Evaluates the progress of nine designs for whole-school reform currently being tested in schools.

Two powerful forces are driving American's demands for better schools -- one longstanding force is idealistic and the other is "new" and economic. The current group of young Americans is in danger of being the first full generation to consistently make less money and enjoy fewer worldly rewards than their parents. The intersection of idealistic and pragmatic forces has produced an era of calls for reform in U.S. education that is unparalleled -- calls that have resulted in the creation of the New American Schools Development Corporation (NASDC). The chapters in this book highlight the path traveled by NASDC -- a private, non-profit corporation charged with creating new, "break the mold" school designs for the 21st century -- and describes the first three years' accomplishments of nine NASDC development teams.

About a decade ago, New American Schools (NAS) set out to address theperceived lagging performance of American students and the lacklusterresults of school reform efforts. As a private nonprofit organization,NAS's mission was-and is-to help schools and districts raise studentachievement levels by using whole-school designs and design team assistanceduring implementation. Since its inception, NAS has engaged in adevelopment phase (1992-1993), a demonstration phase (1993-1995), and ascale-up phase (1995-present). Over the last ten years, RAND has been monitoring the progress of the NASinitiative. This book is a retrospective on NAS and draws together thefindings from RAND research. The book underscores the significantcontributions made by NAS to comprehensive school reform but also highlightsthe challenges of trying to reform schools through whole-school designs.Divided into sections on each research phase, the book concludes with anafterword by NAS updating its own strategy for the future. This book willinterest those who want to better understand comprehensive school reform andits effects on teaching and learning within high-stakes accountabilityenvironments.

The process of understanding a text from the narrator s point of view is crucial for the tasks of interpreting and translating the Bible. If the translator s understanding of a narrative from the narrator s point of view is erroneous, then the whole process of translating the message into another language may also fall into error. This poses Bible translators a difficult challenge: How can we understand the narrator s point of view of the biblical stories which are culturally, geographically, and historically remote from our own? Understanding a text from the narrator s point of view must precede the translation process. In this work Hankore presents an argument for the intended utterance of Genesis 28:10 35:15 before proposing in brief how to translate it. By following this process, Hankore shows that a correct understanding of the concept of the ancient Israelite vow in the framework of a social institution is fundamental to reading and translating Genesis 28:10 35:15, and goes on to show how this same votive framework assist an explanation of the relevance of Genesis 34 to the Jacob story.

In 1991, the New American Schools (NAS) Development Corporation was founded by a group of business and foundation leaders interested in investing in innovative designs for school transformation. This book describes the first 3 years of development and evaluation of 9 NAS whole-school restructuring designs. The designs were very diverse, as were their implementation sites, which included many small schools, some very large urban schools, and schools serving American Indian students. Following an introduction, "Bold Plans for School Restructuring: Nine Designs from New American Schools" (Sam Stringfield, Steven Ross, Lana Smith), the chapters are: (1) "Sharing the Vision: Creating New American Schools" (David T. Kearns, John L. Anderson); (2) "Audrey Cohen College System of Education: Purpose-Centered Education" (Audrey Cohen, Janith Jordan); (3) "ATLAS Communities: Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment for All Students" (Cynthia J. Orrell); (4) "The Co-NECT Design for School Change" (Bruce Goldberg, John Richards); (5) "The Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound Design" (Meg Campbell, Emily Cousins, Greg Farrell, Mieko Kamii, Diana Lam, Leah Rugen, Denis Udall); (6) "The Modern Red Schoolhouse" (Rob Heady, Sally Kilgore); (7) "Reform at All Levels: National Alliance for Restructuring Education" (Robert Rothman); (8) "Roots and Wings: Universal Excellence in Elementary Education" (Robert E. Slavin, Nancy A. Madden, Barbara A. Wasik); (9) "Community Learning Centers" (Wayne B. Jennings); (10) "Los Angeles Learning Centers: An Initiative of Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers Los Angeles, and Los Angeles Educational Partnership" (Judy Johnson, John McDonald); and (11) "Lessons Learned: RAND's Formative Assessment of NAS's Phase 2 Demonstration Effort" (Susan Bodilly). (Contains contact information for New American Schools and Design Teams, along with reference notes in some chapters and an index.) (SV) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software.

