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Decades of research clearly show what works in schools, yet a huge gap persists between those instructional best practices and what is widely taught—and not taught—in classrooms today.In Results Now 2.0, Mike Schmoker expands on his bestselling book and offers a broader, deeper analysis of the entire K–12 education system and how it can improve. He describes a systemic buffer of policies, pedagogy, and initiatives that prevents everyone—teachers, students, and parents—from understanding our collective failure to align instruction with evidence of what works.We need to bridge the gap between proven practice and common practice. By focusing on the fundamental elements of curriculum, literacy, and effective instruction, Schmoker offers hope for the future. He describes schools that have successfully used evidence and strategic practice to remove the buffer, and he shows how schools can improve—quickly.This book is a call for both educators and the public to demand transparency and fidelity to the most effective actions that transform our schools and help us see results now.

Schools across the United States and Canada are disrupting the adverse effects of poverty and supporting students in ways that enable them to succeed in school and in life.In this second edition, Parrett and Budge show you how your school can achieve similar results. Expanding on their original framework's still-critical concepts of actions and school culture, they incorporate new insights for addressing equity, trauma, and social-emotional learning. These fresh perspectives combine with lessons learned from 12 additional high-poverty, high-performing schools to form the updated and enhanced Framework for Collective Action.Emphasizing students'social, emotional, and academic learning as the hub for all action in high-performing, high-poverty schools, the authors describe how educators can work within the expanded Framework to address the needs of all students, but particularly those who live in poverty.Equipped with the Framework and a plethora of tools to build collective efficacy (self-assessments, high-leverage questions, action advice, and more), school and district leaders—as well as teachers, teacher leaders, instructional coaches, and other staff—can close persistent opportunity gaps and reverse longstanding patterns of low achievement.

'We can't do that in our school district.''I don't have time to add that to my curriculum.''We're fighting against impossible odds with these students.'Sound familiar? School improvement can often feel like a losing battle, but it doesn't have to be. In this fully revised and updated second edition of The Learning Leader, Douglas B. Reeves helps leadership teams go beyond excuses to capitalize on their strengths, reduce their weaknesses, and reset their mindset and priorities to achieve unprecedented success. A critical key is recognizing student achievement as more than just a set of test scores. Reeves asserts that when leaders focus exclusively on results, they fail to measure and understand the importance of their own actions. He offers an alternative—the Leadership for Learning Framework, which helps leaders identify and distinguish among four different types of educators and provide more effective, tailored support to-'Lucky'educators, who achieve high results but don't understand how their actions influence achievement.-'Losing'educators, who achieve low results yet keep doing the same thing, expecting different outcomes.-'Learning'educators, who have not yet achieved the desired results but are working their way toward excellence.-'Leading'educators, who achieve high results and understand how their actions influence their success. Reeves stresses that effective leadership is neither a unitary skill nor a solitary activity. The Learning Leader helps leaders reconceptualize their roles in the school improvement process and motivate themselves and their colleagues to keep working to better serve their students.

Among the many models of school reform that have emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, one has endured for more than 50 years: the School Development Program (SDP). Established in 1968 by renowned child psychiatrist James P. Comer and the Yale Child Study Center, the SDP is grounded in the belief that successful schooling—particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds—must focus on the whole child. With that in mind, the SDP encompasses both academics and social-emotional development, and it is founded on positive and productive relationships among students, teachers, school leaders, and parents. With the Whole Child in Mind describes the SDP's six developmental pathways (cognitive, social, psychological, physical, linguistic, and ethical) and explains how the program's nine key components (in the form of mechanisms, operations, and guiding principles) create a comprehensive approach to educating children for successful outcomes. Firsthand recollections by Comer, school leaders and teachers, and SDP staff members provide an inside look at the challenges and successes that eventually transformed severely underperforming schools into models of excellence. Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the country's foremost experts on K-12 education, and her colleagues argue persuasively for the continuing relevance of the SDP. Far too many schools still operate in a high-pressure environment that emphasizes testing and standardized curricula while ignoring the fundamental importance of personal connections that make a profound difference for students. Fifty years on, the SDP is still just as powerful as ever.

