"This should be required reading by every school administator, every teacher, every board member and all university faculty involved in the training of teachers. There is no doubt that we need to squeeze all blame, all coerion and all criticism out of any people-related business. Not until we realize that schools are in a people business will we ever be able to make meaningful changes." --Dr. Albert Mamary, former superintendent of schools, Johnson City, New York

Test scores are the go-to metric of policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the best schools. Yet standardized tests are a poor way to measure school performance. Using the diverse urban school district of Somerville MA as a case study, Jack Schneider’s team developed a new framework to assess educational effectiveness.

This book explores an approach to school improvement that merges the traditions of educational effectiveness research and school improvement efforts. It displays how the dynamic model, which is theoretical and empirically validated, can be used in both traditions. Each chapter integrates evidence from international and national studies, showing how the knowledge-base of educational effectiveness research can be used for improvement purposes. In a clear and practicable manner it outlines: Foundations of the improvement approach Research projects investigating the impact of the dynamic approach Guidelines and practical solutions to translating the approach into action Further developments for school improvement Exploring the crucial factors in the establishment of this environment, the authors outline a dynamic framework that helps schools collect data, through self-evaluation mechanisms, taking decisions about priorities for improvement, and developing appropriate policies and action plans. This approach emphasises educational targets and provides means to achieve them that are flexible enough to fit in with the circumstances of the individual school. The book draws upon research across the world, conducted especially in the United States, Europe, and Australasia, expertly showcasing how the dynamic approach can be used in a wide variety of educational settings A key book for all professionals working in education; academics, researchers, policy-makers, school advisors and practitioners will find it invaluable. Not only it is a must for graduate students, university libraries, and individual academics but also for school management teams, school support agencies and officials in educational policy.

School education across the world has gained special significance at it makes its students acquire adequate knowledge in various disciplines and decide the future course of action in education. Several individual and national and international professional organisations are suggesting various measures to enhance the status of school education in all its dimensions. This book on quality in school education discusses many things to the taken care of, to be worked, out and to be implemented. This work will be of great use to all the people concerned to and personnel involved in school education.

The theory of crisis counselling put forward in this book is applied to the following situations: drug and alcohol abuse; depression and suicide; physical and sexual abuse; social and discipline problems; lateness; encopresis and enuresis; fear, teariness, inactivity, fury and impulsiveness; violence and conflicts; children of divorced and foster families; loss and grief; war and disasters; parents in crisis; homelessness, crack kids and AIDS children; and defiance, inter-racial tensions and cross-cultural conflicts.

This book establishes the advantages of a quality setting for the ASD student. This book covers how to establish an ABA Classroom, comprehensive training, consultations, evaluations, and one-to-one as well as group instruction. It addresses the importance of the quality of service at ALL levels, from school districts and supervisors, to teachers and bus drivers, to ensure a strong structure to each child's school experience. The book explains how to determine and optimize the best school placement for children with ASD. It explores increasing the receptiveness to ABA in the classroom setting and addresses the need for ongoing training for all staffing. There is a heavy emphasis throughout on keeping accurate data and the authors provide several checklists and a how-to primer for easy implementation. Also emphasized is the importance of the functionality of a behavioral assessment. This is a book that impacts and enhances every classroom for the child diagnosed with autism and is

"The Principal's Leadership Counts! explains Baldridge and what it takes to reach school-wide excellence, and gain the skills to launch a Baldridge-based quality school. The book focuses on the criteria aspects that the authors believe are necessary for everyone's journey, and chapters 3-7 include self-assessment checklists to be used as a measurement stick on your journey to Performance Excellence." "This book is a companion to the authors' previous title There is Another Way! Launch a Baldridge-based Quality Classroom and will be helpful as you work with teachers to support their Baldridge efforts."--Jacket.

This book, which is the eighth volume in the 12-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, presents scholarly research on major discourses in decentralisation, school-based management (SBM) and quality in education globally. This book, which focuses on decentralisation and SBM as a governance strategy in education, presents theoretical aspects of the phenomenon of decentralisation/privatisation and contextualises them within the education research literature. It provides an easily accessible, practical yet scholarly source of information concerning the dynamics of decentralisation and SBM that normally take place when reforms are instituted to decentralize authority and power. Above all, the authors offering the latest findings regarding major discourses in dec- tralisation, SBM and quality in educational systems in the global culture emphasise aspects of that dynamic interactive process (see also Geo-JaJa 2006a; Gamage and Sooksomchitra 2006, Zajda 2009). This dynamic interaction in the process that is implicit in the title of the book is reified by calls for restructuring of schools f- lowing the idea that schools are not promoting human rights, social cohesion and sustainable development. The chapters as a source book of ideas for researchers, practitioners and policy makers in decentralisation and SBM in education contr- ute to the educational literature while enhancing the understanding of the larger dynamics involved in educational reform. It offers a timely overview of current issues affecting decentralisation in education in the global culture.