Schools are learning organisations. They continuously strive to do better for the children and young people in their charge. In doing so, they try new things, seek to learn from those experiences, and work to adopt and embed the practices that work best. Implementation is a key aspect of what schools do to improve, and yet it is a domain of school…

A growing body of research shows that positive school climate is a key lever for students' academic and social development and success. This research digest shows how an alliance of California schools and districts, school climate experts, and state education agency personnel have teamed up to use school climate data to drive a continuous cycle of…

The Missouri State Board of Education and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education are dedicated to ensuring that all children have access to good schools that prepare them for college and career success. The Missouri School Improvement Program: Support and Intervention Plan takes a differentiated approach to state support based on…

Lists the strengths of small schools and offers hints to improve the educational program in small schools. (JM)

David Pearce Snyder has predicted that "if a significant number of major mainstream institutions do not undertake publicly acknowledged initiatives to dramatically improve the relevance of their curriculums, the rigor of their standards, and the productivity of their operations...the marketplace will have begun to make available so many…

The 2012 MetLife Foundation-NASSP Breakthrough Schools are outstanding examples of how determined and focused leaders create and sustain school improvement. The schools are places of strategic decision making where dedicated adults demonstrate their conviction that every student can and will achieve. Each of the schools demonstrates the efficacy…

Many guidelines for school improvement have emerged from recent research and experience. The connected issues of school improvement and staff development are explored. Guidance for staff development as a part of school improvement is delineated. (DF)

This paper describes and analyses the work of a large scale improvement project in England in order to find more effective ways of fostering equity within education systems. The project involved an approach based on an analysis of local context, and used processes of networking and collaboration in order to make better use of available expertise.…

Current issues confronting teacher education are reviewed in this article. An array of significant opportunities matched with suggestions about the directions that teacher education could take are proposed and described. (DF)

Describes the process of implementation of the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement's Performance Accreditation Framework and School Improvement Process at Holgarth Middle School (South Dakota). Includes sections on essence of goals, assessment of program, interventions and strategies, selection of peer…

In this article, the author describes their digital conversion initiative at Mooresville Graded School District. The project has placed a MacBook Air laptop in the hands of every 3rd through 12th grader and their teachers in the district over the past four years, with over 5,000 computers distributed. But they believe their academic successes have…

Recounts how a child care director's extended absence led to a gradual decline in program quality and how the self-study process for NAEYC program accreditation improved the quality of the program. Discusses the lessons learned and actions taken to achieve accreditation. Includes a list of pertinent books and articles for program directors. (KB)

The quest for school improvement is old. The demand for dramatic, immediate school improvement is new. Even as President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan commit $4.3 billion to making 5,000 of the nation's worst-performing schools better now, few people know what that really looks like--or how it actually works. How do school…

Examines how principals of high achieving middle schools use their various roles to promote student achievement and engage the school community--staff members, students, and parents--in studying and addressing the achievement needs of students. Outlines the characteristics of the principal's roles as inspirational leader, human resource developer,…

Action Research on Change in Schools (ARCS) was a two-year collaborative action research project involving two groups of middle/junior high school teachers, one in Michigan and one in New Hampshire. While the purpose of the project for the university researchers was to examine individual change within the framework of collaborative action…