For years, students in the United States have lagged behind students in many other countries on such measures of achievement as the PISA and TIMSS assessments. In an increasingly globalized world, such a gap is worrisome. Armed with statistics, examples, and cautionary tales from Scandinavia to Japan, James H. Stronge and Xianxuan Xu have written a book that can help educators better prepare students and close that gap. In What Makes a World-Class School and How We Can Get There, you will find Careful analysis of recent international assessment results—what they mean and what can be done to improve them. In-depth profiles of high-achieving education systems around the globe—their histories, their lessons learned, and what they can teach educators and policymakers in the United States. Strategies for aligning successful educational approaches from international systems to U.S. schools—which strategies to use, in which subjects, and with which students. Transformative ideas for cultivating a truly world-class system of schooling—both simple and complex ways to raise the bar for all students, no matter what their background. Educators in every country must ensure that their students are as prepared as possible to lead a future generation of citizens. This thought-provoking and copiously researched book provides educators with a blueprint for radical improvement based on the hard-learned experiences of their peers around the world.

As principals, we push ourselves to learn, grow, and innovate because our role remains in a state of flux. When it comes to leadership, though, it's imperative that we focus on growing the most important resource in the school—our teachers.Igniting Teacher Leadership is written for busy school leaders who want to foster learning and growth not only for students but also for teachers. Effective leadership is vital in creating a culture of collaboration, modeling continuous improvement, and developing enhanced engagement throughout the building.In short, effective leadership leads to better teachers, who in turn design more powerful learning experiences, empower students, and create better schools.Experienced school leader and author William Sterrett offers strategies and examples for fostering teacher leadership, facilitating professional learning, and promoting “growing habits” to help translate key points into practical action steps. Sterrett has also written Insights Into Action: Successful School Leaders Share What Works and Short on Time: How do I make time to lead and learn as a principal?

Data. Does the word make you cringe? Does it evoke feelings of guilt? Are you unsure how to distill it and use it effectively?Grab this book and learn how to empower yourself and your school community with information gleaned from your school's data. Experienced educators and authors offer simple instructions that can help focus school improvement efforts and result in increasing teacher expertise—a factor that positively affects the quality of life for students long after they have left the classroom. Accepting responsibility for such far-reaching influence requires educators to adopt instructional improvement as a standard by which a school needs to operate and as a means to collaborate and interact with one another. More than that, though, instructional improvement is an important component of successful schools.

Many urban educators live in fear: of their schools being labeled failures, of increasingly punitive sanctions, of loss of respect and livelihood. This fear pervades the entire school community, affecting the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of its members.The authors of this guide to transformation in urban schools are convinced that the key ingredient for school renewal is fearless leadership. Fearless leaders work in schools under-resourced and overburdened and serve disproportionately large numbers of children who live in poverty and face racism daily. They are ordinary educators committed to proving that demographics need not be destiny. This inspirational yet practical book will help you bridge the divide that separates urban students from their birthright of a high-quality education. You will learn how to• Adopt a leadership approach, consisting of affirmation, inspiration, and mediation (AIM), that will transform your school into a flourishing learning community.• Build a leadership team of important stakeholders--including students--that is committed to improvement.• Tap into the resources that already exist in your school and jettison institutional arrangements that prevent your school from becoming an enriching and creative community.• Create supports that enable teachers to nurture their students'potential to meet high standards and become self-actualized learners.Each chapter closes with reflections and activities that will help your leadership team produce its own roadmap for change.Succeeding in the tough landscape of urban schools requires more than just passion and a sense of urgency; it requires real skills. Aim High, Achieve More provides insights gleaned from real-world experiences that will enable you to create a successful, vibrant learning environment.

What does it feel like to walk into your school? Is it a welcoming place, where everyone feels valued? Most school improvement efforts focus on academic goals, instructional models, curriculum, and assessments. But sometimes what can make or break your learning community are the intangibles--the relationships, identity, and connections that make up its culture. Authors Fisher, Frey, and Pumpian believe that no school improvement effort will be effective unless school culture is addressed. They identify five pillars that are critical to building a culture of achievement:1. Welcome: Imagine if all staff members in your school considered it their job to make every student, parent, and visitor feel noticed, welcomed, and valued.2. Do no harm: Your school rules should be tools for teaching students to become the moral and ethical citizens you expect them to be.3. Choice words: When the language students hear helps them tell a story about themselves that is one of possibility and potential, students perform in ways that are consistent with that belief.4. It's never too late to learn: Can you push students to go beyond the minimum needed to get by, to discover what they are capable of achieving?5. Best school in the universe: Is your school the best place to teach and learn? The best place to work? Drawing on their years of experience in the classroom, the authors explain how these pillars support good teaching and learning. In addition, they provide 19 action research tools that will help you create a culture of achievement, so that your school or classroom is the best it can be. After reading this book, you'll see why culture makes the difference between a school that enables success for all students and a school that merely houses those students during the school day.

