Background/Context: School districts are responsible for helping schools improve learning for students. However, many district initiatives conflict with each other or with existing instructional practices in schools. Recent research on urban school reform points to the value of program coherence in sustaining school change. Our paper addresses an…

Private foundations are attempting to move away from educational reform approaches based on model development. The limits of the "Johnny Appleseed" (sowing seed and moving on) mode of grantmaking are coming clear. Persistence--a willingness to commit resources to an issue or institution for 5 to 10 years--will need to be an operating…

A case study of a large nonselective urban high school in Baltimore (Maryland) describes the design and implementation of a comprehensive package of school reforms, the Talent Development Model with Career Academies. Qualitative and quantitative evidence is provided on significant improvements in school climate, student attendance, promotion…

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory has developed principles for culturally responsive education, along with a series of tools to help educators respond to the needs of students from a variety of cultural backgrounds. This selective listing of promising programs and practices has been developed to provide examples of professional…

The premise of this policy paper is that two educational movements, the charter school movement and the development and dissemination of a variety of comprehensive school designs, have an unprecedented opportunity to work together to improve U.S. public education. This paper, focusing on challenges facing comprehensive school design organizations,…

"Cityschools" reports on research regarding the transformation of urban schools to make this research more accessible to practitioners in urban classrooms. This theme issue focuses on youth violence, exploring how some schools, families, and communities are working together to organize their resources and to design strategies to fight violence.…

Describes events leading to the establishment of four urban professional development schools (PDS) by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Public Schools. School sites, university/school district interaction, preservice student activities, and schoolwide change projects are described. Results of a survey of site teachers on PDS…

This case study reports the feasibility of the Partnership Schools Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) model for school improvement in a Title I elementary school. Interviews were conducted and documents were collected for 3 years to study whether and how the school implemented key policy attributes--specificity, consistency, authority, power, and…

This paper details the structure and process of preservice teacher training and new teacher induction at Melrose Elementary School in Oakland (California), an urban professional development school associated with the California State University at Hayward. In addition to providing an overview of the school, describing the school-university…

The Chicago School Reform Act provided a rare opportunity for those who were involved in the development of the legislation to be primarily responsible for the initial implementation of the plan. The governance model of the Reform Act, which is the subject of this study, provided for an elected school counsel at each of 542 schools and maintained…

An ongoing study examined implementation and student response to academic career magnet (ACM) programs in New York City high schools. The programs emphasize both college preparation and career education, demonstrating one approach to the current emphasis on integrating academic and vocational education. New York City offers a wide array of magnet…

In Louisville (Kentucky), the design and effort that foster educational changes are yielding rewards in three of the district's middle schools, participants in the High Project. The High Project, which began in 1989 with the support of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, attempts to provide high expectations, high content, and high support for…

The Providence Blueprint for Education study (PROBE) gathered as much information as possible about the status of Providence (Rhode Island) schools, collecting data from parents, teachers, the government, school administrators, and the public to paint a broad picture of the schools and areas for improvement. Information was collected from the…

The Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) is adapting Success for All, a prominent early-elementary school program for at-risk minority youths, for use with disadvantaged limited English proficient students whose primary language is Spanish. The Johns Hopkins University Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students is…

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) Alliance for Tomorrow's Teachers is a collaborative effort among the University of North Florida, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, the Clay and Duval County (Florida) school systems, and the Clay and Duval County teachers' unions. The goals of the program are to: (1) restructure the…