Despite the widespread attention given to education reform, no substantial knowledge base has existed for identifying and implementing specific effective reforms. This document, the first of three volumes, presents findings of a study that sought to identify the essential mechanics of effective reforms for students at risk. The study also…

This report examines the effects of early efforts to link the Elementary Secondary Education Act's (ESEA's) Chapter 1 (now Title I) programs to state and district education reforms, which are standards-based. The report focuses on how Chapter 1 standards and accountability requirements connect with new state-level standards, curricula, and…

This report argues that the academic performance of American students has not declined, but that schools and students are confronting new and higher demands. The fundamental challenge facing American primary and secondary education is how to increase productivity--how to make better use of its resources. In this document, the Consortium on…

Public education is controlled by government bureaucracy; teacher education has been regulation-driven and paperwork-intensive. This paper proposes an alternative response by teacher education to the dilemma--namely, that educators should establish their own identity and develop innovative curriculum and instruction. Within teacher education there…

As of January 1996, 20 states had enacted charter school laws. This brief summarizes the history of charter school laws and updates their current status across the country. The brief presents the findings of various charter school research projects conducted at the state and national levels. When substantive changes have been made to existing…

Eight articles, published in various issues of "Education Week" starting in March 1994 and ending July 1995, track the work of eight educational reform design teams: (1) "Back to the Future" (Lynn Olson)--the virtues and values of the past in a modern context; (2) "A Welcome Change" (Ann Bradley)--instruction school…

This update reports on the highlights of a year-long evaluation of the influence of "Science for All Americans" and "Benchmarks for Science Literacy", two landmark publications of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Data for the evaluation were collected through expert interviews, reviews of state…

This paper discusses the Modern School Movement (MSM), founded in 1924 by French educator Celestin Freinet (1896-1966) and widely-known throughout Europe yet largely unknown to English-speaking educators. The paper focuses on the MSM as the largest student writing network ever to have employed educational technologies as a central aspect of its…

In the early 1970s, American educators commenced experiments on Suggestopedia. Educational psychologists enlarged upon the relaxation and visualizations contained in the Bulgarian method and provided a solid, statistical basis to Suggestopedic research. Part I of this paper discusses the contribution of Donald Schuster, and his development of…

Objectives and components of New York's "A New Compact for Learning," a comprehensive strategy for improving public education outcomes in the 1990s, are described in this document. The plan focuses on results, promotes local initiatives, and empowers people at all levels of the system. Inherent in the plan is the development of a new…

Given the advent of new forms of schooling in American education, specifically, integrated social-service schools (ISS), a radical rethinking of traditional leadership models is needed. This paper suggests a new role for K-12 public school leaders--that of the school president. Data were derived from a review of the job descriptions of the…

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education developed a pilot parent education program that began in 1981 and was available to parents of children in the state's 543 school districts. In 1984, the state legislature provided funding for the program and mandated that it be made available to all parents of children under 3 years of…

The Center for Educational Innovation (CEI), established by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in 1989, views school choice as the best strategy available to improve public schools on a large scale. CEI's approach to school choice involves giving school professionals the freedom to design innovative and distinctive school programs and…

A study was done to describe the development of seven alternative schools for youth who dropped out of high school or who were at risk of doing so on the model of a Brooklyn (New York) alternative school, High School Redirection. The replication demonstration took place in the 1988-89 and 1989-90 school years in Cincinnati (Ohio), Denver…

The term "higher education" should be redefined to give all grade levels and subjects equal educational value. This effort should involve the Appalachian Teachers' Network, which consists of a group of teachers from all grade levels working to make Appalachian Studies an integral part of education. At Radford University (Virginia) the…