Is it possible for high-poverty schools to be high achieving? Of course it is! Real schools with students living in poverty do post high levels of student achievement. Learn what these schools do to help students succeed—and how you and your school can adopt the same practices—no matter what socio-economic climate students live in.Lessons learned and practical advice from seven of these high-performing/high-poverty (HP/HP) schools, along with hundreds of others that have been the subject of intensive research, are the focus of this book. Authors William Parrett and Kathleen Budge have synthesized the research, studied the schools in depth, and show you critical components that set these institutions apart from their struggling peers.After setting the context by examining poverty and its stunning effects on students, the authors then zero in on what HP/HP schools stopped doing or eliminated and what they started doing or improved on in three key areas of performance:• Building leadership capacity;• Fostering a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment; and;• Focusing on student, professional, and system learning.;Principals, teacher-leaders, and district leaders can benefit from the real-world examples and practical guidelines, all based on research and experience. Rather than suggesting a one-size-fits-all approach, the authors acknowledge the unique context of individual schools and urge readers to engage in self-assessment, reflection, and coordinated action to learn together and lead together, with rubrics and planning templates provided to guide the process. The reality is that any school willing to refocus its efforts can become a high-performing school.

We already know what works in schools; we just need to focus on getting it right. This is the premise of Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success, which offers a practical, research-based framework for improving student achievement. According to author Bryan Goodwin, decades of research have shown time and again that focusing on the following five essential practices can vastly increase students'chances of doing well in school:• Guaranteeing that instruction is challenging, engaging, and intentional• Ensuring curricular pathways to success• Providing whole-child student supports• Creating high-performance school cultures• Developing data-driven, high-reliability district systemsWhether at the district-, school-, or classroom-level, educators don't need to reinvent the wheel or pursue the latest trends to ensure that students succeed. This powerful book reveals what research clearly shows works best in schools, and provides a valuable blueprint for turning that knowledge into visible results.

If we want our students to succeed, we cannot afford to leave to chance what happens when they do not learn.In this guide, Robyn R. Jackson and Claire Lambert take you step by step through the process of providing proactive and progressive learning support—what great teachers do to ensure that all students receive the right kind of assistance and to get those who are struggling back on track before they get frustrated and give up. Here, you'll learn how to• Support students before instruction through acceleration practices, including activating background knowledge, providing advance organizers, and focusing on key vocabulary.• Support students during instruction by distinguishing between productive and destructive struggle, establishing'red flags'to alert you when a student's learning is headed off course, and delivering targeted interventions that quickly put struggling students back on the path to mastery.• Support students after instruction by providing appropriate remediation for the few students who have not achieved mastery.• Create a comprehensive, progressive support plan tailored to your classroom content and the students you teach.About the seriesEvery teacher can become a master teacher with the right kind of practice and support. Each how-to guide in the Mastering the Principles of Great Teaching series focuses on one of the seven mastery principles introduced in Robyn R. Jackson's best-selling Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching. The guides'self-assessments, worksheets, planning templates, process outlines, checklists, links to online resources, suggested activities, and prompts for reflection help teachers of all experience levels apply the principles to address everyday classroom challenges and build their overall mastery mindset.

'What the teacher wants me to say is more important than what I want to say.''If I get too far behind, I will never catch up.''What I'm learning doesn't have much to do with my life, but it isn't supposed to--it's school.'These are just some of the many pernicious axioms that keep students from achieving to their potential. In Breaking Free from Myths About Teaching and Learning, Allison Zmuda analyzes and promptly dispels these and other harmful untruths that have inhibited student learning for decades and offers a wealth of ideas for combating them, including• Refocusing learning environments with students'best interests in mind.• Designing engaging lessons that spark students'imaginations.• Motivating students to learn for the joy of it, not just for the grade.• Developing authentic assessments that truly capture the extent of students'progress.• Creating effective school missions that provide both educators and students with achievable objectives.In addition to these strategies, Zmuda offers tips from prominent creative thinkers in a variety of fields on how to approach projects creatively and stimulate fresh thinking.Students have been captive to falsehoods about learning for far too long. This provocative and insightful book shows why it's vital for administrators and teachers to help students shed their faulty assumptions and offers a blueprint for creating more innovative, inviting, and effective schools.

