Although the premise of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is to improve schools by holding them accountable for student achievement the way a company is held accountable for the bottom line, as a strategy for school improvement it overlooks one simple truth: The business of public schools is not simply promoting student achievement. The…

Accountability and assessment are critical components to the success of schools today. As leaders of school districts, superintendents in Texas and across the nation are faced daily with meeting this challenge. While doing so, they must remember that their priority commitment is not to testing programs, but to helping children achieve.…

This paper presents the research and methodology and analyses used for the "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades" research. This appendix contains the following sections: (1) Overview; (2) Constructing the Survey Data File; (3) Constructing Composite Independent Variables (Subdomains); (4) Constructing Longitudinal Outcome Variables; (5)…

In 2002, the RAND Corporation launched a project to understand how educators are responding to the new accountability requirements in California, Georgia, and Pennsylvania--three states that represent a range of approaches, regions, and student populations. The researchers aimed to identify the factors that enhance the implementation of SBA…

In many schools and districts, leaders are lacking the necessary skills and preparation for the roles to which they are assigned. Improving the preparation of school and district leaders prior to hiring or promotion can help schools and districts accomplish the following goals: (1) Meet the growing need for highly qualified leaders; (2) Raise…

Given the lack of preparation incoming school district superintendents receive and the many challenges they face, this article reviews the approach of the few existing programs for new superintendents and describes the leadership development strategies that would be beneficial. With this background, the article presents the findings from an…

This theme issue describes Maryetta School, a rural pre-K-8 school in Stilwell, Oklahoma, with an enrollment of approximately 500 students, mostly American Indians of Cherokee descent. Although the area has a high poverty rate and virtually all the students are judged to be at risk, the school has an impressive array of programs and facilities and…

To explore and document the status of computer use in Arkansas, a survey was sent to each of the 310 school superintendents in the state, and 221 surveys were returned. Results indicated that only a minority of the schools had a computer in every room; these tended to be placed in lower grade classrooms. Excepting kindergarten, the majority of…

Rural schools present unique challenges for school administrators, challenges that require knowledge of various skills in a range of disciplines. This book touches nearly every aspect of rural school leadership. It aims to help educational leaders in small or rural schools better understand their role, and to help all educators learn elements of…

An on-going study of the performance of high-poverty schools in Texas is revealing entire school districts where such schools are achieving high academic results. Instead of isolated pockets of excellence, a few large and medium-sized districts have been identified in which a cluster of high-poverty schools is achieving at the top levels of the…

A historical overview of Ohio's county boards of education is provided in this document. State legislation passed in 1914 provided statewide school standards, established the county boards of education, and outlined the county superintendent's qualifications. The new boards' major responsibilities included teacher supervision and the…

This document contains the Virginia Beach superintendent's report to the school board on the adoption of a resolution that supports school-based management (SBM) and shared decision making. On December 17, 1991, the school board passed the "Resolution of Support for School Based Management and Shared Decision Making." The report contains…

School board presidents identified what they perceived to be critical incidents in their work with superintendents. The study was a sequel to previous research concerning superintendents' perceptions of critical incidents with school board members. Researchers conducted telephone interviews with 59 school board presidents and asked them to…

Schools can change and become more effective in teaching the basic skills to all students, and states can help them. After 15 years of studying change in local school districts, researchers have identified a number of promising strategies for managing schools, training staff, providing technical assistance and developing new materials. Some of the…

The superintendent's role may be difficult to manage simply because of the existence of a school board. To identify critical incidents that superintendents experienced in their work with boards of education, the superintendents of all 310 K-12 districts in Nebraska were mailed letters asking if they had experienced a critical incident with a…