School reform efforts to date have not always resulted in meaningful change. This book presents findings from an ethnographic study that examined the change process in three schools undertaking systemic reform. The schools included the Hull Junior-Senior High School, a primarily white public school in a recession-battered community; the Academy at…

Although educational reform has generated much excitement and has been associated with many positive classroom changes, policymakers and educators also face a number of challenges in designing and implementing the new policies. This publication examines these challenges and the strategies that states are using to address them. It draws from the…

This paper questions whether genuine adoption of the inclusive education philosophy can occur within a school setting before it has been tested by the involvement of the whole school in school reform. It sees inclusion as one component of overall school restructuring. Experiences at three schools are compared. At the first school inclusive…

The point is made that systems thinking should be combined with dialectical thinking and constructivist thinking for effective systems design and systems change. To establish a context, a set of assertions on "How the World Works" in regard to systems design and systems change in education is laid out, as value assumptions undergirding…

This paper offers a commentary on the problems of implementing innovation in language education, with particular reference to English language teaching. Various factors that influence adoption and implementation are considered: properties of the innovation, the transmission process, and the management of change. The overall aim of the paper is to…

This paper reports how one school district has successfully implemented a major innovation, the Performance Pay Plan (PPP) for Teachers, and how they have collaborated with change process researchers to assess implementation. The paper emphasizes: the community-wide process of involvement and trust building used by the district to launch and…

This paper examines the effects of principal succession in a school-reform process. The report focuses on multiple changes in the principal's position at a primary school participating in the accelerated schools project. The text opens with an overview of the accelerated schools project followed by a description of the study's methodology. Data…

Papers presented at the fourteenth Annual Conference of the Alliance for Invitational Education are (1) "Caring, Sharing, Daring: Three Tests to Help Develop More Inviting Policies, Programmes, and Procedures" (M. Ayers); (2) "Project: Gentlemen on the Move - Combating the Poor Academic and Social Performance of African American Male Youth" (D. F.…

The paper looks at traditional curriculum implementation strategies, claiming that they have been divided into two polarized perspectives: fidelity implementation and adaptive implementation. These two implementation perspectives have dominated contemporary curriculum textbooks. The paper suggests that curriculum implementation as a field of study…

The Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which became law in 1994 and was amended in 1996, emphasizes student learning through a long-term, broad-based effort to promote coherent and coordinated improvements in education. A report of this act's influence on education is presented here. The text provides a history of Goals 2000, including the…

The purpose of this guidebook is to help community collaboratives gain a deeper awareness and understanding of the implications of diversity through their work. This includes designing service strategies, involving community residents in planning and governance, establishing outcomes and accountability systems, and developing financing systems.…

The development of public relations follows when economic development and democracy thrive. EC 1992, with its plans for the European Common Market Community, is a public relations opportunity for U.S. public relations firms. In a survey of 31 firms, 6 owned or were owned by networks, 17 had membership in a network, 8 had no public relations…

Rapid social change in American society calls for a flexible, self-correcting educational system. The view that achievement of such a system requires major changes in the organization and delivery of educational services and a redefinition of the entire system is examined in this educational policy bulletin. Highlights of reform research are…

Implementing shared decision making in school-based management requires fundamental changes in traditional behavior. Initiation of restructuring systemic authority and decision-making arrangements requires changing deeply held beliefs and developing new roles and relationships. A recent survey of educational practitioners identified eight major…

Findings of a survey conducted in 1989 to identify the difficulties facing educational practitioners when initiating shared decision making in school-based management are presented in this educational policy bulletin. The first of a two-issue report examined five of the eight major barriers to changing traditional behavior: fear of taking risks,…