Dramatically improve schooling by harnessing the collective power of the High Reliability Schools™ (HRS) model and the PLC at Work® process. Featuring some of America's best educators, this anthology includes information, insights, and practical suggestions for both PLCs and HRS. The overarching purpose is to demonstrate how these two approaches…

The goal of this toolkit is to shed light on the importance of authorizing nontraditional charter schools and how the challenges of authorizing nontraditional schools manifest in practice, as well as to provide action steps for authorizers and school leaders who are able and eager to lead the field on these complex issues. The toolkit contains the…

What models of governance are effective in complex education systems? In all systems an increasing number of stakeholders are involved in designing, delivering, and monitoring education. Like our societies, education systems are increasingly diverse regarding students, teachers, and communities, as well as the values and identities we expect…

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In…

This book offers an ambitious new system for evaluating, compensating, and providing professional development for school teachers and administrators. In this realigned system, new forms of accountability are introduced, but they go hand in hand with new rewards and access to enhanced forms of professional development to help educators succeed in…

Many factors complicate the education of urban students. Among them have been issues related to population density; racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity; poverty; racism (individual and institutional); and funding levels. Although urban educators have been addressing these issues for decades, placing them under the umbrella of "urban…

This document reports on a focus group meeting convened by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) Board of Directors to examine the concept of educational accountability for all students, including students with disabilities. The outcome of the meeting was a definition of "accountability" and a…

In its broadest terms, the learning paradigm calls for institutional change and institutional responsibility for learning outcomes. Leaders have to develop structures and processes that allow for more flexibility and creativity. Decisions have to become more data-driven. Barriers to student success have to be identified and removed. This book…

During a symposium, three presentations described initiatives that exemplify the principles and components of the Ecology of Outcomes. Emphasis is on accountability for achieving measurable outcomes and use of outcome information in program planning and development. Summaries of individual papers are: (1) "The Ecology of Outcomes: System…

Following the growing commitment to assessment at the undergraduate level, doctoral programs are now grappling with what accountability means for them. This book provides a foundation for faculty and academic leaders of doctoral programs to promote inquiry into the educational practices that define their programs and contribute to graduate…

Creative actions toward preventing global unemployment seek to (1) uncover the painful realities of joblessness, (2) design better models for fruitful discourse and action, (3) climb the "commanding policy heights" of moral vision, (4) move from autocratic to democratic corporatism, (5) uncover the kind of information that may hold power…

Increased demands for colleges and universities to engage in outcomes assessment for accountability purposes have accelerated the need to bridge the gap between higher education practice and the fields of measurement, assessment, and evaluation. The "Handbook on Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation in Higher Education" provides higher…

This collection presents 91 papers or summaries presented at a 1997 conference on self-study and institutional improvement for institutions of higher education. Papers are grouped in the following chapters (with sample topics in parentheses): (1) "Institutional Mission and Institutional Change" (vision statements; balancing quality and change);…

This book is a collection of nine papers presented at a 1996 symposium that addressed issues and models for strategic thinking about higher education, especially the economics of higher education, institutional mission as it affects positive change and accountability, and technology. The included papers are: (1) "Why Can't a College Be More Like a…

This compilation brings together three previously published papers on the role of professional development in school restructuring. The three papers articulate a new paradigm for professional development in teaching which sees opportunities for teacher development residing in collegial work settings, team teaching environments, school improvement…