90-Day Cycles are a disciplined and structured form of inquiry designed to produce and test knowledge syntheses, prototyped processes, or products in support of improvement work. With any type of activity, organizations inevitably encounter roadblocks to improving performance and outcomes. These barriers might include intractable problems at…

This two-part "Implementation Guide" will help to deepen your understanding and sharpen your ability to implement each of the strategies discussed in "Leading School Change: Nine Strategies to Bring Everybody on Board" (ED509821). Part One offers discussion questions and activities which focus on each of the nine strategies. They can be completed…

The overarching goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 are to immediately stimulate the economy in the short term and to invest in education and other essential public services that will ensure the long-term economic health of this nation. The United States Education Department (USED) offers guiding principles to be…

Achieving the Dream colleges engage in a process of institutional improvement to increase student success. A central component of this process is engaging internal and external stakeholders to help develop and implement interventions or changes in programs and services that improve student success. To determine whether these interventions do…

In order to assess how completely a Small Learning Community (SLC) and/or Career Academy is implemented in any given site, and to connect the degree of implementation with the amount of improvement in student performance, two kinds of information are needed. The first is information on the quality of implementation, which can be collected by…

Middle-grade students in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states trail their counterparts nationally, and increasing numbers of students are unprepared to do high-quality work in high school. In response to this situation, SREB and its member states formed a middle-grades consortium and developed a 10-point comprehensive improvement…

The Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) is a bold approach to improving student learning by encouraging teachers, parents, and the community to work collaboratively to introduce innovative projects that address local needs. Initiated in 1999 by the Alberta Government and its partners, AISI provides targeted funding to school…

This report extends previous Center explorations of the status of organized efforts to provide student supports. In 2005 we did a policy and practice analysis of school improvement planning guides to determine how student supports were formally integrated into school improvement planning. We followed this, in 2006, with analyses of a sample of…

The final 1970 report of a 3-part study on regional education services focuses on a unit for (1) planning cooperative educational programs in terms of financial considerations, resource allocations, program operation, governance, and roles relative to operation; (2) making provisions for evaluation of the regional cooperative; (3) providing for…

This program has been developed to train those who would direct educational improvement and change efforts. This training program was written to transfer the findings of research described in "School Context and School Change: Implications for Effective Planning" by Corbett, Dawson, and Firestone (1984, Teachers College Press) to practice. Six…

RECOMMENDATIONS TO ALLEVIATE RACIAL IMBALANCE IN THE SCHOOLS WERE PRESENTED. THESE INCLUDED--USING OPEN ENROLLMENT, IN WHICH PARENTS CAN TRANSPORT THEIR CHILDREN TO ANY SCHOOL WHERE THERE ARE VACANCIES, TRANSPORTING STUDENTS TO AND FROM SCHOOL SITES AT PUBLIC EXPENSE TO RELIEVE OVERCROWDING, REDISTRICTING SCHOOL AREA BOUNDARIES TO CORRECT RACIAL…

Developed by educators with the help of an advisory group, this handbook was prepared for use with a film and slide presentation at a series of national conferences designed to familiarize decision makers with the nature and advantages of career education. Each of the four chapters of the handbook addresses a single question. In the first chapter,…

Communities of Practice offer state agency personnel a promising approach for engaging stakeholder groups in collaboratively solving complex and, often, persistent problems in special education. Communities of Practice can help state agency personnel drive strategy, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop members'…

This guide was designed by the Michigan State Department to assist local school district personnel in the use of Guaranteed Performance Contracting (GPC) by providing a framework of suggested procedures. (CK)

This guide presents the components and implementation phases of the Technical Assistance Center's Chapter 1 Program Improvement Process. The goal of this process is to improve the achievement of educationally disadvantaged students. The following components are discussed: (1) teamwork; (2) informed decision-making; (3) vision setting; (4) research…