This report raises fundamental issues that must be explored by educators considering participative decision-making as part of an educational restructuring initiative. In analyzing district readiness to implement a shared decision-making model, several factors must be considered, including school culture and climate, leadership style and attitude,…

Findings from a Massachusetts Department of Education project to describe district-led experiences with school-based management and to identify factors for improved classroom practices are presented in this paper. Interviews with 12 superintendents and assistant superintendents involved in systemwide restructuring were conducted to learn about…

The middle-level education initiative described in this document outlines an innovative program to assist New Mexico school districts in addressing the needs of early adolescents. Findings and recommendations that underscore the need for middle-level educational reform in New Mexico's schools are presented in this report. The state is a recipient…

Findings of a study that examined the outcomes of longterm institutionalization of school reform are presented in this paper. Project Excellence, implemented in 1984 in a secondary school in Cochrane, Ontario, involved a comprehensive change in curriculum, instruction, and professional roles. An initial evaluation of the program, conducted during…

This study reports results of the first year of implementation of the Success for All elementary school restructuring program in kindergarten through third grade at Philadelphia's Francis Scott Key Elementary School. Fifty-two percent of the students were from Asian backgrounds, primarily Cambodian, and spoke little or no English at home. In the…

This research brief examines the potential of technology to further the goals of restructuring U.S. schools. Strategies are presented for restructuring schools with technology. Although restructuring means different things to different people, the restructuring movement has generally focused on reorganizing school processes, taking a…

This report explores the technical, political, and socio-cultural dimensions of the scaling up process of Success for All (SFA), one of the nation's most successful and extensively researched whole-school change models. SFA, a reform effort aimed at elementary schools serving disadvantaged children, is currently being implemented in over 475…

How implementation of the middle schools concept affects student attainment of the purposes of middle grades education was studied in Georgia. Focuses were on academic achievement, the cost effectiveness of the Middle School Program, and any modifications needed to improve middle grades education. This study finds that students who attend schools…

Solid research evidence links smaller schools to fewer discipline problems, lower dropout rates, higher student participation levels, and steadier academic progress. Large buildings are no obstacle. Creating small schools requires top administrators to lend impetus and support, facilitate teacher volunteer groups, develop clear policies, adjust…

Two elementary schools were studied over two years of a schoolwide program to improve service delivery to students with behavior problems. Program components included an advisory committee, schoolwide organizational practices, schoolwide classroom management intervention, and individual behavioral interventions. Target students displayed improved…

When studying different types of returns to education, educational reforms are commonly used in the economics literature as a source of exogenous variation in education. The Swedish compulsory school reform is one example; the reform extended compulsory education throughout the country, in different municipalities at different points in time. Such…

This article develops a conceptual framework for studying how three comprehensive school reform (CSR) programs organized schools for instructional change and how the distinctive strategies they pursued affected implementation outcomes. The conceptual model views the Accelerated Schools Project as using a system of cultural control to produce…

Beginning in 1990, the United States and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducted an international, 14-nation study of programs for at-risk children. This report presents findings from the second year of the study, during which the Planning and Evaluation Service of the U.S. Department of Education reviewed the…

This report describes what schools and educators across Kentucky are doing to implement school reform in school-based decision-making based on the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). The School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) component of KERA is a decentralized governance structure that vests great authority in SBDM councils operating at…

The Success for All school restructuring program is currently being implemented in more than 1,100 elementary schools throughout the United States, primarily in urban locations. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the quality of implementation were conducted in a sample of more than 350 of these schools to examine how the Success for All…