This report presents the results of a study that examined the role and activities of reform coaches. Positions for reform coaches have been developed in a number of schools and districts in the San Francisco Bay Area through the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC). The study examined the reform coach role, the functions it provides to the…

The School Improvement Specialist Project prepared seven modules. School improvement specialists, as defined by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory at Edvantia, are change agents who work with schools to help them improve in the following areas so as to increase student achievement. These modules are intended to provide training materials for…

This paper reports on Children Achieving, a systemic reform program implemented in 1995 to improve the Philadelphia public schools. Children Achieving was the first attempt by an urban district to test systemic reform in practice. The first part of the report discusses the beliefs and values of the program's action-design component, which…

In this California state curriculum model for grade 10, "World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World," students stud the life, work, and philosophy of Cesar E. Chavez. The students learn about the historical developments of many of the ideas and philosophy of Chavez, particularly the evolution of democratic principles.…

Constructivism is a response to the depersonalized hugeness of our society and institutions. The constructivist model for education offers a way to decentralize the authority of a large and distant administration and return decision-making to the local level, that is, to learning communities, teaching teams, and individual classroom teachers. This…

This paper reports on a multiple case study of building administrators in a suburban school district in Oklahoma which implemented a unitary system of inclusion of students with disabilities in age-appropriate regular classrooms. The study focused particularly on how administrators developed shared meanings during the change process. Data were…

The purpose of this study is to furnish evidence supporting the conclusion that the thrust for the transformation of southern Africa, that region of Africa south of the equator, cannot be initiated without responding to the need for fundamental educational reform. In this study, transformation is defined as basic change in the structure of…

This issue of ENC Focus is organized around the theme of educational change. It intends to provide teachers with practical resources and suggestions for implementing reform ideas in the classrooms. Featured articles include: (1) "There Can Be No Improvement Without the Teacher" (Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves); (2) "Changing…

This paper offers the reflections of three past presidents of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) during the year of the American community college's 100th anniversary. President emeritus Edmund J. Gleazer, Jr., describes some of the changes that altered the AACC during the years 1951-1981. In 1951, when Gleazer was hired as…

This booklet briefly presents some of the results of a study of the relationship between school districts and "reform support organizations" (RSOs). RSOs include a range of public, quasi-public, private for-profit, and private nonprofit organizations that seek to engage or are engaged by school districts in systemic reform efforts. The study…

These two case studies were commissioned by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) as part of its Western Policy Exchange (WPE) Project, in an effort to understand the dynamics and perceived consequences of a "state roundtable" approach to fostering partnerships in education in order to advance systemic change and…

This report discusses the accomplishments and challenges of the Vermont Self-Determination Project (SDP), a 3-year project designed to empower individuals with developmental disabilities to create the quality of life they desire for themselves and, by discovering and sharing their natural gifts and talents, to nourish and enrich both their own…

In June, 1999, the U.S. Departments of Justice and of Health and Human Services convened the National Summit on Children Exposed to Violence, bringing together experts to develop a framework for understanding and addressing children's exposure to violence. This Summary describes that framework, presenting an action plan that outlines principles…

Henry Barnard was "one of the men who revitalized the American common-school system", and as such, he is clearly worthy of a biography. Not only was his service a noted one to elementary education, but as college president and as the organizer of the United States Bureau of Education his activity also touched other parts of the country's…

Investigated dynamics of change at the classroom level by identifying factors influencing change perceived by administrators, teachers, pupils, and investigator-observer. Results are reported as facilitating/hindering factors affecting adoption of individualized instruction, including teacher, course of study, facilities/materials, administration,…