Data presented in a previously reported ethnographic research project indicated that an urban elementary school regularly subjects its students to dated curricular materials and supplies. As reported, this occurred even though the school had at its disposal updated and even state-of-the-art resources, such as computers, visual aids, curriculum and…

This paper reports research into the micropolitical strategies used by five school leadership teams in the South Australian School-based Research and Reform Project. The research challenges many of the orthodoxies of educational managerialism. For example: the use of leadership teams made up of teachers, coordinators and senior school leaders…

Philanthropy plays a visible but little-studied role in education reform, making it easy to both overestimate and underestimate its significance. The emergence of "new" givers in the last few years, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, has shifted the landscape of school reform. This article, based…

The study reported in this article examined the relationship between members of a restructuring network and the members' formal district systems. Using the lens of new institutional theory, the article explores the unintended consequences of changing individual schools outside the context of the district to which each network member belonged. The…

Much of the focus for education technology through the '90s was on technology equity as measured by student access to computers. While efforts to improve technology equity and access were met with wide success in the years that followed, the focus of education technology is now shifting away from such issues as new themes have started to emerge.…

In this article, the authors feature the Success for All Middle School Model, which was designed to help middle grades educators implement the most important elements of "Turning Points" and to add well-structured curricula, instructional methods, and professional development for teachers to help students reach their full potential. The program is…

In the Winter 2005 issue of "educational HORIZONS," Charles Glenn wrote that schools designed in a perfect system of educational diversity and choice could nonetheless end up as "uninspired carbon copies produced by educators without the foggiest idea of how to do anything differently." Most school reform tries to avoid that fate with various…

Prodded by an outpouring of philanthropic and federal largess, school districts and even some states are downsizing public high schools to combat high dropout rates and low levels of student achievement, especially in big- city school systems. For longtime proponents of small schools, the upswell in support for their ideas is making for heady…

Chicago is embarking on a major initiative to convert at least 10 percent of its schools into small schools, most of which will be run by private operators. Mayor Richard M. Daley portrayed his plan, called Renaissance 2010, as a way to "shake up the system," introduce fresh ideas that could save its lowest-performing schools, and…

Outlook is the monthly newsletter for the Council for American Private Education (CAPE). Each issue contains information relating to private education such as: new legislation and regulations, the most recent research, court rulings, national trends, federal initiatives, private school news briefs, and more. This issue contains the following…

In this second volume of "The Soul of Educational Leadership" series, editors Paul D. Houston, Alan M. Blankstein, and Robert W. Cole offer creative perspectives on the challenges of reframing leadership practice. Presenting key strategies from leadership experts such as Thomas Sergiovanni and Dennis Sparks, this compact resource combines…

State and district school leaders across the U.S. have long sought ways to create success for children attending schools where too many have failed for far too long. A new approach to solving this old problem is called "starting fresh." By beginning anew with the freedom to do things vastly different, a real opportunity is created to…

This paper reports on a study that took place in a faculty of humanities and social sciences at a UK university. The institution had recently undergone a radical restructure and the vision for the future presented by the new senior management team highlighted internationalization as one of four major areas for growth. The internationalization…

Understanding the interaction between internally constructed and externally imposed aspects of the teaching context may be the missing link between calls for school reform and teachers' interpretation and implementation of that reform. Although the context of the local school culture has a profound impact on teachers, there are other external…

The increased demands for access to and accountability for mastery of the general education curriculum by all students, including students with disabilities, is a current reality within schools. A number of factors have been suggested to promote school reform, classroom implementation, and increase the rates of high fidelity implementation of…