This reflection does not pretend to be a scientific survey of curriculum trends but is, as the title suggests, a personal reminiscence of governorship across different phases of education, with snippets about the curriculum that my memory recalls.

The author is a long-time advocate inside the Labour Party for ending selective education and the 11-plus. She outlines how Labour Party frontbenchers routinely ignore or deflect calls from Party members to stand up for comprehensive education in both word and deed. As UKIP, whose policy is to extend selective education more widely, rises in the…

It is 25 years since the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was abolished and management of education in central London transferred to 13 London boroughs. The author reflects on the experience of being an ex-ILEA head teacher, and of managing one of the new local education authorities in the immediate post-ILEA period. He begins by commenting…

Educational leadership practice is embedded and shaped in its own context. However, contemporary policy makers are keen to use research findings from multiple educational systems to produce overall, generic models of best leadership practice. Therefore, research needs to encompass analyses of the political, societal, cultural, and institutional…

Almost immediately after he was named Commissioner of Education in March 2011, Stephen Bowen traveled to school districts across Maine and spoke to students, teachers, school administrators and community members about what they saw as the challenges confronting Maine's schools and what role they saw for the Maine Department of Education in…

This guide provides a map that schools can follow when implementing the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program. It is hoped that CSRD will help schools foster higher standards and ensure that schools help students meet these standards. The booklet describes the goals and benchmarks that must be established for student…

There is ample evidence that the structural characteristics of American secondary education are not well suited to vocational education. The solution may require a redesign of the structure of secondary schools, especially their governance. (SK)

This article focuses on the school district's role in implementing Comprehensive School Reform (CSR). Research shows that effective district support for CSR varies from district to district. This is due, in part, to the fact that many prior models bypassed the district, operating under the belief that reform would be more effective if it targeted…

This paper provides data on the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program in the mid-continent region. Started in 1998 and part of the Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning and Model Developers Plan, the CSRD program aims to increase student achievement by assisting schools across the country to implement successful,…

This addendum, developed at the request of the U.S. Department of Education, provides information to schools, school districts, states, and others as they plan and implement comprehensive school-reform programs under the Obey-Porter Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program. The CSRD legislation encourages schools to consider…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a report dealing with the arguments for school reform, aims of elementary education, student development, elementary school activities, educational administration, and the measures leading to school reform in Finland. The purpose of elementary education in Finland is to…

The authors examine the legal issues and administrative implications, under British law, of the Tameside case, in which local school authorities resisted the Secretary of State for Education's order to implement the comprehensive schools plan. (SJL)

This report discusses low-performing school districts identified by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL). It is based on a 5-year contract in which SEDL tried to transform low-performing schools in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas into high-performing learning communities. The first part of the paper…

This article discusses some of the various school-reform strategies that have been implemented since the publication of A Nation at Risk. It opens with an examination of standards-based accountability and some of the concerns and objections surrounding this movement. It asks whether standards are achieving their purpose, looks at the role of state…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a law passed by the Finnish Parliament forming the administrative and organizational basis of school reform. It states that as of 1 August 1970, Finland's school system will be developed in accordance with the main principles of comprehensive education. The core of the…