During the period of 1981 to 2015, the total population of Black students in CPS plummeted from close to 240,000, 60% of all CPS students, to 156,000 or 39% of CPS. This paper documents how despite their decreasing numbers and percentage in the system, the vast majority of Black students remained isolated in predominantly low-income Black schools that also became the target of destabilizing corporate reforms and experimentation. This study examines the historic and contemporary dual segregation...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Segregation, Equal Education, Public Schools, Urban Schools, Educational...
Students learn or progress at their own paces. Each needs different amounts of support, at different points in a school career and at different times of the school year. Some need very little help to stay on track, while others are facing serious challenges in learning, in their behavior, or at home, and need significant interventions. It would not only be a waste of resources to give students who are on track the same intensive services as students who are struggling, it can actually be a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Needs, Educational Practices, Academic Support Services, Intervention,...
This study explored student abilities in applying conceptual knowledge when presented with structured performance tasks. Specifically, the study gauged proficiency in higher-order applications of students enrolled in earth and environmental science or biology. The student sample was drawn from a Redesigned STEM high school model where a tested performance assessment protocol was employed for the purposes of the investigation. It was determined that performance-based proficiency was not uniform...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Performance Based Assessment, Thinking Skills, STEM Education, High School Students,...
This case study reports the analysis of the induction as a socialization process of a Colombian novice teacher of English. Since critical approaches to socialization highlight the role of novice teachers in critical school transformation during their induction stage, this study aims to disclose the teacher's possibilities of becoming an agent of change. The data collection procedures included interviews, class observations and document analysis. The findings revealed that the teacher's...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Socialization, Novices, Change Agents, Observation, Teacher Attitudes, Interviews,...
Next Generation High Schools are schools that redesign the high school experience to make it more engaging and worthwhile for high school students. In order to create such Next Generation High Schools, schools, districts, and States should utilize evidence-based strategies to transform high schools in ways that engage students and help prepare them for college and career success. This document highlights six general evidence-based strategies to improve America's high schools for the next...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Instructional Design, Learner Engagement, Evidence Based Practice,...
This report summarizes the research on the association between state interventions in chronically low-performing schools and student achievement. Most of the research focused on one type of state intervention: working with a turnaround partner. Few studies were identified that examined other types of interventions, such as school closure, charter conversion, and school redesign. Most studies were descriptive, which limits the conclusions that can be drawn about the effectiveness of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Intervention, State Programs, School Turnaround, Academic Achievement, School...
We read and analyzed 165,000 words and uncover a series of counter-stories buried within a textual corpus, authored by Teach For America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp (Kopp, 1989, 2001; Kopp & Farr, 2011), that offers insight into the forms of racism endemic to Teach For America. All three counter-stories align with a critical race theory (CRT) framework. Specifically, we answer the following questions: What evidence of institutional and epistemological racism is exposed by a CRT textual...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Critical Theory, Race, Institutional Characteristics, Diversity (Institutional),...
The focus of this study is on the readiness of higher education institutions in the Philippines to the implementation of the Senior High School program of the new K-12 curriculum. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire. The findings reveal five predisposing factors, namely: eligibility, staffing guidelines, course streamlining, workforce surplus management, and alternative programs to be determinants of senior high school readiness among college teachers and higher education...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Teacher Attitudes, Higher Education, Program Implementation,...
Project-Based Learning (PBL) serves as an instructional approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in the investigation of real-world problems to create meaningful and relevant educational experiences. The causal-comparative study compared 7th and 8th students who had utilized the PBL with a comparison group in which PBL was nonexistent. Using outcome measures of academic achievement in mathematics and reading, multivariate and univariate analyses of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Multivariate Analysis, Student Projects, Mathematics Achievement, Reading...
Persistently low-achieving public schools around the country have received $5.8 billion from the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, in addition to districts and state funds, and other supplementary federal funds. Despite all of these sources of funding, most of the schools receiving them have failed to make a dramatic difference in improving student achievement. However, according to a new report jointly released by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the Center on...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Charter Schools, Public Schools, School District Autonomy, School Turnaround,...