Annotation. As the education reform movement matures into its second decade, it is clear that many promising efforts have fallen short in their attempts to create real school change. One reason for this is that the process of school reform is much more complex than most reformers realized or were willing to acknowledge. The Dimensions of Time and the Challenge of School Reform points to another problem--the problem of time--and its role in both the success and failure of school reform efforts. The importance of understanding the role that time plays in both learning and instruction and finding ways to provide time for teachers grappling with change and students learning to accommodate a new language and culture are important themes in this book. This book is directed to policymakers and practitioners as well as to academics in that it combines theory with the "real world" experiences of many who have been active in the school reform movement and who have learned, through trial and error, how to think about time in innovative ways. Book jacket.

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 classroom practice and studentachievement in a sample of schools in a high-poverty district. RAND foundthat high-poverty schools often have fragmented and conflicting environmentswith difficult and changing political currents and entrenched unions.Teachers in high-poverty schools tend to face new accountability systems andfluctuating reform agendas. These teachers generally lack sufficient timefor implementing reform efforts, often becoming demoralized and losing theirenthusiasm for the difficult task of improving student performance underdifficult conditions. RAND concluded that high-stakes tests may motivateschools to increase performance and to seek out new curricula andinstructional strategies associated with comprehensive school reforms.However, those same tests may provide disincentives to adopt richer, morein-depth curricula that can succeed in improving the learning opportunitiesof all students, particularly those in high-poverty settings.

This special issue examines the underlying assumptions of the "A Nation At Risk" report, the context within which the Commission's work was situated, and the effects of the report in improving teaching and learning, as well as the performance of the public educational system. The purpose is to address three broad questions: Was America's education system really putting the nation at risk in the early 1980s? What is the legacy of "A Nation At Risk"? Given our current knowledge on education and human development, the report's overall concern is restated: What risks and opportunities lay before the nation today, and how will they affect the notion of a "learning society" and our public education system? Taken as a whole, the seven articles address the three broad issues identified regarding the past, current, and future of educational reform in the United States.

The mission of the International Journal of Educational Reform (IJER) is to keep readers up-to-date with worldwide developments in education reform by providing scholarly information and practical analysis from recognized international authorities. As the only peer-reviewed scholarly publication that combines authors’ voices without regard for the political affiliations perspectives, or research methodologies, IJER provides readers with a balanced view of all sides of the political and educational mainstream. To this end, IJER includes, but is not limited to, inquiry based and opinion pieces on developments in such areas as policy, administration, curriculum, instruction, law, and research. IJER should thus be of interest to professional educators with decision-making roles and policymakers at all levels turn since it provides a broad-based conversation between and among policymakers, practitioners, and academicians about reform goals, objectives, and methods for success throughout the world. Readers can call on IJER to learn from an international group of reform implementers by discovering what they can do that has actually worked. IJER can also help readers to understand the pitfalls of current reforms in order to avoid making similar mistakes. Finally, it is the mission of IJER to help readers to learn about key issues in school reform from movers and shakers who help to study and shape the power base directing educational reform in the U.S. and the world.

Over the last decade or two, there has been increasing consensus that academic research, if used judiciously to guide practice, improves both educational policy and pedagogy – ultimately leading to better outcomes for students. Yet, despite this potential, there remains a deep ravine between the body of knowledge built through research – especially at the intersection between specific interventions and improved student achievement – and the actions taken by policy makers, administrators, and classroom teachers in their regular practice. There are myriad reasons for this research-practice divide. Among them is that it is difficult for district-based people to access primary research. Furthermore, multiple waves of well-intentioned research-based but largely unsuccessful school reform efforts have resulted in skepticism among practitioners about research and, at the same time, damaged researchers’ credibility in the field. This book is divided into three broad areas. First, it develops an engaging analysis of the root causes for the research-practice gap in education. Second, it describes the framework developed and used in a public school district by the author to address the root causes and provides evidence of its efficacy to facilitate greater incorporation of research into school- and district-level practice. Through a process the author calls Knowledge Cultivation, the framework uses weekly research summaries for district leaders that are relevant to their “real-time” issues along with suggestions about ways in which the research might be useful. The final section of the book includes the actual research summaries used by the author over a five-year period.