Unless school leaders do more to help teachers, students, parents, taxpayers, and other key groups understand the need for change and the key roles they can play, school improvement will be spotty and nearly impossible to sustain, writes Public Agenda senior fellow Jean Johnson. Citing multiple surveys of these groups conducted by Public Agenda,…

Are parents an untapped resource in improving and reimagining K-12 education in Kansas City? What do they think would enhance student learning and what are they willing to do to help their children get the education they deserve? These are among the questions explored in an in-depth survey of 1,566 parents with children now in public school in the…

This "Lessons Learned" report finds two specific areas in which teacher training may be lacking: preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom and teaching students with special needs. Seventy-six percent of new teachers said teaching an ethnically diverse student body was covered in their training, but only 39 percent said…

Uses question-and-answer format to report results of Public Agenda survey of 510 parents of special-needs students about their experiences with special education. Survey obtained parents' perspectives on topics such as the quality of special-education teachers and programs, the evaluation process, mainstreaming, and standards. Finds that a…

This report is the third in a series of "Reality Check" reports finds that five years into the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act and over a dozen years into the so-called standards movement in American education, the public now sees these reforms as "necessary, but not sufficient." This is consistent across a…

This booklet reports on the results of in-depth telephone surveys of 800 black parents and 800 white parents who were questioned about their children's education. Also included is information from focus groups and individual interviews with parents and public education professionals. Public Agenda plans eventually to conduct similar surveys of…

This report is an attempt by Public Agenda to capture the voices of teachers across the United States and to spell out their concerns and learn more about their perspectives on educational reform. It is based primarily on two national telephone surveys of teachers, one of 237 teachers and a second survey of 800 teachers of grades 4 through 12.…

A report prepared by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research and education organization, captures, frames, and focuses the public's concerns about public schools. Higher standards and more challenging work are supported, with emphasis on safety, order, and the basics of education, coupled with skepticism about unproven reform efforts. (SLD)