This evaluation of the 1988-89 Public Private Partnership (PPP) program in Washington (District of Columbia) was seriously limited by the unavailability of statistical data on student progress and internship performance. PPP was designed to improve the preparation of high school students for the world of work by involving community businesses in…

A task group was charged with remodeling an existing connected old building-new building complex to make it feasible for a house-oriented senior high school educational program. Constraints to be resolved were keeping costs low, maintaining departmental proximity while encouraging interdisciplinary activities, providing for small groups, and…

This document contains a State-by-State directory of 464 alternative public schools. Each listing in the directory contains the school name, address, grade levels, and enrollment. For purposes of this directory, an alternative public school has been defined as any school within a community that (1) provides alternative learning experiences to the…

Although there is controversy as to whether middle-level education should be more comparable to high school or to elementary school, this paper argues that the school within a school (SWAS) concept effectively makes large schools seem small so that they have more in common with a typical K-5 school than with a grade-10-through-12 high school. The…

This report describes the establishment and operation of a Canadian secondary-school house and governance system designed to (1) encourage student involvement at all school function levels, (2) provide increased personal advice to students, and (3) satisfy some of the students' needs to be involved in decisions affecting their education. The…

Part of Canada's Exemplary Schools Project, Vancouver Technical Secondary School--a large inner-city comprehensive school--meets the needs of a diverse student population through "schools-within-a-school." Case study focuses on the "dilemma of difference," in which efforts of elite, vocational, cultural, and dropout-prevention…

Rex Putnam High School (Milwaukie, Oregon) received a New American High School (NAHS) award for reform efforts that included small learning environments; career pathways programs; career-related learning experiences in the community; and involvement of parents, staff, and community members in decision making. An interview with an assistant…

At a southwestern Chicago high school, an institute sponsored by the Associated Equipment Distributors Foundation has boosted student achievement by linking honors-level academics and technical training to a guaranteed job. The construction equipment industry's willingness to invest time, equipment, know-how, and funds is key to program success.…

Searching for ways to help students feel more connected to one another and to the school community as a whole, a junior high school implemented the social house approach. Social houses divide students into multiple social units, rather than into separate academic entities. Each unit has its own identity and theme.The different groups mix during…

The Teachers Network created The Teachers Voice Initiative to bring teachers together and empower them to create their vision of the future of education. This book presents the perspectives of participating teachers, who report on their experiences as agents of change and designers of curriculum. Papers include: "Teacher Leadership for Creating…

This interim report evaluates the implementation of the "House Plan," a plan to create small personalized schools within the 110 large comprehensive high schools in New York (New York) by subdividing all ninth grades into separate units. This evaluation covers only the 37 "dropout prevention" high schools which had been…

The emerging global and societal conditions demand more than the rhetoric of restructuring, reform, change, and innovation. Educators must adopt the spirit of astronauts to confront the issues directly, create a desirable future for learning, and overcome the inertia of the existing school system. The proposal for the Minnesota Experimental City…

At the elementary school level, promising new early intervention programs, such as the Reading Recovery Program (RRP), show ways to succeed with students in the primary grades. The RRP targeted the poorest readers in a first grade class, who were given supplemental, one-to-one planned lessons for 30 minutes each day by a specially trained teacher.…

This interim evaluation compares the initiation, design, and curriculum of two school-based "academy" programs in Oakland (California) high schools and examines their links to the school district and the business community. The academy model of schools-within-a-school originated in Philadelphia. The Health Academy at Oakland Technical…

The Windber Area School District (Pennsylvania) has combatted "bigness" and impersonality by developing schools-within-a-school, a concept which has particular application for large clusters of grade strata. Although there are several ways to group students, in Windber every two grades (7 through 12) constitute a unit which has its own…