School, Family, and Community Partnerships


Book Description

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.




Charter Schools in Eight States


Book Description

Charter schools now exist in 40 states, but the best charter-school studies to date have focused on individual states. This book examines charter schools in eight states with varied policy contexts. It assesses the characteristics of charter schools' students, their effectiveness in raising student achievement and promoting graduation and college entry, and their competitive effects on student achievement in traditional public schools.




Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy


Book Description

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the second edition of this groundbreaking handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, with particular attention to elementary and secondary education. Chapters from the first edition have been fully updated and revised to reflect current developments, new policies, and recent research. With new chapters on teacher evaluation, alternatives to traditional public schooling, and cost-benefit analysis, this volume provides a readily available current resource for anyone involved in education finance and policy. The Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and revenue sources used to finance these inputs, to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. Chapters show how decision making in school finance inevitably interacts with decisions about governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of important contemporary issues requires inputs from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a number of disciplines. Although many of the chapters cover complex, state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand. This comprehensive, balanced, and accessible resource provides a wealth of factual information, data, and wisdom to help educators improve the quality of education in the United States.




Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning


Book Description

Gives K to 12 classroom teachers incisive look at seven practical strategies structured around three essential questions; Where am I going? Where am I now? and How can I close the gap?




Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement


Book Description

Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement provides a new definition of school improvement, away from a singular focus on compliance, toward a true commitment to excellence. This book is a call to action. It is about inspiring schools and school districts to commit to continuous school improvement by providing a framework that will result in improving teaching for every teacher and learning for every student through the comprehensive use of data. A culmination of over 30 years of doing the hard work in schools and districts both nationally and internationally, Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement shares new, evidence-based learnings about how to analyze, report, communicate, and use multiple measures of data. The updated edition provides a wealth of tools, protocols, timelines, examples, and strategies that will help schools and districts become genuine learning organizations.




Organizing Schools for Improvement


Book Description

In 1988, the Chicago public school system decentralized, granting parents and communities significant resources and authority to reform their schools in dramatic ways. To track the effects of this bold experiment, the authors of Organizing Schools for Improvement collected a wealth of data on elementary schools in Chicago. Over a seven-year period they identified one hundred elementary schools that had substantially improved—and one hundred that had not. What did the successful schools do to accelerate student learning? The authors of this illuminating book identify a comprehensive set of practices and conditions that were key factors for improvement, including school leadership, the professional capacity of the faculty and staff, and a student-centered learning climate. In addition, they analyze the impact of social dynamics, including crime, critically examining the inextricable link between schools and their communities. Putting their data onto a more human scale, they also chronicle the stories of two neighboring schools with very different trajectories. The lessons gleaned from this groundbreaking study will be invaluable for anyone involved with urban education.




The School Improvement Planning Handbook


Book Description

Developing and updating school improvement plans is an annual ritual for virtually all school principals and their school improvement committees. Still, large numbers of schools continue to produce disappointing outcomes. The authors believe that part of the problem is the result of plans that focus on the wrong targets and that rely on ineffective strategies for improvement. To help principals and their school improvement committees develop and implement plans with a greater likelihood of success, the authors offer a step-by-step process for school improvement planning. They go on to pinpoint specific school improvement goals, including raising reading and mathematics achievement, building robust school cultures, addressing the needs of English language learners, improving instruction, and reducing absenteeism and dropouts. For each goal, a variety of objectives and proven strategies is presented along with sample school improvement plans. The book addresses the differences in planning to turn around a low-performing school, planning to sustain improvements over time, and planning to move a good school to a great school.




The Practice and Theory of School Improvement


Book Description

ANDY HARGREAVES Department of Teacher Education, Curriculum and Instruction Lynch School of Education, Boston College, MA, U.S.A. ANN LIEBERMAN Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Stanford, CA, U.S.A. MICHAEL FULLAN Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada DAVID HOPKINS Department for Education and Skills, London, U.K. This set of four volumes on Educational Change brings together evidence and insights on educational change issues from leading writers and researchers in the field from across the world. Many of these writers, whose chapters have been specially written for these books, have been investigating, helping initiate and implementing educational change, for most or all of their lengthy careers. Others are working on the cutting edge of theory and practice in educational change, taking the field in new or even more challenging directions. And some are more skeptical about the literature of educational change and the assumptions on which it rests. They help us to approach projects of understanding or initiating educational change more deeply, reflectively and realistically. Educational change and reform have rarely had so much prominence within public policy, in so many different places. Educational change is ubiquitous. It figures large in Presidential and Prime Ministerial speeches. It is at or near the top of many National policy agendas. Everywhere, educational change is not only a policy priority but also major public news. Yet action to bring about educational change usually exceeds people's understanding of how to do so effectively.