed by the Center for Secondary School Reform that…

Student voice is defined as meaningful opportunities that allow students to take an active role in the decision-making that influences their lives. While there is a growing body of literature linking student voice to increased student engagement, achievement, civic engagement and successful school reform, the role of the principal in supporting…

Principals need to acquire understanding of, and proficiency in, technology skills and integration to be effective instructional leaders. As issues concerning the lack of systemic change in school reform and technology integration persist, little research has been published concerning the extent to which technology leadership behaviors identified…

To take unbundling or any reform wisely, we need to focus on what we're asking people to do and why, what it would look like to do it, and how we expect our actions to lead to particular results. Unbundling, like other reforms, will work well for some students and not for others.

Once a passionate advocate for injecting greater competition and accountability into the U.S. education system, the New York University scholar Diane Ravitch realized three years ago that her views had evolved to a point where she was contradicting herself on a regular basis. Like any good historian, she decided to set the record straight. Her…

This report outlines how digital learning can connect middle and high school students with better teaching and learning experiences while also addressing three major challenges facing the nation's education system--access to good teaching, tight budgets, and boosting student achievement. But simply slapping a netbook on top of a textbook will not…

This study attempts to identify and describe Minnesota superintendents' perceptions of barriers to district-level reform as well as compare superintendents' perceptions of district reform related characteristics. This research also strives to identify factors preventing Minnesota's district-level leadership from implementing national reform…

We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of Struggling Schools, a user-generated approach to Comprehensive School Reform implemented in 100 low achieving schools serving disadvantaged students in a Canadian province. The results show that while Struggling Schools had a statistically significant positive effect on Grade 3 Reading achievement, d = 0.48…

Finland has, as of late, become an inspiration for American school reform. There is no denying that we have much to learn from the Finnish system and it rightly deserves its global accolades. However, over the course of the following pages, I would like to suggest that it is also lucrative to look north of the 49th parallel and consider the…

The current report looks at the effects of the Green Dot Locke (GDL) transformation on students over the past three years. Although the GDL transformation began in fall 2007 (with two small off-site schools), the majority of Locke students were not included in the transition until fall 2008. Comparing GDL students to a matched sample of students…

Many school districts had to cope with shrinking budgets this past school year, but the effects of these cuts were cushioned to some extent by the availability of federal economic stimulus money. In 2009 and 2010, school districts received about $80 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). These funds were intended…

Professional collaboration in schools features prominently in contemporary approaches to educational change. Advocates highlight the importance of situated knowledge to continuous teacher learning, sustained school reform and improved student learning. Critics portray collaboration as an invisible and coercive means of official control. The…

Most K-12 school districts know that they are losing children who are going to other programs to get their needs met, and they know that they are going to have to offer some kind of online program to meet those needs if they are going to survive. K-12 districts have not exactly been sitting on the online-learning sidelines. In fact, by pioneering…