How can we create and sustain professional learning programs that actually lead to improved student achievement? In this thoughtful and informative guide for teachers, administrators, and policymakers, Douglas B. Reeves provides answers. First he casts a critical eye on professional learning that is inconsistent, unfocused, and ultimately ineffective, and explains why elaborate planning documents and'brand-name'programs are not enough to achieve desired outcomes. Then he outlines how educators at all levels can improve this situation by• Taking specific steps to move from vision to implementation;• Focusing on four essentials: teaching, curriculum, assessment, and leadership;• Making action research work;• Moving beyond the'train the trainer'model; and• Using performance assessment systems for teachers and administrators.If you're tired of professional development that takes up too much time and delivers too little, read Transforming Professional Development into Student Results and discover how to move toward a system that gives educators the learning experiences they need to make a measurable difference for their schools and their students.<

Guiding schools through significant change is one of the toughest challenges educational leaders face, but learning from the examples of those who have succeeded can make it less daunting. In Leading Change in Your School, distinguished author and researcher Douglas B. Reeves offers lessons learned through his work with educators in thousands of schools around the world and presents real-life examples of leaders who have met the challenge of change head-on—with impressive results for their schools and districts. Readers will also find practical resources for engaging their colleagues in change initiatives. Expanding on a number of his columns in the journal Educational Leadership, Reeves offers insights ad recommendations in four areas: • Creating conditions for change, including assessments to determine personal and organizational readiness for change;• Planning change, including cautionary notes about strategic planning;• Implementing change, including the importance of moving from rhetoric to day-to-day reality; and• Sustaining change, including the need to reorient priorities and values so that individual convenience gives way to a shared sense of the greater good.The change leaders—both teachers and administrators—whose stories Reeves tells come from varied districts, but they share a passion for creating schools that work for all students. They are, Reeves says,'people like you, sharing similar challenges but perhaps with different results.'

Looking for advice and guidance on how to implement differentiated instruction throughout your school? Learn from the experts. Administrators and teachers alike will find viable ideas and answers to questions as leaders at two schools share milestones and vignettes from their real-life experiences in converting entire faculties to this dynamic approach to teaching and learning.The authors balance broadly applicable guidance with specific illustrations of how two schools—a middle-income elementary school and a mixed-income high school—experienced the change process in dramatically different ways. In both instances, the new approach to teaching and learning had sweeping, positive results for staff and students.Carol Ann Tomlinson, Kay Brimijoin, and Lane Narvaez have combined their expertise with differentiation in schools—including professional development, research, leadership, coaching, and teaching—to highlight factors that contributed to the continuing success of school reinvention efforts such as•Approaching change with the particular school culture in mind.•Leading a staff toward change with appropriate pushes, pauses, and acknowledgments.•Fostering continued growth in understanding and skill with differentiation in the classroom.•Encouraging teachers to reinforce one another's strengths.•Monitoring progress toward expanded flexibility in instructional approaches.•Nurturing teacher leaders who can sustain the effort beyond one principal's tenure.•Providing strong support and role models for deep and broad changes in the school's teaching practices and learning potential.Every educator seeking to move beyond isolated efforts to differentiate instruction will find practical support and inspiration in this book. At the same time, you'll gain understanding about the key characteristics needed for deep, lasting instructional change that taps into the learning potential of all students in your classrooms and schools.

'This is our THIRD school improvement plan! Why aren't we seeing any results?''We have all of this data, but we don't know what to do with it!''What does this workshop have to do with the goals we set for our school?Many of today's school leaders have all the latest tools, techniques, and programs for school improvement. Unfortunately, some leaders fail to create real, sustainable results for their schools because they use one or two'flavor-of-the-month'strategies without connecting all the pieces together for real improvement.In Align the Design: A Blueprint for School Improvement, Nancy J. Mooney and Ann T. Mausbach emphasize the importance of coordinating essential school improvement processes to increase staff capacity, improve student achievement, and develop effective schools. The authors show school leaders how to use'power tools'to•Develop effective curriculum•Make the most of their school's data•Create successful school improvement plans•Implement valuable professional development sessions and workshops•Use efficient supervisory techniques•Foster leadership for school improvement Each chapter includes personal reflections from the authors and lists of touchstone texts that have inspired their efforts.At a time when school leaders are trying to translate urgent calls for higher achievement into actions that work, Align the Design provides expert guidance and practical tools that will help educators work more purposefully together to create better schools for their students.

