This report details the action plan of Alberta, Canada to build on recent progress in restructuring and refocusing the province's educational system. The report describes the most common concerns of Albertans regarding the school system, especially related to keeping students in school, meeting special needs of students, and developing a highly…

Educational reform poses problems for administrators in rural areas who have limited time and resources. This guide offers a process that can be used by rural administrators to engage the community in activities that will enhance children's success in the classroom and in their adult lives. Section 1 discusses the importance of community…

Describes the formation of local organizations for adult and literacy education created all over Portugal after the end of the fascist regime in 1974, the coordination and certification plan of the Ministry of Education's Division of Continuing Education, and the ensuing legal status of the local "popular" educational associations. (MF)

Examines how general education interns and mentors can use collaborative teaching in professional development school settings. Focusing on special education literature on collaboration, the paper discusses the use of complementary, parallel, station, alternative, and team teaching. Examples of how these models work in elementary and secondary…

Describes the role and successes of locally-based public education funds. These nonprofit public/private partnerships, linked by the Public Education Fund Network in Washington, DC, are active in more than 60 U.S. cities, having moved beyond their initial efforts to whole-school change and involvement in critical policy questions. (SLD)

This paper argues that present service delivery models for Chapter 1 students have questionable effectiveness and calls for collaborative consultation between teachers of Chapter 1 and regular programs to better serve this population of at-risk students. This system change requires defining collaborative consultation, developing a collaborative…

Common sense proposals for school restructuring suggest promising directions, but issues of the content needed to give educational direction and show how to link the factors that influence this content must be addressed. An agenda of content for teacher commitment and competence is proposed. Problems of linkage are addressed. (SLD)

Five texts by Brian L. Fife (1992), Chester E. Finn and Theodor Rebarber (1992), John Godar (1990), Nathan Rutstein (1992), and Yael Sharan and Shlomo Sharan (1992) on cultural diversity and education reform emphasize the importance of cooperation, administrative decentralization, the need for critical thinking, values that provide common ground,…

America's Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley believes that the higher education community must be in a position to respond to raised standards for kindergarten through 12th-grade students. In fact, he said: "These two systems must collaborate to solve a problem that neither can address by itself." Initially, sweeping reform plans…

The Coalition of Essential Schools is involved in a 3-year study to translate collaborative inquiry into a research process to simultaneously build schools' capacities for change. A current collaborative project is described, with a dialog between a principal, a teacher, and a researcher who are engaged in a process of school improvement. Members…

This paper argues for the participation and partnership of diverse elements in the community in order to achieve the goals of educational reform, and especially to encourage academic achievement among minority students. In a speech before the Forum '88 conference of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, the cooperative…

This paper recommends that institutions of higher education (IHE) departments of educational administration collaborate with state education agencies (SEA) to plan educational reform. The states' increasing investment in public education merits IHE participation in the statewide educational planning process. Specifically, the paper suggests SEA's…

Justification for school district consolidation is made on the basis of either reducing cost or increasing educational quality. Some cost reduction may be realized through certain economies of scale in some consolidations but it is by no means automatic. The Illinois State Board of Education emphasizes the relationship between high school size and…

This paper describes the strategy developed by the Florida Department of Education to identify, develop, and support new educational procedures and practices in Florida's public schools. This educational renewal strategy incorporates three basic elements: establishing clear goals and objectives, assessing and analyzing how well educational goals…

Compares formal education to a cart with the following focus wheels: preservice training, in-service training, curricular position, and teaching materials. Claims that productive and innovative effort in one area often is stifled by focusing on the lack of effort in other areas. (MJP)