This paper describes the processes and outcomes experienced by the Marshalltown Community School District (Iowa) as it implemented a shared decision-making, school-improvement program. A district Shared Decision Making (SDM) Team and School Improvement Program (SIP) teams were trained to facilitate greater staff participation in the…

The California Library Association has established a mentoring program to assist new or reentering librarians in establishing themselves in the profession. At the end of 3 years, the Mentor/Protege program had over 50 participating pairs of experienced and novice librarians. The program is described, and suggestions are given for implementing a…

A study, considering the needs of both classroom teachers and university-based instructors, examined how teachers delineated thematic instruction and translated that conception into practice. A total of 20 teachers, representing 17 classrooms, were observed as they implemented thematic instruction. Team-teaching was observed in two classrooms with…

Used to guide instructional design and professional development, this booklet highlights current thinking and practice in those areas of California's English-Language Arts Framework that need additional clarification or may have been implemented unevenly. Issues addressed in the booklet are: (1) the place of skills instruction, especially phonics,…

A central task in evaluating a prototype education program is to study the variability of delivery and outcomes from site to site. The evaluation should also indicate what to expect and what to do when a Teacher Enhancement Program (TEP) program becomes fully operational. An approach to evaluating TEPs was developed and applied to a concrete case,…

This book describes a project, the Bede Detached Youth Work Project, that was designed to combat racism in a community in London (England). It also presents information that should be useful to community workers and activists, teachers, and others involved in antiracist work with young people. An introduction provides an overview of the project…

The various ways that standards and standards-based education are being addressed around the United States are described. The education community can trace the start of the modern standards movement to the publication of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983 (National Commission on Excellence). The first education summit in 1987 then became a…

To provide more information about school-community initiatives, a mapping project was developed to show the broad outlines of the movement to bring about change through school-community efforts and to show some of the movement's more specialized details. Focusing on initiatives at the kindergarten through grade 12 level, the mapping project…

A program was conducted to implement a "regular high school" adult diploma program built on a school-to-work philosophy and operated through a two-county, multidistrict lifelong learning consortium in Pennsylvania. The project also provided a rural, cooperative program model ready for replication in other areas in order to provide…

This paper develops a new conception of organizational knowledge management as "knowledge ecology." The Socrates electronic learning environment is described as an example of a knowledge ecosystem for education and training. The Socrates program was developed as a knowledge management system, viewing classrooms as organizations for…

Using Guilford County (North Carolina) School District's implementation of North Carolina ABCs legislation as a backdrop, this paper discusses the unintended consequences that school-improvement plans create for administration. The ABCs legislation ties a large-scale testing program to a requirement that each school develop a community-supported…

This paper discusses the results of a survey that investigated how 69 school districts associated with the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented were implementing cluster grouping to meet the intellectual, social, and emotional needs of gifted students. Results from the survey indicate: (1) the majority of school districts did not…

In order to provide specific planning assistance, this paper describes three major components of a learning resources program: (1) the library or traditional print materials component; (2) the learning center component, which is an innovative learning environment offering individualized and conventional classroom instruction and/or non-traditional…

In order to facilitate the collective bargaining process for distance learning compensation at Mid-Plains Community College Area in Nebraska (MPCCA), a phone survey was conducted in 1998. All in-state, public 2-year community colleges were contacted regarding their compensation practices in this area. In addition, a sampling of public 2-year…

This case study describes a collaborative effort among 10 campuses of the State University of New York (SUNY) to establish a shared distance learning network in western New York state. Participating campuses, led by SUNY Brockport, made a proposal to the SUNY system Office of Educational Technology to form WESTNET, a distance learning network that…