The modern-day community schools movement reached a new plateau in 2008 when Randi Weingarten made community schools a central element of her platform as the new president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The AFT's action was a milestone on a journey that began a decade earlier, when advocates for community schools determined that it was necessary to renew a core American value--that our public schools should be centers of flourishing communities where everyone belongs and works...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Partnerships in Education, Community Schools, Educational Change, Educational...
Colleges and universities across the country are seeing their bond ratings drop and their budgets shrink. Employers complain that college graduates are not prepared for the workplace, and many students find themselves saddled with considerable debt and no job to show for it. These are trying times for parents, for students, and for institutions. College or university trustees are tasked to pursue bold, innovative strategies for promoting academic excellence while holding down costs, the future...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Best Practices, Governance, Educational Change, Higher Education, Universities,...
During the past year, Wisconsin state legislators debated a series of bills aimed at closing low-performing public schools and replacing them with privately run charter schools. These proposals were particularly targeted at Milwaukee, the state's largest and poorest school district. Ultimately, the only legislation enacted was a bill that modestly increases school reporting requirements, without stipulating consequences for low performance. Nevertheless, the more ambitious proposals will likely...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Privatization, Program Proposals, Program Evaluation, Educational Quality, Equal...
For nearly a decade, New York City education groups organizing to improve education under Bloomberg could regularly be found protesting on the steps of City Hall. Before the 2013 mayoral race, a typical education protest would--at its best--earn media coverage from a couple of outlets. The fact that parents, students, and teachers rally for more school funding, or put forward solutions to fix struggling schools, is just not an inherent draw to reporters. But the 2013 mayoral race presented...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Debate, Mass Media Use, Educational Policy, Educational Change, Activism, Advocacy,...
The election of Mayor Bill de Blasio in November 2013 was a historic moment for proponents of student-centered, equity-driven public education. During the campaign, de Blasio ran on an agenda of ending New York City's "Tale of Two Cities" and elevated a comprehensive vision for improving the city's more than 1,800 public schools as a cornerstone of that agenda. His vision includes many of the signature reforms fought for by advocates throughout the twelve preceding years of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Public Education, Educational Opportunities, Community Organizations, Community...
Urban high schools are in trouble--high dropout rates, low student academic achievement, and graduates who are unprepared for college are just some of the disappointing indicators. However, recent research points to a select number of approaches to improving student outcomes and reforming underperforming schools--from particular ways of creating new schools to specific strategies for strengthening existing schools through whole-school reform to making school more relevant to the world of work....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Underachievement, Educational Improvement, High Schools, Change Strategies,...
Specific strategies for "turning around" chronically low-performing schools have become prominent, with the U.S. Department of Education enacting policies to promote four school improvement models that include "fundamental, comprehensive changes in leadership, staffing, and governance." Despite the attention and activity surrounding these types of school improvement models, there is a lack of research on whether or how they work. To date, most evidence has been anecdotal, as...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Achievement, Research Methodology, Educational Change, Scores, School...
There is no shortage of ideas for improving urban schools: higher standards; aligned assessments and curriculum; better teacher evaluation and support; more and better parent choices; blended learning; and so on. What's missing is any recognition of the importance of district systems in promoting and sustaining improvement as leaders come and go. Until urban school districts are organized in smarter ways, it will remain impossible to scale or sustain any worthy reform. Creating such "smart...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, School Restructuring, Educational Change, School Districts,...
This study explores what academics in one major university in Great Britain (The Great Western University) perceive interdisciplinary research (IDR) to be, and in doing so, differentiates it from associated concepts, such as multidisciplinary research and transdisciplinary research, found in the research literature. This study is important because the university in which the study is set has undertaken a complete restructuring of colleges and departments to support interdisciplinary research....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Interdisciplinary Approach, Mixed Methods Research, Case Studies, Semi Structured...
The author, a teacher-activist with Teacher Action Group-Philadelphia (TAG), presents her views on the need for teachers to get involved in the battle for public education. She expresses her concerns about the political games being played to advance a neoliberal agenda that seeks to dispossess students of their right to a quality education and safety, communities of their public institutions and neighborhood stability, and workers of their hard-earned wages and workplace protections. She sees...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Activism, Public Education, Urban Education, Teacher Participation, Teacher Role,...
