Summer school makes an unlikely candidate for a bright spot in education reform during these difficult economic times. It occupies a long-held negative place in U.S. culture, prompting dread in the hearts of many former and current students. Summer school conjures up images of sitting in hot classrooms and receiving remedial instruction while…

School support teams--external groups of teachers, pupil services personnel, and reform experts--assist schools as they plan, implement, and improve their schoolwide Title I programs. Team members of the Texas School Support Initiative, begun as a 1994-95 pilot project involving 12 schools, learned the value of building trust, starting with…

Since the U.S. has no strong centralized educational program, the drive for systemic change is proceeding more slowly and unsystematically than in Japan or France. Systemic reform strategies must emphasize building schools' capacity for self-renewal. Getting from uniformly high standards to diverse delivery systems is the challenge. Marshall…