The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods (PNs) program can improve persistently low-achieving urban schools by making their "neighborhoods whole again" through community capacity building for education reform. As the "first federal initiative to put education at the…

Understanding how educational practitioners make sense of and subsequently implement policy has been an increasingly important objective of the K-12 research community. This study extends this research into higher education via an in-depth case study of an urban public 2-year technical college. Drawing on sensemaking theory and critical policy…

The authors of this article are engaged in an ongoing pilot implementation and study of the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) Educator Growth and Development Cycle, known as EGDC. LAUSD implemented the EGDC pilot in the 2011-12 school year, focusing on a small subset of volunteering school administrators and teachers. The district's…

"Starting Up" is a collection of first-person accounts by some of the best-known founders of new schools in America. Providing the kind of knowledge that only experience can teach, it is an invaluable resource for anyone in the process of or thinking about opening a new school, as well as those interested in the politics of today's era of new…

From the Center on Reinventing Public Education's (CRPE's) work examining the efforts to close schools over the past 10 years, in cities of all sizes, two glaring facts stand out: Most city and district leaders are surprised at how difficult it is to close schools. And many of these leaders make mistakes that others before them have learned to…

The expectation that educators will use data in the service of school improvement and planning is a major feature of national and local reform agendas. Prior research has found that the principal plays a critical role in making policymakers' visions for data use a reality at the school and classroom levels. Most prior studies, however, have not…

In 2008, the Ministry of Education in Manitoba, Canada approved a $1.8 million grant for a major three-year pilot project entitled the Student Success Initiative (SSI) designed to support schools facing barriers to success. Six schools with lower-than-average graduation rates in Manitoba from urban, rural, and northern communities were invited to…

Findings from a qualitative study of two Title I middle schools that were in their second year of implementing an externally developed Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) model are presented. Policy attributes theory was used as a framework for examining implementation. The theory argues fidelity of implementation of a CSR is strongest when it is…

Urban districts throughout the nation are contending with declining enrollment, aging facilities in disrepair, persistently low student achievement, increased competition with charters, and severe fiscal constraints. Philadelphia is a case in point. Over the past year, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) was forced to borrow $304 million…

The central office manages and directs a school system. In the wake of district and school reforms, the impact of the central office on schools and quality instruction has not been fully dissected. This study explores the role of the central office in the support of high quality instruction. Further, it analyzes the perceptions of those central…

Transformational leadership has been shown to affect organizational commitment, capacity development, and performance. However, these relationships have received very little attention in schools, especially high schools in the United States that are experiencing educational reform initiatives under No Child Left Behind. Using a sample of 1403 high…

This research presents the qualitative case study of an urban community school initiative that began as an educational reform effort and that ultimately failed. The process of emergence for this school and factors leading to its collapse are described through participant interviews and document analysis. Nationally, policy reformers,…

The "Talent Development Middle Grades Program" is a comprehensive reform model that transforms the structure and curriculum of large urban middle schools with the aim of improving student achievement and raising teacher and student expectations. Key features of the "Talent Development Middle Grades Program" include small…

In the wake of new teaching standards and evaluation systems introduced in the United States, teacher collaboration has emerged as a common theme. However, despite these recent changes, teaching is still largely a private act, in which teachers are often secluded from their colleagues. This study investigated the range and variation of the…

This article revisits the debate about school reform and homeownership-based strategies for neighborhood revitalization. It is based on an analysis of school districts in New York State using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and the New York State Education Department (NYSED). Findings indicate that the relationship between schools…