The goal of Carnegie "Challenge" papers is to lift up ideas and issues in a way that elevates them to the nation's agenda. This paper is a "Challenge" paper, and serves as a call to realize the full power of the Common Core by redesigning and reshaping schools to support teachers and maximize key resources, rather than implementing partial solutions. The implementation of the Common Core is an unprecedented chance to "do school differently" for greater impact....
Topics: ERIC Archive, High School Students, Success, Models, Educational Change, Change Strategies,...
This paper discussed the need to restructure STM (science, technology, and mathematics) education to reflect entrepreneurship. This is because the present STM education has not achieved its aim of making graduates self-reliant. Entrepreneurship education if introduced in the STM education will produce graduate who can effectively manage their personal businesses. Entrepreneurship education was explained and the advantages outlined. The paper gave an insight into what the chemistry education...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Chemistry, Entrepreneurship, STEM Education, Secondary School Curriculum, Secondary...
High stakes testing has been long established in the English school system. In this article, we seek to demonstrate how testing has become pivotal to securing the neo-liberal restructuring of schools, that commenced during the Thatcher era, and is reaching a critical point at the current time. Central to this project has been the need to assert increased control over teachers' work and this is being achieved through a pincer movement of marketisation and managerialism. Both of these...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, High Stakes Tests, School Restructuring, Neoliberalism, Marketing,...
Although data driven-decision making has been the mantra of school reform for the last 10 years, school leaders benefit from frequent discussions in how to engage teachers in the process. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to apply Reeves' (2004) framework concerning Antecedents of Excellence in creating a school culture that routinely uses data to inform instruction. The authors argue principals must focus on three antecedents as precursors to effective data use: leadership...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Leadership Responsibility, Leadership, Educational Change, School Restructuring,...
This study attempts to identify and describe Minnesota superintendents' perceptions of barriers to district-level reform as well as compare superintendents' perceptions of district reform related characteristics. This research also strives to identify factors preventing Minnesota's district-level leadership from implementing national reform efforts. All acting superintendents in the state of Minnesota were surveyed using a quantitative descriptive approach. The study revealed two major...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Identification, Leadership, Superintendents, Educational Change, School...
In recent years, debates over school reform have increasingly focused on the role of teacher unions in the changing landscape of American K-12 education. On one hand, critics argue that these unions, using their powerful grip on education politics and policy to great effect, bear primary responsibility for blocking states' efforts to put into place overdue reforms that will drive major-league gains in the educational system. Such critics contend that the unions generally succeed at preserving...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary Secondary Education, Teaching (Occupation), Unions, Role, National...
Despite the growing ideological divisions, there has been a surprising political convergence on some issues related to urban policy, social services, and housing. From the spread of charter schools and school choice to the expansion of home ownership through financial deregulation, it is apparent that liberals and conservatives agree. Yet these points of agreement hide or exacerbate racial and economic segregation, and geographically concentrate its deleterious consequences. The Obama...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Equal Education, Achievement Gap, Charter Schools, Evidence, School Choice, School...
The "Montana K-12 & School Choice Survey" project, commissioned by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and conducted by Braun Research, Inc. (BRI), measures Montana registered voters' familiarity and views on a range of K-12 education topics and school choice reforms. The author and his colleagues report response levels and differences (often using the modifying term "net") of voter opinion, and the intensity of responses. Where do Montanans stand on important...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary Secondary Education, Opinions, School Choice, Familiarity, Sampling,...
This study uses descriptive data from the U.S. Department of Education to examine the composition of the private school sector in localities with sizeable school choice programs. If existing school choice programs are attracting educational entrepreneurs and unlocking the potential of new school models, the authors should expect to see significant changes in the sector's composition. While the available data do not allow the authors to examine every aspect of schooling, the founding of new...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Evidence, Private Schools, School Choice, Educational Change, Transfer Students,...
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation's "persistently lowest achieving" public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model. Schools that met the "lowest-achieving" and "lack of progress" thresholds within their state had prioritized eligibility for these...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Evidence, School Restructuring, Eligibility, Educational Change, School Turnaround,...