Educators know that teachers are a school's most essential strength. In Building Teachers'Capacity for Success, authors Pete Hall (winner of the 2004 ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award) and Alisa Simeral offer a straightforward plan to help site-based administrators and instructional coaches collaborate to bring out the best in every teacher, build a stronger and more cohesive staff, and achieve greater academic success. Their model of Strength-Based School Improvement is an alternative to a negative, deficit-approach focused on fixing what's wrong. Instead, they show school leaders how to achieve their goals by working together to maximize what's right.Filled with clear, proven strategies and organized around two easy-to-use tools--the innovative Continuum of Self-Reflection and a feedback-focused walk-through model--this book offers a differentiated approach to coaching and supervision centered on identifying and nurturing teachers'individual strengths and helping them reach new levels of professional success and satisfaction. Here, you'll find front-line advice from the authors, one a principal and the other an instructional coach, on just what to look for, do, and say in order to start seeing positive results right now.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Do you want your school or district to truly become a learning organization? How do you foster lasting and meaningful change? How do you avoid rejection of your new approach to teaching and learning? If you've been involved in a school change effort, you most likely have struggled with these questions. To ease this struggle, Douglas B. Reeves has proposed a new framework to promote effective change efforts through teacher leadership. In this book, you will explore not only cutting-edge research findings, but also practical applications that can help improve student achievement and educational equity. You can learn how to achieve lasting results as an educator and school leader. You can learn from other teacher researchers how to infuse your classroom, school, or district with enthusiasm, meaningful teaching, improved results, and greater satisfaction.Even as you strive for innovation, you naturally want to avoid having the next new thing become the latest old thing. To achieve lasting change, educators must embrace evidence-based decision making rather than the fact-free debate. Reeves has found that educators more readily accept decisions they disagree with if they believe the decision-making process was fair--not based on opinion or hierarchy. Reeves aims for you to help him build a network of teacher leaders based on this new evidence-based framework that will foster resilient learning organizations. Come along--explore, act, and share.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

According to author Mike Schmoker, there is a yawning gap between the most well-known essential practices and the reality of most classrooms. This gap persists despite the hard, often heroic work done by many teachers and administrators. Schmoker believes that teachers and administrators may know what the best practices are, but they aren't using them or reinforcing them consistently. He asserts that our schools are protected by a buffer—a protective barrier that prevents scrutiny of instruction by outsiders. The buffer exists within the school as well. Teachers often know only what is going on in their classrooms—and they may be completely in the dark about what other teachers in the school are doing. Even principals, says Schmoker, don't have a clear view of the daily practices of teaching and learning in their schools.Schmoker suggests that we need to get beyond this buffer to confront the truth about what is happening in classrooms, and to allow teachers to learn from each other and to be supervised properly. He outlines a plan that focuses on the importance of consistent curriculum, authentic literacy education, and professional learning communities for teachers.What will students get out of this new approach? Learning for life. Schmoker argues passionately that students become learners for life when they have more opportunities to engage in strategic reading, writing with explicit guidance, and argument and discussion.Through strong teamwork, true leadership, and authentic learning, schools and their students can reach new heights. Results Now is a rally cry for educators to focus on what counts. If they do, Schmoker promises, the entire school community can count on unprecedented achievements.

