You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This study documents actions of Wallace Foundation grantees to create more-cohesive policies and initiatives to improve instructional leadership in schools; describes how states and districts have worked together to forge such policies and initiatives; and examines the hypothesis that cohesive systems improve school leadership. Such efforts appear to be a promising approach to developing school principals engaged in improving instruction.
A decade ago, New American Schools (NAS) launched an ambitious effort forwhole-school reform to address the perceived lagging achievement of Americanstudents and the lackluster school reform attempts that have produced so fewmeaningful changes. As a private nonprofit organization, NAS set out tohelp schools and districts significantly raise the achievement of largenumbers of students by offering whole-school designs and design-basedassistance during the implementation process. NAS is currently in thescale-up phase of its effort, and its designs are being widely diffused toschools across the nation. During the 1997_1998 and 1998_1999 school years,RAND assessed the effects of NAS designs on cl...
The Ford Foundation developed the Collaborating for Education Reform Initiative, providing grants to collaboratives in urban settings to improve the quality of teaching. Eight sites signed on, and the RAND Corporation assessed their progress. The authors found that, while none had met final goals, the collaboratives had varying degrees of success and some offered promise. By adopting such techniques as clear communication of expectations and involvement of school staff, collaboratives stand a better chance of success.
That there is a divide between research and practice is a common lament across policy-oriented disciplines, and education is no exception. Rhetoric abounds about the role research plays (or does not play) in the improvement of schools and classrooms, and policy makers push solutions that are rooted in assumptions about the way that research should influence practice. Yet few people have studied the relationship between research and practice empirically. This book presents findings from a series of interlocking case studies of nationally visible R&D projects, with a unique focus on how researchers and practitioners actually worked together, and the policy, social, and institutional processes ...
Strong system-wide support is increasingly being identified as laying an important role in policy efforts aimed at increasing student achievement (Hightower, Knapp, March, and McLaughlin: 2002). Yet current research often views district and other system-wide support as largely governance changes without substantive linkage to school improvement outcomes (Cuban and Usdan: 2003). In this volume we seek to deepen our understanding of the role of school districts and system-wide initiatives through a series of case studies that focus on how school districts and system-wide actors facilitate policy innovation and reform initiatives that are designed to improve student achievement. Through both quantitative and qualitative studies from diverse settings across the country, chapters in this volume examine the role of instructional technology, alternative accountability practices, management and partnership reforms, and school improvement efforts through new incentive and support practices. While challenges remain, these case studies demonstrate how districts support and facilitate school change aimed at improving student achievement.
The New York City Department of Education asked RAND to conduct an independent longitudinal evaluation of its 5th-grade promotion policy. The findings of that study, conducted between March 2006 and August 2009, provide a comprehensive view of the policy's implementation and its impact on student outcomes, particularly for students at risk of retention and those who were retained in grade.
The ICETE Programme for Academic Leadership (IPAL) was officially established in 2010 and arose out of the need to provide training to theological institutions in different regions of the world. IPAL provides a three-year cycle of seminars for the professional development of evangelical academic leaders and administrators to help institutions in their pursuit of quality and excellence in theological education. This publication is the second of three volumes intended to accompany and support the IPAL seminars as well as independently providing wider access to the principles required by academic leaders for institutional and curriculum development. Each chapter shares and illustrates the expertise and understanding the contributors have of education and curriculum design in the field of evangelical academic institutions. With an intentional awareness of a wide range of non-Western contexts, this volume is a much-needed guide for course administrators around the world.
A clear need exists for substantial improvement in mathematics proficiency in U.S. schools. The RAND Mathematics Study Panel was convened to inform the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement on ways to improve the quality and usability of education research and development (R&D). The panel identified three areas for focused R&D: development of teachers' mathematical knowledge used in teaching; teaching and learning of skills needed for mathematical thinking and problem-solving; and teaching and learning of algebra from kindergarten through the 12th grade.
Like the bestselling first edition, this introductory textbook succinctly presents concepts and theories of educational leadership and organizational behavior and immediately applies them to problems of practice. The second edition includes a new chapter on organizational culture, expanded overage of organizational structure, systems, and leadership, and additional case studies and scenarios representing real problems of practice.