Between 1970 and 1990 enrolment in Newfoundland and Labrador schools dropped by 22 percent. The first wave of major educational reform (1990 to 2000) saw massive reductions in public school expenditures and the reduction of more than 1650 teachers. Facing continued enrolment loss and a large current account deficit, in 2004, government again consolidated school districts. In this paper I examine the 1997 and 2004 reforms and argue that the "rationalization" agenda set by government...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Consolidated Schools, Educational Change, Foreign Countries, Politics of Education,...
Louisiana has emerged as one of the most fascinating states in the nation for education reform. The state's creative response to rebuilding the New Orleans education system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is now considered a potential model for reformers across the nation. Governor Bobby Jindal has carried the reforms further in pushing for "opportunity scholarship" vouchers in New Orleans, the grading of public schools A-F, and an effort to curtail social promotion of children...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Evidence, Public Schools, Elementary Secondary Education, School Choice,...
High school improvement initiatives often focus on specific intervention strategies, programs, or priority topics (e.g., dropout intervention, dual enrollment, freshman academies). However, research shows that systemic and sustainable improvement can be achieved only when initiatives are implemented with consideration for the broader education contexts in which they operate. The National High School Center has developed "A Coherent Approach to High School Improvement: A District and School...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teacher Effectiveness, Stakeholders, Intervention, Leadership Effectiveness, Needs...
The State of Florida Department of Education provides pre-and-post-graduation data for public high school graduates throughout Florida. These data were used for the present report to produce data sets for all M-DCPS regular high schools and charter high schools graduating students in 2009 and 2010. Summary data for the district are also provided. These data can be used to track the success of secondary school reform efforts at the school level. Several data elements presented here are already...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Charter Schools, Vocational Schools, Feedback (Response), High School Graduates,...
The National High School Center's "Eight Elements of High School Improvement: A Mapping Framework" provides a cohesive high school improvement framework comprised of eight elements and related indicators of effectiveness. These indicators of effectiveness allow states, districts, and schools to identify strengths and weaknesses of their current high school reform efforts. This document, "High School Improvement: Indicators of Effectiveness and School-Level Benchmarks,"...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, School Restructuring, Leadership Effectiveness, Educational Change,...
This report offers recommendations for building community support for federal school turnaround approaches, particularly in communities that oppose these approaches. Parents, the report concludes, want improvement but cherish their local schools and distrust the turnaround options mandated from above by higher levels of government. Thus, community members rise up in anger when their school faces closure, conversion to a charter school, breaking-up, or forced replacement of staff. Arguing that...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Communication Strategies, Community Support, School Restructuring, Educational...
Over the last decade, New York City (NYC) has been the site of a systemwide high school reform effort that is unprecedented in its scope and pace. Since 2002, the school district has closed more than 20 failing high schools, opened more than 200 new secondary schools, and implemented a centralized high school admission process in which approximately 80,000 students a year indicate their school preferences from a wide-ranging choice of programs. At the heart of these reforms lie the new schools...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Admission (School), Educational Change, High Schools, School Restructuring, Theory...
The rise of the managerialist university, in terms of a shift towards supposed corporate forms of governance in universities, associated also with greater competition between universities, has been the subject of considerable controversy. Dissent with respect to these developments has commonly appealed to the notion of the university as a special kind of corporate entity that at least partly transcends merely economic considerations. This paper demonstrates that a purely economic analysis of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Economic Research, School Restructuring, Governance, Commercialization, Models,...
This paper analyzes drivers and impediments to secondary school reform in Trinidad and Tobago during the period from 1999 to 2009. International assessment data suggested limited progress on improving system quality and equity. Several policy levers and barriers have been defined in current system reform theory. However, explanations for the failure or success of education reforms in Commonwealth small states must also consider theory related to their unique contexts, namely smallness and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Data Analysis, School Restructuring, Secondary...
In conjunction with the Denver Plan instituted in 2005, Denver Public Schools (DPS) has embarked upon a consistent strategy of opening new schools in an effort to improve overall academic performance. DPS has pursued this strategy under several different paths: an annual request for proposals from charter school applicants; allowing current schools to pursue innovation status under Colorado's 2008 Innovation Schools Act; and the redesign--usually including significant changes to both personnel...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academic Standards, State Standards, Educational Assessment, Educational Indicators,...
