The Whole-Faculty Study Group (WFSG) System is a student-centered, teacher-driven process for facilitating major staff development and schoolwide change. When applied properly, it has produced extraordinary results for thousands of educators and students in schools and school districts across the country. The Whole-Faculty Study Groups Fieldbook…

The mission of the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools (CYFS) is to conduct research that improves our understanding of optimal ways that parents, teachers and other service providers in family, school and community contexts can promote the intellectual and socio-emotional development and behavioral adjustment of…

Designed for use by postsecondary educators involved in teaching displaced workers, this guidebook provides an in-depth look at successful upgrading and retraining programs in colleges in diverse situations across the country. The rationale for a human resource emphasis in economic development and the role of the two-year college in economic…

The role of the elementary school principal is critical in determining school effectiveness. This study analyzes the thinking and language of 22 "effective change" elementary school principals to discover common patterns in decisionmaking processes. The method of grounded theory delineates implicit theories principals use to make…

This guide presents some of the best thinking about the difficult and puzzling work of improving student achievement. Taken as whole, it gives a complete picture of what it will take to close the achievement gap. It contains background, findings, and key policy recommendations from a 22-month study conducted by the Washington State School…

This summary outlines the key findings from a national evaluation of the first-year trials of the New Relationship with Schools (NRwS) carried out by a team at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). The trials took place in the period September 2004 to July 2005 and involved 93 schools in eight local educational authorities…

The convergence of two apparently opposite theories of urban educational reform is analyzed as it occurs in three middle schools in a New York City school district. The first theory, emphasizing small schools of choice, promotes close relationships between students and adults in distinctive school programs. The second--centralized, standards-based…

This research synthesis is the third in a series of reports to help local school, community, and family leaders obtain useful research-based information about key educational issues. This synthesis addresses diversity as it relates to student achievement and school, family, and community connections. This synthesis focuses specifically on three…

The fundamental principles underlying the "No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001" focus on high standards of learning and instruction with the goal of increasing academic achievement--reading and math in particular--within all identified subgroups in the K-12 population. One of these subgroups is the growing population of English…

This study profiles two high schools with high enrollments of low-income and racial/ethnic minority students: Thornton Fractional North High School (TF North) and Dumas High School (DHS). Both schools have substantial enrollments of low-income and racial/ethnic minority students and, despite the odds, are successfully preparing students for their…

This module for a 1-semester Total Quality Management (TQM) course for high school or community college students covers the topics of benchmarking and the continuous improvement process. It includes the following components: (1) a narrative summary of the topics; (2) a discussion of benchmarking; (3) a benchmarking exercise (the "numbered ball"…

This module for a 1-semester Total Quality Management (TQM) course for high school or community college students contains a brief overview of the definition of processes, a section on process flow diagrams, and a section on process management as well as a description of process variation. Examples are used throughout the module to make processes…

This module for a 1-semester Total Quality Management (TQM) course for high school or community college students contains a brief overview of problem solving and offers a practical approach along with some of the tools that can be used. The following components are included: (1) narrative of the problem-solving process; (2) the problem-solving…

A collaborative approach to solving school problems in Maryland emphasizes planned change through organization development processes. Organization development, a process of planned improvement in overall functioning, strives for sustained capacity in problem-solving by communication, goal-setting, conflict resolution, and commitment. The…

Presented in this resource notebook are some of the basic ingredients of how to improve communications from school to home, including current research and the best thinking on staff development and inservice training, examples of techniques to foster better home-school relations through better communication, and ways to train school personnel in…