Lessons emerging now from successful schools have much to teach us about the practices of dynamic leaders. But if leaders can't talk about the what and the why of those practices in ways that inspire their staffs to action, they may change programs or policies, but they'll never change people. There are hard-charging school and district leaders…

When students are hopeful, they do better in school and in life. Hopeful students have better grades and score higher on assessments. The Gallup Student Poll finds that about half of U.S. students are hopeful. Principals and other adults in a school should spread hope among students by creating excitement about the future, teaching students the…

After providing technical assistance to the federal Smaller Learning Community Program grantees, the authors developed five lessons for successful programs: 1) A strong vision of improved instruction needs to drive high school reorganization; 2) A strong vision of improved instruction focuses on strengthening the instructional core; 3)…

The Money Myth is the contention that any education problem requires increased spending and, conversely, that reform is impossible without more funding. However, increased funding works for only certain kinds of school resources. Many reforms require resources that money cannot buy. What is needed are reforms that build the capacity of schools to…

A national study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that school-based reform is no guarantee of improved learning opportunities. Schools with the most promising reform efforts set attainable reform goals with long timelines; focus explicitly on particular aspects of curriculum while targeting related professional development…

The nation needs a diverse group of well-educated superintendents who strive to balance legitimate special interests with the common good. The single-savior, miracle-worker image must be abandoned because it misconstrues the nature of leadership, stifles action, and breeds dependency among ordinary people whose efforts are essential for improving…

Although U.S. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander's strategy includes a track for today's students, emphasis has been on the new generation of schools advocated in the America 2000 plan. This article pleads for concrete steps to improve the education of today's students and recommends a book ("How to Shape Up Our Nation's Schools") to…

Because they are not guided by an overall goal based on scientific theory, the six national education goals are fragmentary, contradictory, and insufficiently concerned about developing student autonomy--education's true aim. Teachers can help children develop autonomy by encouraging them to make decisions and enforce their own rules, fostering…

W. Edwards Deming rejects school-improvement proposals based on formulating higher standards and enforcing them with performance assessments. To Deming, the Bush Administration's America 2000 education strategy is "a horrible example of numerical goals, tests, rewards, but no method." Emphasizing rationalist performance measures…