A community coalition for middle school reform is a group of individuals who organize to learn more about the education of young adolescents and engage community resources to improve local schools. Each coalition should be geared to the unique needs and strengths of its own school system and community. This booklet describes coalitions in three…

This book identifies and examines the political dimensions of decentralization. Decentralization programs vary from country to country, but there are common threads and fundamental questions in all situations. The book covers the following themes and topics: (1) a case study of school decentralization in Colombia over a period of more than two…

This paper reports on a multiple case study of building administrators in a suburban school district in Oklahoma which implemented a unitary system of inclusion of students with disabilities in age-appropriate regular classrooms. The study focused particularly on how administrators developed shared meanings during the change process. Data were…

This book examines the ways in which teachers' ideologies or belief systems about African American students interfere with the goals and aims of school restructuring. By following the progress of school restructuring in two junior high schools in a southern city fictitiously called Riverton, it explores the intersection of the failure of schools…

The Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 mandates radical changes in curriculum, finances, and governance for all Kentucky schools and requires that all schools implement school-based decision making (SBDM). SBDM involves a cooperative problem solving approach to operational decisions. New York's Johnson City school district developed an…

This paper reports on a study of reflective practice, which has been a gradual process in education in the Czech Republic. Until the 1990s, most research and development in education and in preservice and inservice teacher education and training had been different from this reflective approach. Instead, quantitative research approaches had been…

This book uses data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) to examine whether students who attend restructured high schools learn more and have access to a more equal education. The NELS:88 examined the educational status and progress of a large, nationally representative sample of 8th grade students, retesting and…

This volume explores the academic issue: what is knowledge and what gives it its authority. The book makes three related points: (1) colleges and universities must think of themselves not as stores of knowledge but as institutions of reacculturation; (2) college and university professors must view themselves not as purveyors of information but as…

The conference papers examine higher education reforms in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe from several research perspectives: political, economic, pedagogical, and sociological. Papers are organized in three sections: Higher Education Policies and Institutional Change; Central European Higher Education in Transition; and Higher…

This document is designed as a resource to assist North Carolina schools in providing the best programs and strategies in the areas of acceleration, remediation, and intervention. The best practices described here are applicable to most students, including students with disabilities. The programs and strategies were validated as effective by the…

For too long New York City's high schools have not prepared even a majority of students for graduation. There is no single solution to the problems confronting the city's schools, but the city needs to do better--and it can. Over the past several years, New York City has undertaken a far-reaching process of education reform. This report describes…

Provides an overview of Australia's National Schools Network (NSN), a commonwealth-state collaborative network providing support to over 200 schools (K-12) that are rethinking their work organizations and teaching and learning practices. A key component of the NSN is the linkage of teacher professional development with systemic research that…

Offers an overview of the school-based decision-making councils in the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and takes a brief look at a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the authority of councils. (MLF)

Reviews: "The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them"; "Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity for American Education"; "Horace's Hope: What Works for the American High School"; "United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society"; "Digital Literacy"; "Reinventing Early Care and Education: A Vision for a Quality System";…

A fifth strand of the "new vocationalism" is trying to align academic and vocational education by restructuring high schools to provide more consistent integration opportunities. These efforts take the form of career academies, clusters or career paths, and occupational high schools or magnet schools. Active, student-centered pedagogies…