This report summarizes the findings and recommendations of the Maryland State Governor's Commission on Black Males. It reflects the research, experience, and contentions of the Commissioners and the many people who testified at hearings throughout the state. The results are not exhaustive, but they mark a point from which progress and improvement…

This paper reports findings of a study that is grounded in the assumption that the ways in which teachers interact outside their classrooms may be critical to the future of school restructuring and the effects of restructuring on students. The paper develops a framework for analyzing professional community within schools, examines school…

Teachers need flexibility to adapt to the uncertain situations and unique needs they confront in their classrooms. Most efforts to reform public education address the needs of teachers at the expense of administration--and vice versa--reinforcing the tangled relationships and patterns of compromise and conflict they are meant to solve. This book…

This issue brief provides an overview of the importance of providing educators with initial training and continuing professional development opportunities in gender-fair teaching. The brief describes recent research revealing that 20 years after the passage of sex discrimination in education legislation, American schools still engage in…

This study examines the perceptions of teachers in one school as they implemented shared decision making (SDM) over a period of over 2 years. Data from 100 interviews with 54 respondents including teachers, administrators, and other staff are analyzed. The changes the teachers experienced are examined at varying levels of SDM involvement from a…

On June 8, 1992, the presidents of the nation's two largest teachers unions joined the directors and presidents of virtually every educational organization, as well as political leaders and executives from Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler in an effort to redesign U.S. schools using the quality principles of W. Edwards Deming. Panelists spent the…

As part of the Directory of Innovations Series, this volume provides information about programs and practices for educational improvement and school restructuring. It provides brief overviews of about 150 high school or district-wide programs with descriptions of the following: (1) goals; (2) location; (3) demographics; (4) how it works; (5) how…

This critical discussion of current trends in special education examines the current inclusive schools movement and compares it to the regular education initiative (REI). After contrasting the two movements' respective advocates, goals, tactics, and understanding of and links to general education, the paper argues that the field's rhetoric has…

This paper describes the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988 (CSRA); outlines work of the Chicago Panel on Public School Policy and Finance; and traces the Chicago School Reform (Illinois) movement, an effort to address more adequately the previously unmet needs of "at-risk" children by creating a systemic opportunity for schools to…

School reform leaders from Chicago (Illinois), Denver (Colorado), New York (New York), Seattle (Washington), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and Los Angeles (California) created the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform to work to improve urban education so that all urban youth are well-prepared for postsecondary education, work, and…

The focus of this hearing was on lessons learned in the District of Columbia public schools in the year preceding the hearing. In his opening remarks, Senator Brownback (Kansas) remarked that one of the first lessons is that the academic quality of the schools is not good enough and is in dire need of improvement. A second set of lessons focuses…

Kentucky has witnessed many changes in educational administration. An assessment of those changes, with a focus on school boards, was done. School boards are not efficient bodies and this is not a problem. If efficiency was the top concern, then minimizing time and costs would be dominant and schools would suffer. School boards are not…

Selected current readings in the area of school reform are presented. Seven selections in "The Front Lines" focus on current developments in educational change in the political arena. A section on "Charter Schools" contains eight readings on the development and implementation of charter schools. A section titled "School…

Angered by the continued worsening of public school quality despite 1980s reform efforts and growing business-education partnerships, many American business leaders claim that money and concern are not enough. Boosting teacher salaries and reducing class size have yielded poor results. Business's general dismay with public school performance has…

Hawaii, through the Hawaii School/University Partnership, is 1 of 14 partnership states in the National Network for Educational Renewal. The partnership envisions the use of partnership schools to improve the quality of teacher training while simultaneously renewing and revitalizing the schools. This paper examines the role the partnership schools…