Purpose: The past decade has seen considerable debate about how to best evaluate the efficacy of educational improvement initiatives, and members of the educational leadership research community have entered the debate with great energy. Throughout this debate, the use of randomized experiments has been a particularly contentious subject. This…

Project MACK's major goal was to provide a comprehensive school program at McClymonds High School in Oakland, California that would reduce the dropout rate, improve student achievement, reduce absenteeism and class-cutting, and improve student attitudes toward school. Project components included 1) Career Cluster Program, which focused on work…

An experimental external degree program in a French university with 9,000 students has been designed to officially ignore nonattendance at lectures. The success of this policy and faculty attitudes toward and adjustments to it are explored. (MSE)

This publication discusses the increasing problem of student absenteeism and describes an experimental school attendance policy that was implemented at Napa (California) High School in 1975. The policy designates a maximum of 12 absences per semester as the maximum allowable for each student under normal circumstances; after 13 absences from any…

An evaluative study was made for the staff and students at Career Study Center (CSC) to provide them with information for the program's future development. Staff, students, and parents were randomly selected and interviewed and the results summarized. Students feel CSC is significantly different and better than previously attended schools; there…

A three-year study was made at a printing firm which had experienced rapid post-war expansion followed by conditions of tension, uncertainty, and confusion when some product lines were found to be in over supply or unprofitable. There was a growing distance between management and workers. An experimental program for three of the five company…

This report describes a practicum project that attempted to reduce apathy among students and parents of students at an inner-city junior high school. All seventh-grade students at the study school and some of their parents were selected as the target group. A support team composed of noninstructional school personnel and community representatives…

THIS EVALUATION OF AN EXPERIMENTAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM IN MINNEAPOLIS PRESENTS DATA DERIVED FROM TWO YEARS OF OPERATION. THIS SCHOOL WAS ESTABLISHED TO EXPLORE METHODS OF GIVING MEANINGFUL EDUCATION TO 45 DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS. IT WAS LOCATED IN A SEPARATE FACILITY AND, DURING THE FIRST YEAR, STAFFED BY EIGHT TEACHERS. THIS EXPERIMENTAL…

Project PAVE was implemented in Travis High School, Austin, Texas, to extend and coordinate services for certain high school special education students. Four components were crucial to the Project PAVE model: parental involvement, academic achievement, vocational programing, and extracurricular opportunities. The project evaluation, conducted in…

The effectiveness of the Block Plan, developed and implemented by the seventh grade students at Edith Rogers Junior High School in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) was investigated. The Block Plan uses the concept of a pair of teachers assigned to two classes of students for the homeroom period plus a pair of teachers assigned for each of four academic…

Under Project Concern minority group children in Hartford, Conn., were bused to 33 elementary schools in five suburban school systems. The goals were to change the de facto desegregation of the inner city schools, to design an effective, supportive educational intervention program to arrest and remediate school failure, and to evaluate the…

THIS REPORT IS AN EVALUATION OF A PROGRAM WHICH PAIRED STUDENTS FROM TWO "SLOW" SECOND-GRADE CLASSES IN A HARLEM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WITH STUDENTS IN TWO HIGH ACHIEVEMENT FIFTH-GRADE CLASSES. THESE PUPILS LUNCHED TOGETHER WEEKLY AND PLAYED TOGETHER AFTERWARD. ONCE A WEEK THEY MET FOR DIRECTED CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES. ALSO THEY WENT ON SCHOOL…

The document comprises the final evaluation report and the fourth quarterly progress report of Operation Breakthrough, an experimental demonstration project to upgrade Spanish-speaking workers in entry-level factory jobs. Ten classes at six sites with a total of 133 students were held; 53 attended at least 50 of the total 150 hours. Classes were…