This summary report by the Center on Education Policy (CEP) pulls together findings from a wide array of studies on student motivation by scholars in a range of disciplines, as well as lessons from programs around the country intended to increase motivation. It is intended to start a conversation about the importance of motivation and the policies and practices that might better engage students in learning. The information in this summary is distilled from a series of six background papers by...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Restructuring, Student Motivation, Change Strategies, Educational Change,...
Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing offers a methodology for parents and community members to effect meaningful change for the students who've been mostly poorly served by school systems....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Urban Schools, School Restructuring, Educational Change, Community Organizations,...
Youth today in Roman Catholic schools are not experiencing the complete freedom of an identity that is unique and valued. They describe the Ontario Roman Catholic school system as if it is still an agent of colonial forces, maintaining imperial power through denominational religious elitism. Using a critical ethnographic methodology within a single revelatory case study, through the lens of an anti-colonial discursive framework, this study presents the voices of diverse youth in Ontario Roman...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Catholic Schools, Catholics, Ideology, Foreign Countries, Student Attitudes, Academic...
During the past decade, New York City undertook a district-wide high school reform that is perhaps unprecedented in its scope, scale, and pace. Between fall 2002 and fall 2008, the school district closed 23 large failing high schools (with graduation rates below 45 percent), opened 216 new small high schools (with different missions, structures, and student selection criteria), and implemented a centralized high school admissions process that assigns over 90 percent of the roughly 80,000...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, School Restructuring, Graduation Rate, Disadvantaged, Academic...
Career-focused education offered through programs of study (POS), career pathways, and career and technical education (CTE) can provide students with opportunities to engage in career exploration and development, to establish career goals, to increase academic knowledge and skills, to test career preferences in applied settings, and to make links between coursework and postsecondary careers and education. Given the potential of these types of education reforms, federal and state legislation has...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Restructuring, State Legislation, Educational Change, Education Work...
How can principals and teachers use available data to plan school improvements? How can principals and teachers gather and analyze data that are useful for school reform? Karen Levesque and her colleagues sum up the problem of data use in schools this way. Most school districts and schools in this country are routinely involved in data collection. However, they do not typically use the data they collect in a systematic fashion to identify strengths and weaknesses at their sites and to develop...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Principals, Educational Change, Instructional Leadership, School Restructuring,...
This article presents the author's reflection on his experiences of teacher evaluation implemented in South Africa and his interest in researching this contentious topic in South Australia. He is of the opinion that his research will serve as a source of knowledge generation to teachers with respect to: a) "greater personal, professional and organisational learning" b) "authentic staff development, professional renewal, and school reform" and c) "a new way of thinking...
Topics: ERIC Archive, School Restructuring, Teacher Evaluation, Educational Change, Foreign Countries,...
Many schools are starting Small Learning Communities yet much is unknown about their outcomes. Students are literally disappearing in comprehensive high schools and violence has escalated. Those who implement Small Learning Communities are looking to combat these problems. While rarely feasible to split large schools into smaller schools, it is plausible, as we have seen, to create smaller communities within the schools that reach out and individualize the material, with high expectations for...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, High School Students, Academic Achievement, Curriculum, Communities of...
Council for American Private Education (CAPE) is a coalition of national associations serving private schools K-12. "Outlook" is published monthly by CAPE. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Historic Year for School Choice; (2) Above-Average Scores in Geography and U.S. History; (3) Early Learning; and (4) CAPE Notes.
Topics: ERIC Archive, Private Education, Private Schools, Elementary Secondary Education, School Choice,...
The current report looks at the effects of the Green Dot Locke (GDL) transformation on students over the past three years. Although the GDL transformation began in fall 2007 (with two small off-site schools), the majority of Locke students were not included in the transition until fall 2008. Comparing GDL students to a matched sample of students at Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), using propensity score matching, results suggested that 9th graders who entered GDL generally performed...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Charter Schools, Urban Schools, School Restructuring, Small Schools,...
