School districts around the country have launched new reform strategies that are designed to expand autonomy for public schools, often called "Innovation Schools." Pursuant to these state- and local-level plans to create more autonomous schools, school leaders are granted greater amounts of authority over school operations such as…

School boards have the opportunity to shape a new vision for instruction where students take an active role in their learning and build the skills necessary to mitigate effects of opportunity gaps. This publication provides a framework for implementing active student roles and provides data and case studies to support its recommendations.

The Education Reform -- Joint Agreement published in June 2018 sets out agreed principles and enablers and measures that will support and encourage the empowerment of schools in Scotland. These include the commitment that Education Scotland would carry out three inspections in the 2018-19 academic year looking at the following themes: Readiness…

The Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) AISD Survey gathers information about school conditions from the educators working in schools. TELL obtains perceptions on a variety of issues related to student achievement and staff retention. In 2016, 5,309 AISD teachers (91%) and 3,092 other campus employees completed the survey. This is…

This paper explores how an Alaskan school district shifted from a traditional K-12 education system to a personalized, performance-based system, embedded in the culture of the community, which led to increased student achievement. Chugach School District (CSD) first implemented competency education over twenty years ago, paving the way in…

Since 2000 the population in McKinney, Texas, has almost tripled. Remarkably, the school system has kept apace, opening a new school building almost every year. As the population of this Dallas-Fort Worth area bedroom community has diversified in recent decades, so has the student body of McKinney Independent School District (ISD). Despite the…

The Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) AISD Survey gathers information about school conditions from the educators working in schools. TELL obtains perceptions on a variety of issues related to student achievement and staff retention. In 2016, 5,309 AISD teachers (91%) and 3,092 other campus employees completed the survey. This full…

Increasing disparities in out-of-school suspension and dropout rates have led a number of school districts to develop alternative models of education to include alternative learning centres (ALCs). Using an exploratory mixed methods design, this study explores dimensions of social inclusion among ALCs, located in the southeastern region of the…

Public school curriculum battles offer great examples for illustrating how politics saturates education policy, particularly in the State of Texas. However, Arizona has emerged as another peculiar contender in contemporary battles to control high school curricula. Curriculum battles have deep historical roots in Arizona and elsewhere that go…

This report summarizes district-level results of the 2015 Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning (TELL) AISD Survey. A separate one-page research brief also was published. [For the brief, see ED626501.]

This qualitative study is written from a phenomenological standpoint using Van Manen's (1990 ) hermeneutic lived experiences of the participants. Fourth grade teachers from a large urban school district in the southwestern U.S. completed an online questionnaire and participated in a focus group interview to provide insight into their attitudes and…

Recent studies make one reality clear: While multiple factors can cause a low-performing high school to be in a turnaround situation, every high school that makes dramatic academic improvement has strong, effective school leadership. Turning a school around is no work for novices. It takes a skilled, visionary and proactive principal to pull apart…

Planning and implementing major innovations in large urban districts can be a daunting and overwhelming idea--particularly when it comes to technology--due to real and perceived obstacles. Added to this challenge is the reality of the worst budget crisis in California history. When students are empowered by full access to technology, learning…

In the author's school district, teachers and parents found a way to change the question. "How can their community support the grassroots leadership development and organizing efforts of low income parents and guardians to close the "opportunity gap"?" Together they learned to roar. In 2007, the author and her colleague created Families with…

Principals can profoundly influence student achievement by leading school change, but they cannot turn schools around by themselves. District leaders need to create working conditions that support and encourage change for improved achievement, rather than hindering principals' abilities to lead change. This report includes principals' perceptions…