ERIC Number: ED356574
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1993-Feb
Pages: 39
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Restructuring Schools for Students at Risk: Early Experiences.
Far West Lab. for Educational Research and Development, San Francisco, CA.
This report examines twenty-three schools in their first year of participation in a California-State-sponsored restructuring initiative called Every Student Succeeds (ESS). Four areas of restructuring are reviewed: (1) curriculum and instruction; (2) governance; (3) professional development of teachers; and (4) coordination of community resources. In general, schools had gone the farthest in implementing their restructuring plans in the area of curriculum and instruction. Many schools were actively involved in enhancing their curriculum to make it more practical, with "real world" applications, and several were experimenting with integrated thematic units and projects. Heterogeneous grouping practices were explored as a way to improve student access to this enhanced curriculum. In the area of governance, many schools were changing traditional decision-making structures by decentralizing into smaller units called "families," and some were establishing schoolwide governance and management teams. Integral to the restructuring process was developing the professional skills of teachers. However, most of these efforts centered on traditional areas of staff training, not on those skills which would help teachers assume new roles and expanded responsibilities such as training in managerial, decision-making, and social service counseling skills. Coordination with outside community resources was an area of restructuring which was the least developed. Implications of this research include how to better integrate limited-English-proficient and other special needs children into schoolwide restructuring activities, how to develop standards of performance which are not differentiated by ability level, and how to develop systems of accountability that allow schools and districts some level of flexibility in the way success is defined. (Author)
Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Curriculum Development, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary Education, Faculty Development, High Risk Students, Power Structure, School Community Relationship, School Restructuring, Social Services, Systems Development, Teacher Participation
Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, 730 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107-1242.
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Far West Lab. for Educational Research and Development, San Francisco, CA.
Identifiers - Location: California
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A