The University of Rochester and East High School in Rochester, New York, entered into a partnership in 2015, hoping to transform the school to prevent shut down by the state. Both partners were wary because of the district's failed attempts at reform and the history of similar partnerships elsewhere. A new state-level reform option allowed the…

School reform initiatives designed to improve school quality require strong leadership, strategic planning, data analysis, and systemized performance accountability. Utilizing school reforms includes rethinking curriculum and instruction to improve quality and promote equality, restructuring school operations with a focus on both the students and…

This article argues that processes of disconnect and capture have affected Nepal's efforts to decentralise its education system, leading to a failure to engage the very stakeholders--parents and communities--that the reforms sought to reach. Specifically, disconnect occurred in the development and implementation of the latest…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

The purpose of this article is to examine the authors' experiences while trying to enter and engage local communities in bottom-up literacies through participatory action research (PAR) toward the community's own collective self-development. In trying to enter five different communities, I have found several challenges and roadblocks such as…

This paper documents the initial process by which a San Diego middle school, located in a low-income and predominantly Hispanic neighborhood and repeatedly failing to meet No Child Left Behind provisions, restructured into an academically rigorous, detracked charter school. The discussion of the political experience and working relationships…

Graduation and dropout rates are the center of the conversation about high school reform, with President Obama and the U.S. Department of Education leading the charge to boost high school and college graduation rates among our nation's students in the next ten years. Recognizing the need for a comprehensive approach to keeping teens in school and…

This article examines school leadership in the context of Taiwanese educational reform since the mid-1990s. The goal of the inquiry is twofold: to explore the conflicts that school administrators have confronted in facilitating school reform and to analyze the strategic and innovative leadership practices that have facilitated improvements in…

In August 2001, the state-run Control Board for the Chester-Upland School District awarded control of nine of their 10 schools to Edison Schools, with little opposition. In contrast, nearby Philadelphia fought state efforts to privatize schools. Finally, on July 31, 2002, the joint state-city Philadelphia School Reform Commission partially…

This article raises the question, "Is the rapid expansion of the school Academies programme consistent with the Government's policy of enabling socially disadvantaged local communities to participate in making decisions that shape the quality of their lives?" (Contains 1 note.)

The Colorado Strategic Options Initiative promotes the restructuring and redesign of education to enable all schools and communities to meet all students' and citizens' needs in the future. The concept of restructuring education may be seen as part of an evolutionary process from the 20th century industrial, assembly-line model to the eventual…

Community education must address issues that affect a variety of cultures at different levels. Public school desegregation processes offer opportunities for restructuring schools to be more responsive to community needs, for enhancing race relations, and for improving the economic viability of a community. (JOW)

Analyzes state statutes to determine which legislation mandating school reform had been enacted between 1987 and 1992. Findings suggest that the plethora of legislation will probably continue, that community involvement in education will probably expand, and that educators should prepare themselves for redefined educational goals and restructured…

Over the last 10 to 15 years, a variety of efforts to transform American high schools have gained both public and private support. Significant among these are initiatives to implement Small Learning Communities (SLCs), part of a larger school reform and restructuring effort designed to address a variety of goals, including "downsizing large…

A roundtable discussion with participants in the Boston (Massachusetts) Whole Village Project illustrates the complexities of urban reform efforts focusing on cooperation among school, parents, and community. Participants were three principals, a school-based parent coordinator, and three education reform project directors. (SLD)