The experience of the Kenmore (New York) Public Schools with an inservice program for school board members and district level administrators and staff suggests the issues that must be addressed when convincing district personnel and board members to accept and support the concept of local school initiatives for educational improvement. (PGD)

The basic pattern of contemporary secondary education in Japan, laid down immediately after World War II according to the American model of comprehensive high schools with elected school boards, has given way to a structure more in keeping with Japanese needs. However, coeducation has taken firm root in Japanese secondary schools. Major policy…

Public schools across the country are aiming to improve student performance by engaging in comprehensive school reform (CSR). This guide was created to help school districts make CSR an integral part of their strategies for improving student achievement. Five components for CSR are described: (1) Strategizing, whereby the district supports CSR by…

This report critiques the movement to decentralize decision making in public education. It provides an indepth examination of school-based management (SBM) with the aim of revealing why this type of reform seems to have had so little payoff for students. It addresses several key questions: What are the objectives of SBM, and are these objectives…

In October 19, at the request of the Board of Education in the District of Columbia, the Bureau of Education made a preliminary survey of the schools of the District and reported to the board a plan for the reorganization of the administrative and teaching forces of the schools, including a schedule of salaries. It confined itself wholly to the…

Suggests means of resolving the crisis in American education produced by the insulation of educational decision-makers from community and client needs and demands, and the consequent inability or unwillingness of schools to adapt themselves to the changing needs of communities and clients. (Author/JM)

Reforms are a series of beginnings and endings to disconnected events in discussions of school change. However, changes in education are interrelated and can be more effective when viewed accordingly. Certain state education policies are offered as examples of discontinuities in change. A multicultural education experiment in Lancaster,…

A description and definition of the type of negotiation currently occurring among teachers, administrators, and boards of education for long-range school improvement programs includes guidelines for negotiating and a detailed agenda that can be used as a model for reaching shared agreements. (CB)

Every year, a Vermont high school teacher uses laws of physics to teach students how to design, field test, and calibrate a weapon that fires tennis balls to 100-yard distances. This article explains how the "physics war" grew to accommodate the new Vermont curriculum standards at various organizational levels. (22 references) (MLH)

Summarizes the attempts by the Board of Education in England to develop policy in relation to adult education and "further education" as a whole that began in 1909 and ended by World War II. Identifies the emergence of modern adult education stemming from developments in municipal evening schools and the university extension movement.…

The culminating meeting to adopt multi-age grouping in the school district began on a positive note. After months of research, focus groups and communication with the stakeholders, were perched on the verge of making significant instructional and curricular changes to address academic and budgetary needs in the middle-income community where the…

The dynamics of change processes in a rural school jurisdiction over a 5-year period were examined in relation to four specific goals: (1) to document changes since a planning study was done in 1982; (2) to determine if school program changes that had been adopted had reached the classroom according to teacher perceptions; (3) to report how the…

Board members' role in technology implementation ranges from prompting development of technology plans to gathering community support for funding technology initiatives; they need substantial knowledge to enable them to ask the right questions, absorb new information, make good decisions, set appropriate policies, and lead confidently as…

This publication outlines the ways in which school districts are implementing school reform. Information in this resource directory is based on a survey of national affiliate districts and members of the National School Boards Association's (NSBA) Federal Relations Network. Section 1 discusses school reform, the role of school boards in improving…

This report describes the New Mexico State Board of Education's Consolidating Initiatives for Tomorrow's Education (CITE) plan. The purpose of this plan is to address long-range goals for school reforms and funding, educational and educator standards, and future expectations for continued school improvement and state leadership. Each section…