'We can't do that in our school district.''I don't have time to add that to my curriculum.''We're fighting against impossible odds with these students.'Effective school leadership does not have to be a losing battle. In The Learning Leader: How to Focus School Improvement for Better Results, Douglas B. Reeves helps leadership teams go beyond excuses to capitalize on their strengths and reduce their weaknesses. He introduces the Leadership for Learning Framework, which challenges readers to consider that student achievement is more than a set of test scores. Reeves asserts that when leaders focus exclusively on results, they fail to measure and understand the importance of their own actions. Instead, he encourages leaders to use the Leadership for Learning Framework to look deeper into their results. The framework helps leaders distinguish between'Lucky'educators, who achieve high results but don't understand their actions, and'Leading'educators, who achieve high results and understand how their actions influence their success.From conducting strategic planning to evaluating projects to organizing leadership teams, The Learning Leader will help leaders reconceptualize their leadership role and motivate their colleagues. Reeves urges teachers and administrators to become more efficient and focused leaders, but most important, he charges them to be better educators for their students.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Accountability. The very mention of the word strikes fear in the hearts of many teachers and school leaders, leading to confusion and panic rather than improved student achievement. Author Douglas B. Reeves explains how to transform accountability from destructive and demoralizing accounting drills into a constructive decision-making process that improves teaching, learning, and leadership. Reeves encourages educators to become proactive in developing student-centered accountability systems. These systems capture the many aspects of teaching that test scores don't reveal—they tell the stories behind the numbers. Reeves shows how educators can create accountability systems that enhance teacher motivation and lead to significant improvements in student achievement and equity, even in traditionally low-performing schools.Accountability for Learning explains how to build a student-centered accountability system by examining key indicators in teaching, leadership, curriculum, and parent and community involvement. Focusing on the classroom, it outlines how teachers can become leaders in accountability by using a four-step process of observation, reflection, synthesis, and replication of effective teaching practices. Finally, the author discusses the role of local, state, and federal policymakers and corrects the myths associated with No Child Left Behind.'As educators, we have two choices,'Reeves says.'We can rail against the system, hoping that standards and testing are a passing fad, or we can lead the way in a fundamental reformulation of educational accountability.'Accountability for Learning gives readers the helping hand they need to lead the way to fair and comprehensive accountability.

Following the publication of Building Leadership Capacity in Schools in 1998, Linda Lambert visited educators around the world to see how they had applied the ideas presented in her book to their schools and districts. Though everyone she spoke with agreed on the importance of high leadership capacity, they also had many questions about how best to achieve this goal. Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement is the author's attempt to answer those questions.The book begins by outlining the five major prerequisites for high leadership capacity: • Skillful participation in the work of leadership•Inquiry-based use of data to inform decisions and practice•Broad involvement and collective responsibility for student learning•Reflective practice that leads to innovation•High or steadily improving student achievementIn addition to providing a comprehensive overview of steps schools should take to meet these criteria, Lambert quotes at length from her discussions with educators to provide a view of leadership enhancement techniques in practice. She also includes helpful rubrics and surveys that teachers and administrators alike can use to personally assess their leadership skills.Combining the author's own insights with real-life examples and practical exercises, Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement is an indispensable guide to enhancing and sustaining a culture of leadership in any school.

Ernest Boyer pushed school leaders to close'the gap between the haves and have-nots.'Al Shanker led teachers to form a strong union. Deborah Meier created small schools of choice that broke achievement records. Through interviews with these and many other outstanding school leaders, Mark Goldberg has distilled the essence of effective school and district leadership. You'll learn how strong leaders• Form beliefs about school excellence.• Support a strong staff development program. • Broaden the school or district leadership.• Adapt leadership skills to specific school or district needs.• Address the gaps caused by discrimination, racism, and poverty.You'll also find out how to encourage other educators to become leaders and to build teams, work groups, and community support networks. This is an essential guide for anyone who wants to know how to start--and maintain--an innovative educational program that supports high student achievement.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Action research, explored in this book, is a seven-step process for improving teaching and learning in classrooms at all levels. Through practical examples, research tools, and easy-to-follow'implementation strategies,'Richard Sagor guides readers through the process from start to finish. Learn how to uncover and use the data that already exist in your classrooms and schools to answer significant questions about your individual or collective concerns and interests. Sagor covers each step in the action research process in detail: selecting a focus, clarifying theories, identifying research questions, collecting data, analyzing data, reporting results, and taking informed action.Drawing from the experience of individual teachers, faculties, and school districts, Sagor describes how action research can enhance teachers'professional standing and efficacy while helping them succeed in settings characterized by increasingly diverse student populations and an emphasis on standards-based reform. The book also demonstrates how administrators and policymakers can use action research to bolster efforts related to accreditation, teacher supervision, and job-embedded staff development.Part how-to guide, part inspirational treatise, Guiding School Improvement with Action Research provides advice, information, and encouragement to anyone interested in reinventing schools as learning communities and restructuring teaching as the true profession it was meant to be.

