This report details what happened in Philadelphia's middle schools during the Children Achieving reform effort, a comprehensive, one-size-fits-all reform project. Based on research of the program over a 5-year period, the paper explains why reforms fell short of their intended outcomes. The critical levers for change were content standards, the…

Universal prekindergarten (UPK) refers to the goal of making available to families of all 3- and 4-year-olds a program of services that provides high quality education for children and helps to prepare them for a successful entry to kindergarten. Virtually every state is engaged in discussions about prekindergarten programs, and many models are…

Refuting the widely held belief that the child care crisis in America is irresolvableor that it can be resolved by simply relying on market forcesthis book presents an alternative vision for ensuring that American families with children will have access to high-quality, affordable child care, shifting the perception of the issue as primarily one…

This chapter contains a dialogue that challenges philosophical and practical divisions both inside and outside the academy regarding the development of literacy and literary competence in foreign language departments. It also describes curricular revisions that address those divisions. One author crafts an argument for reform based on the notion…

Based on the view that service-based agencies have enormous potential as advocates to influence public policy, this guide was developed to help service agencies become consistent, effective public policy advocates and agents for change. The guide draws on the advocacy work of service agencies nationwide to address the key concerns about getting…

This document details a strategy to bring together state and community leaders in the southeastern United States to establish dialogue, set priorities, and make system-wide changes for supporting literacy for the youngest children and their families. The Head, Heart, and Hands campaign has three focal points: (1) Head--understanding research and…

The information society is a society in which the quality of life, as well as prospects for social change and economic development, increasingly depend on information and its exploitation. In such a society, living standards, patterns of work and leisure, the education system, and the marketplace are all influenced by advances in information and…

This catalog describes 44 school-reform models. It was prepared for the U.S. Department of Education in direct response to the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program. The catalog's purpose is to aid schools, school districts, and states as they investigate external models that can be incorporated into comprehensive school-reform…

The three issues of this 1997 research brief provide information about institutional programming and planning at St. Petersburg Junior College (SPJC) (Florida). Brief number 1 summarizes the 1996 Enrolled Student Survey and contains sections on student demographics, student satisfaction ratings, and open-ended questions about academic and support…

This report is based on a study that examined the effect of changing principals during a restructuring process. Data were collected at two rural elementary schools in a midsouthern state that had participated in the Accelerated Schools Project. The project's effectiveness was threatened by frequent principal succession at both schools. The schools…

This digest explains why public-school governance is receiving increasing scrutiny. It identifies who is held accountable for results in the current governance system and describes recent proposals for transforming governance structures. Since many reforms of the past decade bypassed the school board and district office, reformers are now…

This book, intended for the interested layman and the education professional, describes the process and content of standards-driven education reform. It is based on the premise that schools can excel if they benchmark their standards, align their curriculum, and conduct academic analysis to assess progress. Only the highlights appear in the hard…

This book is part of a series of case studies that demonstrate better ways to educate Ohio's students. The case study is part of the Transforming Learning Communities (TLC) Project, designed to support significant school-reform efforts among Ohio's elementary, middle, and high schools. This report describes the implementation of an innovative…

To provide an even more intensive learning experience at Grantmakers for Education's 2006 conference, the program featured a conference "study group." This special small-group program track focused on foundation strategy and the value of a well-crafted theory of change for increasing strategic clarity and impact. This report is intended to make…

The human brain is capable of mastering skills far beyond those it is now used for. Three questions about the further evolution of human intelligence are raised: What will be the next step in human intelligence? How is the next step manifesting itself? How can we prepare for those changes? (IS)