The current study reported here is one within a research project aimed at the identification of enabling and constraining factors in a two-year school-development project at a large secondary school in Sweden, where all teaching staff were involved in improving the quality of instruction through collaborative analyses. In this project a…

While many studies explain the contributions of economics and environmental protection to social sustainability, and discuss how to achieve sustainable development (SD) through education, less is known about change processes in order to ensure the sustainable development at school. The authors emphasize that as active members of the school…

This paper presents how some Australian schools are changing their approaches to leading the teaching and learning in their diverse and multi-characteristic contexts. Experiences of these schools shows that the development of a school wide approach to pedagogy and its implementation needs to be firmly embedded in the leadership of learning.…

Competency education, an educator-led reform, is taking root in schools and districts across the country. In some states, state leadership has cleared the path with policies to advance competency education. This paper seeks to map out the terrain of the district implementation strategies being used to convert traditional systems into personalized,…

Since 2006, the Thomas W. Payzant School on the Move (SOM) Prize has been awarded annually to a Boston public school that has made significant progress in improving student achievement. This case study identifies the structures and strategies that best serve students in prizewinning schools, provides a profile of each of the four winning schools…

In this multi-method case study, the authors explore the success of school reform in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), whose school reform combines a portfolio strategy and a managed instruction approach. Portfolio strategy is a term used to describe an approach that decentralizes resources and decision-making to school sites--increasingly in…

Research shows that professional learning can have a powerful effect on teacher skills and knowledge, and on how well students learn. To be effective, however, professional learning for teachers needs to be conducted in the ways that it is in many high achieving countries--continuously, collaboratively, and with a focus on teaching specific…

In many educational jurisdictions, the responses to student disengagement and behaviour problems have been restrictive or punitive; they include on-site police officers, locker searches, metal detectors, and zero tolerance policies. There is little evidence that such strategies are effective in changing behaviour, attitudes, or achievement.…

For over 30 years, Foxfire has been developing an approach to learning that is learner-centered and community-focused. Foxfire's initial success resulted from a successful student-produced magazine in a rural Georgia high school. Attempts to duplicate this success often overlooked the key ingredients, student choice and academic integrity, that…

This study examines how 12 teacher leaders from five school districts negotiate access to classrooms and encourage instructional change in light of teacher resistance. Drawing from observations and interviews, the findings indicate that, in order to gain access to teachers, teacher leaders frequently compromise their instructional improvement…

Australia's second National Research and Evaluation Strategy for Vocational Education and Training (VET), which covers the period 2001-2003, builds on the following major themes contained in the first national strategy, which covered 1997-2000: stakeholder orientation, national coordination, and the importance of effective dissemination. The…