How do you know if your school is improving? Do you know what really works in reading programs...in writing...in math...in science? How do we measure what works? What about teaching to the test--or to the vast array of standards being mandated? How do we effectively use cooperative learning--and direct instruction--and alternative assessment? How do we sustain school reform? How do we get results--and measure them in terms of student achievement?In this expanded 2nd edition of Results, Mike Schmoker answers these and other questions by focusing on student learning. By (1) setting goals, (2) working collaboratively, and (3) keeping track of student-achievement data from many sources, teachers and administrators can surpass the community's expectations and facilitate great improvements in student learning. Through hundreds of up-to-date examples from real schools and districts, Schmoker shows how to achieve--and celebrate--both short- and long-term success. Here's one example:Bessemer Elementary school in Pueblo, Colorado, has an 80‑percent minority population. Between 1997 and 1998, the number of students performing at or above standard in reading rose from 12 to 64 percent; in writing, they went from 2 to 48 percent. Weekly, standards-focused, team meetings made the difference.As Schmoker says,'We cannot afford to overlook the rich opportunity that schools have to make a difference.'This second edition of Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement includes the following:• a Foreword by Michael Fullan;• a new Preface to the 2nd Edition by the author; • new information about cooperative learning, direct instruction, standards and assessments, and research and development;• new examples of successful schools;• new educational research by Michael Fullan, Robert Marzano, Linda Darling‑Hammond, Bruce Joyce, Dennis Sparks, Linda Lambert, and Richard Dufour, among others;• new information on action research--by teachers as well as administrators--and other effective staff development initiatives; and• a new emphasis on cultivating teacher leaders--and how to do it.

This is a book about hope. It affirms the power of personal and collective responsibility to enact heroic changes in our schools. Through a shared vision, purpose, and inquiry--and using the collective wisdom of myth, legend, and metaphor from around the world--we can find the inspiration and courage to face the challenges inherent in transforming schools into authentic learning organizations. As the heroes of legend leave the safety of their homes to face dragons and serpents in their quest for treasure and enlightenment, so do modern educators face new practices and confront the barriers to change in education. The authors show how heroic educators can triumph in their journey--and achieve excellence for students. Like both Arthurian and Jedi Knights, the Native American hero Black Elk, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, heroic educators face six stages on their journey:• innocence lost;• chaos and complexity;• the heroic quest;• gurus and alliances; • trials, tests, and initiations; and• insight and transformation.Finally, the heroic educator returns'home'and begins the journey again, with a renewed vision and an enlarged heart, to create a caring community for learners of all ages.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Learning to inquire together, to generate knowledge and action simultaneously-that's action research. This book provides practical guidance for conducting schoolwide action research to improve student learning. Emily Calhoun, a co-author of the ASCD book, The Self-Renewing School provides detailed instructions for conducting schoolwide action research. School staff should begin with a broad assessment of the health of the school or with the perception of a problem in one area, such as students'achievement in mathematics. Staff should obtain input from parents, community members, and students as the school begins the 5-step cycle of action research:•First, seek agreement with others in your school community on what to study.•Second, collect and share information about students'knowledge, skills, and attitudes.•Third, search your own experiences and examine educational research for strategies and programs that will improve your students'math understanding.•Fourth, collaborate to improve curriculum and instruction in math.•Fifth, collect data on results, study effects, and begin the cycle all over again.Calhoun provides background information on the origins of action research, examples of data-collection forms and results of data analysis, and answers to commonly asked questions.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Beginning in 1982 philosopher Mortimer Adler led a group of educators and scholars in publishing a trilogy of books on what they called'Paideia'educational reform. The first book, The Paideia Proposal, had a profound effect on most of the major reform efforts that followed, and Paideia principles--including the then radical notion that'all children can learn'--eventually permeated the educational dialogue. Merging the conservative idea of a classical education with progressive ideas about teaching and learning, Paideia educators strive to provide all children with a rigorous and meaningful education--one that respects cultural diversity while equipping students with the knowledge and skills required for full participation in a united, democratic society.Since 1988 the National Paideia Center (NPC) at The University of North Carolina has encouraged and supported a dramatic resurgence in Paideia education. In The Power of Paideia Schools: Defining Lives Through Learning, NPC Director Terry Roberts and his coauthors cite schools throughout the United States as they provide a blueprint for the Paideia school. Readers will learn about the'three-column'approach to instruction, the core curriculum, scheduling options, and meaningful assessment from the Paideia perspective. Combining thoughtful educational philosophy with real-world results, the authors offer a persuasive argument for a classical education that meets contemporary challenges.Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.