Small school size (fewer than 400 students) makes possible success-enhancing structures and practices: strong, ongoing student/adult and home/school relationships; flat organizational structure; concentration on a few goals; ongoing, site-specific professional development; a respectful culture; and community engagement. Implementation barriers are…

Deplores inconsistencies between the realities of today's technologically driven, information-age world and the static, constraining boxes in which state-initiated, accountability- focused reforms hold American education. We must reconceptualize schooling, curriculum content, time, grade levels, and achievement to allow more informal,…

The history of young adolescent education can be viewed as an ongoing search for the appropriate combination of school organization, curriculum, and instructional practices for young adolescents. While middle schools have now become the most common pattern for schools housing young adolescents, there have always been other broader school…

This report is about the serious shortcomings in U.S. math and science education, and what the federal government can and should do in order to play a much more effective role in the national effort to remedy those shortcomings. The task force responsible for this document believes that math and science education should receive priority attention…

This book presents a summary of school-choice issues, and is organized around a 1992 seminar entitled "Choice: What Role in American Education?" Each part presents a set of conference papers, followed by discussants' remarks and excerpts from audience discussion. The introduction summarizes the papers' positions and conclusions. Participants…

Impressed with the vital importance of an effective public education system to the future of the Commonwealth, a group of involved business activists formed the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) in 1988. The purpose of the MBAE was to help bring about systematic improvement of Massachusetts' elementary and secondary education…

For all students to become responsible citizens and productive workers, the nature of "effective learning" and the characteristics of schools providing it must change. This report reviews the value and potential of various proposals to change the instruction of at-risk students from a pedagogy of minimal basic skills to a pedagogy of…

This paper addresses the long-term impact of a school improvement effort of the Milwaukee public schools known as Project RISE (Rising to Individual Scholastic Excellence). Each school replicated the following characteristics of effective schools: (1) strong leadership by the principal; (2) high expectations conveyed by the entire staff; (3)…

The primary goal of the School Improvement Project (SIP), administered by the central office of New York City (New York) Public Schools, is to improve academic achievement through school-based planning. A planning committee representing the various school constituencies is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive plan to effect…

Most of the middle schools in Belgium are 2-year schools that form a link between the 6 years of elementary education and the last 4 years of secondary education. In Flanders they are regarded as an example of the more global reform of the secondary educational system in a comprehensive sense. First, this document outlines the new system of…

This paper analyzes educational finance reforms initiated in Ontario. It outlines the changes in governance, funding, and curriculum and states that reforms were implemented without proper support and forethought, resulting in chaos. The report details how the rise of a conservative government in the province led to a desire to reduce taxation and…

A survey of Australian students, grades 7-12, is designed, implemented and discussed. Both the 1972 and 1977 surveys favored separate institutions: a compulsory high school for grades 7-10 and a secondary college for students who voluntarily continued to grades 11-12. (RL)

Offers an interim review of the implementation of the local management of schools (LMS) initiative. A model for LMS as an organizational form termed "decentralized management" is advanced and applied critically to understand aspects of the restructuring currently taking place within the British educational system. (48 references) (MLF)

Four data-based analyses and three commentaries concerning research into the micropolitics of education are introduced. The following themes in micropolitical analysis are considered: ideologies/values of teacher/administrator subsystems; bureaucratic myths; policy remaking in site-level implementation; bias in organizational life; reality…

Based on an educational consultant's experience with a Pacific Telesis Foundation school restructuring program, this article shows the importance of time and culture. Restructuring means formally rearranging time usage to allow schools to create and sustain an interactive culture and supporting infrastructure for improving student learning. To…