Drawing on a realistic model for evaluating compensatory education effects, Chapter 1 staff members have developed a workshop series aimed at improving the effectiveness of local Chapter 1 programs. Improvement efforts are to be data driven, research based, team centered, locally controlled, systematic, and focused on student outcomes. (20…

Presents an overview of the articles in this special issue and defines scaling up and externally developed school reform. Key elements for successful scaling up are highlighted. (MMU)

This special issue provides diverse data sets on a school-improvement initiative in Memphis, Tennessee. The effort seems unusually promising because of top-down district support for eight separate site-based reform designs, planners' reliance on New American Schools and other familiar designs, long-term data-collection opportunities, accessible…

To determine local educators' responses to being targeted for program improvement, questionnaires were sent to principals of all schools identified for Chapter 1 improvement in three states. Approximately 104 (84 percent) of the responding schools supported the legislative provisions for improvement and could focus on the issues of improvement.…

Explores the reasons why this generation's educational reform period is lasting much longer than previous reform periods. Examines several promising programs for improving students' learning. Argues for valid teaching methods and programs and for highly reliable implementation methods. In a high-reliability organization, schooling designed by…

Of the four guides to schoolwide reform models (by Herman and others, Northwest Regional Education Laboratory, Robert Slavin, and Margaret Wang and associates), Herman's volume provides the most detailed, scholarly review. Practical information abounds, but more well-controlled and designed longitudinal studies are essential. (Contains 32…

This volume presents methods and first-year findings from the urban and suburban/rural studies of Special Strategies for Educating Disadvantaged Children, a 3-year project that is collecting case study data on 10 different strategies identified as holding promise for educating this group of children. Data collected by Special Strategies involve…

This paper summarizes activities associated with school-improvement projects in 12 Louisiana School Effectiveness and Assistance Pilot Study (SEAP) Cohort One schools during school year 1997-98 and plans for future improvement activities in 1998-99. Faculty and administrators at each school were asked to revise their current school-improvement…

Schools and school systems will improve their chances of making a good choice of school reform program if they determine: (1) the program's goals and objectives; (2) the program's research base; and (3) the resources, in terms of money and human effort, required to make the program work. (SLD)

This volume presents second year findings from a 3-year project that collected case study data on 10 promising strategies for educating disadvantaged children. The study occurred at 25 urban or suburban/rural sites. Participating schools had Chapter 1 programs or were eligible for Chapter 1. The sample included students in grades 1, 3, and 9 who…