School Improvement
Editor’s Note
Articles on this page examine some of the myriad challenges and difficult choices associated with the work of organizational change in schools. The topic includes discussion of promising strategies and practices associated with supporting and sustaining reform.
Military-connected schools show how to ease the burden of frequent moves
By Linda Jacobson
Research has shown that frequent school transitions hurt students’ academic performance, but work with some of the most mobile students is revealing some simple strategies that may help.Continue
Practice should drive research and policy, not the reverse
By Jal Mehta
When I was eight years old, I was sure that I knew how Santa Claus worked. I knew that the story my parents were telling me could not be true, because mathematically it just did not make sense. There were more than 5 billion people in the world, of which at least a billion were kids. There were only 86,400 seconds in a day. There was no way Santa could get to all of those chimneys. So how did my presents arrive at 402 Winston Avenue in North Baltimore?
Continue
Once completely virtual, some K–12 online schools are settling into buildings
By Brigid Schulte
From its humble beginnings with 400 students in 2001, Connections Academy offered a complete, full-time education online for kindergarten through 12th grade students who wanted or needed to learn in more of a home-school setting.
Continue
Three habits of mind for building a collaborative culture
By Kathryn Parker Boudett and Elizabeth A. City
Policy initiatives around the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation present schools with opportunity and risk. The opportunity is to make more effective use of evidence to inform the education of all of our children; the risk is to think that evidence alone will do the job.
Continue
Districts hire new managers to cut energy and save money
By Colleen Gillard
Despite tight budgets, school districts from Cambridge, Mass., to Castle Rock, Colo., are creating new jobs to lead efforts in reducing energy consumption and promoting healthy environments for students and their staff.
Continue
Related Articles
Schools big and small show that standards-based reform doesn't have to mean standardization. But it does require building "a culture of excellence."
By Andreae Downs
In an effort to stem student violence, schools experiment with ways to improve school safety
By Karen Pirozzi
A conversation with Pedro Noguera
By Michael Sadowski
Two university-run programs are taking advantage of flexible charter school laws in an effort to raise minority achievement
By Karen Kelly
Supporting real instructional improvement requires more than fiddling with organizational structures
By Richard F. Elmore
A new study by the National Research Council says yes, but recommends changes in how courses are taught
By
The Importance of Trust in Changing Schools
By David T. Gordon
With budget cuts and layoffs from coast to coast, schools turn to private donations to make up the shortfall
By Andreae Downs
A revolution in professional development—or just the latest fad?
By Alexander Russo
A European-style proposal for strengthening the transition to work or higher education
By Marc S. Tucker