In this portrait, Simone A. Fried investigates the first six months of a state education department's takeover of a public school district. Using interviews, observations, and artifact analysis, the article explores how school district employees experience the significant reorganization of governance structures and policies that accompanies…

Context: Urban school districts have gone through countless reform efforts to no avail. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) has developed a model that has the potential to be a game changer in laying the foundation for student success. Purpose: This article explores how one district used the model and targeted…

Most young people face challenges on the road to a college degree. They must make important decisions about career preparation, financing a college education, and how college and work fit together to ensure income security while in school. These challenges often seem particularly daunting for two groups of students: opportunity youth (OY)--the 5…

The first eight years of life, beginning before birth and continuing through third grade, are a critical developmental period that sets the stage for future success. Research over the past 15 years has demonstrated the importance of high-quality care and education throughout the prenatal-through-third-grade (P-3) continuum, including prenatal and…

More than 60 years after the ruling in "Brown v. Board of Education" was handed down, its promise remains unfulfilled. In many respects, America's public schools continue to be "separate and unequal." Indeed, the growing re-segregation of American schools by race and ethnicity, compounded by economic class segregation, has…

Early childhood teachers are rightly concerned with implementing a system that was, at least in the initial stages, designed with a different set of teachers in mind--teachers of older students who have standardized achievement data. In most states, policy, practices, and guidance for early childhood teachers are just now being developed or…

The "Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965" ("ESEA") is the nation's key policy driver for elementary and secondary education, shaping federal, state and district efforts to promote effective school systems and improve educational outcomes, particularly for students in high-poverty schools. The most recent…

This report describes the use of Lead Turnaround Partners (LTPs) in the current School Improvement Grant (SIG) program and provides the results of document review, surveys, and interviews with eight State Education Agencies and seven Lead Turnaround Partner organizations. The study focuses on the implementation of the transformation and turnaround…

Developing school leaders who are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to effectively lead low-performing schools has become a critical goal for local school districts intent on dramatically improving student outcomes. Given the current criticism surrounding leadership preparation programs and the changing nature of school…

To give states the information they need to sustain hard-fought education reform effectively, Achieve conducted research on state education reforms that have been sustained successfully for over a decade or more. Funded by the GE Foundation, Achieve hopes this work will help other state leaders, wherever they may be on their road to reform,…

Researchers examined Massachusetts voters' reactions to Proposition 2 1/2--which severely restricts local governments' ability to raise money for local public services--through a statewide telephone survey of 1,561 household heads in 58 towns. Data were gathered on each respondent's vote on the proposition, sex, age, education, occupation, income,…

Welfare reform efforts have been based on crucial assumption: single mothers moving off of AFDC and into the work force will be able to find affordable child care. Two parallel studies of child care supply and its distribution across rich and poor communities inform the debate over child-care availability. In the first study, data from 100…

A statewide telephone survey of over 1,500 household heads in 58 Massachusetts cities and towns, conducted soon after the passage of Proposition 2 1/2 in November 1980, sought to discover why voters favored the law and what public services they wanted. Proposition 2 1/2 not only restricted Massachusetts property taxes but also reduced automobile…

In collaboration with a county hospital and two local government planning offices, Greenfield Community College (GCC) conducted a survey of 1,200 randomly selected residents of Franklin County, Massachusetts, to obtain a demographic profile of area citizens and to identify their needs in the areas of postsecondary education, health care,…

The complex interactions which led to the implementation of the court-ordered desegregation plans for two cities in Massachusetts involve not only the courts but many levels of government. The school departments, the school committees, the mayors, the State Board of Education, the legislature, the governor, and the citizens of Massachusetts, all…