SCHOOL REFORM
What is the big picture for education reform? What are the foundational principles for successful change? Following are organizations and publications that deal with education reform broadly. We will continue to add new content, so please come back again soon.

PUBLICATIONS

The Persuadable Public
Report | William Howell, Martin West, Paul Peterson | Education Next | September 10, 2009
Our findings suggest that a well-publicized stance taken by a popular president on an education issue might shift the opinions of large segments of the American public. Similarly, scholarship appears to be a potent weapon for groups with policy agendas they wish to pursue, as the committed can broadcast research findings with great repetition. Indeed, any group that seeks to change public opinion without gathering research to back its positions is leaving a flank unprotected. Finally, advocates are well advised to search for facts the public does not understand, and then to communicate those facts as widely as they can. Just as nothing affects opinion about an ongoing war as quickly as communiqués from the front, so too a better understanding of the facts about the public schools could in the long run shape American education.
Source: Heritage Foundation | The Insider Online

Performance Management in Portfolio School Districts
Report | Robin J. Lake, Paul T. Hill | Center on Reinventing Public Education | August 2009
This report, the first in a series looking at "performance management" in school districts, hopes to be a best-practices manual for school districts focusing on student outcomes. To do this, the authors evaluated other fields, such as business, and those charter authorizers and school districts that already manage schools based on performance.
Source: Thomas B. Fordham Institute | Education Gadfly | Volume 9, Number 32 | September 10, 2009 | by Jamie Davies O'Leary

"Diverse Providers" in Action: School Restructuring in Hawaii
Brief | Frederick M. Hess, Juliet P. Squire | American Enterprise Institute | August 2009
What to do about persistently low-performing schools is a pressing challenge for policymakers and educators across the nation. Schools that fail to make “adequate yearly progress” for five consecutive years under No Child Left Behind must be “restructured.” The 3,500 schools in the United States currently in restructuring are pursuing a variety of different strategies, but little research has been done on their implementation or effectiveness. The state of Hawaii has chosen to partner with outside organizations in 44 of its 92 restructuring schools—a much greater level than mainland states—and its unusual procurement and accountability frameworks for managing these partnerships offer unique insights to states considering a similar approach. This Outlook looks at the support mechanisms that Hawaii has put in place to facilitate partnerships with these “diverse providers” and at how restructuring schools may have benefited from those arrangements.
Source: Heritage Foundation | Insider Online

From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: The Judiciary's Role in American Education
Book | Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Brookings Institute | September 2009
This new book provides a wealth of critical information and insight for scholars, students, attorneys, and school officials alike, examining the effects that the courts have had on American classrooms over the last sixty years and are having today.

Turnaround Schools That Work
Commentary | Richard D. Kahlenberg| Education Week | August 2009
"An exclusive focus on changing the principal and teachers misses two-thirds of the larger school community, which also includes students and parents..."

The Potential for System-Friendly K-12 Reform
Journal Article | John Merrifield | Cato Institute | August 2009
Numerous empirical models connect individual student test scores or average test scores to theoretically plausible policy and socioeconomic variables. Although the models were created to test for the effect of a specific factor like funding levels or teacher training on student performance, the fully specified models also have important implications for the ability of the current K–12 school system to significantly improve its performance. This article examines various student performance models and the potential for system-friendly K–12 reform. 

How School Districts Can Manage for Performance
Report | Robin Lake, Paul Hill | Center on Reinventing Public Education | August 2009
Many districts see themselves as portfolio managers, operating some schools in the traditional way, hiring independent groups to run other schools, and holding all schools accountable under the same performance standards. This report provides ideas for portfolio school districts and others that are trying to manage schools for performance.

A Parent's Guide to Education Reform
Handbook | Dan Lips, Jennifer Marshall, and Lindsey Burke | Heritage Foundation | 2009
In our 38-page guide you'll find: What has gone wrong in today's public school system; what Americans like you can do to bring real improvements; what specific educational opportunities are available in your state; where you can learn more about education reform in America.

Creating Positive Incentives for School Improvement
Online Discussion Transcript | Education Sector | Sir Michael Barber; Sandy Kress; Andrew Rotherham; Dr. Dominic Brewer; Robert Manwaring | June 2009
Discussion considers how policymakers can use rewards and positive incentives to encourage excellence in schools.

Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools
Report | Paul T. Hill, Marguerite Roza, James Harvey | Center on Reinventing Public Education | December 2008
School finance today works against the focused and efficient use of resources to promote student learning. We need a new model that focuses on one thing: ensuring that every child learns what she needs to become an involved citizen and full participant in a modern economy.

In Search of Understanding. The Case for Constructivist Classroom
Book | Jacqueline Grennon Brooks; Martin G. Brooks | Education Resources Information Center |1999
This book presents a case for the development of classrooms in which students are encouraged to construct deep understandings of important concepts.

Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education
Book | Sharan B. Merriam | Education Resources Information Center | 1998
Revised and Expanded from "Case Study Research in Education." This book offers a resource guide for qualitative researchers in education, discussing data collection techniques, data analysis, reporting, and the issues of validity, reliability, and ethics.

Learning Policy: When State Education Reform Works
Report | David K. Cohen; Heather C. Hill | Education Resources Information Center | 2001
Disputing the claim that improved student learning requires stronger academic standards and stiffer tests, the authors of this book contend that effective state reform depends on coherence in policy and practice, and opportunities for professional learning. It draws on a study of a program in California that worked to improve mathematics teaching and learning. The study showed that state policy had a constructive influence on math education in the elementary grades when there was a consistency among the tests and other policy instruments, the curricula, and other instruments of classroom practices, and when teachers had substantial opportunities to learn the practices proposed by the policy. When these conditions were met, students posted higher scores on state math tests. The book also shows that most teachers did not have access to consistent instruments of classroom practice, nor did they have opportunities to learn the new practices that state policymakers proposed. The book further discusses the ways policy and practice can be linked in successful educational reform and why such linkage is difficult to achieve. It also offers suggestions to practitioners and policymakers seeking to improve education and to analysts seeking to understand it. (WFA)

ORGANIZATIONS

University of Washington: Center for Reinventing Education
Founded in 1993, this University of Washington website has plenty of ideas about education reform.