This article contributes to a long-standing conversation about the implementation of service-learning by proposing an updated revision for the 21st century: critically engaged civic learning (CECL). The term service-learning is problematic as it invokes inequitable power dynamics that inherently privilege one group over another, with more…

Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original…

The aim of this article is to review the current state of inclusive education in the world and to suggest a few relevant considerations. The first section "Two parallel concerns" retraces the inescapable connections between the educational aspects of inclusive education and more general concerns regarding inequality. The second section "Inclusive…

Former U.S. Ambassador and philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg has pledged a significant portion of his personal wealth to America's public schools if his contribution is "matched" by the nation. Up to $50 million in matching money over the next 5 years has been earmarked specifically for rural schools. This document provides a context…

Educators today are challenged with building a communications system that promotes educational values while at the same time teaching children to cope with a chaotic information environment. This report examines how educators are grappling with the difficult interplay of technological change and educational values. It begins by reviewing the…

Managing and leading educational change entails a great degree of complexity and uncertainty and remains a pressing challenge for administrators. This work documents lessons learned from a national study on the concept and development of the Creating Communities of Continuous Inquiry and Improvement project of the Southwest Educational Development…

The Language Academy initiative enabled the San Francisco Unified School District to transform remedial, compliance-based programs for English language learners into standards-based language-learning programs for all students. Administrators relied on stakeholder involvement, coherent policy, and quality program design to achieve their goal of…

The Annenberg Rural Challenge seeks to create an effective and sustainable rural school movement that actively involves families, communities, and educators in supporting good rural schools in reciprocal relationships with their communities and local environments. Twenty-six projects, involving hundreds of schools and communities, have been…

In 1990, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Forum was established to function as a design team to consider the critical features of a professional development school (PDS) and the important principles which should be taken into account in creating and field testing the PDS concept. This report emerged from the design team's deliberations.…

This book aims to help parents, community members, and educators find resources, design school options, and take action together to improve small rural schools in ways that meet community and student needs. Chapter 1 discusses the virtues of smallness, outlines basic assumptions about the role and nature of good education, examines the…