In February 1993 the Buffalo Financial Plan Commission was asked to conduct a financial and management assessment of the Buffalo (New York) public schools. The effort involved the work of 115 volunteers from 75 businesses and community organizations in the Buffalo area. Thirty-four recommendations were produced, which were expected to yield annual…

This document is an edited version of testimony presented to a special hearing on the role of arts education in education reform. A special committee of eight state legislators assembled to hear testimony from 12 organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education, the Council for Chief State School…

This report offers insights on the experiences and techniques used in the Dearborn Public Schools effort to integrate Title VII and Chapter 1 programs prior to their reauthorization. The school system is located near metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, and has over 14,500 students representing 24 languages, many from the Middle East, Romania, and…

This paper describes the current state of research on Success for All, a program built around the idea that every child can and must succeed in the early grades. Success for All assumes that every child without organic retardation can read. Requirements for success include prevention and intensive early intervention. Success for All began in one…

To do a comprehensive assessment of Oregon's professional technical education and work force programs, project evaluators identified, obtained, and extracted relevant data from documents and other related materials that pertained to key program concerns. Fieldwork consisted of four major activities: interviews with key players, written surveys…

In 1988, the Illinois State Legislature passed the Chicago School Reform Act giving local schools significant decision-making authority to restructure management. The Act gives reform-specific powers to a local school council, which is composed of six parents, two community residents, two teachers, and the principal, all elected by their…

The implications of critical multiculturalism for practice are illustrated through the ethnographic study of Richmond Road School, an inner-city elementary school in Auckland (New Zealand). Richmond Road, under the leadership of its Maori principal James Laughton, developed a critically conceived, reflective, and holistic conception of…

In 1989, West Virginia University initiated a project to create a new vision for teacher education and for schools in West Virginia. With the support of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation of Pittsburgh, the school partnership is based on the Holmes Group concept of professional-development schools (PDSs), which provides a vehicle for school…

The emphasis in recent British educational legislation (primarily the 1988 Education Act) has been on the creation of an "internal market" to stimulate improvements in educational outcomes and provide efficiency and accountability. The internal market mechanism allows schools to manage their own budgets and personnel and to create…

This report was produced by the 18 participants enrolled in a week-long summer institute conducted at the Center for Excellence in Education at Indiana University and sponsored by the Indiana Department of Education. The purpose of this institute was to give school people the time and resources to identify and apply technological solutions to…

Manitoba's secondary school system is under increasing pressure to respond to economic and social changes transforming the province. This report explores existing strategies related to curriculum development and adaptation, instruction, assessment, and leadership that could be used to restructure Manitoba secondary schools. A literature review…

Effective-schools research has determined that successful schools are invariably led by a principal who is recognized as an instructional leader. This paper synthesizes and attempts to clarify the most recent perspectives on instructional leadership. Data sources included professional educational journals, trade books on leadership, and…

Serious confrontation of the problems facing education requires a reform of the organizing principles of learning: a shift from an instrumental purpose to the moral and political purpose of cultural renewal, from learning for economic purposes to learning for citizenship. This book focuses on the work of secondary schools in the contexts of…

Evaluation data are reported from two examples of a comprehensive approach to urban school reform that attempted to involve the full range of stakeholders, including parents, in school reform. The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation awarded grants to five urban school districts to improve middle schools by focusing on high expectations, high content,…

When the Chicago School Reform Act was first passed, many worried that the legislation would usher adversarial politics into the school building. This paper describes parent and community involvement in school decision making at Sprague Elementary school, which serves 1,500 Latino students. The case study chronicles the school's development…