This collection of four case studies discusses the work of teachers and their efforts to change their classrooms, schools, and districts. The case studies show that teachers can learn to use their own strengths and talents, knowledge, shared vision, and commitment to student growth and development to effect change. The first case study,…

Year-round education, a widely misunderstood concept, offers both financial and educational advantages to school districts. Not only does a year-round education schedule allow a school to educate 20 to 50 percent more students in the same amount of space, it reduces the amount of time spent in review by offering continuous learning with more…

This case study describes an innovative school entry system in which children are registered at school according to their stage of development, not their age. The system was introduced by law in Hungary in 1986. In this study, an introduction is followed by a discussion of problems in curricular articulation. Problems are discussed in terms of the…

The restructuring of traditional schooling will not meet the needs for further learning. What is needed instead is immediate massive change in the form of transitional steps toward new learning systems based on the Wilson Campus school operated at Mankato State University from 1968-77. The public year-round school adopted 69 innovations…

This report charts a brief history of the comprehensive high school in the United States designed particularly to highlight those key decisions that make them what they are. The first and longest part of the paper is organized chronologically into sections with the following headings: 1600-1890--Getting Started; 1890-1920--Basic Reform/Social…

This paper analyzes a research project that maps implementation efforts of comprehensive and mandated change at the primary school level in The Netherlands. In examining this large-scale national reform program, the report deals with schools whose innovation efforts acquired funding from the central education department in return for their local…

The trustees and administrators of the Oxnard School District, which currently serves approximately 12,000 students, recognized as early as 1970 that additional school sites had to be acquired and new schools constructed to accommodate a very substantial increase in student enrollment. Oxnard is located in one of the nation's fastest growing…

Students drop out of school for a wide variety of reasons. Programs to discourage dropping out must therefore accommodate the actual needs of individual students rather than aim at the assumed needs of the "typical dropout." This document reviews school policies and programs that could affect dropout tendencies positively. Among these…

This study documents the innovative utilization of resources in 16 exemplary schools and provides recommendations for staff deployment and school organization. Two introductory chapters place the report in the context of a wider study of which it is part and describe its conceptual framework. The following two chapters review the debate on case…

This guide is the last of four intended to help persons involved in planning new schools, new programs, or other comprehensive change projects. The materials consist of readings to be done individually and exercises to be done individually and/or with a group. Guide 4 focuses on the linkage between the plan and the actual implementation of the new…

The research described in this paper was conducted over a 4-year period at Orangecrest Elementary School, a new school in a Southern California urban district, which adopted Integrated Thematic Instruction (ITI) at its inception. ITI, developed by Susan Kovalik, is a tightly structured program based on the idea of year-long themes which are broken…

At Central Park East (CPE) schools in East Harlem, New York City, 90 percent of students graduate from high school and 90 percent of those go on to college. Starting with the CPE success story, this book shows why good education is possible for all children, and why public education is vital to the future of our democracy. Begun in the mid-1970s,…

The New Designs for the Comprehensive High School project should provide for an organization of the school that is aligned with learner outcomes and learning process. Components of the organization must be aligned among themselves. High school models for organizing learners that meet student needs for connectedness and improved interpersonal…

Technology, directed to each of the parts that collectively give shape and direction to the school, should provide the critical mass necessary to realize the specifications for the New Designs for the Comprehensive High School project. Learners should have access to personal productivity tools that increase effectiveness and efficiency in the…

The cost factors involved in the New Designs for the Comprehensive High School project were compared with the traditional operating costs of a comprehensive high school in the United States. The high school cost analysis was based on expenditure profiles developed by the Educational Research Service (ERS). ERS data were manipulated to derive an…