The 2004-05 school year didn't start off well for the Sanger Unified School District. The district, located east of Fresno, had entered its first year of "program improvement"--a gentler way of saying that Sanger was among the 98 lowest-performing districts in the state based on success criteria in the No Child Left Behind law. The…

In this article, the author describes how his district develops clearly focused professional learning communities (PLCs) and raises its student achievement rating from "one of the worst" to one of the best. Sanger Unified School District in California's Central Valley had been named one of the worst school districts in California. It…

On March 15, 2007, Santa Barbara residents were shocked when a baby-faced 15-year-old high school student was stabbed to death in the heart of the city's fashionable State Street shopping district. His assailant, just 14, was a member of a rival street gang and a student at the local junior high. "It was a wakeup call for the entire…

It's not often that the goals of closing the achievement gap, providing professional development opportunities to teachers, and benefiting children by using innovative and effective instructional methods coincide. But at Sutterville Elementary School in Sacramento, CA, they do. This article describes the School-Wide Success (SWS) program, its…

Over the past decade, a wave of education reform has swept the nation. Yet the general public remains largely unaware of it, even though the reforms are arguably among the most successful public policy initiatives of the past quarter century. One reform that has the potential to leave its mark for many years is the P-16 initiative. This article…