Restructuring jelled for Winona, Minnesota, schools while staff struggled to meet two major tenets: (1) all students can succeed; and (2) schools control the conditions of success. Instituting site-based management and a vision statement was not enough. Steps were taken to communicate the vision, develop successful pilot projects, and empower…

Peer coaching promises to reduce teachers' isolation, create a professional and collegial school environment, and promote skill transfer from training to the workplace. To help peer coaching achieve these results, several guidelines are presented. Peer coaching programs need administrative support, adequate training, participant trust, and…

The School Improvement Project of the Institute for the Development of Educational Activities, first instituted in 1980, offers high schools a method for selecting and implementing recommended changes from among the many proposed in recent reports on high school improvement. (JBM)

Describes the development of reciprocal teaching--an instructional procedure originally designed to improve poor readers' text comprehension--and its application in Springfield, Illinois, schools. Research is clustered into three types of studies: effectiveness, efficiency, and feasibility. Program implementation, evaluation, and success factors…

Some violence prevention programs do not work because they are poorly targeted, provide materials without implementation strategies, apply neighborhood methods to school settings, and project unrealistic notions about the social forces underlying violence. Schools cannot eliminate all conflict but should go beyond violence prevention to create a…

The 1998 Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program provides $120 million for Title I schools and an additional $25 million for all public schools. Almost 3,000 schools are receiving $50,000 each to implement schoolwide models listed and explained in this article. Challenges and funding tips are discussed. (Contains 13 references.) (MLH)

A parent objected to a district's replacement of the gifted pull-out program with gifted-talented clusters in regular classrooms. Teachers would be trained to work with special-needs students, but not to differentiate curricula for advanced students. He agreed to advance his daughter a grade, but deplores reforms' transitional effects. (MLH)

This article reviews and analyzes the findings of a national study on school improvement. It defines four relationships important to effective implementation and the implications for school change. (MD)

Of more importance than any lofty concept of the principal's leadership are crucial, mundane, support functions--which can be carried out by supervisors and teachers as well as by principals. (Author)

Discusses three essential components of successful cooperative education programs (commitment, pacing, and support) and offers practical suggestions to teachers, such as arranging groups efficiently, determining group size, deciding how long groups should stay together, and deciding when group learning is appropriate. Teaching social skills is…

The Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) has developed both formal and informal reading assessments reflecting current reading theory. A test development committee created a MEAP blueprint of four elements: constructing meaning, knowledge about reading, attitudes and self-perceptions, and topic familiarity. Includes two references. (MLH)

A personalized education, according to Ted Sizer, means that students are known by adult professionals in the school. Administrators at a California high school with 2,000 students and very large classes initiated an adopt-a-kid program by matching adult volunteers on campus with low-achieving students. This program, along with a successful block…

Since 1990, when a Fort Meyers (Florida) school became the nation's first core-knowledge site, over 50 other schools have taken pioneering steps to teach this curriculum. Core-knowledge guidelines include school-community understanding, acceptance, and involvement; alignment of curriculum with local and state guidelines; and collaboration and…

Critics of outcomes-based education and proponents of vouchers, school choice, creationism, and tax limitation measures often seem to be advocating publicly funded private education. School leaders attempting to implement OBE or other improvement programs should describe programs properly, involve the community, develop and implement a…

Veteran first-grade teacher describes her 2-year inclusion experience with three special-education students. Offers other teachers suggestions for planning and implementing inclusion. (PKP)